Re: Alternate history[Here's my Timeline](long)

At 05:16 AM 2/20/00 +0000, you wrote:
>
>In a message dated 2/19/00 1:51:12 PM Central Standard Time,
>john_t_leary@pronetusa.net writes:
>
><<	The economic value of the region is to important to the nation
> and world to allow this major producer of the worlds food to be
allowed
> to 'return to nature'.   JTL >>
>
>The trend is going on even as we speak. More grain is coming off of
less
>land, farmers are going out of business, and the amount of farmland in
>those
>areas under cultivation is decreasing. That is why there is a call in
the
>environmental community to allow those farms given up to become, piece
by
>piece, part of the national parks system, and to have a "super park" in
the
>middle of the US, called the "Buffalo Commons". This has been forwarded
by
>several groups, and one of the spokesman for the concept is Gen. (Ret)
>Norman
>Schwartzkopf. There is very little jump to allowing te Native Americans
to
>take this land over, as sort of perpetual stewards, gining them a
nation in
>fact, if not in name.

As someone who grew up in the middel of the area you're talking about, I
happen
to know something about the "Great Plains Exodus".  It's true that the
population of rural areas in the midwest is decreasing.  The amount of
land
under cultivation is not, however, except in areas that never should
have been
cultivated to begin with.  And believe me when I say this, NO farmland
is ever
"given up".  Farmland, even bad farmland is extremely valuable.  What's
happening out there is the farmers who don't compete eventually fail,
and their
land is bought up by the guy on the next farm who can farm it
competitively.

Now maybe in a hundred years the population of the world won't be fed by
the
produce of the midwest U.S., but I doubt it.  If Earth begins colonizing
other
planets it's going to be even more vital that the cultivation of the
Amercan
midwest is not only continued, but increased in output and efficiency;
because,
those other planets will most likely not become self-sufficient for food
any
time within 20 years of their colonization.  Once one colony becomes
self-supporting, then there would surely be another colony to support.

Now as far as the "red-necks" love their homes bit goes, it's basically
true,
although I take offense at the implication that anyone who lives out
here that
isn't a native american is a red-neck.	The Amercian midwest is a great
place
to live although it may be hard for people who grew up in more heavily
urbanized areas to believe.  Let's see, it's got clean air, clean water,
cheap
food, large areas of open land where you can hunt, fish, or just
appreciate
nature.  The way I see it, the reason more people don't live here is
that it is
physically far from the centers of commerce, government, and popular
recreation
areas.	I don't see physical distance remaining an obstacle for people
who want
to live in the midwest and work on the coast in a world that has managed
to
invent FTL travel, fractional cee inter-planetary travel, and
inter-stellar
warfare.  I also think that anyone who thinks you're going to take an
area that
currently produces 75% of the worlds grain out of cultivation and turn
it into
a park isn't living in the real world.	It may not be recognizable to us
as
farming, but I am confident that a 100 years from now, somebody will be
farming
somewhere.  Humans have only been doing it for a couple of thousand
years, I
don't figure they're going to quit in a paltry 100 years.

JMO, it's probably worth what you paid for it.

Bill