—Samuel Adams (1722-1803), American Revolutionary

The Decline & Fall of Europe:
French Farmers Set Tax Office on Fire

"French vegetable farmers have set a tax office and a building on fire destroying the government facility which was the symbol of the increasing administrative burden and sanctions that are killing farming. Hundreds of tractors and trailers of the farmers converged on Friday evening before the building of the Agricultural Social Insurance (MSA) in the town of Morlaix (Brittany). There they dumped unsold potatoes and artichokes before the MSA-building and added pallets and tires setting the entire lot on fire. Thereafter, the farmers moved on to the tax office and set that on fire as well. The protests also took place in numerous other places as well, however, only these two government buildings were totally destroyed.

“The association of vegetable farmers had announced the protest action on Friday. The background is that for years the bureaucracy for farmers have magnified the economic decline and their plight with constant new regulation of everything. The economic situation of farming in Europe has been seriously pushed too far with the US sanctions against Russia. The agricultural crisis caused by Obama is increasingly deteriorating with far too many farmers throughout Europe losing everything.”

—Martin Armstrong, ZeroHedge.com

THE DEEP CREEK CORN WAR

—Letter from New Ordnance, September 20, 2014

At 4 AM the moon had set. There was no hint of dawn in the eastern sky as Orion, the mighty hunter, blazed through the starry heavens to herald the turn of the season. He turned off the headlamp in the darkened room before opening the door and stepping outside. The soft gabble of geese wafted up from the river. A breeze on his face stirred the wind chime and rustled the leaves on the aspen tree as he paused and sucked in the fresh air.

Yep, 40 degrees but no trace of frost yet.

He turned on the ignition and the truck started on the first crank. Flipping on the headlights, he eased down the dirt road toward the highway.

Might as well take the back road over the mountains, he thought.
It takes an extra half hour but no sense going through the license plate readers on the Interstate.

The state legislature outlawed the cameras on Montana roads but the Feds claimed jurisdiction on the Interstates and had clandestinely installed cameras at key points. Of course, all the locals knew where they were and studiously avoided them when they had certain business to attend to.

As he crossed the divide the stars were disappearing into the firmament but Orion still lingered higher in the southeast with his belt pointing to Sirius whose binary white and blue-fire brilliance dominated the gathering dawn. For the third time, he went through the precautionary check-list he had committed to memory,

Cell phone battery out—check
Drive older vehicle—check
Inspect for trackers on vehicle—check
Avoid road cameras—check
Fill up with gas at normal station and pay cash—check
Carry 20 gallons of gas in NATO fuel cans—check
Do not gas-up at stations on road trips—check
Appear normal and unremarkable in all respects—check

Camoflage 101.
Nothing unusual here, just a way of life. Blend in. When in Yuppieville, be a yuppie. Out in the fields, just a farmer looking after crops. In the mountains, just another day-hiker, albeit an ultralight backpacker capable of knocking off twenty-five to forty miles a day for a week.
Dress and gear-up accordingly.

It was full daylight when he stopped. Six mule deer stood on one side of the road. When he got out to open the gate they bolted to the other side and bounded off thirty yards. They stopped and watched stupidly as he got back in the truck and headed down to the corn field. The two bucks lowered their heads and postured around each other in a stiff-legged ritual.

Well, it looks like it’s soon gonna be time to make some more venison pemmican. I think we have that recipe just about dialed in.

The field looked pretty dried out and close to harvest. He slid the twelve boards that made up the outward-sloping corn crib door out of the slots that secured them in place.

The basic design of the crib was refined over a period of two hundred years. Built of local materials and adapted to this site, his corn crib had worked perfectly in drying and storing last year’s crop. Part of that seed-corn was secured at another location, some of which had already been sold to growers throughout the U.S. from Florida to Alaska. He stood contemplating the remainder, stored in sandbags on one side of the crib.

Time to move it out.
The project is taking hold and that is probably the last seed crop we will sell. The growers are going to take over this phase from here on out while we take it to another level. But first we have to sell this seed to finance the next operation. I have to move into the tent and the snows are coming soon. We have to accelerate the schedule.

I think I could use a cup of coffee about now, before I pull some ears to check the moisture level with the meter.

Back at the truck, he retrieved the Snowpeak titanium pot and the three ounce Evernew titanium stove from his pack. After pouring water from a repurposed Gatorade bottle into the pot and setting the tiny stove on a level rock, he poured out a thimbleful of HEET methanol gas-line antifreeze into the stove burner. He lit it with a match, moved the pot to the burner, and watched the nearly invisible flames licking around it. The reverie of the flames brought to mind yesterday’s article from ZeroHedge—the picture of the French farmers and the burning tax office—which pulled him into a flashback of a much older vintage, recalled from another life—fragments of burning Willy Pete arcing gracefully back to earth and the endless barrage of 155s shaking the night while you kept your mouth open to equalize the pressure in your head.