Demands Bill Gates Explain Why He’s Buying Up Vast Amounts of Farmland by Michael Snyder – End of the American Dream.
At a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing today, the top Democrat on the panel expressed his concern that one of the largest industrialists in the world may be using his considerable wealth to gain control over the nation's food supply. At the hearing, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) asked Bill Gates to clarify why he is buying up huge amounts of farmland all over the U.S.
"There has been a lot of speculation about what Bill Gates has been doing in real estate, and there has been speculation about how he might be using it for noncommercial purposes. So would you please provide a written statement explaining what you are doing, particularly in regard to agriculture?"
Agriculture has a special place in the hearts of conservatives, so the idea of Bill Gates buying up farmland would probably send a few of them into a religious rage.
But apparently most liberals are equally concerned about this. For example, during the hearing, House Committee on Agriculture Ranking Member Collin Peterson actually threatened to change the rules of the committee if Bill Gates is allowed to testify. Peterson said the following.
"Mr. Gates has a right to participate in this committee and I think that he should be asked this question. This committee, as you know, has changed the rules about participating in the last year or two. We've tried to make it harder for folks to participate, so I will ask that he not be allowed to testify and that if he does. I would ask that he follow the rules of the committee and we would make him follow the rules of the committee, so we would not be sympathetic to a noncommercial application."
Sadly, I think that things like this are one of the reasons why so many Americans no longer trust our government. There are absolutely enormous amounts of secrets that are being kept from us, and I cannot help but wonder if there is something nefarious going on behind the scenes.
Is the government making secret deals with some of the wealthiest people in the world in exchange for huge amounts of money?
There have been plenty of instances in which our government has sold off huge tracts of American farmland to private corporations. The following comes from an excellent article by Daniel Lang.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service have sold or transferred 3.3 million acres of land to foreign corporations since 1989, according to a recent article in the Guardian. The deals were not kept public, and many deals have not been disclosed by the agencies. Some experts say the federal government is "selling off our country." The U.S. is one of the most heavily wooded countries in the world, and countries that buy up forests often sell logging rights back to the U.S. government. The Guardian reports that under one deal in 2016, Amazon sold 600,000 acres of forestland to the Peruvian government in exchange for increased exports to the U.S. In other instances, the land has been sold back to the American public in defiance of the people's will. Land that once belonged to individuals and Native American tribes was sold to corporations, many with no experience with logging. Other deals have involved government lands, including federal lands in the Pacific Northwest sold to logging companies at low prices, or "forests given away to greedy corporations," as one American lawmaker put it. In other instances, roads and timber harvesting has been co-opted from federal lands and sold back to the public, with little or no public input. At best, the deals are secretive, and at worst, they are a direct assault on American sovereignty. In a "realms used for national defense, national security and war making," as Louis Finkel wrote for The Nation, the treaty "would allow members of the military, civilian contractors and their families to acquire title to the land."
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