We Brought It Upon Ourselves

Not individually, but collectively. In fact, I'd love to personally proclaim that I was way ahead on the issue, and that I've been more on the "part of the solution" side than the "part of the problem" side. Well hooray for me if that's true. We're still collectively in this mess. And it will take a collective effort to wake our collective butts up.

What the hell am I talking about?

Corn. Ethanol. Prices of barley. Farm Bill. Idiocy and Ostrich-like behaviors.

I vBlogged about it in one of the poorer rated vBlogs I've posted. Perhaps someone didn't like the fact that it threatened political leanings. Or perhaps it was just boring.

Or even worse, both.

Whatever the case, I linked from the vBlog to a page that had Farm Bill referencing links in it, along with a letter regarding the Farm Bill that I sent to my Congressman.

I predicted rising malt prices. And even I didn't know just how right I was. Ouch. I was super duper right. And now everyone knows that prices for craft beer are going to be shooting up dramatically. Fast. And everyone knows that this is due to a near 100% rise in the cost of malt (along with the unhelpful occurrence of a hop shortage and corresponding price increase), and malt is the principle ingredient in craft beers.

So, we can collectively (and individually as the case may be) choose to keep our head buried in the sand. Or we can mix the metaphores and pull those very same heads out of our you-know-wheres and * stop buying corn based everything * stop being led by politicians who are being led by industrial interests and instead start leading them * raise our voices to our bretheren to alert them to the truth of the matter * support our local farmers who grow the real crops that we need (the ones chock full of nutrients rather than those devoid of them) * insist that our schools provide our children with the basic sustinence that they NEED * pull our heads out of the sand (did I say that already, well it deserves repeating) * reduce * reuse * recycle...EVERYTHING. It's really not that hard when you're breathing fresh air instead of sand.

We don't have to be perfect. We just have to do better.

And considering where we collectively are, it's not that hard.

This is not about the price of craft beer. That's a symptom. This is about our health, welfare, security and liberty.