Recently, a 2016 video resurfaced where Michael Bloomberg verbally belittled farmers (and blue collar workers), and he is now taking the heat for his remarks... and rightfully so! Bloomberg made his remarks on Nov 17, 2016 while speaking to a group of students and others at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford in England. Once Bloomberg began talking about "educational inequality," his discussion lead to these remarks:
"If you think about it, the agrarian society lasted 3,000 years, and we can teach processes. I can teach anybody – even people in this room, so no offense intended – to be a farmer. It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, you add water, up comes corn. You can learn that. Then you had 300 years of the industrial society. You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in direction of arrow and you can have a job. And we created a lot of jobs. At one point, 98% of the world worked in agriculture. Today it’s 2% of the United States.
Now comes the information economy and the information economy is fundamentally different because it’s built around replacing people with technology, and the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and analyze. And that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a different skill set. You have to have a lot more gray matter. It’s not clear the teachers can teach or the students can learn. And so the challenge of society is to find jobs for these people. …"
On Feb. 16, Wisconsin Republican official Anna Kelly posted a video clip of Bloomberg to Twitter, writing: “Billionaire Bloomberg claims he ‘could teach anybody to be a farmer,’ implying that farmers don’t have the same level of ‘skill set’ or ‘grey matter’ as folks in tech jobs. ..."
As a kid that grew up in a farming community in Illinios, I know how smart, knowledgeable, and hard working farmers are. As a young teenager, I've walked the bean fields using the now-retro farming technique of hand pulling weeds rather than using herbicides. I've detassled entire fields of corn to keep the strains hybrid. I struggled bailing hay. When I got a little older, I plowed the fields until 3am in the fall and was lucky to get two hours of sleep before heading to school those same mornings. There is a reason that only 2% of the population are farmers - It's not an easy life! Bloomberg could never handle it.
Yesterday I came across an open letter to Michael Bloomberg which comes straight from the heartland... and the heart!
"Mr. Bloomberg,
In your amazing display of arrogance, I can only be thankful that you have shown the American Farmer your complete disregard, disrespect and total ignorance for their way of life. Contrary to your statement, farming takes intelligence, stamina and one thing I don’t think you know much about….faith. There is a reason that only 2% of the population are farmers. It’s hard. It's hard physically and mentally. You have to have intelligence to operate the machinery for field prep, planting, harvesting, repair and maintenance. You have to understand the chemicals and ratios, seasonal variances, seed computations, fertilization and crop rotation, soil sample diagnostics, feed requirements, animal health analysis, etc. Even with all this knowledge and ability, the main provision of farm life is faith; faith that God will provide the essential rains and weather to yield a profitable crop. Faith that the animals you care for each day will be fruitful and multiply. Yes, there is a reason there are so few farmers. It cannot be taught; it has to be lived and loved in a way that you will never understand. That, Mr. Bloomberg, is the one thing you will never be able to teach a room full of your peers. Farmers are special people and they deserve respect. You will never understand that type of love and loyalty to the land and to our God until you walk in their shoes; and I truly don’t think you have what it takes to do that.
You sir, have my sympathy but never my vote.
Sincerely,
Tammy Simmons
A Farmer’s Daughter and a Farmer’s Wife"
In my opinion, it's people like Bloomberg who will destroy this country because of their arrogance and ignorance. But in this case, it looks like the billionaire democrat hopeful could actually be President Trump's best enemy, and never reach the White House.
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