A Somber Quote

So, maybe this isn't the most chipper quote for America's birthday. After all, July 4th is supposed to be about really bitchin fireworks, and drinking lots of beer, and having a day off work to recover from it, right? Sacrifice? The costs of Independence? What the hell do they have to do with July 4th?

However, since I'm spending like the 20th consecutive day watching my pastures and my crops literally french fry for the lack of rain, and since I'm feeling just a shade grumpy about it, maybe letting some cynicism leak through my usually impenetrable veneer is okay after all. I guess if you find this quote a little too somber, and it puts a buzzkill on your 4th celebrations, then please accept my apologies in advance.

This came through a farmer discussion list that I subscribe to.

[The farmer] needs, like the working man, the reality- not the illusion -
of economic security. Until a good deal more than half the population acquires
that security which is based upon thrift, self-reliance, and the earth itself,
we shall never know security as a nation. We shall go on having fantastic
depressions, distorted and exaggerated by our own follies, whether of high
pressure, installment-plan selling, or of fantastic, moon-eyed economic
juggling. And each depression will be followed by more and more destructive
taxations, as the whole economic structure of the nation grows weaker and
weaker, and sinks to a European, and finally to an Asiatic standard of
living.

--Louis Bromfield, "Pleasant Valley" 1945