GQP Screaming Dire Warnings About Nonexistent Jackbooted Thug Biden Plan To "Seize Yer Land!"
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But the Biden administration has made clear from the start that it plans to pursue the goal not through land seizure, but rather through voluntary conservation programs that would compensate landowners who participate. US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, whose department will help oversee the process, has tried mightily to quell the fears being whipped up in conservative circles. “There’s no intention to take something away from folks,” he told agriculture press reporters in April. “It’s really designed to figure out creative and innovative ways to encourage folks to participate in what I think many farmers and ranchers are already doing, and may very well be inclined to do more, if the right set of incentives are in place.”
On May 6, amid an ongoing swirl of conservative criticism of the executive order, the administration released a document called “America the Beautiful” intended to answer the complaints swirling in right-wing circles. The paper restates that 30 by 30 goal, but pledges to “honor private property rights and support the voluntary stewardship efforts of private landowners and fishers.” Driving the point home, the word “voluntary” appears 18 times in the 23-page text. And while it doesn’t spell out the definition of “protected,” the piece makes clear that working farms that adopt or already utilize (as yet undefined) conservation practices can be included under the definition.
Yet the Biden plan’s right wing critics are falsely asserting that some jackbooted land seizure is afoot. Nebraska Gov. Rickett has been been barnstorming the state to whip up opposition to it. At a Stop 30 for 30 stop in Alliance, Nebraska on June 8, Ricketts denounced the “radical climate agenda” embedded in Biden’s “land grab.” One audience member sniffed a nefarious plot, the local Star-Herald reported: “I know exactly how they are going to do it… They are going to raise our taxes to the point that you can’t pay it so they can take it.” Ricketts concurred: “Actually, I think one of the implications of this is that they will raise our taxes.”
The spectacle of a governor shamelessly using his platform to hype up a phantom threat reminds me of my colleague Tim Murphy’s piece on the GOP’s transformation into a “party of shitposters.” Murphy writes: “Increasingly, as world-historical crises unfurl all around them—often exacerbated by their own policies and actions—the GOP’s most ambitious officials view their primary responsibility less as public servants than as content creators, churning out an endless stream of takes, memes, stunts, and podcasts.” Ricketts wants in on that action. While an increasingly severe drought settles in on the Nebraska’s farmers, their climate change-denying governor diverts their gaze to Biden’s imaginary land grab. On June 15, he took to Twitter to boast that another Nebraska county had joined more than 20 others in heeding his urge to pass Stop 30×30 resolutions.
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https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/republicans-declare-war-on-bidens-nonexistent-plan-to-grab-farmland/
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