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| President Trump speaks at the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual convention in Nashville, Tenn. on Monday. Photo by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images via NPR |
"Farmers are the president's people," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in an interview with Morning Edition on Monday. "These are the people that elected the president. The president knows that. These are the people the president cares about. And he wants them to enjoy the American Dream just like all the people in the cities." Farm income has suffered in recent years from sagging commodity prices. Net farm income in 2017 was up modestly from the previous year, but still only about half what it was in 2013. —NPR, January 8, 2018
It's too soon to bury the old American Dream,
Riding wobbly in the saddle of our minds.
Put there by the founding fathers,
It grew into the million-dollar salesman
Of Wall Street's enormous con,
The nation's permanent floating crap game
Of wealth and power and fame.
The dream infected our people's soul,
Crushed their spirit, played with their hearts.
It immersed us in flush darkness,
Acquiring new horizons every might,
Yet gaining new followers every day.
It gave us under-educated leaders
Emerging from ivy-covered breeding grounds.
It left no space for nobler visions,
For women who know, for children who care.
It governs our minds through men with no vision at all,
Men with the temperament of their attire,
The stern-browed suits of the old American Dream.
George Salamon watches the pursuit of the American Dream from the heartland in St. Louis, MO.