It's going to be a long strange campaign.

Dept of Labor: Kids can't work on family farms....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002609987

Department of Labor withdraws child farm labor restriction after misinformation campaign
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002617732

Monsanto, Dow, etc. are profit oriented.
Long term health of individuals or countries are of no concern to them..
Take a look at your local rivers, lakes and creeks; polluted; not safe for swimming, or producing edible fish.
Agri-business has one of the strongest lobbies in state and federal politics. They spend a lot of money and expect big results and usually get them.
For the last 30 years they have been subsidized to take food out of the food chain by payment for not planting and then for using our feed stocks to fuels our cars.
Stupid, absolutely stupid.

We worked from the time we could gather eggs and go get the cows. We led the horses to better grass if they had to be tethered. We helped to clean the barn and throw hay down to the cattle. I, personally didn't milk cows because we had beef cattle, but lots of kids did milk cows. We drove the tractors and the combines. We drove the trucks in the fields before we were old enough to haul grain on the roads. After we had our licenses we hauled the grain to the granaries. I don't remember any of us thinking we were being somehow punished. We were part of the family, it was a family farm.

Oh, and you hardly ever saw a farm kid driving a car recklessly because we knew the value of machinery, including automobiles.

I don't remember one farm accident involving a kid in our area. I'm sure they happened. But certainly not with any more regularity than other accidents.

It doesn't hurt farm kids to work on farms. If some corporation is using children as slave labor, there are already laws against that. And if there aren't, which I doubt, then those are the laws that should be made. How could a child be working on a farm that was not a family farm without parental permission? Let's not get silly about kids working on farms.

What in the news release gave you that impression?

"How could a child be working on a farm that was not a family farm without parental permission?"

A desperate and impoverished family that needs some income just to survive would grant such "permission". We saw that happen on a grand scale during the last great depression.

nevermind - the bad guys won on this one, and rural work-ethic (or the misplaced fantasy of that) wins out over education, basically.

working for their families are less likely to suffer abuse, after all their parents do care about them.

I would not want my child working on a farm that had anything to do with Monsanto, however. I would not want any adult working for that vile Corporation.

"Facing heated criticism and a lengthy review process, the U.S. Department of Labor unexpectedly terminated its plans to update child labor laws in agriculture."

"Late Thursday, the department issued a statement saying it was withdrawing proposals to update regulations governing what jobs those under 16 could take on farms and ranches."

“The decision to withdraw this rule ... was made in response to thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rules on small, family-owned farms,” the department's statement said."

“To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.”

"The move was cheered by farmers and ranchers who had criticized the proposals, calling them an affront to family farming."

“It sounds like somebody has got some common sense finally,” said Korvan Kreusler, who farms and ranches in the New Braunfels area. “They're incrementally taking away freedoms. At times you've got to stand up and say you're going way too far.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/article/No-child-labor-law-update-after-all-3516423.php#ixzz1tIvxjXtd

IMHO, it seems like a shame. I hope they can work together to come up with something that will not seem like an attack on family farms. The children need to be protected.

exempt under the proposed child labor regulation.

It only applied to employment in large farms not owned by the family.


So why the B.S. rationalization from the administration?

The right-wing spin machine seems to have gotten the upper hand on this one.

At least that's what I took away from reading the whole article.

It's been very controversial here for months now. But the new rules didn't apply to family farms or kids working for their parents or grandparents on a farm. And no matter how many times they were told that fact, the right wing just screamed louder until the proposal was finally dropped.

Next step is eliminating child labor laws (already in process in some states) and corporate farms are free to hire 14 year olds.

Teenage farm kids could not work on the farms of uncles, aunts or grandparents under the new regs- regardless of the size of the farm. The article is misleading,

Even though the Right has put out much misinformation on this, USDOL botched up this process.

Yes, farm life is dangerous, Many DUers (myself included) grew up on farms working these jobs as teenagers. But USDOL overshot the runway on this and Obama was getting killed in the farm belt on this issue.

The Admin was right to pull them.

I saw this video in one of the other threads today and I was like omg how can we let this go on.

guess so.

Mineral Man was counting the days until your return and worried about you according to a help and meta thread he posted, I'm sure he will be thrilled you are back.

... no shit

Unfortunately, many people changed their views rather dramatically from Democratic ideals to whatever changing views were held by some politician or other.

I miss Democrats that cared about Democratic issues rather than rubber stamping Republican ones and rebranding them as Democratic.
I see more of the latter than the former here lately, quite a damn shame really.

And now you're upset with the Obama Administration for something it didn't do.

Incredibly transparent attempt -and once again a failure- to put Obama in the worst possible light.

You are always chomping at the bit to destroy Obama's image.

It doesn't work but it is amusing in a pathetic, tiresome sort of way.

Not BBI's. Although it does seem to be correct given the circumstances. That is what makes this all so odd. It seems as thought the administration themselves agree with the headline. They kind of admitted it.

It is very disconcerting to see DUers being apologists for this action, and thinking this is a good thing.

What 'action' did Obama take? Unless you consider inaction to be an action of some sort.

And, I don't know why you are implying something about my feelings about President Obama. I'm a supporter of his. My posting name isn't GreenParty2012.

To be honest, I didn't pay any attention to your name. I'm kind of a speed-reader and gloss over 'details' sometimes.

But I disagree with the OP blaming Obama for not correcting a 75 year old loophole. And if we disagree on that, oh well...

regulations need to be rewritten in a way that makes it more clear that family members on family farms are exempt. I know that that language is in there, but I've also seen a post on DU taking the position that this would restrict family farms from having their own kids do chores.

I don't believe that President Obama commented on this thing at all. I notice that he is not mentioned specifically, only the catch-all term, "the Obama administration." This wasn't his decision, but that of an agency.

Nicely done.

Which is why I doubt your advice will be taken.

Good research, though. Now what do you have on the rumor I hear of Obama keeping child slaves to mow the White House lawn?

We don't know that we agree with Dr. Sammy until we know what the rules are and why they were good or bad.

I mean, Obama's lack of action on a 75 year old loophole is clearly an 'action' of some sort, right? Now he is against our children!

It's priceless. My vote is for the thread to stay as evidence of total lack of class.

I am not familiar with citizen.org. Are they a RW organization?

You're very good at what you do.

Their propaganda gained steam, therefore we cannot move forward, even though we think it would be good policy.

It is the same reason we continuously bend to the right. They say jump loud enough with enough spittle at the corner of their mouths and a weak politician will get frightened and ask "how high".

They will say things like "we may lose votes if we don't please the right"! (as if we could win them by being weak).

Good policy is more for speeches and promises that are made to a loyal base that they do not fear, they do the opposite of the good policy in the speeches because they fear losing votes they never had.

We are told they have no choice but to abandon good policy because of the ravings of spittle spraying lunatic bullies that know very well that all they have to do is intimidate to get what they want from our side. Their tantrums are responded to by giving them what they want, so of course they do it all the time, and keep getting what they want.

It grows more pathetic each election cycle.