I spotted the painting above on a left wing blog yesterday. It was used to illustrate a rant about privileged wealthy farmers being to blame for all New Zealand’s dirty water ills as well as them being cruel to animals. Usually it is the left that appreciates the arts, so the lack of understanding about the painting used to hit out at our farmers, in not one but two articles on the Daily Blog, was surprising.
The artist who created the painting received backlash when it appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette because Iowans were upset at their depiction as “pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers“. Many assumed that the painting was meant to be a satire about rural small-town life. Later, after the onset of the Great Depression, the painting came to be seen as a depiction of the steadfast American pioneer spirit.
It is this final idea that makes the use of it in a post attacking our farmers particularly ironic. Those faces do not represent privilege or wealth. They look gaunt but determined: a look that many of our dairy farmers no doubt see every day in the mirror, thanks to this government’s ongoing attacks against them.
Many farmers walked off their land during the Great Depression, and this, sadly, may yet happen in New Zealand as this government makes it harder and harder for our farmers to make a living.
The Resource Management Act 1991 and the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 wiped out practically all of the original legal torts that had been used to protect water for centuries. The blame for the state of our waterways can be slated back to those acts.
We all know that there are a lot of urban areas that would not meet water quality standards, yet the government has chosen to put all the blame for water quality on our farmers; facts be damned.
The government have ruined our oil and gas industry. They have driven private landlords out of the market with anti-landlord policies. It is the government’s fault that rents have increased on average by $50 a week and that there is now a serious shortage of rentals in many areas. Now they are targeting our farming sector.
