But, as of yet, this has not been the case for tens of thousands of American family farmers. They have been evicted from their homes, harassed, tormented, often for debts that they did not incur. They say the evidence of the debt is non-existent, but their lands were sold anyway, in violation of federal law.
While many loan officers and farm credit agency employees trash their reputations and withhold their files from them, they continue to call for an investigation. They write letters to their Senators and Representatives, and talk to any reporter who will listen. Some have written so many letters to their local newspapers, that the editors now refuse to print them.
Many see the scandal in the Justice Department as a doorway to justice. They believe if only the press would investigate, if only an outside auditor would crack open the books of the nation’s federal farm loan offices, they would be vindicated. Many believe that there is a direct connection between the shady operation of many of the nation’s federal prosecutor’s offices and what is happening in the nation’s farm loan offices and auction house, and most of all, to what is happening to them.
They want justice, but it seems that the media isn’t interested in what happens to a few thousand farm families, not when there are so many other important news stories out there. What really happened to the so-called billionaire bimbo? Or, what celebrity got caught drinking and driving? Or, how long some gazillionaire hotel heiress will really spend behind bars?
This is not some dinky story about a few bureaucrats with their hands in the till. The word on the street is that billions of dollars are at stake here.
Unfortunately, what’s on the street hasn’t hit the wire services or major metro dailies yet. And, that is what outrages these farm families.
Unlike most of urban America, these farm families know exactly what is at stake here, aside from their own loss or potential loss of land. According to many who have been tracking this situation for decades, billions and billions of federal farm loan dollars have not reached the nation’s farmers, and tens of thousands of allegedly illegal evictions and auctions.
These farmers are crying out for justice. This is America, they say. They and their kin fought for this nation for generations, shed blood in wars to defend American soil. They say their farms, their very own pieces of American soil have been stolen from them by an agency they trusted to follow the law, to follow its congressional mandate to help the family farmer.
They want to know where is the outcry? Where are the investigators, the auditors, the forensic accountants, and the federal law enforcement apparatus?
Where is Congress and why are our nation’s legislators silent?(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).