[longtermmemmory]

Why isn't the focus on encouraging these German men, stuck in a situation that isn't working "TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT"!!!

*** ****

So if they go to learn to read, who will plow the field? Milk the goats? feed the pigs? If you don't watch the farm every single day it will die. There are no days off, you can't skip feeding animimals.

Even so, when your farm is 10 acres how much can it be worth. You can only sell your home once. What can you get for an east german dirt farm? 1000 euros? how far will that take you when you have no skills, illiterate, and are only trained in farm labor? Do you work oppressive hours in the city as a laboror for someone else or do you work oppressive hours in the countryside on your own, however small, farm?

I believe they should "move the mountain" they should be taught updated framing and brought into the 21st century. Like the rest of europe, the farms will become consolodated and larger more productive farms will be created. (can everyone say factory farms?) None of this will happen if the only options only include 100 year old farming methods.

[raptor29]

Could you imagine if this excuse-making was applied across the board for every person facing a difficult/challenging situation? We would all sit around lamenting how deep a hole we are in, without ever endeavoring to figure a way out. And America was built on figuring a way out, and the rest of the world should go to school on that. "They should be taught updated farming...."? How about they get informed and do it themselves. It's not like information is tough to come by in 2003. These people have brains, they have just been let down by a socialist/excuse-making culture over the past 50 years, which has turned them into a mess.