Robert Wolf

Robert Wolf is the executive director and co-founder of the Free River Press. He is a recipient of the Bronze Medal for radio editorial/commentary and the Sigma Delta Chi Award (1994), both from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Table of contents

1 Books by Robert Wolf 2 Writings by Robert Wolf 2.1 Iowa: Living in the Third World

Books by Robert Wolf

• The Triumph of Technique: The Industrialization of Agriculture and the Destruction of Rural America
• An American Mosaic: Prose and Poetry by Everyday Folk
• Jump Start: How to Write from Everyday Life
• Story Jazz: A History of Chicago Jazz Styles
• Crazeology: The Autobiography of a Chicago Jazz Musician

Writings by Robert Wolf

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Iowa: Living in the Third World

Iowa: Living in the Third World is an article by Robert Wolf which appeared in the Des Moines Register on July 16, 1995.

"When I moved here I believed that rural America was still a place where people gathered in community. I believed that the land and water were pure and uncontaminated. Perhaps I had been affected by the television commercials which try to sell products by identifying them with farms and country towns. The truth is that rural America is dying."

"I live in the Third World, in Iowa. Iowa is party of the Third World. A Third World country sells natural resources and human labor for a pittance. Does that fit Iowa? You bet. Iowa exports its produce and livestock, and in exchange receiveds a pittance. That is, the family farmer does. The profits usually go out of state, the corporate farmer lives in Chicago or Dallas."

"The colonizer's economy takes away the native's self-sufficiency and replaces it with dependence. That's Iowa's situation. No one in Washington seems particularly concerned about the Third World."

"So long as Iowans believe that they can rebuild within the existing economic system, their system will worsen."