By Greg Cook, Crisis Magazine - Many of us who live in rural parts of the U.S. have witnessed discouraging trends in recent decades: the increase in the size of farming and ranching operations; the destruction of small-town life; depopulation; a growing disregard for natural beauty; and the erosion of the work ethic. Those corrosive trends add up to the dissolution of a cohesive society. Human connection, human scale, and human aspirations are all snatched away by inhuman forces.