Someone somewhere recently pointed out that fascism tends to rear its ugly head every 100 years because everyone that experienced it last time has to be dead before it can happen again.
Americans specifically have had it generally good for so long that anyone incapable of picking up and absorbing information from a history book, which is most Americans, simply don’t know how bad it used to be. So they fucking sleepwalk into fascism or allowing regulations to be rolled back.
You’d think that having a written language to chronicle all our mistakes would ensure that we moved forward without repeatedly making those mistakes, but the catch is the majority of people have to read the fucking words for that to matter.
When I told my parents how we got things like the 40 hour work week they were fucking mortified. Something seemingly so inconsequential, many people died for.
Yup.
People died to give workers rights and now we’re electing anti-worker presidents and giving those rights away. It’s sickening.
but the catch is the majority of people have to read the fucking words for that to matter.
Hell, I’d even settle for more people watching classic movies and TV shows. People need to maintain some link to the past to see the mindset of those who lived through fascism, wars, etc. and absorb what a society that rejects those ideas looks like.
Culture is a big part of our collective memory, and a society that can’t look back will just reinvent the same problems.
It would be cool if someone made a “transported through time” miniseries that showed exactly what living in that period with those problems was like. I think it could be very popular.
Watch the show Connections. It was made by the BBC in 1978 and does exactly this, but more science focused. The show holds up really well.
I can see that being an isekai manga. Say, by the person who did Spice & Wolf?
Oh, by the way, check out Barefoot Gen. It was written by a person who was a boy when the atomic bombs hit Japan. It covers the post-war period, including the corruption and day-to-day life of a shattered Japan.
I think it would help to have history-oriented comics and manga in schools. I learned to enjoy history, in no small part on account of Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe series. Making things approachable is how people progress from knowing nothing to being a college graduate.
deleted by creator
Exactly. Critical Thinking is the literally the most imoportant skill you cn learn. Critical Thinking is what allows people to recognize nonsensical propaganda immediately upon hearing it, and reject it.
It worked for me back in the late 80s, when Rush Limbaugh got started. He had a very entertaining delivery, but I was easily rejecting his unsourced bullshit and blatant lies, while people were calling in praising him for “opening their eyes.” Dude, he’s entertaining, I get that, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t lying to you.
I was 12 or so when my dad started listening to Limbaugh. I had zero clue about politics, but I could tell the guy was a scumbag. So glad he’s dead. I danced a jig in my cubicle when I found out.
He used to support tobacco companies, was a tobacco cancer denier, and wanted to end the embargo with Cuba so he could get their cigars cheaper. His cigar habit ended up killing him prematurely.
He deserved the cancer that killed him, but I wish his death had been so much worse.
Same logic with antivax people.
1000% my first thought. These nutjobs who say “just get some fresh air” are coasting upon the millions of dead and buried who paid the price for us to have longer healthier lives. Strict stringent food safety. Mandatory vaccines without exemptions.
“Measles doesn’t kill anyone!”
No you fuck, measles doesn’t kill anyone TODAY. That can change real fast.
Vote with your dollar! If tainted baby formula kills your kid, simply refuse to buy that brand anymore!
This, so much this…
I tire of people saying “VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET”, when the problem is far more systemic than a “couple bad actors greedy for the green”
there’s like four companies in america. Soon to be 1 no doubt.
At least they’re not american. At this point I’m not sure if I wouldn’t rather buy Nestlé just to make sure Trump doesn’t get any tax dollars.
3 stars. I dislike that it killed my baby, but shipping was really fast!
- review found under a pack of rechargeable batteries
The capitalism we have NOW is actually killing people.
The death and exploitation of the majority is inherent in Capitalism. For the few benefits of such a heinous system of greed as Capitalism to outweigh the overwhelming harm of the system, a strict regulatory system is essential, with real penalties exacted for violating them.
My favorite “we had to regulate this” is coal mining. You see, the larger a coal mine tunnel, the more work and time it takes. So smaller tunnels will be more profitable. So in some places they preferred smaller women and children, so they could make make smaller, easier tunnels. This one I only ever found one source on, but supposedly one mine owner noticed that snags on clothing were slowing things down in the narrow tunnels so he insisted on sending them in nude. Nothing more capitalist than naked coal mining children.
I realy would like to fact check you on this, but i will definitely not search for “naked coal mining children”. “Trust me bro” will have to do it for this one.
That miners often worked naked or partially naked is definitely true. That children, men and women worked together in mines is also true. If it’s legally allowed, then it’s going to happen basically.
That there were owners who preferred children/women over men, is probably false. They will have tended to do different jobs in the mines, but I can’t recall having ever read anything about a mine that preferred to not employ any male miners.
That the workers worked naked because of owner mandates is also going to be false, because those miners used to be paid according to how much they extracted, so there was no reason for the owner to have such a mandate. Instead it was the workers their own choice: some clothes hinder them in their work (heat, snagging, dust) + the job eats up clothes + they have to pay for their own clothes = they’re not going to be wearing many clothes at work.
The fact that these fucks were not regularly dragged from their mansions and beaten to death blows my mind
That’s because you view things like this as isolated acts done by a few people. But don’t forget, only 1/3 of US voters tried to stop a man who openly declared himself a fascist, had already had a direct hand in the spread of a world wide plague that killed millions.
The “they didn’t know what they were getting into” excuse is no longer valid. And yet 2/3 of voters were fine with him being reelected . The reason those people weren’t dragged from their mansions and beaten to death was because of all the other monsters who were protecting them. The people who weren’t committing atrocities themselves, but benefited from it enough to help it keep happening.as humans, our arguably greatest trait is the ability to adapt to almost any circumstance. unfortunately that also often makes us accept unacceptable living conditions because changing them involves too high of a personal cost.
You’re not dragging Trump out and beating him to death. So why expect of your ancestors what you can’t do today?
I’m not shaming nor advocating btw, just explaining.
Eventually we Canadians won’t even have to boycott American agricultural products, they just won’t be able to sell them to us because they won’t pass our safety requirements.
I already subscribe to y’alls government emails about recalls, I suggest other Americans do too because many products are sold in both places, and hopefully it would be too expensive to set up two production lines, one for lower or nonexistant US standards and one for Canada. https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en for 'muricans who are curious
This is already happening a lot. Take poultry for example.
In the USA, you can chemically rinse chicken (usually in acids, but in the past in chlorine) so that it won’t have any Salmonella or Campylobacter bateria on it.
The EU, you’re not allowed to do that, but you’re also not allowed to have those bacteria. That means you have to raise the chickens in a MUCH cleaner environment. The same goes for eggs, which you can’t wash, so they have to be clean from the farm.
As a result, you can’t export US chicken to the EU, because it doesn’t meet the safety standards. And that’s about to get worse. You can absolutely export EU chicken to the US, but it likely won’t be competitively priced.
You’ve heard of their eggs and their chickens right ?
That’s gonna make the cows mad. And mad cows will make US mad.
But RandLover1988 on YouTube told me businesses have to sell good things otherwise competitors will come in and they’ll go bankrupt, unless there are too many regulations and too much socialism, which is why he got banned for saying the N-word on YouTube. /s
For more fun stuff on why the FDA should exist, but also some of their bad stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1UD3qjA5A
I GUESS
we l l d o n e
Meat is back on the menu boys!
Well done meat can counter a number of contamination issues, but can’t undo toxins already created by bacteria in meat that wasn’t kept to a safe temp or a lot of really dangerous stuff like mad cow disease.
Oh boy prion diseases are coming back!
But I didn’t know that bacteria toxins was a thing but that explains why we don’t keep spoiled meat
It depends on the bacteria, but in short the toxins are bacteria waste and it builds up the more active the bacteria are and how many there are. That is also why you can’t just reheat already cooked food to make it safe again.
Yeah, toxins are often the bigger risk when dealing with bacterial or fungal issues.
For instance, botulism is caused by the toxin produced by botulinum bacteria. The toxin is a paralytic. The bacteria itself can typically be dealt with by the immune system, but the toxin wreaks havoc on the nervous system.
That’s also why you should never feed honey to babies; botulinum is commonly found in honey. Babies’ immune systems aren’t equipped to deal with the botulinum bacteria, which allows it to bloom and start producing the toxin after they ingest it. This causes something called Floppy Baby Syndrome, from the baby being paralyzed by botulism toxin.
Sure unbridled capitalism is the way to go as there has never been starvation under capitalism.
From the wiki: “By the 1930s, muckraking journalists, consumer protection organizations, and federal regulators began mounting a campaign for stronger regulatory authority by publicizing a list of injurious products which had been ruled permissible under the 1906 law, including radioactive beverages, the mascara Lash lure, which caused blindness, and worthless “cures” for diabetes and tuberculosis. The resulting proposed law was unable to get through Congress for five years, but was rapidly enacted into law following the public outcry over the 1937 Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy, in which over 100 people died after using a drug formulated with a toxic, untested solvent.”
I believe I’ve heard that the FDA was actually beneficial for capitalism as consumers would entirely avoid certain products out of fear, making it difficult to sell even legitimate goods.
That’s not true:
They exist because pure unadulterated capitalism WILL kill you, not would.
