Good news, if we can keep (them to) it:
Beyond the cruelty, there’s the dumbfounding incompetence.
First, they push through an announcement that 2200 employees would be fired from the Indian Health Service, removing doctors & nurses from our poorest citizens.
Then they reduced it to 950 layoffs.
Now it’s zero
ictnews.org/news/rfk-jr-…— Bill Grueskin (@bgrueskin.bsky.social) February 16, 2025 at 8:29 AM
Backstory:
If any of you know Neil Gorsuch (a longtime defender of Indian tribes' rights), please send him this piece about the devastating layoffs of about 1,000 employees in the Indian Health Service — which means we're abrogating our obligations as mandated by treaties. ictnews.org/news/life-or…
— Bill Grueskin (@bgrueskin.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Meanwhile…
new john mellencamp about to drop
— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 12:33 PM
“This isn’t just hippie-dippy stuff,” said Aaron Pape, who raises cattle, pigs and poultry on 300 acres in Wisconsin. “This is affecting mainstream farmers.”
— Erin Sikorsky (@erinsikorsky.bsky.social) February 14, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Congress has to pass a budget, and if the Republicans who represent most of rural America wanted, they could demand that the farmers who got screwed by the Trump administration be made whole.
Of course, that would require standing up for their constituents. Wonder what they'll do?— Paul Waldman (@paulwaldman.bsky.social) February 16, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Ag person here, can confirm that the farm world is in absolute chaos right now over the freezing of these and other payments related to conservation, energy, infrastructure, etc.
— Connor Stedman (@connorstedman.bsky.social) February 16, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Yes, there are at least four different reasons to expect a very bumpy food supply year (deportations & fear thereof, payments freeze, bird flu, increasingly likely climate disasters)
— Connor Stedman (@connorstedman.bsky.social) February 16, 2025 at 11:06 PM
Baud
If farmers turned against Republicans, that would be revolutionary in a good way.
But, you know, there’s the whole trans women in bathrooms thing.
Suzanne
It is very low on the list of the damages that FFOTUS has inflicted….. but he has made me much meaner. Much more of a FAFO kind of girl. I really don’t care if farmers who voted for him lose their livelihoods. FA? FO.
Suzanne
@Baud: Hey, there’s also the fact that people couldn’t say the R word! Terrible. Had to vote for the felon.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Caring is a waste of time. We’re the minority. Nothing we can do.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’ll believe farmers understand what’s happening to them when they vote differently. I don’t think they will
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Yes, that too
WaterGirl
Hell hath no fury like a farmer scorned?
Suzanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m sick of some jobs being seen as more important or noble than others. Everyone participates in the economy for profit and we all depend on one another. Farming isn’t any more esteem-able than anything else.
NeenerNeener
@WaterGirl: Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.
Kay
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-voter-regrets-presidential-election-7b4fc43d?st=T6M9Xe&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Good article on Trump voters who regret their vote, and some fascists who don’t:
Democrats really, really need to look into the role that RFK Jr played as a spoiler. The uninformed woo woo vote mattered:
Kay
Mousebumples
I’m just exhausted. Which is probably the point.
Sigh.
Fuck ’em.
Dave
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That there is a massive, relentless, and ubiquitous propaganda machine to ensure that they’ll never question their assumptions or never let them move beyond “Democrats are worse” I think you are correct.
Would be very happy to be wrong.
Ohio Mom
The thing is, being a farmer takes a lot of brain power. You have to know things like soil science, weather patterns, if you raise animals, you might as well be a vet, you have to know tons of botany, and the finances!, you might as well be a banker. You have to be a mechanic, too.
Yet these farmers can’t seem to master politics.
Kay
Baud
@Kay:
The healthy foods thing could be a wedge between Republicans and farmers. I suspect RFK, Jr. will cave, though, and just try to ban vaccines and birth control. Maybe the woo people will wake up then.
Kay
Didn’t understand the industry he’s in and still doesn’t.
A mistake is fine. This kind of deliberate refusal to learn anything at all is not.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Wait, what? Some of ‘Murka’s biggest welfare queens, aka, farmers, are aggrieved? My wife’s mother’s side of the family have been farmers/ranchers in KS since the original Swede emigrated in 1868.
And to a person, they are whackadoodle RWNJs with no signs of changing.
And some jobs *are* more noble than others, as in practically every job ever outside of that of a billionaire tech bro or bog-standard vulture capitalist like Rmoney.
Dave
@Kay: What actually gets me about the people in the article who regret their vote is that they still show no awareness of the really dangerous and deranged shit that is being done.
Media same washing doesn’t help but there needs to be a constant drumbeat of counter propaganda and it’s not out there at anything close to the degree that it needs to be.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
I mean, it sort of does but a lot of the soil science and plant knowledge has been done for them by seed companies. They’re not repairing their own equipment anymore either – it’s too complex so they just insure it and send it out to be repaired.
They’re really much more like manufacturing than “farming” now. Which is actually LESS of an excuse. What they have to know is the business side and Trump is bad for business.
different-church-lady
@Kay: And still playing the “Real ‘Murican” card. How dare he hurt the heartland, we voted for him to hurt the weirdos on the coasts.
AM in NC
@Suzanne: That’s the thing I am most concerned about. These ghouls are making ME ghoulish. At least I still feel compassion for the MAGAs’ children and don’t want to cut off programs that help them.
But I am beyond caring if the parents and other adults get hoist by their own petard. They have shown us over and over that the ONLY way they will learn ANYTHING is if they are beaten over the head/bank account with devastating consequences – so I say let them have it.
We tried compassion, reason, motivated-self interest – NONE of it worked to break through the disinformation they seek out/rank bigotry they harbor. I’ll welcome them back into the fold of decency when they start behaving decently.
Not I’m not proud of this. But I am not the Messiah/the Buddha; I have limited emotional resources, and I’m conserving them for the victims of these horrors, not the perpetrators.
Suzanne
@Baud:
The healthy foods thing is, in large part, fatphobia.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Crazy recognize crazy.
different-church-lady
@AM in NC: We’re working in completely different value systems. We bring compassion and help and they reject it, because they want their resentment validated.
sab
@Suzanne: That’s easy for you to say: you help build hospitals. I just do tax returns.
Kay
@Dave:
Some of them do. That’s their complaint – he’s much more radical than they thought. The lady who had her workplace raided sees the reality.
The sanewashing was on the part of media – they kept up a consistent theme that he was much less far Right than he is, to the extent that they actually provided words – they cleaned up what he said and inserted their own language to replace his. It was quite literally fiction.
Yiu can tell the “cruelty is the point” voters in the piece- they’re the ones who are gleeful that people are being hurt.
Suzanne
@AM in NC:
Yup.
Baud
@Suzanne:
People shouldn’t be demonized because of their weight, but the country is obese and we should be healthier. RFK is not the answer, however.
Suzanne
@sab: And I hire a person to do my tax return, because he adds value.
Almost everyone who works — and almost everyone who doesn’t — adds value.
Doug
“Major Major’s father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down.” — Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Albatrossity
@Baud:
And, of course, racism. Always racism…
Kay
@different-church-lady:
I represent farmers. If you’re a “farmer” (grower) and you don’t understand that the federal government is essentially your business partner and has been since the 1930’s then you do not understand the business you are in.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
This. It’s a public health issue and thanks for repeating that important point.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I’m struggling a bit with that right now, because 2 out of 3 white men voted for him and over half of white women voted for him… and my attitude is “I hope you get every goddamn thing your demographic voted for.”
Intellectually I know it’s not right, that 1/3 and that 47% are out there too, but I am going on the assumption that any white person I see is a Trump sucking bootlicking white supremacist shit for brains, to be avoided entirely if possible.
Suzanne
@Baud: You will get no argument from me on the idea that Americans should have more accessible and affordable healthy food. But there is a strong hatred of fat people out there, and this especially got linked to women in recent years — there was a lot of rhetoric about “they’re trying to convince me that fat chicks are hot”.
And it’s telling that a lot of this cohort is anti-the new weight loss drugs, which are proving to be really amazing. Because it isn’t really about health for these people. It’s about status and shaming.
There’s oodles of research about fatness in relation to economic class, to sex, to race. Hating on fat people is usually the more socially acceptable front to hating on poor people, women, and Black people.
Doug
@Kay: Here among allies, I will say things like “The leopards were too busy chowing down to be available for comment” or “75 million Harris voters tried to fuckin’ warn you” or, special for this instance, “The faces-to-leopards supply chain seems to be in no danger.”
But outside the friendly confines of a sympathetic blog, embarrassed voters like the one quoted might be a good audience for the “They lied to you” approach.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, the entire “mainstream farmer” thing stuck with me. We knew a couple of small sized cattle outfits back in Misery who were really early adopters of grass-fed beef, basically organic before that was a thing. So it’s not just a coastal thing. This clown probably has somebody similar, if not in his county, the next one over.
They did it because that’s where they could make money to live on and fill a market niche. They worked their asses off because they believed in the product.
Yeah, according to this entitled, white beardbro, they’re probably not “mainstream farmer” enough for him.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Well, what about our noble police and firefighters? Aren’t they the magnificent men who keep us safe?
Shouldn’t we walk up to them, with tears in our eyes, to thank them for their noble service?
(/s)
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: I can’t help comparing them to the evangelical Christians— just a different flavor of magical thinking.
Kay
Don’t cry too much over the Wisconsin farmer with 300 acres. His ground alone is worth several million dollars. Unless you’re also worth millions of dollars don’t be setting up a go fund me. Some of our farmers retire to Hilton Head.
trnc
@Ohio Mom:
I decided decades ago that everyone has a blind spot about something, including incredibly smart people I know. For way too many, politics is that blind spot (obviously helped greatly by the relentless misinformation machine).
Professor Bigfoot
@Ohio Mom: William of Ockham says it’s “fear of a Black planet.”
The mortal fear of Blackness that makes even smart white people dumber than a sack of wet mice.
The syndrome of which we dare not speak.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: I assume that by “hippy-dippy stuff” he means climate action, which he dismisses as silly
Darkrose
@Suzanne: This. This right here. Someone else—some other white rural guy—can sit down and talk with that farmer who voted for Trump. I’ll be over here desperately worrying about my students and my trans friends and the government employees I know. I just wish I had a backup choir to sing about the face-eating leopards.
AM in NC
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m a 50-something-year-old white woman in NC, living in a very blue area of my state, and I also look at every other unknown-to-me white woman and CERTAINLY every white man I encounter as the potential evil folks they very might well be.
These people are my enemy too. I hope I can blend in enough to either peel them away or get to them in other ways, should things get so.very.bad.
I’m not actively hostile, but until I know they’re not fascists, I look on warily.
Professor Bigfoot
So much of conservatism today is just simply willful ignorance, isn’t it?
trnc
@Dave:
Actively not understanding stuff is no longer just for people being paid not to understand. The hobbyist misunderstanders number greatly these days.
Kay
Farmland increased in value under Biden. They could just sit on a hundred acres and their net worth increased, and many of them did just that.
catclub
Wow, he had it years ago.
There were lots of special carve-outs for farmers in the last Trump admin.
Professor Bigfoot
RIGHT THERE WITH YOU. Fannie Lou Hamer said, “baby, you just have to love ‘em. Hating makes you sick and weak.”
But goddamn, sometimes it’s hard not to hate the stupid fuckers.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Professor Bigfoot: I go by the same assumption about White people and I am one.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I couldn’t read the piece so couldn’t see what else he said that would have elaborated on his views.
If he’s dismissing climate change, he’s an even bigger moran than the headline implies. Actually, as a white ‘Murkin, climate change may not be all that an impactful thing in his mind. It might be something that only meaningfully impacts, yunno, {those} people on another continent or some such.
catclub
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
A lot of which, for farmers, is old time smart land and soil management
Phylllis
@AM in NC: I hate to see what’s coming for the kids in public school. General education students benefit, at least indirectly, from the resources & practices provided for special education students. A lot of our basic academic supports are in place because schools have to have data to show that kids aren’t responding to those supports as one of the criteria for consideration for additional assistance, such as identification for special education. Once IDEA and Title I funding gets block-granted to states and Red states implement a ‘the money follows the kid’ model, whether to a charter or private school, districts will eliminate those extra things in a heartbeat.
Suzanne
@AM in NC:
Absolutely.
Darkrose
@Suzanne: Again: yes, this.
Why is RFK Jr. (*spit*) opposed to weight-loss drugs? Because all of a sudden there’s a way to lose weight without suffering (assuming you can tolerate the side effects) If there’s a relatively easy way to lose weight, then being thin isn’t virtuous and proof that you’re a better person than us lazy fatties. The only appropriate way to lose weight is to starve yourself and be miserable.
Kay
@Phylllis:
Joe Biden was the most pro public school President we have ever had. It’s not close.
Baud
@Kay:
It all comes back to “economic anxiety.”
Phylllis
Obese does not automatically equal unhealthy. You’re usually a good guy about most stuff. Do better.
catclub
My understanding is that good food in France is available and expensive, and people spend a significantly larger proportion of their income on it than we do in the US.
So ‘affordable’ looks different to us than to other nations.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The pendulum is gonna swing oh-so hard the other way.
Along with a lot of other pendulum swings from the “most pro” President of our lifetime to the most not-pro.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Yeah. They do that a lot. A lot of the DOGE stuff hides behind “waste, fraud, and abuse,” but that’s just a cover for what’s going on behind the scenes.
Baud
@Phylllis:
Interesting. I didn’t use the word “automatically.” Why don’t you do better?
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Some folks have been against public schools since Brown V Board; so that’s one more reason for them to hate that notorious n-word-lover Biden.
Kay
@Darkrose:
It’s a way to keep women in line, too. They want us completely occupied with physical appearance. They want us all to look like the MAGA women – altered with surgery, frantically dieting and exercising, long, blonde hair- all look the same. That leaves no time for a graduate degree or making our own money.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Elections have consequences.
catclub
@Phylllis:
Yeah, but there is a whole caravan of unhealthy conditions that often ride along with it.
FDRLincoln
The sustained level of hatred and loathing I feel for GOPers and MAGAs is corrosive for my soul. But I can’t stop feeling it.
I want them to suffer. All of them. Not kids, not Kamala voters. But adults who voted for Trump or did not vote when eligible, fuck them. Suffer. You voted for it. Fuck them.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: After observing conservative women and especially the blonde Fox News type that they seem to love, I just figured that’s all conservatives are interested in of women. What they look like, and how available they were for sex.
Now I see what you mention here: to keep women from making their own money, to eliminate the possibility of *free women.*
’Cause ultimately it’s about the freedom of everyone else but them, ain’t it?
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: protest sign seen in the wild:
E.
@Kay: Speaking of sanewashing, CNN has a whole piece on “the controversial quote the President shared.” Conclusion: Maybe it means something, maybe it is just the President being provocative, and we are not going to wonder about whether a president being provocative in this fashion is at all acceptable.
Kay
@catclub:
I think that used to be case but no longer is. Our food is now as expensive as the higher quality food in Europe.
In many ways living in the United States is not a great “deal”. I think it used to be you got more bang for your buck here, but that’s not really true anymore. Trump still thinks Norwegians want to emigrate to the US, like it’s 1890. They don’t.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yes. It is about driving women out of public life, lowering their status, and putting women back under the social, sexual, economic, and reproductive control of men.
geg6
@Suzanne:
Same. I’ve always been the proverbial bleeding heart liberal. Now my heart only bleeds for me, mine and all the innocents. MAGA voters can go fuck themselves.
Denali5
RFK was not the first to support organic and healthy foods. His anti-vaccine stance has harmed immeasurable numbers of people. The current measles epidemic in Texas is only a sign of what is to come. People in power are scary.
sixthdoctor
@Darkrose: I’m guessing you saw this video. If not, then enjoy!
https://bsky.app/profile/chescaleigh.bsky.social/post/3li75oxwb3c2i
JML
There was a very long alliance between farmers and the Democratic Party that stretched for decades. It started falling apart in the 80’s and went into total collapse in the 90’s, and it was entirely because of social issues, the rise of right-wing radio, and FauxNews. Even when the plains states were voting for GOP presidents, they would send Democrats to the House and especially the Senate. Then those senators with 20-30 years of experience retired or got voted out and we haven’t seen them coming back. The GOP used to just vote the subsidies along, so the farmers still had that going for them, but they did less than nothing to support rural communities as they started shrinking & aging, and the right-wing noise machine has spent the last 30 years telling them that everything that’s going wrong with their communities is the fault of minorities and immigrants and the urban “warzones” that are supposedly taking all their money.
And the reality is, it’s the urban centers that have kept the rural communities going, and subsidize them to a huge amount. The farmers are totally screwed without immigration and the labor it provides. And now they’re finding out what happens when they don’t get their deals from the feds and have government run by incompetent fuckwits who do not care about them, have never cared about them, and only encouraged them to hate the other in order to keep them in line.
Will the embrace of bigotry and hate be enough to keep them onside as the money stops flowing? Or will rural communities finally realize they’ve been sold a bill of good for decades? I’m not sure the truth can get through the highly tuned propaganda networks so many people in rural areas are locked into. The more mainstream media is incompetent and beholden to the billionaire class. But more importantly…they don’t WANT to believe.
These rural communities are becoming the most fact-resistant areas you can find in the US, because the truth doesn’t line up with their beliefs.
Jeffg166
@AM in NC:
Time to use tough love on the MAGAts.
Kay
My son is an American engineer who works in Denmark and he told me European tech people jeered at JD Vance’s speech – said he had the US tech industry hand up his ass and their words coming out.
None of them bought his bullshit about “values” at all. They think he’s a tool of US billionaires – a puppet – and just further evidence of how corrupt the US is. So that was a good trip!
Professor Bigfoot
I’d go one further— it’s about driving EVERYONE who is not a straight white Christian man out of public life; and putting them all under the physical control of straight white Christian men.
NotMax
Would gladly pay whatever the restocking fee is for returning this timeline.
//
252man
Deleted because Professor Bigfoot else said it better
Kay
@Denali5:
People have to protect what they believe in though. People who want better food quality will be harmed by RFK Jr – he discredits them and their cause. They can’t be such suckers. It makes them bad advocates and role models.
I’m in favor of healthy food but if a healthy food supporter tells me they back RFK Jr that’s a dealbreaker – we’re done. I’m not going to compromise on killing kids with infectious disease epidemics.
Darkrose
@catclub: Correlation does not equal causation, and when it comes to how complex systems human bodies work, there are always going to be multiple factors involved. Am I diabetic because I’m fat, or because diabetes runs in my family? Am I fat because I eat too much, or not the right things (whatever those are this week) or because I forget to eat until I’m dizzy and my body’s signals are screwed up, or because I’m on antidepressants (which this maladministration is also going after)?
p.a.
I guess the question is how bad does it have to get for the dumbasses themselves to get to switch at election time? The true pigs will be all in on the sparrow/curtain rod meme, but will the dumbasses have to get to that point before wising up? And I’m not cutting the dumbasses any moral slack: they’re hoof-in-hoof with the pigs about hurting “the others” as long as they’re not under stress.
It took the worst economy since the Great fucking Depression as well as disastrous foreign wars and domestic disaster responses to get a Black man elected, and the pigs went berserk. (And I’m not convinced Obama would have won a second term except for the foolishness of Republicans not understanding the piggishness of its own pig base and running a Mormon, which was a thumb in the pigs’ eyes and I think held down R turnout.)
Suzanne
@Darkrose:
Fatness is semiotically linked to poverty, which means race, and is far more socially shameful for women than for men. (Think of the sitcom trope of the chunky guy with a hot wife.)
As Kay mentions…. look at the right-wing beauty standard. Keeping women in line, and making them work at being attractive so men can judge them and pick them. Weight loss drugs are seen as cheating.
These people don’t give a shit about actual health.
Doug
@catclub: Such a good book!
Kay
I didn’t think grocery prices would actually rise with Trump, but they are. Amusing.
The NYTimes has 5000 articles about this, right? Or were all these reporters reassigned to the “fluff Elon Musk” beat?
Suzanne
@Kay: Everybody is in favor of nutritious food. I’m in favor of health, however that looks for each person will probably vary. I’m absolutely not here for any fatphobia and it’s really upsetting how it’s usually a stalking horse for other prejudices out there.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Todd Winant, the holistic coach from Cornville, Arizona quoted in that article, sounds like a blithering idiot. Imagine thinking that guy would be able to advise you on improving your mental, physical and spiritual health!
I’ll admit I didn’t think the RFK Jr. voters would amount to much in 2024. Somehow I keep forgetting how fucking stupid millions of our fellow citizens are.
I mean, I’m used to the Trump people — I am surrounded by them. I’ve had nearly a decade to internalize the improbable fact that so many people think a weak, girdled, orange-sprayed conman is a tough guy. It’ll take a while to grok the RFK Jr. thing, I guess.
Geminid
@Kay: I think RFK Jr. brought Trump a couple million voters at least. That’s hard to verify, but I think Wiles and the campaign team knew what they were doing when they reeled RFK Jr. in. They needed every vote they could scrape up.
They also may have poached a lot of Libertarian voters. In 2020, Jo Jorgenson won 1,865,000 votes on the Libertarian line. Chase Oliver, this year’s candidate, got only 650,000. That’s as many as 1.2 million “extra” votes going to Trump.
Kay
@Geminid:
It couldn’t be helped. Harris couldn’t have welcomed him. He kills kids.
EarthWindFire
@Kay: Not a new statement around here, but these quotes make it crystal clear that being seen as doing something matters a lot. It doesn’t matter what it actually is. What we see as chaos, others are seeing as accomplishment.
Dems could take a lesson from this, we don’t have to wait for perfect.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: One of SEVERAL comments on this thread that make me wanna “QFT.”
Damn right, these people don’t give a single solitary shit about health, they are only really interested in power.
jimmiraybob
“E Pluribus Unum” – Out of many, one!
This is the official motto of the United States and was derived during the American rebellion against the autocratic tyranny of kings – commonly referred to as the American Revolution; the act that made the new nation’s constitutional republic and liberal democracy a possibility, but not a certainly.
Thirteen very diverse British colonies turned into modern American states through unity by embracing diversity of the whole, including diversity in heritage, diversity in politics, diversity in religion, and diversity in social norms. And the founders shared a vision of fairness and justice – equity – in the law; a vision that would take hundreds of years to hone from vision to reality. And all along the way, people have died and suffered to realize “E Pluribus Unum” as the foundation of a more perfect union.
The American founding was about inclusion in principle and the authors put it into words. The transition from British colonies, carrying the weight of old European notions of king and church oppression and repression, to a new American sovereignty, solidified the transition in social attitudes that started in the early 1600s (17th century) and continued through the late 1700s (18th century).
As I’ve noted before, the words of the first president of the US are all about a vision for a more liberal future that echoed the prior changes in social attitudes – a progress toward the ideals carried forward by the likes of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Susan B. Anthony, to name a few out of thousands.
In short, our political inheritance, our ability to define ourselves and our lives, is one of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) and continued progress toward a more liberal and just society for all.
We are currently allowing a would-be king and his henchmen to claw back our inheritance.
Happy Presidents Day!
Now, let’s hit the streets. RECLAIM!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
One of my younger sisters is an RFK Jr to Trump voter. Our last conversation was prior to the election when she (supposedly) called to ask me about my senator, Vance, and then ignored everything I said and told me how great Vance is. We had to work together to help another family member in crisis In October – I worked, she told me all the things she couldn’t do, and I managed that but I have no desire to speak to her right now. She works with disabled children. I think its unforgiveable, supporting these people.
Belafon
@Kay: the measles and bird flu are here to cure that.
zhena gogolia
I just tried to call the White House. The comment line is open 11-3, Tu-Th. Those fuckers! The White House is only open 11-3, Tuesday through Thursday? Those fuckers!
ETA: And going to the regular White House website is VOMIT INDUCING!!!! We’re living in Stalinist Russia, now. Thanks to President Trump for my happy childhood!
MomSense
@Suzanne:
Ozempic was one of the medications that was going to be subject to negotiated prices but that was overturned by executive order.
Just like poor shaming, there is so much fat shaming and using medications is considered cheating. It’s so fucking stupid.
It is also the case that socio economics is linked to body ideal. Victorians considered pale and plump beautiful because that meant you were wealthy enough that you didn’t have to labor. Thin and tan meant you were a poor laborer.
Now pale and plump means you have to work a desk job. Thin and tan means you are wealthy and golf, play tennis, and sunbathe.
Beauty and economic class have always been connected.
Professor Bigfoot
@jimmiraybob:
Y’all keep telling yourselves that the Revolution was some noble act; when reality was something a bit less.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Musk will soon alter that to 11:00 – 11:15 every other Wednesday in the guise of rooting out waste.
jimmiraybob
@Professor Bigfoot:
Dear Professor,
I don’t defend the society of the late 1700s America, but I do defend the ideals and principles of the authors of the Constitution. There is a distinction.
Yours
Rose Judson
@Kay:
Yup. Even here in “Rip-Off Britain,” my weekly grocery shop is a good 20% less expensive than it would be in the US. And every time I visit my American family I’m shocked at how many new methods companies have come up with for nickel-and-diming you guys to death.
This doesn’t even touch healthcare costs, obviously. Even with the higher income taxes over here I am better off. Not only is there the NHS, there’s also my supplementary private insurance, which mostly covers The Child’s mental health care. It costs a princely $1,000 per year.
ETA: Housing costs suck, but a) that’s inevitable when you’re sharing an island roughly the size of Oregon with 70 million other people, and b) housing costs suck everywhere.
Professor Bigfoot
@jimmiraybob: It’s the lie you tell yourselves to avoid addressing the Enslavement and it’s effects on what this country is to this day.
All those noble words “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights (except for the Black ones)…”
Spanky
@NotMax: Well that’s rather optimistic.
Is there anyone in this country who appears to be less useful right now than djt? Completely irrelevant. Musk is going to empty the place out and put it up for sale. Prime real estate.
AM in NC
@MomSense: If Ozempic-type drugs are cheating, then I demand that every MAGA woman who has been plumped, filled, botoxed, hair extended, and pneumatically enhanced in the breastal area have every non-organic molecule removed from their bodies.
Natural is natural, after all – right?
Suzanne
@MomSense:
Oh yes, absolutely. There is oodles of scholarship on this front.
One of the things that I think we failed to really grok was how much the fat acceptance movement radicalized a lot of those men who shifted rightward this election. Note that women daring to diverge from the right-wing pick-me beauty standard, and the social space to think of themselves as beautiful, absolutely infuriated those men.
And look at the right-wing-coded version of health: lifting, supplements, steroids…. but not cardio. Protein, not vegetables. (Salads are for women and gay men in this subculture.) It’s aesthetic, it’s not about actual health. If they actually gave a shit about health, they would welcome weight loss drugs.
RFK appealed a lot to these types.
jimmiraybob
@Professor Bigfoot:
Dear Professor,
I tell myself no lies. I am not defending the “defects,” as Thurgood Marshall called out, of the constitution of 1789 (& first 10 Amendments in 1791). However, I will defend the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments that many historians say defined a second American revolution in recognizing the ideals and principles of the original. Add to the the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote and to participate in governance.
You might want to study more Frederick Douglass.
Yours
kalakal
@Professor Bigfoot:
As a permanent resident I look around at people and think “half of this bunch voted for that creature”. And the demographic I’m most leary of is white .
I wait until people prove they’re not a racist, mysogynist, authoritarian loon before I trust them
The irony is that to look at I fit their demographic perfectly. Even when I speak and it’s obvious I’m not a real ‘Murican most of them just love my British accent.
I’m in a very priviliged position and I’m freaked out. What it must feel like to be a minority I can’t even imagine.
Geminid
@Kay: Trump’s people knew letting RFK Jr. hang out there as an Independent was a threat. He would pull votes from their candidate, not their opponent. As it turned out, RFK Jr. still won over 700,000 votes in states where he couldn’t remove his name from the ballot
Ed. I remember people saying that bringing RFK Jr. in would hurt Trump, but Wiles and compsny knew better.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne:
I understand this, but, you know, I have traveled extensively in Europe, both eastern and western, and it’s vanishingly rare to encounter anyone as obese as you’ll see *every day* here in the US. Something is different, and I don’t think it’s just socio-economic inequality or urban design or transportation modalities.
tobie
@Suzanne: @Baud: RFK, Jr wasn’t the first person to talk about healthy diet and living or the dangers of monoculture and its reliance on pesticides and insecticides. All these supposed wellness freaks who voted for Trump b/c of RFK, Jr are either lying about their motivations or were taken in by the conspiratorial framing RFK, Jr uses, which is not unlike QAnon. Trump and Republicans are gutting the EPA, which played a huge role in banning DDT. Michelle Obama was roasted for talking about eating healthy and exercise. And no one paid attention to the last Asst Sec of Health, Rachel Levine, because she was transgender. She regularly posted items like this on Twitter:
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Baud: The expense of fresh fruits and vegetables, the strict limits of what WIC and SNAP allow. Food desserts in rural and poor urban communities. The assumption that everyone has a car ( try getting groceries, on your own with a baby and no car and no one to leave the baby with) it’s walk, or take the bus with a stroller. And buy only what you can put in or on the stroller. Good times… grabbing what it available at the local quickly mart works better but costs more…
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Oof, that must be incredibly frustrating. The Trump cult was bad enough without adding in RFK Jr.’s fraudulent woo factor. I hope your sis comes to her senses someday.
Chief Oshkosh
@Doug:
Agreed, but they also need to be told that, if they are embarrassed (or otherwise angry about being lied to), they have a particular responsibility to right the wrong they (supposedly) unwittingly aided.
LAC
@AM in NC: Well said and captures how i feel, as ghoulish as it seems. Yeah, I know it will impact food prices and supply, but since these fools were okay with programs feeding children in schools being cut, they can enjoy playing the FAFO board game with everyone else.
Kay
@Rose Judson:
We’re planning on renting a very small apartment in Copenhagen to live there three months a year to spend time with our son and his family. A small place on a canal in Copenhagen costs less than a much worse location in NY, where our daughter lives.
What IS unaffordable in Denmark is American processed food. They don’t want Danes eating it :)
US low end restaurants are still cheaper than anywhere else though.
jimmiraybob
@kalakal: “As a permanent resident I look around at people and think “half of this bunch voted for that creature”. And the demographic I’m most leary of is white .”
Me too. And I’m in that demographic. As Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), said referring to the “Scottsboro Boys”, be safe – stay woke.
WaterGirl
@NeenerNeener: New rotating tag.
tobie
@Suzanne:
This comment was very illuminating for me. Thank you. RFK, Jr’s healthy pitch is about masculinity. That’s what makes him difft than the people talking about diet and farming practices before him.
Suzanne
@tobie: Michelle Obama encouraged them to eat vegetables. The right-wing-coded version of health is much more protein-focused. Vegetables have long been coded as feminine.
But yeah. Similar to your mom telling you to make your bed is shrewish nagging, but Jordan Peterson telling you to make your bed is sharing a secret of How to Be an Upstanding Man…… some men will only accept health and nutrition advice from other muscular, cis men.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Its caused further trouble too, because my youngest sister, who I am very close to, thinks I’m being “callous” towards the Trumper. Okay I am a little callous – true – but I’m still not forgiving her just yet.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Just for fun, gotta link it (audio is a bit wonky).
Stevo
Nom Nom Nom
FAFO
Belafon
@Ohio Mom: We are taught early on that politics is a dirty word and a dirty profession, and it should be avoided, rather than being taught that it’s just a word for how people interact and make decisions.
WTFGhost
Man… twice impeached guy convicted of some *sleazy* fraud including sex most would consider noncon these days (NB: “noncon” is a tag, meaning you may consider it such – it is not a tag *decreeing* it such. I hope. It’s been a LONG while.)
All you had to do was expect your party leadership would band together and say “no more – let him face the music. His incompetence hurt us.”
And then, all you had to do was recognize that what he peddled to you was, unpackaged (and unaged) soil additives derived from (but now the, uh, direct product)… okay, okay, *bullshit*. I was trying to be kind!
That was *all* you had to do, and, man. Oh well. Hey, lemme get that meal for you, pal!
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic:
I think there’s a lot different. But that isn’t the point. We can consider it a valid/important public health issue to get a better scientific understanding of obesity and related health problems…. without falling into fatphobia.
NotMax
@Kay
“What, no nachos?”
//
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Gin & Tonic: well there’s all tha fucking corn that has to be used so there’s corn syrup in tons of food it doesn’t have to be in. Additionally more European cities are built better for walking to the green grocer the butcher etc. trains , trams and metro are more common as well. Europe also has stricter food laws. Mr Whole Foods Kennedy can go fuck himself, many kids depend on school breakfast, lunch and summer food. We don’t need a silver spoon baby yapping about getting rid of vaccines and people’s SSRI meds and killing programs that help people because they might serve processed ( shelf stable) foods. Meanwhile Michelle Obama got crucified and mocked by the media for putting in a veggie garden and trying to encourage providing more on site fresh veggies at schools for kids. I gotta go do my PT and game because reality is destroying my mental health. Gonna go give more $ to the two Dems running for House seats in Florida, while I still have my SS and Mil pension. Hocul is trying to keep NY 21 vacant because it’s a R+ district IDK how to feel about that…
tobie
@Suzanne: I hadn’t thought about the gender issue before. That’s a huge piece of the puzzle. You’re right.
oldgold
Farmers did very well economically under Biden. In particular, 2022 was a banner year.
But, as is well known in these parts, a farmer with a nickel in his pocket is a Republican.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Suzanne: thank you. I would like to go to the doc and not have everything ignored except my weight. You need to exercise more. Thanks doc! Doing my best but it’s CNY and I just had second knee replacement, it’s icey as hell and I am here for bad cough and possible ear infection. Getting that same talk back when I had migraines was also fun.
LAC
Baud
@tobie:
@Suzanne:
100%.
It’s all about not accepting classes of people they consider beneath them as authority figures.
Suzanne
@tobie: Yes, misogyny lurks everywhere!
Another thing: Covid brought forth a lot of fatphobia. There’s a swath of misinformation going around in that weird corner about only fat people dying of Covid. This cohort thought of vaccination as being for fat people, and that they were superior physical specimens who didn’t need it.
Kay
@NotMax:
A tiny little McDonald’s ice cream cone is so pricey its like a rare treat. Its as big as a sample size would be here.
You gotta like fish to live in Denmark though. They eat a lot of fish. I do, happily. I like those sharp, herby flavors too and the cold weather root vegetables. My youngest son said they “eat birch trees in Denmark” when he was little and I knew exactly what he meant.
BlueGuitarist
Hoping farmers feelings of being betrayed by Republicans favorably impacts the
April 1 election for Wisconsin Supreme Court, and the
Iowa State House of Representatives district 100 special election March 11.
Action re that hope:
BJ fundraising thermometer right here for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
postcard writing for Susan Crawford for Supreme Court via postcards to voters.
Democrat Nannette Griffin, who owns an auto repair shop, is running in the March 11 special election for Iowa House District 100.
Overlapping US House district: IA-01, the closest US House seat won by a Republican last year.
Trump carried IAH-100 by 27 points; Republican US House candidate by 14.
A few weeks ago, Democrat Mike Zimmer, a HS principal, flipped a Trump +21 district, (R US House candidate +9) in an Iowa state legislative special election.
more info in comment 20 yesterday in action roundup, including postcarding.
https://balloon-juice.com/2025/02/16/action-roundup/
Kay
@oldgold:
They really did. I just cannot take them seriously as small business people if they refuse to recognize when they’re making money, and WHY they’re making money.
NotMax
@Kay
Waitaminute. There exists a McDonald’s with a working ice cream machine?
//
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: It’s the food. EU does not allow all the shit and additives the US does.
I actually found the groceries in Germany to be much more reasonably priced, and with better and cleaner food, than in the US of Cray Cray
Walkability — and walking to trains — definitely a factor too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: the “Andrew Tate-ing” of masculinity.
”Alphas” smoking cigars and eating steaks and absolutely dominating hordes of young (usually VERY young, IYKWIM), submissive women.
jimmiraybob
@Professor Bigfoot:
Dear Professor,
You might not want to lean so heavily on late 17th century British pronouncements about chattel slavery.
British involvement in the transatlantic slave trade began in 1562, and by the 1730s Britain was the world’s biggest slave-trading nation.
It was a British privateer that delivered (traded for supplies), in 1619, the first 20 or 30 black Africans to the colonies which began the institutionalization of the peculiar practice on these colonial shores.
Yours
Professor Bigfoot
@Belafon: It’s in this sense that everything is political.
For a lot of my career I eschewed “office politics,” until I realized that was just how people in the organization interacted with each other; that “politics” is really just “human interaction.”
Phylllis
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: I spent a week in DC in 2001 at a conference. Hotel-catered breakfasts, lunch and dinner each day for six days at restaurants, like Georgia Brown’s and Ruth’s Chris. I lost ten pounds, due to all the walking.
WTFGhost
@Gin & Tonic: everyone agrees there *is* something. Processed foods, as a whole, play a big role – other nations have more fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables in their weekly grocery haul.
*What* plays a role, well, merchants of doubt will attack anyone who says they see something interesting, so it’s “debunked” before it gets any scientific legs. And with doubts about *what* might affect you, it’s hard to suggest what does.
The “whoo” or “woo-woo” explanation is this: there are people who want to sell more food, and they don’t give a good goddamned about how healthy it is or isn’t. If they could sprinkle small amounts of powdered heroin on top of their product, they’d *demand* they can deny they had any knowledge of it. Oh, and some people would say it’s a moral outrage, which is corpspeak for “not enough money, Jack.” All of those people, working together, have created a monster, but no one person nor one product *is* the monster. The real monster is, no one wants to sell plain, healthy, *food* any more, in large part because people don’t want to buy it.
String cheese came out – just mozzarella cheese! – but soon there were tubes of Pasteurized Process Cheese (FOOD|PRODUCT), etc.. I bet that and the fatty, carby, teriyaki sausage outsell the string cheese, who would expect otherwise? Yet all the blame is placed on the consumer, the least powerful person in all this.
(Plus, Republican policies have been squeezing the working and middle class for *generations*, so they don’t have a choice, time versus leisure, versus restaurant meals, etc.. That last bit makes *sense* if you read Econ textbooks. Maybe not a lot, and maybe it’s wrong and… never mind.)
Professor Bigfoot
@jimmiraybob: Mate, you need to understand something— I KNOW that your precious FOUNDERS were terrified of Stewart V Somerset; and that the leaders of your beloved revolution were mostly SLAVERS— your precious Jefferson OWNED hundreds of people, INCLUDING HIS OWN CHILDREN.
So, please, with all due respect, fuck you, white man.
Belafon
@jimmiraybob: Yes, but their declaration of the end of slavery was a big driver in the US colonies wanting independence. Similarly, The ending of slavery in Mexico drove a good portion of Texas’ succession.
Suzanne
@Elizabelle: I think larger portion size is a factor, longer length of workday is a factor, acculturation to sugary drinks is a factor, more fried foods is a factor, etc. All of that is valid for exploration.
But again…. if a hypothetical someone, like a Secretary of HHS, for example, actually gave a shit about health….. they would have supported Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move, they would support vaccinations, they would support weight loss drugs, they would support subsidies for fresh food for poor people.
Professor Bigfoot
@WTFGhost: I believe some of it is marketing.
I understand the US produces 4000 calories worth of food per day for every man, woman and child in the country.
FEW of us need more than 2000 or so; and well, that surplus has to go somewhere.
You can’t turn on a TV without being presented the most gorgeous photos and video of absolutely delicious looking FOOD. Americans are encouraged to eat “on the go,” because that will make them eat more.
I remember when a small hamburger, a small fry, and a small drink were considered a full meal for a working man; and I don’t believe they’ve actually SHRUNK since then; but EVERYBODY advers a bigger burger and more fries and an enormous soda and…
SOMEBODY’s gotta pay for those extra 2000 calories a day.
Harrison Wesley
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think I’m interested in whatever “a-hole istic” coaching prepares one for.
Geminid
@Professor Bigfoot: Speaking of Andrew Tate, Ankara-based Clash Report just posted this item:
Harrison Wesley
Perhaps some of these regretful sons of the soil should look to Hosea, ch. 8, vs. 7-8. Sort of the old-time version of FAFO.
M31
food deserts, like many other terrible things, was caused by Reagan, who removed the law that said that big buyers from wholesalers couldn’t arrange sweetheart deals. That is, small grocers could get their small amounts of produce at the same price as the big guys.
small, affordable food stores went extinct
somehow making the profits of fatcats better and the lives of ‘urban poor’ wink wink worse
also made the lives of rural poor worse but hey thems the breaks
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: Yes, portion size is ridiculous. And all the huge sugary drinks.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Gin & Tonic:
Bears repeating. It’s a public health issue. This piece looks as “weight bias” in a far more balanced manner than what is typically tossed around:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK572122/
Also too, it actually is becoming a world wide issue:
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wof-files/World_Obesity_Atlas_2023_Report.pdf
The CDC, at least for now, has a Obesity Prevalence Map:
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data-and-statistics/adult-obesity-prevalence-maps.html?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html
Glory b
@M31: There’s a group of “healthy foodies” on Insta that are planning to lobby that SNAP/WIC benefits be used only for organic foods too.
Guarantee none of them have ever used them, most seem to be of the young trad wife variety.
kalakal
@Suzanne:
Absolutely. I couldn’t believe portion sizes when I first moved here. Everything is much sweeter and saltier. And the amount of frying…
Professor Bigfoot
@Geminid: Like a fucking consortium of super villains, isn’t it?
except individually they’re all the very most mediocre simpletons.
MomSense
@Suzanne:
I watched a MAHA influencer reel this morning where she says ‘now that we have actual men in charge of running our country we can focus on being pretty and skinny’. She was completely serious.
I feel like burning my bra as a sort of exorcism. WTF.
jimmiraybob
@Professor Bigfoot:
Dear Professor,
I hold no FOUNDER as precious. Some were drunks, some were rum runners, some were slavers, some were misogynists, etc..
What you don’t seem able to comprehend is that I am not defending them or the papers that the signed in 1789-91.
I do, however, defend is the ideals of equality and inalienable natural and civil rights that the advanced.
I am a white man literally citing Frederick Douglas, not a white man, that escaped slavery and that worked with Lincoln in the White House to help sway a President, based upon the principles of the founding, toward emancipation (yes, I know there are other factors). You should read more Douglass ….. or, MLK, Jr..
PS, Your bigotry and hatred are not charming. I will now “fuck” off and head toward the protest.
Harrison Wesley
I’m really glad I joined a CSA a few months ago. Wish I could say it was because I anticipated problems with the food supply, but I’m not that smart.
Suzanne
@kalakal: Yeah, there are definitely differences. There’s reduced recess for kids, less walking in general, etc. There’s probably a hundred factors, and it’s all valid to study from a public health perspective.
But a lot of fatphobia and bigotry is dumped on fat people under the guise of “concern for their health” and it’s gross.
Baud
@Harrison Wesley:
Confederate States of America?
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: Community supported agriculture. Slaves and cotton and tobacco really aren’t my thing.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Jesus Christ. A “lifelong Democrat” who voted for Trump because of RFK Jr and is “thrilled”? Are brainworms actually contagious? Can you get them as a contact high?
jimmiraybob
@Belafon:
The abolition movement in America was miniscule in 1789. It grew here as American sentiments were driven by the British abolitionist movement and people became more aware of the contradictions between the founding ideals and principles and practice. By the 1860s the American abolitionist movement was strong enough to make a difference.
And yes, whites advancing into Mexican Territory was ALL about expanding chattel slavery.
Quiltingfool
@Suzanne:
Amen, sister. I have farmers in my family, and I do have a degree in Soil Conservation, but some farmers need to climb off the cross. Yes, farming is important, but so is everything else. I was a teacher, and I think it was an important job, but only as an assist to other important jobs.
Thing is, there are people who don’t think some jobs are important until they go away. Then the crying begins!
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
Not to excuse her in any way, I’m warring with my own family over not excusing them, but Democrats have to think about how people organize their lives – AROUND what. Because we are not normies. She probably centers her life around woo woo health beliefs. She comes to politics thru that. We have to be able to reach people who are not “political” but still make political decisions. So, “wellness”. How would we come into her wellness frame? Because she is not going to become interested in politics – she’s just not.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
I could see, if you really were all about “healthy eating” and “healthy lifestyles” that you might have a case for being anti-weight-loss drugs. But that would only be if you were genuinely concerned that there were health risks for people taking them.
But if you’re just into virtue-signaling about how much better *you* are because *you’re* skinny, then…fuck you.
That’s all I got.
LAC
@Professor Bigfoot: speaking of which, you made my pie filter go up one. 🤣
Professor Bigfoot
@jimmiraybob: Pie. Delicious pie.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: I honestly don’t know how to square that circle, Kay.
I mean, if she’s not into politics, she’s likely not into history either, so it’s useless to talk about how the FDA was literally founded in order to make both food *and* medicine, including vaccines, safer. Because she probably believes that if we all just “eat healthy”, we’re in no danger from adulterated food and supplements, right?
Quiltingfool
@Kay: New farm equipment really can’t be fixed by farmers anymore. Just like newer cars (no shade tree mechanics).
I remember my dad putting a new water pump in his 1972 Buick Regal in a motel parking lot in Biloxi, MS. Not sure one could do that with the new cars today, lol!
I’m not advocating for going back to the good ol’ days. Things change, and I think for the better! For example, I am grateful for the person who invented rotary cutters for cutting fabric!
Professor Bigfoot
@LAC: What can I say? I’m an awful human that way. ;D
comrade scotts agenda of rage
This. One of the incredibly insidious aspects of the modern consumer food pipeline is sugar in foods. Sure, this can be good ole corn syrup but it takes all forms and is *massive*.
Assuming one is not buying nothing but fresh vegetables and fresh meat and baking their own bread for each and every meal, look at the nutrition labels on everything and you’ll be gobsmacked at how much sugar is in everything. Everything.
So yeah, it’s one thing to cut a box of Ding Dongs outta one’s daily diet and think “I’m doing something good!” (when you are) but when the sugar content in otherwise okay stuff one’s consuming in a day adds to up obesity…
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca:
The evidence that we have right now is that they have some risks, of course, but that their potential benefits far outweigh the risks. As always, more evidence is always a good thing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Quiltingfool:
Me and a buddy replaced an entire engine in a 1970 VW Squareback on the street out in front of our house on the Hill in Boulder in 1981 over a weekend.
It’s one reason why I point out that EVs are a real game changer and why dealerships are soooo resistant to them: the service requirements are miniscule. Okay, sure, I can’t work on my Bolt but then, I never need to.
Quiltingfool
@Kay: When my husband was in the boat lift business, lots of Iowa farmers had lake homes and of course, needed boat lifts. Mr. Quiltingfool said they would drive their big, brand new, fancy F-250’s to the office, and while purchasing a $15,000 boat lift, do the poor-mouth routine of “not making any money.”
Sheesh. Crappy Iowa soil is about a million times better than the ground I live on (which is mainly clay and chert rocks – I used to joke that if chert ever became valuable, we’d be zillionaires!).
Suzanne
@Kay:
And people are absorbing a lot of politics content all mixed up with the other lifestyle content they’re consuming. These people are not watching press conferences or reading Politico.
Gvg
@Professor Bigfoot: the words were necessary. A trap if you will. Enough children brought up on those words eventually decided to mean them. I love those words. The facts when we don’t live up to it just mean work. Admittedly it has not been so frightening till now .
Kay
@Quiltingfool:
That really is a constant with farmers – they poor mouth. It’s boy who cried wolf around here – no one believes them anymore because they whine too much.
There’s a cultural thing in some Nordic/Scandinavian countries where they really glorify being a tight wad – Dutch are the worst with it but its all over that part of the world. I think that’s where a lot of that “I can BARELY afford this old ball cap I’m wearing! (but I own a quarter of the township)” comes from. They brought it over.
kalakal
@Suzanne:
Yup! The societal pressure to be ‘perfect’ is also horrible. It wrecks countless people’s lifes, physically and mentally
kalakal
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Many US brands are available in Europe. They tend to be noticably less sweet and salty. And you’re absolutely right, it’s not just the candies and fizzy drinks. It’s stuff like bread and crackers as well
Onion Soup
I’m going to say that image control isn’t just about women. Nor is fat shaming. There’s a reason conservatives are so obsessed with lifting weights, masculinity, martial arts and the male body. Joe Rogan and Tate are fitness influencers at core that spun out from there to where the money is.
They’re also distinctly aware that the majority of people at gyms, especially the women, are liberals. Liberals are more active, eat better, healthier, more in shape, more image aware and judging, work out more, and dress better than conservatives by a good margin.
There is a lot of conservative self loathing that they are not the good looking people. Let alone the beautiful people and they are looked down for it. It’s also true in general. A ton of what you see with conservative media personalities is there to create an illusion that they aren’t morlocks.
Soprano2
@Kay: That’s just another version of “I didn’t think he’d hurt people like me!”
JML
@Kay: seriously. especially when you run into farmers driving brand new $70K pickups who are vacationing in Mexico for a month in the winter complaining about how teachers are “spoiled” and “overpaid” because they “get the summer off”. Or the ones who call themselves “farmers”, when all they do is own the land and someone else actually farms it for them…
WaterGirl
@Onion Soup: Welcome!
frosty
Nominated!
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: Somehow, despite all the history I was taught and all that I’ve subsequently read, I missed this timeline. Thanks for posting it. You’ve made your contribution to Black History Month.
PS this is sincere, not snark. It’s hard to write something like this and not have it taken the wrong way.
Emily68
@Kay: The Hilton Head that’s just sitting there waiting for a hurricane to wash everything out to sea? That Hilton Head? Good thing these guys don’t believe in climate change.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Suzanne: It is rather essential. Everyone must eat. I come from farm people; no doubt I am biased. Yet, I also know most farmers would feed you if you were hungry no matter who you were. It is a farming ethos.
Drive through farm country some time and turn on the radio, or stop and watch the local news. Farmers and their neighbors are fed (and have been fed really since the Walmart-ing of rural America & the destruction of their main streets and hospitals) a steady diet of fear of the city. It is not just bigotry. It is every kind of scapegoating to direct rural America’s attention away from who is responsible for turning their once clean, neat, thriving towns into zones of desperation that drive their kids into addiction or (worse the radio tells them) the city.
This was deliberately done in my humble opinion precisely because farmers were a consistent powerful progressive voice in our country until Walmart-ification* hit.
History rhymes. Walmart-ification does not bayonet babies to walls like Quantrill’s gang did during the Bloody Kansas period before our civil war. Instead, it poisons hearts so that fixing problems becomes impossible and the slide into poverty seems inexorable. Hopelessness soars while John Brown’s glory grows dimmer, only shining fiercely in the mural hanging in Kansas’ Capitol in Topeka.
* or K-mart or whichever big store clobbered the little guy while paying barely sustenance wages
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Phylllis: yup. I had no trouble exercising when I was in my 40,s and 50,s. But then my knees went to crap at the same time my job wanted more and more hours. I saved my walking for at work because I not have so much energy to deal with the pain and keep working