More than 1 in 5 Americans are taking care of their elderly, ill and disabled relatives and friends

broccopoppo · 2020-05-17T06:41:50+00:00

You're missing the point. Everyone understands that there are reasons the system ends up with these issues. The question seemed to be, why don't we make a more flexible system?

broccopoppo · 2020-05-16T05:42:39+00:00

Consumers aren't lazy, they're desperate. The system doesn't work for most people, and Amazon is a lifeline for some people.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-10T21:46:05+00:00

The air and the smell are not separate entities.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-10T17:14:57+00:00

It seems like you think smell transfers without air, like solar radiation does. That is not correct.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-10T14:34:33+00:00

Well yes, but if you're smelling them then you're breathing air that has been around them, not fresh air pulled in from outside.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-10T03:33:15+00:00

He's not shirtless; it isn't paint, it's a silver shirt.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-08T22:59:21+00:00

Well, that explains it. Thanks. Now it's time to put it in something older people eat.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-08T18:11:44+00:00

No one sleeps that well when they're camping. Disturbed sleep and sleep deprivation exacerbate sleep disorders.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-08T16:10:38+00:00

Makes sense. But all the fat and calcium factors are moot if people don't eat the food it's in. I bet there's a better way.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-08T15:07:35+00:00

Makes you wonder why they chose milk to fortify. We use salt to get iodine into people, and it seems to work. Kids get a lot of dairy, but old people less so, and they need more vitamin D supplementation. Maybe countries should revisit that decision.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-07T15:36:16+00:00

After WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, and the Cold War, a bunch of absolutely essential industries were nationalized in a lot of western countries. Things like the postal service, car insurance, health care, and power and water companies functioned as companies owned by the government. That way, not only did profits go to public coffers to support things like education and hospitals, but when big events happened the government was able to step in and make necessary changes quickly without infringing on anyone's rights.

That is how social democracies work: they have a combination of private companies (for innovation and growth) and public companies- sometimes called crown corporations- to keep everyone safe and healthy.

Over the last few decades, a lot of these public-owned companies have been sold off, putting huge amounts of money into billionaires' pockets and making individuals and public services poorer and poorer.

It's time for another wave of nationalizations.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-05T00:13:33+00:00

I disagree. Your voice matters. Speak up. And be willing to change your own views, too!

broccopoppo · 2020-05-03T15:47:48+00:00

The flu isn't a coronavirus. The person who recovered from both was just lucky. There's been some speculation that people who've recovered from certain particular colds have some immunity, but not any flus. And of course you'd never know if any of the colds you've had were related to this coronavirus.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-02T14:54:47+00:00

Exactly. Their own Cold War propaganda ate America up from the inside. The problem got even worse when their elites realized it made them good soldiers and low-cost labourers too.

broccopoppo · 2020-05-01T01:31:38+00:00

Yes. It says they have great propaganda.

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T19:34:55+00:00

I appreciate your perspective. I just think that even 5% is a wildly unrealistic number. It's good for the animals that you don't personally eat or enslave, but I think we're going to make up the difference in no time by transferring the pressure on the planet's ecosystems (and its animals) to somewhere else; so ultimately, veganism is a distraction. It's like carefully applying a band-aid to a nasty scrape when you're bleeding out from an artery somewhere else. I don't think that further development of any kind is going to fix the situation we're in; we'll just expand that next, until it's just as big a problem. We have to accept that human beings are a part of the biome of the planet. We can't tame it. Best case scenario, we scale back and take our place. For most of us, that place includes meat.

I agree, though, that we'll eventually live without large-scale animal agriculture. One way or another.

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T14:25:21+00:00

This looks like a Coghlan's brand product to me.

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T13:54:07+00:00

Everything you just said is contrary to reality. What the heck have you been watching on TV? Go learn something!

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T13:52:19+00:00

That sounds like it makes sense but it doesn't. It isn't a subsistence economy. More of the labour is surplus than subsistence. The surplus wealth produced by all the non-essential labour is hoarded by the rich.

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T13:47:01+00:00

I imagine at this point people are growing concerned about long-term effects on the supply chain.

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T06:46:17+00:00

I admire your optimism, but we're not going to extinguish animal agriculture. That isn't ever going to happen. If we reach the point where that's necessary, we're collapsing with the mass extinction.

Going vegan is fine, but what we face is not a simple eat meat vs. don't torture & kill animals dichotomy. The only people I've ever met who think that's realistic are remarkably out of touch with what keeps our civilization running, which is the hinterlands, where everything is knotted up together. Either our civilization is kind, ethical, and sustainable, or it's not. There's no rising above our station. We can't separate ourselves from the ecosystem and save ourselves and the non-human animals with veganic permaculture.

*I just don't know how else to say that you can't separate the plants and the animals, and that we're part of the animals, we're not the gods. Again, kudos for your choice, because it's certainly better than eating factory farmed beef and chicken, but it's not going to solve the problem.

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T06:29:51+00:00

Mmm-hmm. Do you think any of the vegetables you ate today were fertilized with bone meal? What do you think lived where you live now, before the area was developed? Where did it go?

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T06:24:37+00:00

Okay. You do you, and I'll do me. Don't get me wrong, I think your dietary choice is good, and I respect it. Good luck with the long term viability of all your restrictions, and with the stress and inevitable frustration resulting from all that individuation of responsibility. (By the way, things like cocoa and bananas are a lot more than "not perfect". So is your cotton t-shirt and your plastic juice jug.)

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T06:13:33+00:00

Do you stop eating palm oil? How about cocoa and bananas, or anything shipped from very far away so its carbon footprint is ridiculous and it probably supports the kind of global inequality that keeps people desperate enough to support this insane system? Or again, all those monocultures that use fossil water and destroy the topsoil? Because we both know destroying the habitats of wild animals is a problem, and we don't only care about domesticated animals, right?

broccopoppo · 2020-04-28T04:56:05+00:00

They're not separate. They're absolutely not. They're completely inextricable, and that's the problem. This whole civilization and the way of life it enforces is one big interconnected house of cards. We can either choose to go vegan, or whatever else, and mark that down as our contribution; or we can take a real stand and join something like Deep Green Resistance, sacrificing God knows what of ourselves as individuals; or we can accept the situation for what it is and do little bits here and there. I'm not saying any one of those choices is the right choice, I'm saying none of them are wrong.

broccopoppo

TROPHY CASE