It is going to be a long fucking decade.

  • OgdenTO [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    Something that really bothers me about any discussion relating to agriculture is how the word farmer is thrown around as if it’s clear who they’re referring to. Like, the farmers, I believe are actually the owners, right? And the workers are the people who actually do the farming work?

    Of course the owners are resisting extra safety measures. It costs money.

    • lil_tank@lemmygrad.ml
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      6 months ago

      Since capitalist modernization of agriculture, the word “farmer” has lost all meaning. Some are genuinely trying to grow the best vegetables ever while others never touched dirt in their life and spend all day doing finance bro stuff

    • Ivysaur@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      6 months ago

      Just based on my own experience the workers are probably refusing it too. My wife works retail and practically begs her coworkers daily to wear something, anything. We give them our own supply and they say no. Americans of all stripes are genuinely unwell.

      • GalaxyBrain [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        I can’t get my co-worker to use the fucking hand guard when operating a meat slicer. There’s also the constant using of milk crates instead of ladders. There is absolutely no reason to neglect safety to get the job done faster. You’re hourly

        • Sons_of_Ferrix@hexbear.net
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          6 months ago

          Beyond propaganda, this is also the sad reality that a lot of PPE is uncomfortable as hell. I’ve never worn a comfortable pair of steel toes, face shields get fogged up in un-airconditioned warehouses, and let me tell you how nasty your hands will smell after a day of sweating into protective gloves. It fucking sucks, it’s necessary but it fucking sucks.

          • anarchoilluminati [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            6 months ago

            Yeah, that’s true. I had really comfortable steel toed Doc Martens though, for what it’s worth. But they were for concerts, not labor. People kept stepping on my toes so I upgraded.

            I have a feeling it’s more ideology than discomfort though.

            • nohaybanda [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              6 months ago

              It’s also motivated by dogshit working conditions. The discomfort of wearing PPE can be managed by offering more breaks and planning for time lost to ensure proper safety. Now, how many places allow for any of that?

          • Ivysaur@lemmygrad.mlOP
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            6 months ago

            I am not very sympathetic to this perspective at least as it pertains specifically to respiratory PPE for two reasons:

            1. I have an autoimmune disorder that means I don’t really have a choice in the matter if I do it or not, regardless if it is the most uncomfortable thing in the world. If I can do it, any one else can, too.

            2. My wife works on her feet for eight hours a day with a total commute of about three hours on public transportation round trip, never taking the N95 off at any time in this window aside from a half-hour isolated outdoor lunch break, and by her own admission it is not bad & she seems to manage just fine with all the discomfort people seem to hoot and hollar about. I just don’t buy it.

            • Sons_of_Ferrix@hexbear.net
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              6 months ago

              Oh I wasn’t referring to masks specifically. Those generally aren’t that uncomfortable. Only time I’ve had an issue with a mask at work is when I got so sweaty the thing literally melted off my face. That was an edge case though.

              • Ivysaur@lemmygrad.mlOP
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                6 months ago

                I just re-read your response and I feel I ought to at least apologize for not realizing it sounds like you’re in real rough manufacturing or engineering of some kind which I understand the discomfort more. I just have such a hair trigger anger response to hearing this same shit from teenage cashiers and middle-aged managers who sit in their back offices all day, saying shit like “it’s so uncomfortable” for a couple of rubber straps on their heads. It’s ridiculous.

                • Sons_of_Ferrix@hexbear.net
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                  6 months ago

                  I used to work in industrial brewing, which yeah is pretty hot and sweaty. And yeah masks can caffe a bit in this conditions. But even there I managed to deal.

                  Now I’m trying to get my masters degree. So don’t worry about it.

    • Greenleaf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      The media will say “farmer” and Americans conjure up an image of the yeoman farmer - the rugged, self-sufficient hard-workin’ (white) man. But this isn’t 1824. At best, the typical farmer (really, “farm owner” is more appropriate) is pretty involved in the business aspect and may even be out there regularly in the crops and checking out things. But still, most of the work is done by poorly paid workers - the overwhelming majority are undocumented. And at worst, the farm owner just lives in a sprawling farmhouse and does nothing other than cut a check to a management company (who still just hires mainly undocumented workers).

      I don’t actually want this happen because it hurts workers, but I almost would like to see racist chuds get their wish and have every undocumented worker deported. That would create an economic collapse that would make the 2009 financial crisis look like a balloon party. This country would starve as the ag industry would collapse overnight.

      • JohnBrownNote [comrade/them, des/pair]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        don’t actually want this happen because it hurts workers, but I almost would like to see racist chuds get their wish and have every undocumented worker deported. That would create an economic collapse that would make the 2009 financial crisis look like a balloon party. This country would starve as the ag industry would collapse overnight.

        there have been state-level crackdowns that caused problems like this but the hogs can’t look at that and stop being racist for ten minutes

    • Dolores [love/loves]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      american ‘farmers’ are latifundistas, not cultivators. they’re slavedrivers of unfree precarious labor at the most ‘personal’ level or regular bourgeois rentiers that don’t even see the harvest

    • Sephitard9001 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Something that really bothers me about any discussion relating to agriculture is how the word farmer is thrown around as if it’s clear who they’re referring to. Like, the farmers, I believe are actually the owners, right? And the workers are the people who actually do the farming work?

      chad-stalin

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      I’ve said it before, the idea of them being kindly old white men that just want to tend to their fields is pure propaganda.

      What’s funny is that they don’t even need that. Most people in this country would rush to defend them since “gubmint can’t tell US what to do!”

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    Farmers resist…

    Public health is now is the government politely asking businesses to the right thing, the businesses saying no, and then government pretending everything is fine.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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      6 months ago

      This too recieved significant resistance back in the day. Ultimately, as it always happened, med chuds were bullied into doing that.

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    The west declines not in a grand epic battle against the rising socialism but because it can no longer get its population to vaccinate and perform basic protective measures against an increasing number of serious diseases. Its population becomes weak, disabled, burdened, and productive output can not be maintained. It simply fizzles out underneath its own inability to exert authority for any purpose other than to put boots on necks.

    • Sephitard9001 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Americans heaping rubbish on Stalin’s grave: sicko-yes Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! stalin-stressed

      Americans when the wind of history sweeps it away without mercy: sicko-no Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck. stalin-garrison

    • §ɦṛɛɗɗịɛ ßịⱺ𝔩ⱺɠịᵴŧ@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      While SARS-CoV-2 has mutation baked into it’s replication cycle, the mechanism of mutation is rudimentary in comparison to influenza. This makes not wearing protection exponentially dumber in this scenario. Virologist estimate it’ll only take ~10 direct human infections from chickens or cows until the virus is ready for human to human transmission. We already got one on the books from a dairy farm at the end of March. The infections which occur prior to the virus adapting to humans are brutal too, as it attaches to the α2:3 receptor, which are only found deep in the human lung. Thus the wild mortality rate with these infections until the tropism shifts to α2:6, which are found thorough out our respiratory tract…

  • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    At least in Colorado, whenever an infected wild bird landed in a poultry farm they had to cull the entire flock. That must be weeks if not a couple months of lost production, unfulfilled contracts, and wasted inputs. All while their labour force either moves on or gets a disease with a 50% fatality rate. Maybe insurance will cover it the first few times it happens, but with the premiums going up to account for that risk. This is so stupid.

    • GlueBear [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Let’s stop drinking milk tbh, oat milk and soy milk are delicious. This shit (factory animal farms) keeps killing us.

      Dairy farms are part of the reason why E.coli and listeria outbreaks on produce keep happening too.

    • Ivysaur@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      6 months ago

      And yet something tells me that if we really wanted to we could find a way. We’ll move heaven and earth to get Israel tens of billions in munitions but don’t ask us how to keep equipment from getting wet

      • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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        6 months ago

        In the specific situation of Dairies, you can’t keep things from getting wet. Everything is constantly getting sprayed down will water/cleaning solutions.

        While I’m not a very good comrade when it comes to Animal Rights and Veganism, I tend towards agreeing with the idea that large animal operations probably should be scaled way back if not stopped completely.

    • carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Yea this right here. Regular masks are completely ineffective when wet, and loads of agricultural work/animal work/food processing work happens in wet environnents.

    • barrbaric [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Could do full-mask respirators? Incorporates the goggles into the mask, and the filters should be okay unless you’re like spraying water directly into the intakes.

    • Sons_of_Ferrix@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      “These workers have these fogged goggles all the time, which actually predisposes them to injuries,”

      I used to work at a brewery and this is indeed kinda a thing, unfortunately.

  • FnordPrefect [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    6 months ago

    dem “If you knew how to Follow The Science you would see this is actually very smart. As everyone knows, a pandemic’s vision is based on movement. So as long as we do absolutely nothing about it, it won’t be able to find us to make us sick! I mean, why else would I stop the CDC from wastewater testing?”

    • Welp, the α2:3 receptors found thorough out the avian respiratory tract are also found thorough out their digestive tract…This is why factory farms using chicken litter (scrap bird feed + bird feathers + bird shit) to feed cattle has led to the first ever cases of avian flu in cows. If cows have it, won’t be long before pigs get it, and they’re the perfect mixing vessels as they have both α2:3 and α2:6 in their respiratory tract. This is the ideal setup for influenza’s classic reassortment mutation, which could easily lead to another pandemic. But, maybe this was your point lol