#1 2024-05-08 21:40:46
Capitalism:
Apples Dumped Due to being unsold:
“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all.
Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up?
And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success.
The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit.
And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange.
And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed.
And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
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#2 2024-05-09 11:08:06
And not much has changed since then either, except maybe that now the FedGov pays for farms to not grow food.
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#3 2024-05-09 12:09:11
Stores and middleman raising prices, people are now eating less fruit out of necessity.
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#4 2024-05-09 19:39:16
DmtDusty wrote:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/5640d40ceb0 … e0074c.jpg
Capitalism:
Apples Dumped Due to being unsold:
“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all.
Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up?
And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.
And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success.
The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit.
And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange.
And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed.
And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Not limited to fruit & veggies. Included 6m pigs and tons of dairy as well. Steinbeck forgot to credit FDR & Henry Wallace.
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#5 2024-05-10 11:22:19
When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]." He famously said, "I've done my damnedest to rip a reader's nerves to rags." His work won a large following among the working class, due to his sympathy for the migrants and workers' movement, and his accessible prose style.
Well, yep that Steinbeck description came after Wallace rolled out the Agricultural Adjustment Act with its payments to farmers to not produce. But did FDR admin create the Depression? Or the predatory commodities market of the post war 1920s leading to collapsing prices driving farmers to go broke. All the while they planted more and more in the face of collapsing income.
If Wallace and 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act really were, by some measure, the route of all evil, along with its subsequent price supports codified into the farm lobby, at least they eventually gave us the savior's ambrosia of Reagan Cheese for all! A delicacy I recall worthy of any Maria Antoinette's fine cakes.
At least you can thank your lucky stars Obama ended the Cheese price supports.
But Yay! the billion cheese wheel rolls on for those in need.
Yes, the Government Really Does Stash Billions of Pounds of Cheese in Missouri Caves!
In 1949, the USDA introduced the Dairy Product Price Support Program, later known as the Milk Price Support Program. When the price of dairy products sunk too low for farmers, the USDA would offer to buy up the excess at a stable rate. It bought millions of pounds of cheese, butter and dry milk from producers who would otherwise have lost a lot of money if they only relied on their regular retailers. The result? The dairy market would stabilize, producers would have steady income and prices for the products would eventually rise. Then, once the prices of dairy products hit 125 percent of the support price, the USDA would start selling off its stash in bulk.
...It was a tricky balance to strike. Eventually, the USDA decided it had had enough, ending the price support program in 2014. But it kept hoarding cheese and still does so to this day. Only now, it’s for use in food assistance programs. In the latest cold storage report, the USDA shows a little less than 1.5 billion pounds of cheese in storage, along with 355 million pounds of butter, 211 million pounds of pecans and just less than a billion pounds of french fries (it stores a lot of stuff!).
Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2024-05-10 14:04:14)
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