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Here's a random (badly google translated) article about pubs in czechoslovakia. It's more about what's changed and what hasn't, but it does include this sentence:quote:Beaten walls, draft beer, washed tablecloths and regular visits by members of the SNB checking the identity cards of the guests - somehow it looked like during the previous regime in pubs throughout Czechoslovakia. And as for the burning of plastic it was really horrid, the smell I remember from childhood was utterly rank. We'd do things like go with neighbours to a house that was being demolished and divide up particleboard out of it to burn. Thankfully I lived in a city and only came to visit once a month or so.
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Nov 4, 2019 17:41
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| # ? May 25, 2024 06:35 |
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So here's how things are now in Croatia if anyone's interestedPrivate Speech posted:Also not having to deal with censorship Courts are quite effective in curtailing free speech and censorship right now. Different process, same results. quote:not having to serve in the army Compulsory military service got suspended somewhere in late 2000s. Note "suspended", not cancelled. quote:not considering buying sweets twice a month a luxury, It was never a luxury in 1980s. Yugoslav sweets were somewhat disgusting tho. quote:being able to read and write whatever books you want This is true. Unless, of course, you are a leftist author and you can't find a publisher quote:being able to travel and migrate freely We were travelling waaaaay more in the 1980s. People can't afford it now. Also, when it comes to migrations, guess why half of young people in Croatia hosed off to Ireland or Germany. quote:having a good chance of going to university (without a bunch of idological commission backstabbing), "Great saint Tito, father of the nation" got replaced by "Great saint Tuđman, father of the nation". There's also catholic church that is getting increasingly integrated with universities and pushing their agenda to students. quote:not being subject to forced farm work (topical) That wasn't a thing. quote:not getting jailed for being in a pub on a workday That wasn't a thing either quote:having ready access to abortions (exc. Poland), being able to be openly homosexual and trans (the latter to a degree), That's why we now have scum like Judith Reisman giving lectures to our parliament, US and church-funded organizations working on a comprehensive abortion ban, increase in hate crimes against LGBT community and so on. quote:being able to get meaningfully involved with politics, being able to freely choose one's place of work That also wasn't a thing. quote:not getting arrested for a variety of petty ideological offences, etc. Recently, bosnian-croatian citizen got deported for liking and sharing Che memes on facebook. People are getting arrested and fined for writing "ACAB" on facebook or wearing shirts with marijuana leaf symbols on them. And so on. Private Speech posted:I won't pretend there aren't issues with modern capitalism, particularly for young people who did not benefit from keeping their houses from the 80s and depopulated rural areas, but the creature comforts of life are incomparably better and e.g. income inequality is still among the lowest in the world (albeit depending on the country). Which might be a condemnation of the modern world more than anything else, but let's not pretend it's some horrid dystopian nightmare. I won't pretend Yugoslavia in the eighties was some shining beacon, it was still corrupt as all hell, but people could reasonably expect decent health care, robust social safety net and to not work until they die. Gervasius fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Nov 4, 2019 |
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Nov 4, 2019 17:42
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Wasn't Yugoslavia one of the more "free" socialist regimes though? I don't mean to discount the experience, but all of the things I wrote did happen at least in the country where I'm from. I suppose the whole poverty thing is relative too, admitedly the Czech Republic is among the richer countries in eastern europe these days. I imagine in Croatia/Romania/Bulgaria in particular things are a bit rougher.
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Nov 4, 2019 17:52
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Tesseraction posted:Truga is from Yugoslavia which might explain their different view on the situation compared to people directly under Soviet control. Yeah, Yugoslavia wasn't nearly as bad as actual warsaw pact countries and 80s, when I was growing up, were actually quite decent when it comes to quality of life.
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Nov 4, 2019 17:53
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Yugoslavia wasn't embargoed by the West, likewise Romania. Meant they had relative freedoms compared to the Soviet bloc. There's a reason leftists deride 'tankies' without abandoning socialism as an ideology.
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Nov 4, 2019 17:54
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Massive caveat tho since Romania did some wayyyy more hosed up poo poo. Geamana is hauntingly beautiful  The civilians were marched out of their homes so it could become an excavation water runoff. A toxic soup where once people walked...
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Nov 4, 2019 17:57
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One interesting thing I found in the article I posted above is that alcohol labels used to include the calorie content (it's in the brown bit) Oddly progressive. I'm not sure if the EU even requires that these days?
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Nov 4, 2019 18:29
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Private Speech posted:One interesting thing I found in the article I posted above is that alcohol labels used to include the calorie content (it's in the brown bit) Oddly progressive. I'm not sure if the EU even requires that these days? Just checked a nearby can and they have it, seems to be mandated. 42kcal for a 500 ml, 5%er. e: 176 kJ/100ml Tesseraction fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Nov 5, 2019 |
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Nov 5, 2019 01:31
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Tesseraction posted:I'm specifically thinking of the reporting by George Monbiot, culminating in this one https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/10/brexit-leaving-eu-farming-agriculture Sorry, what's the benefit meant to be of maintaining hobby farms?
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Nov 5, 2019 03:01
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Not hobby farms, small farms. Which is 90% of farms in the world. I.e. what most people need to survive.
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Nov 5, 2019 11:20
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In typical industrialised countries only around 5% of the labor force works in agriculture.
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Nov 5, 2019 13:14
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Most people certainly don't need small farms to survive.
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Nov 5, 2019 13:17
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Ah, but the real farm is one billion pigs in a skyscraper, designed to minimize the volume wasted on things other than pig flesh, all the animals being clones of the same pig genetically engineered to have the fastest, most efficient growth, and doused in a constant shower of antibiotics because since they're all exactly identical genetically, if a disease were to appear it'd immediately affect all the billion pigs in the skyscraper. The real farm is ten thousand hectares of intensive monoculture, again with the single clone of some genetically engineered crop, and again constantly doused in pesticides because if some parasite or disease were to affect one of them, it would affect all of them since they're identical and the only cultivar used worldwide since it's the one that's the most efficient. The real farm is the farm that drains water from the aquifer at a thousand times the speed at which it can be replenished. The real farm is the one that causes the children born in rural areas to be malformed. The real farm is the one that it doing everything it can to ensure that we will have to face massive famines in the near future, as it encourages the apparition of antibiotics-resistant bacterias, pesticide-resistant pests, the destruction of natural ecosystems, and the inability for farmers to keep their activity once their single super-cultivar has to go the way of the gros-michel. If you're doing something "sustainable in the long term" then it's just some hobby farm for kiddies that needs to be stamped out ASAP to make way for the glorious future of efficient, productive industrial farming.
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Nov 5, 2019 13:20
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Cat Mattress posted:one billion pigs in a skyscraper Feel like this is a metaphor for the Trump administration.
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Nov 5, 2019 13:37
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that's incredibly rude to pigs
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Nov 5, 2019 14:13
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Cat Mattress posted:Ah, but the real farm is one billion pigs in a skyscraper, designed to minimize the volume wasted on things other than pig flesh, all the animals being clones of the same pig genetically engineered to have the fastest, most efficient growth, and doused in a constant shower of antibiotics because since they're all exactly identical genetically, if a disease were to appear it'd immediately affect all the billion pigs in the skyscraper. Gotta love that reductionism between 'pig skyscraper' and 'small farm which is (at least implied to be) the reverse and much better'.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:20
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Most small farms are run by rich assholes as hobby farms, insane idiots as struggling businesses, or sometimes both.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:31
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Most small farms are run by rich assholes as hobby farms, insane idiots as struggling businesses, or sometimes both. Definitely not true. There are a few that are owned as playthings, but that's one hell of a money sink even if you're rich - you'd lose less money opening a Terminator-inspired restaurant or something. I'm not saying there aren't insane idiots among farming, but the vast, vast majority of them are run as family farm that are inherited down the line (sometimes as part of an old-rear end aristocratic families', but more often just normally). Not least because actually buying a farm + land is incredibly expensive in most countries and your rate of return is pretty garbage. Definitely a lot of farms are struggling financially, but that's (mostly) not due to poo poo business practices, but to hideous circumstances way outside an individual farmers' control.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:35
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Goon in the UKMT ran a small organic farm with her husband that focused on above and beyond animal welfare standards for the oinkers over their lifetime. Had to give it up thanks to Breckssit.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:40
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Tesseraction posted:Goon in the UKMT ran a small organic farm with her husband that focused on above and beyond animal welfare standards for the oinkers over their lifetime. Yeah, small organic high standard farm is completely hosed unless you have a customer base that's willing to pay high premiums for that poo poo, and unless you're really, really good at marketing it's not gonna work out well for you.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:42
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What is the obsession with seeing farmers as temporarily embarrassed allies when from what we see and what happens they will vote right right and more right because f the environment and f immigrants and f everyone that's not me or my family.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:48
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An insane mind posted:What is the obsession with seeing farmers as temporarily embarrassed allies when from what we see and what happens they will vote right right and more right because f the environment and f immigrants and f everyone that's not me or my family. Because eating is good.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:51
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An insane mind posted:What is the obsession with seeing farmers as temporarily embarrassed allies when from what we see and what happens they will vote right right and more right because f the environment and f immigrants and f everyone that's not me or my family. Depends where the farmer is, but I broadly agree.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:52
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Tesseraction posted:Goon in the UKMT ran a small organic farm with her husband that focused on above and beyond animal welfare standards for the oinkers over their lifetime. Yeah, small organic high standard farm is completely hosed unless you have a customer base that's willing to pay high premiums for that poo poo, and unless you're really, really good at marketing it's not gonna work out well for you.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:53
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"Organic" farm means a hobby farm though. And certainly not caring about high standards. It's a bit gauche to still fall for organic marketing these days. An insane mind posted:What is the obsession with seeing farmers as temporarily embarrassed allies when from what we see and what happens they will vote right right and more right because f the environment and f immigrants and f everyone that's not me or my family. This. It's people with centuries of land holding to their name or its people who recently got pretty big chunks of cash and decided to buy in to that system. forkboy84 posted:Because eating is good. You absolutely don't need to fund random large property holders for that.
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Nov 5, 2019 14:58
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fishmech posted:"Organic" farm means a hobby farm though. And certainly not caring about high standards. It's a bit gauche to still fall for organic marketing these days. I know a lot of very serious farmers who switched to organic, the first batch because they were believers who wanted a different way to farm, and the second batch (much larger) who went in because the profit margins were better.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:03
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Weird doublepost thing.
Junior G-man fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Nov 5, 2019 |
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Nov 5, 2019 15:09
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An insane mind posted:What is the obsession with seeing farmers as temporarily embarrassed allies when from what we see and what happens they will vote right right and more right because f the environment and f immigrants and f everyone that's not me or my family. What people not grown up on the countryside seem to misunderstand is that first world farmers are largely asset-rich and income-poor. They sit on these assets worth millions of euros but are also overleveraged, making pennies on the dollar in return and often struggle to eat the end of month. Ergo, small farmers are overtly pro-business because they need all the state aid and tax cuts right-wing politicians can hand them just to stay solvent. The non-leveraged part of the equation is even worse because what they can't afford in machines and infrastructure they compensate with by very unethical and shady labour. It's all poo poo.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:19
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The biggest problem with farming income is that it's a buyer's market and the buyers keep their price as low as possible, usually below the production costs for the farmers. So they only survive through subsidies, unless they commercialize their own production themselves.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:33
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Junior G-man posted:Weird doublepost thing. Try not refreshing when the post fails, it happened to me too in UKMT.
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Nov 5, 2019 15:52
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Junior G-man posted:I'm not saying there aren't insane idiots among farming, but the vast, vast majority of them are run as family farm that are inherited down the line (sometimes as part of an old-rear end aristocratic families', but more often just normally). If Dutch farmers are anything to go by the latter category is still comprised entirely of insane idiots.
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Nov 5, 2019 22:03
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Orange Devil posted:If Dutch farmers are anything to go by the latter category is still comprised entirely of insane idiots. My sample is mostly personal experience with Australian farmers and about the same experience there. If not the blindly greedy types who are angry that they can't literally drain rivers dry to grow cotton in the desert. (see also: California)
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Nov 6, 2019 05:01
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Ghost Leviathan posted:If not the blindly greedy types who are angry that they can't literally drain rivers dry to grow cotton in the desert. (see also: California) That's just the Dutch national spirit.
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Nov 6, 2019 07:38
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Cat Mattress posted:If you're doing something "sustainable in the long term" then it's just some hobby farm for kiddies that needs to be stamped out ASAP to make way for the glorious future of efficient, productive industrial farming. Farming is by definition ecologically destructive and harmful so your choice is whatever you personally feel is less bad. There's no good way to wipe out a forrest with thousands of species of plants and trees and the vast variety of insects and animals that live there in order to plant one type of grass. Ok so the grass is not genetically identical and you're not using pesticides. Fine but that forrest with all its variety is still gone. The idea that it's better is like saying a forrest fire is less bad because you didn't use chemicals to limit its spread. Sure more forrest was destroyed but it was destroyed in the right way! I don't have a problem with banning all pesticides or exclusively growing heirlooms or whatever but you're just trading one bad thing for another. You're still loving the planet just in a different position.
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Nov 6, 2019 09:43
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Owling Howl posted:Farming is by definition ecologically destructive and harmful so your choice is whatever you personally feel is less bad. There's no good way to wipe out a forrest with thousands of species of plants and trees and the vast variety of insects and animals that live there in order to plant one type of grass. Ok so the grass is not genetically identical and you're not using pesticides. Fine but that forrest with all its variety is still gone. The idea that it's better is like saying a forrest fire is less bad because you didn't use chemicals to limit its spread. Sure more forrest was destroyed but it was destroyed in the right way! A lot of those fields haven't been forests for so long that species have evolved that rely on them. Especially with the older field/hegerow pattern. And stopping all forest fires is obviously harmful for the species that rely on forest fires. I can't even imagine why anybody would think otherwise.
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Nov 6, 2019 10:50
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Farming is incredibly susceptible to Tragedy of the Commons issues in general and ideally should be nationalised and centrally planned to be anything resembling sustainable. I mean, we already have massive farm subsidies and farmers paid not to grow anything because of the whole national food supply during wartime being important thing, which is basically a tacit admission of such. The whole model of family farms in a boom-and-bust economy is already a recipe for the worst possible influences, on top of living in isolated regions in a perilous financial situation, and that's not even getting into how climate change is going to gently caress them over first and bad. (and in many places already doing so)
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Nov 6, 2019 11:08
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farm subsidies should be useful for driving the wholesale restructuring that agriculture desperately needs, and it's crazy to me that hardly anyone actually tries to suggest things about this - instead it's all lazy poo poo like adding fees to the purchase of meat etc make a big old land management plan and restructure the CAP to push it - if done properly it wouldn't even make life any harder for the farmers!
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Nov 6, 2019 11:10
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V. Illych L. posted:if done properly it wouldn't even make life any harder for the farmers! I think in this thread you'll find that to be a deal breaker.
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Nov 6, 2019 13:03
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His Divine Shadow posted:I think in this thread you'll find that to be a deal breaker. One of the reasons I find farmers to be insane idiots is because they keep cheering on policies and political parties which make life harder for them.
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Nov 6, 2019 17:47
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Farmers vote for policies that favor "Farmers", by which they mean the people who own the debt/stocks of the farms/agribusinesses. Same as with artists, and probably all fields where independent workers/small businesses are perceived as being the norm.
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Nov 6, 2019 18:30
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