• wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    65·
    4 months ago

    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.

  • Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    50·
    4 months ago

    say-the-line-bart-2 say-the-line-bart-1

    The Line

    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 certificates—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 quicklime, 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.

    Edit: Pasted the actual section from the text [Penguin Classics e-book edition from 2000]; serves me right for grabbing someone’s half-assed transcription

    • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      36·
      4 months ago

      Lol, you’re missing some of the best parts.

      spoiler

      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.

    • TerminalEncounter [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      26·
      4 months ago

      A lil earlier in that passage it was also literally about pouring kerosene on oranges to make them inedible, like this is actually almost literally out of The Grapes of Wrath

  • umbrella@lemmy.mlEnglish
    49·
    4 months ago

    crazy how they have the food, but people can’t eat because of pieces of paper. worse, nowadays its just variables on a computer system. bits and bytes stored in some hard disks somewhere. i cannot overstate how this blows my mind so i’m not going to even try.

    brazil is one of the biggest producers of food yet a huge chunk of the population is going through food insecurity right now. we have H U G E amounts of unused, deforested, ready to use land and we could probably feed the entire planet. by ourselves if we really wanted to. just sitting on the hands of someone like this to use in service of the aforementioned bits instead. (no but actually him, hes literally one of them)

    dunno about you but i think we can do much better, folks. fuck capitalism. is there a fate worse than death we can make for capitalism and its perpetrators? maybe slow painful death? this one made me kind of angry and i needed sleep instead how the fuck am i supposed to sleep now.

    • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      26·
      4 months ago

      someone like this

      This motherfucker founded the vulture capitalist gang who ruined one of my final treats, Kraft Dinner. It tastes like crap now! In this paper we will explain how capitalis— 🧵(1/227)

  • Lawn_and_disorder [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    4 months ago

    Same thing happens all over. EU have a mountain of diary products that goes into the furnaces now and then.

    Cant sell stuff cheap, better to burn it or spoil it.

    • the best system we got /s
  • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    91·
    4 months ago

    Why are they trashing it tho?
    To keep the supply in line with demand to maintain the price?

    Would the loss incurred here be better than that if they sold it cheaper?

    • daniyeg@lemmy.mlEnglish
      20·
      4 months ago

      storage costs money. if no one is buying anything and your storage is getting filled the fastest way to get rid of it is to just dump it in the wild.

      • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        9·
        4 months ago

        So they consider the resources they spent to cultivate and harvest the fruit to be sunk cost?

        • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          15·
          4 months ago

          Also fruit doesn’t last forever it’s not very shelf stable. So you have to harvest it when you can and if it doesn’t sell in time you have to trash it. Nothing anyone can do with rotting tangerines. Make room for the new harvest by trashing the old harvest so you can at least try to sell something fresh rather than old fruit. There isn’t really another option. Sure you could try to compost it or something but I’m sure these farms already are setup to compost a normal amount of waste, nothing useful to do with tons of extra fruit.

          • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago

            Aah. Would they not try to convert it into juice or so?

            Or do these farmers have govt financial support?

            • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
              1·
              4 months ago

              How are you gonna just make it into juice? What are you gonna put the juice in? How you gonna sterilize the juice? How you gonna store and transport the juice? It’s not that simple

              • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
                1·
                4 months ago

                Not simple, yes, but wouldn’t they check for methods to recoup their investment?

                Or do they have govt aid for bad harvest and stuff?

                Or are they major farmers who can afford the loss, as they can adjust the prices and still be in a profit?

  • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    4 months ago

    Stupid question: surely it would be good PR for your company to donate whatever won’t sell to food banks and shit, right? I know they probably hang onto it until the absolute last minute, doomer but like cmon right?

    • The_Jewish_Cuban [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      191·
      4 months ago

      I’m greedy, everyone around me is greedy, all of society around me is greedy, all of history that I studied through this lens is greedy.

      Clearly humans are inherently greedy soulless bastards and would put a bullet in your head before sharing their surplus of oranges.

      You’re a moron. You’re a moron for thinking that all of humanity can be boiled down to a single emotional factor/desire and then projecting that onto all of history and all of the people around you.

      Log off and go talk with actually good people and your myopic lens of self projection will crumble as learn that not everyone is as callous and rotten as you.

        • HelluvaBottomCarter [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          23·
          4 months ago

          This is mystical nonsense. Kind of like how ancient peoples explained nature using deities. It’s just that people use bunk 17th and 18th century pseudoscience instead of gods.

          Humans want enough. They don’t naturally want more than others. It’s the structure of society that creates greed. Greed is not a spirit inhabiting the bodies of individuals who then shape society to be greedy. It’s a dialectical process between the base and the superstructure. It’s not magical feelings stored in our DNA.

        • The_Jewish_Cuban [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          15·
          4 months ago

          These faux “concessions” you’re making in order to make your pseudoscience sound more palatable are easy to see through. You’re pathetic for misunderstanding humanity to such an extent.

          “I don’t want your millions mister”

          Fuck off and read the comment again.

          Edit: also desire? Desire? You may as well have said motivation. It’s a term which covers so much you might as well say nothing at all. Which would be good and you should try that next time before spouting your unexamined justifications for being a piece of shit who wipes his hands clean of a social system which destroys food while others starve.

    • Mokey [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      11·
      4 months ago

      But what if we didnt do that and acknowledged all the times someone did something because it was cool, interesting, nice to do or just because.