Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/24/baldwin-groceries.html
…
15 Likes
What happened to that town sounds kinda similar to what happened to a nearby town.
I live in a deeply conservative county, probably the most conservative one in New York. What happened is the town was a food desert so Hochul worked out a deal to get Albany to provide a grant to a local businessman to open a Save A Lot there. It unfortunately closed a few years later.
17 Likes
It’s only “socialism” if it’s a government program that helps other people, not if it’s a government program that helps me.
63 Likes
On the one hand, I’m fine with these rubes deluding themselves that the socialist institutions they set up aren’t socialist, as long as they deliver goods and services where for-profit corporations can’t or won’t.
On the other hand, we have to be aware that people who take this approach are right-wing populists, which in turn means that they’ll take every step they can to exclude the “undeserving” (in the U.S., read that as PoC) from enjoying the benefits of their “totally-not-socialist” socialist enterprise.*
[* ETA: this also happens in countries where people acknowledge and take pride in socialist institutions – see AfD in Germany]
46 Likes
Florida Town…
10 Likes
The right-wing South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee invented his own form of totally not socialist agricultural collectivisation.
6 Likes
I’m… not so interested in de-brain-washing the 60+ crowd: the matter will resolve itself.
14 Likes
Not to put too fine a point on it, but if median income is your only metric, $44k/year on a global scale means you’re in the 1%-bracket.
6 Likes
Everybody knows all Americans are rich 
12 Likes
Lend us a fiver, then?
11 Likes
That’s what a lot of people said about racists but they keep making new ones.
53 Likes
Socialism is bad if you are a libertarian un-regulated capitalist kind of guy, who does not want the democratic system to actually represent the majority b/c that would put limits on the worst aspects of capitalism that hurts individuals and society.
In other words, socialism is bad if you are a greedy manipulative asshole who doesn’t give a f**k about anybody else.
29 Likes
A spectre is haunting Baldwin, Florida…
10 Likes
But - weirdly - more 60+ people keep appearing. I can’t figure it out. 
Seriously, this is only partially an age-demographic-specific thing and, further, age itself seems to mould attitudes in some.
11 Likes
some of these will survive the singularity. what then?
1 Like
Right, it’s bad for republicans and a lot of establishment democrats.
10 Likes
If you happen to be in Toronto, the Merril Collection holds all of the original Jack Gaughan illustrations to the original pulp publication of Leiber’s novel. You could ask to see them.
2 Likes
It’s no different that calling something “cancel culture” when it can also be called shunning or “woke” when it could be called aware.
Now ask yourself how is an email different from a letter carried by pony express or a mail truck.
I’m betting many will tell you it is different, and this is where I noticed the start of this nonsense.
Just because we slap a different label on it, doesn’t make it different.
1 Like
I keep reading about food co-ops opening in “red” areas, and everyone involved goes far, far out of their way to avoid calling them “co-ops” because those are for filthy libruls, don’tcha know.
22 Likes
It’s not socialism if it’s the town running a business or a service for the benefit of everyone in town? Okay, can we please use our tax dollars to set up high-speed internet/cable service for everyone in town? The one option we have is extremely expensive, unreliable and comes with awful customer service. What? What do you mean it’s against the law? It’s against the law for the people in a town to decide (by voting) what they want to build or buy with the town’s money for the benefit of the townspeople?
10 Likes
