It all started here….
10:40 am By la Macha · animals|children|Controversia|Health|U.S.-Mexico Border
29 Apr 2009
I’m not really sure why CNN feels the need to run the story about where swine flu started. According CNN, this little boy is “ground zero” of the swine flu–which means what? That this little boy is the original site of destruction and violence? And wouldn’t you figure it, this original site of destruction and violence is a Mexican that is eating ice cream while the rest of us scream frantically and crawl on our hands and knees through the street.
Damn Mexicans.
I don’t know, though. I found this part of the article to be much more beneficial in understanding the whole scope of things:
Edgar has managed to bounce back from his symptoms and playfully credits ice cream for helping him feel better.
His mother blamed the virus on a huge pig farm in the neighborhood. Officials have conducted tests at the farm owned by U.S. company Smithfield Foods, and those tests came back negative.Meanwhile, Mexican health officials suspect the swine flu outbreak has caused more than 159 deaths and roughly 2,500 illnesses.
That little section made me remember that factory pig farms are some of the worst polluters in the world.
“North Carolina’s ten million hogs produce twice as much feces and urine as the populations of the cities of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago combined. Industrial farms, most with thousands of hogs each, store the waste in open-air pits, called lagoons. They spray the waste, untreated, as manure on adjacent fields.”
So those dear little piggies may be as healthy as can be, but anybody breathing in their shit being sprayed on adjacent fields is probably going to have some problems.
But who wants to talk about the ethics and problems of factory farming practices when we can demonize ice cream eating little boys?
- Tags: 'ground zero', mexico, racism, swine flu
Hola!
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10 Responses to It all started here….
Kesi Garcia
April 29th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I saw this story on ABC news this morning. I wondered why no one was making a big deal about it being an American company. If we make a big deal about it being an American company, we wouldn’t be able to continue blaming it so much on those “dirty” Mexicans. Shucks. And to think we Americans don’t keep our domestic pigs cleaner.
brynnapple
April 29th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
lets all just take the easy way out and blame the U.S.A for the misdeeds of a PRIVATE company. Really, lets call a spade a spade and cut the bull.
SA
April 30th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Brynapple – I don’t *think* she’s saying “Let’s blame all of America for what this one company did”. I think she’s saying “Blaming all Americans for the actions of one company makes as much sense as blaming all Mexicans because a little boy got sick.”
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brynnapple
April 30th, 2009 at 9:00 am
sorry SA, dont buy that explanation. it was a clear dramatiztion of a viral outbreak that no one had control of. To imply that somehow the US has sent the message that it is the fault of “dirty mexicans” is unfair and does a disservice to those families who are suffering through this tough time. As i said before, lets cut the bull and have a real convo about the fact that mexico city is basically shut down ad there’s not enogh masks to go around for the healthcare workers. Or about how here in the US we are broke and can’t even aford to combat a wide-spread flu epidemis if it should occur here.
la Macha
April 30th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
really brynnapple?? how do you know that “no one had control of” this outbreak? They’ve been able to find the cause of pretty much every major outbreak before this: polio=mass pushing of no breastfeeding by milk corporations, black plague=rats, AIDS/HIV=monkey’s infecting humans–and everybody agrees that constant easy transportation over borders=quick spreading of every single known disease ever. There are ways to “control” virus outbreaks–unfortunately, the corporate culpability in outbreaks are rarely discussed or acknowledged until after the whole thing is done.
And frankly, I don’t give a shit if it was U.s. factories or Mexican or Alien Space owned factory–this would not be the first time factories have made people sick–and it would not be the first time that factories culpability in making people sick is hidden (notice the town in Wyoming, I think it was, that has thousands of people sick, hundreds dead because the local factory was shooting pollutants into the air. this is today, right now.). I want people to stop getting sick over preventable things. I care more about people than defending nationalism or corporate pocket books. How about you?
brynnapple
April 30th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
you seem quite angry, please take a breather. Remember that anytime we point the finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at us. To totally blame the companies and not the local municipalities that except money under the table to essentially turn a blind eye to possible abuses is even worse because they’re selling out their own constituents. There’s plenting of blame to go around, but where are the solutions..I’d prefer to have that conversation
la Macha
April 30th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
do I seem angry brynnapple? that’s so weird.
brynnapple
April 30th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
hahaha…lol
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