RE: [SLUG] Politics, ethics etc.

From: Ken Elliott (kelliott4@tampabay.rr.com)
Date: Sun Nov 20 2005 - 17:42:51 EST


SS >> One hundred years ago man was far more kinder to man.

RM >> my wife is black and might disagree with you about how
RM >> wonderful things were 100 years ago.

RM >> Public hangings were common -- and not just for blacks.
RM >> People starved to death in this country.
...

And that was my point. Some things are worse and some things are better.
How do you go about measuring such a thing? One man's experience might be
better - another's worse. And none of us were alive over 200 years ago, so
there's actually very little data to base an opinion.

Like the weather, it changes all the time, but the average changes little.

Ken Elliott

=====================
-----Original Message-----
From: slug@nks.net [mailto:slug@nks.net] On Behalf Of Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 9:14 PM
To: slug@nks.net
Subject: Re: [SLUG] Politics, ethics etc.

> One hundred years ago man was far more kinder to man. We left doors
> largely unlocked and when we saw a stranger we greeted him. Offered
> him a chair and food and drink.
>

Ummm.... my wife is black and might disagree with you about how wonderful
things were 100 years ago.

Also, 100 years ago in the U.S., there were no problems with illegal drugs
because marijuana, cocaine, and opium derivatives (including Bayer's
patented pain reliever, Heroin), were all readily available and were sold
openly, either on their own or as ingredients in products such as Lydia
Pinkham's tonic, Coca-Cola, and so on. In other words, people back then used
drugs. Lots of drugs. The illegalization of what are now called "controlled
substances" didn't begin until 1911.

Public hangings were common -- and not just for blacks. People starved to
death in this country. Routinely. Medical care was better than it had been
in the 1800s, since the idea of sterilization had taken hold -- in large
part because the women's auxiliary of the First Unitarian Church in
Baltimore talked a wealthy church member named Johns Hopkins into putting up
money for a "scientific" medical school in the mid-1800s, and the germ
theory was taught there -- and spread. But still: no antibiotics, and few of
the other life-saving drugs and surgical procedures we now take for granted
were available.

Your local public library -- likely funded by Andrew Carnegie -- was the
closest thing you had to the Internet. (If you were white; non-whites
suffered from a major "print divide" because they weren't allowed to use
most public libraries.)

Outside of major cities, almost everyone used outhouses. Indoor plumbing
didn't become common in rural areas and small towns until the Rural
Electrification Project in the 1930s. (The REA was the kind of
government-funded do-gooder project we shun today.)

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/ will tell you about the Triangle
Factory fire. Public revulsion at the deaths it caused led to unionization
and better working conditions. My maternal grandmother, Annie, had a cousin
who died there. Jews were often treated little better than blacks back then.
There were no workplace safety rules, no disability insurance policies, no
social security. If you got hurt or died on the job, too bad. There were
plenty of immigrants waiting in line to replace you.

A big reason people left their doors unlocked back in the good 'ol days, 100
years ago, was that someone was almost always home. Most people lived on
farms. Children commonly got 4 - 8 years of schooling, then went to work in
the fields or for local businesses. Grandparents stayed with their families.
Those old, tiny cracker houses you see in Ybor City and the older Florida
towns often had 10 - 12 people living in them -- all sharing the same
outhouse. Plus, there were a *lot* of crippled kids to sit on the porches
and watch the place. Polio epidemics cropped up every few years until mass
vaccination in the 1950s. And yeah, it was live vaccine and a few kids died
or got crippled from taking it, but no one sued over what was considered the
greatest medical miracle of the time. Vaccine developers, especially Doctors
Salk and Sabin, were considered national heroes.

Prostitution was normal. Indeed, for many young, unmarried women 100 years
ago, it was the best career available. Venereal disease and pregnancy were
known risks, but if you go look at the Triangle Factory website, you can see
the alternative. I grew up out west, where women commonly came as whores,
eventually married customers -- and started movements to ban saloons and
"dance parlors." Famous Ambrose Bierce quote about California politicians
asking for your vote on the basis that they'd been born there (unlike most
candidates, who had moved there from somewhere else): "The miners came in
forty-nine, the whores in fifty-one. And when they got together, they made
the native son."

(If you don't know who Ambrose Bierce was, you're missing some of the
funniest and most warped writing ever done on this continent. Go down to the
Carnegie Library and check out "The Devil's Dictionary." You'll love
it.)

Anyway, I think life has gotten better over the last 100 years.

If nothing else, tires last longer and cars need tuneups less often. And
- WAIT - most of us have cars now, while hardly anyone did back then.

- Robin

 

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official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.



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