shit MANarchists say

[cesare]

Yes. That is the same thing. It's the government's fault people are fat.

There are a limited number of jobs which is less than the number of people who need them. So people don't have complete control over whether or not they have a job.

What there is not a limited supply of is excercise and non-consumption of pies.

Consumerism, in whatever form, is a consequence of Capitalism.

 

[Random]

Yes. That is the same thing. It's the government's fault people are fat.

There are a limited number of jobs which is less than the number of people who need them. So people don't have complete control over whether or not they have a job.

What there is not a limited supply of is excercise and non-consumption of pies.

Why do you think that more and more people, especially working class people, all over the world have simply decided to eat more pies? Fat is a class issue. Pretending it's all down to individual morality or laziness is a very cosy, but reactionary, position. Yes, I mean you too Paul Marsh if you're reading!

 

[SpookyFrank]

Consumerism, in whatever form, is a consequence of Capitalism.

Well then the first step on the road to the destruction of capitalism must be our taking responsibility for and control over our own bodies. If we can't even do that then we're basically just brains floating in jars and we should all just give up now.

 

[cesare]

Well then the first step on the road to the destruction of capitalism must be our taking responsibility for and control over our own bodies. If we can't even do that then we're basically just brains floating in jars and we should all just give up now.

Unfortunately some people don't have the economic freedom to do what they like. Some people have to buy what's cheapest and most convenient, and what's cheapest and most convenient isn't necessarily conducive to the long term health of their bodies.

 

[sihhi]

Eh? It's a direct call for censorship:

That the issue is about fat black women in Hollywood is surely itself significant, in observing the picture that "privilege theory" looks at.

That's not privilege theory speaking, it's one person's comment to an article about Hollywood, which suggests in a clumsy fashion, that every time 'overweight' is tagged onto an actor's name, it's like in the 1950s or 60s where it's 'coloured baseball player Jackie Robinson'. If you are an overweight female black actor, the label 'overweight' is used excessively, including where it has zero relevance to the discussion of her acting or film festival or whatever.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Why do you think that more and more people, especially working class people, all over the world have simply decided to eat more pies? Fat is a class issue. Pretending it's all down to individual morality or laziness is a very cosy, but reactionary, position. Yes, I mean you too Paul Marsh if you're reading!

I understand this. But what got us into a particular mess is never gonna be the same thing that gets us out. I don't dispute the importance of class dynamics, I just think that overstating their power plays into the hands of the enemy. Telling people they can't help but be fat because they're poor and the state wants poor people to be fat is not empowering to anyone except the state.

 

[sihhi]

Well then the first step on the road to the destruction of capitalism must be our taking responsibility for and control over our own bodies. If we can't even do that then we're basically just brains floating in jars and we should all just give up now.

'The struggle against capitalism must begin not with the struggle against the food industry and the privatised sports and fitness industry but with hounding out the weak for their individual moral failure'

 

[SpookyFrank]

'The struggle against capitalism must begin not with the struggle against the food industry and the privatised sports and fitness industry but with hounding out the weak for their individual moral failure'

Weak is your word, not mine.

By implying that people are helpless in the face of the mind control techniques employed by Mr Kipling and Aunt Bessie, it is you who are calling them weak.

 

[sihhi]

Telling people they can't help but be fat because they're poor and the state wants poor people to be fat is not empowering to anyone except the state.

No one says this, the state doesn't want poor people to be fat, it's simply a market externality of having a privatised food industry with access to sugar, high tech processing technology and the need for profits, and also of having a dieting and fitness industry that wants to help the victims of that industry but only if they pay.
The rich can act against it, the public provision is not there. It's a social pathology.

 

[SpookyFrank]

So your solution is to ask the people responsible to stop what they're doing?

Let me know how you get on with that. But I know what the junk food merchants will say when you're stood outside their offices with a placard and a megaphone, they'll say 'you don't have to eat it if you don't want to'. And all the social pathologies in the world won't change the fact that, on that point at least, they're not wrong.

 

[butchersapron]

So your solution is to ask the people responsible to stop what they're doing?

Let me know how you get on with that. But I know what the junk food merchants will say when you're stood outside their offices with a placard and a megaphone, they'll say 'you don't have to eat it if you don't want to'. And all the social pathologies in the world won't change the fact that, on that point at least, they're not wrong.

Is that really the limit of your political imagination? You can't envisage collective campaigns to susbsidise fresh fruit and veg, to provide free gyms and other facilities and so on? Campaigns like this have always existed over health issues - it doesn't take much thought to extend them to food and fitness issues.

 

[sihhi]

Weak is your word, not mine.

By implying that people are helpless in the face of the mind control techniques employed by Mr Kipling and Aunt Bessie, it is you who are calling them weak.

Only you are suggesting that advertising from the food sector alone is responsible for problems of obesity.
Hence you can turn this all in to 'the state wants poor people to be fat'. It involves, amongst other things:- generalised mental and social alienation... a direct by-product of capitalism, the shift to high-tech capitalism (broadly more stationary, less fat-consumptive work but just as tiring), appalling occupational health in general, increasing 24-hour work and night-shifts that disrupt eating patterns, an ongoing inability (despite 'Jamie Oliver') to promote childhood health over cost-cutting in LEA budgets, lack of a culture of communal exercise.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Is that really the limit of your political imagination? You can't envisage collective campaigns to susbsidise fresh fruit and veg, to provide free gyms and other facilities and so on? Campaigns like this have always existed over health issues - it doesn't take much thought to extend them to food and fitness issues.

Well we already run a food bank, we cook public meals on a by-donation basis every week and we organise outdoor play sessions for the local kids. At no point do we tell any of the people who take part in these things that they're doomed to be fat because they're poor.

Other people on this thread seem to approach the issue entirely in terms of what is beyond our control, not what is within it.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Only you are suggesting that advertising from the food sector alone is responsible for problems of obesity.
Hence you can turn this all in to 'the state wants poor people to be fat'. It involves, amongst other things:- generalised mental and social alienation... a direct by-product of capitalism, the shift to high-tech capitalism (broadly more stationary, less fat-consumptive work but just as tiring), appalling occupational health in general, increasing 24-hour work and night-shifts that disrupt eating patterns, an ongoing inability (despite 'Jamie Oliver') to promote childhood health over cost-cutting in LEA budgets, lack of a culture of communal exercise.

Well then I guess we're fucked aren't we?

 

[butchersapron]

Well we already run a food bank, we cook public meals on a by-donation basis every week and we organise outdoor play sessions for the local kids. At no point do we tell any of the people who take part in these things that they're doomed to be fat because they're poor.

Other people on this thread seem to approach the issue entirely in terms of what is beyond our control, not what is within it.

I wasn't on about charity and the systems left-overs.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I wasn't on about charity and the systems left-overs.

Well then this week we'll stop giving out food to people who need it. If anyone is upset by this I'll let them know they can talk to you about it.

All our food for the food bank is donated by ordinary local people. The food for our public meals is paid for by the donations people give for it, even if some people can't afford to pay anything. Playing football in the street with kids doesn't cost anyone anything. It's not charity, it's mutual aid.

 

[butchersapron]

Well then this week we'll stop giving out food to people who need it. If anyone is upset by this I'll let them know they can talk to you about it.

All our food for the food bank is donated by ordinary local people. The food for our public meals is paid for by the donations people give for it, even if some people can't afford to pay anything. Playing football in the street with kids doesn't cost anyone anything. It's not charity, it's mutual aid.

Yes, of course, that's what i meant - that you should stop your charity. I didn't mean that historically there have been campaigns aimed at forcing producers, importers, businesses and the state to do the things that i suggested. I really meant you should stop your localised small scale subsidies of these people and groups who should be the ones paying.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yes, of course, that's what i meant - that you should stop your charity. I didn't mean that historically there have been campaigns aimed at forcing producers, importers, businesses and the state to do the things that i suggested. I really meant you should stop your localised small scale subsidies of these people and groups who should be the ones paying.

Perhaps what we should do is make Coca-cola and McDonalds sponsor the olympics? That'll really hit them where it hurts.

 

[Random]

Sounds like you're backpedalling and you knew your earlier pie-eating comments were stupid, Spocky

 

[butchersapron]

Perhaps what we should do is make Coca-cola and McDonalds sponsor the olympics? That'll really hit them where it hurts.

I was actually thinking more of the collective struggles over health in italy in the 70s and the fight to win control over AIDs related activity in the 80s - and the potential extension of them to food, fitness, work regimes and so on. But i suppose that's the difference between us.

 

[sihhi]

Well we already run a food bank, we cook public meals on a by-donation basis every week and we organise outdoor play sessions for the local kids. At no point do we tell any of the people who take part in these things that they're doomed to be fat because they're poor.

Other people on this thread seem to approach the issue entirely in terms of what is beyond our control, not what is within it.

That's one free (presumably low-fat) meal a week, very commendable but...

taking your advice "if fat people were in an oppressed minority they could bring an end to this oppression by simply, you know, being less fat" aren't you wasting your time, they can bring an end to their oppression. On the basis of your posts, aren't you suggesting they are weak "LOL" by having a charity meal for them.

We're not all equally screwed, if someone has an ailment affecting a limb or their back, some are still forced to work to produce for someone else or to care for their children. So to reduce their pain, they cut down on extra activity. Unlike those who are richer, they do not follow the plan of action most conducive to their health, less work and much more physio-based exercise but are boxed in by economic pressure. A fair amount of obesity derives at first from a period after a different medical condition.

 

[sihhi]

Playing football in the street with kids doesn't cost anyone anything. It's not charity, it's mutual aid.

Have you tried it in the streets of a major city?

Some demand the young kids go to the rec - occasionally the police step in. Community PC duo's letter came around to remind resident adults saying it was an offence. (And it is potentially dangerous with cars passing by). The rec is dominated by older hard lads, where they, especially young girls, feel uncomfortable - one of the few spaces where certain older teens/young adults feel they can control their surroundings. Not everyone can live in a sub-system where a dose of charity/mutual aid can put things rights.

 

[co-op]

Only you are suggesting that advertising from the food sector alone is responsible for problems of obesity.

The relationship between our bodies and our social relationships is complicated. And not simply "under our control".

 

[co-op]

Just in case the point isn't obvious - that slide shows a statistically significant relationship i.e. it's not a chance finding

 

[ViolentPanda]

"The fat community"

LMFAO

I hope their community centre has extra strong floor joists.

Surely to be part of an oppressed minority you must be a) oppressed and b) in the minority. And even if fat people were in an oppressed minority they could bring an end to this oppression by simply, you know, being less fat.

For someone who believes themselves to be politically-aware, you're not very politically-aware.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Unfortunately some people don't have the economic freedom to do what they like. Some people have to buy what's cheapest and most convenient, and what's cheapest and most convenient isn't necessarily conducive to the long term health of their bodies.

You're not allowed to say this, because surely any responsible person can walk miles to a cheap market, or pick up discarded veg at the end of the day, even though it's use up time that would be better-spent elsewhere!

 

[cesare]

You're not allowed to say this, because surely any responsible person can walk miles to a cheap market, or pick up discarded veg at the end of the day, even though it's use up time that would be better-spent elsewhere!

Ah yes. Because all responsible people can walk miles, or go on scavenging expeditions.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So your solution is to ask the people responsible to stop what they're doing?

Let me know how you get on with that. But I know what the junk food merchants will say when you're stood outside their offices with a placard and a megaphone, they'll say 'you don't have to eat it if you don't want to'. And all the social pathologies in the world won't change the fact that, on that point at least, they're not wrong.

Hardly the only solution. IIRC Bob Holman's project up at Easterhouse got minimal local authority funding to subsidise a box-van for his community, which then brought fresh fruit and veg onto the estate and sold it at "wholesale plus overhead" prices to the community (less than half the price the nearest supermarket charged). It made enough of a change in only three or four years to show a decline in obesity-related health problems.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ah yes. Because all responsible people can walk miles, or go on scavenging expeditions.

Well quite, and if they can't, they just don't care enough!

 

[cesare]

Well quite, and if they can't, they just don't care enough!

"Brains floating in jars"

Lovely turn of phrase.