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Comment by genter | Hacker News Reader

I doubt it, people will forget in a generation or two. How many people have actually read The Jungle? How many people have actually seen our rivers on fire? How many people remember when the air was so polluted going outside would kill you? How many people remember corporations hiring private armies and literally killing their employees because they dared to strike? The people that benefit from so many of our laws are cheering their removal without understanding why they're there.

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A generation or two (25-50 years) would be an incredible result. These days it's a miracle if anything has consequences more than a year or two down the track.

Perhaps I’m not typical, but:

> How many people have actually read The Jungle?

It was mandatory reading in my high school curriculum.

> How many people have actually seen our rivers on fire?

I grew up with two family members who would tell us stories about exactly that. Since I was a kid, that has been my mental go-to on “why” clean water legislation.

> How many people remember corporations hiring private armies and literally killing their employees because they dared to strike?

The Pinkertons and so on? Alive and well in spirit unfortunately at places like Constellis (formerly Xe, formerly Blackwater). People haven’t forgotten about that, although it’d be nice if more people held the line against such things. FDR was spot on about the MIC/DIB.

> The people that benefit from so many of our laws are cheering their removal without understanding why they're there.

Indeed. I believe there is an old adage about how one shouldn’t tear down a fence without knowing why it’s there.

People are unaware that companies were so daring to add chalk to milk and random dark substances to coffee. Unregulated capitalism is not something we should want to return to.

A generation or two? Try four years. Donald Trump ran under a platform of "was your life better in 2020 or 2024?" to a cheering crowd. I don't know about you, but I remember 2020 as The Year Without Christmas. My mother loves seeing her children at Christmas time, but she canceled Christmas that year.

Now I’m not suggesting that your mom blames the President for a pandemic, but if there was a reason to cancel Christmas that year, it wasn’t because of politics.

We (as in humanity) barely had the vaccine by Christmas.

Precisely the wrong guy to have in office to competently manage a second pandemic.

My complaint isn't even the virus. It is that they thought that was the best year in American history, but for most people, that was our worst year (in living memory). In 4 years when it becomes time to vote again, they are going to completely forget the tariffs, layoffs, high prices and empty shelves.

I mean we Americans have literally already forgotten Nazi Germany, or maybe we were never really taught it in a way that was meaningful.

I truly wonder about the people who read Night by Eli Weisel in middle school or high school and don’t see a problem with what’s going on now.

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