Child Labor And Tobacco Farming

[scloyd]

I listen to a lot of talk radio when I'm driving. Today I heard a story/interview about children getting nicotine poisoning while working on tobacco farms. I'm not a farmer, never have been, never will be and I don't know the first thing about tobacco farming. I thought others might want to read or listen to the program. You can listen to the 11 minute story by clicking the red play button.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/07/12/child-labor-tobacco-farming
What are your thoughts?

 

[Chasing Embers]

My first job was in tobacco when I was 13.

 

[aldecaker]

Whew, I haven't cut a rug like that in quite a while! I'm exhausted after all that dancing around the subject of illegal aliens. It must be tough, having to reconcile in your head that it's okay to have an unregulated, underground economy on one hand, and desperately wanting some regulations to apply to the participants of it on the other hand! :rofl:
EDIT: To clarify a bit, I just see much irony in the hand-wringers crying, "We can't enforce the law on these people! They're just trying to make a better life for themselves!" at the same time that they're crying, "We need to enforce the law to protect these poor people!".

 

[warren]

Just mulling over getting in on this one or taking a nap. It might not be around after my nap. Decisions, decisions ...decisions.

 

[aldecaker]

I'd get while the gettin's good. I don't think it'll be around long either.

 

[tbradsim1]

This may not be a good example, few years back, I met a Walmart greeter going out she checked my purchase and receipt, we started a conversation she was in her late 60s, said she was from Kentucky, worked in her Dads Tobbaco farm, her job was gradeing the leaves as to Quality, then it was striped from the stalk which she did also, her health looked glowing, I told her about my farm work, and she told me they came to Louisiana after Tobbaco season and worked in the rice fields, also picked watermelons. If she was poisoned, nicotine,or otherwise she did a good job of hideing it. We got a nation of crybabies, blameing everybody and anything to get attention or money. ::

 

[weezell]

We got a nation of crybabies, blameing everybody and anything to get attention or money.

:clap:

 

[lawmax3]

Oh good grief! As a teenager, I have planted, hoed, suckered, topped, cut and put tons of tobacco in the barn.

If you don't use common sense and wear enough clothes to keep the tar off of your skin it can make you sick.

Hard work won't kill ya'.

 

[olkofri]

Well, whatever helps their anti-tobacco jihad. :crazy:
Same ol' appeal to emotion fallacy: if you smoke, you're killing the children, one way or another. Quit NOW!!

 

[warren]

Hard work won't kill ya'.

Of course it can. That's why, up here, we refer to a big snow dump as a "widow maker."
Sorry! Most everyone knows I detest unsupportable generalities or clichés. Back to the, surprisingly, slow to develop "train wreck."
I'll leave

We got a nation of crybabies

for later if the thread survives. I won't mention the kids in various hot spots around the world, volunteers all, getting blown and shot up. I guess I will. This isn't a nation of any one type, we got heroes, bums, successes, failures and probably no more than our fair share of any particular type.

 

[lawmax3]

Warren Haha, no need to be sorry, but everyone knows its the heat stroke or heart defect etc. that kills ya' not the work!!! :nana:

 

[Chasing Embers]

That's like saying it's not the bullet that kills you, it's the bleeding out afterwards.

 

[warren]

Yup! That tiny pinhole in the heart, a clot floating around, a thin wall in a vessel to the brain, all undetected and unknown, triggered by over exertion. Without the hard work the defect probably would never be a problem or even detected.

 

[prairiedruid]

I was driving tractor and the stick shift pick up truck when I was 12. Work had to be done and if I expected to eat dinner I was expected to help out. No tobacco farming but I picked rock, detassled corn, and there always was firewood to haul, split, and stack. Also got to do a lot of fishing, work and play were balanced. Welcome to rural life and the lessons I learned as a kid served me well as an adult. Do that nowadays and some social worker would be screaming bloody murder.

 

[pitchfork]

My mom and her siblings primed tobacco in the summer when they were kids. So did my first cousin. So did lots of kids...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijp13lk7zG0

 

[Chasing Embers]

Yep.

 

[lawmax3]

Good memories.

I would sure hate to have to put in a days work in the tobacco patch now!

 

[3rdguy]

I would think any resultant nicotine exposure may help speed up the day!

 

[lazar]

Yeah, I hate it when children whine about getting sick from the manual labor they're forced into! What a bunch of crybabies! And to hell with any regulations that might protect them - that's for the snowflake bleeding heart liberals! Tobacco sickness was good enough me, it's damn well good enough for kids.

 

[aldecaker]

:rofl: