Comment on More like a bacterial infection imo

• gmtom@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  They didn’t cause the potato blight but they absolutely caused the famine by forcing the export of the remaining food stock which was more than enough to feed the population.

  That’s litterally exactly what I said.

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  • khannie@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s not though.

    The British didn’t cause the famine, they “just” made it worse.

    It’s a common misconception but there are a few issues with “didn’t cause the famine” for me:

    1. Potato blight != famine. There was a potato blight across all of Europe at the time. Ireland still produced more than enough food to feed itself even in 1847, the worst year of the blight. It wasn’t a case of making it worse, they literally wouldn’t have gone hungry at all.
    2. The only reason Irish peasants were so dependent on a single food crop to feed themselves was because it was what produced the most calories for a given area of land. The British stole the land from the Irish then forced payment at such a high rate from the people they stole it from that it left no choice but to use that single crop to feed themselves. They had to use their remaining non-potato land for higher value cash crops to pay rent on the land that was stolen from them.
    3. An enormous number of people died from exposure after being fucked off their land and having their homes burned to the ground because they couldn’t afford to pay rent to those landlords.

    So the British did cause the actual famine in it’s entirety and the deliberate lack of relief was seen as an act of God / retribution to reduce the population here (which they 100% left to starve, with some kind landlord exceptions).

    It’s why the Irish don’t call it “The Famine” any more. It’s “the great hunger” here because there wouldn’t have been a famine at all if we’d just been left the fuck alone to grow a variety of crops instead of being raped and pillaged for hundreds of years.

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    • gmtom@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      That’s a very good point and a distinction well worth making, thank you.

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      • khannie@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        No worries :) I appreciate the back and forth.

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• princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Uhm akshually don’t you know that it was a subset of British society and not Britain as a whole. Jeeze, way to not be historically accurate.

  Tap for un-circlejerk

  Hope the /s is implied but just incase. If you’re British and upset by this take, maybe your ancestors should have rolled out some guillotines when the French did. It’s not too late to get rid of Charles, Starmer, Farage, Johnson and the rest of these chucklefucks.

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  • gmtom@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    And I’m sure you personally have made moves to execute your worst politicians right? And have no ancestors that have done anything wrong in the past?

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    • princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Oh no, I absolutely have ancestors in my past that have done horrendous things. And I’m Australian, so they were also British subjects ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      As for the executions, well I’d love to get my hands on Charles! #NotMyKing

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      • javiwhite@feddit.uk ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        You don’t need to look that far back in all honesty. The Australian treatment of aboriginals has been abhorrent; and continues to this day.

        Time to get your guillotine out.

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  • khannie@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Ah yeah. I’m Irish and I don’t blame modern folks over there for it. I know it was the ruling class but damn where they cold AF. To be fair though there were lots of acts of brutality from British soldiers over the centuries who I have to guess were working class. Well beyond just “following orders”.

    We do remember the acts of kindness at the time, especially the Choctaw as I mentioned in another comment. Just goes to show it’s nice to be nice. You will be eventually be forgiven the sins of your ancestors they you do bad things, but you will forever be remembered as kind if your ancestors do nice things.

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• Ledericas@lemm.ee ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  yup because the blight was affected the low genetic diversity of the potato cultivar were using, this allowed the oomycetes to infect the potatos, aka water molds, which are not related to fungus.

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