Martin and Willie companies

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Rob4Hope
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Location: Salt Lake City -- the Motherland!!

Re: Martin and Willie companies

Post by Rob4Hope » Fri Dec 08, 2017 3:48 pm

I read a little of that first "One Long Funeral March"...and it pissed me right off!

Not at the author...but at Brigham Yuk! The guy was a total creep. He was the personification of a narcissistic abusive parent...even a sociopathic criminal.

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Emower
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Location: Carson City

Re: Martin and Willie companies

Post by Emower » Tue Dec 12, 2017 11:15 pm

I just read the article. Not cool man, not cool. They actually pulled people back from rescuing handcarts to go and get the stinking engine. That engine represented the reason those people had to go in handcarts to begin with. Pretty crappy.

I especially liked Brigham's reason for not providing a wagon as support. It will make people lazy. What a Dick.

On the other hand though I can understand Brigham's vision he had for the area, and he really wanted to make it happen. He had limited resources an unlimited ambition and vision. He probably just excluded from his mind the possibility that his actions were going to have consequences for people. Honestly, we should all be pretty familiar with how one could exclude important information from ourselves when we know it will be inconvenient.

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alas
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Re: Martin and Willie companies

Post by alas » Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:33 am

I think Brigham had the same mentality as our republican congress. They get these ideas in their head about tax cuts for corporations will stimulate the economy. So they are going to cut Medicare and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts to the wealthy and tax cuts for corporations. Do they realize that if you take Medicaid away from the very poor, that people will die because they cannot afford their medication? Well, it isn't THEM that is hurting, and so they tell themselves that the poor just need to give up their expensive cell phones and then they can afford their medical care. Well, a cell phone will pay for about two weeks worth of insulin for my brother who is on Medicaid. 1st of all has no cell phone to give up, and 2nd, it would only buy a couple of weeks worth of medicine.

So, here is Brigham sitting in Salt Lake City dreaming about a steam engine on Great Salt Lake and the snow comes early. He can send out a rescue party for his dream or he can send out a rescue party for these poor people who should just give up their cell phones and then they would have been able to afford enough supplies and good wagons and horses to get to Utah safely.

My point is, we have this exact same kind of thinking in our society today. The poor are at fault for their situation, so we should not need to help them. It's their own damn fault they are homeless, so bull dose all their possessions from Rio Grande area of Salt Lake City, because "we" don't want them there. And the democrat Mayor of SLC is fine with this. Take away the sleeping bag they were given last winter, because after all, they won't freeze to death tonight because it is early fall. Maybe if we clean up Rio Grande street, they will all get jobs and start acting like respectable humans. So, clean up everything and throw it all away while they stand by and don't even let them grab their stuff. We don't want the homeless on our streets because they attract drug dealers, or whatever. Maybe it is that they attract rats, but we don't want the homeless on our streets. It makes us feel bad to see them because we feel guilty, but don't want to spend tax money to really help.

Said me who won't give to the homeless because they need to go to the shelters....but then I have seen conditions at the shelters and would rather stay on the street myself...

So, if Brigham Yuck is a heartless narcissistic psychopath, what does that say about all the repugnantcans in congress and about the gay Mayor of SLC? And me? Too many of us humans fail to consider the human cost of what we want, like a robust economy, or clean city streets, or no homeless shelter in my neighborhood, or don't put the prison in my city, or don't raise my taxes to cover welfare. We fail to consider that Walmart pays pennies to workers in sweat shops so you can buy those cheap shoes. We don't consider the human cost of not letting refugee boats land, or keeping then on an island rather than letting them into Austrailia.

I am not defending Brigham Yuck at all, just pointing out that human beings are still selfish human beings. I had Handcart ancestors who were rescued from the lack of food and early snow, who were only one week ahead of Martin and Willie, but that handcart company is never talked about, because they lost *less* people to freezing to death. Still more deaths than all the handcart companies ahead of them, but not near as many as those a week or more behind. My great g g grandfather had to have his toes amputated due to frostbite. (Funny side note, I have had people argue with me about the ONLY handcarts who got snow were Martin and Willie, because those two are the only ones ever honored as heroes. No, the handcart company that was one week ahead of those two also had to pull handcarts through snow and frozen rivers. So, yeah, I have to be grateful that the rescue party was eventually sent out, or my ancestors might not have made it.

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