Corn syrup and immigration

Credit: Ton Rulkens

So I asked the robot to comment this week´s strangest news item. Yes, that would be Trump´s proud announcement that the Coca Cola Company (at the God-Emperor´s prodding, mind you) will stop sweeten Coke Classic with corn syrup, instead using real sugar from sugarcane. Eh? 

Sugarcane is grown in the southern states, where many people support Trump. But...what about immigrant labor at the sugarcane plantations? And what´s up with the corn syrup situation anyway? My guess is that RFK Jr and his "MAHA" movement may be behind this, since I assume they oppose said syrup. 

However, more sugarcane production will presumably also make it necessary to import more cheap labor from Mexico and Central America. Unless the MAHA-ites want to lift and then volunteer their working class muscle down at the latifundia... 

Do sugar cane plantations in the South use labor from Mexico?

Yes, many sugarcane farms in the U.S. South—especially in states like Florida and Louisiana—do use labor from Mexico, but the situation is more nuanced and varies by region and employer.

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🇺🇸 U.S. Sugarcane Labor Overview

1. Mexican Migrant Labor

• A significant portion of seasonal sugarcane workers in the South are Mexican nationals.

• Many are brought to the U.S. through the H-2A visa program, which allows agricultural employers to hire foreign workers temporarily when there are not enough local laborers.

• These workers typically perform manual cutting, planting, weeding, and harvesting, especially in Louisiana, which still relies partly on hand-harvested cane.

2. Florida (Heavily Mechanized)

• In Florida, sugarcane harvesting is now largely mechanized—machines cut most of the cane.

• However, Mexican and Central American workers are still employed in:

  • Planting

  • Field preparation

  • Maintenance

  • Milling operations

• They often work under contracts with large companies (e.g., U.S. Sugar, Florida Crystals).

3. Louisiana (Still Some Manual Cutting)

• Louisiana relies more heavily on manual labor for certain stages of harvesting and field prep.

• Mexican H-2A workers are widely used during the harvest season.

• Labor shortages have made growers more dependent on foreign guest workers.

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🧾 Labor Rights & Controversies

There have been ongoing debates around:

• Pay levels and working conditions for H-2A workers.

• Access to healthcare and housing during seasonal work.

• Exploitation or legal gray areas with subcontractors or recruiters.

Several reports and labor watchdogs have raised concerns, particularly regarding wage disputes and unsafe working environments.

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✅ Summary

Region	Labor Source	Mechanization	Use of Mexican Workers
Florida	Local + H-2A migrants	High (mechanized)	Yes, mostly for planting & prep
Louisiana	Local + H-2A (mostly Mexican)	Mixed (some hand harvest)	Yes, widely used
Texas	Less significant production	Mixed	Some use of migrant labor

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Would you like information on how the H-2A visa program works or data on the number of Mexican workers in agriculture more broadly?

Is there a criticism against using corn syrup from consumer rights groups and such?

Yes, there is significant criticism of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) from a range of consumer rights groups, health organizations, and nutrition advocates. The criticism centers on health concerns, labeling transparency, and industrial agricultural practices. Here's a breakdown:

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⚠️ 1. Health-Related Criticisms

a. Obesity & Metabolic Issues

• HFCS has been linked—controversially—to the rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes in the U.S.

• Groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and Public Health Advocacy Institute argue that HFCS contributes to overconsumption of sugar in processed foods and beverages.

b. Fructose Metabolism

• Unlike glucose, fructose is metabolized primarily in the liver, which can lead to fat buildup and insulin resistance.

• Some studies have associated high fructose intake with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and elevated triglycerides.

c. "Empty Calories"

• Consumer health advocates argue HFCS provides no nutritional value beyond calories, and encourages the consumption of sugary, processed foods over whole foods.

---

🧾 2. Labeling and Transparency Concerns

• HFCS often appears under different names like “corn sugar”, which can confuse consumers.

• In 2012, the FDA rejected a petition by the corn industry to rename HFCS as “corn sugar,” citing misleading labeling.

• Critics claim food labeling lacks clear distinctions between cane/beet sugar and corn syrup, which undermines informed consumer choice.

---

🌽 3. Industrial Agriculture & Environmental Impact

• HFCS depends on large-scale corn monoculture, which requires:

  • Heavy fertilizer and pesticide use

  • Government subsidies (taxpayer-funded support of corn)

• Environmental groups (like the Environmental Working Group) criticize this model for contributing to:

  • Soil degradation

  • Water pollution (from nitrogen runoff)

  • Reduced biodiversity

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🏷️ 4. Market & Consumer Pushback

• Starting in the late 2000s, there was a consumer backlash against HFCS.

• Many companies (e.g., Snapple, Heinz ketchup, Gatorade) began marketing products with labels like “no high-fructose corn syrup.”

• Some health-conscious consumers see HFCS as a marker of “ultra-processed” or low-quality food.

---

📊 Scientific Consensus?

• Major health organizations like the American Medical Association (AMA) and FDA have stated that HFCS and table sugar (sucrose) are nutritionally similar when consumed in moderation.

• However, they also acknowledge excessive sugar intake of any kind is unhealthy.

🟨 So while HFCS may not be uniquely toxic, critics argue that it encourages overconsumption due to its low cost and prevalence in processed foods.

---

✅ Summary of Criticisms

Area	Concern
Health	Links to obesity, diabetes, liver problems
Labeling	Lack of transparency, misleading names
Environment	Industrial corn farming harms ecosystems
Consumer rights	Reduced choice, hard-to-avoid in processed foods
Economics	Subsidized production distorts food markets

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Let me know if you’d like citations, major health studies, or a comparison between HFCS and cane sugar in how the body processes them.

The end of the AFL-CIA?

 

Is this the end of the labor wing of the CIA? The Social Democrats USA are rolling in their graves...

Department of Labor cancels pro-worker grants 

The trouble with Dibble

 

Some months ago, writer and explorer Graham Hancock debated an archeologist with the peculiar moniker "Flint Dibble" at Joe Rogan Show. Dibble declared victory and the debate have been given almost mythological proportions by Skeptics (compare Huxley-Wilberforce). 

Above is Graham Hancock´s response to Dibble´s points about ship wrecks, Stone Age ship farers, the supposed lack of evidence for metallurgy in Greenland ice cores, the legends of the conquista, and "White supremacy".

I admit I´m more skeptical to Hancock´s speculations than I was around, say, 2018. But he does defend his case ably here. So maybe the Skeptics (TM) spoke to soon, after all...  

Latinx neo-dinosaurs?

 

Real neo-dinosaurs from Latin America

Some mystifications. Neo-dinosaurs in Latin America?  

Neodinosaurs in the Amazon basin

Pygmy plesiosaur

Världens coolaste diktator

Cool kille. Libanes?

Wolfgang Hansson gör ett tappert försök att kritisera världens coolaste diktator, Bukele i El Salvador. 

Han misslyckas.

Bukeles metoder fungerar ju. Det finns visst bevis: gängtatueringarna. Och varför måste man släppa ut dem om några år? Skjut dem istället. Problemet löst!

Artikeln kanske kan sammanfattas på detta sätt: du bör acceptera att din mormor blir mördad, din dotter våldtagen och du själv rånad för demokratiiiiins och de friiiia vaaaaaalens skull.

Fascism inträffar när demokratiiiiin inte längre skyddar någon annan än beskäftiga ledarskribenter på Aftonbladet. Draw them conclusions, yo! 

El Salvadors drastiska recept mot gängen - en omöjlighet i Sverige

The Nagas of Brazil

Credit: Dick Culbert 

I´ve heard of the Pachamama, but never the Sachamama. Any connection? Note the claims that this is an actual unknown animal! Rather than, say, a very angry nature spirit come to life...

Sachamama

Minhocao

End of an illusion: From Sandinismo to Orteguismo

The Fourth International no longer supports the Sandinistas...

Ortega strips nationality from 94 opponents

Nicaraguan government outlaws feminist groups

Nicaragua: Daniel Ortega and the Ghost of Louis Bonaparte

King Cobra

Första gången Hübinette "outar" en kommunist. Fast det verkar finnas ett antal förklaringar!

"Skansen-Jonas" skryter återigen om hur han genomförde en illegal adoption

Beware of the Hatman

Men wearing hats 

Some kind of demonic entity, or just good ol´ psychosomatic illness bizniz-as-usual?

Series of bizarre illnesses around the world "all have same cause", claims expert

Hat Man: Monster Wiki

The Hatman Project

Among hippies and yippies

 

A former hippie talks about his experiences of cults, counter-culture and various New Age quests during the 1960´s, 70´s and 80´s. It seems Vajrayana Buddhism straightened him out (more or less). 

Actually quite interesting. I discovered this content mostly by chance. 

The drama of the Franciscans

 

"A Drama of Reform" is an American book published in 2005. The editor of the volume is named Benedict Groeschel, and the volume is also attributed to the Franciscans of the Renewal. The photographer´s name is Grazyna Marczuk. Perhaps true to form, I got the book cheaply from a second-hand store. Yes, it´s about Franciscans! Or rather one of many branches of the Franciscans, the so-called Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and its female counterpart Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal. These religious orders have full papal recognition and are an integrated part of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Franciscans of the Renewal are a relatively small organization, formed by former Capuchin monks. They look like a cross between Capuchins and regular Franciscans, wearing the grey habits of the latter while spouting the huge beards of the former! The group was formed in the United States by conservative Catholics dissatisfied by the modernist drift of the Church. They are de facto opposed to the reform processes associated with Vatican II, although as good members of the Church, they never openly proclaim this. Rather, "A Drama of Reform" emphasizes the Renewal´s close contacts with the Catholic hierarchy. John Paul II, American cardinal O`Connor and Mother Theresa are all said to have supported the project. 

Judging by the book (which is relatively uninteresting to a heathen sinner like myself), the Renewal Franciscans spend most of their time praying, working and doing charitable work. They also function as "street missionaries" for the Catholic Church. At least when the book was written, New York was their main base of operation. Much of the charity and social work shown in the book takes place in South Bronx, one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City (I´ve actually been there). The Renewal also has a missionary outreach in Honduras, and there too, they combine religious preaching with attempts at aiding the poor. Some photos in the book show the bearded monks sing, perform music or even play soccer. The sisters make food, although it seems the brothers might do the dishes! 

On a more sinister note, the friars target abortion clinics in New York City, very visibly protesting these "abortuaries" (the neologism is based on "mortuary"). Several monks have been arrested by the police and even served jail time, presumably for breaking Bill Clinton´s Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, although the book doesn´t specify. It´s also interesting to note that most members of the Franciscans of the Renewal seem to be White, while the people they are aiding are often Black or Hispanic. Make of that what you will. 

The spiritual life of the Renewal Franciscans include public processions with cross-bearers during Easter, pilgrimages, retreats in Upstate New York, and a peculiar ritual called "the transitus", commemorating the death of St Francis, with one of the brothers starring as the dying St Francis! The group seem to have a special devotion to the Marian apparation at Guadalupe, but the book says very little about this. It´s not clear to me whether the Renewal´s semi-cult of John Paul II is just another expression of this Pope´s strong popularity among Catholics, or goes beyond this (the book was published before John Paul was declared a saint). 

With that, I end this little review. 

Anarcho-capitalism, come and meet reality

Salvadoran president Bukele
together with Donald Trump

Digital currency was once seen as a tool to create a libertarian utopia. It was supposed to decentralize the world, or whatever. 

Did it? Of course not. 

Palladium magazine has the story of how Bitcoin was taken over by centralized state actors such as Russia or the peculiar administration currently governing El Salvador. Even the Taliban, of all people, have discovered Bitcoin. 

The cryptocurrency is being used to monitor and control the financial transactions of individual citizens, while strengthening the power of nationalist regimes and/or circumvent international sanctions. 

The next logical step is for governments to issue their very own digital currencies, thereby getting complete control of the citizens´ buying and selling... 

Enjoy the ride, LOL-bertarians! 

How Bitcoin strengthens the state

Latinamerikaniseringen av Sverige

Håller Sverige på att bli lika klass- och rasmässigt polariserat som Latinamerika? Från Tobias Hübinettes blogg.  

"Latinamerikaniseringen av de svenska klassklyftorna fortsätter"

Son-of-a-bitch of Yankee Imperialism?

Hugo Torres 

I don´t claim to know exactly what´s going on in Nica at the moment, but here is an article criticizing Daniel Ortega, published in Green Left, the de facto publication of the Socialist Alliance in Australia (the former SWP and DSP). The article is written "in a personal capacity". At least during the 1980´s, this political current strongly supported the Sandinistas. 

Nicaragua: Obituary for a "son-of-a-bitch of Yankee Imperialism"

Still on the Managua trail

Not sure what to make of this, but will link anyway. The far left site Grayzone claims that the recent Nicaraguan elections weren´t as undemocratic as reported in the main stream media. The incumbent president Daniel Ortega of the left-wing Sandinista Front was re-elected in a virtual landslide. Note the article´s attacks on Chile and Peru! 

Debunking myths about the Nicaraguan elections

Gorillas against guerillas

"Primates" is a 2020 BBC mini-series about apes, monkeys and prosimians. Some humans (mostly primatologists) have been thrown in for good measure, too! Most of the documentary is standard fare: spectacular footage of non-human primates from all over the world, and calls to save them for posterity. Good for a boring Christmas holiday, but perhaps not *that* interesting...

However, I did notice a few things. 

In the Congolese hills, the Virunga National Park - with a rare population of mountain gorillas - is protected by "park rangers", actually a heavily armed uniformed militia. The park rangers have been repeatedly attacked by rebel groups operating in the region. But why would humans volunteer to protect gorillas against guerillas, risking their lives in the process? The BBC interviews a ranger who claims to have a spiritual bond with the gorillas. Maybe he has. 

However, there is a much more mundane explanation. The rangers are recruited from the local population and paid by international organizations. Eco-tourism from Western nations is another source of income. Also, the local communities get a share of the profits. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but it *does* mean that the rangers have a very vested *human* (Homo sapiens sapiens) interest in protecting the gorillas. They are simply protecting their own sources of income. Since the rebels are presumably Hutu expats or expellees from Rwanda, some kind of ethnic dimension can´t be ruled out either. The people in the Virunga area are literally defending their homeland against foreign intruders. See how I managed to de-romanticize the whole situation? When the Western money stops coming, the mountain gorillas are bush meat, if you ask me...

Another uncomfortable fact. As I have repeatedly pointed out on this blog, even Native peoples deplete their resource bases if given half the chance. Research carried out at Koram Island off the coast of Thailand shows that monkeys, specifically crab-eating macaques, do exactly the same thing! The monkeys are tool-users: they use heavy stones to crack open oysters. The tool-use leads to over-exploitation of the oysters, which tend to become smaller and less abundant as a result. Imagine what would happen if some primate started to use tools consistently...wait... 

Edenic ecological balance doesn´t even exist among tool-using freakin´ *animals*, it seems. 

"Primates" does contain other interesting information, to be sure. We get to meet a team of animal rescuers trying to "retrain" young orphaned orangutans for a life in the wild (the orphans are used to human "foster parents" and have therefore lost these skills). As part of their project, the human trainers have to take climbing lessons in really tall trees! Another team tries to reintroduce pet gibbons into the wild. Gibbons are popular as exotic pets, but many of them are snatched from the wild and essentially trafficked as part of the illegal animal trade. The gibbons shown in the docu are rescued and taken back to their original habitat. 

So perhaps there is some hope, after all. However, I have to say that what really caught my attention was the somewhat more pessimistic facts, some of which BBC doesn´t really want the viewers to confront...  

Något om Nicaragua

Intressant artikel om Nicaragua, översatt av Flamman från franska La Monde Diplomatique. Ortega vann mycket riktigt presidentvalet som nämns i artikeln. Observera att sandinisterna trots kompromisserna med högern och kyrkan faktiskt verkar bedriva ett slags vänsterpolitik.  

Ortega går till omval utan motstånd

Revolutionaries are not normal people

"Che Guevara" is a book in Swedish by Dick Harrison, a professor of history. The title is self-explanatory. Yes, it´s a relatively short biography (about 200 pages in paperback format) of the Cuban revolutionary (who was originally from Argentina). 

For obvious reasons, it´s impossible to avoid politics when writing about Ernesto Guevara, but Harrison has tried to make the book as much as possible about Che the man, rather than Che the Guevarista. Harrison does manage to paint a compelling portrait of the Argentine radical, and follows Che from his childhood home in Argentina through Guatemala, Mexico and Cuba to the Congo, and the eventual defeat in Bolivia. Che comes across as an idealistic socialist of deep convictions, but also as a hard guerilla fighter, a brutal revolutionary, an impatient adventurist, and above all as a man who constantly pushed himself to the limits. I was surprised to learn that Che Guevara suffered heavily from asthma! He was also a womanizer of some standing. Another surprise was his intellectual side. He could probably have become a university teacher in another life. 

Che Guevara´s revolutionary career is too well known to be recounted here, yet there are still unresolved mysteries around him. Harrison retells the unconfirmed story that Guevara met former Argentine president Juan Perón in the latter´s Spanish exile. Perón supposedly warned him not to foment socialist revolutions in Latin America, since this was simply impossible! A strange tale *not* discussed in the book is Che´s supposed relations with the kook-Trotskyist "Posadistas" in Cuba. Harrison believes that it was Régis Debray rather than Ciro Bustos who revealed that Che was in Bolivia when Debray and Bustos had been captured and were interrogated by the Bolivian military. (Bustos subsequently moved to Sweden. I don´t know if the author ever met him.)  

Inevitably, "Che Guevara" also discusses the virtual cult of Che after his death by execution in Bolivia. One aspect I wasn´t aware of is that Che is literally worshipped as a saint by the peasants in the area where he was captured and killed. They call him San Ernesto de la Higuera and compare him to both Jesus and John the Baptist. San Ernesto is said to work miracles, and sometimes walks the mountain paths as an ordinary mortal. There are bizarre similarities between the famous or infamous picture of a dead Che in Vallegrande and old paintings of the dead Christ taken down from the cross. There is also a legend that could perhaps be called "the curse of Che", which claims (or points out) that many of the people responsible for his death met violent ends. 

It seems revolutionaries aren´t normal people, after all...

If Swedish is your first language, perhaps recommended. 

Hoppsan

Ortega fick visst memot till slut... 

Nicaragua bryter med Taiwan

Fascistisk estetik?

Kanske inte riktigt kopplat till
innehållet i detta inlägg

I och för sig intressant (observera förresten källan - har de faktiskt *en* seriös skribent på den där vulgosajten?), men själv är jag rätt svag för högmodernismens skrytbyggen typ "världens största stålverk", "världens högsta skyskrapa", "världens största förgyllda staty av den befriade Prometheus" och sådant. 

"En ny europeisk stad - mitt i tredje världen"

Moderaterna river "kulturmarxism" på Lidingö

Kommun beställde vackra byggnader - arkitekter protesterar