History Indeed Repeats Itself

Over 300 people were either burned to death or suffocated  yesterday at two different garment factories in Pakistan.

In one case the people were trapped by the fire because it started in front of the only working exit.

The only working exit because someone had locked the other exits .

The windows also had iron bars on them.

Why does this sound familiar?

Because exactly the same thing happened in 1911 in New York City.

From Wikipedia:

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. It was also the second deadliest disaster in New York City – after the burning of the General Slocum on June 15, 1904 – until the destruction of the World Trade Center 90 years later. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, or falling to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women aged sixteen to twenty-three;^[1][2][3] the oldest victim was 48, the youngest was 11 year old Mary Goldstien.^[4]

Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits – a common practice at the time to prevent pilferage and unauthorized breaks^[5] – many of the workers who could not escape the burning building jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors to the streets below. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers
My bold.

This is how rich people make their money nowadays too.

It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

There is no good reason why all those people had to die horrific deaths.

There is a reason though.

That reason is some greedy motherfucker who could care less about how he made his money as long as it kept coming.

Safety was no concern.

Working conditions were of no concern either.

Just keep that money coming and fuck those worthless dogs.

Did you even hear about this tragedy on the news the other night?

Probably not, they were just “others”.

You know, Brown skinned, from some distant foreign country, who gives a shit, The X Factor is on.

You should give a shit.

This is what the Republican Party wants to return to and they are working hard to get back there.

This is the kind of tragedy that is beyond comprehension and the exact reason Unions were formed.

This is why OSHA exists.

This where we were a hundred fucking years ago and it happened again yesterday in Pakistan.

300 people burned to death because of greed.

Because some fucking “Job Creator” decided he could make more money selling goods produced by paying near slave wages to non people working in a shithole instead of paying decent wages in a safe workplace.

We used to make those products right here in the good old United States of America.

But we cost too much.

They don’t want to pay us a living wage.

They make more money this way.

Tomorrow they will start building another shithole exactly like the one that just burned down and there will be people lined up to get in it and work for shit wages in unsafe conditions because that’s all there is and there isn’t a fucking thing you can do to change that.

The only thing you can do is be grateful that fucking shithole isn’t right next door, yet.