Jiggle_Physics

I am familiar with the concept of the cooperative economy

You vote in local elections. You look for people with more progressive platforms and you put in the work to get them known. Even if they don’t necessarily want what you want, but their presence would move the overton window in your favor, you help them. I also work with people who want to scrap FPTP voting too. Even if we hard disagree on most issues, something like that is worth working together for. The US is very right wing, very corporatist, and very out of touch with anything not in their social bubble. This is going to take generations of work. Until then, if you are progressively aligned, you only, currently, have one real option at the federal level. Not voting for them doesn’t really hurt them, personally, but it will hurt a lot of people not in charge if the regressive party takes power.

And who knows, might have to pick-up a rifle at some point.

It is because our elections are not won by large margins. The difference between winning and losing is often decided less than 3% of the vote. While people who register for them, are basically locked in, with more nuance I am not getting into now, there still is about 3 percent of independent voters that do seem to vacillate between parties. With independent voters making up 42% of registered voters that amount can win, or lose, them the election.

Looking at voting data, almost no one is really independent. The vast majority of people who register independent almost always vote down party lines for one party, and they just don’t want to label themselves democrat or republican.

Yes, one of the reasons for this movement being started decades ago, and coming to a head now, is the decline in what people considered to be the correct values, aka their values. Religion is in decline, conservative political positions are getting less popular, mainstream culture is slowly moving away from catering, pretty much, exclusively to white, straight, christians. They are being backed into a the proverbial corner. The only way they see a future for their dominance is by force.

Legal industry is a better term than justice system. It is a a profitable industry using the law to extract profits.

There is even american cheese that is simply the blend of the two cheeses. No extra emulsifiers, no preservatives, no plastic like qualities. It is fairly soft, and quite mild, but it is nothing like the kraft sheets. It is just two cheeses blended together.

It is most likely because you didn’t have the additives, and machines, to get a significantly lower fat butter to fully emulsify.

I have been making more butter myself, and working on cheese now. There are a bunch of farms, in every state, that will sell raw milk “for animal use”. I have bought this, and the ultra pasteurized stuff, as I learn how to make cheese. The raw milk makes a noticeable difference in flavor when everything else was identical.

Yeah, when people discuss american food they automatically think of off-the-shelf walmart stuff, mcdonalds, etc. When there are tons of artisanal food producers here, like a lot of them.

Yes, there is butter that is like a bland grease block. Then there is stuff like Irish butter that has noticeable, variable, taste. The emulsion from high quality butter is silky smooth, creamy, and surprising light on the tongue, as opposed to leaving a greasy coating on it. The emulsion holds better as the butter melts, with better butter. The way it softens differs in ways that make it nice to cook, and bake, with. It spreads much more nicely. There really is a major difference between industrial production butter, and butter from a real creamery.

I highly suggest you get some huge corp butter, from a big box grocer, and a block of butter from a quality creamery, and then compare them. You will instantly notice the difference. Melt some of each, cook with some of each, spread some of each on some good bread, have toast with each, etc. It will be the whole experience that has improved, not just the taste.

I was just about to say, IMHO of course, that French butter, in general, is not as good as Irish. However regional productions, like the highest quality creameries from Normandy are ever bit as good as the best Irish butter.