Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 402: This Election Sucks and is Now About Trains

(+) Yeah! (+)

Teaching was twice as hard as coding and I made less than half what I do now.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Teaching was twice as hard as coding and I made less than half what I do now.

but do less than half of teachers earn half of what they deserve?

Thorn posted...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/florida-textbooks-african-american-history.html

The New York Times reports...

NYT shows how the textbook changed:
Original: "The law said African Americans had to give up their seats on the bus if a white person wanted to sit down"
Draft 1: "She was told to move to a different seat because of the color of her skin"
Draft 2: "She was told to move to a different seat"

If I'm reading the NYT article correctly, the textbook publisher backpedaled back to the Draft 1 version and pulled Draft 2 from review by the state when the NYT reached out for comment on this story but this is exactly the kind of effect DeSantis and the GOP are trying to get from publishers, threatening them into "self-censoring" to comply with these laws.

Talk about white washing history

masterplum posted...

What a dumb thing to riot over. Benefits for 62 year olds

Unions are the compromise. Never forget.

I'm kind of whatever on Unions.

I think it needs to be easier to join unions but unions can also be a huge detriment to efficiency by protecting bad workers and preventing people from doing things for themselves.

My boss complained once about a conference in Illinois where his exhibit wasn't set up in time and the event absolutely forbade him from setting it up himself because it was a union duty and the union would immediately sue them if anyone besides the union did any work

So he was just stuck there for hours waiting for the union to send someone.

Does that invalidate the use of unions? No, but I would dramatically prefer bureaucracy free solutions like basic income

masterplum posted...

I'm kind of whatever on Unions.

I think it needs to be easier to join unions but unions can also be a huge detriment to efficiency by protecting bad workers and preventing people from doing things for themselves.

My boss complained once about a conference in Illinois where his exhibit wasn't set up in time and the event absolutely forbade him from setting it up himself because it was a union duty and the union would immediately sue them if anyone besides the union did any work

So he was just stuck there for hours waiting for the union to send someone.

Does that invalidate the use of unions? No, but I would dramatically prefer bureaucracy free solutions like basic income

Your boss had a complaint about unions huh. Interesting.

*turns to the camera*

Anyway they are the compromise for the working class not simply killing the rich.

SirChris posted...

Your boss had a complaint about unions huh. Interesting.

*turns to the camera*

Anyway they are the compromise for the working class not simply killing the rich.

I was a software developer for a small dev team with good work life balance. There was no desire from anyone for a union. He just likes to talk about random things some times.

But yes I agree they can help the working class. They just dont help me or really anyone who doesnt want to bargain collectively

That makes me more meh about them!

masterplum posted...

But yes I agree they can help the working class. They just dont help me

That makes me more meh about them!

I agree police can help put criminals behind bars. They just don't help me.

That makes me more meh about them!

masterplum posted...

I was a software developer for a small dev team with good work life balance. There was no desire from anyone for a union. He just likes to talk about random things some times.

But yes I agree they can help the working class. They just dont help me

That makes me more meh about them!

The working class being helped does help you though. When people are looked after there is less of a need for crimes of desperation. When more people are educated and healthier and taken care of it leads to civilization level prosperity which can enrich all of our lives.

The more people who are well taken care of the better it is for everyone.

Not everyone needs a union, this is true, but strong unions are important.

France is burning because they understand this. We all hope to live to 62 after all. They are fighting for their future.

I suppose I should clarify that I support providing for people in the working class, but I'm not a big fan when those forms of support tank productivity.

Rubber Room jobs are bad for everyone. They are bad for the company, they are bad for the consumer who is paying for it, and they are bad for the person in the rubber room who is getting paid to sit in a room doing nothing instead of sitting wherever they want in the world doing whatever they want.

Direct payments aren't bad for anyone except they people who pay the taxes to support them, and even that arguably isn't bad for them because money doesn't create happiness at extreme levels!

Also let's not pretend that unions are only about money. Unions got us the 5-day work week, better working conditions, and so much more. Unless you worked 7 days a week, you absolutely benefited from Unions.

masterplum posted...

I suppose I should clarify that I support providing for people in the working class, but I'm not a big fan when those forms of support tank productivity.

Rubber Room jobs are bad for everyone. They are bad for the company, they are bad for the consumer who is paying for it, and they are bad for the person in the rubber room who is getting paid to sit in a room doing nothing instead of sitting wherever they want in the world doing whatever they want.

Direct payments aren't bad for anyone except they people who pay the taxes to support them, and even that arguably isn't bad for them because money doesn't create happiness at extreme levels!

Productivity levels are not an issue at union jobs at all though.

It's just a myth.

HanOfTheNekos posted...

Teaching was twice as hard as coding and I made less than half what I do now.

I had to teach coding for awhile.

That was... An event.

Dancedreamer posted...

I agree police can help put criminals behind bars. They just don't help me.

That makes me more meh about them!

I mean, this strikes me as a pretty fair, even generous, criticism of police!

Anyway unions are great (except police "unions").

Kenri posted...

I mean, this strikes me as a pretty fair, even generous, criticism of police!

Anyway unions are great (except police "unions").

I remember even Biscuit agreeing police unions were a problem, since unions are supposed to help workers against an unjust authority figure, whereas police are their own authority.

StealThisSheen posted...

I remember even Biscuit agreeing police unions were a problem, since unions are supposed to help workers against an unjust authority figure, whereas police are their own authority.

I remember Biscuit being actually 100% right on this issue and being vocal about it.

StealThisSheen posted...

I remember even Biscuit agreeing police unions were a problem, since unions are supposed to help workers against an unjust authority figure, whereas police are their own authority.

Yep. In theory I'm fine with police unions if they do things like push higher ups for more training, fewer hours, mental health services, etc. It's not like police inherently shouldn't have a union. But realistically our police (and arguably the whole institution of policing as we understand it currently) are so incredibly corrupt that the union just makes things worse.

SirChris posted...

I remember Biscuit being actually 100% right on this issue and being vocal about it.

No, he wasn't. Biscuit was right on the problems about police unions while having 0 knowledge of what actual unions do(There was a lot of "unlike other unions police unions do -insert thing other unions actually do here-" thrown in)..

Kenri posted...

Yep. In theory I'm fine with police unions if they do things like push higher ups for more training, fewer hours, mental health services, etc. It's not like police inherently shouldn't have a union. But realistically our police (and arguably the whole institution of policing as we understand it currently) are so incredibly corrupt that the union just makes things worse.

Well yeah, that is indeed the problem with unions

When an organization gets a lot of power over a group of people who can't do anything about it that is a problem.

Sometimes that organization is a union, especially if union membership is mandatory

masterplum posted...

Sometimes that organization is a union, especially if union membership is mandatory

Management will simply start hiring people outside the union.

This is particularly ignorant.

red13n posted...

No, he wasn't. Biscuit was right on the problems about police unions while having 0 knowledge of what actual unions do(There was a lot of "unlike other unions police unions do -insert thing other unions actually do here-" thrown in)..

(I remember he was right against you and I am not particularly wanting to rehash this argument tbh)

masterplum posted...

Well yeah, that is indeed the problem with unions

If a teacher gunned down one of their students on camera I don't think their union would protect them, is the thing.

SirChris posted...

(I remember he was right against you and I am not particularly wanting to rehash this argument tbh)

Your memory is wrong.

red13n posted...

Management will simply start hiring people outside the union.

This is particularly ignorant.

Yeah, that is explicitly not allowed in some places

The issue with police unions is essentially that they bargain with themselves and elect a lot of their own management.

A lot of the tertiary things biscuit was arguing against were things that real unions actually need to function. It was just pure anti-union rhetoric that is way too common(And often fed from management to curb union sentiment).

For the record, my memory coincides with Chris in that, for all of his problems, Biscuit was as close to 100% correct about police unions as it gets, and he was vehemently vocally against them. Maybe he made a few wrong assumptions here and there, but his overarching message was completely correct.

And this comes from somebody who never stopped giving him shit over defending Richard Spencer over the gym incident, for instance.

EDIT: Maybe others took Biscuit's anti-police union rhetoric and used it to argue against unions in general? I don't actually remember such a thing coming from Biscuit himself, he seemed aggressively anti-police union and pro traditional labor union.

https://twitter.com/populismupdates/status/1636543704960827401?s=46&t=KA4lRnbcIFaebisali_nwA

Ho ly shit this is an amazing clip

StealThisSheen posted... EDIT: Maybe others took Biscuit's anti-police union rhetoric and used it to argue against unions in general? I don't actually remember such a thing coming from Biscuit himself, he seemed aggressively anti-police union and pro traditional labor union.

Little of A little of B. He knew how police unions operated. But took things as "this is bad because police unions do it" when in fact it was pretty typical union stuff. Lot of "unions shouldn't be able to do this" but it was stuff that unions -should- be able to do. One of the big one was endorsing political candidates and other election stuff. And I cant stress enough how important it is for unions to be able to endorse and have relationships with local political leaders. Those things pay off big when the unions want to be able to put pressure on a company without having to resort to a strike or other action(And also when they do).

Biscuit was 100% arguing that police unions should not be conflated with labor unions and was right to draw that distinction.

SirChris posted...

Biscuit was 100% arguing that police unions should not be conflated with labor unions and was right to draw that distinction.

Absolutely, but he didn't draw the line at that. He would not back down from a position of "unions should not be able to do this". He had some positions where it was things he had no idea that unions actually did those things. It was "regular unions dont do -insert things regular unions do- so police arent real unions" arguments mixed up in there.

red13n posted...

Absolutely, but he didn't draw the line at that. He would not back down from a position of "unions should not be able to do this". He had some positions where it was things he had no idea that unions actually did those things. It was "regular unions dont do -insert things regular unions do- so police arent real unions" arguments mixed up in there.

You could be right, I stopped paying full attention to politics topics around then. I just legitimately only remember him mostly pointing out the differences between police unions and regular labor unions, and to that point he was right.

Not worth arguing over, in the long run. I think we all ended up agreeing on the same conclusion, minus a few obvious outliers.

btw we could learn something from France's protesting

I do think it's easier for most European countries to protest because it's a smaller area so people are clustered together more. People are just spreadout a whole bunch here so it's way harder for anything approaching, say, a general strike to happen here.

But yeah it'd be nice if we would.

Jakyl25 posted...

https://twitter.com/populismupdates/status/1636543704960827401?s=46&t=KA4lRnbcIFaebisali_nwA

Ho ly shit this is an amazing clip

I didn't know "masterful" would be sarcasm aimed at Kamala Harris. Foolishly hoped to see something actually worthwhile from Colbert for the first time in forever :/

Thorn posted...

I do think it's easier for most European countries to protest because it's a smaller area so people are clustered together more. People are just spreadout a whole bunch here so it's way harder for anything approaching, say, a general strike to happen here.

But yeah it'd be nice if we would.

Nah we could fuck over our economy big with a few major cities. But our country is too entrenched in shitty ideals about capitalism. So many people are convinced those above them are looking out for them.

_Blur_ posted...

I didn't know "masterful" would be sarcasm aimed at Kamala Harris. Foolishly hoped to see something actually worthwhile from Colbert for the first time in forever :/

I mean she's not wrong. Everything she said in that clip was 100% correct. It's hard to answer questions when put on the spot like that, and there's nothing wrong with taking a sentence or two to say something obviously true to set up a framework leading into whatever it is you are going to say (not shown in the clip).

I watched Elizabeth Warren question Janet Yellen in the Senate yesterday and her performance was worse honestly. She had a prepared line of questioning, to which Janet Yellen gave uninformative platitudes as answers. Except then Janet Yellen said something I did not know and is super important - that the stress tests the Fed does with banks apparently do not test for liquidity problems, but are focused only on capital problems. Warren seemed so focused on her prepared line of questioning that it seemed to go completely over her head.

So Tuesday is gonna be a big day for Trump huh?

?

Peace___Frog posted...

?

Arrested

red13n posted...

Nah we could fuck over our economy big with a few major cities. But our country is too entrenched in shitty ideals about capitalism. So many people are convinced those above them are looking out for them.

If people don't see the protest they will not care and attribute it to whatever their preferred media tells them to think about it. People in Iowa are not going to be moved by an LA general strike, regardless of the economic impact. The conservatives there will just continue talking about how much CA sucks. It really is a problem with how big the country is.

Not to mention coordinating a general strike in one major city is hard enough-- doing it in several that are spread out across the country is much harder if not impossible.

And it isn't just that people are too entrenched in their love of capitalism that prevents a general strike. It's that too many people can't afford to lose their job-- social safety nets here are so bad that it's much harder to convince people to risk their livelihood, especially when so many are living paycheck to paycheck.

Yeah, the rumor is that the Manhattan DA intends to indict Trump imminently. Whether Trump saying Tuesday is him just regurgitating the news reports (and thus not a given it's true) or he knows something (the reports stated law enforcement was reaching out to the Secret Service to discuss how the logistics of doing this will go so maybe he has inside info on the time) idk.

As far as we know this particular indictment is related to the Stormy Daniels payments. I'm thinking at most we get a perp walk of Trump (which would be delicious) but I could also see law enforcement and the Secret Service working out a deal where he voluntarily walks with them into the courthouse or whatever instead of the full handcuffs deal. Either way, I expect he'll post bail immediately and walk out. We're not lucky enough to live in a world where he gets thrown in jail.

Its not going to happen.

If they go through with it, surely they foresee January 6-2, boogaloo, so I think theyll reconsider doing an actual perp walk.

Theres just no way.

Everything about the indictment happening seems fairly solid. I think it's more likely to happen than not at this point. That said, having done some more reading of the reporting regarding Trump's unhinged screed yesterday it sounds like he doesn't have any inside info on the timing so the idea that it's Tuesday is him pulling a day from his ass.

The thinking for Tuesday is that there's yet another meeting between the various law enforcement agencies that would be involved in executing the indictment and arrest, including Trump's Secret Service detail, scheduled for Monday so I guess he's just assuming the arrest would happen the day after.

But it sounds like that's just speculation so it shouldn't be viewed as "it happens Tuesday or it's not happening at all." And tbqh pretty sure more people spontaneously celebrated when Biden won in 2020 than were involved in 1/6. Trump is clearly trying to incite another 1/6-style reaction with his call to his supporters there but I wouldn't expect much to come of it.

Trump is a genuine madman and his tenure as President was basically Nazi Germany minus the Holocaust. I also feel like Trump was still riding momentum during the 2020 election entirely because he presided during a period of unparalleled economic prosperity post-recession for most of his administration until the pandemic, so it's really only going to be his hardcore base who'll stick by him at least in the primaries.

LinkMarioSamus posted...

I also feel like Trump was still riding momentum during the 2020 election entirely because he presided during a period of unparalleled economic prosperity post-recession for most of his administration until the pandemic

This may be the most untrue thing you've ever said. He didn't even outpace Obama's GDP.

Republicans really upset that Minnesota's Governor is giving free lunches and breakfasts to all school children. Like... not all of them, but a not-insignificant number upset over it. It's a policy that should 110% should be nationwide.

Thorn posted...

Everything about the indictment happening seems fairly solid. I think it's more likely to happen than not at this point. That said, having done some more reading of the reporting regarding Trump's unhinged screed yesterday it sounds like he doesn't have any inside info on the timing so the idea that it's Tuesday is him pulling a day from his ass.

The can of worms it would open to perp walk a President over Stormie Daniels of all things.

Itd make more sense for them to order him to court and then issue a bench warrant if he doesnt show, that way theres an actual justification they can point to.

And tbqh pretty sure more people spontaneously celebrated when Biden won in 2020 than were involved in 1/6. Trump is clearly trying to incite another 1/6-style reaction with his call to his supporters there but I wouldn't expect much to come of it.

I dont see how these two things are related at all.

Another January 6th is almost best case scenario, with the worst case being DeSantis pulling a New York leave my Florida man alone!! and the reactionary response to that. Theres also the possibility of a GOP primary implosion over each candidates reaction to this, but who knows what happens then.

Dancedreamer posted...

Republicans really upset that Minnesota's Governor is giving free lunches and breakfasts to all school children. Like... not all of them, but a not-insignificant number upset over it. It's a policy that should 110% should be nationwide.

Absolutely should be, but you know those Rs love to complain about something that actually benefits children that doesnt involve them personally. Thats why theyre fine passing/keeping child marriage and returning to child labor, but not fine with children having access to food. Absolute monsters that should be removed from society

TheRock1525 posted...

This may be the most untrue thing you've ever said. He didn't even outpace Obama's GDP.

Huh. I heard there was more economic growth in Obama's last three years as President than Trump's first three, but I assumed the economy just kept growing in Trump's term pre-pandemic.

Economic growth is nearly independent of the president

People loving blaming and crediting the president for everything. In reality pretty much nothing economy related has anything to do with them