All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Jack Dracula]

Unfortunately, Oprah was wrong. Because that generation of people that were marinated in racism have now passed that onto their children, who will then pass it on to their children, etc.

Sometimes I wonder if we aren't still fighting the Civil War only instead of an armed conflict it became a war of attrition.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I wonder if she, after reading other reports of women doing similar things, thought to herself how much she'd like to be in their shoes. How she'd love to follow their example. Did she daydream of the moment when she could make a black man's life miserable by calling the cops on him for no reason?

When I read stories like that, it frustrates the heck out of me.

Harridans like her want to put people like me in the ground, plain and simple. When I think of Central Park Karen and the stunt she pulled, I'm reminded of Susan Smith who, twenty-five years ago, blamed a black man for the murders of her two kids which SHE committed, and that madness continues apace today.

Unfortunately, Oprah was wrong. Because that generation of people that were marinated in racism have now passed that onto their children, who will then pass it on to their children, etc.

Short and sweet, it never ends.

[worstblogever]

Trump threatens to crack down on social media platforms after Twitter labels his tweets

Attachment 97052

Twitter Link

God damn, basic decency from a Republican?

Yikes. Rasmussen now has an approval mind disapproval of -15, which I think is tied for the worst he's been with them.

Politico dropped from minus 10 to minus 17 within a few days.

I had hopes that when Romney was elected Senator would speak up more and perhaps put together an anti-Trump coalition in Congress. Maybe he has but there way too quiet IMO. Or they were the ones that simply didn't run for re-election.

But there was another congressman that spoke out at least, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) But we need way more than this. Too many in the GOP congress are Trump enablers. Why don't they complain about all the time he wastes going through the sites with conspiracy theories and other garbage? Or all the time spent golfing or at his private clubs? Yeah, this he has time for but loathes reading the briefings and other important documents given to him. You can tell whenever he recites a scripted speech like a 6th grader with poor reading skills that he probably is just seeing it for the first time.
Trump has no redeeming qualities whatsoever when you see him dredging up this poor woman's fate and causing her husband and relatives all this anguish over this cheap sensationalism. He has no soul...just a black hole of hatred, greed, vanity and stupidity.

... could...? Could the cracks finally be showing? Is the spell lifting? Are people finally ready to stand up to the incompetent racist f***wad?

I need more empirical data before I can say this isn't just a blip, and it's a trend, but s***, do I hope so.

[PwrdOn]

Sometimes I wonder if we aren't still fighting the Civil War only instead of an armed conflict it became a war of attrition.

Well when the federal government prioritizes reintegrating white southerners back into civil society over protecting the rights of freemen, then that's the result that you get.

[godisawesome]

Sometimes I wonder if we aren't still fighting the Civil War only instead of an armed conflict it became a war of attrition.

Well when the federal government prioritizes reintegrating white southerners back into civil society over protecting the rights of freemen, then that's the result that you get.

The Civil War was very much about slavery... but analyzing contemporary sources shows that a separation between slavery and racism was very present among even abolitionists - even John Quincy Adams, a famous abolitionists who successfully argued the Amistad case, expressed blatantly racist sentiment in his commentary on the play Othello (namely, he didn’t think anyone could possibly sympathize with Desdemona because she married outside her race). The moral repugnance of slavery had to be matched with the economic liability it was for the country’s population in order to turn the majority against it in the 1860 election.

And the death of Lincoln and the ensuing infighting between the Republican administration at the time (Radical Republicans with more liberal views of future vs Conservative Republicans with a more predacious mindset vs President Andrew Johnson, who was basically just against the Osurhern aristocracy but that was is), any civil rights bill passed was soon abandoned as the Radical Republicans slowly got phased out and resurgent Southern political power soon took over, while what had always been a current of racism in parts of the North also resurged. Once the Republican Party forsook the black vote and population in the 1877, the racist elements of both parties reigned supreme.

And this is partially why you have to back some socialization strategies to really end racism, like busing and “forced” integration and representation in media, because political enfranchisement doesn’t work enough, and ending systemic racism requires doing more than de jury reform, since you need to address de facto bias.

[MacrossPlus]

Honestly, I don’t think people are ever gonna get along and unify. It seems like we’re always gonna be at each other throats until the end of time��

[Kuro no Shinigami]

The Civil War was very much about slavery... but analyzing contemporary sources shows that a separation between slavery and racism was very present among even abolitionists - even John Quincy Adams, a famous abolitionists who successfully argued the Amistad case, expressed blatantly racist sentiment in his commentary on the play Othello (namely, he didn’t think anyone could possibly sympathize with Desdemona because she married outside her race). The moral repugnance of slavery had to be matched with the economic liability it was for the country’s population in order to turn the majority against it in the 1860 election.
.

It is not like they care about the slaves. It is more like the Abolitionists disliked slavery
Civil War was perhaps more about economy than slavery. Northerners did not need slaves for their economy and fought a bloody war to free them. In 1860, there were more farms in the North than in the South, although Southern states, especially in the Cotton Belt, had the majority of large farms. Southern economy, based primarily on agriculture, depended on slave labor So the North was competing with the South in economy prior to the Civil War. Both sides had different methods of recruiting labor.

https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-econ...the-civil-war/

https://www.nps.gov/articles/industr...-civil-war.htm

https://www.historycentral.com/Civil...Economics.html

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/us...onstruction-2/

[Mister Mets]

Correct.

Now to point a few things.



Let me comment on this-there are TWO issues.

1) In order to tests kid for any of that-we need PARENTAL permission. That is battle number one. Most won't do it unless you tell them they can get a CHECK for certain conditions. Don't ask me because I am not sure of which ones qualify. I don't think someone like Becky from Glee or Corky from Life Goes On qualifies. I don't think Max from NBC's Parenthood counts.

2) In order to test a kid for those conditions. You need a diagnostician. They do NOT come CHEAP. My district has about 120. Why you ask??? Because they can make WAY more money in private practice or other fields.

Here are the requirements for diagnostician.



120 folks needing to test MINIMUM 5000 kids. FYI we're behind 2 years.

It's hard to fill in those jobs to cover that part.



One more thing I have worked with "bad" kids for now 20 years. The majority have graduated high school, joined the military, went to college (including YALE-yes YALE) and the work force (some own LEGIT businesses). I know about 100 who have been to jail and 20 who are in prison. 3 who have killed folks. Who have come from some of the worst situations that would make the WIRE look TAME.

A further problem is that districts and schools often have incentives not to hire diagnositicians.

If a child is diagnosed with a specific ailment, it could mean that they're entitled to specific services, which are potentially costly. It may be better for the bottom line of a school to not demonstrate that a kid has dyslexia, which is messed up.

The evidence generally points to "bad apples" as students who have some sort of underlining condition, (ADHD, learning disabilities, executive functioning, anxiety) or socio economic status issues (abusive home ect) Children who come from stable 2 parent middle class homes with no underlining condition, do not usually exhibit severe bad behavior, and come to school ready to learn. So there is a certain amount of biological determinism & environmental issues in play.

I guess it depends if you believe in the inclusion model or not. I personally think with support the bad apples behavior will be nullified under a strong community classroom that has natural leaders, but as you stated, once private schools become the norm, the public school system is left holding the bag for all the students they choose not to take. My issue with private schools is that they have the option to take who they want because they are designed for profit, public schools do not because they are designed to serve the general community.

Now if a law was passed forcing private schools to take their share of bad students I wouldn't have a problem with it, and if I felt that the education of regular students was being significantly impacted than I would advocate for a different model, but in Canada, we are doing fine with our current model.

Class size varies across Canada's Provinces, it's not centralized like the UK. In general though, I believe class sizes are capped at 30, with somewhere between 27 or 28 being the norm in public schools, 15 to 20 for private schools is my understanding, but not certain.

One of the problems with education policy is that the elites (legislators, media figures, etc.) are largely inoculated from decisions they make regarding the typical public schools, as their kids are unlikely to attend. If they don't live in an upper middle class, or upper class enclave, where the student body reflects the local demographics, they have the connections to get their kids into more selective public schools, and if neither of those helps their kids be in a school without the riffraff, they can always send their kids to private school.
So the entire argument for making it tougher for some parents to have more choices about where to send their kids is that other people's children have to compromise on the quality of education to make sure that trouble(d) students are more evenly distributed. This is going to be deeply unpopular with parents.

It is also worth noting the implications of racial equity when it comes to kids who get a worse education because of the presence of disruptive students. Methods that make it more difficult to remove those students, and to provide incentives for better behavior, are going to have consequences for their classmates, who tend to be from similar socioeconomic classes thanks to geographical stratification.

[godisawesome]

It is not like they care about the slaves. It is more like the Abolitionists disliked slavery
Civil War was perhaps more about economy than slavery. Northerners did not need slaves for their economy and fought a bloody war to free them. In 1860, there were more farms in the North than in the South, although Southern states, especially in the Cotton Belt, had the majority of large farms. Southern economy, based primarily on agriculture, depended on slave labor So the North was competing with the South in economy prior to the Civil War. Both sides had different methods of recruiting labor.

https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-econ...the-civil-war/

https://www.nps.gov/articles/industr...-civil-war.htm

https://www.historycentral.com/Civil...Economics.html

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/us...onstruction-2/

Oh, there definitely were plenty of people who cared about the slaves in a human and moral sense - just like there were people who refused to countenance an end to slavery because admitting it might be even just amoral instead of immoral would be acknowledge that horrible, horrible things were happening.

You are right that the economic side played into it as well; it’s the combination of economic desires and visions of the future combining with the moral argument that had been present with slavery for a long time that lead to the Civil War, with both being exacerbated and increased by things like the Second Great Awakening (major impact on the moral side, and saw the rise of religious abolition alongside pro-slavery schisms like the original Southern Baptist church), and the impact of the Industrial Revolution (major impact on the economic side, as the South’s elite generally refused to embrace the change outside of New Orleans and parts of Virginia, and thus dug in an increasingly unsustainable power structure reliant on debt and property.)

The Republican Party of 1860 was a completely different animal from what we have now, much like the Democratic Party is... but at the time the best way to view the Republican Party is as a coalition of the different anti-slavery factions, bringing together a rough alliance of abolitionists and radicals who ferociously opposed slavery on moral grounds with business elite tired of aristocratic Southern plantation owners opposing Industrialization, and ironically labor groups that opposed the marketing impact of slavery on their job prospects and their own property opportunities.

There are plenty of factions and individuals of the Civil War who can be analyzed as having fairly cold economic realities behind their motivations: the significant number of rednecks who fought for the Union were far more likely to be driven by a hatred of the social and economic structure they were locked out of than out of would likely identify that as their main motivation. But events like Bleeding Kansas, the Fugitive Slave Act and the resistance to it, and the intellectual fight over Uncle Tom’s Cabin are largely focused on the moral aspects of it.

And the Post-Civil War era saw the restructuring into the often two-faced views we all know: the South, in an attempt to save face and unite different factions that would otherwise correctly identify their interests as against the plantation class that started the Civil War, embraced the Lost Cause myth because it seemed to refute both the economic and moral connections to slavery... while also seeking to reinforce and indoctrinate racism into a nationalistic creed to both reinforce the “glory” of the Confederacy and it’s true motivations and to keep the poor from uniting a cross racial lines. It’s important to note that Northerners played a part in this and became indoctrinated the leaves...

...Just as it’s important to note the Civil War’s legacy was deployed so much in the Civil War era because King and others had hit upon the strategy of emphasizing the immoral and dangerous nature of racism across the country in the era of mass media, knowing showcasing its true deprivations even without slavery would motivate others to join in.

That’s also why mass media plays such an important part in the current debate - illustrating the ways that society and individuals as a whole still suffer from racism and privilege is the only way to motivate people against it.

[PwrdOn]

The issue with trying to stamp out racism in this country is that we always fail to recognize that it a feature, rather than a bug, of the American system. When you study American history it's impossible not to pick up on the contradiction between the founding fathers' flowery rhetoric about freedom and democracy, and their unabashed exploitation of slave labor, but the lesson that most wrongly take away is that all that's needed is to extend those rights and privileges to everyone, something that's proven quite a bit difficult to achieve. The truth is that all of the civil liberties that Americans enjoy only exist because of slavery, because in just about every society some mechanism exists to restrict the freedoms of the masses so that their labor can be exploited for the benefit of the ruling class, the "innovation" of the American system was that because unpaid labor was so plentiful, EVERY white man was elevated to higher status and could thus enjoy all of the privileges usually reserved for aristocrats. And this is why it was so difficult, even for the most radical abolitionists, to truly live up to the promises they had made after the war, since the economy still relied on black people to supply cheap labor, and wasn't about to let all of them start amassing land and capital too because then who would be doing the work for them?

And in the absence of slave labor, the American economy has largely resorted to turning into a giant pyramid scheme, where each new group of immigrants is promised that if they do backbreaking labor for meager wages then their children have a chance to move up the socioeconomic ladder, which then of course requires more immigrants to be brought in to fill the gaps in the labor market. This dilemma can NEVER be resolved without fundamental changing the structure of the American economic system, a country where everyone becomes a successful entrepreneur can only exist if your definition of "everyone" excludes all of the people doing the real work.

[sammy_hansen]

The issue with trying to stamp out racism in this country is that we always fail to recognize that it a feature, rather than a bug, of the American system. When you study American history it's impossible not to pick up on the contradiction between the founding fathers' flowery rhetoric about freedom and democracy, and their unabashed exploitation of slave labor, but the lesson that most wrongly take away is that all that's needed is to extend those rights and privileges to everyone, something that's proven quite a bit difficult to achieve. The truth is that all of the civil liberties that Americans enjoy only exist because of slavery, because in just about every society some mechanism exists to restrict the freedoms of the masses so that their labor can be exploited for the benefit of the ruling class, the "innovation" of the American system was that because unpaid labor was so plentiful, EVERY white man was elevated to higher status and could thus enjoy all of the privileges usually reserved for aristocrats. And this is why it was so difficult, even for the most radical abolitionists, to truly live up to the promises they had made after the war, since the economy still relied on black people to supply cheap labor, and wasn't about to let all of them start amassing land and capital too because then who would be doing the work for them?

And in the absence of slave labor, the American economy has largely resorted to turning into a giant pyramid scheme, where each new group of immigrants is promised that if they do backbreaking labor for meager wages then their children have a chance to move up the socioeconomic ladder, which then of course requires more immigrants to be brought in to fill the gaps in the labor market. This dilemma can NEVER be resolved without fundamental changing the structure of the American economic system, a country where everyone becomes a successful entrepreneur can only exist if your definition of "everyone" excludes all of the people doing the real work.

I really like this post. I’ve never understood it this way until now.

[Kuro no Shinigami]

You are right that the economic side played into it as well; it’s the combination of economic desires and visions of the future combining with the moral argument that had been present with slavery for a long time that lead to the Civil War, with both being exacerbated and increased by things like the Second Great Awakening (major impact on the moral side, and saw the rise of religious abolition alongside pro-slavery schisms like the original Southern Baptist church), and the impact of the Industrial Revolution (major impact on the economic side, as the South’s elite generally refused to embrace the change outside of New Orleans and parts of Virginia, and thus dug in an increasingly unsustainable power structure reliant on debt and property.)

The Republican Party of 1860 was a completely different animal from what we have now, much like the Democratic Party is... but at the time the best way to view the Republican Party is as a coalition of the different anti-slavery factions, bringing together a rough alliance of abolitionists and radicals who ferociously opposed slavery on moral grounds with business elite tired of aristocratic Southern plantation owners opposing Industrialization, and ironically labor groups that opposed the marketing impact of slavery on their job prospects and their own property opportunities.

There are plenty of factions and individuals of the Civil War who can be analyzed as having fairly cold economic realities behind their motivations: the significant number of rednecks who fought for the Union were far more likely to be driven by a hatred of the social and economic structure they were locked out of than out of would likely identify that as their main motivation. But events like Bleeding Kansas, the Fugitive Slave Act and the resistance to it, and the intellectual fight over Uncle Tom’s Cabin are largely focused on the moral aspects of it.

And the Post-Civil War era saw the restructuring into the often two-faced views we all know: the South, in an attempt to save face and unite different factions that would otherwise correctly identify their interests as against the plantation class that started the Civil War, embraced the Lost Cause myth because it seemed to refute both the economic and moral connections to slavery... while also seeking to reinforce and indoctrinate racism into a nationalistic creed to both reinforce the “glory” of the Confederacy and it’s true motivations and to keep the poor from uniting a cross racial lines. It’s important to note that Northerners played a part in this and became indoctrinated the leaves...

...Just as it’s important to note the Civil War’s legacy was deployed so much in the Civil War era because King and others had hit upon the strategy of emphasizing the immoral and dangerous nature of racism across the country in the era of mass media, knowing showcasing its true deprivations even without slavery would motivate others to join in.

That’s also why mass media plays such an important part in the current debate - illustrating the ways that society and individuals as a whole still suffer from racism and privilege is the only way to motivate people against it.

I can't argue with your statement. I totally agree with it. But I can add something else on this discussion. You are right that South’s elite generally refused to embrace the change. Southerners are famous for their stubbornness. The planter elite was resistant to change because they weren't ready to lose their slaves, even though they could pay wages to the farm workers.

As you said, Industrial Revolution indeed played a key role in the way of life. There are more factories in the North than in the South. The North also has a bigger railroad network than the South.

America was hailed as land of opportunity, yet the slaves were denied the opportunity.

While Southerners used slaves as labor, Northerners employed immigrants from Europe into their labor force. German and Swiss immigrants became farmers in Pennsylvania. Some of them were later known as the Amish. Come to think of it, there aren't many immigrants working in Southern farms.
Some of the German immigrants, who are descendants of former serfs, sympathized with the slaves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom

[shooshoomanjoe]

And in the absence of slave labor, the American economy has largely resorted to turning into a giant pyramid scheme, where each new group of immigrants is promised that if they do backbreaking labor for meager wages then their children have a chance to move up the socioeconomic ladder, which then of course requires more immigrants to be brought in to fill the gaps in the labor market. This dilemma can NEVER be resolved without fundamental changing the structure of the American economic system, a country where everyone becomes a successful entrepreneur can only exist if your definition of "everyone" excludes all of the people doing the real work.

As a child of poor immigrants, I believe the American Dream is out there for those that seek for it. You just have to work at it, look opportunities and go over roadblocks instead of giving up when you confront them.

[Kuro no Shinigami]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

The US states hit the hardest by the Covid

1. New York
2. New Jersey
3. Illinois
4. California
5. Massachusetts
6. Pennsylvania
7. Texas
8. Michigan
9. Florida
10. Maryland

All of the ten top hardest hit states are some of the most populated states in America and have many urban heavily-populated cities (NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Detroit)

Most of them are Democratic states, although Maryland and Massachusetts have Republican governors. Those governors especially Cuomo have a lot to answer for this Covid response.

[JamesonAnders]

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

The US states hit the hardest by the Covid

1. New York
2. New Jersey
3. Illinois
4. California
5. Massachusetts
6. Pennsylvania
7. Texas
8. Michigan
9. Florida
10. Maryland

All of the ten top hardest hit states are some of the most populated states in America and have many urban heavily-populated cities (NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Detroit)

Most of them are Democratic states, although Maryland and Massachusetts have Republican governors. Those governors especially Cuomo have a lot to answer for this Covid response.

Please let's not forget that all states were effectively hamstrung by the denial of any real crisis at the national executive level. There's only so much a state can do without the cooperation of the national government.