Life in our conservative dystopia

[gounion]

Conservatives think this is perfectly acceptable:



How surprised they were when this was called out.

An unusual promotional giveaway at a hockey game in South Dakota saw a group of schoolteachers competing for a pile of cash by scrambling on their hands and knees to grab fistfuls of dollar bills.
The inaugural "Dash for Cash" event at Saturday's Sioux Falls Stampede junior hockey game featured 10 local teachers on a rug at center ice, scooping up $5,000 in donated $1 bills and stuffing them into their shirts and pockets. The promotion encouraged teachers to collect as much money as they could to help fund their classroom projects.
Then came the backlash.

Video of the teachers jostling to grab dollar bills has sparked outrage nationwide, with some critics saying the stunt turned schoolteachers' chronic funding shortages into a public spectacle. Others have compared it to "Squid Game," the South Korean TV series about desperate people who compete in deadly children's games to win money.

"Teachers should never have to grovel for money that's needed for classroom improvements," South Dakota state Rep. Erin Healy told CNN affiliate KSFY. "It really just shows how truly broken our system is."

The president of the state's teachers' union echoed a similar sentiment.

"While the Dash for the Cash may have been well-intentioned, it only underscores the fact that educators don't have the resources necessary to meet the needs of their students," Loren Paul of the South Dakota Education Association told CNN.

"As a state, we shouldn't be forcing teachers to crawl around on an ice rink to get the money they need to fund their classrooms. We need to do better for our educators, but, more importantly, we must do better for our students."

[ProfX]

Making teachers grovel does seem to be a definite "feature" of our dystopian present.

I really love these stories where the school district is spending millions on putting in metal detectors, reinforced doors, and security systems into public schools, but the teachers are still having to dig out of their own pocket in some cases to get basic classroom and school or art supplies.

Now that might really be something worth getting upset about at a school board meeting.

[gounion]

Making teachers grovel does seem to be a definite "feature" of our dystopian present.

I really love these stories where the school district is spending millions on putting in metal detectors, reinforced doors, and security systems into public schools, but the teachers are still having to dig out of their own pocket in some cases to get basic classroom and school or art supplies.

Now that might really be something worth getting upset about at a school board meeting.

Yes, I thought this was an interesting point of the consequences of conservative rule. Small things and large. Of course, it's all about low taxes, especially for the rich, and what happens when you do that. They don't believe in infrastructure, for instance. When I was a child, you could get excellent water from your tap, and everywhere, publicly and in businesses, you could get great water from water fountains. Didn't have to pack water, you'd just go into the store or gas station, and drink your fill.

But then city governments started neglecting city water systems, and the water out of your tap wasn't so tasty anymore. So, the corporations started hyping bottled water, took all the water fountains out of their businesses, and instead sold bottled water for more than the price of a coke.

And we accepted that.

[Motor City]

Year-end news roundup




Evictions on the rise months after federal moratorium ends

Among places where evictions are returning to normal are Connecticut as well as Houston, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, according to the Eviction Lab. Florida, too, has seen a significant rise, with filings in Tampa and Gainesville returning to near pre-pandemic levels.

"There was a batch of initial commentary coming out when the moratorium ended and the tone ... was, well, there wasn’t a tsunami so we don’t have an eviction crisis on our hands,” said Ben Martin, senior researcher at Texas Housers, a nonprofit focused on housing issues.

“That initial narrative was somewhat misleading. What we are seeing is a reflection of reality, which is that evictions take time to work their way into and through the court system.”

Among the concerns is that some landlords who got federal assistance are still evicting tenants. A survey of nearly 120 attorneys nationwide from the National Housing Law Project found 86% had seen cases like this. They also saw increasing instances of landlords lying in court to evict tenants and illegally locking out tenants.

And its so faint in coverage and attention people will forget watching their electoral margins disintegrate right before their eyes and be enraged at the most vulnerable because they weren't there to help them pull off the win.

[Motor City]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRWkpIIlVMU

Boomer mcmanchin scrooge and the Millennial kids

lying about scarcity

"He's never seen a corporate tax break he didn't want to pass or a military budget he wouldn't fund.”

https://twitter.com/BRepairers/status/1 ... 5829926923

[Motor City]

Violence is what happens when you… normalize violence

In a hyperconnected world, when violence-obsessed political leaders amplify and normalize hate and violence, it foments the echo chamber in which people like the Crumbleys decide to buy their little boy a gun — and it normalizes the kind of violence he commits with it. Because here’s the brutal irony: The consequences of his actions then ricochet around the world, validating the notion that the world is an unsafe place where people need to be armed to the teeth.