***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[aepps20]

bro I read that 5 times and I can't make sense of it.

Simply put, people are now vilifying the same people they celebrated in 2020.

In 2020 Teachers, first responders, doctors, nurses and regular workers were heroes. In 2022, these same groups are being treated like the enemy.

 

[rexanglorum]

Who would have ever thought that 50 years of defunding the schools would leave them completely unable to deal with a crisis.

I also blame the salience of the right-wing “throwing money at the problem” trope. The idea that certain things like schools and other public goods (though never the police or the military) won’t perform any better with an increased budget. That mantra has bled over to centrists, who run America’s biggest cities. The belief is that schools can have reduced budgets and produce better outcomes if only we have more and more discipline, micromanagement, and monitoring of teachers and students.

Before COVID, the system was able to limp along but now COVID is really exposing the internal contradictions caused by the elite consensus that schools don't need resources and that they only need discipline from above.

 

[RustyShackleford]

My wife is a teacher and for the first time she is questioning whether she wants to keep going. We do well financially because of my Job so she can quit but the Staff shortages due to teachers getting sick is a real issue. Teachers want to teach in person. They hate online teaching because it is much harder but if you don't have the bodies what can you do?

Yeah, most teachers I know hate virtual learning. They prefer being in the classroom

But my friend's girl told me because of staff shortages she was put in charge of up to 80 kids at one time.

She was beyond stressed and felt she and her kids were being put in dangerous situations

 

[mplsdunk]

Minneapolis school bus drivers were offered an 11 cent raise so they went on strike.

The state dot can’t find workers to save their life.

St. Paul public works damn near went on strike and still can’t find help.

A lot of government jobs pay like **** but teachers have it the worst.

 

[aepps20]

Yeah, most teachers I know hate virtual learning. They prefer being in the classroom

But my friend's girl told me because of staff shortages she was put in charge of up to 80 kids at one time.

She was beyond stressed and felt she and her kids were being put in dangerous situations

So many schools are trying to keep things open while ignoring the fact that if your teachers get sick, there is no school. At least with remote learning you get something. Several of my wife's coworkers got COVID over the break but people just don't care.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

-If it is so important schools remain open, then why didn't isn't any of the blame on this for the city not using the money they got from Biden to meet the teacher's demands. They clearly were behind on testing because their offer to the union is to meet their previously stated goals. It doesn't seem like the move to virtual learning for the first time these issues have been raised

imo this accepts the premise that chicago schools don't have enough protections in place for schools to remain open.

I believe they do
or at the very least the teachers haven't presented enough evidence for me to believe these demands are reasonable to shut down schools over.

they said they will provide 200k KN95 masks
NYC schools operate on opt-in testing.

I don't see how it's reasonable to shut down schools over this stuff.

I think my stance is roughly equivalent to the Biden administration no?
so I don't think im on some Ron Desantis tip.

 

[mplsdunk]

I wouldn’t use Biden as a bench mark for Covid testing response.

 

[dacomeup]

dacomeup ya boy Nate Silver back on his bull**** today...


Mans legit compared school closures to invading Iraq

He’s jumped the shark so bad on this stuff and I don’t know what exactly his end goal is. Seems similar to someone we know in here who has realized his takes strike a chord with a certain group and now relishes the fact that he can draw ire from them.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Legit doesn’t matter if he lives in Canada. People getting sick and dying. People shouldn’t have to chance that when measures can be put into place to mitigate the risk and they’re not doing them. It’s like when the bosses told them guys they couldn’t leave work when that tornado was coming a little back.

ah retreating to the, "well youre canadian!"
to avoid addressing the claim.

it should replace the white flag as the universal symbol for surrender in an argument.

I specifically said, teachers have the right to strike.
and I have the right to think their claims are unreasonable.
i don't see how my passport would impact that.

 

[gry60]

We have more than enough evidence to know that virtual school is not a replacement for in person instruction.


Teachers voting for remote, when the city hasn't decided to go remote isn't a meaningful distinction.

if kids are not it is a crisis, voting to force kids into virtual learning is voting for a crisis situation.

They didn't take the vote as a matter of frivolity. They did it because the positivity rate in the schools currently stands at 24%.

I don't care that the immediate symptoms of Omicron are mild. What can you tell about the long term effects of Omicron? Not much for the time being. Is it reasonable to expect Omicron to cause long term effects? Yes, based on the behavior of the previous dominant variants. Are kids 5-18 vaccinated in enough numbers to support having them in schools with no substantial increase in contaminations? At the moment, I don't believe so.

Again, it isn't enough to rely on the existence of vaccines to justify the call to return to normalcy; they have to be taken by anyone old to enough to be vaccinated. Members of the executive branch have to do their jobs and institute vaccine mandates that guarantee that teachers are not working in hazardous situations.

Stop excusing politicians for pandering to the idiots and the "free-thinkers" in our population. The reason they have executive powers is to deal with such crises, and they are refusing to use them.

 

[RustyShackleford]

imo this accepts the premise that chicago schools don't have enough protections in place for schools to remain open.

I believe they do
or at the very least the teachers haven't presented enough evidence for me to believe these demands are reasonable to shut down schools over.

they said they will provide 200k KN95 masks
NYC schools operate on opt-in testing.

I don't see how it's reasonable to shut down schools over this stuff.

I think my stance is roughly equivalent to the Biden administration no?
so I don't think im on some Ron Desantis tip.

-Biden said keep the school open and here is the money to take the safety precautions to make that happen. If you think the city has done enough, even though they were promising for the past few weeks to up testing when going ahead. I think the fact they were promising to do more, and offering the CPU to do more, kinda hints to them knowing they were lacking

-New York teachers union asked for a two-week pause in in-person testing because of staffing issues. So I dunno why you keep bringing them up as some counterpoint. NYC have less stringent testing means nothing. They are having staff issues too.

Nah, I sincerely think you are more DeSantis than Biden on this issue.

 

[RustyShackleford]

ah retreating to the, "well youre canadian!"
to avoid addressing the claim.

it should replace the white flag as the universal symbol for surrender in an argument.

I specifically said, teachers have the right to strike.
and I have the right to think their claims are unreasonable.
i don't see how my passport would impact that.

Why did you quote him?

He is saying the Canadian thing doesn't matter

 

[gry60]

they also want mandatory testing right? and metrics on school closures according to the mayor,

Never thought I'd see collecting boogers referred to as a "medical procedure requiring consent."

 

[RustyShackleford]

He’s jumped the shark so bad on this stuff and I don’t know what exactly his end goal is. Seems similar to someone we know in here who has realized his takes strike a chord with a certain group and now relishes the fact that he can draw ire from them.

Who are you talking about, Delk?

 

[mplsdunk]

Someone got their T cells back.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Someone got their T cells back.

Feeling better today

Legit almost called 9-1-1 last night. Woke up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe

Thought Omarion was legit finna put my heart, lungs, and body in the icebox

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Why did you quote him?

He is saying the Canadian thing doesn't matter

i read it as sarcastic, like obviously it should matter that I live in canada.
but if im mistaken ill happily retract it and say my bad.

 

[mplsdunk]

Feeling better today

Legit almost called 9-1-1 last night. Woke up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe

Thought Omarion was legit finna put my heart, lungs, and body in the icebox

That must have been Omarion’s last stand before your T cells pulled out da 5G musket.

Glad you’re getting better.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

-Biden said keep the school open and here is the money to take the safety precautions to make that happen. If you think the city has done enough, even though they were promising for the past few weeks to up testing when going ahead. I think the fact they were promising to do more, and offering the CPU to do more, kinda hints to them knowing they were lacking

-New York teachers union asked for a two-week pause in in-person testing because of staffing issues. So I dunno why you keep bringing them up as some counterpoint. NYC have less stringent testing means nothing. They are having staff issues too.

Nah, I sincerely think you are more DeSantis than Biden on this issue.

imo "staffing issues" are preferable to schools being closed.
and it doesnt not at all seem clear that preemptively closing is better.
I reference NYC because it has the opt in testing that is one of the disputes between the CTU and the schools


despite these staffing issues, and opt in testing NYC schools seem to be open.
and to me that's preferable to what is happening in chicago.

like i said minds can differ on this, but just imo if I was a chicago parent I wouldn't find this reasonable.
but like i said minds can differ.

 

[whywesteppin]

glad to hear RustyShackleford is feeling better today, just in time for Insurrection Day celebrations.

 

[gry60]

was put in charge of up to 80 kids at one time.

Brings back memories.

Mom used to teach in a public high school back home (many years ago). She'd have classes of 100-120 kids. The classrooms in the school I went to had a respectable average roster of 60 kids. A classroom with a very good size had 30-40 kids in it, and those schools were really, really rare.

I usually joke that conservatives want to turn the US into a third world country to keep the immigrants out, but I don't know how much of a joke that is these days...

 

[yobyellav]

ah retreating to the, "well youre canadian!"
to avoid addressing the claim.

it should replace the white flag as the universal symbol for surrender in an argument.

I specifically said, teachers have the right to strike.
and I have the right to think their claims are unreasonable.
i don't see how my passport would impact that.

You talking to me?

Edit: Seems you were.

I said that cause someone said a Canadian dying on a hill about teachers in Chicago. You could’ve told me you lived down the street from me and I wouldn’t have known any better. The post literally said it doesn’t matter if he lives in Canada……


Why the hell would I wave a white flag when all you’ve said is, “feeling unsafe is unwarranted TO ME”

Be well, my man.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

You talking to me?

my bad misread your post!

 

[RustyShackleford]

The grift never ends...

 

[biggie62]

Feeling better today

Legit almost called 9-1-1 last night. Woke up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe

Thought Omarion was legit finna put my heart, lungs, and body in the icebox

If you got Moderna ^3 like me you’d only have a minor cold from Omarion and not with palms that are sweaty, vomit on the sweater from your girl’s spaghetti, and struggling to breathe