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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[LarryBnDC]

Cannibals don’t cry over dinner.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/02/it-was-all-a-lie-review-trump-republican-party

https://exjournalistsunite.wordpress.com/2018/11/08/trump-and-americas-xenophobic-soul/

[facilitatorn]

http://www.theweek.com/speedreads/928928/deutsche-bank-launches-investigation-into-personal-banker-trump-kushner

[Echo4]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/01/schools-reopening-coronavirus-arizona-superintendent/?arc404=true&fbclid=IwAR1JtrtCOYli0HtojyvfsJJNwtI0sr93r_Q0-1iBoFB-qX-A1t2lUT_R7LY

This is from a superintendent who has already lost a teacher to COVID-19, because she was teaching summer school.


(Kid, if you so much as post "but how do we know that's why she died," I will remove you from our misery.)

Voices from the Pandemic

‘I’m sorry, but it’s a fantasy’
Jeff Gregorich, superintendent, on trying to reopen his schools safely

This is my choice, but I’m starting to wish that it wasn’t. I don’t feel qualified. I’ve been a superintendent for 20 years, so I guess I should be used to making decisions, but I keep getting lost in my head. I’ll be in my office looking at a blank computer screen, and then all of the sudden I realize a whole hour’s gone by. I’m worried. I’m worried about everything. Each possibility I come up with is a bad one.

The governor has told us we have to open our schools to students on August 17th, or else we miss out on five percent of our funding. I run a high-needs district in middle-of-nowhere Arizona. We’re 90 percent Hispanic and more than 90 percent free-and-reduced lunch. These kids need every dollar we can get. But covid is spreading all over this area and hitting my staff, and now it feels like there’s a gun to my head. I already lost one teacher to this virus. Do I risk opening back up even if it’s going to cost us more lives? Or do we run school remotely and end up depriving these kids?

This is your classic one-horse town. Picture John Wayne riding through cactuses and all that. I’m superintendent, high school principal and sometimes the basketball referee during recess. This is a skeleton staff, and we pay an average salary of about 40,000 a year. I’ve got nothing to cut. We’re buying new programs for virtual learning and trying to get hotspots and iPads for all our kids. Five percent of our budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Where’s that going to come from? I might lose teaching positions or basic curriculum unless we somehow get up and running.

I’ve been in the building every day, sanitizing doors and measuring out space in classrooms. We still haven’t received our order of Plexiglas barriers, so we’re cutting up shower curtains and trying to make do with that. It’s one obstacle after the next. Just last week I found out we had another staff member who tested positive, so I went through the guidance from OSHA and the CDC and tried to figure out the protocols. I’m not an expert at any of this, but I did my best with the contact tracing. I called 10 people on staff and told them they’d had a possible exposure. I arranged separate cars and got us all to the testing site. Some of my staff members were crying. They’ve seen what can happen, and they’re coming to me with questions I can’t always answer. “Does my whole family need to get tested?” “How long do I have to quarantine?” “What if this virus hits me like it did Mrs. Byrd?”

We got back two of those tests already — both positive. We’re still waiting on eight more. That makes 11 percent of my staff that’s gotten covid, and we haven’t had a single student in our buildings since March. Part of our facility is closed down for decontamination, but we don’t have anyone left to decontaminate it unless I want to put on my hazmat suit and go in there. We’ve seen the impacts of this virus on our maintenance department, on transportation, on food service, on faculty. It’s like this district is shutting down case by case. I don’t understand how anyone could expect us to reopen the building this month in a way that feels safe. It’s like they’re telling us: “Okay. Summer’s over. It’s been long enough. Time to get back to normal.” But since when has this virus operated on our schedule?

I dream about going back to normal. I’d love to be open. These kids are hurting right now. I don’t need a politician to tell me that. We only have 300 students in this district, and they’re like family. My wife is a teacher here, and we had four kids go through these schools. I know whose parents are laid off from the copper mine and who doesn’t have enough to eat. We delivered breakfast and lunches this summer, and we gave out more meals each day than we have students. I get phone calls from families dealing with poverty issues, depression, loneliness, boredom. Some of these kids are out in the wilderness right now, and school is the best place for them. We all agree on that. But every time I start to play out what that looks like on August 17th, I get sick to my stomach. More than a quarter of our students live with grandparents. These kids could very easily catch this virus, spread it and bring it back home. It’s not safe. There’s no way it can be safe.

If you think anything else, I’m sorry, but it’s a fantasy. Kids will get sick, or worse. Family members will die. Teachers will die.

[Echo4]

[Yankguy1]

Are you willing to let the people who stormed the Michigan State House use that meme in their defense?

[LarryBnDC]

Are you willing to let the people who stormed the Michigan State House use that meme in their defense?

They got their way, didn’t they? How were they being oppressed? Oh, yeah.

Their government was trying to protect them as opposed to denying them the right to survive being protected and served.

[Echo4]

Are you willing to let the people who stormed the Michigan State House use that meme in their defense?

Sure, as soon as the government treats those protesters the way the others have been treated.

Until then, no.

[Yankguy1]

That's the issue isn't it? Governments that oppress frequently do so with a justification that it's protecting the citizenry. I think if you feel that violent civil unrest is always justified in response to government violations of rights you've got the classic slippery slope argument.

[bambu.]

BLEXIT... freeing Black people from the grip of the left/far left.

Now Black people in America have a choice ...other than BLM and all that goes with it.

A choice... the party that is an existential threat to our existence or the party that has tried in fits and starts to do the right thing over the last 50 odd years?

Damn, that’s a head scratcher for sure. Tell you what though, for a ‘stipend’ and intellectual property rights, what would you like me to say?

Suckers.

Candace Owens and Blexit are the future.
Candace -ilk...no burning down America for them. No rioting in the streets.
They'll be making change happen the right way.

BLEXIT is a beacon that will show African Americans young and old the right path to freedom. Freedom from all the things wrong with their lives today.

[Echo4]

BLEXIT... freeing Black people from the grip of the left/far left.

Now Black people in America have a choice ...other than BLM and all that goes with it.

A choice... the party that is an existential threat to our existence or the party that has tried in fits and starts to do the right thing over the last 50 odd years?

Damn, that’s a head scratcher for sure. Tell you what though, for a ‘stipend’ and intellectual property rights, what would you like me to say?

Suckers.

Candace Owens and Blexit are the future.
Candace -ilk...no burning down America for them. No rioting in the streets.
They'll be making change happen the right way.

Dead ends. You put your faith in the damnedest people.

[facilitatorn]

BLEXIT... freeing Black people from the grip of the left/far left.

Now Black people in America have a choice ...other than BLM and all that goes with it.

A choice... the party that is an existential threat to our existence or the party that has tried in fits and starts to do the right thing over the last 50 odd years?

Damn, that’s a head scratcher for sure. Tell you what though, for a ‘stipend’ and intellectual property rights, what would you like me to say?

Suckers.

Candace Owens and Blexit are the future.
Candace -ilk...no burning down America for them. No rioting in the streets.
They'll be making change happen the right way.

The more American republicans you can get to write in Candice Owens instead of casting a vote for donald trump, the brighter America’s future will be.

[LarryBnDC]

That's the issue isn't it? Governments that oppress frequently do so with a justification that it's protecting the citizenry. I think if you feel that violent civil unrest is always justified in response to government violations of rights you've got the classic slippery slope argument.

Sometimes (often, in fact) violent civil unrest is the result of protestors pushing back on the violent suppression of their protest.

There are nearly always three factions at protest.

Those protesting with righteous outrage.

Agent provocateurs from both ends of the spectrum neither giving a fuck about the protest they just wanna break shit and if the protest takes the blame so what?

Then there are those who are opportunist who see the chance to get stuff for resale or the guy who just grinds away with no advancement in sight and probably the only chance to get that flat screen tv. Protest, natural disaster... all the same to them.

The problem is conflating the last two with the protest itself.

The Michigan militia guys?

How come the same cops and state police didn’t show up in full riot gear?

[bambu.]

BLEXIT is a beacon that will show African Americans young and old the right path to freedom. Freedom from all the things wrong with their lives today.

KLEXIT could be the same ..freeing White people from the grip of the KKK.
A choice for better.

[Echo4]

BLEXIT is a beacon that will show African Americans young and old the right path to freedom. Freedom from all the things wrong with their lives today.

KLEXIT could be the same ..freeing White people from the grip of the KKK.
A choice for better.

BLEXIT is an old song, Bambi, sung by the Klan and its allies. It's not new. The Blacks pushing for it are being used by the same white supremacists behind most of the far right's agenda, being taken advantage of far more than even the left does of others.

The right wing talks about how terrible the left wing is to Blacks and other minorities, but whenever policy time comes, the policy behind the right wing's actions disenfrancises and kills Blacks.

Note that there is no "Klexit" being discussed. There is no move among the right wing advocates for Blexit for any reform of the GOP or its policies toward American or world CoP. If they had their way, your country would be even more the sacrificial stalking horse you think it is. They feel about you the way you feel about everybody else: them first and anything they can do to further that goal is good.

And whenever your officials talk about looking out for yourselves, you paint a target on your country for them. Because they are not, in truth, white supremacists. They are "us" supremacists, looking out for themselves first and foremost. Not the white people. Not the United States of America. Looking out for what makes them and theirs stronger and safer.

Just like you preach. And you could worship at their feet, Bambi, or you could swear at them profusely. It won't matter to them - you are not a person to them, either. You're cannon fodder. Higher grade cannon fodder? Maybe. Maybe not. It won't matter. Fodder is fodder.

[Echo4]

And people like Kid and Ward? They don't care for you at all, either.

Stupidly enough, the only people who are every going to look out for you are the folks like Larry or me or the other bleeding hearts around here. We may despise you for your bigotry and your inability to think your way out of a wet paper bag, while you are used by the folks on the right, but if you need saving and we can do it, we will.

They will carefully step over or around your body, or on it if it's more convenient, or kick it if you annoyed them, then move on.

And we would do that, despite knowing that you are just as fucking selfish as Trump, Kid, or Ward seem to be. Because it is the right thing to do.