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View Full Version : Sigh. Texas.



_Joe_
Feb 28, 2011, 8:30 PM
It's been a stupid month for stupid politics.

Thankfully, the cake still goes to the one up north that makes an woman who loses an unborn child guilty until proven innocent and can get the death sentance - according to those words a miscarriage can result in death.

Anyhow, the 2nd place goes to :

http://news.change.org/stories/to-block-a-gay-straight-alliance-texas-high-school-shuts-down-all-extracurricular-clubs

DuckiesDarling
Feb 28, 2011, 8:46 PM
Sighs, sometimes I wonder if anyone holds a mirror up to people so they can see exactly what their actions look like to anyone with a shred of decency. It's not just homophobic, it's outright cowardice.

NotLostJustWandering
Feb 28, 2011, 10:58 PM
I love how Americans characterize Muslims as religious fanatics, and then do shit like this.

Hopefully, this heavy-handed measure will create an even broader alliance, amongst all the students they've pissed off.

Tahrir Square in Corpus Christi!

goldenfinger
Mar 1, 2011, 8:12 AM
I was reading in a danish newspaper, that the Governor of texas would allow high school students to carry weapon to school to help prevent mass school shooting if it were to happen. I can just see what a blood bath that could lead to when 50 kids all pull out their guns and start to fire in any direction.
Once again guns wins out over common sense.:eek:

darkeyes
Mar 1, 2011, 8:41 AM
I was reading in a danish newspaper, that the Governor of texas would allow high school students to carry weapon to school to help prevent mass school shooting if it were to happen. I can just see what a blood bath that could lead to when 50 kids all pull out their guns and start to fire in any direction.
Once again guns wins out over common sense.:eek:

As a High School teacher and a relatively sensible human being, I can just imagine the carnage some of the little thugs would carry out..especially in our inner cities.. nice lil disagreement tween 2 lads or girls and pistols whipped out? Christ.. bad enough trying to stop the buggers from carrying blades, and at least one serious difference of opinion a week and thats a country High School..... last week there was a huge quite viscious punch up down to a guy "stealing" another lad's gf.. if either any or all had guns? Kids take sides and there are gangs in most schools.. bloody chaos!!! Jeez... it just doesnt bear thinking about.. I for one would have to seriously reconsider whose mobbie I was confiscating and how (or if) I kept discipline...!! Or if I stayed in the job!! Students bear grudges on teachers as well as other students do they not, and other students parents? Arm the student body.. smart... but coming out of Texas nothing surprises me.. someone please tell me it isn't true..

_Joe_
Mar 1, 2011, 10:06 AM
What you fail to realize is in many high schools around America the kids are already carrying guns to school. If you legalize it, then they aren't breaking any laws anymore :D

No seriously. Just because you see one dumb ass politician do it, doesn't mean all of Texas is like this. In this school case, the majority of school is smart and knows what is right, but you got one pompas ass AT THE TOP ruining it for all.

We have one politician in another state making miscarriages punishable by death. you got one making following Sharia law against the law - and a good number of their laws are the same as the 10 commandments which are already laws, so like you gotta go murder someone to NOT follow sharia law.

You have stupid politicians all over the world. They lie about their intentions, get voted in, and turn their brains off and become total idiots and are confused when they don't get voted back in. WORSE, sometimes there's two fucking idiots and you must pick the worse of two evils.

This is the problem around the world. Everyone who has any common sense and knows what's best is stuck working, raising a family, and can't commit to running the show. That and they have a soul and we all know polticians / lawyers have no soul :D

Sorry for all my misspellings. My office is like 60F today and I can't type when I'm cold.

sammie19
Mar 1, 2011, 3:14 PM
Sorry for all my misspellings. My office is like 60F today and I can't type when I'm cold.

It was about that here today outside. Sunny, very spring like. 17c in the sun. very nice. I think u must be a cold tatty.

12voltman59
Mar 1, 2011, 10:48 PM
It is getting pretty depressing the things going on in the various states that are going to "set the clock" back in many ways---not just this issue--but with states looking to put in laws that basically will do away with abortion and contraception, family planning, etc at both the state and federal levels, union busting for both public and private employees, allowing more guns in more and more places, ceasing funding of public broadcasting, cutting both primary and secondary education to the bone, attempts to gut the various environmental laws like the Clean Air and Water acts, the endangered species act along with stripping the agencies responsible of their power for enforcing those laws and many, many other things---a list almost too long to mention.

It is like we are rushing headlong back to say, 1899 or something---we actually have a movement of "conservative" types that want to set back our Constitution to what it said just prior to 1860!!!!! They of course don't like all the "socialist" aspects of our Constitution done since then--like giving blacks freedom from slavery and women the power to vote to list two major things!!!

The one way these "conservatives" don't want to set back the clock on the wording of the Constitution---they have no problem with rulings and such that give corporations "Free Speech Rights" and the findings that equate money with freedom of speech---mainly that working out to mean that ---" if you have lots of money--you have lots of free speech rights--don't have much money--you are flat, shit out of luck!!!"

But ohh---to hear even many "regular folks" talk--when we finally get rid of all that socialist stuff---we will "bring America back again!"

darkeyes
Mar 2, 2011, 6:30 AM
It is getting pretty depressing the things going on in the various states that are going to "set the clock" back in many ways---not just this issue--but with states looking to put in laws that basically will do away with abortion and contraception, family planning, etc at both the state and federal levels, union busting for both public and private employees, allowing more guns in more and more places, ceasing funding of public broadcasting, cutting both primary and secondary education to the bone, attempts to gut the various environmental laws like the Clean Air and Water acts, the endangered species act along with stripping the agencies responsible of their power for enforcing those laws and many, many other things---a list almost too long to mention.

It is like we are rushing headlong back to say, 1899 or something---we actually have a movement of "conservative" types that want to set back our Constitution to what it said just prior to 1860!!!!! They of course don't like all the "socialist" aspects of our Constitution done since then--like giving blacks freedom from slavery and women the power to vote to list two major things!!!

The one way these "conservatives" don't want to set back the clock on the wording of the Constitution---they have no problem with rulings and such that give corporations "Free Speech Rights" and the findings that equate money with freedom of speech---mainly that working out to mean that ---" if you have lots of money--you have lots of free speech rights--don't have much money--you are flat, shit out of luck!!!"

But ohh---to hear even many "regular folks" talk--when we finally get rid of all that socialist stuff---we will "bring America back again!"

I read this Voltie and it reminded me of something I read in the Guardian yesterday.. about the redistribution of wealth as it happens.. from the poor and the great mass of ordinary working people to the rich.. very unsocialist.. not so much Robin Hood as Sheriff of Nottingham..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/01/us-taxation-public-finance

12voltman59
Mar 3, 2011, 2:10 PM
Frannie---relating to your posting above----in the case of what is going on in Wisconsin and here in Ohio in relation to attempts by the new Republican governors and legislatures to bust the unions---in the case of Wisconsin---last fall the voters in Wisconsin voted in this new governor--at that point--the state of Wisconsin actually had a budget surplus of something in the order of $120 million.

Within days of his inauguration in early January and the new members of the Wisconsin house and senate--they quickly passed a bill that gave nearly every penny of that surplus away in the form of tax breaks to the top 1% in terms of wealth and to corporations---basically---a direct transfusion of public wealth into private hands----and then---since the budget was now "in deficit" status---the new governor and legislators declared the "fiscal emergency" with their way to solve it is to gut the ability of Wisconsin state workers to collectively bargain for anything other than pay.

The state workers have said--they are fully wiling to take pay cuts, pay more towards their health insurance and such---but to this new governor--its his way or no way with no compromise possible!!

In Wisconsin----the Republicans don't have a total majority in the state Senate and to stop a quorum for taking place--14 Democratic members have left the state so the legislature cannot act without them.

Here in Ohio--the Republicans so dominate our state house--late last night they passed SB 5 which strips away the rights of government employees to have collective bargaining rights and makes it illegal to strike with heavy jail time and fines being levied for striking public workers. Our new governor--John Kasich, plans to sign the law pretty much immediately--it may have already been done.

It really does seem to be the real war America is waging---a war against the working and middle class--first--for the past 30 years or so the powers that be have sent most of our good paying jobs "offshore"--now they are going after the rest of the working/middle class!!

darkeyes
Mar 3, 2011, 3:24 PM
Frannie---relating to your posting above----in the case of what is going on in Wisconsin and here in Ohio in relation to attempts by the new Republican governors and legislatures to bust the unions---in the case of Wisconsin---last fall the voters in Wisconsin voted in this new governor--at that point--the state of Wisconsin actually had a budget surplus of something in the order of $120 million.

Within days of his inauguration in early January and the new members of the Wisconsin house and senate--they quickly passed a bill that gave nearly every penny of that surplus away in the form of tax breaks to the top 1% in terms of wealth and to corporations---basically---a direct transfusion of public wealth into private hands----and then---since the budget was now "in deficit" status---the new governor and legislators declared the "fiscal emergency" with their way to solve it is to gut the ability of Wisconsin state workers to collectively bargain for anything other than pay.

The state workers have said--they are fully wiling to take pay cuts, pay more towards their health insurance and such---but to this new governor--its his way or no way with no compromise possible!!

In Wisconsin----the Republicans don't have a total majority in the state Senate and to stop a quorum for taking place--14 Democratic members have left the state so the legislature cannot act without them.

Here in Ohio--the Republicans so dominate our state house--late last night they passed SB 5 which strips away the rights of government employees to have collective bargaining rights and makes it illegal to strike with heavy jail time and fines being levied for striking public workers. Our new governor--John Kasich, plans to sign the law pretty much immediately--it may have already been done.

It really does seem to be the real war America is waging---a war against the working and middle class--first--for the past 30 years or so the powers that be have sent most of our good paying jobs "offshore"--now they are going after the rest of the working/middle class!!

I have been following what is going on vis a vis collective bargaining.. and will say it is a hell of a disconcerting development.. there is a war to be waged on behalf of free people in each of our countries.. I am no expert on the Constitution of the US but for a nation which claims to be the most frree on earth, to deprive workers of the right to gather together and negotiate on their behalf as a body I would have thought was a fundamental guarantee.. obviously not.. the prosperty of the US today, and the living standards of every American is down to the collective bargaining of workers over the last half century.. it doesnt matter whether or not they were trades union members it is the gains and achievements of US labour unions which have gained Americans so much of what they have.. that they have been severely weakened in recent decades does not alter that fact.. what we find in areas where collective bargaining has never been allowed or has been withdrawn or simply does not exist is a consistent driving down of the living standards of people in those industries.. Thatcher tried much the same here and almost succeeded.. Cameron may yet renew that attempt..

There is a class war going on in my country.. the working classes, and I include in their number the class most people would accredit me as being, the middle class, have often been accused of continuing class war.. even the so called middle classes consider that to be the case.. yet it is not the working class of the working person, the underclass of the unemployed or the middle class which continues that war.. but those who consider themselves our masters.. the political and economic and social elites of my countries.. they do it by divide and rule and by turning us too fight among ourselves.. hence we are told we have a middle and a working class, an underclass, and of course the upper class of greedy sods who use us against ourselves for their benefit and no one elses.. it suits them to have us at each others throats.. and vast numbers of us fall for it every time..

_Joe_
Mar 3, 2011, 3:35 PM
I had an epiphany last night Volty.

Folks are all upset that they see their jobs are outsourced to lowpaying countries.

We see education budgets - slashed. Layoffs of teachers. This means we're gonna get less educated people in years to come -and very well less skilled. Heck, we see this problem right now.

Harder crackdown on companies to hire only US citizens, by making it harder and harder and harder to find employees willing to work on temp-work visas( I know this first hand). The government wants to force us to hire local, but we still have the problem that our people stick their nose up to any type of physical labor.

Combined with the above, going on third year of providing unemployment benefits; and if a person can keep themselves on a budget with unemployment benefits, why bother looking for a job ? It's already being talked about if you have been out of the workforce for so long, no real employer is going to want to touch you.

Forecast are showing US to slip into #3 while China is rapidly going to get to #1. China also has test scores that blow away the competition. They also hold a very large amount of US Debt.

So my epiphany ? US is going to be the new China.

In the long run, we're going to have a large number of unskilled, uneducated, and beaten down workforce. We're going to have a government that finally will smack them off the great teet that was supporting them, and you will have the workforce needed for all those jobs that got outsourced. Pretty soon China will be too rich and full of itself, that they'll bring their child-labor-loving factories here for the cheap labor.

Oh how this thread got derailed!

NotLostJustWandering
Mar 3, 2011, 6:13 PM
I am no expert on the Constitution of the US but for a nation which claims to be the most frree on earth, to deprive workers of the right to gather together and negotiate on their behalf as a body I would have thought was a fundamental guarantee..

It wasn't part of the Constitution at the beginning because the Industrial Revolution hadn't really hit us; ours was a mainly agrarian economy so there was no concept of a working class. And it never got added because the labor movement never got that strong here. The sad story of our labor movement is one of white workers pitted against black, and later, immigrant workers, who fought them as hard as they fought The Boss. Racism and nativism were effectively used to divide and conquer, and thus victimized everybody, not just the "minorities." Seems like every industrialized nation of the First World has a Labor Party but us.

darkeyes
Mar 3, 2011, 8:18 PM
It wasn't part of the Constitution at the beginning because the Industrial Revolution hadn't really hit us; ours was a mainly agrarian economy so there was no concept of a working class. And it never got added because the labor movement never got that strong here. The sad story of our labor movement is one of white workers pitted against black, and later, immigrant workers, who fought them as hard as they fought The Boss. Racism and nativism were effectively used to divide and conquer, and thus victimized everybody, not just the "minorities." Seems like every industrialized nation of the First World has a Labor Party but us.

I know something of attempts by organised labour in the US to gain recognition in the 19th and early 20th centuries and of the often brutal methods used to try and crush them.. it was little different in the UK. The first industrial society tried to move mountains to prevent men and women from organising themselves to gain their share of the massive wealth generated as Britain for a century dominated the world, partly although not entirely down to its tied markets of the old empire.. for almost a century men, women and children were transported, hung, imprisoned, evicted from their homes, deprived employment, beaten and murdered for trying to organise themselves to meet the changed circumstances introduced by industrialisation.. it took close to a century before legislation was passed to allow labour to organise legally..

..what we did not have was racism to the degree of the US.. it existed ok.. Jews, Russians, Poles, Germans and many other nationalities suffered tht, yet mostly they were white people and the racism was much less than that which the US endured and more easily accepted by most.. many involved themselves with the fight for recognition.. there was however still the "worker against worker".. divide and rule was alive and well then as it is now..

..another advantage I suppose had was the fact that the changed circumstances of indusrialisation merely changed the direction which already progressive men and women took.. centuries of change and people struggling for rights came to a head in the late 19th and early 20th century.. the Labour Party was created by trade unions, themselves the voice of working men and women in the late 19th century to give working people a parliamentary voice.. whether it has ever met its obligation to its parents and grandparents is questionable.. yet had neither the Labour party for all its faults, and Trade Unions never existed, our society would never have progressed as it has, and it is possible, even probable, like the Russian Empire in 1917, to have gone the same way at some time during or soon after WW1.. possibly even before. What is certain is that The UK would not be as fair a society as it is, and our freedoms would much less.. living standards of the great mass of people would be far worse, there would be even less democracy, and because of the positon of the UK in the 19th and early 20th centuries as the major superpower, the world would be a far different place from the one we know today.. I am not saying for certain that it would be worse, for looking around us at the modern world, it is hardly much to write home about politically, socially or economically, but it would be very different.

What is happening is Wisconsin and other parts of the US, reminds me so much of the historical attempts by government and capital to crush people's rights to organise in defence of themselves in my country, even as recently as in the Thatcher era of the 1980s, to collectively bargain for a living wage, safer working and living conditions.. yes..and strike.. a fundamental right of a human being to withdraw his labour in defence of life and liberty.. working people are not slaves... to freely associate and argue for the betterment of our society.. the US loses its people's right to organise and bargain collectively at its peril and to act as a unified body in its defence.. if Americans lose this fight, it is a matter of time before Cameron and his government begin to take heed and start clamping down on us.. so we on this side of the pond have a vested interest in current affairs Americaine..