Mourning in America - Trump Year One: November '16 to

that and being dead xp

yeah the 'maybe these idiots just voted for him because he's famous' narrative should get at least as much play as the 'he truly connected with a wounded wwc' narrative currently does

'these idiots want to be entertained while the ship goes down'

betsy devos for secretary of education

That is fucking GROSS

rip public schools

god FUCK these people

my office manager's kid goes to a charter school - it went bust literally two weeks into the school year and the kid had to find a new high school in september. ridic.

creationist, married to amway heir, brother of blackwater founder

brother is, rather

ugh gross

On behalf of all of Michigan I apologize for the entire DeVos family and their hideous partners in evil the VanAndels, Calvinism, Amway, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, ALEC, Eric Prince, and all the hellspawn that we have vomited out over the years thanks to our Dutch Calvinist forebears and the religious right.

lol xposted to mookie but yeah he hit the high points.

And by high points I mean just give us to Canada.

this is useful:

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2016/11/22/what-a-betsy-devos-appointment-would-tell-us-about-donald-trumps-education-plans/

Sounds like not even a charter advocate so much as an out-and-out voucher and full privatization advocate. There are of course nowhere near the number of necessary private schools anywhere to accommodate the demand that would be created by a massive voucher program, so you're going to wind up with a lot of shitty fly-by-night operations popping up.

vomit, just a steady stream of vomit every day

and here I was worried last week that Michelle Rhee might get the nod

spin the garbage wheel wheeee

Bernie should really get his staff in check. Look at this terrible messaging:
https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/801253188821250048

"but"

you're going to wind up with a lot of shitty fly-by-night operations popping up...

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Wednesday, November 23, 2016

hmm who can we think of knows a lil sum'm about that business...

So basically they'll do this with income tax credits, right? Like a huge income tax credit for private schooling. If they make it large enough to actually cover private school tuition in most places, it will gut public schools. If they don't, it's just a big giveaway to people already wealthy enough for private school. Either way, disgusting.

Well, that just quadruples my determination to get involved in tutoring and after school programs and who even knows what the fuck all educational initiatives. If Captain Evil and his band of merry dipshits are dead set upon dismantling this country, it feels like everybody needs to do what they can to fortify their communities and shore up the deprivation.

It's intended to make the state pay for families who send their children to private Christian schools btw. That's the whole point of the entire decades-long scheme.

isn't she a Common Core booster? if so, lol

They want complete isolation of their children, schools, communities, and government from everyone who's even slightly different from them. I wish I were exaggerating. Small town evangelicals are pretty weird but their very weirdness sometimes makes them kind of charming/human, if flawed. Betsy DeVos and all her scheming cronies are simply the richest ppl with the most power to make Calvinist Christianity the norm and turn the course of public policy to fund it.

She's Erik Prince's sister

Yes, and then she married into one of Michigan's two Families Of The Apocalypse so that's double the "Does Grand Rapids really need to exist?"

t's intended to make the state pay for families who send their children to private Christian schools btw. That's the whole point of the entire decades-long scheme.

^this

http://www.avclub.com/article/david-cross-donating-100-percent-album-sales-aclu--246392

this is really cool.

And...again Bernie addressing class politics by using a strawman identity politics position to pivot to white voters. i don't think anyone disagrees with this point of view, one which does not actually address the nature of the identity politics / class "divide" in democratic politics. But it is a cynical way of trivializing serious concerns:

https://twitter.com/KyleClauss/status/800724251192004608

http://www.avclub.com/article/david-cross-donating-100-percent-album-sales-aclu--246392

imo this is what the left should be focusing on. channeling this turmoil and energy into resources and tools. we will need it with all the de-funding that is sure to happen. not the petty infighting that lost them the election.

its sad to me that the left channels their political frustration by donating to causes they support and the right just buys a fuckton of guns

Bernie seems to be saying there, it doesn't matter if you are a black, white, purple ceo shipping jobs overseas, you are not helping. maybe you read it differently. i'm sure people are freaking out about the way he speaks rather than the content of what he is talking about. that's sort of a running them this year.

Similar to how it was the IRS declassifying white segregationist schools in the 70s that reallly flared up the right wing/moral majority types, as guys like Paul Weyrich who were there have attested to

Xp

its sad to me that the left channels their political frustration by donating to causes they support and the right just buys a fuckton of guns

Yeah, but how do you think the fuckheads who got us into this mess like the Koch Foundation or the Heritage Foundation et al got started?

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but like we could totally have bruce springsteen 'decade to become a republican' and run for president, that would 100% work

― iatee, Wednesday, November 23, 2016 12:53 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark

the rock for president 2020

Just like we're repeating much of the trauma of the '04 election, we're having to relearn the lessons of it, too. There were a few attempts to get progressive organizations up & running back then, but this sorta fizzled out maybe, and Obama showed up so brightly that he overshown? overshadowed? the drive and the need for this.

unfortunately he polls weak w/ the key jabroni demographic

xp

Springsteen or Oprah. both of them on the same ticket.

the rock for president 2020

Pretty sure the Rock is an actual Republican.

imo this is what the left should be focusing on. channeling this turmoil and energy into resources and tools. we will need it with all the de-funding that is sure to happen. not the petty infighting that lost them the election.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 1:10 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bernie seems to be saying there, it doesn't matter if you are a black, white, purple ceo shipping jobs overseas, you are not helping. maybe you read it differently. i'm sure people are freaking out about the way he speaks rather than the content of what he is talking about. that's sort of a running them this year.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 1:14 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

first off, i dont think 'petty infighting' lost the election

You are also aware that the ilx meme about "black, white, purple" is ... critical of that line of inquiry/thought?

I didn't read it differently, I said that it's right & everyone agrees with it, but that he's using it to set himself up as the guy who sees "past" identity politics which is just encouraging more infighting because he's essentially reduced an entire wing of the party to asking for representation in an effort to convince white ppl he's still going to fight for them. it's really bad politics!

lol @ the accusation of tone policing though

this kind of stuff, btw, is why lots of people skeptical of bernie were skeptical: he's more right on ideologically than any other candidate, but also seems surprisingly tone deaf & dumb sometimes

One of the things I keep coming back to is that the inchoate groupings of American progressive/lefty/liberal-types haven't really grasped on to the need for having this kind of mass organization as a country or a culture.

I attribute some of it reservations about actually persuading people, or that you should have to even persuade people at all. You should just point out the facts, right? Other dude is hella racist or dumb or whatever and that's all you need to do. It's like the cultural baggage of the 60s's pose to reject everything stamped "corporate" led to not even addressing how or why this shit works when it works.

Like, since PR, advertising, and marketing firms are the most tangibly immediate displays of persuasive communication, every sort of attempt at this is coated and too icky to even approach, so a clueless cynicism takes it place. Why should we even have or need a communications manager?

It's like not being able to distinguish aggression from assertiveness, so one can only contract into the meekest ball possible and hope to not get noticed. All persuasion must be manipulation, then, and manipulation is something only evil people do, and we're not evil so that's that.

Pretty sure the Rock is an actual Republican.

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

his speech is pretty hilarious, I'll be honest here

this kind of stuff, btw, is why lots of people skeptical of bernie were skeptical: he's more right on ideologically than any other candidate, but also seems surprisingly tone deaf & dumb sometimes

Yeah, this is part of what I'm saying. The focus is all on being morally or ideologically right and inadvertently assuming that being right means being effective. You can be the most righteous soul on the planet and that don't mean shit if you can't promote that to others.

i see how u could get that impression if this was the only thing you read of him. it simply proves that he means what he says. he has stated that he will even work with Trump on the issue of economic justice. on the issues of social justice, he will not compromise with Trump. he has been very clear on that. he is not saying social justice is not important to him. maybe he doesn't address the other stuff here, but hey we are going off a screenshot of two pages of a transcript, this isn't exactly a primary source.

... a transcript is the definition of a primary source

not sure i buy the idea that by focusing on economics the social element is excluded. aren't economic and legal justice also essential to greater racial and social justice? in every instance where Bernie has talked about social justice he has been very supportive of it, unwaveringly so.