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General News Discussion Thread
- Thread starter GatoDelFuego
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There isn't really a rebuttal because it's true. Both the "advertised" unemployment rate and the underemployment/part time employment rates are at the lowest point in a long while. https://www.wsj.com/articles/unemployment-rate-falls-to-18-year-low-solid-hiring-in-may-1527856298
Now, if we want to talk about how that rate is going to be affected by steel import tarrifs.....
RODAN
Banned deucer.
Reaction to treudeau? Or rather, overreaction?
lmao indeed. The fact that this buffoon won with all of the scandals surrounding his brother and without a fucking platform speaks volumes about how people were fed up with a lot of the mismanagement in government.
It's especially frustrating to me because I would have been totally comfortable with the previous PC leader, Patrick Brown, who was kicked out from his position due to his own scandalous behaviour, due to him being a pretty socially progressive individual and not messing with a lot of what makes Ontario great-- just being a little more fiscally conservative, which is what we need right now. But, due to his sexual misconduct, I can't/couldn't support him and the end result is that we get Trump-lite. Ugh.
As an educator/eventual principal, his stances on the sex ed and math curricula make me extremely worried and uncomfortable, and his opinion on abortion makes me downright angry. This shit was settled ages ago and it's the same old story of men trying to control women's bodies.
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/trump-threatens-to-end-all-trade-with-allies.html
can someone tell me what the implications of the United States pulling out of all major trade deals have on the global economy
can someone tell me what the implications of the United States pulling out of all major trade deals have on the global economy
poor people's campaign speaks at a community meeting in dc with senators
That's a bit of a long video to watch, can you give me some notable things discussed or new policy ideas pushed?
largely centers on re-establishing the new deal coalition and reversing the southern strategy by which racist rhetoric is employed to disenfranchise working class communities, much of the focus is on increasing access to health care, SNAP, raising the minimum wage, and pursuing full employment. There is also a critique of white nationalism as a strategy to maintain a condition of literally 'crippling' poverty for working class white people and people of color. None of these policy ideas are new, probably the most obvious critique of this Poor People's Campaign is that it is mostly advancing policies taken out of mainstream political discourses from the 1960's, and without too much of an obvious update in understandings of imperial economic systems. These policies are notable because they are the social safety net that supposedly protects the overall condition of the population of laborers in a system that depends on the possibility of exploiting them in order to sustain itself (a capitalist political economy).
https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/demands/
and it goes on, kind of a long read
https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/demands/
Poverty and Inequality
Did you know that while the U.S. economy has grown 18-fold in the past 50 years, wealth inequality has expanded, the costs of living have increased, and social programs have been restructured and cut dramatically?
We challenge the idea that our economy rewards hard-working individuals and, therefore, if only the millions of people in poverty acted better, worked harder, complained less and prayed more, they would be lifted up and out of their miserable conditions.
Beginning in the 1970s, wages for the bottom 80 percent of workers have remained largely stagnant and today there are 64 million people working for less than $15 an hour.
Meanwhile, the top 1 percent’s share of the economy has nearly doubled to more than 20 percent of our national income. In 2017, the 400 wealthiest Americans owned more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the entire U.S. population, or 204 million people. Just three individuals possessed a combined wealth of $248.5 billion, an equal amount of wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the country.
At the same time, the costs of basic needs like housing, health care andeducation have risen dramatically. Over the past 30 years, rents have gone up faster than income in nearly every urban area of the country. In 2016, there was no state or county in the nation where someone earning the federal minimum wage could afford a 2-bedroom apartment at market rent. Only one in four of those eligible to receive federal housing assistance actually do so. This has precipitated a structural housing crisis with 2.5 to 3.5 million people who are living in shelters, transitional housing centers and tent cities. This population includes a significant number of women, children, LGBTQIA youth, veterans and the elderly.
There are 32 million people who lack health insurance. Further, an estimated 40 percent of Americans have taken on debt because of medical issues, making medical debt the number one cause of personal bankruptcy filings. In fact, the bottom 90 percent of Americans hold more than 70 percent of debt in the country. Student debt has grown to $1.34 trillion and affects 44 million Americans. Excluding the value of the family car, 19 percent of all U.S. households have zero wealth or negative net worth. They owe more than they own.
Despite the growing need for federal assistance, social service programs have been restructured to shift critical resources away from the poor. The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program only assists 23 percent of poor families with children. The current administration has proposed a 30 percent cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and a restructuring that would impose onerous work requirements that threaten to destabilize this highly effective program.
Our public resources are not reaching the people who need them. Given the absence of good jobs and a strong social safety net, millions of people are left to fend for themselves.
The truth is that the millions of poor people in the United States today are poor because the wealth and resources of our country have been flowing to a small number of people and federal programs are not meeting the growing needs of the poor.
Everybody has the right to live. The U.S. Constitution was established to “promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Given the abundance that exists in this country and the fundamental dignity inherent to all humanity, every person in the United States has the right to dignified jobs and living wages, housing, education, health care, welfare, and the right to organize for the realization of these rights.
Did you know that while the U.S. economy has grown 18-fold in the past 50 years, wealth inequality has expanded, the costs of living have increased, and social programs have been restructured and cut dramatically?
We challenge the idea that our economy rewards hard-working individuals and, therefore, if only the millions of people in poverty acted better, worked harder, complained less and prayed more, they would be lifted up and out of their miserable conditions.
Beginning in the 1970s, wages for the bottom 80 percent of workers have remained largely stagnant and today there are 64 million people working for less than $15 an hour.
Meanwhile, the top 1 percent’s share of the economy has nearly doubled to more than 20 percent of our national income. In 2017, the 400 wealthiest Americans owned more wealth than the bottom 64 percent of the entire U.S. population, or 204 million people. Just three individuals possessed a combined wealth of $248.5 billion, an equal amount of wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the country.
At the same time, the costs of basic needs like housing, health care andeducation have risen dramatically. Over the past 30 years, rents have gone up faster than income in nearly every urban area of the country. In 2016, there was no state or county in the nation where someone earning the federal minimum wage could afford a 2-bedroom apartment at market rent. Only one in four of those eligible to receive federal housing assistance actually do so. This has precipitated a structural housing crisis with 2.5 to 3.5 million people who are living in shelters, transitional housing centers and tent cities. This population includes a significant number of women, children, LGBTQIA youth, veterans and the elderly.
There are 32 million people who lack health insurance. Further, an estimated 40 percent of Americans have taken on debt because of medical issues, making medical debt the number one cause of personal bankruptcy filings. In fact, the bottom 90 percent of Americans hold more than 70 percent of debt in the country. Student debt has grown to $1.34 trillion and affects 44 million Americans. Excluding the value of the family car, 19 percent of all U.S. households have zero wealth or negative net worth. They owe more than they own.
Despite the growing need for federal assistance, social service programs have been restructured to shift critical resources away from the poor. The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program only assists 23 percent of poor families with children. The current administration has proposed a 30 percent cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and a restructuring that would impose onerous work requirements that threaten to destabilize this highly effective program.
Our public resources are not reaching the people who need them. Given the absence of good jobs and a strong social safety net, millions of people are left to fend for themselves.
The truth is that the millions of poor people in the United States today are poor because the wealth and resources of our country have been flowing to a small number of people and federal programs are not meeting the growing needs of the poor.
Everybody has the right to live. The U.S. Constitution was established to “promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Given the abundance that exists in this country and the fundamental dignity inherent to all humanity, every person in the United States has the right to dignified jobs and living wages, housing, education, health care, welfare, and the right to organize for the realization of these rights.
- We demand the immediate implementation of federal and state living wage laws that are commensurate for the 21st century economy, guaranteed annual incomes, full employment and the right for all workers to form and join unions.
- We demand an end to anti-union and anti-workers’ rights laws in the states.
- We demand equal pay for equal work.
- We demand fully-funded welfare programs for the poor and an end to the attacks on SNAP, HEAP, and other vital programs for the poor.
- We demand equity in education, ensuring every child receives a high-quality, well-funded, diverse public education. We demand an end to the re-segregation of schools. We demand free tuition at public colleges and universities and an end to profiteering on student debt. We demand equitable funding for historically black colleges and universities.
- We demand the expansion of Medicaid in every state and the protection of Medicare and single-payer universal health care for all.
- We demand fully funded public resources and access to mental health professionals and addiction and recovery programs.
- We demand reinvestment in and the expansion of public housing, ensuring that all have a decent house to live in.
- We demand equal treatment and accessible housing, health care, public transportation, adequate income and services for people with disabilities.
- We demand public infrastructure projects and sustainable, community-based and controlled economic initiatives that target poor urban and rural communities.
- We demand fair and decent housing for all and the end to the rolling back of fair housing protections at HUD.
- We demand relief from crushing household, student, and consumer debt. We declare Jubilee.
- We demand that the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share of our country’s urgent needs around decent and affordable housing, free public education, a robust social safety net and social security.
- We demand the repeal of the 2017 federal tax law and the reinvestment of those funds into public programs for housing, health care, education, jobs, infrastructure and welfare for the poor.
- We demand that the nation and our lawmakers turn their immediate attention to passing policies and budget allocations that would end child poverty. This includes a public hearing on the federal and state institutions charged with child safety and protection, including on how their resources are used to take children away rather than strengthening families.
and it goes on, kind of a long read
happy fathers day:
https://slate.com/human-interest/20...ale-partners-as-true-intellectual-equals.html
“The corollary to the relative silence about men who nurture, love, read bedtime stories, and endure recorder recitals is how rare it is to see a man publicly and unambivalently brag about his wife’s professional accomplishments. In the public sphere, we hear men brag about their wives’ beauty or express gratitude for their wives’ dedication to home and family. We sometimes see fathers beaming with pride over their daughters’ accomplishments or grown sons thanking their single mothers for earning a living while parenting solo. But a man’s authentic expression of admiration and regard for his wife’s career or intellect, along with an acknowledgement, implicit or explicit, of his own family commitments, still seems painfully rare in the public discourse.
...
[Because] if our children are internalizing the message that female success is the cause of male failure, and male violence and male backlash, we are all in monstrous trouble.
...
And it’s obviously also worth noting how the legions of single parents and same-sex families have been—and continue to be—remarkable role models and pioneers for rethinking gender roles and family responsibilities. Our kids are watching these families and learning that no one gender is born to subordinate success to the other.
So for Father’s Day, we have some final thoughts. We want to urge more men to do what so rarely happens in public, to hold up their female partners as true equals and inspirations. We want to encourage all men to make a point of modeling and celebrating gender parity and mutual regard, at work, at family gatherings, in the community.”
http://reductress.com/post/neat-thi...g-socially-liberal-and-fiscally-conservative/
unrelated, but i was v. impressed by the man in this article^
https://slate.com/human-interest/20...ale-partners-as-true-intellectual-equals.html
“The corollary to the relative silence about men who nurture, love, read bedtime stories, and endure recorder recitals is how rare it is to see a man publicly and unambivalently brag about his wife’s professional accomplishments. In the public sphere, we hear men brag about their wives’ beauty or express gratitude for their wives’ dedication to home and family. We sometimes see fathers beaming with pride over their daughters’ accomplishments or grown sons thanking their single mothers for earning a living while parenting solo. But a man’s authentic expression of admiration and regard for his wife’s career or intellect, along with an acknowledgement, implicit or explicit, of his own family commitments, still seems painfully rare in the public discourse.
...
[Because] if our children are internalizing the message that female success is the cause of male failure, and male violence and male backlash, we are all in monstrous trouble.
...
And it’s obviously also worth noting how the legions of single parents and same-sex families have been—and continue to be—remarkable role models and pioneers for rethinking gender roles and family responsibilities. Our kids are watching these families and learning that no one gender is born to subordinate success to the other.
So for Father’s Day, we have some final thoughts. We want to urge more men to do what so rarely happens in public, to hold up their female partners as true equals and inspirations. We want to encourage all men to make a point of modeling and celebrating gender parity and mutual regard, at work, at family gatherings, in the community.”
http://reductress.com/post/neat-thi...g-socially-liberal-and-fiscally-conservative/
unrelated, but i was v. impressed by the man in this article^
https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...rs-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
dispatches from america
i also enjoyed reading this about the anxieties of the nouveau super riche. these guys aint no amazon ceo, but theyre still trying to make strong moves in this apocalypse game
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...try-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity
silicon valley transhumanism is trash
dispatches from america
i also enjoyed reading this about the anxieties of the nouveau super riche. these guys aint no amazon ceo, but theyre still trying to make strong moves in this apocalypse game
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...try-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity
silicon valley transhumanism is trash
Specialist doctors in the UK will be able to legally prescribe cannabis-derived medicinal products by autumn
I don’t really know what to say about this but I just thought I’d share it because it’s a piece of good news that signifies that attitudes towards medicine are changing at least in the UK, and I hope that other countries which currently have laws prohibiting the use of cannabis-derived medicine follow suit over the coming months/years.
I don’t really know what to say about this but I just thought I’d share it because it’s a piece of good news that signifies that attitudes towards medicine are changing at least in the UK, and I hope that other countries which currently have laws prohibiting the use of cannabis-derived medicine follow suit over the coming months/years.
It always seemed odd to me that cannabis derived medicines have this stigma attached and yet opiates are commonly prescribed (and often over prescribed). There's definitely some weird double standards going around.
yes, it's called racism
What makes you say that exclusively?
OLD GREGG (im back baby)
old gregg for life
Ive always heard it was outlawed because the textile industry never wanted to compete with hemp, but if you say so...
Yeah, pretty sure it was a profit driven decision and not at all motivated by race.
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lol guys
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - John D. Ehrlichman, former Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, jailed for Watergate
If you don’t believe the current drug war with the immense disproportionate sentences that are very clearly based on color and which drugs certain minorities do then i don’t know what to tell. take a look at this article which shows the stark contrast between outrageous cocaine peddling charges and crack related charges, despite them literally being the same drug. then remember that Reagan peddled crack in black neighborhoods in the 80s in order to destroy the community by using “rule of law” as the gasoline.
For a more modern example you can see the demonization of heroin and how much it can fuck your life up and then you have white people in the midwest consuming opiods like its their 8 am mcgriddle and you can start to see whats not qwhite right about the united states war on drugs. its pretty easy to just handwave and say “oh well war on drugs isnt racist because REALLY the real enemy is just big business” which is partially true but to dismiss any claims that imply the war on drugs is anything but a product of pure racism and culture erasure then you are honestly beyond help and will most likely never see the light
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - John D. Ehrlichman, former Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs, jailed for Watergate
If you don’t believe the current drug war with the immense disproportionate sentences that are very clearly based on color and which drugs certain minorities do then i don’t know what to tell. take a look at this article which shows the stark contrast between outrageous cocaine peddling charges and crack related charges, despite them literally being the same drug. then remember that Reagan peddled crack in black neighborhoods in the 80s in order to destroy the community by using “rule of law” as the gasoline.
For a more modern example you can see the demonization of heroin and how much it can fuck your life up and then you have white people in the midwest consuming opiods like its their 8 am mcgriddle and you can start to see whats not qwhite right about the united states war on drugs. its pretty easy to just handwave and say “oh well war on drugs isnt racist because REALLY the real enemy is just big business” which is partially true but to dismiss any claims that imply the war on drugs is anything but a product of pure racism and culture erasure then you are honestly beyond help and will most likely never see the light
OLD GREGG (im back baby)
old gregg for life
Marijuana prohibition started in 1911 well before the war on drugs. That is All that I am saying. Yeah, the war on drugs is ass I agree.
Cannabis was regulated first in 1910 under the guise of addressing “poison” laws and around the rise of FDA and several other regulation laws. To say it was a prohibition in 1911 is incorrect as it varied wildly depending on state and was most certainly not a result of big business interfering with the market (i mean this is a reason but so was that people wanted to regulate it because back then we didnt have a clear “includes ingredients” and companies were sneaking secret ingredients into their products); it was not federally prohibited until the inclusion of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970.
OLD GREGG (im back baby)
old gregg for life
It is a common misconception that prohibition started in 1937. That was actually the first piece of federal legislation against marijuana. Massachusetts was the first state to prohibit at the local level in 1911 and other states followed over time.
From the episode of Adam Ruins Everything on weed, Adam explains that Harry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, had a strong influence regarding the criminalization of marijuana starting in 1930. It was really quite a lousy campaign in theory, but by using race and pinning crimes on the plant it worked out. Then of course decades later Nixon's war on drugs targeted specific groups of people including African-Americans and hippies. I could see where dice is coming from, because those attachments of marijuana to certain groups could still be prevalent today.
Ok sure, so what about going back all the way to 1961, with the UN convention on narcotics? Recreational drugs haven't exactly had favor of basically ANY government until the 90s. The US war on drugs had a clear target. But that's not the full story. Drugs have a complicated past, and that's not just exclusive to the USA.
You decry handwaving of the war on drugs's racial agenda and then handwave in the implication that those darn white midwesterners are popping pills so casually (at least, that's what I got from your wording). Aren't we in a crisis because people are addicted? I don't see a lot of overlap between recreational drug users and opioid addicts in my (limited) research. The story is complicated, right? I'd love to see results that shake up what I think I know.
To say that reagan directly shipped in cocaine is basically a conspiracy theory. Even though I agree with you completely on the target of the war on drugs. Like...nobody mentioned the war on drugs. What kicked off this whole discussion was the decriminalization of cannibis-type medicine in the UK, and how the world's opinion of drugs is being altered. There's a lot more potential to learn if we don't immedeately jump to "BOOM, it's simple, RACISM". I think that misses the whole point that the world's understanding of drugs as a whole is advancing.
alright how about this to shake up some of your views
your not seeing any overlap over x and y is like me saying i dont see any overlap over those who can drink responsibly vs those that are alcoholics.
its also like me saying i dont see any overlap over those who can eat responsibly vs the fatasses in america and all over the world that cant.
last time i saw a beer commercial i asked myself, "huh, why dont they use alcoholics?" "and why do they keep saying drink responsibly"
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look buddy im not saying that the perception of drugs is exclusively tainted by racism and i even mentioned this by agreeing with old greggs statement about how big pharma was a factor in the demonization of marijuana so im not sure what your rebuttal is meant for? No one is saying that there can only be one reason that stigmas exist i'm only saying that to ignore the racist culture behind the stigma on drugs is asinine and ignorant and to just say "well we haven't seen ALL the facts so lets not jump to racist conclusions" is just as bad.
my post was specifically about the war on drugs in the US, so not sure why you're bringing the U.N. resolutions into this when again my point isn't to say that any stigma against drugs is 100% because of racism and no other factor
how am i handwaving the opioid crisis? I brought up midwest white families popping pills because theres a stark contrast between a disproportionate white middle class moderate base of addicts that are decried as helpless, poor souls, an unfortunate situation that should get addiction therapy, support, and rehabilitation. Meanwhile not 60 years ago the narrative at the time was that hippies and blacks were lazy pieces of shit for even thinking of trying marijuana and that they CHOSE to be pipelined into the prison system; 40 years ago it was black people and crack, and that they were just dangers and superpredators to society. Despite an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to both races using drugs relatively the same (with some changes such as white people being more susceptible to cocaine usage), its only a "crisis" when white suburbanites are the ones on the fence; coincidentally the same people that demonize the blacks and coastal elites. i brought up the midwest comment because considering heroin is almost literally the same molecule as oxycontin and that its effects on the body are identical to oxy, its a little strange that one of the two makes people automatically think "degenerate junkie" due to social programming but the other the people are simply poor addicts who need help. im not devaluing the opioid situation, it certainly needs addressed and people need help 100% and the method of help should be rehabilitation and addiction therapy; I just wish that people could come to the same conclusion when it was 40 years ago and black people.
in the future please dont try to twist people's posts and frame them as if they can only hold one singular viewpoint at one time. no the stigma against drugs isn't so simple as "just racism" like youre trying to make my post out to be however to be this ignorant and say "well how you can you REALLY say its about racism????" and ignoring that very important social context is just as ignorant as claiming stigma against drugs is fueled by racism only
my post was specifically about the war on drugs in the US, so not sure why you're bringing the U.N. resolutions into this when again my point isn't to say that any stigma against drugs is 100% because of racism and no other factor
how am i handwaving the opioid crisis? I brought up midwest white families popping pills because theres a stark contrast between a disproportionate white middle class moderate base of addicts that are decried as helpless, poor souls, an unfortunate situation that should get addiction therapy, support, and rehabilitation. Meanwhile not 60 years ago the narrative at the time was that hippies and blacks were lazy pieces of shit for even thinking of trying marijuana and that they CHOSE to be pipelined into the prison system; 40 years ago it was black people and crack, and that they were just dangers and superpredators to society. Despite an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to both races using drugs relatively the same (with some changes such as white people being more susceptible to cocaine usage), its only a "crisis" when white suburbanites are the ones on the fence; coincidentally the same people that demonize the blacks and coastal elites. i brought up the midwest comment because considering heroin is almost literally the same molecule as oxycontin and that its effects on the body are identical to oxy, its a little strange that one of the two makes people automatically think "degenerate junkie" due to social programming but the other the people are simply poor addicts who need help. im not devaluing the opioid situation, it certainly needs addressed and people need help 100% and the method of help should be rehabilitation and addiction therapy; I just wish that people could come to the same conclusion when it was 40 years ago and black people.
so because no one said "hey guys lets talk about the war on drugs in the united states" that means i can't mention it and its somehow a tangent topic to the stigma and perception of drugs worldwide, despite the United States being one of the biggest players in the global phenomena on the demonization of drugs in the modern age? lmao what? the topics are linked inextricably dude and to not even mention one of the biggest modern social events with respect to the conversation is laughable. I won't really get into the first part of your comment about it being a conspiracy theory, as it's not really relevant to the conversation and to have an entire conversation discussing reagan's cocaine funding in the 80s versus the crackdown on the crack epidemic isn't as relevant.
in the future please dont try to twist people's posts and frame them as if they can only hold one singular viewpoint at one time. no the stigma against drugs isn't so simple as "just racism" like youre trying to make my post out to be however to be this ignorant and say "well how you can you REALLY say its about racism????" and ignoring that very important social context is just as ignorant as claiming stigma against drugs is fueled by racism only
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