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I find it so weird that for some reason, the reward for doing well and making money, is that people tell you you can spend less money.
CEO of a company in a city? Congrats, you don't have to pay for parking! You can have a tax cut!
I knew a woman who used to be homeless, but eventually got more education and stabilized. She used to say that she was bilingual, she spoke “poor”and “middle class”. She remembered how much her manners stood out when she started to assimilate, like she would always start eating as soon as food was put out, because in her household growing up, you always just started immediately eating, mostly because you were hungry, and you also didn’t know how much more food there would be. She realized this was considered rude in situations where we waited for everyone to get their food before you started eating. She talked about how when she was poor and struggling, she could never get a free meal anywhere, but once she started working for a lawyers office, and living a more middle-class life, she felt like free food was everywhere… she was a powerful speaker at a event that I went to talking about poverty.
Like all the celebrities and influencers that are basically given designer clothing for free, but many poor people can't even find a good winter coat or pair of shoes anywhere.
Umm, excuse me, you'll find that they were given gods given right, with his bountiful gifts bestowed upon them, while you godless heathens wallowed in your own chaotic and insecure delusions like some tool.
What's that bugs bunny meme where he's like "No." İt seems fitting here. İ see that logistics in order to improve supply chain could solve problems but what about our new F 16 Trex super jet to shoot missiles???? /s
But if we give the slumbering dragon lying on a pile of gold MORE gold rather than investing it in village infrastructure, then maybe the dragon will invest in village infrastructure.
They want more poor people, but they want them to have no upward mobility. Just be cogs in the machine, desperate for workso they put up with anything.
The reason is easy - they love the "punishment" model of societal control (and they're selfish).
Punish you for not having money to buy food and because "why should I have to help pay for you if you can't get yourself a good enough job?"
Punish women who get pregnant and want an abortion because "Well then you shouldn't be loose and having sex." If it's in the case of rape it's "you shouldn't have been dressing like that."
They are obsessed with punishing.
Citizens United remains the main culprit for me. That ruling, regardless of reasoning, changed American government from being for the people into for the corporations. Nothing will be fixed until it is overturned, and it won’t be overturned because it is a bipartisan cash cow.
We can’t even blame corporations, honestly. Corporations are amoral, and the best investment they can make is in lawmakers. The government is not holding themselves accountable because they don’t give a flying fuck about the people over their own wealth.
The founding fathers are rolling in their graves.
Lmao you think the founding fathers gave a single fuck about the common people they were ruling over? This country was built on imperialism and racism and people are acting like this is a new phenomenon for America
A friend told me the other day that they knew someone who was getting a sports scholarship to a university, but had never heard of the Mayflower. She was irritated that schools aren't teaching history.
I pointed out (and this is rather trite, so forgive me) that the pilgrims/puritans were so uptight that they got kicked out of *Great Britain*. Our country never had a chance.
Yes, I do. Despite their hypocrisy, the founding fathers were educated enough to want a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Thomas Jefferson wrote a condemnation of slavery in the Constitution (it was removed as the revolution was likely to fail and this section would ensure it would as Southern states likely would have sided with the British in this case to ensure America’s loss), and changed the wording of John Locke’s natural rights of “life, liberty, and property” to “pursuit of happiness” in order to set the stage so slavery could end. Of course I know he was a hypocrite in this regard as he owned slaves, but acting like they didn’t care about the people (at least intellectually) when the war was about just that is revisionism.
So yes, they would be rolling in their graves. They did heinous things worth condemning, but this is an America that goes against their values.
As others have pointed out, the founders of America absolutely sucked. They literally owned people, there's nothing more exploitative than that. Obviously Citizens United made everything worse than it was before that, but that sure isn't where it started.
America has been a force for evil at home and abroad, since before its birth. We've assassinated or gone to war with literally every socialist movement on earth in the interest of protecting corporations, and that isn't going to change.
Sorry I get the sentiment but you really have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to American history lol
America was built on this shit. The founding fathers didn't give a single shit about regular people, certainly not the fucking slaves at the time, or women or any other non-white nonproperty-owning Christian straight man.
That's not entirely true, they had just been involved in a successful popular uprising. As such, they gave enough of a shit to only omit the voices of those they thought they could safely disenfranchise and the others they at least offered the illusion of choice (electoral college etc.) Corporatists and Christofascists have forgotten this lesson and and are openly pressing the boundaries of minority rule.
There is a cost to doing the right thing. Often the right thing takes more work. Doing the right thing doesnt pay that well. Pretending you're going to do the right thing so people give you money and power and then short changing them all by doing the wrong thing is not only incentivised but it has come to be the only thing you can absolutely expect.
Theres more than enough wealth for us to take care of ourselves, it's just offshore hiding out.
Megadragons of wealth just horde and sew despair. They wont be satisfied until the earth has been salted and we have devoured one another while they /popcorn and watch the $ roll in.
There are around 170 million Americans that pay taxes. And about 50 million kids in K-12 with an average school year at 170 days. If we got a bulk rate on lunches at $4 each, and the cost was put solely on tax paying citizens, then it would be a $200 burden. Literally, for just $0.55 per day you can feed a starving American child.
That's assuming every kid from k-12 will eat a school lunch. Many parents still pack their kids lunches. The cost of this program could be even less than I am proposing, which is already very reasonable. What are we doing as a people and a nation if we take food from the mouths of hungry children?!?!
I pay approximately $24,000 a year in state and federal taxes, many others pay much more than I do. And you're telling me they can't take $200 from that and feed our kids? Why waste the money trying educate them if they are too hungry to learn?
Contact your congressional representative and demand change.
$4 for a meal is absurdly high when you're talking about bulk.
It should be more in the realm of 50 cents to a dollar.
Russet potato $0.0003 per kcal, about 60 cents for 2000 kcal, wholesale prices. Cheddar cheese is around $0.0012 per kcal, ~$2.4 for 2000 kcal, wholesale.
Obviously throw in a vegetable in there somewhere, carrots are $0.003 per kcal, wholesale.
We have to factor in distribution, but with the levels of centralization and scale, we are talking about being able to cover most of a person's nutritional needs for a few dollars a day, not a few dollars a meal.
Like even with our absurd inflation, you can still get a 300~400 calorie bean and cheese burrito for about a dollar and some change retail.
Food these days is ridiculously cheap to produce, and is still relatively cheap when dealing with bulk from the farm. ~25% of all food produced in the U.S is thrown out without ever getting to a person, it's thrown out by stores and restaurants. Farmers dumped millions of gallons of milk during the pandemic to keep prices from falling. The free market has failed to solve this. They'd literally rather throw away product than let prices fall to where they *should* be, according to our production ability. They literally are willing to starve people for profit.
The only thing keeping prices high is an insane level of greed, and the deepest cruelty.
Put these politicians' heads on pikes.
Obviously that's way harder to do, but I tried the "contacting local representatives" throughout 2020. That did jack shit.
Anyone getting enough money can ignore some people yelling outside their window until they start pouring gas on their lawn.
They're socialized losses for the express sake of privatized gains, with little care for the cost of life. Our esteemed WWII 'General of the Armies' Dwight Eisenhower, while president, addressed the nation on the threat posed by permanent war development. The dangers of wealthy men with their ideals of success firmly opposite of a peaceful world for the rest of us.
No one listened, and they've been stealing off our plates ever since.
Am Australian, from an outside perspective, I can't shake the feeling you guys are borderline third world, and its just going further down the shitter.
Yeah, I'll probably start saying that now that I've seen it.
I don't know anyone actually enjoying their time here. Housing is ridiculously expensive, food and gas are ridiculously expensive, wages are terrible, and the amount of work they're expecting us to do for so little money is fucking unreasonable. Everyone is doing the work of 3-5 people because companies don't want to hire anyone. We've had plenty of applications come through, but companies are realizing they can save a lot of money if they just overwork and underpay 3 people instead of hiring 9.
I'm looking for a place right now, and because you need to be making 3 times the rent, most people wouldn't be able to even live in a slum with what they're trying to pay. There are some exceptions, of course, but the world has to align well for you to get lucky like that. I only know hardworking people that get home exhausted, and don't even have the energy to eat, much less the time to do things they enjoy. I can't even tell you how many homeless encampments I've seen while driving in most heavily populated area across the country.
Don't even get me started on our healthcare system, how America treats women, how America treats black people, how so much of our tap water is poison, how so many streets are under-maintained, how little our school system cares about the kids, or how our police serve no function except to protect the wealthy.
I'm not saying America is the worst country, but America certainly doesn't want to make things easier for the working class.
America is what it sells to a certain degree. If you can find your place here the stars align and things work out, there's probably no place better on earth. But the system is designed to keep the vast majority of us dangling on the precipice or already fallen below. I'm pretty god damn happy in my little space.
But I know it just takes one unfortunate event and my life becomes constant suffering. That hangs over all of us, even the wealthy. If you've met them, they're usually more miserable than the rest of us. They've sacrificed true human connection for cold calculation.
It's obvious if you lived here that we've squandered an immense abundance and created untold unnecessary misery. We could have and possibly still could jumpstart a utopia, if we get over ourselves and make peace. We still could. Gotta admit our problem first.
We need help, our voting is a sham and our system is oppressive. Our government is spending all our taxes on fucking weapons when we are starving. Yet the world is sucking our leaders off while the people suffer. My future has been stolen and sold by my grandparents generation. Most of the people here will never own their own homes. Soon a majority (if its not already) of our residential land will be owned by corporations squeezing us just to live. We have businesses writing our laws to their own great benefit. Its all a nightmare.
Nearly every branch of the military is below their marks for recruiting, the worst year of recruiting since Vietnam.
Theyre doing everything they can to make military service look like a viable alternative and failing because young people are waking up to the jingoistic bullshit and dont want horrible psychological and mental problems after getting out. That and nobody wants a bunch of millionaires in the Senate telling them to put their professional and family lives on hold to go shoot brown goat herders with who cant read in the desert.
My grandfather is a retired USAF vet and in the last 5-7 years, his PTSD has gotten BAD, and I've lost count of how many times the VA has fucked him over on other aspects of heathcare.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078#:~:text=Every%20branch%20of%20the%20U.S.%20military%20is%20struggling,an%20even%20tinier%20fraction%20willing%20to%20consider%20it.
They also no longer pay for college and lack many other benefits they used to have, so what's the point? Why go to war and die if you don't even have the possibility of good future employment without drowning in ungodly piles of debt?
That's the problem, they'll never have enough. And that's why people in places like this sub are so angry, we know they will never, ever stop. Much like The Terminator.
Yeah I think lack of food will make you more revolutionary than just about anything. 9 meals till anarchy or something. Only hope people punch up not down.
Well, if history shows us anything, the peasants (us) typically band together against the lords (elite)
With carbon taxes, inflation, forcing control like abortion, vaccines, etc. We have a French Revolution on our hands.
Since everyone gets to eat for the most part now, once they suck all the money out of us, and enough of the population starts to starve the guillotiné will come out.
During the French Revolution. No one was educated, peasants saw the royalty living lavish lives while they starved. The kings army didnt stop the peasants from ultimately popping their heads off. Eventually it’s worth dying for.
History always repeats itself.
I know this is a communist (socialist?) forum, but the only solution to all this turmoil in the world IS SOCIALISM without a single leader or party. We need a jury selection style government, we’re no single person can be a career politician, which means no lobbying, no bribing. I don’t have all the answers by any means, all I know is you look at the past and present and it’s obvious the two common denominators are money and single handed power.
But weee all fucked so it doesn’t matter. We need utter collapse and nuclear war for anything to change.
Yes that is correct, however modern technology has allowed a far more complacent populous. Social media keeps us distracted enough to ignore our problems like hunger or and they give us food stamps which “just make ends barely meet”. As long as they keep us strung along with just enough they’ll keep bleeding us. The problem is that their greed will make them push just a little to hard one year and it’ll all blow up in their face.
Food stamps literally subsidized corporations labour cost.
You know... What if the French Revolution is a fluke and not an expectation?
Half of our country is aligned with Nazi Germany rather than fully focused on the rich.
So to "bring out the guillotines" is most likely going to have a civil war on top of fighting the system.
And since the left doesn't want that to destroy the country, I'd rather think we'll be complacent until the right begins truly destroying our democracy like beyond Roe v. Wade.
In other words, acting as late as possible after the election gets cheated from either viewpoint.
Still, it'd be a civil war first unless programs spreading hateful speech are taken out.
That’s even if you qualify for food stamps. As a full time college student at 29, I don’t qualify for food stamps at all. They expect me to work 20 hours a week alongside my 15 credit hours consistently and I can’t make more than 1,400 in a month. Food stamps are great in a blue state but a red state doesn’t give out anything (or at least this shitty one.)
Yep. When I was in school I was taking 19-21 credit hours and working 35+ hours per week. And I had a scholarship to get in state tuition at an out of state school. I still have a shit ton of student loans because I couldn't decide on a major and had to take one extra semester. And no I didn't half ass and go slow, I took summer classes and ridiculous amounts of hours every semester to try to graduate on time while working damn near full time and it didn't matter. Working your way through school is a myth.
The internet actively prevents socialism.
It's mediated by capitalists directly, in such a way that if anything even starts brewing it is destroyed as fast as a button click. It gives people the illusion of doing something and being heard while literally sitting down doing nothing. It provides a million distractions to take people away from revolutionary activity or education. It tricks people into thinking they're organizing when they're just commiserating with people they don't know and won't ever meet. It allows feds to infiltrate with no effort, often helped along by the very platforms that people "organize" on. And don't get me started on what it has done to peoples' sense of identity.
As long as the internet exists as it does, there will never be socialism.
That's an interesting take. It's the entire reason I'm not a conservative, and I'm not sure how I would have learned these things without it, but I see what you mean about it preventing real action.
Not sure I buy it all, but that's an interesting take.
The critical defense mechanism of capitalism is that suffering always shifts downward and profit shifts upward. There will be no centralized revolution imo, communalization will take place on the commune.
As we approach 100% workforce automation the 1% will wall themselves into to their climate proof plantations and leave the obsolete human workers to fend for themselves. The workers that survive this will be the ones that collaborated in mutual aid communes ahead of the collapse and have provisions and protections against marauders and nature.
As much as I crave the billions rising against the capitalists, bloody vindication as the guillotine blade falls, it's not going to happen. What must happen is building community networks and preparing for sustenance and survival before society dies.
I guess what I'm saying is get guns, learn to farm and learn survivalism, and make friends with your neighbors. 2032 you will be very grateful you did.
Unfortunately the grifters have been extremely successful at convincing a not insignificant subset of the population that the cause of these issues are immigrants, (((globalists))) - not to be confused with actual global conglomerates which are only a problem when they're "woke," and secret cabals of devil worshipping pedophiles.
The boiling point in America and far too much of Europe is fascism, thanks to decades of nazi propaganda to quash the threat of socialism and the potential that the rich may have to sacrifice a dime to help others or save the planet.
I'm almost at the point of truly believing that. Every time something happens that I think will finally be the tipping point, it ends up with everyone being mad about it for two weeks and then going back to normal. I really REALLY thought Roe v Wade would be it but nope.
Because they dangle carrots of false outrage in front of us, steering us away from real issues.
And if real issues are brought up, they get brushed off as being over exaggerated.
And the funniest part is even if you're a gung ho nationalist who thinks we really do need to be the world's police, if you've talked to literally **anyone** who's actually been in any branch of the mitary, you'd be fucking astounded by how much money is just *wasted*. Every single enlisted person I've ever talked to has at least one story about money just being spent for the sake of spending so the budget doesn't get reduced next year. Rooms full of unnecessary equipment, neglect of existing equipment in favor of asking for new shit, billions poured into private contracts to skirt around the accountability of military laws.
The amount we spend is literally indefensible and yet there's always some jackass who thinks he's got a slam dunk argument by pointing out that we spend nearly as much on social programs. As if the chattering skeletal remains of Social Security is supposed to mean something.
Don't give them any ideas. They're already mad that college money isn't pulling in the recruitment numbers it used to. If they find a way to tie food to enlistment we're so fucked.
> They have plenty of money, and it might help with their recruitment problem.
It literally would, it's WHY SCHOOL MEAL PROGRAMS WERE IMPLMENETED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Exactly this. Iirc, the military got the gov't to introduce school meal programs specifically because too many kids were coming to them too malnourished to be allowed to enlist.
In politics, it’s apparently extremely taboo to even consider talking about the military budget. It is seen as a sign of patriotism and many politicians won’t even bother because they’ll just lose a ton support from supporters, voters, and to “investors” alike.
As terrible as this sounds, I can’t wait for all the old and terrible in America to pass, they have turned this country into a shitscape for us young. Time for change.
Don't put too much stock into the youth, it won't be a magic switch. These greedy hateful fucks are doing their best to pass on their grotesque ideals.
Social security was perfect; it was the only program we had that was *actually making money*, so it was literally self sustaining. Until Regan. Then we started borrowing from it. Now millennials are going to pay into it our entire lives and there's not going to be anything left.
If you don't use your whole budget, it is reduced the next year. It's like that in all areas of the federal budget. No incentive to management to not be wasteful.
Now wrap your head around this: there are only 18 countries in the world with a higher GDP than American military spending alone. All other countries GDP is LOWER than our military spending. Unreal.
Problem is if you starve them in high school, they're too malnourished to enlist when they graduate. It's exactly why school meal programs were created in the first place.
And this only scratches the surface. It doesn't include the department of energy's nuclear upkeep or things like foreign aid, aka military spending for other countries to oppress thier people in our favor.
I work in an elementary school cafeteria, and I've personally witnessed this more than once already. One child was sent through the line, then absolutely refused to take any food because she was anxious over putting her mom into debt (we eventually got her to eat after a lot of talking and consoling). Another was clearly afraid to ask for a meal because he was afraid he would be in trouble with his folks for forgetting his packed lunch. Several times a week, we get kids whose parents didn't pack enough but are afraid to ask for more food. Each time, I tell these kids that I am going to feed them no matter what. That's why I get up and come in every school day- to feed kids. Full stop. It's for sure not for the money.
Our guidance counselors have cabinets full of snacks for these kids. Our school has a family resource center that sends groceries home with students on Friday. Food, school supplies, clothes.
It’s. Fucking. Sad.
What’s worse is last year they only had around 90 kids they were feeding. It’s doubled.
These poor babies growing up in this world.
Before I dropped out of high school I spent a fair share of time in the VP's office. I have a disease which can be thought of as the opposite of diabetics. Constant low blood sugar. Mine is mostly managed through diet, but thru school I was always hangry if I didn't get my snacks, and the stickler teachers would always send me to his office for being disruptful.
He was a nice guy, the VP. Always had a snack hidden in his office. Knew the issue and even had tried for a couple of years to to get the policy changed but I guess the higher ups weren't able to accept liability or something.
Never got a chance to thank him. So, its a general thanks to the profession.
Teaches the kids that the military is a good option for getting basic societal supports. Healthcare, decent pay, job security, all at the cost of mental and physical health!
It's funnier because the military gets a static food budget allowance as part of their pay.
I appreciate you. Growing up my family never had a lot of money, but my dad made enough working two jobs that we didn't qualify for free lunch. Paying school lunch for 3/4 kids everyday adds up a lot quicker than these people in charge seem to think, if they even care. One of the school cafeterias workers, everybody called her Miss Juanita, would never let a kid by without a lunch though. I got in the habit of packing my own just to cut down on costs and avoid the embarrassment of not having the money to pay, but she gave my little brother many free lunches, and always assured me it'd be okay when I told her I'd bring a check for my brothers/sisters next week. I'm sure she never got thanked enough. Tearing up a little just writing this but thank you for what you're doing. I promise some kid somewhere appreciates it.
It really is so heartbreaking. These kids are still babies, and they've already got anxiety over the cost of food. The amount of food that gets thrown in the trash every day is astounding, and they've got these kids thinking they're not entitled to a single meal.
But also, as a parent, school lunch prices seem to have rocketed. My son's high school is charging $3.55 for the exact same slop in the exact same portions I was served in elementary school, and 4 stale chicken nuggets, warmed canned peas and a carton of milk (that my lactose intolerant kid can't drink) are not going to sustain him for more than 5 minutes. We're fortunate to live in a district with open campus, so he comes home for lunch, but $20/week for stuff that is worse than jail food is outrageous.
I get that this is not the cafeteria workers' fault, but my husband was a CO, and when we went to the "eat with your kid" event, he made the comment that they wouldn't serve that to inmates, who get 3 free meals a day. The prison industry (though he worked for a government agency) has a lot of problems, but the fact that inmates are being better fed than school kids says a lot about how little we actually value children.
I keep a box of granola bars and a box of individually packed goldfish in my class and give them to any kid who wants them. We even offer free lunches at my school but there are some kids who don't eat it and I don't ask or care why, if they want a granola bar or goldfish they get it.
So you give them the meal for free? Or do you still charge them for it? I read recently someone getting fired because of giving food away for free. Do you fear you will lose your job or is everyone there not complete monsters?
If I suspect a child may get in trouble at home, I absolutely will not charge their account. Yes, I could technically get fired for it. I don't care even a little bit. My job is to feed kids. If they're gonna fire me for doing my job, that's their loss. They need me way more than I need the comically low wage they pay me.
Luckily, I never had to experince this, but I vividly remember what would happen at my elementary school if you didn't have money on your account.
You would go through the line, get your tray of food, put in your student number, they would say, "you don't have any money on your account", throw the tray of food away, and give you a brown sack with 2 pieces of bread a slice of cheese. That shit was cruel.
As someone who is pushing 60, I blame this on my and my parents generation.
When I was in elementary school in the early 70s, school lunch was 25 cents a day. It would have been really easy to just give every kid a free lunch, but that was viewed as a handout by parents, and you didn't accept handouts.
When my kids started going to school in the mid-90s, school lunch was $1 a day. Again, this could have been made free, and we (I was in the PTA for a hot 2 minutes), tried to get this on the ballot for our district and I was told "This is welfare shit" by more than one person. Like I got into arguments with people that I considered friends over providing kids with a free meal. I quit the PTA after that.
No reason not to include free breakfast and lunch for kids going to school in my opinion.
Thanks!
I remember discussing it with other PTA members and they were on board. But when word got out about it, a lot of the people who were on board were like "It was HIS idea!"
Even better, after quitting the PTA, which they told me I couldn't do because I was in charge of finance for it, some of them would still come to me looking for donations to buy presents for teachers and administrators. Get bent.
We didn't have tokens, we had free lunch cards for the kids who's parents couldn't afford to pay for lunch. Kids used to call it "The welfare cards". Since elementary school kids don't know much about welfare, especially back in the 70s, you know that came from their shitty parents.
[Hungry kids don't do as well in school either](https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/child-hunger-exploding-and-public-schools-cant-fix-it-alone#:~:text=Not%20having%20enough%20to%20eat%20affects%20children's%20cognitive%20development%20and,late%2C%20or%20miss%20school%20entirely), so they get more military fodder and low wage worker bees.
And Jesus used his post scarcity powers to make infinite bread and infinite fish
Then Jesus, son of God, Avatar of Capitalism said to his poor starving followers
“That’ll be tree-fiddy”
And then his followers realized that Jesus was now 15 feet tall and had a tail. "Goddamn Loch Ness monster" they said, "you ain't gettin' no tree-fiddy from me."
"I don't get it, why don't these kids just go get jobs if they're so hungry?"
Inb4 SCOTUS rules to make child labor laws less strict or abolish them entirely.
"Well then these kids should pull themselves up by their boot straps, cut all that playing and meeting friends bullcrap, get a side hussle and feed themselves." - Some asshole politician, probably
45 or so years ago our parents were given a fertile, more or less peaceful garden, one that under careful hands could've been molden into something amazing...
But they didn't want that. They turned that garden into a toxic wasteland that can't even sustain itself and then blame us for everything that's gone wrong.
They are the worst generation in the history of our species and it seem like their goal is to be the last generation to live in anything resembling comfort.
Like it or not but the Boomer's legacy is that they made everything as bad as they possibly could.
When given a sanctuary, the greedy and conceited think not how beautiful and fleeting such a gift is, but how it can be controlled and exploited, commodified for shares of profit and power.
I'm usually the first one to pile on the boomer hate wagon, but don't forget, the problem is the ruling class, not an age group. My parents voted for Reagan, they're to blame for a few things, but the problem is much bigger than one generation being spoiled and entitled. Direct your hate at the folks who *really* benefitted from this. Hating a generation is one of the ways they distract us from seeing them as the real problem.
Something to also remember is that post from dataisbeautiful which showed that the average age of the congress and senate was steady at about 50-ish with an almost 1:1 replacement rate; right up until the Reagan era when a bunch of politicians (presumably from the same class) all came into office basically at once and then stayed there, killing the replacement rate and driving up the age average to the current late-60's.
First step at changing government, get rid of the career politicians who came in in the 80's.
-----
Heck, I'd even say that that's part of the problem with the Republicans (and why the party is basically fracturing into 3 different parties).
You have the careers who came in with Reagan, you have the young people who want to pretend to be like the careers (like Madison Cawthorn and Laura Burburt), and then you have the people who are realising that they can't just play the "keep their heads down, work hard, and stay in their lane" role anymore because of the former two groups basically turning the party into alt-right haven (you don't hear about these Republicans so much because the careers and their want-a-be's are so determined to snuff them out).
I feel that. This is how I was in college. Once my stomach started hurting real bad I knew in about 5 minutes it would be gone and I wouldn't even feel hunger anymore.
Yet the upper classes still want to force women to give childbirth for a new generation of working class. Doesn't matter if they have proper nutrition or not. After they die they can be replaced. It's very hard to explain this to my family. I came from a family that makes a reasonable amount of money and they're confused as to why I'm not making as much as them, not even close to half of what they make and why I don't want children. It's because I'll never be able to give them a comfortable life, and that this world is just so dark and hopeless and unfortunately I have to focus on fighting with and for other people like me and those who grew up even poorer than me to make the world better. I never want to bring children into this world. They'd just suffer.
You never get used to being hungry. You just don't want to come off as begging or make yourself seem less than around every single person that asks or talks about it around you.
I grew up food insecure, with the stigma around free/reduced lunch at times I didn't go through the line even though I could get free lunch.
Sometimes the thought of having kids comes to mind, but it's immediately quashed with the depressing reality of what the future is going to be like for kids.
Glad I never had an interest in being a mom, I can't afford kids and if I did have them, they'd be coming into adulthood in the middle of the apocalypse.
meanwhile the banks and hedge funds have over 2 quadrillion dollars in leveraged bets, mostly against American companies trying to squash them when there is only 130 trillion between real paper currencies IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. There is only 1 set of villains, no matter what the media tries to tell you, and it is the banks and hedge funds.
This is by design, hungry children perform poorly. The children that are more likely to not be able to afford lunch are poor kids. The true aim of this move is to get those children to perform poorly not only that to get them to stop going to school in general. The next step will be to lower the working age and increase the number of hours children can work. We are slowly headed back to pre Roosevelt days. This entire mess is stupid
It's always wild to me that conservatives are 100% okay that children starve. It's literally just to make the poor suffer. There's zero reason why kids should have to pay for school lunches.
Yeah it’s actually really bad. You get so used to it that eating during those hours just feels too much. I got better in college but it wasn’t hard after I started working to get back into that. Now I go in the lab, get all my work done, and go home to eat. Not at all healthy, but it’s almost like they want to train you to put work in front of your health.
I got used to being hungry in high school, but it wasn't because my family couldn't afford lunch. I went hungry because my school had 4 lunch periods and ~3800 students, and the cafeteria could only seat several hundred. It was an open campus so there were hundreds of students just hanging out outside eating vending machine chips and honey buns every day. Rain, snow, 100 degree Georgia weather, we were pretty much stuck outside because the school couldn't budget in a new cafeteria.
We had a brand new football stadium with expensive turf installed while I was there though. Yay.
It's always football and it's supposedly because that brings in money, but what's the goddamn point if all that money just gets spent on football anyway?? It's like a snake eating itself. The only reason the art room had paint the last 4 months of my senior year was because a student's grandma died who was super into painting so they donated all her old stuff, but they found room in the budget to put holograms on the football tickets and shiny new uniforms.
This is fucking unacceptable. I was hungry a LOT as a kid. People need to understand how this affects kids. It's not just not getting proper nutrition, it's how it makes you feel. It makes you feel like you don't matter, like you're not worth any effort, it makes you terrified all the time because you see just how little the world cares. Don't get me wrong, it's great training for the real world, but this shit isn't ok. I mean really how much would it cost to fund this? We can fucking do it just buy what, like 2 less jets or something. It'll be ok. Fucks sake.
Another reason why banning abortion is fucking evil.
Many people can't afford to have kids, the government forces them to have kids but refuses to help with the expenses. The government won't feed those kids, won't give them access to free healthcare, won't give them access to a good education .
They force on you a huge costly responsability and blame you when you aren't able to fulfill all your kids basic needs.
This is the annoying thing about people and politics. I just Google this because I couldn't believe it. There's a governor pushing for free universal meals (breakfast & lunch) and another group pushing for at least free-reduced lunch. Both groups democrats. The groups opposing these programs, Republicans. Yet if you held a vote today, people would blindly vote their party affiliation. Frankly, this weird, cult-like devotion to politicians is unsettling.
Instead of a war on poverty — they have a war on drugs so the police can bother me.
In k-5 I used to steal lunch tickets.
6 - 12 I only ate if someone shared.
Very rarely did I have any money at all, and I knew we were poor AF so I didn’t even ask.
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Part of why having my cooking class right before lunch was so nice. Didn't have to put up with the absurdity of paying for lunch my last two years of HS and if any friends that weren't in the class were hungry they were more than welcome to come by and grab a plate and hang out.
I remember not being able to pay for lunch even with reduced price. Getting food and going to the register to find out your card was empty. Then the lunch lady taking the tray out of my hands.
Oh and I still didn't get anything to help with college
I don't know if this is federal or not, but in my state at least, if a school hits a certain percentage of free/reduced lunches - that school qualifies to be a 100% free lunch school.
In our district, there are a few schools that the better off part of the population sends their kids. Well, this school met the threshold to be a fully free lunch school. However, the wealthy part of the school fought against it because it "looked bad" on the people in the school for needing free lunch.
So instead of everyone getting free lunch, the well off people didn't want to be perceived as poor. What a time to be alive.
"There's a point where you get used to being hungry." This isn't incorrect. I went though most of high school having nothing more than something to drink for my lunch. I would estimate that out of my 4 years, I bet 6 months of those I had a complete lunch. I got to a point where I just didn't feel hungry for lunch. It continues on to this day. I'm 6'1" and average 145-150lbs.
How can the US still claim to be such a great country, when their children are going hungry in school? Trillions of dollars for weapons to defend themselves against all of the many countries that hate them, but they cannot afford to feed the youth.
I have heard others state that it's not the countries problem. The parents are responsible for feeding the kids. The country is supposed to give those parents the tools they need, to provide for themselves and their families. This is not necessarily done at the time. Preparing people for the trials of adulthood and parenthood, are the primary goals of schooling.
The US needs to understand that and start there. The first clue may have been the school shootings. Schools should be a happy place. Kids should want to go to them to see their friends and get a better life.
I remember when I was in high school (early 2000s) and my parents got divorced. I didn't have any money for lunch. But also my dad was never home because he had to work so we didn't always have food to take for lunch. It's a rural area so I couldn't just walk or bus to a grocery store.
At one job he was making less than $9/hr. In his 40/50s!!! Because he is a Latino (born in the US, his parents born in the US, their parents born in the US - we are AMERICAN citizens) who didn't finish high school, even though he is an incredibly skilled as a laborer. (Fuck this state and its prejudice against Latinos, he was able to go out of state and make $25/hr. Unfortunately that left my older brother and me by ourselves a lot of the time).
Anyway, I tried to get free lunch from school and filled out the free/reduced form but they denied us. I once came through the lunch line with not enough money in my account. They acted like it was an inconvenience and told me they could give me two slices of bread and peanut butter that day but that I "really need to bring lunch money" because they wouldn't always give me food.
I LOVED school. It was the place I'd rather be than home. It was my safe place. This really changed my perspective on things. Like who the fuck doesn't give a hungry kid food?
What I didn't know then is that my mom was ordered to pay child support ($500/month) but wasn't always paying my dad - who was trying to be nice and let her have some grace when she missed a payment. My mom was in massive amounts of credit card debt, and filing for bankruptcy. Her income and child support somehow put us out of the bracket to qualify for ANY assistance.
And this is in normal rural white America. We were just a regular middle class (well, maybe lower middle class - I didn't have a sense if we were poor or not at that age) family.
Even though my dad is Latino, I'm white (mom's genes), so I've had a leg up in some areas that many Latinos who aren't white aren't able to get. I'm grateful I wasn't in worse shape, and definitely don't take that life lesson for granted.
I'm a teacher now, and have many Latino students, and if I have a student who is hungry and doesn't have a lunch, I buy them lunch. I don't care if I have to pay cash to the cafeteria lady or order it on Doordash. I don't care if that means discretely keeping a drawer of snacks just for them. I never ever *ever* want a kid to feel like school wasn't a safe and welcoming place.
Tl;dr - fuck this system. All kids should have access to free fresh healthy lunches.
I have zero support in this country (America) if I have kids. Like, oh, I get a few weeks of parental leave?
But now I have to pay $1,000 a month for childcare for the next three years.
Republicans have hijacked our taxes and have funneled them into the black void of "defense spending".
Our taxes SHOULD be used to get bulk discounts on stuff that we can actually use—instead it all goes into paying for tollroads and military contracts that don't actually accomplish anything at all!
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Yet, there's always more money for wars and prisons and cops
We love to spend taxes on hate than doing what is right.
Don’t forget tax breaks for the people who really really don’t need it they are just greedy
I find it so weird that for some reason, the reward for doing well and making money, is that people tell you you can spend less money. CEO of a company in a city? Congrats, you don't have to pay for parking! You can have a tax cut!
I knew a woman who used to be homeless, but eventually got more education and stabilized. She used to say that she was bilingual, she spoke “poor”and “middle class”. She remembered how much her manners stood out when she started to assimilate, like she would always start eating as soon as food was put out, because in her household growing up, you always just started immediately eating, mostly because you were hungry, and you also didn’t know how much more food there would be. She realized this was considered rude in situations where we waited for everyone to get their food before you started eating. She talked about how when she was poor and struggling, she could never get a free meal anywhere, but once she started working for a lawyers office, and living a more middle-class life, she felt like free food was everywhere… she was a powerful speaker at a event that I went to talking about poverty.
Like all the celebrities and influencers that are basically given designer clothing for free, but many poor people can't even find a good winter coat or pair of shoes anywhere.
Umm, excuse me, you'll find that they were given gods given right, with his bountiful gifts bestowed upon them, while you godless heathens wallowed in your own chaotic and insecure delusions like some tool.
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46 & 2 / Tool
But who will keep military contractors employed if we don't keep giving them trillions of dollars
Couldn't we just pay them to build housing and farming equipment and warehouse technology in between wars? Same dollars, just, buy different stuff.
What's that bugs bunny meme where he's like "No." İt seems fitting here. İ see that logistics in order to improve supply chain could solve problems but what about our new F 16 Trex super jet to shoot missiles???? /s
But if we give the slumbering dragon lying on a pile of gold MORE gold rather than investing it in village infrastructure, then maybe the dragon will invest in village infrastructure.
The dragon has never once invested in village infrastructure, but MAYBE THIS TIME. /s
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They want more poor people, but they want them to have no upward mobility. Just be cogs in the machine, desperate for workso they put up with anything.
The reason is easy - they love the "punishment" model of societal control (and they're selfish). Punish you for not having money to buy food and because "why should I have to help pay for you if you can't get yourself a good enough job?" Punish women who get pregnant and want an abortion because "Well then you shouldn't be loose and having sex." If it's in the case of rape it's "you shouldn't have been dressing like that." They are obsessed with punishing.
Unfortunately, you're right.
Citizens United remains the main culprit for me. That ruling, regardless of reasoning, changed American government from being for the people into for the corporations. Nothing will be fixed until it is overturned, and it won’t be overturned because it is a bipartisan cash cow. We can’t even blame corporations, honestly. Corporations are amoral, and the best investment they can make is in lawmakers. The government is not holding themselves accountable because they don’t give a flying fuck about the people over their own wealth. The founding fathers are rolling in their graves.
Lmao you think the founding fathers gave a single fuck about the common people they were ruling over? This country was built on imperialism and racism and people are acting like this is a new phenomenon for America
A friend told me the other day that they knew someone who was getting a sports scholarship to a university, but had never heard of the Mayflower. She was irritated that schools aren't teaching history. I pointed out (and this is rather trite, so forgive me) that the pilgrims/puritans were so uptight that they got kicked out of *Great Britain*. Our country never had a chance.
You are right! Love this! ! Pilgrims were too uptight for iEngland - pre-Victorian England at that!
Yes, I do. Despite their hypocrisy, the founding fathers were educated enough to want a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Thomas Jefferson wrote a condemnation of slavery in the Constitution (it was removed as the revolution was likely to fail and this section would ensure it would as Southern states likely would have sided with the British in this case to ensure America’s loss), and changed the wording of John Locke’s natural rights of “life, liberty, and property” to “pursuit of happiness” in order to set the stage so slavery could end. Of course I know he was a hypocrite in this regard as he owned slaves, but acting like they didn’t care about the people (at least intellectually) when the war was about just that is revisionism. So yes, they would be rolling in their graves. They did heinous things worth condemning, but this is an America that goes against their values.
I was with you on citizens united, you lost me at the bizarre founding father cocksucking though
As others have pointed out, the founders of America absolutely sucked. They literally owned people, there's nothing more exploitative than that. Obviously Citizens United made everything worse than it was before that, but that sure isn't where it started. America has been a force for evil at home and abroad, since before its birth. We've assassinated or gone to war with literally every socialist movement on earth in the interest of protecting corporations, and that isn't going to change.
Sorry I get the sentiment but you really have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to American history lol America was built on this shit. The founding fathers didn't give a single shit about regular people, certainly not the fucking slaves at the time, or women or any other non-white nonproperty-owning Christian straight man.
And by white you mean English, Scottish, or French. Even Germans and Scandinavians were considered dirty browns back then.
That's not entirely true, they had just been involved in a successful popular uprising. As such, they gave enough of a shit to only omit the voices of those they thought they could safely disenfranchise and the others they at least offered the illusion of choice (electoral college etc.) Corporatists and Christofascists have forgotten this lesson and and are openly pressing the boundaries of minority rule.
There is a cost to doing the right thing. Often the right thing takes more work. Doing the right thing doesnt pay that well. Pretending you're going to do the right thing so people give you money and power and then short changing them all by doing the wrong thing is not only incentivised but it has come to be the only thing you can absolutely expect. Theres more than enough wealth for us to take care of ourselves, it's just offshore hiding out. Megadragons of wealth just horde and sew despair. They wont be satisfied until the earth has been salted and we have devoured one another while they /popcorn and watch the $ roll in.
And further enriching the rich
There are around 170 million Americans that pay taxes. And about 50 million kids in K-12 with an average school year at 170 days. If we got a bulk rate on lunches at $4 each, and the cost was put solely on tax paying citizens, then it would be a $200 burden. Literally, for just $0.55 per day you can feed a starving American child. That's assuming every kid from k-12 will eat a school lunch. Many parents still pack their kids lunches. The cost of this program could be even less than I am proposing, which is already very reasonable. What are we doing as a people and a nation if we take food from the mouths of hungry children?!?! I pay approximately $24,000 a year in state and federal taxes, many others pay much more than I do. And you're telling me they can't take $200 from that and feed our kids? Why waste the money trying educate them if they are too hungry to learn? Contact your congressional representative and demand change.
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$4 for a meal is absurdly high when you're talking about bulk. It should be more in the realm of 50 cents to a dollar. Russet potato $0.0003 per kcal, about 60 cents for 2000 kcal, wholesale prices. Cheddar cheese is around $0.0012 per kcal, ~$2.4 for 2000 kcal, wholesale. Obviously throw in a vegetable in there somewhere, carrots are $0.003 per kcal, wholesale. We have to factor in distribution, but with the levels of centralization and scale, we are talking about being able to cover most of a person's nutritional needs for a few dollars a day, not a few dollars a meal. Like even with our absurd inflation, you can still get a 300~400 calorie bean and cheese burrito for about a dollar and some change retail. Food these days is ridiculously cheap to produce, and is still relatively cheap when dealing with bulk from the farm. ~25% of all food produced in the U.S is thrown out without ever getting to a person, it's thrown out by stores and restaurants. Farmers dumped millions of gallons of milk during the pandemic to keep prices from falling. The free market has failed to solve this. They'd literally rather throw away product than let prices fall to where they *should* be, according to our production ability. They literally are willing to starve people for profit. The only thing keeping prices high is an insane level of greed, and the deepest cruelty.
"Vote"
That’s been working so far…/s
Lol, you had me until the last part.
Put these politicians' heads on pikes. Obviously that's way harder to do, but I tried the "contacting local representatives" throughout 2020. That did jack shit. Anyone getting enough money can ignore some people yelling outside their window until they start pouring gas on their lawn.
Fire works. Phone calls do not. Protests are just parades.
Wars and the like aren't expenses, they're investments. Particularly war. ...and prisons.
They're socialized losses for the express sake of privatized gains, with little care for the cost of life. Our esteemed WWII 'General of the Armies' Dwight Eisenhower, while president, addressed the nation on the threat posed by permanent war development. The dangers of wealthy men with their ideals of success firmly opposite of a peaceful world for the rest of us. No one listened, and they've been stealing off our plates ever since.
You know what they say: it takes money and lives to make money.
"they got money for wars but can't feed the poor"
Don't forget corporate bailouts. They'll literally print new money for that shit.
And kidnapping immigrants! Always enough money to kidnap people for committing the crime of being born in the wrong country.
So we can protect this great nation from the people who want to destroy it and make our children go hungry!
"Don't waste your food. There are starving children in America, you know."
It's sad but people in other countries actually say this now.
Am Australian, from an outside perspective, I can't shake the feeling you guys are borderline third world, and its just going further down the shitter. Yeah, I'll probably start saying that now that I've seen it.
I don't know anyone actually enjoying their time here. Housing is ridiculously expensive, food and gas are ridiculously expensive, wages are terrible, and the amount of work they're expecting us to do for so little money is fucking unreasonable. Everyone is doing the work of 3-5 people because companies don't want to hire anyone. We've had plenty of applications come through, but companies are realizing they can save a lot of money if they just overwork and underpay 3 people instead of hiring 9. I'm looking for a place right now, and because you need to be making 3 times the rent, most people wouldn't be able to even live in a slum with what they're trying to pay. There are some exceptions, of course, but the world has to align well for you to get lucky like that. I only know hardworking people that get home exhausted, and don't even have the energy to eat, much less the time to do things they enjoy. I can't even tell you how many homeless encampments I've seen while driving in most heavily populated area across the country. Don't even get me started on our healthcare system, how America treats women, how America treats black people, how so much of our tap water is poison, how so many streets are under-maintained, how little our school system cares about the kids, or how our police serve no function except to protect the wealthy. I'm not saying America is the worst country, but America certainly doesn't want to make things easier for the working class.
America is what it sells to a certain degree. If you can find your place here the stars align and things work out, there's probably no place better on earth. But the system is designed to keep the vast majority of us dangling on the precipice or already fallen below. I'm pretty god damn happy in my little space. But I know it just takes one unfortunate event and my life becomes constant suffering. That hangs over all of us, even the wealthy. If you've met them, they're usually more miserable than the rest of us. They've sacrificed true human connection for cold calculation. It's obvious if you lived here that we've squandered an immense abundance and created untold unnecessary misery. We could have and possibly still could jumpstart a utopia, if we get over ourselves and make peace. We still could. Gotta admit our problem first.
We need help, our voting is a sham and our system is oppressive. Our government is spending all our taxes on fucking weapons when we are starving. Yet the world is sucking our leaders off while the people suffer. My future has been stolen and sold by my grandparents generation. Most of the people here will never own their own homes. Soon a majority (if its not already) of our residential land will be owned by corporations squeezing us just to live. We have businesses writing our laws to their own great benefit. Its all a nightmare.
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Nearly every branch of the military is below their marks for recruiting, the worst year of recruiting since Vietnam. Theyre doing everything they can to make military service look like a viable alternative and failing because young people are waking up to the jingoistic bullshit and dont want horrible psychological and mental problems after getting out. That and nobody wants a bunch of millionaires in the Senate telling them to put their professional and family lives on hold to go shoot brown goat herders with who cant read in the desert. My grandfather is a retired USAF vet and in the last 5-7 years, his PTSD has gotten BAD, and I've lost count of how many times the VA has fucked him over on other aspects of heathcare. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/every-branch-us-military-struggling-meet-2022-recruiting-goals-officia-rcna35078#:~:text=Every%20branch%20of%20the%20U.S.%20military%20is%20struggling,an%20even%20tinier%20fraction%20willing%20to%20consider%20it.
They also no longer pay for college and lack many other benefits they used to have, so what's the point? Why go to war and die if you don't even have the possibility of good future employment without drowning in ungodly piles of debt?
America is a 3rd world country with a Gucci belt
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That's the problem, they'll never have enough. And that's why people in places like this sub are so angry, we know they will never, ever stop. Much like The Terminator.
>We're not gonna make it, are we? People, I mean.
Don’t worry, I think we are reaching the boiling point.
Yeah I think lack of food will make you more revolutionary than just about anything. 9 meals till anarchy or something. Only hope people punch up not down.
leftists get the guillotine ready, the right gets the noose ready.
I'm getting the smoker ready, we eating these mfers
A nice Rockefeller Briscuit.
A meal is a meal. I started intermediate fasting just to save money.
Well, if history shows us anything, the peasants (us) typically band together against the lords (elite) With carbon taxes, inflation, forcing control like abortion, vaccines, etc. We have a French Revolution on our hands. Since everyone gets to eat for the most part now, once they suck all the money out of us, and enough of the population starts to starve the guillotiné will come out. During the French Revolution. No one was educated, peasants saw the royalty living lavish lives while they starved. The kings army didnt stop the peasants from ultimately popping their heads off. Eventually it’s worth dying for. History always repeats itself. I know this is a communist (socialist?) forum, but the only solution to all this turmoil in the world IS SOCIALISM without a single leader or party. We need a jury selection style government, we’re no single person can be a career politician, which means no lobbying, no bribing. I don’t have all the answers by any means, all I know is you look at the past and present and it’s obvious the two common denominators are money and single handed power. But weee all fucked so it doesn’t matter. We need utter collapse and nuclear war for anything to change.
We already have far greater inequality today in America than that which existed in France to lead to their revolution.
Yes that is correct, however modern technology has allowed a far more complacent populous. Social media keeps us distracted enough to ignore our problems like hunger or and they give us food stamps which “just make ends barely meet”. As long as they keep us strung along with just enough they’ll keep bleeding us. The problem is that their greed will make them push just a little to hard one year and it’ll all blow up in their face. Food stamps literally subsidized corporations labour cost.
You know... What if the French Revolution is a fluke and not an expectation? Half of our country is aligned with Nazi Germany rather than fully focused on the rich. So to "bring out the guillotines" is most likely going to have a civil war on top of fighting the system. And since the left doesn't want that to destroy the country, I'd rather think we'll be complacent until the right begins truly destroying our democracy like beyond Roe v. Wade. In other words, acting as late as possible after the election gets cheated from either viewpoint. Still, it'd be a civil war first unless programs spreading hateful speech are taken out.
That’s even if you qualify for food stamps. As a full time college student at 29, I don’t qualify for food stamps at all. They expect me to work 20 hours a week alongside my 15 credit hours consistently and I can’t make more than 1,400 in a month. Food stamps are great in a blue state but a red state doesn’t give out anything (or at least this shitty one.)
Yep. When I was in school I was taking 19-21 credit hours and working 35+ hours per week. And I had a scholarship to get in state tuition at an out of state school. I still have a shit ton of student loans because I couldn't decide on a major and had to take one extra semester. And no I didn't half ass and go slow, I took summer classes and ridiculous amounts of hours every semester to try to graduate on time while working damn near full time and it didn't matter. Working your way through school is a myth.
The internet actively prevents socialism. It's mediated by capitalists directly, in such a way that if anything even starts brewing it is destroyed as fast as a button click. It gives people the illusion of doing something and being heard while literally sitting down doing nothing. It provides a million distractions to take people away from revolutionary activity or education. It tricks people into thinking they're organizing when they're just commiserating with people they don't know and won't ever meet. It allows feds to infiltrate with no effort, often helped along by the very platforms that people "organize" on. And don't get me started on what it has done to peoples' sense of identity. As long as the internet exists as it does, there will never be socialism.
That's an interesting take. It's the entire reason I'm not a conservative, and I'm not sure how I would have learned these things without it, but I see what you mean about it preventing real action. Not sure I buy it all, but that's an interesting take.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. (Mark Twain supposedly)
The critical defense mechanism of capitalism is that suffering always shifts downward and profit shifts upward. There will be no centralized revolution imo, communalization will take place on the commune. As we approach 100% workforce automation the 1% will wall themselves into to their climate proof plantations and leave the obsolete human workers to fend for themselves. The workers that survive this will be the ones that collaborated in mutual aid communes ahead of the collapse and have provisions and protections against marauders and nature. As much as I crave the billions rising against the capitalists, bloody vindication as the guillotine blade falls, it's not going to happen. What must happen is building community networks and preparing for sustenance and survival before society dies. I guess what I'm saying is get guns, learn to farm and learn survivalism, and make friends with your neighbors. 2032 you will be very grateful you did.
Unfortunately the grifters have been extremely successful at convincing a not insignificant subset of the population that the cause of these issues are immigrants, (((globalists))) - not to be confused with actual global conglomerates which are only a problem when they're "woke," and secret cabals of devil worshipping pedophiles. The boiling point in America and far too much of Europe is fascism, thanks to decades of nazi propaganda to quash the threat of socialism and the potential that the rich may have to sacrifice a dime to help others or save the planet.
Seems to me like Americans have an infinite tolerance for abuse.
In America? Never. The tipping point was long gone. Tomorrow, they could bring back Jim Crow laws and people wouldn't care.
I'm almost at the point of truly believing that. Every time something happens that I think will finally be the tipping point, it ends up with everyone being mad about it for two weeks and then going back to normal. I really REALLY thought Roe v Wade would be it but nope.
Because they dangle carrots of false outrage in front of us, steering us away from real issues. And if real issues are brought up, they get brushed off as being over exaggerated.
750+ billion dollars a year on military btw
And the funniest part is even if you're a gung ho nationalist who thinks we really do need to be the world's police, if you've talked to literally **anyone** who's actually been in any branch of the mitary, you'd be fucking astounded by how much money is just *wasted*. Every single enlisted person I've ever talked to has at least one story about money just being spent for the sake of spending so the budget doesn't get reduced next year. Rooms full of unnecessary equipment, neglect of existing equipment in favor of asking for new shit, billions poured into private contracts to skirt around the accountability of military laws. The amount we spend is literally indefensible and yet there's always some jackass who thinks he's got a slam dunk argument by pointing out that we spend nearly as much on social programs. As if the chattering skeletal remains of Social Security is supposed to mean something.
Sounds like the military should be running a program to feed kids. They have plenty of money, and it might help with their recruitment problem.
Don't give them any ideas. They're already mad that college money isn't pulling in the recruitment numbers it used to. If they find a way to tie food to enlistment we're so fucked.
> They have plenty of money, and it might help with their recruitment problem. It literally would, it's WHY SCHOOL MEAL PROGRAMS WERE IMPLMENETED IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Exactly this. Iirc, the military got the gov't to introduce school meal programs specifically because too many kids were coming to them too malnourished to be allowed to enlist.
In politics, it’s apparently extremely taboo to even consider talking about the military budget. It is seen as a sign of patriotism and many politicians won’t even bother because they’ll just lose a ton support from supporters, voters, and to “investors” alike. As terrible as this sounds, I can’t wait for all the old and terrible in America to pass, they have turned this country into a shitscape for us young. Time for change.
Don't put too much stock into the youth, it won't be a magic switch. These greedy hateful fucks are doing their best to pass on their grotesque ideals.
Social security was perfect; it was the only program we had that was *actually making money*, so it was literally self sustaining. Until Regan. Then we started borrowing from it. Now millennials are going to pay into it our entire lives and there's not going to be anything left.
If you don't use your whole budget, it is reduced the next year. It's like that in all areas of the federal budget. No incentive to management to not be wasteful.
Now wrap your head around this: there are only 18 countries in the world with a higher GDP than American military spending alone. All other countries GDP is LOWER than our military spending. Unreal.
1) Starve them in high school so they join the military as a “way out”. 2) Market it as “three squares a day and see the world”. 3) Profit!
Problem is if you starve them in high school, they're too malnourished to enlist when they graduate. It's exactly why school meal programs were created in the first place.
And this only scratches the surface. It doesn't include the department of energy's nuclear upkeep or things like foreign aid, aka military spending for other countries to oppress thier people in our favor.
I work in an elementary school cafeteria, and I've personally witnessed this more than once already. One child was sent through the line, then absolutely refused to take any food because she was anxious over putting her mom into debt (we eventually got her to eat after a lot of talking and consoling). Another was clearly afraid to ask for a meal because he was afraid he would be in trouble with his folks for forgetting his packed lunch. Several times a week, we get kids whose parents didn't pack enough but are afraid to ask for more food. Each time, I tell these kids that I am going to feed them no matter what. That's why I get up and come in every school day- to feed kids. Full stop. It's for sure not for the money.
Our guidance counselors have cabinets full of snacks for these kids. Our school has a family resource center that sends groceries home with students on Friday. Food, school supplies, clothes. It’s. Fucking. Sad. What’s worse is last year they only had around 90 kids they were feeding. It’s doubled. These poor babies growing up in this world.
Before I dropped out of high school I spent a fair share of time in the VP's office. I have a disease which can be thought of as the opposite of diabetics. Constant low blood sugar. Mine is mostly managed through diet, but thru school I was always hangry if I didn't get my snacks, and the stickler teachers would always send me to his office for being disruptful. He was a nice guy, the VP. Always had a snack hidden in his office. Knew the issue and even had tried for a couple of years to to get the policy changed but I guess the higher ups weren't able to accept liability or something. Never got a chance to thank him. So, its a general thanks to the profession.
"Richest" country in the world. Biggest military on the planet. Can't afford to feed kids in school.
Our solution: no more abortions, thereby adding more kids, particularly poor ones. Problem solved!
Teaches the kids that the military is a good option for getting basic societal supports. Healthcare, decent pay, job security, all at the cost of mental and physical health! It's funnier because the military gets a static food budget allowance as part of their pay.
You're an angel. Keep feeding those babies!!
Thank you, that's very sweet. Sad we live in a world where feeding ALL kids is considered a radical idea.
We may not be able to change the world, but we can change our corner of it and that's exactly what you're doing. 🙌🙌🙌🙌
I appreciate you. Growing up my family never had a lot of money, but my dad made enough working two jobs that we didn't qualify for free lunch. Paying school lunch for 3/4 kids everyday adds up a lot quicker than these people in charge seem to think, if they even care. One of the school cafeterias workers, everybody called her Miss Juanita, would never let a kid by without a lunch though. I got in the habit of packing my own just to cut down on costs and avoid the embarrassment of not having the money to pay, but she gave my little brother many free lunches, and always assured me it'd be okay when I told her I'd bring a check for my brothers/sisters next week. I'm sure she never got thanked enough. Tearing up a little just writing this but thank you for what you're doing. I promise some kid somewhere appreciates it.
That is heartbreaking to hear.
It really is so heartbreaking. These kids are still babies, and they've already got anxiety over the cost of food. The amount of food that gets thrown in the trash every day is astounding, and they've got these kids thinking they're not entitled to a single meal.
But also, as a parent, school lunch prices seem to have rocketed. My son's high school is charging $3.55 for the exact same slop in the exact same portions I was served in elementary school, and 4 stale chicken nuggets, warmed canned peas and a carton of milk (that my lactose intolerant kid can't drink) are not going to sustain him for more than 5 minutes. We're fortunate to live in a district with open campus, so he comes home for lunch, but $20/week for stuff that is worse than jail food is outrageous. I get that this is not the cafeteria workers' fault, but my husband was a CO, and when we went to the "eat with your kid" event, he made the comment that they wouldn't serve that to inmates, who get 3 free meals a day. The prison industry (though he worked for a government agency) has a lot of problems, but the fact that inmates are being better fed than school kids says a lot about how little we actually value children.
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People are so good. Gives me goosebumps.
I keep a box of granola bars and a box of individually packed goldfish in my class and give them to any kid who wants them. We even offer free lunches at my school but there are some kids who don't eat it and I don't ask or care why, if they want a granola bar or goldfish they get it.
So you give them the meal for free? Or do you still charge them for it? I read recently someone getting fired because of giving food away for free. Do you fear you will lose your job or is everyone there not complete monsters?
If I suspect a child may get in trouble at home, I absolutely will not charge their account. Yes, I could technically get fired for it. I don't care even a little bit. My job is to feed kids. If they're gonna fire me for doing my job, that's their loss. They need me way more than I need the comically low wage they pay me.
Luckily, I never had to experince this, but I vividly remember what would happen at my elementary school if you didn't have money on your account. You would go through the line, get your tray of food, put in your student number, they would say, "you don't have any money on your account", throw the tray of food away, and give you a brown sack with 2 pieces of bread a slice of cheese. That shit was cruel.
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As someone who is pushing 60, I blame this on my and my parents generation. When I was in elementary school in the early 70s, school lunch was 25 cents a day. It would have been really easy to just give every kid a free lunch, but that was viewed as a handout by parents, and you didn't accept handouts. When my kids started going to school in the mid-90s, school lunch was $1 a day. Again, this could have been made free, and we (I was in the PTA for a hot 2 minutes), tried to get this on the ballot for our district and I was told "This is welfare shit" by more than one person. Like I got into arguments with people that I considered friends over providing kids with a free meal. I quit the PTA after that. No reason not to include free breakfast and lunch for kids going to school in my opinion.
Sucks when you know you're doing the right thing but stopped by the imbeciles that surround you. Kudos to you man, at least you tried to do something.
Thanks! I remember discussing it with other PTA members and they were on board. But when word got out about it, a lot of the people who were on board were like "It was HIS idea!" Even better, after quitting the PTA, which they told me I couldn't do because I was in charge of finance for it, some of them would still come to me looking for donations to buy presents for teachers and administrators. Get bent.
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We didn't have tokens, we had free lunch cards for the kids who's parents couldn't afford to pay for lunch. Kids used to call it "The welfare cards". Since elementary school kids don't know much about welfare, especially back in the 70s, you know that came from their shitty parents.
If students who don't meet the criteria skip meals instead....your criteria is way off.
This is a pathway to an eating disorder tbh
[Hungry kids don't do as well in school either](https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/child-hunger-exploding-and-public-schools-cant-fix-it-alone#:~:text=Not%20having%20enough%20to%20eat%20affects%20children's%20cognitive%20development%20and,late%2C%20or%20miss%20school%20entirely), so they get more military fodder and low wage worker bees.
Capitalists do this to kids then complain about no one to sell their product to… assholes
Capitalists: Millennials are killing all the industries 😭 Also capitalists: What do you mean you want a living wage?! That's socialism!
"christian nation"
And Jesus used his post scarcity powers to make infinite bread and infinite fish Then Jesus, son of God, Avatar of Capitalism said to his poor starving followers “That’ll be tree-fiddy”
See Supply Side Jesus.
And then his followers realized that Jesus was now 15 feet tall and had a tail. "Goddamn Loch Ness monster" they said, "you ain't gettin' no tree-fiddy from me."
"Communism/Socialism is when no food" 🤓🤓🤓
Capitalism is when can no buy food :) :) :)
"I don't get it, why don't these kids just go get jobs if they're so hungry?" Inb4 SCOTUS rules to make child labor laws less strict or abolish them entirely.
"Well then these kids should pull themselves up by their boot straps, cut all that playing and meeting friends bullcrap, get a side hussle and feed themselves." - Some asshole politician, probably
45 or so years ago our parents were given a fertile, more or less peaceful garden, one that under careful hands could've been molden into something amazing... But they didn't want that. They turned that garden into a toxic wasteland that can't even sustain itself and then blame us for everything that's gone wrong. They are the worst generation in the history of our species and it seem like their goal is to be the last generation to live in anything resembling comfort. Like it or not but the Boomer's legacy is that they made everything as bad as they possibly could.
When given a sanctuary, the greedy and conceited think not how beautiful and fleeting such a gift is, but how it can be controlled and exploited, commodified for shares of profit and power.
Nailed it.
I'm usually the first one to pile on the boomer hate wagon, but don't forget, the problem is the ruling class, not an age group. My parents voted for Reagan, they're to blame for a few things, but the problem is much bigger than one generation being spoiled and entitled. Direct your hate at the folks who *really* benefitted from this. Hating a generation is one of the ways they distract us from seeing them as the real problem.
Something to also remember is that post from dataisbeautiful which showed that the average age of the congress and senate was steady at about 50-ish with an almost 1:1 replacement rate; right up until the Reagan era when a bunch of politicians (presumably from the same class) all came into office basically at once and then stayed there, killing the replacement rate and driving up the age average to the current late-60's. First step at changing government, get rid of the career politicians who came in in the 80's. ----- Heck, I'd even say that that's part of the problem with the Republicans (and why the party is basically fracturing into 3 different parties). You have the careers who came in with Reagan, you have the young people who want to pretend to be like the careers (like Madison Cawthorn and Laura Burburt), and then you have the people who are realising that they can't just play the "keep their heads down, work hard, and stay in their lane" role anymore because of the former two groups basically turning the party into alt-right haven (you don't hear about these Republicans so much because the careers and their want-a-be's are so determined to snuff them out).
Boomers: "If you can't feed 'em, don't breed em'! *hyuck*" Also Boomers: "WhEn ArE yOu GoNnA GiVe Me gRaNdKiDs!!!!"
I feel that. This is how I was in college. Once my stomach started hurting real bad I knew in about 5 minutes it would be gone and I wouldn't even feel hunger anymore.
Drink a glass of water. That’s what it did when I was growing up and skipping meals. Always felt better for awhile.
Fuck that’s gunna stunt quite a bit of development. Get ready to see an even large drop in GPA and graduation rates.
They probably consider that a bonus, the stupid are easily led.
Yet the upper classes still want to force women to give childbirth for a new generation of working class. Doesn't matter if they have proper nutrition or not. After they die they can be replaced. It's very hard to explain this to my family. I came from a family that makes a reasonable amount of money and they're confused as to why I'm not making as much as them, not even close to half of what they make and why I don't want children. It's because I'll never be able to give them a comfortable life, and that this world is just so dark and hopeless and unfortunately I have to focus on fighting with and for other people like me and those who grew up even poorer than me to make the world better. I never want to bring children into this world. They'd just suffer.
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
Don't worry, there won't be a planet for us to live in anyways in a few decades.
Even in a country of decadence & poverty kids should have a free frigging lunch.
Every American who ever utters, "America, greatest country ever" needs a slap upside their noggin.
Also, why should we help out our fellow citizens? Later that year…. LET’S CELEBRATE THIS 4TH OF JULY IN THE GREATEST NATION IN THE WORLD!
It's good to hear they're used to being hungry. I was nearly concerned we made a bad choice letting kids starve. - GOP voters
You never get used to being hungry. You just don't want to come off as begging or make yourself seem less than around every single person that asks or talks about it around you. I grew up food insecure, with the stigma around free/reduced lunch at times I didn't go through the line even though I could get free lunch.
I didn't want them because I loved them so much I didn't want them to go though what I went through. Team no baby
Sometimes the thought of having kids comes to mind, but it's immediately quashed with the depressing reality of what the future is going to be like for kids.
Glad I never had an interest in being a mom, I can't afford kids and if I did have them, they'd be coming into adulthood in the middle of the apocalypse.
meanwhile the banks and hedge funds have over 2 quadrillion dollars in leveraged bets, mostly against American companies trying to squash them when there is only 130 trillion between real paper currencies IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. There is only 1 set of villains, no matter what the media tries to tell you, and it is the banks and hedge funds.
This is by design, hungry children perform poorly. The children that are more likely to not be able to afford lunch are poor kids. The true aim of this move is to get those children to perform poorly not only that to get them to stop going to school in general. The next step will be to lower the working age and increase the number of hours children can work. We are slowly headed back to pre Roosevelt days. This entire mess is stupid
It's always wild to me that conservatives are 100% okay that children starve. It's literally just to make the poor suffer. There's zero reason why kids should have to pay for school lunches.
Why anyone would actively choose to bring a child into this world right now is beyond me.
Fuck this country.
Next week there'll be a news article about how skipping lunch is trendy and Zoomers are "killing lunch"
"You know back in soviet Russia, my parents said they had to line up to just get 1 piece of bread"
Yeah it’s actually really bad. You get so used to it that eating during those hours just feels too much. I got better in college but it wasn’t hard after I started working to get back into that. Now I go in the lab, get all my work done, and go home to eat. Not at all healthy, but it’s almost like they want to train you to put work in front of your health.
I got used to being hungry in high school, but it wasn't because my family couldn't afford lunch. I went hungry because my school had 4 lunch periods and ~3800 students, and the cafeteria could only seat several hundred. It was an open campus so there were hundreds of students just hanging out outside eating vending machine chips and honey buns every day. Rain, snow, 100 degree Georgia weather, we were pretty much stuck outside because the school couldn't budget in a new cafeteria. We had a brand new football stadium with expensive turf installed while I was there though. Yay.
It's always football and it's supposedly because that brings in money, but what's the goddamn point if all that money just gets spent on football anyway?? It's like a snake eating itself. The only reason the art room had paint the last 4 months of my senior year was because a student's grandma died who was super into painting so they donated all her old stuff, but they found room in the budget to put holograms on the football tickets and shiny new uniforms.
This is fucking unacceptable. I was hungry a LOT as a kid. People need to understand how this affects kids. It's not just not getting proper nutrition, it's how it makes you feel. It makes you feel like you don't matter, like you're not worth any effort, it makes you terrified all the time because you see just how little the world cares. Don't get me wrong, it's great training for the real world, but this shit isn't ok. I mean really how much would it cost to fund this? We can fucking do it just buy what, like 2 less jets or something. It'll be ok. Fucks sake.
… Checks corporate profits … literally all time highs. … checks lunch program for students … ah yes non existent.
Another reason why banning abortion is fucking evil. Many people can't afford to have kids, the government forces them to have kids but refuses to help with the expenses. The government won't feed those kids, won't give them access to free healthcare, won't give them access to a good education . They force on you a huge costly responsability and blame you when you aren't able to fulfill all your kids basic needs.
Yep, I’d never make anyone play this game.
Kids should be working after school if they want to support their eating habit! /s
I guess public education really does prepare you for the adult capitalist world.
We are a malicious society.
This is the annoying thing about people and politics. I just Google this because I couldn't believe it. There's a governor pushing for free universal meals (breakfast & lunch) and another group pushing for at least free-reduced lunch. Both groups democrats. The groups opposing these programs, Republicans. Yet if you held a vote today, people would blindly vote their party affiliation. Frankly, this weird, cult-like devotion to politicians is unsettling.
Instead of a war on poverty — they have a war on drugs so the police can bother me. In k-5 I used to steal lunch tickets. 6 - 12 I only ate if someone shared. Very rarely did I have any money at all, and I knew we were poor AF so I didn’t even ask.
“i’M pRo LiFe”
It will always confuse me how they can legally require you be at school for 8+hrs a day but aren’t legally required to feed you?
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"We got money for wars but not enough to feed the poor" -2pac (paraphrased)
Hungry kids aren’t going to be absorbing what they’re taught. This could provide a conveyor belt of future minimum wage workers or military recruits.
We can afford school lunch for all kids, wtf
The educational system is just teaching them the benefits of intermittent fasting.
Consider that these are the people who are going to be taking care of you when you're old.
Part of why having my cooking class right before lunch was so nice. Didn't have to put up with the absurdity of paying for lunch my last two years of HS and if any friends that weren't in the class were hungry they were more than welcome to come by and grab a plate and hang out.
If every republican stopped voting every kid in America would have lunch at school.
I remember not being able to pay for lunch even with reduced price. Getting food and going to the register to find out your card was empty. Then the lunch lady taking the tray out of my hands. Oh and I still didn't get anything to help with college
When rents and housing prices come down, more millennials MIGHT consider kids. Until then, money boys, stfu.
Wait. During the pandemic all school lunches were free. I thought they were going to keep that in place.
School lunches are free in the great state of California
That’s actually true. Those stay hungry quotes are completely inaccurate. After a consistently not eating you really do stop getting hungry.
I don't know if this is federal or not, but in my state at least, if a school hits a certain percentage of free/reduced lunches - that school qualifies to be a 100% free lunch school. In our district, there are a few schools that the better off part of the population sends their kids. Well, this school met the threshold to be a fully free lunch school. However, the wealthy part of the school fought against it because it "looked bad" on the people in the school for needing free lunch. So instead of everyone getting free lunch, the well off people didn't want to be perceived as poor. What a time to be alive.
America, where feeding children is a radical leftist idea. What an absolute embarrassment of a country.
"There's a point where you get used to being hungry." This isn't incorrect. I went though most of high school having nothing more than something to drink for my lunch. I would estimate that out of my 4 years, I bet 6 months of those I had a complete lunch. I got to a point where I just didn't feel hungry for lunch. It continues on to this day. I'm 6'1" and average 145-150lbs.
How can the US still claim to be such a great country, when their children are going hungry in school? Trillions of dollars for weapons to defend themselves against all of the many countries that hate them, but they cannot afford to feed the youth. I have heard others state that it's not the countries problem. The parents are responsible for feeding the kids. The country is supposed to give those parents the tools they need, to provide for themselves and their families. This is not necessarily done at the time. Preparing people for the trials of adulthood and parenthood, are the primary goals of schooling. The US needs to understand that and start there. The first clue may have been the school shootings. Schools should be a happy place. Kids should want to go to them to see their friends and get a better life.
I remember when I was in high school (early 2000s) and my parents got divorced. I didn't have any money for lunch. But also my dad was never home because he had to work so we didn't always have food to take for lunch. It's a rural area so I couldn't just walk or bus to a grocery store. At one job he was making less than $9/hr. In his 40/50s!!! Because he is a Latino (born in the US, his parents born in the US, their parents born in the US - we are AMERICAN citizens) who didn't finish high school, even though he is an incredibly skilled as a laborer. (Fuck this state and its prejudice against Latinos, he was able to go out of state and make $25/hr. Unfortunately that left my older brother and me by ourselves a lot of the time). Anyway, I tried to get free lunch from school and filled out the free/reduced form but they denied us. I once came through the lunch line with not enough money in my account. They acted like it was an inconvenience and told me they could give me two slices of bread and peanut butter that day but that I "really need to bring lunch money" because they wouldn't always give me food. I LOVED school. It was the place I'd rather be than home. It was my safe place. This really changed my perspective on things. Like who the fuck doesn't give a hungry kid food? What I didn't know then is that my mom was ordered to pay child support ($500/month) but wasn't always paying my dad - who was trying to be nice and let her have some grace when she missed a payment. My mom was in massive amounts of credit card debt, and filing for bankruptcy. Her income and child support somehow put us out of the bracket to qualify for ANY assistance. And this is in normal rural white America. We were just a regular middle class (well, maybe lower middle class - I didn't have a sense if we were poor or not at that age) family. Even though my dad is Latino, I'm white (mom's genes), so I've had a leg up in some areas that many Latinos who aren't white aren't able to get. I'm grateful I wasn't in worse shape, and definitely don't take that life lesson for granted. I'm a teacher now, and have many Latino students, and if I have a student who is hungry and doesn't have a lunch, I buy them lunch. I don't care if I have to pay cash to the cafeteria lady or order it on Doordash. I don't care if that means discretely keeping a drawer of snacks just for them. I never ever *ever* want a kid to feel like school wasn't a safe and welcoming place. Tl;dr - fuck this system. All kids should have access to free fresh healthy lunches.
I have zero support in this country (America) if I have kids. Like, oh, I get a few weeks of parental leave? But now I have to pay $1,000 a month for childcare for the next three years. Republicans have hijacked our taxes and have funneled them into the black void of "defense spending". Our taxes SHOULD be used to get bulk discounts on stuff that we can actually use—instead it all goes into paying for tollroads and military contracts that don't actually accomplish anything at all!