I don't have a dog in this race, or any idea what's going on, but "Public support for the men with guns running a coup is bigger than those assembling against the men with guns" is a wild fucking take.
Funny events in anti-woke world
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I did also find it before coming back here, but I appreciate that you did all that legwork with the transcription and everything. (I was probably just gonna link to a timestamp.)Found it:
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(The agenda item in question starts at the 3 hr 24 min mark).
Transcript as close as I can get it:
President: 9-A, board member requests discussion regarding the presence of personal ideology in schools. I believe this is Ms Dungan's...
Dungan: ...And thankfully I have a summary, just as an introduction as to why and what this agenda item was requested. So I thank you, Mr President, for adding the discussion of ideologies in our schools to tonight's agenda. My purpose in bringing up this topic for discussion is so that we as a board can ensure that every Conroe ISD student is allowed to think freely at school. We can likely all agree that when children are told what or how to believe, whether it be verbal, in writing, or through visual symbols, they miss out on the freedom to think for themselves and use the skills that they are learning in the classroom. Since November- last November- a number of parents have reached out to me regarding individual concerns regarding what I believe is a growing trend in our schools, a trend that allows personal ideologies to be posted on walls, in hallways, and verbalised in our classroom settings. I wish I was shocked by each of the examples that were shared with me, however I am aware these trends have been happening for many years. That said, as a board I hope we can agree to take steps in working with superintendents and school administrators to ensure the ISD has the best learning environment where personal ideologies are left at the door. Additionally and most importantly I hope we can adher to the Texas education code section 25.082, which requires the United States flag and the Texas flag be prominently displayed in accordance with 4 USC sections 5 through 10, and chapter 3,100, state flag of our government code. And that these flags in respective school and college-- that these two, US flags and Texas flags and pennants are the only ones allowed to be displayed in our schools. And I would appreciate thoughts from you guys on this topic, and hopefully we can move toward an action.
Board Member A: I have a question on that: I think this thing is mislabelled. It says, 'requests discussion regarding the presence of personal ideology'. I think you're more referring to personal ideology being shared or taught, right, as opposed to 'having' personal ideology.
Dungan: Both. Because it can't be represented, not being...
A: If I have an ideology as a teacher, and i go into a classroom-- because they all do, every teacher does, every individual has their own personal ideology. What's... what's the violation, what's the infraction?
Dungan: it's not necessarily that you possess some form of belief. It's the way that it's posted in our schools.
A: So, that's what I'm saying. This is extremely vague. It says, "the presence of personal ideology in schools". We can't prevent that. They're gonna have their own personal ideologies.
Dungan: Well, for example, just last week-- I'm speaking more to posters or things that are laid on walls, in classrooms, on bulletin boards.
A: That clarifies it for me. Second question, I've been inclined for most of my life, when multiple flags from multiple eras, multiple states, are posted in-- especially geography, history classrooms etcetera. Are we not allowed to do that?
Dungan: One thing that is quoted in the summary that I just read is that the American flag and the Texas flag are the only two, that are....
Board Member B: Outside of any instructional materials. Outside of any instructional materials.
A: So you put all the state flags along your classroom, that's an infraction?
Dungan: No, because its actually just showing the different flags of our country. Its when you start putting the presence of personal ideologies out there, not educational ones. As long as its in accordance with what's being taught, with the teaching, it can be presented on a poster in a hallway. It's in our curriculum.
A: Oh, it has to be associated with the curriculum. So if I have a flag that... I'm teaching about....
Dungan: if its in the textbook or if its in the curriculum that's being used for that lesson. I only bring the flag argument up because that's a good example of how we could approach a restriction or a standard.
A: So what would that restriction look like?
Dungan: if there was a question as to what could be displayed, we could reference that Texas education code, section 25.082. Which is in regard to the two flags, US flag and Texas flag, being prominently displayed. Right? I'm just giving an example.
A: OK. I'm a bit clearer about what you're trying to accomplish here, and how it relates to how it's posted on the agenda.
Dungan: And that's why I wrote this summary out. I apologise.
[Multiple board members briefly talking over eachother]
Board Member C: The agenda may be vague but that'd be my fault.
A: But just to be clear, we do expect folks to have their own ideologies, their own backgrounds, personal beliefs, personal what-have-you... as any other employee of the school district. Right?
Dungan: Right.
B: So how would they hide that? Or not display it? What if they were displaying a quote in their classroom, and one person felt it was an ideology, and somebody else didn't, so now we can't have quotes? Could you let us know what the examples were, so we can have a better idea of what parents were complaining about?
Dungan: So like an example of a poster that shows "all belong here", with racially-coloured hands. This was an example that was brought to me early this year. Where the intention of the poster was good, and the parent thought the intention of the poster was good, however the unintended consequences of that poster made the first-grader feel like "wait, why wouldn't I be safe, why wouldn't i be accepted here?" So it had a reverse effect on this first-grader because it was in the classroom.
A: Wait, so, my wife has these [unclear] sometimes, with the multiple hand prints, hand prints in different shades. And it says "all means all", or "everyone's included" or whatever-- is that an infraction?
Dungan: It's an example of a scenario that was brought to my attention.
A: I'm just saying, from your perspective is that an infraction? People bring everything to my attention, but I don't deem it to be worthy to...
Dungan: i was asked for an example. I'm saying that was a concern, of one of our parents at an elementary. And the district addressed it, the child was moved into a different classroom. And I'm saying to avoid situations like that, maybe as a board we could adopt some standards, guidelines, that could be passed down to our schools, so that if something surfaces it could serve as a starting point.
[At this point, 2 board members point out there is already a rule about the display of non-curriculum materials on school walls]
Board Member D: just so I understand, so you are seriously suggesting that you find objectionable a poster indicating that all are equal?
Dungan: I never said that. I gave an example.
D: what is the problem with that?
Dungan: I'm saying that as a school district, that we can follow the guidelines that if its not in the curriculum, we can't have it on the walls in the schools.
A: I think this is a slippery slope. [...] I see biblical quotes, I see "thou shalt not kill", a lot of stuff that comes directly from the bible. Noones jumping up and down about that. But that could be deemed offensive to many folks. Right? So are we to go into each classrooms, and rip.... because I guarantee if we did that we'd have a whole other uproar. Do you agree?
Dungan: I... I don't know.
A: because then people would say you're being anti-conservative, anti-Christian, and so forth. However you're meant to have separation of Church and State. And when you do that, you are sort of violating...
Dungan: I'm saying you follow the law. If we have a standard based on how you interpret the law then it removes all that personal involvement.
(It continues a bit further but that's the most directly relevant bit to the details in the article)
It's fun how you read what you want into that. Watch the video, there's at least one major thing you're missing here.
But hey, now we know why they didn't include the actual quote. It's because "the intention of the poster was good, and the parent thought the intention of the poster was good, however the unintended consequences of that poster made the first-grader feel like "wait, why wouldn't I be safe, why wouldn't i be accepted here?" So it had a reverse effect on this first-grader because it was in the classroom." doesn't make the speaker look like a racist.
I've talked here before about how any flag other than that of the place you are is inherently exclusionary. They just happened to learn that even a poster attempting to be a message of inclusion can make someone, in this case a child, feel excluded.
You have to realize Niger is the poorest country on the face of the planet.
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The World Bank supports projects in water, rural development, HIV/AIDS, education, health, natural disaster management, and emergency food security.
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This is a country rich in natural resources, and yet most Nigeriens don't have electricity in the 21st century while the US runs a drone base there, and France likely bribes their politicians to get cheap gold and uranium as they did in India for their Rafale Jet contracts.
French judge tasked with investigating Rafale fighter jet sale to India
A French judge has been tasked with investigating a controversial 2016 multi-billion-dollar sale of Rafale fighter jets to India on “corruption” suspicions, the national financial prosecutors’ office…
France owns large swaths of West Africa, and the US is complicit. Is Wagner ethical no, but if I were a leader of Niger why would I support someone who keeps ripping me off.
Similarly, most of West Africa has to use currency run by the French Central Bank. Do you really think Nigeriens are thinking my former
Now granted many Americans, including 85% of apolitical/centrist morons are you guessed it morons. But France, and French citizens have no excuse.
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Educators ‘outraged’ after attorneys argue 1st-grade teacher shot in school is ‘workplace injury’
The Newport News Education Association President condemned the premise of the school division’s motion to dismiss Abigail Zwerner’s pending $40 million lawsuit.
www.denverpost.com
Teachers are getting shot so often that a prosecutor tried to call it a routine workplace hazard
None of which gives the conclusion "and therefore the Nigeriens at large support a military rule instead of democratically chosen leaders.".
The "democratic leaders" are corrupt. Sound familiar. The military needs national funding, a few million won't cut it vs a politician who needs a house in the South of France, and a Swiss bank account with a few million francs.
Edit: Fine here's your poll.
After Niger’s coup, the drums of war are growing louder
Hopes for a diplomatic solution are fading
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Which likewise does not not give the conclusion that military rule is something the Nigeriens want.
EDIT: Oh, hey, you provided a link. Thank you.
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I read through that article. As it says, that poll was only "gauging the mood" since it was a small survey done quickly on educated Nigerien men in the capital, so it could just be that they, like the coup leaders, are dissatisfied with the current policies of the ousted president and are currently just having a positive outlook since they buy the rhetoric.
That article also highlights why this coup ought to not be to the benefit of the average Nigerien. As they say, the coups in neighbouring Mali and Burkina Faso was due to dissatisfaction with their handling of providing security, and as they also say "In Burkina Faso and Mali the putsches have been followed by a spiral of deteriorating security.".
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Where was that quote? What's your source for knowing the inner-monologue of a child?
France owned large tracts of West Africa, and maintained strong post-colonial influence there.
Obviously France's relationship with these countries is in ways poor, reflecting its past as colonial overlord. It's links have also been slipping, because there are now so many rich or powerful international competitors: wealthy Middle Eastern states, China, Russia, India, etc. France has realised this and tried to "turn the page", but all those many decades (centuries if we include empire) create an institutional momentum that is very hard to change the direction of.
So yes, France is unpopular across many Western African states and to a substantial extent deservedly so. But fundamentally these are states whose people are failed by their national institutions, colonial meddling notwithstanding. France takes the hit because it is the traditional backer of their regimes. But the new regimes that overthrow them are likely to be every bit (if not more) venal and incompetent, and the people will eventually realise that none of these other international partners do them any favours either. They're cheering Russia now, they may well be regretting it in 5-10 years.
That quote is from Melissa Dungan, paraphrasing a parent she says brought it to her attention. It's in the video & transcript of the meeting I posted in the last page.
If it's a workplace hazard, doesn't that obligate the state to prevent it from happening?Educators ‘outraged’ after attorneys argue 1st-grade teacher shot in school is ‘workplace injury’
The Newport News Education Association President condemned the premise of the school division’s motion to dismiss Abigail Zwerner’s pending $40 million lawsuit.
Teachers are getting shot so often that a prosecutor tried to call it a routine workplace hazard
So how does one deal with a child like that? Ethically, if not legally? Like he's six. He's a minor by all definitions. But by his own admission, if a six year old can have the intelligence to make such things, he wanted to kill his teacher, he found his mom's gun, brought it to school loaded to shoot his teacher, shot his teacher, and thought he killed he, saying he's gladly do it again.Educators ‘outraged’ after attorneys argue 1st-grade teacher shot in school is ‘workplace injury’
The Newport News Education Association President condemned the premise of the school division’s motion to dismiss Abigail Zwerner’s pending $40 million lawsuit.
Teachers are getting shot so often that a prosecutor tried to call it a routine workplace hazard
So like...what now? He's clearly a danger to society. But he's also six. Do we put him away for life? In an institution? I wouldn't want my kids in a class with a known, confessed, school shooter. Or want my wife/husband their teacher.
But he's six. He doesn't know where the sun goes at night, or what multiplication is. He has no concept of what he did, not really. But he's still bragging about it, and clearly would do it again if he could.
Like i dunno what to do with him.
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Probably some psy support/monitoring. But I think he'll be living with the time-bomb of the realization of what he's done.
Our societies have quite the thirst for revenge. I don't know what's supposed to quench it. But again, my assumption is that he'll pay hell for it, on his own, the moment he'll take the measure of what happened.
The sad thing is that the society that produced him still won't question itself.
And some decades later, when reporters need a story and suddenly he's all over the news again.
This is dark, but we're assuming...he's not going to try this again? Like from the reports he's furious the teacher survived. He's already done one school shooting. What do we do if in a few years, when he's 16 or so, he does it again? Its going to be very hard to say this couldn't be foreseen, oh think of the children. When this kid already did this, and we just assumed he'd feel bad about it one day.
And is it vengeance, or justice we have a hard on for? Like I don't want to see this kid hung or anything, but he shot someone. Tried to kill her. Her life is ruined forever with the injuries and trauma she experienced. Where is her justice? Where is the justice for society that this kid won't try to kill again? Are we just saying you can be too young to be held accountable?
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Justice is a weird, unatteinable and generally subjective concept. Even if you're interpreting it in an ancient testament way (eye for an eye, having the culprit go through the same pain as he inflicted) it generally concerns incomparable things or downright absurd ones (loss of life and consciousness, mourning of a 3rd party, being stolen back the stolen item, etc) if only because values and sensitivities differ between culprits and victims. The idea of justice as a balance of costs is awkward to the point where we get arbitrary currency rates between one evil deed and some calculated number of prison days or fined coins. We haven't found much better than that, but still there's nothing inherently, objectively satisfactory to it. It's mostly about indulging a gut feeling.
The rest is less about the culprit and the victim than about society at large. The peer pressure of collectively sanctioned punishment (as a lesson on consensual morality, which has the effect of shaming or validating the culprit depending on many outside social factors), the public discouragement of the act (punishment as an example made for others), and the purpose of safe reintegration to society (unless you intend to kill the culprit or cage him for life). This latter element being the idea of some teaching/healing that can feel very remote from revenge or justice, and very frustrating for... well, I was about to say the victims, but quite often it's the general public who gets outraged by the idea.
And this is all without taking in account the inner life of the culprit, the role of actual regrets, the time-induced shift of personality, identity, potentials (which is more or less clumsily assessed on prison releases). A concealed, intimate factor, complicated by our revenge culture nourished by spectacular fictions all about unredeemable baddies and corrupt lawyers, or by sensationalist accounts of recidivism (the only cases we hear about, of course). And here, we're even speculating on the differences between a 6 years old and a 16 years old kid !
Yes, the underlying, background noise is the thirst for revenge (and often, behind it, the thrill of legitimate violence). If you put it aside, an objective idea of "justice" would be terribly humbling and unsatisfactory - think of all the recurring "don't you think they should be punished more" demagoguery, which is always completely independent from the current punishment rate. And if you think about society as a whole (which, in democracies, happen to be the main focus), then laymen we're kinda forced to rely on institutions way more closer to the realities of the subject matter. It's a matter for pediatrists and psychologists more than for the torch and pitchfork crowd.
Even if we lost sight of this, in our current civilization of profitable torches and pitchforks.
But what's the practical use of this analysis? What of this kid? Is he just too young to be held accountable, and we just as a society hope he does feel bad about this one day? And to the teacher who was shot, sucks to be you? And to the parents of kids this kid might be in class with in the future, better teach little Timmy and Susie not to piss this kid off, he has an itchy trigger finger.
Understanding the larger societal contract of the differences between justice of any kind, even bad, and vengeance is all well and good, but what is the practical to this theoretical?
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What do you expect is happening, in that specific case ? That life will continue as usual, after some finger wiggling ? You think that nothing will be put in place around him ?
And what else, you think that eviscerating him would make it suck less for the victim to have been killed ?
And beyond this case, you think that justice/revenge can always be served ? There's a thing called prescription, for instance, which alone prevents "justice" in a multitude of cases or, more precisely, aknowledge that after a certain time the ship has sailed and justice is impossible (because investigation is impossible or because the person who'd be judged now "isn't" the same person who had commited the action long ago). Things are often simple not reparable or compensable, and that's life. What else do you want ? You can go all Loomis on that kid, but that's not how real life works. Real life doesn't always offer that sort of (fake) satisfaction.
I don't know what kind of (probably heavy) social, medical, psychological devices will be put in place around that child. I'm not even extremely curious. But I'm sure you can find out with a bit of research. I also doubt the answers will satisfy you, but hey, what would. My point is : the general public's satisfaction isn't what matters most, fortunately. Or else we'd all still have routine public beheadings.