Decline of the western society #2

kvs wrote:

andalusia wrote:I don't think something like this occurs in Russian universities but do Russian Universities have sport teams?

Here in Louisiana, Louisiana State University (LSU) just hired a football coach and is paying him 100 million dollars.  The university has a moldy library and other infrastructure problems.  Priorities are really screwed up here; Of course Education is not a top priority since Louisiana ranks in last place or close to it in most education ranking.  I agree with Foster Campbell in this article about paying a football coach this amount of money and LSU has a moldy library.  

I just want to know is sports taken this passionately in the countries where most of you guys are from on the university level or even high school level?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/louisiana-regulator-blasts-lsu-coach-203202858.html

This is an American pathology.   In Canada we do not have such an absurd investment in varsity teams.   In Europe for sure they do not have
this American issue either.   I have not heard of any sports vs. education infrastructure competition in Russia.   Sports is not financed by
academic institutions but by the state.   There has been a move to private sponsorship and I am sure some school support after 1990, but
what you describe is simply unheard of.  

Another difference is that there is nothing like a magical sport like US football in Russia which is pervasive.   Sure, there is hockey, some soccer
and other sports but there is no cultural obsession with them.   Hockey is a big thing in Canada but it does not have the peculiar financing that
you see with football in the US.

The University of Miami FL just hired a coach and paid him big money; however, the university is cutting faculty pay.  

https://www.si.com/college/2021/12/13/miami-faculty-fuming-mario-cristobal-contract-pay-cuts?fbclid=IwAR0g9UYIkO2X8yk1pxKhHN4aoUCH0u9q1fblmuymVFzCmOSeMMrYWLfUlKA

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/12/22831105/toyota-subscription-remote-start-key-fob

Toyota is going to make you pay to start your car with your key fob

Toyota is charging drivers for the convenience of using their key fobs to remotely start their cars.
According to a report from The Drive, Toyota models 2018 or newer will need a subscription in order
for the key fob to support remote start functionality.

You will own nothing and you will be happy.

This move is symptomatic of the degeneration of western society. The concept that you have to
pay rent for car features is absurd. You already paid Toyota for the car so it has no legal claim to it.
I have seen similar BS before where car companies act as if they still own your car even after they
sold it. That is like me selling my house and then insisting that I can still live there and collect rent
from the new owners.

ECHR ordered Russia to pay compensation to a woman whose husband chopped off her brushes

ECHR ordered Russia to pay 370 thousand euros to a woman whose ex-husband chopped off her brushes.

https://ria.ru/20211214/kompensatsiya-1763657172.html

Kiko wrote:ECHR ordered Russia to pay compensation to a woman whose husband chopped off her brushes

ECHR ordered Russia to pay 370 thousand euros to a woman whose ex-husband chopped off her brushes.

https://ria.ru/20211214/kompensatsiya-1763657172.html

The reference is not to brushes but to hands. The husband chopped off her hands.

In 2019 a Russian court found the husband guilty and sentenced him to 14 years in prison. It also ordered him to
pay 2 million rubles in compensation. The prosecution wanted 17 years. The victim wanted 8.5 million.

So the EHCR is indeed a kangaroo court. In Canada and all of the EU such a crime would not result in a 14 year
prison term. A 15 year prison term is what people get for murder. It is also routine for non-American
courts to not award excessively large fines. In America we have juries giving out $300 billion fines to individuals
which are then naturally vastly reduced.

Why should Russia pay the woman anything?

Why doesn't the ECHR pay the woman?

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/12/10/secrets-of-south-koreas-house-of-horrors-hidden-in-australia?fbclid=IwAR3Dr3IbGWcnSanoThVgqypBiOs5xMh-zwCPXdeypLsq-KfB-Ih666qzHhc

Secrets of South Korea’s house of horrors hidden in Australia

Brothers Home operated under a government ordinance to “purify the streets”, known as No.410. First implemented in 1975, the ordinance was ramped up in the 1980s under the authoritarian rule of now-disgraced President Chun Doo-hwan. South Korea was gearing up to host the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Chun’s administration wanted to showcase the country as a modern, emerging economic power and wanted all “vagrants” removed from sight.

Based in the southern port city of Busan, Brothers Home was one of dozens of welfare facilities dotted across the country that were paid government subsidies to shelter homeless people. The facilities were meant to provide inmates with skills-based training, before releasing them back into society after a year, better prepared to survive. A 1981 Korean government film celebrated it as an exemplary social welfare centre for the homeless, but its high concrete walls hid the grotesque greed and criminality of its management. The more people they took in, the more subsidies they received from the government and the more money they pocketed for themselves.

People were ruthlessly kidnapped from the streets and incarcerated at the facility, “people just going about their daily lives, people who were simply drinking, just any ordinary person, including children”. Fewer than 10 percent of those entrapped at Brothers Home were vagrants, according to a 1987 investigation by local Busan prosecutor, Kim Yong-won.

Former inmates say they were starved and shamelessly exploited.In the early days of Brothers Home, inmates slept in tents as they were forced to build the massive concrete facility, terraced on the side of a steep hill. The home ran more than a dozen factories that produced pencils, fishing equipment, cocktail umbrellas, clothing, shoes, woodwork, metalwork and much more. Most inmates received nothing for their labour and even children were enslaved. Inmates were punished if they failed to meet daily targets. “If we didn’t finish it, we were beaten with baseball bats,” he says in his tiny bedsit apartment on the outskirts of Seoul.

The factories were presented as training grounds for inmates to develop new skills for the outside world, but Park Min-seong said, in reality, they were nothing more than a source of large profits for management. “They pocketed money from the sale of these products, as well as benefitted from the free labour,” he explained.

A former military man and boxer, Park In-keun, headed up Brothers Home and by all accounts ruled with an iron fist. He established an army-like chain of command, promoting inmates into positions of power. “Their strategy was to have inmates abuse other inmates,” Park Min-seong explained. Inside so-called “platoons” that housed up to 120 inmates in rows of bunk beds, violence reigned. Inmates were subjected to cruel collective punishment dished out by “platoon leaders” for as little as dropping food on the floor at dinner. Choi was 14 years old and living with his grandmother when he was forcibly taken to Brothers Home. Living alone in a bedsit not far from where the facility once was, he reluctantly recounts an occasion where an inmate was killed during a punishment session.

Every Wednesday and Sunday, inmates were made to march up the giant staircase leading to the church to attend services where they had to recite long verses from the Bible, the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer. But it was the so-called “people’s trials” conducted by Park in the church that still cause many of them trauma. Those who tried to escape were put on “trial”, chastised and savagely beaten in front of thousands of other inmates.

In January 1987, Park In-keun was arrested and charged with embezzlement and illegal confinement, but he was ultimately acquitted of the illegal confinement charge and never held to account for the human rights abuses at Brothers Home. Prominent Korean human rights advocate, Park Lae-goon, and many others who have examined the Brothers Home case closely, pointed to Park In-keun’s powerful political allies as the reason. “There was the President Chun Doo-hwan administration, the Busan mayor – there were close connections between the parties,” he said, “Even when Park In-keun was arrested, the Busan mayor called and pushed for his release.” Instead of being imprisoned for 15 years for embezzling millions of dollars worth of government subsidies across just a two-year period as recommended by the prosecutor, Park was sentenced to just two-and-a-half years in jail.

When Park was arrested, Lim Young-soon was thousands of kilometres away. He had left Korea in 1986 to set up a new life for the family in Australia. With a shortage of Korean pastors, a Korean Presbyterian church in Sydney welcomed Lim’s arrival and happily agreed to sponsor him for a permanent resident’s visa. And it appears the family’s penchant for slave labour continued in Australia. Former Brothers Home inmate, Lim Bong-keun, was brought from Korea to Sydney on non-work visitor visas to work illegally for the family at the driving range. He tells 101 East he worked from before dawn until after midnight, six days a week, only to be beaten by Park when he visited.

I am a big movie lover, I follow a man called the "critical drinker" on the internets.

He's an scotsman, making himself an stereotype character online. and comments on culture and movies often with good sense.
Speaking about the decline of western society, i can not put it myself better. As he put it into words what identity means.

I am not a gun nut, but the above video demonstrates the criminal farce that is the legislative process.  
Clown-ass politicians who pass "laws" that have enough ambiguity to make them Orwellian and Kafkaesque nightmares.
Every freaking aspect requires litigation and you can still be sent away to the slammer because there is enough slack
in the interpretation to frame you.   If you don't have millions for the best lawyers (i.e. you are part of the 99%) then
you are a serf who can be abused on the whim of the fiefs.  

There are only two possible explanations for such "laws".   Either malice or total incompetence.   The latter is fun to
believe in, but it is unrealistic.   You would have to be a drooling retard not to figure out that so-called standard
shotguns should be defined in the legislation including the bore diameters and modifications.   It does not take any
substantial effort to do this, the video shows that it takes an expert a few minutes to describe the details.   This
leaves authoritarian malice and corruption to feed the lawyers as the explanation.   Even if a lawyer is producing such
a video does not exclude politicians grifting for the lawyer mafia.  

Legislation is supposed to be specific since statutory law is not common law and there is no precedent based reference
point built up over decades and centuries.   Common law is not so great since it can have illogical constructs but ambiguous
statutory law is less then worthless, it is detrimental.

The west is lost.

No good deed goes unpunished. Do not do good deeds in Canada. If you see a crime in progress do not call police
and do not intervene. High tail it out of the vicinity. The Canadian toilet will punish you.

... still, there won't be another generation, until it appears on the scene ...

https://www.wired.com/story/phones-connectivity-tax-policy/

Smartphones Are a New Tax on the Poor

The expectation of connectivity now extends to low-wage workers—and the consequences go far beyond gig economy jobs.

DAMON, WHO WORKS full-time at an upscale hotel and part-time at a burger joint in Washington, DC, gets his weekly schedules through texts from his managers, often with last-minute requests to come in to cover for missing coworkers. To make sure he can receive these messages, Damon juggles two basically broken low-end smartphones, one with a shattered screen and another that turns on and off unpredictably when he tries to use it. “I’m waiting on my next check so I can get another phone,” he told me. Meanwhile, he’s using stagnant wages to purchase a phone that’s functionally a workplace requirement, all just to keep the jobs he has now.

The requirement for constant connectivity isn’t only a fact of white-collar work—it has spread to workers up and down the income ladder. And while the requirement has spread, the resources that workers need to maintain it are not evenly distributed. Today, more than a quarter of low-income Americans depend solely on their phones for internet access. Amid historic levels of income inequality, phones and data plans have become an increasingly costly burden on those who have the least to spare.

THE HIGH COSTS of connectivity represent an increasingly large slice of household incomes for low-wage workers. Even though maintaining these connections has become necessary for many low-wage workers, their incomes have not kept pace. According to 2020 numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, those in the lowest 20 percent of income earners spent $150 more a year on their cell phones than they did in 2016. The cost of connectivity represents more than half of what these households spent on electricity, and nearly 80 percent of what they paid for gas. As a proportion of household income, the lowest earners spent four times more on phones than high earners. With inflation looming, these issues are likely to get worse before they get better.

While these gaps in spending might be predictable, they’re not inevitable. As connectivity has become increasingly mandatory for low-wage workers, phone companies catering to this market segment have profited by engaging in predatory inclusion. As Louise Seamster and Raphaël Charron-Chénier explain, these forms of inclusion offer access to goods that marginalized groups had previously been excluded from but on terms that ultimately undercut the benefits of access. Consumers that previously couldn’t afford the high up-front costs of buying a smartphone, or whose unpredictable incomes meant annual contracts were out of reach, can now get access to a smartphone and data plan with less-than-perfect credit, but under exploitative conditions that make connectivity more expensive. Black consumers are particularly targeted for these forms of inclusion, as systemic discrimination in labor, housing, and financial services have created gaps in credit scores that make prepaid and phone rentals nearly the only option.

In 2019, New York City sued T-Mobile for a host of violations of consumer rights, including enrolling people into third-party financing through companies like SmartPay, which split payments up over time through rental agreements, but ultimately add hundreds of dollars onto advertised prices, without full explanations of the terms—eventually ruining people’s credit. Phone leasing programs and their opaque terms of service have also resulted in other legal actions (for example, Sprint is facing a class action suit over similar issues). These actions have taken place against a backdrop of consolidation in the mobile phone market, as Sprint and T-Mobile, two companies that had previously competed for low-income consumers, have merged, raising concerns about rising costs in the future.

Being poor isn’t only expensive because of the unfair financial terms, but also because of the work it takes to overcome disconnection. From juggling broken phones, borrowing money to pay bills, and, when all else fails, finding free sources of internet, the tenuous grasp these workers have on connectivity is maintained through constant effort. Many rely on coffee shops and fast-food joints in their neighborhoods and throughout their commutes, facing racist threats and harassment from managers and even the police while trying to swap a shift through an app, download music for a long shift, or text their boss that they were running late. The costs of this labor can’t be measured in dollars, but they add to the cognitive burden of being poor. From the extra work it takes to stay connected, to the exploitative landscape of mobile phone financing, the costs of connectivity represent a significant burden on households that are still struggling with the effects of the pandemic economy.

https://www.foxla.com/news/fordham-university-lecturer-fired-after-mixing-up-names-of-two-black-students

Fordham University lecturer fired after mixing up names of two Black students

A Fordham University lecturer was fired after allegedly mixing up the names of two Black students in his class.

According to The Observer, Christopher Trogan, a lecturer in Fordham University's English department was terminated because of his response to an incident on Sept. 24 where he mixed up the names of two students who walked into class late. The students allegedly felt disrespected after the incident and believed the mistake was made because the two are both Black.

Trogan emailed his students in the Composition II class shortly after the incident occurred and addressed the mixup, apologizing for what he did.

"The offended student assumed my mistake was because I confused that student with another Black student," Trogan said in the email. "I have done my best to validate and reassure the offended student that I made a simple, human, error. It has nothing to do with race."

Things are getting better and better in America.

Hole wrote:

i know right? .

I researched the war in the pacific and credit where credit is due, that american generation of fighters had balls of steel.

The US Submarine that disregarded any sense of personal safety and went engines flank into an japanese fleet, chased by destroyers to make an attack at the japanese carriers.

An heavily damaged U.S B-25 turning toward's an Japanese carrier with intention to ram it.

The Destroyer USS Jonston, fighting so aggresively to defend Taffy 3 carriers the japanese tought it was an heavy cruiser at first.
charging into point-blank range of an Japanese cruiser and literally threw everything they had against an ship witch main turret's where heavier than the destroyer itself.
The Japanese cruiser could not depress its guns low enough to target the U.S Destroyer as every gun on the destroyer turned the superstructure to swiss cheese. destroying optics, radar and introducing air conditioning to the bridge itself as well as sweeping the deck clear of crew.

Naval pilots returning to their carriers after losing much of their fellow pilots, to re-arm and go back an second and third time into enemy fire "because it needed to be done".

The Millenials and Gen Z Now:

"That russian said a meanie to me on twitter!. WHERE IS MY SAFE SPACE?!"

"in order to promote LGBTQ in the Army, lets make this transgender scrawny loser an commander of an infantry platoon".
and somehow, be completely shocked that eastern european commander's dont take "it" seriously.

because Transgender commander be like: "lets show these brutes who is the bestest gay army evah!".
"ah these ruskies all got like,...old equipment, ...and not like our high-tech weaponsies.."

we with experience: "...the soviet war-machine is built to take casualties and continue fighting, its why they can field three T-72's at the time against one Leopard 2/leclerc/M1 of us..."
"DID YOU JUST QUESTION ME!?!. Do i need to report you for Hate-speech!?!. Do you dare to show...Nationalism!?!. You must be an Nazi"
We: ".....yeah, we are so dead. **** this job!, i quit!"

https://www.rt.com/news/544356-amazon-allegedly-denied-sick-leave/

Amazon denied sick leave to workers who later died – rights group

Two Amazon employees reportedly died within hours of each other at the company’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama last month after being denied sick leave, according to workers’ rights group More Perfect Union.

The two workers allegedly died on November 28 and 29, within hours of each other, with one passing away at the facility and another after receiving medical attention. 

Isaiah Thomas, an Amazon worker, said that one of the victims suffered a stroke and “died on the job” after asking HR if he could go home. According to claims made in an interview published by More Perfect Union, the worker who later passed away was told that he could “either go home and lose your job” or “stay here and keep working.”

According to fellow Amazon worker Perry Connelly, the man who suffered a stroke died inside a trailer. It took around 20 minutes for his body to be found.

Despite the fatalities, More Perfect Union claims that their co-workers were told to carry on working, as usual, raising concerns about Amazon’s treatment of employees. “They actually come around and tell people not to talk about it, and go back to work,” Connelly claimed.

Workers at the Bessemer warehouse attempted to unionize earlier this year over allegations of dangerous working conditions but were defeated by 1798 votes to 738. The National Labor Relations Board later found out Amazon had illegally interfered in the union vote and ordered a revote on November 29.

Alongside the claims made about the deaths of the two workers, More Perfect Union alleged that six people had died at the facility in 2021 alone, and accused Amazon of trying to cover up the situation. The workers’ rights group stated that it had voiced its claims to Amazon, but said the e-commerce giant did not respond to its requests.

Amazon has not publicly responded to the allegations.

Sadly workers unions often abuse their position of power and often attract the worst sort of people to the roles, but the alternative where the company has all the power and can make all the decisions without needing consent or agreement is worse.

The new normal for technological development. Marketing BS posing as true discovery. Most people absorb this crap
and believe the achievements are real. Such fraud is not benign.

Another good article about the LSU football coach's salary and the surrounding neighborhood where the university is located.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/baton-rouge-theres-100-million-172501679.html

higurashihougi wrote:https://www.rt.com/news/544356-amazon-allegedly-denied-sick-leave/

Amazon denied sick leave to workers who later died – rights group

Two Amazon employees reportedly died within hours of each other at the company’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama last month after being denied sick leave, according to workers’ rights group More Perfect Union.

The two workers allegedly died on November 28 and 29, within hours of each other, with one passing away at the facility and another after receiving medical attention. 

Isaiah Thomas, an Amazon worker, said that one of the victims suffered a stroke and “died on the job” after asking HR if he could go home. According to claims made in an interview published by More Perfect Union, the worker who later passed away was told that he could “either go home and lose your job” or “stay here and keep working.”

According to fellow Amazon worker Perry Connelly, the man who suffered a stroke died inside a trailer. It took around 20 minutes for his body to be found.

Despite the fatalities, More Perfect Union claims that their co-workers were told to carry on working, as usual, raising concerns about Amazon’s treatment of employees. “They actually come around and tell people not to talk about it, and go back to work,” Connelly claimed.

Workers at the Bessemer warehouse attempted to unionize earlier this year over allegations of dangerous working conditions but were defeated by 1798 votes to 738. The National Labor Relations Board later found out Amazon had illegally interfered in the union vote and ordered a revote on November 29.

Alongside the claims made about the deaths of the two workers, More Perfect Union alleged that six people had died at the facility in 2021 alone, and accused Amazon of trying to cover up the situation. The workers’ rights group stated that it had voiced its claims to Amazon, but said the e-commerce giant did not respond to its requests.

Amazon has not publicly responded to the allegations.

Amazon pays a lot of money an attention in trying to stop the development of workers unionizing. One particularly cynical thing I remember discovering was that Amazon found that increasing the diversity of a workplace actually made it harder for the workplaces to unionize. the neoliberal left has become the worst of both worlds. fiscally conservative, yet socially liberal. the ultimate combo of elitism.

This is what the perpetual brainwashing about living in a privileged, exceptional country gets Americans. Third world toilet treatment.
America has a long history of corporate serfdom. It had to adjust the abuse thanks to the Cold War but since 1990 it has been
downsizing and rightsizing back to where it was around 1900.

TMA1 wrote:


Amazon pays a lot of money an attention in trying to stop the development of workers unionizing. One particularly cynical thing I remember discovering was that Amazon found that increasing the diversity of a workplace actually made it harder for the workplaces to unionize. the neoliberal left has become the worst of both worlds. fiscally conservative, yet socially liberal. the ultimate combo of elitism.

If the "right" doesn' dick people with exploitative labour laws pushing wages down, shit social services etc, then the left will dick people with massive floods of cheap foreign labour pushing wages down.  And on most things, both sides will dick the majority of the population. The only differences will be a couple of percent tax off, or even shitter healthcare/education etc.

The Establishment ie the bankers, big business, media etc control both parties.
My family were friends with a former British PM. ANd he admitted the whole thing was a sham and he was just a puppet.
Its impossible to have a democracy without an unbiased debate and media coverage.
A serial killer who confesses his guilt is afforded that right in court.
But Western electorates enjoy none of that.

PS look at the choice in Britain:-
Conservative - looking after big business and cutting back on health and education.
Lab - slightly more floods of cheap foreign labour. Marginally less shit health and education.
Kids being brainwashed into tranneyism, homo-ism and BLM shit.
Both sides - loads of immigrants as MPs, all looking after big business, not the electorate.

Western "freedom".

kvs wrote:

Western "freedom".

THis is the tip of the iceberg.
Or should I say... "nonce berg".

Reminds me of when some Neoliberal LG Bacon Lettuce Tomato nutjob came here, and demanded the mods remove the "shameful homophobia".