No. Not even close to OK. There are examples of light in the darkness, such as Tim Walz (Kamala Harris’ running mate) who as the governor of Minnesota enacted a law to make school lunches free for all. Kids don’t get to decide who they are born to, and hungry kids don’t learn nearly as well as fed kids. Educated kids help our future, so it’s an extremely high ROI.
Does it look like we’re ok?
Americans getting pissed off at Europeans constantly making fun of them… And yet I’m still learning more ridiculous bullshit about that country.
Jesus christ, what a sad joke.
But you don’t understand, we have happy billionaires! That’s all that really matters in life. Children can fuck off, billionaires is where it’s at.
The average quality of life is quite high! Hmm didn’t Twain say something about this situation…
Are they though?
No, sadly they actually aren’t happy. There’s still money out there that isn’t in their bank account. It drives them insane knowing “their” money is still in someone else’s bank account.
It drives billionaires insane know that they are losing at the imaginary numbers game.
We get pissed off because we don’t have socialized medicine for those burns.
As a Canadian, I’m like:
You guys are getting food?
(School cafeterias with food service beyond selling terrible premade sandwiches for people who forgot their lunch are rare below college level and AFAIK what few exist all operate like a fast-food restaurant, where everyone pays for their meal then and there.)
In Russia, certain groups of kids (children of low-income parents, of families with 3+ kids, orphans) receive a special ticket, one per day, allowing them to have a school lunch for free.
Sometimes they share unused ones (tickets don’t have names on them), which practically guarantees there’s a bunch of kids on their side - everyone wants free lunch.
And generally it was more of a thing to flash, not something to be shamed for.
Wait wait wait, waaaaaaait a fucking minute, this is done by the school itself, as in the bloody adults running the goddamn thing?
Holy hell
It’s disgusting. When my son was very young, my wife and I struggled to make ends meet, and got behind on his school lunch payments (I still can’t believe that’s even a thing). The lunch lady at his school would lecture him about how much we owed, and how he shouldn’t get to eat for free just because we were lazy or whatever. He’d come home thinking he was in trouble. America hates poor people.
Nope! Lol
This isn’t unique to America. It happens across Europe too.
When I was in school the less well-off kids got their lunch free. There was definitely no equivalent to a “marker” the linked article mentions, unless you include the lunch ticket. I was actually kind of jealous at the time, I didn’t understand why I had to pay when I didn’t bring my own lunch and they didn’t.
Singling out kids because their parents can’t afford food is kind of fucked up.
It’s been a while since I was in school, but my wife is a teacher here in the UK. The packed lunch area was often where the poor kids were, and we also had issues where (in their infinite wisdom) the school gave kids on free school meals a special card to get a specific meal (and nothing more). They may as well have stamped “bully me” on their foreheads.
Nowadays, schools are smart enough to use prepaid card systems where free school meals are preloaded on the same cards. My wife’s old school used to put the same restrictions, but now it’s far harder to determine who gets the free meals.
The packed lunch crowd does still get a lot of scrutiny, though, especially those that shop in “less favourable” stores. Buy your lunch from farmfoods and you’re asking to be picked on. It’s fucked up, and social media has made things SO much worse, but ultimately kids are often extremely cruel.
I’ve been across Europe. Gone to school in Ireland, The Netherlands, France, Sweden, and Denmark. I have NEVER seen this.
This definitely happens in France and the UK. I saw the latter first hand.
I have a little brother and little sister who still go to school in France. I’ll ask them about it.
And it’s entirely preventable. We can afford to feed every single student every single day. It doesn’t have to be a brown bag, sad little whitebread and cheese slice sandwich. It can be the same food everyone else eats. In fact, we spend more administering a for-profit food service payment system than we spend on the food. It would be cheaper to just give it away to everyone.
We know this because we did it during COVID. All of the schools closed, and the for-profit food providers were going to lose a lot of money. Sysco and Aramark and US Foods and Sodexo are all big donors to both parties, so we had to bail them out by buying the food. There wasn’t a debate in congress, there wasn’t any tax increase or funding shortfall. The money was just there because they wanted it.
Schools had more food than they knew what to do with. Food banks and public pantries were fully stocked, and school districts were begging parents to come take home some breakfasts and lunches.
It could really just be like that. No registers, no accounting, no shaming poor kids, no threatening demand letters, no lunch cards, no websites. Just feed children, because hungry children don’t learn.
There wasn’t a debate in congress, there wasn’t any tax increase or funding shortfall. The money was just there because they wanted it.
And then states like Missouri refused the money because Republicans hate children.
It’s so much worse than that.
During Covid, the money just went straight to the corporations, and the food went to the schools. With schools back in session, the Conservatives in the federal government put restrictions on the funding, requiring documentstion and forms for all of the students participating in the program. They wanted to make it as onerous and invasive as possible. This administrative red tape disproportionately affected the more densely populated regions, and also gave the conservative states a reason to decline participation. Because if Republicans are going to be forced to help children, by God they’re going to use the statistics against their enemies.
This alone should be enough for a revolt
Sure. Except those on the Left won’t. Couple reasons:
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Can’t agree on a reason.
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Won’t agree on a where and when.
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Will disagree whether it’s worth it right now.
1 exploitation of capital.
2 right now, wherever you are.
3 yes it is.
the ones who disagree with it are probably the majority of liberals who perpetually think they can fix it in the next election. liberalism is not leftism though.
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I mean I hate children, but I still want them to have free food like eveyone else
Minnesota has free school lunch for all students. Thanks Walz…
I haven’t heard anything about Tim Walz that I didn’t like.
Isn’t he a Zionist?
Yeah, that says he’s a Zionist
Really? Ok. I don’t have a problem with what he said there. Palestinians have a right to live, the attacks in Gaza are unacceptable and should cease immediately, regardless of the horrible attacks on October 7th. I would go further and call it a genocide, but I can understand why a politician would avoid incendiary language during an election cycle.
Does that make me a Zionist, too?
Do you know what is the definition of a Zionist?
But how are you going to maintain an exploitable underclass, if you actually help poor people? Bet you didn’t think of that, huh? Checkmate leftists!
Please discard your “logic”, in favor of some vitriolic spew from an angry white man (or woman) that I heard on the radio / saw on the TV. /s
Just bc we can, doesn’t mean we should.
We should (no /s), but that doesn’t mean that we will.
Democracy requires the good faith of its voting citizenry, e.g. to edumacate themselves.
I’m going to be exceedingly gracious and assume that the one person who downvoted your comment (as of the time I’m typing this) accidentally hit the wrong button and didn’t realize it.
I have definitely done that. But I also think I might have a stalker who follows me around and downvotes comments. Especially when I post something stupid, they all come out of the woodwork.
But yes, I agree, I wouldn’t expect “feed children” to be a contentious suggestion.
Why do people keep asking if we’re okay? No, we are clearly not completely fine. We’re neck-deep in an information war and who will be the ultimate victor is very much undecided.
Frankly, we probably would’ve activated NATO’s Article 5 provision by now, except what good would it do when all of our allies are already under the same sort of attack?
Seriously though, people do not call for civil war in countries that are doing completely fine. That is not a sign of robust civic health.
From Texas. When I was in elementary school circa 2000, we had a running balance that our parents could contribute to via written checks.
My parents were going through a divorce back then, and in the pinging back and forth between my parents houses, it always gave me so much anxiety buying lunch at school. You wouldn’t know if your account could cover what you picked up in the lunch line until you got to the cashier at the end. AND if it couldn’t, they would literally take all of the food you put on your tray and give you a PB&J sandwich.
Having elementary school kids keep up with their balances was tough, and even when I did remember, if I were with my dad, he would refuse to give lunch money to my sister and me because “that’s what child support is for.”
It just sucked all around and made me feel like the smallest human on earth. And I know that this experience here was not unique to me.
Sounds like a real class act. I bet he still doesn’t know why he couldn’t make his marriage work.
No. We are not ok. About half of us have centered their lives around fuck you I got mine and let’s be cruel to everyone else.
I think the saddest part is that most of the people pushing these awful ideas did not get theirs. And instead of trying to do something constructive to help themselves and others, they are desperately fighting to make sure that no one else “gets theirs” either.
Well said. Sadly.
That ain’t unique to USA
Not only are we not OK, we need your help. Please issue sanctions until we stop funding genocides and torturing folks
In California, school lunch is paid by the state. It’s awesome and solves this problem. All the kids get the same lunch for free. Some kids still bring their lunch, but it’s rare.
My kids’ school did this a while back and even though I didn’t have any issues buying their lunches not having to manage their account was nice. And since they also got breakfast it was one less thing I had to do before getting them on the bus.
Yeah, they technically offer breakfast for our kids too, but I’d have to get them ready and to school like 30 minutes early. I don’t do mornings like that.
In foster care we were part of the free lunch program. The first week in my first high school the lunch lady made it a point to call us all up first so EVERYONE knew who the ‘poors’ were. This was in one of the top 5 most expensive zipcodes in the U.S.
For the next four years I ate knowledge in the library for lunch.
Yeah, but what I’m saying is that’s not a thing anymore in California, they just have free lunch for all the kids, and you don’t need to be “a poor” to get it
Yes and that’s wonderful and everywhere should implement it.
But they won’t.
Because people are fundamentally assholes. Just California has a lower quotient due to higher education (though hollywood does skew that a bunch too)
Same in the uk
I went to secondary school at the turn of the millennium and I remember having to go to admin to get my dinner tickets on a Monday, which were worth £1.30, but there was never any shame in it because I don’t think too many kids knew the significance of it; in fact, my mate Danny would always want to buy them off me for £1.50 apiece. This other lad called Liam would sometimes lord it over me because his mum gave him £2 a day for his dinner, but by year 11 he was roundly known as a bit of a prick if I recall correctly, so I was even vindicated in the end.
america are you ok?
So you watched John Oliver last night?
The part with the teacher who was tasked with telling all of the students that free lunches are over… Jesus Christ. She could see the worried faces and darting eyes of the kids who were depending on those meals.
No spoilers! I want to be surprised by the messed up topic
Link plz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UCqtnr-pF8
Full Episode on the official channel. But it’s geoblocked in locations where it’s officially availible on paid sources. But you can watch it from France or the Czech Republic (just some examples I know of) with a VPN.
The main segment will be on the official channel (without geoblock) on thursday (I think).
