I am fortunate to have coverage, and I realize that. But enrolling in our new health coverage for the upcoming year and seeing my premium increase, while the deductible doubles too, is pretty frustrating. Functionally, it's a pay cut.
The fact we tie health insurance to employment in this country has always been absolutely bonkers. It's an unsustainable disaster.
I wonder how many folx at small colleges like mine are seeing their institutions "find budget efficiencies" by getting Ford Fiesta type coverage, so they can say they're "preserving salaries" while actually increasing both faculty and staff's out of pocket costs.
Every year at this time we're driving back from my mom's place in PA, and we catch the OSU-Michigan game on the radio, always with the Michigan announcers, because they're just...them. And awesomely so. This year was fun, and a great way to send out Branstetter and Dierdorf.
"JIM. JIM. WE DON'T HAVE A DEFENDER ON HIM OOOHHHHHH NO"
*Incompletion*
"SUCH GOOD COVERAGE ON THAT PLAY JIM"
Branstetter: "TOUCHDOWN, MMMICHIGAN!!!"
Dierdorf: *pounding happily on the desk in the background*
Maybe movements for justice--and the people who comprise them--shouldn't limit themselves to what does well with the centrist white focus groups, despite what the Savvy Analysts™ think.
(Notice all the Savvy Analysts™ are white men. As are all those who QT them approvingly or respond with gushing praise to their "don't let woke politics ruin Democrats' chances" takes. I'm not exaggerating--literally every reply I saw was from a white dude)
"Well, Dr. King, you make some good arguments, but there are key white voter blocs who just aren't comfortable with all this 'social justice wokeness,' so we're gonna have to ask you to cool it with the marching. Also, 'we shall overcome' seems a bit too confrontational..."
How many tenured faculty and admins lament that "my students can't write" yet say or do nothing when the faculty who actually teach writing are treated as disposable commodities, deserving of neither money or security?
No, individual faculty may not be able to change this trend. But if we actually demonstrated solidarity with our adjunct/term/precarious colleagues, as opposed to ignoring them or simply mouthing platitudes, we could leverage our power in service of what higher ed *should* be.
What would it look like if your adjunct faculty were invited to attend dept meetings? Participate in curricular/pedagogical conversations? Were represented in faculty governance? If f/t faculty lobbied for a path to full-time status for longer-term adjuncts?
So if I'm reading the Politically Savvy People Discourse correctly, it seems the way to defeat fascism is not by protecting voter rights, working against racism, or actually fighting fascists, but to stop making white people sad and let Radio Fr** Tom be in charge.
Sure, Tom and all his buddies built the foundation and the walls for all this, but now they want us to let them fire the current roofers and do that, too. Makes total sense. Such a fucking svengali.
One time, 30 yrs ago, James Carville taped a sign that said "it's the economy, stupid" to the wall, the entire punditocracy reacted as if he'd just come down from Mt. Sinai with divinely-etched stone tablets, and we've had to listen to his thinly-veiled racist garbage ever since.