Left Face
Join Adam Gillard and Dick Wilkinson while they talk politics and community engagement in Pikes Peak region.
Left Face
Leadership Under Scrutiny: Military Misconduct, LGBTQ+ Inclusion, and Education Privatization Debate
The nomination for Secretary of Defense is under fire—are the allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol misuse setting up a leader for failure, or do they reveal deeper issues in the system? On this episode of Left Face, we return from our hiatus to tackle these pressing questions. We reflect on the pressures of leadership roles in the military, the impact of public scrutiny, and the delicate balance between accountability and support, especially when dealing with addiction. As veterans, we share our thoughts on the significance of self-awareness and honesty in high-stakes political roles, questioning whether the current nominee can navigate the challenges ahead.
Shifting focus, we celebrate the cultural transformation in the military following the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." We challenge outdated beliefs that inclusivity undermines cohesion, instead highlighting the patriotism and dedication of LGBTQ+ service members. Personal stories from this period reveal the absurdity of claims that personal lives impact professional performance. We underscore the importance of respect and inclusivity, emphasizing how these values create a stronger, more cohesive military force. Join us as we explore the evolving dynamics of military culture, touching on gender integration, safety concerns, and the broader narrative against progressive policies.
In our final segment, we tackle the contentious issue of education privatization and its implications for teachers' unions. As a potential strike looms in District 11, we examine the role of unions in advocating for better conditions for educators. We shine a light on the troubling trend of defunding public schools and the influence of dark money in school board elections, which threatens to erode democratic processes and public oversight. Our discussion delves into curriculum control and the potential rise of conservative agendas in charter schools, emphasizing the critical need for transparency and accountability in education. Join us for an insightful conversation on these pivotal issues shaping our society.
https://bsky.app/profile/leftfaceco.bsky.social
https://www.facebook.com/epccpv
www.EPCCPV.org or info@epccpv.org
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Left Face, the military and political podcast from Colorado Springs, Colorado. I am one of your co-hosts, my name is Dick Wilkinson and I'm joined this morning with my co-host, Adam Gillard. Morning, Dick, how are you doing? I'm doing really well and I have a little program note for all of our listeners, If you're paying close attention. We took Thanksgiving week off, which made sense, and then we took the next week where we did record an episode. However, it was so grand that our technical tools software it couldn't handle, it, the universe couldn't handle it.
Speaker 2:It was too much.
Speaker 1:And so the computer basically suffered and just the file was not what it needed to be suffered and just the file was not what it needed to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's happened multiple times. I've I'm running out of excuses on these, these episodes here, yeah. And yeah, there's this tribute episode after Tenacious D. You know, this isn't. We won't be as good as we were last time. Yeah, we'll just be a tribute. Yeah, we'll just have to say we.
Speaker 1:We'll try and capture the essence, but if you notice that it's just not there, it was in last week's episode. Well, what we really spent our time last week talking about, which was before some of the international news stories broke. But we as veterans, and of course the focus of our podcast is to talk about the military and veteran-related issues. So the Secretary of Defense nominee we talked about in previous episodes, but man has his story come along since then.
Speaker 2:I know that's what cracks me up is. You know we had, like we said, a pretty solid episode last week talking about, you know, some of his stuff and the hits just keep on coming. You know, even today, recently, you know more stuff come out. But let's go back to know the start with him, and you know what we were talking about last week because you know kind of half defending half, you know holding him to the fire, uh, you know, because he's had a history behind him. You know, um, tell me, like what you learned about, like his kind of history, and where he came from to get to where he is right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the the first stones that were cast were, of course, some of the sexual misconduct allegations, I guess you could call it. But then that when I don't know if that was quickly understood that maybe it wasn't going to hit the zeitgeist, and people were. People were like so what? Donald Trump hired him, like this is not a surprise, right? And so what else you got, you know? And so then other people came out of the woodwork and said, okay, we do have something else.
Speaker 1:We have concerns about his use of alcohol and that he has been at work intoxicated. He's been the leader of nonprofit organizations and he had a reputation for not only drinking casually at work but also essentially encouraging the staff to get into shenanigans that weren't just were inappropriate for a professional work environment. Yeah, and that was all related to alcohol use, and I think you know it's the. What we were talking about last time and what you were saying of, you know, somewhat defense and then somewhat, you know, accountability is one. That's how I think most veterans we handle each other, because we know that we have the ability to do the right thing. We did it, we proved it right.
Speaker 1:And so the accountability piece is easy to handle. But then you know if you're suffering from an addiction, or even if you're just abusing a substance and you're not what we would consider addicted, you're going to have some hard times making judgment calls around your behavior, and so that's where the outside voices matter a little bit more. On this topic than maybe on a he said, she said, misconduct claim, there's a lot more voices in the concerned camp than just one person, right?
Speaker 2:And you know a lot of these positions of power, like everything that they put out is written for them and it's measured and's not just they're shooting from the hip a lot. So when the Senator's office comes out and like put something out saying like, yeah, if he stops drinking, I would confirm him, like that's a big statement coming from a Senator's office, that that is very kind of a missing the point, like you shouldn't start off a position of this magnitude with an ultimatum of that magnitude.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. Just the ultimatum itself. Even if you had the genuine um, gumption, willpower, discipline, whatever word you want to pick if inside of you you could control that behavior really well, um, the pressure of knowing that you're under the microscope, basically of how you're behaving, is more than just your job performance, but also your personal life, like to that degree yeah, it comes with a job, but that's not great for somebody who's probably relying on alcohol. That pressure is not going to lead you to a better mental health place.
Speaker 2:You can only white knuckle it for so long.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that pressure it's going to, it's going to pop.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and four years is a super long time to be a dry drunk, as they call it, especially in an administration like this, you know there's going to be shit going on.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, there's no way. Talk about an impossible task. Take somebody who struggles with substance abuse, take their substance away and then put them in the most stressful thing they could possibly experience, day in and day out, for four years. What a recipe for disaster. So that's where we're a little bit supportive of Pete, of like, hey man, maybe other people's opinions, um, whether you want to accept it or not, it's something that you need to take into account, and maybe there's some behavior here that is not going to go well.
Speaker 1:If you dig deeper into the hole of more stress and just be honest with yourself, you know saying well, I won't drink if this happens I heard him use the term this will be my biggest deployment ever. And for folks that don't know, that's in reference to when we deploy. You know, alcohol is not supposed to be allowed in theater, especially in a combat theater. But even sometimes in just overseas locations, no alcohol consumption allowed and you'll see your you know coalition buddies over there drinking right there on post, but you are not allowed to go consume alcohol. And so that's what Pete was referring to was basically, I'll treat this like a deployment. Well, guess what? There's no such thing as a four-year deployment. Unless you're a POW, they might even actually sneak some booze or make some toilet wine.
Speaker 1:They're more likely to get a drink.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just the availability of it. It's easy to not drink when it's not around you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you're in a foreign country and you can't stop by the liquor store or the grocery store, you have to go seek it out. It's not that it's impossible, it's there, but you have to be up to no good to get it Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whereas you know you stop to get gas on the way home and you can pick up a fifth. It's just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Or the ice cold beer in the fridge right there. You know that's yeah. So that risk is there and the idea that not I'm not trying to say I mean anybody, it doesn't matter that it's Pete Hegseth anybody would struggle in that situation. So I think senators, like you said, putting out an ultimatum, wow, what a terrible position to start from. And I almost think that some of those senators, that's their very much a political gamesmanship situation of saying I don't really believe that that's a possibility, and so I'm going to put out a Kobayashi Maru, that's a possibility, and so I'm going to put out a Kobayashi Maru. I'm going to put out a problem that cannot be solved, which is tell this alcoholic to not drink alcohol, and then I'll hire him.
Speaker 1:Well, ta-da, that's not possible, so I'm not hiring him. Yeah, me, lisa, I'm a failure. Yeah, and that may be some of them don't want to say this is a terrible idea. They want to say jump, jump over this hurdle that's twice as tall as you. Yeah, and keep jumping over it every single day. Yeah, and of course that's an unrealistic task, and so it may be a way to basically just stonewall the situation without flat out saying this dude's unfit for this service.
Speaker 2:Yeah, To me like hearing you say like that makes me just sound like poor leadership, you know.
Speaker 1:If you're that afraid to tell your boss he's making a bad choice. That's the whole that's how Trump runs the Republican Party, dude yeah. And Musk is kind of really putting his weight on it too, where he's saying he's going to challenge people with primaries if they don't support him Challenge them with primaries, and then he's got enough money to come and buy your business or buy your competitor's business and put you out of business in an industry that he doesn't even care about.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying and that's what a kingmaker as far as money goes. Yeah, yeah. A friend of mine was just talking yesterday about you know, since he has so much money, yeah, he's not going to care about making money for himself. Yeah, maybe not, but, but he's going to stop other people from making money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he's in a position now he's in a bully position that is unmatched by anybody anywhere.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying I mean more money than the GDP of entire countries. So, yeah, he's got some tools to wield. We're going to get back to Pete Higta and so we've got our concerns around Pete's alcohol consumption. He's tried to dodge the bullet around that a couple times so we could put that aside and the truth will just be out there. One funny joke I did see a comedian make, though. They said you know, he promised not to drink if he gets nominated into the position, but if he doesn't watch out like he's going to go on a terrorizing spree, just get drunk and just run people over. You know getting fistfights everywhere. So I think that plays perfectly into.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about Pete's policy positions, which are just absolute. You know, candy for Trump. He loves his policy positions, but when we take it to the function and force of the military, maybe some of that stuff doesn't quite hold up. So let Adam you told me one, as we were saying, this story never stops developing that there's this movement around his ideas on don't ask, don't tell, and on the type of people who serve in the military. So what's the deal on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was reading earlier. Yeah, just more and more stuff comes out on CNN. They're reporting that in his 2024 books, or a recent book that he just published, the War on Warriors.
Speaker 1:Yep, I know about that. I've referred to that book in passing, just didn't give the title. But in the previous episode, same book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. He described both the don't ask, don't tell policy and its repeal in 2011 as a gateway and a camouflage for broader cultural changes that he claims have undermined military cohesion and effectiveness. So he wants to go back to the old days where, if you're openly gay, you just don't serve. That's what he wants to push for. Being somebody that served during Don't Ask, don't Tell, I remember in Germany there was one bar that would stay open late. It was like an after-hours bar, but it was a gay bar. Sure, I was more of the drinker type, not the gay type, but I would go to their bar.
Speaker 1:They're still serving. I'm interested.
Speaker 2:I'm there, I'm there, and so I would have to hold my friend's hand to get into the bar. Oh, sure they're screening folks Right because Americans don't have a great reputation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'd start a bar fight and just beat people up just because, just because they're gay, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1:So we would get into the bar and friends would go dance lot of coworkers there that I didn't travel there with, you know, and like they would get scared when they saw me, Right, Because I remember that, yeah, I joined in 99 and I remember barracks life, which I was only in the barracks during training, so like within the first year of my career, the same thing, it was known who was and wasn't gay, but of course, leadership was the you know, don't ask, don't tell piece of it.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and that the way that that played out as far as people being not really it was weird, because they were still very, very much leading a lifestyle that included that the activity that was banned, but they lived in the barracks and their life was basically consumed with being junior enlisted person, and so it was just so I I, in my own mind, I thought that must be hard, like you've got to keep up this ruse, yeah, all the time, right, and some folks it was, I mean, I say obvious, like they didn't hide the fact that that's what they were Right, but at the same time, it's like it was don't ask, don't tell, yeah, right, so if I don't tell, even if I have, if I present myself as a person who is gay, male or female, if I don't say that word out loud, it doesn't matter, right? And that was the weird limbo that they lived in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know seeing some of those folks that were, you know, living, you know that double life. Then when you start hearing some of the jokes around the work center and stuff like that, that you know we all make stupid jokes racial jokes, gay jokes Sure, like just stupid stuff all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you can always tell when there's that line where somebody says something that's hateful and you're like, and then you kind of you know, you see, you hear things differently when you know that somebody listening is feels it differently. You know, yeah, and that I think that's something that maybe our civilian counterparts and especially it was a period of time where it was this kind of combination of effects that lead to the situation that we're talking about I don't think very many people have experienced exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Right, you know it's not very common, right yeah?
Speaker 2:Because, you know, outside of government forces there was not a reason to live a double life.
Speaker 1:I mean in the same way, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could just go somewhere else. But, like, once you're under that contract and in that uniform, the rules are the rules. Yeah, you know, which is you know all to say, like when we did finally repeal it in 2011. There and seeing some of the folks that some folks they got discharged for being gay, yeah, and they fought to come back in. Yes, I remember that. You know it's the same. Good for them, absolutely. Yeah, it was funny because one of my friends, when he got his discharge paperwork for being gay, he kind of goofing, laughing about it. I'm certified now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm doing this paperwork, but they end up coming back in to continue to serve because they are patriots. Yeah, so for us to sit here and say that that was like the downfall, or or, or, like the, you know, to introduce this woke culture like ends, cohesion, like our folks that we were kicking out, they would just go work as contractors and make twice as much as us and still work. That is true.
Speaker 1:Side by side with us. Right, that is true.
Speaker 2:So, like it's always there, it's we. We've had these relationships. To turn our back on them is how you break down cohesion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, I, yeah, I agree. I mean, I think if we start, um, let's see nobody. I never met anybody in any military branch who had the MOS of having sex with other humans. That's not a job in the military. And so how you choose to do that, it's very reasonable to believe that that would not impact your job performance, because it's already a stated rule that you do not have sex at work, even if you're not in the military, because it's not your job. No-transcript, that doesn't have to be in any way relevant to your sexual choices or how you live your romantic lifestyle, just doesn't matter, you know.
Speaker 1:So, um, does it change the culture of the of some units? I think from, maybe from pete's perspective, if he was in combat arms type units that were at the national guard level, those, those were 100% male units, right, and still today there are little tiny corners of the military where there are still basically 100% male military units. They're less common than they used to be. If Pete was in charge, they'd be more common. He'd try and shift that tide towards that. More common, he'd try and shift that tide towards that, um.
Speaker 1:But I just I, I think I understand what he's going at in that he was born in the culture of the military, where there was a strong sentiment, even into the I mean even today, in some places, where it's like, hey, women are not supposed to be in combat arms. I want the infantry to be the infantry, I want the gunners to be the gunners, you know, and like that's it. We need men to do this. That's what he's trying to. Take that one mindset which is key to the US Army infantry and spread that to the entire military Right, and he sees everything through that myopic lens of I'm an infantry dude and that's all that matters. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And that's not great, which in itself is scary for somebody at that level, yeah, Because the army themselves are trying to restructure themselves to a more strategic war. You know, cutting down, you know the hand-to-hand infantry guys, because we're all kind of posturing for Protracted combat. Yeah Right, so yeah for him to even have, you know, those type of archaic thoughts. It's not showing like a 21st century leader.
Speaker 1:Well, he's not interested in representing that. It's the Department of. War women, right. He wants to roll back to a time where it is, you know, boots, bullets and beans, and that's how you win a war, right, and that's what he specifically wants to do.
Speaker 2:One thing that frustrates me with the narrative that women can't be in combat. I think they sell it as like they're not strong enough or smart enough or fast enough, Like it's because they're not safe because of the men that they're serving with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely a factor.
Speaker 2:If you just put a woman platoon out there, they will compete just as well as a men's with a lot of the things I mean, obviously, if it's straight, physical stuff.
Speaker 1:And that's the 100% crux of the argument from Pete's position. Is that right there? Well, what about the physical stuff? I punch people in the face to death, right? So I kind of you have to be strong to do that, right Like?
Speaker 2:that's what he's thinking. Yeah, or you could have somebody smart enough to just poke them once in the throat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not arguing that he's right but, I understand.
Speaker 2:What he's saying is I can punch harder than a woman, right, okay, yeah, it's just such a like juvenile argument, though, and like I don't like that it gets sold like that. You know I I think we need to be honest that, like you know, no one can see me, but I'm shrugging and very very animated in my life.
Speaker 1:What so what you gonna do about it?
Speaker 2:yeah, exactly because like, yeah, it's been sold so much, but yeah, there's a big problem with just the safety of women in those roles. I mean, men in those roles get attacked and sexually assaulted too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Men in the military get assaulted at a higher rate than men in the general population, and that's hard for people to understand, but it's a true statement, yeah.
Speaker 2:A friend of mine told me about a Marine that shattered his arm in the Humvee so that he could go home.
Speaker 1:Get away from some abusive situation. Yeah, because he was getting attacked. Yeah, yeah, so, and it's crazy, right, and I'm glad for the people that do speak out about it, and that just means that, as the same in women statistics, that the number's too low.
Speaker 2:We don't really know what has happened. But with all these horrible things going on, don't ask, don't tell. Wasn't the problem Repealing?
Speaker 2:it wasn't the problem, All these underlying things. It's a war culture, it's an aggressive culture. That's what is happening there. So trying to pin it on gay people being out of the closet is why there's sexual assaults, or or why? Why? Why there's things going on. You know that they're not being effective on the front lines Like one. Our military is just as effective, as deadly as ever, Like there's, I mean, yeah, I agree with that. If we wanted to put boots on ground, we could put boots on ground anywhere we want. Yeah, we can project force and do our job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah uh, so to say that you know we're ineffective because of the gaze that is juvenile you're right, uh yeah, and you know, I guess the the we'll probably wrap up this piece a little bit here. Um, it's one part of the larger whole of the anti-woke comment or sentiment and it's basically everywhere in any aspect of policy or function of the military that you look at. They're gonna that someone who has that mindset is gonna pick out something and say, well, this is the thing, this is where the woke is right, and so I see this as just sort of looking for woke stuff yeah and trying to bundle it all up into a bigger topic, that when you get it, basically there needs to be a very generalized statement that woke is bad.
Speaker 1:So that way, when you go and start crushing policies that make sense, it's done under the greater good, right, it's done under this bigger message, instead of being evaluated as a true policy change. It's like, yeah, it's part of the agenda, and if you've got this generalized agenda, it lets you break things easier, it lets you shut things down easier, because you just point back to this agenda. It doesn't have to make sense, like all the dots don't have to connect. As long as the agenda is strong, yeah, right. And that's what the position that they're in right now, that Trump and Hegseth are in, and so that's why we're gonna see a lot of things if he does take over. I don't know how much of it will actually come to pass, but it will. Often we'll hear that this is part of the agenda, so don't question it.
Speaker 2:That's really what that means is don't question yeah, right, because, well, we talked a little bit, you know, off camera here, uh, about being able to keep us divided and this is one of the cultural wars that they're going to use to continue to keep us divided so that we don't focus on the bigger powers. That be, because this is the whole woke culture one I love how the term woke came to be the old blues player that pretty much don't trust the people around you, don't trust the cops, they're all out to kind of get us to just stay woke and yeah.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of us feel like that.
Speaker 2:You know when you look at that original.
Speaker 1:It's not untrue. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:But when you look at that original meaning, but then through our capitalistic lifestyle here, a lot of the big companies saw an opportunity to market to people. Oh yes, and they took advantage of it and so they started marketing it.
Speaker 1:Virtue signaling through corporations Right.
Speaker 2:So capitalism kind of took over and ran with it for a bit there, yeah, and at the end of the day that's all on us, everybody that participates in society.
Speaker 1:It is, and it makes a great boogeyman for the right, or you know? If you had to pick something to throw rocks at, you know like it's pretty easy.
Speaker 2:When you look at your news sources and things like that, like I'm pretty tied in with the news. You know I pay attention to what's going on. I rarely read anything about LGBTQ policies, transgender stuff. It's just not in my newsfeed, it's not in my algorithm, right. But in the same breath had to take a breath. I'm very tied in with the LGBT community and when my friends call me in them, I go help them and I'm a member, I help them out. But it's not force fed to me every day, day through these news feeds and these negative articles Messaging.
Speaker 1:You're not receiving messaging. You're observing in real time.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm just engaging with my friends. Ask for help. I go help, yep, but folks sit there and they read news sources, whatever they are, and they get just constant story after story. I'll go to Fox News, that's more in the messaging lane. Yeah, I'll go to Fox News and see like four transgender stories Go to Reuters and you see nothing. And it's like, yes, you guys are getting fed this stuff from a system.
Speaker 1:It's coal in the fire. Man that made money off of it. It's just ridiculous Coal in the fire.
Speaker 1:For a population that's so proud of their own research they missed the ball on this one man like they're there's. They should be researching the whole system. The right claims that the left created the culture war by creating woke ideas or policies. I don't, I don't know. I don't think that's true. I do think there was that. It's easy to say that progressive policies seemed at sometimes to be a bit in your face or overbearing to certain groups of people, but that was not done in the position of offense, right. But then the culture war. If you ask, it's not who did it first, who punched who first, or anything like that, who did it first, who punched who first, or anything like that. But the culture war is much more a product of the right over, a way to basically stay on message and stay on the same page across a lot of different levels of politics and a lot of different regions of America. The culture war helps them use their voter base as a much more cohesive unit by spoon-feeding them. Culture war messaging. It keeps everybody on the same page. Yeah, you have to vote straight R or this will happen. Yes, right, and that's what it comes down to. And so that's for me.
Speaker 1:Regardless of the actual effects of the culture war, the right uses it as effective messaging and has for a very long time. They're way better, yeah. So now it's got that, that ugly root of like I don't know. Sometimes it feels like greed, sometimes it feels like hate, sometimes it feels like manipulation. And then they would say, well, sure, that's what all your other, that's what your policies do, so you know that's fine. Well, we'll, let's switch gears. Let's talk about another very what's probably I consider a. Rather it falls much on the left side of politics, but in this last election cycle it didn't, did not unions and you know, cooperative work agreements. So there's something here happening locally that has the chance to turn into maybe a little bit bigger news story, but let's talk about it now while it's still local.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, and even here locally it's kind of a flashpoint. The D11 Teachers Union, csea. Their master agreement is probably not going to get renewed by the D11 school board. They've been meeting on it the last week, I think. By like the 15th of January they need to make the final decision and in all likelihood it's not going to get renewed. Their collective bargaining agreement powers are going to be taken away from the teachers and the teachers are probably going to go on strike when that happens.
Speaker 1:it's just D11 right now, which what area of? Because I'm out in a different. I'm in District 40, I think 49. Yeah, 49. You're on that way.
Speaker 2:So D11 is kind of like eastern middle of the city, like north of Constitution, east of Academy, okay, kind of that quadrant area over there. So it's kind of, you know, in the new middle of the city since, with all the growth, but it's going to quickly spread to other because if these teachers go on strike here, there's other teachers' unions and their brothers and sisters are going to support them, because a union is what gives the teachers the strength to make sure they have good wages, make sure that they get good benefits, make sure that their sick pay is there and, just overall, give them stability in their life, you know. So the strength of the union is really going to be tested here. You know, coming up, they're voting on it. You know they had a meeting yesterday. I don't know how that went yet, but yeah, they're going to be voting on it soon and you know we could be, they've already budgeted for more subs.
Speaker 2:So voting on it soon and you know we could be, they've already budgeted for more subs and so yeah, so like they're planning on getting scabs to go work for sure, uh, because you can, you know, lower the requirements and then, once you lower the requirements and you get, you know subpar teachers in, then you know scores suffer, the schools suffer and you can bad mouth the schools more and you can push more money to private schools because we just had that one bill fail to give money to private schools. School choice situation yeah, because we already have school choice. They just wanted to have the choice to send people to private schools. Okay, and have rich people use state money to send them to private schools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just defer or like displace a little bit of their like hey, it's 20 grand here a year, but you can get, you know, eight grand from the state and so now you only have to pay 12 grand out of pocket, Right, Right?
Speaker 2:And so, but that then that money gets taken from the public schools and, yeah, the more that we defund the public schools, clearly the worst they're going to be. It's like a plan obsolescence where, like, they want to make the schools fail so that they can privatize it and push it out to charter schools, cause, you know, charter schools have their CEOs now. And, yeah, it's a, it's just another way to privatize public services and, at the end of the day, the people that are going to suffer from that are the people in the poorer communities. Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not going to have access to anything else, right? Do you know the point of contention in any of the negotiation, or is this purely down to contractual? Stuff was set to expire and no one has come to the table to talk about what's next, like what's going on there.
Speaker 2:The folks that got elected to the d11 board aren't like community members. Okay, um, they're, you know, community members, but they got funded by, uh, like dark money, like these are school board races that are over a million dollars now I yes, that has been a big, uh, high visibility school board races in the last like million dollars now.
Speaker 1:I yes, that has been a big, high visibility school board races in the last like four or five years have just been an unheard of thing, right, but there it is so.
Speaker 2:It takes the power from the families, you know, because obviously true stakeholders right a working family with kids in the school yeah, are not going to be and you're just trying to volunteer for you know, for theTA, but this person is getting paid $40,000 to do nothing but run for a board. It's all this money like it's just killing our democracy really.
Speaker 1:So the I guess what back to? Yeah, we got close, but yeah, let's get back to the question. Yeah, you told me a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the folks that are running it, they just want to get rid of the unions. They don't want unions. It's that simple. The budgeting thing they've already budgeted more money for subs, so you know they have money to pay the teachers. If they can, you know, budget for the scabs, they can budget for the teachers, but their whole goal is to privatize education so that it can be moved off of. You know the government's watch, watchful eye. Yeah, because we have, you know, curriculum that gets approved.
Speaker 1:Oh right, yeah, the Florida, you know, is the kind of poster child for the school. You know parents and what the school can have and books and don't say gay, there's all that.
Speaker 2:So in Colorado it's a city-run state, so the superintendents get to really decide which curriculum they choose to put in there. And once you go into a charter school, then it's the CEO that gets to pick that. Yeah, so like a superintendent of D11, he gets to pick that. So like a superintendent of you know D11, he gets to pick the handful of schools curriculum right Through through, like school board and things like that it's not, just, it's not, yeah, and it's approved curriculum and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Right, just crapping out textbooks yeah, but then, once you go to the charter school, you know they have their own boards and other things and those boards can be a lot more conservative. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they really want to focus on that old style learning and things like that, and it can be effective. There's good schools out there that do it, but overall we still need our public schools to be funded because we come in contact and these are people that don't have other options. They can't get in a car and drive north to a nice school. Even though they have the choice to, they don't have the ability to.
Speaker 2:So, you know this teacher strike. It's going to be a flashpoint, not just for the city. It could be a larger issue here.
Speaker 1:I know there was an initiative to. This was when I first so last calendar year, so 24, I guess, or 23. They District 49, there was an increase to teacher salary on the ballot situation, which was some just base-level rate increase or something for teacher salaries, but it was going to require a mill levy or I don't know what, but anyways, it got voted down. And it got voted down pretty handily, yeah. And so there was a message to the school up front or the school district or whoever the teachers. I don't know who was promoting that message, but they were like hey, if you do this and they were using very political language it's an investment in your children, it's an investment in success in the classroom. And then, when that didn't pass and it didn't pass by like more than two thirds, right, it was like 67% that was like no, you have enough money, stop asking for money. And so then now here's where this is a little microcosm blip into what the whole digestion of the loss on the presidential election.
Speaker 1:You get to see a little bit of the poor choice, I think you could say from a political perspective, whoever was doing the messaging to promote it and make you feel like, make you emotionally feel good about putting money into the school and like making your kids lives better, flip that script and basically said the public doesn't care about our children. The public wants poor, you know, teachers to. You know suffer, we're going to lose our talent and it's all because you people didn't do your job. Yeah, the same body that was trying to make you feel good about voting for it when you didn't, man, they chastised you. Yeah, and you want to talk about never supporting whatever that group talks about. Ever again like you, just you're done right. Like nobody's ever going to want to work with you or care about what you have to talk about. Ever again, because you complained about losing a political initiative and tried to make people feel morally icky because they voted the way that they felt was appropriate, like that's happening right now.
Speaker 2:I was going to say, like I've read so many articles about that where people voted the way they voted, yeah, and like they don't want to be told that they're wrong. You know, like, and as I read it, I was like, yeah, like who the hell are we to tell everybody else that they're wrong?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's why there was a choice right, right, like that's the whole point is you were presented two options or more and like I'm proud of my vote.
Speaker 2:I will tell everybody that I voted for Harris, uh, all day long. Yeah, you know, I know who I voted for and I'll say that. And like, I'm just kind of waiting for some bad things to happen and if they let you know, you and I, adam, we are the most popular 40 year old men that host a podcast in Colorado about progressive military topics.
Speaker 1:Sweet, did you know that We've got to be in the top five? We're in the top, we are. No, that's great For me. I think that the messaging right now and what the you know, as I was going to finish my thought, the way to move forward. And, like you said, if things start to slip, I don't want the airplane to fall apart mid-flight. I don't want President Trump to fail because he's the president of the United States. But, from a political perspective, if we put our partisan hat on which I rarely do, man if these cabinet nominees really do just fail miserably, fall on their face, you know, just atrocious problems. If the Democrats don't seize on that, yeah then. Well then, what? What's the point of even having a party?
Speaker 1:you know it needs to be emotionally driven home that this is what happens when you let unqualified people do really, really important jobs. Yeah, it has to be pointed and strong, strong messaging if that happens right, yeah, I mean right now.
Speaker 2:I think he's got like a quarter of america's both on his cabinet because of, like sure, all the billionaires that are on there and half of Fox News staff. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he had 11 nominees that have been paid Fox News. You know, journalists slash TV personalities. That's 11 of the like 20 people that he's picked so far. 11 of them are from Fox News. Yeah, that's weird. It's not a bad thing. I can't even say that that's bad, just inherently, at face value, that's not bad, but it's why.
Speaker 2:It's because who he sees on.
Speaker 1:TV is bottom line.
Speaker 2:It's what he sees on TV and he's like that person's smart.
Speaker 1:I know exactly what they're going to do and say I can get in their head because I've been in their head for the last few years while they've been talking about me nonstop. So they know what I do and I know how they work.
Speaker 2:They're going to say yes to whatever I want. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So good or bad, whatever, but weird Definitely weird. Definitely weird, cool. Well, thanks, adam. Hopefully, adam, hopefully, we get this episode published and there's no issues.
Speaker 2:I wish you the best on that, that's.
Speaker 1:Adam's job, and he does a good job.
Speaker 2:so I wish him the best. I only do a good job, like once or twice a month. The other two times is like a tribute episode. Alright well, thanks for tuning in everybody. I'll catch you next week.
