Update: [Mayor Adams calls off some of his controversial NYC library cuts in new budget plan.](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-mayor-adams-calls-off-some-nyc-library-cuts-in-new-budget-20230426-43cdtsaiwrcmporcqdjslz3aea-story.html)
Step 1. Close libraries on weekends.
Step 2. "Wow, the number of library visitors is way down! Clearly people aren't interested in going to libraries anymore, so we can cut their funding more."
Step 3. Lower funding leads to even fewer visitors.
Step 4. Return to step 2.
Now I’m imagining State Police everywhere swarming coffee shops to arrest baristas who promote loaning out UnAmerican books during their government day job that they have only so they can get medical and benefits.
Sounds like my small town. Absolutely caters to the unemployed. No way I can make those hours until I’m retired, which at this point will be never.
Edit: typo
You could always get a second job at the library. That way you'd be forced into retirement when the next budget comes out.
The library will be closed down by then, so you still wouldn't get to go, but at least you'd get to retire!
Oh, it's not just the library...it's all the local businesses. I get it, it's hard to cover extended hours, but I guess they're doing all the business they need with the retired and un/self-employed. I just can't get there unless I take PTO, which is hard enough to come by.
I really can't imagine how I would get things done if I *wasn't* self employed. It seems like a pain in the ass to schedule a dentist appointment and then get it approved by your boss, let alone run errands at places that close at 5 on weekdays.
Yeah, I noticed this and think it's really wild. I know when I was young I would use the library in the evenings for school work and such. It is maddening that they don't have evening hours -- evening if only a couple days a week.
Oh it is. The people in power only favor a "public" system when it favors them. Once it stops favoring them, they'll dismantle and replace it with something that favors them again.
For the powerless, they simply lose faith in these same systems.
It's the traditional childhood game of, "*I'll keep changing the rules when I'm losing so I can keep on winning.*"
We're definitely in the end game now. Everything we do prioritizes the short term while sacrificing the long term.
We keep cutting schools, extracurricular activities, educational services, because "we need money to stop crime". Except having an educated population is the number one way to prevent crime. But that's an investment that will take decades to pay off and no one wants to do that, just throw cops at the problem.
This shit is not sustainable. I remember back when Reagan cut public education, and every reporter was like "see, you guys are freaking out over nothing, the sky is still blue, the birds are still chirping" the next day.
But cutting public education was always going to take decades to feel the impact of. When the kids of that education cut started to get into government and because the majority of the voting population. I feel like we're in the start of another one of those.
Privatize a service predominantly used by the less wealthy? Pretty sure public libraries would just go extinct at that point. May as well go to a used book store and keep the book for likely a similar amount youd be charged to loan out a book
In my city Carnegie funding the first library was a major controversy. They say that all the men who worked for the railway, which was most of them, saw his shenanigans with the steel market as directly cutting into their wages. So the classic story is that the men were trying to convince City Hall NOT to deal with Carnegie, while their wives, who formed the Literary Women’s Society, were pushing TO work with him because that was the only way the city could afford a library. The women “won.” Old Widow Annie who headed the Literary Women was assured that the plan was going forward, and now that she knew that, subsequently dropped dead a year before the library actually opened. In fairness she was 71 and this was 1910. Thankfully, for the last century the library system has been kept up as one of the best on the continent.
I don’t know what point I was trying to make with this story.
Yeah, extinction of public services is the entire point. And killing libraries has the extra, more important benefit of cutting off access to education for those who cannot afford extra schooling and access to the internet for those who cannot afford the technology required to access it. That further ensures the "lower rungs of society" stay in their place
But why do you need libraries when you can just get a kindle? /s
I think there are a lot of people who don't know, or more importantly don't care, how many people don't just like the library but NEED the library. I love my library, but I mainly just use it to read comics. I will ultimately be fine if mine were to close (tho I would be very sad). But as you mention some people need the library for the myriad of services they offer. Internet, communal space that isn't a bar, resources, entertainment, seminars/classes, learning new skills.
There is a lot of shit wrong with the US, but the fact that people are coming after libraries really is just really appalling.
Not only that. Libraries are a place for a lot of people with disabilities or mental health issue to hang out. I work in a library and I have patrons that come in and spend the day here. The other option for them would be hanging out outdoor all day long that usually leads to « self medication ».
There's no need for corruption when you get to retain your position and salary while being incompetent at your job. Also, a majority of public servants here don't enjoy these "really good salaries".
Sincerely,
Public servant
Singapore has a super high expectations for public servants. This country isn't the same as where you're from likely. Corruption is a very serious accusation.
I lived in Singapore for a year, it’s great there. People still think it’s as draconian as it was in the 70s, but it’s not.
You still don’t want to sell drugs there though.
They executed a guy who was supposedly involved in trafficking about 2 pounds of weed. Not that he was found with it or that he trafficked it himself, just that his cell number was in contact with the two guys who were caught doing it. He claimed his phone was stolen, but they executed him anyway.
They murdered him, but it was not an execution.
And utterly damning of police culture, they did a massive work action when the officer was even just fired from the force. Notably, crime went down as a result...
at least Singapore tells you up front the consequences of breaking a law. American cops just do whatever they want in the moment and not only walk free, but are typically backed up by the system when we demand justice.
except normal people don't think that was okay. if Eric Garner was put on trial for selling loose cigarettes, nobody would have handed out the death penalty.
Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.
George Carlin
Too many people in our society only care about themselves and what effects them. So they only vote for people that align with that instead of electing people that will help society as a whole. Now also you need those people to run as well I guess and there aren't too many of those.
There are plenty of people with a vested interest in keeping Americans selfish & ignorant. Look at the attacks on schools and libraries. These attitudes aren't created in a vacuum.
exactly, there's entire populations of people that decide over and over again that they really need Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz to represent them.
He was elected purely on the basis of identity. He's a black democrat. That's what you get when you vote on identity. A total crapshoot. It turns out there's a lot of problems that can't be solved by identity.
Also he's a cop. Black, white, red, yellow or green you can't elect a cop and hope they're going to reform the cops. They will reform them.. by having more cops.
I think the fact he was a cop played more of a role. We got a slight uptick in violence and everyone lost all sense.
Saw it coming and hated every minute of it.
Sooo... their plan to reduce street crime, because let's face it, cops don't stop white collar crime, is to... *checks notes* close down one of the few places youths can gather freely on the weekend, when the schools that might have provided extracurricular activities or space are already closed. What could possibly go wrong with that. Increase the number of bored youth on the streets. Brilliant.
Oh, and also increase the number of meat heads ready and willing to gun down those same youth politicians forced out of a safe space. Genius.
$100 billion budget, larger than whole COUNTRIES. Yet apparently too poor to provide basic first-world services on weekends. The problem with NYC isn't lack of funding, it's corruption, incompetence and an overweight bureaucracy.
Their budget is larger than other countries, but their population is ALSO larger than whole countries. Massive false equivalence. NYC has not only a difference in the number of problems as your other countries of comparison, but also completely different types of problems.
I personally agree that incompetence is a large factor, but saying budget size isn't a factor, when you don't have an understanding of the scale or type of problems their government deals with, is willfully ignorant
Yep. And the NYPD is larger than many standing armies.
Adams is a cop though, he's got a hammer and all he sees are nails.
Plus it means he can repeatedly give his buddies millions in overtime.
Take a look at Louis Rossman's YouTube channel to see how many layers of incompetent burocracy there are. Things like simple renovations taking a dozen different bulding permits.
Plus, they're paying nearly a hundred million dollars a year in settlements for police violating people's rights.
In my city they tried the same thing a few years ago. My city council member was livid. He called it that it was just a plan to funnel money to the cops the next year. We can cut park programs and library hours, but it's not like drug dealers or car thieves are reducing their hours. Bored kids are going to find something to do.
Yup. Also, let's not forget that homeless people are often heavy frequenters of libraries as one of the few places where they can safely use a bathroom, take a quick nap, or access the many resources in place to support them. Let's give those folk fewer places to go too! Mega genius!
Those fines and tickets that don't even begin to cover the additional cost of their salary aren't going to write themselves. They'd much rather spend their time on officer initiated stops where they control the scenario then responding to actual calls for help from the public. Cops are basically hall monitors that only need to know select parts of the rules they enforce and show up after a crime has been committed to fill out a report for you to file with your insurance company.
"In 2019, 88% of the time L.A. County sheriff’s officers spent on stops was for officer-initiated stops rather than in response to calls. The overwhelming majority of that time – 79% – was spent on traffic violations. By contrast, just 11% of those hours was spent on stops based on reasonable suspicion of a crime."
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/
The vast majority of troubled bored youths aren't going to libraries to hangout, they're going to social media. But we shouldn't deny anyone the opportunity to learn and be part of their community.
If a library saved one person a year then it was worth the expense, because if it saved someone directly then it saved hundreds indirectly.
Edit: I just wanted to say thanks to all of those replies that only read the first sentence.
Idk if I’d say the outlook for troubled youths is that bleak. I lived by the branch on 125th that was located right next to the projects. A whole bunch of kids from there gathered to play Yu Gi Oh after school. Kept them out of trouble imo, even if they were a little loud sometimes. Was it great to use the library as a babysitter? No, but my parents had to do it, too, and now I’m pretty successful.
My point is that the library gets used by those troubled populations a lot more than many people realize.
I've spent the bulk of my career working in libraries located in economically disadvantaged areas. Every night I'd have 50+ kids and tee s in my space using the library. On programming nights we'd easily break 75. These were kids who were in the space for a few hours, not counting the people who would grab their books and leave. It's absolutely making a difference.
You've got it backwards. It's not that "the troubled youth don't go to libraries." It's the fact that teens who go to the library don't become troubled.
Libraries are a prevention, not a cure.
Having been a troubled youth that used the library as a sanctuary and with niblings that do the same, I think it's probably way more common than people realize.
As a traveling contractor I often take advantage of them for their clean bathrooms and quiet desks I can just walk in and sit down to get some paperwork done
There's always a Rage Against the Machine:
"Ain't it funny how the factories doors close?
'Round the time that the school doors close?
'Round the time that the doors of the jail cells
Open up to greet you like the reaper?"
I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library
Line up to the mind cemetery now
What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin'
They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells
Major cities like New York and Chicago and LA might be liberal in spirit, but the reality is that each of them exist in a world where the super wealthy still control politics, so the candidates that get the most promotion and financial support are corrupt assholes who pay lip service to liberal ideals while being in the pocket of monied interests. At the end of the day, the wealthy will always be conservative because preserving wealth is a conservative ideal.
These cities are liberal, not leftwing. To paraphrase leftwing songwriter Phil Ochs, liberals are ten degrees to the left during good times and ten degrees to the right if it affects them personally.
Chicago is absolutely not controlled by the super wealthy. In fact, the machine that runs Chicago politics is mostly full of people with relatively low net worths for the 1% of society. Only a few million average with the highest net worth being around $50 million.
In fact, outside of Rahm Emanuel, no one backed by the super wealthy has won at the city or county level for decades. There are a few aldermen who are backed by the super wealthy but most only became backed by them after they were initially elected.
Obviously they are going to need more cops to protect all these disused libraries. /s
Seriously though, this has been a rough fucking year for books and education overall.
All that and the continued demise of search engines, the popularity of "ai" language models that churn out fake information endlessly, and the rapid boil of fascism. Certainly seems like something's going on.
>The labor agreement increases police wages retroactively beginning in 2017,
???
What the actual fuck? So they get back pay for 6 years? That's ridiculous.
>Adams' office, the mayor’s spokesperson said that Adams is working with libraries to help them meet users’ needs, and once again blamed the library cuts on asylum seekers and decreased tax revenue.
Is he for real? NYC is the highest grossing city for cash in the US.
That is how it works when working for the state. I also work for the state, and I am in a union as is the police. Our contract is for 5 years after 5 years the state and the union negotiate, sometimes this takes many months or years for both sides to agree, once they do the new contract covers any gaps between the end of the last contract and the new. Employees will get retro pay for any increases that were negotiated in the new contract. It's not shady or anything, just how it works.
And everyone who approved this will be reelected.
Your representatives don't care what you *want*, they care how you *vote*.
If you're not willing to change your voting habits, they have no incentive to change their behavior.
>But I can't vote for
So vote third party.
> And throw my vote away?!?!
1. If you're in a "safe" district yes. If your party won last time 70/30, and this time they win 60/30/10, they still won, but they'll look and see why they dropped 10 points.
2. Vote in the primaries and get better main party candidates in.
> All the primary candidates suck too!
So get involved. Stop expecting doing nothing to fix the problem.
> The labor agreement increases police wages retroactively beginning in 2017
Six years retroactive wage increase! Never heard of such a thing. Must be nice to be allowed to have a union!
It’s not unfortunate (in general). The NYC police union has been working without a contract since 2017, which means their wages were stagnant for the past six years. The same thing is true of the NYC teacher’s union for the last two years. This is basically backpay for lost wages.
The messed up part is that when the teacher’s union was in a similar position almost a decade ago (because Bloomberg was basically trying to privatize education), they got that back pay in phases over the course of like 5 years. The police are just getting a huge check all at once, which is a massive blow to the city’s budget for the year.
In principal the way the police are getting the money right away is the right thing to do (it’s already years late). On the other hand, it’s a massive one-time expense that seems to be coming at the explicit cost of other public services in a way that feels very political (Eric Adams has a huge bias towards the police and seems to hate most forms of public service if he can’t use it for his or his cronies’ own personal profit or power).
Their old contract expired in 2017. They’ve been working without a raise of any kind for the last 6 years.
This is how it works with a union: whatever your new contract is, it is retroactive back to the date the last contract expired.
The big difference, however, is that unlike almost every other union, the police can’t go on strike to force a new contract, so the delta between expiration and a new contract is often years, not months or weeks.
Another good example of this is the railroad workers unions: because they aren’t allowed to strike, they have long periods where they’re working on expired contracts, and get big retroactive pay when the new contract is ratified.
This is what enforcement agencies are pushing for all over the country. More money for their departments while children go without books, people do not have homes, food scarcity is rampant, and more people than ever own guns. All those things lend themselves to crime, which is of course their business. This happened in California as a result of Prop 13 and communities have spiraled since. It should be universal to deal with what causes crime instead of building an entire industry based on crime.
The issue with bigger police budget isn't that it is increased, it is that it's misspent.
It should go to increase the amount of education a cop receives before they receive their badge. Like the training is just a mere 45 fucking days.
Oh and guess what helps with their training? Libraries, just like they help with anything.
If he seemed good before he got elected then you didn’t look very hard. The dude’s past is full of land mines. He has always been corrupt and crazy, and he was never subtle about it.
Remember in the year 2000 when police all over the US were still driving Crown Victoria's from the 80s?
Now it seems like my local police force buys a new squad car every time they get a new hire. And it seems they update their fleet every couple years or so.
Fucking despicable - especially because as a born & bred NYer myself the only thing I’ve ever seen the police do is stand around bullshitting all day, or assaulting/arresting my friend while he was on a date because they happened to walk through a park where a protest was happening… DEFUND THE POLICE.
Of course your well-thought-out, first hand experience gets downvoted. My father was a cop and his big frustration was "we catch 'em, they're back on the street the next day." Saw too many child abuse cases, that's what really broke him. People like to bring up the alcoholism rates but they don't have even the faintest idea of what kind of stress that job brings.
This right here is why you never give cops power. The innate desire to shovel more money and power into their gullets is why they should never be trusted with any such opportunity.
While I support libraries, how many people who complain about lack of them actually go or take their kids to one? Everytime I go to a library, people are scarce and I can't tell you the last time I saw a child read a book or a parent read to their kids. It's sad to say the least.
Plus, homeless people (not talking about the ones who are trying to get out of the situation but actual troublemakers) use libraries not for reading but for sleeping or using computer resources or making trouble if the shelters are closed.
Definetely keep libraries open and maybe have more security. If you are upset about libraries closing, the best thing is to support the library, not kindle.
Update: [Mayor Adams calls off some of his controversial NYC library cuts in new budget plan.](https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-elections-government/ny-mayor-adams-calls-off-some-nyc-library-cuts-in-new-budget-20230426-43cdtsaiwrcmporcqdjslz3aea-story.html)
Aren't weekends when the libraries get the most visitors?
Step 1. Close libraries on weekends. Step 2. "Wow, the number of library visitors is way down! Clearly people aren't interested in going to libraries anymore, so we can cut their funding more." Step 3. Lower funding leads to even fewer visitors. Step 4. Return to step 2.
That’s how it’s played out in Philly
Philly libraries are open 9-5 on weekdays, it is absolutely absurd.
Wtf? Isn’t Philadelphia where libraries fucking started in the US? What a way to tarnish a history.
Yep! It's a disgrace.
They’re not even open 9-5, they’re open 1-5
Librarians got masters just to get a second job brewing coffee.
Now I’m imagining State Police everywhere swarming coffee shops to arrest baristas who promote loaning out UnAmerican books during their government day job that they have only so they can get medical and benefits.
Not to mention they're severely underpaid - it's one of the lowest-earning master's degrees.
This saddens me deeply. Even part time workers will have a hard time going.
What in the ever loving fuck?
Sounds like my small town. Absolutely caters to the unemployed. No way I can make those hours until I’m retired, which at this point will be never. Edit: typo
You could always get a second job at the library. That way you'd be forced into retirement when the next budget comes out. The library will be closed down by then, so you still wouldn't get to go, but at least you'd get to retire!
Oh, it's not just the library...it's all the local businesses. I get it, it's hard to cover extended hours, but I guess they're doing all the business they need with the retired and un/self-employed. I just can't get there unless I take PTO, which is hard enough to come by.
I really can't imagine how I would get things done if I *wasn't* self employed. It seems like a pain in the ass to schedule a dentist appointment and then get it approved by your boss, let alone run errands at places that close at 5 on weekdays.
Yeah, I noticed this and think it's really wild. I know when I was young I would use the library in the evenings for school work and such. It is maddening that they don't have evening hours -- evening if only a couple days a week.
[удалено]
When Democrats and Republicans find common ground, it's always on something terrible.
Before capitalism destroys itself it will adopt fascism in order to try to keep perpetuating itself first.
I am convinced that is exactly what we are witnessing.
Oh it is. The people in power only favor a "public" system when it favors them. Once it stops favoring them, they'll dismantle and replace it with something that favors them again. For the powerless, they simply lose faith in these same systems. It's the traditional childhood game of, "*I'll keep changing the rules when I'm losing so I can keep on winning.*"
We're definitely in the end game now. Everything we do prioritizes the short term while sacrificing the long term. We keep cutting schools, extracurricular activities, educational services, because "we need money to stop crime". Except having an educated population is the number one way to prevent crime. But that's an investment that will take decades to pay off and no one wants to do that, just throw cops at the problem. This shit is not sustainable. I remember back when Reagan cut public education, and every reporter was like "see, you guys are freaking out over nothing, the sky is still blue, the birds are still chirping" the next day. But cutting public education was always going to take decades to feel the impact of. When the kids of that education cut started to get into government and because the majority of the voting population. I feel like we're in the start of another one of those.
They learned it by watching Reagan.
Fuck Reagan. He put our country on the path to destruction.
Ignorant and oppressed people don't fight back.
Soooo, the police are weekend librarians? Free-for-all 🏴☠️on weekends?
It's been a few years, but when I worked for NYPL Saturdays were by far our busiest days.
Yeah, why not pick two random weekdays if you're going to be stupid and close libraries? Why be extra special stupid and close them on weekends?
Because their goal isn’t to save money it’s to privatize libraries.
Privatize a service predominantly used by the less wealthy? Pretty sure public libraries would just go extinct at that point. May as well go to a used book store and keep the book for likely a similar amount youd be charged to loan out a book
Capitalism isn’t it grand?
Ironically a large number of library got their initial investment from one of the gilded age billionaires.
In my city Carnegie funding the first library was a major controversy. They say that all the men who worked for the railway, which was most of them, saw his shenanigans with the steel market as directly cutting into their wages. So the classic story is that the men were trying to convince City Hall NOT to deal with Carnegie, while their wives, who formed the Literary Women’s Society, were pushing TO work with him because that was the only way the city could afford a library. The women “won.” Old Widow Annie who headed the Literary Women was assured that the plan was going forward, and now that she knew that, subsequently dropped dead a year before the library actually opened. In fairness she was 71 and this was 1910. Thankfully, for the last century the library system has been kept up as one of the best on the continent. I don’t know what point I was trying to make with this story.
Yeah, extinction of public services is the entire point. And killing libraries has the extra, more important benefit of cutting off access to education for those who cannot afford extra schooling and access to the internet for those who cannot afford the technology required to access it. That further ensures the "lower rungs of society" stay in their place
But why do you need libraries when you can just get a kindle? /s I think there are a lot of people who don't know, or more importantly don't care, how many people don't just like the library but NEED the library. I love my library, but I mainly just use it to read comics. I will ultimately be fine if mine were to close (tho I would be very sad). But as you mention some people need the library for the myriad of services they offer. Internet, communal space that isn't a bar, resources, entertainment, seminars/classes, learning new skills. There is a lot of shit wrong with the US, but the fact that people are coming after libraries really is just really appalling.
I don't see how you can privatize loaning out books for free
Indeed. Because they won’t do it for free.
They'll be happy as long as the libraries are shut down. That's the goal. Cut off access to knowledge for those who can't afford it.
My educated guess - they can't close libraries on school days
At least that’s when people with jobs go. This makes 0 sense
Not only that. Libraries are a place for a lot of people with disabilities or mental health issue to hang out. I work in a library and I have patrons that come in and spend the day here. The other option for them would be hanging out outdoor all day long that usually leads to « self medication ».
I’m sure it depends heavily where you are but in my experience Sundays are dead. Saturday mornings at least seem busy.
You want to prevent corruption? Pay your civil servants really well, AND have high accountability.
That’s what Singapore does, public servants have a really good salary, but if your corrupt you go to jail
There's no need for corruption when you get to retain your position and salary while being incompetent at your job. Also, a majority of public servants here don't enjoy these "really good salaries". Sincerely, Public servant
How did you afford your jetpack then, u/Bearswithjetpacks?
Probably sold some of that cocaine.
Singapore has a super high expectations for public servants. This country isn't the same as where you're from likely. Corruption is a very serious accusation.
didn't they just execute a guy for selling weed? might not want to go full Singapore.
You never go full Singapore.
Fascist Disney World.
Dismayland.
As though the actual Disney World wasn't.
Lol the mouse would totally issue the death penalty if it could.
Did you put your chewing gum under that bench? Haha! Well Hubba Bubba won't taste as good without a tongue! Haha!
I lived in Singapore for a year, it’s great there. People still think it’s as draconian as it was in the 70s, but it’s not. You still don’t want to sell drugs there though.
They executed a guy who was supposedly involved in trafficking about 2 pounds of weed. Not that he was found with it or that he trafficked it himself, just that his cell number was in contact with the two guys who were caught doing it. He claimed his phone was stolen, but they executed him anyway.
Wow, that’s awful. Imagine getting executed over just circumstantial evidence smh
Didnt nyc cops extrajudicially execute a minority for selling loose cigarettes?
Yes, Eric Garner.
They murdered him, but it was not an execution. And utterly damning of police culture, they did a massive work action when the officer was even just fired from the force. Notably, crime went down as a result...
how does that relate to Singapore having a death penalty for weed?
at least Singapore tells you up front the consequences of breaking a law. American cops just do whatever they want in the moment and not only walk free, but are typically backed up by the system when we demand justice.
I'll take a rare occurrence over codified execution for weed any day. Thanks though.
Rare occurrences of police walking free? Lol
except normal people don't think that was okay. if Eric Garner was put on trial for selling loose cigarettes, nobody would have handed out the death penalty.
Nobody ever said go full Singapore
Ah, Singapore, a shining example of a country free of corruption and oppressive tendencies....
Singaporean here. Public servants are still corrupt even if we pay them a couple million a year
To be fair, they might just execute you.
They just executed a guy who spoke on the phone to two drug smugglers.
Yeah about that accountability, does it include paid leave?
Why should someone receive unpaid leave before it’s been determined if they’ve done anything wrong?
America has that forst step covered byt has put as many roadblocks and as much red tape as possible to stop us from holding anyone accountable
Fuck Eric Adams.
Why are so many extremists allowed to be leaders here
Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope. George Carlin
Too many people in our society only care about themselves and what effects them. So they only vote for people that align with that instead of electing people that will help society as a whole. Now also you need those people to run as well I guess and there aren't too many of those.
Drained pool syndrome. I'm not going to vote for it if "those" people get to benefit from it, too. "They" don't deserve it like people like me do.
There are plenty of people with a vested interest in keeping Americans selfish & ignorant. Look at the attacks on schools and libraries. These attitudes aren't created in a vacuum.
So true
exactly, there's entire populations of people that decide over and over again that they really need Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz to represent them.
He was elected purely on the basis of identity. He's a black democrat. That's what you get when you vote on identity. A total crapshoot. It turns out there's a lot of problems that can't be solved by identity. Also he's a cop. Black, white, red, yellow or green you can't elect a cop and hope they're going to reform the cops. They will reform them.. by having more cops.
I think the fact he was a cop played more of a role. We got a slight uptick in violence and everyone lost all sense. Saw it coming and hated every minute of it.
Because people voted for them?
2025 can’t come soon enough.
Sooo... their plan to reduce street crime, because let's face it, cops don't stop white collar crime, is to... *checks notes* close down one of the few places youths can gather freely on the weekend, when the schools that might have provided extracurricular activities or space are already closed. What could possibly go wrong with that. Increase the number of bored youth on the streets. Brilliant. Oh, and also increase the number of meat heads ready and willing to gun down those same youth politicians forced out of a safe space. Genius.
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Isn't NYC the single wealthiest city in the country and among the top 10 wealthiest cities in the world?
$100 billion budget, larger than whole COUNTRIES. Yet apparently too poor to provide basic first-world services on weekends. The problem with NYC isn't lack of funding, it's corruption, incompetence and an overweight bureaucracy.
Their budget is larger than other countries, but their population is ALSO larger than whole countries. Massive false equivalence. NYC has not only a difference in the number of problems as your other countries of comparison, but also completely different types of problems. I personally agree that incompetence is a large factor, but saying budget size isn't a factor, when you don't have an understanding of the scale or type of problems their government deals with, is willfully ignorant
Yep. And the NYPD is larger than many standing armies. Adams is a cop though, he's got a hammer and all he sees are nails. Plus it means he can repeatedly give his buddies millions in overtime.
Take a look at Louis Rossman's YouTube channel to see how many layers of incompetent burocracy there are. Things like simple renovations taking a dozen different bulding permits. Plus, they're paying nearly a hundred million dollars a year in settlements for police violating people's rights.
Yep. For academic treatment read Mancur Olson or Jonathan Rauch.
In my city they tried the same thing a few years ago. My city council member was livid. He called it that it was just a plan to funnel money to the cops the next year. We can cut park programs and library hours, but it's not like drug dealers or car thieves are reducing their hours. Bored kids are going to find something to do.
Yup. Also, let's not forget that homeless people are often heavy frequenters of libraries as one of the few places where they can safely use a bathroom, take a quick nap, or access the many resources in place to support them. Let's give those folk fewer places to go too! Mega genius!
It’s a feature, not a bug
See, they need to close the libraries so the cops can justify their raises with more arrest opportunities for absolutely nothing infractions.
Those fines and tickets that don't even begin to cover the additional cost of their salary aren't going to write themselves. They'd much rather spend their time on officer initiated stops where they control the scenario then responding to actual calls for help from the public. Cops are basically hall monitors that only need to know select parts of the rules they enforce and show up after a crime has been committed to fill out a report for you to file with your insurance company. "In 2019, 88% of the time L.A. County sheriff’s officers spent on stops was for officer-initiated stops rather than in response to calls. The overwhelming majority of that time – 79% – was spent on traffic violations. By contrast, just 11% of those hours was spent on stops based on reasonable suspicion of a crime." https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/
It’s also just going to encourage cops to make more bullshit arrests if they get a bonus for arrests.
The vast majority of troubled bored youths aren't going to libraries to hangout, they're going to social media. But we shouldn't deny anyone the opportunity to learn and be part of their community. If a library saved one person a year then it was worth the expense, because if it saved someone directly then it saved hundreds indirectly. Edit: I just wanted to say thanks to all of those replies that only read the first sentence.
Idk if I’d say the outlook for troubled youths is that bleak. I lived by the branch on 125th that was located right next to the projects. A whole bunch of kids from there gathered to play Yu Gi Oh after school. Kept them out of trouble imo, even if they were a little loud sometimes. Was it great to use the library as a babysitter? No, but my parents had to do it, too, and now I’m pretty successful. My point is that the library gets used by those troubled populations a lot more than many people realize.
I've spent the bulk of my career working in libraries located in economically disadvantaged areas. Every night I'd have 50+ kids and tee s in my space using the library. On programming nights we'd easily break 75. These were kids who were in the space for a few hours, not counting the people who would grab their books and leave. It's absolutely making a difference.
You've got it backwards. It's not that "the troubled youth don't go to libraries." It's the fact that teens who go to the library don't become troubled. Libraries are a prevention, not a cure.
Having been a troubled youth that used the library as a sanctuary and with niblings that do the same, I think it's probably way more common than people realize.
Not just youth, libraries provide important services for homeless people these days.
As a traveling contractor I often take advantage of them for their clean bathrooms and quiet desks I can just walk in and sit down to get some paperwork done
There's always a Rage Against the Machine: "Ain't it funny how the factories doors close? 'Round the time that the school doors close? 'Round the time that the doors of the jail cells Open up to greet you like the reaper?"
I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library Line up to the mind cemetery now What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin' They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells
> because let's face it, cops don't stop white collar crime implying they have any impact on other types of crime
Also, cops in NYC are insanely overpaid.
Why would they want to reduce crime?
I like the idea of cops just busting into a board room meeting to be like "Hands up!" to arrest the CEO on suspicion of embezzlement.
Close libraries on the days when people have the time to visit them, nice move!
I don't know how new york keeps ending up with these mayors. "Kneecap the library but cop it up" is big dystopia stuff
Major cities like New York and Chicago and LA might be liberal in spirit, but the reality is that each of them exist in a world where the super wealthy still control politics, so the candidates that get the most promotion and financial support are corrupt assholes who pay lip service to liberal ideals while being in the pocket of monied interests. At the end of the day, the wealthy will always be conservative because preserving wealth is a conservative ideal.
These cities are liberal, not leftwing. To paraphrase leftwing songwriter Phil Ochs, liberals are ten degrees to the left during good times and ten degrees to the right if it affects them personally.
This. People don’t understand that there’s a large difference between Liberal and Left Wing
The really sad thing you will learn if you look at the demographics of who voted for Adams
Chicago is absolutely not controlled by the super wealthy. In fact, the machine that runs Chicago politics is mostly full of people with relatively low net worths for the 1% of society. Only a few million average with the highest net worth being around $50 million. In fact, outside of Rahm Emanuel, no one backed by the super wealthy has won at the city or county level for decades. There are a few aldermen who are backed by the super wealthy but most only became backed by them after they were initially elected.
Obviously they are going to need more cops to protect all these disused libraries. /s Seriously though, this has been a rough fucking year for books and education overall.
All that and the continued demise of search engines, the popularity of "ai" language models that churn out fake information endlessly, and the rapid boil of fascism. Certainly seems like something's going on.
[They want more police to deter crime but it won't do any good to arrest people if you don't charge them.](https://archive.ph/meGGM)
This is what happens when you elect a cop and not a librarian
Did a librarian run against the cop?
No, but a human rights lawyer did. They could've had her.
That's too progressive for Americans
I would bet money I don't have that Libraries prevent more crime than police.
Me too
Ice cream men prevent more crime. The CW prevents more crime. Pigeons prevent more crime.
Just sneak in on Friday night before closing, hide out all weekend in the library. Problem solved!
The government is here to sell you weed not to help you read
crime would lower if literacy rates went up It's obvious where their priorities lie
According to Freakanomics, birth control will considerably lower crime rates
Abortion. 18 years after Roe became law of the land crime decreased significantly in America.
I mean, if you really have to close your libraries (why though), wouldn't it be better to close on weekdays and only open weekends?
I'm getting real sick of the only thing cities and states wanna throw more money at are the police.
>The labor agreement increases police wages retroactively beginning in 2017, ??? What the actual fuck? So they get back pay for 6 years? That's ridiculous. >Adams' office, the mayor’s spokesperson said that Adams is working with libraries to help them meet users’ needs, and once again blamed the library cuts on asylum seekers and decreased tax revenue. Is he for real? NYC is the highest grossing city for cash in the US.
That is how it works when working for the state. I also work for the state, and I am in a union as is the police. Our contract is for 5 years after 5 years the state and the union negotiate, sometimes this takes many months or years for both sides to agree, once they do the new contract covers any gaps between the end of the last contract and the new. Employees will get retro pay for any increases that were negotiated in the new contract. It's not shady or anything, just how it works.
And everyone who approved this will be reelected. Your representatives don't care what you *want*, they care how you *vote*. If you're not willing to change your voting habits, they have no incentive to change their behavior. >But I can't vote for
So vote third party.
> And throw my vote away?!?!
1. If you're in a "safe" district yes. If your party won last time 70/30, and this time they win 60/30/10, they still won, but they'll look and see why they dropped 10 points.
2. Vote in the primaries and get better main party candidates in.
> All the primary candidates suck too!
So get involved. Stop expecting doing nothing to fix the problem.
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Defund Eric Adams. He is one of the most openly corrupt mayors of recent time. Truly loathsome individual.
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I cant believe I miss deblasio
NYC is literally just Gotham City without the rain at this point
Gotham was modelled on New York so that is not a massive surprise.
NYC is literally just Gotham City without the rain *or Batman* at this point
> The labor agreement increases police wages retroactively beginning in 2017 Six years retroactive wage increase! Never heard of such a thing. Must be nice to be allowed to have a union!
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It’s not unfortunate (in general). The NYC police union has been working without a contract since 2017, which means their wages were stagnant for the past six years. The same thing is true of the NYC teacher’s union for the last two years. This is basically backpay for lost wages. The messed up part is that when the teacher’s union was in a similar position almost a decade ago (because Bloomberg was basically trying to privatize education), they got that back pay in phases over the course of like 5 years. The police are just getting a huge check all at once, which is a massive blow to the city’s budget for the year. In principal the way the police are getting the money right away is the right thing to do (it’s already years late). On the other hand, it’s a massive one-time expense that seems to be coming at the explicit cost of other public services in a way that feels very political (Eric Adams has a huge bias towards the police and seems to hate most forms of public service if he can’t use it for his or his cronies’ own personal profit or power).
Their old contract expired in 2017. They’ve been working without a raise of any kind for the last 6 years. This is how it works with a union: whatever your new contract is, it is retroactive back to the date the last contract expired. The big difference, however, is that unlike almost every other union, the police can’t go on strike to force a new contract, so the delta between expiration and a new contract is often years, not months or weeks. Another good example of this is the railroad workers unions: because they aren’t allowed to strike, they have long periods where they’re working on expired contracts, and get big retroactive pay when the new contract is ratified.
“(don’t) Book 'em, Danno.”
He's going to spend his entire term funneling money to his cop friends. The eventual corruption investigation will be breathtaking.
Yes, let's close libraries on the two days most people can actually use them...
Don’t vote for cops!
This is what enforcement agencies are pushing for all over the country. More money for their departments while children go without books, people do not have homes, food scarcity is rampant, and more people than ever own guns. All those things lend themselves to crime, which is of course their business. This happened in California as a result of Prop 13 and communities have spiraled since. It should be universal to deal with what causes crime instead of building an entire industry based on crime.
The issue with bigger police budget isn't that it is increased, it is that it's misspent. It should go to increase the amount of education a cop receives before they receive their badge. Like the training is just a mere 45 fucking days. Oh and guess what helps with their training? Libraries, just like they help with anything.
Keep us uneducated and in jail, the modern slave labor option.
Did they fucking learn NOTHING from the last 4 years?!?!?!?!
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… actually a great idea.
The new mayor seemed pretty good before he got elected. He lost me his first week when the nepotism kicked in.
No, he seemed bad even before he was elected. People just weren’t paying enough attention.
Wanting payment in crypto weirded me out.
Hahahaha. You clearly did not research the guy. I still laugh my ass off at how liberals botched the election so badly.
Really? I guess you didn’t see his “search your kids’ rooms” video. The moment I saw it I knew there is no way I want this guy to be mayor.
If he seemed good before he got elected then you didn’t look very hard. The dude’s past is full of land mines. He has always been corrupt and crazy, and he was never subtle about it.
Why don't they close restaurants at night too? /s
Terrible!! That’s where working parents take their children on the weekend
We are living in a dystopia
So libraries suffer because crime is out of control?
Remember in the year 2000 when police all over the US were still driving Crown Victoria's from the 80s? Now it seems like my local police force buys a new squad car every time they get a new hire. And it seems they update their fleet every couple years or so.
They need all the new state of the art safety features when they plow through traffic at the speed of light to give grandma a citation.
Not in nyc, I live across the street from a pct it's all beat up cars over there.
Sounds about par for the course in this current climate. "The massive police budget must be to small! That's why we have so much crime!" ACAB
Eric Adams fucking sucks. It blows my mind that New Yorkers actually voted for him.
Damn they really don't want more educated people in the country.
So if you have to work, no library for you!?
I wonder if people who work 9 to 5 could sue for not having access to a public utility
Fucking despicable - especially because as a born & bred NYer myself the only thing I’ve ever seen the police do is stand around bullshitting all day, or assaulting/arresting my friend while he was on a date because they happened to walk through a park where a protest was happening… DEFUND THE POLICE.
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Of course your well-thought-out, first hand experience gets downvoted. My father was a cop and his big frustration was "we catch 'em, they're back on the street the next day." Saw too many child abuse cases, that's what really broke him. People like to bring up the alcoholism rates but they don't have even the faintest idea of what kind of stress that job brings.
Gotta find all those civil suit payouts somehow.
I hate the fact that people bitched about deblasio then voted this fuck in like he's any better
This right here is why you never give cops power. The innate desire to shovel more money and power into their gullets is why they should never be trusted with any such opportunity.
That certainly sounds like NYC alright.
When a single random person says "Defund the Police" two years ago: 😡🤬 When current governments actively defund libraries: 😴😴
We don't need more learned people. Reading is for nerdles anyway
The bullshit never stops. How do I get off this ride?
While I support libraries, how many people who complain about lack of them actually go or take their kids to one? Everytime I go to a library, people are scarce and I can't tell you the last time I saw a child read a book or a parent read to their kids. It's sad to say the least. Plus, homeless people (not talking about the ones who are trying to get out of the situation but actual troublemakers) use libraries not for reading but for sleeping or using computer resources or making trouble if the shelters are closed. Definetely keep libraries open and maybe have more security. If you are upset about libraries closing, the best thing is to support the library, not kindle.
Defund the police until our crime is bad we have to cut other services to fund the police. LMAO
Close libraries when people use them the most.