Juneteenth (June 19) is the latest day off for government workers, a great mid-summer demonstration of why it is stupid to work in the private sector (an Irish small business owner friend: “Government workers have been at home watching daytime TV for 15 months now”; just today: “the Government are still on holidays due to an abundance of caution”). But the paid day off this year falls on a Saturday, so “Most feds off Friday as Biden set to make Juneteenth a federal holiday” (Federal News Network). On the side of the article was the “Fed Photo of the Day”. What’s the most significant thing that this enterprise is doing in exchange for the $6 trillion that Americans will have to earn to fund it? (see “Biden to Propose $6 Trillion Budget to Make U.S. More Competitive” (NYT; the more you spend the more competitive you are)) The soon-to-be-on-vacation government workers are hoisting a rainbow flag:
If you’re a government worker, enjoy your well-deserved extra day of leisure. Hoisting that flag must have been a huge effort!
Everyone else: What are you doing to mark Juneteenth?
A scan of my inbox…
From Carnegie Hall:
Juneteenth commemorates our nation’s true independence—the day when all members of the newly reunited nation were finally declared free after the American Civil War. More than 400 years after the first enslaved African people were brought to the North American colonies, the fight for equality continues. Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes Jr. leads this celebration—along with Tamara Tunie, and special guests Wayne Brady, Martin Luther King III, and Annette Gordon-Reed—to recognize the importance of this historic day and to acknowledge the long road still ahead. In addition to music, dance, and commentary, the evening also recognizes contributions made by prominent African Americans today: Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative; Robert F. Smith, businessman and chairman of Carnegie Hall’s Board of Trustees; and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.
A 400-year fight! The Vietnam War and the Iraq/Afghanistan wars were mere blips. (Note that the “event” is just a streaming TV show, not an in-person gathering in Manhattan.)
From the Boston Museum of Fine Arts:
In celebration of Juneteenth, join us for a virtual conversation with BIPOC leaders. Panelists will discuss the need for disruption in their industries, their personal stories of seeking and achieving liberation in their careers, the impact they hope to make with their own positive disruption, and what liberation looks like on individual and collective levels.
From KAYAK, the travel site:
Grab your popcorn! San Francisco Pride will be hosting two socially distanced Pride Movie Nights on June 11th &12th, to celebrate San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community. They’ll also be hosting a Black Liberation Event in partnership with the AAACC on June 18th, the eve of Juneteenth, to highlight the intersection between LGBTQ+ rights and racial justice.
Separately, how soon before it becomes simpler for the government, rather than list holidays, to write down a list of days when government workers are expected to come into the office and work?
It would be better if we declared every day of the year a national holiday for government employees, without pay, and ineligible for any form of support.
I still don’t care about Black Lives Matter!!!!!
TS: We expected that, but surely you care about Juneteenth!?!
Seen from overseas and with no sense of optimism I conclude from items such as this post that the USA is broken, perhaps beyond repair, and that the “free world” can no longer depend upon the USA to protect its interests (while noting that the USA never did and never would put its own interests before those of they who relied on it).
As long as USA still has Bill of Rights with 1st and 2nd Amendments we are still relatively ahead of other countries in quality of life; do not see me moving to London’s City even with Thursday afternoon drinks time off (who can work after it on Fridays?). Plus USA still has plenty of land and other natural resources and relatively small population density. I believe that even illegal border crossers will turn on US Democrat Party politicians when they figure out that said politicians are screwing the main reason for crossing the border into the USA – better quality of life. Not even knowledge of English language required – Obama phone with google translate will do the job.
Why would anyone rely on other country anyway? To screw own country and hope someone picks up the tab?
This looks to me like “win-win.” Tony Fauci, Dr. and Mr. Biden, Kamala, the Departments of Agriculture and Energy don’t come to the office. Sound like we are better off. Yes i know we have to pay them but don’t the economists tell us that we need to incentivize people to to do what we want? And then there are our African American brothers and sisters who we keep focused on the past rather than looking to the future. Imagine the competition if we encouraged about 35 million Americans to focus on the future rather than the past. Like I said, it is win-win.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/cdc-delays-emergency-meeting-on-rare-post-vaccine-heart-inflammation-due-to-juneteenth/ar-AALbVIn
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting was supposed to take place Friday, according to CNN. Advisers were set to discuss the possibility of booster shots being needed and whether cases of myocarditis in young men and boys are connected to the vaccine, CNN added.
President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law Thursday afternoon, marking America’s newest holiday. Juneteenth, which is celebrated June 19, honors the official end of slavery in Confederate states.
Since Juneteenth falls on Saturday for 2021, the holiday is celebrated Friday, according to CNN. The CDC cited the new federal holiday as reason for rescheduling the meeting.
Well, systemic racism is a public health emergency. COVID, thanks to Joe Biden’s vaccination plan, is a managed minor problem by comparison.
Happy Juneteenth (the 44th paid holiday for govt workers)! It celebrates the victory of brave Republicans (many of whom gave their lives) over the immoral slave-owning democrats, making a more peaceful union. When you see a white male Republican on Juneteenth, thank him for freeing the democrat-owned slaves!
https://media.patriots.win/post/F4WWm1Th.jpeg
Juneteenth is the ultimate holiday for White Supremacy — it signals that blacks were incapable of independently securing their own freedom. They needed white men to fight other white men to free the hapless blacks from slavery. The account of Lincoln coming upon blacks worshipping him as he visited the just-conquered Richmond is embarrassing to read. He begged them to get off their knees, quit their unbecoming adulation, and conduct themselves as free men.
The darker the skin colour, the less woke the person. In the same vein, the whiter the crowd, the more woke the sentiment. Wokeness is a group dynamic, not an individual phenomena. Wokeness demands group support to maintain itself.
“On Sundays there was no work. Breakfast was an hour later than usual, and after breakfast there was a ceremony which was observed every week without fail. First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball had found in the harness-room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones’s and had painted on it a hoof and a horn in white. This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the hoof and horn signified the future Republic of the Animals which would arise when the human race had been finally overthrown. After the hoisting of the flag all the animals trooped into the big barn for a general assembly which was known as the Meeting. Here the work of the coming week was planned out and resolutions were put forward and debated. It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other animals understood how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions of their own. Snowball and Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates. But it was noticed that these two were never in agreement: whatever suggestion either of them made, the other could be counted on to oppose it. Even when it was resolved–a thing no one could object to in itself–to set aside the small paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for animals who were past work, there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age for each class of animal. The Meeting always ended with the singing of Beasts of England, and the afternoon was given up to recreation.”
The voter base is almost entirely government workers nowadays so it’s a good idea to focus on just federal holidays, government pension funds, & Washington DC. Bide’s last economic stimulus package was considered a success because it plunged the stonk market & caused higher inflation.
Economic stimulus packages are now a failure if they simulate the economy or the stonk market. The stonk market after all is just greedy private sector bastards. They’re considered a success if they create government holidays & grow pension funds.
Amerikans have high praise for calling June 19 Juneteenth. Lions see it as evangelizing the inability to count beyond 10. Of course, counting beyond 10 is frivolous when all your needs are covered by the gubment.
Why does LGBTQ+ flag / mission has to be on the front page of everything even when the main subject has nothing to do with LGBTQ+? There are so many other communities and groups that are being left out, either include them ALL or include NONE.
LGBTQ+ is becoming like a religion. We eliminate all things about religion from our public schools and public buildings, it’s time to do the same for LGBTQ+.
With the Book of Queer Studies being part of the current apocrypha (yet work n progress), the First Amendment argument has already been made:
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/09/first-amendment-case-freedom-from-woke-religion/
I think the argument has as much hope for success as the Roman pagans had trying to convince Constantine within the boundaries of their then legal framework (if they attempted such argument).