An Embarrassment of Riches

Please listen to this baby tapir CHEEP and maybe all your sorrows will go away for a precious moment 🩷🩷🩷

Image Description.

Facebook post from Matt Norris.

Post reads like a conversation between 2 people:

Prison labor is a problem we need to address soon.

Convicts in prison should have to work like the rest of us.

You mean like slavery?

No, we’re giving them 3 meals and a bed, at our expense, while they just sit around and watch TV. They should have to work!

Right. Like slavery.

It’s not like slavery!

Can they leave?

No.

Can they refuse work?

No.

So how exactly isn’t this slavery?

We DO pay them!

Do we pay in accordance with labor laws?

No. We pay them between 33 cents and $1.41/hour with a maximum daily wage below $5, then take up to half of that as room&board fees and victim compensation.

Right. So like slavery.

BUT.

No.

Image then links to this url.

Below URL image reads “fun bonus fact: enough of our labor market currently relies on labor at these depressed rates, that it has a substantial downward pressure on both wages and job availability in low-skilled sectors. Immigrants aren’t taking your jobs. Slavery is.

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I’d also like to add it’s not just private prisons. It’s also private detention centers where ICE keeps the immigrants.

It’s not even covert. It’s blatant and overt. It’s even called slavery in the constitution.

“Slavery is illegal except as punishment for a crime.”

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

People just don’t care because they think it’s all murderers and rapists, despite the fact that the number of violent criminals in jail is so small it might as well be negligible.

As of September 30, 2009 in federal prisons, 7.9% of sentenced prisoners were incarcerated for violent crimes,[39] while at year end 2008 of sentenced prisoners in state prisons, 52.4% had been jailed for violent crimes.[39] In 2002 (latest available data by type of offense), 21.6% of convicted inmates in jails were in prison for violent crimes. Among unconvicted inmates in jails in 2002, 34% had a violent offense as the most serious charge. 41% percent of convicted and unconvicted jail inmates in 2002 had a current or prior violent offense; 46% were nonviolent recidivists.[46]

It’s literally slavery, just dumbass racists and capitalists don’t care enough to figure out why we’re calling it that.

happy 20 year anniversary of Neil banging out the tunes!

though every rat is special, it's a wonderful and unusual thing for their accomplishments to be remembered and cherished by so many people so many years later. we're all so fortunate to know about the rat who banged out the tunes!

thank you to all the people who sent me reference photos of their beloved rats for this piece!!! credits under the cut!

Are you in the Way?

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