He actually had to borrow money off Obama when his son was in hospital cos he couldn’t afford it
I don't think it's just about putting poor people in prisons over drug offenses. If they legalized cannabis, they probably fear it opening the pandora's box of arguments about how to treat addictions to harder drugs and potential legalization.
This county did not give a fuck about heroin addiction and the later the meth epidemic until it started creeping up in middle class white suburbs and became a problem for them. The opiod crisis also ties into that and their answer to it has always been more drug testing, more laws and further incarceration.
It's not so much 'White America'. It's the middle class and the white suburbs. Rural America is poor and they are the ones dealing with the meth and opiod crisis the most. They don't show families who live in trailer parks dealing with these addictions on TV or talk to the average working class person in the rural south who has addicts across their family. The only white people they give a shit about are those in giant houses and come from the middle class. You can clearly see this in documentaries and TV programs about meth and opiods. Watch a bit of Dr. Phil's show. You never see normal working class people on his show, it's always white people with huge houses, multiple cars in the garage and money. At the end of the day, it all go back to class.
I live in a rural area in a southern state and the only answer to the opiod crisis here has been a push for further drug laws and a crackdown on prescriptions. This has damaging effects too when you are prescribed opiods and are forced to do drug tests to prove you're actually taking the meds, and if they don't show up in your system, they cut the prescriptions and accuse you of selling them.
The war on drugs has always been about punishing the poor.
Rural America is poor and they are the ones dealing with the meth and opiod crisis the most. They don’t show families who live in trailer parks dealing with these addictions on TV or talk to the average working class person in the rural south who has addicts across their family. The only white people they give a shit about are those in giant houses and come from the middle class. You can clearly see this in documentaries and TV programs about meth and opiods.
Damn, never realized this before, but you're totally right. Anything poor whites get addicted to is counted as "white trash" and they're dehumanized for it. But when rich whites get addicted to pain pills, then it's suddenly a societal crisis and not dismissed as a failure of the individual.
like imagine the lost in slave labour in the USA, california would have to pay actual salaries to have firemen
Looking over Harris' record as prosecutor and the laws she tried to push tied back to the prison system, she scares me more than any other Democrat. I can see her laying the groundwork for a future fascist dictatorship down the line.
you see, prison labor is not "forced" if a convit wants to survive on horrible food, no entretaiment, and bad hygiene they have the option or risk their lives for 1.50 an hour fighting fires
A couple thoughts here:
1) The discourse of "private prisons" carries a subtle anti-abolitionist character, since it implies expressio unius that state prisons are comparatively less offensive, or more tolerable in some way. While state-run prisons may be marginally better in some cases, but are still completely unacceptable modes of oppression.
If you feel the need for a descriptor, "capitalist prisons" is a good choice.
Another strong alternative is saying "prison-slavery" which is grammatical in most places you would say prison.
2) Another big reason the police state viciously opposes marijuana legalization, and why decriminalization is no substitute, is because cops constantly used the pretense of "smelling marijuana" to infringe your 4th amendment right to be free of arbitrary search and seizure without a warrant. It may as well be repealed from the constitution at this point. Both because it is so easily waived, and because judges rubber-stamp warrants anyway.
3) Usually people arrested for marijuana charges are not sentenced to prison unless they have some other charges or enhancing factors. There are exceptions, but the main revenue generator is not prison-slave labor, but rather the endless cycle of fines, fees, court costs, cash bail, and so on.
The main driver is the offer of probation or some kind of court supervision, like drug class -- both require additional, recurring fees. They get you on that, because you think '1 year of probation and then expungement, wow, that's a lot better than jail time!' Especially if you are stuck in jail, because you can't afford cash bail, and a guilty plea + probation means you will be released.
But what they don't explain is how you become a second-class citizen, agreeing to waive most of your civil rights. Your ability to succeed is completely hit or miss based on the demeanor of the probation officer assigned to you. If he is a prick, you're fucked. If he is laid back (and some are), you might be all right so long as you don't push your luck.
They can keep your churning you in and out of jail on technical violations of probation terms that can be so excessively onerous that everyone violates them in practice, making your freedom is instantly revokable at the whim of your probation officer. Or any cop: if you are on probation, merely being arrested will likely cause probation to be revoked. Not upon conviction, but the mere arrest, no matter how absurd or weak. An here you are not even allowed to make bail, you are forced to wait in jail until you can settle the case. This is all to coerce you to plead guilty to new charges, so you can be issued more fines, fees, longer probation, on and on.
This also can begin a long-term cycle of targeted harassment. Any cop that runs your plates and see you have a record and are on probation, they can pull you over, search your vehicle (you have "voluntarily" waived your rights to say no), force you out of your car, handcuff you, make you lay on the ground, anything to humiliate you, and you must obsequiously cower and submit to complete their power over whether you sleep in your bed that night, or in a concrete dungeon for the next weeks or months or years.
For an example how one may never escape this cycle of criminalization: check out my post analyzing the criminal "career" of the Tulsa man who shot two cops some months ago, all stemming from an incident when he was 18, where he was allegedly drunk and committed the most grievous crime of all: contempt of cop.
Uncritical support to the Venezuelan delegation. Also Vuvuzela somehow simultaneously starving poor and oil rich - and Leslie, being the consummate lib, refuses free cash to build her dream park cause she doesn't want to say a harmless "viva Chavez"
The amount of libs posting some sob story about Beau and Hunter and how Joe is a hero or some shit cause Trump (correctly) pointed out Hunter's coke problem is appalling. Like sure whatever vote Biden idfc but god damn don't simp for a rapist ass hole and his coked up son lmao. Maybe talk about the obvious drug abuse in Trump's family or something but for the love of god stop simping for Biden.
Every liberal who liked that episode of P & R couldn't tell you a god damned thing about Venezuela. They probably can't even spell it right without spellcheck.
Fuck that bit, it's making Venezuela out to be some sort of brutal dictatorship
Well it made me laugh. I have come to find that I have an Absurdist's sense of humor, and I find the absurdity of his character hilarious. I'm not gonna let other people's bad opinions ruin the few things that make me smile. :P
