America loves to criminalize things — all sorts of things — drugs, immigration, minorities. In the midst of a Depression, America is increasingly criminalizing homelessness. And with millions of foreclosures, increased unemployment, and depletion of savings, homelessness is on the rise. In order to avoid offending the ‘sensibilities’ of the gentry — the proper Americans as Republicans love to cry — cities have resorted to criminalizing the poor. Throw them in jail because they are poor. It matters little the reasons people are poor.
There is no criminalizing the corporations who send jobs overseas, Wall Street’s games that resulted in massive foreclosures, etc. — this is just business as usual in America. “Good business,” as the capitalists say. Put the people who have no political clout in jail. Make it illegal to sleep anywhere in public. Sleeping in public must be so unseemly to people with money. “I just don’t want to have to deal with the homeless and the poor. They are all just lazy, drug users,” declares the unemphatic people in today’s America.
Cut off unemployment benefits even though there are few jobs — there are five job seekers for every job and these are not exactly great jobs. Most of these jobs pay minimum wage — not even enough to sustain somebody — because why would employers want to pay more when there are so many people out of work. “Supply and Demand” — it is the mantra of capitalism. But for the unemployed, the supply will continue to rise and people who never thought of themselves as simply “supply” will discover their education and experience matters little.
Cities and state governments are laying off people, forcing mandatory days off, and cutting salaries. It matters little that these jobs pay low wages, are necessary to educate a future generation, and essential for the functioning of America. All the matters is money — budget — and the national debt. Republicans love to talk about fiscal matters even though for decades that spent, spent, spent and decreased taxes — Republican never saw a war they didn’t want to fight — Newt Gringich wants to bomb Iran and North Korea. However, Republicans never want to pay for their spending. Every policy to Republican is always about less taxes even though less taxes have never created a single jobs. In fact, profits don’t even create jobs — just more profits. Highly profitable companies love to decrease labor because it makes them more profitable.
As the homelessness are put in jails and prisons, there will be less on the street. In some sort of perverse way, increasing the population of prisons is a slow increase into socialism. At least the homelessness are provided housing and meals and taught the skills of being criminals when they are released. Start thinking of prisons as the free University of surviving on the streets. Eventually, America will have to be deal with the increasing numbers of people with no hope. Eventually America will default on its national debt. Eventually everybody will be equal as the poor get fed up with the rich getting richer.
America is Doomed.
Admin,
You are precisely right, the plutocrats dont want to see the visible ramifications of their transfer of wealth to the top 10%. Throwing folks in jail of course kills two birds with one stone for these bastards: one, they can ignore the human impact, and secondly, it feeds the capitalist engine in so much as huge swaths of the prison system in the US are owned by private corporations, so more inmates =more money in the coffers.
Of course, as we know as students of history, this country is on the precipice of the false edifices completely crumbling down. Hence why the propaganda has become more aggressive, the distortions and manipulations to the official statistics more egregious and insulting to anyone who has ever had a basic course in research methods. Pretend and extend is rapidly coming to a head, given the American consumer is thoroughly dead….
Lloyd and admin: It’s not just the homeless that are being incarcerated. It is the drunks, the speeders, in JoJa today it will be “driving while texting” heading for the slammer if you can’t pay the obscene fine. I don’t think people should text while driving. I’ve almost been taken out several times by them, but the fines are absurd. Community service is your option, which means work without pay for Da Gubsamunts, which equates to Slaber!! AmeriKa is post racial. Now anyone can be a Slabe.
The pot heads are filling up our jails, as are the j-walkers, the public expectorators, the people who went fishing and exceeded their limits, the vagrants, the “disorderly conduct” people (whatever that is). In NY State, a DumbaKRap Commie shithole, they recently arreste some Amish “youts” for “overdriving a horse” (what ever that is). Sounds a little subjective to me. My girlfriend recently was fined $425 dollars for having an open bottle of wine in the back of her car. She hadn’t been drinking!! I gave her half a bottle to take home and she was filling her car with gas when an Oinker pulled up and saw the bottle. The seal was broken and so it was an open container.
As more and more Gubsamunts entities sink into bankruptcy, you will see more of this heavy handed shit getting spread around. A simple “blow test” or possibly a “blow job” would have gotten her off the legal hook. Thank Gosh and Golly that she retains a few scruples. But they are expensive scruples.
Prison for profit pays big, just like disease for profit. When a shithole kuntry like AmerfreaKa profits from disease and incarceration of it’s population, guess what you get more of. Yep, more disease and more incarceration.
AmeriKa smells rotten!!!
Just a small addendum: AmeriKa is the only Kuntry on earth that has more laws and more people incarcerated than Russia. Not even Chinaland can compete there. They force them back to the factory for wages of 29 cents/hour. That is their version of community service. We are all Slabes now. Black, yellow, red, white. doesn’t matter in the land of the used to be free.