#incarcerated workers
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The link is a copy of a letter asking for solidarity and support from Canadian unions for incarcerated workers. Their wages are currently capped at $6.90 per day and they're exempt from employment standards, labor laws, health and safety regulations. Average hourly pay is estimated to be 30 cents.
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oh DS really said the quiet part out Loud this time huh (the violently oppressive upper class)
#me: icb Roger actually shot a guy. That’s crazy.#Roger: I shot him not so much because he was threatening my son but because he was clearly Uncultured and Lower Class#me: ah. aha.#nothing more than a beast to be shot. because Upper Crust people were dabbling and playing god.#ds liveblogging.#ooc.#and all this after he would Gladly let someone take David out but only if they dressed and spoke nicely.#kill the brat if you must but at LEAST employ a tailor#will admit sometimes I do forget the show is literally about a rich vampire draining other ppl of their life blood#(sex workers; the incarcerated and mentally ill especially)#but this And the really loud reminder of how much josette’s earrings are worth just shaking me by the shoulders#the petty squabbles of the rich are rending society asunder again!
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i have been in community with profoundly developmentally disabled peers and peers with brain damage my whole life, bc i had a childhood diagnosis. i have also been leftist my whole life; my mother was a marxist and raised me that way, and while their politics were absolute dogshit, they were lefty dogshit.
my entire life, i have seen leftist educators throw mentally disabled people away as "lost causes" because they couldn't engage with the material the way it was being presented. leftist outreach and education does, genuinely, have a massive lack of accessible material. to be blunt, people are not interested in retrofitting their leftist outreach to be accessible to people who learn best through episodes of sesame street.
as in, i have repeatedly faced outright laughter and cruelty over the idea that this could be a priority. or even something that we consider doing at all.
"people who are that mentally disabled don't need to know about these things," the kindest interpretation goes. ("people who are that mentally disabled don't interact with the world, anyway, they're all in institutions or monitored 24/7 by their parents," the uncharitable underlying assumptions go. "they wouldn't be a worker who needs a union. or a library attendee. or a member of the community garden. or a volunteer at the food bank. or or or")
the people i have seen this hurt the worst, over and over again, are profoundly mentally disabled people of color whose lack of access to accessible antiracist education is causing real danger in their lives. institutionalized disabled people of color who have learned racist ideology and behaviors from white authority, whether they were adopted by white families or incarcerated in care institutions run by white staff. who are treated lower than garbage by leftist educators, who view them as "lost causes," as unworthy of time and effort and attention, as deserving of their abuses because they... what... internalized the abuses that make up every aspect of their lives since birth?
i see people saying things in this conversation like "disability isn't an excuse for racism or transphobia or whatever, people have the obligation to improve themselves." oh, believe me, i have seen again and again how many privileged disabled people utilize their disabilities to punch down on others, try to escape accountability for their punching down by citing disability. but individual weaponization of identity is just that: weaponization of identity.
the power structures at play are what they are. it is a noble and admirable goal to want leftist outreach and education to be more accessible to all. if that is truly your goal, you must eventually reckon with the existence of people who do, actually, really need it presented in a picture book. or an episode of bluey. or a conversation where you only use examples of people they know in real life, using things that happened to them personally. the existence of people who cannot grasp forms of abstract reasoning, who need information presented as rules, or as guidelines, or as categories. the idea that yes, fully grown adults who need daniel tiger to explain racism to them are human beings who not only deserve access to that very thing, but who also deserve to be a part of leftist spaces and benefit from leftist organizing. are people for whom it might be INTEGRAL they get to be a part of leftism. are victims of racism themselves and suffering without access to antiracist spaces and community and support.
and you will need to reckon with the abject cruelty of your peers who laugh and mock the very idea of this. you need to reckon with the fact that a lot of people you respect, a lot of leftists doing genuinely good work, will respond to this by making fun of the people you're serving, even outright telling you their violent fantasies about these people. that is the experience of organizing in leftist spaces for profoundly disabled people. that is why so many of us burn out so fast. there IS a structural problem with mentally disabled people being seen as disposable and not a part of community. and it is EXTREMELY present in leftist organizing and outreach efforts.
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Y'all I did NOT know this about Harris, and I think it's really critical that we all listen and understand as we approach this election. Video at the end.
This creator's video describes how progressive Harris was as a prosecutor -- actively going against the grain to the point she was accused of being soft on crime. Accused of being a social worker, not a prosecutor. She calls it being smart on crime. She's pushing for systemic changes to give real pathways to reintegrate incarcerated folks back into society and prevent their past from continuing to haunt them moving forward.
"Kamala's a cop" is a catchy dismissive response usually used to shut down conversation rather than add nuance. But this kind of reform is ESSENTIAL to work towards a present and future that treats incarcerated people with value.
I fell for it in 2020 and have thought "Kamala's a cop" without further inspection since - and I'm sobered by the realization that (you guessed it!) I'm not immune to propaganda.
A better system only follows liberal democracy, because library democracy allows for exploration of better systems. If authoritarianism takes hold, it will not allow for the exploration of better systems. We will have to fight tooth and nail just to try to get back to liberal democracy, and I suspect we could not achieve it in our lifetimes.
Harris isn't perfect. But she's a hell of a lot better than many leftists have led me to believe. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good. Don't let perfection be the enemy of harm reduction.
We can either help elect Trump and usher in authoritarian fascism, or we can help defeat him and pull things back in the direction we want to go. Not liking the choices doesn't absolve you from participating and doing the most good you can with the options available.
I'll link the original video in the replies. The original video has captions if you need them.
#kamala harris#2024 election#leftist hypocrisy#If we want better we have to put in the work over time. There are no instant solutions.#That means digging in our heels to prevent moving farther right.#Yep even if it means voting for a candidate you don't personally like or agree with.#Caring for your community means making strategic decisions to help everyone.#Voting your morals or whatever you call it is functionally useless in the presidential election bc of how our system works.#Save your moral votes for local elections - that's where you get the ball rolling. Put. In. The. Work.
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Project 2025 Cliff Notes:
1. Complete ban on abortions, without exceptions (pg. 449-503)
2. End marriage equality (pg. 545-581)
3. Elimination of unions and worker protections (pg. 581)
4. Defund the FBI and Homeland Security (pg. 133)
5. Eliminate federal agencies like the FDA, EPA, NOAA, and more (pg. 363-417)
6. Mass deportation of immigrants and incarceration in "camps" (pg. 133)
7. End birthright citizenship (pg. 133)
8. Cut Social Security (pg. 691)
9. Cut Medicare (pg. 449)
10. Eliminate the Department of Education (pg. 319)
11. Teach Christian religious beliefs in public schools (pg. 319)
12. Use public, taxpayer money for private religious schools (pg. 319)
13. End the Affordable Care Act (pg. 449)
14. Ban contraceptives (pg. 449)
15. Additional tax breaks for corporations and the 1% (pg. 691)
16. End civil rights & DEI protections in government (pg. 545-581)
17. Ban African American and gender studies in all levels of education (pg. 319)
18. End climate protections: (pg. 417)
19. Increase Arctic drilling (pg. 363)
20. Deregulate big business and the oil industry (pg. 363)
Not to increase anxiety, but I found this buried on Reddit. From six months ago. very good thing to have in your pocket so you are prepared
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Adding some positive news: a lot of evac orders have been lifted. Come to the Valley if you can, if not able then head southeast. Winds are dying down so that will hopefully slow the spread!
its fuckin windy
#i know evacs have been lifted for parts affected by Eaton and Hurst fires#from what i heard those big 3 still burn but the spread has diminished significantly if not stopped entirely#Calabasas is the new one atm.#but some of those smaller ones like Sunset that cropped up last night got taken out by morning!#firefighters and emergency service workers are kicking ass!!!#the loss of structures is always devastating. air quality sucks.#but my silver lining is that the death toll isn't as big as it easily could have been#i heard pasadena police were up all night knocking on people's doors to help them get out/inform them to evac!#there are incarcerated people part of a special fire program helping to put out the flames!#shit sucks but we're in this together!#aaaaaa
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A lot of people are posting about how expensive clothes, for example, are going to get if Trump goes through with tariffs, but other people are perhaps correctly identifying that our economy cannot handle producing clothes at wages American workers will accept. What’s more likely at this point is that we are just going to massively ramp up incarceration to ensure prison slave labor keeps clothing cheap. When Trump talks about “mass deportation,” expect him to create an entire incarcerated labor force with millions more people rather than actually deport anyone from the country.
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Why the foster care system needs to be reformed in South Carolina
Need for reform The foster care system has long been in need of reform and nowhere is this more evident than in the state of South Carolina. The system is plagued by issues such as a lack of resources, poor communication, and a lack of accountability. These issues have resulted in a system that is often ineffective and harmful to the children it is supposed to be helping. The first step in…
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#adoption#Child welfare#corrupt government#Foster care#Foster Child#lost children#outdated#reform#social worker burnout#Statistics#teens#Youth incarceration
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Few American writers and entertainers have managed to have careers as wild and scandalous as that of Mae West.
A vaudeville performer since childhood, she developed a distinctive sexy stage persona and signature sauntering walk that was inspired by the likes of Julian Eltinge and Bert Savoy.
In 1927, she opened her first play, Sex, which she both wrote and starred in. It centered around Margy, a high-end sex worker, and Clara, the stuck up society lady who was the mother of the man Margie falls in love with. Ticket sales were strong, but city officials were upset about the play's risqué content. West was eventually arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity.
While incarcerated, she told reporters that she'd worn her silk panties in jail, instead of the "burlap" that was usually given to prisoners. The scandal of it all sent ticket sales through the roof.
Her next play was set to be even more controversial: it was called The Drag, and it had an entire cast of homosexuals. The end scene was a massive and spectacular drag ball. The show went for ten performances before it was shut down by police.
Police threatened to shut down all of Broadway if The Drag continued to be performed, so it was cancelled. However, a censored version with a now heterosexual protagonist called The Pleasure Man was allowed to perform a year later.
Eventually, West would make her way to Hollywood and become one of the most iconic stars of the 1930s.
In 2019, The Drag was performed for the first time in many decades at Gay City in Seattle, and has since then been performed several times across the U.S.
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#y’all seem to forget the exact wording of the 13th amendment#please look up how slavery was replaced with incarceration#because the incentive to send as many people especially Black people to prison has not changed since it was ratified#(‘forced labor makes you a slave’….. the whole point of the 13th amendment loophole)#the US economy was built on cheap labor and will always look for legal avenues to have it such as the for profit prison system#for the life of me (beyond big centers that are California and New York) I have not heard of ICE raiding or arresting farmer workers#now think really hard how our argriculture can benefit from their exploited labor
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The Truth About Immigrants and the Economy
Immigrants are good for the economy and our society! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
For centuries, immigration has been America’s secret sauce for economic growth and prosperity.
But for just as long, immigrants have been an easy scapegoat.
One of the oldest, ugliest lies is to falsely smear immigrants as criminals.
It’s just not true. Crime is way down in America. Anyone who says otherwise is fearmongering.
And whatever crime there is is not being driven by immigration. Immigrants, regardless of citizenship status, are 60% less likely to be incarcerated for committing crimes than U.S.-born citizens.
Maybe that’s why border cities are among America’s safest.
Immigration opponents also claim immigrants are a drag on the economy and a drain on government resources.
Rubbish!
Quite the opposite, the major reason immigrants are coming to America is to build a better life for themselves and their families, contributing to the American economy.
The long-term economic benefits of immigration outweigh any short-term costs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that adding more immigrants as workers and consumers — including undocumented immigrants — will grow America’s economy by about $7 trillion over the next decade. And those immigrants would increase tax revenue by about $1 trillion, shrinking the deficit and helping pay for programs we all benefit from.
Immigrants of all statuses pay more in taxes than they get in government benefits. Research by the libertarian Cato Institute found first-generation immigrants pay $1.38 in taxes for every $1 they receive in benefits,
This is especially true for undocumented immigrants, who pay billions in taxes each year, but are excluded from almost all federal benefits. After all, you need documentation to receive federal benefits. Guess what undocumented immigrants don’t have. Hello?
And of course, one of the most common anti-immigrant claims also isn’t true.
No. Immigrants are not taking away jobs that Americans want. Undocumented immigrants in particular are doing some of the most dangerous, difficult, low-paying, and essential jobs in the country.
Despite what certain pundits might tell you, immigration has not stopped the U.S. from enjoying record-low unemployment.
And as the Baby Boom generation moves into retirement, young immigrants will help support Social Security by providing a thriving base of younger workers who are paying into the system. The fact that so many immigrants want to come here gives America an advantage over other countries with aging populations, like Germany and Japan.
What’s more, immigrants are particularly ambitious and hardworking. They are 80% more likely to start a new business than U.S. born citizens. Immigrant-founded businesses also impressively comprise 103 companies in last year’s Fortune 500.
And immigrants continue to add immeasurably to the richness of American culture. We should be celebrating them, not denigrating them.
It’s time to speak the facts and the truth. We need immigrants to keep our economy — and our country — vibrant and growing. They are not “poisoning the blood” of our nation. They’re renewing and restoring it.
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it is beyond disingenuous at this point to center the conversation about israel-palestine on hamas. it is unacceptable. it is actively harmful to the people of palestine who are fighting to survive an ongoing genocide. the state violence and ethnic cleansing inflicted on palestinians by the israeli military & by israeli settlers predates, by far, the existence of hamas. what the state of israel has done from its conception in 1948, the nakba, is beyond the scope of language. the catastrophe. 750000 palestinians displaced, dispossessed of their homes, stripped of their rights, subjected to every unimaginable type of violence, unlawfully detained, separated from their families, prohibited from leaving, prohibited from returning. held walking distance from the place they grew up, never able to go back. harassed by israeli soldiers and settlers. indiscriminately killed. incarcerated. unable to attain the same workers' rights. forced to endure the burning of their villages, of their olive trees, of their gardens, of their homes. and still they survive, they resist, they endure.
this conflict, this genocide, this occupation did not begin on october 7th, 2023. this conflict, this genocide, this occupation did not begin with hamas. the apartheid state of israel exists and has existed since 1948 through means of settler colonialism; it maintains its power through brutal state violence. it is delusional to believe that the inherent violence of a state conceived in settler colonialism will not beget more violence.
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Thinking of sending something to Luigi Mangione in prison? Read this first.
As a way of showing support for Luigi Mangione, much chatter has been going on about contacting or providing for him materially while he is in prison. However, one should be realistic about whether things you could send Mangione would be able to benefit from it, respond to it, or even receive it.
To be explicit: in the federal facility where Mangione is being held, in sending letters, those incarcerated are nominally limited to purchasing at most 40 domestic stamps a week; in receiving books and publications, they are limited to keeping only what can fit in the storage areas of their cells; and in receiving commissary money, they can spend only $360 of it per month.
Therefore, below is a curated list of charitable alternatives towards incarcerated people for what people are sending to Mangione, along with a Charity Navigator rating when applicable. Unless otherwise stated, all programs are limited to the United States of America.
Letters
Letters for Liberation: A prison penpaling collective that runs a public penpal program.
Prison Correspondence Project: A volunteer collective supporting LGBTQ incarcerated people in the USA and Canada, which runs a penpal program; also accepts funds to aid in sending resources and newsletters inside.
Black and Pink (rating): An organization supporting LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS positive incarcerated people, which runs a penpal program; also accepts funds for its various support programs.
Books
Books to Prisoners (rating): Distributes books nationwide; accepts funds, or used books.
LGBT Books to Prisoners (not rated): Distributes books to LGBTQ people nationwide; accepts funds, used books, or online purchases of books through wishlists.
Prison Book Program (rating): Distributes books nationwide; accepts funds, used books, or online purchases of books through wishlists.
Sex Worker Outreach Program Behind Bars: Directory of Amazon wishlists for incarcerated sex workers, trafficking victims, and survivors to purchase books directly for a person.
Women's Prison Book Program (not rated): Distributes books to cisgender and transgender women nationwide; accepts funds, used books, or online purchases of books through wishlists.
Also: check this directory of prison book programs in CA/GB/USA curated by the Prison Book Program to support a local organization more specific to a region (such as the Appalachian Book Project, serving KY, MD, OH, TN, VA, WV).
Commissary funds
The Commissary Fund (no rating): Sends commissary funds to incarcerated people in New York state.
Last Prisoner Project (rating): Among their other programs, sends commissary funds to people incarcerated for cannabis offenses.
Mission [Green] (no rating): Sends commissary funds to people incarcerated for cannabis offenses, in addition to legal advocacy.
Other forms of support
Innocence Project (rating): Criminal justice reform organization working against wrongful convictions.
The Marshall Project (rating): A nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization about the criminal justice system.
National Bail Fund Network (rating): A directory of community-led bail and bond funds throughout the nation, with the option to give to all as a collective through the directory, or pick out a specific local organization to give to.
Prison Math Project (not rated): Connects incarcerated people with mathematicians to support their interest in mathematics by correspondence.
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HOW MUCH THE POLICE & PRISON SYSTEM DO IS THE PROBLEM!!
I never get tired of seeing how liberals, since their beliefs are based on vibes more than theory, cannot conceive of people who have an idea of how to build a better society through socialism, but also don’t know how to make a compelling argument against it, so they just lean on nonsense metaphors they’ve constructed to arrive at the conclusions they want. That stupid fucking haunted house analogy utterly fails to account for the constant violence that upholds the status quo of capitalism and the looting of the imperial periphery! But they are fundamentally incapable of conceiving of the status quo as violent because that would cause them discomfort and force them to question their complicity
#like the song says “they doing too much”!#they're being used to sweep problems that should be addressed by social workers or doctors under the rug#you can't fix poverty mental illness addiction and homelessness with violence and incarceration#they're also eating up municipal budgets like wildfire budgets that could be used to actually treat the root causes of “crime”#preaching to the choir I know but come the fuck on liberals#figure it out!
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Also Preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)
What if the pandemic safety net cobbled together in 2020 had been a new beginning?
What if when Joe Biden came into office in 2021, the Covid-19 safety net he was handed had become a new floor?
What if that was his baseline—and the newly elected Democratic president, sold by his most ardent supporters as FDR 2.0, had used our Covid-19 response as the bare minimum of a new social contract with Americans?
What if the caring nature of the best aspects of the US Covid response became the map for international relations—leading not just to international cooperation on infectious disease, but on matters of war, climate and genocide?
What if, instead of dismantling the vaccine-delivery infrastructure—which, at its height, delivered some four million shots in a single day—the Biden administration built upon and made some version of it permanent, so that everyone could easily get annual Covid boosters, annual flu vaccines, or get specialty vaccinations during outbreaks of unusual viruses (such as for mpox during the 2022 summer outbreak among queer men) whenever they needed it?
What if the viral surveillance and communication mechanisms utilized for learning about SARS-CoV-2, treating it and telling the public about it were being used to address H5N1—a virus which has been moving from birds to farm mammals to humans with so little notice that dead cows were killed by the “avian flu” and left on the side of a road in California’s Central Valley, as “Thick swarms of black flies hummed and knocked against the windows of an idling car, while crows and vultures waited nearby—eyeballing the taut and bloated carcasses roasting in the October heat”?What if the leaders of the Democratic party had used Covid as a blueprint to make a national platform based on care?
What if all the ways Covid had made clear how farmers, industrial butchers, kitchen staff and other food workers are the most at risk people amongst us to viral infection led to meaningful, permanent protections, such that they were much less likely to contract not just SARS-CoV-2 but H1N1, H5N1, influenza, or any other existing or novel pathogens?
What if all the all the ways Covid exposed how unsafe industrial food production is (for the workers who make it and the people who eat it alike) had triggered safety reforms, instead of having these warnings ignored and leading towards record numbers of safety recalls for e-coli, Salmonella, and Listeria?
What if an airborne pandemic had led to indoor air being as filtered, treated and regulated as drinking water?
What if everyone with a child was still getting a $300 check from the US treasury, so that having a child was not a gambling-style risk, but a responsibility shared with all of society?
What if the paused-for-years student debts were forgiven, so that young people could actually begin their lives?
What if Biden built on Americans’ experience of just showing up somewhere to get the medical care they needed to create a universal healthcare system?
(What if Kamala Harris built upon Americans’ taste of not getting charged at the point of such service—and campaigned on Medicare for All?)
What if once the link between Covid and homelessness was established, the Democrats had pushed infectious disease as just one reason for an end to evictions and a robust, public-health-backed campaign to end homelessness and stop the United States from having more people living on the streets than any other country?
What if after the link between Covid and incarceration was established, the Democrats had pursued decarceration as a public health measure and—instead of throwing weed and cryptocurrency at us—had made reducing incarceration a centerpiece of the Harris campaign to earn the votes of Black men?
(What if after 100,000 Californians died of Covid and the links between Covid, homelessness and incarceration were clear, residents of the Golden State chose to allow rent control and to abolish legal slavery in prisons—instead of voting to ban rent control and to continue prison slavery?)
What if the leaders of the Democratic party had used Covid as a blueprint to make a national platform based on care?
Would we be in the lethal position we are now—with a genocide raging abroad, Covid deaths in the hundreds every week at home, a poisoned food supply, $17 trillion in household debt, oligarch goons ready to dismantle government regulations, and a sociopath heading back into the White House—if Covid had been the floor?
#mask up#covid#pandemic#public health#wear a mask#wear a respirator#still coviding#coronavirus#covid 19#sars cov 2#us politics#democratic party#ditch the dems
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since libs love their guilt tripping so much...
if you support biden you are PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for:
bombs being dropped on tents that cant even protect against weather let alone a fucking full sized bomb
targeted mass rape
torture, rape, and starvation of people who were incarcerated for no fucking reason
children only knowing a traumatized state of mind, living their whole lives with severe ptsd because they watched their entire family murdered in front of them
children also only knowing disability, living their entire lives with amputated limbs and injuries
hospitals and aid workers being the target of bombing and raiding, with huge mass graves of health workers and patients being the only thing left behind
soldiers disguising themselves as aid workers to infiltrate a fucking refugee camp and killing over 200 fucking people because they werent the precious hostages everyones been crying about
targeting of food systems and the killing of livestock to ensure that if guns and bombs dont kill people, starvation will
targeting of power and communication systems to make sure people cant contact family or ask for help
so many more fucking atrocities that i cant possibly write down lest i have a fucking aneurysm
you are responsible for all of this if you vote for biden. every single one
and if you have a hard time feeling anything then maybe imagine the targets of these crimes are white so you can trick yourself into caring you fucking callous pieces of shit
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