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generallyjl · 1 year

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this twitter blue shit is absolutely murdering me genuinely what the fuck are you little weirdos talking about

"george washington wants you to pay $8 a month for free speech" is not the serious take you want it to be but it is sooooooo absurdly fucking funny

#like technically they are fully absolutely correct about u.s. founding fathers hiding freedom/rights behind economic barriers #but very much not in the way they want it to be #elon musk #twitter #twitter blue #filter out those tags as desired pls it is truly an unhinged dumpster fire over there with a big ol fasc-y stink in the air #images not described #ill go back to add that this evening #anyways this is why nobody wants this shit no matter how hard musk tries to force it on them now #basically everybody who paid for that little blue checkmark is Like This about it and just in general

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brw · 7 months

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"but hamas is getting funded by extremist islamic hate groups!" do you think the U.S. government and military giving funding for israeli's war efforts against palestinians is a morally neutral and inherently righteous body that had no influence in the politics of southwest asia as a global colonial superpower. do you really think anything you can say about the people resisting oppression can't be said about the oppressors.

#brieuc.txt #palestine #this isnt me justifying it but it is me pointing out the double standard how hamas' funding is antithetical to the freedom movement #but the u.s.' influence and financial support is completely fine and doesnt need to be brought up at all #''hamas doesnt have the best interests of palestinian people'' may be true but the alternative is not allowing an apartheid state to exist #also its a ridiculous thing to say because thats a common thing in most countries #neo-nazi groups r a major problem in the Ukraine military but nobody questions ukraine's right for freedom.#the double standards keep on piling up #im not saying you cant criticise these groups but is it criticism or is it propaganda #are you talking abt how war radicalises and changes n traumatises people or are you implying every palestinian is a dirty terrorist #etc #and do you understand that in an active war zone n worlds largest open air prison violence is guaranteed and is brutal.#or do you think that if the people with no electricity and water just Werent So Stubborn And Talked everything would be okay?#and do you consider white people fighting for freedom martyrs but brown people doing the same terrorists

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 days

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Greedflation, but for prisoners

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (Apr 21) in TORINO, then Marin County (Apr 27), Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

Today in "Capitalists Hate Capitalism" news: The Appeal has published the first-ever survey of national prison commissary prices, revealing just how badly the prison profiteer system gouges American's all-time, world-record-beating prison population:

https://theappeal.org/locked-in-priced-out-how-much-prison-commissary-prices/

Like every aspect of the prison contracting system, prison commissaries – the stores where prisoners are able to buy food, sundries, toiletries and other items – are dominated by private equity funds that have bought out all the smaller players. Private equity deals always involve gigantic amounts of debt (typically, the first thing PE companies do after acquiring a company is to borrow heavily against it and then pay themselves a hefty dividend).

The need to service this debt drives PE companies to cut quality, squeeze suppliers, and raise prices. That's why PE loves to buy up the kinds of businesses you must spend your money at: dialysis clinics, long-term care facilities, funeral homes, and prison services.

Prisoners, after all, are a literal captive market. Unlike capitalist ventures, which involve the risk that a customer will take their business elsewhere, prison commissary providers have the most airtight of monopolies over prisoners' shopping.

Not that prisoners have a lot of money to spend. The 13th Amendment specifically allows for the enslavement of convicted criminals, and so even though many prisoners are subject to forced labor, they aren't necessarily paid for it:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/02/captive-customers/#guillotine-watch

Six states ban paying prisoners anything. North Carolina caps prisoners' pay at one dollar per day. Nationally, prisoners earn $0.52/hour, while producing $11b/year in goods and services:

https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2024/0324bowman.html

So there's a double cruelty to prison commissary price-gouging. Prisoners earn far less than any other kind of worker, and they pay vastly inflated prices for the necessities of life. There's also a triple cruelty: prisoners' families – deprived of an incarcerated breadwinner's earnings – are called upon to make up the difference for jacked up commissary prices out of their own strained finances.

So what does prison profiteering look like, in dollars and sense? Here's the first-of-its-kind database tracking the costs of food, hygiene items and religious items in 46 states:

https://theappeal.org/commissary-database/

Prisoners rely heavily on commissaries for food. Prisons serve spoiled, inedible food, and often there isn't enough to go around – prisoners who rely on the food provided by their institutions literally starve. This is worst in prisons where private equity funds have taken over the cafeteria, which is inevitable accompanied by swingeing cuts to food quality and portions:

https://theappeal.org/prison-food-virginia-fluvanna-correctional-center/

So you have one private equity fund starving prisoners, and another that's gouging them on food. Or sometimes it's the same company. Keefe Group, owned by HIG Capital, provides commissaries to prisons whose cafeterias are managed by other HIG Capital portfolio companies like Trinity Services Group. HIG also owns the prison health-care company Wellpath – so if they give you food poisoning, they get paid twice.

Wellpath delivers "grossly inadequate healthcare":

https://theappeal.org/massachusetts-prisons-wellpath-dentures-teeth/

And Trinity serves "meager portions of inedible food":

https://theappeal.org/clayton-county-jail-sheriff-election/

When prison commissaries gouge on food, no part of the inventory is spared, even the cheapest items. In Florida, a packet of ramen costs $1.06, 300% more inside the prison than it does at the Target down the street:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24444312-fl_doc_combined_commissary_lists#document/p6/a2444049

America's prisoners aren't just hungry, they're also hot. The climate emergency is sending temperatures in America's largely un-air-conditioned prisons soaring to dangerous levels. Commissaries capitalize on this, too: an 8" fan costs $40 in Delaware's Sussex Correctional Institution. In Georgia, that fan goes for $32 (but prisoners are not paid for their labor in Georgia pens). And in scorching Texas, the commissary raised the price of water by 50% last summer:

https://www.tpr.org/criminal-justice/2023-07-20/texas-charges-prisoners-50-more-for-water-for-as-heat-wave-continues

Toiletries are also sold at prices that would make an airport gift-shop blush. Need denture adhesive? That's $12.28 in an Idaho pen, triple the retail price. 15% of America's prisoners are over 55. The Keefe Group – sister company to the "grossly inadequate" healthcare company Wellpath – operates that commissary. In Oregon, the commissary charges a 200% markup on hearing-aid batteries. Vermont charges a 500% markup on reading glasses. Imagine spending decades in prison: toothless, blind, and deaf.

Then there's the religious items. Bibles and Christmas cards are surprisingly reasonable, but a Qaran will run you $26 in Vermont, where a Bible is a mere $4.55. Kufi caps – which cost $3 or less in the free world – go for $12 in Indiana prisons. A Virginia prisoner needs to work for 8 hours to earn enough to buy a commissary Ramadan card (you can buy a Christmas card after three hours' labor).

Prison price-gougers are finally facing a comeuppance. California's new BASIC Act caps prison commissary markups at 35% (California commissaries used to charge 63-200% markups):

https://theappeal.org/price-gouging-in-california-prisons-newsom-signature/

Last year, Nevada banned any markup on hygiene items:

https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/82nd2023/Bill/10425/Overview

And prison tech monopolist Securus has been driven to the brink of bankruptcy, thanks to the activism of Worth Rises and its coalition partners:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/08/money-talks/

When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. Prisons show us how businesses would treat us if they could get away with it.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/20/captive-market/#locked-in

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the--firevenus · 23 days

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The embodiment of hope is a 12 year old kid

#Atla motivate me to draw again so here more aang <33 #I like to imagine him being free and happy in the air.. Part of it cuz that's his element.. Part of it just feels so right #Sometimes I think about that post which talk about him being a symbol of freedom and joy in a world that hasn't see it for a century #And he's just a kid....... Hope joy and freedom live in a body of a kid.....#firevenus art #atla fanart #fanart #avatar the last airbender #atla #aang #avatar aang

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tapewires · 7 months

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I call up my friend, the good angel

#art #fanart #monument mythos #freedom monument mythos #air force one angel

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mimilllion · 1 year

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love is all u need

#monument mythos #mister manticore #freedom faller #air force one angel #afoa #everett #fanart #analog horror #analog horror fanart #they saved the world with power and friendship #this started out as a joke drawing but i got too attatched

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johnslittlespoon · 1 month

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thinking about how gale and john were each other's best men and stayed best friends for two decades and then gale had to go to john's funeral before either of them even hit 50.

#i just woke up this is not a good start #someone get me out of here #i said i wasn't gonna angst post anymore but this shit shatters my heart #having to lose your best friend so soon after you both finally get freedom #there was still so much life to be lived #buck x bucky #buckbucky #masters of the air

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sig-nifier · 16 days

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It had been four years since Gale Cleven had found one “Bucky” Egan almost bleeding to death in his stables, and life had been far better for it. The town of Lemmon welcomed their new Deputy sincerely, a pleasant change to the lawman who had come before him, and Bucky had responded to their acceptance with pleasing smiles and endearing quips. Even brothers, Crosby and Bubbles, had started to fear him less, and like him more. John had slipped into Gale’s world and knocked it out of orbit, into a kinder, softer galaxy. - Rosie’s holding a letter in his hand. “Bucky home yet?” He asks carefully. “I ain’t seen him.” All Gale can do is shake his head, dread building in his lungs. In his peripheral, Curt stands up. “He okay?” Curt asks. “Course he is,” Gale snaps, and then regrets it. He says, softer, “when you known him not to be okay?” - The one where Deputy John Egan doesn’t come home for a few days, and Gale sets out to find him. (Can be read as a sequel to Wild Things, or a standalone.)

YEEHAW PARTNER

i honestly wasn't going to do this so soon but my hands slipped and the western au is just such a fun world to write that i couldn't help it

you can treat this as a sequel to wild things or its own thing, if you'd rather leave wild things with the ending it had. i've tried to make it so that u can read the new series as its own story, if thats what u want to do :)

#clegan #masters of the air #bucky x buck #mota #masters of the air fic #buck x bucky #mota fic #buck cleven #bucky egan #gale cleven #john egan #gale buck cleven #john bucky egan #john x gale #gale x john #wild things #seven miles out of freedom town

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softfloralribbon · 4 months

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I havent drawn them in a while tbh. The sillies

#the monument mythos #monument mythos #everett arnoldson #air force one angel #statue of freedom #florettes art

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nocternalrandomness · 2 months

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Norway F-16 launches on a combat sortie from Kabul Afghanistan - 2006

#Royal Norwegian Air Force #F-16 #Viper #military aviation #combat aircraft #Operation Enduring Freedom #OEF

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stalegravyart · 1 year

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this idea came to me in a dream.

jokes aside i kind of hazily conjured the idea that the crescent king would be a father figure to virginia if they ever met, and it kinda evolved into this abomination. :]

#the monument mythos #monument mythos #the nixonverse #freedom #air force one angel #crescent king #virginia arnoldson #my art #digital art #sketchbook app #youtube horror #mister manticore #cosmic horror #fanart

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averagewheatley · 6 months

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watching wendigoon explain the monument mythos again because i love this fucking series and i love the perfect union. shoutout to my boy everett, my boy thomas crawford, my unidentified 17 crown airship death ray shooting gun operating army men and my girl nina crawford and my 20ft tall absolutely horrific man-made horror beyond my comprehension statue of freedom.