Two Party Opera by Brian Carroll for November 07, 2019

What I said yesterday.

Ah, profit! The societal prison that makes this so meta!

Screw you Mr. Economy.

The real questions are:

1: How are we going to pay for it. All of us, including the obscenely wealthy.

2: What are we going to pay for? More tax breaks for the 1%? More useless military spending? More foreign adventurism? Or maybe a “peace dividend” that involves government for the people!   I know what I would prefer.

Privatization. Well, WE can enact privatization too! Get out and VOTE AGAINST ALL REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES, at ALL levels!

It costs more per year to incarcerate a prisoner than to educate a child or provide health care, adequate food, or housing for a family for a year. Not enough profit in the latter.

I wonder how much the U.S. TAXPAYERS are paying PER CHILD PER DAY to keep The Treasonweasel’s Kiddie Koncentration Kamps open???

It brings a dime to me eye when I see one of my favorite characters bring his glory to this world. Hot-Cha-Cha for me!

Anyone who thinks the 0.1 percent are going to sit still for a “fat cats will pay for it” proposal has more faith than I do.

We pay more for prisons than we do for education.

Cut the bloated military budget in half, make the rich and the corporations pay their fair share of taxes and we can afford health care for everyone in the country.

J.P.Morgan, Commodore Vanderbilt, Jim Hill, and the other “Gilded Age” Plutocrats would like The Treasonweasel… even though they would laugh at him as a mere Piker!

Why don’t we spend that $40K per year to send criminals to Stanford? Or something else appropriately useful… On the whole, locking them up doesn’t seem to improve them much.

I remember when the March of Dimes came to the door and my parents gave me silver dimes to put in their cup. I used to believe in America then. Eisenhower was president, the rich were taxed at 90% and the country was fully functioning, it was boring.

Mr. Economy, cheered on by ghostly half-wit knuckleheads like Milton Friedman and Ronnie Reagan, is always promising to trickle down. But really, all he does is pee on us.

I have to admit that I borrowed this sound effect (which is simple yet elegant) from Brian: “Gunshot! gunshot! gunshot!”

An Invisible Hand puppet.

It really doesn’t matter if the prisons are privatized or remain State or Federal operations. The calls for reform began many decades before there was a for-profit option. The calls will continue for decades to come no matter who administers the facilities.

The notion of anything beyond punishment is a very recent concept in the human history of prisons. Education, reform, training and attitude adjustment are still a work in progress. For several decades penal reform shifted like a pendulum towards lower sentences for most crimes while simultaneously taking a hard line on other types of crime. All driven by public opinion and politics. And the pendulum is swinging back towards more severe punishment. Again a matter of public perception and reaction.

At some point we are going to have find a rational 2 track system that can separate those who can be salvaged from those who are incorrigible. We need to examine the criminal on an individual basis. It makes no sense use the same sentencing standards for career criminals and 1st offenders.

I will add this caveat. In cases of violent crime we must be harsh. Especially for repeat offenders. It is not fair to the community to be lenient with persons who deliberately injure others.

I repeat: this guy is the best political cartoonist working today. The ghost of Thomas Nast is smiling when this guy puts pen to paper.