Slavery was abolished after the Civil War. But it is still possible to enslave yourself in this country, and a whole industry exists for this purpose.
Consider the parolee. Someone goes to jail for a crime - perhaps a trivial crime, such as possession of marijuana. And typically, such a person will be black, as a young white offender will get a lighter sentence or probation or even have his criminal record wiped cleaned as a "youthful offender" status, thanks to his middle-class-or-better parents hiring a good lawyer.
But regardless of race, when you get into prison, you may be exploited as prison labor, which many States are doing these days, paying pennies an hour to prisoners and renting them out to outside businesses for dollars an hour. And some in law enforcement and even the legislature have argued for heftier sentences or have come out against decriminalization (or legalization) of marijuana on the grounds that their carefully-oiled machine needs warm bodies to operate. More convictions! Longer sentences! That is not how the justice system is supposed to work. Work camps is how the Nazis worked - albeit to the death.
It doesn't end there, of course. Once you are out of jail, good luck finding a job. As an ex-convict, there are few options open to you, other than, again, industries that specialize in finding distressed people and then putting them to work at low-wage shitty jobs that no one else will take. Ever wonder who cleans up that hazmat spill on the highway? A friend of mine did that once - for a week. He was the only employee not on parole.
Once you are "in the system" they pretty much have you, for life. And maybe that is justice if you killed someone or raped someone or assaulted someone or burgled their home. But for possessing a little weed? Seems kind of excessive.
Even if you are not a criminal, the system has a place for you. If you didn't value education much in school (which is easy to do in an overcrowded school where maintaining a semblance of order takes precedence over education) you will find it hard to get a job once you graduate. If you can find a part-time job (which is all low-wage employers offer these days, to avoid paying benefits) you can qualify for Obamacare and Food Stamps and an Obamaphone and maybe subsidized housing. There is, however, a work requirement in most States, so they have you locked-in to that low-wage, part-time job. This is not a "career" for you as there will be no advancement and no doubt, you will have to work the rest of your life - retirement on Social Security isn't really an option, when all you will collect is a thousand a month or so.
A relatively recent twist on this game is that the middle-class can now play as well! If you don't pay attention in school, go to an expensive college for a useless degree, and rack up tens of thousands of dollars in intractable student loan debt, you can fall down the ladder from middle-class to poverty, and join the legions of people who don't have many choices left in life.
In short, anyone can now join the army of the indentured, particularly if they are not careful. Now, granted, some would argue that these are the results of poor life choices, not destiny. And this is true - although it is easier to make better life choices when you come from a middle-class or upper-class family and your poor choices are often erased and you are given a "do-over" time and again.
On the other hand, it is pretty hard to feel sorry for someone smart enough to get into college, but not smart enough to do basic math. In the comments accompanying the above comic, some argued that even a basic college degree at a State School would cost over $100,000 with "living expenses" - which is a nebulous figure. As I noted before, I graduated after 14 years of night school, with about $38,500 in student loans in 1992. That would be the equivalent of about $82,000 today or about what our cartoon friend owes on their student loans. Funny thing, it also took me the better part of 20 years to pay it back as well. But it was never an onerous burden, and my first mortgage made the amount look pitiful. Hell, I bought a car at the time that cost half the balance on that loan.
It's not impossible to pay it back. And of course, it isn't impossible to borrow less, but it does require imagination and effort. If you can live at home and commute to school, your "living expenses" can be a lot less. Of course, a student's "living expenses" often include socializing, stylish clothes, a new gaming console, and so forth. Hey, I was a student once, too - I know how the game was played. That $38,500 that I borrowed was totally unnecessary, in retrospect. I used some of it to remodel my kitchen.
Working your way through school is also another choice, but one many are loathe to take. I enjoyed night school - all 14 years of it - working and then studying and getting real-world work experience at the same time. I was never unemployed, before or after graduation. It is a different mindset, and not one that is publicized much. The educational establishment wants you to graduate in four years and if you do get a "summer job" it is as an unpaid intern. Sounds like a raw deal to me.
So yea, there are choices to be made - difficult choices. And if you have no imagination or don't have a strong personality and believe in your own convictions, you can end up as part of the permanent underclass, whether through incarceration, or by becoming a perpetual debt slave. When you hear the groans and complaints of people who have trapped themselves this way, the common denominator is that they believe they had no choice in the matter. They merely did what they were told - what a guidance counselor or their parents said to do, or what "society" expected of them. And it all turned out wrong, so clearly they are blameless.
You know, I can sympathize more with the young black kid who attended a shitty school and was jumped into a gang at age 13 - and ended up a convicted felon. While he too, had choices to make, they were damn harder choices. And no one is talking about forgiving his non-existent student loans, either.
I'm not saying the student loan system is great, or that college tuition is rational. Only that, well, this issue has been festering for 20 years now, and people still want us to believe they had no idea this could happen to them.
And maybe they are figuring it out. Some recent reports claim that "Generation Z" is taking a pass at college, or at least taking a closer look at it before committing to such a financial burden so early in life.
Choices!
