this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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Alt TextThis cartoon has four panels. All the panels show a gritty commercial doorway – the kind that’s recessed a few feet into the building – on a city sidewalk. There’s litter and graffiti here.

There are two characters in the comic strip. The first character is a homeless man sleeping in the doorway, wearing a zip-up sweatshirt over a t-shirt and a dull red knit cap, and with a full beard. The other character is a muscular-looking cop dressed in a police uniform and carrying a baton. In defiance of tradition, he is cleanshaven. I’ll call these two characters KNITCAP and COP.

PANEL 1

Knitcap, covered by a brown blanket and with his head pillowed on some rolled-up clothes, is lying in a doorway, apparently asleep. The cop is using his baton to poke knitcap in the side. The cop has a somewhat sadistic grin.

COP: Hey, you! Get up! We’ve outlawed sleeping in public! You’re not allowed anymore!

PANEL 2

Knitcap is sitting up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one hand. He speaks calmly. The cop watches, smirking, arms akimbo.

KNITCAP: In that case, I guess I’ll sleep in a hotel tonight.

PANEL 3

A close-up of Knitcap. He’s stroking his chin with a hand, as if thinking through his options.

KNITCAP: Or should I sleep in my townhouse instead? Or my Hamptons place? I’ll call my butler and ask what he thinks!

PANEL 4

Knitcap, grinning, is now holding a hand next to his face, thumb and pinky finger extended, pretending it’s a phone as he talks. The cop is glaring and slapping his baton against his palm.

KNITCAP: Smithers? Smithers old boy! My super fun street sleeping holiday is done. Which of my mansions shall I sleep in tonight.

COP (thought): Next step: Outlaw sarcasm.

Source.

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[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 101 points 1 week ago

Thanks for introducing me to this great comic and especially the source! Here's another great one from there:

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 93 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I've seen this comic a few times and ma just now noticing the mouse and cat scene playing out on the corner lol

[–] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 28 points 1 week ago

Yeah and the best part is you're lead to believe the cat is going to ambush them when it's just joining in!

[–] OlinOfTheHillPeople@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Background details rulz!

Edit: Any idea what his shirt is supposed to say?

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Looks like "No, you're Spartacus"

No idea what that's a reference to though.

[–] flicker@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And in that moment, I aged to dust.

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago

Oh don't worry I'm just horribly film illiterate

[–] modifier@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 week ago

A famous quote from a famous movie: "I am Spartacus"

[–] illi@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Should be reference to Spartacus' rebelion? When defeated, the rebeling slaves were asked to point out Spartacus to which everyome of them said "I'm Spartacus".

Or so the story goes.

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 45 points 1 week ago (1 children)

HG: "What's that? You're going to put me in a nice warm cell and be required to give me three hots and a cot?"

PO: .oO(Next step. Outlaw human rights.)

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 48 points 1 week ago

The constitutional amendment that outlawed slavery in the US provided one exception: anyone convicted of a crime.

This was a tool of Jim Crow to maintain a sizeable black slave labor force via disproportionate criminalization of black people and poverty (newly-freed previous slaves were very poor, often illiterate). It was and is a tool of modern racialized hyper-exploited labor via the prison system. And it is likely a tool that US authorities are keeping in their back pocket for the mass criminalization of the homeless.

[–] lugal@sopuli.xyz 44 points 1 week ago

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread.

Anatole France

[–] z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 week ago

Honestly, right wingers and elites have the short sighted and sick obsession with simply jailing whoever they don't like for various reasons.

This obsession with controlling the masses has already created the largest Prison Population per capita in the US. The result? Prisons give US capitalists a ready source of slave labor, and gives them complete control over the population at large.

This control is exerted via forcing compliance to societal norms through threat of incarceration, as well as the more obvious form of control via stripping of the autonomy of those already incarcerated.

Ultimately only narcicists and megalomaniacs and their most sycophantic bootlickers would remain free if these sick fascists had their way, and they (and the rest of us) would find themselves residing within a hell of their own creation: a truly fucked world where only the most power hungry are free...and truthfully they wouldn't actually be free.

Their lust for power would innevitably become their fetters.

[–] Microw@lemm.ee 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I mean, whether this cartoon makes sense heavily depends on where you're at. In parts of Europe people choose to sleep on the streets even though they would get free sleeping places in social projects. (And they have their own reasons for that, and it's fine. But still: they have that option here, it's not like they are forced to sleep on the street).

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 13 points 1 week ago

This is true. Although many shelters disallow drug taking or alcohol

[–] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 17 points 1 week ago

The cat is playing poker with two mice in the last panel.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Are you even allowed to just play Texas hold em in the streets like that? Cop needs to get his priorities straight.

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[–] Smokeydope@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

There's some real societal stigma against living and working out of a vehicle and I think thats hurting lots of people right now.

I think that we should promote living in vehicles and the nomadic lifestyle as a legitimate alternative to the conventional housing and renting system, while getting the government dollars to flow into charities like the homes on wheels alliance to help buy and convert used vehicles into minimal living spaces for those in need.

The current housing market is fucked, the current renting market is fucked, more and more people are forced to choose between paying rent and not dying of starvation, inevitably choosing the latter and getting evicted. Its going to take either a complete breakdown of the system or decades of gradual correction to fix these problems at all. In the meantime, let's swallow our pride and accept that living in a pod on wheels is better than living on the street.

Also, I think the big issue with homelessness from the perspective of most people is visibility. Its not an issue as long as you can't see it and it doesnt affect property values. Putting people in cars helps take away some visibility of that reality for the yuppies and homeowners who can't stand seeing such things. One of the comments here complained about seeing a homeless person shamelessly popping under a bridge. If that homeless person had a blacked-out van with a sleeping cot and had pooped in a bucket out of view you would never know what's going on in that random van.

Of course some homeless people are just nasty pricks who dont give a fuck and would shit in public anyways hard on that Diogenes philosophy, but thats human nature for you.

[–] Shapillon@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

I'm not sure "out of sight, out of mind" is a good solution to the unaffordability of housing in our late stage capitalism society.

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

Certainly a modest proposal.

[–] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

If they outlaw sarcasm I'm going straight to the death penalty. It was nice reading up all these posts to entertain my brain 🧠 in between tasks!

[–] Zoots@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Background details rule!!

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