Killing libraries is not about saving money, it's about restricting knowledge. Beware the leader that doesn't want the people to read.
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2024
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If the city cares about aaving money theu would be buying useless military hardware for the NYPD. Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, and Osaka all do fine without blowing massive amounts if the municipal budget on military gear for their police departments. The NYPD "officially' had a 2022 budget over $5billion with aroind 36,000 officers. That's comparable to the entire military budget of Romania. Hell, the NYPD has field offices in 6 foreign countries.
So you're telling me that if we just started grinding cops into a fine powder we'd not only save on their salaries and benefits, we'd also save on the amount of equipment they need and could fund things like libraries and social safety nets? And that we could sell that fine powder for uses such as food for heads, surgery, delousing, cosmetics, bomb disposal, firepower, and head transplants and fund even more things?
I'm not saying we should be grinding cops into a fine powder. I'm saying let's take a look at where we could save more money while helping more people.
Torgo's Police Powder is certainly not a thing we should turn those fucking pigs into. No sir. And if someone tries laying this at my feet I'll deny it.
You’ll have to spend some of those savings on industrial dehydrators though. It can be very difficult to get the texture of the powder right when you start grinding all willy nilly.
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If the city cared about saving money they would not spend millions of dollars to recover tens of thousands of dollars lost to turnstile hopping.
I mean, I dunno, ACAB and fuck tha police and all that jazz, but 5 bil for 36k is 138k/each, and that's not too unreasonably bad for NYC cost of living vs the inherent danger and work regime of the job as a police officer in such a populous city.
They've got 55 police per 10,000 residents. That's more than twice as many as LA per capita with a 3% decrease in violent crime per capita. That tells me we could, but definitely shouldn't, grind up one fifth of them into a fine powder freeing up a whole bunch of money in the budget. NYC does seem to have a significantly smaller property crime rate than the national average but that number is suspect. How much of that is them just not dealing with property crime and not filing the paperwork?
And that $5b? That's not their whole budget, that's their personnel budget. Total budget for FY2025 is closer to $11.9b/yr. Their salary is closer to 80k/yr/officer on average.
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Can't they just sell one of those sound-weapon equipped tanks from the NYPD to cover the entire library budget?
Sell it to whom? They're the only buyers.
Idk, Uvalde police might need it to cover up childrens' screaming next time.
Why do that when the news will do it for you?
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You don't understand though, that's millions we could throw at building another stadium for a private individual to own and profit off of!
It's the same with the federal budget and NASA. It pisses me off to no end to see the only x-ray telescope we have get the axe so we can throw fucking Raytheon more money to bomb Palestinians.
DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THE POOR BILLIONAIRES!?
It's shocking to see the assault on libraries across Appalachia. Sad to see it's a broader problem. For as little finding as they require they provide critical services. So many nasty politicos trying to win some points with the lowest common denominators of humanity must see them as an easy target.
Yeah, across the whole country even, I think people have been discouraged from reading in general. (Heck, it's hard to feel like you have time to just sit and read a book...Audiobooks FTW...)
But I'm convinced this recent anti-library culture-war push is absolutely just a big PsyOp by private and public owner-class types.
Making it about drag queens and racy books on the surface is an easy way to rile up the uneducated, to remove public free access to information without commercial motive.
Further discouraging education by cutting off access to cultural and community events, outreach, and collections is a great way to isolate people back down to consumer-individuals and grow the hate-base.
Libraries are absolutely under attack for being easy targets too, you're right. And often from the inside! Our local library district has an immensely corrupt board and executive staff. It's likely seen as an easy stepping stone to pad a resume for big CEO jobs or public office. They can get away with a lot without many people really looking too hard...
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Adams sucks and it's embarrassing that people here elected him.
It's hysterical to hear right-wing commentary about how New York Democrats are socialist Marxist communist hippies when the reality has much more goose-stepping to it.
He won by 7k votes in an election with 21% registered voter turnout.
He won not by broad appeal but rather by apathy - his voters were engaged by fear mongering bait plastered on every news outlet about "crime" so they elected a goose stepping cop.
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This is incredibly sad. Dammit.
Eric Adams is a fucking piece of shit.
It was wild to see, but New Yorkers seem to love picking the guy who promises to be the biggest asshole to homeless people.
I had the homelessness situation described to me yesterday as such: When people see homelessness, they equate it to crime. But when people think of crime, they think of violent robberies and murders. This makes those people view the homeless only through a lense of prosecution. And this view and subsequent treatment only exacerbates the problem.
I always only see this, when i encounter that image:
Sorry for the distraction.
As the cousin of a NY public librarian, fuck mayor Adams, but for so many more reasons than this.
Stop voting cops in as mayor's, because at the end of the day they're still just corrupt cops.
The picture included makes me think we should challenge the mayor's hotshot skier son to a race down Triple Diamond run, and if we win the library will be saved for us punk kids to use on Sundays.
I asked nypl to let me pay for a library card. they won't issue. they will issue if I walk into a branch, but it's a temporary card unless I can prove residency.
I don't think they should have their budget cut but I would pay a subscription fee to access it from out-of-state.
Good! How else are we supposed to fund POLICE OFFICERS who get to PICK and CHOOSE what crimes or people to Investigate if we don't defund School and Libraries?
This what happens when you elect a cop.
why is it called 'new york public library' if it only serves downstate new york
that is less than half the state, I live in new york and there are no new york public library locations near me
are you really going to let us be beaten by new jersey? new jersey?
disclaimer
I have a public library 5 minutes away, (though I guess not a 'new york public library') this comment was made mostly for the funny and more importantly to shit on new jersey
this comment was written after staying awake over 30 hours and I am (very faintly) hallucinating the factorio express belts moving on my screen
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I can't tell if this post is anti-library or what
I don't care if libraries get used or not, they NEED to be kept open. For the sake of information keeping and internet for those who don't have any at home
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