https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/20/companies-claim-theres-a-labor-shortage-their-solution-prisoners
Is that too paranoid, or am I not thinking paranoid enough?
Not paranoid enough. They're going to start jailing people for online posts within 5 years, mark my words. They've probably started already
infinite slaves, you get a new one everytime someone says something true.
First they came for the posters, and I did not speak up because I was grilling
Yea they definitely have, I read a news story a while back about a young Navajo activist who was trying to organize a police brutality protest and they charged him with terrorism because he posted something on facebook that was obviously metaphorical about "burning it down".
Article about the Kansas candy factory that the OP article references. I did some research.
Inmates are paid 14 an hour, then deducted 25% for room/board by the prison and 5% for a "victim's fund", making the pay before tax $9.80. This isn't mentioned by the article.
8 hour night shift with a 4 hour drive making it a 12 hour worknight. With commute the wage works out to $6.53- even lower than minimum wage. Quote- “We lack a lot of sleep,” Pereira said of the work-cycle."
Of course, the women have to pay the gas mileage for the bus, also not mentioned by the article. The Topeka Correctional Facility is 94 miles from the Russel Stover chocolate factory where these women work. The women board a bus, not sure what kind but let's say a schoolbus. Schoolbus seating capacity is 72 people, so you need 3 buses since about 150 of them work in the factory. Average schoolbus mileage is 6.2 MPG which means at Kansas' avg fuel price these women are charged ~267 bucks per night they work.
The most fucked up part about the article is that, despite being ripped off, apparently some like it. Here's what two of them say:
“I had been locked up … almost five years,” said Pereira. “My social skills, my interaction with people. I was really nervous about that.” After a couple months in the program, however, “it’s the best part of my day. I’m relearning to interact with people on a normal basis,” she said.
Along similar lines, Vicory spoke about overcoming stigmas, and getting folks to see those from the prison as regular people. “During that first couple of weeks, it was about getting that humanity back,” she said. “Getting into the grand swing of humanity.”
When asked whether they thought the arrangement was fair themselves, Vicory and Pereira argued in support.
“When you’re incarcerated, you’re probably incarcerated for messing up,” Vicory said.
“Being trained to do what’s right, how can that not be fair, how can that not be just?”
Now whether they're being truthful or not is obviously in question, I'm sure badmouthing the prison work contract you're obligated to participate in would have a bad impact on a parole hearing. But aside from that, it just goes to show how much of a fucking oubliette the carceral system is. It's obviously designed not to rehabilitate humans but break them down and crush them, internalise the idea that they're just cheap meat for companies to prey on. It's so hard for convicts to integrate back into the civillian world, so when the only options are 1.back to the oubliette 2. homelessness or 3. the most vulgar exploitation of course these prisoners would "choose" to work in these kinds of sweatshops.
“When you’re incarcerated, you’re probably incarcerated for messing up,” Vicory said.
“Being trained to do what’s right, how can that not be fair, how can that not be just?”
The just world fallacy is so deeply embedded in the American psyche that people will justify their own slavery
Just like when people say "oh communism can't work because humans are inherently greedy and corrupt" as if that isn't just the fucking concept of original sin completely obliterating any hope of rational thought
How can that not be just??? The fuck. It's not even really supposed to be about justice. Everyone jerks off to this ideal of justice when what they really want is justification for their moral outrage, they want revenge, they want punishment, what they don't actually give a fuck about is ameliorating the situation. If someone steals because they're fuckin broke, what would actually make the world a better place, what would actually produce the most net good, is making sure that person who stole can get to a place on some level where they don't feel the need to steal. Fucking throwing them in a cage does nothing for nobody except the fucking monsters who own prisons.
The real problem with oh no humans are selfish is that the aims socialism and communism is to better meet the reasonable selfish desires of the working class at the expense of the unreasonable selfish desires of the bourgeoise.
For example "I want to eat today" is a selfish desire
Yeah, I mean, I talk a good edgelord about Central Parking the rich in Minecraft. But what I really want is the rich to stop being rich, oppressors to stop being oppressors, settler chuds to stop being settlers. That's all. All they have to do is stop.
They don't even have to help fix things, and I'll leave them alone to live normal, obscure, ordinary lives.
They won't, of course. And so the Gulags and Guillotines start rolling out. But it's not a good thing, just the consequence of a long chain of material conditions and collective choices.
It's not about some moral revenge. It's about simply removing the barriers to a better world.
Stuff like this is because even a lot of prisoners/criminals don't have enough entitlement.
A random (and probably POC) poor actually feels guilty about shoplifting a pack of cigarettes one time or w/e
But doesn't understand the scale of theft that they did to his people. He could steal $20,000 worth of cigarettes and he still wouldn't have evened the score, but the sheer scale of propaganda has turned him into feeling guilty about breaking the rules that were written after the fact
Inmates are paid 14 an hour, then deducted 25% for room/board by the prison and 5% for a “victim’s fund”, making the pay before tax $9.80. This isn’t mentioned by the article.
8 hour night shift with a 4 hour drive making it a 12 hour worknight. This means they are really paid 82 cents an hour.
Can you break down this math for me? I'm not getting the cut from $9.80/hour all the way down to $0.82/hour.
$9.80/12, I'm not sure if they intended to write $9.80 per day. The effective rate is like $6.53 per hour if they did intend to write $9.80 per hour
The most fucked up part about the article is that, despite being ripped off, apparently some like it.
As I see it they're not just saying this out of fear of retaliation. They have internalised the ideology of the system and genuinely believe themselves to be inferior and unworthy of dignified conditions.
I think a great driving factor for this is a basic human need to be included in community. These women are being denounced for being morally deficient and excluded from society and are then told that they can be let back in by prostrating themselves and accepting exploitation as penance for their sins.
This means they are really paid 82 cents an hour.
Your math doesn't work out, unless you meant $14/day rather than per hour initially.
The most fucked up part about the article is that, despite being ripped off, apparently some like it.
Prisons are absolutely nightmarish and not being in prison is often its own reward.
But thanks to Reaganomics, prison turned to profits
'Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics
'Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison
You think I am bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment
Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits
That's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits
I know, fuck Killer Mike and everything, but he had some good bars
Killer Mike is the living embodiment of a guy struggling to do the right thing with a lot of wrong information.
So, didn't take them long to resort to slavery.
Where are these charitable, merit having business owners we were told deserve our adoration?
Huh, imagine that, the capitalists would literally rather use actual slaves than pay a living wage. Fuck this fucking place
yeah having a class of people that can be forced to work for free undermines everybody's position
FUCK YOU PRISON STATE PAY ME THE FULL AMOUNT OF MY SURPLUS VALUE
Speaking loudly on the internet? That'll be another 10 years on the chain gang.
Errrr...the media is already imagining and publishing rabidly too.
This isn't so much the Reserve Army of Labour as the Labour equivalent of selecting "Scraping the Barrel" in HOI4
I initially misread the article snippet, and thought they were discussing having prisoners employed as commercial drivers.
Still, I am bemused by the image of handing an inmate the keys to a big rig and then them just driving off into the sunset.
