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The Prison State Of America
Submitted by Chris Hedges via TruthDig,
Prisons employ and exploit the ideal worker. Prisoners do not receive benefits or pensions. They are not paid overtime. They are forbidden to organize and strike. They must show up on time. They are not paid for sick days or granted vacations. They cannot formally complain about working conditions or safety hazards. If they are disobedient, or attempt to protest their pitiful wages, they lose their jobs and can be sent to isolation cells. The roughly 1 million prisoners who work for corporations and government industries in the American prison system are models for what the corporate state expects us all to become. And corporations have no intention of permitting prison reforms that would reduce the size of their bonded workforce. In fact, they are seeking to replicate these conditions throughout the society.
States, in the name of austerity, have stopped providing prisoners with essential items including shoes, extra blankets and even toilet paper, while starting to charge them for electricity and room and board. Most prisoners and the families that struggle to support them are chronically short of money. Prisons are company towns. Scrip, rather than money, was once paid to coal miners, and it could be used only at the company store. Prisoners are in a similar condition. When they go broke—and being broke is a frequent occurrence in prison—prisoners must take out prison loans to pay for medications, legal and medical fees and basic commissary items such as soap and deodorant. Debt peonage inside prison is as prevalent as it is outside prison.
States impose an array of fees on prisoners. For example, there is a 10 percent charge imposed by New Jersey on every commissary purchase. Stamps have a 10 percent surcharge. Prisoners must pay the state for a 15-minute deathbed visit to an immediate family member or a 15-minute visit to a funeral home to view the deceased. New Jersey, like most other states, forces a prisoner to reimburse the system for overtime wages paid to the two guards who accompany him or her, plus mileage cost. The charge can be as high as $945.04. It can take years to pay off a visit with a dying father or mother.
Fines, often in the thousands of dollars, are assessed against many prisoners when they are sentenced. There are 22 fines that can be imposed in New Jersey, including the Violent Crime Compensation Assessment (VCCB), the Law Enforcement Officers Training & Equipment Fund (LEOT) and Extradition Costs (EXTRA). The state takes a percentage each month out of prison pay to pay down the fines, a process that can take decades. If a prisoner who is fined $10,000 at sentencing must rely solely on a prison salary he or she will owe about $4,000 after making payments for 25 years. Prisoners can leave prison in debt to the state. And if they cannot continue to make regular payments—difficult because of high unemployment—they are sent back to prison. High recidivism is part of the design.
Corporations have privatized most of the prison functions once handled by governments. They run prison commissaries and, since the prisoners have nowhere else to shop, often jack up prices by as much as 100 percent. Corporations have taken over the phone systems and charge exorbitant fees to prisoners and their families. They grossly overcharge for money transfers from families to prisoners. And these corporations, some of the nation’s largest, pay little more than a dollar a day to prison laborers who work in for-profit prison industries. Food and merchandise vendors, construction companies, laundry services, uniforms companies, prison equipment vendors, cafeteria services, manufacturers of pepper spray, body armor and the array of medieval instruments used for the physical control of prisoners, and a host of other contractors feed like jackals off prisons. Prisons, in America, are a hugely profitable business.
Our prison-industrial complex, which holds 2.3 million prisoners, or 25 percent of the world’s prison population, makes money by keeping prisons full. It demands bodies, regardless of color, gender or ethnicity. As the system drains the pool of black bodies, it has begun to incarcerate others. Women—the fastest-growing segment of the prison population—are swelling prisons, as are poor whites in general, Hispanics and immigrants. Prisons are no longer a black-white issue. Prisons are a grotesque manifestation of corporate capitalism. Slavery is legal in prisons under the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States. …” And the massive U.S. prison industry functions like the forced labor camps that have existed in all totalitarian states.
Corporate investors, who have poured billions into the business of mass incarceration, expect long-term returns. And they will get them. It is their lobbyists who write the draconian laws that demand absurdly long sentences, deny paroles, determine immigrant detention laws and impose minimum-sentence and three-strikes-out laws (mandating life sentences after three felony convictions). The politicians and the courts, subservient to corporate power, can be counted on to protect corporate interests.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest owner of for-profit prisons and immigration detention facilities in the country, had revenues of $1.7 billion in 2013 and profits of $300 million. CCA holds an average of 81,384 inmates in its facilities on any one day. Aramark Holdings Corp., a Philadelphia-based company that contracts through Aramark Correctional Services to provide food to 600 correctional institutions across the United States, was acquired in 2007 for $8.3 billion by investors that included Goldman Sachs.
The three top for-profit prison corporations spent an estimated $45 million over a recent 10-year period for lobbying that is keeping the prison business flush. The resource center In the Public Interest documented in its report “Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and ‘Low-Crime Taxes’ Guarantee Profits for Private Prison Corporations” that private prison companies often sign state contracts that guarantee prison occupancy rates of 90 percent. If states fail to meet the quota they have to pay the corporations for the empty beds.
CCA in 2011 gave $710,300 in political contributions to candidates for federal or state office, political parties and so-called 527 groups (PACs and super PACs), the American Civil Liberties Union reported. The corporation also spent $1.07 million lobbying federal officials plus undisclosed sums to lobby state officials, according to the ACLU.
The United States, from 1970 to 2005, increased its prison population by about 700 percent, according to statistics gathered by the ACLU. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the ACLU report notes, says for-profit companies presently control about 18 percent of federal prisoners and 6.7 percent of all state prisoners. Private prisons account for nearly all newly built prisons. And nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government are shipped to for-profit prisons, according to Detention Watch Network.
But corporate profit is not limited to building and administering prisons. Whole industries now rely almost exclusively on prison labor. Federal prisoners, who are among the highest paid in the U.S. system, making as much as $1.25 an hour, produce the military’s helmets, uniforms, pants, shirts, ammunition belts, ID tags and tents. Prisoners work, often through subcontractors, for major corporations such as Chevron, Bank of America, IBM, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Starbucks, Nintendo, Victoria’s Secret, J.C. Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Eddie Bauer, Wendy’s, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Fruit of the Loom, Motorola, Caterpillar, Sara Lee, Quaker Oats, Mary Kay, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, Dell, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin and Target. Prisoners in some states run dairy farms, staff call centers, take hotel reservations or work in slaughterhouses. And prisoners are used to carry out public services such as collecting highway trash in states such as Ohio.
States, with shrinking budgets, share in the corporate exploitation. They get kickbacks of as much as 40 percent from corporations that prey on prisoners. This kickback money is often supposed to go into “inmate welfare funds,” but prisoners say they rarely see any purchases made by the funds to improve life inside prison.
The wages paid to prisoners for labor inside prisons have remained stagnant and in real terms have declined over the past three decades. In New Jersey a prisoner made $1.20 for eight hours of work—yes, eight hours of work—in 1980 and today makes $1.30 for a day’s labor. Prisoners earn, on average, $28 a month. Those incarcerated in for-profit prisons earn as little as 17 cents an hour.
However, items for sale in prison commissaries have risen in price over the past two decades by as much as 100 percent. And new rules in some prisons, including those in New Jersey, prohibit families to send packages to prisoners, forcing prisoners to rely exclusively on prison vendors. This is as much a psychological blow as a material one; it leaves families feeling powerless to help loved ones trapped in the system.
A bar of Dove soap in 1996 cost New Jersey prisoners 97 cents. Today it costs $1.95, an increase of 101 percent. A tube of Crest toothpaste cost $2.35 in 1996 and today costs $3.49, an increase of 48 percent. AA batteries have risen by 184 percent, and a stick of deodorant has risen by 95 percent. The only two items I found that remained the same in price from 1996 were frosted flake cereal and cups of noodles, but these items in prisons have been switched from recognizable brand names to generic products. The white Reebok shoes that most prisoners wear, shoes that lasts about six months, costs about $45 a pair. Those who cannot afford the Reebok brand must buy, for $20, shoddy shoes with soles that shred easily. In addition, prisoners are charged for visits to the infirmary and the dentist and for medications.
Keefe Supply Co., which runs commissaries for an estimated half a million prisoners in states including Florida and Maryland, is notorious for price gouging. It sells a single No. 10 white envelope for 15 cents—$15 per 100 envelopes. The typical retail cost outside prison for a box of 100 of these envelopes is $7. The company marks up a 3-ounce packet of noodle soup, one of the most popular commissary items, to 45 cents from 26 cents.
Global Tel Link, a private phone company, jacks up phone rates in New Jersey to 15 cents a minute, although some states, such as New York, have relieved the economic load on families by reducing the charge to 4 cents a minute. The Federal Communications Commission has determined that a fair rate for a 15-minute interstate call by a prisoner is $1.80 for debit and $2.10 for collect. The high phone rates imposed on prisoners, who do not have a choice of carriers and must call either collect or by using debit accounts that hold prepaid deposits made by them or their families, are especially damaging to the 2 million children with a parent behind bars. The phone is a lifeline for the children of the incarcerated.
Monopolistic telephone contracts give to the states kickbacks amounting, on average, to 42 percent of gross revenues from prisoner phone calls, according to Prison Legal News. The companies with exclusive prison phone contracts not only charge higher phone rates but add to the phone charges the cost of the kickbacks, called “commissions” by state agencies, according to research conducted in 2011 by John E. Dannenberg for Prison Legal News. Dannenberg found that the phone market in state prison systems generates an estimated $362 million annually in gross revenues for the states and costs prisoners’ families, who put money into phone accounts, some $143 million a year.
When strong family ties are retained, there are lower rates of recidivism and fewer parole violations. But that is not what the corporate architects of prisons want: High recidivism, now at over 60 percent, keeps the cages full. This is one reason, I suspect, why prisons make visitations humiliating and difficult. It is not uncommon for prisoners to tell their families—especially those that include small children traumatized by the security screening, long waits, body searches, clanging metal doors and verbal abuse by guards—not to visit. Prisoners with life sentences frequently urge loved ones to sever all ties with them and consider them as dead.
The rise of what Marie Gottschalk, the author of “Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics,” calls “the carceral state” is ominous. It will not be reformed through elections or by appealing to political elites or the courts. Prisons are not, finally, about race, although poor people of color suffer the most. They are not even about being poor. They are prototypes for the future. They are emblematic of the disempowerment and exploitation that corporations seek to inflict on all workers. If corporate power continues to disembowel the country, if it is not impeded by mass protests and revolt, life outside prison will soon resemble life in prison.
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Hunger Games coming to a district near you.
The wall st funded jail market crash when drugs are legalized
http://y2u.be/VI6tBwVjyOY
Drug crimes will be replaced with debt crimes in the future.
I don't defend the drug laws at all, but too many folks assume the goal posts don't move. They will. And not paying debt will become the new crime that gets you imprisonded. All part of the planned crash that is coming, one way or the other.
Better get your shit together now!
Regards,
Cooter
EDIT: Very 70s (if y'all don't mind) ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjbo-JLnHZQ
CrazyCooter, that was Comment of the Year.
So, kill off all the citizen workers, and replace with prisoners for just a meager improvement in their lifestyle.
'Drug crimes will be replaced with debt crimes in the future.'
Political and thought crimes, too. Some of the oligarchs have already proclaimed that proponents of individual sovereignty are enemies of the state, and associating the sentiment of 'hate' with various criminal acts can increase sentences considerably.
The state is arbitrarily establishing a pseudo-right to be unoffended. But this illegitimate and false 'right' is nothing more than a delegated priviledge provided to populations with political capital. It doesn't work, so the state will attribute failure to the narrow definiation of 'hate'.
How long before anger, frustration, and impatience are included? What other sentiments might the state deem inappropriate? Perhaps teaching kids gun safety or the fallacy of global warming will be considered 'corruption of the youth'. I think some smart guy died for that once. Or maybe not; maybe he died because he annoyed the state and the state's sophists figured out a politically adventagous way to dispatch him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPECjlMpliU
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-12/harry-reid-proclaims-anarchists...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_crime_laws_in_the_United_States
A privatized prison system is one of the greatest abominations ever foisted upon mankind.
I usually dislike the word abomination, which I prefer to keep in the pages of religious books, but I broadly agree
there are several things that should not, imo, be privatized, subjected to the demands of capital, markets and the profit motive, in short, capitalistic
prisons ought to be the domain of the state. thanks to it's "socialistic" inefficiency, the state is usually not that easily capable of transforming them into a growing business
what the US has now is a huge profitable beast that is enslaving millions and making huge profits out of that, including lobbyists finding ways to milk the taxpayer, too
armies ought to be the domain of the state. thanks to it's "socialistic" inefficiency, the state is usually not that easily capable of transforming them into a growing business
what the US has now is a huge profitable mercenary industry that is lobbying for war and making huge profits out of that, on the back of the taxpayer, of course
basic healthcare ought to be the domain of the state. thanks to it's "socialistic" inefficiency, the state is usually not that easily capable of transforming them into a growing business
what the US has now is a huge profitable beast that is making millions sick and making huge profits out of that, including lobbyists finding ways to milk the taxpayer, too
key infrastructure ought to be the domain of the state. thanks to it's "socialistic" inefficiency, the state is usually not that easily capable of transforming them into a growing business
to this, have a look at the US railways: again, they have become the monopoly of one oligarch, a veritable throwback to the Robber Baron era
some stuff ought to be the domain of the state and it's "socialistic" tendencies because of it's inefficiency and because it's easier to keep transparent what ought to be transparent
note: it's not always about common goods, it's often about common bads. prisons are there because of crime, a common bad. armies are supposed to be there because of enemies, a common bad. basic healthcare is supposed to be because of illnesses like pestilences, a common bad. and private monopolies are a common bad
this is my main criticism of Libertarianism, despite the fact that I'm extremely sympathetic to the Austrian School: very few good answers against common bads. as long as there is no libertarian solution to common bads, I ask the state to take care of that
another common bad: student debt, leading to debt serfdom. there, I see an excess of personal freedom leading to the opposite of freedom, veritable lifelong serfdom
just my personal political stance, call me statist, if you want
Couldn´t agree with you more man. I am also a follower of the austrian school and mostly a libertarian but some parts of society just has to be seperate from the free market.
Running prisons, schools, armies and hospitals should be done without profit motive.
Apparently you missed this from the article........
"There are 22 fines that can be imposed in New Jersey, including the Violent Crime Compensation Assessment (VCCB), the Law Enforcement Officers Training & Equipment Fund (LEOT) and Extradition Costs (EXTRA). The state takes a percentage each month out of prison pay to pay down the fines, a process that can take decades. If a prisoner who is fined $10,000 at sentencing must rely solely on a prison salary he or she will owe about $4,000 after making payments for 25 years. Prisoners can leave prison in debt to the state. And if they cannot continue to make regular payments—difficult because of high unemployment—they are sent back to prison. High recidivism is part of the design."
The "design" by the now privatized prison system..
."
Already seen this happen with people who are being imprisoned for outstanding fines/levies in local/county jails and put in prison for that debt. Supreme Court ruled on it earlier this year but it didn't completely do away with it:
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/313118629/supreme-court-ruling-not-enough-...
Another reason I support the ACLU (saw that will get a bunch of red down votes) but they have made this one of their bigger issues and vehemently fought against any kind of debtor prison and sentencing in the past few years.
That or robotics will become even more economical, and the prisioners will be dumped on society
It's just North Korean labor camps with a different spin. But we are better some how.
Look up N.K. Prisoners working in Russia harvesting timber. All proceeds go back to N.K. No kidding, google it. Coming to' 'Merica soon.
Don't criticize dear leader or off to forced labor you go.
The wall st funded jail market crash when drugs are legalized
http://y2u.be/VI6tBwVjyOY
Some would say its the inevitable progression of those babies who jumped the queue at the inner city Planned Parenthoods and the statistics were not in their favor.
yes, so fucking true, but americans can't understand that even if they saw a movie
I do love it so when foreigners cast stones from glass houses ;-)
Moscow: Several thousand people rallied near Red Square today to protest the conviction of the top Kremlin critic and his brother, in one of the boldest opposition demonstrations in Russia in years.
The unsanctioned protest came hours after Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner and chief foe of President Vladimir Putin, was found guilty of fraud and given a suspended sentence of three and half years. His brother was sent to prison.
The convictions are widely seen as a political vendetta for Navalny's role as a leading opposition figure."
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/thousands-protest-near-red-square-over-conviction-of-top-kremlin-critic-642027
Well, lets unpack this.
In Russia "protests" have to be sanctioned...by whom, the state? And why oh ever why would an "anti-corruption campaigner" be found guilty of fraud and given a suspended sentence?
Time to crack some heads Yuri?...lol.
I will tell you.
We have a sanctionated demonstrations, so if you want to tell something to our government you need to booked place and time, so you don't messed up all city communications. It's like a parking place. It's pretty simple procedure.
Second there was 200 people for Navalny, 200 against him and 100 cops, it was a really small number of people
Third Navalny was guilty "Moscow Court today delivered its verdict Alexei Navalny - 3.5 years with a probation period. His brother Oleg was 3.5 years a penal colony and was taken into custody in the courtroom. In addition, the Court sought to Navalny more than 4 million rubles under the claim of the victim and ordered both a fine of 500 thousand Rubles"
I don't know details of a crime and his role in them, so i can't say anything about verdict
Forth He is not an "anti-corruption campaigner" - he is a fucking usa puppet. USA using him to make a tv show for dumb western public.
he is like a Dalai Lama from CHina- the same usa puppet. It is so fucking obvious
BTW most of this protectors came from Ukraine, they were using ukraine words, technic and many other things
I don't know details of a crime and his role in them, so i can't say anything about verdict
Nor can I, BUT, the charges were filed by the Non-Russian French company these two defrauded of a very large sum of money by cheating on a contract and agreed upon charges. So Putin did not file charges, a French company did. The second time these two brothers have been taken to trial for fraud.
What French company?
////
Well? ;-)
The main accused of the criminal case has once again become the company GPA, which, according to investigators, is controlled by brothers Navalny and through which they had previously stolen about 55 million rubles from cosmetic french corporation "LLC" Yves Rocher East. "
"An Yves Rocher executive submitted a complaint to investigators, but its representatives insisted throughout the trial that there was never any damage. Also, the French executive who wrote the complaint left Russia shortly afterward and never attended the hearings."
http://hosted2.ap.org/CABAR/APWorldNews/Article_2014-12-30-EU-Russia-Opposition/id-90cd6c6020a54c7a93fa9f306195c636
So lemme see if I have this straight.
The company's representatives say it was not damaged...yet the Russian court system insists they were (apparently Yves Rocher is too stupid to know if it was or not)...and the Yves Rocher executive who filed the complaint against Navalny left Russia shortly after filing it and never returned for the trial to be cross examined by Navalny's lawyer.
That about sum it up?
Yes, no doubt about it, moar USA puppetry ;-)
We'll keep hearing the name Alexey Navalny until the fact that he is fully subsidized by the US State Department through the National Endowment of Democracy is widely exposed, and like Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei, cast aside as extra-baggage.
Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ff5_1419989632#GUmmbYY2s3QsVUwD.99 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ff5_1419989632
"We have a sanctionated demonstrations,..."
Indeed, I know you do.
"...so if you want to tell something to our government you need to booked place and time, so you don't messed up all city communications. It's like a parking place. It's pretty simple procedure."
And if they say no?
"Second there was 200 people for Navalny, 200 against him and 100 cops, it was a really small number of people"
Sounds like complete equality & spontaneity...lol.
"Third Navalny was guilty "Moscow Court today delivered its verdict Alexei Navalny - 3.5 years with a probation period. His brother Oleg was 3.5 years a penal colony and was taken into custody in the courtroom."
Do tell, hard labor in service for the state? Any chance for appeal as he slaves away?
"Forth He is not an "anti-corruption campaigner" - he is a fucking usa puppet. USA using him to make a tv show for dumb western public."
Seems there is a lot of eastern people saying everything is a USA puppet or conspiracy meant for the dumb western public these days. Must be nice to have such unity of opinion, what of the minority opinion? ;-)
//////
Wait a minute that just sank in, did you say "penal colony"?
Where?
-And if they say no? - you need to take another date, because for this date there is some major event.
-Sounds like complete equality & spontaneity...lol. - sorry i don't have time to count them... mb 195-242-104 - do you like it better?
-Any chance for appeal as he slaves away? -yes
-95% of Russia want a life sentense for Navalny and we are very dissapointed.
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1580/5035/original.jpg?...
translated one of this protesters words...
"I am no longer go out. While everyone - who bought gifts at Tverskaya, until everyone who walked past us and neighing loudly, until the money will end, until they lose their jobs and begin to fly into a rage, then I go out and look at them from the side. Alex, Oleg I feel for you very painful. I honestly tried very hard, but we can not win these people. It serves them right ... it's time to leave."
"And if they say no? - you need to take another date, because for this date there is some major event."
So when its convenient for the state. Well, that works out pretty good for the state and whoever is running it.
"-95% of Russia want a life sentense for Navalny and we are very dissapointed."
A life sentence for fraud? What do you guys want to do with muggers & pimps?
Well at least the jury pool is completely untainted & unbiased, thats certainly reassuring to a defendant ;-)
"Well, that works out pretty good for the state and whoever is running it."
it means that bunch of retard don't distrupe a 10000 thousends consert or holydays event or etc and working people don't lose money because of retards.
"A life sentence for fraud" he is usa puppet and it is mean treason
you are really stupid...
Yes, of course I'm stoopid kowalli.
In essence your position is "Russia-good. US-bad. Anyone against Putin the Great is traitor."
Yeah, I get all that and your defense of anything the Russian government & its oligarchs do. Good luck with all that, we have similar problems like that here.
I just look at it differently than you do.
"Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!"
Originally Stephen Decatur, in an after-dinner toast of 1816–1820. cheers, nmewn
lol...patriotism can be a very dangerous thing ;-)
kowalli, re "he is usa puppet and it is mean treason"
now I have to admit I know the old Soviet law better then the modern Russian law, but are you sure that being a political agent or agitator is a crime, in Russia? or, worse, treason?
there is a very fine line between loyal opposition and treason. but it's an important fine line
my roomate's half-sister makes $65 /hr on the computer . She has been without work for 7 months but last month her pay check was $14940 just working on the computer for a few hours. you could try this out... www.works3.com
That spam site loads viruses on your computer.
May the odds be in your favor
glad you saw it :)
People might not realize it but there are a great many prisons operating in the USA beyond the ones described in this article.
The prison of house, education, car or credit card debt.
The prison of making $8 an hour with the full collaboration of government and corporations.
The prison of a two party (but one master) political system.
The prison of a tax system that allows Warren Buffet to pay less tax in percentage terms than his secretary.
The prison of government which grows and grows in response to people shrinking and shirking their personal and civil responsibilities.
The prison of the medical treatment being a barrier of 6000 for payments and 6000 for your medical copay first.
The prison of much of the food being poisonous over time.
If you want renounce your US citizenship you no need to pay about $2,500.
The U.S. is already a first stage prison. You can't check out unless you pay and you cannot have any debts. That eliminates the vast majority.
Prison is a big Private business , definitely not in the rehab business
Perverse incentives tend to yield perverse results.
Corporations are not privately held institutions. That means they are not in the private sector.
NidStyles, I sense Cognitive Dissonance in your comment (not the ZH poster)
following your logic, you'd have to say that all public companies (i.e. with their stocks/bonds traded on exchanges) aren't private, and only fully private SMEs are
following your logic, we in europe that fight for SMEs like yours truly should be your allies, and you should cheer that we have somehow managed to keep both state and financial markets off the back of what is here an astounding 50% of the economy (officially, then the submerged part is not counted properly)
and yet... you raise the yellow/black banner
which makes me suspicious, then that banner is often associated with anarcho-capitalism of the "whatever goes" kind which more often then not favours Big Biz and their legions of lobbyists
excess of freedom favours Big Biz. dearth of sensible, smart regulation favours Big Biz
Small and Medium Sized Businesses need a structured, properly regulated economic environment. One that is not too strongly highjacked by Big Biz for their purposes
SMEs need the state... to protect them from Big Biz, oligopolies, monopolies and crony capitalism. the less state you have to redress the fair ground level, the more you have Big Biz and crony capitalism with it's oligopolies and monopolies
Lest your heart be turned to bleeding, remember many of these remorseless scofflaws are guilty of milking the dreaded cannibus plant and should be shown no mercy.
Right, forgot about that.
And don't forget about the terrors inflicted upon society caused by those criminals selling raw milk.......
I bought some loose cigarettes off a dusky entrepreneur, and I don't even smoke! FIGHT THE POWER!!
Some of them caught water that fell from the sky instead of letting it run off of their property to a reservoir to be sold back to them with taxes added on.
I say a month in the hole for that one.
Some cute little brats were selling dubious lemonade in a NY town. They were shut down quick, thank goodness!
Some of them had the temerity to have their breasts grabbed and bruised by a cop reaching from behind while minding their own business. That kind of assault on our men in blue just can not stand.
The complete and total absence of tiny but tell-tale bloodstains should always be reason enough to incarcerate, in my opinion.
and the problem is ? ? ?
The problem is that you might find yourself in one of those hellholes because it's becoming increasingly easy to get a membership and states are handing out felonies like candy.
Don't be a dumbass.
Articles like this and i'm like yeah ok, bring on ww3 and i'll take my fucking chances.
nova, rsnoble, the problem, nova, is someday you or a close relative will find yourself/themselves behind the wire and every single thing touched upon in the above article - and more than you can ever imagine - will be found to be true.
It happenned to me, a former, staunch law and order type who was locked in a cage for several years.
All the above mentioned things, paying for deodorant, soap, (try living 24/7 in hermetically sealed rooms with 3 to 8 other guys when the ventilation system continuosly breaks down in July, thank God the toilet tissue was still free), watching clinically retarded inmates being constantly tormented by sadistic cops, experiencing the most searing dehumanization possible and then ask what's the problem?
I suppose, no va, that the biggest potential problem is the large number of 'bodies' - neither we nor the cops EVER referred to inmates as anyting other than bodies - might find it a tad daunting to either succeed or to even attempt to trod the path of virtuous citizenship when ultimately back on the streets ... and that's an increasingly large army - about 10,000 per week - that is coming soon to a theater near you.
I thought prison was just a long vacation. Now I know about all this I must say, "Please don't ever let them get out."
The Greatest prisoner in the world was a novelist.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Quotesa few more cop killers and alex will see if he is right.
beware. the police are now arresting people for even implying a threat to police. this could be evidence of your intent in the orwell court of justice.
Not to lick Tyler's boots, but I like how ZH covers both sides of non-statist ideas.
You're joking right? This article is about as far into the delusional leftist idealism as you can get. Not once did it mention that corporations are STATE founded agencies, and the state itself is the party creating all of these newer inmates.
then search for redress. oh, damn, redress from wrong needs a functioning, fair state, doesn't it? how do you reconcile your views with the freedom of association for business?
yes, the state is the culprit. by allowing corporations to run prisons. an excess of freedom to do business
real freedom is in balance, not in the utter absence of state, and so of a judicial and legal system free from corrupting influences
here my longer rant on this
Man I have a pretty strong stomach but I literally had to stop reading this article half way through it was so depressing and sickening
That simply means you are still human.
XqWretch, There is not a single thing touched upon in the above article that is even exaggerated. I can personally vouch for that.
If you had ever been a victim of one of the thugs in prison then you would say that the fines for victim compensation are not nearly high enough. You won't see any tears in my eyes for them.
On a lighter note,
EXCLUSIVE New Year's address Vladimir Putin 2015 from White Househttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB44aLtk02M
None dare call it slavery.
Why none? Your media just cut off 99% of the world.
My media you say...? An outrage! I shall see to it that the rest of the world is restored Immediately, and when I catch the subordinates responsible, they won't dare show their faces in the Hamptons again!
Simple - world is don't like americans so they don't care what happens with you if you want it... freedom of choice... sad thing
That's only fair. But the truth is, a zek is a zek, whether his work quota is written in English or Russian. Me today, you tomorrow!
who cares? the only way the usa will ever be safe is if everyone is locked up!....except for me.
Slavery is back, Hooray
oh,wait
Nice to see someone has actually read the 13th Amendment, and not simply sheepishly accepted the Ministry of Truth's or MSM's version.
After reading this article on TruthDig last night, I had a thought. Many years ago, in a high school business class involving tort law, I remember it said that contracts cannot be coerced. I also remember the teacher discussing, I don't know why, that slaves could not, and cannot, contract.
My point to the more legally inclined is: If the 13th. makes one a slave the instant they are convicted, then at that very same instant they cannot be entered into any new contracts, by the state, or the state's cronies. Not until their sentence is served.
Just something to keep in mind.
Now, the Zionist courts will hold otherwise, but then they're loyal to Zionist interests, not the American people.
the banksters need to repay us.
Ironically, the so-called "land of the free," has an incentive to imprison you.
"land of the free," is a zombie-box slogan
"land of the free" can, and should, be a demand.
"Hey, you said it was the 'land of the free.' I brought Mr. AK here to demand it be so."
Just depends on how one thinks about it, and more importantly, uses it.
"Don't let them think for you. Demand they know what you think."
The banksters need to repay us.
Oh you haven't heard the end of it yet...read this on San Quentin prison, teaching prisoners to code! Yup you read that right as the state of California has eyes on getting some cheap labor there too. You might argue this is rehab...well I look at it this way, rehab is teaching spreadsheets, email (which some have never done depending on how long they have been in jail) Word, etc. Those are things that when prisoners are released they will be able to use to live and exist, not writing code. Fat chance these prisoners will be hired out there.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/training-prisoners-to-code-at-san.html
I made a bit of a pun on this too with saying "oh let's teach our next generation of hackers how to get started"...which is probably really not the case of course but gee, think about it. After reading this article, this fits right in there with trying to get some additional free or cheap labor. What if your code has too many bugs and you don't fix it? Does that add on more years to your sentence?
People are in prison for a reason and what they did to be there varies from one to another, to include being busted for possession of weed to murder. This is terrible but they are being fed on just like the rest of us except they are a total captive audience with no other choices.
"Well Mr. Jones, you do have good coding skills, however, you have a felony political crime conviction involving a plant, and we can no longer pay you just ten cents an hour. Sorry. Maybe you can commit another political crime, and we can use you at San Quintin again. Thanks, and good luck."
The banksters need to repay us.
The deadliest criminals are outside of prison and everybody is in danger until they are brought to justice.
The deadliest criminals have authority.
The banksters need to repay us.
Prisons in 'merica are the model for the future except you won't see the prison cell. Well - we don't see the prison cell today either...
People who defend what America has become in the year of our lord 2014 are either blind, or believe freedom and the constitution are just used up ideas, and corporate crony capitalism and imperialism are the future. They turn a blind eye to the wars and killing, to the spying on Americans, to the cop/prision repression system. So many Americans now work for the state and their military, spy and police complex, they all vote for this and support it, as they are well paid, while most other private sector Americans are enslaved to pay for these wonderful government servants.
nice, but you brought it back to a narrative of "gov bad" and "private sector good", with a topping of "go back to the constitution"
in this case, it's the private sector that is enslaving millions. and the US Constitution, as the article and UR noted above, is clear about that: prison slavery is legal, according to the 13th Amendment
in most of continental europe, we use the "socialist" way of having the inefficient state providing for prison space. which provides for roughly one prison space for every 1'000 citizens
the end result is that we can't criminalize and punish more then 0.01% of the population. with 330'000'000 people, this would result into 330'000 prisoners, not 2'300'000
it takes either totalitarian efficiency or capitalistic efficiency to add those two frigging million gulag employees to the equation
freedom is based on balance, not excesses
Well here's some new prison for your mind (I'm glad I don't watch the teevee cause I'd smash it for sure)
Revelation
the plot for episode 1:
What if the apocalyptic prophecies of Revelation were to unfold today? When the Wailing Wall comes down in a series of bomb attacks that rock Jerusalem, the event kick-starts seven years of torment that will test the limits of mankind. A Pennsylvania cop hunts for hundreds of thousands of children mysteriously missing in a storm-ravaged America. Two scientists race to stop a deadly pandemic that threatens to decimate the world. And a TV reporter trapped inside a war-torn Israel desperately tries to decode the secrets of Revelation.
and in the news:
Palestinian statehood bid fails at UN Security Council as US, Australia vote againsthttp://rt.com/news/217975-unsc-palestine-statehood-vote/
see any correlation yet???
Australia is becoming a f'in embarrassment globally. US says "Jump", and the Politician-of-the-day (not "leader", just "Career Political mouthpiece") reliably says "How high, Master.
Abbott and others are planning to restart the "progress" towards becoming an "Independent Republic" (more $$$s for them and their cronies, irrespective of the "Party" elected). May as well save us all money by simply replacing the Union flag with the Stars & Stripes.
I ask this question- If you cannot fill the beds and charge the state for empty beds....
Why would they not be happy to pay?
In my mind they have not found enough to fill the beds which means that crime has gone down or in the case of weed, legitimized...
I would think even paying for empty beds would be way more profitable from a states point of view than a filled bed...
The empty bed may belong to a productive member of society,even if the probabilities are 50% they would be money ahead...
No way a filled bed is productive, if the choice is filling the bed with non- violent criminals versus them working and paying taxes...
These private prison companies need to go the way of the dodo bird....
This is one place where the profit incentive is twisted and just fuking wrong.
No excuse for it, just bullshit and needs stopped!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am talking about non-vilent offenders that are there because of lobbying by the prison lobbiests for sentences and ruining peoples lives for the sole reason of lining their own pockets...
Just line up and shoot the guilty bankers, murders, rapists, and anybody who commits a crime with a gun...
That way they will stop wanting to take our guns and get rid of the shit.
Also get rid of most of the private incarcenation for profit bullshit!!!!!!!!!!!
Dear Tylers,
Peace be with you all and thanks for your website.
Please kindly consider the Zero Hedge slogan potentially requires revision.
"Survival" isn't the better word/idea/context to use - it's a tad misleading/mismatch when in this particular case, laid out by the slogan, the rate drops to zero eg. none actually survive.
So given the current slogan it would be better to have something like:
"On a long enough timeline the perish rate for everyone is one hundred percent."
This would be less misleading and a better match, however, the concept of ZERO is no longer present, so it fails to fit with the title of the website and therefore is less recommended.
So given your website, and in addition to the constructive criticism, we hereby re-give one idea to assist in the formulation of a new and potentially better slogan:
"All life passes through this universe of timed motion from the zero of its beginning to its zero end."
Happy & Negentropic 2015.
Universal Slogan Revision Task Force (USRTF)
It's a quote from fight club...
Rob a liquor store in the US and you go to jail for ten years. Rig the financial system to a point where millions lose their jobs and pensions and you get a bonus and a bailout.
America, the land of the not so free and the slaves.
i am so happy to find a site i can read real news not the one a few rich is feeding everyone all over the world, hope amreican take advantage of this site to educate them self learn what is realy going on, instead weak up one day they are homeless, but american one thing they all say proud to be american i stand for Israel, first learn about you own country and find out if real Israel is a good friend with your home. if they choice to be ignorant let them they will learn it in hard way.
The "tribe" controls the media, all Americans are exposed to is positive propaganda about those creatures. If Americans knew the extent of how truely Satanically evil they are, there would not be a Jew alive in the USA in 2 weeks!
i love to read your site love truth, i do not like what they are feeding everyone in these rich fancy TV Radio News sample but the right one truth is better then fancy lies.
i love to read your site love truth, i do not like what they are feeding everyone in these rich fancy TV Radio News sample but the right one truth is better then fancy lies.
There's a video somewhere of a guy who starts filming prisoners outside in the prison parking lot washing the cars of the prison staff. The staff admit the prisoners are washing their personal cars
Of course they then call the "law enforcement" in to confront the videographer and threaten him. When the videographer doesn't back down and isn't doing anything illegal they run like cockroaches from the light back into the prison
If they're willing to use the prisoners like slaves for their own personal use in public Abu Ghraib American style is probably going on behind the prison walls
the country is killing and telling everyone in the world about freedom democray but his own people do't have any freedom they are slave of richest powerful in that country.
felons are murderers and child exploitation freaks
.
seriously should we kill them instead like other nations
you seriously think that the US prisons contain 2.3 million murderers and child exploiters?
pull your head out of your ass.
Imagine the WTF look from the Vietnamese 10 year old with no shoes and tattered garb when the foreman says no more work, the company is outsourcing to the USA to save money.
We hired prisoners way back in 1977 for Cobol programming projects. They could either come to our office (rapists and lesser charges) or we would manage them in prison offices. Less productive than communists.
I know someone who works for the prison system... And yes there meals are pretty rough sometimes but as a kid growing up in the late 50's and 60's my mom had to shoplift meat because she couldn't afford it. We would shot birds with a BB gun because we where hungry, there was no welfare. But I guess we where free. Yes there are times when prisoners don't get hot showers no soap or toilet paper but sometimes as a kid we had no water so we cleaned in the creek. Poop in the woods, hey but we where free. The prisoners get mp three players I hardly had any cloths or a warm bed, hey but I gues I was free!!! Prisoners have there own back door to anything smokes food you name it. Some place when they get out they get a EBT card. My mom worried if she would make enough money to feed and house use. But hey we where free.
I know someone who works for the prison system... And yes there meals are pretty rough sometimes but as a kid growing up in the late 50's and 60's my mom had to shoplift meat because she couldn't afford it. We would shot birds with a BB gun because we where hungry, there was no welfare. But I guess we where free. Yes there are times when prisoners don't get hot showers no soap or toilet paper but sometimes as a kid we had no water so we cleaned in the creek. Poop in the woods, hey but we where free. The prisoners get mp three players I hardly had any cloths or a warm bed, hey but I gues I was free!!! Prisoners have there own back door to anything smokes food you name it. Some place when they get out they get a EBT card. My mom worried if she would make enough money to feed and house use. But hey we where free.
All those "gangsta's" who think no one will ever touch them are in for a BIG surprise!