They are already bringing back slavery, it's called for-profit prisons. Inmates work for pennies per hour.Originally Posted by pbrower2a
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They are already bringing back slavery, it's called for-profit prisons. Inmates work for pennies per hour.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
The media doesn't pay much attention either - from the headlines I saw Sunday and Monday, you'd think the new French president's first name is "Socialist".
"My generation, we were the generation that was going to change the world: somehow we were going to make it a little less lonely, a little less hungry, a little more just place. But it seems that when that promise slipped through our hands we didn´t replace it with nothing but lost faith."
Bruce Springsteen, 1987
http://brucebase.wikispaces.com/1987...+YORK+CITY,+NY
So do I hope that it is an exaggeration. I hope that Republicans have more conscience and independence than to act that crassly.
I also see the GOP becoming more monolithic and utterly unattentive to any but its core constituency.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Prisons are workhouses. I can imagine the Hard Right seeking to use them against debtors, strikers, and eventually political dissidents. The nightmare is being planned.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Collins and Brown are the only moderates, and even they voted Republican most of the time.
Mark Kirk of IL is pretty moderate.
Prisons should be reserved for lawbreakers. in my opinion, we already have too many people in prison and relaxing our laws on drug use would help. We need fewer people in prison, not more.
I really don't see any chance of the 'nightmares' that you are imagining.
I doubt you'll get anyone on this board to disagree ... even the most steadfast law and order types. We've created a monster, and don't know how to tame it.
That's the problem with nightmares: no one sees them coming. If I had asked you 20 years ago, can the current state of affairs ever happen in the US, would you have said yes? I certainly wouldn't have. Unfortunately, we get acclimated with time. What wasn't conceivable 20 years ago was at least a remote possibility 10 years ago. What's remotely possible today?
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
I used to wonder how that was possible, but now I realize that people aren't even seeing what has already happened. Today's abuses are debated as if they were a hypothetical situation set in some strange future.
Jailed for $280: The Return of Debtors' Prisons
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jailed-for--280--the-return-of-debtors--prisons.html
Although the U.S. abolished debtors' prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don't pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff's deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.
Under the law, debtors aren't arrested for nonpayment, but rather for failing to respond to court hearings, pay legal fines, or otherwise showing "contempt of court" in connection with a creditor lawsuit. That loophole has lawmakers in the Illinois House of Representatives concerned enough to pass a bill in March that would make it illegal to send residents of the state to jail if they can't pay a debt. The measure awaits action in the senate.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
Here is my take. Brown and Collins are legitimately moderate and I'll take Annla899's word that Kirk is also.
I don't know much about Murkowski's stands on issues. I do know that she lost her primary to a Tea Party candidate in 2010 and managed to win reelection as a write-in. But whether that makes her a moderate or a Lugar or Hatch style classic conservative is something I don't know much about.
Cochran, Alexander, and Grassley are classic conservatives.
Finally, that leaves McCain. He was a classic conservate in his first years as a Senator, then tacked toward the center during the late 90s and early 2000s, right around his first Presidential run. In 2004, he tacked to the right, and in 2010, swung to hard right to avoid losing his primary.
So that leaves only 3-4 moderates in the GOP Senate, according to my count.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
And even then, they are "moderates" who vote to uphold Republican filibusters in almost every instance.
News today courtesy of the Rebuild the Dream Movement by email:
Moderates, you say? No way!Infuriating: This morning, the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bill to keep student loan interest rates low. Not one Republican voted in favor. Not one decided to stand with the millions of young people buried in overwhelming debt just for getting an education.
We need to get all Republicans out of office; every last one!
Last edited by Eric the Green; 05-09-2012 at 02:02 PM.
What's the difference between a moderate and a "classic conservative," in your use of those terms?
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
A classic conservative is someone with a high conservative voting record who will sometimes compromise and work with the other party, whereas a moderate has a less conservative voting record.
In other words, the difference between a Grassley or Lugar and a Collins or Snowe.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008
Eric, what you refuse to say (spin, maybe?) is that pretty much ALL of the senators wanted to keep student loan rates low. Both parties. As usual, even when they agree on the bigger picture they disagree on details, in this case (surprise!) how to pay for it. The GOP got a bill that paid for it in a way that they didn't agree with. Now you may not agree with their reasoning and that's fine -- I don't particularly agree with it myself -- but to drop hints that they *opposed* the concept of keeping student loan rates is, well, spin. And false. Not to mention your ridiculous insinuation that they can't be moderates if they voted down this *particular* bill with this *particular* way to pay for it.
This is "Election Year Politics 101" stuff here -- draft a bill with a very popular concept, then add amendments and specifics you WANT your opponents to vote down so you can use it in November. Nothing new here. The Democrats KNEW they would do this, and basically dared them to. They wanted the ammo and you ate it up.
Last edited by ziggyX65; 05-09-2012 at 06:19 PM.
It's not slavery. These inmates (presumably) only had their liberty taken through due process of law, which is all the Constitution requires. Makes for a nice sound bite, though. That and the obvious insinuation that profit is inherently evil.
I have a problem with paying jobs for the free being turned into forced labor for inmates. There have always been "prison industries", but they usually were goods made for State use and to train inmates in a trade (printing, metalworking, cabinetry, etc.). Some of it was busy work to keep them tired. The potential for corruption in for-profit corporate prison industries is staggering.
That's fine, and it comes at it from a "puts the average laborer and business competition at a disadvantage" angle. I don't disagree with that. I'm just saying that it doesn't qualify as "slavery". Liberty and property can be taken with due process of law. And as long as they had a fair trial, forced labor is no more 'slavery' than being forced to pay a fine that you have to work to pay off.
The only "forced labor" I tend to support is that which is necessary to pay restitution to the victims of their crimes. Not to line the pockets of the state *or* the corporation -- too much potential for abuse there.
And frankly, while I certainly appreciate the potential for corruption in corporations, we're naive to think governmental, state-run institutions are some how pure and above it. I don't trust Big Business *or* Big Government.
We are pretty much in agreement. Inmates have to do something all day and making license plates and state letterhead is as good as anything. It is only slavery IMHO when convicts get 5 years for a bad check and have to make crap for private businesses or dig the Sheriff's pool. I think the latter actually happens once in awhile. Yes, corruption happens in state run institutions, but there is a bit more oversight in government.
The other reason why profits from prison labor is a bad idea is that it creates a vested interest on the part of corporate America to maximize the prison population. This creates the potential for unbelievably nasty sorts of government corruption.
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"
My blog: https://brianrushwriter.wordpress.com/
The Order Master (volume one of Refuge), a science fantasy. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZZWEAS
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/382903
Fair enough, though even there I would say there wasn't "due process of law" -- at least in the sense of either (a) something other than a "fair trial" or (b) a punishment that was blatantly excessive relative to the crime.
It's probably not a good idea to give governments *or* private corporations an excuse to abuse the system or profit from incarcerating people.
The issue is really, why did anyone in the GOP with even a single functioning synapse think that a poison pill amendment made any sense?
The GOP logic: get some of the youth vote by (take your choice):
- pissing-off the elderly by cuts from SS and/or Medicare/Medicaid
- pissing-off the shrinking middle class with more targetted tax cuts for the wealthy
- pissing-off almost everyone with Defense increases and even larger cuts (see 1 and 2 above). or
- pissing-off the youth vote by sticking it to them (see 1 through 3 above).
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
I didn't mean it was literally slavery, but it does approximate it. They are paid almost nothing and if they refuse to work their activities will be so restricted that IMO it would qualify for a human rights violation.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Such corruption includes the perversion of justice.
Having to dig a pool for a public park is not in the same league as digging one for the sheriff. Once out, an ex-convict could conceivably swim in the public pool.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 05-09-2012 at 10:32 PM.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Yeah, the Republicans I believe wanted to pay for it with more unacceptable cuts. If Republicans were really interested in helping the students, they would not require any "payment" but just do what is right and keep interest rates low or lower them. The costs of college today is obscene and very dangerous to our future. By not realizing this, which they prove by using the issue to demand more of their stupid cuts as "payment," Republicans show they are not by any means moderate, but extreme reactionaries. There is no excuse for making excuses for them or trying to work with them. Vote them out, and put in real moderates and liberals.
We can't run away from facing up to the situation in politics today. Do not be deceived that Republicans today are reasonable folks who can be dealt with. That is the equivalent of Neville Chamberlain thinking. This has nothing to do with being moderate or not. Republicans are not moderates and cannot compromise or work with other parties. If you don't see that, you are engaging in wishful thinking. I know you want to do that ziggy, and I can't stop you. It's up to you and others who doubt my words on this fact to discover the truth for yourself.
I hate to point this out, but the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery or inoluntary servitude, made an exception for punishment for a crime.
David Kaiser '47
My blog: History Unfolding
My book: The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
