Republicans: The Party Of Modern Day Slavery In America

Eric Left a few links at my post And People Say The War On Drugs Is A Failure which I think deserve some wider attention.

A subtitle of this post could be:

Race Based Incarceration For Profit

From: The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor.

Prison labor has already started to undercut the business of corporations that don’t use it. In Florida, PRIDE has become one of the largest printing corporations in the state, its cheap labor having a significant impact upon smaller local printers. This scenario is playing out in states across the country. In addition to Florida’s forty-one prison industries, California alone has sixty. Another 100 or so are scattered throughout other states. What’s more, several states are looking to replace public sector workers with prison labor. In Wisconsin Governor Walker’s recent assault on collective bargaining opened the door to the use of prisoners in public sector jobs in Racine, where inmates are now doing landscaping, painting, and other maintenance work. According to the Capitol Times, “inmates are not paid for their work, but receive time off their sentences.” The same is occurring in Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Florida and Georgia, all states with GOP Assembly majorities and Republican governors. Much of ALEC’s proposed labor legislation, implemented state by state is allowing replacement of public workers with prisoners.

“It’s bad enough that our companies have to compete with exploited and forced labor in China,” says Scott Paul Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a coalition of business and unions. “They shouldn’t have to compete against prison labor here at home. The goal should be for other nations to aspire to the quality of life that Americans enjoy, not to discard our efforts through a downward competitive spiral.”

From another link

If some members of the House of Representatives have their way, American workers will be thrown into even more direct competition with inmate labor. H.R. 2558, sponsored by Reps. McCollum (R.), Hyde (R.), and Scott (R.), would open federal prisons to contractual arrangements with for-profit corporations and allow the products produced to be sold freely on the open market.

Under the terms of the proposed law, inmates could be paid less than the minimum wage if the industrial operation in question is deemed to be in competition with foreign rather than domestic business.

What? You don’t think imprisonment is race based? Watch what this DEA agent has to say (about 2 1/2 minutes):

You know where it all went wrong? When all the racists from the Democrat Party moved over to the Republicans at Nixon’s urging. He called it his “Southern Strategy”. Me? I quit being a Republican a month or two ago. It was just too much to stomach anymore. Besides they didn’t want libertarians like me anyway. Well boys and girls, the feeling is mutual.