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This was a result of election night that is underreported, but hugely telling and frustrating.
All this noise about California being liberal, progressive, and the resistance to Trump. But they kept slavery in prison legal. And I think the people who are predicting prison “labor” will be used to replace migrant labor if mass deportation does happen have it right. And California had a chance to make that impossible and decided not to.
Criminal labor isn’t split down any party line.
Basically because we’re the 4th largest economy in the world, and thus, billionaires also run this state.
We also didn’t get rent control adjustments, or a minimum wage hike. So yeah.
At least we already indexed minimum wage to inflation a while ago so it will still go up, just not by as much.
They haven’t called the results of the minimum wage vote yet, god dammit! Don’t take this from me yet!
Oh it’s worse than that. California voted to make more homeless people, expand the three strikes system by turning some misdemeanors into felonies, and voted itself a slave state to take advantage of all that new prison population.
All that’s left is to privatize the pipeline.
But it’s okay, they removed the defunct ban on same sex marriage so they’re still progressive! Yay!
I entirely agree with your point, it’s hypocritical “progressive” bullshit to maintain slavery.
But if I’m being honest, California is on my short list to move to because my state doesn’t support same sex marriage and I expect Obergefell to be overturned. It’s horrorific to be in this position but that’s me and my partners reality.
The baton used to crush your skull will be rainbow colored and have BLM on it.
The US is working exactly as planned
And will collapse as has been predicted.
Clearly most people don’t consider forced labor slavery in a prison environment. At least not in California or any of the other states that allow it.
I voted against it because I think they are plenty of prisoners that want to work, so we don’t need to be forcing people, but I also understand how people could just consider it a part of the punishment too. I mean, you take away so many rights of a person when you imprison them. What makes this facet special? Is it because we used the magic word slavery and so people suddenly feel guilty because of America’s past?
The prisons themselves litreally didn’t care enough to even argue against it, which should tell you how little this actually impacts their workforce. My understanding was that people were just getting upset at having to do wildfire related work when things started getting dangerous after they reaped all the rewards and training for that job.
It’s like being a firefighter for the pay, chili, and comradery, then balking when you are told to go fight a fire. Your average person could do that and probably be fired on the spot. Prisoners don’t get to make that decision.
You understand they weren’t paid for that training or job, right?
You understand they weren’t allowed to do that job when they were out of prison, right? Even as a volunteer they’d be disqualified. They received no benefits for risking their lives, but we’re punished if they did not. They were not sentenced to death.
To your main point, slavery is bad in all contexts. Corporations shouldn’t get to have slaves because they pay their workers so badly they turned to crime.
I’ve voted blue for decades, just so I can say I did the right thing: harm reduction.
This nation’s last, last, last chance to improve its course would have been to soundly reject the supply side, trickle down Reaganomics grift, but when they lied that YOU could be one of the rich ones one day, Americans giggled like schoolgirls and the former party of labor went full neoliberal to take the larger corporate bribes unions just couldn’t match. That is when any hope for the US to become the benevolent nation it never was but claimed to want to be died.
Citizens United was just a victory lap for the capitalists to piss on its decomposing corpse.
Anyone who wants to claim this country was over a couple of Tuesdays ago, hasn’t been paying attention.
And it wasn’t the Neonazi scum that killed it either, they just see opportunity in the cultural vacuum and chaos. Twas unchecked capitalist greed that killed the beast.
California is not the most progressive state. It’s just so big that it being progressive makes the news more.
Which one do you think it is? HI? VT?
I’m not sure, but I live in Washington, and we are at least as progressive as California is.
I’ve seen this. Isn’t it because of prisoner firefighters?
Fucking wild
All right I’ll bite. I crave more information.
This except with a fire hose
While incarcerated California firefighters choose to work, many other incarcerated workers are not allowed a choice at all. The 13th Amendment ended slavery in the United States, but a loophole allows people convicted of crimes to be forced to work.
Sorry, I’m not sure if you’re trying to make a point or just provide a TL;RD?
TL;DR
Got ya. 👍
I maintain all prison labor is slavery.
I should have been clearer, I only attempted to provide a TL;DR.
What’s wild is that even with slave labor, the budget for fighting fires is still not big enough.
You can absolutely still have volunteer programs like that. Volunteering to work time off faster shows a willingness to work on the problems that landed you in prison. Forcing it just creates misery.
That’s what pretty much all prison labor is. They coerce you with “Good Time” and something to do.
It’s still slavery, it’s not like they have a real choice. Do I rot in my cell or work and maybe get out a year early? Of course I’m gonna work. I’m not getting (really) paid for it, I’m just getting punished less. Sounds a lot like indentured servitude to me, which we all agreed was slavery too.
Oh no. Non volunteer work is punished if you don’t do it and provides no good time.
The only thing that pissed me off more than Trump winning, was seeing how many good Props failed, and bad ones passed.
I’m glad we made LGBT marriage part of our constitution, but jesus christ the voting base here is NIMBYs, NeoLibs, and Conservatives.
Can you expand on that? Good news in American politics would be a nice change.
- California made it in the constitution that marriage is between two people, gender or sex is not considered what counts
- And we also made it so Medi-Cal gets a permanent chunk of funding no matter what the budget is doing.
Exactly right
My guess is that all those people who didn’t show up to vote dem weren’t around to vote for the other dem items.
There was a certain irony in ranked choice ballot initiatives failing while the same people that didn’t show up complained about both candidates being “exactly the same” or to punish the Democratic party.
The American prison system is designed to make money. Prisons get paid based on how many people they house. Making sure people don’t wind up in prison is literally the last thing the warden wants to do. Anybody thinking America is gonna change it’s ways out of the goodness of its heart is fucking delusional.
I watched a video of a random streamer who ranted a bit about the elections. He had some great points, and he was basically saying what most people are thinking. He talked about voting and the people that refused to vote. He then added: how can you become president as a criminal but you are not able to vote as a criminal. And then continues with, he agrees that criminals shouldn’t be able to vote, because they are criminals with bad intentions. Fucker, the system is designed that most people ARE criminals. You can go to jail because a copper doesn’t like your face.
Literally every single person is one police encounter away from being a criminal, unless you’re rich that is.
It’s worth noting that California did abolish private prisons a while ago.
Wasn’t the ballot initiative also deliberately confusing? I remember seeing something about it and reading it myself and going “what the fuck is the answer for no slavery?”
No, it wasn’t. It had no argument against, no supporters against, and the text was extremely simple.
Yes/No Statement
A YES vote on this measure means: Involuntary servitude would not be allowed as punishment for crime. State prisons would not be allowed to discipline people in prison who refuse to work.
A NO vote on this measure means: Involuntary servitude would continue to be allowed as punishment for crime.
Although I can’t seem to find if this text is on the ballot to explain it
Yep that’s what’s on the ballot too. Very simple. I’d argue middle-school level or below.
I have to do laundry too. 🙁
Land of the
free
Land of the fee,
Home of the slave.
They also still have the death penalty.
This is why we need a “New California Republic”, with rangers to protect the population, just don’t listen those anti-mutties bigots…
