Heather Cox Richardson looks at Stephen Miller's "call for a 'labor class' excluded from citizenship and a voice in government" and explores its close parallels to the call of slaveholding elites in the US prior to the Civil War to defend slavery and uphold a hierarchical, male-dominated white Christian society in which some people have rights and humanity and others are excluded.
Discussion
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"Stephen Miller is openly advocating for slavery."
~ Oliver Kornetzke
@wdlindsy And here I was just assuming they'd go directly to gas chambers. I mean, immigrant labor in some sectors at least was already operating at near-slavery conditions, and prisoners can be abused endlessly. And the explicitly ethnic-cleansing aspect of the current operations suggested elimination as the goal, not so much exploitation (since they already have that).
Alabama has been running trial slavery programs for several years.
"Unsafe" to return to society but well qualified to work at McDonald's or pick vegetables for Walmart & Target in corrupt convict leasing schemes.
How does anyone compete with a business using slave labor?
Withholding parole. Increasing sentences for minor crimes. Criminalizing homelessness. Jailing people for fines they can't pay. Debt peonage.
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It's one reason why rents & housing costs sky rocketed, to make a case for debtors prisons.
An eviction means time in prison, not just a hit on a credit rating or foreclosure
In their drive to recreate the worst parts of the 19th century abuses by billionaires, "Slavery by Another Name" is top of the list after disenfranchising women, POC, LGBTQ, & immigrants.
We forget how bad it was during the Gilded Age. Selling kids to chimney sweeps. Wife sales to brothels. Slums with no clean water
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The Moneyed fought literacy programs for the working class for over a century.
Schools for POC had to be disguised as education for domestic servants.
Women's employment was conditional on sleeping with creeps.
Immigrants had no say in the development of their communities.
Pollution of water, air, and soil with industrial waste.
The disabled were discarded to resort to begging for alms.
Millions died in wars launched to grow the wealth of rich tyrants.
Alabama has been running trial slavery programs for several years.
"Unsafe" to return to society but well qualified to work at McDonald's or pick vegetables for Walmart & Target in corrupt convict leasing schemes.
How does anyone compete with a business using slave labor?
Withholding parole. Increasing sentences for minor crimes. Criminalizing homelessness. Jailing people for fines they can't pay. Debt peonage.
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