I live in the United States of America. We are not #1 in many things, but we are #1 in having the most people in prison. My discussion here will be coming from that perspective, and may not be applicable to everyone outside of the U.S.
They are stealing our jobs! Buy American!
We have all likely grown up hearing this. Due to market disincentives created by our government it has encouraged any businessman with half a brain to consider getting the work done outside of the U.S. This is not due to lack of workers, or lack of infrastructure, it is due to Government (aka The State) passing so many laws and putting up so much red tape, and taking taxes for stupid things. Why wouldn't a smart businessman look for a better deal?
Now the ramifications to that are that much of the infrastructure that was here to do these jobs has crumbled and decayed. If certain parts of our electrical grid break down, we cannot even manufacture a replacement for them in our country because facilities to do that no longer exist. We have to order them and have them shipped here.
Something I've never heard other people talk about.
I had a job in 1994 - 1996 time frame at a place in Denver, Colorado called Correctional, Products & Services, Inc. I have an extensive background in computing but had never up to that point used a spreadsheet. Let me tell you I became very good at spreadsheets very quick. I was involved in making all the parts lists, printing out the bills of lading, and packing lists of shipments, etc. All spreadsheets for the most part. This gave me a unique chance to see how much things cost, and how much material was being shipped where.
This business shipped furniture kits in various stages of construction from just shipping the parts, to shipping assembled but not finished furniture, to in rare cases shipping a fully completed piece.
Where did they ship this?
Prisons all over the country where they were assembled and then shipped to other places. I remember us making the desk for the Governor of Illinois. We shipped full trailer truck loads of furniture to prisons on a weekly basis. Pennsylvania, Colorado (Juniper Valley Products), Texas (UNICOR), Utah (Draper), and many other places. It was big money.
What were they doing with this?
They were having inmates assemble the furniture for less than $1/hr and then selling them. A lot of government departments are mandated they must purchase a certain amount of materials from these sources.
Colorado Correctional Industries
California Prison Industry Authority
UNICOR - Federal
Utah Correctional Products
Texas Correctional Industries
My father crafted hand made furniture
My father made great works of art in hand crafted furniture made to order. This type of business did not impact him, but it did start to make me wonder how many businesses that used to make desks, chairs, tables, credenzas, beds, etc were no longer in business due to it now being handled by inmates.
It's no longer pounding rocks, and making license plates
Prisons are not making just furniture. They are making clothing, food stuffs, doing technical IT contract work, etc. If you contract certain companies to make your website it might be an inmate who makes that website.
They make a lot of things.
So while you were yelling about outsourcing and buy American...
The Prison Industrial Complex was ramping up and getting subsidized by the government while simultaneously building sweatshops right under our noses.
You wonder why they don't want to legalize Marijuana. It is one of their best sources for their slave labor. I strongly believe that the Prison Industrial Complex is a growing motivation for why many victim less crimes exist.
So next time you see them endorsing some new law out there due to someone being unhappy about something frivolous take the time to wonder if you too could become the next slave in the INSOURCING movement in our nation.
If we are going to fight the war on drugs, the war on terrorism aimed at our citizens, the crazy hijacking of the word Piracy, etc. We need to be very aware of this extremely large player in these acts.
Start paying attention to the Prison Industrial Complex. They are more important than I think most people realize, and if you wonder why we have a lot of the crazy laws we have, it is very likely they are a good part of that reason.
I was arrested on Memorial Day this year because a forest service ranger pulled me over for crossing the white line on the side of the road. I got my first appearance Tuesday. I will be posting about it more then. Follow me if you want to hear the outcome of the trial by jury I will have. We shall see if jury nullification works?
I wish you the best of luck, and yes I will follow you and keep an ear to the ground to hear how it goes.
Thank you.
This was really well done, dwin. I like the in/out source twist on the topic.
I wonder how much of the recycling industry is a part of this. While obviously directly subsidized, I'm now guessing prison workers are also "helping" lower costs of operation.
They have a huge e-waste business too. In fact their catalogs are quite extensive which is why I linked to them.
I've referred to this for years as IN SOURCING.
I do think any time we have discussions about the War on Drugs, and other Victim Less Crimes that this likely should factor into there somewhere. OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND. I don't think many people consider this angle. I was talking to @damiancraymond about it and realized I should just write a blog about it since I knew what the names of a bunch of the Prison Industrial Complex places that do this are.
Peak through some of their catalogs and it'll blow your mind. The types of things they make, and the services they offer are growing every year.
Soon perhaps we'll all be inmates.
EDIT: The fact prisoners are doing this may not be horrible. Yet couple it with the fact they are already subsidized by the government, they are forcing many industries to purchase a percentage of goods and services from these places, and they are fueling it with people who committed victim less crimes... then it is a nightmare.
OMG this one takes the cake:
http://www.tci.tdcj.texas.gov/
Take my money!!!!
I see I adjusted your vision prescription a little bit. Now you see things you didn't see before, and probably wish you had never seen. :) That's what us Anarchists do... we knock each other on the head and teach each other to see horrible new things....
Being pessimistic... I actually think we make people see the world in an absolutely beautiful and freeing way. It sure does make the horrible really stick out like a hot body on an infrared screen.
I actually saw Bitcoin when it was $0.005/coin but my family and I were poor. I thought "Damn this is a cool idea", yet I also thought it likely the government would intervene and kill it. So $20 would feed my family. Yes I am kicking myself.
I decided to try mining a couple of times off and on, but I was way too late to that game too so it wasn't worth it.
I actually have a friend @kaptainkrayola who makes steemshovel.com and he was talking to me about Ethereum Mining and telling me some places to go.
So I was working on setting up an ETH miner and had just setup my bittrex.com account and I happened to sort % growth column and STEEM was at the top at 120%.
I said what the hell is that? Wandered over to steemit, created an account, realized it was another bitcoin type situation. I could grasp the potential right away but I didn't grasp the potential of the blockchain and being able to build many things on top of it for about a week. I told @kaptainkrayola about it and he was into crypto and was kicking himself for not knowing about it before me. Pretty much got half the people on our little private slack to join up.
So I'd say I've never been very active in crypto other than as a lurker until Steem.
True, but at the same time, we are the only ones who see legitimate hope and a real, bright future that can be achieved.
All we can really do is laugh at things like this. We literally have no control. Jury nullification, activism, cop filming...while all noble causes, they rarely have any lasting impact. And sure I know another anarchist is going to come along and point out a law that's been overturned, or a bad cop that was arrested, but that all means literally nothing in the grand scheme. They write laws quicker than any act we can do through the state-prescribed playbook.
We can only build a new world. Through crypto. Through improving our relationships, our communication skills, our social networking abilites. Through each other. It's not a battle, or a slog through the mud. It's just how we live, even with a boot on our throats.
I find anarchists often resent the world, but we are the only ones that can actually fix it.
Steem and steemit have restored HOPE where I didn't see much for awhile.
I was totally gearing up and telling my family the goal would be that someone with the things we know survive, and live into whatever the future holds.
Mainly because all the avenues to fight back kept getting closed, made illegal, etc.
Then Steem came along, and man there is some major HOPE in what this could potentially do. They could kill steemit.com, but hopefully the blockchain is resilient enough they can't kill it. Open sourcing steemit.com it can pull off the hydra like action.
Yea, I'm sorta in the same boat. My cousin (the one who got me into anarchism in the post I made) told me about it in the summer of 2011. I thought it was cute, but dismissed it outright. I saw it again at like $10 and actually looked into it a bit. Then dismissed it again. At $50, same thing. Didn't want to be the guy that bought at THAT price. XD
I finally bit the bullet and started buying in the winter of 2014, when it hit the "bottom" of $600. ::eye roll:: I then proceeded to lose like 90% of my first 2 bitcoin by going all-in on Cryptcoin and XCoin in my first couple months. XD
After that, I regrouped, committed to learning how to actually make it grow. I now mine, trade, buy, anything and everything for Bitcoin. I have no doubts in my mind where it's heading over the next 10 years, and just like Steemit, it will catch the world by surprise.
As far as other coins I'm watching? Only one, really. Zcash. Highly recommend you check that out. I'm not shilling either, it hasn't launched yet. :)
Happy to follow @kaptainkrayola, btw. Steem shovel's a cool project:
https://steemit.com/steem/@kaptainkrayola/announcing-steemshovel-steem-search-engine-pre-alpha
Just curious, how long had you been in crypto/bitcoin before steem?
Replied to myself accidentally as far as how long using crypto. You'll need to search for it.
Man, these sites are unreal. I can't believe this stuff! Slave labor proudly presents to you....air filters and shitty web layouts. Check out our showroom! It's all made with MAGIC!!! XD
I assume you're in? XD
Hahahah.... no I didn't see that. Careful looking too closely at those sites might make you ill.
I worked for CPSI, Inc (now out of business) up until early 1996 I believe. I then went to work for IBM. I've had my own IT Consulting business in remote mountains of Colorado for 9 years (ended around 2007). I was the IT person for Hinsdale County in Colorado which included the Sheriff's office (perhaps the least populated county in the U.S.) Which is where I met my second wife. She was actually a Deputy Sheriff. Though she'd never consider being a cop again. She decided that quite some time ago.
She's pretty much an Anarchist as well. :)
Haha wow...nice conversion, my man! I have a hard enough time taking normies down the anarchist path. You married a frickin Deputy Sheriff and turned her against the state in the process?!?! You can't make that stuff up. You're like a frickin lambo on this anarcho-super highway! LOL!
I still thought Anarchy meant Chaos back then. I acted much like an Anarchist, but I still had no clue.
She was already a good portion of the way there. She was one of those rare good cops, which is why she wouldn't have lasted.
I had lots of pot smoking friends (and other things) in the area I grew up with. I totally endorse legalization of all drugs, but I don't partake myself.
One of my friends was practicing with his band (before I started dating her) and she had to go serve him for something. He opened his door when she knocked.
"Hello, Colin" and she serves him as pot smoke is pooring out of the door, he was kind of nervous, said "Hi Debbie". She said "Have a nice day" and left.
He absolutely LOVEDDDDDD her. :) She basically let them know as long as you are not out in the streets where I have no choice, I don't care what you do in your home.
I did corrupt her some... she is very much her own person though and may have found her way to Anarchy on her own.
Man, I wish we had cops around us like Debbie back in high school XD
@missjessica is totally the same way. She'd never call herself an anarchist, but whenever we talk about this stuff she agrees 100%. She even admitted to me she was once, but I get why she wouldn't want to advertise it, since she's not fully mentally invested in the ideas. She has her own passions in life, and although she won't be picking up one of my Rothbard books anytime soon, she gets it.
Orange is the New Black on Netflix explores these ideas quite a bit. I will pull a quote from Wikipedia here concerning the plot of Orange is the New Black...
"The show also pays close attention to how instances of corruption, drug smuggling, funding cuts and guard brutality adversely impact not only the prisoners' health and wellbeing, but also the prison's basic ability to fulfil its fundamental responsibilities and ethical obligations as a federal corrections institution.
One of the show's key conflicts involves the prison's Director of Human Activities, Joe Caputo, whose efforts and aims as a Warden constantly conflict with the business interests of the company which owns the prison: MCC."
Great post, thank you for sharing!
Glad to help. You can spread the word about this problem now too. More pieces to the puzzle. Together we are powerful, alone not so much. :)
Thanks for the up vote.
Words well spoken my man! \m/ In many ways I'm disgusted that Anarchism has opened my eyes to what the State is really all about as opposed to what they made us all believe in contrary as kids.... but at the same time, I'm GLAD I now know all of these grisly realities. Makes me feel a little more at ease in many ways, knowing that I now know what's going on. This way I can react more quickly and get myself, my wife and my loved ones away if/when shit ever does hit the proverbial fan due to their greed, deception and ignorance. I am officially, at the moment, an emotional paradox. :p
That is normal. It gets better. It is like getting a better prescription from the eye doctor.
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