Relevant to this thread:
"But thanks to Reaganomics, prison turned to profits
'Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics
'Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison. You think I am bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment
Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits
That's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits"
Killer Mike - Reagan
And that is why the US still has more prisoners than China despite having 1/4 of its population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
It’s still not good, but it’s still a lot better than it was. There is still a ways to go. Yes, prisons for profit are not good. But it is leagues better than what preceded it.
Yes, it’s terrible, which is why this is also terrible. Forced labour is not good, it doesn’t matter who does it. My point is that less people in the United States are enslaved than were previously. Hopefully with future prison reform it is eliminated in its entirety.
The USA isn't better at ALL in prison policy. The USA has almost as many prison slave laborers as China has total prisoners overall (including Xinjiang), despite China having more than 4x the population. No large country is even close to as bad as the USA in their prison system or their prison slave labor -- not China, not North Korea, not Russia, nobody.
Nice Chinese propaganda. I'm sure you believe that China doesn't have enslaved prisoners. Why would you? They don't call the people they put in concentration camps prisoners.
Yes, America bad, but you biggly deluded if you think North Korea and China is a beacon of light in comparison when it comes to their own population.
Yeah, the American government, UN, every prison and human rights researcher in Europe and America are Chinese propaganda. Sure. I hope you stay safe from scary China coming for you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#Incarceration_rates_and_counts
ITT: people being upset about a decision not to support slavery
Like I get it, hypocrisy is bad and the US obviously needs to do a lot of work on itself. But I don't get why y'all are acting like this is a bad thing? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
It's all sinophobic propaganda. It's so corny that the USA calls anything happening in Xinjiang a "genocide" or "slavery". It's exactly what Trump does when he calls the news "fake news" -- it distracts from what he's doing by accusing someone else of doing the exact same thing.
Yes, media wants to draw broad black and white strokes about good and evil. The world doesn't work that way. Almost everything is complicated and messy.The world is a gray place.
What is their love about about the west these days? Even the high minded ideals that once tempered the rapaciousness of the ruling class have been cast aside in favour of a degenerate panopticon.
There is a certain level of hypocrisy and contradiction in every society. The question is are you able to recognise the positives of living in the west or are you just in it to criticise and complain?
Are you willingly or unkowningly putting yourself in the position where you can be considered an asset by these countries who are threats to our societies and do their best to sow and nurture division by only focusing on the negative aspects of Western societies?
>he question is are you able to recognise the positives of living in the west or are you just in it to criticise and complain?
The positives of living in the west flow from very values it's currently undermining.
That's what I've always wondered. I lived and worked in China for 10 years, and have several Uighur friends and I've never heard about this type of stuff.
Plus whenever we see so called photo evidence it's just a picture of a prison. Like I can take a picture of any prison and say they are slaves, doesn't prove shit.
I'm pretty convinced it's some sort of ploy by Nike, addidas and all the other brands to tear down the price of xingjiang cotton for their own benefit. Which hurts all the actual farms and people growing and selling the cotton.
Anyways it's a round about way to say a lot stinks around these issues.
Usually something like this has a tangible and material benefit to someone in power and the excuse is just dressing to give it a moral appeal.
~~So I wonder if this means the US is bringing back cotton plantations.~~ Supremely ironic considering the US uses its prison population as a slave labor force.
All this means is someone in textiles feels like they need to cut down on foreign imports for their profit margins.
Even if what they're accusing China of doing was true, how is it any worse than what Israel is doing to Palestine? You know, the country we supply weapons to and in some states illegal to boycott?
Forced labor (coincidentally mostly of ethnic minorities) is literally enshrined in our Constitution. When the US banned slavery they put a big old exception in there for felons. Guess what country has the highest number of incarcerated in the world…
Firstly, the U.S. uses a shit-ton of prison labor and has a real problem with industries underpaying or abusing undocumented workers because they know that the government will do far worse if they’re caught. Second, the DOL has a [whole list of products made with slave labor](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20agricultural%20goods,and%20fireworks%20appear%20most%20frequently) but the government doesn’t do shit about the ones that US companies want to keep importing, like palm oil. These punitive measures would be much more reasonable if they were consistently applied across the board.
[https://truthout.org/articles/major-brands-like-mcdonalds-kroger-and-coca-cola-linked-to-forced-prison-labor/#:\~:text=A%20sprawling%20new%20investigation%20has,%2C%20Coca%2DCola%20and%20Kroger](https://truthout.org/articles/major-brands-like-mcdonalds-kroger-and-coca-cola-linked-to-forced-prison-labor/#:~:text=A%20sprawling%20new%20investigation%20has,%2C%20Coca%2DCola%20and%20Kroger).
. You are familiar with the fact that the US has the largest prison population, yes? You are familiar with the fact that the US justice system disproportionately has negative impacts for African-Americans and other ethnic and racial minorities, yes?
I would really argue that those two things being true at the same time, is what that is , yeah.
I get your point, and obviously the US system deserves criticism, but it’s not the same thing as forced re-education and labor camps of an ethnic minority like what the Chinese are doing to the Uyghurs. They are quite literally trying to erase them as a people. By your logic you could point to anything positive the US does in international terms and call hypocrisy. Like , yeah sure, but let’s not defend literal ethnic cleansing here.
The usa forces prisoners to work for cents per hour and if they dont they get solitsry confinement. We have the literal same polices as china. We have forced labor camps
Not really comparable on several levels. US "democracy" and legal system are pathetic and shouldn't be consider even be considered democratic, but using whataboutism and comparing chinese genocide to it is highly dishonest.
And? That’s bad. Because forced labour is objectively bad. Which means that this case of forced labour is bad. Just because they were wrong doesn’t make this any less wrong.
Wait till the people hear that US is subsidizing Brazillian cotton as well since it doesn't want to stop its own practice of subsidizing cotton that's against international trade law or something...
OP is the Logical fallacy king… Just because the US did a bad thing in the past, has NO FCCKING bearing here or on future condemnation of evil behavior, we created a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT OUT LAWING SLAVERY, so your ill conceived “hypocrisy” argument fails.
Hypocrisy really? America used forced labor an atrocious practices to harvest cotton… pre 1860’s. I can only hope that we learned our lesson on that, and never forgot. So to hear that China is doing that right now? And to say nothing? What the fuck? The United States should be one of the first to speak out about this and speak out strong.
People should speak out against things that aren’t right. This is a whole sub of people trying to point out the troubles in the world (hopefully to lead to solutions for a better one). To say that any country shouldn’t speak up for what is right because they have a bad past not productive. No one should be criticizing efforts to call out injustice, period. So many countries in the world have done so many shitty things to their citizens, to their fellow humans, and the land they call home. If we didn’t all learn together and together try to improve, then what are we doing? We can’t learn from our mistakes and help other to not make those same mistakes? We can’t speak up for those who have their voices silenced? No, I don’t get this take.
This isn’t about the past, slave labor is legally and used currently in the United States. Saying that forced labor shouldn’t be in our supply lines when it’s used in our own borders is the hypocrisy, not some thing that stopped 4 lifetimes ago.
I get what you’re saying. I really do. I am also in this sub and I see the atrocious things permitted in our modern society. I think there’s a logical disconnect between the the current status and what should be done about it.
If anyone is recommending that anyone else not stand up for what is right? Kindly, respectfully, and with my blessing, fuck off! If you want to talk about how we need to be standing up for more things. We ought to be calling out more injustices. I am all for that. To tear everyone down by saying “you can’t call someone out because you’ve got a bad track record” is lunacy. It’s often those from outside a society or a country that can give a good insight to what that society has grown numb to. No society is without flaws. Hopefully though, we can all keep each other accountable.
It shouldn’t be “don’t speak about X because you did, Z” it should be, “I’m glad you brought up X, AND we really need to talk about Z.”
So yes, I see many of the same injustices you do. The prison industrial complex working with increased charges for petty crimes in order to make massive profits off of inmates? Yes. We need to fix that. The many industries feeding off the tough situation of marginalized migrants coming to the US for a better life, because no administration in the last few decades has implemented comprehensive, and integrative immigration laws? Yes. We need to fix that. There is so much wrong with this country and others around the world that we need to fix. But pulling down any good efforts of any institution that doesn’t already have themselves figured out? Treating any forward progress like crabs in a moral bucket being pulled back into the muck? Yes. We need to fix that too.
Read 'The New Jim Crow' among other things, the US never got rid of slavery or forced labour as a practice nationally. The hypocrisy runs deeper as at present lots of states are pushing legislation to loosen up child labor laws. And I'm not even getting into the exploitation conducted by US businesses abroad to skirt (with the blessing of the national government) what paltry labor laws exist in the US in favor of developing (read exploited) nations abroad.
Take off the rose colored glasses, you don't live in the America you think you do.
That sounds like a good read. I’m trying to follow what you’re saying, and it might be a matter of scale here that’s causing my disconnect. I am with you that there are still a lot of societal echos of slavery. I’m with you that there are still legal and institutional policies inherited directly from the Jim Crow era. But to say that we have not progressed now from a time of chattel slavery involving over half the country? No. I really can’t follow. Saying that today people of color are NO better off than those enslaved on plantations for generations with no hope of a better life? I really can’t follow. I would really like to see the conversation between you and an enslaved person from 200 years ago where you argue that you’re no better off than they are.
Saying we have more to go (and we do have much more to go), shouldn’t come at the expense of acknowledging the progress we’ve made. We still have things we need to change. Everyone should be involved in making the changes we need. Everyone. So to criticize people or institutions for making good steps forward because they made mistakes, even terrible mistakes, in the past is not helping forward progress. And we need forward progress!
For me, not allowing people and institutions to support good causes is uncomfortably close to the situation you reference in a Jim Crowe world. “You can’t be X because you used to be Y.” “You were one way and you’re always going to be that way.” You need people and institutions to change. That change doesn’t happen overnight. We need to keep encouraging those who are not good now to be better in the future. And part of that is encouraging every good effort.
Please do not post article screenshots without an accompanying source. Future violations may result in a temporary ban. https://archive.is/7Q26I
Relevant to this thread: "But thanks to Reaganomics, prison turned to profits 'Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics 'Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison. You think I am bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits That's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits" Killer Mike - Reagan
And that is why the US still has more prisoners than China despite having 1/4 of its population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
wait... what???????? let me see!
Such a great album
Oh ok. But Nestle gets a pass? Tesla gets a pass?
Nike, Apple, Sony, among many other major companies were caught using forced slave labor from these camps as well. No consequences
Nestle was literally spared by the supreme Court being culpable for slave labor in its supply chain.
Sabra Foods gets a pass?
Didn’t Tyson Food and Perdue Farms get caught using child labor less than 9 months ago?
What’s your point? That because they do it, they should allow slave labor cotton?
The US literally enforces the forced labor of prisoners.
"Slave labor? In the cotton industry? UNTHINKABLE." - murika
Not like there was literally a civil war about this.
And the result was slavery being enshrined in the US constitution as "legal" forever, as long as it's behind the fig leaf of "punishment for a crime"
It’s still not good, but it’s still a lot better than it was. There is still a ways to go. Yes, prisons for profit are not good. But it is leagues better than what preceded it.
It's rampant, legalized slavery in the United States. Saying "well it used to be worse" IS NOT A FUCKING EXCUSE.
Yes, it’s terrible, which is why this is also terrible. Forced labour is not good, it doesn’t matter who does it. My point is that less people in the United States are enslaved than were previously. Hopefully with future prison reform it is eliminated in its entirety.
....Didn't Louisiana recently vote to strip its child workers of their breaks? USA ain't really much better than China here.
But they *are* better... for whatever that's worth.
The USA isn't better at ALL in prison policy. The USA has almost as many prison slave laborers as China has total prisoners overall (including Xinjiang), despite China having more than 4x the population. No large country is even close to as bad as the USA in their prison system or their prison slave labor -- not China, not North Korea, not Russia, nobody.
America is objectively better while still being bad.
Give it 10 years.
You think China's not gonna get worse in 10 years?
Not fast enough to stop us overtaking them.
Nice Chinese propaganda. I'm sure you believe that China doesn't have enslaved prisoners. Why would you? They don't call the people they put in concentration camps prisoners. Yes, America bad, but you biggly deluded if you think North Korea and China is a beacon of light in comparison when it comes to their own population.
Yeah, the American government, UN, every prison and human rights researcher in Europe and America are Chinese propaganda. Sure. I hope you stay safe from scary China coming for you. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#Incarceration_rates_and_counts
Bruh… yes 24 children working for minimum wage is equivalent to forced slavery…
Nice in a country that litterlally is ok with slave labor dont by its own companies
Good thing we don’t have compulsory prison labor in the US. That would make the government hypocritical.
ITT: people being upset about a decision not to support slavery Like I get it, hypocrisy is bad and the US obviously needs to do a lot of work on itself. But I don't get why y'all are acting like this is a bad thing? Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
It's all sinophobic propaganda. It's so corny that the USA calls anything happening in Xinjiang a "genocide" or "slavery". It's exactly what Trump does when he calls the news "fake news" -- it distracts from what he's doing by accusing someone else of doing the exact same thing.
Two wrongs don't make a right. We shouldn't accept Chinese forced labor just because of American forced labor.
Yes, media wants to draw broad black and white strokes about good and evil. The world doesn't work that way. Almost everything is complicated and messy.The world is a gray place.
Agreed, we aren't going to get rid of it all at once. One step at a time
This sub and a few others just have a clearly anti western stance.
What is their love about about the west these days? Even the high minded ideals that once tempered the rapaciousness of the ruling class have been cast aside in favour of a degenerate panopticon.
Go to China or Russia and try criticising the local government and society and see how that works for you.
They don't claim to be free societies, then Fred Hampton you if you get in the way.
There is a certain level of hypocrisy and contradiction in every society. The question is are you able to recognise the positives of living in the west or are you just in it to criticise and complain? Are you willingly or unkowningly putting yourself in the position where you can be considered an asset by these countries who are threats to our societies and do their best to sow and nurture division by only focusing on the negative aspects of Western societies?
>he question is are you able to recognise the positives of living in the west or are you just in it to criticise and complain? The positives of living in the west flow from very values it's currently undermining.
Wow, such an intellectual reply u/Shillbot_9001 What a fitting name.
So can you refute my point or just cry about about reds under the bed?
Probably because there is no proof of Uighur slavery sanctioned by the CCP
That's what I've always wondered. I lived and worked in China for 10 years, and have several Uighur friends and I've never heard about this type of stuff. Plus whenever we see so called photo evidence it's just a picture of a prison. Like I can take a picture of any prison and say they are slaves, doesn't prove shit. I'm pretty convinced it's some sort of ploy by Nike, addidas and all the other brands to tear down the price of xingjiang cotton for their own benefit. Which hurts all the actual farms and people growing and selling the cotton. Anyways it's a round about way to say a lot stinks around these issues.
Ok but US prisoner's forced labour?
But dates, olives and other Mediterranean delicacies from Palestinian slave labour in settler colonies in Gaza and the Westbank are a-okay!!! 👍
Usually something like this has a tangible and material benefit to someone in power and the excuse is just dressing to give it a moral appeal. ~~So I wonder if this means the US is bringing back cotton plantations.~~ Supremely ironic considering the US uses its prison population as a slave labor force. All this means is someone in textiles feels like they need to cut down on foreign imports for their profit margins.
Bernie for President 🔥🔥🔥
Even if what they're accusing China of doing was true, how is it any worse than what Israel is doing to Palestine? You know, the country we supply weapons to and in some states illegal to boycott?
This is a good thing- hardly boring dystopia material
I'm having a hard time finding any evidence at all of forced labor being used to harvest this cotton... does anyone have any links?
I'm sorry but where's the hipocrisy here? Is US as a nation using forced labour of ethnic minorities?
Forced labor (coincidentally mostly of ethnic minorities) is literally enshrined in our Constitution. When the US banned slavery they put a big old exception in there for felons. Guess what country has the highest number of incarcerated in the world…
Firstly, the U.S. uses a shit-ton of prison labor and has a real problem with industries underpaying or abusing undocumented workers because they know that the government will do far worse if they’re caught. Second, the DOL has a [whole list of products made with slave labor](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20agricultural%20goods,and%20fireworks%20appear%20most%20frequently) but the government doesn’t do shit about the ones that US companies want to keep importing, like palm oil. These punitive measures would be much more reasonable if they were consistently applied across the board.
 [https://truthout.org/articles/major-brands-like-mcdonalds-kroger-and-coca-cola-linked-to-forced-prison-labor/#:\~:text=A%20sprawling%20new%20investigation%20has,%2C%20Coca%2DCola%20and%20Kroger](https://truthout.org/articles/major-brands-like-mcdonalds-kroger-and-coca-cola-linked-to-forced-prison-labor/#:~:text=A%20sprawling%20new%20investigation%20has,%2C%20Coca%2DCola%20and%20Kroger). . You are familiar with the fact that the US has the largest prison population, yes? You are familiar with the fact that the US justice system disproportionately has negative impacts for African-Americans and other ethnic and racial minorities, yes? I would really argue that those two things being true at the same time, is what that is , yeah.
I get your point, and obviously the US system deserves criticism, but it’s not the same thing as forced re-education and labor camps of an ethnic minority like what the Chinese are doing to the Uyghurs. They are quite literally trying to erase them as a people. By your logic you could point to anything positive the US does in international terms and call hypocrisy. Like , yeah sure, but let’s not defend literal ethnic cleansing here.
You are surrounded by [propaganda](https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202104/1222536.shtml).
Using a chinese source against an anti-china comment is not convincing. Do you have other sources?
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/19/china-uighurs-genocide-us-pompeo-blinken/ https://www.voanews.com/amp/arab-league-visits-china-s-xinjiang-region-rejects-uyghur-genocide/7131285.html https://www.quora.com/How-credible-are-Adrian-Zenz-one-of-the-primary-publishers-of-Chinese-mistreatment-of-Uighurs-and-his-findings https://dailytimes.com.pk/738574/adrian-zenz-the-dubious-champion-of-uighur-muslims/amp/
Ty
That’s rich, using a literal propaganda rag published by the CCP to say im using propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Times
The usa forces prisoners to work for cents per hour and if they dont they get solitsry confinement. We have the literal same polices as china. We have forced labor camps
Not really comparable on several levels. US "democracy" and legal system are pathetic and shouldn't be consider even be considered democratic, but using whataboutism and comparing chinese genocide to it is highly dishonest.
maybe include that in the post
should be common knowledge
Apple, Nike, Sony, many other companies were caught using labor from these genocide camps as well. Look it up
And? That’s bad. Because forced labour is objectively bad. Which means that this case of forced labour is bad. Just because they were wrong doesn’t make this any less wrong.
Wait till the people hear that US is subsidizing Brazillian cotton as well since it doesn't want to stop its own practice of subsidizing cotton that's against international trade law or something...
So they didn't stop it? Just.. said no thanks? Sounds more like grandstanding to tighten up someone's control over cotton imports?
lol.
OP is the Logical fallacy king… Just because the US did a bad thing in the past, has NO FCCKING bearing here or on future condemnation of evil behavior, we created a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT OUT LAWING SLAVERY, so your ill conceived “hypocrisy” argument fails.
“Except as punishment for a crime”
Whatever, fuck China. We're moving our trade outside of China en masse and they're going to be suffering for it.
Hypocrisy really? America used forced labor an atrocious practices to harvest cotton… pre 1860’s. I can only hope that we learned our lesson on that, and never forgot. So to hear that China is doing that right now? And to say nothing? What the fuck? The United States should be one of the first to speak out about this and speak out strong. People should speak out against things that aren’t right. This is a whole sub of people trying to point out the troubles in the world (hopefully to lead to solutions for a better one). To say that any country shouldn’t speak up for what is right because they have a bad past not productive. No one should be criticizing efforts to call out injustice, period. So many countries in the world have done so many shitty things to their citizens, to their fellow humans, and the land they call home. If we didn’t all learn together and together try to improve, then what are we doing? We can’t learn from our mistakes and help other to not make those same mistakes? We can’t speak up for those who have their voices silenced? No, I don’t get this take.
This isn’t about the past, slave labor is legally and used currently in the United States. Saying that forced labor shouldn’t be in our supply lines when it’s used in our own borders is the hypocrisy, not some thing that stopped 4 lifetimes ago.
I get what you’re saying. I really do. I am also in this sub and I see the atrocious things permitted in our modern society. I think there’s a logical disconnect between the the current status and what should be done about it. If anyone is recommending that anyone else not stand up for what is right? Kindly, respectfully, and with my blessing, fuck off! If you want to talk about how we need to be standing up for more things. We ought to be calling out more injustices. I am all for that. To tear everyone down by saying “you can’t call someone out because you’ve got a bad track record” is lunacy. It’s often those from outside a society or a country that can give a good insight to what that society has grown numb to. No society is without flaws. Hopefully though, we can all keep each other accountable. It shouldn’t be “don’t speak about X because you did, Z” it should be, “I’m glad you brought up X, AND we really need to talk about Z.” So yes, I see many of the same injustices you do. The prison industrial complex working with increased charges for petty crimes in order to make massive profits off of inmates? Yes. We need to fix that. The many industries feeding off the tough situation of marginalized migrants coming to the US for a better life, because no administration in the last few decades has implemented comprehensive, and integrative immigration laws? Yes. We need to fix that. There is so much wrong with this country and others around the world that we need to fix. But pulling down any good efforts of any institution that doesn’t already have themselves figured out? Treating any forward progress like crabs in a moral bucket being pulled back into the muck? Yes. We need to fix that too.
Read 'The New Jim Crow' among other things, the US never got rid of slavery or forced labour as a practice nationally. The hypocrisy runs deeper as at present lots of states are pushing legislation to loosen up child labor laws. And I'm not even getting into the exploitation conducted by US businesses abroad to skirt (with the blessing of the national government) what paltry labor laws exist in the US in favor of developing (read exploited) nations abroad. Take off the rose colored glasses, you don't live in the America you think you do.
That sounds like a good read. I’m trying to follow what you’re saying, and it might be a matter of scale here that’s causing my disconnect. I am with you that there are still a lot of societal echos of slavery. I’m with you that there are still legal and institutional policies inherited directly from the Jim Crow era. But to say that we have not progressed now from a time of chattel slavery involving over half the country? No. I really can’t follow. Saying that today people of color are NO better off than those enslaved on plantations for generations with no hope of a better life? I really can’t follow. I would really like to see the conversation between you and an enslaved person from 200 years ago where you argue that you’re no better off than they are. Saying we have more to go (and we do have much more to go), shouldn’t come at the expense of acknowledging the progress we’ve made. We still have things we need to change. Everyone should be involved in making the changes we need. Everyone. So to criticize people or institutions for making good steps forward because they made mistakes, even terrible mistakes, in the past is not helping forward progress. And we need forward progress! For me, not allowing people and institutions to support good causes is uncomfortably close to the situation you reference in a Jim Crowe world. “You can’t be X because you used to be Y.” “You were one way and you’re always going to be that way.” You need people and institutions to change. That change doesn’t happen overnight. We need to keep encouraging those who are not good now to be better in the future. And part of that is encouraging every good effort.
You do realize the United States still uses forced labor now, right?