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DeathFlowerKing
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01 Mar 2023, 1:06 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
DeathFlowerKing wrote:
Martin Luther King was loved by everyone (well everyone except the klan and neonazis I'm sure) because he truly believed in creating a world where black people and white people could be equal and get along.

In my opinion the so-called activists of today are an insult to his legacy. They don't want to build a better world they just want to burn the current world down with even more hate.


Is that why the FBI kept a dossier on him and why he was regularly branded a communist, a traitor and a race-baiter?

If MLK was alive today they'd slander him as 'too woke', even if his views were identical.



Ok so he wasnt loved by "everyone" literally, but imo he deserved great respect for speaking out for what SHOULD have been right.

And besides the FBI back then was on a communist witch hunt thanks to the lingering effects of McCarthyism.

Plus if somebody like MLK were the face of the Woke movement today I personally would side with him and not be as suspicious with the Woke movement. He was fighting for the kind of world all of us really want deep down.



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01 Mar 2023, 1:28 pm

When MLK was alive he was thought of as a radical or a Soviet Agent or asset by most conservatives.


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01 Mar 2023, 1:48 pm

Well this was also back in the day when the US was living in a literal apartheid state known as Jim Crow. Plus like I said everyone was paranoid about communism back in his day.



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17 May 2023, 5:34 pm

DEI Goes Wobbly - Abe Greenwald for Commentary

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The conservative counter-revolution proceeds apace. If that pace is slow, it’s because the change it’s effecting is real and not theatrical. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), like trans activism and “defund the police” before it, is falling out of favor with the American people. So DEI is rebranding. And in the real world, that means retreating.

The New York Times reports that DEI consultants are changing tactics as Americans are getting fed up with the enforced-equity racket. The large aerospace company Woodward, for example, recently hired Karith Foster, a consultant with a new and improved approach to DEI. “She believes that an overemphasis on identity groups and a tendency to reduce people to ‘victim or villain’ can strip agency from and alienate everyone—including employees of color,” writes Jennifer Miller.

There’s another name for that kind of critique: conservative. So, too, is Foster’s claim that “her approach allows everyone ‘to make mistakes, say the wrong thing sometimes, and be able to correct it.’”

But the DEI industry has its own focus-group-tested term for rethinking corporate struggle sessions: “belonging.” “Some companies,” says the Times, “are amending their approach to D.E.I., even renaming their departments to include ‘belonging.

You can slap it with any label you like, but Foster is describing pre-DEI civility. And here’s a useful rule: First comes the rebranding, then the renunciation.

We’ve seen it before. When Americans grew suspicious of the defund movement, its evangelists refreshed their terms. Oh, you thought we meant defund the police? Sorry, big misunderstanding. We just meant reform the police, improve them, help them do their jobs better, that kind of thing. And when Americans were fed up with defund altogether, its champions began to drop it cold.

“Belonging” is the new “reform.” Give it time, and both DEI and DEI 2.0 will go the way of defund.

In some places it already has. “DEI is dead.” So said Martin Brown, the man Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin picked to revamp the state’s former Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Yes, former. The Wall Street Journal reports that Youngkin “has rebranded the DEI bureaucracy as the Office of Diversity, Opportunity and Inclusion, emphasizing a commitment to equality and a level playing field, not equity and manufactured outcomes.”

Naturally, Democrats and progressives in Virginia are losing their minds—just as DEI con artists are objecting to the “belonging” remake on the corporate level. As the Times puts it: “Some critics worry it’s about making white people comfortable rather than addressing systemic inequality, or that it simply allows companies to prioritize getting along over necessary change.”

That not really what critics are worried about. This is. DEI is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and from 2020 to the present, it was the Gold Rush. But it’s still just a small part of American industry in general, and if aerospace CEOs and other C-level executives are moving beyond DEI, the rivers and mines will soon be tapped out. The Times notes that the Society for Human Resource Management surveyed “corporate belonging” last year and found the following: “Seventy-six percent of respondents said their organization prioritized belonging as part of its D.E.I. strategy and 64 percent said they planned to invest more in belonging initiatives this year.”

Fruitful change is rarely quick and explosive. And conservative change is particularly sluggish and incremental. But it happens, nonetheless. [Note that DEI has been dealt these blows not by radical New Right activists, but by those they despise: corporate leaders, entrepreneurial liberals, and moderate Republicans. In time, perhaps a long time, the New Right will also rebrand and renounce.


I'm afraid the part I bolded is wishful thinking. I see no signs of that. Quite the opposite. While I wish the anti-woke backlash was defined by what's written above it is being defined by othering. The recent local election results are an indication that that backlash against the anti-woke backlash has begun. Most importantly because of the "new right" an even more radicalized "woke generation" will be running those said companies in due time.


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18 May 2023, 2:47 am

Abe Greenwald must be joking if he thinks poor and marganlised groups are going to wait for the conservatives to change. It took from 1619 to 1965 for black people to be recognised as human beings in this country

If it takes 346 years of fighting, advocacy, uprising and protest to recognise "all men are created equal". Get real.



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20 May 2023, 6:57 am

cyberdad wrote:
Abe Greenwald must be joking if he thinks poor and marganlised groups are going to wait for the conservatives to change. It took from 1619 to 1965 for black people to be recognised as human beings in this country

If it takes 346 years of fighting, advocacy, uprising and protest to recognise "all men are created equal". Get real.


All men (and women) are not created equal. Also I think "created" is a poor choice of word, I would say "spawned" equal or not equal.

That being said, if someone is of the human species (species is defined as genetic reproduction compatibility) they should be afforded some basic rights, such as the right to not be bullied while walking, for instance a black man walking down the street should have the right to not have tomatoes thrown at him or being shouted by profanity.

This could be further improved by animal rights, for instance I view the normalization of having animals in captivity is unethical, if society viewed that as unethical then they would also view slavery as unethical too. There are some exceptions where slavery is ethical, for example it is ethical to have robot slaves and may be ethical to have certain criminals as slaves.



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20 May 2023, 8:25 am

Lecia_Wynter wrote:
There are some exceptions where slavery is ethical, for example it is ethical to have robot slaves and may be ethical to have certain criminals as slaves.


Or the slaves who picked your coffee, made your clothes, shoes or mobile phones?



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20 May 2023, 12:33 pm

Lecia_Wynter wrote:
There are some exceptions where slavery is ethical, for example it is ethical to have robot slaves and may be ethical to have certain criminals as slaves.


Slavery is definitely alive and well around the world. With the size of the human population, there are probably more slaves than ever. Like actual outright slaves, bought, sold, traded, used/abused etc. Then there are countless more that are forced by circumstances to work for slave wages.. like work 18h/day in exchange for just enough rice & water and a place to sleep in order to work again tomorrow type employment. There likely hundreds of Millions, maybe a Billion or more people that work and live like this - literally; not like living where I do where it's extremely expensive and people are run ragged trying to pay bills But they have an option of relocating and making a start somewhere else.. more like being considered sub-human working in factories in China where the ruling class literally do not consider the work force to even be human, they're just "the workers." (as told to me by a business school classmate who's father owns a factory there.)

But as for certain criminals as slaves... hmm, MAYBE, but it'd take some convincing. Sure, there are some crimes that maybe should have hard labour as a sentence and perhaps that hard labour should be productive and produce something of value for society. But there are also a lot of modern day prison inmates that are practically slaves, producing prison made goods like jeans/clothing, operating call centres etc in the USA. Afaik, they are paid something, but it's a pittance - almost nothing - like a dollar a day or whatever so once every ~month they could save up for a pack of smokes.. and are all of these prisoners guilty of crimes worthy of doing forced labour for the duration of their sentence? Many of them not, especially in the USA. I suspect there are countless black men stitching jeans and being made to produce other prison made goods for their crimes of being caught 3x possessing marijuana or some other such BS. USA "abolished," slavery and then just put it behind prison walls out of sight out of mind - and this is why it is ILLEGAL to import prison made goods into Canada, as Canadian lawmakers see it as unethical to take advantage of these peoples' labour like this.


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24 May 2023, 5:03 pm

goldfish21 wrote:
Lecia_Wynter wrote:
There are some exceptions where slavery is ethical, for example it is ethical to have robot slaves and may be ethical to have certain criminals as slaves.


Slavery is definitely alive and well around the world. With the size of the human population, there are probably more slaves than ever. Like actual outright slaves, bought, sold, traded, used/abused etc. Then there are countless more that are forced by circumstances to work for slave wages.. like work 18h/day in exchange for just enough rice & water and a place to sleep in order to work again tomorrow type employment. There likely hundreds of Millions, maybe a Billion or more people that work and live like this - literally; not like living where I do where it's extremely expensive and people are run ragged trying to pay bills But they have an option of relocating and making a start somewhere else.. more like being considered sub-human working in factories in China where the ruling class literally do not consider the work force to even be human, they're just "the workers." (as told to me by a business school classmate who's father owns a factory there.)

But as for certain criminals as slaves... hmm, MAYBE, but it'd take some convincing. Sure, there are some crimes that maybe should have hard labour as a sentence and perhaps that hard labour should be productive and produce something of value for society. But there are also a lot of modern day prison inmates that are practically slaves, producing prison made goods like jeans/clothing, operating call centres etc in the USA. Afaik, they are paid something, but it's a pittance - almost nothing - like a dollar a day or whatever so once every ~month they could save up for a pack of smokes.. and are all of these prisoners guilty of crimes worthy of doing forced labour for the duration of their sentence? Many of them not, especially in the USA. I suspect there are countless black men stitching jeans and being made to produce other prison made goods for their crimes of being caught 3x possessing marijuana or some other such BS. USA "abolished," slavery and then just put it behind prison walls out of sight out of mind - and this is why it is ILLEGAL to import prison made goods into Canada, as Canadian lawmakers see it as unethical to take advantage of these peoples' labour like this.

"Hard labor"? No, I don't agree with that as a prison sentence. But I'm definitely ok with involuntary servitude. I'm a strong believer in "eye-for-an-eye," meaning that the punishment should fit the crime. It doesn't make any sense to literally make someone blind or cut off a limb as punishment because that means that not even criminals can be useful to society. It doesn't make sense to build a less productive society through dismemberment. And I think it's pointless to incarcerate people where they'll still be unproductive.

I like to think of incarceration as a means of keeping criminals safe from society, not the other way around. If criminals are free to serve out their terms doing labor to pay for their crimes, they are also exposed to elements of society seeking retribution. Incarceration is necessary to prevent mob justice and chaos, which often results in worse punishment than what a criminal deserves. So a prison system that gives criminals the freedom to literally repay their debts to society is preferred. The current model attempts to reform prisoners, but there is also the problem of recidivism. I believe giving prisoners the opportunity to repay their debts is inherently rehabilitative. Harsh sentences should be reserved for the unrepentant.



RandoNLD
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25 May 2023, 12:46 am

The only exception to the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is for incarcerated felons. Guess what color most people working for free in U.S. prisons are?



cyberdad
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25 May 2023, 1:06 am

RandoNLD wrote:
The only exception to the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is for incarcerated felons. Guess what color most people working for free in U.S. prisons are?


There is something wrong with the Federal Bureau of prisons data
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/st ... e_race.jsp

Race # of Inmates % of Inmates
Asian 2,284 1.4%
Black 61,245 38.5%
Native 4,157 2.6%
White 91,312 57.4%

ummmm... where are the hispanic prisoners??



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25 May 2023, 9:06 am

cyberdad wrote:
RandoNLD wrote:
The only exception to the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is for incarcerated felons. Guess what color most people working for free in U.S. prisons are?


There is something wrong with the Federal Bureau of prisons data
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/st ... e_race.jsp

Race # of Inmates % of Inmates
Asian 2,284 1.4%
Black 61,245 38.5%
Native 4,157 2.6%
White 91,312 57.4%

ummmm... where are the hispanic prisoners??

That chart focuses on race. You're looking for ethnicity--Hispanic, vs. non-Hispanic. Here it is:

Ethnicity # of Inmates % of Inmates
Hispanic 47,994. 30.2%
Non-Hispanic 111,004 69.8%

I love how the evidence doesn't favor a predominantly black prison population. :lol:

I don't feel like doing the research, so I'll leave it to someone else. I think the argument is you have more black men serving longer sentences for non-violent crimes than white men. I'm betting it's a product of culture. You have "white people" crimes like "Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement," "Extortion, Fraud, Bribery," "National Security," etc., offenses that are substantial and extensive, but not the same as "Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses." Ponzi schemes can run many multiples of multiple charges and rack up hundreds of years in prison. They'll keep you in prison until they tear it down. Then they'll bury you under the old prison and build a new prison on top of you. Some murderers get automatic life for comparison.

But those crimes are associated with privilege and whiteness, and nobody is out there protesting.

From what I understand, nobody disputes that certain drugs are harmful to individuals and that the underground drug/sex trade is disruptive to communities and associated with violence. People dealing with addictions can't hold jobs and turn to the sex trade or theft to support addiction, often turning violent if things get desperate. Gangs/organized crime engage in turf wars that can spill over into other sectors of society. It's not that drugs "make" people violent, but it is also often the case that someone who sells drugs is engaged in other potentially violent crimes. Harsh drug sentences are intended to address collateral damage. Those aren't crimes that are ever really visible in predominantly white communities.

And that means the drug/sex trade is perceived as predominantly within a black subculture. They're saying that drug offenses, which account for 44.5% of incarcerations, disproportionately affect black men, that drug offenses are non-violent crimes and don't deserve painfully-long consecutive sentences as with fraud.

So, basically possession and sale of drugs should get a pass since it is the primary way by which black people earn a living.

And yes, I'm purposefully being ironic. I'm going partially on the same bop.gov website stats along with my recollection of commentary in mainstream media. I'm not pretending that any of it makes sense. But [no irony] I do think lengthy prison sentences for drug offenses is a bit excessive.

I was raised during the "Just Say No" era and was taught that mind-altering drugs are EEEEEEVIL. I still maintain my view that ongoing drug use is dangerous to rational thinking. I still maintain my view that putting ANYTHING in your lungs that doesn't belong there is a bad idea. But I have also revised my views that all drug use is necessarily bad. I've had a kratom habit for the last year which has made a tremendous improvement on my moods, helping me be a bit more social and less tense/depressed. I think that moderate use of THC can also be beneficial, that careful microdosing can help with a number of things without leaving the user too stoned to function. So I personally find it offensive to the rights of individuals that the government can approve and regulate some drugs to combat mental disorders like ADHD, encourage/enable dependency on those things while making sure Big Pharma makes a ton of money, but certain plants that might make wonderful ornamentals in your flower bed/garden will get you 30 years in prison?

I think that's just a little messed up.

Where I live, there are legal sources of kratom and Delta 9. Obviously, if I got drug tested after using D9 it would end my career, so I'm meticulous about keeping my proverbial nose clean. But I do think that cheap alternatives to "government-approved-drugs-with-prescriptions" are preferable to dependence on more expensive drugs that aren't necessary. If I can treat my own anxiety, depression, and insomnia with something I could grow in my garden, what exactly is the problem? That greedy people can't make money off me? That said, I mix a little red vein with my coffee every day when I go to work, and it's got a long way to keeping me alert and motivated. I wish it fixed all my problems, but it doesn't. :lol: Drug penalties are excessive, and I don't care if black populations are disproportionately affected or not. Eye for an eye. Keeping people in prison until they rot over drug possession is NOT eye-for-an-eye justice.



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25 May 2023, 4:46 pm

AngelRho wrote:
Drug penalties are excessive, and I don't care if black populations are disproportionately affected or not. Eye for an eye. Keeping people in prison until they rot over drug possession is NOT eye-for-an-eye justice.


Yes, the US war on drugs has a racial component in the incarceration of Latinos and blacks but also getting tough on poorer whites as a proxy war on crime.

Poorer whites who continue to elect republican governments are happy to work against their self-interest because they have been fed propaganda about minorities taking their jobs.

The prison-industrial complex benefits financially from the incarceration of all three groups. Are there statistics on the economic benefits of prisons to the money saved for the public purse?



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28 May 2023, 2:13 pm

Image


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RandoNLD
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28 May 2023, 6:16 pm

AngelRho wrote:
cyberdad wrote:
RandoNLD wrote:
The only exception to the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is for incarcerated felons. Guess what color most people working for free in U.S. prisons are?


There is something wrong with the Federal Bureau of prisons data
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/st ... e_race.jsp

Race # of Inmates % of Inmates
Asian 2,284 1.4%
Black 61,245 38.5%
Native 4,157 2.6%
White 91,312 57.4%

ummmm... where are the hispanic prisoners??

That chart focuses on race. You're looking for ethnicity--Hispanic, vs. non-Hispanic. Here it is:

Ethnicity # of Inmates % of Inmates
Hispanic 47,994. 30.2%
Non-Hispanic 111,004 69.8%

I love how the evidence doesn't favor a predominantly black prison population. :lol:

I don't feel like doing the research, so I'll leave it to someone else. I think the argument is you have more black men serving longer sentences for non-violent crimes than white men. I'm betting it's a product of culture. You have "white people" crimes like "Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement," "Extortion, Fraud, Bribery," "National Security," etc., offenses that are substantial and extensive, but not the same as "Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses." Ponzi schemes can run many multiples of multiple charges and rack up hundreds of years in prison. They'll keep you in prison until they tear it down. Then they'll bury you under the old prison and build a new prison on top of you. Some murderers get automatic life for comparison.

But those crimes are associated with privilege and whiteness, and nobody is out there protesting.

From what I understand, nobody disputes that certain drugs are harmful to individuals and that the underground drug/sex trade is disruptive to communities and associated with violence. People dealing with addictions can't hold jobs and turn to the sex trade or theft to support addiction, often turning violent if things get desperate. Gangs/organized crime engage in turf wars that can spill over into other sectors of society. It's not that drugs "make" people violent, but it is also often the case that someone who sells drugs is engaged in other potentially violent crimes. Harsh drug sentences are intended to address collateral damage. Those aren't crimes that are ever really visible in predominantly white communities.

And that means the drug/sex trade is perceived as predominantly within a black subculture. They're saying that drug offenses, which account for 44.5% of incarcerations, disproportionately affect black men, that drug offenses are non-violent crimes and don't deserve painfully-long consecutive sentences as with fraud.

So, basically possession and sale of drugs should get a pass since it is the primary way by which black people earn a living.

And yes, I'm purposefully being ironic. I'm going partially on the same bop.gov website stats along with my recollection of commentary in mainstream media. I'm not pretending that any of it makes sense. But [no irony] I do think lengthy prison sentences for drug offenses is a bit excessive.

I was raised during the "Just Say No" era and was taught that mind-altering drugs are EEEEEEVIL. I still maintain my view that ongoing drug use is dangerous to rational thinking. I still maintain my view that putting ANYTHING in your lungs that doesn't belong there is a bad idea. But I have also revised my views that all drug use is necessarily bad. I've had a kratom habit for the last year which has made a tremendous improvement on my moods, helping me be a bit more social and less tense/depressed. I think that moderate use of THC can also be beneficial, that careful microdosing can help with a number of things without leaving the user too stoned to function. So I personally find it offensive to the rights of individuals that the government can approve and regulate some drugs to combat mental disorders like ADHD, encourage/enable dependency on those things while making sure Big Pharma makes a ton of money, but certain plants that might make wonderful ornamentals in your flower bed/garden will get you 30 years in prison?

I think that's just a little messed up.

Where I live, there are legal sources of kratom and Delta 9. Obviously, if I got drug tested after using D9 it would end my career, so I'm meticulous about keeping my proverbial nose clean. But I do think that cheap alternatives to "government-approved-drugs-with-prescriptions" are preferable to dependence on more expensive drugs that aren't necessary. If I can treat my own anxiety, depression, and insomnia with something I could grow in my garden, what exactly is the problem? That greedy people can't make money off me? That said, I mix a little red vein with my coffee every day when I go to work, and it's got a long way to keeping me alert and motivated. I wish it fixed all my problems, but it doesn't. :lol: Drug penalties are excessive, and I don't care if black populations are disproportionately affected or not. Eye for an eye. Keeping people in prison until they rot over drug possession is NOT eye-for-an-eye justice.


The Black prison population is well disproportionate to the Black population in the U.S., Black Americans face longer sentences for the same crimes as White Americans and are more likely to be falsely accused in the first place. One of the only reasons prison sentences for Whites and women (before the Opioid Epidemic) broadly have gotten somewhat longer during the Opioid Epidemic is because the for profit prison industry realized that it could grow no further with 1/4 U.S. Black either incarcerated or under some form of legal supervision (parole, probation, house arrest etc).



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28 May 2023, 7:13 pm

What entity generates over $74 billion a year and is funded by both the U.S. government and American taxpayers? If you said the American Prison System (“APS”), then you would be correct.
https://news.law.fordham.edu/jcfl/2018/ ... -business/

i am curious though? how much of the money made from prisons offsets the cost of incarceration of each prisoner to the taxpayer? or is all the money going to private hands?