Slave Labor - Money trail leads to Koch Brothers and Conservatives who want your job!
Below from elyusium.
===============================
Mon Feb 21, 2011 at 11:04 AM EST
Slave Labor - Money trail leads to Koch Brothers and Conservatives who want your job!
by Bob Sloan
Courtesy of bvblackspin.com
This was the scene last summer along the U.S. Gulf Coast as inmates "hired" by BP were used to clean up the Event Horizon oil spill. The inmates were assigned to the job by Prison Work Release personnel for the state Departments of Correction and were paid between 0 and .40 cents an hour for their labor. If they refused the work, they were taken back to prison - not the work release centers where they were housed.
Some of the work release centers were privately owned facilities operated by former prison wardens that have cashed in on the wealth of money available for housing state offenders.
Today we are a different society from fifty years ago. We have come to rely upon the judgement and integrity of our lawmakers to guide us as a society as we moved into the new millennium. Because we trusted them we gave them a great amount of latitude on issues such as criminal justice and providing for our safety and well being.
As a result of this misplaced trust, we now have a former President who can't travel the world for fear he'll be arrested as a war criminal for the acts committed in the name of the United States of America. Torture, rendition, waterboarding, lies and manipulation of information to allow him to take us into a needless and costly war - made even more costly for our national reputation. We also have a political party who revere this former President for "all the good he did for this country" while in office. Bullshit by any other name still smells.
When the tragedy occurred on 9/11 President Bush had a grand opportunity to lead us out of the miasma by bringing us together as a society and nation. Instead while we cried and the rest of the world wept for us, he chose to "lead" us from the back, herding us like cattle into pens and corrals set-up by Corporations such as Koch Industries, and conservative organizations like ALEC, the Heritage and Reason Foundations. Once there he left us to their manipulations and exploitation to take our savings, pensions, retirement, social security and dignity - as Americans and humans. After taking as much of that as they could lay their hands on, they began taking our homes, vehicles and then went after our jobs and fair wages. Not finished with us, these same corporate interests and Conservatives that developed and funded Bush's agenda turned to putting as many of us in prison as they could, so more money could be earned off of privatized prisons and prison industries. Many of these Conservatives remain in power, influential and still in denial as to the true history of the Bush Administration, continuing to deny that people all over the world disappeared during the Bush years, that torture was not only committed, but condoned by the White House and done proudly in the name of the U.S. (If you remain doubting or still need convincing as to the involvement of the Koch brothers' influence in most of what is/has happened to us - individually and as a country, read on).
We can now look back and wonder at our ability to be so totally naïve to have expected that the trust we placed in these elected officials would would have been used wisely. Instead of honoring their duties and the trust we placed upon them, they sought out a way to exploit and imprison more and more of us until today they have succeeded in creating mass incarceration that leaves us with 2.5 million of our former neighbors and friends locked up in prisons nationwide. Another 5 or so million are under some form of supervision, parole or supervised release or probation.
Together with corporate interests they've partnered with, huge windfalls of money taken from tax dollars have been funneled into the coffers of companies like Koch Industries, Microsoft, Boeing, AT&T, Nortel, Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group. Much of the profits for these corporation came from tax cuts benefiting them for moving our jobs overseas and in cases where it was not feasible to do that - or logistically problematic - they have been rewarded for moving the jobs left into our state prison industries.
Today thousands of men and women toil behind prison fences for the likes of AT&T, IBM and Victoria's Secret, making the products we use everyday for these corporations. Inmates are used so profit margins increase while civilian jobs become more and more scarce and the wages for those jobs are reduced. This has become the face of capitalism.
On the 9th of this month this article came out about a Florida prison and a County that wants to capitalize off of prison labor. To save $58,000.00 by using inmates instead of civilian employees, Flagler County is vying for a contract with the FDOC to do just that. This contractual use of prisoner labor is taking place nationwide, led by politicians, municipal commissions and managers. They say it saves them money in a time of economic downturn...that, simply translated means your job has to go to a prisoner because it's cheaper - and your ability to provide for your family comes second to state and local governments and politicians alike. Does that loss of your job to an inmate and a savings by the government result in your taxes being lower? No. Does it help create civilian jobs in the private sector? No, it removes them. Today 93,000 inmates work in prison industry operations nationwide. This figure does not include those inmates assigned to Community Work Squads, Department of Transportation or other leased labor within the communities. Estimates of the actual number of inmates working in those programs is another 110,000. Because prison factories sometimes run 24/7 operating three shifts, the number of civilian jobs lost to these laborers is probably closer to 400,000 and results in billions in product sales and service operations. In this - or any - economy, that's a lot of money.
Between the Department of Justice recruiting businesses to move their operations from the private sector and put them in the hands of inmates, and the numerous partnerships between the corporations and companies like CCA and Geo, much of the U.S.'s manufacturing and industrial operations are now being performed by prison industries, using slave labor. That is terrible enough in itself, but the fact that the prison labor companies involved are cutting corners further by buying their materials from China rather than from non-prison suppliers here in the U.S., eliminates even more civilian jobs in America. Direct Trailer and Equipment (a PIECP operation in the Texas Prison Industries) that caused the closure of Lufkin Industry's Trailer Division in 2008, purchased Mitsubishi engines, steel frames and other supplies from China. Those who have followed my diaries over the past six months or so have already read about this story of Lufkin's Trailer Division closing in 2008 because of the unknown competition from Direct Trailer and Equipment. If you thought that was the end of the story for Direct Trailer, you'd be wrong.
Just like cockroaches that scurry and find a better hiding place when you turn the lights on, companies exploiting slave labor do the same thing when their exploitation is exposed to the public. After Texas forced the contract between the TDCJ and Direct Trailer to be closed and laws written to stop the loss of civilian jobs to prison labor, Direct Trailer fell from the media. Most of us breathed a sigh of relief that this kind of thing wouldn't happen to other private sector manufacturers...but that sigh soon turned to a gasp. In December the TDCJ (Texas Department of Criminal Justice) announced they would not renew their contract with Direct Trailer due to efforts to save Texas civilian jobs like those lost by the Lufkin employees. What most of us did not know was that this slimy business venture didn't go quietly into the night. They had become addicted to using cheap slave labor in their manufacturing and wanted to keep the profits coming. So...they merely moved their operations close to another prison hundreds of miles away, in a state known as a Republican stronghold. There they believe they can reopen their operation with little chance of state laws being changed again to deny them the use of prisoners to manufacture the products they use to undercut civilian manufacturers. The NCIA and the MS. Prison Industries do not list DTEC as involved in the PIECP operation and nothing at the DTEC website provides information that they use prison labor in any way. So they are now completely off the radar of everyone. Good move by the cockroaches...hiding in plain sight.
The state in question? Why Mississippi, of course . Not only did they move operations to Parchman, MS. they moved it to a state with a Governor (Haley Barbour) who was actively working to develop "relationships with" China and Japan:
"Direct Trailer and Equipment Company (DTEC) based in Kingwood, Tex.,
recently opened a new facility in Sunflower County. The facility will manufacture and recondition various types of trailers and transportation equipment, creating 20 new jobs in the area. MDA provided the company with $47,113 in Development Infrastructure Program (DIP) funds. DIP funds are designed for making grants or loans to counties or municipalities to finance small infrastructure projects to promote economic growth in the state; the DIP funds for this project will be used to construct an access turnoff on Highway 49.
"According to the company's website, DTEC "is a company specializing in
trailer and specialty manufacturing with a customer-centric approach." To
learn more, please visit www.dtec-tx.com .
"Governor Barbour, MDA Expand Economic Development Outreach
As the State of Mississippi continues to cultivate relationships with Japan
and China, Governor Barbour and MDA are fervently expanding economic
development outreach efforts to attract more foreign investment to the
state from countries around the globe."
A look at the invoices I linked to above from Japan and China reveals that two of the three were shipped after Direct Trailer moved their operations to Mississippi (1-3-2009 and 6-8-2009, respectively) although the invoicing shows the products were shipped to DTEC's Tennessee Colony, TX. address. I would say these purchases by MS's newest prison labor user from China and Japan fit nicely into Governor Barbour's "outreach" to both of these countries.
It isn't enough that the corporations involved in using prison industries rely upon slave labor in factories to make their products, they encourage importing the materials used to further deny jobs to American workers. Steel and other components used in manufacturing when purchased overseas benefits these prison operators in two ways, by eliminating sales and thus jobs here in the U.S. and this allows for underpricing of their goods to take sales away from the private companies they compete against.
Sadly all of this is done through the Department of Justice's PIE Program that allows private corporations to use prison labor in the manufacture of their products. Again this is just one of the "laws" that were enacted to the benefit of prison industries and corporations by our lawmakers whom we trusted. To fill the prison industry jobs needed to operate this government sponsored inmate "training" program, more prisoners were needed. Through the likes of ALEC and their conservative lawmakers and supporters and funders Koch Industries and corporate owners, the Koch brothers, and dozens of other corporations who are members of ALEC, great strides were made to increase criminal laws involving drugs, guns and many other criminal justice issues. They began these efforts by first telling us we were all in jeopardy from rising crime rates, violent criminals being returned to the streets after serving short sentences and made us fear our own neighborhoods and unsafe in our homes unless we supported their efforts of making us "safe". Society complied and increased tax dollars while applauding their efforts of protecting us.
Before they were done, every prisoner in the U.S. was made to serve 85% of their sentences (Truth in Sentencing Laws). The U.S. government now provides substantial grants to those states implementing the TIS laws. Originally the TIS law was to ensure that "violent criminal" offenders were made to serve 85% of their sentences, but since most prisoners in the system are not violent and their sentences were not affected, they changed the legislation and intent so ALL prisoners must now serve 85% of their sentences.
Laws and Court rules were changed to set minimum mandatory sentences for offenses - regardless of the severity of the offense - and judges made to follow those guidelines and sentence accordingly. In effect this took all compassion and discretion out of the hands of the judges, and put it in the hands of prosecutors, who currently lack both. These minimum mandatory sentences impacted upon drug crimes more than gun crimes, resulting in tens of thousands of marijuana users being imprisoned. Users of other drugs were of course included, but the largest impact was upon those who smoked grass. As I wrote in the last diary, Indiana is now in the midst of a huge scandal involving manipulations of drug tests performed by a lab run by Indiana University that has sent possibly thousands of persons to prison based upon manipulated drug test results.
When states began going broke from incarceration costs, the Conservatives realized that prison populations were decreasing and looked for ways to protect the profits of supporters like CCA and Geo Group, so they turned in 2008 to using their same agenda of instilling us with fear about illegal immigration, using the media to hype the "fact" that illegal aliens were coming in from Mexico and bringing drugs with them. Citizens in Arizona were being killed, beheaded and forced from their properties (guess these purported illegal border crossers just like Arizona less than the other border states, huh?) and were also coming here to steal our jobs and have their babies here so they'd be U.S. citizens.
Once they had the populace all scared and up in arms...they patted AZ. Congressman Russell Pearce (R) on the back and sent him from ALEC's conference room to the halls of Arizona's legislature where the law they had prepared with the help and funding of CCA and Geo Group were introduced. Arizona citizens - fearing for their lives and livelihood from those evil immigrants, supported the new legislation. The prison companies and their lobbyists dumped campaign contributions into 35 other AZ. lawmakers accounts and funded anything Governor Brewer was pushing for. ' Course, Brewer was already compromised with two of her immediate staff being lobbyists for CCA and that company having funded $100,000.00 toward Brewer's sales tax proposed initiative. Lawmakers would have all of us believe that the funding by CCA and the fact that they hold contracts with the U.S. government to house illegal immigrant detainees, had nothing to do with the Bill or passage, claiming this was just coincidental.
When the Bill was passed and immediately signed by Brewer, the U.S. filed suit against the state law, calling it discriminatory and unconstitutional. Poor CCA and the other exploiters of prisoners were back to square one while they await the outcome of the Federal Court on SB 1070. Undaunted by the litigation, supporters of this legislation led by ALEC's Conservative public lawmaker membership, have introduced this or similar legislation in 22 other U.S. states, apparently ignoring the possibility that such legislation is unconstitutional - sort of like force feeding it to us. Corporate exploiters of prison labor needing workers are worried about the declining number of prisoners in our prisons and realize that until and unless the Supreme Court eventually finds SB 1070 constitutional, their captive prison slave labor is going to continue to dwindle. This has led to the realization that they may have to actually turn once again to the private sector job markets for workers, but they simply have become addicted to cheap labor...so in an effort to keep their labor cheap, they have now turned to attacking our Unions and organized labor in general. The obvious reason for this is to eliminate all collective bargaining and implement right to work laws in their place, at all levels to allow them to drive down wages without any voices left to complain - or laws for U.S. workers to rely upon.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Just recently we discovered other slimy acts committed against juveniles by two Pennsylvania Court Judges pictured above.The two, County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Judge Michael Conahan were just found guilty of a "Cash for Kids" scheme where they partnered with owners of a privately run County juvenile detention facility and sent many youths to the center in exchange for cash kickbacks. The charges reveal that in exchange for sending one in every four juveniles that appeared in their court rooms to this private facility, the judges received a kickback. By the time the scheme was busted, they had received as much as $2.6 million in payouts from the corporation.
Ciavarella is a Democrat which only goes to show that when millions of dollars are available from corrupt private prison companies, anyone can succumb to the greed. Combine this Pennsylvania story about corruption involving profits from housing juveniles for money with similar stories out of Florida and Alabama and it is apparent these private facilities are busy preparing our youth for prison once they turn adults. I guess this is another form of "training" sanctioned by state's Juvenile authorities who know the amount of money being made as well as the abuse that is ongoing, but choose to look the other way - just as the DOJ does with the prison industry program they operate and the NCIA that is supposed to oversee the program.
As most of us are now aware, much of this exploitation of prisoners began in Texas and Florida under the Governorships of Jeb and George W. Bush (or the Bush crime family as I prefer to call them - course, Brothers In Crime would fit also) back in the 90's and through the mid to late 2000's. Rumsfeld needed weapons and materials to fight Bush's wars and Cheney's boys at Halliburton wanted all the profits they could manage - mostly from tax dollars. The obvious solution to both was the use of the federal prison industries to manufacture the military materials sought by Rumsfeld, provide them to Halliburton cheaply so they could resell the products to the government and make a nice return on the transactions. We taxpayers weren't smart enough to figure out how this system would cost us double - by delivering prison made goods to Halliburton and allowing them to resell it to the government under contract. Some of us wondered why the prison industries didn't just make the materials and products and deliver them to the military without using Halliburton as the middle-man broker but answers to that question were never satisfactory.
In addition, as President, Bush allocated huge sums of tax dollar funding for the building of detention centers here in the U.S. for INS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and supported private prison companies building of private federal prison facilities, Halliburton got in on that also. Their subsidiary KBR (formerly Brown and Root) was contracted to build most of these detention facilities as well as those built by private prison companies using public municipal bonds (author note: READ This article closely to better understand how prison company stocks are used to derive as much as 15 times their actual value). Bush also allocated large sums of federal money to fund INS and ICE operations to make sweeps in the U.S. and pick up purported illegal aliens to fill these prisons KBR and Halliburton built and CCA, Geo Group and Cornell were operating and being paid as much as $83.00 per day per prisoner in our tax dollars - double the amount normally needed for housing prisoners.
KBR is still in the news due to their corruptive practices just this month when they were fined $11 million for bribing officials to get lucrative contracts in a foreign country.
In 2007 President Bush was put on the hot seat by Koch Industries due to ICE raiding Koch Foods in Ohio. This so angered Koch Industries they blamed Bush and to prove his "loyalty" to them, he reassigned 1000 ICE agents and stopped work-site immigration enforcement altogether:
"The latest news not being covered by the mainstream news media is President George W. Bush's reassignment of some 1,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to work as US Customs officers.
"News of this reassignment began to leak out after a press conference on Wednesday by Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE, announcing that special agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had executed criminal search warrants at Koch Foods in Fairfield, Ohio.
"ICE identified more than 180 Koch employees working at the Fairfield plant requiring further questioning and administratively arrested more than 160 for immigration violations. ICE agents simultaneously executed criminal search warrants at Koch's corporate office in Chicago.
"The enforcement actions were part of a two-year, ongoing ICE investigation based on evidence that Koch Foods may have been knowingly hired illegal aliens at its poultry processing and packaging facility.
'While Secretary Myers tooted her horn about ICE and President Bush's strategy to curtail illegal alien workers, the Department of Homeland Security was already preparing to reassign ICE agents,' claims former New York City detective Sid Francis.
"When it comes to government agencies, the liberal-left's -- including so-called 'compassionate conservatives' such as Bush and Senator John McCain -- least favorite agencies are ICE and the US Border Patrol," said Detective Francis.
"The Bush Administration has always attempted to control the actions of its Immigration workers especially those assigned to Border Patrol and ICE. While telling Americans he's increasing border security and immigration enforcement, behind the scenes Bush is handcuffing federal agents in order to prevent them from having significant impact on illegal immigration," claims political strategist Mike Baker.
"Bush is once again appeasing his political pals in Mexico, while at the same time conning American citizens," accuses Baker.
"In addition to the transfers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement criminal investigators will no longer be involved in immigration work site enforcement or conduct checks for illegal alien prisoners. This will mean that companies hiring illegal aliens will get a pass from the White House to hire illegal aliens, including companies that perform contract work for the US military.
Following the arrest of the one hundred and sixty illegal immigrants at the Koch owned plant, President Bush got the Senate - not the House - to revive his Immigration Bill and proposed that:
"...that there needed to be a program that allowed immigrants to temporarily fill jobs that the President claimed Americans are not doing."
and in response to the reason for the Senate reviving the immigration initiative first?
"Our view is, if the status quo is unacceptable, we need to replace it with something that is acceptable, and have been working toward that end with both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. The reason the Senate, of course, is that we'll be moving our attention to the House when it passes a comprehensive piece of legislation," President Bush stated, according to the press release."
The reassignment of 1000 federal ICE agents stopped all further industrial sweeps to pick up suspected illegal immigrants. The President effectively tied the hands of the very agency he had created for the important purpose of apprehending illegal workers who had taken American worker's jobs - because they worked for half wages - and prosecuting those companies hiring them. This is the influence exerted upon our politicians by the likes of billionaires such as the Koch brothers and similar wealthy GOP PAC's.
Looking back now from a perch hovering over a barren landscape pitted with craters that represent our missing jobs, it is easy to see how that one single arrest at the Koch plant resulted in a complete change in the immigration policy of the United States. The one time our laws actually caught up with the Koch brothers violating U.S. law, Bush sought to change the laws for Koch and thus policy, pertaining to our national immigration reform. This corporate influence changed the course of our country then, just as the same players are trying to do now regarding right to work and collective bargaining. Time and again a when a curtain on important work, wage or conservative pursuits has been lifted, behind it is was one - or both - Koch brother(s) or their Conservative foundations. These men are reprehensible and as this one incident demonstrates, have the capability to derail a national policy to benefit them personally.
Even as Bush and the Republicant Conservatives placated the Kochs and reworked immigration policies to suit them, the Bush administration continued their disinformation to the rest of us; about how they were actively pursuing true immigration reform and it is/was the Progressive Democrats standing in the way. More clearly than most other events, this one serves notice of the kind of propaganda that is spewed out of the mouths of the likes of Boehner, Cantor and their predecessors to keep the public in the dark as to their real machinations and on whose behalf those manipulations are performed for.
Truly amazing the way much of this has been happening below the radar of our mainstream media and investigative reporters. Is it so very difficult for them to turn over the rocks and see what crawls out? Hell, I do this from my home office and have been able to uncover everything I've written about concerning these issues, mostly from internet sources. I know there are reporters out there that have this information and have compiled as much research as I have...is it because of the "Koch" and "ALEC" titles that they fear exposing them? If it is, how can they call themselves "journalists?" Today as dozens of reporters put themselves in harms way in the Middle East and elsewhere to expose the abuses and dictatorial actions of those who are oppressing the populations of numerous countries while usurping money from the masses and denying them fair wages, the "talking heads" here at home who call themselves journalists keep their heads down and refuse to inform us of what is happening right here at home. It's easier - and possibly safer - for them to simply let it continue as they watch more people sent to prison where our former jobs await them and they can again go to work - for pennies on the dollar. Shame on them for lacking the courage to report the facts rather than continuing to enable corruptive actions by their silence.
Why is it that now, when demonstrations are taking place across the Midwest, and Progressives are jumping up and down and pointing out the connections between these corporations and groups to the problem, are the major media outlets still keeping their heads turned and purposely not looking where we're pointing? I think its because too damn many of them are owned by huge corporations that are walking on eggshells where the Koch name is mentioned. I mean why shouldn't they be concerned about reporting the involvement of these groups, when a simple snap of the fingers of a powerful and influential hand can make our President jump?
Now we can see that when the Koch brothers do snap their fingers, Republican's jump to do their bidding...even those serving as our President. It's all well and good to enforce immigration as long as it doesn't interfere with conservative Republicant supporters. All Koch had to do was threaten to cut off their funding to politicians and 1000 American workers doing their jobs were punished by reassignment and similar raids and arrests stopped - upon order of the President. Obviously this provides us with a true understanding of how U.S. workers are viewed by Republicants and their Conservative masters. It also tells us how much pressure is being exerted across the country state by state, politician by politician by these corporate interests to get their way. It isn't just cheap wages they want to pay. No, its to run this country from the foreground. They've been running it from the background for too many years and believe they now have the strength to do it right in our faces.
Today as I write this, our unions and virtually all jobs in America are clearly under attack by the Republicants driven by their conservative right wing. This battle is waged against us by Conservative lawmakers from coast to coast, city by city and state by state and funded by the likes of the giant companies we helped to build with our sweat and consumer purchases. The Unions we fought so hard for and won only through more of our sweat and much blood spilled by those fighting for fair wages and benefits, healthcare, vacations, 40 hour work weeks, etc. are now under harsh attack. Without Unions and the efforts put forth by millions of yesterday's brave workers, we would already be where these despicable corporations and their bought and paid for politicians now wish to take us. We cannot capitulate to their demands and lose everything our forefathers worked so hard to gain for us. This war against fair wages and treatment of workers was fought and won many decades ago, but like the Civil War and the Southern states persistent efforts to keep slavery and oppression alive and well following that war, Conservatives continue to battle to repeal all forms of collective bargaining to keep us in our place.
As our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and other states stand out in the cold on behalf of all of us, we must understand that though some among us have drank the kool aid in the past, convinced by disinformation that Unions are a bad thing, we must realize that they are the last bastion against what the Republican party and their masters are trying to do to us regarding jobs, fair wages and benefits. If the Conservatives succeed in eliminating them as they plan...who will be left to speak on our behalf when they come for the rest of our jobs?
As all of this demonstrates - rather clearly - slave labor is alive and well in the U.S. and it is funded, supported and operated by Conservatives. Conservative companies want the cheapest labor they can find - prisoner or immigrant as shown in the Koch article - and the laws can be altered by their conservative lawmaker lackeys who willingly sell our labor to them through legislation that is designed to turn back the national clock by a hundred years. As this diary and the links herein show, we are obviously in a nation that now has two distinct classes of citizens - those who have everything and want to keep it out of the hands of those who don't, and the rest of us who scurry to and fro on behalf of the "haves" making their lives richer and more comfortable while ours become even more meaningless and unimportant to them...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/21/947554/-Slave-LaborMoney-trail-leads-to-Koch-Brothers-and-Conservatives-who-want-your-job!