Hillary Clinton: Classic or Dud?

she's being criticized more (that I've seen) for the language she used in discussing it than for Bill's role in perpetuating it.

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), 8. juni 2017 18:28 (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Link? What I've seen is mostly 'They owned slaves' and only based on a single excerpt taken out of context. I would love to know why she's even writing about it, it seems to build to a point. For those who don't know, btw, the book is It Takes a Village from 1996.

I don't use twitter at work if I can help it but the first people I saw posting about it were pretty squarely focused on the excerpt and its tone. Since then, yes, there's been plenty of "they owned slaves!" shitposting, but such is the nature of Twitter.

i suspect people on both sides of this issue are going to be making arguments in less than good faith -- "who cares" basically means let's focus on other things here -- but actually excusing the practice and clinton's actions seems...very bad

What actions?

i'm cool w/discussing the reasons why hillary lost, only bc it's interesting to look back at what went wrong strategically and demographically and all, but as far as why the clintons are bad, i mean at this point i just don't want to talk about them as people anymore. though maybe we can't have one w/o the other, idk.

What actions?

― Frederik B, Thursday, June 8, 2017 1:02 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the actually having a slave thing

Unpaid prison labor meets the definition of "involuntary servitude", but it sure as fuck doesn't meet the definition of "slavery". As bad as unpaid prison labor is, equating it with slavery belittles the absolute injustice of slavery, in which innocent people become the property of someone else, who is privileged to abuse them or dispose of them however they see fit.

It really sucks that convicted murderers had to leave the prison workshops for cushy jobs in a mansion.

nice man

saying you'd rather not think about it because we should focus on trump is one thing. finding ways to defend the prison industrial complex is another!

Unpaid prison labor meets the definition of "involuntary servitude", but it sure as fuck doesn't meet the definition of "slavery". As bad as unpaid prison labor is, equating it with slavery belittles the absolute injustice of slavery, in which innocent people become the property of someone else, who is privileged to abuse them or dispose of them however they see fit.

It seems to fit into the definition of "modern slavery" from the US State Dept here and UNESCO here.

saying you'd rather not think about it because we should focus on trump is one thing. finding ways to defend the prison industrial complex is another!

― k3vin k., 8. juni 2017 19:28 (two minutes ago) BookmarkFlag Post Permalink

Nobody here does either.

It really sucks that convicted murderers had to leave the prison workshops for cushy jobs in a mansion.

So long as they didn't step out of line and get "sent back."

note: the criticism I've seen really focused on the way she gleefully wrote about that part.

'gleefully'... At this point you're just making things up.

I checked Sund4r's State Dept. link defining "modern slavery" and the best fit was:

Forced labor, sometimes also referred to as labor trafficking, encompasses the range of activities – recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining – involved when a person uses force or physical threats, psychological coercion, abuse of the legal process, deception, or other coercive means to compel someone to work.

This definitely fits if the prisoners are threatened, beaten, or specifically punished for refusal to participate in the unpaid labor they are asked to perform. However, a prisoner (at least theoretically) has recourse to the court system to challenge this coercion and their lawyer could cite the State Department's definition as part of their case.

I don't know enough detail about Arkansas' penal system to know if it really fits that definition or not. I'm sure it treads awfully close to that line, but if obvious coercion is baked into the system, I can't see how it hasn't been effectively challenged in court.

finding ways to defend the prison industrial complex is another!

― k3vin k., Thursday, June 8, 2017 1:28 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not defending the complex as a whole, but this in particular seems like an exceptionally kind way to treat a convicted murderer.

Hm, I think you're right, actually. xp

not defending it, just saying it is exceptionally kind!

wow they get to clean Bill Clinton's dishes what an honor

it is better treatment than their victims received.

Is it better or worse, on the whole, then being locked in a cell for 23 hours a day?

Has anyone asked the men who (were made to?) participating in this program how they felt about it?

it is better treatment than their victims received.

Oh cool, "eye for an eye" bullshit.

it is better treatment than their victims received.

This is the wrong yardstick to apply for so many reasons it is hard to know where to begin.

this strikes me as p fucked-up and indefensible

it is better treatment than their victims received.

― how's life, Thursday, June 8, 2017 2:14 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

seems like an interesting bar

just the lack of reflection stuck out to me, not surprised that it's a practice. there was an article or tweet thread a week or so ago about similar practices in Louisiana that rightfully made everybody mad

it would be funny if HRC's defense was that she didn't actually write any of "it takes a village"

I guess it took until 2017 for anyone to read far enough into It Takes a Village to uncover this scandal

^^^^yes, I found that detail amusing. Who tf wants to read a US pol memoir

I was surprised It Takes A Village came out in '96, I thought it was much earlier in the Clinton era, tied into the healthcare fiasco.

It was part of the post-1994 election rebranding of HRC as a First Lady who writes books about children and stuff

That tweet thread about Louisiana was really interesting. https://twitter.com/i/moments/866583376265977856

Just realised by this definition I was briefly a slave, apparently.

It takes a village to finish one of her books amirite

Just remembers one of Dole's big convention speech lines was "It doesn't take a village it takes a family!"

it's hilarious, I've been slapping my knee since '96

i was a little worried i was strawmanning ilx's hillary fans but phil d actually out here with the "actually, this isn't that bad"

No, I asked a question, one which I noticed you haven't bothered to answer.

Has anyone asked the men who (were made to?) participating in this program how they felt about it?

― Old Lynch's Sex Paragraph (Phil D.), Thursday, June 8, 2017 2:17 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you mean this question, the answer is: their bodies were used to pave the Clintons' secret CIA Cocaine airstrip

Being in prison at all is shitty as all hell (yes I know people who both have been to prison and people who are currently in prison, one for a double life sentence) and the entire system of who does and doesn't go to prison is FUBAR in this country. Being forced to perform uncompensated labor in prison is also shitty. (Labor compensated at third world wages is not much better.)

Since we have pretty much given up on rehabilitation, if I were in prison, I, personally, would rather spend my time cutting some guy's lawn or serving his dinner than sitting in a cell or being subject to the other attendant risks of being in prison. And I was curious as to whether anyone had asked the people being referred to in Clinton's book if they felt the same. Have any of them ever been interviewed? Were they volunteers, or were they forced to participate? Was it something that could be earned, and if so, how arbitrarily could it be taken away?

Apparently kevin k. either a) has asked and declines to share the answers with us, b) hasn't asked but presumes to speak for them because reasons, c) is a fucking shithead or d) some combination of a, b and c.

It says something about how much people cared about uncompensated prison labor back in the 90s-00s that a)HRC wrote about this stuff in a book about parenting, b) the book was roundly attacked for various reasons, but not this one, c)seemingly no one found this stuff notable at the time, or brought it up when she ran for office in 2000, 2006, 2008 or 2016.

This also leads me to believe that no one interviewed these prisoners about their thoughts.

Prison labour in the US is generally mandatory, unpaid (or extremely low-paid), and menial (i.e has no value as work experience)

seemingly no one found this stuff notable at the time, or brought it up when she ran for office in 2000, 2006, 2008 or 2016

what are you talking about there were tons of people saying Hillary is bad and then you get a Fred B in your face

The US public generally is OK with punitive imprisonment and treating prisoners like human shit. It represents a total failure of imagination and empathy, let alone Christian charity and forgiveness.

Interviewing prisoners for their thoughts wouldn't really change anything. It's like every American work questionnaire - having no vacation and struggling blows but it beats dying in the gutter.

I'm sure the prisoners preferred working for the Clintons to breaking rocks - doesn't make either even remotely acceptable.

one of the differences is that when you work for a public institution you are beholden to the state. what was upsetting with this was that they were charged with an additional authority over the workers. they could report them for breaking rules and have them sent back to prison and likely disciplined if they didn't make these those two happy. this is pretty different from following rules in a public prison. much more easy to abuse this newfound authority. if you look at circa scandals like Paula Jones or the Iraq Air strike to divert attention from the Lewinsky trials, there is a pattern of abusing authority. if you were a prisoner who accidentally saw somebody doing some illegal shit (and working w politicans for decades you probably would) it seems like it you may make some powerful enemies.

this is mostly conjecture tho. the casualness of it is the disturbing thing. it would be interesting to interview these people, maybe they were great family friends and it was a way to legit get out of a cycle of imprisonment. it depends on how much you trust the Clintons, i suppose.

That's mindblowingly stupid.

Let's not forget that Killary had Seth Rich killed, so who knows what she did to these guys...

Fred you could probably be a big enough smug c*** to be a Clinton with a little ambition