(via elissaconnor)
(via mysticmementos)
setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain:
Prison Labor Exposed: From Starbucks to Microsoft - A sampling of what US prisoners make & for whom
May 21, 2013Tens of thousands of US inmates are paid from pennies to minimum wage—minus fines and victim compensation—for everything from grunt work to firefighting to specialized labor.
The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the UnionCorrectional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state’s forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE’s website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are “designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, to reduce the cost of state government, and to promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.”
And Each month, California inmates process more than 680,000 pounds of beef, 400,000 pounds of chicken products, 450,000 gallons of milk, 280,000 loaves of bread, and 2.9 million eggs (from 160,000 inmate-raised hens).Starbucks subcontractor Signature Packaging Solutions has hired Washington prisoners to package holiday coffees (as well as Nintendo Game Boys). Confronted by a reporter in 2001, a Starbucks rep called the setup “entirely consistent with our mission statement.”
Texas inmates produce brooms and brushes, bedding and mattresses, toilets, sinks, showers, and bullwhips.
In Texas, prisoners make officers’ duty belts, handcuff cases, and prison-cell accessories. California convicts make gun containers, creepers (to peek under vehicles), and human-silhouette targets.
A stitch in time: California inmates sew their own garb. In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria’s Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace “Made in Honduras” labels on garments with “Made in the usa.”
Open wide: At California’s prison dental laboratory, inmates produce a complete prosthesis selection, including custom trays, try-ins, bite blocks, and dentures.
Constructive criticism: Prisoners in for burglary, battery, drug and gun charges, and escape helped build a Wal-Mart distribution center in Wisconsin in 2005, until community uproar halted the program. (Company policy says, “Forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart.”)
On call: Its inmate call centers are the “best kept secret in outsourcing,” Unicor boasts. In 1994, a contractor for GOP congressional hopeful Jack Metcalf hired Washington state prisoners to call and remind voters he was pro-death penalty. Metcalf, who prevailed, said he never knew.
Federal Prison Industries, a.k.a. Unicor, says that in addition to soldiers’ uniforms, bedding, shoes, helmets, and flak vests, inmates have “produced missile cables (including those used on the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War)” and “wiring harnesses for jets and tanks.” In 1997, according to Prison Legal News, Boeing subcontractor MicroJet had prisoners cutting airplane components, paying $7 an hour for work that paid union wages of $30 on the outside.
AND THIS
IS WHY
THE WAR ON DRUGS
AND REAGAN
CAN FUCKING BURN FOREVER
FOR FUCKING EVER
I’ve said it before, and this reaffirms my concerns, the war on drugs is a modern day slave trade.
^^
The HIGH TIMES Interview: Roseanne Barr
A small, instantly recognizable woman sits down across the table from me. She bumps fists, leery of the germs that tourists from around the world bring with them to Las Vegas. Roseanne, one of the few stars identifiable by first name only, is in the middle of a six-night-per-week standup gig at the Tropicana’s Laugh Factory. She admits to being a little tired, but nothing slows this woman down.
Roseanne is a steamroller who’s made a career of breaking down walls. She calls comedians “psychic boil-lancers,” and she embodies that concept to a tee. Named by Comedy Central as the ninth-greatest standup of all time – the only woman listed in the top 30 – Roseanne ruled the airwaves for a decade in her eponymous hit TV series, even as she fought Hollywood’s power structure every step of the way.
A negative mindset will attract negative situations. Just as a positive mindset will attract positive ones. Sometimes it surprises me how much of a shock this tiny little gem of a fact can be…and yet once we realize we are in complete control of our individual microcosmic universes and thus all facets of our emotional, mental and spiritual experiences, suddenly the world lays open at our fingertips, like the bare and supple skin of a lover…just wishing to be kissed by the grace of our breath.
A Higher Conscious Conversation (by Mynzah)
LISTEN
(via mysticmementos)
“They say if you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish…. then he’s got to get a fishing license, but he doesn’t have any money. So he’s got to get a job and pay taxes, and now you’re gonna audit the poor cocksucker because he’s not good with math.
So they’ll pull the IRS van up to your house and take all your shit. And you were just worried about eating a fucking fish, but you couldn’t ever cook the fish because you needed a permit for an open flame. Then the Health Dept. is going to start asking you a lot of questions about where you are going to dump the scales and guts. And ladies and gentlemen, if you get sick of it all at the end of the day, it’s not even legal to kill yourself.”
--Doug Stanhope
(via laughingsamdice)
(via freewhenthesunshinesonme)
Time uses a picture of a young woman taking a selfie to demonstrate how fucked up our generation is
Why not use a picture of a 50 year old white male banker masturbating with mortgage papers into the mouth of a senator
(via conjuringseed)
“Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.”
(via godindrag)
“Waking Life”, a philosophical journey through the mind and the world of dreams. Put this on your “To-Watch” list.
one of the first movies i ever watched while tripping. psychedelics or not, this movie is fucking legit and everyone should definitely at least entertain the thought of watching this. the world would be a better place. the skit about the ants got me.
this is a must watch, The Waking Life is incredible
(via weedbrain)
Chris Person fixed TIME’s new magazine cover. Now it’s accurate. (TIME version #1, Person edit #2)
Update: And here’s another stellar contribution from @direlog
EXCELLENT
From @EARNEST_CYBORG9
*APPLAUSE*
(via peaceblaster)
