The Clintons had slave labour back in the 70's

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SOCIAL media has erupted about a two-decade old revelation that Hillary and Bill Clinton used forced prison labour while in the Arkansas governor’s mansion.

A post shared on Twitter yesterday by activist Jeanette Jing contained two pages of Ms Clinton’s book It Takes A Village, which was released in 1996. It has since gone viral.

In it, the former Democratic Presidential Nominee recalls the African-American prisoners who worked at the mansion she shared with Bill while he led the state from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992.

“When we moved in, I was told that using prison labor (sic) at the governor’s mansion was a longstanding tradition, which kept down costs,” Ms Clinton revealed in the book.

While most of the forced workers were convicted murdered, she became friends with “a few of them, African-American men in their thirties who had already served 12 to 18 years of their sentences”.

Oddly, she reflected on their personalities, stating that they didn’t have “inferior IQs or an inability to apply moral reasoning” but observed they might have been “emotional illiterates”.

While the facts are not new, their emergence has again called into question Ms Clinton’s stated record on race relations.

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.dai ... 31c62460fe

I'm not surprised.

The Clintons are a bunch of scumbags.

"I'm not as disgustingly evil as the Republicans! Vote for me!"

Hi. I'm European, and I need some explanation here, please.
What's the definition of prison labour?

I mean, over here, prisoners, too, engage in labour and earn a bit of money- it's certainly cheap to have stuff produced by convicts. They can also get an education and become carpenters and things like that, to qualify for a job once they served their sentence.
So, how is having prisoners do work on a government building related to slavery?
I mean, I get there's the obvious similarity of unfreedom and work, yes, but one unfreedom is founded in owning a slave, i.e. arbitrarily denying a person their rights based on race and tradition etc., the other is non-arbitrary temporary unfreedom based criminal behaviour and the penal system.

and if prison labour = slavery , in that way, is imprisonment equal to illegal detainment, and the death penalty the same as murder?

please, I'm not trying to be sarcastic or cynical, but trying to understand things and subtle and not so subtle differences.

I don't believe that "slave labor" (used in the title of this thread), equates to "prison labor" (used in the body of the OP), because prisoners are PAID money for their labor.

I have more of a problem with her saying: "emotional illiterates"----by WHOSE standards, were they illiterate? Just because they may have had different priorities in life, or gave importance to different things, than HER, doesn't mean they were "emotional illiterates"; it just means, IMO, that they were different. It ALSO further confirms, IMO, what a total slime-dog she is, in that she's outta touch, and not very broad-minded, accepting, etc.----and, that everybody has to rise-UP to meet HER, but she's not willing to bend-down, to meet THEM (meaning, in HER mind she would have to "bend-down", cuz she, IMO, seems to think of herself as above them).

Clinton became governor in '78,so really the tail end of the seventies.
The Arkansas penal system used to be really rough.The film Brubaker was based on it.
It's better now,thank goodness but still far from perfect.I doubt there is a perfect prison.
The inmates grow most of their own food at the prison.Most will tell you they would prefer to be out working than sitting in a cell.
Hilary's comment about being emotionally illiterate was dumb.More likely they had crappy childhoods and carried the pain with them.

Isn't prison labour a contentious issue in the US anyway, especially as it equates to cents on the dollar, and corporations have benefited from this, and can require a degree collusion to qualify?

No fan of the Clinton's but I detect there is a lack of moral consistency here. I have no idea whether is this normal party politcal BS, or the author has always been moral consistent on this issue (or they have called out both parties on this). However if I was a betting man, I'd wager the former simply becuase it has the all the hall marks of a snipe.

The tragedy here is is people are given the choice between two s**t sandwiches come election time.

In my parents and grand parents day all license plates were made by convicts in penitentiary work shops. So every motorist in America "exploited" "slave labor" in the same way the Clintons did. BFD!

Nowadays ( in these more enlighten times) most American license plates are probably outsourced overseas, and are probably made either by child factory laborers in southern Asian countries, or by adult political prisoners in China.

But American White collar criminals still are used to clean litter from parks and from highway greenswards. So if you enjoy the sight of a litter free road you are exploiting slave labor.

The state system was what had been for decades before Clinton took office as governor. He didn't invent that system.

But put your partisan passions (either way) triggered by the name "Clinton" aside for a moment.

In the abstract: what would you think about a generic governor who saves the tax payer money by NOT using contractors, but by using convicts to do upkeep on the governor's mansion, and giving the convicts work experience, and on the job training?

On the other hand: what you think of a governor who...takes jobs away from the hard working Americans by using convict labor to upkeep his mansion? What does he want us to do? Commit a crime so we can get our old job back???

Its an interesting question.

As of about two years ago: "Louisiana license plates are produced...at the state prison, and by a machine invented in the early 1900s..."
--http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_f3f97e64-826a-5fb2-b2cf-a9e4ace3aaef.html

I see litter cleanup crews along the I-20 corridor, and I assume that is being done by prisoners. However, I do not know whether all Louisiana jails and prisons are being run by state and local governments or possibly being out-sourced...and there is where I begin having issues. Prisoners cost taxpayers far more than whatever they might "pay back" by making license plates or performing litter cleanup for "dime-on-the-dollar" wages, but corporations running prisons for profit and with additional industries presenting stiff competition in the public market troubles me greatly even if/when the prisoners are well-paid.

As much as I don't like the Clinton's. I don't have a problem making prisoners work, it's not slavery. I am glad when I see them picking up trash on the side of the highway.

I'm not exactly a fan of Hillary--and I'm not exactly proud of Bill, either, but this "report" has been spun just to agitate those who are already obsessed with hating the Clintons and garner attention for the twitter-er. There are more worthwhile things to do; shall we focus our energy on them instead?

P.S.: At least some prisons today have work programs for their inmates that provide benefits to both the prisoners and society, decreasing recidivism and helping the former convicts contribute to society and the economy both while incarcerated and after release. The worst prisons have no such programs, letting those inside fester; the only way many thrive (or at least survive) is by engaging in the prison's violent subculture, thus exacerbating any emotional disorders they may have had--or spawning them--potentially linking them up (or strengthening ties) with gangs, and honing all the nasty skills that make them more dangerous both in the prison itself and on the outside. I prefer the work programs by far, thanks.

The Clinton's are bad people, this Arkansas tradition is the least of it. I do think it is interesting the close contact she and Bill had with murderers and other violent criminals, wonder if they ever stayed friends with any...