A Boring Dystopia

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Thousands could be coerced into "unpaid labor" in Louisiana under new bill | HB 211 would make sleeping outdoors in public illegal and force unhoused people to "choose" between prisons and workhouses (www.newsweek.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by stabby_cicada@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world

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“HB 211 is a debt trap. It creates a population of people who are, by definition, unable to pay. And then converts that inability into a labor obligation,” Michael Ryan, a finance expert and founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek. “The ‘streets to success’ framing is deliberate misdirection. No legitimate treatment program requires the patient to work off their bill under threat of incarceration."

I'm morbidly fascinated by how carefully this article avoids using the obvious term. But slavery. It's slavery. It is a bill that would literally, legally, enslave a population (of predominantly Black men, fucking surprise) for the "crime" of being poor.

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[–] OrteilGenou@lemmy.world 18 points 6 hours ago

You mean the current prison system in the South, but expanded so that anyone without the ability to pay rent is a criminal? Yes, but call it slavery 3.0. The guys doing 20 years on chain gangs for pot possession would be slavery 2.0, which started basically as soon as OG slavery was made illegal. It's never gone away. Rebranded.