Old news. This was posted on Alternet a week ago, Democracy Now (Amy Goodman's VERY good program) covered this a couple of weeks ago....

Old news, come on Stranger; if you are going to try to cover "non-MSM news items" at least keep current.

That is all....

If im behind so is the nation. i like being behind the nation.

Why aren't we using forced labor from BP execs instead?

That would drive home the message faster.

Because people who are desperate for work, arnt that desperate that they'll willing to do manual labor when theyre so used to running a fishing boat.

You clearly make up for being well-read with a profound lack of appreciation for nuance. But I guess pictures of books don't necessarily indicate literacy.

You clearly make up for being well-read with a profound lack of appreciation for nuance. But I guess pictures of books don't necessarily indicate literacy.

Private industry uses prison labor for lots of things. With some basic research I'm quite certain a wealth of information would be found. Prisoners competing directly against reg'lar jobs. Lower pay, more flexible labor force. Great for the bottom line. It's a fact of life in these here United States.

@6, my books and my balls is all i have.

@7, even better, the South has a long and inglorious history of using prison labor as an explicit economic policy. They don't send the sheriff out to round up random blacks and charge them with imaginary crimes (or maybe not even bother) so they can sell them into slavery whenever there's a local labor shortage anymore, but it's still a pretty ugly business.

Seriously, companies used to put in orders to the county court -- "send me twelve of those big niggers like last time" -- right up into the 1950s.

Just what we need. An incentive for putting more people in prison. Disgusting!

Not true. You also have the observational gem above, which could be more substantial than both. :P

Is this not just another way for a corporation to steal from taxpayers? They get free labor; we get to pay for prisons.

I just had a brainwave...we can take care of the immigration problem also. We just throw all the illegal immigrants in jail, then hire them for free! Now we don't even have to pay them the substandard wages we were paying them to do the jobs nobody here wants to do. Capitalism at its finest!

Why so critical of a company to save money with the clean-up process? Should they over-pay labor? That's the stupidest argument I have heard. Should LA turn away volunteers because they would encroach on the earning potential of oil-moppers?

A small town can afford 12 prisoners to clean up the park more than it can afford the bidding process to find 1 guy with a riding mower.
BP needs to keep sucking!

I can not believe Mudede got through this article without mentioning slavery.