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I'll allow that American prisons leave a lot to be desired but comparison to the Xinjiang camps is really quite inappropriate. Labor in American prisons is paid

I'll allow that American prisons leave a lot to be desired but comparison to the Xinjiang camps is really quite inappropriate. Labor in American prisons is paid, optional, and conducted safely, while the Chinese camps are actively working to destroy a minority's cultural heritage through torture, rape, ideological brainwashing, organ harvesting, arbitrary imprisonment without a trial, forced relocation, forced sterilization, destruction and confiscation of property, and extreme levels of surveillance.

strombofulous 6y ago
Just to raise awareness about this (not trying to be nitpicky, sorry) labor in american prisons is typically unpaid (or might as well be, sometimes paying less than $1/hr) and not optional as the 13th ammendemnt specifically allows slavery as a punishment. JCPenny uses american prison labor to market their jeans as made in america, and I believe mcdonalds uniforms are made with prison labor. Netflix has a very good documentary on this, I'd recommend it (as long as you're willing to be very sad about it for at least a few days) https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741 https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741 For reference the 13th ammendment reads "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." But the rest of your post is correct.
- Aperocky 6y ago
  > But the rest of your post is correct. Won't say that, there are quite a bit of unsubstantiated claims in that message supported only by few individuals and organizations paid by the CIA.
  - godelski 6y ago
    Do you have evidence of this? Both of you made bold claims that citations would help with.
    - Aperocky 6y ago
      All of his claim can more or less be trace backed to Adrian Zenz, who is a 'Senior Fellow of China Studies' at Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. If the name was not immediately telling, it was set up and paid for by the US government.
    - berdario 6y ago
      Not as bold as the claims of millions of Uyghurs being detained: https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1287411708374454273 https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1287411708374454273
  - ameen 6y ago
    There’s testimonies of actual Uighurs who have described what goes on in these camps- are they now CIA plants?
    - wonnage 6y ago
      You mean like the ones made up before every major US military intervention in the last 30 years? Some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony?wprov=sfti1 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqan... https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/21/world/middleeast/iraqi-refugees-tale-of-abuse-dissolves-upon-later-scrutiny.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/21/world/middleeast/iraqi-re...
tialaramex 6y ago
I'll agree that American prisons aren't as bad as the Chinese practices but it's a very long way from what would be seen as reasonable in much of the world. When you say paid for example, the prisoners aren't paid statutory minimum wage, and don't have access to outside prices, so both how much they get paid (often less than a dollar per hour), and how much things cost them to buy with this money are both controlled by the same people controlling their labour, a recipe for abuse. As to "optional" many convicts don't seem to agree with you about how "optional" their labour actually is. Convict labour makes the private owners a lot of money, so from their point of view a prisoner who won't work is a problem and problem prisoners get punished. US prisons routinely use harsh psychological measures such as long periods of solitary confinement that would be considered torture elsewhere - without meaningful oversight. And finally "safety" is very much in the eye of the beholder. The relevant US agency simply doesn't collect any safety data about prisoners, reasoning that since work is part of the punishment for a crime of which they were duly convicted† it doesn't matter if they're injured or die as part of that punishment... after all the US still has capital punishment, deliberately killing prisoners is actually part of the "justice" system. † Of course one of many other things wrong with the US criminal justice system is that some of these people never committed a crime, the lack of a sane pre-trial bail mechanism in most of the US means if you're facing prosecution you have to plead guilty to get out quicker if you're poor...

strombofulous 6y ago

Just to raise awareness about this (not trying to be nitpicky, sorry) labor in american prisons is typically unpaid (or might as well be, sometimes paying less than $1/hr) and not optional as the 13th ammendemnt specifically allows slavery as a punishment. JCPenny uses american prison labor to market their jeans as made in america, and I believe mcdonalds uniforms are made with prison labor. Netflix has a very good documentary on this, I'd recommend it (as long as you're willing to be very sad about it for at least a few days) https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741 https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741 For reference the 13th ammendment reads "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." But the rest of your post is correct.

Aperocky 6y ago
> But the rest of your post is correct. Won't say that, there are quite a bit of unsubstantiated claims in that message supported only by few individuals and organizations paid by the CIA.
- godelski 6y ago
  Do you have evidence of this? Both of you made bold claims that citations would help with.
  - Aperocky 6y ago
    All of his claim can more or less be trace backed to Adrian Zenz, who is a 'Senior Fellow of China Studies' at Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. If the name was not immediately telling, it was set up and paid for by the US government.
  - berdario 6y ago
    Not as bold as the claims of millions of Uyghurs being detained: https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1287411708374454273 https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1287411708374454273
- ameen 6y ago
  There’s testimonies of actual Uighurs who have described what goes on in these camps- are they now CIA plants?
  - wonnage 6y ago
    You mean like the ones made up before every major US military intervention in the last 30 years? Some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony?wprov=sfti1 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqandthemedia https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/feb/25/iraq.iraqan... https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/21/world/middleeast/iraqi-refugees-tale-of-abuse-dissolves-upon-later-scrutiny.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/21/world/middleeast/iraqi-re...

tialaramex 6y ago

I'll agree that American prisons aren't as bad as the Chinese practices but it's a very long way from what would be seen as reasonable in much of the world. When you say paid for example, the prisoners aren't paid statutory minimum wage, and don't have access to outside prices, so both how much they get paid (often less than a dollar per hour), and how much things cost them to buy with this money are both controlled by the same people controlling their labour, a recipe for abuse. As to "optional" many convicts don't seem to agree with you about how "optional" their labour actually is. Convict labour makes the private owners a lot of money, so from their point of view a prisoner who won't work is a problem and problem prisoners get punished. US prisons routinely use harsh psychological measures such as long periods of solitary confinement that would be considered torture elsewhere - without meaningful oversight. And finally "safety" is very much in the eye of the beholder. The relevant US agency simply doesn't collect any safety data about prisoners, reasoning that since work is part of the punishment for a crime of which they were duly convicted† it doesn't matter if they're injured or die as part of that punishment... after all the US still has capital punishment, deliberately killing prisoners is actually part of the "justice" system. † Of course one of many other things wrong with the US criminal justice system is that some of these people never committed a crime, the lack of a sane pre-trial bail mechanism in most of the US means if you're facing prosecution you have to plead guilty to get out quicker if you're poor...