3 ms·

Americans prisons have been historically so much better than USSR prisons, sure <3

ekianjo 2mo ago
you dont have massive death rates in american prisons
victorbjorklund 2mo ago
I would take an American prison over a slave Labour camp in Stalins Soviet camp with massive death rates. Few American prisoners freeze to death, starve to death or are beaten to death by the guards. Stop comparing American prisions to Stalin gulags or Hitlers concentration camps. They are not the same.
- Arodex 2mo ago
  You know that American prisons are slave labor camps too, right? I am not exaggerating things: the 13th amendment calls it "slavery". https://daily.jstor.org/slavery-and-the-modern-day-prison-plantation/ https://daily.jstor.org/slavery-and-the-modern-day-prison-pl... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/inmates-at-louisianas-angola-prison-sue-to-end-working-farm-lines-in-brutal-heat https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/inmates-at-louisianas-an...
  - TiredOfLife 2mo ago
    American prisoners are forced to gather weeds to get some form of food?
    - Arodex 2mo ago
      If that is your baseline, so yeah, mostly everything is fine compared to it. It "just" black guys picking cotton while watched by armed guys on horses. I am sure American slaves were better treated than Soviet goulag prisoners. After all, slave owners didn't want to "break" too much their property.
  - victorbjorklund 2mo ago
    It is just ridiculous to claim that Nazi germany wasn’t worse than USA under Biden/Trump. Yea, USA has problems and isn’t perfect. But I bet you would personally pick an American prisons over a literal nazi concentration camp for your own family (unless you are a holocaust denier who thinks Nazi camps were nothing bad)
- well_ackshually 2mo ago
  And I would take a proper homemade burger over an injection of bleach or a full breath of Zyklon B, but maybe compare what is comparable. Default uneducated behavior to respond to anything USSR related with "BUT STALIN GULAGS" (when gulags are both from the time of Lenin and heavily ran by Trotskyists, who, if you've heard anything about them, weren't exactly Stalin's best friends.). Bringing in nazis is just the cherry on top. Shit knowledge and reading of history doesn't make an argument.
  - spwa4 2mo ago
    Don't you think the real insensitivity shown here is pushing socialism and asking people to be polite and say "it's not so bad", people who have trauma from actually living in a socialist state? I get that there are problems today too, and in the US too, but honestly they don't compare. If that's a problem for your politics then, frankly, maybe your politics are just wrong.
keiferski 2mo ago
Yes, they were, and probably still are better than prisons in Russia.
- NoOn3 2mo ago
  It's not that obvious.
hagbard_c 2mo ago
Have you read The Gulag Archipelago? If not you should, it tells you a lot about Soviet prisons and a lot of other things Soviet you might do well learning about. Read it, it is well-written and - at least in my opinion - quite the page-turner. If you don't think you can manage to make your way through consider listening to an (unabridged) audio book version.
- cindyllm 2mo ago
  [dead]
- well_ackshually 2mo ago
  Yes, Soljenitzin is not a revolutionary new thing nobody has heard from. Conditions in gulags were fucking dreadful, the same way conditions post any revolution when it came to repressing those who would put down a revolution would be: american prisons post reovlution weren't better, french prisons post revolution weren't better, etc: every single revolution has pretty much ended with a period of terror, and Lenin's wasn't different. As it remains, the subject isn't gulags (which are, undeniably, work camps, though not death camps), but regular prisons. which existed. Which were the same damn thing as american prisons, except you would come out of it and probably have a house at least.
  - spwa4 2mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_Soviet_Union "Western observers described Soviet prisons and corrective institutions as involving harsh living conditions, arbitrary treatment, abuse by officials, poor rations and serious human-rights violations" I'm going to assert that US prisons are far better than these socialist prisons. And that is still the case in contemporary socialist regimes like Cuba (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba where they still purposefully starve prisoners and totally deny medical care)
  - hagbard_c 2mo ago
    If you read his books - your dismissive comment does not make it clear whether you did - you know the Soviet judicial system - for what it was worth - made a difference between 'normal' criminals like thieves and murderers and 'political criminals'. The former were considered to be less dangerous to the Party and 'the revolution' and as such were given better treatment than the latter. In the GULAG system they ('normal criminals') were used to harass those who were put away for political reasons ('enemies of the people', 'traitors of the motherland', etc.), many if not most of them trumped up. Your claim of those camps being 'work camps, though not death camps' make me suspect you did not read The GULAG Archipelago since some camps in effect served both roles for political prisoners by setting rations, work schedules and prisoner amenities like clothing to such levels that they were almost assured to lead to death. That last line about Soviet prisoners having it better than American ones since they would 'come out of it and probably have a house at least' is just laughable and shows you're parroting Howard Zinn or some other propagandist. Read a book, read another one, read some real history.

you dont have massive death rates in american prisons

I would take an American prison over a slave Labour camp in Stalins Soviet camp with massive death rates. Few American prisoners freeze to death, starve to death or are beaten to death by the guards. Stop comparing American prisions to Stalin gulags or Hitlers concentration camps. They are not the same.

Arodex 2mo ago
You know that American prisons are slave labor camps too, right? I am not exaggerating things: the 13th amendment calls it "slavery". https://daily.jstor.org/slavery-and-the-modern-day-prison-plantation/ https://daily.jstor.org/slavery-and-the-modern-day-prison-pl... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/inmates-at-louisianas-angola-prison-sue-to-end-working-farm-lines-in-brutal-heat https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/inmates-at-louisianas-an...
- TiredOfLife 2mo ago
  American prisoners are forced to gather weeds to get some form of food?
  - Arodex 2mo ago
    If that is your baseline, so yeah, mostly everything is fine compared to it. It "just" black guys picking cotton while watched by armed guys on horses. I am sure American slaves were better treated than Soviet goulag prisoners. After all, slave owners didn't want to "break" too much their property.
- victorbjorklund 2mo ago
  It is just ridiculous to claim that Nazi germany wasn’t worse than USA under Biden/Trump. Yea, USA has problems and isn’t perfect. But I bet you would personally pick an American prisons over a literal nazi concentration camp for your own family (unless you are a holocaust denier who thinks Nazi camps were nothing bad)
well_ackshually 2mo ago
And I would take a proper homemade burger over an injection of bleach or a full breath of Zyklon B, but maybe compare what is comparable. Default uneducated behavior to respond to anything USSR related with "BUT STALIN GULAGS" (when gulags are both from the time of Lenin and heavily ran by Trotskyists, who, if you've heard anything about them, weren't exactly Stalin's best friends.). Bringing in nazis is just the cherry on top. Shit knowledge and reading of history doesn't make an argument.
- spwa4 2mo ago
  Don't you think the real insensitivity shown here is pushing socialism and asking people to be polite and say "it's not so bad", people who have trauma from actually living in a socialist state? I get that there are problems today too, and in the US too, but honestly they don't compare. If that's a problem for your politics then, frankly, maybe your politics are just wrong.

keiferski 2mo ago

Yes, they were, and probably still are better than prisons in Russia.

NoOn3 2mo ago
It's not that obvious.

hagbard_c 2mo ago

Have you read The Gulag Archipelago? If not you should, it tells you a lot about Soviet prisons and a lot of other things Soviet you might do well learning about. Read it, it is well-written and - at least in my opinion - quite the page-turner. If you don't think you can manage to make your way through consider listening to an (unabridged) audio book version.

cindyllm 2mo ago
[dead]
well_ackshually 2mo ago
Yes, Soljenitzin is not a revolutionary new thing nobody has heard from. Conditions in gulags were fucking dreadful, the same way conditions post any revolution when it came to repressing those who would put down a revolution would be: american prisons post reovlution weren't better, french prisons post revolution weren't better, etc: every single revolution has pretty much ended with a period of terror, and Lenin's wasn't different. As it remains, the subject isn't gulags (which are, undeniably, work camps, though not death camps), but regular prisons. which existed. Which were the same damn thing as american prisons, except you would come out of it and probably have a house at least.
- spwa4 2mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_Soviet_Union "Western observers described Soviet prisons and corrective institutions as involving harsh living conditions, arbitrary treatment, abuse by officials, poor rations and serious human-rights violations" I'm going to assert that US prisons are far better than these socialist prisons. And that is still the case in contemporary socialist regimes like Cuba (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Cuba where they still purposefully starve prisoners and totally deny medical care)
- hagbard_c 2mo ago
  If you read his books - your dismissive comment does not make it clear whether you did - you know the Soviet judicial system - for what it was worth - made a difference between 'normal' criminals like thieves and murderers and 'political criminals'. The former were considered to be less dangerous to the Party and 'the revolution' and as such were given better treatment than the latter. In the GULAG system they ('normal criminals') were used to harass those who were put away for political reasons ('enemies of the people', 'traitors of the motherland', etc.), many if not most of them trumped up. Your claim of those camps being 'work camps, though not death camps' make me suspect you did not read The GULAG Archipelago since some camps in effect served both roles for political prisoners by setting rations, work schedules and prisoner amenities like clothing to such levels that they were almost assured to lead to death. That last line about Soviet prisoners having it better than American ones since they would 'come out of it and probably have a house at least' is just laughable and shows you're parroting Howard Zinn or some other propagandist. Read a book, read another one, read some real history.