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This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behi

This is why tech workers need unions. When Facebook does something nasty, they can blame the unions; the billionaires and millionaires were merely cowering behind their desks. We shouldn't contort ourselves to avoid the simplest answer: the state is getting what it paid for. The US incarcerates its population more than any known state on earth. That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. If any enemy nation did this, we wouldn't have any illusions. But we refuse to apply the same logic to ourselves, nor conclude as Chomsky did, "Remember, any state has a primary enemy: its own population." Otherwise, it might be obvious why police are fighting a war, and who their enemy is.

rayiner 13y ago
> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model for the U.S. Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit. It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise. A few more muslim youths rioting in Paris and I think you'd be surprised by what kind of police escalation Parisians will be willing to put up with...
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  I'm sure they're protecting their turf, but they didn't start the drug war, and they're not at the forefront of promoting it. Nixon declared the "War on Drugs". He also pioneered the "Southern Strategy", and many elements of his campaign are now well accepted to have been used as code words. It wasn't a personal appeal to the puritan morality of drug users to stop, it was an appeal to the fears of scared whites. The "War on Drugs" almost exclusively effects poor, minority communities and individuals.
  - danielweber 13y ago
    http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-californias-prison-blues http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-cali... In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support "three strikes" and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law. It's not precisely what 'rayiner was saying, but the prison guard union is definitely pushing for more people in prison.
    - jbooth 13y ago
      Millions????? OMG Give me a break. Unions have a lot of problems but if they were so damned influential, maybe every public sector union except for federal security wouldn't have been losing jobs and hours for the last 10 years.
      - webXL 13y ago
        The only reason public sector unions exist is because they are so influential, despite FDR's warning against them and the conflict of interest that falls on the taxpayers representatives who often have their campaigns partially financed by unions. And I don't think you can look at the past 10 years of "belt tightening" at the state and local level (let's be real, that's where the cuts are), and say they aren't that influential. They still have tons of power.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        The states are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and it's extremely telling that the public unions are the last things to feel the pain after states have been gutting things like higher education for decades. Many of the recent municipal bankruptcies have been driven by pension obligations for public employees: http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2013/06/11/california-on-brink-pension-crisis http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2013/06/11/california-....
- potatolicious 13y ago
  > "It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise." It's already here. Every time there is some discussion of Muslim extremism or immigration we have a few HN members saying things that, in even conservative parts of the US, would leave your jaw hanging. In the US it's common for the more liberal folks to perceive Europe has some kind of bastion of social enlightenment. This view seems to fall apart once you actually inject some different skin colors into the population.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Social enlightenment is easy when your major cities aren't majority-minority and almost perfectly geographically segregated by race/ethnicity. From someone who lived in Chicago for several years: it's hard to empathize with people who look different than you, have dramatically different family backgrounds, etc. It's harder still to empathize with them when they're separated by a river.
- arethuza 13y ago
  "Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit." Belfast still has road barriers that are raised at night blocking roads between the Shankill Road and Falls Road areas - not to mention huge walls: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines Edit: To be fair, I agree with your point, but there are some very noticeable dividing lines in European cities. [NB. This is not intended as a criticism of Belfast, please go and visit - we went recently and had a great few days and I want to go back.]
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Yeah, that's an extremely exceptional case and related to a centuries-old political conflict between nations. I'm Irish, you can't generalize from Belfast to anywhere else except maybe Israel/Palestine.
    - lostlogin 13y ago
      There are actually quite a few, and though I'm surely missing 10+, here goes. Serbia/Montenegro/Kosovo, Kashmir (though someone made civil war simpler by dividing those into countries) Sri Lanka, Syria, Iraq, The Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Timor, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Pakistan. None are the same, most are significantly more violent and have rather less western involvement in stabilizing rather than just supporting one side or totally ignoring it. This isn't minimizing the Irish situation, its just saying that the Irish one is generally appreciated as a complex mess, while the other myriad array of violent, messy historical problems are equally sad.
    - arethuza 13y ago
      Well, for an even more extreme case of a divided European city there is always Nicosia... [I agree that these cases are exceptional].
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  No. I am no lover of the police or prison officers' unions (which are very powerful here in CA), but they are only one part of the problem. The other part is that we have private corporations that operate prisons for profit, such as Correctional Corporation of America, who are well-documented as promoting the building of more prisons through forums such as ALEC. The incentives are a) huge and b) perverse.
lukifer 13y ago
I fully agree with your point, but there is a union that contributes significantly to the prison-industrial complex: the various prison guard unions. (Also culpable are privatized prisons, which are often little more than slave labor camps.)
- burntsushi 13y ago
  > (Also culpable are privatized prisons, which are often little more than slave labor camps.) As opposed to regular prisons which are just slave camps? What exactly is the moral difference between the state of living between public and private prisons? (I take it that you were implying a difference exists, but I could be mistaken.)
  - lukifer 13y ago
    Don't get me wrong, they're both awful. Prisons as we know them are a travesty of both efficacy and human decency no matter who runs the show. But whatever perverse incentives and moral hazards already exist for state prisons, they are double when there is a profit motive for maximizing headcount. Moreover, the taxpayer still ends up footing most of the bill for private prisons; in state-run institutions, they at least have a budgetary incentive to moderate sentences, rehabilitate, and reduce recidivism. In a private prison, an inmate who finds Jesus/Buddha/etc and becomes an honest citizen is a blow to the bottom line.
    - burntsushi 13y ago
      OK. I thought you were referring to the morality of working while in person as opposed to idling. Given your comment, it seems like you weren't---and yet your previous comment seems to imply it. So why refer to private prisons as "nothing more slave labor camps" while public prisons could just as easily be "nothing more than slave camps"? I now understand that you were criticizing the incentive structure of prisons, but it didn't seem that way. > Moreover, the taxpayer still ends up footing most of the bill for private prisons I would therefore not call them private prisons. Perhaps, crony prisons or quasi-public prisons? > In a private prison, an inmate who finds Jesus/Buddha/etc and becomes an honest citizen is a blow to the bottom line. How can this be true while tax payers are simultaneously footing the bill? Moreover, isn't a large part of the comments in this thread about how there is an incentive structure in public prisons to keep more prisoners? (The correctional officer unions.) > in state-run institutions, they at least have a budgetary incentive to moderate sentences, rehabilitate, and reduce recidivism. That kind of makes sense. But when there are unions, and the jobs of union members depends on the number of prisoners, it becomes much less clear.
SilasX 13y ago
>That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. Well, actually, prison guard unions did lobby for things like three-strikes laws to increase incarceration rates. [1] And yes, unions in general are weaker in the US, but public employees' unions haven't waned in power anything like their private sector counterparts. [1] http://caprogressivemessage.com/2011/03/04/the-california-prison-guards-union-still-profiting-from-incarceration-mania/ http://caprogressivemessage.com/2011/03/04/the-california-pr... (I know, I know, "it's a left-wing California site!" But it's well-sourced and one of many articles saying the same thing when you google for who is lobbying for three-strikes laws and whatnot.)

rayiner 13y ago

> That isn't unions' fault It is, in fact, the unions' fault. The prison unions and police unions are huge proponents of the drug war, longer sentences, etc. It isn't just there fault, of course, America's general Puritan streak helps, but the public unions have really capitalized on that. > other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. What happens in other countries isn't a good model for the U.S. Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit. It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise. A few more muslim youths rioting in Paris and I think you'd be surprised by what kind of police escalation Parisians will be willing to put up with...

jivatmanx 13y ago
I'm sure they're protecting their turf, but they didn't start the drug war, and they're not at the forefront of promoting it. Nixon declared the "War on Drugs". He also pioneered the "Southern Strategy", and many elements of his campaign are now well accepted to have been used as code words. It wasn't a personal appeal to the puritan morality of drug users to stop, it was an appeal to the fears of scared whites. The "War on Drugs" almost exclusively effects poor, minority communities and individuals.
- danielweber 13y ago
  http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-californias-prison-blues http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-cali... In three decades, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association has become one of the most powerful political forces in California. The union has contributed millions of dollars to support "three strikes" and other laws that lengthen sentences and increase parole sanctions. It donated $1 million to Wilson after he backed the three strikes law. It's not precisely what 'rayiner was saying, but the prison guard union is definitely pushing for more people in prison.
  - jbooth 13y ago
    Millions????? OMG Give me a break. Unions have a lot of problems but if they were so damned influential, maybe every public sector union except for federal security wouldn't have been losing jobs and hours for the last 10 years.
    - webXL 13y ago
      The only reason public sector unions exist is because they are so influential, despite FDR's warning against them and the conflict of interest that falls on the taxpayers representatives who often have their campaigns partially financed by unions. And I don't think you can look at the past 10 years of "belt tightening" at the state and local level (let's be real, that's where the cuts are), and say they aren't that influential. They still have tons of power.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      The states are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, and it's extremely telling that the public unions are the last things to feel the pain after states have been gutting things like higher education for decades. Many of the recent municipal bankruptcies have been driven by pension obligations for public employees: http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2013/06/11/california-on-brink-pension-crisis http://www.foxbusiness.com/government/2013/06/11/california-....
potatolicious 13y ago
> "It will be interesting to see what happens to the internal social cohesion European countries have enjoyed post-WWII as middle eastern immigration continues to rise." It's already here. Every time there is some discussion of Muslim extremism or immigration we have a few HN members saying things that, in even conservative parts of the US, would leave your jaw hanging. In the US it's common for the more liberal folks to perceive Europe has some kind of bastion of social enlightenment. This view seems to fall apart once you actually inject some different skin colors into the population.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Social enlightenment is easy when your major cities aren't majority-minority and almost perfectly geographically segregated by race/ethnicity. From someone who lived in Chicago for several years: it's hard to empathize with people who look different than you, have dramatically different family backgrounds, etc. It's harder still to empathize with them when they're separated by a river.
arethuza 13y ago
"Sub-segments of the population don't viscerally hate each other in Frankfurt or London the way they do in L.A. or Detroit." Belfast still has road barriers that are raised at night blocking roads between the Shankill Road and Falls Road areas - not to mention huge walls: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_lines Edit: To be fair, I agree with your point, but there are some very noticeable dividing lines in European cities. [NB. This is not intended as a criticism of Belfast, please go and visit - we went recently and had a great few days and I want to go back.]
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Yeah, that's an extremely exceptional case and related to a centuries-old political conflict between nations. I'm Irish, you can't generalize from Belfast to anywhere else except maybe Israel/Palestine.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    There are actually quite a few, and though I'm surely missing 10+, here goes. Serbia/Montenegro/Kosovo, Kashmir (though someone made civil war simpler by dividing those into countries) Sri Lanka, Syria, Iraq, The Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Timor, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Pakistan. None are the same, most are significantly more violent and have rather less western involvement in stabilizing rather than just supporting one side or totally ignoring it. This isn't minimizing the Irish situation, its just saying that the Irish one is generally appreciated as a complex mess, while the other myriad array of violent, messy historical problems are equally sad.
  - arethuza 13y ago
    Well, for an even more extreme case of a divided European city there is always Nicosia... [I agree that these cases are exceptional].
anigbrowl 13y ago
No. I am no lover of the police or prison officers' unions (which are very powerful here in CA), but they are only one part of the problem. The other part is that we have private corporations that operate prisons for profit, such as Correctional Corporation of America, who are well-documented as promoting the building of more prisons through forums such as ALEC. The incentives are a) huge and b) perverse.

lukifer 13y ago

I fully agree with your point, but there is a union that contributes significantly to the prison-industrial complex: the various prison guard unions. (Also culpable are privatized prisons, which are often little more than slave labor camps.)

burntsushi 13y ago
> (Also culpable are privatized prisons, which are often little more than slave labor camps.) As opposed to regular prisons which are just slave camps? What exactly is the moral difference between the state of living between public and private prisons? (I take it that you were implying a difference exists, but I could be mistaken.)
- lukifer 13y ago
  Don't get me wrong, they're both awful. Prisons as we know them are a travesty of both efficacy and human decency no matter who runs the show. But whatever perverse incentives and moral hazards already exist for state prisons, they are double when there is a profit motive for maximizing headcount. Moreover, the taxpayer still ends up footing most of the bill for private prisons; in state-run institutions, they at least have a budgetary incentive to moderate sentences, rehabilitate, and reduce recidivism. In a private prison, an inmate who finds Jesus/Buddha/etc and becomes an honest citizen is a blow to the bottom line.
  - burntsushi 13y ago
    OK. I thought you were referring to the morality of working while in person as opposed to idling. Given your comment, it seems like you weren't---and yet your previous comment seems to imply it. So why refer to private prisons as "nothing more slave labor camps" while public prisons could just as easily be "nothing more than slave camps"? I now understand that you were criticizing the incentive structure of prisons, but it didn't seem that way. > Moreover, the taxpayer still ends up footing most of the bill for private prisons I would therefore not call them private prisons. Perhaps, crony prisons or quasi-public prisons? > In a private prison, an inmate who finds Jesus/Buddha/etc and becomes an honest citizen is a blow to the bottom line. How can this be true while tax payers are simultaneously footing the bill? Moreover, isn't a large part of the comments in this thread about how there is an incentive structure in public prisons to keep more prisoners? (The correctional officer unions.) > in state-run institutions, they at least have a budgetary incentive to moderate sentences, rehabilitate, and reduce recidivism. That kind of makes sense. But when there are unions, and the jobs of union members depends on the number of prisoners, it becomes much less clear.

SilasX 13y ago

>That isn't unions' fault — other countries with more powerful unions don't jail themselves like this. Well, actually, prison guard unions did lobby for things like three-strikes laws to increase incarceration rates. [1] And yes, unions in general are weaker in the US, but public employees' unions haven't waned in power anything like their private sector counterparts. [1] http://caprogressivemessage.com/2011/03/04/the-california-prison-guards-union-still-profiting-from-incarceration-mania/ http://caprogressivemessage.com/2011/03/04/the-california-pr... (I know, I know, "it's a left-wing California site!" But it's well-sourced and one of many articles saying the same thing when you google for who is lobbying for three-strikes laws and whatnot.)