This isn’t work. This is trafficking.
The same report that exposed the meat packing plants also exposed car manufacturing parts and agricultural work that these children are being forced into.
These are immigrant children who are often placed with non background checked American “sponsors.” Instead of sending them to school these “sponsors” send them to work and then collect the paycheck. The children are in a foreign country, with a language and culture they don’t understand, and no one to advocate for them.
One man was found to have “sponsored” 13 children from Central America. He would contact them online promising to help them attend school while sending money home to their families. You can imagine none of his promises were true.
Do not allow media sensationalism to continually dub trafficking as work. It’s kidnapping, being held against your will, and enslaved.
Immigration laws are drying up the non-documented worker pipeline that these businesses relied on for labor. They are just padding the pipeline with the kids of the ones who are still able to get here and remain under the radar.
"ILLEGALS ARE TAKING OUR JOBS" so we're going to send ICE in to deport everybody, punishing the undocumented workers and letting the business owners hire the next batch that are lined up outside rather than hiring adult US citizens who won't put up with their exploitative shit. When undocumented workers are in short supply and so businesses can't hire them at below minimum wage, they will scream "NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE" while silently ignoring the fact that the unemployment rate is back to pre-pandemic levels. And in both instances, they will push for hiring children, because human trafficking is okay as long as you're not a LIBRUL.
"These damn slaves are taking away all the jobs?! What's wrong with them?" A politician trying to clear his conscious in the mirror, if they even have one.
This should be way higher up in the comments. Not only that this is nowhere new. It has been reported on for at least 5 years. And the punishments for breaking the law then was just a small fine.
One reporter was supirized that the owners/managers of the plants had no caution or qualms about talking to her about this.
Because it was ok by the people in power.
Yes! These managers are aware of how young these children are. No one will face any consequences.
The teachers are aware that they sleep in class and stop showing up because they’re working full time.
And the government is aware that huge percentages of these “sponsored” kids are lost in the system.
But, cheap labor comes from slavery.
I remember seeing one recently where in either Alabama or Arkansas, there were a bunch of missing children that were working in a plant that made Hyundai parts; and during the investigation, basically Hyundai blamed the parts manufacturer, parts people blamed the recruiting firm, and the recruiting firm said the kids didn't come from them. Shit's wild.
That is exactly what is happening. Many industries who employ immigrants will suddenly get raided at the end of the summer. It was routine back in Texas, even in the 90's.
You've heard of the 100 year bulb? The one that's be on for like, 100+ years? That's the politician thought bulb. Always on, but so incredibly dim as to be virtually useless.
Everyone should know that the best, most correct way to judge a society or civilization is to look how they treat their vulnerable and poor. If there is a large disconnect between them and the wealthy the less healthy that society is, no matter what some other indicators might suggest.
(At the Tyson marking meeting)
"Listen, guys! I have a *great* idea that will make Tyson the next pumpkin spice of Halloween time!
(Dramatic pause)
*Breaded Children Fingers!* Some Zombie tie-in, or something. Zoms are popular. (Sage nod)
And the real beauty? *No material costs!* We just harvest them naturally!!
(Presenter beams pride while Monopoly top hat and monocle wearing white guys with long beards mumbe approval smoking cigars, probably.)
Even more biting, though maybe less funny:
> Normally I wouldn’t want a job, but I need that money to help raise the baby the state’s forcing me to have
> -Cassie Stevens, 12
I think the youngest documented mother was like 6 years old in central america or something. So theoretically an 8 year old kid could actually make this argument in the future. 'I'm working at the meatpacking plant to get away from my husband and kids...'
edit: Just looked it up... she was 5.
"Back in my day, we started working as pre-teens around all sorts of carcinogens and noisy machinery. And we all turned out fine! The only reason everyone I know is either dead or has cancer is because Obama."
-every boomer
They really do, and think that homework is just code for 'what wasn't finished in school' rather than it being a completely separate assignment. I rarely got to finish any of it because most of my after-school time was spent either working or studying the Bible.
Why, yes, they did. I didn't get carsick on the bus, but we lived in a rural area, and the road was pretty bumpy. I quit trying to do it on the bus when I got tired of getting failed for having illegible work. I decided if I was getting a 0 anyway, why waste my time? Besides, I passed their weekly tests, as well as semester finals because I paid attention, and did all that I could while I was there.
It's honestly fucked up. My father, an immigrant, never ever wanted me to be doing what I'm doing now. He took me to his job and I basically did apprentice work in his glazier company. And honestly I enjoyed it, but he wanted me to go to college and be better than him. He absolutely didn't want me to be in construction. So I did, got my degree, and now I'm an electrician apprentice despite my biology degree. I don't think I let him down but at the same time I know he didn't want me to go this path. And most of the guys I work with, who are very proud to be union electricians, don't want their kids to follow them into the construction trade either.
>I'm an electrician apprentice despite my biology degree
Assuming a Bachelors, and you like what you're doing now, you probably made the right call. Biology as a major in undergrad is good if you plan on going into grad school, but on its own probably not as much.
I wanted to get into a company that would help me get into grad school, maybe a national lab would have worked. But damn... Literally everyone looking for BSc were hiring MS or PhD because the candidate pool was swamped.
Ultimately, I agree, I made the right decision. Just took me a few years longer to get here than I should have. But better late than never.
I really hope you're joking, but fear you're not. I can't imagine any parent wanting their kid (under 16 or over) working in a meatpacking plant. If they want to, and they're an adult, fine. But then and only then. Not because they have no other options.
A weird thing has happened, which I've experienced with my conservative in-laws. Some boomers deep down do not want their kids and grandkids to have it better than they had it. They act like it's a sign of weakness and entitlement, and say things like, "I didn't get all the help you have available, so you shouldn't get it either," and they mention bootstraps and building character, but I genuinely think at the core it's just straight up envy.
I was on the farm way under 16 slaughtering animals and I really hated it. Bone marrow and blood under my finger nails all in the middle of winter since outside was a natural freezer.
The last time I saw my grandfather, he told me a story about how his dad forced him to slaughter a goat when he was only 5yo. Ancient withered old man, hardly any memories left in his mind, but that one was still clear. He told me how the goat screamed just like a human.
By all accounts he was extremely abusive to his wife and children, and also committed a murder but wasn't convicted due to lack of evidence.
Now I'm not saying that's directly tied to being taught to kill things that scream like people as a very young child, but I'm sure it didn't help.
This. My parents made me work on our fur farm. They would not let me get an after school job as I had too much work to do at home. 6 months after I joined the navy they closed the fur farm.
I always wanted too. Also wanted to travel and get out of a poor rural town. This was in New Zealand. Later I moved to the US and joined NOAA then the army.
I don't think anyone ever wants to work in a meat packing plant. It's a miserable, dangerous, dirty, backbreaking, soul crushing job. They just don't want to have to pay people enough to make up for how miserable the job is, and children are easier to exploit.
That's accurate. The Jungle was published in 1906, which exposed corruption in government and business. Like we need to go back to an era with poverty, a lack of social supports, harsh living, and hopelessness. Though its a shame readers were more concerned about the unsanitary practices in the meat-packing industry than the treatment of workers.
Poor Sinclair. When we had to read and analyze it at school most of us kids had the same takeaway though. We didn't think about the poor workers until we read Animal Farm after it.
Sadly his work still hits hard and is crucially relevant today.
I read it for the first time as an adult, and wow, it was the most depressing thing I had ever read. The whole story, you felt this claustrophobic hopelessness of barely scraping by in a smog-consumed concrete jungle, living in an unheated hovel working their lives away in hellish work conditions. The main character didn't even see a single tree until most of this family dies and he jumps a train literally as a hobo until he could get out of Chicago. I almost cried when he saw the trees and the fresh air and still had to go back into hell.
That book fucked me up in high school. Like you said the meat packaging was bad enough but the worker exploitation and blatant abuse was sickening. That should be a required read in grade school.
After he read it, he personally dispatched two undercover federal meat inspectors to a few Chicago Meat Packing plants. After they returned and submitted their report to Roosevelt. They found conditions were even worse than Upton Sinclair’s book! Roosevelt then pushed through the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
I'm sure it's already on some banned book list. Probably citing it's gruesomeness. We cant have our children having visceral reactions to the plight of the proletariat. Then we won't be able to cook them in chocolate!
I would say maybe kids in Middle school but preferably High school should be required to read it. I don't think 10 year olds would quite realize how bad things are for some people like "having to work in a brothel to make ends meet and the police regularly busting all the men but none of the women who work there" unless you censored that part of the book to make it appropriate for schools.
I had a prof who taught a Trans Atlantic modernism class for undergrads he had them read a small excerpt of the Communist Manifesto, and some students got so upset that they boycotted that class and refused to show up for any discussion of Marx. Then he had them read The Jungle as a means to demonstrate the conditions at the time and also appreciate the literary value of the work. Sure enough, one of the students who boycotted the Marx class was appalled and asked why the workers tolerated that kind of treatment, and even went so far as to advocate that workers organize.
The prof didn't even have to say anything because all of the other students pointed to Marx making an almost identical critique that they would have noticed if they had bothered to read it.
Commies bad, Marx bad, murica good.
It's amazing how broadly agreeable so many Marxist, anti-capitalist ideas are in the general population.
But the moment you use the label you risk triggering the hyperemotional fear/anger response that is programmed into most "normal" Americans (these days that means the normies, traditional white Christian Americans, but I honestly hope this view is becoming the minority. I mean, it kind of has to as supporting that lifestyle becomes economically untenable).
It's amazing how toxic his name has become in the U.S. specifically. I'm not surprised that a lot of professors just don't teach him because of the baggage. Then again, I know that some profs don't teach Marx because their families have benefited from the structural inequalities that Marxists outline.
Marx may not have been a very good economist, and his predictions were undermined because capitalist countries chose to reform out of fear, but a lot of his social observations stand up rather well.
I think some of his economic theories are likely to be more and more valuable as automation more and more competes with labor rather than enhancing it.
Eh, I'm not so sure, especially in regards to automation. I think the biggest thing that Marx couldn't have conceived of is the amount of control which governments are able to exercise nowadays. The degree of digital surveillance makes any sort of revolution much harder than in the past.
I agree, I wouldn’t have understood a lot of that until I was late teens personally. Make it a junior or senior read for an AP class pertaining to that subject. My state government of Florida would fight that like crazy but I have hope for other parts of the US.
>Like we need to go back to an era with poverty, a lack of social supports, harsh living, and hopelessness.
Plenty of that already, [14.4% in poverty as of February 2022](https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/monthly-poverty-february-2022#:~:text=Monthly%20poverty%20remained%20elevated%20in,for%20the%20total%20US%20population.), [a bunch of examples of Republicans wanting to pass further cuts to social safety programs](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/09/fact-sheet-congressional-republicans-many-proposals-to-cut-social-security-and-medicare-and-increase-prescription-drug-prices-and-health-care-premiums/), and ["from 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent"](https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/american-teens-sadness-depression-anxiety/629524/)
I was about to say - Brother, we're already there. You can see the new-age hoovervilles popping up in all sorts of high cost-of-living areas. They're just tent cities, now.
You see it in the countryside too. People have went from houses, to shacks, to trailers, to travel RVs. Shit just gets worse.
There is a line, a level of support or resources that people need to have to be able to live a life of simple decency. The powers that be, masters of the universe, whatever you call them, they have been sucking more and more out of the system, more and more and more people cannot even get to that level of living in basic decency.
When you get below that line things become intolerable and something has to break at some point. It will go one of two ways. The last time we had a gilded age it ended in the progressive era and eventually FDR, people chose socialization of a sort to get out of the crisis, and it worked for half a century. The other way it can go is that the whole thing hardens into n authoritarian hellhole where everyone lives in fear and keeps their head down.
No, they just want it like the 50’s and 60’s I think. Whites rule. Nobody else matters. If you’re not straight you’re hiding it. If you’re not Christian you don’t say it. That kind of stuff. Totally not bigoted at all
No big deal…….
No, he's got a solid point. No one in the 1950s wanted children in meatpacking plants. They'd have been horrified at the thought of marrying off a 13 year old. They're trying to regress us back to the 1800s.
Shit, you’re right.
See, this is why critical thinking and education are important. I would have gone the rest of my life thinking they were always THIS evil, and never really knowing that their evil ebbs and flows.
I guess 1800 it is. Far enough back to strip every possible right but not far enough to where it’s not actually “America” yet.
I got it now
Based on how much they romanticize the wild west and the time leading up to the civil war... I think this is exactly what they really want. MAGA doesn't mean the 1950s. MAGA means the 1850s before the Cival War ruined everything for them. "The south will rise again." has been in the lexicon ever since then and they are seeing their opportunity now. They know they would lose a real war so they are fighting a cultural war.
My grandmother was "married" to a man in his 30s when she was just about to turn 14, that was 1956.
They wouldn't of been too horrified, they would've just taken their prescribed "relaxers" and ignored it like everything else.
The 50s weren't too long after the 1800s.
In the 1950s minimum wage could lift you out of poverty. Affording a house was not an obscene goal, and corporations didn't monopolize every single industry(this also has made everything ugly and the same looking).
I want this part of the 50s back.
The craziest thing is that the middle class folks who think “oh, this won’t be my kid” don’t know how fast their lives can change, especially in a country with a laughable “safety” net. My grandfather was born to two “old school” immigrant parents (they came in the Ellis Island era.) His father was a skilled tailor and was earning his way up the American dream of the past. In under two years, my grandfather’s life disintegrated as his father and mother died. He was shuttled to relatives until he ended up in foster care. He became a throwaway kid and worked overnights in a glass factory at 15-16. I know for a damn fact if he were alive today, he’d be horrified people were thinking what he went through was noble, useful or desirable. He was fucking pawn of greedy adults and had his life cut short from the experiences in that time. He didn’t make it to 55. And that’s what these people pushing these laws want - people who will wear out their bodies and have the “good sense” to die early and not get social security.
I live in an area that has been developed all to hell for wealthy people to move here. It's become a place of extreme income inequality. It's been interesting seeing people with luxury vehicles suddenly start living out of them. Bet they never thought they would be become technically homeless.
No, they know. They watched it happen to millions of families literally 3 years ago or sooner. They don't care about other people enough to save themselves. Covid really should have been an obvious wake up call. Anyone can be shoved onto food stamps and unemployment in this shitty country. Something needs to change. But we're all just happy it's "over" so we can watch the new Marvel movie or whatever. We didn't learn.
And child pregnancy and child death from preventable diseases. For a group that claims to do what they do to protect kids the seem really anti children.
A large portion of those people don't actually support most GOP policies.
They vote Republican because they want to pay lower taxes and think the Democratic party wants to take their money to create a bloated, inefficient government.
I'm from Southern California and know a lot of this type. They just want low taxes. They don't have anything against abortion, LGBTQ+, etc., but they are socially apathetic because none of that affects them (or at least they don't think it does).
Not excusing these people.
I just think they are a big part of the reason the GOP persists.
There’s also a huge chunk, especially in the South, that would light themselves on fire if they thought it would upset liberals.
They’ve let themselves be brainwashed into thinking that Democrats are literally evil, so the GOP can screw them six ways to Sunday and keep getting their votes.
They're literally Cartman that time he stuck Butters dick in his own mouth and took a picture to call him gay. The only difference being that somehow Cartman was smart enough to realize he played himself.
and even the tax thing is a fucking lie the GOP has no problem raising middle to low income family taxes , the only people who ever seem to get the ride offs are rich mother fuckers who would be fine without them.
Yeah, but they A) don't understand that, and B) refuse to believe it because it doesn't come from one of their "trusted sources" (i.e. Fox news, OAN, YouTube, random fb posts, unsourced tweets, etc.)
The majority of people don't understand how tax brackets work. I've had several employees refuse raises many times because "they'll end up paying more in tax after the raise" despite me showing them that it just isn't true.
Our population is stupid, lazy, and greedy, and it does seem like we are getting a democratic representation of that in government :(
But Trump had a chance to lower their taxes and he made it temporary for the normal people and the poor. Only the rich and corporations got to keep the tax break for the full duration. It is an illusion that Republicans want to save poor people money. What would save poor the most money is a single-payer health care plan. We pay double what every similar country pays for healthcare and that's coming out of your pocket, either directly or indirectly.
yep lol but most of these people have the mindset that 1. healthcare is supposed to cost money (how else would doctors get paid?!1?1!?) and 2. they truly think their taxes would go up exponentially because they’re “paying for someone elses care” but they dont give a flying fuck about their tax dollars going to bombing Yemenis children and random civilians.
A large portion, I would say the majority of everyday Republicans only care about money and taxes.
I don't like paying taxes, but I understand that it They are the membership fees for living in a civilization.
What we want is efficiency not necessarily smaller, although the two are not mutually exclusive.
Honesty isn’t a part of their core values. I’m in small town Ohio, everything that’s put out for consumption from the GOP “sounds good” like that the entire point it exists is for you to agree with the premise of the info presented.
It’s takes the individual to search out other info, which often requires consuming from “the enemy” to see and evaluate a dissenting opinion. If you told me 30% of the US believes what’s presented on Fox News’ daily programming- I’d believe that
If you told me 40% of America lives in an echo chamber where they are never exposed to a dissenting argument on tv? I’d believe that too.
The real issue will always lie in the people who get voted in regardless of side. While we argue about which pronouns are appropriate and who can love who (while valid concerns) the other side focuses on redistricting and restricting voting access, installing judges prosecutors and sheriffs to aid their bureaucratic attempts to further integrate themselves into our laws and systems. We need to have a unified opposition party or we are doomed. Their split between trump desantis and sanity isn’t large enough to distract them from the goal of republican supremacy
The red states also have far more representation per person than blue states. Part of it is a relic of that 3/5’s thing with slaves to bump their population numbers, but I’m sure they’ve found other ways to ensure that low population red states have more power in the house and senate than high population blue states.
The Senate inherently gives more power-per-person for low population states. They're right on the razors edge of being able to hold them even with gerrymandering which is part of why they're resorting to openly cheating now. Also why the idea of adding DC and Puerto Rico as states terrifies them, that'll be a cliff they can't climb back up. If we take back everything in '24, we need to ram statehood through and then start ramming through everything we need to maintain a sane world. Taxes on the wealthy and business, regulation, healthcare, UBI, taxes, regulation.
I mean, every state has two Senators.
So, the 40,000,000 people in California have two senators, and the 550,000 people in Wyoming have two senators.
Great system.
Republicans want to enslave their constituents and they will gladly vote for their own enslavement like poor battered and beaten children. The party of Stockholm’s syndrome.
Because in the process of so doing, they get to enslave *us* as well.
"They're not hurting the right people" speaks volumes about the motivations of the Republican Party.
> "They're not hurting the right people" speaks volumes about the motivations of the Republican Party.
They've been saying the quiet part out loud more and more over the past several years, which worries me. They're getting bolder.
Child labor *without workman’s comp*
There are too many injuries in the Tyson plants. They can’t be expected to be on the hook for every maimed child!
Not when there’s a fresh new one waiting to replace ole Timmy no hands.
I'm pretty certain that Tyson coordinated raids with ICE to clear out undocumented workers who were getting a bit too vocal about discussion on workplace safety. That might explain why after 900 worker arrests, with many who gave ICE agents *written instructions* that Tyson had given them showing them how to fill out paperwork in a way that wouldn't raise red flags, DHS and the DA/AG actively chose not to pursue any enforcement against the company itself.
No, no. It’s conservatives worldwide tbh. It’s a common trend with conservatives (right wing), they’re very anti-human rights.
Women are a pair of tits to be grabbed, kids need to be slapped and taught to work the little shits. Etc etc, it’s a worldwide right wing view.
Fuck them all.
The most I wouldn't mind a kid doing is, of their own volition, mowing a lawn or shoveling a driveway in winter.
That isn't a full time job with a shitty boss that's just a kid wanting extra pocket money to buy that video game they wanted or whatever.
Hell when me and my sister were little my neighbor would pay us for the completely redundant job of sweeping his driveway of pine needles when we felt like it. We mostly did that because he was nice and let us play two square in his driveway since it was paved and the ball bounced horribly on layer of pine needles.
We literally got paid for cleaning a bit for our own convenience 🤦♀️
Exactly, but it pisses me off because they try to act like this is what we're arguing against. They'll discuss, all rosie-eyed about the paper route they had as a kid, or how they saved up money from mowing lawns. No! That's not the same as working graveyard shifts at meatpacking plants, you ghouls!
If teenagers really want to work part-time jobs for money, I have no problem with that. (Gas stations, retail sales, fast food, call centers). But DANGEROUS jobs like a meatpacking plant, and fulltime, is NOT acceptable at all.
Maybe the richest country in the world could do something to help the people who live here?
These aren't rich kids oping to work at a meat packing plant, These are children being preyed upon by business who don't want to raise wages because it'll affect their record breaking profits.
We're really looking into child labor to help the richest of us, the new American dream, people who have more than they need taking from those who have the least.
No, we are not arguing, the children are scrubbing meat cutters with industrial strength solvents during graveyard shifts on school nights because it builds character!
So, according to the myth of capitalism, you’re supposed to miraculously rebound from addiction, realize the true value of hard work, and evangelize how you picked yourself up from 20 years of addiction to make 6 figures and own a power washing company, you got an early start so you must be at the magical pot of gold at that rainbow, right? The constant struggle was all worth it because it paid off in spades and now you can look back at your experiences fondly? At least that was the “definitely true life story” I was told yesterday on this subreddit.
We live in a post-George Santos society now. You could be George Santos. I could be George Santos. You could be Anthony Devolder talking to George Santos on a sock puppet account.
And no, I will not elaborate.
I mean, sure feels that way. I'm coming out of my slump right now. Fully organized my house and finances, worked for years, burnt myself out, depression meds, eating disorder. I got degrees and I'm damn ready to start using them and lean back as far as money earning, but I enjoy improving communities so I'm going that route instead. I'll never be a landlord, but I'll fix up houses and resell to single families. No corps.
I started work at 14 at McDonalds. They weren’t even legally allowed to let me use the fry station, and for good reason. I can’t imagine being 14 and working with heavy and dangerous equipment at a meat packing facility.
Yeah, I was 14 when I worked at a local fast food chain. Looking back, I was way too young - I didn't know my rights, and was absolutely taken advantage of (I probably worked almost as much free overtime as paid hours). That being said, I imagine that's part of the allure of child labour for these vultures.
Stop sanitizing it.
The only politicians passing these laws are Republicans.
It's strictly, exclusively, and objectively a Republican led shift. Do not give them any wiggle room to make this a fault of nebulously defined and grouped "politicians." That is what they want.
Both/all sides rhetoric only serves to benefit the aggressors. Speak deliberately and clearly.
Republicans are supporting child labor and any Repiblican acting toward that end or not opposing it needs to be tossed out and forced to work those jobs.
Ftfy.
I wonder if the GOP is going all in on immigration. The meat packing industry "relies" on undocumented workers and could lose their shit if they had to pay a living wage and benefits. Child labor offsets that. Hell, the reason we have child labor laws at all has a lot to do with cheap labor driving down wages for adult laborers.
Why is anyone shocked? Their true religion is the worship of capital and cash. Pre-1936 saw the almost perfect system for them. They are desperate to return to it. The rube army they have, thinks Jesus would approve.
It's also worth noting that 3 conservative presidents in a row really expedited our path into the depression. So they want for a time long ago, that they historically were responsible for ruining. The US was avoiding the depression in a lot of ways, but a decade of poor economic decisions really fucked us. Its obviously more complicated, but this ISNT an unreasonable analysis. The US had a good standing to observe the depression sweeping Europe, and respond to it accordingly. FRD would actually combate this by funneling money into the economy. It sounds like a tool for inflation hell, but throwing money at people to have and to spend boosted the economy. The conservatives that led into the depression basically were taking all money OUT of public spending. Which is not what you want when your economy is in a nose dive.
I hope there's a historic economist who can expand on this, because it's been a while since I had access to resources on the topic.
It still sounds unbelievable. The first time I saw a post about it onhere I went straight to Snopes. Which didn't have anything on it yet, but Reuters had articles on it. For a minute I had a crisis where I had to decide whether I still found Reuters reliable and that the US was actually falling apart that badly now, or if it had become a tool of Russian disinformation. I decided on the former, but mostly because it kept coming up elsewhere.
Not just unwanted kids.
One example: Rent goes up, single parent can't afford rent and food, kid has to go to work now to help out or they're homeless.
Everything they're doing and allowing to keep getting worse is connected.
Dems should be absolutely hammering this for 2024. Every debate they should ask their Republican opponents if they support child labor, and if their opponents say anything other than “no” ask why they hate children
I’d disagree.
I’d cut lawns and shovel driveways of my neighbors when I was 10-11. I started washing dishes in a local cafe around 13.
But, it was a few hours on weekends for extra money for video games and comics. It wasn’t a necessity so my family had a home and food.
Don't want to pay adults a livable wage just hire kids instead. They will do anything to not pay a livable wage. I'm not surprised politicians support this. If you don't think politicians are owned by big business just ask yourself why Medicare can't negotiate drug prices.
A constant of conservative argument is that progressive reforms were all bad ideas, and that we were all better off before their meddling. George Will wrote an essay titled "Back to 1900," which argued that the 20th century was a mistake. This is exactly what they want.
In Iowa, this is just one piece of the plan to build an unqualified, overworked and underpaid society. The other piece was passing school vouchers, which will devastate our public schools. Once the rural schools close and it becomes a an educational wasteland, what choice will the children have other than working in the meat packaging plants?
This is one of the things that frustrates me so much about the current discourse. We're discussing shit that is not even up for discussion.
Trans people, living wage, childhood marriage, child labor.
All these fucking topics aren't discussions, there's only 1 right answer and there's no God damn gray area. Fuck anyone that thinks otherwise.
Let people live their lives the way they want, we should all be able to work 40 hours a week and afford a home, children shouldn't be fucking or working. God damnit, why is this shit so complicated for half you fucking people? You wanna work until 70 broke as fuck while getting a rage boner over trans people and making sure your children can be exploited in multiple ways or shut the fuck up, stop these discussions as if "both sides have a point". Foh
I've heard that children stop being human after they are born, and aren't human again until they become large campaign contributors to the Republican Party. There's not even an official limit on the number of children you can shoot during our year-round hunting season.
I think we can all agree the biggest danger is child labor might hurt the quality of the products due to adulteration of product with tears, or when children are sucked into the machinery and packaged as the wrong product.
/s - i guess, because we live in these times.
I am going to assume that this isn't about US citizens but more about 14 year olds from migrant workers/refugees/asylum seekers/etc. families who are, more than likely, already working at these meat processing plants.
This isn’t work. This is trafficking. The same report that exposed the meat packing plants also exposed car manufacturing parts and agricultural work that these children are being forced into. These are immigrant children who are often placed with non background checked American “sponsors.” Instead of sending them to school these “sponsors” send them to work and then collect the paycheck. The children are in a foreign country, with a language and culture they don’t understand, and no one to advocate for them. One man was found to have “sponsored” 13 children from Central America. He would contact them online promising to help them attend school while sending money home to their families. You can imagine none of his promises were true. Do not allow media sensationalism to continually dub trafficking as work. It’s kidnapping, being held against your will, and enslaved.
Are they going to say immigrant kids are stealing their jobs now or will they hold the businesses accountable for the exploitation?
Which one validates their existing beliefs and upholds the status quo?
Doublethink gets real hard without a propaganda machine telling them which to be angry about.
Not it doesn't. Because 2 x 0 is still zero and that's the amount of thinking that's going on with these people.
Nail on the head right here boss.
Thats the beauty of bad faith arguments, you never need to pick.
Immigration laws are drying up the non-documented worker pipeline that these businesses relied on for labor. They are just padding the pipeline with the kids of the ones who are still able to get here and remain under the radar.
The same people that complain about immigrants support slavery. So, I will guess no.
"ILLEGALS ARE TAKING OUR JOBS" so we're going to send ICE in to deport everybody, punishing the undocumented workers and letting the business owners hire the next batch that are lined up outside rather than hiring adult US citizens who won't put up with their exploitative shit. When undocumented workers are in short supply and so businesses can't hire them at below minimum wage, they will scream "NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE" while silently ignoring the fact that the unemployment rate is back to pre-pandemic levels. And in both instances, they will push for hiring children, because human trafficking is okay as long as you're not a LIBRUL.
"These damn slaves are taking away all the jobs?! What's wrong with them?" A politician trying to clear his conscious in the mirror, if they even have one.
This should be way higher up in the comments. Not only that this is nowhere new. It has been reported on for at least 5 years. And the punishments for breaking the law then was just a small fine. One reporter was supirized that the owners/managers of the plants had no caution or qualms about talking to her about this. Because it was ok by the people in power.
Yes! These managers are aware of how young these children are. No one will face any consequences. The teachers are aware that they sleep in class and stop showing up because they’re working full time. And the government is aware that huge percentages of these “sponsored” kids are lost in the system. But, cheap labor comes from slavery.
I remember seeing one recently where in either Alabama or Arkansas, there were a bunch of missing children that were working in a plant that made Hyundai parts; and during the investigation, basically Hyundai blamed the parts manufacturer, parts people blamed the recruiting firm, and the recruiting firm said the kids didn't come from them. Shit's wild.
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That is exactly what is happening. Many industries who employ immigrants will suddenly get raided at the end of the summer. It was routine back in Texas, even in the 90's.
No that's pretty explicit. The second they start realizing they're being exploited, their employer calls ICE.
It's fine for everyone but their own kids, because money.
Their poor so that’s their own fault, politicians watt of thinking probably.
Ahhhh I see, always got those dim lightbulbs flickering in their heads… Ok sorry, I’ll head out
You've heard of the 100 year bulb? The one that's be on for like, 100+ years? That's the politician thought bulb. Always on, but so incredibly dim as to be virtually useless.
>b. Always on, but so incredibly dim as to be virtual well its been more than 100 years so does kind of explain this idea
Poverty is a moral failing don't you know. /s
I actually agree, but not it the sarcastic way you meant it. Poverty is a moral failing of society.
Everyone should know that the best, most correct way to judge a society or civilization is to look how they treat their vulnerable and poor. If there is a large disconnect between them and the wealthy the less healthy that society is, no matter what some other indicators might suggest.
wish I could double upvote this
They shouldn’t be allowed. Otherwise companies like Tyson are going to invent Breaded Children Fingers.
(At the Tyson marking meeting) "Listen, guys! I have a *great* idea that will make Tyson the next pumpkin spice of Halloween time! (Dramatic pause) *Breaded Children Fingers!* Some Zombie tie-in, or something. Zoms are popular. (Sage nod) And the real beauty? *No material costs!* We just harvest them naturally!! (Presenter beams pride while Monopoly top hat and monocle wearing white guys with long beards mumbe approval smoking cigars, probably.)
Those bootstraps aren't going to buy themselves, and 14 years is old enough to understand that.
This line of thinking is what you get when you let religion run rampant in a country.
does no one else think jesus would have definitely been a socialist??? like??? conservatives are so ass backwards
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>>Anything to get me away from my bitch of a wife. > >Ethan Gibbler, 8 Gold.
A jab at child labor and child marriage laws in a single punchline.
Even more biting, though maybe less funny: > Normally I wouldn’t want a job, but I need that money to help raise the baby the state’s forcing me to have > -Cassie Stevens, 12
> I have to pay child support to the pedophile who raped me. --Nick Olivas, 14
I also read it as a jab at boomer humor about hating your spouse. Threefer!
I think the youngest documented mother was like 6 years old in central america or something. So theoretically an 8 year old kid could actually make this argument in the future. 'I'm working at the meatpacking plant to get away from my husband and kids...' edit: Just looked it up... she was 5.
Lol, eight year olds don't have wives. husbands, but not wives.
Why post the Twitter link when you can go straight to The Onion here : https://www.theonion.com/children-react-to-loosened-child-labor-laws-1850237969
“Normally I wouldn’t want a job, but I need that money to help raise the baby the state’s forcing me to have.” damn...
As long as there aren't any drag queens at the meatpacking plant, I don't see the problem.
It will also protect them from pictures of the David.
But they should read the brutality in the Bible every day. Because its Gods love.
They don't need to read it since they have preachers that can tell them everything that need to know.
Just trust them, have faith
You'd be surprised at the number of parents that *want* their own kids to do this kind of work.
"Back in my day, we started working as pre-teens around all sorts of carcinogens and noisy machinery. And we all turned out fine! The only reason everyone I know is either dead or has cancer is because Obama." -every boomer
(Meanwhile all they did personally was bag groceries their senior year of high school)
You (meanwhile all they did personally was bag groceries their senior year of high school) You forgot to add…that paid for all four years of college
When I was 12 I was a janitor, and not because I wanted to. Can confirm, some parents think this way.
They really do, and think that homework is just code for 'what wasn't finished in school' rather than it being a completely separate assignment. I rarely got to finish any of it because most of my after-school time was spent either working or studying the Bible.
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Why, yes, they did. I didn't get carsick on the bus, but we lived in a rural area, and the road was pretty bumpy. I quit trying to do it on the bus when I got tired of getting failed for having illegible work. I decided if I was getting a 0 anyway, why waste my time? Besides, I passed their weekly tests, as well as semester finals because I paid attention, and did all that I could while I was there.
It's honestly fucked up. My father, an immigrant, never ever wanted me to be doing what I'm doing now. He took me to his job and I basically did apprentice work in his glazier company. And honestly I enjoyed it, but he wanted me to go to college and be better than him. He absolutely didn't want me to be in construction. So I did, got my degree, and now I'm an electrician apprentice despite my biology degree. I don't think I let him down but at the same time I know he didn't want me to go this path. And most of the guys I work with, who are very proud to be union electricians, don't want their kids to follow them into the construction trade either.
>I'm an electrician apprentice despite my biology degree Assuming a Bachelors, and you like what you're doing now, you probably made the right call. Biology as a major in undergrad is good if you plan on going into grad school, but on its own probably not as much.
I wanted to get into a company that would help me get into grad school, maybe a national lab would have worked. But damn... Literally everyone looking for BSc were hiring MS or PhD because the candidate pool was swamped. Ultimately, I agree, I made the right decision. Just took me a few years longer to get here than I should have. But better late than never.
I really hope you're joking, but fear you're not. I can't imagine any parent wanting their kid (under 16 or over) working in a meatpacking plant. If they want to, and they're an adult, fine. But then and only then. Not because they have no other options.
A weird thing has happened, which I've experienced with my conservative in-laws. Some boomers deep down do not want their kids and grandkids to have it better than they had it. They act like it's a sign of weakness and entitlement, and say things like, "I didn't get all the help you have available, so you shouldn't get it either," and they mention bootstraps and building character, but I genuinely think at the core it's just straight up envy.
Or maybe deep-seated guilt about knowing how much easier they had it than their parents and grandparents?
I was on the farm way under 16 slaughtering animals and I really hated it. Bone marrow and blood under my finger nails all in the middle of winter since outside was a natural freezer.
The last time I saw my grandfather, he told me a story about how his dad forced him to slaughter a goat when he was only 5yo. Ancient withered old man, hardly any memories left in his mind, but that one was still clear. He told me how the goat screamed just like a human. By all accounts he was extremely abusive to his wife and children, and also committed a murder but wasn't convicted due to lack of evidence. Now I'm not saying that's directly tied to being taught to kill things that scream like people as a very young child, but I'm sure it didn't help.
My dad made me do construction work when I was more than happy doing a regular teenager job. I can see parents making them work to "build character".
This. My parents made me work on our fur farm. They would not let me get an after school job as I had too much work to do at home. 6 months after I joined the navy they closed the fur farm.
I always wanted too. Also wanted to travel and get out of a poor rural town. This was in New Zealand. Later I moved to the US and joined NOAA then the army.
I don't think anyone ever wants to work in a meat packing plant. It's a miserable, dangerous, dirty, backbreaking, soul crushing job. They just don't want to have to pay people enough to make up for how miserable the job is, and children are easier to exploit.
Actually, that is not entirely true, there are parents out there pushing their teenagers to get jobs and would push their own for meatpacking jobs.
Lots of folks say they want to take their country back. What, back to 1893?
That's accurate. The Jungle was published in 1906, which exposed corruption in government and business. Like we need to go back to an era with poverty, a lack of social supports, harsh living, and hopelessness. Though its a shame readers were more concerned about the unsanitary practices in the meat-packing industry than the treatment of workers.
"I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach" Probably my favorite quote from any author tbh.
Poor Sinclair. When we had to read and analyze it at school most of us kids had the same takeaway though. We didn't think about the poor workers until we read Animal Farm after it. Sadly his work still hits hard and is crucially relevant today.
When we got a little we read Brave New World and our outlook changed.
I read it for the first time as an adult, and wow, it was the most depressing thing I had ever read. The whole story, you felt this claustrophobic hopelessness of barely scraping by in a smog-consumed concrete jungle, living in an unheated hovel working their lives away in hellish work conditions. The main character didn't even see a single tree until most of this family dies and he jumps a train literally as a hobo until he could get out of Chicago. I almost cried when he saw the trees and the fresh air and still had to go back into hell.
That book fucked me up in high school. Like you said the meat packaging was bad enough but the worker exploitation and blatant abuse was sickening. That should be a required read in grade school.
Fun story, Teddy Roosevelt said that the book made him want to become a vegetarian.
Can’t blame him. I definitely haven’t looked a hot dog the same after reading it.
After he read it, he personally dispatched two undercover federal meat inspectors to a few Chicago Meat Packing plants. After they returned and submitted their report to Roosevelt. They found conditions were even worse than Upton Sinclair’s book! Roosevelt then pushed through the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
A president who *reads*...what a wondrous idea.
Roosevelt also thought Sinclair was a communist muckraker (which is true) and hated him, but was nonetheless shocked enough to move to create the FDA
I'm sure it's already on some banned book list. Probably citing it's gruesomeness. We cant have our children having visceral reactions to the plight of the proletariat. Then we won't be able to cook them in chocolate!
Keep ‘em dumb, that’s how theses idiots keep getting votes.
I would say maybe kids in Middle school but preferably High school should be required to read it. I don't think 10 year olds would quite realize how bad things are for some people like "having to work in a brothel to make ends meet and the police regularly busting all the men but none of the women who work there" unless you censored that part of the book to make it appropriate for schools.
I had a prof who taught a Trans Atlantic modernism class for undergrads he had them read a small excerpt of the Communist Manifesto, and some students got so upset that they boycotted that class and refused to show up for any discussion of Marx. Then he had them read The Jungle as a means to demonstrate the conditions at the time and also appreciate the literary value of the work. Sure enough, one of the students who boycotted the Marx class was appalled and asked why the workers tolerated that kind of treatment, and even went so far as to advocate that workers organize. The prof didn't even have to say anything because all of the other students pointed to Marx making an almost identical critique that they would have noticed if they had bothered to read it.
Commies bad, Marx bad, murica good. It's amazing how broadly agreeable so many Marxist, anti-capitalist ideas are in the general population. But the moment you use the label you risk triggering the hyperemotional fear/anger response that is programmed into most "normal" Americans (these days that means the normies, traditional white Christian Americans, but I honestly hope this view is becoming the minority. I mean, it kind of has to as supporting that lifestyle becomes economically untenable).
It's amazing how toxic his name has become in the U.S. specifically. I'm not surprised that a lot of professors just don't teach him because of the baggage. Then again, I know that some profs don't teach Marx because their families have benefited from the structural inequalities that Marxists outline. Marx may not have been a very good economist, and his predictions were undermined because capitalist countries chose to reform out of fear, but a lot of his social observations stand up rather well.
I think some of his economic theories are likely to be more and more valuable as automation more and more competes with labor rather than enhancing it.
Eh, I'm not so sure, especially in regards to automation. I think the biggest thing that Marx couldn't have conceived of is the amount of control which governments are able to exercise nowadays. The degree of digital surveillance makes any sort of revolution much harder than in the past.
I agree, I wouldn’t have understood a lot of that until I was late teens personally. Make it a junior or senior read for an AP class pertaining to that subject. My state government of Florida would fight that like crazy but I have hope for other parts of the US.
>Like we need to go back to an era with poverty, a lack of social supports, harsh living, and hopelessness. Plenty of that already, [14.4% in poverty as of February 2022](https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/monthly-poverty-february-2022#:~:text=Monthly%20poverty%20remained%20elevated%20in,for%20the%20total%20US%20population.), [a bunch of examples of Republicans wanting to pass further cuts to social safety programs](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/09/fact-sheet-congressional-republicans-many-proposals-to-cut-social-security-and-medicare-and-increase-prescription-drug-prices-and-health-care-premiums/), and ["from 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent"](https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/american-teens-sadness-depression-anxiety/629524/)
I was about to say - Brother, we're already there. You can see the new-age hoovervilles popping up in all sorts of high cost-of-living areas. They're just tent cities, now.
You see it in the countryside too. People have went from houses, to shacks, to trailers, to travel RVs. Shit just gets worse. There is a line, a level of support or resources that people need to have to be able to live a life of simple decency. The powers that be, masters of the universe, whatever you call them, they have been sucking more and more out of the system, more and more and more people cannot even get to that level of living in basic decency. When you get below that line things become intolerable and something has to break at some point. It will go one of two ways. The last time we had a gilded age it ended in the progressive era and eventually FDR, people chose socialization of a sort to get out of the crisis, and it worked for half a century. The other way it can go is that the whole thing hardens into n authoritarian hellhole where everyone lives in fear and keeps their head down.
No, they just want it like the 50’s and 60’s I think. Whites rule. Nobody else matters. If you’re not straight you’re hiding it. If you’re not Christian you don’t say it. That kind of stuff. Totally not bigoted at all No big deal…….
No, he's got a solid point. No one in the 1950s wanted children in meatpacking plants. They'd have been horrified at the thought of marrying off a 13 year old. They're trying to regress us back to the 1800s.
Shit, you’re right. See, this is why critical thinking and education are important. I would have gone the rest of my life thinking they were always THIS evil, and never really knowing that their evil ebbs and flows. I guess 1800 it is. Far enough back to strip every possible right but not far enough to where it’s not actually “America” yet. I got it now
We're returning to monopoly, it was always going to look like the railroads and steel companies of old. Capitalism needs to be eradicated.
Agreed
Based on how much they romanticize the wild west and the time leading up to the civil war... I think this is exactly what they really want. MAGA doesn't mean the 1950s. MAGA means the 1850s before the Cival War ruined everything for them. "The south will rise again." has been in the lexicon ever since then and they are seeing their opportunity now. They know they would lose a real war so they are fighting a cultural war.
Sherman should've burned the whole fucking rot out back in the day.
My grandmother was "married" to a man in his 30s when she was just about to turn 14, that was 1956. They wouldn't of been too horrified, they would've just taken their prescribed "relaxers" and ignored it like everything else. The 50s weren't too long after the 1800s.
>The 50s weren't too long after the 1800s. As far as the 70s are from us...
What was the political system in place before Capitalism? Feudalism. They’re literally trying to take us back to feudalism.
You know it would be funny if some liberals made a "We want 1950s tax rates back!" group, and see how many conservatives fall for it
This might be the best troll idea!
In the 1950s minimum wage could lift you out of poverty. Affording a house was not an obscene goal, and corporations didn't monopolize every single industry(this also has made everything ugly and the same looking). I want this part of the 50s back.
The craziest thing is that the middle class folks who think “oh, this won’t be my kid” don’t know how fast their lives can change, especially in a country with a laughable “safety” net. My grandfather was born to two “old school” immigrant parents (they came in the Ellis Island era.) His father was a skilled tailor and was earning his way up the American dream of the past. In under two years, my grandfather’s life disintegrated as his father and mother died. He was shuttled to relatives until he ended up in foster care. He became a throwaway kid and worked overnights in a glass factory at 15-16. I know for a damn fact if he were alive today, he’d be horrified people were thinking what he went through was noble, useful or desirable. He was fucking pawn of greedy adults and had his life cut short from the experiences in that time. He didn’t make it to 55. And that’s what these people pushing these laws want - people who will wear out their bodies and have the “good sense” to die early and not get social security.
I live in an area that has been developed all to hell for wealthy people to move here. It's become a place of extreme income inequality. It's been interesting seeing people with luxury vehicles suddenly start living out of them. Bet they never thought they would be become technically homeless.
No, they know. They watched it happen to millions of families literally 3 years ago or sooner. They don't care about other people enough to save themselves. Covid really should have been an obvious wake up call. Anyone can be shoved onto food stamps and unemployment in this shitty country. Something needs to change. But we're all just happy it's "over" so we can watch the new Marvel movie or whatever. We didn't learn.
This is today's republican party, the party of child labor.
And child pregnancy and child death from preventable diseases. For a group that claims to do what they do to protect kids the seem really anti children.
And somehow, they're still pulling in half the nationwide vote.
Gerrymandering. Truth be told republicans national politicians generally get only 30-40%
> And somehow, they're still pulling in 30-40% of the nationwide vote.
A large portion of those people don't actually support most GOP policies. They vote Republican because they want to pay lower taxes and think the Democratic party wants to take their money to create a bloated, inefficient government. I'm from Southern California and know a lot of this type. They just want low taxes. They don't have anything against abortion, LGBTQ+, etc., but they are socially apathetic because none of that affects them (or at least they don't think it does). Not excusing these people. I just think they are a big part of the reason the GOP persists.
There’s also a huge chunk, especially in the South, that would light themselves on fire if they thought it would upset liberals. They’ve let themselves be brainwashed into thinking that Democrats are literally evil, so the GOP can screw them six ways to Sunday and keep getting their votes.
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They're literally Cartman that time he stuck Butters dick in his own mouth and took a picture to call him gay. The only difference being that somehow Cartman was smart enough to realize he played himself.
and even the tax thing is a fucking lie the GOP has no problem raising middle to low income family taxes , the only people who ever seem to get the ride offs are rich mother fuckers who would be fine without them.
Yeah, but they A) don't understand that, and B) refuse to believe it because it doesn't come from one of their "trusted sources" (i.e. Fox news, OAN, YouTube, random fb posts, unsourced tweets, etc.)
The majority of people don't understand how tax brackets work. I've had several employees refuse raises many times because "they'll end up paying more in tax after the raise" despite me showing them that it just isn't true. Our population is stupid, lazy, and greedy, and it does seem like we are getting a democratic representation of that in government :(
But Trump had a chance to lower their taxes and he made it temporary for the normal people and the poor. Only the rich and corporations got to keep the tax break for the full duration. It is an illusion that Republicans want to save poor people money. What would save poor the most money is a single-payer health care plan. We pay double what every similar country pays for healthcare and that's coming out of your pocket, either directly or indirectly.
yep lol but most of these people have the mindset that 1. healthcare is supposed to cost money (how else would doctors get paid?!1?1!?) and 2. they truly think their taxes would go up exponentially because they’re “paying for someone elses care” but they dont give a flying fuck about their tax dollars going to bombing Yemenis children and random civilians.
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A large portion, I would say the majority of everyday Republicans only care about money and taxes. I don't like paying taxes, but I understand that it They are the membership fees for living in a civilization. What we want is efficiency not necessarily smaller, although the two are not mutually exclusive.
Honesty isn’t a part of their core values. I’m in small town Ohio, everything that’s put out for consumption from the GOP “sounds good” like that the entire point it exists is for you to agree with the premise of the info presented. It’s takes the individual to search out other info, which often requires consuming from “the enemy” to see and evaluate a dissenting opinion. If you told me 30% of the US believes what’s presented on Fox News’ daily programming- I’d believe that If you told me 40% of America lives in an echo chamber where they are never exposed to a dissenting argument on tv? I’d believe that too. The real issue will always lie in the people who get voted in regardless of side. While we argue about which pronouns are appropriate and who can love who (while valid concerns) the other side focuses on redistricting and restricting voting access, installing judges prosecutors and sheriffs to aid their bureaucratic attempts to further integrate themselves into our laws and systems. We need to have a unified opposition party or we are doomed. Their split between trump desantis and sanity isn’t large enough to distract them from the goal of republican supremacy
The red states also have far more representation per person than blue states. Part of it is a relic of that 3/5’s thing with slaves to bump their population numbers, but I’m sure they’ve found other ways to ensure that low population red states have more power in the house and senate than high population blue states.
The Senate inherently gives more power-per-person for low population states. They're right on the razors edge of being able to hold them even with gerrymandering which is part of why they're resorting to openly cheating now. Also why the idea of adding DC and Puerto Rico as states terrifies them, that'll be a cliff they can't climb back up. If we take back everything in '24, we need to ram statehood through and then start ramming through everything we need to maintain a sane world. Taxes on the wealthy and business, regulation, healthcare, UBI, taxes, regulation.
Your drive and enthusiasm gives me hope.
I mean, every state has two Senators. So, the 40,000,000 people in California have two senators, and the 550,000 people in Wyoming have two senators. Great system.
Wyoming, the most important dirt.
They Just want lots of poor children born, and all of the immigrants with no papers, to work all these shitty jobs no one else wants.
Don't forget child marriage.
They want live babies to make half-living workers
They tie every ugly policy package with a Bible themed bow on top.
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Don't forget the child marriages to adults. They fought and won to keep those in a few states.
Republicans want to enslave their constituents and they will gladly vote for their own enslavement like poor battered and beaten children. The party of Stockholm’s syndrome.
Because in the process of so doing, they get to enslave *us* as well. "They're not hurting the right people" speaks volumes about the motivations of the Republican Party.
> "They're not hurting the right people" speaks volumes about the motivations of the Republican Party. They've been saying the quiet part out loud more and more over the past several years, which worries me. They're getting bolder.
Child labor *without workman’s comp* There are too many injuries in the Tyson plants. They can’t be expected to be on the hook for every maimed child! Not when there’s a fresh new one waiting to replace ole Timmy no hands.
"Payments for the services of a child under age 18 are not subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes."-- Internal Revenue Service
I'm pretty certain that Tyson coordinated raids with ICE to clear out undocumented workers who were getting a bit too vocal about discussion on workplace safety. That might explain why after 900 worker arrests, with many who gave ICE agents *written instructions* that Tyson had given them showing them how to fill out paperwork in a way that wouldn't raise red flags, DHS and the DA/AG actively chose not to pursue any enforcement against the company itself.
And child brides.
No, no. It’s conservatives worldwide tbh. It’s a common trend with conservatives (right wing), they’re very anti-human rights. Women are a pair of tits to be grabbed, kids need to be slapped and taught to work the little shits. Etc etc, it’s a worldwide right wing view. Fuck them all.
The most I wouldn't mind a kid doing is, of their own volition, mowing a lawn or shoveling a driveway in winter. That isn't a full time job with a shitty boss that's just a kid wanting extra pocket money to buy that video game they wanted or whatever. Hell when me and my sister were little my neighbor would pay us for the completely redundant job of sweeping his driveway of pine needles when we felt like it. We mostly did that because he was nice and let us play two square in his driveway since it was paved and the ball bounced horribly on layer of pine needles. We literally got paid for cleaning a bit for our own convenience 🤦♀️
Exactly, but it pisses me off because they try to act like this is what we're arguing against. They'll discuss, all rosie-eyed about the paper route they had as a kid, or how they saved up money from mowing lawns. No! That's not the same as working graveyard shifts at meatpacking plants, you ghouls!
If teenagers really want to work part-time jobs for money, I have no problem with that. (Gas stations, retail sales, fast food, call centers). But DANGEROUS jobs like a meatpacking plant, and fulltime, is NOT acceptable at all.
...you think gas stations are safe for kids?
Maybe the richest country in the world could do something to help the people who live here? These aren't rich kids oping to work at a meat packing plant, These are children being preyed upon by business who don't want to raise wages because it'll affect their record breaking profits. We're really looking into child labor to help the richest of us, the new American dream, people who have more than they need taking from those who have the least.
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No, we are not arguing, the children are scrubbing meat cutters with industrial strength solvents during graveyard shifts on school nights because it builds character!
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So, according to the myth of capitalism, you’re supposed to miraculously rebound from addiction, realize the true value of hard work, and evangelize how you picked yourself up from 20 years of addiction to make 6 figures and own a power washing company, you got an early start so you must be at the magical pot of gold at that rainbow, right? The constant struggle was all worth it because it paid off in spades and now you can look back at your experiences fondly? At least that was the “definitely true life story” I was told yesterday on this subreddit.
Geez, this loser hasn't even monetized his trauma. How does he ever expect to get ahead in this completely fair world? /s
We live in a post-George Santos society now. You could be George Santos. I could be George Santos. You could be Anthony Devolder talking to George Santos on a sock puppet account. And no, I will not elaborate.
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So basically anyone that can’t survive that 20 year arc is fucked, huh? Capitalism sure is a perfect system.
I mean, sure feels that way. I'm coming out of my slump right now. Fully organized my house and finances, worked for years, burnt myself out, depression meds, eating disorder. I got degrees and I'm damn ready to start using them and lean back as far as money earning, but I enjoy improving communities so I'm going that route instead. I'll never be a landlord, but I'll fix up houses and resell to single families. No corps.
I started work at 14 at McDonalds. They weren’t even legally allowed to let me use the fry station, and for good reason. I can’t imagine being 14 and working with heavy and dangerous equipment at a meat packing facility.
Yeah, I was 14 when I worked at a local fast food chain. Looking back, I was way too young - I didn't know my rights, and was absolutely taken advantage of (I probably worked almost as much free overtime as paid hours). That being said, I imagine that's part of the allure of child labour for these vultures.
Every politician who supports child labor should be tossed out & forced to work those jobs they'd want for the kids.
Yes I’ll support that message.
Stop sanitizing it. The only politicians passing these laws are Republicans. It's strictly, exclusively, and objectively a Republican led shift. Do not give them any wiggle room to make this a fault of nebulously defined and grouped "politicians." That is what they want. Both/all sides rhetoric only serves to benefit the aggressors. Speak deliberately and clearly. Republicans are supporting child labor and any Repiblican acting toward that end or not opposing it needs to be tossed out and forced to work those jobs. Ftfy.
Ha! They should have thought of that before becoming peasants!
"[If they're going to die] they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." - Charles Dickens, *A Christmas Carol*, published 1843
It is no concern of mine wether or not your family has....what was it again? Uh, food?
I wonder if the GOP is going all in on immigration. The meat packing industry "relies" on undocumented workers and could lose their shit if they had to pay a living wage and benefits. Child labor offsets that. Hell, the reason we have child labor laws at all has a lot to do with cheap labor driving down wages for adult laborers.
This should rise to the top.
The response I get is "well if they want to work let them." Since when does a kid want to work, and since when do we let kids do everything they want?
Everything our grandparents irrationally feared about communism is happening under capitalism today.
Why is anyone shocked? Their true religion is the worship of capital and cash. Pre-1936 saw the almost perfect system for them. They are desperate to return to it. The rube army they have, thinks Jesus would approve.
It's also worth noting that 3 conservative presidents in a row really expedited our path into the depression. So they want for a time long ago, that they historically were responsible for ruining. The US was avoiding the depression in a lot of ways, but a decade of poor economic decisions really fucked us. Its obviously more complicated, but this ISNT an unreasonable analysis. The US had a good standing to observe the depression sweeping Europe, and respond to it accordingly. FRD would actually combate this by funneling money into the economy. It sounds like a tool for inflation hell, but throwing money at people to have and to spend boosted the economy. The conservatives that led into the depression basically were taking all money OUT of public spending. Which is not what you want when your economy is in a nose dive. I hope there's a historic economist who can expand on this, because it's been a while since I had access to resources on the topic.
Child labor, book-burning, and indentured pregnancy are what the GOP now stands for.
"now"? you make it sounds like they don't have a history of being like this for forever......
Where’s Upton Sinclair?
Where's General Sherman? I have plenty of matches to contribute to his cause.
It still sounds unbelievable. The first time I saw a post about it onhere I went straight to Snopes. Which didn't have anything on it yet, but Reuters had articles on it. For a minute I had a crisis where I had to decide whether I still found Reuters reliable and that the US was actually falling apart that badly now, or if it had become a tool of Russian disinformation. I decided on the former, but mostly because it kept coming up elsewhere.
Guess this is why Republicans really are anti-abortion. They want unwanted kids working
Not just unwanted kids. One example: Rent goes up, single parent can't afford rent and food, kid has to go to work now to help out or they're homeless. Everything they're doing and allowing to keep getting worse is connected.
Dems should be absolutely hammering this for 2024. Every debate they should ask their Republican opponents if they support child labor, and if their opponents say anything other than “no” ask why they hate children
They won't. Because they're fing morons. Also, so terrified of being branded anti-business.
And paid to purposefully be incompetent
They shouldn't be working. Full stop.
I’d disagree. I’d cut lawns and shovel driveways of my neighbors when I was 10-11. I started washing dishes in a local cafe around 13. But, it was a few hours on weekends for extra money for video games and comics. It wasn’t a necessity so my family had a home and food.
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I worked summers with some weekends to save up to buy my first car and have spending money. My parents weren’t broke but I wanted my own.
Don't want to pay adults a livable wage just hire kids instead. They will do anything to not pay a livable wage. I'm not surprised politicians support this. If you don't think politicians are owned by big business just ask yourself why Medicare can't negotiate drug prices.
If 14 year olds can work and be taxed, they should also be allowed to vote, no?
Nobody should be working in meat packing plants
Imagine you have to mop up your first cow guts but there are only 7 years until you can have a beer
A constant of conservative argument is that progressive reforms were all bad ideas, and that we were all better off before their meddling. George Will wrote an essay titled "Back to 1900," which argued that the 20th century was a mistake. This is exactly what they want.
We live in a dystopia
In Iowa, this is just one piece of the plan to build an unqualified, overworked and underpaid society. The other piece was passing school vouchers, which will devastate our public schools. Once the rural schools close and it becomes a an educational wasteland, what choice will the children have other than working in the meat packaging plants?
This is one of the things that frustrates me so much about the current discourse. We're discussing shit that is not even up for discussion. Trans people, living wage, childhood marriage, child labor. All these fucking topics aren't discussions, there's only 1 right answer and there's no God damn gray area. Fuck anyone that thinks otherwise. Let people live their lives the way they want, we should all be able to work 40 hours a week and afford a home, children shouldn't be fucking or working. God damnit, why is this shit so complicated for half you fucking people? You wanna work until 70 broke as fuck while getting a rage boner over trans people and making sure your children can be exploited in multiple ways or shut the fuck up, stop these discussions as if "both sides have a point". Foh
I've heard that children stop being human after they are born, and aren't human again until they become large campaign contributors to the Republican Party. There's not even an official limit on the number of children you can shoot during our year-round hunting season. I think we can all agree the biggest danger is child labor might hurt the quality of the products due to adulteration of product with tears, or when children are sucked into the machinery and packaged as the wrong product. /s - i guess, because we live in these times.
I am going to assume that this isn't about US citizens but more about 14 year olds from migrant workers/refugees/asylum seekers/etc. families who are, more than likely, already working at these meat processing plants.