Florida Fascists Give Up on Punishing Disney

[Technobarbarian]

They figured out that the punishment really would hurt them far
more than it hurt Disney.

https://www.ft.com/content/64162abf-e0bd-4a6f-968a-cb4872e5c4f5

"Florida prepares U-turn on Disney’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ punishment"

[snip]
"The law passed this spring “is a tax increase,” said Linda Stewart, a
Democratic state senator who represents part of Orlando, where Disney
World is based. “I don’t think [DeSantis] understood how badly this
could go for the state of Florida and the counties and the cities.”

She said a potential compromise under discussion would bar Disney from
building a nuclear power plant or an airport on the property, rights
granted to the company by Florida in 1967 that it is unlikely to use.

More significantly for DeSantis, there is also discussion of allowing
the governor to appoint two members to the Reedy Creek board. “These
compromises can be done with the least amount of impact,” Stewart said.
“We can’t let the governor look like he lost.”

The law removing Disney’s special status does not go into effect until
next summer, giving the various parties time to negotiate. A draft
compromise bill is already being drawn up by a Republican senator,
lawmakers say.

“It seems like Disney and the legislature have motivation to make a
deal. Nobody wants a train wreck,” said a source involved in Florida
politics who asked not to be named.

Disney declined to comment. A spokesperson for DeSantis and Reedy Creek
did not respond to a request for comment.

IOW they don't want DeSaintless to look like a loser. It's a
compromise. LOL

TB

[film...@gmail.com]

DeSatan also has looming troubles with his Dept. of Corrections... It's overcrowded with convicts, and understaffed by 25%.... He's forced hundreds of NG troops into prison guard jobs outside the fence, and forcing C/Os to work outrageous amounts of overtime.... Current staff is burned out, and senior staff is fleeing to other agencies, and states, for better employment.... Judges may soon demanding inmate releases due to over crowding...

Uncle Bighouse

[Technobarbarian]

hmmmmmmmm, That's interesting, but I don't think it's going to be a
big problem for the Florida fascists. Behind the scenes this is a very
popular program with its roots in Florida history. This is one of the
reasons the fascists don't want children to be taught real history. As
usual, follow the money.

"FLORIDA STILL AMONG STATES BENEFITING HANDSOMELY FROM PRISON SLAVE LABOR"

"In the Nov. 8 midterm elections, Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont
approved ballot questions to finally abolish slavery – yes, slavery, in
the year 2022 – thanks to the efforts of the Abolish Slavery National
Network. Louisiana failed to do so because of a flawed referendum
question and more than a dozen states still allow forced prison labor.
Florida is one of them.

The U. S. Constitution’s 14h Amendment passed on June 8, 1866 — more
than 150 years ago — allows it: “Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.”

Several states have aggressively used that exception to control African
Americans and make hundreds of millions of dollars from their labor.

Exploiting the loophole now brings in $11 billion for states and local
governments, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the
University of Chicago’s Global Human Rights Clinic reported in June.
Some inmates are paid nothing, while others receive between 13 and to 52
cents per hour. Those who refuse to work face punishment, including
solitary confinement, Jennifer Turner, the report’s lead author and a n
ACLU researcher, told Al Jazeera. Such punishments “are eerily similar
to those used during antebellum slavery,” the Associated Press said.

Florida began using forced inmate labor almost from the start, after the
United States purchased the territory in 1821 from Spain for $5 million,
The New Tropic, a Miami-based news site, noted in a 2016 report. Within
40 years, the state had 61,000 slaves, who, four years later, had to be
freed because of emancipation. Florida enacted its version of
anti-Reconstruction laws, known as the Black Codes, to legally control
the formerly enslaved people and use a prison system designed to lock up
those who fell afoul of expanded vagrancy laws and were jailed for a year.

Soon inmates were being rented out to raise funds to pay for the state’s
rapid growth. Gov. George Franklin Drew codified this practice in 1877.
Douglas Blackmon, in his 2008 book “Slavery by Another Name,” described
it as a substitute for slavery. “The convict leasing system was
especially harsh in Florida, where convicts worked long days mining
phosphate and turpentine, clearing out tropical landscapes, and laying
roads in hellish temperatures without adequate food, water, or shelter,”
Blackmon wrote. “By 1900, the South’s judicial system had been wholly
reconfigured to make one of its primary purposes the coercion of African
Americans to comply with the social customs and labor demands of whites.”

In Florida, “companies that benefited from the system gave tacit and
direct support for the social and legal barriers aimed against the black
citizens,” World Digital Library, a project of the U.S. Library of
Congress, noted.

Miami historian Paul George also describing it as “almost like another
form of slavery,” adding, “People would get picked up on bogus charges
or for small slip-ups, get convicted, and sent to work,” according to
New Tropic.

There were not enough workers to keep up with development, so convict
leasing was used on many state road projects throughout Florida. Tamiami
Trail was among those that used prison labor, as was construction of a
corrections department auto-tag plant and a shirt factory. Within two
decades, inmates were also being forced to work in dairy farming and
cigarette manufacturing."
[snip]

https://www.sfltimes.com/opinion/florida-still-among-states-benefiting-handsomely-from-prison-slave-labor

This might be a small problem, if and when their favorite fascist
goes national. The idea is likely to be very popular, with the
Republican Party's "base". We already have a higher percentage of our
people behind bars than any other nation. What difference would a couple
million more make, as long as we can rent them out? Since the
politicians aren't paying for it they really don't have to worry about
whether or not the system turns a profit. All it has to do is benefit
their "friends".

"Almost like another form of slavery"? Bullshit. You could be sent
to prison under the vagrancy laws if you couldn't prove you had a job.
People were jailed for being healthy young men while Black.

TB

[film...@gmail.com]

Yep! Florida, is the land of "Cool Hand Luke"... I wonder how much outside work is done by high level convicts any more? There's too much liability, & expense involved.... Back in the good old days, convicts were a lot more docile, that the ones today... There's a lot more "'Gators", than back in those good old days.......

Captain No Eyes Jr.

[Technobarbarian]

Luke wasn't a high level prisoner. None of them were. He was
arrested for cutting the heads off of parking meters. (Try doing that
these days and see what it gets you. Haw Haw.) Here we have prisoners
fighting forest fires. I think they make a little over a buck an hour.
They only take volunteers. We frequently go past the "forest work camp"
on our way back and forth to the coast. Some of the worst driving I've
seen anywhere has been state owned vans anywhere near the road that cuts
off to the work camp.

The Forest Service has a warehouse near the state prison in Salem.
I was in there one day and they had a convict sharpening axes from a big
pile on a big vertical belt sander. I guess they figured he was "docile"
enough.

TB

[film...@gmail.com]

Any time there is a designated shooter, or armed horsemen, the outside crew is high level... Forestry camp, & firefighting inmates are all minimum B, the creme de la creme, of convicts.... In CA, they used to get $1 per hr, from when they left, until their return.... Of course, that was 20+ years ago... Convict wages must have improved since then....

The "Prison Industry Authority" used convict labor... They made several products for the state, provided eggs, poultry, and hogs, for institutional use... They also had two dairies... It was almost a closed system on paper.... Unfortunately, none of them could compete with private industry, even with cheap convict labor....

Adam Smith Jr.

[Technobarbarian]

Prison industries usually are not allowed to directly compete
with private industry. The Feds make office furniture using prison
labor. They are only allowed to sell it to Federal agencies. Private
industry would have a screaming shit fit if they had to compete directly
with cheap prison labor.

TB