What is Slavery?

[SPECTRE1]

Slavery has two components that are commonly misunderstood. There is the common definition that Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. However, the reason behind treating a person as property is for purposes of economic expolitation (wage theft). Slave Masters didn't acquire slaves as pets or personal enjoyment, they acquired slaves who were treated like animals for economic exploitation. To ban just slavery leaves the economic explotation aspect untouched. This resulted in new forms of economic exploitation such as high interest rate loans, low wages, or limited opportunities for ownership. When minority groups are given high interest rate loans or rigged low wages, I believe it should be defined as slavery. The main goal behind Slavery wasn't to restrict a persons freedom or treat them like property, it was to exploit that person economically which the 13th Amendment does not deal with. Therefore, undocumented workers that are paid substandard wages because of their immigration status is a form of slavery.

13th Amendment

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.

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.[1] Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Historically, slavery was institutionally recognized by many societies; in more recent times slavery has been outlawed in most societies but continues through the practices of debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.[2]

Types

Chattel slavery, so named because people are treated as the personal property, chattels, of an owner and are bought and sold as commodities, is the original form of slavery. When taking these chattels across national borders it is referred to as Human Trafficking especially when these slaves provide sexual services.[8]

Bonded labor

Debt bondage or bonded labor occurs when a person pledges himself or herself against a loan.[14] The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, may be undefined.[14] Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents' debt.[14] It is the most widespread form of slavery today.[8]

Forced labor

Forced labor is when an individual is forced to work against his or her will, under threat of violence or other punishment, with restrictions on their freedom.[8] It is also used to describe all types of slavery and may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription and penal labor.

 

[nittie]

Slavery/servitude cannot be avoided in a organized society it's impossible.

 

[thoughtone]

What is freedom?

 

[nittie]

No such thing as freedom we are part of a whole with inescapable roles to play. Ashes to ashes dust to dust.

 

[Lamarr]

When an entity lays claim to one's labor!

Abolish income taxes ASAP.

 

[SPECTRE1]

If you wanted to stop slavery, all you had to do is pass a 13th amendment that banned all forms of economic exploitation of a person. You don't need to ban slavery.

Once, the slave owner had to pay full wages to their slaves, they would have let them go and they would have stopped acquiring slaves. The former slaves wouldn't have been exploited again as sharecroppers with high interest rates loans or low wages.

The whole point is that Congress (13th Amendment) did not address the purpose behind slavery at that time (wage theft/economic exploitation).

 

[pookie]

Common Sense tells me that slavery is when a person or more than one person controls another person or persons. Did not have to look that up.

To end it we need to separate and build our true identity back. Or else white America will continue to poison us and program us and control us. You cannot master a free thinker. But you can master someone you drug and start to program.

The way out is to buy black and organize. If not now, when? If not us, then who?


http://blacknation.vpweb.com/

 

[SPECTRE1]

Chattel Slavery has been banned, Economic exploitation which is at the core of Slavery is not over...

Some of America’s biggest banks have been charging minorities more than 3.3-times more than other borrowers according to a recent survey of U.S. loan data.

Matthew Lee, head of Fair Finance Watch and Inner City Press, collected data on the average interest rates on loans granted to African Americans by major banks, according to MarketWatch.

Citigroup Inc. issued loans to African Americans with rates 3.38-times more than other borrowers in 2011. Wells Fargo & Co. charged 2.28 times more, while J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. loaned out at rates 2.21 times higher.

African Americans borrowing from KeyCorp, owner of KeyBank, saw rates that were 1.7-times higher.

Some financial institutions have issued statements about the findings.

“Careful lending controls are in place at KeyBank,” KeyCorp told MarketWatch in a statement. “We lend based on factors such as credit scores, debt-to-income ratios, and loan-to-value ratios. We do not lend based on race, and we work hard to ensure our standards are consistent among all applicants.”

Lee says his findings paint a different picture of the lending methods used by major banks, according to MarketWatch.

“Even after the bailouts, lending disparities grew worse and not better,” Lee, who has been tracking the loan data for more than five years, told MarketWatch. “Regulatory laxity, at least on fair lending, has continued despite the financial meltdown caused by predatory lending.”

The government has taken action against some lenders for predatory loans targeting minorities.

The U.S. sued New York-based GFI Mortgage Bankers Inc. for allegedly charging higher rates to African American and Hispanic borrowers than white borrowers in similar situations between 2005 and 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"As the lawsuit we filed today alleges, discrimination still exists in certain quarters and it has profound consequences for the victims," Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, told the Wall Street Journal. "At a time when so many American homeowners of all races and nationalities are struggling to make their mortgage payments, it is unacceptable that, as we allege, the impact of GFI Mortgage's business practices resulted in its African-American and Hispanic customers paying higher fees and interest rates for their residential mortgages."

According to the lawsuit, GFI Mortgage allegedly made about 740 mortgage loans to African Americans and Hispanics in New York and New Jersey.

African Americans paid $7,500 more than white borrowers over the first four years through a GFI Mortgage loan, according to the Wall Street Journal. Hispanics paid $5,600 more through GFI.

Other studies show that bankruptcy may not be a solution to the high interest rates imposed on minorities.

Most debtors file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which absolves all debts. Filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy requires debtors to pay back the loan through a payment schedule despite hardship, making it the more costly alternative.

Research from a combined team of bankruptcy experts, law professors and psychology professors from the Universities of Illinois and Arizona show the racial differences in filings, according to the New York Times.

The survey found that bankruptcy lawyers were more likely to steer African American debtors towards the more costly Chapter 13 protection than whites in similar situations.

“Unfortunately I’m not surprised with these results,” Neil Ellington, executive vice president of Consumer Education Services, a credit counseling agency in Raleigh, N.C., told the New York Times. “The same underlying issues that created the problem in mortgage lending, with minorities paying higher interest rates than their white counterparts having the same loan qualifications, are present in all financial fields.”

We need a 13th amendment that bans all forms of economic exploitation. The 13th amendment even left in a clause that allows slavery for people in prison (intentionally) which was used to trump up on charges on people and stick them in factories working for nothing. Ban slavery outright, no exceptions, nothing.


I am changing the Constitiution of the United States...

Before:
13th Amendment

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.

After:
13th Amendment

Neither slavery, involuntary servitude, or any other form of economic exploitation, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

I don't even want low wages for prisoners ($1 a day), get rid of any economic incentive for the state to trump up charges on somebody to imprison them which was clearly done in the past.

 

[SPECTRE1]

Unfornutately, slavery was wage theft, the government didn't sit down and calculate damages when they were 'freed'

Wal-Mart said on Tuesday that it would pay at least $352 million, and possibly far more, to settle lawsuits across the country claiming that it forced employees to work off the clock. Several lawyers described it as the largest settlement ever for lawsuits over wage violations.

If I go into a job and discuss the possibility of negotiating a salary as a group with other people (unions), many companies will make up something and fire you; and put you under surveillance. This is a form of economic exploitation, any person involved should be in prison.

Even though corporation commonly join political or business groups that represent their interests. Nobody fucks with them for joining these "business" unions.

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe are accused of agreeing not to poach each others staff, therefore holding back career development and suppressing compensation. A federal court in California has ordered seven technology companies in the state including Apple, Intel, Adobe and Google to face a private antitrust suit from five former employees, who alleged that the companies conspired to eliminate competition between them for skilled labor to suppress compensation and mobility of employees.

It called 'antitrust' or 'discrimination'; however, the 13th amendment should cover this issue also.

 

[thoughtone]

Chattel Slavery has been banned, Economic exploitation which is at the core of Slavery is not over...



We need a 13th amendment that bans all forms of economic exploitation. The 13th amendment even left in a clause that allows slavery for people in prison (intentionally) which was used to trump up on charges on people and stick them in factories working for nothing. Ban that fucker outright, no exception, nothing.


I am changing the Constitiution of the United States...

13th Amendment

Neither slavery, involuntary servitude, or any other form of economic exploitation, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

LAWMAKER INTRODUCES BILL TO END CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

 

[SPECTRE1]

 

[thoughtone]

When an entity lays claim to one's labor!

Abolish income taxes ASAP.

Pathetic!

 

[muckraker10021]

The seven minute clip above, from the Ken Burn’s “The Civil War” documentary masterpiece, contains more truth about the reality of Black American chattel slavery than the majority of American citizens know. This mass ignorance, even among Black American citizens is not accidental; it is premeditated —coordinated by the U.S. educational system and the mass propaganda that informs American history. The television series “Roots” depiction of slavery was akin to taking a strong cup of black coffee and turning it into a latte macchiato.

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Two Forms Of Slavery That Still Exist In America

by Ashvin Pandurangi | February 23, 2012 |

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-23/home/31089793_1_slavery-slave-laborers-convict

It is almost surprising that the concept of slavery is very foreign to those living in the developed world, especially the U.S., since it was extensively practiced as recently as 70 years ago.

What’s more disturbing about this ignorance is the fact that the system of post-Civil War slavery in the U.S. was not so different than the systems of slavery many Americans and Europeans will be experiencing in upcoming years. Indeed, I’m sure many people will probably take offense to such a comparison even being made, as they feel it demeans the atrocious acts committed in the past.

I would argue, however, that we demean history by failing to understand it and learn from it. Many people refer to debt slavery when referencing current policies of the West, especially in Greece right now where the concept has become very real, but they perhaps still under-estimate how bad it can get. These systems of slavery are primarily borne out of deeply-rooted economic structures which foster high levels of dependency, greed and malice by those with unchecked levels of political power. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these powerful groups consisted of wealthy Southern agricultural and industrial elites.

In his book “Slavery By Another Name” [documentary here] Douglas A. Blackmon documents how very few of the 4 million slaves that existed at the end of the Civil War were actually allowed to realize their freedom until decades later. As the white middle class of the South grew from 1870-1950 (with the exception of some years encompassing the Great Depression), due in no small part to the success of Southern industry, the blacks were kept in their chains through various mechanisms, such as convict leasing and debt peonage, over and above the outright discrimination and violence that they also suffered.

The Southern convict leasing systems were a means of extending slavery for African Americans well past the Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th and 14th amendments. Southern laws were crafted to guarantee that the now “free” African Americans would be incarcerated at much higher rates than whites. Blacks were picked up, hauled off and locked up for ridiculous crimes such as “vagrancy” (being homeless or unemployed), loitering in public, speaking loudly in the company of white women or selling farm products after dark, to name only a few.

Once these people were matriculated into the prison system, they had effectively become slave laborers again. The state allowed convicts to be leased out to private corporations for little more than a pittance - convict laborers were rented out at monthly rates that represented a 50-80% discount over the wages paid to free laborers. They were forced to work in some of the most dangerous environments at the time, laying railroad and mining coal, and a significant percentage developed severe illness/ injuries and died in the course of such work.

It is estimated that at least 9000 convict workers were murdered or died of “natural causes” over a few decades under this system alone. As one historian described it, the system was “brutal in a social sense, but fiendishly rational in an economical sense”. That is really the crux of the matter – the Southern plantation economy, as well as newly developing transport industries, was very dependent on extremely low-cost labor, in both an economic and psychological sense. Convict leasing proved to be even more profitable than slavery in many cases, since there was really no need to keep the workers healthy and alive for very long.

Many African Americans were also placed into peonage or “debt servitude”, despite the fact that the federal government made it illegal after the accession of New Mexico into the U.S and the Civil War. These blacks were typically accused of falsely owing money or trivial sums, given sham trials and quickly sold off by the courts into a privatized system of debt slavery. The peonage contracts contained horrifying terms, allowing the employer to trade, confine, whip and beat workers as long as the debt was deemed unpaid, which could practically last forever.

It was established that some of the wealthiest Alabama farmers had their own “justices of the peace” who would fraudulently try and convict blacks on charges of unpaid debts. The federal government launched an investigation into these practices, and an Alabama court convicted a few of the farmers of public bribes and illegal debt peonage. However, they were given minimum sentences and then pardoned by President Theodore Roosevelt shortly after. Despite the investigation and state court ruling, this practiced continued in many Southern states for years after.

Another less explicit form of forced labor was sharecropping, in which the poor black farmers theoretically received a percentage of the profits from sale of a certain crop grown by them. However, these workers were forced to take out relatively large loans just to meet daily expenses and these loans sometimes carried interest rates upwards of 50% or 60%. At the end of day, many of these sharecroppers were treated just like slaves and received very little compensation for their work, besides the basic necessities of life.

It is probably quite obvious to most readers how all of these mechanisms of forced labor and debt slavery are still being practiced today and are only getting worse. The prison-industrial complex in the U.S. has become more extensive than ever, as the list of petty crimes for which people are incarcerated has grown longer (but still does not include corporate/banking fraud or political corruption at the highest levels). There are, of course, many serious offenders in the system, but the point is that it is becoming ever-easier for our modern “slavemasters” to blur the line.


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Foremost among the petty punishment is for drug use and addiction, which, as Dr. Gabor Mate has insightfully explained , are conditions that primarily develop from environmental influences at an early age (as opposed to genetics). The socioeconomic structures and growing wealth inequality embedded in our society, especially at this time of economic depression, places enormous amounts of stress on its poorest members and can literally re-wire their brains in ways that eventually lead them down a path of self-defeating drug addiction and associated behaviors.

U.S. Department of Justice – Prisoners in 2010


In 2009, the most recent data available, 53% of state prison inmates were serving time for violent offenses, 19% for property, 18% for drug, and 9% for public order or other offenses.

About half (51%) of federal inmates in 2010 were serving time for drug offenses,35% for public-order offenses (largely weapons and immigration), and less than 10% each for violent and property offenses.

Instead of working to change our fundamental economic structures and mitigate the stress triggers, our society has sought to “punish” and “rehabilitate” these people by placing them in environments of unprecedented fear and stress, such as prison. Given the amount of money and resources poured into the “war on drugs” in the U.S. over decades, there is never any shortage of people that can be easily sucked into this prison complex and then become a part of an enslaved labor force. Maintaining prisons and their populations has become very costly to taxpayers, but that’s the whole point.

The growing and increasingly outsourced U.S. prison workforce is frankly a wet dream for private corporations, just like the convict leasing system was for Southern corporate elites. They have already been stripped of almost all their freedoms through the system of incarceration, and can be forced to work for a very low wages in poor working conditions, under very strict levels of order and discipline. This pool of enslaved labor exploded since the early 1970s, as shown above, and therefore has already been thoroughly exploited by private corporations for many years.


<img src="http://i.minus.com/igp4n0IbVGmvW.jpg" width="600">

On top of that, the entire business of building and running both state and federal prisons has been in the process of being outsourced to private corporations as governments come under fiscal pressure. These private interests now have even more incentive to help state and federal governments maintain the currently elevated number of prisoners. In recent years, the annual percentage increase in prisoners has dropped off, but that’s a “problem” which can be easily solved by the powers that be. In addition to inevitable increases in crime rates associated with economic depression, the list of jailable offenses can simply be expanded along with their associated sentences, like they were for blacks after "Reconstruction".

Right now, we have millions of people up to their eyeballs in housing and consumer debts, paying upwards of 20% interest on their credit cards and “payday loans”. It is an entrenched system that forces people to work longer hours for fewer benefits and wages over time. But, even as such, the titans of industry and owners of concentrated financial wealth are finding it difficult to squeeze enough blood from the stones. So what’s to stop the corporate elites and their political/judicial flacks from manufacturing debts out of thin air and exacting excessive wealth/punishment from those with debts owed?

In the follow up to this piece, we will look at the other ways in which the era of global indebtedness today has come to resemble that of the post-Civil War enslavement of African-Americans, except at a much larger scale. Is it really so unimaginable that an average lower or middle class American family, of all different races (although the racially-divided inequality of the past is still with us in many real ways), could find themselves in literal contracts of debt peonage, despite the technical “illegality” of such contracts at this time? What is the likelihood that laws will be re-written and/or ignored and how easy is it for the line between financial harassment/abuse and physical enslavement to simply disappear?





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[thoughtone]

Slavery by Another Name. Watch!

 

[SPECTRE1]

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[thoughtone]

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[SPECTRE1]

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I am surprised blacks aren't celebrating Haiti or Cuba (Economic Slavery) Independence Day! An example of people willing to die, than being put into slavery. They refused to accept any dimunitive role by the colonizers in any capacity. If anybody showed up talking that slavery mess, they got killed quickly.

There should be fireworks going off on that day similar to July 4th.

Independence in the United States is questionable given the true intent of the stealers of this country. They were slaveowners looking to avoid the premature abolition of slavery by England.

Slavery 2012

1. Rigged Low Wages
2. Giving jackup performance reviews to minorities to prevent promotion into 'master' positions at corporations that have higher pay.
3. High Interest Loans targeting minorities
4. Payday loans and Check Cashing, limiting access to Banks
5. Limited Access to Affordable Healthcare.
6. Limiting access to capital/ownership opportunities of business.
7. Steering minorities towards renting and not homebuying.
8. Human Rights - Frequent Privacy Violation, Surveillance
9 Limiting access to Unions
10. High unemployment