Though barred by federal and state rules, prisoners are replacing workers. The northeast Wisconsin employer closed two of its three plants, cut its workforce up to 40 percent and hired inmates to do the same work. All this seems to be okay as long as the victims are perceived to be black or brown. If you believe the party line of the powerful, the only answer lies in cowboy rugged individualism, harder work, more personal responsibility for your own life. That's intellectual junk food fed to the public by billions of tax-deductible corporate propaganda dollars and politicians bought on the side.
Reality is much different.
We've been sold the idea that the richest country in the world can't afford to pay its people a living wage or educate its kids. But the public is still forced to fund corporate welfare, outrageous executive salaries and the tax-deductibility of tobacco damage claims. Public education remains the only hope for the underclass, but the schools, too, have been corrupted by greed. Despite a year of revelations of financial mismanagement, University of Nevada regents gave lightweight chancellor Richard Jarvis humongous pay and benefit increases plus job security for life. The legislature gave the university system the largest percentage increase in the nation for the second time in a row.