Are 'plantations' possible in today's United States?

[Stinky The Clown]

I know this is coming from way out on the end of the limb on which I'm perched, but hear me out, please.

I posted in another thread about how the displaced New Orleans citizens are being moved about, like so many pawns, often with families separated and with no identification, no way to even begin to rebuild their lives. (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2064324)

Today, WalMart said any of their employees displaced by Katrina can get work at any WalMart in the country. (Like that's a good thing.)

So we're seeing huge numbers of poor black people moved about the country in ways over which they have no control whatever. They just 'find themselves someplace'.

How long until they find work, at the lowest wage the employer can get away with, in conditions that are as bad as the employer can get away with, doing work that is as miserable as any one might imagine? How long until they're picking fruit? Like in some Florida orange grove or tomato farm? In some Michigan fruit orchard? How long until they're sweeping streets in some gated community? How long until they're running garbage routes, riding the back of the truck?

How long until they're back where they started .... on the plantation?

Wives with no husbands? Fathers without their children? Children in communal dormitories.

I am genuinely afraid that something like this could EASILY happen in 'today's' America.

[rzemanfl]

1. I've been thinking it is a buyer's market for domestic servants.

Bush's friends will like that, no green card issues and they speak English.

[rfranklin]

2. They exist now as sugar cane plantations...

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992/09/mm0992_05.html

[Dissenting_Prole]

3. In terms of peak oil...yes.

Cheap and abundant energy, and the technology that was made possible, likely played a part in ending slavery in the United States. Why feed, house and keep all those slaves in line when coal and oil will do the work more efficiently?

Once that cheap and abundant energy is gone, who is going to take on the role of the 300 energy slaves that each of us has working for us every day?

It will be the poor and uneducated. And it will be the formerly middle-class, who have become slaves in a situation where they have no possible chance of paying off years of accumulated debts after the crash of the greatest bubble in the history of finance.

Get out of debt now while you can.

[lostinacause]

14. I think you fail to take into account how innovative people are.

Innovation is perhaps the most valuable characteristic of humanity whether it be seen in invention, thought, adaptation, or any other way it may exist.

[bushisanidiot]

4. AWOL will pay China to rebuild the south.. they will pay chinese,

illegal and legal mexican immigrants, and poor white and black americans slave wages to get the work done.

that's AFTER they pay billions to halliburton for the cleanup

[zann725]

5. Then there are all those "detention centers" all over U.S. built years ago

...which we've all speculated about before.

I also feel there's something terribly wrong here too. WalMart "saving" these people?! WalMart who allows no rights to its workers? Who has been known to lock some of its workers in at night. That allows NO unionization.

And we're all just a "un-natural" disaster away from the same. And how many hurricane reliefs can private citizens fund (as most are also victims of rising gas prices, health care costs, unaffordable housing costs), and shrinking incomes and available jobs.

No, it's NOT "tin-foil" at all.

[tx_dem41]

6. Jeez...and to think....the other day we were bitching because people...

weren't evacuated....now, we're bitching because they are being evacuated!

The mental and moral gymnastics people go through at times to score politically!

[Stinky The Clown]

8. That statement is half worng

Yes .. we bitched about them not being evacuated

Now the bitch is NOT about them *being* evacuated ... it is about the INSENSITIVE METHODS being employed.

.......... just to be clear.

[tx_dem41]

9. Do you realize how "insensitive" it would have had to have been..

to get them out of there in the 24 hour window before the storm???

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Please explain that question

I'm not sure how to interpret what you said.

Do you somehow think I would have been opposed to getting them out before the storm? That's what I take from what you said ... but I could be worng.

Again, please clarify what you meant.

[tx_dem41]

11. To get them out in the 24 hr window that many have demanded...

the evacuees would have been more haphazardly scattered then they are being now.

So what exactly did you want to have happen in that 24 hr window?

[davepc]

13. Insensitive? more like matter of necessity

While it would be a perfect world where family's are kept together as much as possiable...but in a quickly thrown together evacuation of tens of thousands of people to dozens of states...things aren't always going to be the best possible scenario.

Lets say you have a family of 8 or 9 people. The grandmother in the group requires special medical care and needs to be in a hospital. Theres an open bed for her in Houston. The next "slot" in a Houston shelter has an opening for 3 people.

The family of 3 behind you in line will gladly take that slot if you insist on waiting for the next bus.

Oh, and the next bus might take you to San Antino..or maybe even Kansas City....no guarantee. Do you split up your family and send 3 to Houston so you know at least SOMEBODY will be near grandma...or do you give the slot to the people behind you and hope the next spot that opens up has room for everybody?

Its 100 degrees out. Your wearing the same clothes for almost a week. You haven't gone to the bathroom in a toilet that flushes in days. You haven't had a meal that didn't come out of a plastic bag, nor slept in anything resembling a bed, had a shower.....get on the air conditioned bus to a safe place or wait?

Whats the answer?

This wasn't rocket science. X location can hold Y people.

If you need special care (like a hospital or nursing home etc) then you go to the next available facility that can give you the care you need. If the that means family's are broken up in the short them...while not the best possible outcome it facilitates SPEED in the evacuation.

And isn't the biggest complaint that they're not getting people out FAST enough?

The logistical gymnastics necessary to match open facilities to the needs of every individual family are MASSIVE. So they could either sit in the sun for a extra hours waiting for a bus while some bureaucrat quadruple checked lists to find the absolute "best" evacuation site for each individual family, or they could get on the next open bus and go where it was going and get shelter, food, water,a shower, clean clothes and perhaps a decent nights sleep in an air conditioned building for the first time in 3 or 4 days.

It's a trade off, but I think they went of speed over convince.

[acmejack]

7. We havre to reunite these families!

A website has been constructed and the data is being input as we speak. Perhaps we can start a drive for airline miles to facilitate that end.

Help here!

[McCamy Taylor]

12. Possible? Open your eyes. They exist. In prisons in the South where

African-americans are only paroled when they are too old and weak to labor. In migrant labor work camps, where so called "illegals" who are actually tolerated by our government are hauled from farm to farm. In the military, where enlistees can no longer get out.

However...

The government will probably hire private contractors like Halliburton to be the rebuilding at exorbatant costs using workers paid ungodly ammounts to pad the payroll. We are unlikely to see a repeat of Mississippi in the late 20s when African-americans were enslaved to repair the damage, since Big Business stands to profit off the rebuilding.

[lynne]

15. With any luck -

- there will soon be tons of work in New Orleans and all across the South where Katrina hit. Reconstruction, restoration, water, sewer, electrical, other utility work - probably city, county, federally funded jobs - many with the benefits that go along with working for those entities.

It takes a lot of work - physical and administrative - to recover from a disaster. Once they get to that point, the area economy will boom.

Financial Analyst on radio suggested now is the time to invest in Lowe's and Home Depot because of all the work that will need to be done.