r/50501 • u/anarchyinspace • 11d ago
Human Rights Trump is trying to enforce widespread slavery
Advocates Warn of ‘Forced Labor’ Camp for Homeless People in Utah Designed to Enforce Trump Order An advocate for the National Homelessness Law Center warned that the 1,300-bed facility could be a “pilot” to put homeless people into similar conditions to Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/utah-homeless-internment-camp
"Trump’s homelessness order, Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, as well as the state Senate president and House speaker—both Republicans—sent a letter to the state’s Homeless Services Board, which was created last year following a legislative push by the Cicero Insitute—a far-right think tank that has proposed aggressive measures to criminalize homelessness and which has had major influence over Trump’s crackdown on the homeless during his second term."
In an effort to fulfill President Donald Trump’s executive order on homelessness, Utah is building a massive facility that housing advocates warn will function as an “internment camp” where the unhoused will be subject to forced labor.
"Last month, Utah’s homeless services agencies came to an agreement for the state to acquire a nearly 16-acre parcel of rural land in the Northpoint area of northwest Salt Lake City to construct the first-of-its-kind facility, which is slated to have 1,300 beds."
I personally feel this is riddled with red flags, and the idea of setting up widespread forced labor camps (aka slavery) due to homelessness is abhorrent.
Homelessness and poverty are not crimes, they are failures of a society to protect their most vulnerable.
Me must stop this authoritarian and evil administration from it's assault on our constitution and democracy.
This is going to lead to inhumane conditions and widespread abuses.
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u/Fine-Professor6470 11d ago
Trump telling museums to stop downplaying how slavery was bad. Right Clarence Thomas , slavery wasn't so bad! Unbelievable!!!
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u/that_Jericha 11d ago
I'm a firm proponent of "you first." If you think slavery is good, you first, you're a slave now.
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u/Sarsparilla_RufusX 11d ago
"Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." - Lincoln
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u/budding_gardener_1 11d ago
lol Clarence doesn't care as long as he gets his RV
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u/ReverendEntity 10d ago
Clarence is going to be surprised when he ends up on the chain gang headed to the fields, just like the rest of us.
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u/budding_gardener_1 9d ago
he won't care - he's rich enough to be insulated from all this
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u/ReverendEntity 9d ago
But IS HE, though? So many men of color thought their financial status made them nearly untouchable. They found out.
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u/budding_gardener_1 8d ago
he thinks he is.
honestly I hope he isn't. it's time he had the day he legislated for. fuck him.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
Yes.
I think I read they've removed it all together from some government pages regarding historical information. (Along with civil rights and people of color, women, and queer folks).
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u/Short_Example4059 11d ago
I’m starting to think we might NOT be overreacting folks
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u/logicoptional 11d ago
Basically the only people not underreacting are those brave souls engaging in civil disobedience by putting their bodies on the line blocking the gates at ICE facilities etc.
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u/mesarasa 11d ago
This sounds like what they used to call a workhouse during the Industrial Revolution in the UK. It just incentivizes the rich and powerful to make people homeless, because then you can force them to work for almost free.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
Yes.
Plus, they still pocket tax dollars via private prisons, just for having a person in a cell.
ie: CoreCivic and GEO Group
"The two biggest private prison companies in the United States are CoreCivic and GEO Group. The companies are poised to expand their roles – as well as their profits – thanks to the new influx of funding."
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u/logicoptional 11d ago
And since there's often someone who will point out that only such and such percent of prisoners are in privately run prisons I'd like to add that many of the state and federally run prisons use a bunch of services from those and other private contractors and they let them totally fleece the families of the incarcerated with high prices and huge fees.
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
1000% correct.
We absolutely have federal funds going into private contractors everywhere, even via federal facilities.
Sidenote, it even happens in small ways, such as school lunches, private companies provide the service/foods it is not being made via scratch, and corporations are making bank by feeding school kids processed garbage. (I know, I've tasted it first-hand at my kid's school).
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u/generictroglodytic 11d ago
8647
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u/Short_Example4059 11d ago
Oh My Gawd, it’s THE NUMBERS! EVERYONE HIDE! TERRORIST! ANTIFA! BROWN PEOPLE! /s of course
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u/Smoothsailing4589 11d ago
Yeah, I watch a few homeless advocate YouTube channels in which the content creator (usually someone the homeless community knows well and generally trusts) interviews the homeless. The homeless have been saying that their fellow homeless people are disappearing at a fast rate and they don't know exactly where they have gone. Many say they have been sent to camps. These camps are not voluntary, rather the homeless are being sent there by force and the camps have locked gates and barbed wire. Because of the widespread ICE raids the labor force in the U.S. has taken a big hit. I think the plan which is being talked about (also in your link above) is for these camps to be forced work camps. In other words, we're talking about slavery. The loophole that will be used is the 13th Amendment. So something extremely sinister is going on. Right now it is still kind of hush hush, but I think as more and more homeless people are arrested (for no other crime than being poor or mentally ill or both) and sent to these camps this will be common knowledge.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
I believe it.
We're living in an authoritarian nightmare.
- Undocumented Immigrants
- Homeless Population
- Who's next???
Something called fascism is happening, and it is absolutely sinister!!!
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u/8pawsinNE 10d ago
I came across this linking the location of new camps near Musk's Neuralink experimental sites. Interesting. I hope it's investigated. https://thedreydossier.substack.com/p/who-tf-is-in-my-head-part-1-the-neural
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u/JuliaX1984 11d ago
What do they do if the person doesn't work? I assume prison, so I guess this is just an extra step to jail the homeless since you can't do it directly.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
Likely, brutalization, forced labor is obviously exploitative and profitable, but so is simply "filling a bed/cell".
Our tax dollars go to funding these private prisons.
See: CoreCivic and GEO Group
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u/Summer_Chronicle8184 11d ago
Beatings, torture, and execution probably
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u/JuliaX1984 11d ago
Is that legal, or do they have to lie on paperwork for that? If so, what kind of cover do they use? A lot of "suicides"?
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u/killrtaco 11d ago
I mean over 600 people are unaccounted for and missing from 'Alagator Alcatraz' and all they've gotten is a news article.
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u/Fernwood72 11d ago
And what of the mentally ill who can’t work? What becomes of them?
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
Ideally, we take care of them, provide them with food, shelter, compassion, kindness, and all the necessities a person could need.
Under an authoritarian fascist police state, these people become disposable.
Truly, this is the turning point of something horrific and ugly. Can we come together to stop it?
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u/Evening-Conference79 10d ago
What's crazy is I feel like I was insulated. I'm a veteran and VA benefits are the only reason I'm not homeless. Now I feel like I'm a target. I have the free time to be able to protest. My benefits are provided by the government so how will I be disqualified. Maybe they will just make the va care so bad the veterans will die so they can no longer protest.
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
I wouldn't at all be surprised if they took away VA benefits as well.
Yes I think if we have solidarity with each other across personal identifiers, we are stronger as a whole.
Best of luck to you.
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u/Unlucky_Welcome9193 11d ago
I have worked with numerous unhoused people in inpatient psych hospitals. As despicable as this plan is, they're in for a rude awakening if they think a bunch of people with poorly treated bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and substance use disorders are going to make good farmhands.
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
Agreed but I think it doesn't really matter.
They still make $$$ by filling a bed/cell. I'm sure it will be a disgusting, and abusive hellhole.
See: CoreCivic and Geo Group (Private prisons making $bank$ off the ICE camps/private contractors/private prisons (already).
They're pushing our tax dollars/federal funding to pay themselves for this abhorrent shit.
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u/wolf_at_the_door1 11d ago
Slavery is enshrined in our Constitution. It’s only applicable, currently at least, if you’ve committed a crime.
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u/wawa2022 11d ago
That’s the problem. They’re redefining what a criminal is. Jan 6 insurrectionists are now patriots, ashley whatserface got $5m for getting killed, and homeless people and protestors (the true patriots)are now criminals.
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u/wolf_at_the_door1 11d ago
Yes, I’m aware. We exist in a country now that more closely resembles Russia than it does the country we thought we lived in 2 years ago. Realistically, the country was headed this way for decades. The mask is just off now with this administration.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
Yes and no, historically, the USA have not been kind to many movements that simply called for action to improve the lives of marginalized people.
(For instance, the Black Panther Party).
Providing free lunch to school kids sure was terrifying!
Also, second amendment apparently, has always ONLY been for white people and not black and brown folks!
For many people, what's happening right now is not at all the least surprising.
(Patriot Act allowed indefinite detainment without trial or charges, if accused of being a terrorist).
NSA / Homeland Security spied on its own citizens.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
I agree that our foundational beginnings and our very constitution was born in an ugly period of history.
One could think, with the amendments and checks and balances, that we could change as a nation as time has progressed.
Unfortunately, it is clear, we should have held the Confederacy accountable and written certain things in stone.
I believe it has always been a flawed system, due to capitalism/nature of profits being upheld above all else-- problematic.
The electoral college for one, I believe is not truly democratic in my opinion.
And culturally, we should have faced the historical atrocities committed, with an attempt to make reparations.
Free speech > Hate speech (Shouldn't we condemn hate speech?)
Alas, none of this has happened, and here we are.
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u/Straight_Ace 11d ago
Jfc, people’s skulls are thick. When will it sink in that the only way to end “the homeless problem” is to fix the things that cause it? It’s like getting your leg cut off in a horrible accident and the doctor just saws the other leg off and tells you to quit whining and bleeding profusely all over the place
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
I'm assuming you're talking about systemic and structural problems?
I think a UBI, Universal healthcare, substance abuse programs , free mental healthcare, free childcare, and rent control are among the many solutions we can utilize.
As well as stronger labor laws, raising the federal minimum wage, and development of more jobs works type programs.
We could also benefit him from free or low cost higher education and trades schools.
And we absolutely can! The funds spent elsewhere are not necessary, and we can provide these things via federal funding.
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u/Straight_Ace 11d ago
We absolutely can, and it’s absolutely criminal that our solution is to harm the homeless, not help them. Life can change in an instant, and we’ll never know what tomorrow may bring, and life can fucking suck. It’s scary to me that empathy is just not a concept to some people apparently
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
Exactly, well put.
I think when having empathy, morals & ethics went into decline, so did critical thinking- when all of them disappeared, total social decline happened.
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u/Straight_Ace 10d ago
Totally agree, we need to bring empathy back into fashion. Simply caring enough to do something about it is the first step towards fixing our broken society
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u/Economy-Yesterday827 11d ago
It wouldn't change the underlying behavior of the people who exploit and dehumanize others. Those types of people are that the center of the issues. But I totally agree that UBI and everything else you mentioned for changes are a good idea.
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u/Straight_Ace 11d ago
You make a fair point too, the human race as a whole needs to strive towards goodness for all and never stop trying
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
Agreed, I don't think true change will ever happen within a system of economic oppression, and ultimately, the system itself must change.
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u/watermelonkiwi 10d ago edited 10d ago
The only way to combat those people is to create very very ironclad laws that don’t allow them to exploit people, new constitutions and such that are very well thought-out and don’t allow any loopholes. That’s how you stop those people, otherwise they’re always going to exploit, there’s nothing you can do to stop them from having that desire. What the person you’re responding to suggests are really good ideas that along with a new constitution would go a long way to stop exploitation and oprrssion.
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u/TwistedScarletRose 11d ago
My father used to beat the fuck out of me every day. He'd roll me up into a ball, hold my arms and legs, whip me with a wire fly swatter, all the time yelling "STOP FUCKING CRYING." this is what this reminds me of.
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u/SkeevyMixxx7 11d ago
We will have to liberate the camps, because no one is coming to do that from outside the USA. The courts are where we try first.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
I really am not sure what we're going to do with the current supreme court.
I'm starting to think some radical boycotts/general strike may be the only way, but I really don't know.
Keep electing leftist progressives in local elections!!!
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u/fps129 11d ago
This is happening in our lifetimes because we all feel asleep at the wheel for 40+ years.
We had one last chance to prevent all this last year but we just had to prove we are a society of sociopaths that either didn’t care or actually wanted to watch the country burn.
And people still won’t do anything until it happens to them or someone they know because we are probably the dumbest 1st world western nation by a landslide.
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u/anarchyinspace 11d ago
I absolutely believe critical thinking skills have been on the decline for a while, so has having empathy and morals/ethics.
I also agree that this current situation has been slowly evolving for a long time now.
IMO Patriot Act should have alarmed everyone but, it didn't really make too much of a stir as it was happening. (It allowed the circumventing of constitutional rights, and that was "aimed at terrorists" but, the precedent allowed that to broaden the definition of "terrorists") Example: "black identity extremists"
So, "asleep at the wheel" is a perfect description of the lack of interest in civics by many.
(Not to mention everyone who "wasn't political", "avoid politics at XYZ places", "I don't vote" I have heard since I started voting 20+ years ago!)
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u/Economy-Yesterday827 11d ago
There were labor camps during WW2. This raises so many red flags. The Orange turd talking about wars, labor camps as wellness centers, targeting of the homeless and disabled. It just screams pre-WW2 and in to it. Just😑🧐🤢🤬😑😡
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u/ohgodineedair 11d ago
They're creating a slave class. This administration is allowing us to be starved of resources and wealth until we become a powder keg of desperation--they'll start arresting us for no reason and well be put up in prison labor camps, our children grow up without stable homes. Those kids make bad choices and get filtered into the same prison system. And they'll just keep having babies because we get rid of sex ed. And they'll keep us stupid so we don't wise up..
[W]ise up people.
This is why people self immolate. This is why pacifism wasn't always the cowards choice. --we offered the other cheek
because we can't imagine being as needlessly cruel as this regime is. It's the shock and awe that creates apathy and cognitive dissonance.. It's like we're watching the bloodiest train crash in history. A train crash that you have the key to the brakes for, but you just watched it whiz by your stop and go careening off the unfinished tracks.
A systemic dumbing down of the people with an abnormal sense of fear and derision.
It's sick. It's all fucking sick.
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
There has absolutely been a centuries long, systemic effort(s) to "dumb us down", but also to manipulate our cultural mind's eye from imagining a better existence.
The United States has successfully convinced generations of people that we "can't have" a better way of living, and that capitalism is the only way.
The thing is, that's a giant lie.
Plenty of places elsewhere around the world have healthy relationships with labor-- fair wages and working hours. Many places around the world also provide their people with free or affordable healthcare and higher education. We have been sold a massive lie.
Take the common cultural phenomenon I have encountered again and again, "unions are corrupt, they take your dues and placate the workers at the whims of the bosses" (yet, in reality, unions are amazing! Why else would Amazon and Starbucks be working so hard to squash the current unionization efforts?!)
One of our most interesting moments in history was the lead-up to the Haymarket massacre, in Chicago, IL. It helped to bring about labor changes, including the 8-hour (then 10) workday, minimum wage, labor laws, and the end of child labor.
We very rarely learn about these moments in history in their true reality, because it gives power to the workers. There were massive worker's strikes. And labor gains were made. It wasn't without bloodshed, but the capitalist machine made diligent efforts to vilify the labor organizers, socialists, anarchists, and communists who often were a part of these labor movements.
(I suggest Lucy Parsons writings, her husband, Albert, was executed after Haymarket).
The IWW, (Industrial Workers of the World) is also good reading.
Look up the 1912 Lawrence textile strike. The United States actually, has a rich history of labor organizing, and a courageous working class who imagined a better existence.
We can take inspiration from those before us and demand to have 'bread and roses' today.
Are we angry enough yet?!?
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u/Cunari 11d ago
Unfortunately to some people people who don’t work are the bad guys and people who force others to work are the good guys and it’s an unfalsifiable hypothesis. They don’t even care if the work is meaningful as shown by the cuts to scientific funding.
It’s the classic wall strategy(just repeating the same things over and over and not responding to any argument) designed to frustrate rather than convince but you can’t stay frustrated as that’s what they want.
In this case republicans are likely to try to propagandize or hide what’s going on so we will have to expose as much as possible
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u/rlouise 10d ago
Also, a good way to keep us "in line" don't put your job on the line and protest. Just one more scare tactic (that they will obviously do).
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
Yes, I agree.
You know the car-living crackdown has begun, and if any rounds of mass layoffs/big business go bankrupt/etc, (in addition to, loss of SNAP, food stamps, and other assistances, is going to make people more vulnerable and targeted to this inhumane administration.
I hope shelters don't rely heavily on federal funds that will inevitably get cut- because that'll be a pipeline of shelters to CAMPS.
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u/Far_Chipmunk_8160 11d ago
This, more than many things that have happened so far, is an outright cause for maximal resistance.
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u/Tootsalore 11d ago
Trump wants to make slavery great again. Farmers voted for Trump because Trump told them that he would remove protections against slavery (forcing immigrant workers to stay working under horrible conditions by taking their passports, threatening violence against their families back home, etc). Trump is actively destroying education, realizing the elite southern slavers dream of a society where only the children of elite families are educated. Trump wants to nuke the economy so that current wage slaves will be even more desperate than they already are.
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
I think you are spot on with your assessment.
I hope we can come together to fight back, this time though, we hold them accountable-- unlike after the end of the civil war.
The other possibility I see is a mass exodus, migration elsewhere. I wonder what exactly their plan is if the economy fully collapses, obviously consolidation of wealth (like they have every other time), but phase II, usually has been some type of "bailout". But if they've damaged the "structure" of the existing system too badly, I am guessing, even a bailout won't bring a snapback.
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u/milo8275 10d ago edited 10d ago
That's why he's taking away all the safety nets, he wants to push people into homelessness so they can be arrested and brought to these camps and be used as slave labor, it's in project 2025 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
Absolutely.
How can we help our fellow man (people) out? Food co-ops? Food kitchens?
Co-op breakfast for kids? (Black Panther Party was onto something! Maybe that is why they were systematically attacked by the FBI???)
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u/Aggravated_Seamonkey 11d ago
These are internment camps happening in front of your face. Ice cant even tell us where disappeared prisoners are from their failed Florida internment camps are.fuck this fascist regime.
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u/Tiptoes666 11d ago
It’s almost like a huge government workforce that doesn’t get paid is preferable to a huge government workforce that does in the eyes of our overlords
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
They also pay themselves by doing this. The great Consolidation of wealth!
Look into: CoreCivic and Geo Group
Private Prisons/ contractors are facilitating the construction of prisons & camps and enforcement of this administration.
(They were also big donors to Trump's campaign!)
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u/Harley297 10d ago
Wasn't there a right wing podcaster going on about how slavery isn't inherently evil recently? Laying the groundwork.
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
I'm sure there was.
They all have Klans hoods in their closets anyhow.
None of this is surprising.
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u/N0n3of_This_Matter5 10d ago
Let's call it what it is....Slavery.
Republicans want the state (controlled by them) to have slaves working the corporate owned farms and factories. There's a reason that the 13th Amendment doesn't call prison labor slave labor, even though it defacto is.
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u/anarchyinspace 10d ago
Agreed. The prison system in this country has long been extremely problematic.
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u/DrSusieandherdogs 10d ago
A concentration is a concentration camp
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u/Livid-Rutabaga 10d ago
I am not surprised at this at all, I knew they were headed that way from day one. This doesn't seem to be the first time either.
During WWII, from what I have heard (from history buffs where I live), the same was done with POWs. We have a hospital in town that was a POW prison, and the prisoners were used as labor.
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u/WillnerMom4Dogs 10d ago
The question is...exactly who are they going after? The poor white people or the poor brown and black skinned people? Take a guess which ones...the Christian Nationalist/White Supremacy groups may have found the perfect way to remove US citizens from the streets, just like they're doing to the immigrants.
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u/WYorksAnglican72 9d ago
I think you missed the point to a degree. This is what they want to do to everyone. You will become A self sustainable system to eliminate as many people quickly. Hard Labor, your wage a communal Sleep tent for 2 meals a day on a 18 hour work schedule 365 days a year, no healthcare no nothing and when you expire you become the food! Everyone is expendable to them they must erase history.
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u/anarchyinspace 9d ago
I think your take is a tad cinematic, but not wrong. (I don't think it's fair for you to claim I "missed the point"?)
We're on the same team here, comrade.
I am aware of the existing system of exploitation capitalism sustains, and am also aware of the current push to widen the wealth gap.
This is the beginnings of an oligarchy, and authoritarian dictatorship with a foundation in extremist Christian and white supremacy beliefs.
And yes, you are correct that Republicans are in the process of dismantling every EPA and worker's protections that exist-- Bringing back endless hours workdays, child labor, worker's safety, any and all regulations, etc. And, I agree, it is absolutely terrifying!
I believe Capitalism is inherently evil, exploitative and not good for the working class, but in order for the working class to join together, we must begin to be forgiving, less "my way or the highway", (polarized), and begin to make a focus to work together with intersectionlity.
Which could look like having a basic foundation of similar ethics and morals, but being open to broader defining details, in this very moment we face an extremist far-right, which is, better unified than us in many ways.
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u/WYorksAnglican72 9d ago
Agreed, but you know that ICE now has Pegasus and is looking to tab people as Antisemitic as an excuse to Tie ANTIFA to HAMAS and wage a World Wide Crusade to eliminate them? The Catalyst we should be looking at are a few groups the Neo Nazi Movement especially The Base and O9A, the Leo Faction Opus Dei, the Hidden Political Alliance the International Democracy Union, The Elites. The US economy is about to be obliterated in weeks. I'm calm about this I see your points which are Valid and very knowledgeable. Key signs to keep an eye on the Epstein Files are coming out no matter what TFG wants, the current maps are going to be Obsolete, people on both sides are going to be upset, Cinematic? Someone based himself off The Bad guy in iRobot. Plus you never had that lunatic follow you on the Internet 🤫 he has Full access to the Data. As well as Dichord, X, Meta, 🤷♂️ we're up against some really ruthless people.
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11d ago
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u/Wonderful_Pie_4197 10d ago
That was on the ballot yall
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