You ever see the movie Sorry to Bother You by communist commie Boots Riley?  It’s such a great film for this general stretch of US history.  If anything, it feels mild compared to the new fascist deathclown era, but still, worth a look.  One element of that movie that hit me like a ton of bricks was the sunshine-branded debtor’s prisons, called “Worry-free Jobs.”  It felt so real, so possible, so close.

Particularly, I have often felt so beleaguered by the cost of fucking everything that the idea of prison began to have some appeal.  The idea of doing a crime, well, if I got away with the loot it would help; if it didn’t at least I wouldn’t have to pay rent.  But we know how horrible prisons are because it’s a bad joke.  Worse is the specifics, about how for-profit prisons have given people moldy bread, watched their bodies ravaged by flesh-eating bacteria, got them pre-loaded with debt for the next time they hit the streets.

Every time I hear some liberal asking, “where do red states think they’re going to get people to do shit work if they deport all the immigrants?,” I know the answer.  “How can landlords keep jacking up rents?  What will they do about the expanding homeless population?”  Loud and clear, no question, no hesitation.  The corporate prison industrial complex is going to be massively expanded, and these gulags are about to supply a ton of slave labor for the new economy.

How will they feed bodies to the system?  Eventually debtor’s prisons will be more formally accessible, with a few laws rewritten or reinterpreted by fascists in black robes.  But until then, the big push for marijuana legalization?  That never did succeed in the vast majority of the union.  Expect brutal marijuana decisions to get handed down.  Expect states that have decriminalized it to see some reversals of fortune.

Anyway, prison reform (or abolition) was always a more important issue than we as a society were ready to handle.  But it’s about to become much more crucial than it has been for a lot more of us.  Don’t let yourself get arrested, my people.  The corporate prisons (with eager police and prosecutor collaboration) will do everything they can to keep you for the rest of your miserable life.

And solidarity for all laborers, no matter if they’re slaves or just wage slaves.  Power to the people!  Recognize we’re all the same to them.  Workers of the world unite.

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Edit:  Oh yeah, maybe explain the title.  Prison labor will set you (nazis) free (from the economic consequences of murderous xenophobia).

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