If and Also If
April 6, 1999
If, in the process of trying to get some money, you hold a gun or knife in someone's face, you're probably going to jail. If you hurt them with it, you're almost certain to go to jail. If you possess certain dangerous chemicals, like LSD or cocaine, that can cause damage to the people who choose to put such things into their bodies, you're definitely going to jail. And if you meant to make money by producing and selling such chemicals, you're going to stay there for awhile.
If you're, say, DuPont, and in the process of trying to get some money, you cause a few hundred people to fear for the safety of their drinking water, but it turns out they weren't hurt by it, you didn't really do anything wrong. If you own a contaminated defense depot (or similar site) whose toxins hurt or even kill a great many people, you'll get money from SuperFunds to try to make it better, tax breaks and such while you're studying the problem, help with your P. R. so that nobody thinks you're really such a bad company after all--but you won't go to jail. If you choose to manufacture chemicals, like "hydro-chloro-fluoro-carbons," that are so dangerous to the entire population of our planet that the United States prohibits their use, you can still get lots of tax incentives and deferments and such to help you hire folk to handle them. And if you mean to make big money by producing and selling such chemicals, you're going to be welcome to stay for awhile.
If you were a black man born in the South twenty-three years ago, you are very likely a prison inmate. If you are a prison inmate, you probably have to work long hours for no more than minimal room and board, and your safety and well-being can not be guaranteed. If you are a prison inmate you will definitely be separated from your family, not allowed to hold your child or take your loved ones out for an afternoon excursion. If you are a prison inmate, your labor, your body, belong to someone else.
If you are a corporation, you can buy a "privatized" prison, or hire a prison population. If, for example, you need a workforce willing to hammer endless nails or handle dangerous chemicals, but you don't really want to give them benefits like health insurance or even pay them very much, you can get inmates to do it for you. They're cheap labor, and society loves making them work for their upkeep. They're the bad guys, after all, and you're making sure they don't get a free ride. The P.R. people like it, and all that money saved means you'll be better able to lobby Washington to keep anyone from worrying too much about that perfectly safe runoff you're dumping in the local river.
Aren't you glad we live in an egalitarian, democratic society, where the individual holds the reins of government and all of us are allowed to stretch our wings in freedom?
