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Jan. 13, 2025 - Minion Death Cult
01:08:30
#66 "Criminals Burn As Readily As Anyone Else" (2018)

Originally Aired: August 22, 2018 Our world is on fire. We're documenting it. Paying inmates for life-threatening work: is it wrong to? We're covering the inmate firefighters in California, the atrocious pay and even worse treatment the receive once they're out. Get a bonus episode every week by signing up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult for only $5/month   

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Hey everybody up top I just wanted to say sorry we are not back to the regularly scheduled programming in addition to We're still only going to be able to get out one new episode a
week that will be reserved for...
Subscribers over at patreon.com slash minion death cult.
Go over there on your phone or browser and sign up for five bucks a month and you'll get access to a bonus episode every week as well as hundreds of previous episodes that we've done throughout the years and years we've been doing this show.
We are flashing back this week for free subscribers to 2018 when we first covered The inmate firefighters in California, the awful treatment they receive, the obvious dangerous conditions they work in, and just the fucked up system that exploits them to no end.
And, of course, we got plenty funny reactions to that as well.
So please enjoy this episode and hopefully you're staying safe.
Thanks, everybody.
The liberals are destroying California.
And conservative humor gone awry is going to fascist-fornia today.
So stay tuned.
We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
Stay tuned, guys.
We'll show you exactly what it looks like when you're in the middle of the storm deserts.
All there in Martin, Houston.
Stay tuned.
I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
Our world is on fire.
How about yours?
That's the way we like it.
And we'll never get bored.
Welcome to Minion Death Cult.
Thank you for listening.
Let's get into the first topic, which is the California wildfires.
Yeah.
It's our own fault.
It's what...
What we've wrought from God for being so gay over here.
We asked for it.
For being so gay and so brown.
Like, what else?
You know, why are we burning?
It's because everything's so brown.
Everything's so brown and gay.
We all know this.
Right.
If things were more green and straight, not as flammable.
Yeah.
Not as flammable.
So, a big part of this, a big part of the wildfires are, you might have seen this.
Inmate firefighters.
This is prison labor.
Something every state pretty much uses.
And a hot topic for the current times.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
It's one of those things that's so close to being a cool thing.
It is, in some ways.
So close.
But we'll get into why it's so close.
Yeah, so there's a few things about this.
I'm going to read from an Economist article here.
Good old radical labor rights magazine, The Economist.
The name of this headline is, Preventing ex-convicts from working is silly.
I felt like prisoners having a lack of rights is silly.
God.
Grow up, California.
It's laughable.
It's silly.
Quit being dum-dums.
Let felons earn a living.
Prisoners who fought California's wildfires cannot be firefighters once they are released.
So this is one reason why using inmates as firefighters is fucked up.
But for the heroic work of state prisoners, the wildfires that recently swept through the Northern California would have been even more destructive.
So this is from last year.
It's hard to tell.
This is a different set of fires from California.
This happens like...
It's a season in California.
It happens every year, like clockwork.
We literally burn down, and then, you know...
It's a metaphor.
We're a phoenix every year.
Yeah, no, we're pretty good at that.
Around 4,000 low-level felons made up 30% of the forest firefighters battling raging flames.
4,000 felons carrying chainsaws and other heavy equipment.
Some risked their lives.
Last year, Shauna Lynn Jones, a 22-year-old who had less than two months of her three-year sentence left, died while fighting a fire.
By all accounts, Ms. Jones took great pride in her work.
Oh, well, that's good.
Now I respect her.
And that's fine, yeah.
Yeah, now she's a good person.
For which she was paid less than $2 an hour and would have liked to continue firefighting once released.
Yet California, like many other states, makes it virtually impossible for former prisoners to get a firefighter's license.
The state requires nearly all firefighters to be certified as an emergency medical technician, EMT, and approval usually denied to convicted felons.
That is why only a handful of former prisoners managed to get a job with Cal Fire, explains Catherine Katcher, founder of Root& Rebound, a California-based charity helping prisoners to reenter society after they complete their sentences.
So, this is one of the great ironies about using these folks to do some of the gnarliest work imaginable.
Putting your life on the line.
Not only is it strenuous manual labor, like, yeah, you also might die, like Shauna Lynn Jones.
Not just the deaths, but I'm sure there's a crazy account of all the heat stroke, all the general injuries.
And just even if you're not physically harmed, it just sucks.
It's brutal.
It fucking sucks.
Living in fire.
You're living in smoke.
Like, I thought being a roofer was bad, but holy shit.
Yeah, the roof's not on fire.
Oh, didn't even mean to.
No, yeah, moving on.
Because clearly the roof is on fire.
Yeah, so...
That's pretty...
And then the low pay is another thing, so like...
I think you and I are pretty much on the same page when it comes to like...
Prison abolition in general.
Yeah.
And just speaking for myself, I view prison as a fucked up institution that does little to rehabilitate people and mostly inhibits any sort of growth.
Life progress?
Yeah.
So...
Putting aside the overall issue of how fucked up prison is, in general, and just concentrating on the issue of prison labor, I'm conflicted about this.
It took me thinking about this, mulling this over in my head as to, if we can't get rid of prisons tomorrow, in the immediate future, what's the solution here?
How do I feel?
Personally about this.
I believe if I were incarcerated, sure, I'd like to get outside of the prison.
For sure.
For sure, yeah.
Especially, like, be out in nature.
Yeah.
Even if it's on fire?
My favorite thing I kept on reading was fresh air.
Getting fresh air.
They're getting the opposite of fresh air.
You're getting charred, burnt air.
If you live in Southern California, you have not had fresh air in two weeks.
The air has been soot for two weeks now.
Honestly, though, it's blocking out a lot of the sun.
And as a person who works outside, I'll take that.
And the sun's kind of sexy and red right now.
It's kind of cool looking.
Yeah, sure.
It looks great on Instagram.
It does.
Yeah, you see my stories.
Yeah, so...
People are calling this slave labor.
People are referring to this as slave labor.
And...
Me putting myself in this situation...
Thinking that, oh, I would want to do this or something similar.
I might want to work.
Yeah.
What exactly about this situation do I have a problem with?
Because it doesn't feel right.
No.
And so my main issues are the way I think that...
This could be a whole lot better is just paying these people the same wages that anyone else would get putting their lives on the line, doing this incredibly difficult work.
Yeah.
And even that's a fever dream, right?
That's like a pipe dream, right?
That's never going to happen.
But we just want something.
More than two fucking dollars an hour.
That is insanity.
And that's only if they're on the fire line.
Yeah, for prison jobs, that's a lot of money.
It's a dollar a day working in the camp.
So that means washing fire trucks, cleaning up camp, cooking, doing whatever they do in camp aside from working next to actual fire.
That's a dollar a day.
And they work 24-hour shifts.
Most prison jobs are even worse than that.
I know that in certain women's prisons, the laundry room makes 10 cents an hour.
Like, why even pay them?
Yeah.
Because you can put it on your books.
And you know how much a thing of a fucking Top Ramen costs?
It's like $2.
It's more than that.
Really?
Yeah, that's like how many days of work?
When you go, at least at the women's prison up north, when you go visit, they have their canteen.
It's just vending machines.
These vending machines, man.
And, of course, the prisoners live for it.
When they finally get some fucking different food, they have this, like, roast beef sandwich that just looks like the worst shit ever.
A gas station would say, no, I don't want to carry this.
No, I've had a vending machine sandwich.
And this thing costs, like, seven, eight bucks.
And it's like, fuck, man.
That's just not...
The whole thing is just the gnarliest hustle.
Well, I think the best argument for, like, paying...
Paying inmates so little, paying inmates less, is that, yeah, it does rehabilitate them.
It prepares them for the outside where they will also make much less money than the rest of us.
Facts.
Let's talk about...
I found this post that was a first-hand account of what it's like working on these camps from an inmate.
This is by Eli Hager.
They're not the inmate.
They're writing the article and then the inmate comes in here.
California employs about 6,000 professionals.
They're in the thick of it, cutting fire lines and helping to save large areas of California.
Because these inmate firefighters, some of whom are juveniles, an important thing to remember...
Are paid only $2 a day.
They save the state about $80 million every year.
The estimate is about $100 million every year.
Yeah, I've seen anywhere between $80 to $120 million.
And we'll get into the politics around that after this article.
There's another very interesting thing that happened in California regarding that.
Their labor is so economical, in fact, here, we'll get into it right now, that after the Supreme Court ordered California to reduce the dangerous overcrowding in its prisons, the state deputy attorney general argued in court against releasing too many inmates because doing so would, quote, severely impact fire camp participation, a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought.
Holy shit.
Yeah, we'll get into that in the next article, but yeah.
No, I can't imagine there being any perverse incentives to keep people locked up when you benefit from their prison labor at such a cheap rate.
Imagine that.
I know you want to go home, but it's going to save us a lot of money if we can send you into hell.
If we can send you into an inferno.
It's going to save us a lot of money.
I'm just going to say it right now because I think I might forget it.
Anyone arguing for keeping these wages low?
These at like slave wages, under slave wages basically.
Like you're arguing to keep this incentive structure that incentivizes the state to keep people locked up longer than they should have.
Because we literally depend on that slave labor to fight these fires.
But as we'll see, that's fine with people.
That's totally fine with people.
I don't know if I saw anybody directly address this sort of perverse incentive.
But there's a lot of rhetoric that is like, they fucked up.
Consequences.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I mean, they don't consider them people.
They're like fine with unjust consequences because it's still consequences.
You should have known that the punishment would not have been fair.
Right.
Jacques?
D'Elia, 49, a former California inmate who battled fires at Valley View Conservation Camp, who almost misread that one, in the Mendocino National Forest from February 2011 through November 2013, so just two years of it, knows that he was used for very dangerous labor.
D'Elia, who was incarcerated for five years for counterfeiting and drug-related charges, also says that working at the fire camps was, quote, an honor and a privilege, an opportunity to prove himself and stay sober, and a whole lot better than prison.
So this is like, it's a very complex issue, because this is a desirable position for these folks.
Yeah, and anybody would take pride in doing such work, you know?
I mean, like, you're...
They're trying to save people's well-beings.
They're trying to save people's houses and animals.
Of course you're going to feel good about that, you know?
But you're also not having the honesty of the math put in front of you, I guess?
Well, and it's also...
We'll get into whether or not this is, quote, slavery because they're volunteering.
Like...
I would argue that you're under duress when you make any sort of decision like this.
None of your decisions could be considered a free decision while you're under lock and key.
Yeah, exactly.
So that's another thing that colors this whole issue.
So this is an interview with D'Elia.
Eli asks D'Elia, What did you hear about the fire camps from other inmates?
And then Eli asks, What did you have to do to make it into the program?
What did you have to do to physically prepare for firefighting?
You had to be a low security type of inmate to begin with, or if you were higher security, you had to work your way down the security levels by not getting in any fights, participating in programs, that kind of thing.
For a lot of inmates, it took years before they earned the privilege of going to the camps.
Then they checked your physical fitness and mental health, and the physical fitness was hard for me because at that point I was 45.
So another way that it's sort of slated against people.
You had to prove you could carry 100 pounds of gear in brutal heat.
When you got to the camp, how did it compare to being in prison?
I forgot I was incarcerated sometimes.
The staff treated you like a human, not a number.
Bizarre.
It's crazy how people would want to take this option.
Yeah.
The boundaries were more relaxed, just a split-rail fence and some out-of-bounds markers, no locks on the doors.
All they did was do a, quote, count of everyone every two hours.
You were just out there in these beautiful woods with deer, wolves, bobcats.
You had views across the valley at sunrise, over 100 miles of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which really changes your outlook from when you were in prison.
And then one more question and then we'll talk about it.
Did the inmates behave the same way they did in prison?
I'd say it was a way more liberal place with way less of prison politics.
At the camp, everyone wasn't segregated by race like it was in prison.
And the power dynamics and the violence you see on the prison yard, the survival of the fittest stuff, that was hardly there at all.
There were enough of the tough guys there that I had thought the same politics would still hold true.
But I learned that fewer total men plus more freedom for those men equals a safer place than an overcrowded yard.
It's not hard.
This shit's not hard to figure out.
Amazing.
Holy shit.
You mean when you're not surrounded by concrete and got no room and are fed this...
Because the thing is, when you get locked up...
You're told right away, you better choose a side.
You better make the right choice.
And you're not told that by prisoners.
You're told that by prison guards.
You're told that by the people processing you.
You're told, hey, this is where you're going to want to be safe.
You better find people like you.
It's fed to them.
It's simple humanity.
Yeah, it's amazing how constricting people into cages and...
Blocks and stuff like that makes people crazy.
Weird.
It's amazing how that works.
And letting people go outside and interact with one another on a non-power dynamic level really helps things out.
So that's all the positive stuff about this.
So you can understand why people would look at this as a...
What do you call it?
Like a benefit.
Totally.
Or a perk.
An incentive.
Worthwhile, yeah.
What was the process for fighting a fire?
At base camp, we would be in a tent city for inmates, which was separated from where the professional firefighters were sleeping.
We were told to eat 5,000 calories a day because of the physical exhaustion that we were going to face.
Then they helicopter you up to the mountain to the fire.
Give you your fire orders.
And then for a whole day at a time you're cutting a fire line to block the path of the fire.
First you go through with chainsaws and remove an 8 foot wide path of trees and plants.
Then you come through with axes knocking out the stumps.
Then the hoes.
Meaning like a hoe to hoe the ground.
Then there's a guy at the end of the line with a wire brush to rub away everything else that could catch fire.
You're working hard like that for 18 hours at a time.
And you go for miles and miles through the woods, making this path that the fire can't leap across.
And fighting the fires, what was that actually like?
It's a hairy adventure, let me tell you.
You're an inmate, and you have to do what they say, scary as it is, or else you're gonna get sent back to prison.
So another perverse incentive structure.
I love that.
The thoughts, you have to do what they say, or else you're gonna get injured, or we're not gonna win this.
You have to do what they say, or else you're gonna go back to prison.
Yeah.
That's the main concern.
And that would be the main concern for inmates.
So they throw you in front of the worst of it.
I'd sometimes be about 10 feet from these flames that were 40 or 50 feet high.
And debris and branches were falling everywhere.
You're carrying 45 pounds of gear.
A few times I got engulfed in flames and even though I had all this gear on, it immediately wicked every drop of sweat off my body and I was dehydrated in about one second.
I saw guys fall off cliffs and get pretty injured.
Chainsaw injuries, burns, heat stroke.
It was so physically demanding.
But I have to say it was an honor and a privilege and a gift to be doing it.
Man.
Man.
We should be so lucky.
You know?
Like, what the fuck?
The things you're grateful for when you have freedom, when you don't have freedom, it's like...
Yeah.
Yeah, I got the privilege to be, you know...
Because the thing is...
How fucked up must prison be?
Yeah, the other people are volunteering to do it.
Are getting paid for it significantly well.
They're getting paid gnarly over time.
Their family's being taken care of.
Here, if you get fucking burned or you get a chancellor injury, I mean, that sucks.
Right.
Yeah, they're not going to let you die necessarily, but your family's not going to get benefited from it.
Shauna's family didn't get compensated at all when she died, when a fucking rock fell on her.
No way, yeah.
Yeah, she's not going to get...
There's no life insurance.
Yeah.
And every day we wanted to prove we were better than the professional firefighters who were there.
And it made me understand how much good I could do and be proud of myself.
Yeah, so that's a really...
I'm really happy I found this article.
This was posted on an art gallery's...
Facebook, Meshika, M-E-S-H-E-E-K-A, and you can read this if you'd like to.
It's from December 8th, 2017, but obviously the same issue.
And it's just such a detailed account of what they actually go through.
It's very real, you know?
Because there's this thing, too, that comes from being in prison that's like...
You become grateful for anything because you have nothing.
Right.
And it's hard to see that.
Yeah, I mean, it's...
I've only ever been to jail.
I've never been to prison.
So I can't even begin to think of what...
Same, I've never been to prison.
But it's like, you know, just from my understanding and accounts from loved ones, you know, it's...
You're grateful for anything.
And yeah, so of course, you'd be really grateful for this opportunity to...
Because you're proving yourself.
You're proving yourself valuable.
Because you have to.
Because you've been stripped down to the point where you don't feel human.
You're getting told all day that you're nothing.
Nothing.
And now you have proof that you are something.
And the proof is the fact that you halted this fire.
Right.
And so how can you ever consider this to be a perfectly voluntary decision?
Yeah.
When you've set somebody up, when you've beaten them down so badly, Excuse me.
When you've taken away so many other things from them, like, it's a crude analogy, a dehydrating person would drink just about anything.
Anything, yep.
Anything you spit in, they would drink it.
Does that mean that it's a free choice?
Sailors still die at sea all the time from drinking salt water.
That happens.
It's a perfect analogy for this.
And then finally, California AG. Okay, so California AG, whom you might know better as future presidential candidate Kamala Harris, shocked to learn her office wanted to keep eligible parolees in jail to work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is super fucked up.
Yeah.
This is from BuzzFeed News.
This is from a while ago, too.
This is from 2014. Lawyers for California Attorney General Kamala Harris argued releasing nonviolent inmates early would harm efforts to fight California wildfires.
Harris told BuzzFeed News she first heard about this when she read it in the paper.
That's so upsetting.
You think you got things under control and turns out that the people right underneath you are just...
Totally going against what you're going for.
How much do we hold her accountable?
We haven't read from this yet, but how much would you, just offhanded, how much would you hold her accountable?
You would have to, right?
You would have to.
We wouldn't let anybody else slide.
No way.
I mean, it's like, this is your deputy attorney general.
This is like your protege, essentially.
And it's either they're following your guidelines, Or you just totally hired this person as a favor to somebody else and have no idea what kind of a person they are?
Either one sucks.
You're obviously not having enough conversations with this person to where they should know this is not a good idea.
Right.
It's a pretty cut-and-dry issue.
Real simple.
Let me read from here.
Her lawyers argued in court this fall, so fall of 2014, the release of eligible nonviolent prisoners from California's overcrowded prisons argued against that release because the state wanted to keep them as a labor force.
Harris, a rising star in the Democratic Party, said she learned about the argument when she read it in the paper.
I will be very candid with you.
Because I saw that article this morning and I was shocked.
And I'm looking into it to see if the way it was characterized in the paper is actually how it occurred in court.
I was very troubled by what I read.
If you're not familiar, the Supreme Court found California's prisons were so overcrowded in 2011 that the conditions violated the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
It's weird how they draw the line there.
Yeah.
Like, no, this is cruel if you have like 101 people in the same gymnasium.
It's officially too many.
Yeah.
Since then, California has been under federal court supervision as it seeks to comply with the order that the state reduce its prison population.
Okay.
Yeah.
The attorneys argued, Kamala Harris's attorneys, if forced to release these inmates early, prisons would lose an important labor pool.
Labor is important.
That's what it is.
It's a resource.
They're not people, they're a resource.
That's how it's talked about all throughout this issue.
And even when we're trying to bestow dignity on these inmate firefighters, we're like, God, they're just such an important resource for us to draw on.
I salute you.
Once we get a robot, they're done.
Which, why are there not firefighting robots?
What the fuck?
There should be whipping boy robots that you can get to serve your time for you.
There you go, yeah.
Those prisoners earn wages that range from 8 cents to 37 cents per hour.
Yeah, it's easy to do.
Cents, people.
8 cents.
If you give somebody 8 cents, if someone's asking for money to give them 8 cents, they're going to be mad.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
It's like an insult.
Yeah.
When you give somebody an answer for change to eight cents, you have to clarify, sorry, this is all I have in my pocket.
And that's all California's doing.
Yep.
Sorry, this is all I have in my pocket.
California's like digging in its ashtray.
Oh, sorry about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, but you got that wad of...
I can see it.
I can see the bulge in your pocket.
I can smell the cash.
It smells like cash.
Yeah, I can see those like 50 million iPhones you're producing right over there.
Did you just blow your nose into money?
I'll still take it.
Uh, yeah.
Like incarcerated firefighters, inmates who perform, quote, assignments...
Okay, wait, hold on.
There is an exception in the agreement.
So this agreement to release nonviolent prisoners.
There is an exception in the agreement that allows the state to retain firefighters, but only firefighters who are otherwise eligible for release.
Jeez.
Like incarcerated firefighters, inmates who perform assignments necessary for the continued operation of the institution and essential to local communities draw from the same pool of inmates who pose a limited threat.
Therefore, reducing that population would require the prisons to draw more incarcerated workers away from its firefighting crews.
Yeah.
The federal judges supervising the case didn't find the state's argument persuasive either.
They could hire public employees to perform tasks like garbage collection, garage work, and recycling.
Thank you.
If they deplete the fire crews in order to staff their garage crews, that would be their own choice.
It's just a free choice.
And I think that if you gave most prisoners, hey, do you want to work in a garage or do you want to go fight fires?
They're probably going to want to work in a garage.
No, they'll want the respect of standing 10 feet from a 50-foot wall of flame.
Yeah.
Okay.
Also, have you ever seen a deer on fire?
It's worth it, huh?
It's invigorating.
Hang on.
Gotta charge my shit real quick.
I don't know if you want a vamp or whatever.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I thought you said vape, and I was like, dang, you gonna do me like that?
I don't have the rig to blow fat cotton clouds.
What's that thing over there?
It's not that kind of rig.
It's like a more modest rig?
It's a more modest rig, yeah.
This is for dainty boys like me.
But one day, one day I'll be ripping fat cotton.
Big fat cotton.
Big fat cotton.
Okay, let's get into comments.
So, first one here was from a Vice article about this issue.
The Vice article was pretty...
It was a video.
It wasn't even an article.
It talked about how they're not getting paid a lot, but a lot of people are grateful and excited.
It kind of just showed what nice people were doing it.
It was a humanizing take on...
On prisoners, which is, yeah, wow.
Such a bold stance.
Rare.
Yeah, but it was just like, it was like, salute the prison troops.
That's kind of what it was.
Steven says, no one is forced to commit a crime.
So this is like, whether or not it's slave labor.
No one is forced to commit a crime.
Oh, this was yours.
Did you want to read it?
Yeah, I'll take it, yeah.
No one was forced to commit a crime.
That's supposed to be one.
Yeah, there's no one.
Two, the victims, however, were forced to be recipients of the crime.
You ever been forced to receive a crime?
Listen, no one held a gun to your head and told you to commit the crime, but you did, however, hold a gun to their head.
Right.
Hey, I demand that you receive this crime!
And, like, what am I gonna do?
I got a gun to my head.
I have to take it.
But it's okay.
Only the victims are the things being forced.
Oh, wait.
Three, taxpayers are forced into paying 50k a year per inmate while they're in prison.
Yeah, dude.
50k a year.
The way they phrase it, it's as if we each pay 50k.
Taxation is slavery.
Everyone knows this.
Taxation is slavery.
Four.
If you want to pay them the wage to do the job, then at the end of the month, take out their paycheck, room and board, medical, food, utilities, cable TV, toiletries, laundry, phone, legal and court fees, transportation fees, and leisure time at the gym.
Yeah.
You know that thing we all pay for?
Yes, they get all that on your dime.
Fuck you.
Don't you know that going to prison is basically like getting an all-inclusive paid vacation?
Yeah, you would think that.
It's funny, like, we're going to deal with this take a lot.
These commenters act like people are in prison of their own volition?
Yeah.
Like, the state doesn't demand that they stay there and eat publicly funded food?
I also want to see the letter that says, like, Hey, I miss you.
It's been hard in here.
But I've been enjoying my leisurely time at the gym.
Right.
We have a sauna.
It's sick.
Throw a cinder block at a backboard.
Yeah.
It's pretty tight.
Isn't that like the...
Prison gym image is like a prison yard, right?
It's not a fucking gym.
Fuck out of here.
Leisure time.
You know how the yard is also known for being a place to really gather your thoughts and relax and chill and have cool vibes and hang out with your bros?
Fuck you, Steven.
Oh, this is Steven.
This is Steven.
This is Steven.
It's okay, because Steven doesn't have any other problematic takes or opinions or anything like that.
He's a pretty level-headed man, right?
Right, and then let's go to his Facebook profile just to double-check that statement.
What have we got here?
Oh, a PragerU video.
Oh, is masculinity toxic?
You screenshotted this.
So PragerU is like real corny, neoconservative, think tank bullshit, Koch Brothers stuff.
We talked about it in the bonus episode last week in PragerU.
PragerU's Catholic defense of bombing Hiroshima, which is pretty wild.
Patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult.
It's worth it.
This screenshot you got from the PragerU video on Steven's profile is beautiful.
It's a screenshot of a man getting out of a pool and everything's got a blue filter over it.
This man is very strong.
He's a very masculine man.
And then over the top of it is like a graphic, a circle, and then the text says, Is masculinity toxic?
Good question.
I love that this is masculinity toxic coupled with a photo of a man getting out of a pool.
He's halfway out of the pool.
I'm just picturing him contaminating the pool.
The pool turns red behind him from the masculinity that's seeping out.
This is actually not a blue tint.
It's radiation just coming off of him.
Oh, no.
This is a clip from Big Fat Liar.
This is...
What's his name?
Jim Carrey?
No, that's Liar Liar.
Oh, I'm a big fat liar.
Big fat liar, it's the guy...
They dyed his pool blue because he was a big fat liar.
Malcolm in the Middle did it.
I think Amanda Bynes was in there too.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I do remember that.
I just remember seeing him blue in Amanda Bynes.
Yeah, that's what this is for.
I did do everyone a favor and watch the video, and he brought out some...
They have some really, like, valid points, like how men with fathers tend to be better men.
That's how it was phrased.
Yeah.
And women dig manly men.
So this is obviously...
And it says, like, women benefit from toxic masculinity, too.
Women love men.
They can protect them.
They can count on.
It's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
This video is, like, the most...
Toxic masculinity.
If men...
I mean, if women liked toxically male, toxically masculine men, then they wouldn't be going away.
You know?
Yeah, exactly.
This video was clearly made by a very sad, sad man.
Okay, Oliver.
Getting right to the point here.
Similar take as last time.
Oliver says, clothed...
Housed, fed, free medical, doesn't sound like something we would normally attribute to slavery.
So I'm like, is this comment sarcastic?
This is like a sarcastic comment, right?
Yeah.
And then they go on to say, besides, they volunteer for the job.
Crap story.
Yep.
Crap story.
This is one of those ones, no pity on the people at all.
No love for humans.
The whole story is about, look at these people doing this.
Look at these people who are fighting the fires.
Good on them.
They deserve more.
And this person's like, no way.
Uh-uh.
You signed up for it.
They deserve it.
This is a crap story.
Yeah, I mean, it's a meta take on the publication or whatever.
But it's this first part.
Clothed, housed, fed.
Free medical.
Doesn't sound like slavery to me.
Actually, it sounds exactly like slavery.
It sounds like all there is that makes up slavery.
Yeah, that's it.
It sounds like literally the argument for slavery.
Well, we gave them clothes.
We gave them a place to sleep.
We fed them.
People forget that, like...
Slavery is not about being able to stay alive.
They want you alive and functioning so you can perform your duties.
Right, that's a big part of being a slave.
So they need all this stuff.
The thing is that at the end of the day, you get to go live a life of your own autonomy.
Yeah, or you get to just not work if you don't want to.
Exactly.
You get to say no.
You get to leave the room you're in.
Yeah, without a threat.
And this is like, you see this argument creeping in, like when they talk about the democratic plantation or the welfare state, the modern welfare state, and like, you know, I'm not saying they had it better back then, but maybe they did.
Maybe they did.
Families stayed together.
Tell you what, like, they might have been hungry, but were they starving?
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
No, yeah, you really see that argument.
So yeah, it's just funny.
So even this isn't slavery anymore?
Slavering is like, no, they have to die, like you said.
Yeah, if you don't die doing what you love.
Just like these people making the worst arguments possible.
And that's what a lot of this is.
Tara says they are repaying their debt to society.
It's the least they can do.
They don't have to do it.
They choose to.
Okay, so two things there.
They're, quote, repaying their debt to society.
Either way, their punishment is being locked up.
Yep.
That's paying their debt to society.
And I got news for you.
If the state decides they want you to pay back something, they're going to ruin your life until you do.
Oh, yeah.
Trust.
So this idea that, like, oh, they're doing their duty by fire.
No, they're literally not.
Yeah.
That's not part of the punishment.
Second of all, so there is a thing that I was reading where they do get like a day knocked off their sentence for every two days they work.
I read 30 days.
Oh, I didn't read anything close to that.
I read two days for every one day.
I read that from two different sources.
I think it might have been like...
Did you read that in a comment or in an article?
In an article.
Yeah, I think it might have been...
I don't know the math on here.
Somebody who had worked for a while got 30 days.
It might have been like 10 days for every 30 days, so 3 days for one day, I guess.
We got a comment from somebody who says they had a couple months knocked off their sentence, but after a while of working...
Years.
It had to be a couple years.
I'm saying you have to work longer to get one day.
Oh, okay.
So 30 days for one day.
30 days of work for one day off your sentence.
Got you.
Also, hey, who knows?
If you work, you might get all of your sentence knocked off when you get burned alive and die right there.
Then you're really free.
Get your sentence commuted.
By God.
By God.
Lord yourself.
It's like a weird, common Metallica super joke you could make about riding the lightning and jumping in the fire at the same time.
Add in...
Here we go.
Not to mention they are learning a skill that will help them once they get out.
Okay, no, we already went over that part.
Not helping much.
Add in three hots and a cot, and I bet it works out to well over minimum wage.
Wow.
Three hots and a cot.
Yeah.
It's so dismissive, man.
Like, that's not a life anybody wants.
They're not even saying, like, you get three hot meals.
It's three hot meals.
You get three warm piles of nutritious slop and a cot to sleep on.
You know, that's...
Go fuck yourself.
I love this.
This is like your mom charging you for all the food you ate when you move out of the house.
Here's the invoice.
You can have your everyday freedoms.
Tara, go to work.
Go hang out with your friends.
Go out for the night.
But along that way, your meals are going to be what I feed you and you're going to sleep on this cot.
No.
That would suck.
I just, yeah, add in three hots.
Like, again, as if it's like the prisoners choosing to eat your tax money.
Yeah.
It's like, no, I'm gonna...
You're the one who wants these people in prison.
You're the one who insists that they be imprisoned.
Imprisoned.
Also, what if every once in a while I want like two and a half hots and then like save up for like a gram of weed?
Can I do rollover hots?
Yeah, exactly.
Can I just put them off?
Can I trade a couple hots for some weed?
It doesn't work in prison.
It's like a Verizon commercial, but for prison, and you're like, can you feed me now?
It's their stomach.
Can you hear me now?
No, because you're full.
It sticks to the belly.
Yeah, that was more wholesome than I expected.
I bet it works out to well over minimum wage.
Yeah, sure.
Sure it does.
Absolutely.
That's also part of the problem, is that even that costs more than minimum wage can afford.
Yeah, absolutely.
Did you see that?
You want to read this one?
Seven Trails?
Trials.
I can't read well.
Yes.
Criminals burn as readily as anyone else.
This person just, like I said, just hates humans.
They're just, listen, we need to fight the fires and we need to offer these people up to the fire gods.
We need to sacrifice them at the foot of the mountain.
They know what they're here for.
Yeah, this is a wild comment.
Maybe this is like a really jaded firefighter.
Yep.
Fuck it.
I mean, just let anybody do it.
Yep.
We're just fodder for the fire.
Anyone can swing a chainsaw.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
Fucking see Fred Durst out there fighting fires.
Because this is like...
Alright.
Yelling at the mountain.
Yeah.
Skin your ass raw.
Yeah, dude.
Yep.
Yep.
Matt says, working for minimum wage in a jail.
Are you joking?
I would go to jail just for that.
Steady income, free food, and shelter?
Shut the fuck up, bitch.
The best part about this...
Sorry, yeah.
Say that again.
Yeah, shut the fuck up, Matt.
Yeah.
Is the reactions.
It's like 3.4 thousand thumbs up and laughing and smile and hearts.
It's like, wow.
Just total pieces of shit.
Total, like, disingenuous monsters.
Also, Matt, you're not fucking down.
Like, go rob somebody.
Go rob a liquor store right now.
Like, please.
Why would, like, minimum wage is not good.
Yeah.
Minimum wage sucks.
Yeah, it's not helping.
You cannot afford three hots and a cot with it.
I make more than minimum wage and I cannot find a place to live right now.
It is real life.
This is such a bullshit douchebag take.
Like, I don't even have a joke for this.
It's just a fucking idiotic take.
Yeah, shut the fuck up.
Bro, are you kidding me?
I get free food and minimum wage.
Stoked!
Yeah.
Shut the fuck up.
I'm gonna get my teeth done while I'm there.
Yeah, I totally...
Man, I just like...
Make friends with my inmate.
We'd hang out all day and brew toilet wine.
I learned how to draw real well.
Yeah.
Matt, you'd probably have a pretty stellar time in there.
Fucking pieces of shit.
Like pieces of shit that they think that this is funny.
Yeah.
That this is a good joke.
Not even because I'm offended.
It's just stupid.
It's really stupid.
Amy says, my ex made 20 cents an hour combating floodwater here while he did his time.
Okay, so your ex did this difficult labor, only made 20 cents an hour.
Where are you going to go with this?
Yeah.
He loved it.
And the pay was an extra perk that paid off his court fees.
His court fees.
Babe, would you believe it?
Babe, would you believe they're paying me for this?
I just wanted to hang out.
His court fees.
That's wild.
Isn't it great that they paid him the money that he needed to pay off being imprisoned?
Yep.
To pay off the charge they put on him?
Man.
Listen, the levy breaking was the greatest thing that happened in my prison sentence.
You know, I felt alive again.
Mother is making me pay back all my childhood expenses, but at least she's giving me 20 cents an hour to mow the lawn.
Yeah, I'll get out of here eventually.
What the fuck is wrong with people?
He's never re-offended, non-violent to begin with, and almost all prisoners would love an opportunity to work.
It's better than just sitting around, and they would do it for free.
The pay is an added perk, but not the reason people take these jobs.
I bet there are long waiting lists for inmates to get these crews.
I also work in a jail and we pay nothing and never have trouble finding people to work the kitchen 13 hour shifts.
Holy shit.
So not like a conflict of interest in this comment at all.
What a bomb to drop halfway through your comment.
An apology for prison labor.
Oh, by the way, I benefit from it.
By the way, I work in a prison.
Yeah, holy shit.
We don't have any trouble finding people to work the 13-hour shifts.
Yeah.
We don't have any problem finding anybody to work there, but we still haven't worked 13-hour shifts.
Like, that's not okay.
But don't worry.
When you hit overtime, you start making 60 cents an hour.
It's cool because we only had like 60 people competing for this job, so we couldn't be sure that we would get the best of the best.
So we just like...
Turned the AC... Oh, we don't have AC. We just removed the padding of every other bed in these cots, and then the demand skyrocketed.
We hid shivs in people's bunks and stuff like that, and then, wow, a hundred more people wanted to get out of...
What do you call it?
General population.
I mean, not to mention all the money we save from not monitoring the showers anymore.
It was wild.
This is what's best for the people.
Didn't have any problems finding volunteers.
Your tax dollars at work.
I also like, so her ex was an inmate.
She works at a jail.
What's your life?
God, I love having these inmates around me for 13 hours a day.
Yeah.
Like, that's insane.
It's not like another conflict of interest there.
No.
Like, you're already...
It's your ex, too.
You're probably pretty, like...
No, they're like bros, apparently.
I mean...
You're talking all good about them.
Well, I'm just saying it's nice to have somebody underneath you.
True.
For 13 hours.
True.
You can order around.
Yep.
I like that.
Wield some authority.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's a flex.
You know what they say about idle hands.
So yeah, just like making it a biblical thing now.
Listen, if these fires didn't happen, they'd be jerking off 24 seconds.
Right, right.
These programs are awesome, and yes, the state saves money, but not really, since inmates cost the state a crap ton of money in other places.
Man.
They still just miss it.
They still just miss the whole thing.
No, they just hate them.
They just hate them.
Well, it's because it's her ex.
Maybe that's why we're getting such a salty take.
Exactly.
But he didn't re-offend, though, so he's still a cool guy.
It's crazy how when you lock somebody up inside of a cage, you also have to keep them alive.
I guess.
You also have to give them food.
You have to provide for them.
Give them this leisurely life.
I would love to not have to pick out what to wear every day.
That's a stress for me.
I hate it.
Choosing what to eat?
Come on, please.
Give me a break.
James, this is a wild take.
James says, ah, the left.
Using these brave men's hope of freedom only to use them as slaves.
These fucking poets, dude.
You know how the left is like the side of law and order and the prison industrial complex?
Yep.
Ah, the left.
Because it's California, I guess?
I guess, yeah.
Like, we're the only state with prison labor?
I don't know.
Using their hope and making them slaves?
Like, using their hope as slaves?
Using these brave men's hope of freedom.
So, like, the freedom to go outside?
Because, I mean, that freedom is being granted if they're part of this firefighting crew.
And as long as they stay within, like, a certain radius.
Yeah, it's not like they're saying, hey, you're free to go, and then, like, as soon as they walk out the door, like, some sort of automated system, like, shoves a firefighter helmet onto their head and puts an axe in their hands, and they're like, fuck, I thought I was getting freedom, and now I'm a slave.
Yeah, I was gonna get ice cream, but you can't get ice cream when you're fighting a fire.
Once it's all said and done, they'll stay in prison.
Okay, yeah.
That's the idea of prison, dude.
Let's get rid of them.
Let's get rid of them, James.
What do you say?
Even when they pay off their debts, they're still stuck there.
And once out, we'll never attain what they work for.
In other words, the liberals of California will be full of empty promises.
I don't know, dude.
These brave men deserve another chance at freedom with firefighting.
What does that sentence even mean?
These brave men deserve another chance at freedom with firefighting.
You're right.
All firefighters should be ex-cons.
That's where we should get all firefighters from.
Experience people who did it from the camps.
Get all of them that way.
Give them another chance at freedom with firefighting.
But they don't get to be freeing firefighters.
That's kind of the whole point here.
Okay, here's an article from FireRescue1.com.
That's the number one dot com.
This is the headline.
Inmate firefighters.
Helpful resource or public safety danger?
Ooh, good question.
So just, like, all the way off the grid.
Like, as terrible a take you can get.
This is the worst take so far.
Is there any, like, documented thing where, like, somebody in a fire camp, when, like, committed a crime on somebody?
They just went Lizzie Borden on everybody there?
Yeah, right?
No, they've escaped.
They've gotten away, but I didn't read anything about them actually committing any crimes once they were free.
They probably laid pretty low after that.
Sure.
Yeah.
They robbed a squirrel of its nuts in the forest.
Because they were starving and they needed to do it.
Yeah.
But they're so sweet they didn't just kill the squirrel.
They're like, give me your nuts instead.
Yeah.
Small brain take.
Abolish prisons.
Slightly larger brain take.
Pay inmate firefighters a living wage.
The same wage.
Medium brain take.
No, don't pay them.
Pay them a couple pennies a day.
Huge brain take.
What are you talking about?
Those are dangerous criminals.
They don't get to be firefighters.
How do you fight a fire when you're chained up?
I don't get it.
Public safety danger.
These people that are like literally dying.
Really dying for pennies.
Just to be able to see the sky.
Losing appendages on a regular basis.
Incredible.
These were comments underneath that comment section which were...
Very good, I will say.
Very wholesome comments from the firefighting community because this is like a fire.
FireRescue1.com is obviously an outlet for firefighters specifically.
And this was a Facebook page.
This was their Facebook page.
And just the comment section was filled with people like, fuck you.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Yeah.
Because one thing I will say is, you know...
At least in my community, I fuck with my fire department.
There's awesome people on there.
They're not the cops.
Right.
That's a weird...
They're doing something good.
Yeah.
They're saving cats.
More dangerous.
Running into buildings.
It's awesome.
I love...
I'll be riding my bike and they'll honk their horn at me just to say what's up.
Really?
Yeah, absolutely.
Except it's like a pretty loud horn, though.
Shout out to Redlands Fire Department.
None of them are listening because they would hate this, but still, they should like this moment.
John says, a firefighter is born, not trained to be.
So I was like, which way is this going to go?
If some firefighter happens to follow the wrong side of the law, it does not mean that firefighter is not still a firefighter.
I don't care what you have done or not done.
Firefighters are here to save and protect, whether they wear county orange, brown bunker gear, or the correct color black bunker gear.
We are here to save and protect!
The rest of you can kiss my burnt ass!
That's what I'm talking about.
That's what I'm fucking talking about.
Oh yeah, John.
I do like, there's a couple little slights in there.
Like...
Or the correct color, black bunker gear.
Yeah, it's interesting.
What's the difference there?
Yeah, I do like that.
I also like to imagine the defense where somebody is in, say, juvenile court and their aunt comes in and is like, listen, before we sentence him, you need to know, born firefighter.
I knew it from the second.
Blew out a candle.
First birthday.
No.
Easy.
Did it with his fingers.
He just, yeah, stamped on that poo bag.
He knew what was inside and he still did it.
So Dennis had a different take.
Dennis with his Trump Make America Great Again cover photo says in this same comment section under firedefenseprotector1.com, I guess I'm one of the few that believe the fire and emergency profession is reserved I guess I'm one of the few that believe the fire and emergency profession is reserved for those who are able to live up to the
So he's saying he's one of the few because the rest of this comment section was overwhelmingly supportive of inmate firefighters who were like, yeah, you guys fucking rule.
You're like putting your lives on the line and getting paid shit.
Thank you.
Yeah, doing the work that I do and not getting paid for it.
So, like, not even, like, thank you, but, like, you know, nothing but respect for you, you know?
And, uh, no, Dennis has a different take.
Live up to the public trust and integrity role models.
Where the fuck do this person live?
I don't know.
Like, you know how you, like, follow your firefighter on social media to make sure they're not, like, boozing or, uh...
Sleeping around?
This guy's in for a world of heartbreak when he watches that, uh, what's that Dennis Leary show?
Fahrenheit 451. There you go, yeah, when he watches Fahrenheit 451, sees all the shenanigans of firefighters to get into.
Uh, what the previous post suggested, previous comment maybe, suggests is many people are grateful for those inmates who have served on a wildland team as a laborer.
You cannot confuse laborer with public servant.
Okay, what?
Like, they're doing grunt work.
You know they don't get to use the hoses, right?
They don't get to drive the trucks.
They don't get to pay any Dalmatians.
They're literally more of a public servant than you.
Yeah.
Because, like, they're not getting paid at all.
They're literally just serving us.
I mean, I guess they're getting paid a dollar an hour, excuse me.
You cannot confuse laborer with public servant.
Like, this is how fucked up our class analysis and our class identity is in this country, that laborer is used as an insult, just obviously, on the face of it.
They're just a laborer.
What does this person do for a living, then?
Like, not laborer of any sort, apparently.
No, I think he's his firefighter.
I think, like, everybody in this comment section were, like, firefighters.
Oh, that explains...
Really shallow things I was about to say about his partner and how much better looking she is than him.
Oh, because he can date up?
Yeah, because he's a firefighter.
And love a man in uniform.
There's also a lot of snow behind them, so I'm thinking maybe his job fighting fires isn't that hard.
It's very true.
Based on where he is.
Someone's going to be like, no man, you don't understand.
Snow fires are the worst.
You're cold and it's fire.
It's real confusing.
It flash freezes.
There's steam everywhere.
You know steam burns faster than fire, right?
If we don't toe that line...
Okay, so...
Inmates blew their chance at being part of a noble profession.
If we don't toe that line, then we open the door to just anyone showing up to us in our darkest hour.
So...
People like us say things like, you know, hey, rehabilitation, not imprisonment.
And he's like, what about exile?
Why don't we just put him on a raft?
Just push him out to sea.
I picked this comment because of the last sentence.
If we don't toe that line, that line meaning excluding prisoners from serving the public, if we don't toe that line...
Then we open the door to just anyone showing up to us in our darkest hour.
Yep.
What a crazy, like, jump.
What does this person even think they're saying?
Yeah.
Wait, so are, like, the prisoners too busy working to, like, defend us from people coming in?
What's happening here?
They're saying, like...
If you...
If you lower your standards...
Then, like, your desperation is just gonna show.
And like, yeah, you might burn to death, but at least you'll have your dignity.
At least you'll have honor.
Yeah.
Man, people are...
We don't want just anyone helping us in our darkest hour.
What the fuck?
We gotta be particular.
Yeah.
Oh my god.
Kevin says, same comment section, much different take.
Inmate crews differ from other crews only by the pay rate and the color of their Nomex, which is like protective gear, I'm assuming.
Some of the hardest working folks on the fire line saved our bacon many times.
No, he just confused Nomex with Tumex.
The MC Tumex, yeah.
The color of his two mechs is not the same as our two mechs.
It's a different color two mechs.
I love this comment.
This is good.
It's wholesome.
It's the right response from their position.
Hey, I really appreciate it.
You literally saved my ass.
You saved my bacon more than once.
Final take from Bill.
Love this take.
Bill says...
In, like, word art, which we haven't gotten in a while.
Yeah, it's been a minute.
This is a good one, too.
It's real sweet.
Yeah, this is a post.
This is, like, its own post, but it's relevant.
It's the, like, heart balloon Valentine's Day background art.
It says, Hey, California firefighters, thanks for not taking a knee.
I know it's tradition to...
To play the anthem as you're putting out a fire.
And I appreciate that you continue to stand and fight.
You didn't take a knee.
It's just like such a stupid fucking thing.
Yeah.
It's so stupid.
It's not even football season.
Thanks for not burning the flag along with the wildlife.
What's...
Yeah, thanks for not...
Thank you for not burning down the system.
I appreciate that.
I know people want that to happen, but throw water, not Molotov cocktails.
So you're like a firefighter in all your gear, and you go to work, and you stand on the fire line, and instead of shooting water at the fire, you just take a knee right there?
Just look at it?
Yeah.
Well, that's exactly the point, right?
That's why these liberals don't get anything.
You're not going to accomplish anything by taking a knee.
Like, this is obviously an NFL analogy.
Again, not even football season yet.
Well, this is an old post.
But, uh...
You know, like, when football players are kneeling for the anthem, like, that's not, like, game time?
Yeah.
Like, they're not actually supposed to be playing?
Like...
Because that would be a sick protest if they just started stopping right before the touchdown.
Yeah, sure.
That never scored points.
Or just kneeled in their own end zone for a safety?
Yeah.
That would really show up.
No, the analogy here would be if you kneeled in the firehouse...
Before the alarm sounded, and then once it sounded, you got into your...
You still continued to do your job.
And you did your job.
Yeah.
This is just such a fucking, like, mush brain take.
Like, oh, kneeling is bad.
Thank you for not being bad, California firefighters.
Appreciate that.
Thank you for being good.
Thank you for not being arsonists.
Thank you for wearing a mask so I don't have to know whether you're black or not.
I think you've been covered in soot so I don't know if you're black or not.
And that's it for this part of the episode.
I think we're going to split this into two episodes because we're already about an hour.
Plus it just makes things cooler for the YouTube.
So I don't know.
I'm probably going to dump these pretty quickly.
One right after another.
We're going to record the second topic.
For this week, which is batshit insane.
Probably the funniest comedian we've ever had on this show.
Groundbreaking.
Some amazing stuff.
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