Instead of letting people have drugs that keep them healthy, Kennedy's "solution" looks very much like punishing them for perceived personal failures by putting people into labor camps, which he euphemistically calls "wellness farms." As Mother Jones reported in July, people would be relegated to these "farms," where they would be denied their prescription medications. They would also be barred from having cell phones, computers, or other means to contact the outside world. They would be put to work full-time, presumably for little or no pay, growing organic food. He claims this process would "reparent" supposedly broken people, again framing mental health issues as not a medical issue, but a personal failure.Donald Trump¡¯s Next Diversity Target: People With Disabilities
The racism underlying this vision of labor camps isn't just vibes, either. Kennedy has explicitly argued that Black kids need to "get reparented," ideally in a "rural area" where they are denied most contact with family and friends. "Treating" Black youth by making them do unpaid agricultural work isn't exactly subtle, as far as racist fantasies go.
One month into his presidency, Trump has unleashed a government-wide attack on people with disabilities, from anti-diversity executive orders to proposed special-education rollbacks to threats to slash programs like Medicaid that are lifelines for disabled people across the country. If successful, these actions could have catastrophic consequences for millions of Americans, according to disability rights experts.How to pay for these farms? Kennedy had an answer. With money generated through a sales tax on cannabis products, Kennedy said, ¡°I¡¯m going to dedicate that revenue to creating wellness farms¡ªdrug rehabilitation farms, in rural areas all over this country,¡± he said. Other possibilities could include selling the organic produce and results of the free labor, and raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion dollars or reallocate other governement funds could be a start.
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The Trump administration¡¯s assault on government policies and programs that benefit disabled people is not just a scheme hatched in the bowels of The Heritage Foundation¡¯s Project 2025 anti-government boiler room¡ªalthough it is that, too. It¡¯s also the natural evolution of Trump¡¯s long-standing prejudice against people with disabilities. Trump¡¯s disdain for disabled people is well known, from mocking reporter Serge Kovaleski and insulting wounded veterans to reportedly telling a relative with a disabled son that ¡°maybe those kinds of people should just die.¡±
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.All I'll say is that if they're going to round up all us fatties, they better start building the capacity now. There are a lot of us.
¡°I thought they were going to be targeting criminals. No one mentioned during the campaigning of Donald Trump that residents ¡ legal residents ¡ were going to have to go through this,¡± she said. Her husband, who came to the country legally in 1999 and has a green card, went to an immigration office in San Francisco for a check-in in late January and still hasn¡¯t come home, she said.posted by rambling wanderlust at 9:18 AM on February 20 [25 favorites]
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Jacuinde doesn¡¯t show up in a database of people being detained by ICE. Pe?a said he was told he was not free to leave the immigration office and that agents were holding him to pressure him to sign a voluntary removal form. The family has contacted dozens of attorneys but hasn¡¯t been able to secure legal representation, she said.
Former President Donald Trump has released the outlines a new homelessness policy based on banning urban camping, setting up tent cities, and sending people who decline ¡°treatment¡± to jail.posted by rambling wanderlust at 9:18 AM on February 21 [5 favorites]
Mr Trump has increasingly focused in his current campaign for the White House on rising levels of homelessness in major cities and is taking a characteristically authoritian approach to dealing with them. In a new video, Mr Trump proposes banning camping wherever possible; arresting anyone found sleeping in unsanctioned areas outdoors; and presenting people with a choice: either agree to enter treatment programmes or go to jail.
¡°Violators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment and services if they¡¯re willing to be rehabilitated,¡± Mr Trump said in a recent video. ¡°Many of them don¡¯t want that. But we¡¯ll give them the option.¡±
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To combat homelessness, which is driven first and foremost by high housing costs, Mr Trump is proposing opening large ¡°tent cities,¡± or camps, where homeless people would be forced to live if they did not want to go to jail.
¡°We will then open up large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified,¡± Mr Trump said in the video. ¡°But we¡¯ll open up our cities again, make them livable and make them beautiful.¡±
It is unclear as of yet how Mr Trump would fund his plan. The operation of the ¡°tent cities¡± alone would likely require a vast amount of money, as would the employment of doctors and social workers to work with houseless people.
The plan would also likely attract the opposition of civil rights groups over the extent to which it would coerce people into recieving treatment or living in camps. Bans on public camping in US cities largely have not gotten people off the streets, but rather forced people to move away from needed social services.
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posted by Faint of Butt at 8:45 AM on February 20 [46 favorites]