Targeting Supply
You rely on illegal markets
We were informed that the thief who stole Secretary of Handbag Security Kristi Noem’s handbag (with $3K in USD to pay for dinner and for “Easter gifts”) was caught, and wouldn’t ya know it? he was an “illegal.”
Has anyone seen a follow-up story? A mug shot? A court docket? The “suspect” did not happen to still be carrying her TOP SECRET ACCESS passkey, did he?
Until I see a record of an actual human being having been arrested and charged, I am going to treat the arrest as another dollop of horseshit on the pile. The administration doesn’t know where the ID is and they don’t know who took it. Maybe it has made its way to London or Tokyo, where formerly-allied spy agencies are dissecting the inlaid security features, capturing the encryption and more.
The story behind the cash rings hollow, too. Professionals in DC pay for group dinners with credit cards, like adults, unless they want no record of having been someplace. The price-point at The Capital Burger, site of the security lapse, caps at about $50 a person for two alcoholic beverages and a burger.
When I first wrote of the incident, my thought was that like all others in the administration, Kristi Noem is running a side hustle to churn some extra cash out of the office. The American food production and distribution system relies on undocumented laborers—from planting and harvesting, to transportation and processing, to stocking store shelves and preparing meals, to disposing of food wastes. The opportunities to offer protection from ICE raids are replete, coast-to-coast. If she’s not collecting, she’s not trying.
Interviewer: Have you ever had sex with Donald Trump?
Kid Rock: No way! What kind of question is that?
Interviewer: Well, you just got fucked by him.
Remember when Kid Rock (born Robert James Richie) dressed up as Evel Knievel and thanked Trump for an Executive Order on concert ticket pricing that did nothing of substance, because the Executive branch has no say regarding the private resale of concert tickets?
It was a great photo opportunity though (and the Kid knows how to make a visual impression), but as with absolutely everything Trump-related, it was ultimately more to Trump’s benefit than Kid Rock’s.
It turns out that Mr. Rock owns a restaurant in his adopted hometown of Nashville, TN. Robert Richie is the scion of a multimillionaire Detroit auto dealer—a bit far from the trailer park resident he has marketed himself as (“I ain't straight outta Compton, I'm straight out the trailer”). It also turns out that ICE ran a sweep through Nashville this past weekend, and Kid Rock’s restaurant, among others, had to shut down due to their lack of staffing.
From The Guardian:
The restaurant Kid Rock’s was among several others in Nashville owned by the conservative [sic] restauranteur and Donald Trump Supporter Steve Smith where undocumented kitchen staff were asked to go home to avoid rumored immigration raids this weekend.
The restaurant - whose full name is Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse, and is licensed by the rightwing musician Kid Rock, who has also become one of the US president’s highest-profile supporters - reportedly found itself struggling to serve post-concert crowds on Saturday night after the order from managers instructing employees without legal status to leave, according to the Nashville Scene.
“Around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, our manager came back and told anyone without legal status to go home,” one anonymous employee told the outlet.
Supply and demand—there is both for unregulated labor, and thus there is a market. The only source of demand for unregulated labor is Capital. It is social class-specific, unlike demand for drugs, or shelter, or Pokemon cards.
Class-specific demand for unregulated labor should be very, very easily identified. Most purchasers of unregulated labor have physical addresses and have made their existence known to the state. This is why ICE can raid restaurants, knowing that is one place where unregulated laborers are likely to be found. We know where the demand is being fulfilled.
While all labor is of one social class location, it has been divided by nation, race, ethnicity, sex, age, and other identities. It behooves the laborers of America to stand by their fellow workers, especially those in the same shop. It also would be to the benefit of all laborers to see the purchase of labor-power be more uniformly regulated, so as to establish minimum acceptable working conditions.
The Trump administration’s attack on undocumented workers is direct social class warfare; we can see it in the targets—the workers. The supply. Enough of this stupid, futile, bullshit exercise where massive resources are directed at targeting supply and that will never effectively reduce it.
We know who is producing the demand, and we can kill it. All it will take is a couple of high-profile executions and some mandatory minimum prison sentences (“Hire five, get five years”) and all the other illegal purchasers will fall into line. Unlike drug markets, the demand for unregulated labor only comes from one relatively small group of people.
How else are we going to free ourselves?