Monday, January 23, 2012

Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America : The New Yorker

Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice in America : The New Yorker

The Caging of America

Why do we lock up so many people?

by January 30, 2012

Six million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S.

Six million people are under correctional supervision in the U.S.—more than were in Stalin’s gulags. Photograph by Steve Liss.

"... a growing number of American prisons are now contracted out as for-profit businesses to for-profit companies. The companies are paid by the state, and their profit depends on spending as little as possible on the prisoners and the prisons. It’s hard to imagine any greater disconnect between public good and private profit: the interest of private prisons lies not in the obvious social good of having the minimum necessary number of inmates but in having as many as possible, housed as cheaply as possible. No more chilling document exists in recent American life than the 2005 annual report of the biggest of these firms, the Corrections Corporation of America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:


"Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them." Corrections Corporation of America

Brecht could hardly have imagined such a document: a capitalist enterprise that feeds on the misery of man trying as hard as it can to be sure that nothing is done to decrease that misery."

Read more here | http://www.newyorker.com

Whirlpool Corporation: Neglect pays off — RT

Whirlpool Corporation: Neglect pays off — RT

One solution to joblessness in the US is a scheme where giant corporations create workplaces for local communities. They are even handed government money to that end – but somehow, jobs still get outsourced to a cheaper foreign workforce.

­This allows big businesses to prosper, while small towns suffer.

In one of America’s most economically depressed cities resides the world’s largest producer of home appliances. Whirlpool Corporation is headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where 60 per cent are unemployed, 90 per cent live in poverty, and per capita annual income is roughly US $10,000.

“The citizens of Benton Harbor are living from one day to the next,” local resident and business owner Scott Elliot told RT. “They’re very poor and they’re very disheartened. There’s been very little effort on the part of Whirlpool, that runs everything, to try to involve the community.” Read Full Text Here | RT

10,000 Hoosiers Pack State Capitol to Protest RTW | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

10,000 Hoosiers Pack State Capitol to Protest RTW | AFL-CIO NOW BLOG

Interview: Kalle Lasn, publisher, Adbusters magazine | CanadianBusiness.com

Interview: Kalle Lasn, publisher, Adbusters magazine | CanadianBusiness.com Share0 Email
CB_Kalle Lasn
Kalle Lasn, publisher of Adbusters magazine (Photo: Jim Labounty/Adbusters)

Canadian Business: On the U.S. presidential election:
Kalle Lasn: Most young people, 99% of the occupiers I would say, are pretty disillusioned with Obama. We feel that he has become a kind of a gutless wonder who didn’t do what he had promised. He has disappointed us bitterly. When it comes to a choice between somebody like Rick Perry and Obama, then of course people will vote for Obama, but not in great numbers and without much enthusiasm.

I think the really interesting thing that could happen leading up to the presidential election is that there will be rumblings of third parties. Especially people in the Occupy movement are totally sick of this Coca-Cola/Pepsi kind of choice that Americans have had for so long. They’re yearning for a real choice, for real democracy, and we may well see the beginnings of a third party rising next year. Of course, I don’t think that it will suddenly challenge the Republican and Democratic parties, but it could well play the role of the spoiler in the way that Ralph Nader and Ross Perot and the Green Party have never quite been able to do. Read More Here | CanadianBusiness.com

Demand The Impossible | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

Demand The Impossible | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters
Demand The Impossible

This article first appeared on Socialist.org

THE PAST four months of the Occupy Movement have brought the American left to new heights. For the 99 percent, who represent the vast majority of the world’s population, the Occupy movement was long overdue.

Occupy has been a podium from which muzzled mouths have made a militant microphone. From this platform, we have mic-checked the 1 percent, and finally, it seems that we have found a voice of our own.

As with any movement, Occupy has fostered an internal debate about what tactics are necessary to take the movement forward. It’s an important question that requires careful consideration of the relation of social forces at play, the existing support outside of the movement and, perhaps most importantly, what possibilities lie in front of the movement–that is, the tangible goals the movement can set for itself.

Some Occupiers feel strongly that the movement should demand absolutely nothing from the economic and political system it’s rising up against. After all, the argument goes, the strength of the Occupy Movement thus far has been its potent indictment of the ruling class, coupled with its refusal to make any discernable demands or empower any official spokespeople. read Full Article Here | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

Inside ALEC: Naked Contempt for the Press and Public in Scottsdale | Truthout

Inside ALEC: Naked Contempt for the Press and Public in Scottsdale | Truthout
by: Beau Hodai, PRWatch | Report

"Mr. Hodai had a history at the conference--not a very pleasant history. He was considered to be a persona non grata..."

-- Westin Kierland General Manager Bruce Lange to Olivia Ward of the Toronto Star.

Evicting the Press, Part 1: Meet Mr. Black

Scottsdale, Arizona--A suburb awash in money and golf courses, set against the backdrop of the jagged mountains surrounding Phoenix.

I was sitting in a sports bar of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa, swapping journalism stories with Olivia Ward of the Toronto Star on one of the bar's overstuffed leather couches. Over the course of an hour, the bar filled with conventioneers from the American Legislative Exchange Council's 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit (SNPS). (A new story on Westin's connections to other ALEC corporations is available here.)

My assignment was to cover the 2011 SNPS, taking place at the resort from November 29 through December 2. ALEC had refused to grant me media credentials. Nevertheless, I was a paid guest at the resort.

Most of the ALEC members trickling into the bar were fresh from the ALEC "Holiday Gala." As drinks were consumed and new rounds were ordered by guys with ALEC badges, the place began to take on a distinct "Animal House" vibe. Read More Here |Truthout

The Corporate State Will Be Broken | Truthout

The Corporate State Will Be Broken | Truthout

by: Chris Hedges, Truthdig | Op-Ed

A protester with the Occupy Wall Street movement waves to Auubi, a 17-month-old boy whose father was also demonstrating, on the grounds of the Capitol in Washington, on January 17, 2012. Protesters plan events in Washington throughout the week. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

I spent Friday morning sitting on a wooden bench in a fourth-floor courtroom in the New York Criminal Court in Manhattan. I was waiting to be sentenced for “disturbing the peace” and “refusing to obey a lawful order” during an Occupy demonstration in front of Goldman Sachs in November.

Those sentenced before me constituted the usual fare of the court. They were poor people of color accused of mostly petty crimes—drug possession, thefts, shoplifting, trespassing because they were homeless and needed a place to sleep, inappropriate touching, grand larceny and violation of probation. They were escorted out of a backroom by a police officer, stood meekly before the judge with their hands cuffed behind them, were hastily defended by a lawyer clutching a few folders, and were sentenced. Ten days in jail. Sixty days in jail. Six months in jail. A steady stream of... Read More Here | Truthdig | Op-Ed

A little storm in Wisconsin

A little storm in Wisconsin
The Solidarity Sing Along singers braved the cold and snow on Friday. They came out and sang (as they have every Monday – Friday, noon to one, since last March) for the people of Wisconsin. On Friday they gave a special shout-out to the workers of America.See source site here| Wisconsin

BEVERLY M. RICHEY "SEVEN/ELEVEN" A DIGITAL DISASTER - YouTube

BEVERLY M. RICHEY "SEVEN/ELEVEN" A DIGITAL DISASTER - YouTube

Frank Zappa, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky on American Fascism (separate clips) - YouTube

Frank Zappa, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky on American Fascism (separate clips) - YouTube

Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea www.ted.com

http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html

Watch this!!!!!!
www.ted.com
What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto -- a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

GOGEBIC TACONITE MINE “Advocates” A FRONT GROUP FOR ALEC

wcmcoop.com
Koch Lobbyist & Wisconsin ALEC Co-chair Amy Boyer Caught Perpetrating Mining Propaganda The media blitz being waged by state Republicans to convince the public that we all can’t wait for the mountaintop mining removal is becoming downright Machiavellian. The results
  • The media blitz being waged by state Republicans to convince the public that we all can’t wait for the mountaintop mining removal is becoming downright Machiavellian. The results out of the Hurley public hearing showed 62% against the mine; the 10-hour hearing in West Allis December 14th produced almost twice as many against than for. At the public hearing in October for AB24, another in the trio ALEC-inspired Water Destruction bills meant to remove protections from our wetlands, 175 people registered against, to the six for.

  • ‎"One member of the “grassroots coalition” Gogebic Taconite Mine Advocates, however, holds an altogether more controversial position in the hierarchy of mining cartel. GTMA member Amy Boyer happens to be the Wisconsin Co-chair for ALEC—American Legislative Exchange Council—funded by a cocktail of corporate money led by Koch Industries. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the bills that will change our laws to directly benefit their bottom line at our expense."