“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”
That paragraph opens a devastating eight-part series published this month by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans about how the state’s largely private prison system profits from high incarceration rates and tough sentencing, and how many with the power to curtail the system actually have a financial incentive to perpetuate it.
The picture that emerges is one of convicts as chattel and a legal system essentially based on human commodification.
"Charles M. Blow on The Times-Picayune of New Orleans series on Louisiana’s prisons. It gets worse.
First, some facts from the series:
• One in 86 Louisiana adults is in the prison system, which is nearly double the national average.
• More than 50 percent of Louisiana’s inmates are in local prisons, which is more than any other state. The next highest state is Kentucky at 33 percent. The national average is 5 percent.
• Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of its prisoners serving life without parole.
• Louisiana spends less on local inmates than any other state.
• Nearly two-thirds of Louisiana’s prisoners are nonviolent offenders. The national average is less than half.
In the early 1990s, the state was under a federal court order to reduce overcrowding, but instead of releasing prisoners or loosening sentencing guidelines, the state incentivized the building of private prisons. But, in what the newspaper called “a uniquely Louisiana twist,” most of the prison entrepreneurs were actually rural sheriffs. They saw a way to make a profit and did.
31st May 2012
Notes: 49
We learned something new today. Er.
(via)
These are all unenforceable, so I don’t really see the point of this post.
If you look hard enough at most states, I’m pretty sure they all have laws on the books that are illegal but were never removed for various reasons.
Reblogged From paxamericana
Perhaps frustrated after years of pretending to be a “fair and balanced” news organization, Fox News threw out its usual playbook of merely skirting the line of journalistic ethics today and went all in with a four-minute video that can only be described as a political attack ad.
The slickly-produced video, which Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy said had been “weeks” in the making, aired on the morning news show today after a brief introduction from the Fox crew. “Let’s talk a little bit about what the campaign slogan used to be for President Obama when he was a candidate, remember it was ‘hope and change,’” co-host Gretchen Carlson said, “so we decided to take a look back at the president’s first term to see if it lived up to ‘hope and change.’”
What follows has all the trappings of a classic negative campaign ad: Dark and ominous orchestral music, news anchors intoning about various troubles facing the American middle class, quick cuts to stock footage of foreclosure signs, and graphics comparing gas prices and food stamp usage before and after Obama’s term. If one removed Carlson’s introduction and the Fox ticker at the bottom, even the most informed political observer would think it was produced by a Karl Rove attack group or Mitt Romney super PAC — not a “news” organization.
The post-9/11 era comprises the entirety of their political experience. They have no different American political culture to which they can compare it, at least from personal experience. The post-9/11 U.S. Government is the only one they know. The rights that have been abridged in the name of Terrorism are ones they never experienced, never exercised, and thus do not expect."
Glenn Greenwald in reaction to this:
That record, and Mr. Awlaki’s calls for more attacks, presented Mr. Obama with an urgent question: Could he order the targeted killing of an American citizen, in a country with which the United States was not at war, in secret and without the benefit of a trial?
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.
There’s an entire generation being raised who will think it is normal to be at a state of constant, permanent war with an increasingly unaccountable president. That does not bode well for America or the world.
![The number of pages of classified government documents that were declassified, as well as the number reviewed for declassification, declined from the year before, according to the Information Security Oversight Office’s (ISOO) Report for Fiscal Year 2011 [PDF]. The report found that 26.7 million pages were declassified through automatic, systematic, and discretionary declassification reviews, the lowest number of declassified pages since the 1980-1994 period.
Trendlines in the ISOO report indicate that President Obama’s 2009 goal of reviewing 400 million pages of classified records of historical importance by December 2013 “is not likely to be met,” says a response by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
While the total volume of declassified documents per year appears to be slowing, the ISOO report shows that in 2011, as in past years, the majority of classification decisions that were appealed to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel were overturned in whole or in part, resulting in the declassification and release of records which government agencies had sought to classify. FAS observes:
Because this pattern has persisted for 15 years (since the Panel was established), it represents empirical proof that overclassification has been and still remains pervasive, even by internal executive branch standards. In fact, there are indications that the Panel itself is too conservative in its handling of classification disputes. Recently, even the hyper-retentive National Security Agency decided to fully release a document despite a Panel finding that it should remain partly classified.
The ISOO report doesn’t address the implications that over-classification remains rife in federal agencies but ISOO Director John P. Fitzpatrick, in a letter addressed to the President at the beginning of the report, emphasized that 2011 would mark the launch of the first executive branch-wide Fundamental Classification Guidance Review.
“Agencies with original classification authority began comprehensive reviews of their classification guidance, particularly classification guides, to ensure the guidance reflects current circumstances and to identify classified information that no longer requires protection and can be declassified,” wrote Fitzpatrick. “We believe that significant results will be obtained from this program.”](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4up3gIqAB1qhwm08o1_1280.jpg)
The number of pages of classified government documents that were declassified, as well as the number reviewed for declassification, declined from the year before, according to the Information Security Oversight Office’s (ISOO) Report for Fiscal Year 2011 [PDF]. The report found that 26.7 million pages were declassified through automatic, systematic, and discretionary declassification reviews, the lowest number of declassified pages since the 1980-1994 period.
Trendlines in the ISOO report indicate that President Obama’s 2009 goal of reviewing 400 million pages of classified records of historical importance by December 2013 “is not likely to be met,” says a response by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
While the total volume of declassified documents per year appears to be slowing, the ISOO report shows that in 2011, as in past years, the majority of classification decisions that were appealed to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel were overturned in whole or in part, resulting in the declassification and release of records which government agencies had sought to classify. FAS observes:
Because this pattern has persisted for 15 years (since the Panel was established), it represents empirical proof that overclassification has been and still remains pervasive, even by internal executive branch standards. In fact, there are indications that the Panel itself is too conservative in its handling of classification disputes. Recently, even the hyper-retentive National Security Agency decided to fully release a document despite a Panel finding that it should remain partly classified.
The ISOO report doesn’t address the implications that over-classification remains rife in federal agencies but ISOO Director John P. Fitzpatrick, in a letter addressed to the President at the beginning of the report, emphasized that 2011 would mark the launch of the first executive branch-wide Fundamental Classification Guidance Review.
“Agencies with original classification authority began comprehensive reviews of their classification guidance, particularly classification guides, to ensure the guidance reflects current circumstances and to identify classified information that no longer requires protection and can be declassified,” wrote Fitzpatrick. “We believe that significant results will be obtained from this program.”
Many of Washington’s more hawkish voices have sought to downplay or drown out discussions about a possible military attack on Iran’s nuclear program. Even as the Obama administration has kept all options on the table regarding iran’s nuclear program, presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign attacked the administration for trying to have an honest discussion of the possible consequences of a military strike.
Now, three Members of Congress — Reps. John Conyers (D-MI), Keith Ellison (D-MN), and Barbara Lee (D-CA) — are introducing an amendment to an intelligence authorization bill that would demand a government report about the possible consequences of an attack. Conyers and Ellison, among others, also used the amendment process to tag the Defense authorization — another big appropriations bill likely to pass — with language stating that Congress was not authorizing war with Iran.
The first public comments by members on the amendment, which has the support of pro-peace groups, could come this afternoon when the Rules Committee meets to decide on its inclusion in the larger bill. The amendment, Section 306 of the new bill, reads in full that:
Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence shall submit to the congressional intelligence committees a report containing an assessment of the consequences of a military strike against Iran.
The Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has already said that Iran has not made a decision to build a nuclear weapon — an estimate in line with reported U.S. assessments and also the U.N. atomic watchdog and Israeli assessments — and made clear that he thinks Iran can be dissuaded from building a bomb.
But his views on the consequences of a strike are unlikely to satisfy militaristic voices in Congress. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a prominent hawk on Iran, publicly disagreed with Clapper’s Iran assessments during a hearing this winter. Last year, Graham called on Clapper to resign.
While President Obama, like others, considers a potential Iranian nuclear weapon a threat, this Spring he lamented the “loose talk of war” and called on those who are pushing an attack on Iran to hold open discussions about the possible consequences:
If some of these folks think that it’s time to launch a war, they should say so and they should explain to the american people exactly why they would do that and what the consequences would be.
Instead of hawkish bluster, the Obama administration maintains its options while pushing a negotiated diplomatic solution, which the administration considers the “best and most permanent way” to end the crisis. That’s because Israeli and American experts have noted that attacking could push Iran into building a weapon, and potentially ignite a regional war. Those are exactly the sorts of potential consequences of an attack on Iran that the Obama administration has called for a forthright conversation on, which Conyers, Ellison and Lee are now bolstering. And its exactly the conversation the hawks don’t want to have.
This could be a positive step. If you can get the military to say how disastrous a strike against Iran would be, it could shut up some of the GOP members who have been pushing for this. Although, in all probability, it won’t matter to them anyways.
The above graphic exploded on Facebook this weekend. It shows how many minimum wage hours a worker needs to work in order to be able to afford a two-bedroom unit at “Fair Market Rent” in any given state. The FMR is a figure determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The numbers don’t show any discernible trend aside from perhaps 1) states with high cost of living/rent such as NY, NJ, DC, MD require the most man hours and 2) the minimum wage is too low. The latter, of course, is the point of this graphic.
Israeli Defense Minster Ehud Barak
That sound you hear is my head hitting my desk.
Over Memorial Day weekend, we were treated to a familiar round of what might be termed “Hero Talk” (which is not to be confused with R. Kelly’s “Real Talk:” arguably his most exquisite piece of performance art since Trapped in the Closet Pt. 1).
Unlike Real Talk, however, “Hero Talk” most often centers around men and women in the armed forces. These men and women are deserving of praise because, the argument goes, serving in the military is a prima facie act of heroism.
Whenever someone starts a conversation about heroism and the military, we are inevitably treated to a particular brand of outrage that has a familiar tenor. Quite often this outrage comes from Right-wing Culture Warriors who compete with mendacious liberal commentators in a desperate race to see who can heap more praise on the armed forces before we turn all turn red, white and blue with nationalistic fervor, having been washed clean by the ablutions of patriotism, and overcome by the delirium tremens of our post-patriotic withdrawal.
This time around, the conversation was started by Chris Hayes, who opined over Memorial Day weekend that perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to assign “hero” status to somebody simply because they wear a U.S. military uniform; that maybe you need to do something more in order to earn that status:
I think it’s interesting because I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words “heroes.” Why do I feel so [uncomfortable] about the word “hero”? I feel comfortable — uncomfortable — about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
Barely 24 hours later, Hayes, much like most left-leaning pundits who discuss this issue in public, issued an overwrought apology, striking a mendicant’s pose and begging to be granted clemency for his deviant remarks:
On Sunday, in discussing the uses of the word “hero” to describe those members of the armed forces who have given their lives, I don’t think I lived up to the standards of rigor, respect and empathy for those affected by the issues we discuss that I’ve set for myself. I am deeply sorry for that.
…
And now queue the outrage. Ross Kaminsky, for the American Spectator:
At least Hayes had the courage to offer a sincere-sounding apology, though I’m certainly not alone with my suspicion that he truly believes everything he said, and everything his co-religionists in the cult of anti-Americanism said alongside him to besmirch our soldiers — living, dead, and fallen — on this Memorial Day weekend… They have every right to be idiots, though one would prefer that they at least recognize who is risking life and limb to protect that right. While I understand the temptation to waterboard Chris Hayes, the right answer is to understand that he represents today’s Democratic Party… and to vote against Democratic candidates, other than those who (unlike John Kerry) have served with honor, at every opportunity,
Kurt Schlichter, for Breitbart.com:
[T]he real problem for Chris Hayes is that he actually said what he thinks. He thinks our soldiers are suckers and fools at best, brutal sociopaths at worst. At a minimum, he feels that honoring those who died for this country might encourage people to see that actually defending our country is a good thing. He’s not quite ready to make that leap; after all, most progressives are ambivalent about this whole “America” concept, if not actively opposed to it.David Zurawik, in the Baltimore Sun (who unintentionally engages in self-parody):
I am not going to let anyone say, “Well, this is a legitimate intellectual critique, and thoughtful people can clearly see what he was trying to say. The blowback is just mock outrage from the right.”
No, this is pseudo-intellectual vanity and self-absorbed, TV media talk at its worst . I have a Ph.D. in American Studies, and after spending 10 years in seminars filled with too much of this kind of talk, I can accurately say that people who talk like Hayes did in his remarks are most often self-important b.s. artists[.]
Zurawik in particular is so fired up over Chris Hayes’ remarks that he accuses Hayes of being a “self-important b.s. artist” while prefacing his own comments with a an authoritative reference to the fact that he has a Ph.D. in American Studies. I’m hoping that someone with a Ph.D in Literary Studies will explain to Zurawik why this gratuitous reference to his own qualifications is ironic when couched next to an accusation of self-importance.
What bothers me most about these reactions is how unrepresentative of the American military they tend to be, in terms of how actual soldiers view their own military service. Many soldiers resent being blindly praised for no other reason than the fact that they wear a military uniform. Why? Because quite often, that praise obscures their ability to communicate their often nuanced views about military life, and participation in America’s armed conflicts. The people praising them are quite often incapable of seeing past their military uniform and into their nuanced experience of military life. You can see this in the responses to this August article from The Hill. Here’s one Sgt. Lewis, who said the following while declaring his support for Ron Paul:
I am a Sergeant in the U.S. Army. I support Ron Paul and I support his foreign policy. I am sure you would not dare call me a Paultard to my face.
No, you would give me the same parroted line I hear 100 times a day, “Thank you for your service”. When I hear some flabby couch potato like you say that to me it makes me sick. Yes, I serve our country, but our wars do not.
Another, Army vet:
My best friend came home in a box wearing one of those army uniforms you spoke so favorably about. Guess he wasn’t ready for the marines but he’ll never have that chance.
I also spent three years in the army in the infantry. Not behind a desk, about half of it deployed nation building in the Balkans pre 9/11. It was stupid and counter productive.Another, Vietnam Vet:
I am Viet Nam Vet, a combat Vet. I have killed and seen men killed. It was all for a lie. It is always for a lie. Our government sent 60,000 young men to their deaths for a lie, for profit and their own glory. Glory of being big men but not glory where they would actually serve themselves.
And here’s another Vietnam Vet, via Sullivan:
Speaking as someone who had alternatives but instead enlisted and served nearly five years from 1967 through most of 1971, including three tours in Vietnam: No, enlisting does not make one a hero. A hero is someone who had no choice but who did the job once drafted. A hero is someone who moved to a different culture to avoid killing people. A hero is like my friend Brad who, smarter than I at the time and less fooled by the lies, used boiling water, vodka, and a sharp knife to amputate his own trigger finger to avoid having to fight someone else’s war.
This is the nuance that is lost by whitewashing all members of the military with “hero” praise. Soldiers are not automatons. They are as diverse in ability, intelligence, and political disposition as the population writ large. And they, more than anyone else, know that wearing a military uniform does not automatically make you a hero. They are also uniquely qualified to appreciate when their actions don’t seem to be achieving a greater good worthy of being labeled “heroic.”
Blindly obscuring the nuance of every American soldier’s experience by uncritically assigning them the status of “hero” reduces them to nothing more than a cartoon caricature of vague, praise-worthy character traits that in no way properly describes the actual feelings of many veterans towards their military service. Worse yet, such uncritical praise is one of the most dangerous strains of political thought that courses through the veins of our body politic. Nothing could be more erosive to the democratic process, or to military accountability, than a body politic which is incapable of criticizing its men and women in uniform.
