String Sisters is an assemblage of several of my favorite fiddlers. Here is a selection of their wonderful music:
Here they play Shetland Fiddle Diva/Kinyon’s Jig/Kinyon’s Reel/Lad O’Beirne’s
Here are two of their composition: he April Child/The Joy of It
Finall for today, here’s an Annbjørg Lien tune: Luseblus
Add comment June 9th, 2008
In an article from TPM Cafe, Ruth Rosen describes her experiences as an editorial nd Op-Ed writer for the liberal San Francisco Chronicle during the run-up to the Iraq war. Despite knowing that the administration was lying, Rosen and her fellow editorialists felt constrained as to what they could say. This is one of the best descriptions of the process of self-censorship in the liberal media. The take-home point:
The truth is, even a liberal newspaper, blessed with a liberal editorial board, did not engage in truth telling. We raised some good questions, wrote about supporting the troops, but failed to describe the deception that led to the catastrophe that was unfolding right before our eyes.
Here’s the article:
Tales From Inside the Editorial Board Room
By Ruth Rosen
When I first heard about Scott McClellan’s charges that the Bush administration had lied and deceived Americans during the months and years leading up to the war, I burst into tears of happiness. No, nothing he wrote was new. And even if he still seems like a sleazy public relations expert in obfuscation, an insider was finally telling the truth, in one book.
My story is different from those who felt seriously constrained about raising questions about the administration’s obvious lies. I worked as an editorial writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, where a liberal editorial board raised serious objections to the war. And yet, in the years following 9/11, I felt editorial restraints that never allowed us to tell the whole truth about the lies and deception that led to America’s most catastrophic foreign policy disaster.
Others in the mainstream media felt far greater restraints. Jessica Yellin, a CNN journalist, for example, says she felt pressured by corporate executives at her previous network to support the Iraq War. To Anderson Cooper, she described how she and others were “under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings.” On the Today Show, Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charles Gibson also admitted feeling pressure from the Bush administration to support the war, MSNBC reported. Couric even recounted a threat from the White House Press Secretary to “block access to [the network] during the war” if she did not change the tone of her interviewing style.”
So what did I experience? An editor and an editorial board who felt that, in the absence of inside sources, we could not counter the administration’s lies.
Let me give you some examples. I was raised in a Republican family, but schooled by the great iconoclastic journalist I.F. Stone, who taught me that you can find the truth without inside sources, if only you’re willing to see beyond patriotic fervor and examine voices in the public domain that are marginalized, So, I would read national security experts who countered Donald Rumfeld’s ridiculous predictions; I would read the British, Canadian, Italian and French press; I would read the writings of experts in resource wars and weapons of mass destruction.
No, I didn’t know I was right. But I was sure that the administration was lying. And, I knew that at the very least that our editorials should be asking why Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al should be believed when I had found strong evidence that they were cherry picking intelligence, and setting up their own office in the Pentagon, and acting in complete secrecy.
The rush to war drove me crazy. In the days that led up to the war, I went to my editor and told him I needed a few days unpaid leave to accept the fact that we were, in fact, going to war. In my mind’s eye, I saw a baby tied to the railroad tracks and saw the train rapidly moving toward the helpless child. I saw years of quagmire, bloodshed, and tens of thousands of deaths. I needed a few days to accept that reality before I could return to writing. He understood and allowed me to regain my professional composure.
To its credit, the editorial board raised some of the toughest questions in the mainstream media. And yet….I was the only one who didn’t believe Colin Powell’s shameful presentation at the United Nations. Why? Not because I had special insider knowledge, but like I.F. Stone, I had found credible people who could dissect his speech and found it unconvincing and unpersuasive.
When I heard Bush’s inaugural address, I heard two major lies embedded within his speech. But somehow that still wasn’t enough to accuse him of plagiarism and deception.
The truth is, even a liberal newspaper, blessed with a liberal editorial board, did not engage in truth telling. We raised some good questions, wrote about supporting the troops, but failed to describe the deception that led to the catastrophe that was unfolding right before our eyes.
While I was writing editorials, I was also publishing two weekly political columns on the op-ed page. I also felt constrained as a columnist. If I wanted to discuss this country’s desire to gain control and access over oil, I had to bump up against the accusation that I was a vulgar Marxist, rather than conversant with the reality of resource wars.
Finally, I am an historian, and I knew Iraq’s history. I also knew that the war would end in a disastrous occupation, not a liberation, and that no country, including our own, will ever tolerate occupation by a foreign nation.
This week, I sat with a former colleague from the editorial board in a café, rather than in the room where we used to make our editorial decisions. He admitted that I had been right, but even more, that even in a liberal paper, the editor and most of the board, had felt restrained, afraid of seeming unpatriotic, afraid of saying the emperor wore no clothes, afraid of not giving the President the benefit of the doubt, afraid of truth telling without access to inside sources.
You may say, “Ho Hum, even the Senate has now, after five years, come out with a report that describes (oh, so tepidly) the years of deception.
But for me, the tears flowed because I remembered all those years when I felt passionate about telling the public the truth, but was unable to do so in a mainstream, liberal, newspaper.
Add comment June 8th, 2008
Add comment June 6th, 2008
Return to Forever performs The Romantic Warrior for the Old Grey Whistle Test studio audience in 1976.
Return to Forever is:
Chick Corea - Piano, Synthesizer
Stanley Clarke - Double Bass and Bass Guitar
Lenny White - Drums, Percussion
Al Di Meola - Guitar
Add comment May 31st, 2008
Amy Goodman devotes her weekly column to remembering Utah Phillips who died last Friday. [See my comments on Utah's death here.]:
Utah Phillips Has Left the Stage
by Amy Goodman
“Utah” Phillips died this week at the age of 73. He was a musician, labor organizer, peace activist and co-founder of his local homeless shelter. He also was an archivist, a historian and a traveler, playing guitar and singing almost forgotten songs of the dispossessed and the downtrodden, and keeping alive the memory of labor heroes like Emma Goldman, Joe Hill and the Industrial Workers of the World, “the Wobblies,” in a society that too soon forgets.
Born Bruce Duncan Phillips on May 15, 1935, in Cleveland, by his midteens he was riding the rails. He told me of those days in an interview in 2004. By then, he was slowed down by congestive heart failure. His long, white beard flowed over his bow tie, plaid shirt and vest. We sat in a cramped attic of a pirate radio station that was frequently raided by federal authorities. In the early days, he met old-timers, “old, old alcoholics who could only shovel gravel. But they knew songs.”
In 1956, he joined the Army and got sent to postwar Korea. What he saw there changed him forever: “Life amid the ruins. Children crying—that’s the memory of Korea. Devastation. I saw an elegant and ancient culture in a small Asian country devastated by the impact of cultural and economic imperialism. Well, that’s when I cracked. I said: ‘I can’t do this anymore. You know, this is all wrong. It all has to change. And the change has to begin with me.’”
After three years in the Army, he went back to the state that earned him his nickname, Utah. There he met Ammon Hennacy, a radical pacifist, who had started the Joe Hill House in Salt Lake City, inspired by the Catholic Worker movement. Hennacy guided Utah Phillips toward pacifism. Utah recalled: “Ammon came to me one day and said, ‘You’ve got to be a pacifist.’ And I said, ‘How’s that?’ He said, ‘Well, you act out a lot. You use a lot of violent behavior.’ And I was. You know, I was very angry. ‘You’re not just going to lay down guns and fists and knives and hard angry words. You’re going to have to lay down the weapons of privilege and go into the world completely disarmed.’ If there’s one struggle that animates my life, it’s probably that one.”
Utah’s pacifism drove him to run for the U.S. Senate in 1968 on the Peace and Freedom ticket, taking a leave of absence from his civil-service job: “I was a state archivist—and ran a full campaign, 27 counties. We took 6,000 votes in Utah. But when it was over, my job would vanish, and I couldn’t get work anymore in Utah.”
Thus began his 40 years in “the trade,” a traveling, working musician: “The trade is a fine, elegant, beautiful, very fruitful trade. In that trade, I can make a living and not a killing.” He eschewed the commercial music industry, once telling Johnny Cash, who wanted to record a number of Utah’s songs: “I don’t want to contribute anything to that industry. I can’t fault you for what you’re doing. I admire what you do. But I can’t feed that dragon … think about dollars as bullets.” He eventually partnered with one of the most successful independent musicians in the U.S., Ani DiFranco, who created her own label, Righteous Babe Records. Their collaborative work was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Utah Phillips was a living bridge, keeping the rich history of labor struggles alive. He told me: “The long memory is the most radical idea in America. That long memory has been taken away from us. You haven’t gotten it in your schools. You’re not getting it on your television. You’re being leapfrogged from one crisis to the next. Mass media contributed to that by taking the great movements that we’ve been through and trivializing important events. No, our people’s history is like one long river. It flows down from way over there. And everything that those people did and everything they lived flows down to me, and I can reach down and take out what I need, if I have the courage to go out and ask questions.” On his radio show “Loafer’s Glory,” he once said, work on this planet has been to remember.”
A week before he died, Utah Phillips wrote in a public letter to his family and friends: “The future? I don’t know. Through all of it, up and down, it’s the song. It’s always been the song.”
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 650 stations in North America. Her third book, “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” was published in April 2008.
© 2008 Amy Goodman
Add comment May 30th, 2008
The legendary folksinger, activist, and anarchist Bruce “Utah” Phillips, “the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest,” died this week in his sleep. For me this is extremely sad. I first heard Utah in 1970 or 1971. For a number of years I saw him once or twice yearly. I felt like he was a part of the family. It was important for my wife to see him, and my son once had the opportunity. His songs and stories were part of my tradition. They were about ordinary people, loggers and cowboys, and those who needed a little help.The people he talked and sang about came to life, so that, after a few years, I almost believed I personally knew them.
The songs and tales were an amazing mixture of funny and sad, expressing intense longing and the ability to shrug at life and cope. He also emphasized the struggle for a better life and against arbitrary authority. As an anarchist, and IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] member, Utah believed in ecouraging independent thought and personal moral responsibility, combined with social solidarity and community.
This week CounterPunch published a moving article on Utah by singer David Rovics: In Praise of Utah Phillips. And Amy Goodman rebroadcast a 2004 interview with Utah. Go there and listen or watch.
In order to remember him, I’ve selected a couple of videos from those on YouTube. These give a sense of his presence and spirit, but, alas, they don’t demonstrate his great guitar playing before arthritis interfered. There are many more there, so, if you too loved him, or if you’ve never heard him before but are enthralled, go check them out.then check out the web site created by friends and listen to his CDs. But, most important, embody his spirit, his love of life, and his call to resist illegitimate authority.
The song of his which has most stuck in my brain. I loved singing it to my son: Daddy What’s A Train?
His funniest story: Moose Turd Pie
And, finally, two parts [#1 & 7] of what appears to be an 8-part full concert performance. The first shows how he started concerts for almost 40 years:
And: Get rid of the bum on the plush! [also includes Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!]
Catch that great boxcar in the sky, Utah. And remember, there’s starlight on the rails!
2 comments May 28th, 2008
Support Our Troops! Bring Them Home! And take care of them!
Add comment May 26th, 2008
The Kirk Family is sending their song The Earnest Soldier, as a Memorial Day protest. Support Our Troops! Bring Them Home!
Our family wrote this song just before the Iraq war began. We chose to protest because we did not trust our country’s leadership. We did not believe in the war. This song was our first attempt to honor the soldiers who die in our name by opposing the people who sent them to fight.
Go listen and read the lyrics here.
Add comment May 26th, 2008
The Global War on Freedom has struck the UK front again. A graduate student at Nottingham University, Rizwaan Sabir, was arrested and held for six days because he downloaded an Al Qaeda manual from a US government web site for his research on Al Qaeda tactics. HJis friend, university staff member Hisham Yezza, whom Sabir had asked to print the 1,500 page manual to save costs, is scheduled to be deported to Algeria. If deported, Yezza is in danger of being detained and, possibly, tortured.
Here is a Guardian article. Below the article is a Press Release from concerned Nottingham students and faculty:
Student researching al-Qaida tactics held for six days
By Polly Curtis and Martin Hodgson
A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida-related material he downloaded has spoken of the “psychological torture” he endured in custody.
Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics.
The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a “prevent agenda” against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police informers.
Sabir was arrested on May 14 after the document was found by a university staff member on an administrator’s computer. The administrator, Hisham Yezza, an acquaintance of Sabir, had been asked by the student to print the 1,500-page document because Sabir could not afford the printing fees. The pair were arrested under the Terrorism Act, Sabir’s family home was searched and their computer and mobile phones seized. They were released uncharged six days later but Yezza, who is Algerian, was immediately rearrested on unrelated immigration charges and now faces deportation.
Dr Alf Nilsen, a research fellow at the university’s school of politics and international relations, said that Yezza is being held at Colnbrook immigration removal centre, due to be deported on Tuesday.
“If he is taken to Algeria, he may be subjected to severe human rights violations after his involvement in this case. He has been in the UK for 13 years. His work is here, his friends are here, his life is here.”
Of his detention, Sabir said: “I was absolutely broken. I didn’t sleep. I’d close my eyes then hear the keys clanking and I would be up again. As I realised the severity I thought I’d end up in Belmarsh with the nutcases. It was psychological torture.
“On Tuesday they read me a statement confirming it was an illegal document which shouldn’t be used for research purposes. To this day no one has ever clarified that point. They released me. I was shaking violently, I fell against the wall, then on the floor and I just cried.”
Bettina Rentz, a lecturer in international security and Sabir’s personal tutor, said: “He’s a serious student, who works very hard and wants a career in academia. This is a great concern for our academic freedom but also for the climate on campus.”
Students have begun a petition calling on the university to acknowledge the “disproportionate nature of [its] response to the possession of legitimate research materials”.
A spokesman for Nottingham University said it had a duty to inform police of “material of this nature”. The spokesman said it was “not legitimate research material”, but later amended that view, saying: “If you’re an academic or a registered student then you have very good cause to access whatever material your scholarship requires. But there is an expectation that you will act sensibly within current UK law and wouldn’t send it on to any Tom, Dick or Harry.”
At its annual conference next week the University and College Union will debate a motion on “assaults on academic freedom by the DIUS [Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills]“. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, said: “If we really want to tackle problems like extremism and terrorism, then we need to be safe to explore the issues and get a better understanding. The last thing we need is people too frightened to discuss an issue or research a subject because they fear being arrested or reported.”
The higher education minister, Bill Rammell, said: “The government does not want to or has never asked for staff or students to spy on their colleagues or friends. We want universities to work with staff and students on campus to isolate and challenge the very small minority who promote violent extremism.”
Sabir’s solicitor, Tayab Ali, said: “This could have been dealt with sensibly if the university had discussed the issue with Rizwaan and his tutors. This is the worrying aspect of the extension of detention [under the Terrorism Act]. They can use hugely powerful arrest powers before investigating.”
Press Release:
Contact: Sam Walton, 07948590262
From: a group of concerned students and academics at the University of
Nottingham.For immediate use, 24/05/08 SATURDAY
Notts Uni detainee innocent but still facing deportation
Hicham Yezza, a popular, respected and valued former PhD student and
current employee of the University of Nottingham faces deportation to
Algeria on Sunday 1st June. This follows his unjust arrest under the
Terrorism Act 2000 on Wednesday 14th May alongside Rizwaan Sabir and
their release without charge six days later.On his release Hicham was re-arrested under immigration legislation and,
due to confusion over his visa documentation, charged with offences
relating to his immigration status. He sought legal advice and
representation over these matters whilst in custody. On Friday 23rd May,
he was suddenly served with a deportation notice and moved to an
immigration detention centre. The deportation is being urgently
appealed.Hicham has been resident in the U.K. for 13 years, during which time he
has studied for both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in
Nottingham. He is an active member of debating societies, a prominent
member of an arts and theatre group, and has been writing editorials for
the Student Peace Movement magazine for the last five years. He is well
known and popular on campus amongst the university community and has
established himself as a voracious reader and an authority on literature
and music. An application for British citizenship was underway, and he
had been planning to make his yearly trip to Wales for the Hay Festival
when he was suddenly arrested.Alf Nilsen, a research fellow at in the school of Politics and
International Relations says “This is a clear case of the police trying
to cover up their completely unjustified targeting of these two innocent
men by making Hicham look guilty by deporting him. Hicham is entirely
innocent and the rushed and heavy-handed way in which the authorities
are dealing with this matter is outrageous.”[ENDS]
Contact: Sam Walton 07814683906, samdreddude@hotmail.com; or Musab
Younis: 078901018073, musabz@gmail.com***************************
We’re focussing our campaigning on the following areas:
1) Lobbying the Home Office We have been made aware that a call from
an MP to the Home Office, in particular Liam Byrne, the relevant
minister, has the possibility to stop the deportation in its tracks. One
of our
major focuses is trying to get particular MPs to make this
representation. If the MPs we have close contact with are unsuccessful
in the immediate short term, we will be encouraging more and more people
to contact their MPs to make representations.Direct representations to the Home Office are presumably relevant as
well, as are representations to other parts of government (up to and
including Jacqui Smith, Gordon Brown etc.), which we will be pursuing if
our initial efforts are not successful.
-
please keep us informed of any such contact as we will be trying to keep
track of which MPs have been ‘lobbied’ and whether this has been
successful.2) Legal challenge The main legal avenue is to seek an injunction,
which would basically grant a stay of deportation. Whilst the cost of
this is minimal we are seeking to build up a legal fund as we anticipate
that future legal costs may mount. If an initial stay of deportation is
received it seems likely that there would be much more legal work to be
done to ensure Hicham’s release. Our understanding is that if Hicham’s
immediate deportation was stopped he would then have to face the
immigration charges.We are looking to get the best possible legal advice and would
appreciate any recommendations for relevant specialist solicitors that
may be available. That said we are receiving recommendations all the
time and have many avenues to explore through the experience of some of
our members in anti-deportation campaigns in relation to asylum.3) Media We are working to mount a coherent and sustained media campaign
and we’re already off to a flying start. We are seeking first to work
through known reliable journalists so that we get the right message out
first, before moving on to sending out press releases en masse. We would
very much appreciate contact details for journalists which people can
vouch for.We would appreciate help from yourselves in any way you feel possible.
However here are a few things we have thought of:First of all money to cover legal costs is a huge concern of us at the
moment. We would appreciate any contributions either from the Party
itself or personal donations and if you were able to spread this message
throughout the party we would be very grateful. We are in a situation
where even small amounts would make a real difference with the added
benefit that it is a clear demonstration of solidarity which will
inevitably boost moral and make a reality our aim of having the broadest
possible base of support.Also if sitting MEPs or councillors were able to use their positions in
any way to either make formal representations, or simply to raise the
profile of the campaign we would be very grateful. We are already
working on model motions and resolutions for unions and similar
organisations, which could also be used in councils or parliaments.Please send us any thoughts you have on these ideas and please pass on
this email address (staffandstudents@gmail.com) and our phone number
(07948 590262)
Add comment May 25th, 2008
More on the prison horrors we accept in our name. Ezra Klein writes in the LA Times of the cultural acceptance of prison rape. Apparently, it’s even the subject of video games. As Gandi supposedly said when asked what he thought about Western Civilization: “It would be a good idea.” Civilization begins with the closing of most of our prisons and jails and the radical reform of the remaining. Civilization is measured in how we treat the most despised.
[BTW, if you missed Craig Haney's piece I posted the other day, on our cultural acceptance of prison brutality and psychologists' failure to confront it, make sure and go read it. A Must Read!]
There’s nothing funny about prison rape
Smirking at sexual attacks on inmates makes us all less safeBy Ezra Klein
From the studio that brought you ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ ” intones the preview for the light comedy “Let’s Go To Prison,” “comes a penetrating look at the American penal system.” In case that was too subtle for you, the DVD box features a dropped bar of soap, just waiting for some poor inmate to bend over to pick it up — and suffer a hilarious sexual assault in the process.
Or maybe you’re not feeling up for a movie. It’s more of a board-game afternoon. How about picking up “Don’t Drop the Soap,” a board game created by the son of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. The game “is simply intended for entertainment,” said Nicole Corcoran, the governor’s spokeswoman. What, after all, could be more entertaining then trying to “avoid being cornered by the Aryans in the shower room” (one of the goals of the game, according to its promotional material)?
Here in Washington, however, the weather has been beautiful lately, so if you were bored last week, you might have wanted to do something out of the house. One option would have been going down to the Department of Justice, where, on the third floor, officials were holding hearings on prison rape, interrogating administrators from some of the worst prisons in the nation about the abuses that go on within their walls.
These hearings are held annually. This year’s transcripts aren’t online yet, but in 2006 you could have heard a man named Clinton explain, “I had no choice but to enter into a relationship with another inmate in my dorm in order to keep the rest of them off of me. In exchange for his protection from other inmates, I had to be with him sexually any time he demanded it. It was so humiliating, and I often cried silently at night in my bed … but dealing with one is better than having 10 or more men demanding sex from you at any given time.”
Clinton’s testimony wasn’t very funny, and it wasn’t for entertainment. Nor was the 2001 report by Human Rights Watch, “No Escape,” which included a letter from an inmate confessing that “I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to five black men and two white men at a time. I’ve had knifes at my head and throat. I had fought and been beat so hard that I didn’t ever think I’d see straight again.”
Prison rape occupies a fairly odd space in our culture. It is, all at once, a cherished source of humor, a tacitly accepted form of punishment and a broadly understood human rights abuse. We pass legislation called the Prison Rape Elimination Act at the same time that we produce films meant to explore the funny side of inmate sexual brutality.
Occasionally, we even admit that prison rape is a quietly honored part of the punishment structure for criminals. When Enron’s Ken Lay was sentenced to jail, for instance, Bill Lockyer, then the attorney general of California, spoke dreamily of his desire “to personally escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, ‘Hi, my name is Spike, honey.’ ”
The culture is rife with similar comments. Although it would be unthinkable for the government today to institute corporal punishment in prisons, there is little or no outrage when the government interns prisoners in institutions where their fellow inmates will brutally violate them. We won’t touch you, but we can’t be held accountable for the behavior of Spike, now can we?
As our jokes and cultural products show, we can claim no ignorance. We know of the abuses, and we know of the rapes. Research by the University of South Dakota’s Cindy Struckman-Johnson found that 20% of prisoners reported being coerced or pressured into sex, and 10% said they were violently raped. In a 2007 survey by the U.S. Department of Justice, more than 60,000 inmates claimed to have been sexually victimized by other inmates during the previous 12 months. Given the stigma around admitting such harms, the true numbers are probably substantially higher.
But by and large, we seem to find more humor than outrage in these crimes. In part, this simply reflects the nature of our criminal justice system, which has become decreasingly rehabilitative and increasingly retributive.
In the 1970s, as economist Glenn Loury has written, “the corrections system was commonly seen as a way to prepare offenders to rejoin society. Since then, the focus has shifted from rehabilitation to punishment and stayed there.”
On the campaign trail, Mike Huckabee put it even more pithily. “We lock up a lot of people that we’re mad at,” he liked to say. “Not the ones we’re really afraid of.” Criminals aren’t sent to prison so they can learn to live outside of prison; they’re sent to prison to get what they deserve. And that paves the way for the acceptance of all manners of brutal abuses. It’s not that we condone prison rape per se, but it doesn’t exactly concern us, and occasionally, as in the comments made by Lockyer, we take a perverse satisfaction in its existence.
Morally, our tacit acceptance of violence within prisons is grotesque. But it’s also counterproductive. Research by economists Jesse Shapiro and Keith Chen suggests that violent prisons make prisoners more violent after they leave. When your choice is between the trauma of hardening yourself so no one will touch you or the trauma of prostituting yourself so you’re protected from attack, either path leads away from rehabilitation and psychological adjustment.
And we, as a society, endure the consequences — both because it leads ex-cons to commit more crime on the streets and because more of them end up back to jail. A recent report released by the Pew Center on the States revealed that more than one in 100 Americans is now behind bars. California alone spends $8.8 billion a year on its imprisoned population — a 216% increase over what it paid 20 years ago, even after adjusting for inflation.
That’s money, of course, that can’t be spent on schools, on job training, on wage supports and drug treatment. Money, in other words, that can’t be spent on all the priorities that keep people out of prison. Money that’s spent instead on housing prisoners in a violent, brutal and counterproductive atmosphere. And there’s nothing funny about that.
Ezra Klein is an associate editor at the American Prospect. His blog is at EzraKlein.com.
Add comment May 25th, 2008
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