Chapter 20
The New Normal? Prisons provide people all sorts of opportunities if you think about it. For corrupt politicians it gives them a great place to hide their secrets with witnesses who will never be believed or who can be killed without too much of a fuss for only 30 cartons of cigarettes or perhaps $5,000 of drugs smuggled in with a cooperative lawyer or cash-strapped guard. For big campaign donors, prisons provide a great way to be rewarded for their loyalty with all sorts of lucrative vendor contracts to sell the state or federal prison all sorts of supplies at inflated prices. Such things as $5 apples, $50 jumpsuits, and $5 rolls of toilet paper. If Prisons did their shopping at Costco or BJ Wholesale they could cut their budgets in half. If they bought their supplies from one central vendor like GSA, they could consolidate their costs and save 66%. But then again they have no motive to do so, and there would be one-less way to pay back favors. For criminals, prisons could provide a place to reflect upon their misdeeds and be rehabilitated – if there was some real attempt to help them. But it is hard to make money off of psychologists, shrinks, vocational teachers, and counselors, so very little if any effort is made to actually help a prisoner develop new job skills or even realize the harm they caused other people with their crime. Instead they are just warehoused, and like wine – allowed to ferment. This provides criminals with their own opportunities to network, make new criminal alliances and scheme their next crime. In fact many of the new criminal enterprises are actually begun and directed from inside prison walls via weekly visits by lawyers, business associates, and friends. This link here shows just on of many examples of how some prisoners actually grow rich from opportunities afforded to them by the working vacation of a prison stint. Even prison guards are regularly used as “runners” or as the Federal Express couriers of organized crime. If and when they get caught operating their 423
enterprises, about 10% of them will be shut down and the proprietors relocated to the hole, but 90% of them will be shaken down for a cut of the profits by the prison official lucky enough to stumble upon the operation. And for other prisoners who are falsely jailed for convenience or so some over-zealous prosecutor or law enforcement officer could reach their conviction or arrest quotas, incarceration provides plenty of time to think and sort out the realities of life in America. Such was the case with me. I must say, I have met some very intelligent people
in
prison, and admittedly most, but not all of them belonged there. Many of them were people who made headlines for a day or two, and some who kept them for more than a week. But I also met a great many innocent people, (including the political prisoners I mention elsewhere) and some of them were maybe more patriotic than intelligent, others too naïve, but most just intimidated or coerced into pleading guilty to crimes they never committed. Fear is a powerful tool of prosecutors especially when husbands and fathers are told their wives and children will also be prosecuted if they do not plead guilty. And when one does not have an extra $150,000 laying around to hire a federal criminal lawyer and the next ten to thirty years of your life rests in the hands of a young public defender who just graduated from law school last year, a five year prison sentence which translates into 38 months of actual prison time, suddenly becomes a “safe” solution that far outweighs any hope of real justice. It is this overwhelming fear and lack of trust in our nation’s courts that compel people to plead guilty when they are not.
Suffice it to say that as someone who spent 21 of my 38 months behind bars 424
working as a volunteer law clerk for other prisoners, I got to see their case summaries, indictments, government “evidence” and with no hesitation whatsoever, I will categorically say that 20% of all prisoners jailed in America are innocent people who were jailed for a variety o f reasons, most of which can be boiled down to “convenience”.
Granted, less than 7% of America’s
prisoners are political prisoners, but the punishment and prison mentality of America’s police state puts too many innocent people behind bars like Mr. Slevin of New Mexico who was jailed more than 20 months in solitary confinement without a trial (See photos link below) http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17212442-man-left-in-solit ary-confinement-for-2-years-gets-155-million-settlement
And because we have allowed our leaders to inject us all with fear about their self-created terrorism, we have all become accustomed to such abuse to the point where the media does not even bother to report most of it any more. The new “normal” of American life is now one that tolerates abhorrent behavior and the highest yet unjustifiable incarceration rate in the civilized world. No country in the world jails a higher percentage of its citizens that the United States of America. Although the numbers fluctuate, approximately 10% of all American residents will be arrested in their lifetime. This is an outrageous fact that is 425
being accepted as “normal” by too many Americans. In 1960, this figure was less than 5%. What has happened over the last 60 years? Have Americans grown more violent, desperate, or criminally insane? No. Our government law enforcement officers have simply grown more aggressive and abusive in exercising their authority.
Any American in their 60s will remember a time when as children, police officers were admired and trusted “friends” of our communities who could be counted on to always do the right thing and offer genuine help. We never hesitated to approach a beat cop and ask for help or even advice with a problem. We never had to wonder “is this an honest or corrupt cop”. They served us well with a smile and always honorable intentions. Today in most all American communities, the police are mistrusted and avoided. In many cities
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like Miami, Chicago, and Newark, they are e ven feared. Americans now look at police officers as someone who may be honest and helpful, or could just as easily be corrupt and only one arrest away from a bonus. We call upon them only in emergencies, and if we dare to stop one on the street with a problem we may very well get interrogated and detained ourselves just for not having an identification card on our person. The 911 fiasco fueled this blazing fire or fear that burns so hot in America. But the people we need to fear most do not live in other countries – it is our fellow Americans in Washington who stoke this fire daily with fresh coals and occasional throw some gasoline on the fire every time it even looks like it may burn out. Any American who talks with a police officer in Canada, Norway, or China will see a glimpse of what American law enforcement used to be like in the 60s – polite, helpful, and friendly. I will never forget the day I drove an elderly Jewish neighbor of mine to go grocery shopping in Miami and I was stopped by a local cop for speeding (only 5mph over the limit, but guilty - I confess). He was quite rude and way too direct, but I honestly did not expect anything better from my own experience in law enforcement. But I will never forget the look on Mrs. Steinberg’s face. “My God, they are almost like the Gestapo!” . Coming from a 72 year old woman whose father died in Auschwitz. She witnessed many interrogations as a child, and I could not simply ignore her comments. She was right. Personally I think every police officer and federal agent in America should be wired with a recording device that cannot be turned off just as police cruisers in big cities now have non-stop video accountability. At the end of their day the audio files would be downloaded and archived and available witho ut question the day any accused gets their day in court. This would do wonders for the concept of justice in America in very short order.
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Living in both Canada and China for over 15 years has given me a new perspective on my native America. I can now see the forest and not only the trees. As an outsider,
I
can
appreciate
now why
Europeans and others laugh at our gullibility as citizens. They learned their lesson the hard way with Hitler. Why can’t we Americans learn from their mistakes instead of repeating them?
When we allow people to be jailed for urinating in a public park at 2:00 am when no public toilets are available or let a homeless man go to jail in Texas for 18 months for stealing a slice of pizza, or jail an unemployed mother of 3 children for shoplifting baby formula, we have become the criminals to tolerate such cold indifference to the plight of our neighbors. American justice is devoid of any human compassion and ethics has become a secondary consideration over laws that are carefully written to always give an unfair advantage to law enforcement and prosecutor. A fair law in America is hard to find these days.
And when we allow people like Bradley Manning to be jailed for only telling the truth about horrific war crimes, we should be collectively ashamed of ourselves as a society. Most Americans pretend to be Christians but honestly my friends,
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if Jesus of Nazareth was alive today and living in Kansas City, what would have to say about how we live today in America? I am no longer a Christian but I still believe in his teachings as I also believe in the teachings of Confucius and Ghandi as well. We have so much to learn from the brave and courageous Bradley Manning, and instead of thanking him for his efforts to enlighten us all about war crimes paid for with our tax dollars, we let our government punish him with a 35 year prison sentence, while the people who murdered innocent civilians in the video Bradley leaked, are not even arrested, much less punished. This is utter lunacy and the epitome of injustice! Consider for a moment how Bradley helped all of us…
1) He confirmed rumors that American troops were committing too-frequent war crimes in Iraq with systemic and random shootings that resulted in “collateral damage” of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. If not for the video he released, there would be no “smoking gun” evidence, and the rumors would continue forever, along with the ruthless murders.
2) Bradley’s leak proved that we could not trust our government to tell us the 429
truth nor the media to report it until their nose was stuck right it.
3) The video Bradley leaked to the world served as a wakeup call to what is happening to America and all of us who are being manipulated by a closed and controlled mainstream media. We are all being programmed and “dumbed down” to simply trust our government leaders blindly without question.
4) Without Bradley’s disclosure Americans might never understand the root cause of terrorism and why so many people in the world no longer trust nor like America as they did only fifty years ago.
5) Without Bradley’s arrest, many Americans would still believe real justice is the rule and not the exception in America today.
Yes, Bradley’s actions caused great embarrassment to our government, and the ripple effects may be felt for a few more years. Yes, Bradley did not go through his chain-of-command. But that is not a criminal act and had he chose that route, the brutal war crime would have been concealed eternally. Bradley did what 80% of the people in our world would call “the right thing”. Those who prosecuted and persecuted him are far bigger and more despicable criminals than Bradley will ever be. I publicly thank Bradley for following his own conscience and call for his immediate release. He is owed both an apology and a “Thank You” from our government.
Indeed, prisons give people much time to think about important things that most Americans are too busy to ever examine. We are kept busy working and worrying about paying bills. The banksters have the majority of Americans addicted to credit cards and we now live to work instead of working to live. Middle class America has shrunk to half its original size and not enough people 430
are asking “why?”
All the most active protesters in America – those most likely to challenge the status quo
and
ask
embarrassing
or
enlightening questions will likely be arrested and jailed for convenience. “Problematic” citizens are easily dealt with by leaders who find it quicker to discredit them with criminal charges rather than a nswer questions or explain how their accusers may be wrong. Further, once convicted of a crime in America, citizens lose their right to ever vote again! Thus 10% of Americans will lose their chance to fix what is wrong with our country even though they paid their debt to society with a prison sentence. What is the government’s rationalization for this?
With such an onerous law in place,
it will be easy for any abusive government to remove political threats by jailing potential adversaries which directly threatens the followers of those adversaries with a message “you too can join your leaders in jail” if you make too much of a stink about our current policies. Only real criminals belong behind bars and while jailed, some genuine and sincere efforts to teach real and useful job skills should be mandated before they are released. Unfortunately more than half of all prisoners released are returned to jail within three years because of the warehousing mentality. For more than 30 years judges have complained about “revolving door” incarceration problems. Why are they ignored? The simple answer? The more inmates the more money can be made. Yet another reason, prison factories continue to be used in America (They operate under the “Unicor” brand) and employ over 15 ,000 prisoners paid an average of $5 per day. 431
When the IRS was turned loose on the Tea Party we got a quick whiff of the rotten eggs served daily by our federal law enforcement community. Yet were any IRS officials arrested and prosecuted?
How many banksters and
mortgage brokers were arrested and prosecuted for the dozens of criminal acts related to the 2008 financial fraud that victimized millions of Americans? None. Justice in America is only a smoke and mirrors illusion yet our prisons are full. All crimes need to be prosecuted with equal vigor and objectivity yet government and Wall Street crimes are virtually ignored, or worse – covered up by the U.S. Justice Department. As author Rodney Stich documents quite well in his book “Crimes of the U.S. Department of Justice”, we have a fox guarding the hen house in Washington. Why do we tolerate this?
Are YOU willing to wait until someone in YOUR family gets arrested and jailed for a bogus or ridiculous offense? Will you then expect others to help YOU find justice when you yourself turned a blind eye and deaf ears to the pleas of others who were victimized before YOU?
If all Americans were so selfish, we’d still be living under a British flag
and paying taxes to the queen. Perhaps you think something like this can never happen to you because you “mind your own business and don’t care about politics.” This is exactly what they are counting on – public apathy and indifference.
Our prison nation is growing. $40 Billion dollars have already been appropriated for the next generation of prisons. Our government will not even confirm how many new prisons are being built as you read these very words but activists have already identified 12 new facilities being built with an estimated capacity for 2 million more Americans. The DHS also recently 432
purchased 70,000 riot guns and 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition, and 50,000 riot outfits. Why? Do they suddenly realize Americans are learning the truth about too many things and may revolt and take to the streets? I would love to hear their explanation – wouldn’t you?
Sanity and equality needs to be restored to our criminal justice system if America is to stand any chance of restoring
its
own
integrity
and
credibility in the world. Even the Chinese and Canadians are not fooled by the many charades and veiled threats of Washington. Our allies in Europe only cooperate with America because they have to these days. Their leaders have been spied on for years by NSA and they can easily be extorted and blackmailed by Washington if they step too far out of line. Sixty years ago, foreign governments cooperated with America because they wanted to. We held the moral high ground following World War II. Since the Supreme Court appointment of George W. Bush as President of America, we allowed our government to forfeit that high ground. In truth, we no longer deserve it, and if we actually care about our reputation as Americans, we will have to work long and hard to restore it. Genuine justice is a great starting point. Only a pure and equal justice can resolve the income disparity that has robbed Americans of not only their money, but hope for the future. Never before in my life have I seen so many Americans unsure and nervous about their futures.
We cannot restore what was lost without finding what is hidden within our prisons – the truth about ourselves, our leaders, and a highly-selective criminal justice system. I am just one of the many witnesses who were hidden and as CBS News Investigative Reporter Ty West suggested in his sworn affida vit, whistle blowers hidden in prisons can affect the outcomes of elections. Sure, prisons help keep dangerous people off the streets, but they also keep news of 433
government crimes off the news and internet. When government officials can get away with murders, rapes and war crimes we have abandoned our core principles of freedom, liberty, and justice for all. Ethics and human rights need to come before profits and not vice versa. If I were the attorney general for one year, I’d reduce corruption to just a very bad memory. Barack Obama may have had the best intentions when was an aspiring Senator, but there is no dount in my mind they got to him. It is easy to sell out in America. Doing the rights things are never easy. I know. I tried for years to do the right things and got slammed and punished for it almost every time. But what do we really want to teach our children – an ideology that they will never see? Do we want to tell them about “the good old days” when you could be proud of our government, and always trust a cop”?
Or do we want to put the wheel back on America’s,
find a new bus driver, and rebuild the engine. We can fix our nation friends, but each and every American needs to stand tall and firm for what they know in their hearts are right and wrong. We can and must hold corrupt leaders accountable, so those future leaders have more than one reason to be honest and sincere with us. But it must start with our criminal justice system which needs to unplug and permanent disconnect from politics. If not we shall remain adrift is a sea of corruption with no paddle, nor sail, nor charts.
Remember convicted felons are not allowed to vote nor own a gun, even if their crime was a third degree non violent felony. If a prisoner serves his time, he deserves to have his rights restore 的 providing they are mentally stable with no history of violence.
Also when you go to bed tonight, ask yourself what are the true loyalties and duties of a Supreme Court Justice who is politically appointed. These justices just recently ruled that unlimited amounts of money can be donated from essentially anonymous sources. This law is fertilizer for the weeds of corruption. They further have the right to refuse to hear a case submitted by 434
citizens, even if it is deemed “meritorious” b y an Appeals Court. Why? The constitution drafted by our forefathers guarantees access to the highest courts by all (Read the Hamilton Papers). These supreme judges also do not have to give any reason nor explanation for their rulings. How politically convenient! Across the board reform is in order my fellow-Americans. Strong leaders with vision need to be searched out and recruited to do the work that everyone dreads – prosecuting corruption and graft at all levels, not just at the bottom.
On May 1st, 2014 at 8:30 pm CST,, turn off the lights in your home for just 15 minutes if your want our current leaders to resign now before they do any more damage and disgrace our nation even more abroad. Send a signal for the whole world to see that the American people do not condone and support the massive corruption that is eating our nation alive – just like a cancer. If you want Bradley Manley released from prison, turn off your lights. If you want America to stop killing innocent civilians in foreign countries with drone, turn off your lights. If you don’t want the internet to be censored and you think you have a right to read Wikileaks or any web site you choose, turn off your lights. If we can unite for 15 minutes, in May, we can unite for one hour in November when it comes time to vote every incumbent out of office and start fresh with an honest and ethical government. We had them before, and we can have them again. It is not up to me friends…. It is up to YOU.
© Copyright 1995-2014 By Bruce A. Gorcyca – All Rights Reserved
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