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LEAPing lizards
Apr. 8th, 2008 03:29 pmListening to a podcast called 'The C-Realm'. The program is currently interviewing a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition http://www.leap.cc/ )
It's refreshing to hear a cop not acting like a mindless drone and very cool in that he's a person who's never had any illicit substances but has taken a position against the war on drugs for entirely different and completely logical reasons (IE, that it's a total failure and always will be a failure and benefits only people with money and power)
However, it's also somewhat disturbing. A few weeks ago, I mentioned disgust that 1% of the population of the United States was in prison. He added a little more information to this that is in many ways much more upsetting.
US Prison populations account for about 25% of the ENTIRE WORLD's prisoners. Think about that. The US, who's population is ~250M out of 7B accounts for 1/4th of the total world's prison population. We talk about countries like China and Cuba as police states but they can't hold a candle to us. We are monsters.
There's worse though. There's the horrifying revelation that racism is still alive and well in the United States. I've heard people say they fear for Obama's life if he were to become president and thought they were a bit paranoid, but really that's my privilege speaking. I don't actually know what it's like to be black in the US. I'm more aware than many people that racism still exists in this country. I grew up in rural Oklahoma. But what that cop said chilled me; made me feel sick.
1/3 of the black male population in the US is in prison. 1 out of every 3. It's staggering. It's horrifying. At their WORST, Apartheid held 1/20th of their black male population in prison.
We are the 4th reich, and what really sickens me about this is that most of america is perfectly happy with this situation. The corporations that support prisons off our tax dollars are happy. The racists and people in power are happy, and the white workforces are quite happy. Taxes are just their little insurance policy against job competition. That's something rather disturbing to think about. Realistically, no politician in the US is going to take any steps to release the prison population because it would cause the unemployment rate to spike and individual salaries to plummet. Imagine what Bush's unemployment rate would look like if we hadn't continued to increase the size of our prison population?
All my friends who've feared that the US would tip and become like the nazis. It already happened. It happened years ago, and I'm not resting the blame entirely on Bush or the Republicans here either. Clinton, Bush Senior, Reagan, and Nixon have all had their hands in the War on Drugs and given it strength and power. I say 'War on Drugs' specifically because it accounts for around 90% of the US prison population. 'War on Drugs' and of those convictions of course over 90% are non-white. 'War on Drugs' is nothing more than secret code for 'Race War'.
We learned from the nazis. We slipped our racism under the radar. Why execute the races you despise? It's so much more profitable to lock the up and tell your population it's for YOUR safety. There's no rush to create the ghettos and prison camps. A law here, a law there. Round them up slowly. Make everyone believe they're criminals. Don' t call the blacks. Call them something else. Drug Dealers. Junkies. Hide your racism. Hide it deep so that the average person who doesn't consider himself a racist never has to confront the reality that he willingly supports a system that is racially oppressive. We've been goose stepping behind Nancy Reagan crying "Just say NO" and not realizing that "blacks" was a silent fourth word in the slogan.
Just something to think about.
It's refreshing to hear a cop not acting like a mindless drone and very cool in that he's a person who's never had any illicit substances but has taken a position against the war on drugs for entirely different and completely logical reasons (IE, that it's a total failure and always will be a failure and benefits only people with money and power)
However, it's also somewhat disturbing. A few weeks ago, I mentioned disgust that 1% of the population of the United States was in prison. He added a little more information to this that is in many ways much more upsetting.
US Prison populations account for about 25% of the ENTIRE WORLD's prisoners. Think about that. The US, who's population is ~250M out of 7B accounts for 1/4th of the total world's prison population. We talk about countries like China and Cuba as police states but they can't hold a candle to us. We are monsters.
There's worse though. There's the horrifying revelation that racism is still alive and well in the United States. I've heard people say they fear for Obama's life if he were to become president and thought they were a bit paranoid, but really that's my privilege speaking. I don't actually know what it's like to be black in the US. I'm more aware than many people that racism still exists in this country. I grew up in rural Oklahoma. But what that cop said chilled me; made me feel sick.
1/3 of the black male population in the US is in prison. 1 out of every 3. It's staggering. It's horrifying. At their WORST, Apartheid held 1/20th of their black male population in prison.
We are the 4th reich, and what really sickens me about this is that most of america is perfectly happy with this situation. The corporations that support prisons off our tax dollars are happy. The racists and people in power are happy, and the white workforces are quite happy. Taxes are just their little insurance policy against job competition. That's something rather disturbing to think about. Realistically, no politician in the US is going to take any steps to release the prison population because it would cause the unemployment rate to spike and individual salaries to plummet. Imagine what Bush's unemployment rate would look like if we hadn't continued to increase the size of our prison population?
All my friends who've feared that the US would tip and become like the nazis. It already happened. It happened years ago, and I'm not resting the blame entirely on Bush or the Republicans here either. Clinton, Bush Senior, Reagan, and Nixon have all had their hands in the War on Drugs and given it strength and power. I say 'War on Drugs' specifically because it accounts for around 90% of the US prison population. 'War on Drugs' and of those convictions of course over 90% are non-white. 'War on Drugs' is nothing more than secret code for 'Race War'.
We learned from the nazis. We slipped our racism under the radar. Why execute the races you despise? It's so much more profitable to lock the up and tell your population it's for YOUR safety. There's no rush to create the ghettos and prison camps. A law here, a law there. Round them up slowly. Make everyone believe they're criminals. Don' t call the blacks. Call them something else. Drug Dealers. Junkies. Hide your racism. Hide it deep so that the average person who doesn't consider himself a racist never has to confront the reality that he willingly supports a system that is racially oppressive. We've been goose stepping behind Nancy Reagan crying "Just say NO" and not realizing that "blacks" was a silent fourth word in the slogan.
Just something to think about.
