"From now on, the government in Berlin will allocate large sums to industrialists so that each can establish a secure post-war foundatin in foreign countries. Existing financial reserves in foreign countries must be placed at the disposal of the party in order that a strong German empire can be created after defeat. It is almost immediately required," he continued, "that the large factories in Germany establish small technical offices or research bureaus which will be absolutely independ and have no connection with the factory. The bureaus will receive plans and drawings of new weapons, as well as document which they will need to cotninue their researh. These special offices are to be established in large cities where security is better, although some might be formed in small villagtes nears sources of hyrdropeletric power, where these party member can pretend to be studying the development of water resources for benefit of Allied investigators."--Martin Bormann, Nazi in Exile, Paul Manning, [http://spitfirelist.com/books/manning.pdf]Some have said that the 'brand' of fascism now emerging in Western democracies, the U.S. in particular is a completely new phenomenon. I disagree! The odious 'Citizen-United' decision, in which SCOTUS decreed that corporations were 'persons', is an open and odious declaration that a corporation may utilize its wealth, riches and privileges to enslave a population of 'real people' whose humanity is as self-evident as Thomas Jefferson had declared of 'real' persons in our own 'Declaration of Independence":
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...Earlier, John Adams had written of the same concepts in somewhat different words:
All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.Now, of course, we know that these rights extend to women as well. Surely --even our crooked court must understand that. Even so, the Roberts court cannot be trusted to defend the rights of persons of any color, creed or sex. Our court cannot be trusted to recognize an even older and more venerable position: that governments derive their power power, right and right of power from the peole who are ---alone --sovereign!We must not be surprised to find among GOPPERS an obsessive fascination with all things 'German' --inclinations, interests, political philsophies. Paul Ryan, Mitt's desperate choice for running mate, now says that Ayn Rand is not his only idol; he says that in his offices, NIETZCHE is required reading, though he is accurately described with just two words: "moral Platonist". It was Neitzche who described the world as nasty and brutish and life as short.
The arrest warrant for Julian Assange should not stand and breaches "a matter of fundamental legal principle", the supreme court has heard . Dinah Rose QC, defending the WikiLeaks founder in his final appeal against extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sex crimes, told the panel of seven senior judges that to consider the Swedish public prosecutor as a judicial authority was "contrary to a basic, fundamental principle of law". Reaching back as far into European legal history as the Codex Iustinianus, dated 376 AD, Rose said the Swedish prosecutor was a party in the Assange case and therefore not independent and impartial, breaching the principle that "no one should be judge in their own cause", which Rose said was one of the pillars of natural justice. --Julian Assange extradition breaches legal principle, lawyer claimsThis is an outrage! Everyone should be outraged! If Julian Assange can be imprisoned though NO CHARGES have ever been lodged against him, NO ONE IS FREE!When the U.S. Bill of Rights had not yet been trashed, subverted by the likes of George W. Bush, the crooked court made crooked by the likes of Thomas, Scalia et al, the Bill of Rights had GUARANTEED every American DUE PROCESS OF LAW. The principle, it was hoped, would have been universal among 'western nations'. In fact, no one should be denied the right of Habeas Corpus.
Latin for "that you have the body." A writ of habeas corpus is used to bring a prisoner or other detainee (e.g. institutionalized mental patient) before the court to determine if the person's imprisonment or detention is lawful. In the US system, federal courts can use the writ of habeas corpus to determine if a state's detention of a prisoner is valid. A habeas petition proceeds as a civil action against the State agent (usually a warden) who holds the defendant in custody. It can also be used to examine any extradition processes used, amount of bail, and the jurisdiction of the court.--See, e.g. Knowles v. Mirzayance 556 U.S.___(2009), Felker v. Turpin 518 US 1051 (1996) and McCleskey v. Zant 499 US 467 (1991).Simply, if charges cannot be found and filed upon PROBABLE CAUSE, the person targeted should be, must be released! Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, embraced by the American founding fathers, and made law in the Bill of Rights! It is, likewise, guaranteed in many nations. Make the Right of Habeas Corpus a Principle of International Law. It is an essential safeguard against tyranny, arbitrary state action, 'official vendettas! ORGANIZE to demand that Julian Assange be 'arraigned' and the charges against him HEARD together with the probable cause that he violated ANY LAWS WHATSOEVER. If the 'authorities' don't even have enough 'probable cause' to file a formal complaint with a judge, then ASSANGE MUST BE RELEASED!
"From now on, the government in Berlin will allocate large sums to industrialists so that each can establish a secure post-war foundation in foreign countries. Existing financial reserves in foreign countries must be placed at the disposal of the party in order that a strong German empire can be created after defeat. It is almost immediately required," he continued, "that the large factories in Germany establish small technical offices or research bureaus which will be absolutely independent and have no connection with the factory. The bureaus will receive plans and drawings of new weapons, as well as document which they will need to continue their research. These special offices are to be established in large cities where security is better, although some might be formed in small villages nears sources of hydroelectric power, where these party member can pretend to be studying the development of water resources for benefit of Allied investigators."--Martin Bormann, Nazi in Exile, Paul Manning [PDF]Some have said that the 'brand' of fascism now emerging in Western democracies, the U.S. in particular, is a completely new phenomenon. I disagree! The odious 'Citizen-United' decision, in which SCOTUS decreed that corporations were 'persons', is an open and odious declaration that a corporation may utilize its wealth, riches and privileges to enslave a population of 'real people' whose humanity is as self-evident as were the principles Thomas Jefferson had declared of 'real' persons in our own 'Declaration of Independence":
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...Earlier, John Adams had written of the same concepts in somewhat different words:
All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.Now, of course, we know that these rights extend to women as well. Surely --even our crooked court must understand that. Even so, the Roberts court cannot be trusted to defend the rights of men or women, or, indeed, the rights of REAL persons of any color, creed or sex. Our court cannot be trusted to uphold the law when it was respected. Nor does it recognize an even older and more venerable position: that governments derive their power, and rights of power from the peole who are ---alone --sovereign!
“I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.”Words fail to describe the depths of lies, propaganda and sophistry indulged by the likes of A. Scalia who --laughingly --believes himself to be 'too smart for the court'!
- Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."These measures are all gross and egregious violations of the 14th amendment prohibiting the federal government, the various states and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property in violation of DUE PROCESS OF LAW, established previously in the 4th Amendment!
by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyI was asked to explain why a group of individuals should not have the same freedom of action as a singular individual. And I was told so magnanimously to "...feel free to reference any philosophy journal you wish in your response." My response was to ask WHY and HOW a group --which must act 'collectively' -- acquired what even scientists have called a 'conscience'? I asked for an explanation: how may any "group" and especially a corporation exercise a conscience'?
In fact, no collective, no corporation, no club can --as a collective --exercise 'conscience'. A group --were it a person --would be defined by its inability to act upon conscience, to 'feel' obliged to act in ways that are consistent with an ethical position, a morality, or a secular ethic derived from philosophy or logic. As a result of this hypothetical, I have come to suspect that the very purpose of both corporations and the 'movement' to make persons of them is twofold: 1) to raise huge amounts of cash and 2) to allow them to act FREE of moral restraints --restraints that 'real' persons often trace to 'conscience'!Groups are not individuals by definition! Groups may act upon a consensus! An individual because he/she is an individual is held accountable for his/her crimes, sins or transgressions against society. That is not the case with groups of any sort nor is it the case with 'corporations'. It was the purpose of Citizens-United to put corporations above all that while granting them 'privileges' --privileges that 'real' persons will never enjoy. One must not mistake a collective of any sort with the individuals who comprise it. A covey is not a quail; a choir is not 'a' soloist; a single violinist is not an orchestra. Nor can one mistake the sound of a choir with that of an individual soloist. Likewise, a 'pride' can never be mistaken for a single lion nor vice versa. An ant colony is not 'an' ant! Corporate personhood is a hoax if not a bald-faced lie! And, it has been my experience, that no good has ever come as a result of a lie or the embrace of one. Thus --we come to the reasons that the hoax of 'corporate personhood' was handed down by an increasingly crooked and incompetent court. Corporations have, in fact, used their access to wealth to influence political campaigns in ways that individuals could never do! I speak from experience, having consulted several political campaigns in one of the nation's largest cities.As an individual, I pay my bills! I don't have anything left over with which to influence politicians of any persuasion ---even Libertarians. But what if I were a large corporation with deep-pockets and even deeper connections to the Republican party? As a corporation I could write off my contributions and get a whopping tax break. The scheme is very nearly perfect but for the fact that corporations --not being persons --could be challenged. The corporate support of a political candidate could not be construed to be 'free speech'. But --never fear --the high court, now dominated by GOP appointees fixed all that!Corporate contributions are now smiled upon. Corporations may now BUY politicians and perhaps the election itself! That is motivation behind Citizens-United. Being "people" can bankroll politicians in any way they wish. They are no longer constrained. We should not be surprised when corporations attempt and purchase elections outright. The word for this is fascism.I am reminded of A. Hitler's infamous meeting with Krupp, Thyssen, I.G. Farben (the makers of Xyklon B). Hitler literally auctioned off the Third Reich and offered his services as Fuhrer in residence! Corporate personhood is fascism/nazism given a K-street make-over! But the end result is the same: corporations now have a great light to buy the Rei...uh... the republic! And the 'republic' is given a green light to grant whopping contracts to its corporate sponsors. The government has become a soap-box derby. The term 'artificial person' is an oxymoron but the GOP would like to have it both ways. With Citizens-United, the GOP could have it both ways: the granting of the rights of individual persons to corporations who retained their ability to raise absurd amounts of cash. 'Real persons' are, by definition, real! Now, however, the corporate right-wing' (fascists) expect us to believe that a 'corporation-cum-person' can be both REAL and --at the same time --artificial --For the purposes of raising cash. Real persons cannot do that. But corporations can and Citizens-United was the right wing solution.Corporations were at one time only formed in the public interest (build a bridge) and dissolved when the reason for their incorporation was finished. This was a legal protection required to get the job done. But, in any case, it does not make a 'legal abstraction' a 'person'! Fact is --people are biological. A corporation is a legal abstraction, the behavior of which is described in a set bylaws filed with a Sec of State --usually Delaware. A corporation is better described as a 'contract' outlining the parameters of taxation, commerce, bylaw et al! But CONTRACTS are NOT people either. But there is absolutely nothing that can create people our of mere 'legal abstraction'.Real persons are conceived biologically in a womb! There is a word for that process but this short note is not about sex. Corporations, by contrast, are pieces of paper filed with a Sec of State somewhere (probably Delaware). Ergo: a 'corporation' is not and never will be a person.A 'corporation' has more in common with and is more accurately described/compared to a piece of paper than to real, living biological persons to whom John Locke and, later, the American founders, ascribed 'rights'. NO rights accrue to a mere legal abstractions but the 'privileges' that are defined and described specifically in a corporate charter that is prepared in advance by REAL people. Corporations can be constrained, restrained and/or limited by law and several hundred years of precedent.
NO intelligent person believes a 'corporation' is a 'person'. Sir/St Thomas More --arguably the most brilliant confidant of King Henry VIII --most certainly did not believe 'corporations' were 'persons'. More believed, rather, that they were 'conspiracies' and 'conspiracies of crooked rich men' to boot: "I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!
--Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia"A hurd is not a cow! A covey is not a quail! An ant is not a colony! A stamp collection is not a stamp nor is a flock a sheep.So there, Mitt Romney! Read and learn. You are --despite having sold your soul to the GOP --a person! But as real persons are often intelligent and because real persons have a vote (one person, one vote) you will --with any luck --never assume to the high office to which you aspire.Also see: Profits Uber Alles! American Corporations and HItler
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy"I will believe that corporations are persons when Texas EXECUTES one of them!A proposed amendment would reverse the decision of the high court with respect to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In a 5-to-4 vote, SCOTUS 'created' real people of mere corporations declaring that corporations have, among every Constitutional right, a right of 'free speech' under the First Amendment. It was declared that the government may not 'impose restrictions' on the political speech that corporations may indulge. But, not being persons in fact, corporations have no such right! That is a right our founders believed were inherent rights of people, REAL people!
by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy"I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws. But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!I suspect that the idea of 'corporate personhood' may have its origins in a misunderstanding, a mis-read of Hobbes'. But the Hobbes Leviathan refers to the 'state' --not to businesses that may be chartered in any way whatsoever by a state. In any case, not even the 'state' Leviathan is considered by Hobbes to have been a single person but, rather, the abstract sovereignty invested in the state by the people as a collective --NOT as a single entity as is the case with personhood. Nor have I found anything in Hobbes that asserts that the 'state' has the power to make 'people' of abstractions whose only raison d'etre is the making of money.
--Sir/St Thomas More (1478–1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia"
by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy
And ---corporations are NOT and never will be "people'!
- go back to school
- take a biology course
- take two semesters of philosophy
- take two semesters of symbolic logic and one INTRO to the "Philosophy of Logical Analysis".
Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality . . . All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen ...We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament). "Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years." All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)----William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Nazification of Germany: 1933–34There are other, corroborating sources for this meeting.
Hitler did not intend to share his power with coalition partners. After the dissolution of the Reichstag, he hoped to win an absolute majority for the NSDAP with a massive election campaign. To finance the electoral battle, he sought support from Germany’s leading industrialists. In a meeting held on February 20, 1933, Hitler and Hermann Göring (1893-1946) explained the benefits that industry leaders would derive from an NSDAP victory: political stability, the complete elimination of the Communist threat and, not least, a lucrative rearmament policy.Among those present at the meeting was George von Schnitzler, a board member of I.G. Farben, then the world’s largest chemical conglomerate. (I.G. Farben would eventually go on to produce the Zyklon B gas used in Nazi death camps). In the following affidavit, given in English on November 10, 1945, Schnitzler describes the purpose of the meeting and provides the names of others in attendance that day.The TX gulag system differs very little from concentration camps. To be expected, they look modern from the outside. But, like Hitler's string of concentration and death camps, they are the work of 'private enterprise' contracted by 'government'; it is private enterprise which benefits from the Faustian deals that created them. Reduced to its essence, Hitler's 'Nazi' scheme systematically murdered millions and just as systematically reduced as many to slavery amid unimaginably horrible conditions.--German History in Documents and Images, Volume 7. Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, Georg von Schnitzler on Hitler’s Appeal to Leading German Industrialists on February 20, 1933 (Affidavit, November 10, 1945)
"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus." population."--ScroogeBut the Texas GOP has done Scrooge one better: they are making a profit off both their deaths and incarceration. WHERE is the will to win? When the right wing has succeeded in destroying civilized society if not the world, the left will have failed to save it!
Crimes rates --rising, falling, stagnate --never justify the death penalty. In fact, crime rates invariably increase in death penalty states. States without the death penalty have consistently lower murder rates.A new survey by the New York Times found that states without the death penalty have lower homicide rates than states with the death penalty. The Times reports that ten of the twelve states without the death penalty have homicide rates below the national average, whereas half of the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above. During the last 20 years, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48% - 101% higher than in states without the death penalty. "I think Michigan made a wise decision 150 years ago," said the state's governor, John Engler, a Republican, referring to the state's abolition of the death penalty in 1846. "We're pretty proud of the fact that we don't have the death penalty."Texas, notably, has not occupied a position of prominence with regard to petroleum production since it was discovered that bombing Iraq and killing civilians there was much, much cheaper than is the secondary recovery of oil. Why spend millions exploring for oil when you can just steal fields that are already productive? The cost of bombing the crap out of the oil's rightful owners?? Hell --the taxpayer is stuck with that tab!
--New York Times, 9/22/00, Death Penalty Information Center
Fascism --now dominating the political and cultural life of Texas --spawns crime and creates the conditions in which it is nurtured and thrives and, worse, benefits the GOP and its corporate sponsors. Still, most people are now ashamed to admit that punishment is based on vengeance and, for that reason, various excuses and apologies have been offered for the cruelty that goes with it. Some of the more humane, or “squeamish,” who still believe in punishment, contend that the object of this infliction is the reformation of the victim. This, of course, cannot be urged of the death penalty or even punishment for life, or for very long-term sentences. In these cases there is neither inducement to reform nor any object in the reformation. No matter how thorough the reform, the prisoner never goes back to society, or he returns after there is no longer a chance for him to be of use to the world or to enjoy life.
--Clarence Darrow, Crime: It's Cause and TreatmentTea Baggers are Scumbaggers!
Power may corrupt, and absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but in the comics Judge Dredd is basically Dirty Harry on Overdrive, an incorruptible lawman obsessed with The Law and Justice. The official plot synopsis of the 1995 movie swallows the official line too: “In the Third Millennium a powerful and efficient hybrid of the police and judicial system has given birth to group of new guardians of the law with the power to dispense instant justice and punishment. These judges are law enforcer, jury and executioner. One of these judges, Judge Joseph Dredd is a living legend - six feet of armored justice with no outside interests besides his devotion to enforcing the law.” Why anyone would however want to make a sequel or (bullshit Hollywood jargon coming up) “re-imagining” of Judge Dredd is a bit of a mystery. The original film disappointed at the box office and made a mere $113 million world-wide. Audiences who didn’t know the character beforehand were baffled. “Considering that the movie was adapted from comic books, the least we should expect is a juicy battle between good and evil,” Anthony Lane wrote in The New Yorker, “but the conflict is, in fact, a matter of fine distinctions between shades of Fascism.”
--FROM PAGE TO SCREEN: JUDGE DREDD (2012)
by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyKrasnow: "The spectrum is there whether it is used or not; only when it is enhanced by the use of broadcasters and others does it have any value at all to the public." --Former FCC Counsel Erwin Krasnow Calls For End To 'Public Ownership Of Airwaves' StandardThe latest outrage is the more recent reprise of the right wing's ongoing attack on what had been the people's airwaves, the people's media, the people's right to know and its implicit corollary: the people's right to be told the truth!
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by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyOur schools are in crises: We [Texas] rank 36th in the nation in high school graduation rates. An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma. We rank 49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores.' --Barbara Bush, The Critical MindBut you can rest assured that the private schools in Texas are doing fine. But it is in the public schools that those not born to wealth have any hope of acquiring an education. But the elites would deny you even that!
This is a fascist outcome and as a result, the corporate prison population has exploded. If trends continue, one day, there will most surely be more folk in prison than out. This is a GOP payoff, a 'laundered' pay0ff, to the corporations for their support of the Texas GOP.A detention camp in Taylor Texas that currently holds hundreds of rebuffed asylum seekers who legally entered the country, half of which are children swept up in midnight raids, is a potential prime location for the enforced transfer of American citizens during a time of national emergency.
The privatized Hutto jail, which is also administered by Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), currently interns political asylum seekers who came to the U.S. on legal visas. Most of them are families including pregnant women and children who have never been accused of any wrongdoing but are forced to endure squalid conditions inside literal concentration camps.
In 2004 the facility was on the verge of being shutdown due to lack of occupancy but new immigration policies, allied to the burgeoning growth of the prison industry and future plans to detain American citizens en masse, have revived the potential scope of the camp, and a new contract to intern 600 individuals was finalized with immigration authorities in December 2005.
The facility is euphemistically called a "Residential Center," yet charges of overcrowding and poor conditions are rife, with an estimated 645 people filling a facility that has only 512 beds.
--Paul Joselph Watson & Alex Jones, Texas Prison Camp Future American Gulag?
The newly instituted leveling system on death row in Texas under which prisoners are classified in one of three categories—supposedly based on their disciplinary record—is nothing but heightened repression.As high school graduations per capita declined, crime in Texas, most notably murder, increased. Not surprisingly, the prison population swelled to overflowing. The GOP in Texas has, thus, enriched, the corporate, fascist owners and operators of prisons. 'Are there no prisons?' --ScroogeThese outcomes are not coincidence, not the result of incompetence, not the result of mere GOP idiocy, though many, like the Bush crime family, are idiotic to be sure! No --this is, rather, fascist policy; it is a laundered pay-off to the GOP's corporate 'base'. The corporate-GOP axis makes out like Nazi brass or the likes of I. G. Farben, the makers of Zyklon B. The made a killing. It is only the citizenry which suffers, a citizenry that is increasingly deprived of educational or vocational opportunity so GOP fat cats can continue to feed off the misery of its victims.
It masquerades as a means to provide uniform rules and regulations in managing male prisoners sentenced to death. But in truth it is a reactionary response to prisoners’ efforts over the years to organize themselves against cruel and inhuman treatment.
The Endeavor Project, the Lamp of Hope Project, and now Panthers United for Revolutionary Education are just three examples of prisoners’ efforts to protect themselves and resist.
Any time prisoners, and even people on the outside—unions, women, people of color, gays—begin to organize themselves across color lines, the system devises counter-schemes to bring it to a fast and abrupt halt.
The Texas death row leveling system is another of these, out of a huge bag of trickery designed to dominate, subjugate and divide prisoners. It’s no different from when businesses divide workers, colleges divide students, and the ruling class divides the poor masses by establishing lines of antagonism.Before the leveling system, all death-row prisoners in Texas—except for those classified as work-capable—were already confined to "administrative segregation" status. In other words: lock-down.--Commentary from death row: Texas leveling system shows rise in repression, Harvey Earvin
Texas must learn to make an honest living. Texas must face up to its responsibilities now and to future generations or it will perish. Under the disastrous back-to-back Bush/Perry regimes, Texas is well on its way to economic oblivion. The results are disastrous:How infuriating has it been, the last five years, watching Halliburton and KBR get away with murder? Murder, poisoning, electrocution, rape, human trafficking, fraud, bribery — their crimes go on and on. But could their decade-long spree may be coming to an end? This year, settlements for old offenses, new exposés and new lawsuits for more recent evil-doings, have resulted in plummeting stock prices, canceled contracts, and a soon-to-be imprisoned former CEO.A Day of Reckoning
The latest blow came last Thursday, in a Texas court, where executives for Halliburton and KBR were described in legal papers as conducting a “reign of terror” and functioning “as criminal enterprises.” Paying bribes, taking kickbacks, concealing gang rapes, and engaging in human trafficking were among the crimes listed on the May 14th complaint brought not by government or human rights lawyers, as you might expect, but by attorneys filing a class action suit for the pension fund of Detroit’s Policemen and Firemen. According to the press release issued by the funds’ attorneys, Grant & Eisenhofer, Halliburton and KBR’s directors enabled “a pervasive environment of misdeed and corruption,” resulting in suits, investigations, fines, penalties, and settlements of over $650 million, which have ravaged the corporations’ reputations, prospects, finances, and in turn the pension fund’s investment.
...The Texas suit covers the period both before and after KBR became an independent company, and names the majority of the two companies’ recent and current boards, including such corporate heavyweights as past president and chairman of American Airlines, Robert Crandall. The May 14th press release by attorneys originally listed former Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney as a defendant (not surprising, since most of the Nigerian bribes occurred under Cheney’s tenure; Cheney also appointed and directly supervised Stanley), but a hastily issued correction stated that Cheney had been listed in error. The complaint identified some of Halliburton’s and KBR’s known “misdeeds” in Iraq, including providing troops with untreated, untested water from the Euphrates and delivering ice to troops in a truck that showed signs of its former use as storage for corpses. The complaint concluded, “The myriad crimes and wrongdoings discussed above simply could not have happened if Defendants were doing their jobs. As officers and directors of the Companies, the Defendants were required to ensure that the Companies’ internal controls were in place, functioning properly, and sufficiently strong to prevent it from committing wrongful or illegal acts.”
The Detroit pension fund suit is one of many recent suits against Halliburton and KBR. In November 2008, Joshua Eller, a civilian employee at Balad Air Force base northeast of Baghdad, cited rotten food, contaminated water and ice, and toxic fumes from open burn pits, as contributors to his ongoing depression, nightmares, and gastrointestinal and dermatological conditions. In March 2009, parents of Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth sued KBR for wrongful death from electrocution in the shower at his Green Zone base. In April 2009, troops, private employees, and families filed nine lawsuits against KBR for compensation for illness and deaths from exposure to toxic fumes from Iraq and Afghanistan burn pits. The suits, which lawyers will be pursuing as a class-action, seek damages “in an amount sufficient to strip defendants of all of the revenue and profits” involved in managing waste for military bases.”
But the pension fund suit is the first initiated by shareholders, and the stakes are high. Grant and Eisenhofer is a formidable opponent, ranking first among plaintiff firms in funds recovered for shareholder clients. The firm is currently involved in class action suits against Barclays Bank, Countrywide Financial, UBS, Pfizer,and Merck as well as Tremont Holdings Group Inc, a fund charged with feeding $3 billion of client investments to Bernard Madoff Securities.--Nora Eisenberg, Is KBR’s Decade-Long Crime Spree Finally Coming to an End?, AlterNet
New York - On Monday, Dec. 6, a district court in Texas will be asked – for the first time in that U.S. state's history – to decide whether the death penalty is unconstitutional based on the "disproportionately high risk of wrongful convictions" in Texas.The death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment (especially if you happen to be innocent) but, in Texas, its application is clearly discriminatory.
John Edward Green, Jr., the defendant in Texas v. Green, is charged in the fatal shooting of a 34-year-old Houston woman during a 2008 robbery. He has not yet been convicted, but prosecutors say they would seek the death penalty.
Green's attorneys have filed a pretrial motion in Harris County District Court. Judge Kevin Fine will hear arguments that the death penalty is unconstitutional because it creates an unacceptable risk of executing innocent people
Green's attorneys contend that a number of factors in Texas's legal system increase the risk of innocent people being executed.
According to the defence, these include a lack of safeguards to protect against mistaken eyewitness identification, faulty forensic evidence, incompetent lawyers at the appellate level, failures to guard against false confessions, and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection.
Paul Cates, director of communications for the Innocence Project, told IPS, "The Innocence Project will be participating in the hearing specifically to put on evidence about the cases of Claude Jones and Cameron Todd Willingham. Both Jones and Willingham were executed in Texas."
He said, "In the case of Claude Jones, DNA evidence has proven that critical physical evidence (a hair sample) used to place him at the scene of the crime did not belong to Jones. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed even though a prominent arson scientist notified the Governor and the appeals court prior to his execution that the critical testimony of the arson investigator was based on outdated arson science."
--US Execution Capital Reconsiders the Death Penalty
Mississippi and Arkansas have the highest poverty rates in the nation (at 21.9% and 18.8%, respectively), and Florida saw the largest increase in poverty (2.8 percentage points) over the course of the recession, new Census data shows. Poverty was lowest in New Hampshire (8.5%) and Alaska (9.0%), but even in those states at least one in 12 residents lived in poverty.One day, some believe, a ruling elite of just 1 percent of the total U.S. population may decide that a declining profit margin no longer justifies the 'business' of warehousing, torturing or murdering people because just 12 people decided that they did not deserve to live free or live at all!
While the new data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) are similar to the nationwide data on poverty released earlier this month, the ACS provides a more detailed look at poverty in every state. The result is more evidence of the widespread pain resulting from the Great Recession. In the nation overall, there were 42.9 million people in poverty in 2009. For the average family of four, this means that their combined income for the year was less than $21,954 (the exact threshold varies by family size and number of children). From 2007 to 2009, 47 states and the District of Columbia experienced increases in their poverty rates. The first Map shows poverty rates by state and how they changed throughout the Great Recession, which began in late 2007.--Kai Filion, Economic Policy Institute, Child poverty rises dramatically in most states,
Like in the late 1930’s, the “final solution” will be the mass extermination of prisoners across the U.S.A. And Texas – always at the vanguard of fascism – has already begun. At first by “medical means” with the complicity of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, now charged with all medical care (or lack thereof) across various TDCJ’s. That is how TDCJ/UTMB murdered courageous “jailhouse lawyer” David R. Ruiz: whose Ruiz v. Estelle lawsuit brought TCCJ under the heel of the Ruiz Court for nearly two decades. UTMB denied Ruiz timely lifesaving cancer treatment, much requested, until it was “too late to treat.” But there are many others: among the growing elderly population and the sick.
