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Rid of Lens

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

Takes them off

And rubs her eyes…

The blur fades

And the girl unwise

Is seeing crystal clear.

The things she took to heart

The ways in which she bled

Were not from wounds

Of her own flesh

But things doled out instead.

Games of chess

With her as pawn

A whipping boy called knave

Who took the blame for everything

And let it all befall her

‘Til her head was bent

And her heart was broke

And her life became a horror.

Now she sees

The head disease,

The punishments she bore

Were his design.

Her heartsick plague

Infected by his sore

And damaged soul.

Its toll,

A choice

To stay or go,

To stand against

The steadfast wrath

Of pain

And insecurity

Not hers in source

Or cause

Or stay.

The path is clear.

The glasses

Trampled upon

As she runs for her life

And the lives of those she bore.

No more.

No more.

She goes

Rid of lens

And clear eyes to the sky.

Libatious

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

She was your constant
Your lover
Your friend
Priority
Mistress
She kept you from me
And she ripped us
Apart.
The man you were eroded
As you drank and she sank into you
Your goodness dulled
By the haze of intoxication
Your abuses amplified
By the steady darkening of your mood
So I widened the gap.
You swam in the pain of our parting.
Gulping down mouthfuls
Of hatred and her
And anger and her
And blame and her
Never once reaching
For my hands
Trying so desperately to save us.
Thrashing against every effort
Drowning in denial
You slipped beneath the surface
And were lost to her depths.
A beautiful life
A beautiful wife
Two little men
All yours to defend
But you lost it all
To alcohol.

Untitled (Condemnation)

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

The luscious pull
Of divine helplessness
That draws me to you
In the weakest willfulness
I give myself over
Patient and fervent
To the devil who keeps me
Chained and waiting
Swimming in desperation
And desire
On fire
And running toward the flames
Of your rapture
Your limbo
My purgatory
My heart captured
In its own little hell
Burning in your embrace
Melting in your gaze
Smoldering in your absence
Scorched and aching
Yearning for your touch
To condemn me again.

Falling Down

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

The pieces are crumbling
Breaking away
Like clay
From the solid form that once surrounded me
Defined me
Was all that I knew
That was built upon you
But now
It’s powder
Just dust
Fistfuls of dirt
On the winds of my changing fortunes
Sand clouds in the desert
I woke in
When the rumbling stopped
When the crashing ceased
When the path that I walked left me weak and diseased
And as the ringing in my ears dulls to a scream
All I can think
Is why,
Why does this keep happening?
Where is the man for whom I can build a castle
A temple
And a throne?
Maybe he’s been
Nothing but a dream
All along.

The Seed

/ JillArcangela / Leave a comment

I’m waiting
warm and silent
the pain of the split is over
new shoots of life
wriggle through the cracks in me
reaching slowly
gently
carefully
into my surroundings
selectively seeking
that which will nourish
and protect
not needing the sun just yet
held in the comfortable darkness
the world above
a whispering future
I am ready but not anxious for
the sun
a reward
for the struggle behind me
a promise
of the days before me
but for now
I’m waiting
open and ready
patient and free
warm and silent

Eleven Years Later

/ JillArcangela / 2 Comments

On the morning of September 11th in 2001, the world as we knew it was shattered.  The illusion of security was revealed for what it is: an illusion; and we realized – for the first time in more years than we could even recount – how vulnerable we really are.  We witnessed the flaming descent of one of our most beloved and iconic structures, and in the smoldering remains we saw the countenance of something more terrible than any enemy we had ever known.  We stared into the face of terrorism.

Unlike the visible, targetable enemies of wars past, terrorists are sneaky, covert, and difficult to take aim at.  They hide among common citizens and use them as human shields to mask their alliances and hide their guilt.  They spring up from a crowd of ordinary people, adding paranoia to the list of fears their workings instill in us.  They are deceptive, manipulative opportunists who are capable of covering their tracks while they work patiently and relentlessly on their plot, waiting for just the right moment to strike.

As victims of terrorism, we become suspicious and uneasy.  We allow our fears to control our decision-making, selling out our freedoms for the greater illusion of security, convinced that there is a perfect combination of laws and restrictions that will protect us from being victimized again.  Like a quivering, defeated man inviting authorities to take residence in his home, hoping their presence will protect him but forfeiting his privacy, so we invited the FBI, the NSA, the DHS into our lives, turning over the only real security we had: our autonomy.  So we could spy on one another, we allowed ourselves to be spied upon, sacrificing our freedom and giving license to a new kind of enemy – a domestic enemy.

Over the past 11 years, we have seen our government rise to a level of national control that is frightening and dangerous.  While groups like FEMA construct nationwide systems of emergency response totalitarianism, others like the NSA are watching our every move, reading our every social post, and eaves-dropping on our every conversation.  Our police forces have been trained in paramilitary-style tactics and suited with the corresponding weaponry.  Even our military forces have received political license to treat us, American civilians, as aggressors.

Meanwhile, empowered by our desperate pleas for a more flawless illusion of security, our political structure has started stepping consciously toward overt fascism, using morality, security, and religion as excuses to control our voices, our bodies, and our thinking.

The political manipulations of the “Right,” which have caused the people of this nation economic, political, and personal suffering, have been justified as an acceptable strategy against a political opponent they have painted with their own crimes.  Their failure to legislate effective solutions for the worsening problems we face have been excused as them building a campaign that will ensure their victory this November.  Such a victory would guarantee them the political control necessary to further their agenda of exclusivity and entitlement.  All of this only reaffirms that they have and will continue to put the people of this country (whom they are supposed to be serving) in the line of fire to safeguard their private initiatives and personal aspirations.

The extremists that have come to dominate more than half of our political incumbents use propaganda based on false morality, racism, fear, and hate, as well as disfranchisement, legislative manipulation, union busting, and the restriction of constitutionally protected civil liberties to extend control over the population.  They have blasted us with false information and messages that are corrupting the unifying fabric of our nation, dividing us over everything from petty issues to human rights.  They have used common human weaknesses, like the fear of the unknown and basic misunderstanding, to promote ignorance, disdain for one another, and miseducated, misguided attacks between people who would otherwise rally together against their growing oppression and its deeper motivations.

It would seem that such insidious political scheming, marked by flagrant abuses of power and pointed legislative assaults on our constitution, would quickly become the focus of a national counterattack.  One would think that we, as a people, would come together to stop this political machine from their fast erosion of our liberties, our systems, and our nation.  Instead, however, the vast majority is standing by idle or willfully participating in the tying of our own noose.  Why?  Because we are being controlled by fear, fear they have gone through great length to instill in us.

The dictionary definition of “terrorism” is “a state of fear or submission produced by the use of violence, the threat of intimidation, or coercion, especially for political purposes.”

The towers are gone, and the memorials are in place.  The souls of the deceased have ascended to wherever it is they drift off to.  The suffering we faced 11 years ago during those terrible events has been diminished to the familiar pangs of the significant losses of long ago.  We, however, are greater victims now than we have ever been before, and the terrorists who are ruling our lives, hearts, and minds are hiding somewhere far more dangerous than the window seat.  They are operating from The Hill.

Mental Case, Police State

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

For those actively participating on Occupy’s frontline, the alarming nature of America’s increasing militancy is evident.  For those working from less exposed positions or who are supporting the movement from the background (either monetarily or with a talking campaigns to rally awareness and understanding), the brutality of police and local enforcement units are no less palpable – though less tangible.  But something happened recently that gives new meaning to the words “police state:” the arrest of one Brandon Raub.

Raub is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Completing four tours in total with the illustrious Marine Corps, Raub has been deemed by the government and military sane and competent to serve.  He returned home well over a year ago, and he is not exhibiting any signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or any other mental illness.  He lives at home with his parents who say that he is in perfect mental and physical health.  He does not own a gun, nor is he member to any violent or extreme outlier groups.  He is an average American with some fairly common notions about political degradation and conspiracies stemming from within our national government.

Raub writes a blog on a well-established page in which he calmly, intelligently, and eloquently evaluates the state of the nation and discusses America’s tragic fall from grace.  He also keeps a Facebook page, as most of us do, on which he also makes political statements and posts links to sites that support his ideas and perspectives, as most of us do.  While some of what Raub says or thinks borders on conspiracy theory, his makes no attempt to rally anyone to any action – only to put out information and ideas that he feels other might be overlooking.

Now, we’ve all met a conspiracy theorist or two.  I have a good friend who gets rallied around some pretty bizarre ideas, but he is completely harmless – a dedicated husband, a loving father, and an avid believer that the government is capable of and carrying out incredible plots behind closed doors.  The greatest danger he poses is that someone could unwittingly touch on a topic of interest and get him ranting at an otherwise enjoyable gathering.  Raub is not unlike the beloved conspiracy theorist in all our lives.

It is true that Raub made some isolated comments on his Facebook page that, if interpreted in one of many possible ways, could seem to have some ominous undertones, but they are not in any way distinguishable as threats against America or her people.  Nor are they much different from comments most people haven’t made regarding one frustration or another when in the moment.  We have all had those moments in which we were so frustrated that we exclaimed a politician should be “hanged for treason” or that we were going to “kill” something or someone.  None of this means we are emotionally unstable, just that we are emoting with hyperbole.

Well, in the case of Brandon Raub, his emoting earned him a FBI sponsored trip to the nuthouse.  Without placing Raub under arrest, the FBI – aided by local law enforcement – arrived at Raub’s home, questioned him regarding his comments and his belief that the government conspired (through inaction) on the 9/11 attacks, and eventually slapped him in handcuffs and remitted him to a local mental institution for evaluation.

Despite a local agency working to defend and assist Raub against this unjustified detainment releasing a statement from their employed health official (who has spoken with Raub) stating that Raub is in no way mentally incompetent or suffering from any delusional state, a local judge has ordered Raub be detained and subjected to additional evaluations and reviews for a minimum of 30 days.  It is like something from a movie that we’ve all seen:  The man who knew too much gets tossed into the loony bin where he pleads his case but only makes himself seem more insane…

The FBI is insisting that Raub is dangerous to society, that he has the potential to become violent, and they have labeled him a potential terrorist.  They claim that he is in need of psychiatric assistance, though I have yet to deduce why from reading Raub’s blogs and posts.  Though I do not agree with his views or buy into his conspiracy theories (all of which are among the more popular and common theories out there), I have not found anything that Raub says to indicate any potential danger to himself or anyone else.  So, why the “302?”

You have to ask yourself what Raub is saying or what he has touched on that makes him so dangerous, and if there isn’t anything that stands out in particular then the question becomes centered on what any one of us could say or do that would merit the same treatment.

People say crazy things all the time.  Saying something crazy and actually being crazy are two different things.  Then there is being crazy enough to be dangerous to people, which is something else altogether.  Plenty of people suffer from subtle, harmless insanities – we could probably each name a few in our own lives without much thought.  Even more legitimately, countless American Vets suffer from very real and very troubling emotional and mental disturbances.  Most of them can be found sleeping on the subway vents of cities all over the nation.  What makes Raub so special that he has earned a free stay at the nuthouse?

Millions of Americans subscribe to the idea that 9/11 was an inside job – or at least a gross act of defensive negligence for the purpose of capitalizing on the resulting fear, something the authors of legislation, warmongers, and the profiteers of military and surveillance technologies are still taking advantage of.  Americans have seen and heard it all, with most doubting the government’s ignorance and innocence in conspiracy theories such as vapor trails, HAARP weather related disaster, and so forth.  Even the picture perfect era of Camelot left us with Area 51 and rumors of alien encounters that many still adamantly insist are as much a part of our history of Abe Lincoln.  None of these people have been visited by the FBI and taken away in handcuffs.

What’s more is that in a nation where a madman in Colorado could acquire an arsenal of paramilitary status in fewer than 8 weeks – purchasing gas grenades, a gas mask, a flak jacket, and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunitions to accompany his weapons purchases made from only three different locations – doesn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, why is an unarmed veteran of the esteemed United States Marines suggesting the FBI had some role in America’s most devastating terrorist attack ringing more bells, raising more red flags, and earning a swifter response from the counter-terrorist community?  Since when is an idea, an opinion, a conspiracy theory more dangerous than a cold, hard, unrelenting bullet poised at the edge of a madman’s hostility?

I’ll tell you “since when.”  …Since corporations learned the psychology of thought provocation and the art of media manipulation for its promotion.  …Since politicians became nothing more than the warm bodies required to compose legislation for nationwide, company-first, profit-yielding, social reform.  …Since the rise of a new era of business: the business of industry, the business of war, the business of subtle social terrorism, the business of addiction, the business of exploitation…

When does it end?  Well, for Raub, they are hoping it ends with a quagmire of legalisms and paperwork hold-ups that will silence him from speaking whatever truth or rumors he feels compelled to put out there.  Whether the conspiracy theories are fact or fiction bears no impact on a new American truth: that the encroachment on human life and liberty in the US is real.  And when does that end?  It ends when we say it does.

Stand up and speak out on everything as often as possible, because it is easy to throw one man in a nuthouse.  It is impossible to silence a nation.

The Myth of Islands

/ JillArcangela / 1 Comment

The recent political “gaffe” by the President in which he stated that business owners didn’t build their businesses came just weeks after I finished reading an incredible book (which I mention below) and just days before I wrote this piece.  An overburdening in my schedule left this installment of “Letters” delayed… and for that I apologize… but the article is still timely and important.  Sadly, it is most important to those who will likely never read it.  To those who do, my sincerest thanks.

 

The super wealthy and highly successful frequently express strong entitlement to their disposition by claiming that all they have achieved is the result of their own hard work, that they never took any hand-outs, and that no one lifted them up to the top.  This seems to be their way of not only propagating the myth that “anyone can grow up to be anything,” but also to lay the blame of “not having” squarely on the have-nots.  Their song of sweet success by virtue of hard work alone is not only played out but entirely fictional.  No man is an island.

Beginning with the extraordinarily obvious foundation of education, those who have been fortunate enough to be born into social classes and/or locales that have access to decent public education cannot claim that no one ever gave them anything free.  Don’t be ridiculous.  Their public education was free… Well, not “free,” but it certainly wasn’t paid for by them.  Other members of society paid their federal, state, local, and property taxes, and in turn, provided all the area children with a public school to attend.  Needless to say, those who did not attend public school must have attended private or parochial schools which yielded bills footed by their parents or guardians.  So, beginning at age five (and in some cases younger), even the super wealthy and successful were taking their first hand-out: education.

After 13 years of free education, the “haves” then moved into their post-secondary years.  During this time, these individuals plunged deeply into a world swirling with an indistinguishable blend of luck and opportunity.  In order for a person to become wildly successful, they must have not only an often self-praised, good work ethic, but also the perfect storm of open doors and dumb luck.  Since luck decides opportunity in most cases, we’ll begin by looking at how lucky a person has to get to have opportunities at success.

Luck is as simple as being in the right place at the right time.  Setting aside any arguments about genetic sequences and chromosomal normality, the idea that the right sperm has to find the right egg and develop in exactly the right way (which is the first bit of luck people have), there are countless other pieces to the puzzle.  A person must be lucky enough to be born to parents who feed and clothe them, giving them the carefree existence they need to participate in the rudimentary stages of development and the ability to focus on their primary education.  As a student teacher in one of the worst areas of Philadelphia, I often encountered children who were too hungry, too angry, too stressed, or too deprived to focus on their math or reading lesson.  Many were neglected at home or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after family crisis rudely awakened them from their 7-year-old lives.  Not being born into poverty, illness, or abuse is lucky enough.

Next, there is luck of basic geography.  The area in which a person is born and lives dictates the type of opportunity he or she has in terms of both education and local culture.  Not all school districts are created equal, and in many areas (including my neck of the woods) which side of the street you live on can make the difference between a thorough and competitive public education and a bankrupt school district marred by perpetual failure.  Even the best work ethic struggles to be sufficient enough a trait to pull someone out of the depths of socio-economic depression.  Rare is the individual who can use brute force to rise above that type of intensely stagnating woes and negative circumstance.

Moreover, the cultural subtleties of regions, languages, and histories impact people in far greater ways than anyone ever really perceives.  In his book, The Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell explains how the environmental influences affecting Asia came to make rice the staple of all physical and economic life, how the cultivation of rice affected political and social structure, and how the agricultural dynamics of maximizing a rice crop manifested into a culture that had not only specific social and personal commonalities but promoted mathematics as a fundamental knowledge.  Coupled with a language that treats numbers in a basic and decoded way (the number 33, for example, being 3-tens-3), Asian students end up with both the cultural and lingual benefits that put them at the forefront of the math and science worlds.  So, yes; Asians really are good at math, but not because they are smarter than other people.  Cultural implications, like the history of Asian agriculture and language development, dictate many features in various societies that give people an edge toward certain successes.

If a person is lucky enough to be born or raised with all the aspects most appointed to their culture’s version of success, the opportunity will follow.  People born to wealth (luck) will have the chance at superior education (opportunity).  A person who goes through their entire education with the son of a wealthy internet mogul (luck) will have unlimited access to costly internet time and top of the line computers (opportunity)… This person will grow up to become Bill Gates, a man who as a teenager was able to spend more than 30 a week doing little more than messing around on computers.

Today, Americans who now enjoy the tremendous wealth of their business ventures were born into a time when public schools were thriving, they entered post-secondary schools and jobs at a time when the economic world was giving birth to multinational corporations (while the government was tearing down barriers to their possibilities), and they stepped into the corner office just in time for the dispensation of the Glass-Steagall Act.  The culture into which they were born was changing, valuing financial gain over ethics, creating new avenues for corporate and investment business practices that in the past would have been frowned upon for immorality.

Did the wealthy work hard?  Sure they did, but so does the guy working three-jobs at minimum wage; so does the single-mother of two who is attending night school while working full-time and parenting alone; so does the guy serving you your drinks during happy hour.  The only difference between those who work hard to get by and those who work hard to get everything they ever dreamed of is how lucky they got and the opportunities that luck provided them with.

Do not let the rich kid you (or themselves, if you have the opportunity to intervene).  No man is an island.  In fact, when it comes to achieving great personal wealth and success, there are no islands at all.  No one gets where they are on grit alone.  Success is not the result of one person’s solitary path.  It is the sum of many, many parts… most of which can be boiled down to sheer luck leading to great opportunity presented and supported by the work of countless others.

So, the next time someone tells you that they did it all by themselves, without help or hand-outs, remind them that the help they received in life began when someone reached out and caught them on day one – cradling them into their first breath of air – and hasn’t stopped since.

A Vote of Confidence

/ JillArcangela / 3 Comments

For generations, we Americans have been facing the increasingly obvious reality that voting isn’t the sum of elections.  Debates about the Electoral College, scandals about easily manipulated voting machines, recounts, and Oval Office hijacking have all become realities that we discuss at our dinner parties with those brave enough to talk politics among friends.  We have become disillusioned, debriefed, even disenfranchised; and each year we hear the cries of millions, saying they will abstain from voting.

There are many reasons why people abstain.  Some are unintentional (“Oh, was that today?”).  Some are rooted in a misguided sense of integrity (“I refuse to vote against someone…”).  Some are founded in a complete apathy (“Who cares who the president is?”).  And some are just plain ridiculous (“The line was too long, and I didn’t feel like waiting.”)  All are based in ignorance.

While Occupy Voting Booths is making an honest and honorable attempt to reach out to voters, educate them, and help them through the voting process, other branches of the movement are speaking out against voting.  Occupy Denver even posted a recent graphic on their Facebook page with the iconic v-shaped check mark that read “F*ck The Vote,” instead of the traditional “Rock The Vote.”  While I am not criticizing the Denver camp (a grassroots movement is composed of many perspectives), I do want to call a spade, “a spade.”

Discouraging people, especially the strong, talented, educated people within this movement, from voting is a dangerous game in such critical political times.

I completely understand the ideology behind the stand for abstinence.  The system is a mess.  The players are all corrupt.  The honor has left the game.  The voting booths do not determine the outcome.  So, why bother?  If Occupy stands for revolution, why would we participate in the very system we are trying to take down?  I’ll tell you why.

First and foremost, until there is something new in place (and I don’t mean in parks across the country, I mean “in place” nationally, politically, wholly), this is what we have, and it’s in charge of our fate for the time being – like it or not, for better or for worse.  Regardless of how big the money is, how powerful the lobbyists are, how filthy the overreaching players may be, the popular vote can tip the scales.  Granted, that tilt may be quite minimal, but in cases of close elections – as I imagine this one will be – it can make a difference; and with the candidates on the board this run, that may mean all the difference in the world.

Now, I’m going to avoid the argument of which candidate would be the better choice.  I’m keenly aware of the Reagan-Era Republican masquerading as a Democratic incumbent and what a civil rights nightmare he is (in fact, he’s a nightmare in many areas).  I’m also frightfully cognizant of the vulture capitalist on the other side, who was born into the corporate world, who would undoubtedly run us even further into the crap-game of national corporative economics, and who can’t seem to commit to any point of view outside of his spiritual dedication to a human god living on the planet Kolob who impregnated the otherwise virgin Mary through quite traditional means.

I admit, for two very different reasons, these presidential candidates are both highly undesirable and extremely dangerous.  However, at some point, we have to accept the reality that one of them is going to be President, no matter how successfully we rally and march in the next six months.

It is undeniably true that we, the people, need to take the power back.  We need to combat the progress of a system that has gone to hell and taken us with it.  We need to put new political messages, means, and movements into place, but we cannot ignore the current state of things as we work toward that change.

Exercising our right to vote is one of the (extremely) few powers we still have in this country.  If we throw our hands up and walk away from the only thread, no matter how frayed, that holds us to our government, we forfeit the only power we have to influence a system that is in all other measures stacked completely against us.

Voting this year will not be about selection.  It will be about damage control.  It will not be to elect a new leader.  It will be to prevent an even more vicious reality for us to work against during the next four years.

Is this an ugly, sad, and patriotically pathetic truth?  Yes.  Yes, it is, but sometimes we have to work within the confines of what we have to get what we want.  There was never an immigrant who got off a boat on our shores and made a life for himself and his family by saying, “Forget it.  They don’t want to hire me because I’m black/Irish/Italian/Jewish/Russian/…, then I won’t work.”

The idea of abstaining from a vote because it hasn’t offered you a candidate you can believe in, and that such practice is somehow better or more noble than fulfilling your moral and political obligation to the nation you are trying desperately to save is plainly moronic.  It is fundamentally the same as the child who stomps off the playground shouting, “If I can’t win, I won’t play.”

None of this, by the way, is to mention the terrible impact it would have on the outcome if we removed from the voting pool all the forward-thinking, social-justice oriented, politically aware people who tend to flock toward the movement.

In my eyes, it is not only the duty of all Americans to vote, but the duty of Occupy to make sure people are voting with their eyes open.  After all, the only thing more dangerous than abstaining from the vote is voting misinformed.

Get out there, Occupiers, and help preserve what little we have left.  If we want to build a future worth having, we have to first secure a future to build.  The fate of this nation is in our hands… now more than ever.

Bars and Stripes

/ JillArcangela / 3 Comments

The Fourth of July has long been one of my favorite holidays.  It stands at the center of summer, begs us to eat ice cream sandwiches, encourages us to take a break from worrying about our nation and instead celebrate its very being, and lures us into the humid streets at night to witness one of my favorite spectacles: fireworks.  We wave flags and don our stars and stripes giving thanks for our freedom.  After all, we are “America, Land of the Free,” right?  Well, as it turns out… maybe not all that free.

The recent and radical defunding of education and a variety of social programs in Pennsylvania has turned my attention toward a topic I have rarely thought about: prison.  As a generally law-abiding citizen and having no one in my life who is or was incarcerated, what is going on in and around the prison system was admittedly far from my mind.  But when hundreds of millions of dollars were cut from programs I care about deeply, I went looking to find out where the money was going.

Pennsylvania’s well-oiled Republican governor, Tom Corbett, just allotted $685 million to expanding the prison system in my home state.  My first thought was that it was a great idea since he just gutted public education and social programs for low-income families.  Clearly, we’ll be needing the bed space!   What I didn’t understand was why Pennsylvania, or any state for that matter, required so large an expansion in a nation that already leads the world in prison population.

The United States of America makes up only 5% of the world’s population, yet 25% of the world’s prisoners are incarcerated here.  Since 1980 and the beginning of the “War on Drugs,” the prison population in the US has quadrupled, with 1 in 100 Americans behind bars by 2008 – even though the crime rate has decreased by more than 25% during the same span of years.  So if there are fewer crimes, why are there more prisoners?

Harsher sentencing and increased mandatory minimums are certainly to blame.  For example, a first-time offender caught possessing a small amount of marijuana, even without the intent to distribute, can wind up in jail for 1-2 years in most states.  (A more reasonable penalty might be probation, some fines, a drug and alcohol class, and being put on a watch list.)

As prisons become more and more crowded, with everyone but the Wall Street and K Street crooks, prisons find themselves overrun, stretched to the limit on everything from budgets to bed sheets.  Characteristic of American venture capitalism, someone sails in with the super-fix-it: privatize.  Privatization is an attractive option to most state and federally run prisons because it appeals to the modern elected official: less work, more payout.

Like in most situations, privatizing a public responsibility creates serious problems.  When things are that supposed to be done fairly and out of duty are turned into money-making enterprises, the quality and honesty of the project are immediately compromised.  Privatized school districts fail.  Privatized medicine kills us.  And privatized prisons imprison us.  Prisons can only make money if they are full; and the more prisoners there are, the more money can be made.  This brought me around to my next question: How, aside from the obvious tax income, are prisons profiting from prisoners?

…Are you ready?…

Corporate America.  Yup, those guys again.  As it turns out, the prison-for-profit system is a two point earner for corporations.  Prisons rent out prisoners in ever-increasing numbers to large corporations who employ these workers for wages that rival those of the sweatshop workers in third-world countries.  The corporation pays a fee to the prison for access to the labor force.  The more prisoners a prison hires-out, the more money it makes.

On the other end of the deal, corporations incur the fee, comparatively far smaller than managing overseas operations and shipping, and then pay a minor wage expense per prisoner.  Though wages vary from contract to contract, the average prisoner wage starts at just $0.93 per day.

In some cases the prisoners are bussed daily to their job.  In others, the prisoners work in facilities right at the prison.  In either case, the corporations enjoy the benefit of a cheap labor force which is unable to unionize, can never call out, and can be severely reprimanded for any infraction.  There are no legal limits to the number of hours prisoners can work in a day, and everything from attitude to productivity can be manipulated by punishment on the prison end of the relationship.

I said this was a two point earner, so where’s the second payout?  The government.  Corporations who hire “high risk” employees are given huge tax breaks.  These breaks are paid out per employee, so it pays to hire large numbers of prisoners.  Additionally, special programs are in place that refund corporations up to 40% of the pathetic wages they pay to those prisoners.  The money they are paid back with is, of course, tax payer dollars.  These incentives, originally intended to beef up return-to-work programs for prisoners upon release, have become one more way corporations are pillaging our national pocket.  Not to mention, these incentives are encouraging the back-scratching between bottom-line corporate pigs and the next boom industry of for-profit prisons.

The business of prison-letting is not just a state affair.  In fact, a congressionally established company for the leasing of workers from federal prisons, Unicor, has become a $2.4 billion a year enterprise and employs more people (prisoners) than any Fortune 500 company, excluding General Motors.

The high yielding tactic has been noticed in recent years by some of the well-recognized criminals of the corporate world like big oil and the military industrial complex.  But some of the newer sharks at the frenzy might surprise you.  Technology and textile companies, which have been widely criticized for their overseas operations, are bringing business stateside and fueling the inferno of prison expansion nationwide.  Companies like AT&T, Motorola, Microsoft, Revlon, Macy’s, and Target, to name a few, are all on the list of prisoner-profiteers.

Now having all this information, the final question that can’t help but beg my attention is: where is this going?  Well, it is hard to say.  With funding shifting from education and social programs to prison expansion in Pennsylvania, among other states, and the political and corporate profiteers having found the next great exploit, it is predictable that the rate of incarceration will continue to increase in years to come.  The frightening component for me is the suspension of habeas corpus.  I can’t help but wonder what abuses will come careening down this slippery slope, and how those abuses will affect who and how Americans are imprisoned in the future.  There is, sadly, nothing I put passed the government at this point, but these are questions presently without answers… only speculations.

What I can say is that the next time I’m picking out a sweater or a pair of tweezers and I see that “Made in America” stamp, I’ll think and feel very differently.  For years, I sought it out.  Now I’ll wonder if it implies anything honorable at all.

 

Want some references?  No problem.  Here’s some of the places I got my info.

http://hrcoalition.org/node/193

http://www.decarceratepa.info/

http://www.nonewprisons.org/prisons/

http://www.alternet.org/world/151732/21st-century_slaves:_how_corporations_exploit_prison_labor/?page=entire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States