War, Prison, Spying – Celebrating ‘Freedom’ on the 4th of July is Now Purely Symbolic

Every year on July 4, Americans celebrate their “freedom” on Independence Day—the anniversary of the day the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and established the United States as an independent nation in 1776.

As Americans prepare to commemorate Independence Day in 2017—gathering together with friends and family to eat, drink and watch elaborate fireworks displays—they are blindly celebrating a false sense of freedom based on a list of liberties that are far from the current practices of the U.S. government.

Endless Taxes

When schoolchildren in the U.S. learn about the great American Revolution, they are taught about the important role taxes played in the decision to rebel against the British government. American colonists fought back against the unnecessary taxes and tariffs that seemed to increase by the year, and they took a stand against the heinous idea of “taxation without representation.”

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However, today the U.S. federal tax code is around 75,000 pages—so long that most of the politicians who have the authority to push for legal change to it, have never actually read it. In fact, the Washington Examiner reported in April 2016 that the current version of the federal tax code is more than 187 times longer than it was a century ago.

“Amazingly, in the first 26 years of the federal income tax, the tax code only grew from 400 to 504 pages. Even through President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, the tax code was well under 1,000 pages. Changes during World War II made the length of the tax code balloon to 8,200 pages. Most of the growth in the tax code came in the past 30 years, growing from 26,300 pages in 1984 to nearly three times that length today.”

Mass Incarceration

When schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught about history, they are taught about the abolishment of slavery in the 1860s, followed by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. They are taught that Americans finally learned how to appreciate all people, regardless of race. However, they are not taught about the forms of modern day slavery, in which race and poverty play an important role.

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A study conducted by the Brennan Center of Justice at NYU School of Law in 2016 found that nearly 40 percent of the U.S. prison population—around 576,000 people—are behind bars with “no compelling public safety reason.” More than 25 percent of prisoners—364,000 people—are serving prison sentences for nonviolent offenses.

Mass Surveillance

The peaceful transition of power is known as one of the cornerstones of American policy, and issues such as mass surveillance appear to transcend party lines. From President Bush signing the Patriot Act, to President Obama signing the USA Freedom Act, Americans have seen an ongoing loss of privacy rights in the 21^st Century.

While President Trump has openly praised government surveillance, he wouldn’t have his current ability to spy on innocent Americans, if it wasn’t for the actions of his predecessors. Just days before he left office, Obama signed an executive order that gave the National Security Agency the authority to share the raw streams of the communications it intercepts from Americans directly with government agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. 

Endless War

When British colonists arrived on American soil, they acted as if they were the first to ever discover the land, and appeared to have very little regard for the Native American people who were already inhabitants. The only “war” that was waged was for a land the American colonists chose to claim as their own—in many ways, that practice is still carried out today.

The concept of endless war is one that has been passed from one administration to the next in the U.S., with each new president adding to and intensifying the current ongoing conflicts. Instead of pursuing a conflict because the opposing country directly attacked the U.S., the true strategy revolves around what the U.S. can stand to gain from the country’s natural resources, along with the factor of whether that country recently dropped the U.S. dollar.

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While Donald Trump ran on a policy of not invading other countries, his sentiment quickly changed once he became the lead puppet for the military industrial complex.

 As U.S. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” In 2017, the current status of the United States is one in which when it comes to the areas of taxes, war, and the police and surveillance state, the American public seems to have no regard for the police state they willingly submit to, all the while openly celebrating their “Freedom.”

Mainstream Media Now Advocating ‘All Citizens’ Spend Time in Prison as ‘Service’ to Country

Corporate media achieved a new level of absurdity last week, when Jesse Ball, writing for the Los Angeles Times, suggested every American be required to spend a stint behind bars every ten years as a veritable guarantee to improve conditions of incarceration in the United States.

In the piece titled, “Everyone should go to jail, say, once every ten years,” Ball writes,

“A notable demand that is made upon the citizens of the United States of America is that of jury duty. Although many despise, hate and avoid it, there is a general sense that the task is necessary. We believe a society is only just if everyone shares in the apportionment of guilt.

“To this demand of jury duty, I would like to add another, and in the same spirit. I propose that all citizens of the United States of America should serve a brief sentence of incarceration in our maximum-security penitentiaries. This service, which would occur for each person once in a decade, would help ensure that the quality of life within our prisons is sufficient for the keeping of human beings.”

Without foreknowledge on length of stay and other details, citizens would languish behind the same bars as convicted criminals under Ball’s proposal — albeit in a section separated from offenders, assumedly not to confuse jailers and inmates, or endanger anyone serving ‘incarceration duty.’

But Ball misses the point — feeding the elephant in the room of overcriminalization of daily life, excessive laws, and, worst by far of all, the normalization of incarceration as conditional to the American way of life — lecturing all of us to walk a mile in the shoes of the convicted rather than declaring the brazen failures of the Injustice System evidence enough, itself, for dismantling the whole dysfunctional mess.

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After all, according to the Prison Policy Institute, the United States now cages some 2.3 million of its roughly 326.5 million total people — the largest per capita incarcerated persons of any nation on the entire planet.

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An interplanetary traveler would logically conclude it a prison nation — or, at least, one astonishingly rife with thugs, murderers, thieves, and worse.

Even the more law-and-order, authoritarian among us could see the flaws evident in a system claiming freedom, while locking away proportionally more than even the dictatorial fascist regimes our troops putatively combat.

While undoubtedly posited from a place of compassion as a plea for ethics in imprisonment, Ball’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek proposal unfortunately evinces the frequency with which Band-aids are applied as a fix for gaping structural flaws which should otherwise condemn the system to demolishment.

But, worst of all, this proposition capriciously normalizes the American Incarceration State.

Consider how those 2.3 million souls wound up stuffed into the cramped confines of the nation’s myriad federal, state, and local facilities; or, worse — judging by a voluminous body of anecdotal accounts — one of the altogether notorious prisons-for-profit, managed by private corporations intent only on thrift in housing its human commodities to save the State some pennies.

Most of the convicted behind bars have committed nonviolent crime — but moralizing on personal vice and legislation enacted sanctimoniously against substances have exploded the nation’s prison population to alarming proportions.

A court or jury decision of guilt in no way can be characterized on par with ‘laws’ governing ethics and human rights — for, if a candid observation of inmate records were ventured, a sweeping sum could be said to have landed in prison by violating the State’s prohibition on the cannabis plant.

And not violently so.

Forgetting for a moment ‘the law is the law,’ to describe a society as just, which chooses to not only cement unjust ideas into law, but imprison violators of aberrant legislation — particularly in cases of medicinal use — must be the pinnacle of hypocritical pomposity, if not the telltale heart of a dying empire.

Sure, forcing (on penalty of prison?!) yet more behind bars to prove how base the conditions behind bars might actually assist the vocal calling to improve conditions behind bars, but if so many have been locked there for reasons only justifiable for the violation interned in the print of legal tomes, the plan is an exercise in pure futility.

Unless it simply normalizes prison life as a veritable inevitability — might as well prepare for the eventuality some offensive chunk of life will be wasted rotting between the torrid walls of a prison cell.

The irony, palpable.

No, we do not need to send the relatively innocent to prison to endure torturously foul food and varying degrees of inhospitability to prove locking people in cages does nothing to curb crime — indeed, the opposite is arguably true.

It’s the system, broken — not people’s compassion.

Juries convict based on flawed evidence, evidence omitted by technicality, and an embarrassing list of other inexcusable conditions accumulated on the books over centuries — and more laws and regulations find their way to the ledger every day.

They’re creating additional ways to make you a criminal — so, in that sense, Ball might be onto something.

‘Get ready for prison, dear young people, by the time you’re an adult, there won’t be a thing you can do without somehow breaking the law,’ the writer unintentionally asserts between the lines.

“I wonder,” Ball continues, “once all you citizens of the United States are passing in and out of prison on a regular basis, will the conditions there not seem singularly urgent? Just picture congressmen, priests, stock traders, truck drivers, people of every faith, color, description, all for once sharing in something.”

Sharing in the memory of peering out from inside prison walls isn’t conducive to solving the issue of mass incarceration.

Scrapping unjust, unethical, amoral, and otherwise ludicrous laws governing every conceivable aspect of daily life, however, is.

Federal Prisons Caught Bonusing Themselves Millions Despite Epic Abuse & Corruption

If mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, and mandatory minimum sentencing were not enough of an affront to society, it was recently reported that top federal prison officials received millions in bonuses – despite that fact that federal prisons are mired in scandal and corruption.

USA Today reports:

“The U.S. Bureau of Prisons paid more than $2 million in bonuses to top administrators and wardens during the past three years while the agency was confronting persistent overcrowding, sub-par inmate medical care, chronic staffing shortages and a lurid sexual harassment lawsuit that engulfed its largest institution, according to government records and court documents.

The awards ranged from a $7,000 payment last year to a D.C. administrator, to $28,000 to the agency’s acting director Thomas Kane, and $25,500 for Deborah Schult, assistant director of the Health Services Division. The bulk of the payments, nearly $1 million, were approved last year and amounted to almost double the combined amounts in the previous two years.”

Prison staffers are outraged that their bosses – who did virtually nothing to stop pervasive sexual harassment from inmates over the course of 16 years – are receiving “performance awards,” even as their lawsuit is pending a settlement.

“These people got bonuses off the backs of people who were actually dealing with the predators,” said Sandra Parr, a vice president of the national union of prison workers. She went on to say that top agency officials “chose to ignore it,” which allowed the problem to spiral out of control.

In a private business setting, bonuses are effective incentives to encourage the highest quality work and the desire to improve the product or service. However, in a federal bureaucracy, it’s just a waste of taxpayer money to reward negligence and incompetence.

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None of the officials involved in the scandal has responded to an inquiry from USA Today, but a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons said the bonuses were given as a “strengthening of our (senior executive services).” But the rationale for each “performance award” will not be released.

Tamyra Jarvis, the warden at a Coleman, FL prison embroiled in the sexual harassment scandal, was given $34,500 over the past two years before retiring. The Coleman prison is a primary subject of the lawsuit brought by staffers.

“During the course of the case, which featured allegations that inmates routinely masturbated in front of female workers and threatened them with rape, victims’ attorneys and union officials argued that for years bureau managers and top administrators did little or nothing to intervene.

According to court documents, prison managers routinely either destroyed incident reports detailing the inmate conduct or disregarded the complaints altogether. In one case in which an inmate got close enough to ejaculate on a staffer’s leg, a manager acknowledged “shredding” the staffer’s complaint because the staffer could not positively identify the substance as semen since she was “not medical personnel.”

Besides the problem of rampant sexual harassment, federal prisons are plagued by inadequate medical care and “crisis level” staffing shortages. An Inspector General report found that some prisons had a 40 percent or more vacancy rate, citing the inability to compete with the private sector in recruiting medical staff.

But instead of using that $2 million to increase the salary for medical professionals, bonuses were given to corrupt prison officials sailing toward retirement while ignoring festering problems.

Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise to learn that a federal agency known as the Bureau of Prisons is the cause of needless suffering. The agency thrives on mass incarceration, throwing people in cages for victimless crimes.

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According to its own statistics, almost half (46.3%) of federal inmates are in prison for “drug offenses,” which is a product of federal government’s inhumane, archaic War on Drugs. The drug war, borne of racism and quelling antiwar dissent, helps no one except the agencies and law enforcement who profit from it.

Despite everything we know, the new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has promised to ramp up the drug war and pursue mandatory minimum sentencing, thus exacerbating the problem of mass incarceration and the injustice of locking people up for victimless crimes.

Leak Reveals Hillary Told to Avoid Truth About Prison Reform Because Bill Packed Them Full of Pot Users

Hillary Clinton has proved to be a deft politician when it comes to addressing the issues without really addressing them – doling out plenty of catchphrases for party loyalists but leaving the more rational among us wondering what she really thinks.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was a particularly interesting one for Clinton, who said she was for it before she was against it. The TPP is a huge gift to the Wall St. corporations inhabiting her megadonor list, but very unpopular among a large swath of Democratic voters.

Clinton’s position on ending cannabis prohibition is also ambiguous, as she has publicly hinted that states should be allowed to legalize it, but told Wall St. corporations in her paid speeches that she is against pot legalization “in all senses of the word.”

Now, Marijuana.com has found another troubling facet to the campaign of deception being foisted upon Americans in this deplorable election cycle.

In the Podesta emails, a “briefing book” advises Clinton on how to answer potential debate questions about cannabis and criminal justice reform. Staffers instruct Clinton to ignore the fact that pot users make up a large percentage of the prison population, even though they are aware that this has needlessly wrecked the lives of so many.

The briefing states:

“While YOU should avoid saying marijuana accounts for a signification portion of the U.S. correctional population, or a significant portion of those behind bars for drug offenses, it IS correct that there are hundreds of thousands of arrests for marijuana crimes, and that there are thousands of people serving (some) time for marijuana crimes – many of whom would likely be better off in their communities.”

The cruelty of the War on Drugs, and especially cannabis prohibition, has become increasingly exposed over the last few years. The Free Thought Project has reported on numerous tragically absurd cases where the State targets innocent pot users, and the fact that someone is arrested for cannabis every 49 seconds in the U.S.

As we know, the drug war is largely responsible for the American problem of mass incarceration, which gained much attention in 2016 but is now lost in the vapidity of election year politics. The U.S. prison population has increased almost 790 percent since 1980, with the rate of arrests for drug possession almost tripling.

Why would Clinton’s team want to ignore the glaring significance of cannabis prohibition in mass incarceration – even though voters care about this issue and overwhelmingly want to end prohibition?

Perhaps the fact that her husband, Bill Clinton, presided over a tremendous increase in federal and state prison populations has something to do with her uneasiness.

To be sure, prison populations began shooting up in the 1970s as the War on Drugs was revving up, and Ronald Reagan surely did his part in perpetuating that trend. However, the 1994 Crime Bill signed by Bill Clinton continued the injustice.

The infamous “three strikes” law was born, meaning that having two prior drug convictions could land someone in jail for life if they were convicted of a third violent felony. It also provided billions in funding for “drug courts” as well as tens of thousands of cops to enforce the drug war – which itself turned into an extortion racket known as “policing for profit.”

The 42^nd U.S. President even acknowledged his mistake, saying “I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” Clinton said. “And I want to admit it.”

One of the worst offenses of this election campaign, and elections in general, is that substantive issues like “criminal justice reform” – or putting less people in cages for nonviolent, victimless behavior – are ignored in the cacophony of divisive, fear-based rhetoric and manufactured rage.

Some credit must be given, however, for another part of the leaked emails that shows Clinton actually supporting a critical issue in cannabis freedom – access to banking services by legitimate businesses.

“If pressed: what about marijuana banking restrictions – should we let marijuana businesses access banking services.

I do think these businesses – if they are operating in according with state law, and with federal guidelines – should be able to access banking services. I know that the Obama Administration has taken steps in this direction, and I think those steps are smart.

Not having access to banking services can force legal and licensed businesses to deal in cash, making their stores a target for theft. Cash-only operations also are more difficult to audit. I will continue to evaluate the steps the Administration had taken, to determine if we should go further.”

Although it’s heartening to see that politicians are actually aware of the absurd banking prohibitions levied against cannabusinesses, why isn’t this issue actively spoken about? The campaign only frets about being “pressed” on the issue.

Billions of dollars in state-sanctioned business transactions are forced to be hauled around in cash form – creating needless danger and preventing free market opportunities – and there’s hardly a peep about it from politicians or mainstream media.

If Hillary Clinton really wanted to score some points with young voters, these are the kinds of things she would talk about. But the Rothschilds have far more sway in what makes it into the narrative.