GABEO-Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials to hold annual
conference in Q-town February 24, 25, 26, 2012. We are so THANKFUL that
OTHERS HEAR and UNDERSTAND what happened in BROOKS.
And we would love
to meet you here!!! God bless ALL of you and God will continue to bless
Brooks and America.
GABEO Annual Winter Conference
“Living the Dream – Save the Voting Rights Act”
February 24– 26, 2012
Hosts: “The Quitman 10” A Change Movement!
Headquarters: Shumate Street Church of Christ
301 Shumate Street, Quitman, GA 31643
229-263-8329
The citizens of (Quitman) Brooks County Georgia and South Georgia are
extremely greatful for their support and outreach! They are indeed
the real patriots of our beloved republic by standing up for voting
rights.
The News Media seem to be taking a back seat to keeping citizens and voters
informed along the lines of fairness in the State of Georgia and beyond.
As a retired military veteran, I was extremely happy for the Press
Conference in support of the Quitman 10 as included in the links below. We
must not forget about the citizens and voters in Brooks County,
Willacoochee, Douglass-Coffee County Georgia (nooses) Tallahassee, Madison,
Florida and other rural areas acorss the nation.
There are historical reasons for why we lock up so many people,
some going back a century or more, and some starting in 1980 and 2001.
Knowing what they are (and what they are not)
lets us see what we can do to end the epidemic of
incarceration that is damaging education and agriculture in Georgia.
More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go
to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale
almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country
today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the
fundamental
fact of 1850. In truth, there are
more black men in the grip of the
criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on
parole—than were in slavery then.
Over all, there are now more people under
“correctional supervision” in America—more than
six million—than
were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of
the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest
in the United States.
The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just
as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about
two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand
Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred
and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two
decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times
the rate of spending on higher education.
And we can’t afford that, especially not when we’re cutting school budgets.
That graph of education vs. incarceration spending is for California.
Somebody should do a similar graph for Georgia.
The article does get into why we lock up so many people:
Continue reading →
CCA inadvertently rehabilitated former prisoner Alex Friedmann
and gave him a new career, lobbying against prison privatization.
He says:
In my view, the worst thing
is that they have normalized the notion of incarcerating people for profit.
Basically commodifying people, seeing them
as nothing more than a revenue stream….
If you incarcerate more people and you put more people in
your private prisons you make more money.
Which provides perverse incentives against reforming our justice system.
And increasing the number of people we’re putting in prison,
whether they need to be there or not, just to generate corporate profit.
I think that’s incredibly immoral and unethical,
I think that’s the worst aspect of our private prison industry.
In a refreshing changes from “jobs, jobs, jobs” as everything,
Andrea Schruijer,
Executive Director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
told the Lowndes County Democratic Party meeting, 5 December 2011,
that it wasn’t her job to create jobs, jobs, jobs; it was her job
to create an environment that let jobs be created.
Towards that end, she announced several new jobs at VLCIA,
including a PR and marketing position.
VLCIA Chairman Roy Copeland also spoke and helped answer questions
from the audience, including about
wages,
workers, and
green industries.
Perhaps not shown is her answer to my question about what does
VLCIA do to promote new local industry.
I believe she said VLCIA looks to the Chamber of Commerce for incubation,
and helps once local businesses are established.
My job: create environment for jobs —Andrea Schruijer of VLCIA @ LCDP 5 Dec 2011
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director of VLCIA,
Monthly Meeting, Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 December 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman.
On Tuesday, Deal issued his order prior to the Brooks County Board
of Education’s first meeting of 2012. Dr. Nancy Whitfield-Dennard,
Elizabeth Diane Thomas and Linda Faye Troutman were notified of this
suspension at approximately 4:30 p.m., according to sources.
Following the governor’s suspension this week, Brooks County school
board member Brad Shealy, who is also an assistant Southern district
attorney, was appointed to serve as president of the board with
board member Larry Cunningham serving as vice president. Shealy
served many years as the school board president prior to
Whitfield-Dennard being named president last year.
The two local TV stations have an update on the Quitman 10:
the governor has suspended the three who were elected to the Brooks
County School Board.
If the VDT has covered this, I must have missed it.
(OK, I should look at
today’s paper….)
There’s also nothing about this on the
Brooks County School Board website.
Superintendent Debra Folsom got the governor’s order Tuesday
suspending the three board members.
“This is all new territory for us,” said Folsom. “We’re consulting
our attorney to see what the next steps we will take to fill the
positions.”
December 20 a review commission made up of the attorney general and
two school board members from across Georgia were appointed by the
governor to review the case.
“They heard evidence from the prosecution and from the accused and
the conclusion of that they made a determination and forwarded that
to the governor’s office whether to suspend or not to suspend the
three school board members,” said South Georgia District Attorney
Joe Mulholland.
December 30, the review panel unanimously made their decision.
While the Valdosta Daily Times, WCTV, and WALB remain silent
about the Quitman 10,
and all you hear on local TV is
the D.A. giving his opinion of the case,
in faraway Macon Patrick Davis digs into more things we should be hearing.
Brad Shealy, who had been the long-time chairman of the Brooks Board
of Education faced the prospect of being voted out as chairman and
witnessing a majority-black Brooks County Board of Education for the
first time ever.
Shealy lost his position when new leadership was elected in January
2011.
Shealy’s day job is the assistant district attorney under J. David
Miller who originally started the investigation back in the late
summer of 2010.
Excuse me?
The former Brooks County school board chairman works for the D.A.’s office?
And the D.A. is going on TV for pre-trial propaganda in the case?
GABEO-Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials to hold annual conference in Q-town February 24, 25, 26, 2012. We are so THANKFUL that OTHERS HEAR and UNDERSTAND what happened in BROOKS. And we would love to meet you here!!! God bless ALL of you and God will continue to bless Brooks and America.
GABEO Annual Winter Conference
Moreover, I have just been notified that the Quitman 10 will be
traveling to Atlanta on Friday
