Received yesterday. It’s a YouTube video. -jsq
Video by George Boston Rhynes for
K.V.C.I. Keeping Valdosta Citizen Informed
George has written up most of this in K.V.C.I. with pictures and YouTube videos.
Also, I appreciate the shoutout, George, and I’m sure the other people involved with LAKE and this blog do, as well.
-jsq
Maybe you think you’re safe, because you’re not out on the street. Think again: Continue readingThe most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalised in America.
Photograph: Robyn Beck/EPAPerhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico, wrote in the Washington Times 5 August 2011, JOHNSON: Hitting the cartels where it hurts: Legalization of marijuana would end drug profiteering and violence
As a Republican, he manages to say legalize and regulate but forget to mention tax, and he didn’t mention Jimmy Carter or Javier Sicilia calling for an end to the drug war, but he did mention (I added the links): Continue readingImagine you are a drug lord in Mexico, making unfathomable profits sending your illegal product to the United States. What is the headline you fear the most? “U.S. to build bigger fence”? “U.S. to send troops to the border”? “U.S. to deploy tanks in El Paso”? No. None of those would give you much pause. They would simply raise the level of difficulty and perhaps cause you to escalate the violence that already has turned the border region into a war zone. But would they stop you or ultimately hurt your bottom line? Probably not.
But what if that drug lord opened his newspaper and read this: “U.S. to legalize and regulate marijuana”? That would ruin his day, and ruin it in a way that could not be fixed with more and bigger guns, higher prices or more murder.
Now that’s privatization of justice! Looks a lot like no justice at all. Makes you wonder how many other people are in prison who shouldn’t be.A northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered Thursday to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive bribery scandal that prompted the state’s high court to toss thousands of juvenile convictions and left lasting scars on the children who appeared in his courtroom and their hapless families.
Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking a $1 million bribe from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as “kids for cash.”
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.
-jsq
PS: Had to go to the Guardian for the picture, though.
Dan Heyman wrote 12 January 2010 for Public News Service – WV, Churches: No Private Prison For Immigrants In WV,
CHARLESTON, WV – West Virginia’s largest church group has asked U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd and the rest of the state’s congressional delegation to oppose funding a private prison for undocumented immigrants in Pendleton County near the Virginia border.Continue readingThe Council of Churches is one of several groups discussing immigration reform ahead of expected congressional action on the issue. The Council has asked federal lawmakers’ help in the effort, arguing private prison operations have been rife with abuse. GSI Professional Corrections is seeking county commission approval to build the detention center near Sugar Grove to house 1,000 nonviolent immigrant detainees awaiting possible deportation.
Rev. Dennis Sparks, the Council’s executive director, complains private prisons operate outside the mainstream legal
Is this what you want for yourself and your children? If not, it’s time to stop ALEC crafting state laws to lock people up and then exploit them as slave labor.“more than 14 million pounds of beef infected with rat feces processed by inmates were not recalled, in order to avoid drawing attention to how many products are made by prison labor.”
We can start by not accepting a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
Update 9:35 AM 6 Aug 2011: Fixed the links to the Democracy Now story. Thanks for catching that, Barbara!
Here’s a bonus link to the story in The Nation.
-jsq
PS: This post owed to Cheryl Ann Fillekes.
Valdosta school board member Annie Fisher
pointed out CUEE members sent their chidren to private schools
and now they’re meddling in public education.
She listed some real issues, such as
Valdosta city schools remain segregated,
focussing on tests just to meet AYP,
and we need
to remove students from the prison to the classroom.
“How can we equally educate each child?”Yes, let’s forget “unification” and focus on that.
Here’s the video:
The members of the CUEE, they send their children to private schools —Annie Fisher
No school consolidation,
Press Conference, Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 July 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
You thought maybe I made up the three points I proposed to improve education? Nope, unlike CUEE, I’ve been paying attention.
-jsq
Published by General Board of Pension and Health Benefits of The United Methodist Church July 2011, Faith-Based Investors Take a Closer Look at Private Prisons,
In 2011, members of the United Methodist Interagency Task Force on Immigration approached the General Board of Pension and Health BenefitsContinue reading(General Board) with concerns about two private prison companies in the General Board’s investment portfolio: Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and The GEO Group, Inc. The United Methodist Interagency Task Force on Immigration was created following the General Conference of 2004. Membership includes representatives from the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM), the General Commission on Religion and Race, the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), Methodists Associated to Represent the Cause of Hispanic Americans (MARCHA) and two bishops. In addition, GBCS has shared its concern that CCA and The GEO Group have been accused of human rights abuses of young people, immigrants and people of color.
CCA and The GEO Group are the two largest private prison companies in the U.S., operating and/or owning, respectively, 111 and 118 correctional, detention and/or residential treatment facilities. In 2010, CCA earned nearly $1.7 billion; The GEO Group, $1.3 billion.
Investor Engagement with Private Prisons
The Quitman 10 started out as activists, and now they’re
taking it a step further: they hosted an
organizational meeting for an NAACP branch in Brooks County.
George Boston Rhynes was there and made this video
of students singing about
education, not incarceration:
Education, not Incarceration
Organizational Meeting, Brooks County NAACP,
Quitman, Brooks County, Georgia, 18 July 2010
Videos by George Boston Rhynes for K.V.C.I.
George videoed the whole meeting and posted it on his blog. He wrote in his introduction to this series of videos: Continue reading
Craig Howley, Jerry Johnson, Jennifer Petrie wrote 1 February 2011,
Consolidation of Schools and Districts: What the Research Says and What it Means:
…the review of research evidence detailed in this brief suggests that a century of consolidation has already produced most of the efficiencies obtainable. Research also suggests that impoverished regions in particular often benefit from smaller schools and districts, and they can suffer irreversible damage if consolidation occurs.Isn’t such irreversible damage what Rev. Floyd Rose got Mrs. Ruth Council to admit?
They are referring to black schools before desegregation in the 1960s.Rev. Rose: “…we were told about the world, where we came from, how we got here.”
Mrs. Council: “I think we did receive a better education.”
Rev. Floyd Rose is president of the local SCLC, and here is a statement by Leigh Touchton, president of the local NAACP: Continue reading