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September 16, 2004
Ivan Breaks Out
I just read this blurb at Sun Sentinel:
Eglin Air Force Base, Pensacola Naval Air Station and Hurlburt Field ordered all nonessential military, civilian employees and their dependents to evacuate. Military installations along the Panhandle sent away at least 275 aircraft, including gunships, jet fighters and helicopters used by Special Operations units to safe locations, and moved others into hangars. The air station sent about 1,200 military students to Albany, Ga., and another 4,000 military students helped set up emergency shelters in Escambia County.
The entire article may be found at Hurricane Updates at a Glance. Eglin is where Michael is being held. It pisses me off is that according to the BOP Prison Report there are 795 inmates at Eglin Federal Work Camp and nobody bothers to tell anybody what happened to them. Did they simply leave them there while the hurricane pummeled them? Probably not. But they're still not important enough for our fucked-up government to report to us about them.
Send them to jail and forget about them. That's what everyone in this country thinks its right. That's why prisoners get treated like numbered pieces of meat—because people—and I'm probably talking to you if you're reading this—don't care about them. You don't write to them, you don't visit them, you don't stand up for thier rights. As long as you are comfortable in your homes, and it doesn't affect you at all, you're happy. It's what they deserve, right? Never mind that 2%—YES, one out of every fifty—men in America is incarcerated, on probation or parole, or in jail awaiting trial. Most of these men made some stupid mistake because of drug addiction or because they were young—perhaps the kind of mistake that many of us may have made and gotten away with. Or we could have made that sort of mistake but we made a split second decision in our past that prevented us from it.
But there is such a thin line between us and them. Most of people who are incarcerated are not violent. But they are not receiving adequate medical care—they are generally treated by sadistic doctors whose only interest is showing up and making their daily paychecks. They are not receiving inhumane treatment from prison guards who thrive on making inmates feel like shit.
Who has a vested interest in incarcerating prisoners? Republican presidents who have investments in prisons and get elected by tiny margins in states that regularly purge the voting rolls of convicted felons who typically vote Democrat in other states where the president's brother isn't governor, because ex-felons are allowed to vote.
Personally, I think that we should have an "adopt-a-prisoner" program, and it be mandatory that every citizen in this country be required to participate. Maybe it's the only way we can finally understand what drives so many of our citizens into our prisons, and start doing something about it. But if people open their eyes, they might actually see what's going on, and the part that they played in it.
Posted by Bastique at September 16, 2004 10:47 PM