We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, June 21, 2014

America’s New Apartheid: Segregation by Incarceration

Click here to access article by independent journalist Garry Leech from his blog.

Leech provides solid arguments to support his thesis about what the "War on Drugs" really accomplished: a new method of apartheid to circumvent the many legal decisions trying to remove racist segregation practices. It was another way to roll back many of the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement. In my opinion, it was especially aimed at militant African-Americans who provoked an almost visceral reaction of hatred and fear among many in the US ruling class. And, the "War on Drugs" had a side benefit of expanding local police forces.

Many people associate the mass imprisonment of a population with authoritarian regimes. Consequently, many Americans are surprised when they learn that the United States incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other nation. With 2.3 million prisoners, the “land of the free” has more people in prison than China, which has a population four times the size of the United States. A hugely disproportionate percentage of those incarcerated are African-Americans as Washington’s war on drugs constitutes the latest incarnation of racist policies that have existed since the country’s founding.