The War On Drugs: How the “Land of the Free” Became the “Home of the Slaves” for 2.3 Million Americans

30th November 2015
By Cortland Pfeffer with Irwin Ozborne
Guest Writers for Wake Up World

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“Prisoner number [XX]… It is time to go home.” The most beautiful words she had ever heard. She had dreamt about the day that phrase would be uttered for the past ten years. Today, she will get to see her daughter that has been out of her life and begin the process of reunification.

As she takes her first steps outside the prison walls in a decade, it is like stepping into a foreign land. Outside the concrete confinement she is overwhelmed by the simplicity of feeling the fresh breeze, the sunlight, the green grass, and of course her family. Her daughter, mother, and brother await her release in what feels like another world away. Her lower lip starts to tremble uncontrollably – which it always has done when she becomes emotional – only to see her 13-year-old daughter’s lower lip mirror that of her own. Mother-and-daughter are able to embrace for the first time in years as they share an electric bond that cannot be broken, despite so many unanswered questions over the years. 

“Why is Mom in jail? Why didn’t I get to have a Mom while growing up? Why wasn’t anyone there to do the things that everyone else enjoyed with their Mom? Where was my Mom all this time?”

These are the questions the little girl repeatedly asked throughout her lifetime without an answer that ever seemed to make sense. She once even wrote a letter to the judge, prior to her mother’s sentencing. It was written in 6 year old writing, in a blue crayon. It said:

“Please help my mommy, I don’t want her to go to jail for a long time. I want her to get better.”

This woman was a prisoner of war — the War On Drugs. Another unnecessary and ineffective war that has destroyed far more lives than it has helped. A war that has built the highest population of incarcerated people per capita in the history of civilization — and yet the enemy (drug use) is at an all-time high.

The War on Drugs is the longest active war in American history and continues to run with no end in sight because it benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. Society’s most vulnerable people are literally being reduced to a number, while corporations, politicians, and congressmen that write the laws of the land are profiting from the lives they are helping to tear apart. 

The Great Prison Marketing Scheme:

On June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon officially declared the War on Drugs:

“America’s public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”

A war is defined as a conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state. But, to declare a war on an inanimate object or concept means that there is no clear enemy – hence, no end.

And this is intentional. In fact, it is one of the greatest marketing schemes never told. It is drawn out as follows:

1) The President tells you the greatest risk to our safety is a concept, object, or philosophy (Communism, Drugs, Terror, etc.).

1. Declares a war that is not really a war (Cold War, Drug War, War on Terror).
2. The American people are asked to pay the bill because money is not an issue – this is for our safety and security.
3. They create a special agency that makes their own laws in their war (CIA, DEA, NSA, Homeland Security, etc.)

2) Laws are changed that support fighting this war – leading to mass incarcerations of anyone not in compliance.

3) The prisons become over-crowded, and therefore, private prisons run by corporations need to be built to house prisoners.

1. Corporations are for-profit, which means more prisoners equals more money
2. They sign contracts with the government guaranteeing high occupancy rates (usually between 90-100 percent for up to twenty years).
3. This gives incentives to lock up more people, because they have to pay regardless as to whether or not the bed is filled
4. The quality of care and supervision is poor, because it is a business and they seek cheap labor and cost-cutting techniques like every business
5. Corporations then rent prisoners for free labor- also known as slavery

4) The private prisons then lobby Congress to make stricter laws that enable more people to be locked up.

5) Congress obliges because it helps them win elections and:

1. Congress makes the laws of the country – and they don’t bite the hand that feeds
2. Then, since they know the laws, they buy stock in these same private prisons
3. Profit off their investments

6) Then the war against a concept shifts overseas.

1. This allows our government to overthrow poor countries under the disguise as a war against our greatest threat.
   1. Allowing to steal natural resources
   2. Install a puppet government that benefits our corporate interests
2. Politicians that declare war also have stock in Arms manufacturers like General Electric, Raytheon, etc.
   1. More wars means more arms need to be built
   2. They profit off their investments again
3. In order to overthrow governments without making it obvious to the public, they hire guerilla insurgents to do so.
   1. They train these rebel groups and supply arms
   2. In turn, these groups pay for the arms by supplying illegal drugs

7) The CIA returns these illegal drugs into the inner cities of America.

8) They then arrest people and put them into private prisons (from which they profit), by selling the same drugs they brought into the country (from which they profit) to arm rebel groups to overthrow governments and install puppet governments which support U.S. Corporations and gain further profit (in which the law-makers also have stock interests).

This approach to increasing the prison population has been incredibly successful, with more than a 700% increase in incarceration rates since 1972. It is such a brilliant concept that we have recently followed suit by launching a War on Terror — another war without a clear enemy, against a concept, which will never have a definitive outcome, and which only profits those with heavy stock interests (i.e. John Kerry, US Secretary of State, has made $26 million off his investments directly related to the War on Terror; but that is not a conflict of interest??)

This is not freedom, this is fascism.

The US proudly claims to be “Land of the Free” yet it has more people locked up than any other civilization in the history of the world, with the majority of them in there for non-violent drug offenses. The United States is home to only 5% of the world’s population, but holds almost a quarter of the world’s prison population, while the total correctional population nears 7 million (including people on parole, probation and juvenile detention, but not including detained refugees and military prisoners).

War on Drugs Race

All the drug laws in America have their racist and discriminatory foundations. The first drug-law came in 1875 in San Francisco, which was a banning of Opium Dens as a discrimination against Chinese-American immigrants. National headlines linked cocaine to causing violent behavior in African-Americans and laws were soon put in place. Marijuana was first used recreationally in the Southwestern United States by Mexican immigrants 1920’s, and laws were established that was geared at incriminating Mexicans.

But these were just the early battles before war was officially declared. Today, approximately 12% of the US population is African-American, but they make up 60% of the nation’s male inmates (source: U.S. Department of Justice). There are also more African-American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations in India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined, while the US currently has more black men and women behind bars per capita than in the Apartheid-era South Africa. Furthermore, a 2012 registry of exonerated criminals showed that African-Americans make up 50% of all innocent people imprisoned in the US.

In June of 1971, Nixon declared the War on Drugs making most street drugs illegal with stricter penalties. Two years later, the DEA was created to enforce drug laws and bring those “criminals” to justice.

More arrests, meant more people in jails and prisons. The prisons started to overflow and they need for more prisons arose. Corporations got involved and built private, for-profit prisons. They arrange contracts with the government to remain at high occupancy’s, further incentives for the government to arrest non-violent drug offenders and keep them for longer sentences.

In the notorious, “Kids for Cash Scandal” two judges in Pennsylvania were convicted of taking cash payments from private prisons as bribery to sentence more juveniles to fill their beds. They were locking up kids for minor offenses — such as mocking a school principal on Myspace, or trespassing in a vacant building — changing innocent lives forever, all for sums of money. And these are just the judges that got caught.

The prison industry spends millions of dollars each year lobbying with the US Congress to change and retain laws that allow locking up more and more people for non-violent drug offenses. In turn, many members of Congress – the people who write the laws – have investments in private prisons, encouraging them to keep these laws that help their stock portfolios.

Prison Labor

An increased prison population helps out more than just the prison industry, many other corporations have invested in prison labor. At least 37 states have legalized contracting of US prison labor – a workforce of over 2 million, or around 1 in every 110 Americans – including corporations such as IBM, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Dell, Honeywell, Target, and many more mount their operations inside of prisons.

This is also known as slavery.

In fact, this idea of convict leasing arose after the Civil War. The South was built by stealing Native American land and utilizing free slave labor to build America into one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. But after slavery was abolished and African-Americans were emancipated, the corporations needed cheap labor. Freed slaves started getting charged with petty crimes and sentenced to many years in prison. Once in prison, they were leased to work, picking cotton and building railroads – just slavery with a different name.

Since the Drug War launched in 1971, the prison population has skyrocketed, locking up Americans and, in particular, African-Americans at an alarming rate, to work for free for corporations. As a society, we really have not changed, we have just found new and creative ways to hide our human rights crimes better.

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America’s Slave Empire

The resistance movement against US prisons continues to grow.

By Chris Hedges / Truthdig

June 22, 2015

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/americas-slave-empire?sc=fb

Three prisoners—Melvin Ray, James Pleasant and Robert Earl Council—who led work stoppages in Alabama prisons in January 2014 as part of the Free Alabama Movement have spent the last 18 months in solitary confinement. Authorities, unnerved by the protests that engulfed three prisons in the state, as well as by videos and pictures of abusive conditions smuggled out by the movement, say the men will remain in solitary confinement indefinitely.
The prison strike leaders are denied televisions and reading material. They spend at least three days a week, sometimes longer, in their tiny isolation cells. They eat their meals while seated on steel toilets. They are allowed to shower only once every two days despite temperatures that routinely rise above 90 degrees.
The men have become symbols of a growing resistance movement inside American prisons. The prisoners’ work stoppages and refusal to co-operate with authorities in Alabama are modeled on actions that shook the Georgia prison system in December 2010. The strike leaders argue that this is the only mechanism left to the 2.3 million prisoners across America. By refusing to work—a tactic that would force prison authorities to hire compensated labor or toinduce the prisoners to return to their jobs by paying a fair wage—the neoslavery that defines the prison system can be broken. Prisoners are currently organizing in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
“We have to shut down the prisons,” Council, known as Kinetik, one of the founders of the Free Alabama Movement, told me by phone from the Holman Correctional Facility in Escambia County, Ala. He has been in prison for 21 years, serving a sentence of life without parole. “We will not work for free anymore. All the work in prisons, from cleaning to cutting grass to working in the kitchen, is done by inmate labor. [Almost no prisoner] in Alabama is paid. Without us the prisons, which are slave empires, cannot function. Prisons, at the same time, charge us a variety of fees, such as for our identification cards or wrist bracelets, and [impose] numerous fines, especially for possession of contraband. They charge us high phone and commissary prices. Prisons each year are taking larger and larger sums of money from the inmates and their families. The state gets from us millions of dollars in free labor and then imposes fees and fines. You have brothers that work in kitchens 12 to 15 hours a day and have done this for years and have never been paid.”
“We do not believe in the political process,” said Ray, who spoke from the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Ala., and who is serving life without parole. “We are not looking to politicians to submit reform bills. We aren’t giving more money to lawyers. We don’t believe in the courts. We will rely only on protests inside and outside of prisons and on targeting the corporations that exploit prison labor and finance the school-to-prison pipeline. We have focused our first boycott on McDonald’s. McDonald’s uses prisoners to process beef for paddies and package bread, milk, chicken products. We have called for a national Stop Campaign against McDonald’s. We have identified this corporation to expose all the others. There are too many corporations exploiting prison labor to try and take them all on at once.”
“We are not going to call for protests outside of statehouses,” Ray went on. “Legislators are owned by corporations. To go up there with the achy breaky heart is not going to do any good. These politicians are in it for the money. If you are fighting mass incarceration, the people who are incarcerated are not in the statehouse. They are not in the parks. They are in the prisons. If you are going to fight for the people in prison, join them at the prison. The kryptonite to fight the prison system, which is a $500 billion enterprise, is the work strike. And we need people to come to the prisons to let guys on the inside know they have outside support to shut the prison down. Once we take our labor back, prisons will again become places for correction and rehabilitation rather than centers of corporate profit.”
The three prisoners said that until the prison-industrial complex was dismantled there would be no prison reform. They said books such as Stokely Carmichael’s “Ready for Revolution” and Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow,” along with the failure of prison reform movements, convinced them that the only hope to battle back against a prison system that contains 25 percent of the world’s prisoners was to organize resistance. And they find no solace in a black president.
“To say that we have a black president does not say anything,” Ray said. “The politicians are the ones who orchestrated this system. They are either directly involved as businessmen—many are already millionaires or billionaires, or they are controlled by millionaires and billionaires. We are not blindsided by titles. We are looking at what is going on behind the scenes. We see a coordinated effort by the Koch brothers, ALEC [the American Legislative Exchange Council] and political action committees that see in prisons a business opportunity. Their goal is to increase earnings. And once you look at it like this, it does not matter if we have a black or white president. That is why the policies have not changed. The laws, such as mandatory minimum [sentences], were put in place by big business so they would have access to cheap labor. The anti-terrorism laws were enacted to close the doors on the access to justice so people would be in prison longer. Big business finances campaigns. Big business writes the laws and legislation. And Obama takes money from these people. He is as vested in this system as they are.”
In Alabama prisons, as in nearly all such state facilities across the United States, prisoners do nearly every job, including cooking, cleaning, maintenance, laundry and staffing the prison barbershop. In the St. Clair prison there is also a chemical plant, a furniture company and a repair shop for state vehicles. Other Alabama prisons run printing companies and recycling plants, stamp license plates, make metal bed frames, operate sand pits and tend fish farms. Only a few hundred of Alabama’s 26,200 prisoners—the system is designed to hold only 13,130 people—are paid to work; they get 17 to 71 cents an hour. The rest are slaves.
The men bemoaned a lack of recreational and educational programs and basic hygiene supplies, the poor ventilation that sends temperatures in the cells and dormitories to over 100 degrees, crumbling infrastructures, infestations of cockroaches and rats, and corrupt prison guards who routinely beat prisoners and sell contraband, including drugs and cell phones. These conditions, coupled with the overcrowding, are, they warned, creating a tinderbox, especially as temperatures soar. There was a riot in St. Clair in April. There has been a rash of stabbings and fights in the prison. Prisoners have assaulted 10 guards in St. Clair during the last four weeks.
“The worst thing is the water,” said James Pleasant, a St. Clair prisoner who has served 13 years of a 43-year sentence. “It is contaminated. It causes kidney, renal failure and cancer. The food causes stomach diseases. We have had three to four outbreaks of food poisoning in the last four months.”
He said that the prolonged caging of prisoners and the closing of rehabilitation programs, including education programs, guarantee recidivism, something sought by the corporations that profit from prisons. An estimated 80 percent of prisoners entering the Alabama prison system are functionally illiterate.
“Sleeping on a concrete slab is not going to teach you how to read or write,” Pleasant said. “Sleeping on a concrete slab will not solve mental health issues. But the system does not change. It does what it is designed to do. It makes sure people are driven back into the system to work without pay.”
“For years we were called niggers to indicate we had no value or worth and that anything could be done to us,” Ray said. “Then the word ‘nigger’ became politically incorrect. So they began calling us criminals. When you say a person is a criminal it means that what happens to them does not matter. It means he or she is a nigger. It means they deserve what they get.”
Prisons, the men said, have increasingly placed larger and larger financial burdens on families, with the poorest families suffering the most. Prisoners, too, suffer as a result.
“If you don’t get money from your family, your poverty blocks you out from buying items at the commissary or making phone calls,” Council said. “You can’t communicate with your family. If you don’t have someone to send you money you can’t even buy stamps to write home. They [authorities] are supposed to give us two free stamps a week, but I have never seen them do it in my 16 years of incarceration. We pay a $4 medical co-pay if we make a sick call. Every additional medication we receive is $4. If you have a cold and you get something for sinuses, pain meds and something for congestion, that becomes a $16 visit. And if you get $20 from a family member, the state will take $16 off the top to pay for the visit. You end up with $4 to spend at a jacked-up canteen. There are a lot of brothers walking around in debt. ...”
“It takes brutality and force to make a person work for free and live in the type of conditions we live in and not do anything about it,” Ray said. “The only way they made slavery work was to use force. It is no different in the slave empire of prisons. They use brutality to hold it together. And this brutality will not go away until the system goes away.”
The men described numerous horrific beatings by guards.
Pleasant said, “They stood me up against the wall [with my hands cuffed behind me]. There were about 10 officers. They started swinging, punching and hitting me with sticks. They knocked my legs out from under me. My face hit the floor. They stomped on my face. They sent me to the infirmary to hide what they did, for 30 days. When I looked in the mirror I could not recognize my facial features. This was the fourth time I was beaten like this.”
I asked the three men, speaking to me on a conference call, what prison conditions said about America. They laughed.
“It says America is what it has always been, America,” said Ray. “It says if you are poor and black you will be exploited, brutalized and murdered. It says most of American society, especially white society, is indifferent. It says nothing has really changed for us since slavery.”

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, writes a regular column for Truthdig every Monday. Hedges' most recent book is "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle."

Craigslist Ad for ‘Unconditional Love’ Reaches Over 1 Million Views

Posted By Expanded Consciousness on March 15, 2015

http://expandedconsciousness.com/2015/03/15/craigslist-ad-unconditional-love-reaches-1-million-views/

Brice Royer might have the most read Craigslist ad of all time. What is he selling? Unconditional love, and the total cost is $0. This ad has been posted all over the internet, and an update was recently posted to the top stating…(Update March 15th: Over 1 million viewers. Thank you for your interest.)
The ad originally appeared on March, 12th 2015.

Here is Mr. Royer’s ad in full… 

Hello, I am selling unconditional love for $0.
Infinite square feet lot. Includes refreshing air, sunshine, the Earth, beautiful mountains and the ocean. A stunning ‘classic’ heritage made 4.5 billion years ago.
Address: Earth, Solar System, Milky Way.
Available now to serious buyers. Perfect for the first-time buyer and experienced investors feeling empty and trapped with stress and pressure to maximize Return on Investment because of family and stakeholders expectation.
HISTORY:
I received it a long time ago when I was born. I received the gift of life from my parents, the sun, the water, the Earth, the air, a smile, a hug, a helping hand, without being asked anything in return. I didn’t earn any of them. They belong to public domain, the commons, “Mother Earth” or God, if you’re religious.
At some point, my ancestors were afraid and decided to own land that once belonged to everyone, sell services that were once freely given, and even own humans through debt. Since it was claimed or stolen by those who made the laws themselves with a series of ‘legitimate’ transfers, then any law that enforces private ownership is perpetuating a crime. Not all laws are morally just. Only recently, slavery was legal and women weren’t allowed to vote. Why pay for something that was stolen from you? They made a mistake. I’m sorry. Let’s start fresh with this new sale.
Although I am only one human and my time and resources are limited, my soul and the intention of love is eternal, and so is yours… and I would like us to share that experience.
PAYMENT:
I don’t accept cheques or mortgage payments, only cash payments of $0. You are also welcome to re-sale it for $0. But I must warn you… it will multiply once you do.
CONTACT ME:
If you would like to join this incredible investing opportunity, you can email me by clicking on ‘reply’ to this post or visiting gifteconomy.ca
Thank you,
The seller
P.S: Yes, I am for real. If you’d like to learn more about me, the seller, you can read this article on the Vancouver Sun. I’m a cancer patient who believes that love can heal me. http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2014/06/09/unemployed-man-offers-to-pay-strangers-rent-for-a-year/
PPS: If you are disappointed and missed out on the $51 million Point Grey mansion recently sold in Vancouver, then you are in luck. What I am offering is priceless.
REAL ESTATE AGENTS:
Unconditional love is in high demand in today’s Vanvouver housing market. I will give you a 100% commission of $0.00 on the sale. Please inquire for details!
PROGRESS UPDATE:
12 March: Two prospect buyers contacted me.
13: A real estate agent is interested in representing this sale. One new prospect.
14: 3 new buyers.
15: An organization called Sustainable Human shared this to their 1 million fans… many new buyers.. Thank you!
Comments from viewers and buyers:
“The best real estate ad ever in Vancouver.”
“Brilliant!”
“Hi, I have been suffering from severe depression and anxiety for years. Your ad and the article about your gift circle gave me something I haven’t felt for what feels in forever… Hope.”
“Greetings. I am interested in investing ALL of my wealth, totalling $0.00, and would ask that you offer any real estate of my surplus $0.00 to those less fortunate.
“Thank you for the smiles. <3 I am hunting for a home, dreaming that one might be affordable…I loved reading your ad. It was reassuring to my soul.”
Frequently Asked Questions:
“Why are you selling the Earth for $0?”
I’m simply correcting the housing bubble. The Earth’s asking price for its abundant gifts to us has always been $0.00.
“Do I have to be a good person to deserve this gift?”
No. The Sun rises on both the evil and the good, the Earth’s rain falls on both the righteous and the wrongdoers.. That’s the Sun’s and the Earth’s unconditional love to all of us. We didn’t earn any of it.
“What does free property have anything to do with unconditional love?”
Everything. Here’s a beautiful poem that may answer your question: “”Even After All this time The Sun never says to the Earth, “You owe me.” Look What happens With a love like that, It lights the whole sky.” – Hafiz, A persian poet of the 1300.
“Can you do that? Is this legal? What if the government evicts me?”
Since I’m returning the Earth which rightfully belongs to everyone, then it makes all previous legal title claims over the Earth invalid. Love is rebellious and revolutionary.
Please, live and eat freely on this Earth wherever you choose as long as it does not cause harm to others. If your government enforces an eviction based on outdated and immoral private property laws, which ignored the formal laws of the commons and of indigenous people, then you can simply show them this “new” title deed of the Earth’s unconditional love which I have sold to you for $0.00. If they refuse to accept it, you may wish to take them to their own Supreme Court to change this law, and who knows, you may eventually win because what I stated above is based on historical facts.
“Am I alone in buying unconditional love? Who else is doing this?”
You’re not alone. For example, there is the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth passed by the President of Bolivia. Indigenous cultures and ancient cultures lived this way. If you’re Christian, perhaps you could use your Canadian rights of religious freedom to live on the Earth based on Acts 2 and 4. “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” This is not legal advice. Please consult your lawyer. Whatever path you decide is up to you!
The truth of the matter is simple. Love, the Earth, the Sun and the stars are not for sale and they cannot be owned for any other price than $0.00.
Can I repost this ad in my city? Can I share, copy, re-sale, edit, etc?
Yes. My public content is un-copyrighted, no rights reserved, and free to use, mix, etc, by all life forms including cats… I claim no ownership to my thoughts or pictures because they’re not ‘mine’ to own. I’m not a possessive guy, unless it’s chocolate cookies… Use your own name if you wish, no need to credit me. There’s an infinite amount of unconditional love, so feel free to look for buyers and re-sell it. The Earth’s unconditional love is yours. Why not post it in New York, London, Tokyo, Sydney, etc? Go for it.
“What interesting emails have you received since posting this ad?”
Someone sent me an inspiring letter from the Chief of Seattle in the 1800. I found this inspiring and would like to share it with you: “The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? … One thing we know – there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all.”
“This is amazing. How can I find out what happens with this sale?”
This ad will expire in 45 days due to Craigslist’s rules. But that’s okay because Love is eternal. And when I have time I’ll be posting updates on my Facebook if you want to follow: https://www.facebook.com/brown.rice.12

Meet Your Strawman 

 Let's have a little quiz:
    1. Who meets there?
    2. What do they do there?
    3. Do they help you in any way?


If your answers were:

    1. "Members of the government"
    2. "They represent all the people living in the country" and
    3. "Yes, they create laws to protect me and my family"

Then let me congratulate you on getting every one of the answers wrong.


Didn't do too well on that quiz? OK, let's have another go:
    4. When was slavery abolished?
    5. Was slavery legal?
    6. Are you in debt to a financial institution?

Here are the answers:
  1. The serving officers of a commercial company.
  2. They think up ways to take money and goods from you.
  3. No, absolutely not, they help themselves and not you.
  4. Slavery has NEVER been abolished and you yourself, are considered to be a slave right now.
  5. Yes, slavery is "legal" although it is not "lawful" (you need to discover the difference).
  6. No. You are NOT in debt to any financial institution.


Does this seem a little strange to you?   If it does, then read on: 
http://www.yourstrawman.com/
(thanks 12cm32 and welcome!!)