This is a really long interview, but worth it. It’s Cecily McMillan, the Occupy activist who was charged with assault after a cop grabbed her breast, describing the insanity of life inside Rikers prison:
It is actually mind-boggling to me how we keep up the facade of prisons. The grand waste of taxpayer money, if you just look at it from a capitalistic self-interested standpoint. One of the women in there is writing a book called “Rosie’s Babies” where she talks about the dozens of women that she’s met in Rikers who had been born in Rikers and then were sent back again and again and again. I myself met four of these women.
There’s no sense in prison. There’s no rehabilitation; there’s no citizenship; it is completely at odds with everything that we call democracy. It doesn’t make any sense. People have called me a political prisoner; that’s weird for me. But if I have to really think about that title and really come up with a definition of what a political prisoner is, it’s someone who goes against the law or goes against the social rules or norms in order to stand up for the things that they believe in or the people that they care for, to do what is right by their communities. There’s not a single woman in Rikers who isn’t a political prisoner by that standard.
Just give these women, give these inmates, give our citizens the things that they need, the rights that they deserve. The resources they want to lead happy, fulfilling, contributing lives. That to me is so obvious.
H/t Thomas Soldan.
Ms. McMillan’s absolutely right, of course. Having the largest number of people in prison of any country and having the largest military of any 10 countries are clearly related. The 1% want us hungry and scared and their political hirelings have given it to them. As Mr. Cole pointed out in an earlier post, “American politicians don’t represent “the people.” With a few honorable exceptions, they represent the the 1%. American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.”
Anybody who supports the candidacy of Clinton is an enabler of the 1%. It’s very doubtful that Ms. McMillan or anyone connected to the OWS movement would enter a pooling booth and pull the Hillary lever. At least not in this lifetime.