Life at Rikers

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Cecily McMillan
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.

Fun for the whole family!

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

sderot21

It’s interesting to me that the people with the least in-depth knowledge and weakest powers of discernment are always the ones with the most fervent stance. It’s always that way:

Seven times in eight years, Israel has assaulted the Gaza Strip. For many in southern Israel, the massive airstrikes shattering the cities of their Palestinian neighbors in the latest attack make for a gratifying show and a nice day out for a picnic, writes Nissim Behar in France’s Liberation.

“Wait, who threw their egg sandwich in the fruit salad?” someone asks.

Less than a kilometer from the border with the Gaza strip, the Hazan family is watching the spectacle of war while enjoying a nice picnic lunch in the shade of a hundred-year-old-tree. Ezra, the father, Shoshana, the mother, and their three children, have set up here on the outskirts of Sderot, on a landscaped bluff with perfect views of the Palestinian enclave. In the distance: muffled explosions followed by giant columns of black smoke rising into the sky. In between helicopter raids, Israeli F-16 jets regularly rip apart the sky, flying toward southern Gaza to release their loads of bombs.

“I have been waiting for this operation for a long time,” says Ezra, “because those people have been making our lives miserable with their rockets. My kids are all between 7 and 12 years old, and they have never known a single week without an alert or a rush to the family shelter. For them, sirens are almost part of the landscape. That’s no way to live. Sometimes the alerts are so frequent that the youngest one pees the bed and gets eczema. Do you think the people in Gaza are the only ones suffering here? You’d be wrong; you have no idea how many people in the towns and villages surrounding Gaza are on anxiety medications or in therapy. If you were a pharmacist or psychologist around here, you’d be rich!”

During the conversation, Ezra’s children fight over the family’s pair of binoculars to view the explosions. At each strike by the Israeli warplanes, the oldest cuts loose a “Wow!” or a “Boul!” (‘Right on target!’ in Hebrew).

“Of course, what is going on over there is sad for the Palestinians, since there are undoubtedly plenty of fine people there,” says Shoshana. “But oh well, they voted for Hamas, right? So they have to pay the price!” Adding that she “doesn’t get involved in politics,” she goes back to making sandwiches.

Maybe if you didn’t build on someone else’s land, destroy their livelihood and push them into a ghetto, you wouldn’t have those stressful problems? But to figure that out would require “getting involved in politics” and you can’t be bothered.

Ten ways the U.S. is the most corrupt country in the world

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Juan Cole:

While it is true that you don’t typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the mail in the US, in many key ways America’s political and financial practices make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16 trillion a year, so in our corruption a lot more money changes hands.

1. Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with limited and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the US has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks for advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time fundraising, which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are basically on the take, though many are honorable people. They are forced into it by the system. House Majority leader John Boehner has actually just handed out cash on the floor of the House from the tobacco industry to other representatives.

When French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter French police actually went into his private residence searching for an alleged $50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L’Oreale heiress. I thought to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our presidential campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding error, not a basis for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions from arms manufacturers and then ginned up a war for them, and the police haven’t been anywhere near his house.

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.

‘Nationwide is on your side’

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

The insurance industry is a particularly nasty and dishonest one, and this doesn’t surprise me one bit:

It was a nasty car crash, but not an extraordinary one.

Sherri Berg’s Jeep Grand Cherokee was hit hard by a car as she pulled onto a highway. The vehicle spun four times and struck a pole, but no one was hurt.

What was extraordinary was the epic legal fight that followed, pitting a father-and-son law firm in Chester County against an industry giant, Nationwide Insurance.

Nearly 20 years after the accident, that fight climaxed last month with a court ruling that castigated Nationwide and slammed it with $18 million in punitive damages.

Experts say it was the largest punitive award ever handed down in Pennsylvania in a suit alleging “bad faith” by an insurer.

The judge in the case determined that Nationwide spent more than $3 million to defend a claim over a Jeep it could and should have replaced for $25,000.

He found that the Jeep remained unsafe even after repairs.

Rather than replace it, he said, Nationwide had engaged in an extensive cover-up, hiding crash photos and other relevant information from Berg and her husband.

He said Nationwide followed a written “litigation strategy” that called for it to fight smaller claims tenaciously – even though such a strategy had been denounced by Pennsylvania courts as “unethical and unprofessional.”

And Judge Jeffrey K. Sprecher of Berks County concluded his opinion with a caustic list right out of David Letterman’s “Top Ten” that he said was Nationwide’s message to customers who sued – and to their lawyers:

“Do not mess with us, if you know what is good for you.”

“You cannot run with the big dogs.”

“There is no level playing field to be had in your case.”

“You cannot afford it and what client will pay thousands of dollars to fight this battle?”

“So we can get away with anything we want to.”

“You cannot stop us.”

So Nationwide put a dangerous car back on the road, just to save money. Go read the rest, it’s horrifying.