Image by jmiller291 via Flickr
Updated: Sept. 2, 2015
with Chris Hedges
TheRealNews on Aug 31, 2015
In this episode of teleSUR’s Days of Revolt, host Chris Hedges continues his conversation with two black revolutionaries and former political prisoners, Eddie Conway and Ojore Lutalo, to discuss their resistance within the prison system.
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Updated: Sept. 2, 2015
In Landmark Ruling, California Prisons Halt Solitary Confinement
TheRealNews on Sept 1, 2015
Prisoner advocate Marie Levin and attorney Anne Weills how this will impact some 80,000 prisoners nationwide.
From the archives:
Chris Hedges: State Violence and Counter Violence
Seven Ways Racism Is Built Into the System by David Swanson
Chris Hedges: How Prisons Rip Off and Exploit the Incarcerated, Part 2
Chris Hedges: How Prisons Ripoff and Exploit the Incarcerated, Part 1
Dandelion Salad 
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Updated: added the video report, “In Landmark Ruling, California Prisons Halt Solitary Confinement.” Good news.
Great update. Now we’re talking real news and real power ~ not money power or privilege power, but spiritual power, which is the real thing.
Change will come. Irreversible change. Surely it’s a Zen thing, being the change, living it ~ loving and learning. Getting it…
Glad you enjoyed the good news (finally).
Project Censored’s interview of sociologist William Robinson gives more insight into the reasons the prison industrial complex has grown, as well as problems associated with rise of transnational corporations, if interested:
http://prn.fm/project-censored-08-18-15/
Thanks for the additional info, Jerry.
Excellent analysis Jerry from Robinson, not too sure if the synthesis is as sound tho’; redistributing wealth and power “downwards” can too easily mutate to another form of inverted control again. It’s the same old apologetic about “the poor.” Passing handouts to the disenfranchised is a tactic ~ propaganda pabulum that benefits the rich hierarchies. They’re not going to give away the shop! It can too easily become a philanthropic manoeuvre, like the Gates’ set-up/stitch-up.
I don’t see this is a sufficient solution, unless wealth and power are completely redefined, along with “success,” profit, productivity and growth. C21st democratic socialism sounds attractive, but we need a dramatic reinvention of what it means to be human in a far more complex universe than existed in the bad old days. Why not noble, virtuous or radical ecological socialism, aristocratic communalism, or sovereign egalitarianism…?
The second part is well worth hearing with Kathy Kelly (Voices for Creative Nonviolence,) because they discuss drones, mercenary armies, predatory incarceration etc. Remote operations are now thoroughly insidious, profoundly focused & concentrated. Almost any sick industrialist/speculator/tycoon-bastard can direct killing machines from their breakfast table now, without so much as even a glimmer of remorse or traces of moral indigestion.
The TPP project will not only make international crime totally legal, but its prevention generously compensated for! This abomination needs to be arrested in its tracks, the mechanism utterly broken, and the oligopolistic cabal prosecuting this coup d’etat mondial, permanently destroyed. Actually I think these abhorrent specimens are their own worst enemy, and will fall off the cliff when the fragile edge crumbles….
David, I love your descriptive analysis and the way it should and could be for the people of the world but the stark truth is the increasing lust for money and power by the multi-millionaires and billionaires who run the political machines have no desire for egalitarian principals and ethics, and spend large sums of money defeating any attempts at such a notion, even going so far as assassinating heads of states and invading countries then setting up proxy governments who follow their dictates in suppressing and oppressing the citizens of those “conquered” nations.
The Ukraine is a prime example. Notice the big NATO (mostly American) buildup of military hardware in that country? WW3 is right around the corner whether we want it or not. It’s Imperial Hubris.
And we think ISIL is brutal and barbaric! Why would any sane God bless America the depraved..? These are horrors no less savage than those of the most heinous warlords and psychopaths.
The strength, dignity and nobility of these two eminent human-beings is humbling.
Chris Hedges must be commended for his dauntless determination to expose the excruciating criminality of the genocidal state; its lies, abuses, felonies and perversions.
So very well stated, David. What goes on in US prisons amounts to torture.
Yes and yes, Lo! Can anyone imagine spending decades in solitary confinement? If that’s not cruel and unusual punishment, I don’t what is.
“Why would any sane God bless America the depraved?” But the psychopaths and sociopaths in political power in Imperialville think that by mimicking those three useless words … God Bless America… everything they do is justified and correct and that an all-powerful somnambulist “somewhere in the heavens” is forever guiding us on the right path, protecting us from the omnipresent bogeyman wanting to destroy us and take away our “freedoms.” Unbelievable, isn’t it?
Our European ancestors had dungeons and we have solitary confinement cells. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?
On http://www.truth-out.org Victoria Law has an article (Sep.2, 2015) on the California prison system victory for the inmates which adds to the Hedges’ interview.
Thanks, Frank. Here is the direct link: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32612-two-years-after-hunger-strike-california-settlement-may-release-2000-prisoners-from-solitary
Just wanted you to know that I didn’t change any settings, WP eliminated the button from the black admin bar.