Hague-based #ICC upgrades #Palestine

Hague-based #ICC upgrades #Palestine

Bringing Good News To The Afflicted And The Incarcerated

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives

And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn,

To grant those who mourn in Zion,

Giving them a garland instead of ashes,

The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.

So they will be called oaks of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

When Yeshua (Jesus) adapted this passage to the goals of his own ministry in Nazareth, the place where he grew up, those representing the status quo were so enraged with him that they attempted to “throw him off a cliff”. It didn't matter that they were “in the synagogue on the sabbath day”. Let us be crystal clear...there must be no collusion between those who stand for Righteousness/Justice and those who facilitate the oppression of the poor. Persons unjustly held and treated like chattel in an industry that predicates it's future success on their dehumanization need us not just to speak up, but to act to bring about the change necessary to set them free.

Yes... Salvation is a powerful action word, not a salve in the plantation’s religious balm yard. The hunger for a salve by which people try to cope with the stressors around them is all too real. It has fed the specter of addiction that plagues so many lives all around us. The results of this "hunger" and those who feed it are manifest in our prison population.

Toward the purposes of bringing good news to "the afflicted", it would serve us well to work toward the decriminalization of drug addiction. We can begin this process by decriminalizing drugs, just as we did alcohol, and instituting rehabilitation programs at the community level that are geared toward the needs of those who can't afford the high priced services geared to rich addicts...who do not usually  end up in jail.  

Our so-called "war on drugs" is for every intent and purpose an out and out assault on poor addicts who need our help. It is in fact a "war" that enriches dealers and police departments and the builders of jails. This is one of the dirty little secrets of this whole "business"... And a nasty , stinking one at that. How many law enforcement officers and departments want to see this war end when in fact it is a cash cow for them? How much of the drugs on the street corners of our inner cities actually come from the evidence rooms of local precincts? How many of the murders paraded before us on the Sunday morning news are committed by police who set out to victimize local "drug dealers"?

We can begin the empowerment of the "broke" and the "broken hearted" by building training facilities that are geared toward equipping the economically depressed with marketable skills. Nationwide, three-quarters of our prison population are high school dropouts. Education, not incarceration, should be our focus. More modern schools...not more modern jails, should be our priority. Let us explore the possibilities of giving "garlands" not "ashes" to those who are disadvantaged among us. Can we make them partners in the building up of Zion, and thus cultivate "mantles of praise instead of a spirit of fainting"? I believe we can. I believe we must try.

The time is now when we must insist that our government provide the resources for the rehabilitation of the redeemable among those who break the law, rather than hand them over to be exploited by those who see them only as a means to make lots of money. The belief that warehousing these souls for profit somehow makes our communities better turns the truth on its head. How can we work to bring out the worst in the disadvantaged among us, and expect that this will not come back to haunt us? Bringing out the worst in them is what our prisons do...more often than not.
Our top law enforcement officer Attorney General Eric Holder, acknowledges both the failure of our
prison system as it is and the fact that drug addiction is in fact a public health crisis in this country. It is a travesty of Justice that we continue to address a public health crisis by imprisoning its victims. It
is time to wake up from the nightmare of our delusions and collective insecurities. Good news to the captive is sometimes bad news for the captor/investor/immoral politician. So be it. We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and remain complicit in the dehumanization of our brethren. When we look at our 401k statements in the future, let us ask whether or not we are participating in the oppression of our neighbors and their children by investing in the prison industrial complex.
The time has come to put resources behind our proclamations! How many of our municipalities have invested in this degradation of souls through their pension funds? Should we continue to support a political process and politicians opting to take the easy way out by “farming out” the incarceration of those who break the law? Ultimately it is centers of production that will fuel the security and prosperity of our communities, not detention centers. Again, let us invest in the future of our communities through the empowering vehicle of a good education. Let us build up our schools, not build more prisons. The viability of our communities is a direct function of the viability of our collective humanity, not some crass notion of brute force exercised by those who pretend they wanna be "tough on crime". Enough of the lazy-think of an opportunistic and lewdly gratuitous culture.

Clear Now

Excerpt from the book 'In My Element' by Roy Alexander Graham

We feel so much
That we cannot touch…
We say so little
With so many words…
And then it happens…
And then it is clear…
Sensations cease…superfluous
Words too…
All inadequate in expressing
That one thing we try to do
With words and bumbling acts…
And we discover
That to love
Is to allow Love
To have its way with us…
Not us to have our way
With each other…

'In My Element' available on Amazon Kindle

'In My Element' available on Apple iBooks

'In My Element' available on Barnes & Noble Nook

The Prison Industrial Complex And The Perpetuation Of Slavery

Since the 1970s the prison population in the USA has grown by leaps and bounds. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies:

“No country incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than the United States at 716 per 100,000 people”.

This fact stands out in light of our claim to being the "beacon of Freedom”. It is necessary that we ask why... Why do we lock away our people at such an outrageous rate? Unsurprisingly the answer to this question may lie at the very heart of our socio-economic ideal. At the very core of this issue is a version of capitalism ...expressed as unbridled, rapacious greed.

Vicky Pelaez writes the following in an article titled “The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?” :

“There are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the country. According to California Prison Focus, “no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens.” The figures show that the United States has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the U.S. Statistics reveal that the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people. From less than 300,000 inmates in 1972, the jail population grew to 2 million by the year 2000. In 1990 it was one million. Ten years ago there were only five private prisons in the country, with a population of 2,000 inmates; now, there are 100, with 62,000 inmates. It is expected that by the coming decade, the number will hit 360,000, according to reports."

Addressing the same issue, Andy Kroll writes the following in an article titled “This Is How Private Prison Companies Make Millions Even When Crime Rates Fall” published in Mother Jones magazine, Sept 2013:

“We are living in boom times for the private prison industry. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest owner of private prisons, has seen its revenue climb by more than 500 percent in the last two decades. And CCA wants to get much, much bigger: Last year, the company made an offer to 48 governors to buy and operate their state-funded prisons. But what made CCA's pitch to those governors so audacious and shocking was that it included a so-called occupancy requirement, a clause demanding the state keep those newly privatized prisons at least 90 percent full at all times, regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.

Occupancy requirements, as it turns out, are common practice within the private prison industry. A new report by In the Public Interest, an anti-privatization group, reviewed 62 contracts for private prisons operating around the country at the local and state level. In the Public Interest found that 41 of those contracts included occupancy requirements mandating that local or state government keep those facilities between 80 and 100 percent full. In other words, whether crime is rising or falling, the state must keep those beds full.”

Stop for a moment and let that sink in... The prison industrial complex wants the jails full even if crimes numbers are in decline. What are the implications of this demand for the way our justice system operates? It is time for a critical examination of the process of what is blatantly an “injustice system”. Can a society that ignores this fact escape its consequences? When our aspiring candidates for political office talk about being “hard on crime”, let us loudly interrupt them and ask them how much money they are getting from this prison industrial complex. Are they and the judges we elect the compliant cronies of the system of injustice which now exists to target the poor and underprivileged in our communities...especially our communities of color? Paul Waldman writing in The American Prospect observes the following:

"... you can't talk about prisons without talking about race. African Americans in particular are over-represented in prisons; though they are 13 percent of the population, they made up 38 percent of the population of state prisons.... The crimes that landed them there, however, are not too different from their white and Hispanic counterparts. Eighteen percent of blacks in state prisons were convicted of drug crimes, compared to 15 percent of whites and 17 percent of Hispanics."

In addition to the disproportionate number of persons of color in our jails, it is also a fact that the US imprisons more women than any other country. This raises other disturbing questions about the political culture being perpetuated here. Think for a moment about the history of the disenfranchisement of women and minorities in this country's politics. In a democracy such as ours one may ask... in fact must ask... who benefits from the disenfranchisement of this part of the potential electorate which is disproportionately affected by our present policies on incarceration? Is the excessive incarceration of women and people of color a way of thwarting the process of democratization? Does it tilt the balance of electoral power in favor of the same influences that historically wanted exactly that state of affairs? These are questions worthy of further examination. Is this in fact jerrimandering via incarceration?

Let us be very clear about what is at stake here. There are inescapable consequences of this kind of injustice. The institutions in our communities must begin to take this issue to heart. We must do more than is being done to conscientize our fellow citizens about this problem.The proliferation of “prison ministries” focusing on saving the proverbial “soul” is unlikely to “change the hearts” of the captives in this new system of slavery. The prisoners are more aware than the preachers that the dichotomy assumed between their physical and spiritual needs is a false one. The “ship” called “Jesus” is not being employed to carry these people away from the degradation and misery and disenfranchisement created by a system of greed and it's corrupted agents. The true “gospel of salvation” that is appropriate in this circumstance is predicated in the powerful, sometimes controversial message of the Prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives

And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord the day of vengeance of our God;

To comfort all who mourn,

To grant those who mourn in Zion,

Giving them a garland instead of ashes,

The oil of gladness instead of mourning,

The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.

So they will be called oaks of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3)

When Yeshua (Jesus) adapted this passage to the goals of his own ministry in Nazareth, the place where he grew up, those representing the status quo were so enraged with him that they attempted to “throw him off a cliff”. It didn't matter that they were “in the synagogue on the sabbath day”. Let us be crystal clear...there must be no collusion between those who stand for Righteousness/Justice and those who facilitate the oppression of the poor. Persons unjustly held and treated like chattel in an industry that predicates it's future success on their dehumanization need us not just to speak up, but to act to bring about the change necessary to set them free.

KKK Membership Sinks Two Florida Cops

Michael Winter, USA TODAY6:46 p.m. EDT July 14, 2014

Echoing the once-segregated South, a Florida deputy police chief has resigned and an officer has been fired after the FBI reported that both belonged to the Ku Klux Klan

Fruitland Park Deputy Chief David Borst has denied involvement with the notorious white-hooded hate group that emerged after the Civil War and continued to terrorize and murder blacks through the mid-20th century.

The 49-year-old Borst, a department veteran of more than 20 years, was also fire chief for the Lake County city of 5,000, about 40 miles northwest of Orlando. He resigned both posts Thursday after being confronted with the FBI report.

Officer George Hunnewell, who was demoted last year over performance and attitude complaints, was fired Friday by Chief Terry Isaacs.

The state attorney's office is reviewing every arrest made by the officers and giving particular scrutiny to cases involving minorities, Isaacs said.

It the second time in five years that Klansmen have been found in the Fruitland Park Police Department. In 2009, Officer James Elkins resigned after photographs showed him in a white robe and pointy hood, and he later admitted he was a leader of the local KKK.

In the current cases, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement gave Isaacs a summary of an FBI investigation based on information from a confidential source who linked both officers to the Klan. No criminal wrongdoing was found, and the FBI said no other officers were linked to the white supremacists.

Chief Deputy State Attorney Ric Ridgway, whom Isaac contacted for advice, told the Orlando Sentinel that the report contained "a lot of fairly substantial evidence that tends to support" Borst's and Hunnewell's Klan membership.

But he pointed out that it's not illegal to belong to the KKK "even if you are the deputy chief."

"It's not a crime to hate people. It may be despicable, it may be immoral, but it's not a crime," he said.

Because of that, Fruitland Park officials had to decide whether Borst and Hunnewell had violated city standards and ethics.

"We cannot nor will we tolerate any philosophy that is inherently morally corrupt or one that espouses bigotry or any intolerance aimed at any groups or individuals because of their race, religion, ethnicity or gender or sexual orientation," said City Manager Gary La Venia.

Isaacs initially told the Orlando Sentinel on Friday that Borst was resigning for "personal family issues," and he would not address the Klan allegations.

"We are here, we are in place, and I want the public to know this type of conduct will not even be remotely tolerated," Isaacs told News 13.

Killer Cops

Killer Cops  Click on this link to read the full article

Center for Constitutional Rights executive director Vincent Warren issued the following statement. Following Pantaleo's acquittal. Asking:

"How can anyone in the community have faith in the system now? First Ferguson, now Staten Island. The Grand Jury's failure to indict sends the clear message that Black lives don’t matter. But they do. It's bad enough that broken windows policing over something as harmless as selling untaxed cigarettes led to this tragic killing; it's even worse when the officer responsible - who was caught on tape using a prohibited choke hold, no less - is not held accountable."

"The problem isn't one officer, though: it's systemic. We need real reform of discredited broken windows policing and of the NYPD more than ever. With the court-ordered joint reform process in our class action stop-and-frisk case Floyd v. City of New York finally getting underway, we have that opportunity."

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Two Sierra Leone #Ebola doctors die in one day

Two Sierra Leone #Ebola doctors die in one day