Part 1 of Public Policy: the prison-industrial complex, ALEC, SB 1070 social engineering and the art of double-speak began with a review of the facts.
The main characters in this story are NPR’s Neil Conan who recently interviewed Laura Sullivan, NPR’s police and prisons correspondent and also “Beau Hodai. Beau’s a freelance journalist who's been covering private prisons in Arizona.”
Then there’s ALEC (that only the Supremes apparently think of as a character) not so much a character as a place for characters. ALEC this organization that’s something of a non-lobby-lobby. Those characters include, Senator Russell Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America which is the nation's largest detainer of undocumented immigrants and a cast of untold (and that adds to the problem) additional supporting actors---largely miscast as members of a “democracy.”
About a year ago Sullivan did a series on bail bonds in the United States. In doing so she “stumbled upon an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council, which was very instrumental in passing a number of pro-bail-bondsman laws throughout the country.” While researching ALEC Sullivan “came across a fascinating article written by Beau [Hodai] that made the connection between the private industry - private prison industry and ALEC.” That lead to NPR’s investigation.
NPR’s investigation uncovered a link or connection between “immigration and ALEC.” The connection involves state Senator Russell Pearce who “is on the ALEC Public Safety Task Force. He's an executive public-sector member. And the way the task forces are comprised is you have the public-sector represented, and then you also have the private sector. Also sitting on that task force is the Corrections Corporation of America, What happens at ALEC is completely private. It doesn't there is no public oversight. The public is not invited. The media's not allowed. What's happening in these taskforce meetings is completely secret to the rest of the world. And these corporations have the undivided ear of these state legislators, who have been, by all accounts, wined and dined at these conferences by these very corporations. In fact, these corporations, for the most part, paid for them to come to the conference.”
What makes these practices so egregious is that ALEC while existing almost exclusively for the purpose of lobbying for its money making causes does so without the regulations that apply to lobbyists. This subtle pattern of influence is made the worse because often it is with the complicity of elected representatives. At best this is an end run around democratic practices by both big business and those elected to represent the people.
The story was put in motion when “This past April, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer set off a national controversy when she signed Senate Bill 1070 into law. That's the measure that requires state law enforcement officers to ask suspects they believe may be here illegally about their immigration status.
Supporters praise it as a tough law that lets state authorities enforce laws the federal government will not. Critics say it will lead to racial profiling. The Justice Department believes it's unconstitutional, and most of the law has been suspended while that case proceeds in federal court.”
If there is one thing at which the Euro Anglo culture excels it is the art of double-speak. Native Americans referred to it as “speaking with a forked tongue.”
In the case of the prison-industrial complex white supremacist types use this art of double-speak to sell and institutionalize racist tendencies in the guise of a new and improved form of immigration law enforcement. It is more the subtle evolution of lynching to imprisoning.
This social psychology has been noted to derive from the Southern "cultural tradition of exclusion," and that exclusion is “a basic element of the legacy of slavery.”
[NPR’s Neil Conan’s interview with “Sullivan, NPR’s police and prisons correspondent and also “Beau Hodai. Beau’s a freelance journalist who's been covering private prisons in Arizona” continued.]
“CONAN: But, you know, again, it's one thing to have a model piece of legislation, Laura. It's another thing to get it passed through the state legislature.
SULLIVAN: Exactly. And I think what Beau was alluding to there is that they spent a lot of money. The private prison industry donated to 30 of the 36 co-sponsors. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped onto this legislation. That is an extremely high number for Arizona. Thirty of them received campaign contributions within the six months while the bill was under consideration.
And a number 24 of them were ALEC members, according to some documents that we received here at NPR. So what this is is you can see a subtle pattern of influence that helped this bill along from the very beginning. And it made it all the way to the governor's office, where she, too, also has connections to the private prison industry.
CONAN: Well, I have to say CCA, the Correction Corporation of America, in a statement released on November 1st said: What the NPR story neglected to report was that CCA has not contributed any money to any Arizona legislator, supporter of SB 1070 or otherwise, in 2010.
SULLIVAN: That is simply not what it what let me tell you the little situation here. That may be - it may be true. Actually, it is true that they did not what they did is they gave all their money to lobbyists who are specifically hired to lobby for them, and the lobbyists gave the money to the legislators. So it's a little bit of an end-run. [this is the part where the Euro Anglo art of double speak comes into play, ask the Native Americans]
CONAN: All right. So technically correct, but...
SULLIVAN: Technically correct. In the grand scope of things, not correct.
CONAN: Just a couple of seconds before the break, Laura, but this law is on hold in Arizona, the state law passed 1070, according to the judicial order. Nevertheless, other states are trying to institute very similar legislation.
SULLIVAN: Yes, and not just any other state. The board members that were at this conference room, five of the 10 people that are board members with Senator Pearce are now either sponsoring or trying to introduce the exact same law in their own states. And it's spread to at least two dozen other states, as well.
CONAN: If you've not heard Laura Sullivan's two-part investigation into Arizona's tough new immigration law, how SB 1070 was written and by whom, you can listen to those reports on our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.”
Bascially these companies and elected representatives are conspiring and colluding in the drafting of legislation used to promote their businesses by way of discriminatory, unconstitutional agendas while they are on the taxpayers’ clock. The ballot majority taxpayers in Arizona and maybe the entire South may find it acceptable for their respective tax dollars to be used to promote very race-based agendas but I’ll bet there’s more than a few minorities who find it offensive, reprehensible and outright repugnant---to say little of unethical.
While it can be said that these “elected representatives” are working to enforce the law as they perceive it and that what they are doing is not technically illegal---it is also obvious that it is not designed with “equal protection of the law” in mind.
The single most important difference between a republic and a democracy is that a republic promotes and follows laws designed to protect the rights of minorities while a democracy concerns itself with majority rule or what the founders termed “tyranny by majority.”
Given the nature and guile of Euro Anglo double speak, this may be egregious conduct exempted by design. (Call it an enclave immune from prosecution while permitting persecution.) It is notwithstanding, reprehensible, unethical and a long, long way from the letter and spirit of the foundational principles of this nation.
Then again given the fact that the nation was born of Euro Anglos who declared that “all men are created equal” while holding the chains of slavery over Blacks in one hand and the musket of terror and genocide aimed at the Native American in the other maybe not….
From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…
Hasta Siempre,
More:
Texas Red
http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/texas-statewide-partisanship/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Tribune%20Feed:%20Main%20Feed
The prison-industrial complex, apartheid public education system, racism and Elections 2010
http://robertruiz-respublica.blogspot.com/2010/10/prison-industrial-complex-aparatheid.html
http://www.examiner.com/public-policy-in-san-antonio/the-prison-industrial-complex-aparatheid-public-education-system-racism-and-elections-2010
How Corporate Interests Got SB 1070 Passed
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131191523&sc=tw&cc=share
Shaping State Laws With Little Scrutiny
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130891396
The prison-industrial complex, apartheid public education system, racism and Elections 2010
http://robertruiz-respublica.blogspot.com/2010/10/prison-industrial-complex-aparatheid.html
http://www.examiner.com/public-policy-in-san-antonio/the-prison-industrial-complex-aparatheid-public-education-system-racism-and-elections-2010
There are several topics on which I’ve railed for more than a year now. The central of these are best captured in my tagline, Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way.
Here & Now: SB 1070/Private Prisons
http://kjzz.org/news/arizona/archives/201010/hn_1070prisons
NPR Uncovers Web of Prison Companies and Politicians Profiting Off of Arizona’s SB 1070
http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/entry/npr_az_politicians_profit_off_of_sb_1070/
Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law
NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741
State Immigration Measures Show Business Influence
So, for example, last December Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce sat in a hotel conference room with representatives from the Corrections Corporation of America and several dozen others. The group voted on model legislation that was introduced into the Arizona legislature two months later, almost word for word.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130891396
Report says education charities stingy with needy kids
A watchdog charity group has chided the nation's biggest education foundations for only allocating 11 percent of their collective grant money to the country's neediest children.
The National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy's report evaluated 672 foundations that gave at least $1 million in grants to education from 2006 to 2008. Only about 11 percent of those grants went to "marginalized communities," defined primarily as children in low-income families and minority children. And just 2 percent of those funds went to fostering long-term change through advocacy efforts and community building.
This leaves the "alarming inequities in educational opportunities" in America unaddressed, the report charges. Since about half of public school funding comes from the local level, students living in poor areas tend to go to schools that are under-funded, and kids in richer areas go to better-funded schools. This feeds the persistent achievement gap between low-income and high-income students and minority and white students.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101031/us_yblog_upshot/report-says-education-charities-stingy-with-needy-kids
Dragging death in Texas raises tensions
Recent death of black man in Paris echoes horrific crime a decade ago
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27365080/
Farmers Branch keeps up illegal-immigration fight
http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/04/25/2141306/farmers-branch-keeps-up-illegal.html
Speak English Only, Small NY Towns Decree
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/speak-english-only-small-ny-towns-decree/19477485?icid=main|htmlws-main-w|dl1|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Fspeak-english-only-small-ny-towns-decree%2F19477485
Civil Rights Act (1968)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968
Civil Rights Act 1964
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964
Slavery by Another Name
http://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-Americans/dp/0385506252
Illusions of Justice
http://www.amazon.com/Illusions-Justice-Rights-Violations-United/dp/0934936005/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282216290&sr=1-1
The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990
“However, James W. Marquart, Sheldon Ekland-Olson, and Jonathan R. Sorensen offer a more complex thesis. In their book, The Rope, the Chair, and the Needle: Capital Punishment in Texas, 1923-1990,[5] they argue that
Texas' execution rate reflects the Southern "cultural tradition of exclusion," and that "[s]uch exclusion was a basic element of the legacy of slavery."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rope,_the_Chair,_and_the_Needle:_Capital_Punishment_in_Texas,_1923-1990
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=The+Rope%2C+the+Chair%2C+and+the+Needle%3A+Capital+Punishment+in+Texas%2C+1923-1990&ih=1_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0_0.2973_1&fsc=-1&x=19&y=17
The Conscience of a Liberal
http://www.krugmanonline.com/books/the-conscience-of-a-liberal.php
Think the mid-term election was bad? Wait 'til Republicans get to redraw the electoral map…
The Republican Decade?
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/republican-decade-congressional-redistricting
Republicans map out their agenda of less
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/05/AR2010110507092.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
'Open Veins' and enduring ills in Latin America
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-miller26-2009apr26,0,2896392.story
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent'
http://www.amazon.com/Open-Veins-Latin-America-Centuries/dp/0853459916
/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1289408988&sr=1-1
Doublespeak
Doublespeak (sometimes called doubletalk) is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs), making the truth less unpleasant, without denying its nature. It may also be deployed as intentional ambiguity, or reversal of meaning (for example, naming a state of war "peace"). In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth, producing a communication bypass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak
Forked tongue
The phrase "speaks with a forked tongue" means to say one thing and mean another or, to be hypocritical, or act in a duplicitous manner. In the longstanding tradition of many Native American tribes, "speaking with a forked tongue" has meant lying, and a person was no longer considered worthy of trust, once he had been shown to "speak with a forked tongue".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forked_tongue
Immigrant Voter Fraud Fears Didn't Materialize
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131089170
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