Global Eye: Gates of Eden

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Fri, 19 May 2006 21:06:03 +0200

Global Eye: Gates of Eden

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http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/05/19/120.html

 

Global Eye

 

Gates of Eden

 

By Chris Floyd

Published: May 19, 2006

 

Beneath the thunder of the mighty cataclysms unleashed by the Bush

administration -- the war crime in Iraq, the global torture gulag, the

epic corruption, the gutting of the U.S. Constitution, the open

embrace of presidential tyranny -- a quieter degradation of American

society has continued apace. And this slow descent into barbarism

didn't begin with President George W. Bush, although his illicit

regime certainly represents the apotheosis of the dark forces driving

the decay.

 

With the world's attention diverted by the latest scandals and

shameless posturings of the Bush faction -- domestic spying, bribes

and hookers at the CIA, military units roaring down to the border to

scare unarmed poor people looking for work -- few noticed a small

story that cast a harsh, penetrating light on the corrosion of the

national character.

 

Earlier this month, the International Center for Prison Studies at

King's College London released its annual World Prison Population

List. And there, standing proudly at the head of the line, towering

far above all others, is that shining city on the hill, the United

States of America. But strangely enough, the Bush gang and its media

sycophants failed to celebrate -- or even note -- yet another instance

where a triumphant America leads the world. Where are the cheering

hordes shouting " U.S.A! U.S.A! " at the news that the land of the free

imprisons more people than any other country in the world, both in raw

numbers and as a percentage of its population?

 

Yes, the world's greatest democracy now has more than 2 million of its

citizens locked up in iron cages, an incarceration rate of 714 per

100,000 of the national population. The only countries within shouting

distance are such bastions of penological enlightenment as China (1.55

million prisoners, plus some unsorted " administrative detainees " ),

Russia (a wimpy 763,000) and Brazil (330,000), whose exemplary prison

management has been on such prominent display this week.

 

But although the U.S. prison population has soared to record-breaking

heights during Bush's presidency, America's status as the most

punitive nation on earth is by no means solely his doing. Bush is

merely standing on the shoulders of giants -- such as former President

Bill Clinton, who once created 50 new federal offenses in a single

draconian measure. In fact, like the great cathedrals of old, the

building of Fortress America has been the work of decades, with an

entire society yoked to the common task. At each step, the

promulgation of ever-more draconian punishments for ever-lesser

offenses, and the criminalization of ever-broader swathes of human

behavior, have been greeted with hosannahs from a public and press who

seem to be insatiable gluttons for punishment -- someone else's

punishment, that is, and preferably someone of dusky hue.

 

The main engine of this mass incarceration has been the 35-year " war

on drugs, " a spurious battle against an abstract noun that provides an

endless fount of profits, payoffs and power for the well-connected

while only worsening the problem it purports to address -- just like

the " war on terror. " The war on drugs has in fact been the most

effective assault on an underclass since Stalin's campaign against the

kulaks.

 

It was launched by Richard Nixon in 1971, after urban unrest had

shaken major U.S. cities during those famous " long, hot summers " of

the '60s. Yet even as the crackdowns began, America's inner cities

were being flooded with heroin, much of it originating in Southeast

Asia, where the CIA and its hired warlords ran well-funded black ops

in and around Vietnam. At home, gangs reaped staggering riches from

the criminalization of the natural, if often unhealthy, human craving

for intoxication. President Ronald Reagan upped the ante in the 1980s

with a rash of " mandatory sentencing " laws that put even first-time,

small-time offenders away for years. His term also saw a new flood --

crack cocaine -- devastating the inner cities, even as his covert

operators used drug money to fund the terrorist Contra army in

Nicaragua and run illegal weapons to Iran, while the downtown

druglords grew more powerful. The U.S. underclass was caught in a

classic pincer movement, attacked by both the state and the gangs.

There were no more long, hot summers of protest against injustice;

there was simply the struggle to survive.

 

Under Reagan, Bush Sr. and Clinton, the feverish privatization of the

prison system added a new impetus for detention. Politically wired

corporations needed to keep those profit-making cells filled, and the

politicians they greased were happy to oblige with " tougher " sentences

and new crimes to prosecute. Now Bush Jr. is readying another front in

the war on the underclass, promising this week to build 4,000 new

cells for immigrant detainees -- having prudently handed Halliburton a

$385 million " contingency " contract back in February to build, lo and

behold, " immigrant detention centers " should the need for them arise,

The New York Times reports.

 

Like the war on drugs, the equally ill-conceived war on immigrants

will be directed at the poorest and most vulnerable, not the " coyote "

gangs who profit from human trafficking -- and certainly not the U.S.

businesses and wealthy homelanders who love the dirt-cheap labor of

the illegals. Those for-profit prisons will soon be filled to bursting

with this new harvest.

 

A nation's true values can be measured in how it treats the poor, the

weak, the damaged, the unconnected. For more than 30 years, the answer

of the U.S. power structure has been clear: You lock them up, shut

them up, grind them down -- and make big bucks in the process.

 

Annotations

 

 

World Prison Population List (Sixth Edition)

International Centre for Prison Studies, Kings College London, May 2006

 

Texas leads US in incarceration growth

Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice, October 2002

 

We're Very Concerned About Family Values Except Of Course When It

Involves Children

A Tiny Revolution, May 9, 2006

 

'Scanning' the Darkness of Our War on Drugs

Truthdig.com, May 14, 2006

 

Smoke Alarm: Yet More Evidence of War Crimes

Empire Burlesque, May 14, 2006

 

Border Lords: Immigration Plan is Crony Pork Bonanza

Empire Burlesque, May 17, 2006

 

Militarizing the Mexican Border: Politics or Insanity?

Working for Change, May 16, 2006

 

U.S. has Second Worst Newborn death rate in modern world

CNN, May 8, 2006

 

Do the Math: Why the Illegal Drug Business is Thriving

Frontline, PBS

 

US War on Drugs 'A Tragic Failure'

New Scientist, March12, 2005

 

The CIA's Drug Confession

Consortiumnews.com, Oct. 15, 1998

 

The Contra-Crack Series

Consortiumnews.com

 

Brazilian Gang Violence Leaves at Least 81 Dead

Reuters, May 16, 2006

 

The Kerner Commission Report [on Urban Unrest]

Africa On-Line

 

The Politics of Race: An Interview with Harry Ashmore

Scott London, National Public Radio, January 1998

 

The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act

The U.S. Library of Congress

 

Body Blow: Bush's Worldwide War Against Women

Empire Burlesque, Oct. 3, 2003

 

Millions Are Dying Because of American Policies

Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2005

 

Tax Breaks for Rich Murderers

London Review of Books, June 2, 2005

 

Bush Wanted to Invade Iraq if Elected in 2000, Says Family Biographer

Guerilla News, Oct. 27, 2004

 

The Downing Street Memo and Related Documents

AfterDowningStreet.com

 

The CIA and Operation Phoenix in Vietnam

Ralph McGehee, Feb. 19, 1996