Jean Trounstine : Censoring What Prisoners Read

Werewolf erotica: Too sexy for prisoners? Image from The Atlantic Wire.

'Werewolf erotica' too 'sexy'?
Censoring what prisoners read

The truth is that prisons want to control behavior. They want to 'reform' prisoners, which usually means they want to turn out people who are as conformist as possible.

By Jean Trounstine / The Rag Blog / June 25, 2013

Some astute judges are standing up and challenging prisons which think they have the right to tell prisoners what they can and cannot read.

Just after I wrote a blog about the wonders of Changing Lives Through Literature, a program begun in Massachusetts where a judge, probation officer, and facilitator discuss books together in a “democratic” reading group, offering those on probation a chance at rehabilitation (see "What You Need to Know About Changing Lives Through Literature"), I came across an article at the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) titled "Should prison inmates be allowed to read whatever they choose?"

We know prisons only let in certain kinds of material, sent in certain packages and provided in certain formats. At least that is what Framingham Women's Prison told me some years ago when they rejected my hardback book Shakespeare Behind Bars being housed in the prison library. Forget that I had worked there, directing plays and teaching college classes for almost 10 years. They also don't want books critical of their practices in any way. Apparently, my book raised their hackles.

Now prisons are going even farther: they don’t want books that have subjects someone deems unfit.

Madden work 'Problematic'?

Husna Haq, in his CSM, article mentions that recently the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned a previous ruling barring a prisoner from receiving a book he requested deemed "problematic" by prison officials. The book in question was The Silver Crown by Mathilde Madden "which has widely become known as 'werewolf erotica,' and was considered too sexual by corrections officers."

What? Corrections Officers are deciding that a book is too sexual for prisoners to read?

Get a load of this other recent news article posted in Business Insider. Called "America's Prison Guards Are The 'Ugly Stepchildren' Of The Criminal Justice System," the article reveals how guards "allegedly snuck cell phones and other contraband to Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gangsters." They allowed them to do whatever they wanted apparently, having the run of the prison, and now BGF leader Tavon White is accused of impregnating four guards, two of whom got tattoos with his name.

Thankfully, as Salon reported, the Court found that the prison had overstepped its bounds in the case, engaging in an “arbitrary and capricious application of the regulation.” The judge declared that "The Silver Crown did not meet the famous 'three-pronged' standard by which American courts have determined obscenity since the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision on Miller v. California in 1973."

A 2011 suit by the American Civil Liberties Union charged a South Carolina prison with denying its prisoners all reading material other than the Bible. Other cases include an Alabama prison that barred a prisoner from reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II by Douglas Blackmon.

Hurston 'too racial'?

Why? Because it was too controversial? That's another problem prisons have with texts. And also what I was told at Framingham, when I wanted to teach a June Jordan essay and direct a version of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Way before Oprah produced a movie of this novel, I had planned a production. But the prison said that involving my theatre troupe in such an effort was "too racial." And I quote.

The truth is that prisons want to control behavior. They want to "reform" prisoners, which usually means they want to turn out people who are as conformist as possible. Read, write, paint, and draw? Only as long as prisoners don't overstep their boundaries.

The idea that a prisoner can’t vote, can’t write, and can’t read what he or she wants are different kinds of “crime against person.” Restricting such freedoms could be considered unconstitutional if not illegal. But the idea that a prison will ever honor such rights for prisoners without a judge intervening -- considering that a prison’s aim is to “correct” -- is pure illusion.

[Jean Trounstine is an author/editor of five published books and many articles, professor at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts, and a prison activist. For 10 years, she worked at Framingham Women's Prison and directed eight plays, publishing Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison about that work. She blogs for Boston Magazine and takes apart the criminal justice system brick by brick at jeantrounstine.com where she blogs weekly at "Justice with Jean." Find her contributions to The Rag Blog here.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

David Van Os : The Homeland Battlefield Bill

Image from Chocolate City.
The Homeland Battlefield Bill

With the stroke of Obama’s pen, the United States military has become a domestic law enforcement authority and American citizens on American soil are subject to the loss of every fundamental right to due process of law.

By David Van Os / The Rag Blog / January 3, 2012

At this turn of the standard solar calendar from the year 2011 to the year 2012, my country has taken another step down the terrible path of abandoning its dedication to the principles that made it stand out with unique brilliance in the history of the human race.

On December 31, 2011, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA). Such bills are normally routine authorization and appropriation acts. This one is different. Known as the “Homeland Battlefield Bill” this act contains a section that aims a dagger at the heart of our most cherished constitutional freedoms.

Section 1031 includes the following language:

(a) In General – Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.
——
(c) Disposition under law of war – The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following:
(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force.”

Translation: a “covered person” may be treated as a prisoner of war.

Prisoners of war don’t get trials. They don’t get to call lawyers. They don’t get hearings to determine probable cause. They don’t get to make bail. They don’t get to apply for writs of habeas corpus.

They have no rights to any components of due process of law. They are simply detained until the war between their country and the other country is over. (Recent world history is full of brutal atrocities illegally committed against prisoners of war, but that is a different topic for a different essay.)

These are standard expectations for enemy soldiers captured in war. So what’s new?

Under this bill, every square inch of the 50 states of the United States is considered a battlefield, and American citizens suspected of supporting the so-called enemy army of terrorists may be treated as prisoners of war. With the stroke of Obama’s pen, the United States military has become a domestic law enforcement authority and American citizens on American soil are subject to the loss of every fundamental right to due process of law.

It might be a different thing if the “war on terrorism” were a war with identifiable armies and soldiers, fought by nation-states, with identifiable targets and objectives. Indeed, the standard first definition of war, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations."

But this so-called war is, as Rep. Dennis Kucinich calls it, a “war without end." It is not a conflict with a nation-state. It is a conflict with criminal gangs. There is no territory or capital city that can be occupied in a visible manifestation of victory. There will be no end until the politicians decide they no longer need it as a scapegoat to distract voters from the piracy they are suffering every day at the hands of the Wall Street robber barons and their politician stooges.

In other words, it may never end. Persons detained “under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities” may never be released.

As Senator Al Franken said in explaining why he voted against the bill:

And what we are talking about here is that Americans could be subjected to life imprisonment without ever being charged, tried, or convicted of a crime, without ever having an opportunity to prove their innocence to a judge or a jury of their peers. And without the government ever having to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Franken continued that the bill

denigrates the very foundations of this country. It denigrates the Bill of Rights. It denigrates what our Founders intended when they created a civilian, non-military justice system for trying and punishing people for crimes committed on U.S. soil. Our Founders were fearful of the military -- and they purposely created a system of checks and balances to ensure we did not become a country under military rule. This bill undermines that core principle.

A “covered person” under the bill is:

(b)(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.
(b)(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

Well, you might think, no problem. This law only targets the bad guys. Innocent citizens are not in any danger of “disposition under the law of war."

But the whole point of due process of law, the whole point of the English nobles who forced King John to sign the Magna Charta in 1215, the whole point of our fundamental concept that a person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty, the whole point of the requirements of probable cause and warrants, the whole point of the right to a fair trial, the whole point of the right to call a lawyer, the whole point of being able to apply to a court for a writ of habeas corpus, is that there are checks and balances to prevent false accusations, false arrests, false convictions, and false imprisonment.

Under the power that has been handed over to the federal government in the new Defense Authorization Act, the checks and balances, the very essence of Constitutional democracy, will be abolished for any American at any time against whom the government decides to level a charge of supporting terrorists. The accusation may be a complete fabrication but there will be nothing the accused citizen can do about it.

The unprincipled politicians who passed this bill occupy both major political parties. Many Democrats in the House and Senate supported it, and a few Democrats opposed it. Many Republicans in the House and Senate supported it, and a few Republicans opposed it.

The apologists for the bill will point to subsection (e), which states:

Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.

Don’t be fooled by this hollow exercise of political pacification. If you are locked up in a military jail as a prisoner of war with no right to call a lawyer and no right to a hearing or to see the evidence against you, how will you invoke the purported “existing law” this sop extends to you? The same people who locked you up will decide what the “existing law and authorities” are and what they mean. Without due process of law or checks and balances, the “law” is nothing.

Basically, the Homeland Battlefield Bill subjects all Americans to the awful possibility of being treated the way thousands of innocent Japanese-American citizens were treated during World War II, their freedoms abolished through internment in camps for the duration of the war.

Remember John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales? Basically, the Congress in passing this bill, and the President in signing it, rehabilitated the sick and subversive constitutional theories that Yoo and Gonzales promoted during the darkest days of the Cheney-Bush regime.

The apologists may also say that under the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld the federal courts will recognize a right of access to the judiciary to challenge military detentions. Speaking as a lawyer, I agree it is possible that may happen in the federal courts. Also speaking as a lawyer, I remind the apologists that it takes courageous lawyers, piles of money, and years of languishing to get major constitutional cases resolved in the courts.

I am glad for the possibility of judicial correction, but it does not excuse the politicians for what they have done, nor will any successful court challenge give a citizen back the years of freedom lost waiting for the fulfillment of judicial review. Speaking as an American who loves my country and its Constitutional heritage, I am appalled, disgusted, sick at heart, and mad as hell.

[David Van Os is a populist Texas democrat and a civil rights attorney now living in Austin. He is a former candidate for Attorney General of Texas and for the Texas Supreme Court. To receive his Notes of a Texas Patriot -- circulated whenever he gets the urge (and published on The Rag Blog whenever we get the urge) -- contact him at david@texas-patriot.com. Read more articles by David Van Os on The Rag Blog.]

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...

Ted McLaughlin : It's Everyone's Fight

Typical 99% parasite. Image from Jobsanger.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

It's everyone's fight

'The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and for government to gain ground.' -- Thomas Jefferson

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog/ December 6, 2011

The quote at the bottom of the picture above shows what the right wing would like for Americans to believe -- that the Occupy Wall Street movement is nothing more than a few bored young people, parasites with meaningless lives who have contributed nothing to America. But this picture shows that argument is a pathetic lie (designed to protect the 1% and the failed Republican economic policy).

This gentleman has contributed much to his country. As a World War II veteran, he put his life on the line for his fellow citizens -- to defend freedom for not only his generation, but also for all the generations that followed.

And I suspect that he has worked hard all his life to support his family and contribute to our economy. He certainly doesn't look like a "trust fund baby." And he's not the only older American who has joined in the protests. There are many -- they may not be camping out with the younger folks, but they are there for the marches and demonstrations.

For many of these older demonstrators -- even if they and their younger cohorts are able to finally affect the change that is needed in this country -- that change will probably not benefit them much. That is not why they are there. They are there because they love their country and they want to protect the constitutional rights for those who come after them. And they want some economic justice for their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

These people know something that far too many Americans seem to have forgotten -- that rights, even constitutional rights, must be fought for continuously, or they will disappear. It is simply the nature of ALL governments to assume as much power as they can -- and this is true even of rather benign democratic forms of government. Every form of government will slowly eat away at the rights of its citizens if allowed to do so. As Thomas Jefferson so wisely told us, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and for government to gain ground."

These governments always have a seemingly justifiable reason for eroding the rights of citizens -- the most popular being that it is necessary to defend the country, or to maintain law and order, or to please some god.

A perfect example of this was the Bush administration's imposition of the Patriot Act. They said it was needed to prevent another 9/11 disaster. But 9/11 did not happen because of a lack of intelligence gathered -- the plans were known before the incident happened.

9/11 happened because of incompetent leadership that did not take the proper precautions after learning of the plan to attack America. And preventing another 9/11 was just an excuse government used to seize a few more of the people's rights.

And now we have the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. These protests were started to point out the economic injustices of our present society. The deck has been stacked in favor of the richest Americans (because they own far too many members of Congress) and this has resulted in a serious recession and the loss of millions of jobs -- not to mention a vast gulf in wealth and income between the richest Americans and the rest of America. And much of America has responded favorably to these demonstrations, because they recognize that change must come.

In fact, the demonstrations have been so popular and widespread (blanketing the nation) that the 1% and their government lackeys are beginning to get scared. They want to stop the movement before it grows large enough to actually affect the needed change.

This is normal, as no group in power has willingly given up any of their power or economic advantage. The sad part is that, like past governments here and around the world, they are willing to deny the rights of the people in an attempt to hold on to their power and advantages.

It is written in the United States Constitution that the people of this country have certain rights, and among these are the right to free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to redress the government for their grievances. The Occupy Wall Street movement is simply trying to exercise those rights in its quest for economic justice. And the authorities are trying to deny them those rights -- often through the use of violence.

The stakes were already high, as they will be in any quest for economic justice. But now those stakes have been heightened even more. It has now become a fight to either keep or cede to the government the basic rights given citizens by the Constitution. Whatever anyone might think of Occupy Wall Street's goals, it is now imperative for all Americans to step up and demand that our constitutional rights be respected and obeyed by the government.

These rights have always been guaranteed to the rich and powerful but are often denied to those without political power. Now it is time for the Americans of this generation to fight for those rights to be extended to every citizen, and that fight can only be won if everyone becomes involved -- regardless of age, sex, race, color, or national origin. It is everybody's fight, and it is too important a fight to lose.

It is not good enough for those rights to be written in the Constitution. Government must be forced to honor those rights, or they mean nothing.

[Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger. Read more articles by Ted McLaughlin on The Rag Blog.]

Source /

The Rag Blog

[+/-] Read More...

[+/-] Summary only...