Raising Cain...

It's way past time for a jail break...

...and by that I mean that we need to break with business as usual in the American prison system and get on with immediate and comprehensive reform.

Check out this video from Cuéntame:

 

From their website:

TOP 3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PRIVATE PRISONS

1) The victims: Private prisons don't care about who they lock up. At a rate of $200 per immigrant a night at their prisons, this is a money making scheme that destroys families and lives.

2) The players: CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), The Geo Group and Management and Training corporations - combined these private prisons currently profit more than $5 billion a year.

3) The money: These private prisons have spent over $20 million lobbying state legislators to make sure they get state anti-immigration laws approved and ensure access to more immigrant inmates.

TAKE THE PLEDGE:

I stand with Cuéntame's "Immigrants For Sale" campaign and be part of the nationwide network of Prison Watchers that will follow and expose the players, the money and the victims in this corrupt money making racket.

 

READ MORE:

Visit Cuéntame's Facebook page. (You can use the linked image in the sidebar as well.)

Darkness at Noon: Georgia Dumps Peaches for Prisons With Immigration Law Today (May 13, 2011, Jeff Biggers at Huffington Post)

Governor signs Arizona-style immigration bill into law (May 13, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

The perverse incentives of private prisons (August 2010, The Economist)

Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings (May 19, 2011, NYT)

A Shabby Crusade in Wisconsin (March 25, 2011, NYT Editorial on ALEC's meddling in higher education)

Roberto Lovato: Que Viva el Primero de Mayo!

For some years now, Cinco de Mayo has been a day that I usually go out for Mexican food and, while I eat, think about the personal and collective karma I have to come to grips with as a white person (with mostly European ancestors) in relation to people with roots in América Latina.

Today I got a couple of awesome links that have stirred some reflection, and I decided to share them here. One is an article at Colorlines today by Roberto Lavato: Cinco de Mayo, Primero de Mayo and the Birth of the United States of América. Here's an excerpt:

With notable exceptions among the more thoughtful Cinco de Mayo organizers around the country, event organizers no longer tell us that we’re celebrating the victory of the badly-equipped, but inspired Mexican guerrilla army that fought and defeated the far better-equipped forces of Napoleon III’s decaying French Empire. Cinco de Mayo’s loss of electricity has itself become a Latino-“American” sign of imperial malaise.

Instead, our electricidad has migrated to Primero de Mayo (May Day). Born in the U.S., after immigrant and other workers protesting in Chicago’s Haymarket Square were killed by police in the late 19th century, Primero de Mayo was, until very recently, a largely forgotten commie affair. Today, Latino workers, specifically immigrant workers, march against the militarized immigration forces of President Obama, and these workers are powering May Day back to relevance in a decaying empire that tries to border itself off from the rest of the working world by celebrating “Labor Day” in September. The day connects us to people marching throughout the hemisphere and the entire world; it previews and makes palpable the bottom-up borderlessness that is the only salvation for this extremely troubled planet.

via colorlines.com

 

The other link was to a YouTube video of the only known voice recording of Mother Jones, recorded on her 100th birthday, May 1, 1930:

 

 

Que viva el Primero de Mayo!