Prison Reformers Finally Set Free

Is the nearly 40-year-old, bipartisan "let's get tough on crime" mantra getting old-- even for politicians? On the campaign trail Barack Obama and John Edwards are now warning of the dire consequences stemming from the rise in the incarceration rates for African-American men and boys. This week the Supreme Court heard arguments against five-year mandatory minimum sentencing laws for crack cocaine dealers.

And on Thursday, the Senate Joint Economic Committee held the first hearing that reform advocates and legislative staffers can remember on the social and economic harms that come from having the highest percentage of incarcerated citizens in the world. Both lawmakers and witnesses explicitly connected the explosion in the prison population to the so-called "War on Drugs." One damning statistic after another was given:

-The number of incarcerated citizens has gone from 250,000 at the dawn of the drug war to a current 2.3 million.

-Despite making up 13 percent of the overall population, half of all current prisoners are black.

-While blacks are not shown to use drugs more than whites, they are four times as likely to be arrested for possession or dealing.

These facts are nothing new. What is new is that the sociologists and prison reformers were reciting these stats not at university lecture halls but to Senators who write criminal law. And Kansas Republican and long-shot presidential candidate Sam Brownback was pushing his Recidivism Reduction and Second Chance Act of 2007.

Brownback and several Republican and Democratic co-sponsors want to provide federal grants for job training, substance abuse treatment and other social re-entry programs to some of the more than 650,000 inmates who leave prison each year. As the prominent Christian conservative pointed out, two-thirds of all inmates currently return to prison in three years.

While Brownback's bill seems the kind of "compassionate conservative" policy President Bush once promised, a fiscal conservative argument for prison reform has also emerged. Building and operating prison is the only part of state budgets beside Medicaid to have grown in the past 20 years. States spent $9 billion on prisons in 1984-- and spent $41 billion in 2004.

At the hearing, Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia endorsed Brownback's legislation and spoke broadly on the issue, saying, "The American public needs to understand the cultural divisions of the problem." He noted that the U.S. has more than ten times the percentage of its citizens incarcerated then other developed countries.

Witness Pat Nolan, Vice-president of the advocacy group Prison Fellowship, testified that imprisonment has strayed much too far from the intention of public safety. "Prisons are supposed to be for people we're afraid of," he argued, "But instead they're for people we're mad at."

Not every legislator will immediately sign-up for the Prison Fellowship mailing list, but all-in-all it was an auspicious week for beginning to shed light on the broken criminal justice system.

Comments (48)

1. Yes, we need to lower the number of people in our prisons.....

   More capital punishment, anyone? (heh, heh)

   Posted by davebarlett at 10/05/2007 @ 5:27pm

2. Third rail of Democratic politics...right after "tax and spend" and "weak on defense" is...."soft on crime".

   They'll never do it.

   Posted by Mask at 10/05/2007 @ 5:32pm

3. Posted by MASK 10/05/2007 @ 5:32pm

   thats why the pubs are the one's initiating this. 2.3 million behind bars is absurd and a big waste of money.

   except for the prison companies i guess...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/05/2007 @ 5:55pm

4. soft on crime eh? so that is why the people ripping off millions of americans through stock scams and governmental avenues walk all of the time and an 18 year old black kid with a hit of crack does more time that a violent criminal? It's a matter of the punishment fitting the crime and punishment detterring people from commiting crime. Our current system supports repeat offenses. So we are going to end up spending more in our prison system than our education system? Is there maybe a correlation there? And as far as drugs go... take away the value of the product and off of the black market and the violent crime that is so many times used as the reason to keep these sentences all but dissapear. Drugs don't make people violent. Money does.

   Posted by Entrapment at 10/05/2007 @ 6:19pm

5. Well said, entrapment, but I have to add, drugs DO make people crazy.

   Posted by davebarlett at 10/05/2007 @ 6:24pm

6. "And as far as drugs go... take away the value of the product and off of the black market and the violent crime that is so many times used as the reason to keep these sentences all but dissapear. Drugs don't make people violent. Money does.

   Posted by ENTRAPMENT 10/05/2007 @ 6:19pm

   ET, what have you been smokin? Taking away one problem isn't a cure all for what ails the poor in this country. And, psychotrophic drugs do make people violent.

   Posted by ACook at 10/05/2007 @ 6:58pm

7. 714 per 100,000...

   nearest is russia and belarus at 532 per 100,000

   close to one in a hundred...about one in 120-125.

   great.

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/05/2007 @ 7:06pm

8. IBBLE, ENTRAP....I didn't say it was RIGHT, just reality.

   Personally, I think the Drug War is as bad (maybe worse) than the war in Iraq. Waste of money, time, resources, and ultimately counter-productive.

   But the facts are that Democrats LOSE when they start talking "prison reform" and "reduced sentences"....s'why Bill Clinton made a point of "100,000 cops", to blunt the old charge from the 60s.

   Like welfare reform needed a Dem President to give it cover, prison reform and relaxing the Drug War will need a Repub Prez....so that means no dice for 4 to 8 years now.

   Posted by Mask at 10/05/2007 @ 9:15pm

9. And, psychotrophic drugs do make people violent.----Posted by ACOOK 10/05/2007 @ 6:58pm

   Okay, ACOOK, another straight question (for which I doubt I'm going to get a straight answer...sorry)...

   So, do you think marijuana should be legalized, or that it makes people violent?

   Posted by Mask at 10/05/2007 @ 9:16pm

10. "So, do you think marijuana should be legalized, or that it makes people violent?"

    Posted by MASK 10/05/2007 @ 9:16pm

    No, I do not think marijuana should be legalized.

    JR would disagree with this, but yes I do believe mj can make some people violent. So far, I've only had 1 patient during my time in ICU who exhibited psychotic behavior after smoking mj with friends. Poor guy tried to commit suicide.

    Posted by ACook at 10/05/2007 @ 9:44pm

11. JR would disagree with this, but yes I do believe mj can make some people violent. So far, I've only had 1 patient during my time in ICU who exhibited psychotic behavior after smoking mj with friends. Poor guy tried to commit suicide.

    Posted by ACOOK 10/05/2007

    Reminds me of the Jackson Brown (remember him?) show in '78 or '79 which was the first time I smoked some really good weed, i got paranoid as hell, thought it must have been laced with hash oil or maybe sprayed by paraquat...I didn't get violent, though, but it was scary, I stuck to alcohol after that, pretty much........ My sister still embarrasses me with that story from time to time.

    Posted by davebarlett at 10/05/2007 @ 9:52pm

12. Posted by ACOOK 10/05/2007 @ 9:44pm

    ACOOK, I'm amazed. Jack Webb "Joe Friday" of "Dragnet" is alive and well.

    Pot can make you violent?!?!?! I assume you're referring to pure marijuana, not laced with PCP.

    I'm sorry, did your education about narcotics END in a 1972 high school "health class"? You honestly think that marijuana is in more need of criminalization because it "makes some people violent"....and I assume DON'T think that alcohol does (or cowardly think it's "too late" for criminalizing alcohol).

    BTW, ACOOK, here ya go. This is YOUR brain not on drugs! [youtube.com]

    Posted by Mask at 10/05/2007 @ 10:36pm

13. "I'm sorry, did your education about narcotics END in a 1972 high school "health class"? You honestly think that marijuana is in more need of criminalization because it "makes some people violent"....and I assume DON'T think that alcohol does (or cowardly think it's "too late" for criminalizing alcohol)."

    Posted by MASK 10/05/2007 @ 10:36pm

    Believe it or not, my education in pharmaceuticals does go past 1972. And, I honestly feel mj should not be legalized period. As far as alcohol is concerned, I wished the stuff never existed. God knows I've shed too many tears in the ICU watching families being torn apart.

    Posted by ACook at 10/05/2007 @ 11:03pm

14. Posted by RIO BRAVO 10/05/2007 @ 10:26pm

    But Rio, don't you know progressives are the saviors of democracy and the poor? (hehehe)

    Posted by ACook at 10/05/2007 @ 11:12pm

15. Posted by ACOOK 10/05/2007 @ 11:12pm

    isn't that what jesus wanted people to do?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/05/2007 @ 11:47pm

16. Posted by DAVEBARLETT 10/05/2007 @ 9:52pm

    ha ha

    you just embarrassed yourself.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/05/2007 @ 11:49pm

17. And, I honestly feel mj should not be legalized period.----Posted by ACOOK 10/05/2007 @ 11:03pm

    ACOOK, I realize you "feel" that way. But many of us operate on logic, reason, and facts. And given you can go to any bar on a Friday night and get two or three fights, while the stoners are too busy giggling and contemplating the "wonder of their hair"...you're not on solid ground claiming mj makes you violent.

    Nor does ANY scientific study of pot or alcohol.

    This (your views on it) are merely a product of a decrepit and antiquated view CREATED by a government bureaucrat back in the 1930s who wanted to give him something to do (and the budget to do it).

    In other words...you were fooled by a "Big Government liberal"!

    Posted by Mask at 10/06/2007 @ 08:15am

18. ha ha

    you just embarrassed yourself.

    Posted by FROSTY ZOOM

    Didn't want people to think I didn't know what I was talking about, Frosty! It wasn't funny at the time, but I can have a laugh about it now.......

    Posted by davebarlett at 10/06/2007 @ 12:08pm

19. We must defend the innocent against the true enemy. We need a prisoner exchange: Blacks out, Jews in.

    Posted by MARKCANYON 10/06/2007 @ 1:15pm

    -Adolph LaRouche in da house.

    Posted by Sliver at 10/06/2007 @ 1:24pm

20. In the past personal behavior was learned from families, skills from education, and the practicing of religious belief instilled moral and ethical values. The modern god hating culture, its icons, liberalized secular humanistic education, and federal entitlement programs have done their best in destroying the more desirable society basis.

    Posted by RIO BRAVO 10/05/2007 @ 10:26pm

    RIO,

    I think you are saying that the Libs are such perfect specimen of the human species with such HIGH standards, they don't believe anyone ought to `preach' good moral vlaues and all that personal responsibility stuff....unless these `Anyones' are perfect at ALL times.

    You see, as parents, they teach their littles ones by ALWAYS telling them the truth about Santa, Tooth Fairy, and that it's ALWAYS OK to hurt peoples' feelings as long as it's the truth....of course, if the little ones EVER EVER transgressed, they can never be a good little liberal again....

    Texas over OU, coming up!?

    Posted by Happy at 10/06/2007 @ 2:13pm

21. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/06/2007 @ 1:15pm

    Hey, whadda ya know...METTEYA (or DAN GILLESPIE) got a new account!

    Posted by Mask at 10/06/2007 @ 2:55pm

22. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/06/2007 @ 1:15pm

    Wow. Talk about twisting the topic, to your own twisted worldview, and shoving it right up your ass, where, apparently, you keep your brain.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 10/06/2007 @ 6:21pm

23. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/06/2007 @ 6:30pm

    Was right there with you, for the first paragraph of your post...you lost me on the last one.

    Is bush a jew?

    Is cheney a jew?

    Kenneth Lay?

    Are you implying that the majority of drug users/dealers, which comprise more than half of our federal prisoners, are actually disprortionatly jewish?

    Many of our MIC CEOs are jewish, not fundy x-tians?

    WTF are you implying? "It's all the jews fault"? Correct this presumption, (created by reading you post), if you can/ desire to.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 10/06/2007 @ 7:20pm

24. Thanks for ackowledging my genius, though. You must not be as dumb as you sound.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 10/06/2007 @ 7:21pm

25. ...or acknowledging...

    Posted by Malcontent at 10/06/2007 @ 7:22pm

26. There's a little irony because it was Regean who started the mythical war on drugs, while at the same time his CIA began importing and making money bringing drugs to the U.S. Before 'the war' (on drugs) medical research did not show many of the class 1 illegals to be harmful or without purpose. But that testimony wasn't acceptable or made for good propoganda.

    The whole system of 'drugs' has been used by Republicans to build and make profits for the pharma industry - and for themselves. Note that every year nutritional suppliments also come under attack to take them off the market (and under corporate patents).

    Viagra, alone, kills over a quarter million people per year. So what's safe?

    The reason mj is not legalized is because pharma can't synthsize a pill from it yet and no one profits from it except maybe ... cancer patients and having something they can do themselves - cheaply. (how anti-american can you get?)

    Several researchers (oops - non-profit) examined legal and illegal substances used to 'alter consciousness' incl caffinne, alchohol, etc. mj was at the bottom of the list. Alcohol placed in the top 3. Of course, the study didn't make many headlines (done in the U.K.).

    This is another insane war wasting lives against the majority of taxpayers. Prison takes a huge toll on society in just lost wages and productivity along with the costs of maintaining people behind bars. There is no reason for the extreme class divides in prisions of wealth, race and mental illness.

    It's time to rethink jailing ordinary people for doing ordinary things.

    Posted by du2vye at 10/06/2007 @ 7:24pm

27. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/06/2007 @ 6:24pm

    I can't handle the truth?!?!?....what are you, "Colonel Nathan Jessep"?!?!?!

    LOL! Can't we get Joliet Jake and Elwood to drive this guy into a park lake?

    Posted by Mask at 10/06/2007 @ 8:45pm

28. JR would disagree with this, but yes I do believe mj can make some people violent. So far, I've only had 1 patient during my time in ICU who exhibited psychotic behavior after smoking mj with friends. Poor guy tried to commit suicide.

    Posted by ACOOK 10/05/2007 @ 9:44pm

    Have some involvement with this through voluntary involvement with trying to rehabilitate drug addicts and a particularly painful involvement with a 28 YO lady who began smoking marijuana when she was 15 and graduated to heroin she got off that (involuntarily detoxed) when she was locked up in the local police station for 30 days for theft and physical assault. She did try for about a year to make it in a relationship but got dragged back into prostitution to support her dope and growing amphetamine abuse. She is mostly a helpless mess. Here verbatim is the last test msg I got from her a few days ago: "Im a very very bad mess, i am so embarrassed and ashamed but i would be greatfull(sic) for just some milk and toilet paper, just had enough of my life and sick of not being able to mentally and emotionally cope anymore. I have to stop texting now im a very sad lost lonely little girl."

    Now I know drug addicts are very manipulative but that's where the rubber hits the road and I've heard that sort of lostness and sadness story more times than I can remember from those who have been long-time users of the "harmless recreational drug" marijuana. In Australia hydroponically grown marijuana is said to be 8 times more powerful than the stuff available a few decades ago.

    This particular very lovely person is probably bi-polar (we got her to see a psychiatrist a few years ago Both marijuana and amphetamines are thought to be associated with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. It was interesting that the psychiatrist would not attempt to diagnose "Destiny" (her brothel name) until her system was significantly free of both drugs. The reason for that is that both drugs (speed particularly) mimic the symptoms of bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder viz the oscillation between euphoric highs and crushing depression.

    There is no doubt that both drugs not only produce temporary psychosis, but when used heavily, particularly from a young age, when the brain is still forming, do irreparable long term physiological damage to the brain.

    The scientific debate over here, is not about whether that sort of damage occurs through mj and speed abuse but whether mental illness predisposes to the use of these drugs or whether it causes them. It is possible that both propositions are true in varying degrees.

    Posted by lrjones4 at 10/06/2007 @ 10:53pm

29. 1 in 125 in prison in this country...

    russia is about 1 in 275...

    les miserables nation - are we that bad?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/06/2007 @ 11:13pm

30. Posted by LRJONES4 10/06/2007 @ 10:53pm

    often drug abuse is symptomatic of other disorders...meth however is indeed bad stuff and appears to cause...

    MJ in small doses has been shown to actually reduce depression...but in large doses exacerbates it.

    whenever you are trying to diagnose someone you have to eliminate everything you can, so step one is to "dry them out" and observe.

    mentally ill people often self medicate (including with alcohol - a very dangerous drug indeed)...

    honestly we should re-evaluate drug policy scientifically and rationally. there is so much emotional rhetoric its hard to cut through the crap.

    the nazis and imperial japs were apparantly speed freaks...it was even issued to troops to keep them blitzing.

    after the war so many drugs were seized they were deing distrubuted/prescibed well into the 50's, often to treat...depression...ow!

    mother's little helper...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/06/2007 @ 11:23pm

31. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 10/06/2007 @ 11:23pm

    check out some of hitlers wild, frenetic, sweaty speeches...speed...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/06/2007 @ 11:26pm

32. Third rail of Democratic politics...right after "tax and spend" and "weak on defense" is...."soft on crime".

    They'll never do it.

    Mask,

    This is not a Democrat issue, as recidivism affects everyone because it creates new victims.

    The failure to rehabilitate should be of concern to any victims advocate. For every prisoner who is not rehabilitated, we know that 2 out of 3 will commit new crimes against a new victim within three years, and this should be of greater concern than tougher sentences.

    Tougher sentences may satisfy the angry-white male who feels threatened by black and brown men, but it does nothing to reduce the number of victims unless something serious is done about rehabilitation.

    Posted by Metteyya at 10/07/2007 @ 05:11am

33. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 10/06/2007 @ 11:23pm

    Yes I'm sure those with mental illness's do often self medicate with illicit drugs. Think the reason is that anti-depressants and drugs like say the psychotropic drug, Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate), are not as effective at bringing temporary relief as are mj or speed (particularly the crystal form when it is shot up).

    All these drugs are playing about with the neurotransmitters, serotonin and dopamine, and one school of thought suggests that speed and also mj, possibly to a lesser extent, produce enzymes that over an extended period of abuse, permanently destroy dopamine cells. This, it is suggested, leads to chemical changes in the brain that affect the way it works i.e. permanent externally induced brain damage is the outcome.

    That perhaps is why the use of these illicit drugs for self medication is insidious because it is programming the brain for even more devastating episodes of depression as well as episodes of uncontrollable anger and violence.

    (Listened a leading expert in the diagnosis of metal illnesses a few weeks ago. He said that the move was away from diagnosing an illness to treating symptoms. He said that presenting patients may, for example, be thought to have schizophrenia but did not exhibit the full range of symptoms. He said this is true of all psychiatric diagnoses i.e. the complete suite of symptoms for a particular illness was virtually never found in a single patient. This method of treating for symptoms, with a suitable drug he said, saved a lot of diagnostic uncertainty and was having great success).

    Posted by lrjones4 at 10/07/2007 @ 08:56am

34. Posted by LRJONES4 10/07/2007 @ 08:56am

    yeah...i think i could cure most depressed people without psychotropic meds by running them through a sort of "anti-depressent boot camp". a combination of proper diet, sleep, excercise, counselling, as well as (depending on the person) meditative techniques, art therapy, etc...

    if i hit the gym for a couple of months it would build my muscles up...consistant behavioral modification can alter brain chemistry.

    problem is it would take 1 - 3 months and i think the same effects can be achieved in much less time with a combination of much of the above and ssri's. and with the private managed health care paradigm here...its hard enough to convince many insurance companies to pay up for even a week of hospitalization for mental health...(and niether they nor the life insurance guys have to pay crap if the depresio commits suicide...)

    still don't know how those ssri things work, however...the guys who perfected lobotomies got a nobel prize in the late 40's, i believe...so who knows?

    mental health still, no matter what is said, involves social stigma and assumptions of character flaw no matter what the mri's and neuroscience says, however...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/07/2007 @ 2:19pm

35. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/07/2007 @ 11:10am

    You said:

    MALCONTENT writes: Are you implying that the majority of drug users/dealers, which comprise more than half of our federal prisoners, are actually disprortionatly jewish?

    What brought that on? What in my post connoted that? You are what tolerating the feeble-minded leads to, coast to coast dementia. You are not malcontent, but madescent, between the ears.

    I say: What brought that on was your post, implying that the vast majority of federal prisoners, who are there on drug related charges, and are disproportionately black, should be replaced by jews. i.e."We need a prisoner exchange: Blacks out, Jews in."

    You said:

    Are so many Blacks in prison, because they are too stupid, too lazy, to amoral for honest work? That is your explanation, eh. But it ain't so, you racist son of a bitch.

    I say: Again, WTF are you spouting about? Where have I ever even implied any of those things. These are things you just said. Not me. Maybe actually reading my posts could clear that up for you.

    I am also completely non-plussed by the acusation of racism, coming from an ferved anti-semite, against a history of not even uttering the lies you attribute to me.

    You said:

    Somebody put them there, somebody wants em there. It's in someone's interest to create a Black bugaboo. Whose do you suppose?

    I say:

    Allow me to paraphrase you," Somebody put them there, somebody wants em there. It's in someone's interest to create a Jewish bugaboo. Whose do you suppose?" I suppose people like you.

    You say:

    Who wants the heat drawn off their back, so that America don't notice the crimes in Palestine, the crimes in Iraq, the crimes on Wall Street. The Self-chosen!

    ...and I might even agree. IF we were in agreement as to who the self-chosen are.

    You say:

    The Zionists have suckered people of color into addiction. Where do you think Ecstasy comes from? Who do you think was an early experimenter in opiates, Sigi Freud, a Zionist uber alles, the inventor of screwing with people's minds. Why are most psychiatrists Jews? They run the world by manipulating everyone's thinking.

    First you had all those Zionist MDs writing prescriptions to get folks on drugs. Then they left em cold turkey. What do you think all those kindly Jews ministering to the poor up in Harlem were doing, playing Mother Theresa? They were feeding Blacks poison. They were screwing with their minds. They were feeding them into prisons. So that America had someone to hate that wasn't Jews. Can you understand that my man, my little man, my maladroit, mental retard?

    I say 2 things:

    1.) You are more paranoid than Rese. (Who I seems, at least, has good intentions). And;

    2.) Citation or link please. Otherwise this is so much fabricated bullshit...such as;

    The Left's gotta wise up. The Left has a responsibility to people of color. The Left has to realize who its true enemy is, who is always letting it down, why it is always failing. Though poor people and working people and non-Jews are way in the majority the Left is always failing. Why is that? Why doesn't equality work, why don't elections work, one man one vote work? Because someone, something is always working against the Left. Guess who? Who was always at the head of the Left?

    The Jews, the Samuel Gompers (founder of the AFL), and the Sidney Hillmans (founder of the CIO). Who were always the biggest power brokers in govt? The Bernard Baruchs, the Jacob Javitses, the Lehrmans, the Morgenthaus.

    Who are all the experts nowadays, the pollsters, the political advisers, the congressional staffers, the columnists, the pundits, the finessers and sharp dressers? Damn right, the Jews. If they are not sharp dressers themselves, they are in charge of dressing sharp. They took over the fashion business when they sold the garment industry to China. When not enough Blacks were going to jail in the 70s they instituted high heels for men's shoes so that the brothers couldn't run from the police. They got everybody coming and going. They got the army going to Iraq. While they are coming from Israel and Blacks going into the clink.

    But how do you respond?

    Ok, ok. You got me with the part I bolded. I'm sure that must be true. I mean, it makes so much sense.

    You are deluded and hateful.

    You:

    You ask: WTF are you implying? "It's all the jews fault"? Correct this presumption, (created by reading you post), if you can/ desire to.

    I'm not implying nothing, I'm saying it straight out you dolt.

    I say;

    I was being facetious, with the word "imply". You did state it straight out. What else is there to say, except every word of your post from here on is a lie. I never said, (or even implied), any of these things.

    These are examples of the type of thinking made by small diseased minds, such as yourself.

    (And yes, I did just "anylise" you,. And no I am not a doctor or a Jew. Just a reasonable thinking human being, who does not feel the need to create a scapegoat to blame everything on).

    You ask: Who and what is driving Blacks into prisons? in Blacks going bad? Is it the Left, is it working people?

    I'm saying it straight out, you moron. Unplug your ears. Why are you so amazed that people are finally catching on? Why are you so dense? Wake up. Rise and shine out of that moldy tent.

    Maybe everything is the fault of people, who think like you.

    I have no interest in reading/responding to any of your drivel/lies/fearmongering.

    If, in the short time you've been here, you can make so many false accusations about me. Which can be easily refuted by anyone who cares to read my posts. Then I could only imagine the the bizarre mental machinations you are capable of going through, during a lifetime of rationalized hatred, to make up lies about the Jews.

    And, frankly, so can everyone else here.

    Get over yourself and, well, fuck off.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 10/07/2007 @ 4:11pm

36. Posted by MALCONTENT 10/07/2007 @ 4:11pm

    unfortunately the more we kowtow to aipac and the american likud, the more fuel gets thrown on the anti-semitic bonfire...

    and i NEVER see the msm highlighting people such as rabbi waskow and american jewry who disagree...

    fuel for evil anti-semitism...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/07/2007 @ 4:49pm

37. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/07/2007 @ 4:47pm

    For the record, I never implied the proportion of blacks in jail was just. Never commented on it. Just commented on your post.

    Always seemed to be the product of fundyvangelistic, racist, republican (i.e. southern democrats gone wild), south of the manson-nixon line rednecks thinking. Like you espouse. I'm sure a certain percentage of jews are dicks. I am equally sure, (now that you've helped to prove it), that dickheads come in all types.

    Odd that you would call me a racist, as your entire ideology is racist.

    You like to split the dual meaning, that folks have when they say "jew", (race vs. religion) and play on it.

    The irony is, if you focused on the beliefs side, you would have my agreement, as I think all superstitious people (jews,x-tians,muslims, hindus, buddhists, and all the other devil/earth/fairy/zues worshipers, etc.)are a threat to humanity. Ask anyone here what this athiest thinks of insane people (esp. Abrahmic insanity, the most dangerous of all, in my view).

    You and the biblical Paul, have alot in common. Fearmongering bullshit artists.

    How about something other than empty rhetoric and blatent lies, to back up your ideals?

    As a racist crying racism, you take the cake.

    Please stop communicating directly to me, until you can stop lying and attributing quotes to me I did not make.

    Posted by Malcontent at 10/07/2007 @ 5:34pm

38. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/07/2007 @ 5:33pm |

    no...i would love to break the aipac/likud influence and spare no words when discussing them, but i also realize and respect the fact that the jews that are speaking up and standing up to that sort of moral bullying...

    but although i fear the likudist influence in my country, i also fear an inappropriate reaction to the same, "inappropriate" being a euphemism for "antisemitic".

    that said, surely the likudist aipaccers do indeed often resort to inappropriately slurring all detractors as antisemitic. also ust as surely sometimes an anti-likudist is indeed also an anti-semite...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/07/2007 @ 7:51pm

39. IBBLE, Eric MALCONTENT...guys, guys? Do you not realize what you're trying to have a debate with?!?!?!?

    "You ask: WTF are you implying? "It's all the jews fault"? Correct this presumption, (created by reading you post), if you can/ desire to.

    I'm not implying nothing, I'm saying it straight out you dolt. ----Posted by MARKCANYON 10/07/2007 @ 11:10am

    Discuss AIPAC with the normal anti-Israel crowd if you wish...but this is like discussing Jena, Louisiana with a guy in a white hood and a gasoline-soaked cross.

    Posted by Mask at 10/07/2007 @ 7:54pm

40. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/07/2007 @ 7:22pm |

    so...as opposed to the blues brothers' nazi's allegation that the jew uses the (you know what) for muscle...the jews are putting blacks behind bars?

    have i misinterpreted you or are you saying jews are responsible for the high incarceration rates of blacks?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/07/2007 @ 7:56pm

41. Posted by MASK 10/07/2007 @ 7:54pm

    hmmm...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/07/2007 @ 7:57pm

42. Perverted by MARKCANYON 10/07/2007 @ 7:22pm

    Posted by frosty zoom at 10/07/2007 @ 8:21pm

43. Posted by MARKCANYON 10/07/2007 @ 7:22pm

    Who is the liar?! I have not put anything you have not said between quotes, I have put you between your words and the truth.

    You are the liar, when you attribute words/ideas I have not espoused.

    The rest of your sentence, makes no sense. Is that some attempt to rationalize lies and lack of substance?

    You say, "I never implied the proportion of blacks in jail was just." You certainly have, in denying Blacks have been set up, in denying that they are being steered into jail. If they are not, if it is no one's fault, then it is their fault. Then it is just. That is what your yapping comes down to, and that is why you are a racist son of a bitch, and a hypocrite.

    I am not racist in any way. I have not denied that there is a problem with black incarceration rates. (Or anyone being jailed via our deluded "drug war").

    "... But as far as dual meanings go, you don't mind whacking the shit out of Jews under the Zionist label, but not as semites. There you piss in your pants. Anti-zionist doesn't scare you, but anti-semite does.

    Scares me? How could some idea, I do not hold, scare me, dumb ass.

    Maybe you are alluding to the fact that I am not an anti-semite, but I am against some Zioninst objectives? Then, that would just make me rational. Not a hate filled yahoo, like you.

    Most anti-semites I know, as well as anti-black, are southern, repub. xtian rednecks. Not jews. Was Reagan a jew? Bush I? Nixon? The CIA is a jewish front?

    How about you are a moron, who doesn't even know how to properly dialogue with someone, much less have any facts to back up your allegations.

    To escape the anti-semite cudgel you sell Blacks down the river, you abandone the Left's interests. Your afraid for your spotless white dress, you demented old fraud, you antique flower child. I don't know if you]re a pansy but you're surely unnatural. In order not to appear openly anti Jew, you are willing to be surreptitiously anti-black. How disgusting.

    You are the only one spouting hate and/or racism here. I sell noone down the river. You, on the other hand, obviously want to do the same to the jews. A reflection on you, not me.

    Am I a pansy? Flower; no. Gay? Perhaps.

    Are you a homophobe as well? Not surprising.

    In the guise of being pro-black, you are anti-jew. How disgusting.

    This athiest, polysexual, of jewish decent says, you are a homophobic, racist, hypocritical, scapegoating fearmongerer.

    Fuck off.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 10/07/2007 @ 8:41pm

44. Posted by IBBLEBLIBBLE 10/07/2007 @ 7:57pm

    I'm just telling you, man...it ain't worth it. It's not like MARK is some "subtle bigot" and questioning him will draw out his true nature...he's presenting his true nature....pure Fritz Kuhn.

    It's a waste of time....threw a jab at him earlier tonight, but moving onto to Ignore. Not worth it.

    Posted by Mask at 10/07/2007 @ 9:53pm

45. Posted by MALCONTENT 10/07/2007 @ 8:41pm |

    remember the nazi guy from that michael douglas movie, Falling Down?

    lol...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/07/2007 @ 9:54pm

46. Posted by MASK 10/07/2007 @ 9:53pm | ignore this person

    hee hee...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 10/07/2007 @ 9:58pm

47. How many of you have been in prison (as a convict)? You can get any and every drug you want on the other side of the fence; it's much more expensive on the other side, but it is amply available. That fact should be more than enough to demonstrate just how inane the "war on drugs" is.

    You want to help those with an addiction? Then provide them with quality substance abuse therapy. It is much more effective than incarceration and a lot cheaper, too.

    Crime rates are nothing more than a reflection of the economic policies of a nation. Crime is not the problem; it is only a sympton of our dysfunctional society.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 10/08/2007 @ 4:05pm

48. Our prison system has a high percentage of inmates who have been incarcerated for non-violent crime.

    I've often wondered if that was because, in a for-profit prison system, these are the most profitable inmates to house.

    Posted by drhammer at 10/09/2007 @ 12:47pm