Print This Post
“Something’s happening here…” The ultra-right doesn’t care how they secure political power—vote, don’t vote, or sing homages to the f***in’ fairies—just so long as they achieve power…
When ultra-right conservatives lie, cheat and steal at every level of their social and political lives, they do so because they utterly and completely believe that that’s what everyone else is doing. It’s all they know; it’s all they were taught in their formative youth. more…
Print This Post
“Where are the Roger Williams of today? How amazing that such a phenomenal figure is not even more greatly immortalized in our schools for his heroism.” Ed Asner, star of Lou Grant.
Following my recent postings on gov’t v. business, this article features the founder of my birthplace, the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, by Roger Williams (1603-83). (That’s the actual name of the state.)
Roger Williams (1603-83)…
None of the rights we have are a gift from heaven nor are they the automatic consequence of social progression.
Every right has been earned thru protest, struggle and sacrifice, and maintained only thru continuing vigilance.
Print This Post
…or, Business & Gov’t: Profit vs. Service.
The current mantra of obsessive profiteers is: The business of gov’t is business. This is a pernicious concept. It’s borne from private greed and conservative think-speak.
Conservative view…
It’s estimated that 1% of any given population are clinical sociopaths (or psychopath…same thing, different focus). That makes some 3,150,000 in the US out of a total population of 315 million. more…
Print This Post
Here’s a few wild ideas that came to mind while I was waiting for the cell door to open over the past 20-plus years. Of course,
little did I realize that the free-world itself was becoming another level of minimum security.
After I got out, Detroit friends held a Welcome Home party for me. Perhaps I should have welcomed y’all to MY world… more…
Print This Post
When I was six years old in the summer of ’48, I recall listening to the presidential election on the radio while my mother ironed.
Eileen Elizabeth McHugh was a 23-yr-old former World War-II, Rosie-the-Riveter (welder) in the Narragansett Shipyards, Rhode Island. We lived in a winterized near-beach cottage.
The post-war rise in the working and middle classes was still in its infancy, and this was before most people had TVs or telephones. I know we didn’t have one.
I asked her what they were talking about on the radio…Democrats and Republicans? more…
Print This Post
I recall back in 2006 when I was being transferred from the federal prison at FCI Jesup, Georgia, to the prison camp at FPC Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.
Getting up at 2:30am, the procedures included stripping, total body-cavity searches, an orange jump-suit and chains from my waist, to hands, to feet. Herded into a bare holding-cell with some 40 other prisoners, we languished until past 10am for the steel-caged prison transport bus. more…
Print This Post
The official release date from my 25-yr federal prison sentence will be Friday, July the 8th, 2011. As the Chinese curse goes, “It’s been an interesting journey.”
The Final Free Election (click to enlarge)...
Disclosure: In the summer of ’66 (at 24), after serving in the 101st Airborne, the Civil Rights movement in the Old South, a brutish year on a Tennessee rock-quarry chain-gang, and in Local #212 of the UAW, I became a revolutionary socialist. I remain so. more…
Print This Post
The American Revolution was a war fought against an aristocracy that was dominated by corporate predators; for one, the East India Company.
Thomas Jefferson...
King George III had no more control over them than does Barack Obama over the current crop of corporatists. They still buy all the influence they need. more…
Print This Post
I admit I get a chuckle when I hear some blockhead explain how certain constitutional rights handcuff the police from doing their job.
Let’s take one easy example, the Miranda v. Arizona (1966) decision. The Supreme Court saw the need for police to inform suspects (that’s potentially all of us) of certain basic rights, such as, the right to remain silent and the right to counsel. Sounds easy enough, eh?
In 1963 I was returning to my wife and children in Nashville, TN, from New York. I was driving my 1960 Plymouth Fury with all my personal possessions, including my family photo albums. more…
Print This Post
I got a chuckle out of the Republican recitation of the Constitution last week in Congress (they even allowed some Dems to participate).
In the never-ceasing hypocrisy of conservative profiteers to double-speak a sepulchered version of history, they performed another act in their quest to propagandize We the People into believing their lies.
Their crude gambit? The “Constitution as a sacred document as it was originally written” (as they oft-refer to the King James Version of the Bible as well) by the near-deified Founding Fathers (most of whom were Deists, not Christians). more…
If you have something to say about the prison experience, something funny, tragic or simply interesting, please send it (or have it forwarded) to publico@americantribune.org. We reserve all rights to the material and may edit it to ensure that it conforms to our style and mission.
Our only requirement is that you are or have been incarcerated for a felony conviction, and that you have something original and socially relevant to say about it. Your anonymity, if you wish, will be preserved.
Please join me in making The Prison Experience Connection the place to go for felons and those interested in their experiences.
