Preview/Trailer

Jamaican “Against-The-Odds”

Boxing Drama “Ghett’a Life”

The indiwire.com blog has featured the trailer from Ghett’a Life, qhich is scrrening at the Caribbean Tales 2011 Toronto Film Showcase.

In a recent post about Warrior I think it was, I made a remark about being over seeing inspirational dramas about white fighters (whether boxers, wrestlers, MMA, etc) that seem to have become fashionable again in Hollywood in the last 4 or 5 years – 2 of them have been Oscar contenders, one is likely going to be given the buzz, and another was recently announced with Eminem starring and Antoine Fuqua directing.

Well, here’s an “against-the-odds” drama centered on the story of a young black teenager, set in Jamaica, struggling to realize his dream as a champion boxer, with a politically turbulent community (including his family) as the film’s backdrop.

Titled Ghett’a Life, the film is the work of Jamaican director Chris Browne, whose last film, released in 1999, a violent micro-budgeted crime drama titled Third World Cop), was well-received in Jamaica, reportedly breaking box office records there, earning Ja$21 million (or about $250,000).

Ghett’a Life made its North American debut yesterday, Tuesday, September 13 as part of CaribbeanTales 2011 Toronto Film Showcase, screening at Harbourfront Centre’s Studio Theatre, at 7:30pm. For tickets, the schedule and general information about the CaribbeanTales Film Showcase and Market Incubator, visit www.caribbeantales-events.com.

And now the rest of the film’s story… trailer underneath:

Ten years in the making, the wholly Jamaican film, funded by local investors and featuring indigenous talent and music, is a high octane no holds-barred depiction of what life is and can be like in inner city Kingston.

Derrick dreams of being Jamaica’s next world light weight boxing champion. He knew from an early age that he had the ability to out box even the bigger boys on his lane but it’s election year and politics divide the country and Derrick’s community. His father, a loyal party supporter, forbids Derrick from going to the boxing gym, as to do so he has to cross party lines.

Derrick defiantly follows his heart and is confronted with the serious repercussions of his decision. The don of Derrick’s community, Sin, is set on keeping him from crossing over to the “other side” even if it means destroying Derrick’s dream and Derrick’s father is so blinded by political tribalism that he sees Derrick’s actions as betrayal. On the “other side” , at the gym, is a coach who becomes Derrick’s mentor and someone who shows him that Jamaica is bigger than just one community and that Derrick’s dreams are worth fighting for.

Derrick’s journey of discovery takes the audience through his coming of age and the realisation that anything that divides cannot be good for anyone. The ignorance of divisiveness gives way to the triumph that comes with unity.

Ghett’A Life, a Jamrock film production, is written and directed by Chris Browne and stars Teddy Price, O’Daine Clarke, Chris McFarlane, Etana and Lenford Salmon. Browne, winner of the Grand Prize at the Hartley Merrill International Screenwriting Competition for Ghett’a Life at Cannes in 2006, has made it his passion to grow a film culture in the Jamaica. Ghett’a Life is his second feature film – his Third World Cop, released in 1999, still holds the record as the largest grossing Jamaican film of all time.

The CaribbeanTales Toronto Film Showcase, among other goals, aims to raise the international profile of Caribbean film, support the growth of a vibrant world-class Caribbean film and television industry, and serve as a platform for promoting the Caribbean as a premier warm weather travel destination and location for film production.

Now in its sixth year, the 2011 Toronto Film Showcase, and the recently introduced Market Incubator, returns from September 7 to 17, 2011, engaging families, youth, community groups, and the celluloid industry in a program that includes workshops, screenings, networking sessions, and other activities all celebrating the burgeoning film and television sector in the Caribbean.

Many exciting films will be screened during the 10-day showcase which also features a market access incubator for Caribbean filmmakers, including Antigua’s The Skin, a mythological thriller that draw on Caribbean mythology, that will have its Red Carpet Launch on Friday 16th September.

For the original report go to http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/archives/2011/09/12/preview_trailer_jamaican_against-the-odds_boxing_drama_ghetta_life/

They are Not Starving,

They are BEING Starved

Posted by Marco McWilliams on September 8, 2011

 

Like a banal refrain in American discourse on Africa they ring out: death, disease, war torn, drought, famine, starvation, etc. The list could go on but it would not matter. As the humming of a fan on a hot summer’s day, we hear the Western refrain on Africa, yet, somehow we do not. That Africans starve, that they experience famine is common “knowledge”. But what if something is true at the very moment that it is untrue?

This is exactly the case with current mainstream reporting on the so-called drought induced famine in the Horn of Africa, which is threatening the starvation of millions of Africans. We are led to believe that the current drought (which many specialist attribute to climate change) and enduring “tribal” ["ethnic" is the appropriate term] conflicts are the root causes of food shortages in the horn of Africa. Nothing could farther from the truth!

There is a single country in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has enough arable land to feed the entire rest of the Continent with food left to spare. Africa is the most resource rich land mass on the planet. Western nations (and increasingly China) have thrived off of the stolen natural and human resources of Africa for Centuries. From the extraction of coltan (a metallic mineral which allows cell phone batteries to retain a charge), to the displacement of Africa’s best prepared minds (brain drain) through Western neo/colonialism; from the guinea pig testing ground for pharmaceutical companies, to the dumping ground for weapons manufactures; from the illegal fishing off the Somali coast, to the unethical influence peddling of Uncle Tom African leaders, Africa is exploited, and that, unabated and without interruption.

Foreign nations, US colleges (Harvard, Vanderbilt, and many others), and private corporations are partnering with so-called African leaders in parasitic relationships to lease or buy vast areas (more than twice the size of Montana and counting) of the most fertile  farmland throughout the African Continent. This land is being used to grow food and ship it back to their respective countries. Nikhil Aziz, executive director of Grassroots International, a human rights and international development organization that supports community-led sustainable development projects, sums it up this way:

African land is being sought in 90-year leases either to grow food crops for  export to those countries with scarce arable land or to grow fuel crops like jatropha and palm oil for ethanol, even as almost 300 million Africans are hungry. Or, the land is sometimes being snapped up simply for speculative purposes.

We must come to understand that, technically, there is no actual food shortage in Africa. The Continent is producing sufficient quantities of food, even in the midst of drought stricken regions. But the food is not used to feed Africans. This is why we need to complete the revolutionary struggles that began so many years ago by the likes of Cabral, Biko, and Lumumba. Africa is not yet free.

What we find is that many of the nations which experience food shortages actually produce large amounts of food on land which they’ve either leased or sold to foreign nations or US and Indian corporations. The shocking irony is that many of these African countries have come to rely on food aid imports from Western NGOs at the precise moment that they’re exporting food grown on their own soil for other wealthier nations — indeed, some of the very same nations which run those NGO’s. It’s quite appalling!

Imagine that you discovered that a family whom you firmly believed was starving, actually owned many acres of prime farmland, but had leased it out to an out-of-state food corporation. You then learned that the food corp. was growing food on this SAME land and shipping it back to their home state to sell to others. What advise could be offered to this family? Should they expect to survive they’d do well to terminate the suicidal lease they’ve signed with the food corp, take their land back, and grow food to feed THEMSELVES.

This is the context of the so-called food shortages experienced in Africa. The “drought” argument is a red herring, a mass mediated perspective tendentious in its ignoring of the political economy of famine in Africa. Actual shortages of rainfall are clearly realities, but rainfall has less to do with the relationship of crop production to feeding hungry people as does intelligent economic and political decisions by the people’s alleged political leaders which ensure self-preservation.

++++++++++++++

Marco McWilliams is an educator, writer and Pan Africanist. He writes from Providence and will pursue a Ph.D. in 2012.

 

Middle-Class Death Watch:

As Poverty Spreads,

28 Percent of Americans

Fall Out of Middle Class

Saturday 17 September 2011

by: David DeGraw, Amped Status | News Analysis

 

Image: Robert Johnson

 

 

Middle-Class Americans Often Fall Down Economic Ladder: Study – nearly a third of Americans who were part of the middle class have fallen out of it

“The promise of the American dream has given many hope that they themselves could one day rise up the economic ladder. But according to a study released those already in financially-stable circumstances should fear falling down a few rungs too. The study…  found that nearly a third of Americans who were part of the middle class as teenagers in the 1970s have fallen out of it as adults…  its findings suggest the relative ease with which people in the U.S. can end up in low-income, low-opportunity lifestyles — even if they started out with a number of advantages. Though the American middle class has been repeatedly invoked as a key factor in any economic turnaround, numerous reports have suggested that the middle class enjoys less existential security than it did a generation ago, thanks to stagnating incomes and the decline of the industrial sector.”

 

Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking Up from the American Dream

“The idea that children will grow up to be better off than their parents is a central component of the American Dream, and sustains American optimism. However, Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking up from the American Dream finds that a middle-class upbringing does not guarantee the same status over the course of a lifetime. A third of Americans raised in the middle class—defined here as those between the 30th and 70th percentiles of the income distribution—fall out of the middle as adults.”

 

 

Housing Crisis

More Americans ‘double up’ and share homes in tough economy

“This spring, there were 21.8 million “doubled-up” households across the nation, a 10.7 percent increase from the 19.7 million households in the spring of 2007, the Census Bureau said. That means 18.3 percent of all households were combined households.”

 

The millions of Americans living in long-stay motels

“They are known as the last resort. Millions of Americans are staying in budget long-stay motels as the country’s economic problems get worse. The grisly rooms are seen as the lowest of the U.S. housing ladder, only just above a cardboard box. In tiny rooms with paper-thin walls and nylon sheets, vulnerable Americans are making their homes for a few hundred bucks a month.”

 

Homelessness could spread to middle class, Crisis study warns

“The economic downturn and the government’s deep cuts to welfare will drive up homelessness over the next few years, raising the spectre of middle class people living on the streets, a major study warns. The report by the homelessness charity Crisis says there is a direct link between the downturn and rising homelessness as cuts to services and draconian changes to benefits shred the traditional welfare safety net.”

 

In L.A., Homelessness Spreads to Middle-Class Families, As Underemployment Rate Hits 24%

“More than two years into the economic recovery, there isn’t yet a light at the end of the tunnel for California’s economy and stubborn unemployment. The number of job losses in the state is still much higher than the worst moments of the 2001 and 1990 recessions…. The state’s jobless rate hit 12% last month, the second worst in the nation. A broader measure of unemployment — which also includes part-time workers and people outside the labor force who have been looking for a job — is 22% in California and 24% in Los Angeles, while the national average is only 16.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The impact on children has been brutal: since 2007, 7% of the state’s children have had a foreclosure process started on their homes, the fourth-highest level in the nation, according to a study released this month by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. And families can rely less on welfare because state and federal budget crises have cut social services.”

 

AMERICA TODAY: Stunning Pictures From Lakewood New Jersey’s Homeless Tent City

“Doug Hardman wakes up every morning with a song in his head—a vague memory of his days on stage. Inside his tepee in the woods outside Lakewood, NJ, at the homeless Tent City, the roosters wake early and the mornings are already cooler. A musician who lost his Florida home in the housing crisis, Hardman says he floats in and out of Tent City, that he’s proud of his kids, and misses the life he no longer has. He has a lot of company out here.”

 

US Taxpayers Own 248,000 Foreclosed Homes

“For sale or rent by distressed owner: 248,000 homes. That’s how many residential properties the U.S. government now has in its possession, the result of record numbers of people defaulting on government-backed mortgages. Washington is sitting on nearly a third of the nation’s 800,000 repossessed houses, making the U.S. taxpayer the largest owner of foreclosed properties. With even more homes moving toward default, Fannie Mae (FNMA), Freddie Mac (FMCC), and the Federal Housing Administration are looking for a way to unload them without swamping the already depressed real estate market. Trouble is, they haven’t figured out how to do that. “They’re stuck,” says Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a Washington-based consultant that advises banks and other clients on government policy. “They don’t know what to do.””

 

Foreclosures: Are the rich the biggest strategic defaulters?

“It would seem so from the statistics compiled by the New York Times. The article leads in by suggesting the rich are ‘losing their home but given the talk about strategic default earlier in the year, you should wonder whether these are defaults due to distress or out of sheer financial calculation. This statistic jumped out at me: More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars is seriously delinquent…. By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent. Why would there be this differential given the stress on budgets felt by homebuyers below the million dollar mark? It looks very much like strategic defaults at play.”

 

There’s No Bottom In Sight For Plummeting Home Prices

“At the end of June 2011, macromarkets.com released the results of a poll in which 108 leading economists and housing market analysts were asked to predict the direction of home prices from now until 2015. All except four of them predicted that housing markets around the country would hit bottom no later than the end of 2012 before climbing again. Only one of them thought that home prices would not hit bottom until the end of 2013. By way of contrast, a survey of consumers released in May by trulia.com and realtytrac.com found that 54% thought that a housing market recovery would not occur until “2014 or later.””

 

American Dream, downsized: Homeownership not a given

“For decades, Americans have aspired to own homes, and everyone from bankers to government officials has worked to make the dream accessible. But around the country, particularly in places hit hardest by the real estate bust, that’s changing. Legions of homeowners remain underwater on their mortgages or unable to move because they can’t sell their house. Plenty who want homes can’t buy them because credit remains tight.”

 

My job is to watch dreams die – We sell houses that were foreclosed on

“I work at a real estate office. We primarily sell houses that were foreclosed on by lenders. We aren’t involved in the actual foreclosures or evictions – anonymous lawyers in the cloud somewhere are tasked with the paperwork – we are the boots on the ground that interacts with the actual walls, roofs and occasional bomb threat. When the lender forecloses – or is thinking of foreclosing – on a property one of the first things that happens is they send somebody out to see if there is actually a house there and if there is anybody living there who needs to be evicted….

When I make first contact and explain that the lender is offering them money to leave sometimes they tell me that they haven’t slept for months, knowing that something was going to happen but never knowing if tomorrow was the day when somebody kicked in their door and threw their kids out on the lawn. Their lenders won’t tell them anything, they have nothing to go on but horror stories from other people that they never knew….

There is no difference between myself and these people other than the intangible twists of experience. And so I listen. I feign dispassion but I’m not fooling anybody. Somehow they can tell that I care and thank me even as they admit that it isn’t my fault, that it isn’t my responsibility to listen. I’ve stood inside another’s dream for an hour as they spoke, not really to be heard but to say goodbye – to leave the ghosts behind. They go to the car and return…. The keys are peeled from a ring. They thank me. Sometimes they cry. And they’re gone. I wait for their car to vanish before I put up the sign. To most everybody else it is just another house on just another block in just another city in just another financial catastrophe. But I was there. I saw the dream end. But at least I don’t make them turn out the lights one last time as they leave. That’s my job.”

 

 

Unemployment

Initial Unemployment Claims Surge Again, Far Worse Than Consensus As Prior Revised Higher As Usual

“The BLS playbook in full force today: miss expectations of 405K – check, by printing at 414K; another weekly print over 400K – check (21 out of 22 weeks over 400K), revise prior week’s higher – check (from 409K to 412K). Unfortunately, unlike two weeks ago when another blowout miss was reported, this time there is no striking phone carrier to blame it to. And as usual, those coming off their extended claims cliff keeps increasing, with 78K people dropping off EUCs and Extended claims: nearly 2 million people have been cut off from any extended government benefits in the past year. Overall, another weekly data set that confirms that next month’s NFP number will most certainly not be positive… or zero. “

 

Unemployed face tough competition: underemployed

“The job market is even worse than the 9.1 percent unemployment rate suggests. America’s 14 million unemployed aren’t competing just with each other. They must also contend with 8.8 million other people not counted as unemployed — part-timers who want full-time work. When consumer demand picks up, companies will likely boost the hours of their part-timers before they add jobs, economists say. It means they have room to expand without hiring. And the unemployed will face another source of competition once the economy improves: Roughly 2.6 million people who aren’t counted as unemployed because they’ve stopped looking for work. Once they start looking again, they’ll be classified as unemployed. And the unemployment rate could rise.”

 

A smaller share of men have jobs today than at any time since World War II

“Employers are increasingly giving up on the American man. Men who do have jobs are getting paid less. After accounting for inflation, median wages for men between 30 and 50 dropped 27 percent—to $33,000 a year— from 1969 to 2009, according to an analysis by Michael Greenstone, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economics professor who was chief economist for Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “That takes men and puts them back at their earnings capacity of the 1950s,” Greenstone says. “That has staggering implications.”

 

More than 200,000 public employees laid off in 2010

“Local and state governments axed more than 200,000 jobs in 2010, according to U.S. Census data that showed the growing threat of public employee layoffs to the economic recovery. According to the Census, local and state governments had 203,321 fewer full-time equivalent employees in 2010 than in 2009 and 27,567 fewer part-time employees. “

 

Uncle Sam Does(n’t) Want You – America’s Reserve Army of Labor Marches Through Time

“Today, the question is: As the new unemployment “norm” rises, will the “99ers” remain just a number, or will anger and systemic dysfunction lead to the rebirth of movements of the unemployed, perhaps allied, as in the past, with others suffering from the economy’s relentless downward arc? Keep in mind that the extent of organized protest by the unemployed in the past should not be exaggerated. Not even the Great Depression evoked their sustained mass mobilization. That’s hardly surprising. By its nature, unemployment demoralizes and isolates people. It makes of them a transient and chronically fluctuating population with no readily discernable common enemy and no obvious place to coalesce. Another question might be: In the coming years, might we see the return of a basic American horror at the phenomenon of joblessness? And might it drive Americans to begin to ask deeper questions about the system that lives and feeds on it? After all, we now exist in an under-developing economy.

What new jobs it is creating are poor paying, low skill, and often temporary, nor are there enough of them to significantly reduce the numbers of those out of work. The 99ers are stark evidence that we may be witnessing the birth of a new permanent class of the marginalized. (The percentage of the unemployed who have been out of work for more than six months has grown from 8.6% in 1979 to 19.6% today.) Moreover, our mode of “flexible capitalism” has made work itself increasingly transient and precarious. Until now, ideologues of the new order have had remarkable success in dressing this up as a new form of freedom. But our ancestors, who experienced frequent and distressing interruptions in their work lives, who migrated thousands of miles to find jobs which they kept or lost at the whim of employers, and who, in solitary search for work, tramped the roads and hopped the freight cars (even if they could not yet roam Internet chat rooms), were not so delusional.

We have a choice: Americans can continue to accept large-scale unemployment as “natural” and permanent, even — a truly grotesque development — as a basic feature on a bipartisan road to “recovery” via austerity. Or we can follow the lead of the jobless young in the Arab Spring and of protestors beginning to demonstrate en masse in Europe. Even the newly minted proletarians of Ventura, California, sleeping in their cars, may decide that they have had enough of a political and economic order of things so bankrupt it can find no use for them at any price.”

 

The false promise of Obama’s trade deals – won’t help American workers – and will hurt foreign ones

“It is bad enough that President Obama is reversing his campaign pledge and supporting Bush-era trade deals with Korea, Colombia and Panama. Starting this week in Chicago, the US will be hosting the first major trade negotiations since the “Battle in Seattle” World Trade Organisation talks came here in 1999. This occasion is for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with a wide range of industrialised and developing Pacific Rim countries. As part of his plan to revive the US economy and create jobs, Obama claims he will be unveiling “a trade agreement for the 21st century”.

Ironically, though, he will be pushing the same “Nafta-style” trade pacts he campaigned against, and to howls of protest from his own electoral base. Let us not forget what he said: “I voted against Cafta, never supported Nafta, and will not support Nafta-style trade agreements in the future,” Obama told Ohio voters in 2008. “While Nafta gave broad rights to investors, it paid only lip service to the rights of labor and the importance of environmental protection.”"

 

A People’s History Of The Great Recession

“She lost her job through no fault of her own. What she hadn’t figured out was why she was still unemployed and why her husband had been bounced from one wretched low-paying job to another. Why, she asked, if they both finished high school, got some post-secondary education, had solid work histories and held off on having kids, was it such a struggle to pay for things like getting the car fixed and visiting the dentist? I think the thing that keeps me going is knowing that we are really lucky, even in spite of the challenges that we are facing,” said Harris in an email. “I can’t help but feel badly for those that I know are worse off than we are.  And I am truly grateful. And knowing that we are not alone helps a great deal, too. But it seems to be getting harder. Harder not to worry, not to cry, not to give up hope. We did everything right, I thought.”“

 

In U.S., Worries About Job Cutbacks Return to Record Highs | Gallup

“American workers’ concerns about various job-related cutbacks have returned to the record highs seen in 2009…. In terms of the most significant employment risk measured, 3 in 10 workers currently say they are worried they could soon be laid off, similar to the 31% seen in August 2009 but double the level recorded in August 2008 and for several years prior.”

 

Unemployed and Taking on Debt to Stay Afloat? Don’t Expect to get a Job

“Anyone can lose their job and fall behind on bills in this economy. But now that may keep them from finding new employment. This week’s credit check: Six out of 10 employers use credit reports to vet job applicants. More than 20 million Americans may have material errors on their credit reports…. Where should they turn when they’ve lost a steady paycheck, but still have to keep up with bills such as mortgage payments, student loans, and the basics like rent and food? With no money coming in, many understandably have to turn to debt. But taking on debt — and being unable to pay it back, or pay back any of the debt they may have took on when things looked better and they had a job — could be the exact thing that keeps the unemployed from becoming re-employed. In a massive Catch-22, many employers are looking to credit reports when they do background checks on prospective employees, and a bad mark due to an unpaid medical bill or lapsed student loan payment could make the difference in getting the job…. Marketplace recently told the story of Sarah Sholar, just one of those employees with bad credit who has been turned down by prospective employers. “I can’t pay my student loans because I don’t have a job,” she told them. “I can’t get a job because I can’t pay my student loans.””

 

 

Debt

U.S. Consumers’ Credit Card Debt Rapidly Increasing

“According to a new study from CardHub.com, we’re on track to increase our collective credit card debt by $54 billion in 2011. We added only $9 billion in new credit card debt in 2010, and actually reduced our credit card debt in 2009 — so this is a significant reversal. All told, Americans now have roughly $772 billion in outstanding credit card balances. “For millions, they were living in a bubble,” says Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of CardHub, referring to Americans living on home equity and credit card debt five years ago. “If we end up overleveraging ourselves again, it’s going to be the same thing repeated in a few years.””

 

Student Loan Default Rates Rise Sharply in Past Year

“The share of federal student loan defaults rose sharply last year, especially at for-profit colleges and universities, where 15 percent of borrowers defaulted in the first two years of repayment, up from 11.6 percent the previous year. According to Department of Education data released Monday, 8.8 percent of borrowers over all defaulted in the fiscal year that ended last Sept. 30, the latest figures available, up from 7 percent the previous year. At public institutions, the rate was 7.2 percent, up from 6 percent, and at not-for-profit private institutions, it was 4.6 percent, up from 4 percent. “Borrowers are struggling in this economy,” said James Kvaal, deputy under secretary of education. “We see a strong relationship between student default rates and unemployment rates.”

 

Majoring In Debt: College Students Struggle Under The Weight Of Loans

“Take Aleesha Nash, a graduate of New York University. “Logging into the Federal Student Aid website,” she writes…  “I see that today my balance is $104,104.63 for a percentage of the information in my head.” And there’s Jaclyn Cabral, too. Jaclyn chose to attend Elon University in North Carolina because it’s “regarded as one of the most affordable private educations.” Still, she graduated $90,000 in debt. For many of these students, paying off their loans is a nearly unsurmountable challenge. Brandon Woods, a Hampton University alum, finds himself working two jobs — and hardly making a dent in his $58,000 deficit. “

 

 

Cash-strapped lawyer ‘Carla’ turns to exotic dancing to pay her debts

“A lawyer has told how she turned to stripping to pay bills after struggling to find a legal job in recession-weary America. The attorney, giving her name only as Carla, graduated from law school ten years ago. But after being made redundant in 2009, she had to take drastic action to avoid drowning in a sea of student loans and other debts. After working as a waitress and a cashier in a gas station, she became so desperate she took a job as an exotic dancer.”

 

Debt Slavery: If Aristotle Were Around Today, He’d Probably Conclude That Most Americans Were, For All Intents And Purposes, Slaves

“Instead of creating some sort of overarching institution to protect debtors, they create these grandiose, world-scale institutions like the IMF or S&P to protect creditors. They essentially declare (in defiance of all traditional economic logic) that no debtor should ever be allowed to default. Needless to say the result is catastrophic. We are experiencing something that to me, at least, looks exactly like what the ancients were most afraid of: a population of debtors skating at the edge of disaster. “

 

 

Inflation

Food prices stay near record high

“Global food prices remain near a record high, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The index reached 231 points in August, up 26% from the same period last year. The index hit an all-time record of 238 points in February. Cereal prices rose on anticipation of a shortfall in production this year, which is expected to be 6 million tonnes less than predicted in July. The FAO’s measure looks at a range of essential foods. Those include cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar.”

 

Savers stumped as inflation bites

“Rising inflation means there are now just a handful of accounts that will prevent savers’ capital being eroded by the increasing cost of living. The Office for National Statistics said the cost of living, as measured by CPI, rose from 4.4% in July to 4.5% in August, meaning a basic rate taxpayer now needs to find a savings account paying 5.63% a year to beat inflation and tax, while a higher rate taxpayer needs to find an account paying at least 7.5%.”

 

 

Deflation

Median Male Worker Makes Less Now Than 43 Years Ago – Women Make 65% of what Median Male Makes

“While the fact that a record number of Americans are living in poverty should not surprise anyone at this point, what should surprise many is that according to Table P-5 of the Census report on (Lack of) Income, the median male is now worse on a gross, inflation adjusted basis, than he was in… 1968! While back then, the median income of male workers was $32,844, it has since declined to $32,137 as of 2010. And there is your lesson in inflation 101 (which we assume is driven by the CPI, which likely means that the actual inflation adjusted income decline is far worse than what is even reported). The only winner: women, whose median inflation adjusted income over the same period has increased by 188%. That said, it is still at 65% of what the median male makes. So injustice all around.”

 

 

Pension Time Bombs

California teachers’ pension system labeled “high-risk issue” by state auditors

“The California state auditor issued a report last month branding the defined benefit program of the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS) a “high-risk issue.” The pension fund is the eighth largest in the world and the largest teachers’ pension fund in the US. Teachers and administrators contribute a portion of their wages to the fund each year so as to collect pension benefits when they retire. To be considered fully funded, the defined benefit program of CalSTRS must be funded by at least 80 percent. The current funding level is 71 percent. According to financial projections, in 30 years CalSTRS will be depleted of funds.”

 

Analysis: $35 trillion pension funds in new crisis as deficit hole grows

“This year has been a nightmare for many in the industry — which controls $35 trillion, or a third of global financial assets — and funding deficits are posting double-digit rises. “We had a credit crisis and government bond crisis, and the third one we have is the pension crisis. This is the one where everything is going wrong and there’s no obvious way out,” said Kevin Wesbroom, UK head of global risk services at consultancy Aon Hewitt. The sharp retreat in stocks through the summer has hurt them again by weakening their asset positions and threatening to erode stock market recoveries seen since the equity collapse surrounding the 2007-2009 credit crisis. Recent data on pension deficits highlight the plight of many pension funds. In the United States, funding deficits of the 100 largest DB plans rose $68 billion to $254 billion in July, according to the Milliman Pension Fund Index. July marked the 10th largest deficit rise in the index’s 11 year history. Even if these companies were to achieve an optimistic annual return of as much as 8 percent and keep the current benchmark yield of 5.12 percent, their funding status is not estimated to improve beyond 93 percent by end-2013 from the current 83 percent.”

 

 

Healthcare

Number of uninsured climbs to highest figure since passage of Medicare, Medicaid

“Official estimates by the Census Bureau showing an increase of about 1 million in the number of Americans without health insurance in 2010 – to a 45-year high of 49.9 million persons, or 16.3 percent of the population, under the bureau’s revised calculation method…. Employment-based coverage continued to decline. The bureau said 55.3 percent of Americans were covered by employment-based plans in 2010, down from 56.1 percent in 2009. It was the eleventh consecutive year of decline, from 64.2 percent in 2000.”

 

Healthcare law could leave families with even higher insurance costs

“It’s going to be a massive problem if it comes out that families have to buy really expensive employer-based coverage,” said Jocelyn Guyer, deputy executive director at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “If they don’t fix this and by ‘they’ I mean either the administration or Congress, we’re going to have middle-class families extremely unhappy with [healthcare] reform in 2014, because they’ll basically be facing financial penalties for not buying coverage when they don’t have access to any affordable options.”

 

Employer-Provided Health Insurance Costs Skyrocket

“Newly published numbers from the Department of Health and Human Services show that American workers in 2010 paid average premiums of $4,940 for employer-provided health insurance to cover just themselves. That figure increased from $1,992 in 1996. Last year, the average family paid $13,871 for health insurance under employer-provided plans. For the average American household – whose median income is now about $50,000 – the rising price of health insurance is consuming a substantial part of paychecks.”

 

Employers Look Towards Ending Health Coverage, Survey

“Nearly one of every 10 midsized or big employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers after insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014 as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, according to a survey by a major benefits consultant.  Towers Watson also found in its July survey that another one in five companies are unsure about what they will do after 2014. Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either “likely” or “very likely” to end health benefits after the exchanges start. The surveys, which involved more than 1,200 companies, suggest that some businesses feel they will be better off dropping health insurance coverage once the exchanges start, even though they could face fines and tax headaches. The percentage of companies that are already saying they expect to do this surprised some experts, and if they follow through, it could start a trend that chips away at employer-sponsored health coverage, a long-standing pillar of the nation’s health system.”

 

Consumer advocates fear health law will favor business

“Publicly, consumer and patient advocates continue to cheer wildly for last year’s health care law. Behind the scenes, however, some worry that they’re losing a few key battles to the insurance and business communities. They point to a long-sought provision in the law that entitles patients to external reviews if insurers won’t pay for a medical service, and they charge that recent regulations limit its effectiveness. One of their biggest gripes? It allows insurers to choose their own “external” reviewers. “Advocates who have dealt with the external review process believe that it’s pretty clear that if (a reviewer) is being chosen by an employer (or insurer) it’s not independent,” said Timothy Jost, a professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law. “

 

How Does Growth in Health Care Costs Affect the American Family?

“To paint an accurate picture of how health care cost growth is affecting the finances of a typical American family, RAND Health researchers combined data from multiple sources to depict the effects of rising health care costs on a median-income married couple with two children covered by employer-sponsored insurance. The analysis compared the family’s health care cost burden in 1999 with that incurred in 2009. The take-away message: Although family income grew throughout the decade, the financial benefits that the family might have realized were largely consumed by health care cost growth…. Had health care costs tracked the rise in the Consumer Price Index, rather than outpacing it, an average American family would have had an additional $450 per month — more than $5,000 per year — to spend on other priorities.”

 

Driving the point home on health care costs

“It may be a little tough to see but there are four lines, showing long-term spending, as a percentage of GDP, on health care, Social Security, discretionary spending, and other mandatory spending. That blue line that shows the sharp increase? That’s health care. As Sarah Kliff noted in response, “Even as someone who spends a lot of time writing about health policy, this new chart … is still one that gives me a bit of pause.” This should matter in the context of the debate in Washington, because if policymakers want to address long-term debt issues, they should at least realize, to borrow Willie Sutton’s line, where the money is.”

 

98% Of Federal Funds To Help Uninsured Americans with Pre-existing Medical Conditions Go Unspent

“Though as many as 25 million uninsured Americans have pre-existing medical conditions like heart disease and diabetes, a year-old program to insure them has only 21,000 enrollees…. The Government Accountability Office reported that the government has so far spent just 2 percent of the $5 billion allocated by the health care reform law for the program, which launched last summer as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. Administration officials initially said as many as 375,000 people would sign up in 2010 alone. The PCIP offers market-rate monthly premiums and caps out-of-pocket costs for any U.S. citizen who has a pre-existing condition and has been without “creditable” health insurance for at least six months. The GAO found that the six-month requirement is the biggest obstacle to higher enrollment in the program.”

 

America’s inefficient health-care system: another look

“America’s health-care system differs from its counterparts in other affluent nations in a number of ways: greater fragmentation among payers and price-setters, stronger incentives for overuse of advanced diagnostic and treatment technology, higher administrative costs, less access to care for some. We might therefore expect it to perform less efficiently to achieve poorer health outcomes for a given amount of expenditure…. The chart plots life expectancy at birth by per capita health expenditures as of 2007. Twenty affluent nations are included. Among these countries the U.S. spends by far the most money on health care and yet has the lowest life expectancy.”

 

It Don’t Come Easy: Changing Health Insurance in America

“Several days ago, I wrote about the ordeal I have been going through trying to move my health insurance from Kentucky to Maryland. Because I had a health insurance policy with Anthem Blue Cross in Kentucky, the local Blue Cross was obligated to offer me what is called a guarantee issue conversion policy that does not require underwriting (a good thing since I have several pre-existing conditions that would otherwise make it difficult for me to obtain health insurance). As I reported earlier, the Maryland conversion policy was almost no insurance at all so one of the options I wanted to explore was what kind of policy CareFirst (the Blue Cross company that serves the Washington, DC metro area, including the Virginia and Maryland suburbs) would offer me if I lived in the District instead of in Maryland. I asked CareFirst to send me the information and when it arrived it was a stunner. We are talking about maybe a 15-mile difference in location and the same company. But the policies were radically different, which CareFirst attributes to insurance laws which vary by location.”

 

Why Americans can’t afford to eat healthy – The real reason Big Macs are cheaper than more nutritious alternatives? Government subsidies

“Not surprisingly, the subsidies have manufactured a price inequality that helps junk food undersell nutritious-but-unsubsidized foodstuffs like fruits and vegetables. The end result is that recession-battered consumers are increasingly forced by economic circumstance to “choose” the lower-priced junk food that their taxes support. Corn — which is processed into the junk-food staple corn syrup and which feeds the livestock that produce meat — exemplifies the scheme. “Over the past decade, the federal government has poured more than $50 billion into the corn industry, keeping prices for the crop … artificially low,” reports Time magazine. “That’s why McDonald’s can sell you a Big Mac, fries and a Coke for around $5 — a bargain.”"

 

Fast food restaurants want a piece of food stamp pie

“Now, restaurants, which typically have not participated in the program, are lobbying for a piece of the action. Louisville-based Yum! Brands, whose restaurants include Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silver’s and Pizza Hut, is trying to get restaurants more involved, federal lobbying records show. More retailers say yes to food stamps. That’s a prospect that anti-hunger advocates welcome, but one that worries some current food stamp vendors and public health advocates. Federal rules generally prohibit food stamp benefits, which are distributed under the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), from being exchanged for prepared foods.”

 

Tying Health Problems to Rise in Home Foreclosures

“The threat of losing your home is stressful enough to make you ill, it stands to reason. Now two economists have measured just how unhealthy the foreclosure crisis has been in some of the hardest-hit areas of the U.S. New research by Janet Currie of Princeton University and Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University shows a direct correlation between foreclosure rates and the health of residents in Arizona, California, Florida and New Jersey. The economists concluded in a paper published this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research that an increase of 100 foreclosures corresponded to a 7.2% rise in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for hypertension, and an 8.1% increase for diabetes, among people aged 20 to 49.”

 

Unemployment Is Killing People

“When considering the effects of unemployment, and the desultory, really uncaring response of the current Democratic administration, as well as Republicans in Congress, to the human devastation of joblessness, it is important to consider the terrible emotional and psychological effects of such unemployment. Such effects are well-documented, but rarely mentioned in articles or blog postings. A well-regarded 2010 study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, “The Anguish of Unemployment,” quantified the tremendous emotional suffering engendered by unemployment. “The lack of income and loss of health benefits hurts greatly, but losing the ability to provide for my wife and myself is killing me emotionally,” wrote one respondent to the survey.”

 

Senator Sanders: Poverty Is A Death Sentence – Cuts 6.5 Years Off Life Expectancy

“In America today, people in the highest income group level, the top 20 percent, live, on average, at least 6.5 years longer than those in the lowest income group. Let me repeat that. If you are poor in America you will live 6.5 years less than if you are wealthy or upper-middle class.”

 

 

Poverty & Inequality

Over 56 Million Americans Live in Poverty – How Census Bureau Propaganda Ignores the Suffering of 10 Million Impoverished Americans

“The new Census data reveals that a stunning 46.2 million Americans, 15.1% of the population, lived in poverty in 2010. This is an increase of 2.6 million people since 2009. While these are staggering statistics that represent the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic year-over-year increase, it significantly undercounts the total. The Census Bureau poverty rate is a highly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology…. We can estimate that at least 56 million Americans, roughly 18.5% of the population, lived in poverty in 2010 according to NAS methodology, approximately 10 million more than the Census Bureau is reporting.”

 

Living Wage Calculator

“In many American communities, families working in low-wage jobs make insufficient income to live locally given the local cost of living. Recently, in a number of high-cost communities, community organizers and citizens have successfully argued that the prevailing wage offered by the public sector and key businesses should reflect a wage rate required to meet minimum standards of living. Therefore we have developed a living wage calculator to estimate the cost of living in your community or region. The calculator lists typical expenses, the living wage and typical wages for the selected location.”

 

The 10 States With the Worst Economies In America

“The global economic crash hurt almost everyone, but not equally so… we’ll consider 10 [states] that aren’t faring so well. What accounts for their relatively poor performance? Three of the four states that saw the biggest real estate bubbles arise in the 2000s are on the list, beaten down by Wall Street hucksters promising them never-ending growth in home prices. People in California, Nevada and Florida, fueled by irrational exuberance, got badly “over-leveraged,” and when the house of cards fell apart, millions were left underwater. These states saw extremely high rates of foreclosures, and steep job losses as people pulled back on spending while credit market tightened. States themselves invested pension funds and other reserves in mortgage-backed securities, thanks to AAA ratings bought from ratings agencies like Standard and Poors, and that, combined with a massive drop in tax revenues, led to budget crises and public sector cuts at the worst imaginable time.”

 

Capital gains tax rates benefiting wealthy are protected by both parties

“For the very richest Americans, low tax rates on capital gains are better than any Christmas gift. As a result of a pair of rate cuts, first under President Bill Clinton and then under Bush, most of the richest Americans pay lower overall tax rates than middle-class Americans do. And this is one reason the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the country is widening dramatically.”

 

The Great Bank Robbery: Economy Will Transfer $5 Trillion To Banker Pay And Bonuses

“For the American economy – and for many other developed economies – the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. In the United States, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion for banks that have filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion, an amount vastly larger than what both President Barack Obama’s administration and his Republican opponents seem willing to cut from further government deficits. That $5 trillion dollars is not money invested in building roads, schools, and other long-term projects, but is directly transferred from the American economy to the personal accounts of bank executives and employees. Such transfers represent as cunning a tax on everyone else as one can imagine. It feels quite iniquitous that bankers, having helped cause today’s financial and economic troubles, are the only class that is not suffering from them – and in many cases are actually benefiting.”

 

The Richest 0.1% Have Launched A War On Us – It’s Time To Fight Back And Hold These 400 Billionaires Personally Responsible For Our Economic Crisis

“We have endured financial oppression for long enough. In a time of national crisis and shared sacrifice, the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population cannot continue on their merry way, living in obscene wealth and detached from reality, while the majority of the population desperately struggles to make ends meet… At this point, even the billionaires who haven’t had a direct role in creating this financial crisis need to be held responsible. As a person who has benefited so greatly, and has acquired so many resources, whether they like it or not, they are now in a position of responsibility. The richest 400 Americans have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country…. If they are unwilling to put their immense power behind changing this dire situation, they too must be held personally responsible.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

David DeGraw is the editor of AmpedStatus.com. His long-awaited book, The Road Through 2012, will finally be released on September 28th. He can be emailed at David@AmpedStatus.com. 

Ain’t Nothing

Gettin’ Corrected:

Correctional Facilities,

Lockup Raw and

the Breivik Controversy

by John (J.D.) Roberts | special to NewBlackMan

 

Recently, I received an order on Amazon for a book. This purchase was for an inmate in a correctional institution and the purchase address was to the inmate, with his prison number after his name (proper protocol and required for inmates to receive incoming mail). Having experienced problems with this type of order in the past-I had a package rejected for “excessive tape” (apparently packaging tape can be used to make or fortify a shiv/shank)-I called the correctional facility to see what I had to do to successfully complete this transaction. The prison guard I spoke with on the phone, who was almost flippantly (or comically) candid, told me not to send the book because it would get rejected by the facility. My father, who is a minister, had a similar experience trying to send a Bible to a suicidal congregation member in prison. This experience made me think how sad it is that I (a seller on Amazon and a complete stranger to the prisoner) cannot send a book about the biology of bats to an incarcerated person. Despite thorough searches of all items sent via mail into prisons, these shipments would still be denied by the facilities for whatever reason.

America’s correctional facilities have been on my mind a lot lately. Following Anders Breivik’s recent homicidal rampage in Norway, many news agencies began to report on the “cushy” conditions Breivik would likely experience in prison in facilities such as Halden Fengsel, and compared them to the punishment doled out in American correctional facilities.[1] Many media outlets expressed outrage that Breivik could—but  incidentally will not—be released twenty one years from his conviction.[2] Norway takes great pains to humanize the incarceration experience, constructing correctional facilities that allow prisoners relative freedom of movement, contact with family on the outside, excellent amenities and facilities, accessibility to the outside via internet, stimulating work and recreational environments inside the facility walls, and personal privacy.

What are the results of this approach? Norway has a recidivism rate of approximately 20% two to three years from an inmate’s release, while the United States has a recidivism rate above 60%.[3] Yes, Norway has a smaller population than the United States. Yes, Norway has a lower crime rate, more restrictive gun laws and fewer problems with gangs compared to the United States (only in the past 20 years has Norway had problems with biker gangs such as the Hells Angels and the Outlaws). However, this does not discredit Norway’s successfully low recidivism rate among its former inmates. So, why do developed countries such as the United States espouse a failing strategy of imprisonment and punishment?

The beginnings of an answer to this question and the inspiration for this piece are found on a TV show called Lockup Raw shown late night on MSNBC. Since I often find myself staying up late with insomnia, I generally end up watching this show when late night TV options run out. The program travels around the United States, filming the ins and outs of living as inmates and working as correctional officers in American correctional facilities across the country. One especially telling scene from the show had a correctional officer in Boston’s Suffolk County Jail saying goodbye to an inmate, then asking the inmate when he would see him next and laughing about it. The correctional officer then expressed his belief that the former inmate would either violate his parole or commit a crime and be re-incarcerated in the same facility. This scene subtly captures one of the biggest problems with correctional facilities in America: nothing is being corrected or rehabilitated, and no one (guard or inmate) believes in that mission statement.

While Norway attempts to humanize their prisons and mainstream/rehabilitate inmates for their future success back in society, the United States clings to punishment theory for its so-called “correctional” facilities. Inmates must submit to all commands of the correctional officer, no matter how arbitrary or capricious (as long as the command is legal and not violating an inmate’s human rights, and even then, who knows). Officers shown on Lockup Raw often make bad situations worse by heightening the tension between themselves and inmates with seemingly unnecessary directives.

Corrections officers create, maintain and sustain a system of restriction, privation and subjugation to further punish their inmates (beyond their mere incarceration). Austere cells and facilities further aggravate the psyches of inmates who frequently come from dysfunctional families, impoverished socioeconomic backgrounds and quite often are mentally ill to varying extents.  Correctional facilities can even have water and electricity restrictions, forcing inmates to, for example, commingle toilet and sink bathroom water or restrict their reading. Correctional facilities are places of extreme danger for everyone involved, inmate and officer alike, due to the incarcerated persons, the restrictive punishment systems in place, and the continuous heightened state of alert in the facilities (due to both inmate AND officer behavior). Inmates are at no time treated as human equals by corrections officers, but are instead further confined inside correctional facilities in a parent/child relationship (I think back to the words my parents would say that made me the most angry as a kid: “because I said so”).

Nowhere is this situation clearer than the cell extraction. If an inmate refuses to comply with instruction while in his or her cell, or s/he is destroying their cell or creating a hazard to the prison while in their cell, this situation can lead to a cell extraction, where a team of trained correctional officers go into the cell, subdue the inmate, and extract the inmate. The process of cell extraction is highly formalized, with a clear coda of verbal instructions, precise videotaping of the incident for legal reasons, clothing and equipment to protect the officers during the cell extraction, and regimented teams following procedure to the letter during the extraction. What is incredibly striking and not discussed on Lockup Raw is the fact that this cell extraction is often a test of wills between officers and inmates. Perhaps half of the cell extractions displayed on Lockup Raw are truly due to such hazards as facility tampering, fecal/urine cell contamination, or violent/hostile behavior by the inmate. The other cell extractions involve inmates trying to “prove a point” or demonstrating an unwillingness to submit to officer commands.

Cell extractions are not only a power play between inmate and officer, but are also a gargantuan waste of resources, manpower, training, and equipment. Officers are frequently called in or off from other duties to participate in the cell extraction. Someone has to film the incident from beginning to end. The state or federal government has to pay for the equipment, clothing, and extensive training programs involved in training officers to properly extract inmates from their cells.[4] Instead of humanizing the prison experience, American correctional facilities dehumanize inmates, leading to situations like these where inmates act out in a futile “test of wills” against officers. By infantilizing inmates, correctional facilities encourage the exact type of inmate behavior they are supposed to be correcting: reliance on criminality and gang networks to solve problems, desperate acts based in impulsivity, inmate fatalism toward his or her life and the future, and an intransigence/unwillingness to work within a set of agreed upon rules and laws. None of this is corrected in correctional facilities. Instead, American corrections systems create angry individuals that pick up additional criminal tricks and affiliations within its walls, and develop a depressed despondency towards life and society.

Detailed indictments of the American correctional system have filled numerous academic volumes. Lately though, I have been pondering some points regarding the correctional system I have not seen or heard discussed. I have spent the initial part of this discussion covering what correctional facilities do to inmates, but what do they do to the officers? In psychology experiment conducted in 1971, Philip Zimbardo, a student of Stanley Milgram, (see the Milgram Obedience Experiment)[5] studied the effects a prison environment had on the mental state of guards and prisoners as a variable. In Zimbardo’s highly provocative and non-replicated study, (ethical concerns swiftly arose and the initial experiment itself was ended early) so-called “normal” people became “aggressive and abusive” in their roles as prison guards, while the inmates in the study became “passive and depressed.”[6]

In such a highly demanding job, what psychological counseling and training is offered to corrections officers to help them cope with the stresses of their job, as well as stay ethical, fair and level-headed in their conduct? How could corrections officers NOT become aggressive in such an environment, structured by its very nature to expect and elicit dangerous actions and create tense surroundings? How could corrections officers humanize the correctional facility experience at all without a complete overhaul of the system? Why do we still call them “correctional facilities?” Who is to say that the correctional system does not also dehumanize the officer?

Despite these concerns, corrections officer is an attractive job to many. In a landscape of high unemployment and a tough job market, the job of corrections officer is still a burgeoning one. From 2008 to 2018, the corrections system has a predicted growth rate of 9%. As of 2009, there were over a half-million corrections officers, bailiffs, wardens, supervisors, managers, and jailors working in American correctional facilities.[7] These statistics do not account for all the other jobs created by correctional facilities, such as maintenance, construction, food service and delivery, laundry, groundskeeping, surrounding businesses to accommodate visitors needing hotels, motels, and food, etc., many of which depend upon the amount of inmate labor used (or not used) by the facility.

These inmates and ex-inmates account for a surprisingly large portion of American society. As of 2009, 2.3 million people were either in jail or in prison. When including those individuals either on probation or parole, 2.3 million climbs to 7.2 million people.[8] In 2009, U.S. population estimates put total population at 305 million. So, essentially 2.4% of the total American population had some sort of correctional supervision governing their lives. This does not account for all those individuals who successfully made it through correctional supervision, yet still have a felony on their record. In an era of fewer unskilled/low-skill/blue collar/middle class white collar jobs in America and slow to no-growth job sectors, it should be no surprise that the American correctional system is run more like a warehouse system than a system that corrects criminal behavior.

Putting Foucault’s conceptualization of the state creating “docility” in inmates in his Discipline & Punish aside, I must build upon Angela Davis’s mental construction of the Prison-Industrial Complex to get an accurate picture of the American correctional system. Building on the foundations of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s historic farewell address warning of the dangers of a Military-Industrial Complex, (newsflash America: we are already there and have been there for awhile) Davis posited that the American penal system had become a big business just like military manufacturing and production. This accounts for corrections officers, facilities, etc, but it does not account for the failure of the correctional facilities themselves. Perhaps the rate of recidivism in America can be overlooked by the state, because the state needs bodies to fill these “big business” facilities.

Less obvious though is the amount of labor the corrections system removes from the free labor pool. Instead of correcting and normalizing inmates to go back into society as productive citizens, the state prefers to relegate these former denizens of correctional facilities to recidivism, joblessness, underemployment or holding menial jobs. By dehumanizing the correctional facility experience, the inmates’ recidivism rates are considered an acceptable side effect to the incarceration of American citizens. In a country with fewer and fewer jobs, taking these individuals out of the labor pool creates space for other taxpaying “regular” citizens while not “wasting” resources on correcting criminal behavior. Convicted criminals’ expendability creates space in the labor market, much like capitalism’s need to produce spaces to expand and grow infinitely and forever (think legitimate spaces as well as bubbles: the housing boom, the dotcom boom, the derivatives market, or the swampland boom before the Great Depression).[9]

The lack of correcting criminal behavior in correctional facilities creates these types of faux spaces. In this case, the deletion and delegitimization of theoretically productive workers from the American free labor market and their subsequent warehousing in the correctional system creates jobs to both supervise and aid in their warehousing AND creates labor space by taking these individuals out of the labor pool, sometimes indefinitely. Even if inmates beat the odds and do not repeat offend, their job prospects are often incredibly grim, particularly as a convicted felon in a hypercompetitive job market. This once again aids the weak American job market by creating one less viable job competitor.

While America can afford and might downright relish less viable job candidates, a country such as Norway, with 4.8 million people (as of 2009) cannot afford to warehouse thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of its citizens in correctional facilities. In a modern and robust Western economy, people are needed to run a functioning democratic society, particularly one as hi-tech oriented as Norway’s. Additionally, Norway cannot afford to warehouse thousands of its citizens monetarily. Therefore, Norway corrects the behavior of its wayward citizenry in its correctional facilities. Simply put, Norway cannot afford in any capacity to dehumanize and warehouse its citizens convicted of crimes, save for a select few like Anders Breivik. Meanwhile, the United States, reeling from a bad economy, credit crunches, and slow/no growth can afford to dehumanize their incarcerated population and allow 2.3% of the population to go “uncorrected,” including incarcerated persons wanting to read about the biology of bats.     

**Disclaimer: I appreciate the hard work corrections officers have to do on a daily basis. I am finding extreme fault with the system itself.**

***

John (J.D.) Roberts is a PhD student in the History Dept at UMass-Amherst. He focuses on drug trafficking history in Latin America, but has researched and written on a wide array of issues globally, particularly globalization and illegality.

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[1] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html#ixzz0n9t8l6FT

[2] Norwegian law has an incarceration term of 21 years, which can be extended/renewed for more years on a case-by-case basis. One of those cases will be Anders Breivik.

[3] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1986002,00.html#ixzz0n9t8l6FT ; http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/reentry/recidivism.cfm

[4] http://www.doc.state.nc.us/osdt/in-service/Class_Cell_Extraction.htm

[5] http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm

[6] http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/stanford-prison-exp...

[7] http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos156.htm

[8] http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/corr2.cfm

[9] See David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity (1989)

 

Posted by MAN

 

Stevie Wonder:

Artistic Autonomy

As I attempt to encapsulate the breadth of all things Stevie Wonder, I recognize that I am fighting a losing battle. My mother introduced me to “Fingertips.” My father sang “Too High.” And somewhere in between all of this, I fell in love with the Jungle Fever soundtrack. Each of these could be attributed to another artist, and yet they serve to justify the complexity of one of music’s greatest gifts. An exhaustive exploration of Stevie is nearly impossible. So while the beginning may seem like the logical point of entry for this narrative, I am more inclined to take a look somewhere in the middle. It is here that we see the music serving as a greater function for the man, himself.

At 18, Stevie Wonder was still deeply invested in the hit machine known as Motown. It was, however, just that—a machine. There was an understanding that the process of music making was a mechanical endeavor—ostensibly manufactured. Under this theory of production, artists vanquished much, if not all of their creative freedoms for the sake of well-tested, radio friendly records. For Stevie, this changed in 1970 when he, at the markedly young age of 20, leveraged his own potential, gaining the first Motown contract proving complete artistic autonomy. The result of this, the world first saw in 1972 with the release of Music of My Mind. For longtime fans, the album was an obvious departure from the precocious revelries of “Little” Stevie Wonder. Thematically, Stevie had created something with a genuine flow. This was not a collection of singles, but instead a purposefully crafted collage of sound. Despite the radical shift in conception, this album’s greatest achievement is musical. It was here that Stevie began his affair with the synthesizer. This relationship provided a sound that was nothing short of revolutionary. Showcasing this progression perfectly is “Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You).” A personal favorite, this two-part composition finds Stevie taking a carefree, upbeat approach and transitioning it into the ethereal, synth-driven pleas of a broken man. This wasn’t the Motown sound, but it was arguably Stevie’s best work in years. This was the rebirth of an already stellar career.

Music of My Mind was followed by the release of Talking Book. It was obvious that Stevie had reached a certain level of comfort with this newfound independence taking his work on the synthesizer to an entirely new level. Coupling this with extensive work on the Fender Rhodes and Hohner Clavinet, this album had an incredibly funky feel. Many will remember “Superstition,” a longstanding piece from the Stevie Wonder songbook. This record, I would argue, is one of the great instrumental moments of his storied career. The song’s opening drum sequence, laid down by Stevie himself, is discernible to practically anyone familiar with the artist. Amidst a prevalent horn section, Stevie provides one of the most virtuosic displays ever found on a clavinet. For me, however, the standout track on this album has to be “You’ve Got It Bad Girl.” It was obvious that Stevie could make us get up and dance, but on this one, Stevie knew how to mellow out the mood without missing a beat. Once again, the music is enhanced by his usage of the synthesizer, giving the album that same wistful feel found on Music of My Mind. It was difficult to imagine, but Stevie was getting better.

 

 

By 1973, Stevie had released Innervisions. This is, perhaps, the centerpiece of his “classic period.” Innervisions is one of those rare albums that manage to reach people both sonically and socially. Seemingly every aspect of the musical stratosphere was touched by Stevie. Intertwined in these sounds was a lyricism so prophetic, it could be argued that the artist had a type of clarity beyond the physical. This was best captured on the sprawling seven minute, musical journey “Living For The City.” On this record, Stevie played the role of lead and backing vocals, Fender Rhodes, drums, bass, synthesizer, and even threw in some of his own handclaps just because he could. The song follows the life of a boy from “hard time Mississippi” as he journeys to New York City. Political commentary at its finest, the audience is forced into captivity as his engaging story unfolds marking the tragic reality of America in the 1970s. This is all set to a dominant bass line captured by the unparalleled synthesizer work of Stevie Wonder. Even with such heavy subject matter, Stevie never missed an opportunity to make the people move. “Higher Ground,” the album’s biggest hit, is an exuberant push for transcendence amidst the daunting certainties of everyday life. It displays the sort of optimism and hope pushed for throughout his career. With such a diverse repertoire, many would consider this to be Stevie’s finest hour.

 

 

He followed up this classic with the 1974 release of Fulfillingness’ First Finale, easily his most divergent album to date. The album is a pensive collection of melancholic brilliance. Early on, the mood is set with the thinly orchestrated “Too Shy to Say.” The song is dominated by the percussive piano playing of Wonder, flavored with a sharp vocal performance. Like much of the album, the mood is heavy and very much subdued. The album reaches a stirring climax on the emotionally-driven “They Won’t Go When I Go.” Over the stripped down instrumentation of a piano and accompanying synthesizer, Stevie preaches a sardonic testimony, with a redemptive reprise. The upbeat buoyancy of older Stevie was a limited commodity on this album, but that doesn’t take away from its abstract significance. This was yet another well-received album for Stevie.

Concluding this period was Stevie’s 1976 double LP, Songs in the Key of Life. Perhaps his most ambitious project, the album was meant to capture the essence of life in all its forms. Exploring myriad topics and sounds, both dark and light, it was well-deserving of its voluminous construction. For those seeking the uplifting side of Stevie Wonder, they found their record of choice early on with the pop styling of “Love’s In Need Of Love Today.” Stevie displayed the energy that made him famous on the horn-driven music history lesson “Sir Duke” and synth-crazy production of “I Wish.” Some had fallen in love with Stevie the balladeer and were most certainly appeased by the lushly orchestrated love song “Knocks Me Off My Feet.” The socially-conscious would greatly appreciate the message of racial inclusion on the funk-inspired track “Black Man. But even with all of this, an album packed with seemingly every aspect of human possibility, Stevie provided more. Songs in the Key of Life concludes with two tracks coming in at a startling 15 minutes of run time. In an unorthodox practice, Stevie allows a bevy of other artists to showcase their talent including icons Herbie Hancock and George Benson. For this generosity, we, the listener, are given the opportunity to hear the greatest gift the album has to offer—the voice of Stevie Wonder. On “As” and Another Star,” Stevie manages to steal the show from what I believe is two of the most aggressive and astounding instrumentation displays of all-time. This may be Stevie Wonder at his finest.

 

 

From this point, Stevie Wonder went on to have some of his greatest success commercially. From soundtracks to experimental solo work, Stevie has continually pushed the envelope and I don’t expect him to stop any time soon. My intent in focusing on this particular period is to highlight not only the music, but its revolutionary approach. Whether it was a dynamic mode of production or how the business of music production plays out, Stevie always maintained a spot in the forefront. This was most reflected during the practically unfathomable run of music he made throughout the 1970s. But even in that, I do not hesitate to say that his career has been so much more. Stevie Wonder is a humanitarian, a philanthropist, and if you’ve ever seen him in concert, you too know that he is even a motivational speaker. He is so many things and then some. But when it comes down to it, Stevie Wonder is, above all, the soundtrack to life.

Words by Paul Pennington

Marsha Ambrosius –

“I Wanna Touch” | New Music

September 19, 2011 by Verse    

I was about to step out of my house to run to a J. Cole listening session, when the forever dope Marsha Ambrosius decides to drop off this previously unheard cut that was supposed to end up on her debut solo album Late Nights, Early Mornings but due to clearance issues it ended up on the cutting room floor.
Well Ms Ambrosius has just let it loose for our listening pleasure and all I can say is thank you Marsha! This is incredible, loving the use of  Stevie Wonder ‘s “Rocket Love”. Listen below.

Oops… I’m late. Grrr *Shakes fist at Ms Ambrosius* Ha!

 

Guidelines for the FAMILY MATTERS category:

We are interested in reading your original, unpublished short stories about family!

• We don't publish stories for children, I'm sorry.
• It's fine to submit more than one story or to submit the same story to different categories.
• When we accept a story for publication, we are purchasing first-publication rights. (After we've published it, you can include it in your own collection.)

 

To make a submission: Please send your work via our new online submission procedure.
It's easy, will save you postage and paper, and is much easier on the environment.
Just click the yellow Submissions button above to get started!

 

Dates:
The category will be open to submissions for one full month, from the first day through
midnight (Pacific time) of the last day of the month. Results will be posted at www.glimmertrain.org.

• April. Results will be posted on June 30.
• October. Results will be posted on December 31.

 

Reading fee:

• $15 per story.

 

Prizes:

• 1st place wins $1,200, publication in Glimmer Train Stories, and 20 copies of that issue.
• 2nd-place: $500
• 3rd-place:$300

 

Other considerations:

• Open to all writers.
• Stories--about family--are specifically invited. Submissions to this category typically run 3,000 to 6,000 words, but can go up to 12,000 words.
• This category has stimulated lots of questions about fiction/non-fiction/creative nonfiction, since many people have significant real-life stories they want to write. It seems to us that a substantial proportion of fiction submissions are heavily rooted in actual experience, which is entirely fine with us, but we do want stories to READ like fiction and anything we publish is presented as fiction. (Also, sticking too tightly to "truth" can limit the larger truth that fiction is able to reveal.) I would certainly recommend changing details that would allow the real-life people to say, Hey, that character is--without a doubt--me. I hope that makes sense.

 

We look forward to reading your work!

 

PUDDING HOUSE CHAPBOOK COMPETITION

Deadline: September 30 annually
10-36pp ms. Prefer around 24-28pp.
$15 entry fee payable to Pudding House.

Send to
Pudding House Chapbook Competition
81 Shadymere Lane
Columbus Ohio 43213
(614) 986-1881

$1000.00 First Place
plus publication
20 free copies; deep discounts on optional additionals

Identify author/address on cover page. Some poems may be previously published but not the collection as a whole. Include credits for those poems and assure that you own copyright or have obtained permission to reprint. Pudding House does not buy permissions. Include About the Author statement with publications bio. B&W cover images optional; cover is always up to the publisher but we like to see author suggestions/input (not ideas, but the actual art) if you'd like. This will have no impact on competition results.

We often publish additional manuscripts among those entered.
Judged by editor, Jennifer Bosveld, sometimes with editorial staff for finals.

SRCA Open Poetry Chapbook Competition

-Poetry Chapbook Contest – to result in publication & prize to winner, copies to submitters. Submissions begin July 1st and end September 30th.

-Winning chapbook will be released as the new title in the SRCA Rock in the River Literary Series

Electronic entries are encouraged. Send to SRCAChapbook@gmail.com with a subject line of (your surname)/SRCA Chapbook Competition.

-Snail Mail Entries may be sent to SRCA Chapbook, 257 N. Water St., Kent, OH 44240.

CLICK HERE for Entry Form

-PLEASE READ ALL GUIDELINES AND RIGHTS PRIOR TO SENDING SUBMISSION.

ENTRY FEE: $8 per manuscript submission, payable by check, paypal, or money order to SRCA; Fees will be used to defray expenses of the contest. Any remaining fees will benefit our nonprofit arts programming. PAYPAL submissions begin July 1, 2011.

-Please indicate method of payment on entry form

WHEN: See calendar outline below:

- Entries accepted: Jul 1-Sep 30th (postmark must be dated by Sep 30th; emails must be received by Sep 30th midnight)

-Winners Notified by December 1st via email

-Books mailed or ready to be picked up by Feb 1, 2012

PURPOSE: To promote the literary arts in our general area, promote poet/s with publication, and potentially raise funds for SRCA arts programming through any remaining entry fees/gallery sales of winning chapbook.

PRIZES: The winner of the contest will receive 25 copies & $50

-Each entrant to the contest will receive a copy of the winning chapbook (multiple copies if multiple entries)

-In the event of a tie, each winner will receive 15 copies & $25

JUDGES: Guest (Blind) Judges Colleen Clayton, Cindy Kelly, and Gina Tabasso with Chapbook Editor/Judge Tina Puckett

Colleen Clayton, originally of Cleveland, has lived in Youngstown, Ohio for the past 18 years.   She has had poems and short stories published in The Road Not Taken, Jenny, Scifaikuest, Gloom Cupboard, and Rubbertop Review and earned honorable mention in the 2010 AWP Intro-Journals Prize for her creative non-fiction.  She has served as Fiction Editor for YSU's Penguin Review and as the Educational Outreach Coordinator for YSU Poetry Center. Colleen will graduate from the Northeast Ohio MFA Consortium at YSU in August.  Her debut Young Adult novel, tentatively titled Erasing Sid Murphy, is forthcoming in Fall 2012.

 

Cindy M. Kelly lives and writes in an Appalachian foothills valley, just at the place where Yellow and Licking Creeks meet in Amsterdam, Ohio.  There’s no cell phone coverage there and internet access isn't available at speeds over half a megabyte per second, but the sky is dark and clear at night and she sometimes sees owls.  Her poetry has most recently been published in Breadcrumb Scabs, Hobo Camp Review, and Red Fez Review.  She is the founder of Amsterdam Press, where she edits both Plain Spoke and the Gob Pile Chapbook Series, and she is currently finishing her Master of Science in Education with an emphasis in Reading at Franciscan University of Steubenville. 

 

Gina M. Tabasso holds a master’s degree in English, has been published in many international literary journals and anthologies, and has three chapbooks (From Between My Legs, Disrobing, and Front Lines). She enjoys riding her horse, practicing yoga, watching films, reading, belly dancing and spending time with those she loves.

 

Tina Puckett is a graduate student of the Northeast Ohio MFA (NEOMFA) program with a concentration in Poetry. She has appeared in Phoebe (SUNY), The Penguin Review, MUSE, The Listening Eye, and Jenny amongst other publications and currently has a poem exhibited in The Wick Poetry Center’s Speak Peace Traveling Exhibition. Her most recent chapbook is Crushed Sunlight from Spare Change Press. Tina additionally serves as the Editor for the series and previously served as Editor-In-Chief for (then national) literary journal Canto at Kent State University at Stark.

 

INFO AND UPDATES:
www.standingrock.net.
SRCAChapbook@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/SRCAKent
www.twitter.com/Kent_SRCA

Entry Guidelines:

Target Contributors: At least somewhat experienced, beginners also welcome; contributors limited to residents of the United States

Pages: Fifteen to Twenty, Single-Side 8.5 x 11 Pages of Poetry (not number of poems) Per Manuscript, use 1” page margins, no special page formatting (formatting within poem is acceptable), indicate if poem continues (i.e., continued with line break, continued without line break), size 10 Arial font

-Electronic Entries including Entry Form must be in .rtf format only

-In addition, include completed Entry Form as well as one Title Page with only title (Editor/judge may see author info for tracking purposes only/3 additional judges will be 100% blind guest judges); name not to appear on manuscript itself. All documents containing identifying information, such as name and contact info MUST be separate from the manuscript document itself.

-Copies must be clean and legible (please also spell-check and proofread); poems must be based primarily in the English language

-No previously published manuscripts – individual poems can be published/must be acknowledged on a separate Acknowledgments sheet (separate file from manuscript) and permission for re-publication from previous publisher must be obtained (or first rights for author must have been retained); Simultaneous submissions are accepted and entrant is expected to notify competition immediately if submission is accepted elsewhere. There are no refunds on entry fee however. Multiple entries can be entered for a fee of $8 per manuscript.

-Collaborative projects that result in a chapbook between two poets are accepted at $8 per manuscript but prize is divided (see tie protocol) if the chapbook wins. If the chapbook does not win, only one free chapbook is provided to the collaborative parties.

-Self-addressed, stamped postcard must be sent if confirmation of manuscript receipt is wanted; Electronic entries will receive email confirmation. No late entries will receive response. All manuscripts will be recycled after final judging. A self-addressed-stamped envelope for final results should be sent only if there is no email contact address. Otherwise, results will be sent via email.

**No staff or routine volunteers of SRCA (defined as those volunteering on a consistent monthly basis or on a basis of more than 6 months of the year) nor judges will be permitted to enter in order to allow for fair judging. Judges can opt not to score due to any conflict of interest if a bias might occur. Judges MUST opt not to score if submitter is a known student or relative of the judge. “Opt-out” can be marked on the response sheet to prevent scoring issues upon final score tallies and remaining judge score average will be used.

Rights:

SRCA will reserve rights to print/reprint and sell chapbook only – all first publication rights to the individual poems will return to the author(s). Additional author rights include the ability to make additional copies at author’s expense. Additional rights to SRCA are the ability to reprint chapbooks and receive all profits from sale of chapbooks other than author’s initial copies or author’s subsequent self-paid copies, from which author may profit free and clear from SRCA. No additional revenue aside from initial 25 copies and initial cash prize will be received by author from SRCA. SRCA offers deep discount from sale price to the author for production of additional books if the author wishes SRCA to handle reprints of additional books. Due to the nature of our nonprofit arts organization, limited space, and low number of unpaid volunteer staff, we are currently unable to handle consignments or free review copies but are happy to provide author-prepaid reprints at a deep discount and to ship to requested locations/vendors for orders of 12 or more books.

***Please indicate on Entry Form that your rights and organization’s rights have been understood. Hard copies must be signed/dated by author. Emails will be considered electronically signed/dated. No publication can take place without this agreement.

Judging Criteria – Scoring of 1-10 on the following criteria:

*No Hallmark verse (overly sentimental; light, inspirational) or hate poetry

*Meaningfulness of collection in today’s world

*Cohesiveness of the manuscript/success of theme if there is an actual theme (strong seam?)

*Vivid and/or innovative use of language and imagery (Have our brains been tickled? Do we see a film of what your words say?)

Publication specifics:

Finished product will be 5.5 x 8.5 chapbook printed on 24# paper stock with a card stock cover, saddle stitch stapled. SRCA reserves the right to change this format to perfect-bound similar-sized creation or to change size of books if necessary for poetry formats.

Cover sheet, acknowledgments page, and contents will be published; Chapbook may also include a brief synopsis of contest including short bio about each judge & a brief overview of SRCA.

This event will be promoted at a minimum through our website, Facebook, Twitter, press outlets, flyers, and bulk e-mailings. Books will be sold in our gallery and online at www.standingrock.net.

Standing Rock Cultural Arts staff will not be responsible for any loss or damage during submission process. Submitting an entry to this competition constitutes an understanding and agreement with all conditions. Entries will be recycled upon judging completion. Please do not send any only original copies!

Standing Rock Cultural Arts assumes the right to use quoted lines of poetry from the winning chapbook in promotional materials. Any quotes used will be credited to the poet(s).

Standing Rock Cultural Arts additionally reserves the right to disqualify any entry that does not follow the guidelines provided above.

Chapbook inquiries to: SRCAChapbook@gmail.com

Thank you for supporting the arts! Good luck to our chapbook competitors!