Others, like myself, simply do not file no matter how much, or little, we make. However, I do not pay my income taxes because I do not, even in a small way, want to help finance what the government is doing. After my son was killed in Iraq, I felt ashamed that I had been funding this cancerous system for years. Our priorities are definitely skewed in the nation! Imagine if we had a system where education was equalized for everyone, not just for the children of the Robber Class? You give the government a portion of your hard earned money to spy on its own citizens.
And you guessed it, the Robber Class also benefits from the prison industrial complex and the war on drugs. Comparisons of native and immigrant criminality in that do not control for these differences in age distributions will necessarily bias the results in favor of immigrants. Such aggregation bias also plagues any consideration of the changes over time. One interpretation of the contrasting findings of the Dillingham and Wickersham Commissions is that the incarceration rate among immigrants was falling relative to that of the native-born between and But the discussion in the previous paragraph offers an alternative interpretation: The bottom panel of Figure 1 presents the age distributions of the native- and foreign-born white male populations in Here, the bulge in the foreign-born population is in the late 20s and 30s, reflecting the large immigrant inflows between and Even if there had been no change in age-specific incarceration rates over the period, we would expect to see the incarceration rate of the foreign-born population as a whole decrease because, over time, a smaller fraction were in the high-incarceration age groups.
The weaknesses of the contemporary investigations of crime, incarceration, and immigration would seem to make this a ripe area for historical analysis. But to date, only limited work has been done. The research that has been conducted, though, challenges to some extent the conclusions of the Dillingham and Wickersham commissions. A number of historians have argued that U.
Lane likewise found that Italian immigrants were disproportionately involved in homicides in Philadelphia in the early twentieth century. It is difficult, however, to discern what these studies tell us more generally. First, these studies provide data only on a limited number of jurisdictions. Second, they tell us only about the involvement of immigrants in homicides, which account for a very small fraction of all crime. Our contribution to this literature is to reanalyze the data used by the Dillingham and Wickersham commissions, with the modern advantages of detailed population data and the computing power to analyze them.
First, we address the basic question of whether, after differences in age distributions are controlled for, immigrants were more likely than the native-born to be imprisoned in the early decades of the twentieth century. We then examine how immigrant incarceration patterns varied with time spent in the United States and country of origin.
These investigations allow us to consider the theories put forward by criminologists at the time about the factors influencing immigrant involvement in crime. The basic question we would like to ask is, were immigrants more or less likely than the native-born to commit crimes? We can never, however, address this question directly because we cannot observe criminality per se, but rather things that are recorded, like crime reports, arrests, and convictions.
Crime measured by any of these types of data will necessarily understate criminal activity, and there are reasons to believe that all of these types of data may over- or understate relative immigrant involvement in crime: The degree and even the direction of these biases are difficult to evaluate because of the complex path from crime commission to incarceration, with discretion operating at each of the many steps in between. Differential treatment by nativity may be due to factors associated with immigrant status per se such as policies toward increased detention of noncitizens or due to factors that are correlated with immigrant status such as living in a large city or being impoverished or unfamiliar with court processes.
Analysts at the time detailed the many reasons that the foreign-born might be disadvantaged in court: Many of these mechanisms would suggest large immigrant disadvantages for minor and nuisance offenses. Unfortunately, even in modern crime data, obtaining reliable evidence on the magnitudes of these effects is difficult.
The prison population data collected by the Census Bureau have the advantages of 1 having quality information on nativity and related factors, 2 containing a census of all inmates, making the study not only nationally representative but actually based on national coverage, 3 having served as the primary source of the findings of the Dillingham and Wickersham Commissions, and 4 being comparable to some contemporary research on related questions. The disadvantage of using the prison census data is that they record events that take place, in the terminology used above, several steps after the criminal acts themselves.
The discretion involved in each intervening step means that the difference in the incarceration rates of immigrants and natives is a noisy measure of the difference in the crime rates of the two groups. Modern studies of crime often use police records, but unfortunately, we cannot use police records to look at nativity differences in crime in the early twentieth century. Both Commissions considered and rejected police records due to incompleteness or poor quality. By the late s, experts began to prefer a measure closer to the point of crime commission Maltz This produced the movement to structure the collection of such data under the Uniform Crime Reports, which would provide some standardization of criteria.
These data were not collected until , and voluntary participation by police departments was initially low. The prison census data may not be immune from racial and ethnic prejudice, but analysts at the time believed court actions were a better reflection of behavior than police actions because each step in the criminal justice process provides the opportunity to check earlier steps for such bias Maltz ; National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement In , the Census Bureau conducted its first special enumeration of prisoners separate from the population census.
The Census Bureau conducted similar special enumerations in and again in In , the Census Bureau began annual counts but limited their scope to state and federal facilities. This focus became more pronounced over time; by the prison census, only one of the 54 tables pertained to the prison population on a given date, and one more reported the average daily prison population.
Some explanation for this focus is given in the report of the prison census. Data on the incarcerated population on a given date, it was argued, was useful for assessing the costs of institutional care for different types of offenders but not for studying criminality. It was pointed out that an increase in the prison population could occur without an increase in the number of crimes being committed; longer sentences would increase the number of individuals incarcerated on any given date.
Commitments over a specified period of time were viewed as a better index of criminality. Department of Commerce This focus on the flow rather than the stock of prisoners contrasts sharply with studies on incarceration in the current period. The flow measure may give a better approximation for crime rates than the stock of prisoners; however, flows are dominated by more common, but less serious, crimes. The top panel of Table 1 shows how the number enumerated in an institution differs from the flow of new commitments in for several demographic groups.
Overall, the , commitments are 4. Looking across demographic groups, the results show that women have a much higher ratio of flow to stock than men 7. Similar patterns are evident for the flow out discharges relative to the stock. The terms in parentheses represent the offense numbers as a fraction of the column total.
The bottom panel of Table 1 reports the enumerated population and the commitment flow for by offense offenses with fewer than 1, enumerated were suppressed in the table. Thus, when one considers commitments to all penal institutions, the conclusions will be driven by high-volume offenses that are punished by short stays in confinement. These lesser crimes may be treated quite differently in different states.
However, the picture changes when we narrow our focus to commitments to state and federal prisons, which generally house the most serious offenders, as shown in the final column of Table 1. Although state laws varied, typically only those sentenced to a year or more would be placed in a state, rather than local, facility. Accordingly, state and federal prisons accounted for the majority of the sentenced inmate population at any given moment in time. Commitments to prisons were dominated by more serious offenses. The distribution of offenses for such commitments was, in fact, very similar to the distribution of offenses for the enumerated population.
The only notable difference between these two distributions is the much smaller share in prison commitments of less serious offenses like disorderly conduct. The data on prison commitments are also of higher quality than those of commitments more generally. In fact, the percentage of observations with missing information on nativity is smaller for prison commitments than for the enumerated population. Moreover, convictions for minor offenses—such as disorderly conduct—reflect, to a much greater extent than those for serious offenses, the choices made by law enforcement officials.
Focusing on serious offenses also makes our findings more comparable to studies of the recent period, which look at the prison population at a given moment in time. We examine nativity differences in commitments for minor offenses, but most of our discussion and analysis focuses on commitments for more serious crimes. Another challenge for our analysis is the tremendous variation across the published prison census reports in how the data are presented and even how population subgroups are defined.
Our strategy is to exploit the strengths of each prison census. Ideally, we would like to have data on prison commitments by gender, age, nativity, and offense, but such detailed breakdowns are available only for the annual prison censuses starting in , and these provide data only on state and federal prisons. The prison census, however, provides breakdowns by gender, age, nativity, and jurisdiction, allowing us to compare state prisons to municipal and county jails.
As shown in Table 1 , the breakdown by jurisdiction roughly coincides with the division between more serious and less serious offenses. Department of Commerce and Labor We treat commitments for major offenses in as roughly comparable to commitments to prison in the later censuses. Unfortunately, the prison census, despite presenting more tables than any other prison census report, does not provide data that specify type of offense or jurisdiction separately by gender, age, and nativity.
So for the most part, we leave the data out of our analysis. We limit our attention to males ages 18 and older. As can be seen in Table 1 , females during this period had very low incarceration rates. Most commitments of females were for prostitution and generally involved short sentences. Juveniles, too, had very low rates of incarceration. But more problematic for this study, the treatment of juveniles in the criminal justice system varied greatly across states and over time.
A year-old convicted of robbery might be committed to a juvenile facility in one state but to a jail in another state. Although some of the prison censuses do provide information on commitments to juvenile facilities, many of these commitments are for minor, juvenile-specific offenses like truancy, as well as for other noncrime reasons, like having deceased or incapacitated parents. As noted above, calculating commitment rates requires accurate population data that correspond with the timing of the prison censuses. Although all of the annual censuses of state and federal prisons starting in present similar data, we choose to use the prison data so that we can use the data from the federal population census to construct the denominators.
In order to examine the and prison data, we must construct population estimates. The writers of the prison census report simply used data from the population census. However, the data understate the size of the foreign-born population relative to that of the native-born in , particularly in the younger age categories, due to the high immigrant inflows of the period. In order to capture this inflow, we construct population estimates for using microdata from the population census made available through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series IPUMS; Ruggles et al.
The census collected data on the year of immigration, which we use to identify the foreign-born who had arrived in the United States by We then age the population backward to and adjust for mortality to construct population estimates by age and nativity. Taking into account the immigration flows between and , therefore, significantly alters the constructed age profile of the incarceration rates of the foreign-born population.
In Table 2 , we present commitment rates per , population by age, race, and nativity. Note that the age categories are not of consistent width; because of the importance of age in the study of crime outcomes, we report age at the lowest level of aggregation available. Males , , and per , population. All natives includes native-born whites and blacks. The highest commitment rates, by far, are among black Americans. This phenomenon persists today and is the subject of a long literature e.
Besides the issue of potential racial bias in enforcement and conviction rates, the comparison of the incarceration patterns of blacks and the foreign-born in this period is complicated by the very different geographical distributions of these populations. The immigration-crime debate in the early twentieth century was framed in terms of the comparison of foreign-born with native-born whites.
We choose to emphasize the same comparison. However, as is easily seen by looking at the last column in Table 2 , if the comparison group were all natives instead of native whites, the relative performance of immigrants would appear much better. The data for both groups exhibit the steep age-crime curve familiar to criminologists. The peak for foreign-born males, however, is earlier at 18—19 rather than 20—24 and higher than that of the native-born.
By age 30, though, the rates are quite comparable across nativity groups. In , as in , the foreign-born had higher commitment rates to state and federal prisons than natives at younger ages but lower rates at older ages—age 35 and older in this case. In contrast, in , the commitment rates of foreign-born white males were lower at each age than for the native-born, in some cases substantially lower. Detailed results are shown in the bottom panel of Table 2. The comparison of native-born to foreign-born whites as presented in the data is potentially misleading, however.
Given the constraints of how the data were reported, the only way we could include those of Mexican descent was to substantially broaden the definition of foreign-born. Adding this group to the foreign-born muddles the comparison by nativity, but it at least can give us a sense of the degree to which the exclusion of Mexicans influences the incarceration patterns we observe. This substantially narrows the difference between native and foreign-born commitment rates but changes the sign of this difference only for year-olds.
In , the age-adjusted rates of prison commitment are quite similar for the native and the broadly defined foreign-born at younger ages, but by age 20, the foreign-born appear to be somewhat less likely to be committed to state or federal prison. The picture that emerges from Table 2 contrasts with that pieced together from the Commission and Census Bureau reports of the period.
The general pattern of native incarceration rates increasing relative to those of immigrants over time is the same, but the starting and ending points are different. In , young immigrants had higher rates of commitments for serious offenses than did natives of the same ages. Moreover, the change in commitment rates over time for this group was also much smaller than for older immigrants. The relative decline of the incarceration of the foreign-born is really a story about a growing gap between natives and immigrants at older ages.
Age-specific commitment rates clearly tell us more than could aggregated rates about differences between natives and immigrants, but they cannot tell us how differences in the age distributions of the two groups affected the perceptions of the relative criminality of the two groups. Table 3 summarizes the impact of the different and changing age distributions of the foreign- and native-born populations on aggregate commitment rates. Using our population estimates, the overall commitment rate for the native-born was 77 per , in , and nearly double that in at per , For the foreign-born, the rate was somewhat lower than natives in at 69 and falling to 52 by White Males , , and per , population.
See the notes to Table 2. Counterfactuals were constructed using age-specific commitment rates for each nativity and applying them to the specified age distribution. To demonstrate the impact of the different age distributions, we report counterfactual aggregate rates by applying the nativity-specific commitment rates by age to three different fixed age distributions: As shown in the bottom of Table 3 , in each case for the native-born, the commitment rate increases dramatically from to though it is somewhat less pronounced using the foreign-born age distribution.
However, the shift in the estimates for the foreign-born is dramatic. In , both alternate age standardizations show commitment rates for immigrants that are higher than the unstandardized value, and in fact are higher than those of the native-born. Even in a period of large inflows of immigrants, the age distribution of the foreign-born advantaged them in aggregate commitment rates. Had the Dillingham Commission performed such calculations using the data, it would have concluded that immigrants were more criminal than natives.
The age-standardized commitment rates for immigrants in and are basically the same as that of The decline in the overall commitment rate for immigrants observed in the top panel of Table 3 is due to the aging of the foreign-born population. From these calculations, it is clear that the growing gap between the foreign-born and native-born incarceration rates comes from the doubling of the commitment rate of the native-born over this time period. Violent and property crimes frequently have different time trends, age patterns with involvement in property crimes peaking at younger ages than for violent crimes , and geographical distributions.
In addition, inmates convicted of property crimes have somewhat different criminal histories and postrelease outcomes compared with those convicted of violent crimes Langan and Levin We are the dead. There is no one on the right, left, or in between that is telling us that it's impossible for one person to affect change — in fact, the propaganda is the opposite. But we are told from the Robber Class that true and relevant change happens in the ballot booth — that our part in "changing" things is making sure that we make phone calls, donate money, knock on doors and vote for the Candidate of the Party of our Choice.
If we do that, win or lose, we have done our part. I will dispel the Myth that elections matter in a later chapter, but to give the impression that our only part in "change" is through the ballot box is devious in so many ways. I have already talked about how short our memories are in America. We have been called the United States of Amnesia.
Not only do we forget every generation that wars are horrible and for profit, but we seem to forget every four to eight years that our votes really do not matter. The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution So, forgetting how much Obama has disappointed so many people, if we choose to actively "remember" how every politician disappoints, we wouldn't get so crushed, we would allow ourselves the perverse and unwarranted excitement of electoral politics. For example, take my very own case for example.
When I "burst" on the scene after about 14 months of very intense work and activism , some tried to make me over as a "shill" a "tool" a "fraud" or "bad mother.
Immigration, Crime, and Incarceration in Early Twentieth-Century America
On the other hand, people on the other side wanted to elevate me to "icon" status. The "face" of the anti-war movement; international peace superstar; Rosa Parks; all positions that were equally limiting spots to be put in. The basic philosophy of both positions is: How can a "mere" mother from Vacaville where the hell's Vacaville? I must have either been a villain or a saint. We ordinary humans can't accomplish anything even remotely close to what I did without an army of media gurus, advisers, or support staff behind them. That's the fantasy; here's the reality: I made up my stubborn mind to go and try and ask him a simple question: I was there on August 6, with six other people, a few lawn chairs, one flashlight and a five-gallon paint bucket to pee in — and an ice chest filled with water so we wouldn't dry up and blow away in the constant heat have I mentioned it was hot that summer?
Whoever came later, came later. There were no think tanks, advisers, or large support staff that planned, or carried out the initial action. What if I had remained in my air-conditioned Vacaville home paralyzed with fear and anxiety over being just one person? Or, what if I had put my energy into the next election? First of all, my fear of anything ended the day the Robber Class killed my son in Iraq and, secondly, we have had two elections since Camp Casey in the summer of that elected more Democrats with ZERO positive change in any direction.
The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution I never envisioned or even imagined that my single idea, made singly by one single person sitting by myself in my Vacaville living room would have such an impact. We never know when one single act or person will grow to large actions, sometimes we never do know because individuals remain paralyzed out of fear that they don't have any power, or out of fear of their own power.
Apparently, here in the United States of Amnesia thanks to my friend, Gore Vidal , nothing of any relevance happens unless the corporate media covers it fully, frantically, and fanatically. That's why my protest attained Mythic proportions: An infinite number of good deeds by nameless heroes go unreported every day, so they must not happen! So why should we even try, if our actions "don't matter? As in the quote from , there is also such a surrender to the Robber Class systems, as being too big, too powerful, too insidious that we shouldn't even try to make a dent in the mess, because it's like trying to sweep the seashore clean of sand — we will do a lot of unnecessary labor and be rewarded with even more of a mess than when we started.
We may as well save ourselves the trouble and not even try! What's the use, right? We are just "tilting at windmills," throwing "good after bad. All of this sloganeering is to prevent us from believing in the basic fact that there is not one person dead or alive ever, who has not made an impact on this planet and our history. The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution We may never know what impact we have made, but you already know what impact your parents made: What or who inspired these people for good or bad?
Cindy Sheehan Makes the Case for Tax Resistance
For miracles or evil? What or who inspired the people who inspired the people? Another guarantee about this life, besides no one gets out alive, is that no one gets out without making some kind of impact. Will yours be positive? The only way we will ever know is to actually get off of our butts and try! Besides my son Casey being my inspiration for action, a poem that my daughter and Casey's sister, Carly, wrote, also had a profound impact on me.
When she wrote the poem, did she know what spirit she was compelling? When Carly read this poem to me just three weeks after Casey was killed, I had one overwhelming thought in my head: Killing myself to end the pain. Carly's poem literally saved my life, and I always wonder how many others? The torrential rains of a mother's weeping will never be done They call him a hero, you should be glad that he's one, but Haveyou ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?
Haveyou ever heard the sound of a father holding back his cries? He must be brave because his boy died for another man's lies The only grief he allows himself are long, deep sighs Haveyou ever heard the sound of a father holding back his cries? They say that he died so that the flag will continue to wave But I believe he died because they had oil to save Have you ever heard the sound of taps played at your brother's grave? Haveyou ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep?
The leaders want to keep you numb so the pain won't be so deep But if we the people let them continue another mother will weep Haveyou ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep? Carly's one act inspired a movement. What would have happened if she decided not to share it with me for whatever reason? Also, there seems to be a fear of our own power — or what might happen if we overthrow the status quo.
If I remember correctly, and I am sure that I do, when George Bush was president, the movement could rally hundreds of thousands of people to get out in the streets. What is the use of bringing hundreds of thousands of people out into the streets of DC on a Saturday when there was a tyranny of Republicans in office at the time? Did we think we would have the affect that we desired? Did we really think that the Bush regime would look out over the protests and say: Look at all those fine people out there holding their signs and marching from here to there.
Let's, by golly, bring those troops home now! Then, the duplicitous Democratic Leadership took control of both Houses in the midterm elections of , and when we had a chance to actually make some change, the movement began to dissipate. Don't hold the Democrats to the same standards we held the Bush regime to — we might make the Democrats look like the hypocrites they really are.
The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution NOW that there is a super majority in both Houses and a Democratic president and not one single progressive item is being passed, there is barely a peep out of a movement that put itself on life support and made itself irrelevant by working to elect Democrats to no avail. Recently, in a move that very few faux-gressives someone who is only progressive when there is a Republican in the Oval Office or majority in Congress , Robber Class Queen Nancy's House of Representatives voted with 64 Dems in the "Aye" column to put restrictions on a woman's right to productive freedom over her own body.
What do faux-gressives constantly scream about during the Robber Class electoral seasons? I hope the faux-gressive Robbed Class remembers this one come election time — but I kind of doubt it. Amnesia is not only limited to the conservative element in the Robbed Class. We are the sleeping giant in this country and the Robber Class is afraid of awakening us — but not as much as we are afraid of being awakened. What would happen if we exercised our power and, actually, truly, and permanently changed things for the better? Nothing much — except for our very survival.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Pretty busy day for the Mr. The "Change" regime sure has been busy preserving the status quo lately — but was George W.
Nah, George barely graduated from school. Obama is the one who is supposed to be up to speed on these things. I write about the "freedom of religion" in another chapter, but I will address the other aspects of the First Amendment in this one. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper. My own experiences with the corporate media are pretty extensive for someone who has only been working in the public eye for a little over 4 years.
My recent career since my son died involves being on the other side of the interview as a radio talk show host of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox. At the end of my Congressional campaign against Nancy Pelosi one in which the media practically ignored me , I was offered a radio spot on the local "progressive" talk radio station, Green In the waning days of a very strenuous, stressful and humiliating campaign, I was sort of busy and took this offer of a talk show to mean that I was going to get paid for doing it.
Even though, I had no official broadcasting experience, I felt very ready and comfortable to do it as I am bright, well-read, articulate, very opinionated, a published author, a committed progressive and someone whom I thought would bring a fresh perspective to a mediatocracy that seems to feed off of the Robber Class "left-right" voices.
I believe that there is a media war in this country to divert us from the real issues. So the phony media wars are fought. The "left" media exists to support Democrats over democracy and the "right" media exists to support Republicans over the republic. Then there is me — someone who is a totally non-partisan, principled based commentator who condemns violence, oppression and injustice no matter which political party is responsible for it. That's not so popular in the "left-right" Robber Class mentality. Before I go on to write about my experience of working for corporate media, I would like to tell you about a recent media phenomenon.
Soon after, I was asked by a newspaper reporter from the Netherlands how it felt to be on the "same side" of an issue as George Will. I told the reporter something like: So, anyway, after the election, I finally realized that Green was not offering me a paid position, but Clear Channel who owns Green was offering me a time slot, 29 Myth America II: I don't know what I was thinking when I signed the contract, or if I was really thinking at all.
I was allowed to go on the air anyway, and we actually lasted 10 weeks before I realized we could not go on paying an obscene amount of money for one hour Even though I was essentially an infomercial, there was a time before my show aired that I was told by the station manager that I couldn't say anything negative about the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, so my very next show I interviewed an environmental rights' activist who had tons of evidence showing that the mayor was very complicit in the environmental poisoning and economic exploitation of a neighborhood right in his town.
Why do I even mention my own experience? Clear Channel will give such hate- mongers and liars like Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh very lucrative contracts, but I was not about to give any of mine, or your, hard earned money to support those two bloated gasbags any longer. Alternative voices to the Robber Class status quo do not get paid for their jobs; we have to pay the Robbers, if we aren't careful! The Media Industrial Complex was an active participant in selling the invasion of Iraq to the gullible American public.
The Pentagon placed shills as "experts" on "news" shows to use pointers on maps to show, using very flashy graphics, where the WMD were and to tell other blatant lies. Anderson had me on a remote feed early on and I said that I wished the media had actually done some investigative reporting during the run up to the war. Anderson got his boxers in a bunch and said: The person who lied and was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths at that point?
Big brave Anderson tried to destroy the character of a Gold Star Mother who only wanted the killing to end. I have an even more relevant and maybe shocking to some story to illustrate how the press knowingly conspires to manipulate the truth to keep America stupid. I was her first guest that day and when she was introducing the show before the first break, she intro'd me as: We then went to break and I told Norah: I was born during the day, but not yesterday and I realized a long time ago that the caca that passes for "news" is just that: Norah O'Donnell readily and unashamedly admitted to me that she deliberately, intentionally and will full knowledge aforethought spreads propaganda that she knows is not true!
She conspired with others on her production team to broadcast lies. How often does this happen? Most of the time? The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution before, the media lies, and even if it doesn't lie, it reports news from its bias or slant. That is always present, there is never anything such as "unbiased" reporting.
The only response to the "Free Press" in the US is to turn off our TV news and support Internet news sites, radio shows or other independent media. By support, I mean moral and financial. Go to my website for a great alternative, radical and independent radio show: In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. At the church where we held our event, Lynn Woolsey gave me her guest ticket to the actual State of the Union address that night. I did not want to sit up in the gallery by myself being glared at by angry Republicans and having to listen to George The Liar Bush just spread more manure. I was in a coffee shop down the street from the White House and I actually put my head on the table and cried.
I tried to get out of it, but Lynn had already put out a press release saying that I was going to be there and the plan was that before it started the Out of Iraq Caucus in the Congress would get up and wave to me. The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution Getting up to the gallery, I had to pass through three levels of security and I had to surrender everything that I had on me — and I had only brought my cell phone, an ID, my ticket, a pad of paper and a pen: It was the end of January, or the beginning of February so it was really cold outside — I had left my big coat in Barbara Lee's office, but I had a light coat on over the shirt and Barbara's Chief of Staff escorted me from the House office building to the Capitol Building using the underground tram.
This is exactly what happened that evening at about 8: I was shown to my seat by an "usher" who was walking back up the steps of the gallery, when I turned to the right to pull my arm out of my jackets' sleeve. The "usher" was actually a Capitol Hill police officer. What followed was a comedy. I was rushed out of the Capitol building and into the Capitol Hill police station. CNN reported that I unfurled a banner and even showed a clip of a banner being unfurled. The Capitol Hill police alternatively reported that I had taken off my jacket and swung around my head — or did that and screamed something at the same time.
It turns out that wearing a shirt with a message into Congress isn't even a crime — and while I was roughly arrested, the wife of a Congressman from Florida was asked to remove a shirt that she was wearing that said: The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution Even though it was a comedy, this example illustrates how far our country has strayed from First Amendment principles.
The Congress is supposed to be the House of the People where all views should be able to be heard and respected, if not totally in agreement. As I was chained to the wall that night, an officer walked into my cell room and told me that he appreciated my son's "sacrifice. My son did not sacrifice his life for this country so his mom could be arrested for wearing a t-shirt that was "off message" to the regime — he was killed by that regime that has such little respect for freedoms.
I cried that night. If we have the freedoms to free speech and assembly, why are we confined to free speech zones? Why are we kept sometimes miles away from the events that we want to protest? Courts have previously ruled that the government can regulate the time, place, and manner of protests, but not the content of expression. My contention is, what difference does the content make if you are hidden miles away from the person or situation that you want to protest?
During the recent "debates" over health care, even though I disagree vehemently with the right-wingers who were interrupting some of the town hall meetings led by Congress Reps, I understand their frustration. We the People don't have the money to buy access to our Reps, or money to buy legislation that we need. So, along with many groups or individuals on the "left" who interrupted hearings and events during the Bush regime, our neighbors feel the need to do it during the Obama regime. As soon as we got in front of the Mission, they tried to herd us into a Free Speech pen like we were animals.
I refused to go in and encouraged the people who were marching with me to not be herded like cattle and we stayed out in the street and not one of us was arrested. Most people are afraid to stand up for their rights. The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution It is routine for permits for marches or peaceable protests to be denied, and as in the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention fences with checkpoints are put up around the perimeter of the events. I observed that at the recent G20 Minsiters' Meeting in Pittsburgh at the end of September, that 25 miles of 7 foot fence was placed around the convention center area and there were checkpoints and only residents, business owners or people with "business" were allowed to enter into the Green Zone of the Robber Class.
Since most of the Robber Class were either staying in hotels near the meetings or choppering in, like Barack Obama, our protests there did not reach the people who needed to hear our message. Is it a vicious cycle? We need to be militant to be heard because not only our voices are drowned out, but we are also sprayed with pepper spray, tear gas or rubber bullets, for trying to get our voices heard. The "right" and now even some people on the "left who are "born again" war supporters now that Obama is president, constantly tell me that Casey died for "our freedom" oh, yeah, and "Democracy ; but few of these people find it troubling that since our freedoms here in America have been seriously curtailed.
That's downright un-Patriotic if you ask me! The act was over pages and few people in Congress read it before they passed it. Posse Commitatus is an act that was instituted to prevent our government from using military troops against its own citizens. However, there never was and never has been anything to prevent our own government from using National Guard troops against us a la Kent State.
About 10 days after the levees broke in New Orleans after Katrina, I went down there to see what was going on. The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution supplies and were actually one of the first outsiders to get in with relief aid. We set up camp in Slidell, La. What I saw appalled me! Instead of relief camps, there were machine gun nests and cavalry troops garrisoned behind chain link fences. One of the most disturbing aspect of Katrina, was that Blackwater Mercenaries were the first troops in to New Orleans after Katrina carrying their weapons and wearing their paramilitary garb, preventing residents, not from looting, but from moving freely around in their communities.
Post-Katrina, New Orleans was an ideal blackboard for the Robber Class for mass-martial law, if ever the need arises. Back in the '70's, Richard M. Nixon was accused of spying on people on his infamous enemy's list. To prevent that from happening again, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Survey Act, which restricted a president's rights to surveil his own citizens.
The irony of the Act is that it was never needed, we have a little something in this country called warrants if that privacy is violated.
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The penalties were stiff: FISA courts were also created to quickly grant warrants, and in the 30 years of the ACT, just a handful were rejected and a president could even get a retroactive warrant in the case of a national emergency. He admitted in a nationally televised press conference that he broke the FISA laws, and he was speedily prosecuted, right? In , the Democratic Congress, with the help of Senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama, passed the FISA Modernization Act, which not only granted telecom companies immunity from handing over our info, but let the sleaze-bag, Bush off, too.
The Robber Class knows no distinction between "right-left" or "Democrat-Republi- can" they exist to protect each other at all costs. Recently Big Brother raised his ugly head again and an email address flag white- house. That's the inherent meaning of "freedom. We didn't have to wage a four-year long, very bloody Civil War to end slavery. All other civilized nations did it by legislation and compensation. I believe that the Revolutionary War to throw off the English oppressors may have been for "freedom" but then, as in most Revolutions, an oppressive regime was installed and we are back to square one here in America years later.
Only this time we don't have the luxury of being thousands of miles away from the oppressive government's armies, navies, and WMD; we are surrounded and the only way out is our own style Revolution that will require no bloodshed. The Robber Class Politicians and Courts should vigorously protect our First Amendment Freedoms, but we know they do not, in fact they restrict them, so we must jealously guard them ourselves.
Revolution to find out how. When asked what type of government the American people were going to participate in, by a well-meaning woman, a stern Benjamin Franklin warned that our new government was going to be "A republic, madam, if you can keep it. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.
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It was initiated as a Representative Republic. How could the people "lose" a Republic? Why did Ben chastise the woman for being curious? Did he have the forethought to recognize that corporate interests would take over the former British colonies — as the American insurgency fought off the corporate chains of British Robber Class interests? I know there was already fear of a big future showdown over slavery, even at the founding of this country.
If our ancestors really wanted to end the evil institution of slavery, it could have been done at the inception of this country, or non-violently 60 years later. It was never about the black-slavery issue. Unfortunately, the citizens are no longer represented if they ever were and now the US is a Corporate Republic — where the decisions are made: Secondly, even if we were ever a "democracy," like Huxley said, we can't be now. We are a tyranny because we are always preparing for and participating in "modern wars. There are many forms of Republican government; James Madison described America's Republic as a "representative government.
Majority rule is not the only aspect of democracy. Of course we know that the majority of Americans want the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to end — you know those countries where we are exporting American bomb-democracy bombocracy. We also have seen the very interesting aspect of elections in these two countries. Election days in our occupied countries are days where everything in the respective countries is shut down and there is heavy US military presence we lose high amounts of our own troops on these days.
The citizens of the country get to have their fingers ink-stained while they vote for the candidates supported by the occupying 40 Myth America II: I further expose the tyrannies of our electoral system in another chapter, but here, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and the old Soviet Union and Cuba, we don't get to vote for the candidates of our choice either. Personal freedom is also another big indicator of a democracy, and while we here in the USA have our freedom of speech, who is listening? Who is given the megaphone? Who gets a Soapbox?
Who the Robber Class says can have one, that's who. Every aspect of our lives is, or can be, monitored. I am under no illusion that I have privacy when I send or receive emails, phone calls, text messages or snail mail. More about our lost freedoms in another chapter. I live in a "secure" apartment building here in San Francisco. To access the front door there's also a keypad that I use , the laundry room and the exercise room one has to have an electronic key fob that can be tracked by the SFPD.
I had to sign a release saying that I was cool with that. Well, I have to be able to do laundry, so I signed the release, but needless to say, if the SFPD wants to know where I am, they must think that I am always in a kitchen drawer, because that's where my fob stays. We don't have the freedom to travel to any country we choose and when we do travel, we are subjected to much un-Constitutional humility. Taking off our shoes is not a security measure designed to protect us, but it is a measure designed to project state power and is basically a bullying technique.
So there was a "shoe bomber" who theoretically had explosives in his shoes and now, even if I wear the thinnest soled flip-flops in the world or even worse in the winter when we wear heavy shoes , I have to put them through the x-ray machine. Another thing is that WE are the only country that makes its citizens take off their shoes and x-ray them.
Are the other countries just lucky that their planes haven't been shoe-bombed so far and planes aren't dropping out of the skies like swatted flies?
I always tell my sisters at my events that it sure is a good thing there hasn't been a 41 Myth America II: The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution "bra bomber" or we would have to dis-bra and put our brassieres through the x-ray machine. I hope I'm not giving the Robber Class any ideas! Well, it didn't take long — for months I told my sisters that I was grateful that there hadn't been this "Bra Bomber," and "Voila! Never mind that he didn't have a passport and was ushered through security at Landstuhl by a man in a nice suit; and never mind, Mutallab 's father a banker and war-profiteer in Nigeria warned the US about his rogue son; and never mind that he was on the "no-fly" list — now, coming to your nearest airport: The Invasion of the Body Scanner!
It turns out that these body scanners will see us nude as we walk through them at airport checkpoints — the Robber Class Pervos are at it again. And, conveniently, ex-homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff represents companies that sell these full-body scanners with his consulting firm. I am not against taking reasonable precautions, but I am against having my civil rights and body violated! Freedom of the press and freedom of political expression are essential for healthy democracies so one group cannot achieve overwhelming power over the others.
We allow the Robber Class to lull us into the false belief that we are fully functioning members of our government and that our opinions and votes matter when, in reality, it is the MONEY of the lobbyists that really matters. We are bribed or fooled by "Cash for Clunkers," one of the stupidest Federal programs I have ever seen.
How have we lost our "Republic? Currently, while I am writing this chapter, the health care debate is being driven by the "health" care industry and no matter what the final outcome of the "reforms" are, I am giving you a money back guarantee that the industries involved will still be profiting handsomely off our illnesses and injuries, and the bills that are coming out of the Robber Class Congress look like a very dramatic goldmine or bailout for the health insurance companies.
Those who oppose Medicare for all which is the only viable reform of the system , scream "Socialism" when a humane solution to the crisis is presented; however, when there is talk about paying for the wars, paying our troops and giving socialized benefits to them, or giving bailouts to the banksters, none of those people cry: In , corporations were granted the same 14th Amendment rights as persons by a Supreme Court clerk in the case: The County of Santa Clara v.
The Southern Pacific Railroad and things have never been the same. While the corporations have 14th Amendment protections, the only responsibility they have is to their shareholders, and almost any degradation can be committed as long as dividends are realized. This is how WE lost our Republic. However, the most compelling reason that we are not a democracy is the fact that we are now a full-fledged military Empire that uses most of its resources to fund and wage wars all over the world.
The people of this nation are nothing but worker bees for the Empire — to fight, kill or be killed, to the sorrow of many and the profit of a few. We are mis-ruled by a Tyrant that is selected by the Robber Class every four-eight years. We can rightly call our president an "Elected Emperor. The Twenty Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution We have nearly 1, military bases in over countries all over the world.
These are exactly like the Roman Imperial Outposts and, like the roads constructed by the Roman Empire, Eisenhower promulgated our national highway system for the military. Rome lost its noble way when it became an Empire and began to decay from within, and when the pressures from without became impossible to repel any longer, it collapsed under the weight of its own insanity.
Unless we the people undermine the power of the Robber Class, we are destined for the same fate as all Empires before us. In my opinion, Democratic forms of government are best dealt with in smaller clumps and we will discuss how to take back our power in Conclusion: It's Noble to Die in Robber Class Wars "A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about.
It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. I knew about war profiteering before Casey joined the Army, but I thought that profiteering was a consequence of war, not a reason for it. Like General Butler says: For a great many years, as a soldier,I ha d a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out. Butler writes about the profits of the du Ponts that went up from six million a year pre-war to 58 million a year during the war. US Steel saw profits more than double, but not just munitions or material for armaments companies prospered, but buckboard and saddle makers; t-shirt and boot manufacturers, not to mention the amount of food it takes to feed the army of the empire!
Butler think are the big winners in the game of war for profit? If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers.