Let freedom ring

[RainDog]

...somewhere. In the U.S., here's the toll on freedom from the drug war.



via Mark Perry: More than 100k and ~50% of federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses

http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp … pic.twitter.com/0kWBHGSJwg



"Substance-involved people have come to compose a large portion of the prison population. Substance use may play a role in the commission of certain crimes: approximately 16 percent of people in state prison and 18 percent of people in federal prison reported committing their crimes to obtain money for drugs.21 Treatment delivered in the community is one of the most cost-effective ways to prevent such crimes and costs approximately $20,000 less than incarceration per person per year.22 A study by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy found that every dollar spent on drug treatment in the community yields over $18 in cost savings related to crime. In comparison, prisons only yield $.37 in public safety benefit per dollar spent. Releasing people to supervision and making treatment accessible is an effective way of reducing problematic drug use, reducing crime associated with drug use and reducing the number of people in prison."

Source: Justice Policy Institute, "How to safely reduce prison populations and support people returning to their communities," (Washington, DC: June 2010), p. 8.http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/10-06_FAC_ForImmediateRelease...

Former Drug Czar Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey "We must have law enforcement authorities address the issue because if we do not, prevention, education, and treatment messages will not work very well. But having said that, I also believe that we have created an American gulag."

Source: Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (USA, Ret.), Director, ONDCP, Keynote Address, Opening Plenary Session, National Conference on Drug Abuse Prevention Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, September 19, 1996, Washington, DC.
- See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Prisons_and_Drugs#sthash.U4B45FaQ.dpuf

[Scuba]

1. Hey, the War on Drugs is working exactly as it was intended ...

[SamKnause]

2. Exactly !!!!

I don't know why people keep pretending this was not intentional !!!!!

No government could be this stupid or destructive by accident !!!!

No government could influence 110 other countries to follow their insanity, unless there were insidious amounts of money to be made.

The amount of death and destruction the United States government has caused, with their fake war on drugs, around the globe and in this country is incalculable.

I am so sick and tired of U.S. citizens acting like they don't know the truth.

This war was waged on a plant that has never caused a single death.

Where is the sanity in such a deceitful and destructive policy ???????????

[Uncle Joe]

3. This chart explains your top graph.

Chart Label Offense # of Inmates % of Inmates
a Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement 737 0.4%
b Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses 7,994 3.9%
c Continuing Criminal Enterprise 475 0.2%
d Courts or Corrections 663 0.3%
e Drug Offenses 100,867 49.8%
f Extortion, Fraud, Bribery 11,210 5.5%
g Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses 5,683 2.8%
h Immigration 21,057 10.4%
i Miscellaneous 1,598 0.8%
j National Security 77 0.0%
k Robbery 7,708 3.8%
l Sex Offenses 12,594 6.2%
m Weapons, Explosives, Arson 31,791 15.7%

Thanks for the thread, RainDog.

[RainDog]

5. Thanks for the assist, Uncle Joe

He shoots, he scores!

GOOOOOOAL...

[Uncle Joe]

6. Apparently we didn't make the top ten yet. :(

[RainDog]

7. that was fun to watch

and I learned some things. When I was a jr high kid, my sister's boyfriend called me "Pistol Pete" because I played basketball. One time... I'm so mathspastic, I misread the shot clock and, thinking we only had seconds left in the quarter, took a shot from the half-court line... and it went in. amazingly. but we still had a minute of play left.

Sports are fun for those magic times when it all seems to click - but misery for those times when nothing seems to fall your way, at least for a kid.

[Uncle Joe]

10. I hear you, RainDog, that does sound like one of those golden moments when you're in the zone,

it would be nice if it were videoed so that you could visually relive that highlight.

[RainDog]

11. LOL. My son loves to relive his pee-wee baseball years

...because, once the sport became competitive... in late elementary school, he could no longer participate because his autism interferes with his spatial skills - or is a manifestation of it. He planned to be a professional baseball player, so he told me that was the first devastating moment of his life... to learn, at age 11, that he would not be a professional, or even junior league, or anything else, baseball player.

Most autistic people have an "obsession" they stick with - for some people it's train schedules, etc... for my son, it's baseball. I've heard about every player in the Negro Baseball League, every player in the early years... and most of it goes right out the other side of my head - but he's lucky that his obsession is something "neurotypicals" share with him. LOL. His favorite player is Roberto Clemente.

I'll leave my glory days back there.

I'm on to greater things in the pro-am couch potato web surfer league.

[Uncle Joe]

12. Have you tried to see if your son has an interest in music?

If the music were tied to baseball, maybe he would show some interest?

[RainDog]

13. oh yeah. he was all-state vocal jazz

He sang in Bernstein's "Mass" as a 9 year old... I used to sing, too, but, like my basketball aspirations, my shyness got the better of me. Anyway, when he was a little kid he was in a University Children's Choir, before he was dx'd, even. I was always heavily involved in music. His dad was always involved in sports.

He took violin lessons when he was younger but I couldn't get him interested in playing an instrument, unfortunately.

[Uncle Joe]

14. Well it's good that he has a passion in his life, even if he can't play it anymore.

I have no doubt you have been a good mother for him.

[RainDog]

15. His big passion is acting

He has an amazing memory. So, when he was 13 or so, he got to have his glory day. When he was 12, he was the lead in the middle-school drama club play. He didn't try out for the lead the next year so that another kid could have a turn... and the other kid, unfortunately, got suspended for possession of mj three days before the play was scheduled to begin. My son had a smaller role, but he had memorized the lead role just from hearing it, so the drama teacher met with him a couple of times to block out his moves, then he performed, perfectly, a few days later.

He got a standing ovation, and, yeah, I was crying.

I did all right by him when he was younger. I never knew how... overpowering love could be till I had kids and wanted to protect them.

He's on his own now, but can't find a decent job because, while he has all these amazing skills, he not very... practically skilled... that's the best way I know how to put it. He did develop a lesson plan in consultation with a teacher and taught, as an extra-curricular thing, French to elementary students where he attended elementary school. (He learned basic Chinese in elementary school hearing it taught to other students in the same activity room.) He tutors college students in French, too, but none of that is enough to survive.

He just told me he applied for the Peace Corp. Sort of freaks me out b/c he's very trusting of people, can't drive, doesn't always read social cues... so that scares me, but I can't make his decisions for him - and who knows if he'll actually be chosen.

[Uncle Joe]

16. You should be proud, he sounds like an outstanding, compassionate young man, the Peace Corps!

It's so amazing and yet tragic to have all those skills of memorization and yet be hampered in seemingly simple but essential things that we must be able to do in order to survive.

I'm just wracking my brain trying to think of jobs that would pay him well for his language memorization skills.

Do you have any other children?

[RainDog]

17. I tried to encourage him to do "color commentary"

for sports events... all those anecdotes...but he wanted to act. Still does, and does... he was recently in the play Urinetown. I just don't know how he would do in a situation where he doesn't know his environment very well.

My younger son took his first job as a systems analyst. When he was in middle school, the teachers wanted to put him in a vocational program because he had to take medicine for a disability that can sometimes interfere with cognitive function - and he was a gamer, not writer/reader kind of kid. (Tho now that he's working, he's starting to read for pleasure, probably to know references from the sci-fi geeks in the field...) lol.

He has an extremely dry sense of humor, all subtle, the sort of thing his older brother doesn't even get... he was like that from the first I recall of him. What's great is he brings up subjects, to me, about the MRM, Dworkin, etc... he hears this from his peer group, I'm sure - but he doesn't fall in with that world at all. He's engaged, too.

So, they're both doing well, thankfully.

eta: I talk about my older son's autism because he's very vocal about it. I don't talk about my younger son's situation because he chooses to be private.

eta, part deux - the interesting thing about my younger son's experience is that his dad was from a working class family and his 5th grade teacher or so told his parents that he could maybe be a plumber (and, in Europe, kids are really tracked into school programs early.) But, he didn't agree, I suppose, and got a licentiate in math, then a full scholarship for a PhD program in the U.S.

The moral of both stories is to not let others set your expectations for yourself. As a female trying to be "good" that was always a hard one for me to overcome - so I hope younger females simply refuse to listen to that sort of thing anymore.

[Uncle Joe]

18. I can appreciate that, I'm kind of private as well.

At this stage of my life, I will probably never have children, so I'm an Uncle to the world, or at least I play one on the Intertubes.

As a side note, I can't image what a play titled Urinetown would be about?

Although I used to make a joke about the theme song of "trickle down economics" being "Urine the Money."

[RainDog]

19. here ya go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinetown

At this stage of my life, I'm over being a mommy - I was never really interested in typical female life scripts, but sort of ended up following one anyway.

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans, I believe Mr. Lennon said.

So, yeah, I'm totally mommified with my kids. Beyond that.. eh. lol.

I used to sing this to my kids when they were babies.

but my older son sometimes asks me to sing my version (for him) of Sweet Baby James... I substituted "thinking about bunnies and glasses of juice" for women and beer. LOL. He loves that song.

[Uncle Joe]

20. Well that looks like a fascinating play,

Although, I don't know whether to laugh or cry, what was once satire becomes thinkable especially when considering what's going on in Detroit nowadays.

It makes me think of this Archie Bunker satire clip, on the Video Forum, we used to laugh at this as being ridiculous but in too many ways is coming true.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017200569

[Uncle Joe]

21. I just pulled an all nighter here.

This has been an enjoyable discussion but I believe I'm going to bed for a while.

Peace to you, RainDog.

[xchrom]

4. du rec.

[littlemissmartypants]

8. Kicking. Thank you. nt

[RainDog]

9. thank you! n/t