Justice?

I’ve spent a good deal of time the past two weeks working with guys in the American Lit (pre-1890) class.  They have research papers due in another week and have been laboriously reading works by Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville and Douglass.  The paper assignment is to identify a significant cultural change in America that took place in the 19^th century and discuss various writers in context with that change.  It’s a rather heavy topic, especially for guys who’ve never before been exposed to writers of that era.  So many of the young guys in here see life solely in terms of their experiences.  History, other places, other ideas, are as far away as the sun.

So I had a few guys gathered the other afternoon to discuss a couple of their topics.  I explained the philosophical basis for Thoreau’s essay titled “On Civil Disobedience”, how Thoreau refused to pay taxes to support a war against Mexico and instead willingly went to jail.  Your conscience, your moral compass, Thoreau argued, requires you to say no at times even when everyone else says yes.  It was Thoreau’s challenge to the “band wagon” effect:  right and wrong are not defined by popular opinion.

We read Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address where the 16^th President noted both sides believe God supported their interpretation of His word regarding slavery.  And Lincoln went on to note the bloodletting arose from those firm positions.  Yet, he said, no country could survive where one out of eight were enslaved.

We read Frederick Douglass who quoted the Declaration of Independence and then simply asked – how does America espouse such ideals and then fall so short?

Unfortunately, the disconnect these writers saw in America is not confined to the 19^th century.  Thoreau, Lincoln and Douglass are as relevant today as they were in the 1800s; perhaps more so.

This week the Obama Administration announced that a CIA drone had killed a wanted terrorist in Yemen.  Shortly after the announcement Congressman Ron Paul issued his comments.  He said the dead terrorist was a United States citizen (true), who had never been arrested, tried or convicted (true) of any crime.  And he said it was wrong for America to sanction assassinations.

Ron Paul may be a lot of things, but he is clearly a man of conscience.  He may be the only courageous politician in Washington today.  His comments go against everything this country has espoused and committed since September 11, 2001.  That his comments about justice and law are so rarely heard today should give anyone pause who believes in American exceptionalism.

An exceptional country does not kill – assassinate – with drones.

An exceptional country does not put security ahead of justice.

This week I read an interview with the recently released hikers home from prison in Iran.

“In prison”, they said, “we lived in a world of lies and false hopes”.  I found those words ironic.  Everyday 2.3 million men and women languish in prison cells around the country.  Everyday they – no, we – are subjected to violence, filth and degradation.  Everyday in prison is a battle against lies told by officers and treatment counselors.  Everyday is a battle against hope.  And nothing these two male hikers experienced is any different than what the incarcerated in America go through every day.

An exceptional country would not tolerate a prison system as corrupt and poorly managed as America’s.

As I spoke to the guys I saw the power of Thoreau’s words, the intellectual truths of Lincoln and Douglass’ words register.  What those men wrote is not confined to the 19^th century.  Their words are relevant today.  America can do better.  America cannot be a county that approves of assassination in the name of national security.  America cannot be the country of 2.3 million incarcerated and 46 million living below the poverty line.

As Thoreau wrote, “Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine [of injustice]…do not lend yourself to the wrong….”

Frank and Sam and other Lawbreakers

I watched the news this week as two young American hikers were released from prison in Iran and flown “to freedom” to the Sultanate of Oman.  The Sultan, it seems, paid the Iranian authorities $1,000,000 to secure the early release of the two Americans, two years into eight year sentences for illegally crossing the border into Iran.  How ironic, I thought.  The “dark and sinister” Iran has a more progressive early release system than the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Those two hikers – who broke legitimate Iranian laws on border integrity (a favorite topic for the Tea Party crowd:  border security) were released after serving 25% of their sentence.  In Virginia, those two guys would still have five more years to go:  85% of an eight year sentence is 84 months (7 years).

“But those two young Americans are innocent”, you respond.  We’ll come back to that later.  Let me tell you about Frank and Sam.

Frank and Sam are two new students assigned to me in the adult basic ed class I tutor.  Frank was born in 1945.  He is a soft spoken 66 year old black man with a slight stammer.  He reads at the 2^nd grade level.  Sam is a 61 year old black man confined to a wheelchair.  He suffers from diabetes.  His left leg was amputated slightly above the knee from complications with the disease.  Where his leg was, he now ties his state-issued jeans in a knot.  He has sparkling bright eyes and an impish smile.  He reads at the 3^rd grade level.

The law in Virginia is that every “offender” at least be enrolled in adult basic ed with the goal of receiving a state-issued GED.  The law in Virginia is that “offenders” earn a maximum of 4.5 early release credit days for time served per month.  Offenders – in Virginia at least – must serve at a minimum 85% of their sentence.  As Charles Dickens so aptly put it, “the law my dear sir is a ass”. 

Frank and Sam will never earn their GEDs.  For the vast majority of their lives they have been treated as the refuse of a fast-paced economy that values technology but disrespects the integrity of simple labor.  Both men have meandered through life as unskilled laborers, barely making enough to support and sustain their families.

So every day these two guys, Frank and Sam, hauled bricks, cleaned toilets and picked up the trash from those of us fortunate enough to come from families with money.  And their kids?  They saw the same ads for all the “must haves”.  Only they couldn’t have.

So both men over their lives strayed from “the law”.  They broke into houses, sold “hot” property, and sold drugs.  They are part of the vast “criminal” underclass in this country:  men and women who were discarded by the public schools and society years ago, illiterate, forgotten, unable to provide for themselves and their families.

What does Virginia do?  The glorious Commonwealth returns them to prison in their sixties for “probation” violations at a cost, estimated by the Richmond Times Dispatch in an article on elderly inmates in December 2010, of $70,000 per year.  These men are lied to everyday.  “We’re going to retrain you and prepare you for a successful return to society.”  Excuse my language, but that dear readers is a load of shit.

These two older convicts are functionally illiterate men who have been ignored and treated unfairly their entire adult lives.  They have been run in and out of the “corrections” system for three and four year bids at a time. DOC is doing nothing to change their lives.  They will do their bids and return home to no money, no jobs, no nothing.

What good is prison doing Frank and Sam and the thousands and thousands of other inmates just languishing away in these corrections cesspools?

Which leads me back to our two “hero hikers” who accidentally crossed the Iranian border while hiking, “seeing the world”.  They violate Iran’s territorial integrity and are prosecuted under Iranian law.  We react with a great big “how dare you”.  Is Iranian law and trial procedures and sentencing somehow less worthy of support than American or Virginia law and criminal procedure?  And why is it we expect, no demand, Iran release these two “lawbreakers” while we applaud “lock em up and throw away the key” justice in America?

“But they’re innocent”, you remind me. 

Nine chief witnesses recanted in Troy Davis’s case and the State of Georgia still gave him the needle this week.  Perhaps we are no better than Iran.  Perhaps we’re nothing but hypocrites.  Explain the difference to Frank and Sam.