Federal judge grants request to force-feed California inmates on weeks-long hunger strike

[brett_jv]

21. Also true, of course ...

Last edited Tue Aug 20, 2013, 07:49 PM - Edit history (3)

But many not as enlightened as us might read it like 'oh, so these strikers are gang members who've been told by their murderously violent leaders (who are stuck in solitary) to go on hunger strike to get them out' or some such.

But I think that angle is just bullcrap that prison officials are trying to sell. Maybe some gang leaders were involved in planning, but so what. They may well be the only ones with the power to do something like this, but the 'cause' is just, regardless of who's organizing it. Not everyone in solitary is a violent gang leader (and even if they were, it's still an F-D up system of torture that should be stopped), and the protest is not about any particular person(s) in solitary anyway.

These sorts of articles that not only fail to go into any detail about the cause, but actually appear to want to deliberately distort the public's impression OF the cause ... are very disheartening. Then again, I really don't expect different from AP. I've felt their organization is on the side of big corporate money and the status quo ever since I started paying attention to it in the early 2000's.

When ANYone is put in the type of solitary that happens in places like Pelican Bay for extended periods, it has the potential to cause serious and lasting psychologically damage. In fact it can and has literally driven people insane, and there's no way to know how long that process will take for any given person. Suicide and self-harm are extremely common in those places. 'Solitary' basically breaks people, and we have NO idea (nor inclination to figure out) how to fix them afterwards.

But perhaps the most important thing people need to realize about this whole 'system' is that JUDGES are often not the ones to decide to put people in solitary. This is something that Prison Wardens (even wardens of private, for-profit prisons) get to decide on a fcuking WHIM, for whatever reason they want.

Very often, it's actually the mentally ill that get shipped off to places like Pelican Bay, because they're too much 'trouble' (not to mention often needing more expert care and thus resulting in a lower profit margin for the 'private' prison) when mixed in with the general population ... with predictable results. Talk about a bad combination ... mental illness + the harshness and isolation of solitary = BAD THINGS HAPPENING.

On top of that, the only 'safeguard' is a pathetically unfair 'review' process, that's very difficult to even access. And there's no accountability for the decision or what damage it inflicts on the person.

So, these folks are protesting what amounts to a system of extra-judicial punishment (torture, according to many mental-health experts) that is arbitrarily enforced by people who should NOT have the authority to determine punishment ... that's virtually unreviewable ... wherein they have no recourse for the harm done to them ... I mean, this is a seriously f-ed up 'system'.

I'll say it again: I support these strikers 110%. It sucks that they have to go to these lengths though, putting their own lives on the line like this, but ... I guess that's the only way to get heard. I consider what they're doing to be an act of great courage & very much hope it friggin' amounts to something ... This whole system is an evil and disgraceful travesty of injustice and immorality, totally unsuitable for a civilized Nation.

Copy of a 2012 Rolling Stone article that is must-read on the subject ... didn't see the original on the Google but didn't look that hard.
http://betweenthebars.org/posts/10568/magazine-article-rolling-stone-slow-motion-torture

What's really amazing is to find out that the horrifying effects of Solitary on the minds of prisoners were already extensively documented by 1890 (after nearly 60 years of study). During the late 1800's, the practice became universally regarded as unacceptably inhumane by all of polite US society, including in written opinions of the US Supreme Court, and abandoned nearly entirely for 80 years after.

But ... we never learn, do we? Now, we get these a-hole prison officials telling interviewers:

"Oh, golly, there's just NO evidence that proves it HURTS anyone to lock 'em in Solitary, no, they're more 'resilient' than that! Oops, did I say Solitary? I meant 'Timeout!'. Solitary has a bad historical connotation (for some reason, I've no IDEA why?), so we just don't call it that. What I mean is, it's NOT Solitary. That's why we don't call it that ... WE like to call it 'Timeout!'

Of course, 'Timeout!' isn't TORTURE, on account of we don't MEAN to hurt them, you have to MEAN to hurt them for it to be torture! Look up the definition! And again we don't even know that it does, there's no evidence it hurts them ... I mean, if it were Solitary, I dunno maybe but it's not, it's 'Timeout!', so, it's also obviously Not-Torture, because we don't know of any 'Timeout!' studies and plus we don't MEAN to, so you know what ... it's fine, really!"

BS. I'm sorry, but most people nowadays are nowhere near as 'resilient' as people were in the 1800's, and even those folks went nuts from it. These officials know. That's why they DENY it's 'Solitary', because we've know for a FREAKING CENTURY that Solitary destroys people ... DERP.

Recent News on the Strike from RS ...
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/searching-for-the-truth-about-californias-prison-hunger-strike-20130813