Chris Hedges: America’s Disappeared

[marmar]

from truthdig:


America’s Disappeared

Posted on Aug 12, 2013
By Chris Hedges


Big Frankie, Little Frankie and Al, three black men who spent a lot of time in prison and have put their lives back together in the face of joblessness, crushing poverty and the violence of city streets, abruptly stopped appearing at the prison support group I help run at the Second Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, N.J. This happens in poor neighborhoods. You see people. You make plans to see them again. And then without explanation they vanish. They get arrested for something, often trivial, after the police randomly stop them, run a check and find they owe fines, missed a court date or a meeting with a probation officer, owe child support, violated probation or have a couple of ounces of pot. The big mechanical jaw of the legal system gulps them down. And since they are poor and cannot afford bail they stay locked up. And that appears to be what happened to Big Frankie, Little Frankie and Al.

The rumor on the street is that Little Frankie, whose name is Frank Clarke and who is of Hispanic descent, did not appear for a court date because he was afraid of being deported. But no one is sure, except about the being afraid part. The Union County Jail in Elizabeth says Big Frankie and Al were arrested for “possession of controlled dangerous substances.” But this does not mean they had drugs. They might have. But they might not have. Police plant drugs all the time. And if Big Frankie and Al did have drugs they did not have very much.

In America, when you are poor, you can instantly disappear like this into the subterranean rabbit holes of our vast jail and prison complex. You crawl out weeks, months or years later. You try to pick up where you left off. You avoid the cops. You look for work. There is no work. It is a constant cat-and-mouse game the state plays with the poor. The hunters. The hunted. The poor, no matter what they do, are always potential prey, minnows in a sea of sharks. It is not only the masses in the Middle East and the jihadists who despise us for our purported “values.” The vast, persecuted underclass, the human refuse callously cast aside by our corporate state, the legions of poor our bankrupt media have rendered invisible, the young, violent street toughs with no education, no jobs, no prospects also see through the empty rhetoric of the power elite when it speaks about our freedoms and democracy. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/americas_disappeared_20130812/

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. The American police state. Once you're in the system, it's a life sentence. n/t

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

2. Unless you go to another country

Apparently

[KG]

3. lots of people don't want to hear it. it's a 'uniquely american' system, but no country locks up its

citizens the america does.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. No, they don't want to hear it at all. Maybe it's because I've always had mostly

black friends (until the last few years, anyway), or maybe it's that I keep in touch with people I like even when things go bad for them, but it always surprises me when I'm reminded how few Americans know, or want to know, the reality of our disgustingly misnamed justice system.

[KG]

8. i don't have any black friends, but if you're paying attention it not hard to know what time it is.

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. Paying attention, yep, that's the thing I guess. Paying attention to what's happening rather than

simply absorbing whatever you're fed.

[kentuck]

4. A sad reality.

maybe?

[leftstreet]

5. DURec

[WillyT]

6. K & R !!!

[DeSwiss]

9. K&R

[theHandpuppet]

11. Powerful, powerful stuff.

k & r

Thanks for posting this.

[bvar22]

12. The LAST time The Poor were mentioned as an ISSUE for the Democratic Party...

...was the day Jon Edwards (warts and all) withdrew from Campaign 2008.
His "Two Americas" Campaign told a LOT of truth.