no comment
 

News story about the complaint: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile...ention-center/

Complaint itself (PDF link): https://projectsouth.org/wp-content/...omplaint-1.pdf

"...Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) operated by the private prison company, LaSalle Corrections..."

Ah, yes, LaSalle Corrections. I am not surprised to hear credible accusations of neglect, and even of outright atrocities.

I recognize them among the many private prison bankrollers of Trump's "law and order" and "strong borders" stances:
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/ne...on/4393366002/

Private prisons. What an obscenity.

Aaron, this seems to be a brand new story, like hours old. If the reports of the whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, are true, that detainees are being subjected to unnecessary hysterectomies, they are some of the most frightening and disturbing things I’ve ever read. Surely the story can’t be buried and just end with the “facility” issuing this bland statement: “We are deeply committed to delivering high-quality, culturally responsive services in safe and humane environments“. This needs to be properly investigated, by some sort of Human Rights organisation, and as quickly as possible. It’s truly horrible. And if it turns out to be true, surely to God it should be the lead story in every news report in the country, and a clear commitment to closure of these places be at top of the agenda of issues to pressure the Democrats with. These awful places, run for fucking profit, need to be back on the political agenda anyway.

The story is outrageous and probable. However, many people have become inured to atrocity. Outrageous news becomes lost in a sea of outrageous news. Institutions are not expected to behave morally, even by those sections of society that have traditionally been served by them, much less by those long marginalized. Stories of horror are used as political weapons, to be believed, scoffed at or ignored by stripe of allegiance, with true and fabricated stories standing on equal footing. The institutions of oversight have become corruptly partisan.

Great damage has been done to the USA's idea of itself. In part it may have woken to recognize what has long been true. Anger and defiance may be products of shame. The president and his party are symptoms of an infected wound. What might have been hidden is now done openly and with impunity. This story may break across front pages but that probably won't budge the needle in political fortunes or societal direction.

There is too much fake news mixed into things to have much trust in the news, especially when it is this close to an election. "Fake until proven unfake" is the safer approach to news now a days.

Ron, what you say, depressingly, probably has a lot of truth to it, but I suppose people can only keep trying to weed out some justice and hope from the morass.

But Kevin, this story is so sickening surely the emphasis should be on an assumption of its truth and the necessity that it be fully investigated, rather than dismissal with this verbal shrug. Fake news and partisan exaggeration exists across the political
divide, yes, but adopting a "guilty till proven innocent" attitude to news involving blatant human rights abuses seems the height of cynicism.

The Guardian have picked up the story now.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.the...-irwin-georgia

It’s important to stay mentally sober just before elections. The potential for decent rehabilitation and care giving in private detention centers exists, and in some cases at least it could easily exceed that of the standard bureaucratic regimes in governmental institutions, federal, state, and local.

That said, they have to be run to make a profit, and the downside of that is very steep. Prisons of some sort for hazardous people are as much a public need as public roads, a public postal service, and governmentally operated military. Private prisons have as much or more potential for secret abuse than private armies. They should be very temporary at best. At worst, they have the potential to become awful.

Keep your eyes on the road and your hands properly placed on the steering wheel. Be ready to stop on a dime. Flash your blinkers at any vehicle crowding from the rear.

Think. Think again. Think once more. That doesn’t mean see no evil.

I’m bailing from this thread.

I just wanted to come back to note that coerced and/or improperly informed sterilization has been a common practise for indigenous people in many health centres in Canada. I think that this practice, at least, has ceased and is considered broadly wrong now. (Lest my previous comment be read as smug and condemning from my Canadian-ness.)

Nancy Pelosi has called for an investigation into the Whistleblower Complaint on Massive Health Care Abuse at ICE Detention Centers. Rightfully so. To not investgate a crime as egregious as that alleged would be a crime. That would be like someone phoning the police that they were robbed and the department dismissing the claim outright.

Good.xxxxxx

The expression "fake news" is just another way of saying I'm only going to believe what I want to believe and the truth be damned. It's a mantra of the brainwashed. I've read several articles about this in respected journals. No one is jumping to conclusions. One Trump supporter tried to say it couldn't be happening because the operations are expensive and the govt. wouldn't want to pay for it. That is ridiculous. The Trump and Republican govt. doesn't want to help the citizens but are more than willing to shift taxpayer money into corporate coffers, especially shady corporations such as the ones that run for-profit prisons. Those words—for-profit prisons—are so disgusting.

California has a particularly ugly history of state-sponsored eugenics, which included decades-long campaigns of nonconsensual sterilization of tens of thousands of women in "undesirable" categories--mostly poor, Latina, and Black:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449330/

Similar allegations about the LaSalle-run facility, if true, fit into a long pattern of institutionalized white supremacy based eugenics in the United States. It's a form of genocide. "An estimated 40% of Native American women (60,000-70,000 women) and 10% of Native American men in the United States underwent sterilization in the 1970s." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugeni...American_Women

[Edited to say: Presumably some of those women gave fully informed consent. It's the widespread absence of fully informed consent that concerns me, not the fact that sterilizations took place. I have heard multiple firsthand reports, quoted in the San Diego Union-Tribune and attributed to named people, in which immigrant detainees in ICE or ICE-contracted custody have said they were forced to sign consent forms that they could not understand--including to separate them from their minor children, whom they have now not seen for years.]

That said, I realize that the specifics of this particular complaint are mostly second-hand, and need further investigation, especially given the timing so close to a major election. But one hopes that skepticism about the motives and timing of these particular allegations will lead to investigation and evidence-seeking, rather than blanket dismissal of the accusations as mere propaganda.

John R, agree of course with everything you wrote. But who cares what Trump supporters say? I also don't deal with flat-earthers, Qanon, climate change deniers, antivaxxers, bikers in South Dakota, or anyone who believes Jared Kushner is qualified for anything. I also believe that roughly 40% of the united states should check into a clinic. (Though being a delusional corrupt racist might qualify as a preexisting condition...)

I was responding to a comment in the thread.

Yeah, ignore that, John. I think I've just had it with all the nonsense (not you, but what I mentioned). And to add to all the trouble and bleakness, RBG just died...

Yes, a perfect reason why you should never watch Fox News
.....
never.

Regards,
Cameron

Fox News is at least better than most of the liberal mainstream news that have an obvious agenda to demonize Trump as much as possible and are willing to sacrifice accuracy and objectivity to cater to that agenda.

Do we really need the agenda of any news agency
to determine if Trump or anyone else has a pair of horns or not?

Trump does not need any news media to demonize him. His every action demonstrates he is exactly the type of person every piece of great literature, every fairy tale, every moral tale from every religion, every look inside a loving human, teaches us not to be. One has to be depraved in a way that goes well beyond adherence to any dogma to not see that. No one with a soul needs a news station to tell them what an empty and cruel creature he is and no media is capable of convincing those incapable of seeing the truth of who he is.

No one who still supports Trump is susceptible to any kind of argument or information. Our energy should be spent encouraging and helping as many people as possible to vote.

We don't even need to and shouldn't try to influence how they vote. If there's a massive turn out, the good (well, the far far better) folks will win.

Trump supporters understand this.

A mentality that writes off so many people in one swoop simply because they don't share your over-the-top negative bias about someone is more along the lines of "depraved" I think.

.

That’s the magic. No one cares what you think.

And you would know what everyone cares or doesn't care about.

Kevin, are you calling for a vote on who here thinks your opinions on poor Mr. Trump's slander by the big bad Left has any intellectual merit? I have you polling in the low single digits on this question.

No, and I fail to see whence you came up with that notion.

Do you form your opinions based on how popular they are at a poetry workshop?

Intellectual merit and truth aren't determined by "popularity" or "votes".

I never claimed the opinion is "popular" here, so it seems a "straw man". It hardly specifically "my" opinion"; Trump supporters in general, even some non-supporters, have strongly voiced opinions about how lopsidedly bias against him so much of the mainstream liberal media have been.

I just noticed you're Canadian. I am instantly suspicious when someone who isn't a U.S. citizen is pro-Trump. The rot and destruction he brings to the U.S. is warming the heart of Putin and others. There are many things to be angry at the U.S. about and perhaps Trump is that punishment. I know if I didn't like the U.S. I'd love Trump.

But hell with it. I'm here for poetry, not arguing with trolls.

.
I second James's #14 post.

Onward, towards a more perfect union.
.
.

I see you like to show off your layers of rude prejudice.

A good economy, safer borders, less wars, cheaper prescriptions, is not "rot and "destruction". The rot and destruction is your hatefulness and the denialism of the good he has done.


Yea right, anyone who doesn't share your hate toward Trump doesn't like the US. Wow, you sure know how to delve into the depths and diversities of an issue.

"Depraved", "troll", suspicious because I am Canadian. What other cheap shot do you want to come up to try bash someone you disagree with? Your words so far are a shameful gobbet of negative prejudice. Your poetic side better be very poetic to atone for how rude this side of you is.

It's not rude to object when someone supports a fascist who praises Nazis and subverts the norms of democracy while attempting to take away health insurance from millions and threatening to put his political opponents in jail, not to mention actively seeking to undermining the election by crippling the post office and declaring that they only way he will lose is if the process is rigged against him. And that's just a short list of the ways he has taken one long continuous crap on America, without even mentioning the pandemic that Canada has managed to control but the US under Trump's leadership has totally failed to deal with. Now I take it that you don't believe that Trump is fascist, but put yourself in the shoes of those of us who actually believe that Trump is a dangerous fascist creating a crisis for our country and the world. Given that belief, do you really expect that people are going to pat you on the back and give you respect for disagreeing?

They aren't cheap shots. I've seen and lived in a good deal more of the world than Saskatchewan - or than Donald Trump, for that matter - and I've learned to detect the phonies, the liars, the people with a long history of cheating in business, the utter and total bullshit artists - and every criticism you read here of Donald is correct, and then some. You're drinking the Kool Aid, Kevin, and you're fortunate to be living in a country where the leadership is solid and honest - and competent - and few fall for Donald's array of lies. I'm not, and I'm terrified for my country.

These guys are way nicer to you than you deserve, Kevin.
We are way past justification for playing nice with Trump. Historically, we know what you are. You are a bystander and an enabler. And a coward since you prescribe from remove.


The concept of a Trump derangement syndrome is a thought virus designed to short circuit any real examination of the relation of present actions to their counterparts in the past. It isn't necessary for stooges like yourself to swallow the criminal nature of this regime. You have already digested that bit. It is how you are taught to get past the vestiges of hesitation left in you from a culture that portrays Nazis and Klansmen as the bad guys of the other team. It isn't the dehumanization of outsiders that would trouble your conscience. Just the uniforms and the sheets. This isn't political thought for most anymore. It is sport and vicarious identification with power and the familiar furniture of resentments.

The Reich-framing of the moment is hyperbole just because your team lacks competence and intelligence. The road blocks in his way are more severe than they were in the Wiemar Republic. And Trump's team is way more clumsy. Admittedly the goals are somewhat different. The techniques of murder will be more subtle but the will to power and the disregard of human lives is the same. More importantly the Certainty that is coming into its own is more immune to actual thought than anything we have seen in many centuries.

In the histories of these movements, suckers like you only double down and get cozier with the violence and the ignorance until they get real place in the game or become collateral damage. The hysterectomy issue is a case in point. The people in custody are already stateless and without real human rights. You have already swallowed that camel and now cling to the gnat that the worst accusations might be hyperbole. All the while each rise in temperature normalizes the day before.

You are gone over to the devil already. Few come back. Any that do, have a burden of proof before they are accepted back into civil discourse. This isn't about me promoting permanent polarization of right and left. The Lincoln Party guys over here have all sorts of past stances I think wrong. But they know the devil when he asks for their hand. So I can see them as legitimate parts of a healthy polis and as partners in making a world between us. I can fight the ideas of theirs when I think they are dangerous without exiling their person from the public sphere. But Waterboys for Ignorafascism or any other ideology of violence and greed have no place the future without renouncing that shit. That is who you are right now. You don't recognize the uniform when you look down. But you will look back on the ecological and political violence one day and have to own what you allowed with your assent.

The original question you asked of John seemed to hint at what others here thought of your static. It seems my first post wasn't obvious enough and you misunderstood it as a suggestion we do morality by vote. I imagine this is more clear.

Enjoy the complicity from afar. May you get the type of leadership you wish upon others, up close and personal enough that you can see it for what it is and return to common decency with a better sense of discernment than you have now.

No, nobody deserves the evil that Kevin champions, not even Kevin. And that leaves aside all the innocent victims such a fate would claim.

May Kevin have a sincere change of heart or, failing that... I'd probably get banned if I said.

The rest of your post is on point, Andrew.

It is not a danger without precedent and it can flourish. From Wikipedia:

Augustus employed several forms of artwork and literature to boast the image of the enforcer of the Pax Romana (Roman Peace), alternatively called Pax Augusta. He can be perceived as a historically important figure who effectively utilised propaganda in creating and maintaining his principate[1]. Augustus’ wide range of propaganda targeted all aspects of Roman society, art and architecture to appeal to the population, coinage to represent himself to the masses, and finally literature such as poetry and history for the wealthy upperclass in order to exert power and to maintain peace and prosperity. [2]

The propaganda didn’t only exist as a form of media, but Augustus’ family, the women especially played a pivotal role in helping to maintain the principate. His family was essential in acting as examples of the ideal Roman citizen, this aspect is clearly enunciated through the responsibility of his wife.[3] Moreover, one of his daughters, Julia the Elder was indispensable in solidifying Augustus' bloodline in future ruling generation, ensuring the continuation of Augustus' successful legacy.[3]

Thus, Augustus’ multi-faceted approach allowed for him to dominate public and private sectors of daily Roman life. Archaeological evidence and scholarly interpretations demonstrate the effectiveness of Augustus’ propaganda.

Others have addressed the key points here quite well. But I'd like to address two less important points:

Kevin, how can someone who objects to "rude prejudice" champion Donald Trump, of all people?

Your double standard here is ludicrous. I'm sorry to have to say so, but it is.

Listen to yourself.

Kevin, do you understand that "the economy" is not the same thing as "the stock market"?

Do you understand that small business owners, unemployed people, and people who have taken pay cuts in order to stay employed are NOT enjoying the "good economy" of which you speak?

Yes, the stock market is doing well. That's fantastic for people who have the means to invest in the stock market. Not so fantastic for these people:

https://content.fortune.com/wp-conte...in-2020-10.png

Those are initial claims. Many of the people who made claims in April, May, June, July, and August are still unemployed, or have since taken jobs for much lower pay, or are people (mostly women) whose increased family obligations during the extended pandemic--extended thanks to Trump's ineffectiveness in that regard--have pushed them out of the workforce, and have kept them there.

Other signs that "the economy" is not so rosy as you claim:

A Running List of San Diego Restaurants That Have Permanently Closed Since the Coronavirus Crisis

A majority of young adults in the U.S. live with their parents for the first time since the Great Depression

In conclusion, it is inaccurate to say that Donald Trump's policies--and particularly his failure to discourage idiots from spreading the coronavirus--have been good for "the economy."

I will agree that Donald Trump has been very, very good for wealthy people. However, I fail to understand why people who are not wealthy--and who are significantly worse off financially than they were four years ago--should be expected to celebrate what Trump's "economy" is doing for someone else, while they are suffering themselves.

It is rude to target the person instead of the person's statements/position. When you call the person "depraved", a "troll", and the like that is no longer just an objection, but rude and insulting characterizations of the person.


Give me a break, Roger. "A fascist who praises Nazis?" This is exactly the kind of extremist labeling the media tries to trigger in people . There is absolutely no evidence to support support such labels. It is hatemongering garbage, and you would know that if you researched claims against Trump and judged Trump directly by his own message (e.g from his rallies, interviews and the like) instead of by the mainstream media, that are trying to fuel as much hate toward him (and thereby also toward folks who support him) as possible (e.g the accusation that he refused to condemn white supremacy: This goes back to another falsehood: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/02/tr...-supremacists/ ) The religious commitment to spreading this lie and by extension, to demonize, condemn, and write off a serious majority of your fellow countrymen as "supporters of fascism", is an example of negative bias at its absolute extreme.

He is trying to replace the current health insurance with something better and more affordable for everyone, not "take it away". I would agree that a lot has stood it the way and he has yet to make it happen, but there's a big difference between struggling to achieve a better deal for everyone - which he probably will - and attempting to take away health insurance.

Do you seriously believe someone - anyone - would intentionally try to take health care away from people? Even if someone did, you would need to make a case to prove the intention, if it is going to be more than just a paranoid suspicion about someone being bad and evil. The media trying to sell and you buying it is not proof.

You would have a point, if the person who he threatened to put in jail hadn't actually committed a serious crime.


Of course I don't, because there is absolutely no evidence he is. We have no more evidence to prove he is a fascist than we do to prove you are. If he supported fascism, I think we would have known long before he became a president, considering how willingly he is to let people know exactly what he thinks, no matter how controversial. Apart from there being no evidence to support the idea, considering his business background and his interests as a person, there's no context by which a fascist ideology even would seem relevant to his life, why or how he would be engaged in one. Then you have his family and friends - would they really support him if he were a fascist? Then you would need to ask why and what would make them support fascism? It is a bottomless pit of things that keep failing to support the idea.

Hating him so much that you are willing to continue with such extreme labels and bias, is a shame on all of you, a shame on your media and a shame on your country. You are engaging in a sickening level of hatefulness and demonization of someone and everyone who supports him, and an unwillingness to believe they can possibly have good intentions, are standing up for their beliefs and trying to do what they believe is the right thing just as you are. You are the ones that need to wake up. You strongly disagree with him; big deal. That doesn't justify so much intolerance, hatefulness and lies.


.

You are probably the most gullible Trump apologist I have ever encountered. What evidence do you have that he is trying to replace the current health insurance with something better and more affordable, beyond his constant insistence that it is so?

The facts:

(1) He has been saying for over two years that he would release he superior plan within two weeks and that it is fully formed, yet there is not a single member of his administration who has seen this mystery plan or knows even its broadest outlines. There is no doubt whatsoever, in other words, that the plan doesn't exist and he is just lying.

(2) He came within one vote -- John McCain's-- of repealing the ACA without replacing it, a move that would have cost millions their health insurance and eliminated protection for prior conditions. His disappointment led him to attack and denounce McCain repeatedly.

(3) There is now a case before the Supreme Court asking to have the entire ACA declared unconstitutional, which would also deprive millions of their health insurance and eliminate protection for prior conditions. Trump's administration intervened in the suit in order to support it and join in asking the Supreme Court to strike it all down.

(4) To repeat, Trump has not revealed his secret plan that is so much better than the ACA but has lied about its existence and tried his best to eliminate the ACA without even proposing a new plan.

(5) To add insult to injury, Trump has claimed that he is the one who gave us protection for prior conditions, when his only role has been to try his best to repeal the protection that is built into the ACA. The man just lies and lies and lies, and somehow people like you keep taking him at his word. It's an absurdity, really. Try looking at the facts.

It’s funny you say of us who see Trump for who he is that we are the brainwashed ones while all you can do is list his talking points. As I said, Trump is everything I was taught not to be. He is a hollow man with hollow values who had bullshitted his way through four years. We can only work and pray he doesn’t get four more. I can’t imagine the damage he could do.

If the Channel 4 fact-check report about the hysterectomies turns out to be correct, then that's a good thing, at least, so thank you for posting it, Kevin. I found the story truly disturbing. It is still right, of course, that the allegations were, and continue to be, fully investigated. If they turn out to be any sort of deliberate pre-election shock tactic hyperbole and that becomes widely reported, I hope it doesn't backfire on the Democrats or the wider left in general. And of course, it wouldn’t suddenly make these awful places, or the notion of private for-profit prisons in general, any less abhorrent.

I do think that calling all Trump supporters fascists is probably unhelpful. Because it plays into their (your) hands and strengthens their sense of grievance. But it's no less silly than the tendency of people on the right to call all their opponents Marxists. (The difference there, of course, is that while politically implemented Marxism has led to some Very Bad Things, as conservatives love to point out, its central ideas aren't inherently evil, unlike fascism. Simply put, it’s heart is in the right place). US politics does seem utterly broken right now in its divisiveness. Instinctively, I feel that politics should be fairly boring and that government should consist of serious people quietly engaged in the difficult project of improving the lives of as many people as possible, as fairly as possible. I know. What a thought! To me this comes down to good wages, good public education, free or at least easily affordable health care, a real commitment to environmental issues, everyone having equal rights and opportunities and heavy taxation of the rich. And if we don't like the results we vote 'em out. If pushed, I suppose I'd say in my heart I'm a moderate democratic socialist, though I have a weird phobia about labels in general. Of course in my imagination the world is all kinds of beautiful utopias, but I'm a realist. I'm also a great believer in honesty, and in facts over emotion and rhetoric, in politics. I want my imaginative flights of fancy confined to literature and my own imagination, not out in the real world where the purveyors of them might negatively impact actual human beings. At the moment I feel utterly exasperated with the fantasy worlds, and insults to my intelligence, that the politics of both the right and left often seem to inhabit.

The hypocrisy and nonsense of certain ‘woke‘ worldviews sometimes annoys me, and I know I probably complain about that more here than I do about the right. But that’s because I expect nothing better of the right, and I worry that these things are counter productive to the left. What I see of the right in general, particularly in the US, positively scares me, as it always has. Not all, but far too many of them really are bullies, racists, theocrats, misogynists, homophobes, climate-change deniers and rampantly amoral scorched-earth capitalists. Trump's voters might not all be fascists, though some clearly are. And Trump might not call himself one, even in the unpleasant privacy of his own head, though he clearly courts, and has, the support of white supremacists, notwithstanding any media exaggeration of his Charlottesville comments. What is glaringly obvious to me, from across the ocean, is that Donald Trump is completely unfit to lead a country, due to the fact that he is an opportunistic, empty narcissist, a bully, and a pathological liar. Even if a policy he implemented had some positive effect (I don't know. I don't follow the minutae) I wouldn't be able to see it as anything other than purely accidental, because I genuinely believe, just by observing him, that he's incapable of thinking beyond his own self interest. As Michael put it, he is one of a long line of "the phonies, the liars, the people with a long history of cheating in business, the utter and total bullshit artists". It amazes me that anyone with any intelligence or moral compass can't see this. Getting him out in November is imperative.