While many today celebrate Independence Day today, instead of breaking with the wage-slave masters and not working on "the true Fourth of July" I thought it appropriate to place this article here while so many Americans are cheating the calender.
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| Graterford Pennsylvania state prison. Images by John Grant. Courtesy the TCBH news collective. |
[Excerpt]
... It’s something I’ve grappled with and have come to terms with. I
understand completely why they do it; anyone in their right mind would
do the same. I've taught writing in the Philadelphia prison for 11 years
and have been in and out of Graterford and other state prisons many
times. Prison systems in America are fortresses of assumptions very
alien to people like me, and if you want access, you have to march to
their drum. After while, you get to know corrections officers and others
in the prison system and you realize many of them are just as trapped
in it as you are.
One day in the Graterford lobby waiting with a regional VA
representative to get inside for a meeting of veteran inmates, I got to
chatting with a ranking white-shirted Graterford corrections officer who
was an Iraq veteran. I told him I was a vet and about the two trips I
had made to Iraq during the war. We compared places we’d been; we shared
a few laughs. At one point, I said I’d been in Graterford a number of
times before. He looked at me and a bit ominously said: “Oh, we know who
you are.” I felt a little like Joseph K. waiting to find out from some
mysterious entity who exactly I was.
Some years ago, a fellow photographer and I had hopes of making a
film about incarcerated veterans. We attended meetings, and prison
officials considered our request. In the end, we were not permitted to
film in the prison. Then, a few weeks later, Oprah Winfrey strolled in
with a camera crew. Apparently, it had to do with the theme of our film
and that we were loose cannons lacking corporate sponsorship. It’s
possible the climate is changing; we’re hoping a short film will be
possible soon.
My only foray into the state political arena in Harrisburg came when
we first thought a film might be possible. A Philadelphia activist
friend had a job working for Governor Rendell. She had excellent
contacts. I emailed her and described Commer Glass, his case as a
veteran and the film idea we had focused on incarcerated veterans. Would
she run some interference concerning permits etc with the Department of
Corrections? Sure, she said; she’d get back to us.
Then I got an email with no greeting or salutation at all; it just said: “He’s a lifer?”
I e-mailed back: “Yes. As I told you, he’s a Vietnam veteran lifer.”
I never heard from her again. Nothing. It was as if I’d extended a
deadly electrified rail into her office and had tried to ruin her
political career. ...
Read this very interesting and timely article at This Can't Be Happening!
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