prison - Blogs - TheBlackList Pub2024-03-28T15:40:36Zhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/prisonTackling Crime and Policing in the Ghetto with Goodwillismhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/tackling-crime-and-policing-in-the-ghetto-with-goodwillism2016-05-15T08:23:19.000Z2016-05-15T08:23:19.000ZMichael Phillipshttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/MichaelPhillips<div><p> My second book in the "<b><i>Leave the Rat Race to the Rats</i></b>" trilogy has been released. It is titled "<b><i>Tackling Crime and Policing in the Ghetto with Goodwillism".</i></b> The final book in the trilogy, "<b><i>Overcoming Political Impotence in the Ghetto with Goodwillism</i></b>" will be released soon.</p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828584654,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="200" class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828584654,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="3828584654?profile=original" /></a></p><p>About the Book<br /> "<b><i>Tackling Crime and Policing in the Ghetto with Goodwillism"</i></b><br /> The greed and the ruthlessness of the dehumanizing money-chasing rat race culture serve as a catalyst for crime. Crime is a major factor for the misery of ghetto life. Ghetto residents live in fear of criminals, of gangs and police brutality, ranging from beatings to murders of innocent unarmed people. The Goodwill Revolution to the rescue. Goodwillism is a term for the principles of the Goodwill Revolution. So, goodwillism will do the impossible. It will resuscitate, reinforce and mobilize the inherent goodness of the residents, so that combined with a good dose of common sense, in the ghetto:</p><ul><li>Criminality will decline</li><li>Recidivism will decline</li><li>Black-on-black crime will becomes black pride</li><li>Gangs will choose to do good instead of evil</li><li>Ex-cons will embrace real rehabilitation</li></ul><ul><li>Instead of the hostility, arrogance, brutality and abuse of power, the police will fulfill their role as protectors and so earn the trust, cooperation and respect of the ghetto community</li></ul><p><i>Available <b>for $2.99</b> in e-book at</i> :</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tackling-Crime-Policing-Ghetto-Goodwillism-ebook/dp/B01FDS8Q18?ie=UTF8&keywords=Tackling%20crime%20and%20Policing&qid=1463270421&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Amazon Kindle</a> (click)</li></ul><ul><li><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tackling-crime-and-policing-in-the-ghetto-with-goodwillism-michael-irving-phillips/1123773015?ean=2940153213927" target="_blank">Barnes and Noble Nook</a> (click)</li></ul></div>Community Reentry is not easy, but here is the evidence that it most definitely can be successfully achieved.https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/community-reentry-is-not-easy-but-here-is-the-evidence-that-it2015-11-18T16:00:00.000Z2015-11-18T16:00:00.000ZDave Kochhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/DaveKoch<div><p><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tqyHIfQIL._SX459_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tqyHIfQIL._SX459_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" class="align-full" alt="51tqyHIfQIL._SX459_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /></a>Community Reentry is not easy, but here is the evidence that it most definitely can be successfully achieved.</p><p><br /> This is free today.</p><p>This guide to community reentry has successfully changed the lives of countless people who served time in prison, and then reentered mainstream society with a positive and productive direction.</p><p>This 400-plus page book is free today on Amazon.</p><p>Download the Free Kindle version of this book at:</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CDG7J5I">http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CDG7J5I</a></p><p>If you don’t have a Kindle Reader, you can download the free Kindle Reader app that will run on any device at:</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200783640">http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200783640</a></p><p></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/community-reentry-easy-here-evidence-most-definitely-can-dave-koch?trk=prof-post">https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/community-reentry-easy-here-evidence-most-definitely-can-dave-koch?trk=prof-post</a></p></div>Who Are your friends, and how do your friends influence and control the path and destinations of your life?https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/who-are-your-friends-and-how-do-your-friends-influence-and2015-11-09T18:00:00.000Z2015-11-09T18:00:00.000ZDave Kochhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/DaveKoch<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828576413,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="750" src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828576413,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-full" alt="3828576413?profile=original" /></a></p><p></p><p>This is an exceptionally long article. It might be easier to print and read it over breakfast, or at bedtime.</p><p>This article is geared toward people who seem to continuously find themselves in adversarial situations, or as sometimes coined, "Stuck in the revolving door of the judicial system." In many instances, an individual finds him or herself stuck in the system, in large part because of whom they continue to associate with. Be aware, your friends may not have your best interest at heart.</p><p>In order to emphasize my main points of this article, I first need to discuss a number of related topics. So, be patient, read from start to finish, and perhaps you will find this helpful, particularly if you are one who is stuck in the system.</p><p>Many people have a tendency to serve their own needs. Everyone has their own agendas and their own Dragons to slay. Consequently, we humans are sometimes selfish and self-serving creatures.</p><p>This does not diminish the innate need many people have to help others as I have discussed before. When people are presented with the opportunity to help someone, and they believe the person they are helping is working to help him or herself, many of these people will generally provide that help. But, as I have alluded to before, the question remains, what is the core reason that underlies their charity? Is it completely out of altruism or benevolence, or is it because of the goodwill feeling that they receive?</p><p>As that pertains to you, and as it pertained to me when I needed that help, who really cares? I received the help I needed and the person helping me received their benefit. It was a win-win scenario. Nevertheless, you do need to understand that no one is going to chase after you and beat a path to your door to offer his or her help. You need to seek out your own destiny and there will be people along the way who will give you assistance. You will also face some challenges and disappointments. Don't worry about the instances where you can't get help - just focus on the next stop and keep looking for those who can give you help.</p><p>As an employer, I realize and understand the relationship between a company and its employees. There is only one fundamental reason why people came to work for my company. Sure, I provide a really neat environment. The company presents a high-tech, laid back corporate culture, fun people to work with, free snacks, our corporate puppy to play with, etc. But, the singular and fundamental reason that facilitates a congregation of people every morning around nine o'clock is money! Almost any other benefit could be removed and people would continue to show up every morning. However, if money is not a part of the equation, I guarantee that no one would come to work.</p><p>I frequently ask people during an interview why they want to work at my company and just listen to them regurgitate some rhetoric on the fly that doesn't amount to much more than a pile of manure.</p><p>Occasionally someone interviewing for a sales position would state straight out that their reason for wanting to work at my company was money! They were generally hired on the spot. The response that always caused me to really pull up my pasture-trolling boots is, "Because I love People." Uggg. Please don't ever use that line in an interview.</p><p>I don't know about you, but I go to work every day to make money. If you want an environment to exercise your love for people, join a church. If you want a job and you want to work, do it for the money.</p><p>The relationship between an employee and employer at its bare essence level is self-serving for both parties. When people come knocking for employment, I fully understand and accepted the fact that they are only there for their interests, to determine if this company could serve their needs, and if working at my company could satisfy their agendas. Guess what? I was only interested in hiring them if it would serve my needs and the needs of my company.</p><p>A corporation is an entity in and of itself, defined by law and in a very practical sense, as a "person," which has needs and agendas. A corporation is much like an infant. It is incapable of fulfilling any of its own needs. Infants and corporations need caregivers and fiduciaries - people whose responsibility it is to ensure the company's health and welfare.</p><p>As President & CEO, my primary job is to facilitate the needs, health and welfare, and overall stability of the company. Companies are narcissistic, selfish, self-serving, self-focused, self-centered, self-seeking and egocentric entities. Corporations and people alike are interested in what benefits accrue to them from a relationship.</p><p>Once you understand and internalize this fundamental fact - that people and corporations are interested in what they get out of a relationship, then you are able to form relationships that facilitate your agendas by appealing to the needs of the other.</p><p>I would like to believe that the genesis of various programs within my company was my humanitarian doctrine. With some companies I have owned, beginning in our first year, the company celebrated the Christmas holidays by giving its employees a paid holiday break from December 24th through the first weekday after January 1st. That generally equated to roughly ten days off, with pay, in addition to their normal paid vacation accrual.</p><p>Employees received a days pay for taking off on their birthday. National holidays and even company-invented holidays (Festivous) were paid in addition to an annual allowance of personal and sick days. In all, the company provided roughly 30 days a year off with full pay.</p><p>As the caretaker of the company who was obligated to serve the needs of the company, what justification did I have for implementing such programs? How did these programs serve the needs of the company? Did I implement these programs because I just love people, or was there a business case that supported the company's needs?</p><p>Indeed, my responsibility was to the company. The business case for our holiday break was simple. Business in American, excluding retail and few other industries, functionally shuts down between Christmas and New Year's. There is nothing significant happening from a practical business standpoint and payroll would be issued whether people worked that period or not. The payroll question was a wash.</p><p>Would the company's interests be best served by having people come in every day during the holidays and effectively take a vacation in a suit (since there was no real productive work), endure hours of boredom and frustration, their minds at home, longing for time off? Or, would the company's interests be better served by letting people spend time with their families and get the rest they need? Many of our employees enjoyed the boasting rights about the great benefits they receive from their great employer among their friends, who were still working during that season.</p><p>The benefits I implemented had a dramatic and positive affect on morale. People returned to work after the first of the year refreshed and energized - their sword and lance sharpened and ready to engage the Dragon in battle. The "Dragon" is a metaphor for life. Life is a Dragon. You either slay the Dragon (Life) or it will slay you.</p><p>One of our early advisors and minority shareholders suggested that employees could perform routine maintenance during holiday break. However, this was the same advisor who shared his signature methods when starting on a new construction project. The way he managed his new employees was the day his company started a new project and the union had sent a group to the worksite to staff the project, he walks out and fires one. Astonishing!</p><p>I'm not suggesting that one of us is right and the other wrong. I suppose we just have different management styles. It is interesting however, that the revenues of my company exceeded the revenues of his company in only a few years, and his company was roughly 60 years old! He inherited it from his Daddy, so he never did fully understand what it takes to actually build a corporation from scratch. If my recollection serves me well, I stopped listening to his advice right around the time he suggested that I just walk out and fire someone without cause, just to make a statement.</p><p>As an employer, I simply recognized the needs and wants of people and whenever possible, I implemented programs that appealed to those needs. The business case was that the company was the benefactor.</p><p>As an employee, it is important to identify the needs and wants of your employer, the company, your supervisor and your supervisor's supervisor. Serve their needs and you will definitely be served. Take your focus off of yourself and put it on others, and the benefits that will accrue to you will be bountiful.</p><p>Just as with professional and business relationships, people maintain friendships and interpersonal relationships for what they get out of it - not for the benefit of the other.</p><p>Why do men and women seek a partner - a significant other? We seek the fulfillment of our needs - not the fulfillment of the other's needs. Among other things, we seek physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual gratification. We seek an individual who can satisfy most of the needs that are the most important to us at that particular period in our lives. We forge bonding interpersonal relationships, akin to marriage or civil unions, with that one person who gives us the feeling of fulfillment of our needs - not with the person who we are able to fulfill their needs.</p><p>If your spouse or significant other fulfills your needs, and simultaneously, you fulfill his or her needs, it is the gratifications each receives - not gives that perpetuates the relationship.</p><p>You do not maintain these relationships because you love your partner? Although that is clearly a viable component in the relationship, it's foundation is based upon the fact - because they love you, which satisfies your need. When the needs are mutually satisfied, the relationship continues. However, it is critical to understand that people and their schedule of most important needs will change as they evolve through life. Your needs change and so do the needs of those people with whom you share a relationship. Relationships, whether interpersonal or business must maintain equilibrium, or they will dissolve. One must either rise to the level of the other, or one must lower their standards to achieve this equilibrium. Too often I see the latter. Don't lower your standards, but rather provide the inspiration for the other to rise.</p><p>As I stated, we form our closest interpersonal relationship with that one person who satisfies most of the needs that are the most important to us at that particular time in life. The needs that are the most important at any particular time are dynamic and will change. As we change and evolve, our needs change, and of particular importance, as we change, we may not be capable of fulfilling one or more needs of the other. If both parties of the relationship continuously examine one another's needs, they can make assessments as to whether or not they continue to satisfy those needs that are most important throughout their individual and collective evolution. Relationships evolve through a productive communication that achieves positive results and conclusions.</p><p>Relationships become dysfunctional for lack of awareness, understanding, consideration and attention to this fundamental premise. The survival of a relationship necessitates a continual communication and delineation of respective and changing needs, and the ability or inability of one to satisfy the needs of the other.</p><p>Through a healthy communication and understanding regarding each person's evolution and change, a relationship can not only continue, it can grow stronger because each are able to address and satisfy most of the needs that are the most important to the other. Furthermore, the expectation for satisfaction of a particular need that the other is incapable of fulfilling no longer creates tension when an open communication is practiced.</p><p>Marriages many times fail because one continues to have the same expectations of the other that were formed during the genesis of the relationship. Sexual expectations are formed when the relationship is in its hot passion phase. As time goes on, whether it is a year or fifteen years, the passion tends to fade, the frequency of sexual activity decreases and the gratification diminishes. Infidelity and its consequence is arguably a behavior of one who is re-seeking that fresh passion.</p><p>As two people in a relationship change and evolve, so do their respective needs. A person's individual needs directly affect their ability to fulfill the expectations of the other. If people recognize this and adjust their expectations of one another based upon the other's needs, they are capable of communicating and adjusting, resulting in the continued fulfillment of one another's needs that are the most important at any point in their respective evolution. This concept holds true for personal and interpersonal relationships as well as professional and business relationships.</p><p>Observe and adjust to the other persons needs and communicate your changing needs to the other person.</p><p>I believe that the relationship between men and women has a deliberate design by nature. I believe that women innately want a man who is going to treat them like a queen and provide for all of her needs. Women want their man to be a true warrior, a man who will conquer challenges, slay Dragons, be responsible and accountable, be a leader and provide for his family. If a man wants to keep a woman, he need not focus on that relationship. All he really needs to do is be the warrior his woman envisions, and she will have undying loyalty. Bear with me ladies, I'm genuinely not being sexist, condescending or chauvinistic.</p><p>I have met so many men who worry about the relationship with their spouse or significant other. The reason they worry is because deep inside, they know that they are not doing their part. Consequently, they try to keep a woman by force or some other Neanderthal method. These are the men who don't have the guts to really go out and hunt, battle and slay the Dragons. Instead, they lie around sucking their thumb and make excuses, and frequently blame their woman for their lot in life. They beat on their puffed out chest and declare themselves head-of-household. Those are the men who have more lead in their seat than steel in their backbone. A cursory examination of these men indicates that they wear their zipper on the side of their pants. The woman becomes the true head-of-household. Again, by the deliberate design of nature, where a man won't take action and fulfill his responsibilities, a strong woman will take over.</p><p>If you're a man reading this article, be a man, be responsible and accountable, and do whatever you need to do to provide for your family. If you're a woman reading this article and you are with one of those men who finds his zipper on the side of his pants, there are a lot of fish in the sea. Find a warrior. This also applies to same-sex relationships. Someone needs to be the leader, show their mettle and be the warrior.</p><p>People often use the word friend very loosely. We often refer to people who we know by name, our acquaintances and co-workers, classmates and our neighbors as our friends. In recent years, the popularity of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Google Circles, etc., have really exacerbated just how loosely people define friends. Does anyone really have two or three thousand friends?</p><p>It is important to understand the difference between a friend and those people who are merely acquaintances. We frequently consider co-workers, people whose name we know, relatives, and people who we simply find ourselves associating with because we live in the same neighborhood, work in the same place or otherwise share some commonality of interest as friends. Those relationships do not necessarily establish the requisite elements that really define friend.</p><p>Establishing a relationship of friend requires a conscious and deliberate decision, but only on the part of one person. The term friendship would suggest that both parties have made the deliberate and conscious decision to be the friend of the other. However, the relationship of friend is not always mutual and does not require that people consider the other to be their friend, or that they are the friend of the other.</p><p>I can make a choice that I am your friend. However, I cannot make the choice that you are my friend. The decision for me to be your friend is my decision - not yours, and the decision for you to be my friend is your decision, not mine.</p><p>You can freely give your friendship to anyone and it is critically important that you be judicious to whom you give your friendship. The decision to give your friendship to someone creates obligations and responsibilities. You have no control however, as to whether or not the other person gives their friendship to you. Therefore it is entirely possible that you can be a friend to someone and that person may not necessarily be a friend to you, and vice versa.</p><p>It is entirely possible that a person can be your friend and you are not necessarily their friend. As stated, being a friend to someone requires a conscious and deliberate decision, and that decision has nothing to do with the choice or decision that the other person makes with regard to him or her being a friend to you.</p><p>Making the decision to be a friend to someone means that you've decided that you will not judge him or her for whom they are, or what they've done in the past, or for their future aspirations or lack thereof. You accept them for whom and what they are. You may make suggestions in their best interest as you recognize potentials that they could pursue toward greater rewards, provided that those suggestions dovetail into that individual's pursuits and passions.</p><p>When you commit to being a friend to someone, you decide that when they make a mistake you will not chastise them, but rather, you will be compassionate and understanding, you will put yourself in their shoes, and you will try to help them resolve whatever challenge they may face.</p><p>As a committed friend, you will be available for your friend and make time for them when they need to talk, when they need counsel, and you will always try to give objectivity and help them work through any difficulties that they may be experiencing. You will allow them to make their own choices and decisions. Although their choices may not necessarily be the choices and decisions that you would make for your life, you will support their choices and support their decisions, provided that their choices will not lead to negative implications or consequences.</p><p>If you're a friend to someone, always remember that they are a completely different and distinct person than you, and that their goals, their aspirations and their dreams are different than yours.</p><p>When you're a friend to someone, you don't demand that they live up to your expectations. You attempt to help them recognize their gifts and talents, their skills, and perhaps most importantly, you try to help them identify what their passions are. Then you try to help them define, and set and achieve goals to fulfill their passions - not yours.</p><p>Now, turn everything I've been discussing here around and examine the people who tell you that they are your friend. Are your friends demonstrating the fundamental ingredients I have described and the compassion and caring of a friend? Who are your real friends?</p><p>Many a professional musician and artist were criticized and dissuaded, perhaps by parents, from pursuing their passion because that particular agenda did not meet the expectations that were envisioned by the parents. Don't place your expectations on someone else. Rather, mold your expectations around the passions of the other person and support the attainment of their aspirations and goals.</p><p>Based upon the definition of a friend, you can see that giving your friendship to another definitely creates some obligations and responsibilities. It is not easy to be a friend, but rather it is difficult and incorporates sacrifices. Conversely, remember this when you are looking at those individuals who claim to be your friend. Are they really your friend or just using the term for their personal gain?</p><p>As president and CEO of a young growing company I previously founded, I hired a large number of young people, primarily because in the early days we did not have the budget to hire people with vast amounts of experience.</p><p>Hiring young people presents a number of challenges. First they don't have a great deal of experience. However, as long as they had a good and positive attitude, were teachable and willing to learn, had the aptitude to learn the necessary components of their job, and were willing to embrace training and mentoring, I was prepared to work with these individuals and invest the necessary time to help them grow both personally and professionally.</p><p>One of the second challenges was that young people sometimes have a tendency to get off track, and they do things that are occasionally in opposition to the rules.</p><p>When I met a young person whom I felt had great potential, I also recognized that as a result of their youth there would probably be times that they would make mistakes and would need support. In these instances, I made a very conscious decision with those people that I was their friend.</p><p>I'm quite sure that there have been times that many of those young people did not even realize that I was their friend. Many of them thought their co-workers – the people with whom they hung out after work and on weekends, and everybody else were their friends. In their mind, I was just their boss. But when they were in need, when they made mistakes, or when they were in trouble, they then realized that I was their friend because I was the only person who was there backing them up.</p><p>When I made a conscious decision to be a friend to one of our young employee's, it meant that I knew there would be times that they would need my assistance, and because I decided I would be their friend, the support and assistance would be there when they needed it. It was not important to me that him or her be my friend. His or her decision to be my friend had nothing to do with my decision that I was their friend.</p><p>On average, there was a thirty-year age difference between many of these people and myself. Therefore, most of these people were not individuals that I interacted with on a social level. Our relationship was pretty much limited the work environment. However, I did not define the relationship of friend as to whether or not we shared social activities, or necessarily even had commonality of interest. I simply recognized that this is a person with potential, and in order for them to reach their potential, they occasionally need somebody who would stand behind them at times that they needed support. I was interested in providing support toward the personal and professional growth of our young staff, not assembling a group of people who would be friends to me.</p><p>I can vividly remember working for a man during my late teens that called me into his office after I had made a mistake. I remember my boss reprimanding me and saying, "Dave, as long as you're right, I'll always back you up one hundred percent." My response was one of bewilderment. There was probably ten full seconds of silence as I examined what an absurd statement that was, and what would be the best way of responding. After I had gathered my thoughts, I looked my boss in the eyes and said, "Sir, as long as I'm right, I don't need you back me. I can back myself if I'm right. I need you to back me up when I'm wrong."</p><p>I can also remember when I was probably 14 or 15 years old and the Vice-Principal of my junior high school, Vernon Rhoades, who I seem to have challenged on a frequent basis, once told me, "Dave, you probably don't understand this, but I am your best friend." At the age of 14 or 15, I'm sure I probably thought that this guy is full of malarkey. It wasn't until years later, as an adult, that I recognized the utter truth in that statement. When I reflect upon those adolescent years and the many discussions I had with Mr. Rhoades, I would venture to say that, not only was he my best friend, but also he was my only friend.</p><p>There are three fundamental points that I would like to emphasize in this discussion. The first, and probably the most important point, is to recognize who your friends are.</p><p>Your real friends are those people who are trying to provide help to you and are not looking for any return from you for their help. This list might include your parents, teachers, counselors, case workers, ministers, priests, employers, supervisors, probation and parole officers, some social workers, and numerous other people who have dedicated their life to assisting other people.</p><p>Your friends are those people who want to see you succeed, are there to help you solve problems and identify and conquer challenges. They're not necessarily the same people with whom you will interact socially, join on a picnic, go out with for dinner, or accompany to an amusement park. Those people are your pals - they're your playmates and your toys - but not necessarily your friends.</p><p>Your friends are those people who see you for who you can become - not for who you are today, or who you were in the past. They are willing to work with you, help you, and give of their time and their effort to help you stretch and grow and achieve your very highest potentials.</p><p>I can remember when I was eleven years old and was being scolded by my father for some behavioral infraction. As I recall, I was being disciplined and was told that I had to go to my room for the rest of the evening. I protested, as I apparently did not feel that the infraction was deserving of such a severe penalty as spending the reminder of the evening confined to my room. My defense was, "you're not my friend!" As my Dad looked at me, I could see compassion in his eyes and he said, "No David, I'm not your friend - I'm your father." He paused briefly, and said, "We will be friends later." Even at the early age of eleven years old, I genuinely understood what he was saying. I remember that I hugged him, and then went to my room for the evening. That was my last conversation with my Dad. It was that night that my Dad had a heart attack and died.</p><p>It is important to recognize that your true friends are not always going to tell you what you want to hear or sugarcoat the facts so everything appears peaches and cream. A friend will tell you the truth and be honest with you. They will help you identify challenges that you may not see, but that they recognize as challenges that must be addressed and conquered in order for you to move forward.</p><p>Your true friends will give little or no consideration to whether or not you like them. A true friend's mission in the relationship is to help you - to be your friend, not for you to be their friend. This is a decision that they have made, and it is not a decision that you have any part, or participation in making. A person's decision to be your friend is completely independent of any input by you. Whether you decide that you are their friend is completely immaterial and irrelevant to their decision that they are your friends. Recognize who your real friends are.</p><p>The greatest appreciation that you could show to your friends is not what you give them back, but what you do with what they give to you.</p><p>Conversely, and perhaps critically important, it is imperative to recognize who are not your friends. If you engage in activities and behaviors with another person or group of people that lead to undesirable consequences, then these people are probably not your friends.</p><p>Friends will not put you in a compromising situation where you could have negative consequences as a result of any mutual activities in which you engage. Your friends are not those people who maintain a relationship or interaction with you primarily for their benefit - or simply because your association and interaction provides them some kind of justification for what they are doing with their life. Your friends are not people who either dare you or otherwise pressure you to do things to somehow prove your loyalty to them. Your real friends will not support your excuses or your rationalizations to quit trying to succeed.</p><p>Make a written list of your friends. Ask yourself about each of your friends and whether they make some positive contribution toward you achieving your goals and dreams, and a healthy life of legitimacy and normalcy. Alternatively, are some of your friends holding you back, or otherwise corroborating your excuses so you can give up and quit?</p><p>If your current friends are not moving forward in a positive direction with their own lives, then they cannot be much help to you and your goal to move forward in your life. In fact, they will hold you down. If you make an honest assessment of your current friendships, you might conclude that it is time to let some of those relationships drift, and then find new friends.</p><p>A very fast and effective way of finding new friends is to go volunteer for something. United Way is a great place to start because it centralizes a plethora of different non-profit organizations that are always looking for volunteers.</p><p>When you volunteer for something, you will feel good about yourself, and you will be interacting with people who are in the workplace. You will make new friends, and you will be networking with people who can help advance your career.</p><p>I was flying full-time as a Learjet Captain in the early 1990's for a fairly large air charter firm. The company had a fleet of various jet and turbo-prop aircraft that numbered around thirty-five, and a staff of roughly forty pilots. Most of the pilots were cross-trained in two or three different aircraft, and I was type rated in the Learjet Models 25 and 35, the Cessna Citation, and the Israeli Westwind.</p><p>From a business standpoint, it made good business sense to capitalize upon the economies of scale by maintaining a minimum staff of pilots and maximizing their use. From a practicality standpoint, there were many times that crewing flights became very difficult because of the duty time limitations specified by the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR's).</p><p>Air Taxi or Air Charter operations are governed under a specific and stringent set of federal aviation regulations (FAR's) that fall under FAR's Part 135. If a pilot is flying an aircraft for him or herself or for the owner of the aircraft, those operations are governed under FAR's Part 91 - a substantially less restrictive set of guidelines.</p><p>Under FAR's Part 135, a pilot's maximum duty time is fourteen hours, and he/she must have a minimum of ten consecutive hours of rest before starting a new duty cycle.</p><p>Company policy required that pilots arrive one hour before a scheduled flight. Therefore, the duty cycle begins one hour before departure and ends a half an hour after landing. Because the company operated with minimum flight crews, the duty time limitations frequently conflicted with the scheduling demands of charter customers.</p><p>During my employ, there were times when a pilot would complete a duty cycle and sign off-duty, but then be required to sign back on exactly ten hours later, and that ten hour mark was the actual departure time of the next flight. In other words, the pilot was to allegedly arrive at the airport at the exact time the flight was to depart. There was zero pre-flight planning time. It amounted to fudging the paperwork to meet the regulations. There were also occasions when the company dispatchers simply asked pilots to fudge the paperwork. As the company grew larger, the frequency of scheduling and duty time conflicts increased as well.</p><p>My flying schedule kept me on the road twenty-three to twenty-nine days a month. As much as I enjoyed flying, I suppose there comes a point that any job becomes work. The flying part was great. I still love operating an airplane. Flying a Learjet is like strapping your ass to a blowtorch. The part that gets old is being out of town all of the time and never being able to make any personal plans that aren't subject to interruption by the telephone or pager. Pilots were on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.</p><p>Even Christmas, Thanksgiving and other holidays were frequently spent in a hotel room. Staying in nice hotels and eating in nice restaurants is fun for a while, but eventually it gets old too. How many times can you go to Disney World in Orlando before it isn't a vacation anymore? I've been there over twenty times.</p><p>The hardest part of flying corporate is the waiting. Hence, the reason I traveled with a computer and taught myself several programming languages. It was a great way to pass what is otherwise completely unproductive time.</p><p>Federal Aviation Regulations and flight safety are sacred to me. This is partly because of my unconditional decision to pursue a life of total legitimacy, partly because these concepts became thoroughly ingrained in me when I was teaching the aviation technologies, and partly because I have seen the results that occur when aviation regulations and prudent safety procedures are ignored.</p><p>Despite the intimidation from my employer to fudge the regulations, I never did. If I wasn't operating within the legal duty cycle, I didn't accept the assignment. If the airplane had any mechanical or maintenance issues, I grounded it.</p><p>My employer became unhappy with me grounding airplanes and the relationship grew tenuous. I felt the pressure that was exerted by my employer - holding my income and financial security over my head if I didn't place its policies above safety and regulations. However, I figured that getting fired from a job is better than picking aluminum out of my teeth.</p><p>The morale in the company was low. The pilots were being stretched beyond reasonable limits. Once morale begins to slip in a company, people begin to complain about anything and everything. I was cognizant of this, but it can be difficult to avoid when your interaction with your co-workers is comparable to living together. As an analogy to deteriorating company morale, my boss once said, "Half the fun of being in the Army is complaining about the Army."</p><p>My fellow pilots respected my attitude toward safety and regulations. They seemed to take delight in how I stood my ground with company management. Although my co-workers applauded my posture, management accused me of being belligerent. To some extent I was. It wasn't just the safety issues that eventually irritated me. Having worked in management for the company for a number of years, I knew the company and its management inside and out. I knew all of the little secrets, and I knew that management expected the pilots to follow the unwritten policies of the company - even if those policies conflicted with regulations and safety.</p><p>I departed from Cleveland on a trip to the West Coast. Before every flight, I conducted a thorough preflight examination of the aircraft and its systems. When the passengers arrived, it was my routine to have them board the aircraft and then make one final walk around the airplane to make sure that there were no abnormalities.</p><p>The Lear 35 is fueled through receptacles in the tip tanks that are attached the ends of its wings. From the tip tanks, the fuel free-flows into the wing tanks and can then be transferred to fill the fuselage tank by an electric pump. Fully fueled, the Lear 35 holds roughly 6,200 pounds, or 925 gallons of Jet-A fuel, which is essentially kerosene.</p><p>As a part of my walk around, I would visually and physically check to make sure that the fuel caps were locked and secure. The fuel caps are very conspicuously located, and it would be almost impossible to walk around a Learjet and not notice that one is not locked.</p><p>As we departed and were in the initial departure climb, the control tower radioed and said that we were streaming fuel from our left wing tank. I looked out at the tip tank, and sure enough, we were losing fuel rapidly. The airplane quickly began developing an imbalance since the left tank was losing fuel and the right tank was still full. When we departed, we were close to our maximum weight of 18,000 pounds. The maximum landing weight of the aircraft was 15,300 pounds - a difference of 2,700 pounds.</p><p>I had three concerns, the first being control of the aircraft. If it went too far out of balance, it would become difficult to control at the lower landing speed. I began transferring fuel from the right wing into the left wing. The second concern was landing weight. We needed to lose 2,700 pounds, or roughly 400 gallons of fuel.</p><p>Generally, if an aircraft has an emergency immediately after take-off, it dumps fuel through fuel dump valves to achieve the maximum landing weight. Since I was already losing fuel rapidly, I was faced with the choice of dumping fuel to meet the maximum landing weight, which added the risk of running out of fuel. Alternatively, I could consider landing above maximum landing weight. I elected to land over the maximum landing weight. The landing was uneventful.</p><p>As we taxied to the parking ramp, I reviewed in my mind whether or not I checked the fuel caps. I clearly remember visually and physically checking the security of both caps. After we parked, the line service manager who had fueled the aircraft could not even make eye contact. I found this disturbing since he was a friend of many years, or so I thought. I wondered if he had loosened the cap after I had checked it.</p><p>Within only a few minutes, I was called to the office of one of the vice presidents of the company. I sat in his office and he questioned me about the fuel cap. I explained that I had checked it and perhaps there was a mechanical issue with the locking mechanism. However, I was thinking that perhaps the cause was something more sinister. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out three employee warning reports that he requested I sign. One was for failure to check the fuel caps before departure, one was for landing over the maximum gross landing weight and one for poor attitude. I found it curious that these warning reports were completely filled out and in his desk drawer within ten minutes of the incident. I did not sign them.</p><p>A few weeks later, I was captain on a flight with a plane-load of attorneys from Columbus, Ohio. On the return trip to Columbus, we were completing our approach checklist and beginning the landing checklist.</p><p>The landing gear and the brakes on the Learjet are controlled hydraulically. In the event of a hydraulic system failure, there is a pneumatic system that "blows" the gear down with 1800 PSI of nitrogen. The breaks can be actuated using the pneumatic system as well.</p><p>When the landing gear is down and locked, there are micro-switches that make contact and illuminate three enunciator lights in the cockpit, indicating that the two main gears and the nose gear are down and locked.</p><p>We were on approach to OSU airport in Columbus. We extended the landing gear and had green down and locked indicator lights for the two main landing gears, but no green light for the nose gear. We tested the light bulb and it was working fine.</p><p>I suspected that the problem was simply dirt in the micro-switch, preventing it from making contact. We cycled the gear a couple of times - raising it and then lowering it again. There was still no light that positively indicated that the nose gear was locked down.</p><p>The nose wheel steering on the Learjet is electronic. There is another micro-switch that must make contact before the nose wheel steering will work. Once the nose gear is raised, the switch breaks the electrical circuit and disables the nose wheel steering. If the nose gear was down and locked, the electrical circuit for the nose wheel steering should be closed. I turned on the nose wheel steering and the enunciator light came on indicating that the micro-switch was closed and the nose wheel steering was operative. Since the nose wheel steering micro-switch was closed, there was a reasonable certainty that the nose gear was down and locked.</p><p>From a pilot's perspective and an understanding of the Learjet's systems, I was certain that the nose gear was down and locked. However, this flight was governed under FAR's Part 135 which require a strict adherence to the manufacturer's operating manual.</p><p>According to the manufacturer, the only positive and approved indication that the nose gear is down and locked is the green nose gear down and locked enunciator light. Therefore, even though I was quite certain that the nose gear was down and locked via secondary verifications, my common sense and system cross checks were not an approved method to serve as a positive indication. At the very least, it would be embarrassing to land and have the nose gear collapse, particularly with a bunch of lawyers on board.</p><p>We declared an emergency and asked to be placed in a holding pattern as we consulted the landing gear abnormality checklist. To give every assurance that the gear was down and would not collapse on landing, we extended the gear hydraulically, and then actuated the pneumatic gear blow-down system. With the additional 1800 PSI of nitrogen on the gear from the pneumatic system, the gear was not going to collapse. I told my co-pilot to advise the passengers of the situation and to make sure their seat belts were securely fastened.</p><p>We radioed air traffic control and advised that we were prepared to land. My plan was to touch down on the main gear and then hold the nose gear off as long as possible, thereby reaching the slowest possible speed before the nose gear touched down.</p><p>We made a textbook perfect approach. The main gear touched down and all of a sudden, the nose gear slammed down with such force, I was surprised it didn't break off. The airplane was decelerating rapidly, I had no lateral or steering control, and it was heading toward the edge of the runway. The touch down and roll-out was anything but routine.</p><p>As the airplane came to a stop, I began shutting down the engines and all of the systems. I turned to my co-pilot and calmly said, "Evacuate the airplane." I never saw him move so fast.</p><p>As I got out of my seat, I took the fire extinguisher that was located behind the co-pilots seat. I was concerned that we might have a fire from over heated brakes. I stepped off of the airplane and looked under the wing to see all four main gear tires were blown, completely worn down almost hitting the rims.</p><p>Obviously, the brakes were completely locked on landing. How that was possible was a complete mystery. Luckily, the airplane had new tires installed the previous day. This was the first flight on those new tires. Had the tires been older and more worn, it would have destroyed the rims and wheel assemblies, which on a Learjet run in the twenty-thousand-dollar apiece range.</p><p>The airport fire & rescue team arrived and took the passengers to the terminal. A maintenance crew placed the airplane on dollies and towed it to a hangar. After completing a report, my co-pilot and I rented a car and made the drive back to Cleveland.</p><p>The next day, I was asked to report to the same vice president who gave me three rather quickly prepared warning reports for the previous fuel cap incident. He already had another warning report prepared for landing with the brakes locked. I suggested that we might wait until maintenance determines what happened. He insisted that it had to be pilot error. This guy was just such a weasel, and the only reason he was a vice president, or even had a job, was because he went to school with the company president.</p><p>It was apparent that the company, or at least this vice president, wanted to stuff my personnel file with bogus warning reports so he could justify firing me. Admittedly, I was a thorn in his side, or perhaps I should say, the Federal Aviation Regulations were a thorn in his side. All I did was abide by the regulations.</p><p>I contacted a friend who was an inspector with the FAA. I explained the situation and asked that the FAA observe the maintenance inspection on the Learjet I landed in Columbus. He assigned an inspector to oversee the maintenance inspection.</p><p>As I mentioned before, the landing gear and the brakes on the Learjet are hydraulic, and both have a high-pressure pneumatic emergency back-up system. There is a lever in the cockpit to actuate the emergency pneumatic gear system, which sends 1800 PSI of nitrogen into the landing gear hydraulic lines to blow the gear down. There is a separate lever that can be used after landing to divert pneumatic pressure to the brakes. Both the emergency gear and brakes are served from the same 1800-PSI nitrogen bottle.</p><p>As the maintenance crew inspected the airplane, with the FAA observing, it was discovered that the pneumatic lines that route high-pressure nitrogen to the landing gear and brakes had been crossed. The line that went from the pneumatic braking valve was routed to the landing gear, and the line that went from the emergency gear blow-down valve went to the brakes. Consequently, when we actuated the lever that controls the valve that releases the 1800-PSI of nitrogen to the landing gear, it actually went to the brakes. When we landed, there was 1800 PSI on the brakes.</p><p>There was no way we could have known that the 1800 PSI didn't go to the gear, but went to the brakes instead. We already had the gear extended hydraulically. Putting the 1800-PSI pneumatic pressure on the landing gear was just added insurance.</p><p>If our emergency had been an actual hydraulic system failure, and we had to extend the landing gear strictly using pneumatic pressure, we would have known that the pressure did not go to the landing gear because the gear would not have extended. However, there still would have been no way of knowing that it went to the brakes. Most pilots would have concluded that the gear did not extend either hydraulically or via the emergency pneumatic system because of a blown hose or leak in a line.</p><p>A hydraulic system failure preventing us from extending the landing gear hydraulically or pneumatically would have been an even worse situation.</p><p>If we had miraculously concluded that the 1800-PSI nitrogen pressure went to the brakes, that pneumatic pressure would have been spent on the brakes, and there may not have been adequate pressure to extend and lock the landing gear. Further, if the landing gear would not extend by using the emergency gear down lever, I'm not sure that either my co-pilot or me would have even thought that perhaps we should try extending the landing gear using the emergency brake lever.</p><p>I never found out how these pneumatic lines were misconnected. I thought it was a poor design that the receptacles were of identical size, and they were not even color-coded to prevent them from being cross connected.</p><p>I have no way of knowing if those lines had been improperly connected since the airplane left the manufacturer, or if they had been inadvertently switched during subsequent maintenance.</p><p>At the time of this incident, management seemed to have a petulant attitude toward me, and my adherence to regulations and safety. I wondered what had occurred the previous day when the tires were changed.</p><p>Changing tires on an airplane requires that it be jacked up off the ground. Conspiracy theories are generally for crackpots or people who otherwise have way too much time on their hands. The thought simply crossed my mind.</p><p>Interestingly, that incident became a part of Learjet initial and recurring training at FlightSafety International. In the event of a hydraulic failure, if the gear does not extend pneumatically with the pneumatic gear down handle, then try extending it with the pneumatic brake handle. It is also my understanding that Learjet began color-coding the lines and connections so there would be less likelihood of the lines getting crossed.</p><p>After the fuel cap and the locked brakes incidents, I was measuring the support I might receive from other pilots if I choose to pursue either civil remedies or a grievance through the FAA. My co-workers and I all believed that the company management was intimidating pilots and expecting them to compromise safety for the sake of profitability.</p><p>I had 100% support from all of my friends. As I prepared a grievance to file with the FAA, I was eventually fired. Out of all of those friends, there were only two, Craig and Bob, who stood up for what was right. The rest of my friends rolled over and wet themselves. They were still complaining, but too afraid to stand in unison. All of those supporting people had their own agendas, but they were never my friends. That was a powerful lesson.</p><p>From that experience, I learned to only count on those individuals who I know have made their decision that they are my friends. I am a friend to many, but very few are a friend to me. I have no issues with that - it is just important to know who your real friends are.</p><p>When I started my company in 1995, most of my friends thought I was nuts. I was starting a company that would compete with a few dozen billion-dollar giants. I reflected on the previous experience I had regarding my friends.</p><p>If you have ever gone fishing for crabs, you know that one crab in a bucket will crawl out. The way to keep a crab in the bucket is to put in another crab. As one climbs out, the other will grab on and pull it back down.</p><p>Sometimes friends will hold you back because they fear that you might leave the nest. Sometimes people can be like crabs in a bucket. If you try to climb out and move on to a more prosperous life, your friends might try to hold you back. They won't grab on and physically pull you down. However, they might just criticize your direction and mock whatever it is you are doing.</p><p>If you have a friend who ever mocks you for taking positive steps forward, you might want to consider letting that relationship drift. Move on and focus on your destination. When you arrive at new and better destinations years later, you will look back at that friend, and you will be astonished to see him in exactly the same place you left him.</p><p>Volunteer for something. You will meet a whole bunch of genuinely good people who are also volunteering. Some may become your friend and you may become a friend to some.</p><p>There are hundreds of organizations that assist various people in need, or that advocate for important causes. This is the place you will find people who are moving in a positive direction. You will become networked with people, and these people will become your new friends and peer group. They will help you move forward, and as those relationships grow, you will help them as well.</p><p>If you're caught in a cycle or your life is stagnating, make the deliberate evaluation.</p><p>Are your friends really your friends?</p><p></p><p></p></div>Whether a person wants one or not, they are going to have a journey.https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/hether-a-person-wants-one-or-not-they-are-going-to-have-a-journey2015-10-21T17:30:00.000Z2015-10-21T17:30:00.000ZDave Kochhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/DaveKoch<div><p>Genuinely free help today.</p><p>“Whether a person wants one or not, they are going to have a journey. The destinations of their journey are dependent upon the choices they make during their Journey.”</p><p>There are very few people who at some point during their life haven’t taken a fall, realized a setback or had to pick him or herself back up and move on with life.</p><p>The magnitude of each individual’s challenge is gigantic, because it is his or her personal challenge, which they are living in real time.</p><p>Realizing a major life setback and recovering isn’t easy. Some people recover and some don’t.</p><p>I’d like to share a recovery chronicle of one young man who fell far and hard, not just to the bottom of the barrel, but under the barrel.</p><p>Here is the “how he did it” story that went from acquiring several felony convictions, serving both state and federal prison sentences, filing bankruptcy and losing everything, to starting over with a menial job and going to school.</p><p>Over a period of years, he earned his private, commercial, flight instructor and Airline Transport Pilot Certificates, and served as captain on the Learjet, Israeli Westwind II and Cessna Citation.</p><p>He went on to co-found a one of the companies that built the infrastructure of the Internet in North America, serving as its Chairman, President and CEO and achieving such milestones as being twice distinguished on the Inc 500 List of America’s Fastest Growing Companies, Best in Business, Entrepreneur of the Year finalist and a host of other accolades.</p><p>This is not a "Brag Story." Rather it is written to show those who are at the bottom that recovery is possible, and to share many of the methods employed toward achieving that objective.</p><p>The 30-year recovery and extraordinary success story is compelling, inspirational, and a functional guide for people who need that support and knowledge that there is life and all of its rich rewards after a setback.</p><p>My arrangement with Amazon is that this book be offered for free five days each quarter. I wanted to make sure that this book is available to those who most need it, but can least afford it.</p><p>The future does not equal the past. No matter what your past, or what your challenge may be, you have the opportunity to achieve any of life’s rewards, if you are willing to put forth the effort.</p><p>If you don’t have a Kindle Device, it’s no problem. The free Kindle Reader works on any device – PC, Mac, Smartphone, Tablet, etc.</p><p>The free Kindle Reader can be downloaded here:</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200783640">http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200783640</a></p><p>The free book can be downloaded today here:</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CDG7J5I">http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CDG7J5I</a></p><p>If you miss this free book offer today, just sign up for the free Sextant Circular and you will receive an email each time the book is offered for free, in addition to receiving the free Sextant Newsletter.</p><p>Sign up for the free Sextant Circular here:</p><p><a href="http://www.slaying-the-dragon.com/subscribesextant.html">http://www.slaying-the-dragon.com/subscribesextant.html</a></p></div>Finding that First Job when Released from Prison. It is human nature that people want to help you.https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/finding-that-first-job-when-released-from-prison-it-is-human2015-10-10T13:28:18.000Z2015-10-10T13:28:18.000ZDave Kochhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/DaveKoch<div><p>For many people who have a less than pristine history, the biggest barrier they face in seeking employment is frequently the fear of disclosing their conviction more than anything else. Ex-offenders cringe at the very thought of having to tell someone their story. For goodness sakes, what are they going to do - say “Boo!” and take away your birthday?</p><p>When I am growing a fast-paced business, particularly in a relatively new industry, litigation is fairly common. Invariably, my felony convictions are discovered. When my convictions are brought up in a deposition, I wear it like a badge of honor, because it is then clear that my opponent has absolutely nothing, and they can find nothing, to legitimately disparage my company or me.</p><p>When people attack you for what has occurred in your past, it is simply an indication that they are groping for straws - provided however, that you have demonstrated your credibility through post-conviction achievements.</p><p>You are who you are. Your past is what it is. Demonstrate that you are transforming yourself through the deliberate and conscious process of setting and achieving goals and conquering challenges, and you'll be fine.</p><p>It is not what you did in the past that is important - it is what you have done since, and what you will do moving into the future that counts. The past is dust in the wind. You can't change the past, but you very definitely can control the future.</p><p>If you have genuinely made the decision to take a new and socially acceptable life direction, (the "Decision") then a part of that decision is that you will conduct your life, your business and your personal affairs with deliberate and conscious honesty and integrity. No hidden agendas.</p><p>If you hope to achieve significant milestones and have long-term stability in your life, there is only one fundamental formula. You can’t dance on the edge, sit on the fence, run hot and cold, be partially legitimate and partially not. It won't work!</p><p>You are a package and how you wrap that package will send strong signals and make indelible impressions. No, I’m not referring to how you groom and dress. Dress for Success is covered in other articles, and it is an important practice. For this discussion, I am referring to how you wrap the package that is you - who you are, what you are, and what you project to other people - your very essence.</p><p>If you have genuinely made the Decision to embrace a legitimate life path, then at the instant that you make that Decision, you are no longer the same person who did whatever it was you did, which resulted in a conviction and an incarceration event. Even if you are just starting today, you have a future, and you are, or you will be adjusting your choices and behaviors to facilitate achievement.</p><p>Whether you make the Decision or not, in reality, whether you want one or not, you are going to have a journey. You destinations are dependent upon how you conduct yourself during your journey. It’s all your choice, and the consequences or benefits of your choice are yours as well.</p><p>If you have made the Decision, then you are in fact a different person heading in a completely different life direction. Because you are a different person, when compared to who you are today, your past behaviors were behavioral aberrations. Having made the Decision to move forward in a new and productive life direction, those past behaviors do not fit the character of the new person you are, who will strive to achieve success through legitimate methods.</p><p>A behavioral aberration is analogous to walking down the street and seeing a cat sitting on the sidewalk. You walk up to the cat and say, "Hello kitty." In response, the cat looks up at you and barks like a Bulldog, but then hesitates for a second, puts it paw over its mouth and says, "oops, I mean, Meeooowwww." If a cat barks, it is totally out of character for a cat - it is a behavioral aberration. It was not within its normal behavior to bark like a bulldog.</p><p>When I think back about my behavioral aberration, it is so totally foreign to the person I am today, I cannot believe that I did that. It almost seems like it could not possibly have been me. It must have been a story I read in a book or a movie I saw, but it could not have possibly been the same me. It wasn’t the same me. I deliberately changed that person, and that person who I was before no longer even exists. You can change too. No, it is not easy – it's hard, but you can do it, and the benefits are phenomenal.</p><p>Before you made the Decision, you had certain behaviors. But, because you have made the Decision, you are focused on your future and you are in a life-long process of modifying your behaviors in a very deliberate and productive direction.</p><p>Once you make the Decision, then you are on a mission and you will embrace behaviors and habits that will produce predictable and positive results. When those behaviors of yesteryear are compared to the person you are today, those past behavioral aberrations become totally out of character. A person on a mission is focused on looking at the future – they never look back.</p><p>This is the new you. You are a new person with a new outlook and a new and fresh future. Begin now seeing yourself as the person you are and the person you are to become - not the person you were in the past. It really does just boil down to making a simple Decision. The Decision really is simple. The execution of your Decision will definitely incorporate a little work, sacrifice, pain and frustration. But, it is all worth it!</p><p>Now, how do we wrap the package that includes the past so it makes a positive presentation to those people who you will meet in your future – some of whom have a right to know about your past? This might include employers, business associates, lenders, inventors, and various other people who might be in a position to help you achieve a prosperous future.</p><p>Whenever I have seen the question on any application, "Have you ever been convicted of a felony," it provides two possible selections. A check box for "Yes," and a check box for "No." I always draw my own check box and write: "Behavioral Aberration" -or- "Youthful Indiscretion," then I check that box.</p><p>If you try this, or something similar, it definitely raises an eyebrow and arouses some curiosity. It sets a stage where you have the ability to present your package in a positive light as opposed to trying to justify your background in what feels like a grueling and negative interrogation. This may at least open the door for an interview, and if it does, chances are the atmosphere will be one in which you will have that opportunity to present your package positively.</p><p>I have had people meet me in their lobby and ask, "What does this 'Behavioral Aberration' mean?" I politely place a hand on their shoulder and say, "Let’s take a minute in your office and I'll explain it." That has always gotten me in the door. I then practice my 30-second rule, which I thoroughly explain during my seminars, which will almost always result in a positive outcome.</p><p>If it doesn't open the door, then the interviewer may just be predisposed to taking a negative posture. You may not even want this interview since it may only serve to provide a forum for someone to exalt themselves and their own ego by passing judgment on you, and thereby depleting your enthusiasm and energy. So sometimes, if you don’t get the interview, consider it a gain.</p><p>Now, before you speak to anyone about a job, internalize this concept. Be an open book. Have your cards face up, and no hidden agendas. People hate hidden agendas. If you dance around a question or give vague answers that do not seem sensible, it arouses skepticism. Once you arouse suspicion, you have nailed the door shut and this opportunity has passed. Conversely, when you open up, lay out your cards face up, tell your story – the real honest to God truth, people get a warm fuzzy feeling and have a propensity to want to help.</p><p>Have you ever helped someone without any expectation for anything in return? Assuming that you have, how do you feel about yourself when you do that?</p><p>People innately want to help other people, in part because helping someone else makes us feel good about our self. If you can appeal to this intrinsic need that most people have – to help other people because it satisfies their need for a feeling of gratification, then you both win. You get the job, and even more importantly, they get you. It's their lucky day!</p><p>Are you not in fact a person capable of bringing tremendous value to an employer? Of course you are. We’re just working on wrapping the package so all of your good attributes shine, and those good characteristics dilute anything that you might think is negative in your past.</p><p>It is interesting that we human beings are engineered with this innate craving for the feeling we only get when we have helped someone with no expectation for anything in return. The need for that feeling continues to grow the more we exercise the mechanism that generates the feeling that comes from helping others. It is among life’s natural opiates.</p><p>You can capitalize upon this phenomenon of human nature to your advantage. People want to help the underdog. The only thing that will prevent them from helping you is if you create any suspicion, skepticism or a feeling that they cannot believe what you are telling them.</p><p>I have found that people are attracted to openness and honesty, and when those elements are present during conversation, most people genuinely want to help.</p><p>When people help you, the goodwill feeling they get is so powerful, they will go even further to prolong their feeling by telling their co-workers and spouse how they helped an underdog get their life straightened out. If you do a good job and receive a promotion, the person who helped you get that job will get another injection of this opiate by taking bragging rights - "Yep, of course he got promoted. After all, I hired him!"</p><p>Another really important element in achieving success after you have made the Decision is to be willing to accept the job that no one else wants.</p><p>If you have earned a bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate degree, that will be very helpful during your career, but not immediately. An employer’s immediate focus is going to be on your most recent significant event in your life. Like it or not, we are all judged based upon our last act. When released from prison, your "last act" was likely something that the majority of our civilized society will consider socially unacceptable in one form or another. However, as I stated previously, if you are an open book, then they will not have the skepticism that would otherwise accompany an agenda of trying to dance around the felony conviction questions, chuck-n-jive or rationalize whatever it was you did to earn your sabbatical at a state or federal facility.</p><p>Unless you have a dream job lined up, you can begin creating your new most recent significant event by accepting the job that no one else wants. That will give you a start at rebuilding a resume and collection of work references. You can climb from there.</p><p>During a visit I had at the London Correctional Institution in Ohio, I spent the better part of the day with a group of offenders who were slated for release within the next six months. We conducted mock job interviews.</p><p>During each interview, I always threw out test questions to determine a person's flexibility. I told several individuals that the only position we have available right now is janitorial – keeping the facilities and bathrooms clean.</p><p>After the interview, a couple of these individuals told the class instructor that they were insulted and thought my questions and offer of janitorial work was disrespectful.</p><p>Flexibility test questions are very common during real interviews. Employers do not want to hire someone into a position who is going to give them grief if asked to do something that deviates from the strict construction of their job description. Employers need people who can be flexible.</p><p>These same individuals that complained to the instructor that they would not accept a position unless it was upper management, rationalized their complaint because while in prison, they had earned a college degree. That’s a great accomplishment, but they're competing with roughly 40,000 other college grads that I can pluck right out of my back yard no matter where my business is located.</p><p>I sometimes think that some ex-offenders subconsciously set the expectations bar so high that they know there is no employer who is going to offer them the vice president position. Then, when they are turned down, they are justified in their failure, and they can blame it all on everyone and everything except he who stares back in the mirror.</p><p>As an employer, I recognize an ex-offender’s credentials much the same as a recent college graduate. I judge them on the basis of their most recent significant event – finishing school or a term in prison, and on their attitude. The only thing that is going to get either of them the break they need is their attitude. Their attitude can get them in the door. Once they’re in, what they do with it is up to them. Whether a person was recently released from prison or recently graduated from college, they have a mountain in front of them. It’s up to the individual to decide whether or not they have the courage to make the climb.</p><p>Whether I am interviewing a recent college grad or a recently released individual from incarceration, I am not going to give them the keys to the vault. In other words, I am not going to give them a position whereby I have to trust in their dependability, accountability and credibility. I cannot afford to put someone in a position whereby I become reliant upon him or her producing positive results consistently until they have proven themselves. Once a person has proven him or herself, then I would be insane not to promote them and provide them with a handsome compensation package. I don't want to lose dependable people who make my life easier, and neither does any other employer who has anything going on between their ears. But, initially, don't ask people to take a big risk.</p><p>The concept that a felony conviction, or three of them in my case, will prevent a person from achieving a healthy life of normalcy is utter propaganda that is perpetuated by those who have failed to genuinely and fully embrace the necessary changes, and endure the pain that is an integral component of change.</p><p>For offenders who would contact me for employment, or any other assistance, I should mention that I am not a prisoner advocate. Until a person decides to change their path, there is nothing that I, or anyone else, can do for them except stay on my path and observe.</p><p>I am a card-carrying member of mainstream society. I have no positions or sympathy for practicing criminals, or those who think they can be partially legitimate, but still play the game by taking an occasional opportunity where they can realize a quick gain via illegitimacy.</p><p>When a person decides that they genuinely want to become a member of my world, I have nothing but time for them. But, there is zero chance that I am going to become a member of their world unless it is completely open and legitimate. I can spot the one’s who are giving lip service long before I make any significant investment of my time.</p><p>Be willing to accept the job that no one else wants! …I did. And, that was the start of what led to a very fulfilling and rewarding life.</p></div>Getting out of prison is easy. The challenge is staying out !https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/getting-out-of-prison-is-easy-the-challenge-is-staying-out2015-10-05T17:30:00.000Z2015-10-05T17:30:00.000ZDave Kochhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/DaveKoch<div><p><span class="font-size-4">The first consideration an individual must contemplate when facing community re-entry after incarceration is whether or not he or she genuinely wants a different path in life.</span> <br />Changing your life path requires work, dedication and sacrifice. If an individual is unwilling to put forth the effort and work that is necessary to change his or her life path, then that person will probably find the exercise of trying to reenter mainstream society very frustrating.</p><p>People who do not genuinely want to embrace a new life path, but feel some obligation to demonstrate that they are trying, in an effort to appease the expectations of a spouse, family member, or parole officer, will arguably expend a great deal of energy manufacturing a plethora of excuses as to why the barriers to reentry cannot be overcome. The myriad of tortured excuses provides a convenient rationalization for an individual to not try very hard toward changing their life path, and it justifies why he or she is in life where he or she is – a sort of victim, that has somehow been singled out and persecuted, at least in his or her own mind.</p><p>If you're happy with the path that you’re on and it is producing the results that you want for your life, then accept your future as being the result of your efforts.</p><p>However, if you are an individual who genuinely wants a new life path, but you wonder if putting forth the work and effort would just be an exercise in futility, worry no more. Hundreds of thousands of people who were released from prison and successfully re-entered mainstream society speak from experience. If you put forth the genuine work, sacrifice and effort, you can succeed.</p><p>Successful community reentry is largely dependent upon economics. Living in civilized society requires money, and among the socially acceptable methods of acquiring money is through gainful employment that is expected to provide a steady income stream.</p><p>Successful community re-entry is largely dependent upon economics. Living in civilized society requires money, and among the socially acceptable methods of acquiring money is through gainful employment that is expected to provide a steady income stream.</p><p>There are many important elements that we must consider when seeking employment. We must seek employment opportunities for which we are qualified – not in our assessment, but rather, qualified in the employer’s judgment. There are numerous aspects of our education, experience, character and persona that contribute to an employer’s assessment of our overall qualification for a particular position.</p><p>A single boilerplate resume sent to employers in disparate industries for a multitude of different positions is probably not very effective. When an employer is recruiting to fill a particular position, that employer wants to locate an individual whose qualifications closely fit the particulars of that position. Your resume needs to be tailored by industry and position. A successful employment search will likely require eight or ten variations of your resume, each customized to exploit those elements of your specific qualifications that appeal to the particulars and requirements of each opportunity.</p><p>In this day of the Internet and instant communication, many people have this delusion that filling out a couple of applications on the Internet, or sending in a few resumes via e-mail each day qualifies as a sincere job search. It doesn’t! A genuine job search requires a good deal more dedication.</p><p>Seeking employment, particularly in an economy where there are more people than jobs, requires a plan. Don’t be discouraged though – there may be more people than there are jobs, but there are definitely more jobs than there are people with a plan to find a job.</p><p>If a person takes the time to create a genuine employment acquisition plan, he or she absolutely will locate gainful employment. On the other hand, if an individual is unwilling to put forth the effort to create an employment acquisition plan, then he or she can expect results that amount to little more than frustration.</p><p>Even worse, some people convince themselves that the limited results they realize from their lackadaisical search for employment provides them a convenient excuse that no one will hire them because of their background – suggesting that a felony conviction is some kind of total disability. It isn’t a disability, but is does present some unique challenges – none that cannot be conquered if an individual is willing to press forward and not give up and quit. Just don't quit!</p><p>Decide which industries and positions are of interest to you. Begin with perhaps six industries and positions, and tailor resumes to each of those six positions. Emphasize your education, experience, and how your personality is best suited for the particulars of each specific position. When an employer reads your resume, you want them to see a match of your qualifications that fulfills the employer’s needs – not just another person seeking a paycheck.</p><p>The preceding is probably decent and fundamental guidance for the majority of people seeking gainful employment. However, the individual who was recently released from jail or prison faces a unique set of challenges. The fundamentals mentioned above are still important, but there are a number of other considerations for someone who carries a felony record.</p><p>As previously mentioned, the first consideration is: do you really want to change your life path? Do you really want to become a member of mainstream society? If you genuinely want to take a new life-path, then this process will not be a frustrating and painful drudgery. Rather, it will simply present interesting challenges that you can and will conquer. A felony conviction or incarceration event does trigger some collateral damages, but a felony background is not a barrier to achieving a successful new life path.</p><p>Many people who are released from prison are fundamentally brainwashed to believe that becoming a card-carrying member of mainstream society is an almost impossible mission. That is a fallacy that is frequently proliferated by those who have been in, got out, and then came back – the recidivists.</p><p>Why would you even listen to an oratory regarding the challenges of community reentry from someone who failed at reentry? That would be analogous to taking financial planning counseling from someone who just filed a personal bankruptcy.</p><p>If you have the desire to take a new life-path, then the fulfillment of your desire is going to require change – a kind of self-reinvention. Change is difficult, especially after an individual is released from prison. All of the temptations and all of the old friends are readily available when an individual is released. In some respects, it is harder to get out than it is to be in, but not because of the “barriers” to reentry. The re-entry “barriers” are overrated and are largely propaganda perpetuated by recidivists.</p><p>Whether you have been an inmate in a prison, work in a prison, or work in the community reentry profession, chances are that some of the people who have influenced your assessment regarding the "insurmountable" reentry challenges are people who got out of prison and then returned – offering a laundry list of tortured excuses as to why the felony conviction prevented them from reentering mainstream society.</p><p>With a national recidivism rate of roughly 65%, that means that thirty-five percent of individuals who got out never came back. Very, very few individuals in prison, or individuals working in prisons or reentry have had a comprehensive dialog with those individuals who got out, genuinely re-entered mainstream society, and stayed out.</p><p>“Genuinely re-entering mainstream society” is an important distinction. Individuals who are released from prison and recidivate are not qualified to engage in a “how to make a successful community reentry” dialog.</p><p>The veracity and effectiveness of those who are released and immediately find employment in an organization that is offering some kind of ex-offender reentry assistance or counseling is questionable, or those who start a community reentry non-profit organization right out of prison. They have not done what all of their constituents are expected to do – reenter mainstream society and locate a regular mainstream job.</p><p>If the lifestyle of mainstream society is what you really want, stop listening to people who talk about successful community reentry when they have no actual life experience, and start listening to that 35% who have succeeded at genuine re-entry into mainstream society. If a new life as a member of mainstream society is genuinely what you want, you absolutely can have it.</p><p>It seems that is always someone else’s fault when someone recidivates, if you listen to the excuses some people offer when they return to prison. The police were targeting them, their parole officer had it out for them, the judge had a burr, etc. This group of recidivists refuses to accept personal accountability for their actions, and they justify themselves to everyone else by placing blame on everyone except he who stares back in the mirror. If you are one of these individuals, you either don’t genuinely want to be a member of mainstream society, which is completely respectable, or you are making excuses. If you are the latter, when you are alone and making an honest assessment, you know that all you are doing is making excuses to justify not doing the work and making the sacrifices necessary to engage yourself in mainstream society.</p><p>If a person wants to become a card-carrying member of mainstream society, it is simply a choice. The person who has made that choice to successfully reenter mainstream society will do it with or without any assistance.</p><p>No one is saying that it is easy or a cakewalk. It’s hard. Life is hard. Conversely, if a person has not made the conscious choice, then there is no amount of assistance that will cause them to successfully re-enter mainstream society. Change begins with desire, and no one can trigger that desire except the subject individual.</p><p>An individual can be respected regardless of the choice he or she makes. But, for your sake, just make a choice to either become a member of mainstream society or make a choice not to. You will save yourself a lot of frustration. And, if you don’t make either choice, the default is that you probably will not succeed at reentry into mainstream society.</p><p>Some people seem to think that they can continue to play games on the side while functionally faking reentry. Re-entering mainstream society is not something about which you can be lukewarm. Either decide to reenter mainstream, or decide not to reenter. Make your choice and go with it. But also realize that the benefits or consequences of your choice are the results of your choice.</p><p>If you “sort-of” try to reenter, you're probably not going to be very successful, and the process will likely be frustrating. Conversely, if you genuinely make the commitment, your likelihood of success is just about guaranteed. Several hundred thousand other people are absolute proof that if a person makes the genuine commitment to legitimacy, they can have a healthy life of normalcy, and the rewards will be representative of the effort they put forth.</p><p>Many of the people who fail at re-entry are unsuccessful because of their own impatience. Some people want instant gratification and are unwilling to do the work to get the prize. No matter what you want out of life, or who you want to become, there is work to be done, and that holds true whether you are starting on even ground or from the bottom of the barrel. Additionally, as you embark upon climbing your mountain, each new step generally has prerequisites. You are not going to become a medical doctor without first taking a few courses in biology and chemistry.</p><p>Mainstream society incorporates a phenomenally wide field of endeavors. An individual can chose from literally thousands of different professional directions. There are some professions that may be limited because of a felony conviction. A few limitations from among thousands of possible career directions are not barriers to reentry.</p><p>Get beyond the propaganda of reentry and understand that the greatest barriers to reentry are those that we create ourselves – not some concrete prejudice against formerly incarcerated individuals. Don't listen to the diatribes and excuses of those who have failed at reentry and attempt to rationalize their demise with long-winded oratories about how a felony conviction prevented them from having any life in mainstream society.</p><p>That isn't to say that there aren't some unique challenges associated with having a felony conviction. There are, but none that will prevent a determined individual from achieving the life that they want.</p><p>One major consequence of a felony conviction is the loss of credibility, regardless of the nature of the conviction. Even after you have served your sentence, completed your parole and made complete restitution, in the eyes of the general public, you functionally have zero credibility as a result of a felony conviction and/or having served time in prison, unless you have taken deliberate steps to repair your integrity.</p><p>The vast majority of people are going to have a very natural skepticism of you, and they are going to have a low level of trust for you. Anyone who has conquered this credibility challenge knows – they have lived this. No, this is not double jeopardy, and it does not create some tortured argument for being a victim of employment discrimination. It is just the way it is. People are not going to risk their own jobs and personal security to take a risk on someone they don’t know from Adam, and whose most recent significant event in their life history was some kind of criminal behavior.</p><p>Anyone who hypothesizes that an employer’s assessment of an applicant, which is based upon the applicant's history is unconstitutional or some form of discrimination is arguably pursuing such a crusade to rationalize the fact that they are unwilling to put forth the effort, sacrifice and hard work necessary to change so they are then judged on a more positive set of criteria.</p><p>Indeed, we felons can sit around sucking our thumbs because the conviction creates collateral damage and additional challenges, or we can suck-it-up, face and conquer those challenges, and move our lives forward.</p><p>The credibility and trust issue very definitely can be changed. But, it is not going to change by trying to change the perceptions of society, fighting for change in employment discrimination laws, or fabricating some tortured interpretation of the Constitution. Your credibility and trustworthiness will change as a result of the changes you make in yourself. Take responsibility for yourself and your actions, and you will begin the process of re-establishing your credibility.</p><p>Whether a person is a recently released ex-felon or a recent graduate from a university, people judge us based upon our last act. Right or wrong, you will be judged based upon your most recent significant event in your life, no matter who you are.</p><p>What events comprise the last chapter of your life? If the last chapter of your life was committing a crime, being convicted, and spending time in prison or under supervision, then those are your most recent significant events upon which people will pass judgment. Conversely, if the last chapter of your life incorporates maintaining a job, demonstrating that you are accountable, reliable, dependable and trustworthy, then you will be judged heavily upon those attributes, even if you have less flattering previous events in your past. The key here is that you can change your most recent significant event – you can create a new last chapter in your life. Once you do this, you will have greater opportunity.</p><p>A major component to making a successful reentry and in achieving and maintaining a rewarding mainstream lifestyle is remaining focused on the long-term objective as opposed to only thinking about where you are in life today.</p><p>It isn’t important what your first job is when you are released from prison, or whether or not you enjoy it. All that is important, and the primary objective of that first job, is simply to create a new most recent significant event in your life, and to write that new last chapter in your life to help dilute the previous chapter. You only need to create a new chapter where you demonstrate accountability, reliability, dependability and trustworthiness once. Just do this one time, and you will find and seize new and greater opportunities and rewards. Here is some advice that you don't want to hear. Take the job that no one else wants!</p><p>After you achieve a new most recent significant event in your life, you then work toward achieving another new most recent significant event, which supersedes the prior one. Eventually, you will find that you have created dozens of positive new chapters in your life. Each of the new chapters dilutes those old chapters regarding your convictions. Eventually those old chapters are so diluted with positive progress that they become substantially insignificant dust in the wind.</p><p>A major key to creating these new most recent significant events is patience. It won’t happen overnight, and it won’t be a cakewalk. It will take dedication, time and perseverance. It will be hard, and it will require work. However, the same is true for anyone who achieves anything significant in his or her life. You only need to ask yourself if a legitimate lifestyle in mainstream society and all of the rich rewards it offers is something that you want, and if you are willing to put forth the effort and work to achieve it. But, don't say you can't have it because of a felony or prison background. That just simply is not true, and the evidence is the hundreds of thousands of people who comprise that 35% of individuals released from prison who never return as recidivists.</p><p>There is a public perception regarding a convicted felon. Whether it is right or wrong, the general public has a tendency to paint all of us felons with a single brush. Given that the increase in prison population tracks the increase in illiteracy and high school dropout rate, this comes as no surprise. Candidly, mainstream society is sick and tired of having to live behind an ever-increasing number of walls, locks, bars, and security systems that protect their physical property and other intangibles such as their identity and credit.</p><p>Society’s tolerance for felons has become thin. You need to accept the fact that people who have a felony conviction are simply going be held to a higher standard. You can either rise to the occasion, or you can just roll over and wet yourself, spending the rest of your life sucking your thumb, claiming that you are a victim of prejudice or discrimination. Let’s all keep in mind that it was our own behavior that earned us a conviction. So, rise to the occasion. Records are broken by those who dream beyond the barriers.</p><p>Some people suggest that they will spend their life attempting to change the public’s perception regarding convicted felons. Arguably, anyone who purports to dedicate their existence to such a crusade is using the public perception, and their crusade to change it, as an excuse not to put forth the effort to achieve a mainstream lifestyle. None of us are going to change society or its perceptions to suit our particular needs. The path of least resistance would be to change ourselves - not society. The individual who has a criminal record is going to be held to a higher standard. Accept that fact and deal with it. That individual must reinvent him or her self.</p><p>Many individuals scrutinize their first job offer after release from prison based upon their age, experience and education. People sometimes compare where they are in life with where other people of the same age are situated. Using age to compare where two people are situated in life is not a valid barometer. If you are 35 – 40-plus years old and still haven't completed high school or earned a GED, then you simply have not done your part. Furthermore, it really doesn’t matter how qualified you believe you are, how many college degrees you have or how much experience you have accumulated throughout your life. If you were recently released from prison or recently convicted of a felony, then nothing previous to your incarceration or conviction matters for the immediate future. It will later, but right now, it doesn’t. All an employer is going to look at is your most recent significant event, irrespective of whether or not you have other stellar credentials. Again, we are all judged on our last act.</p><p>In reality, you don't need a job – you need a break. You need to find a situation where someone can offer you an opportunity without them taking a risk. In short, you need to look for a job that no one else wants. If you’re looking for a job that is advertised, you have hundreds if not thousands of competitors applying for that same job. When you are looking for a job that no one else wants, you have little or no competition.</p><p>The fastest way to find a job that no one else wants is to canvass construction sites and industrial parks or areas. Find a foreman and simply state the indisputable fact that you know he / she has a job on this site that people complain about every time it is assigned to them. Tell the foreman that that’s the job for which you are applying, that you'll do a good job and you’ll never complain about it.</p><p>Look, this first job is not forever, and it is not your career path. It gives you an opportunity to get out into the workforce, interact with other people, and write that new life chapter – create that new most recent significant event to begin the process of diluting your unflattering history.</p><p>If you approach five foremen with this proposition, on average, you will have three job offers. If you don’t believe me, just do it to humor yourself. But for certain, if you really want to embrace a new life path, this is a place to start. It is pretty much where I started, and every good fortune that I have experienced in my life during the past three decades since that first job is because I was willing to take that job that no one else wanted.</p><p>As an employer myself, I have no problem hiring individuals right out of prison. However, I am not going to take a risk and hire them into a position of trust whereby I could potentially have an exposure to loss. But, I generally would not hire anyone directly into a position of trust where they are going to have the keys to the vault. I can open a door. What that individual does once they walk through that door is entirely up to him or her. If they prove that they are trustworthy, accountable and dependable, and complete their assigned duties timely and accurately, then the probability of them receiving promotions and pay raises is absolute.</p><p>Don't expect to be hired into a position of trust immediately upon release. Whether you are trustworthy or not, if you were just released from prison, the perception is that your credibility is questionable. Only you can change that perception by earning trust through behavior and the passage of time. If you try to demand trust, it strains your credibility even further. Just be patient and earn it.</p><p>An alternative option to finding a job is to consider self-employment. This is a tough road to hoe, but it is a viable alternative.</p><p>Whether you want one or not, you are going to have a life journey. Where your journey takes you is up to you, and it is dependent upon the choices you make today, and the effort you put forth toward achieving your desired destinations.</p></div>STAND FOR JUSTICE LIKE MARTIN IN 2012: Mass incarceration in the land of the “free”https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/stand-for-justice-like-martin-in-2012-mass-incarceration-in-the2012-01-11T16:03:26.000Z2012-01-11T16:03:26.000ZSendMeYourNewshttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/SendMeYourNews<div><p style="margin-bottom:0in;"></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;" align="center">“<b>Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”</b> <font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>-- Martin Luther King, Jr.</b></font></font></font></font> <font color="#454545"><i><b>Letter from Birmingham Jail,</b></i></font> <font color="#454545"><b>April 16, 1963</b></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><b>By <a href="http://hotmail.com" target="_blank">Marilyn Kai Jewett</a></b></font></font></font></font></p>
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<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">In the next few days people all over the nation will celebrate civil rights icon, Martin Luther King, Jr. Folks will attend luncheons, lectures and interfaith services. They’ll clean schools, paint walls and feed the homeless, but go right back to business as usual after the feel good “day of service.” While they’ll quote the “I have a Dream” speech like it’s the only thing he ever said, they’ll totally ignore King quotes like,</font></font></font></font> <font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><i><b>“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”</b></i></font></font></font></font> <font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">What most folks definitely won’t do is stand for justice everyday of their lives like King did – not even when their lives and that of their families depend on it.</font></font></font></font></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">A true warrior will fight to the death for what they believe. King was a true warrior who stood up and fought against old Jim Crow to the death, and if he were here today, I am sure he would fight even harder against the new Jim Crow – the American criminal “justice” system, also known as the prison industrial complex. Legal scholar Michelle Alexander lays it all out in her best-selling book, “</font></font></font></font><i>The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness</i>.” Alexander argues that racial caste in America has not ended, it has simply been redesigned. In her book, she lays bare the evidence that, “by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control.”</p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;"><font color="#333333">“<span lang="en" xml:lang="en">Today, there are more African Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began,” explained Alexander. In some large urban areas, more than half of working age African American men have criminal records and are subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. The rate of incarceration we have in the United States is unparalleled in the world.”</span></font></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;"><span lang="en" xml:lang="en">According to Alexander, if you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. “These men a</span><span lang="en" xml:lang="en">re part of a growing undercaste -- not class, caste -- permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.”</span></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;">The prison industrial complex – the New Millennium Slavery in America that sends African American children from the schoolhouse to the Big House. <b>FREE, CONTROLLED , LABOR</b>. Sound familiar? Is history repeating itself? Know thy history! Another important quote of King’s is, <i><b>“</b></i><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><i><b>The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”</b></i></font></font></font></font> <font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"> Despite what some think, there are thousands who dedicate their lives and careers to such.</font></font></font></font></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;"><span lang="en" xml:lang="en">In December 2011,</span> over 1,000 supporters and human rights activists from around the nation and the world gathered at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to reinvigorate the movement for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal and underscore the violations that for 30 years, kept him unconstitutionally imprisoned on Death Row.</p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;">Abu-Jamal, former president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, was convicted of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and was on Pennsylvania’s Death Row since 1982. In October 2011, the U. S. Supreme Court rejected a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision declaring Abu-Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional. Supporters continue to press for his release while remembering Troy Davis and others who are unjustly incarcerated.</p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;">Keynote speaker Vijay Prashad, professor of International Studies at Trinity College spoke on the hypocrisy of the American government that holds other nations’ human rights violations to the light while ignoring their own. “One in four prisoners on the planet lives in the United States,” Prashad explained. We have the highest per capita incarceration rate of any nation. We incarcerate seven times the number of people incarcerated in China, which is an obscenity. It costs more to incarcerate someone in Trenton State Prison than to go to Princeton University. Why not spend that money to lift people out of poverty and desperation than to kill them because they’re poor? The heart of the problem is that this country would rather kill people than love them. The politics of this country is to protect property over people.”</p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;">Lennox Hinds, founder of the National Conference of Black Lawyers and former counsel for the government of South Africa and the African National Congress, took a unique approach. According to Hinds, the U.S. signed an international convention treaty on torture in 1984 that was ratified by Congress in 1998. In short, he says, “According to the treaty, prolonged solitary confinement is considered mental torture. Therefore, I am proposing we launch an international campaign at the United Nations to free Mumia and all other inmates on Death Row.”</p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;">He said the U.N. is also interested in such a campaign. “We should file a petition at the U.N. pursuant to Resolution 1503 in which we are calling for the release of Mumia based on his 30 years in solitary confinement in violation of U.S. and international law,” explained Hinds, who teaches in the criminal justice program at Rutgers University. Mumia is not facing death today because of the power of the people. We must use the contradictions in the system to build our case.”</p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;">That brings us to Abu-Jamal’s present situation and another overlooked quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., <i><b>“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”</b></i></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;">Although Abu-Jamal’s death sentence was overturned and he should be released into general population that is not the case. According to his attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein, Abu-Jamal is still in Administrative Custody (AC) -- the hole -- at SCI Mahanoy. There is no legal basis for him to be confined in AC. At the point he was no longer under a death sentence, he should have been transferred into general population.</p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Abu-Jamal is being held in extremely repressive conditions. Like thousands of prisoners, residents of solitary confinement and isolation units in every hole in every prison across the country, he is being subject to dehumanizing and brutal conditions. Abu-Jamal is on a cellblock that houses AC as well as disciplinary custody inmates. He is in solitary confinement with lights glaring 24/7, without adequate food or the opportunity to buy food to supplement his diet. He is shackled and handcuffed whenever he is outside his solitary cell, including when he goes to shower. And he is isolated without regular phone calls or access to his property, including legal materials, books and typewriter. His visiting hours are limited. In short, Abu-Jamal is being subjected to conditions that are more onerous than those on death row.</font></font></font></font></p>
<p style="text-indent:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">The Human Rights Coalition, an organization of prisoners, family members and supporters that have been exposing and challenging state torture in Pennsylvania for years stated that “Mumia may be in solitary, but he is not alone. The PA Department of Corrections holds approximately 2,500 people in solitary confinement on any given day, many of them for years at a time.”</font></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Cornel West, featured speaker at the National Constitution Center Forum said Abu-Jamal is “legally not guilty and factually innocent.” West also explained the niggerization of a people -- people we know and love. “People become niggerized when you render them so afraid, scared and intimidated that they don’t want to straighten their backs up out of fear. We see them everyday in the community. But, Mumia represents someone who stood up. He’s stood up for decades – when he was out and he’s done it inside the prison. He’ll do it until the day he dies. He is a symbol of what’s going on within the prison industrial complex. We must continue to organize until he is released!” </font></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">Abu-Jamal’s attorney and supporters are asking people to stand for justice by writing, calling and emailing the PA Secretary of Corrections and the superintendant of the prison: Demand that Mumia be transferred to General Population and demand the shutdown of RHU (Restricted Housing Unit) torture blocks.</font></font></font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>John Wetzl, Secretary Department of Corrections</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>2520 Lisburn Road, P.O. Box 598 </b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598 </b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>(717) 975-4928 Email:</b> <font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="mailto:ra-contactdoc@pa.gov"><b>ra-contactdoc@pa.gov</b></a></u></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>John Kerestes, Superintendent</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>SCI Mahanoy</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>301 Morea Road</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>Frackville, PA 17932</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><b>(570) 773-2158 Fax:(570) 783-2008</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"></p>
<p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom:0in;">One of King’s little known quotes speaks to the heart of our situation in this nation at this most important time in the world’s history. <i><b>“</b></i><i><b>Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”</b></i></p>
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<p style="border-width:medium medium 1pt;border-style:none none solid;border-color:rgb(0,0,0);padding:0in 0in .01in;margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3">So, I ask, where is your conscience? What are you going to do in the year 2012, a year of earth-changing events to come? Will you do what’s safe or what’s politically-expedient ? Will you do what’s popular or, will you stand for justice because it is right ? The choice and the consequences we all will face are up to you. What do you think Martin would do?</font></font></font></font></p>
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<p style="margin-bottom:0in;"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3"><i><b>Marilyn Kai Jewett is a Philadelphia-area marketing communications consultant and writer.</b></i></font></font></font></font></p>
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<p> </p></div>US Prison Labor is Very profitablehttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/us-prison-labor-is-very-profitable2011-11-08T23:00:00.000Z2011-11-08T23:00:00.000ZTheBlackList Newshttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/TheBlackListNews<div><div><div class="ContentBlock"></div></div><div style="text-align:center;"><p align="center" dir="ltr"> </p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><span class="font-size-3"><strong>From the Ramparts </strong></span> </p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><a target="_blank" href="https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/49298_565819279_3959397_n.jpg"><img class="align-full" src="https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/49298_565819279_3959397_n.jpg" alt="49298_565819279_3959397_n.jpg" /></a></p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><span class="font-size-2">Junious Ricardo Stanton</span> <br /><br /> <em>“The racism that pervades every aspect of life in capitalist society — from jobs, income and housing to education and opportunity — is most brutally reflected by who is caught up in the U.S. prison system. More than 60 percent of U.S. prisoners are people of color. Seventy percent of those being sentenced under the three strikes law in California — which requires mandatory sentences of 25 years to life after three felony convictions — are people of color.”</em> The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U. S. Prisons Sara Flounders <a target="_blank" href="http://www.workers.org/2011/us/pentagon_0609/">www.workers.org/2011/us/pentagon_0609/</a></p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><br /> The United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other sovereign nation in the world. The US also imprisons more people of color percentage wise than whites. In her book The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness attorney and author Michelle Alexander examines how the “justice system” using the bogus war on drugs as a pretext, works hand in hand with the prison industrial complex and the politicians to relegate and consign people of color in general and African-Americans in particular to a nether world of second class citizenry and caste where they lose their right to vote, where getting a job becomes problematic and existing as self-actualizing productive men and women with dignity and a sense of worth becomes extremely difficult. Reading her book I was struck with the similarities between what she was documenting and another book by Charshee C.L. McIntyre entitled Criminalizing A Race Free Blacks During Slavery which detailed how the system criminalized free blacks prior to the US Civil War. These books along with the books by A. Leon Higginbothom: In The Matter Of Color Race and The American Legal Process The Colonial Period and Shades of Freedom Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process reveal how the judicial system is undeniably racist and so egregiously stacked against people of color that justice for the most part is merely a word.</p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><br /> In this country from colonial times until the present the courts existed to arbitrate questions and issues of economics, labor and wealth. Yes the courts did rule on social issues and legislation but for the most part the courts like everything else in this country were established to ensure the ruling elites, the oligarchs and their interests were protected over and above those of the masses. Time after time the lower, appellate and supreme courts both state and federal tended to rule in favor of the rich and powerful. From colonial times to the present the courts both British and American protected the institution of indentured servitude and later the convict labor arrangements between colonies, local and state governments, the trading companies and other corporations.</p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><br /> “In1718 the British government decided that ‘transportation’ the banishing of convicts to work in the colonies, created a more effective deterrent to recidivism than the standard punishments of whipping and branding. This change in policy was favored because of high demand for labor in the colonies, and because facilities for long-term imprisonment were lacking. Between 1718 and 1775, approximately 50,000 British convicts were sentenced to long-term labor contracts, transported to America, and sold to private employers. They represented a quarter of all British and half of all English arrivals to British North America in this period. Most were convicted of some form of property crime, including horse and sheep stealing. While transported convicts were predominantly English and male, approximately 13 to 23 percent were Irish and 10 to 15 percent were female. Convict transportees were given one of three possible sentences—namely seven years, fourteen years, or a lifetime of banishment—that became the length of their labor contracts. Among those transported, 74 percent had seven-year sentences, 24 percent had fourteen-year sentences, and 2 percent had life sentences. Once convicts had served their sentences (contracts), they were free to return to Britain or to stay in America. The number who eventually returned to Britain is unknown. Convicts caught returning to Britain before completing their sentences were hanged. To minimize the cost of transportation, the British government channeled convicts through the existing transatlantic market for voluntary servant labor, which served those who wanted to emigrate but lacked sufficient cash to pay the cost of passage. Emigrants could secure passage to the colonies of their choice by negotiating long-term labor (servant) contracts that they would fulfill in America as payment for their passage. The typical voluntary servant negotiated a four-year contract. By contrast, British courts fixed the length of convict labor contracts and turned the convicts over to private shippers who would transport and dispose of the convicts for profit in the colonies chosen by the shippers. The typical convict was sentenced to a seven-year contract. Colonists mockingly referred to arriving convicts as ‘His Majesty's seven-year passengers.’” - Convict labor system <a target="_blank" href="http://www.answers.com/topic/convict-labor-systems">http://www.answers.com/topic/convict-labor-systems</a></p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"> </p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"> Keep in mind that as business enterprises, the colonies were obligated to ensure a profit to the Pope, the trading company and the monarchy that granted their charter. They structured their courts after those in their home country and they shared the same values as the European elites. So it is no surprise that for hundreds of years the courts have used prisoners as a way to make money through quasi slavery (indentured servitude), convict leasing and now the prison industrial complex. When they decided to use kidnapped Africans as free labor, the Europeans felt no compunction whatsoever to treat them fairly or justly, they still don’t.</p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><br /> “Prison labor offers no union protection, overtime pay, vacation days, pensions, benefits, health and safety protection, or Social Security withholding. Prisoners even recycle toxic electronic equipment and overhaul military vehicles. The prison system has quickly become and outsourcing corporation similar to cheaper labor markets overseas. This has created cheaper labor and also some very unsafe conditions for inmates. Prisoners worked covered in dust, with out safety equipment, protective gear, air filtration or masks. The toxic dust that they where around caused serious injury like blood clots and cancer.”Prison Slavery in Today’s U.S.A <a target="_blank" href="http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/2011/11/07/prison-slavery-in-today%E2%80%99s-u-s-a/">www.mediafreedominternational.org/2011/11/07/prison-slavery-in-today’s-u-s-a/</a></p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><br /> Prison labor today in the US is a huge business. “At least 37 states have legalized the contracting of prison labor by private corporations that mount their operations inside state prisons. The list of such companies contains the cream of U.S. corporate society: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom's, Revlon, Macy's, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores, and many more. All of these businesses are excited about the economic boom generation by prison labor. Just between 1980 and 1994, profits went up from $392 million to $1.31 billion. Inmates in state penitentiaries generally receive the minimum wage for their work, but not all; in Colorado, they get about $2 per hour, well under the minimum. And in privately-run prisons, they receive as little as 17 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours a day, the equivalent of $20 per month. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they call ‘highly skilled positions.’ At those rates, it is no surprise that inmates find the pay in federal prisons to be very generous. There, they can earn $1.25 an hour and work eight hours a day, and sometimes overtime. They can send home $200-$300 per month. Thanks to prison labor, the United States is once again an attractive location for investment in work that was designed for Third World labor markets. A company that operated a maquiladora (assembly plant in Mexico near the border) closed down its operations there and relocated to San Quentin State Prison in California. In Texas, a factory fired its 150 workers and contracted the services of prisoner-workers from the private Lockhart Texas prison, where circuit boards are assembled for companies like IBM and Compaq. The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? by Vicky Pelaez <a target="_blank" href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289">http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8289</a></p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><br /> Private prisons are the newest rage and are trading briskly on Wall Street for them to make a profit they need bodies hence the unwillingness to repeal the draconian war on drugs era laws that are sending black and brown people to jail in record numbers. prisons are big business, and the need for prisoners is high so you can see why the prisons are jammed packed.</p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"> </p><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"><br /><br /></p><div id="msgbody"></div><ul><li><b><a href="https://lists.riseup.net/www/viewmod/theblacklist/7ae9ae9574693043eedcf1e525109a1e/msg00000.html">US Prison labor Is very Profitable</a></b>, <em>jrswriter, 11/08/2011</em></li></ul><p style="text-align:left;" align="center" dir="ltr"> </p><p align="center" dir="ltr"> </p><p align="center" dir="ltr"> </p><p align="center" dir="ltr"> </p><p align="center" dir="ltr"><b><font size="4" color="#FF0000">What happens to your email once you send it?<br /> <br /></font>Track your emails with<font size="7" color="#990000"><br /></font><a href="http://www.readnotify.com/?from=j0e1lv8y0q9eh"><font size="7" color="#FF0000">ReadNotify</font></a></b></p><br /><div class="clearfooter"> </div></div></div>Faith Behind Bars and Beyond- Sara Kruzan Shocking Storyhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/faith-behind-bars-and-beyond-sara-kruzan-shocking-story2011-11-05T18:45:22.000Z2011-11-05T18:45:22.000ZDarcy Delaproserhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/DarcyDelaproser<div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uiY-mzB2Xmg/TrV6IMN2bBI/AAAAAAAABrQ/3Xkfb_USljs/s1600/FREE+SARA+%25282%2529.jpg" style="margin-left:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uiY-mzB2Xmg/TrV6IMN2bBI/AAAAAAAABrQ/3Xkfb_USljs/s400/FREE+SARA+%25282%2529.jpg" height="300" border="0" width="400" alt="FREE+SARA+%25282%2529.jpg" /></a></div><h2>by <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lilarobinson">LilaRobinson</a></h2><div class="player-category"><span style="font-size:large;"><br /><a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/spirituality"></a></span></div><p><span style="font-size:large;">Free Sara Kruzan~ Tonight we will talk with Guest Kim-Deanne and Sara's Aunt Anne about the Shocking Truth about human trafficking, Domestic Violence and Prostitution that led a young child to kill her Pimp. Help Free Sara</span> <object height="105" width="210" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Flilarobinson%2F2011%2F11%2F05%2Ffaith-behind-bars-and-beyond-living-beyond-circumstances%2Fplaylist.xml&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" ></param><param name="allowNetworking" value="internal" ></param><param name="wmode" value="opaque" ></param><param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Flilarobinson%2F2011%2F11%2F05%2Ffaith-behind-bars-and-beyond-living-beyond-circumstances%2Fplaylist.xml&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" ></param><param name="flashvars" value="file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Flilarobinson%2F2011%2F11%2F05%2Ffaith-behind-bars-and-beyond-living-beyond-circumstances%2fplaylist.xml&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" ></param><embed wmode="opaque" height="105" width="210" flashvars="file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Flilarobinson%2F2011%2F11%2F05%2Ffaith-behind-bars-and-beyond-living-beyond-circumstances%2fplaylist.xml&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtalkradio.com%2Flilarobinson%2F2011%2F11%2F05%2Ffaith-behind-bars-and-beyond-living-beyond-circumstances%2Fplaylist.xml&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" allowscriptaccess="never" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allownetworking="internal"></embed></object></p><div style="font-size:10px;text-align:center;width:220px;">Listen to <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/">internet radio</a> with <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lilarobinson">LilaRobinson</a> on Blog Talk Radio</div></div>Think Outside the Bars: Why real justice means fewer prisons by Michelle Alexanderhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/think-outside-the-bars-why-real-justice-means-fewer-prisons-by2011-09-14T15:00:00.000Z2011-09-14T15:00:00.000ZTheBlackListhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/TheBlackList<div><div align="center"><p style="text-align:left;"><strong>by Michelle Alexander</strong></p>
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<div align="center"><p align="left"><strong>June 8, 2011</strong></p>
<p><img height="356" width="555" src="http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/beyond-prisons/think-outside-the-bars/SpreadAlexaander.jpg/image_large" vspace="5" hspace="5" border="0" alt="image_large" /></p>
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<div align="center"><strong>PEEK INSIDE THE SUMMER 2011 ISSUE OF <a target="_blank" href="http://www.yesmagazine.org">YES! MAGAZINE</a></strong></div>
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<div>A white woman with gray hair pulled neatly into a bun raises her hand. She keeps it up, unwavering and rigid, as she waits patiently for her turn to speak. Finally, the microphone is passed to the back of the room, and she leaps to her feet. With an air of desperation she blurts out, "You know white people suffer in this system, too, don't you? It's not just black and brown people destroyed by this drug war. My son, he's been in the system. He's an addict. He needs help. He needs treatment, but we don't have money. He needs his family. But they keep givin' him prison time. White people are hurting, too." She is trembling and sits down.</div>
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<div>There is an uncomfortable silence in the room, but I am in no hurry to respond. I let her question hang in the air. I want people to feel this discomfort, the tension created by her suffering. The audience is overwhelmingly African American, and a few of them are visibly agitated or annoyed by her question. I've spent the last forty minutes discussing my book, The New Jim Crow. The book argues that today, in the so-called era of colorblindness, and, yes-even in the age of Obama-racial caste is alive and well in America. The mass incarceration of poor people of color through a racially biased drug war has birthed a new caste system. It is the moral equivalent of Jim Crow.<br />Racial Politics, Not Crime</div>
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<div><img height="174" width="250" src="http://www.finalcall.com/artman/uploads/1/slavery_usa03-18-2008b.jpg" align="left" vspace="5" hspace="5" border="0" alt="slavery_usa03-18-2008b.jpg" />The audience has heard the facts: Our prison population quintupled in a few short decades for reasons that have stunningly little to do with crime or crime rates. Incarceration rates-especially black incarceration rates-have soared regardless of whether crime was going up or down in any given community or the nation as a whole. Mass incarceration has been driven primarily by politics-racial politics-not crime. As part of a backlash against the Civil Rights Movement, our nation declared a "War on Drugs" that has turned back the clock on racial progress in the United States.</div>
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<div>Although people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, African Americans have been targeted at grossly disproportionate rates. When the War on Drugs escalated in the mid-1980s, prison admissions for African Americans skyrocketed, nearly quadrupling in three years, then increasing steadily to a level in 2000 more than 26 times the level in 1983. In some states, 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison have been African American.<br /><br /></div>
<div><strong>Just the Facts:</strong></div>
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<div>It's a Locking-People-Up Problem</div>
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<div>The American problem with mass incarceration has less to do with crime than you think.<br />As a nation, we've been encouraged to imagine that this war has been focused on rooting out violent offenders or drug kingpins, but that is far from the truth. Federal funding has flowed to those state and local law enforcement agencies that boost dramatically the sheer number of drug arrests. It's a numbers game. That's why the overwhelming majority of people arrested in the drug war are the "low-hanging fruit"-poor people of color who are stopped, frisked, and tossed to the sidewalk by law enforcement, forced to lie spread-eagled on the pavement, simply because they "looked like" criminals while standing on the corner talking to friends or walking home from school or the subway.</div>
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<div>The U.S. Supreme Court has given the police license to sweep poor communities of color, stopping, interrogating, searching anyone or everyone-without any evidence of criminal activity-so long as they get "consent." What's consent? When a police officer, with his hand on his gun, approaches a 16-year-old on the street and bellows, "Son, will you turn around so I can frisk you?" and the kid says, "Yeah," and complies, that's consent. Usually the exchanges are less polite.</div>
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<div>And once the police get consent, the Fourth Amendment ban against unreasonable searches and seizures no longer applies. According to the Supreme Court, these "consensual" encounters are of no constitutional significance, even though they may wind up sending a 19-year-old kid to prison for the rest of his life: Life sentences for first-time drug offenses were upheld by the Supreme Court in Harmelin v. Michigan. The race of the defendant in that case was key to the sentence in the first place. It is nearly impossible to imagine a judge sentencing a white college kid to life in prison for getting caught with a bag of weed or cocaine. That's how this system works: Poor people of color are swept into the criminal justice system by the millions for drug crimes that go largely ignored when committed by middle- or upper-class whites. And release from prison or jail marks just the beginning of punishment, not the end.</div>
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<div>Once branded a criminal, people enter a parallel social universe in which they are stripped of the rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement. The old forms of discrimination-employment and housing discrimination, denial of basic public benefits and the right to vote, and exclusion from jury service-are perfectly legal again. In some major American cities, more than half of working-age African American men are saddled with criminal records and thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. These men are part of a growing undercaste-not class, caste-a group of people, defined largely by race, who are relegated to a permanent, second-class status by law.</div>
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<div><strong>Uniting Poor People</strong></div>
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<div>The white woman is waiting for me to speak.<img height="194" width="260" src="http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyNQV1C_YsEeepZtNhkm1JgdSrZG1AEyFybZ5q6CPwFLv-T6tw" align="right" vspace="5" hspace="5" border="0" alt="images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyNQV1C_YsEeepZtNhkm1JgdSrZG1AEyFybZ5q6CPwFLv-T6tw" /></div>
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<div>I know a great deal rides on my response. It is not an overstatement to say that the success or failure of the emerging movement to end mass incarceration may turn on the ability of advocates like myself to respond to people like her in a manner that validates and honors her experience, while not brushing aside-even slightly-the thoroughly racial nature of the prevailing caste system. Is it possible to join poor whites like her with poor people of color in a movement to challenge a political and economic system that harms them all, though differently?</div>
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<div>1 in 87 working-aged white men is in prison or jail compared with 1 in 36 Hispanic men, and 1 in 12 African-American men.</div>
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<div>There was a brief moment when it seemed clear that the answer was yes. As the Civil Rights Movement was gaining full steam, Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders made clear that that they viewed the eradication of economic inequality as the next front in movement building-a Poor People's Movement was required. Genuine equality for black people, King reasoned, demanded a radical restructuring of society, one that would address the needs of black and white poor throughout the country.</div>
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<div>In 1968, having won landmark civil rights legislation, King strenuously urged racial justice advocates to shift from a civil rights to a human rights paradigm. A human rights approach, he believed, would offer far greater hope than the civil rights model had provided for those determined to create a thriving, multiracial democracy free from racial hierarchy. It would offer a positive vision of what we can strive for-a society in which people of all races are treated with dignity and have the right to food, shelter, health care, education, and security. "We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement," he said. "We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society." The Poor People's Movement seemed poised to unite poor people of all colors in a bold challenge to the prevailing economic and political system.</div>
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<div><strong>White Backlash</strong></div>
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<div>But a backlash was also brewing. Anxiety and resentment among poor and working class whites was on the rise. The truth is that poor and working class whites had their world rocked by the Civil Rights Movement. Wealthy whites could send their children to private schools and give them all of the advantages that wealth has to offer, yet they were a tiny minority that stood apart from the rest of whites and virtually all blacks. Poor and working class whites-the regular folk-were faced with a social demotion. Their kids were potentially subject to desegregation and busing orders; their kids were suddenly forced to compete on equal terms for increasingly scarce jobs. Poor whites were better off than African Americans for the most part, but they were not well off-they, too, were struggling for survival.</div>
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<div>Felon disenfranchisement laws bar 13 percent of African-American men from voting. Polls show 8 in 10 Americans support voting rights for people who have completed their sentences.</div>
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<div>What lower-class whites did have, in the words of W.E.B. DuBois, was "the public and psychological wage" paid to white workers, whose status and privileges as whites compensated for low pay and harsh working conditions. In retrospect, it seems clear that, from a racial justice perspective, nothing could have been more important in the 1970s and 80s than finding a way to create a durable, interracial, bottom-up coalition for social and economic justice. But in the years following King's death, civil rights leaders turned away from the Poor People's Movement and began resisting calls for class-based affirmative action on the grounds that whites had been enjoying racial preferences for hundreds of years.</div>
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<div>Resentment, frustration, and anger expressed by poor and working class whites-as they worried aloud that blacks were leapfrogging over them on their way to Harvard and Yale-were chalked up to racism, leading to little open or honest dialogue about race and an enormous political opportunity for conservative strategists. "Get tough" rhetoric provided a facially race neutral outlet for racial frustrations and hostilities. H.R. ¬Haldeman, President Richard Nixon's former chief of staff, summed up what came to be known as the "Southern Strategy" this way: "The whole problem is really the blacks. The key is designing a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."</div>
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<div><strong>The War on Drugs</strong></div>
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<div><img height="185" width="317" src="http://whyyoumadson.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/blackmenjail1.jpg" align="left" vspace="5" hspace="5" border="0" alt="blackmenjail1.jpg" />And so the "War on Drugs" was born. Richard Nixon was the first to use the term, but Ronald Reagan turned the rhetorical war into a literal one. When he declared his drug war in 1982, drug crime was actually on the decline. It was a couple years before-not after-crack ripped through inner-city communities and became a media sensation. From the outset, the drug war had little to do with drug crime and much to do with racial politics. As numerous historians and political scientists have now shown, Reagan declared his drug war in an attempt to make good on campaign promises to "get tough" on a group of people identified not-so-subtly in the media and political discourse as black and brown. Once crack hit the streets, the Reagan administration seized on the development, actually hiring staff whose job it was to publicize inner-city crack babies, crack dealers, and the so-called crack whores. Once the enemy in the war was racially defined, a wave of punitiveness washed over the United States. Democrats began competing with Republicans to prove they could be even tougher on "them." Some black legislators joined the calls for "get tough" measures, often in desperation, as they sought to deal with rising crime and joblessness in ghetto communities. They found themselves complicit-¬wittingly or unwittingly-in the emergence of a new caste system. And many civil rights advocates found themselves exacerbating racial divisions, fighting for affirmative action even as they abandoned the Poor People's Movement that sought to restructure our nation's economic and political system for the benefit of people of all colors. They had accepted a racial bribe: the promise of largely superficial changes benefiting a relative few in exchange for abandoning the radical movement born in the 1960s that sought liberty and equality for all of us.</div>
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<div>Poor whites had accepted a similar racial bribe when they embraced Jim Crow laws-laws which were proposed following the Civil War as part of a strategic effort by white elites to destroy the Populist movement, the nation's first interracial, political coalition for economic and social justice in the South. Time and time again, the divide-and-¬conquer strategy has worked to eliminate the possibility that poor people of all colors might see themselves as sharing common interests, having a linked fate.</div>
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<div>It's time for me to break the silence.</div>
<p align="center"><img height="400" width="274" src="http://authoritysmashers.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/jim-crow.png" vspace="5" hspace="5" border="0" alt="jim-crow.png" /></p>
<div align="center"><strong>"Mass Incarceration</strong> <br /><strong>in the Age of Colorblindness"</strong></div>
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<div>Video: <a target="_blank" href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=vx8cyzbab&et=1107627449188&s=34103&e=001_Ucgf8kHanjCUAsNgSs9CmK2jAku9zo0XB7Fhp2TjqnU7NZf8BHf6HBX-2_wtNyLodkr8m91lJfKwB7fo50symP8Ad3Fv6tEgDQ_YmT_mltk_JjluoXwBfHATtELeopxIpUIsH16YsgVeY-LNBH1Bg1lqW3OuDGjbD5IyeXw3XAaSX9ou5P5p75lkZO-7C6DIaGZMGhYg1w=">Amy Goodman interviews Michelle Alexander</a>.</div>
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<p>"Your son is suffering because of a drug war declared with black folks in mind," I say after a long pause. "White people-especially poor whites-are suffering because of the politics of racial division.</p>
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<div>Latinos are suffering, too. The drug war as we know it would not exist today, but for the demonization of black men, and now your son, a young white man, is paying the price. Poor whites are collateral damage in this drug war. But whether you're the target or collateral damage, the suffering remains the same. Thanks to the drug war, we have the opportunity to see clearly how caste-like systems hurt us all, even though they hurt us differently or in different degrees. We must go back and pick up where Martin Luther King Jr. left off and do the hard work of movement building on behalf of poor people of all colors. Are you willing to help build a movement to end racial caste in America, a human rights movement on behalf of all of us? All of us or none?"</div>
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<div>"Yes, I am," the white woman shouts loudly, unaided by a microphone. The crowd erupts in applause. She wipes a few tears and smiles. "I just need to know that my son matters, too. I guess we all need to know that we matter. That's what it's all about, right?"<br />Right.</div>
<div><br />________________________________________<br /><span style="color:#ff0000;">Michelle Alexander wrote this article for <em><strong>Beyond Prisons</strong></em>, the Summer 2011 issue of YES! Magazine. Michelle is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University. She is the author of The New Jim Crow. You may call <strong>773.285.9600</strong> to get your copy of <em><strong>The New Jim Crow</strong></em>. Most pictures above provided by <strong>The Black Star Project</strong>.</span></div>
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<p>Culled from:</p>
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<p> </p></div>COMING HOME: Revelations from Former Prisoners" by Sis. Marpessahttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/coming-home-revelations-from2011-03-17T17:09:15.000Z2011-03-17T17:09:15.000ZSis. Marpessahttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/SisMarpessa<div><p>COMING HOME: REVELATIONS FROM FORMER PRISONERS <br />by Sis. Marpessa Kupendua<br /><br />"I WANT TO LIVE EVERY DAY, because I'm afraid I might lose it all again!" - Former DOC No. A27963<br /><br />Transitioning from a prisoner number to an adult person expected to take on adult responsibilities can be overwhelming for many ex-inmates, particularly those who were incarcerated for long periods of time. The prison industry is flourishing because America is locking up more people than any country in the entire world (2 million + and counting), most for non-violent convictions. The subsequent psychological, sensory and physical impact that many of these returnees experience often goes unaddressed and isn't discussed very often by politicians or mainstream media, even though each day many of us will share space with someone who has spent a significant portion of their life in a cage. Every one of us should be concerned because these men and women are of us and will be returning to us, our communities, and many to our own families. This is dedicated to better understanding the impact of this system's 'corrections' from those who lived it. <br /><br /><br />FAMILY AND SUPPORTERS<br /><br />Former prisoners should ideally receive counseling before release and as part of their release plan to help move through the potentially challenging moments they may experience upon re-entry. Likewise the family should (also ideally) be offered counseling before the inmate is released, particularly the children of soon to be ex-prisoners. Caretakers of the children during the incarceration need to know the pitfalls that could occur and learn the tools to protect everyone emotionally while remaining as supportive as possible during the readjustment period. The family members are changed people as a result of the inmate's incarceration, just as the inmate is, and so things will likely not ever get back to the way they once were. Supporters should always offer encouragement and guidance geared toward smoothing out potentially bumpy transitions and not make the returnee feel as though they owe them something for having supported them while incarcerated nor exacerbate negativity that only serves to further divide and cause pain within the family. <br /><br />Ex-prisoners may not readily accept the advice of others because they are finally free to not follow anyone else's orders and so may make errors in judgement when dealing with seemingly simple situations. Opportunists may take advantage of some of these vulnerable returnees as some can be easily manipulated and led into situations that are detrimental to them. Former friends and dangerous influences may arise and ex-prisoners may even fall into some old patterns. Even when mistakes are made, the last thing returnees need to deal with is ridicule or condemnation, breeding resentment and deterring badly needed support. Many have been terrorized mentally and physically at the hands of guards and other inmates and have deep scarring that no one can see from the outside looking in. Comparing one ex-prisoner's successes to another's lack thereof is meaningless because each individual's journey through their prison years varies greatly and so shall their journey upon release. <br /><br />"I had a family. I had a house. I had a car. I had a job.... I was making good money. Everything was going well, and now I don’t have the patience for anything.... I have problems with my physical self. I have aches in my body and my legs.... [My] life is a lot harder. No matter how many visits, phone calls, and letters you have shared with people, you still don't know how much they have changed over a lengthy period of time until you're actually around them regularly, and they feel the same way about you."<br /><br />"My son wasn't a baby any more and he hadn't seen me in 10 years. Now he was 12. He wouldn't let me hug him. He wouldn't even shake my hand. I'm trying to understand this. I cry every night."<br /><br />"I want to prove to myself and those who stuck by me that i can make it right. i'm so scared of letting anyone down after the burden i've been."<br /><br />"Everything has been taken from me while inside, my mom had been taken from me, my dad has been taken from me, I have no family at all out here and I am completely on my own with $75 and nowhere to go. i was engaged when i got locked up at 18 -- now i'm 45, the rest of my teens, all of my 20s, 30s, and most of my 40s, gone! My only child was born while i was inside and is now himself an inmate and so we'll never be together."<br /><br />"i live with my mother in my old neighborhood. i need a pardon in order to get paid for wrongful imprisonment. After all they've taken from me, you'd think they'd at least provide me with my basic needs, i'm embarrassed to depend on my family as a 45 yr old man to have to eat."<br /><br />"Every night I pray and pray for the prisoners I left behind, I feel so badly for them living under such horrible conditions and promised many of them I would help them when I got out. My one friend is getting out of prison this week, she has been locked up for 8 years....she was 18 when she got locked up. I want to see her, but part of me wants to leave that part of me behind....!!! i want to help but how can i help, i barely have my feet on the ground as it is. But I promised I would and she is counting on me for support."<br /><br />"I went into a serious depression and was put on a medication that drove me into a prison within myself. It took the program staff several months to realize I wasn’t talking to anyone or eating, that I had lost about 30 pounds. I was ‘gone’ even though I was performing my required duties. After all those years of taking care of myself, to be so strong and resourceful and get myself paroled (By God’s Grace) and then not know how to do anything for myself was really difficult."<br /><br /><br />THE REAL WORLD<br /><br />A study of the attitudes of released prisoners in the United States revealed that most expected to be labeled “ex-cons” and treated as failures and pariahs. Getting paperwork together to apply for services such as a birth certificate, social security card, driver's license, etc., are very difficult to obtain and yet are very necessary to acquire quickly in order to become recognized as a person in this system. Learning bus/subway systems or even walking routes may be difficult because of the changes that have taken place in the landscape. A steady diet of encouragement is necessary in order to try and help them find a new 'normal' in their life and set and achieve goals. The feelings of alienation may still be present, no matter how many people may feel that they are close to the inmate. <br /><br />"The dysfunctional consequences of institutionalization are not always immediately obvious once the institutional structure and procedural imperatives have been removed. This is especially true in cases where persons retain a minimum of structure wherever they re-enter free society. Moreover, the most negative consequences of institutionalization may first occur in the form of internal chaos, disorganization, stress, and fear. Yet, institutionalization has taught most people to cover their internal states, and not to openly or easily reveal intimate feelings or reactions. So, the outward appearance of normality and adjustment may mask a range of serious problems in adapting to the freeworld. ... when severely institutionalized persons confront complicated problems or conflicts, especially in the form of unexpected events that cannot be planned for in advance, the myriad of challenges that the non-institutionalized confront in their everyday lives outside the institution may become overwhelming. The facade of normality begins to deteriorate, and persons may behave in dysfunctional or even destructive ways because all of the external structure and supports upon which they relied to keep themselves controlled, directed, and balanced have been removed. ... Parents who return from periods of incarceration still dependent on institutional structures and routines cannot be expected to effectively organize the lives of their children or exercise the initiative and autonomous decisionmaking that parenting requires. ... Those who remain emotionally over-controlled and alienated from others will experience problems being psychologically available and nurturant."-- <a href="http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/prison2home02/Haney.htm#II">http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/prison2home02/Haney.htm#II</a><br /><br />"It felt like I was walking into another world again, I couldn't believe it. Because I've been fighting so long, when (my release) eventually came I didn't know whether to take it or run back inside."<br /><br />"I was very frightened to walk across a street. I couldn't judge the time, distance, and speed of on-coming traffic. I had a problem with my sensory depth perception from bars being right in front of my face. I realized it was a problem after wildly running in an almost panic across the street, only to see the on-rushing traffic to remain still considerable distances down the street. I told myself, 'you've got a problem, so get over it - fast.' And that's exactly what I did. I worked and worked on it."<br /><br />"DO NOT walk up behind me without saying something or making noise of some kind BEFORE you get near me..."<br /><br />"It takes a long time to adjust to basic things, like knowing you can open the bedroom door and go out. One man I know of couldn't leave his bedroom without someone coming to get him. I'm a lot more claustrophobic now -- even the shower curtain bothers me. Many of us suffer from sleep disorders, paranoia, pervasive anxiety, depression, nightmares, night sweats and many symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. " <br /><br />""The first few days are the hardest, just getting your senses used to not being in an institution can be overwhelming. The smells of urban life, the sounds, eyes adjusting to home lighting. Feet hardly know how to walk on wood floors and carpeting (vs. concrete). Being able to close a door and not be watched, the softness of cushions and blankets and people, lights that can be turned on and off when you want."<br /><br />"Last I checked life doesn’t come with instructions. You just got to take it how it comes sometimes. I wish I knew how to make it through a trip to the grocery store without becoming overwhelmed and traumatized by the experience of too many choices. Ice cream was a 30 minute decision making event for me. I have not yet adjusted to thinking for myself completely."<br /><br />"It is all a lot faster, people are different, more hostile and pushy than I remember. "<br /><br />"Once you get outside those gates, you lose those same independent, ambitious thoughts you had, you feel lost and very dependent on other's guidance. I felt thrust into solitude after the active, super-responsible life-style I had in prison. I had a job, a routine, and had earned my respect. I sat in my room at the halfway house, where there was a small TV. For 3 days, I never turned it on because I didn't know how to, and I was too ashamed to ask anyone for help."<br /><br />"I worry about violating parole every time I step outside, by resembling someone or just by talking to the wrong person. Everytime i see the police go by, even though i'm not breaking any law, makes my heart skip a beat because they love to harass Blacks and Latinos, it's a game to them. I only did 5 years and I still jump at the sound of keys or 2 way radio."<br /><br />"I am in awe of all of you as I watch you scurrying around, maneuvering so nonchalantly, effortlessly, while I stumble around like I'm deaf/blind, not knowing which way to go, too prideful to ask many times. I watch people's conversations but have little to offer outside of prison stories, so I have no conversational chit-chat. I watch people hop on and off buses, read confusing street signs and symbols, while i'm still getting lost in these huge stores or feel nervous sitting in a waiting room where it seems that everyone is watching me. "<br /><br /><br />EMPLOYMENT/SURVIVAL<br /><br />Statistically more than half of all inmates are re-arrested at some point, so setting small goals and working towards accomplishing them soon after release is key to getting on the good foot towards staying out. The basic requirements are just what anyone would expect them to be: information on where to obtain temporary shelter, food, clothing, health care/medicines, and the legal documents necessary to apply for employment and services. Instead of prisons providing some semblance of these basic requirements for inmates upon release, most are instead sent home with less than $100, the clothes on their backs, and no support system. They are programmed to fail so that this system can continue to keep its well-oiled, prison money-making machine humming. <br /><br />"There had been no help from inside to prepare me to be successful getting out. At the core of being successful outside is how you can make decisions. I felt inadequate, stupid, less than other people when I first got out, and that made it harder to feel able to make any of the decisions. We think we have a plan and think we have an idea of what it will be, hour by hour, minute by minute. We just get a Plan A together, but we are not prepared with Plan B, C, or D for when Plan A doesn’t work!"<br /><br />"I wish I never had to talk about why I went to jail again. Everytime I have to tell someone I've been to jail, I have to go through the entire story. I just want to put it all behind me, but no one will let me. I just want to work."<br /><br />"I am out of a job, so I need a job and services to help are limited. Because all my adult life has been inside, I have no work history before 2009 and didn’t make enough to pay into UE (unemployment) benefits and only paid less than a year. Because of unemployment’s structure (like the rest of the gov) I only received benefits for four months and have no more money. Also as grateful as I am for friends who come thru in my time of need, I am growing soul weary of taking hand outs at my age. I feel like I should be able to take care of myself and not feel as dependant as I was when I was incarcerated."<br /><br />"The biggest psychological effect that incarceration had on me when I came out after twelve years was not being able to move about as freely as I imagined I would. It isn't that I am not learning some of the things I need to, but that I am not learning all the things I want to and it comes down to time. Often people who come out come to realize that the help they thought they would easily find isn't available and they must do things on their own and that takes time and often just living day to day is hard enough. Now a person can either take their time, manage their time and eventually get to it or get caught up again and be back on the prison plantation. Basic things like how to use cell phones, developing resumes, getting legal documents like ss cards, birth certificates and such are difficult tasks and when people don't plan on how to do some of these things before they come out it will be an even harder task when they are released."<br /><br />"It is frustrating to lay awake and think 'Well if I go back to prison at least my life will be assigned to me: job, clothes, bed, and food, will all be handed to me and I don’t have to worry.' Don’t get me wrong I have no intention (for now) of committing a crime, however I wonder what I will do if push comes to shove and I’m truly out of cash and have no way to eat or support myself at all."<br /><br />"Sent home with no money, job, or place to live. Red tape keeps me from collecting anything from the state for my wrongful imprisonment. Even though i've been exonerated, the record hasn't shown it and so the charges are still on my record and I can't get a job!"<br /><br />"We’re not seen as community members when we get out, and we face discrimination in employment, housing, etc. People don’t necessarily see the value of former prisoners, or understand that we have a right to be part of the community and have something to contribute. We need to get that sense of self and value as part of community."<br /><br />"One of the things that happens is we don’t know the questions to ask because we don’t know the answers we need."<br /><br /><br />GOD BLESS THE CHILD<br /><br />Information is power. Boston's 'Coming Home' Directory is an excellent example of the type of resource that ex-offenders need upon release from prison, listing providers of emergency assistance, health care, housing help, legal assistance, support groups, veterans and women's groups, plus much more, check it out at <a href="http://www.cominghomedirectory.org/index.php">http://www.cominghomedirectory.org/index.php</a>. This directory is exactly the type of information that needs to be in the hands of ex-offenders and their families/supporters from day one. Residents of cities that don't provide a directory along these same lines should get together and create one and make it widely available. This would be a really excellent project for prison activists or any group/church/club to take on. Ex-offenders need assistance applying for and receiving services for some period of time following release, this is basic and should not even be an issue anywhere in this country! <br /><br />Former prisoners, their families and supporters must become involved in organizing for serious changes in state and federal policies and within the prison hellholes themselves. All can attest to the horrendous conditions and practices that violate health codes and constitutional guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment. With millions of lives being impacted in some way by the prison system, there could be a massive prison movement happening right now if people who know the deal would simply participate at whatever level they can, there is strength in numbers! A great example of returnees and supporters organizing is Returning Citizens United (returningcitizensunited@verizon.net) of Washington, DC. who actively organize to break the cycle of homelessness, addiction, and incarceration by coalitioning for affordable housing, jobs, and addiction treatment services which can help address the root causes of these issues. They also are fighting for alternatives to incarceration. They believe that by continued recognition for those who have lost their way, they can work together as a unit to help restore the lives of homeless, recovering, and returning citizens (ex-offenders) by meeting their needs so that they can regain structure and stability in society. <br /><br />Helping to rebuild shattered lives is an onerous task that can be rife with frustration and anguish, particularly when it comes to families and supporters. Breaking old habits is more than just a notion for returnees sometimes, but they also must not just be about themselves and recognize that their loved ones have endured tremendous anxiety, depression and grief from missing them and worrying over their day to day survival inside the prison. No matter the amount of joy family and friends may have felt at any given time, that could instantly convert to that sad, sinking feeling by just the thought of their dearly loved one locked up in a prison far away from home. Many family members struggle with illnesses, addictions, and other destructive behaviors as they, too, have done time right along with the ex-prisoner as well as endured the gossiping whispers of a community, church or workplace. Children are traumatized by the teasing of their peers because they have a parent or sibling in prison and are devastated when visits and phone calls end, many times having gone for years without even their human touch. Many families also suffer financial ruin from lawyer fees, fines, the obscene price gouging of prisoner phone calls, traveling hundreds of miles to rural areas to visit, and putting money in prison commissary accounts. Some parolees are even asked to pay a monthly fee for their parole before they have even secured employment, so this also falls to the families to pay! These families truly are the forgotten victims. Supporters must show compassion and not be judgmental or harsh when issues arise as the family and ex-prisoner struggle to readjust around a myriad of issues. Plans may have to change but you best believe that there is always a new day and a new way to fight for a positive outcome for all concerned.<br /><br />"What I really wish I knew back then that I know now is that no matter how well you plan your release it won’t be anything like you plan!! Even and especially the happy family reunions we dream about won’t be so happy. They may be at first but then the reality of time and distance starts to show. Our family’s have a lot of unresolved emotions that may be hidden behind the 'I just want you home' face. My kids told me a year before I got out on Mother’s Day that they couldn’t wait to see me every day. When I got out they had moved from LA area to near San Bernardino and will barely speak to me. I took it hard when my plans weren’t going my way especially on the family part. I just want women to know that even though it won't go as planned, don’t make the mistake I made and let it stop you from taking advantage of what new opportunities arise from life planning itself. This is not the structured world of prison. No one ever knows how a day can begin and end. Just push on and enjoy having a day to begin and end. There aren’t any limits out here and we stand equal to those around us so we don’t have to bend to others will anymore. I think that was my downfall, I forgot that someone else’s word isn’t law, that I have the power over my life and most of all my freedom including freedom to question or challenge or change the course of my life. My best advice: don’t plan beyond finding a place to stay. The first week get your ID, SSI card, and GR or whatever income will sustain you until you get a job. But let all the rest be and take it as it comes."<br /><br />Keep on pushing forward, together we can make better days ahead!<br /><br />Thanks to:<br /><br />Bilal, Deirdre, Diana, Karima, Lee, Mary Ellen, Misty, Mustafa, Nikki, Robin, Vonda and Yango<br /><br />CA Coalition for Women Prisoners - <a href="http://www.womenprisoners.org/">http://www.womenprisoners.org/</a><br /><br />Prisoners are People, Too - <a href="http://www.prp2.org/">http://www.prp2.org/</a><br /><br />The Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Reentry Challenges for African-American Women, [PDF] American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. November, 2010. "African-American women offenders face collateral attacks on their motherhood, on their ability to secure housing and employment, and on their ability to reintegrate. Reentry programs must have a race and gender focus that confronts intersectionality." <a href="http://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/prison_programs_recidivism_reentry/">http://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/prison_programs_recidivism_reentry/</a>)<br /><a href="http://innocenceprojectpa.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/exonerees-speak-about-life-after-prison-2/">http://innocenceprojectpa.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/exonerees-speak-about-life-after-prison-2/</a><br /><br /><a href="http://thejerichomovement.com">http://thejerichomovement.com</a> - Jericho is a movement with the defined goal of gaining recognition of the fact that political prisoners and prisoners of war exist inside of the United States despite the US government’s continued denial ... and winning amnesty and freedom for these political prisoners.<br /><br /><a href="http://truthinjustice.org/finding-solace.htm">http://truthinjustice.org/finding-solace.htm</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/IHRLC/ReturningHomeDownloadable.pdf">http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/IHRLC/ReturningHomeDownloadable.pdf</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/11210655/Life-After-Prison-Steps-to-Making-it-on-the-Outside">http://www.scribd.com/doc/11210655/Life-After-Prison-Steps-to-Making-it-on-the-Outside</a> (Cons Helping Cons was not specifically excerpted in this piece but has great suggestions for ex-prisoners, well worth checking out).</p><p> </p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828524333,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828524333,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="311" alt="3828524333?profile=original" /></a></p></div>Black Women Prisoners Need Letter Writing Campaignhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/black-women-prisoners-need2010-01-27T03:24:34.000Z2010-01-27T03:24:34.000ZCathy Harrishttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/CathyHarris<div>FREE Sherry Peel Jackson - <a href="http://SherryPeelJackson.blogspot.com">http://SherryPeelJackson.blogspot.com</a>FREE The Scott Sisters - <a href="http://www.FreeTheScottSisters.blogspot.com">http://www.FreeTheScottSisters.blogspot.com</a>Read more in weekly e-newsletters at <a href="http://www.NationalBlackAgendaOnline.com">www.NationalBlackAgendaOnline.com</a>CathyHarrisSpeaks.comAtlanta</div>Japan/China Purchases Over 50% of U.S. Prison Bondshttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/japanchina-purchases-over-502009-09-05T01:30:00.000Z2009-09-05T01:30:00.000ZNgone Awhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/NgoneAw<div><p style="text-align:left;"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828512182,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" /></p><br />PRISON USA - Japan/China purchases Over 50% of the U.S. Prison B Message ListMessage #81029 - posted by: <b>Brother AllPrasesDueToTheCreator</b><br /><a href="http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/soa">www.yahoogroups.com/group/soa</a><br /><b>Note: There was a recent article entitled: Obama: U.S.-China relations to shape the 21st Century.</b>Over 50% of the Money Market U.S. Prison Bonds right now are purchased in Japan or China. 14th Amendment Black U.S. NEGROS have no clue about what is actually going on right up under their noses. So-called Black People are too busy being AMUSED with non-productive T.V. Shows, Sports, Amusement Parks, and Negro Foolishness while they are rapidly and inhumanely rotting and wasting by being commercially warehoused in a Racist U.S. Jails and U.S. Prisons.<b>WE GROSSLY SUFFER FROM A LACK OF THE RIGHT KIND OF KNOWLEDGE.</b>The New World Order will serve to concrete the UNLAWFUL NEGRO competely out of the commercial arena and out of physical existence.PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK !!!* * * End of Note * * *by Lynn SchmaltzEvery prisoner in the U.S. has a monetary value to the government whether its local, county, state or federal. Bonds are written based on the persons name and social security number and are sold through a brokerage firm such as AG Edwards or Merrill Lynch who has the contract to sell all the prison bonds for the city, county, state or federal prisons. Over 50% of the money market bonds right now are purchased in Japan or China.I've been told by researchers that Walmart and used to be, Kmart, also purchase these bonds. Wal-Mart mostly doing so by emptying out bank accounts at night. Both companies are fronts for enormous money machines.The way the bond works is that a monetary value is placed on the alleged crime and then factored the way banks factor their money. In other words if a person is convicted of a felony the value would be $4 million. The county/city/state then multiplies it by ten, so the bond that goes out for sale with the prisoners name and social security number is a short-term promissory note.It's offered at $40 million. Perhaps an investor will offer 40% of the $40 million, or $16 million. Once this promissory note of the face value of $40 million reaches the banks it is then multiplied again by 200 to 300% and sold as bank securities. For those of you who wonder why the US has more people in prison per capita than any other nation on earth, you'll begin to understand how we can have a weakening economy and still fund wars overseas. It's all based on prisoners, in other words, prison for profit.Knowing all this and knowing that a prisoner can have a net worth of say, $10,000 per day in the money markets, helped me explain to many bewildered women why they were in jail. We were only merchandise in a warehouse. The storage was pretty cheap; one woman while in jail researched the cost of feeding prisoners per day which ranged from 74 cents to $2.72 per prisoner per day.Owners of the Prison Systems in America is, CORRECTION CORP OF AMERICA. It's headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee and owns all the private prison systems in AMERICA and are selling the commercial paper.This is how it Works: A bid bond is done on Form 24, which comes out of the GSA Office (General Services Administration which is out of GAO (General Accounting Office} which is under the Comptroller General. This Blake Bond Bid Bond is promulgated at the time the social security card is issued.When you are arrested the bond is filled out and they issue a Performance Bond, which is done from Form 25, and then they do a Payment Bond, which is a Form 25A.The Bonds are being underwritten by the Banks. This is where the PAINE WEBBERGROUP comes in.The Plaintiff in all criminal tax cases in the USA is the PAINE WEBBER GROUP as the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The PAINE WEBBER GROUP is a group of international businesses. The PAINE WEBBER GROUP is providing the Securities for the prisons and is selling the Bonds, and the Banks, The ABA (AMERICAN BANKING ASSOCIATION) like LEHMEN BROTHERS, in New York City, are the underwriters on the Bonds. The Banks (the underwriters) is where the money isoriginally coming from.A six digit tracking number is issued for the Certificate of Stocks in the Commodity and Security Exchange in the USA by CUSIP (see <a href="http://www.cusip.com">www.cusip.com</a> and <a href="http://www.cjts.com">www.cjts.com</a> the law enforcement tracking software) and a nine digit number (called Ordnance Number) is issued for the Certificate of Stocks going internationally to ANNA (see link for ANNA which is in Brussels, Belgium at <a href="http://www.cusip.com">www.cusip.com</a> ).These Securities are sold through the Commodity and Security Exchange. The bottom line is they are selling stocks in the prison system.. The jails are referred to as Warehouses and the prisoners are called Goods (oops). They are selling the Goods or the Account as Chattel, and as Commercial Paper on the Stock Exchange. Reminds one of the days when slaves were bought and sold on the auction block!<b>The PAINE WEBBER GROUP is the prime stockholder in this CCA (Correction CORP of America).</b>Let's call this person Lynn. The TRANSPORT COMPANY who transported her to Colorado in a van with 16 other prisoners being transported about had the words "Transport Corporation of America....Nashville, Tennessee." Transport rides are also called 'diesel therapy' by those who know about them. However twenty of the largest companies such as WAL-MART; EXON; GENERAL MOTORS; FORD MOTORS; CHEVY; TEXICO; CITY CORP; IBM; EXPHILIP; HEWLETT PACKARD; VERIZON; UNITED POSTAL SERVICE, UPS; and etc. are also involved as well as other stock holding corporations. There are numerous corporations that hold these stocks amounting to billions of dollars.Of course the monies generated is all off budget with no accounting to the People, even though the CORRECTION CORP OF AMERICA through the PAINE WEBBER GROUP is acting in the capacity of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.Right now there are many forms of jail in the US, actual jail, CCP ankle bracelet, transport jail, probation, parole, they all generate incomeLet's call him Paul. Paul and I were released on Friday on personal recognizance and allowed to go to New Mexico. We have a hearing in CO on Sept 13, 04. We got home Sat. night and have been doing catch up here at home today. I'll write an update on Monday or Tuesday. I will especially have some words about the very heinous prison Transport System in our country. For now suffice it to say that it took 20 hours in a prison van with 16 prisoners to get from Albuquerque to Hot Sulphur Springs, normally a 8 or 9 hour trip.All of us rode in hand cuffs and shackles the entire trip. There were 3 stops for McDonalds' 'food.' No one but the officers got off the van unless they were being dropped off. No exercise at any point. No movement allowed but to use the porta potty on board. Cattle being transported across country are generally treated better. I talked with a man who'd been on transport from California to Colorado since July 8, 04. My transport date was August 11, 04. Someone in the midwest told me he knew of a prisoner being transported for six months and occasionally dropped off in a county jail some-where to await a different transport van.It's my understanding that once you're a prisoner in the system, the county/agency holding you is floating bond for $10,000 per day with your name and your bar code (Soc. sec. #) and these bonds are bundled periodically and sold through Merrill Lynch, AG Edwards, etc. for each state.Prison for profit, it's not just baloney and white bread. Paul was released from CCP (ankle bracelet) in Albuquerque and allowed to drive up to Hot Sulphur where he spent another 3 days in jail (my time over the summer has been 5 days in May, 18 days in June-July, 15 days in August and on house arrest, bond from May 24 to June 25, and ankle bracelet from mid-July to August 5, 04). Thankfully, Paul with all his transplant medications, diabetes medications, was in from May 19-24, 04.The rest of the time he was on bond or ankle bracelet house arrest. I doubt he'd have survived a prolonged transport situation. The alleged crime? "Influencing a public office" and "filing a false document." This is what they called our UCC1 financing statement sent when we informed public officials there would be a fee for using our copyrighted property (PAUL SCHMALTZ and PATRICIA SCHMALTZ), which they did anyway.And, of course, there were no repercussions for those officials when they held a fraudulent, unpublished sale our home business on the court house steps, etc. As you well know there is no remedy in the courts of any kind. They completely ignored our sovereign status with Little Shell Pembina and Apostille with the sovereignty filed by cancellatura.I just found the notes on Jack Smith and Gene Keatings research on prisoner bonds (not the kind you bail out with). GOTOBUTTON BM_2_ <a href="http://Www.ctjs.com">Www.ctjs.com</a> is the criminal justice tracking system software which shows the software that metro police departments use. Go to the user manual and it takes to 2% appearance bond fees. Then go to special operating software for courtrooms and it shows you how the 2% appearance bond fees are tied to the defendant's account. Go to the bottom in the original user's manual and it says, "Fine accounting." Further up the page is assessments. it shows how it's all tracked from beginning to end.A caller wrote to a court once and send, "Send me a complete accounting of my case." It came back showing a $90,000 active security and they said, "Your paperwork has been forwarded to the Department of Justice." The caller wrote a week later and said, "Send me a final pay-off amount for all my money. What would there be after 18 years without any fees, fines and interest."They said, "We sent all your stuff to the Department of Justice. Go to GOTOBUTTON BM_3_ <a href="http://www.cjts.com">www.cjts.com</a> and you'll see all there is to see about a public witness. The caller downloaded it. Roger Elvick had written something about stock exchange transactions. Once you get the bond you are creditor in fact. Alan comes on the phone call with Jack Smith who had studied Roger Elvick's stuff intensely. He understands marketing accounts and the courts. Roger had said, "We have to find a way to track the account." The caller on Jack's program grabbed the phone book and just randomly picked a brokerage company.AG Edwards. He called up to talk to a broker. Caller says he's trying to figure something out. If there was someone trading bonds in the bond market in the caller's name without his permission could he track the account. AG Edwards broker says they would have to have a social security number or a driver's license number. Caller says he knows someone who was trading in Roger Elvick's name. Broker asked if it was a friend, family member or corporation? Caller said to the broker it was a corporation. Broker then said every bond has a cusip # Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Process Number.You can go to <a href="http://www.cusip.com">www.cusip.com</a>. There are two main outlets. Chicago and New York. You'd have to find out who their transfer agents are and then you could track the trade. You can even find out if funds are being embezzled off the account.When the cop gives you a ticket and you go into court, the judge is using this as a credit item to trade in the markets and he's doing calls. What if someone went in and caught them short on the margin call?The broker at AG Edwards knew what the caller was talking about. He said, "IF you want to follow this up anymore, you'll have to go to the Securities Exchange division in your state. So, the next thing the caller did was check the Department of Financial Institution of his state on the web and looked up securities exchange division. The advisory committee showed AG Edwards was the transfer agent for the state, making all the bond trades.The cop does all the paper work in the car. He is creating the assessment and the paperwork in his car when he makes out the ticket by using name, social security number, and driver's license number. They assume you voluntarily gave it to the cop and make the trade. Every cop is a private business contractor working for the corporation. If this is true then you can follow up on every trade made in your name on your exemption.Find the bond written on your birth certificate. Use that and access your exemption through the stock market that way. Roger Elvick knew this. The transfer and transfer agent and the number with social security number and every case number will be listed. Every traffic ticket will be listed. Broker says if Ameritrade had a trade he could track it, but he can't track AG Edwards, and others. It's going to take someone higher up. The brokers are enslaved by their industry. When you have a job your company is using your social security number.They'll keep taking your exemption even if you leave that company. AG Edwards sells the prisoner/traffic bonds for several states. How does this correlate with admiralty? Jack Smith says that in admiralty the vessels are carrying commodities and goods. So they carry invoices, packing slips and bills of lading. Warrants and securities back up the goods.Lag, goods that float on the water. Gene Keating says that Title 46 is the shipping code in admiralty. Secretary of Transportation is the receiver of the bankruptcy of the UNITED STATES, section 1247 Title 46, he's the receiver and trustee. He's talking about the carriage of goods sea act which is Title 46 in the appendix. Bills of lading are all documents of title--warrants and documents are all underthe UCC and deal with documents of title. Title 46 Sections 181-189--admiralty is very complex. Even judges are taught on a need to know basis. Appellate judges often don't know all this.This all leads to different aspects of admiralty/maritime law, both inside and outside the courtroom. The carriage of goods act, Title 46, is all governed by the Secretary of Transportation, the Coast Guard, Secretary of Commerce and the treasury are all under Secretary of Transportation and it's all in commerce.The Secretary of transportation is the head of the maritime commission. All vessels are registered under Title 46, Section 31-301 which talks about maritime liens that arise by operation of law. There's a maritime lien commission. The Secretary of Transportation is running everything because we are all on the 'highway of commerce', the water came inland, so to speak, and now it's here under the law of trust.Everyone who comes into the courtroom is a ward in admiralty, a ward of the court. We're in an "in rem" proceeding in admiralty in a title dispute and we have to come in as the title holder or have interest or claim in the subject matter of the complaint, or we are the 'vessel' and they have arrested 'the vessel.'We're not in common law in the courts, we're in admiralty and they get jurisdiction by arresting the vessel. They, lawyers district attorneys, law enforcement, don't use the proper process and they need to trick, cajole, deceive, pressure us to do whatever they need to do and have us make a mistake to give them 'in personam jurisdiction' over us when we take on the attributes of a general appearance to the subject matter of the pleadings against the defendant "in rem" and we start acting in any capacity on the merits of the charges or by taking on the persona of the defendant vessel 'in rem.'There's lots more to this, but I think you get the gist about 'prisons for profit. In tying this all together it would appear that there are many laggard souls, some are incarcerated in prison and some are working in the prisons. And many, many more are indifferent to what is going on in our country as far as prisons and prisoners are concerned.U.S.CORPORATE citizenship is Legislative Bond-age/Bondage, Coerced Slavery, and Undisclosed Fraud a 14th Amendment Colored BLACK African-American U.S. Negroes have no Favorable Standing or Respectable Status in Law (The UNITED SNAKES has been unjustly enriching themselves off of so-called Black Peoples in AmeriKKKa for 500 Years). . . . Everyone has a right to a Real Identity, Proper Status, True Nationality, Rightful Heritage, and Great Second-to-None Culture<b>WE ARE STILL IN A RACIST WAR.TIME IS RUNNING EXTREMELY SHORT FOR THE U.S. 14th AMENDMENT ARTIFICIAL/CORPORATE COLORED BLACK AFRICAN-AMERICAN NEGROSIN NORTH AMERIKKKA.</b><br />Nation-Wide Martial Law is already being planned for Insurgent U.S. citizens. There are FEMA Camps, Prisoner Transport Railcars, Shackled Boxcars, Burial Vaults, Bio-War Vaccinations, and Nazi/KKK Army Troops, all standing by and waiting for a New Pre-fabricated/Pre-orchestrated/Pre-meditated FALSE Attack on the Sheep-Like U.S. citizens. For once in your Black Life, try to understand something of this magnitude and atleast attempt to force yourselves to stay away from being UP IN DA CLUB during Booty Night, Hoochie Night, Sports Night, Reggae Night, Mack Daddy Night, Church Night, Trifling Night, Fish-Fry Night, Bingo Night, and every other NON-PRODUCTIVE NEGRO Night that's out there.So-called Black People in AmeriKKKa are being (and have been) inhuemanely commercially warehoused in the White Supremacist U.S. Jails and U.S. Prisons. This sad scenario predicament could only have been unlawfully accomplished by deceptively conning and tricking a Natural Flesh and Blood†Person into the negative presumptive status of being an Artificial/Fictitious Corporate U.S. citizen from the time of their Natural Births by way of their Birth Certificates at the U.S. Hospitals which they were born. Your Birth Certificates is actually a BOND Certificate. YOU the Natural Flesh and Blood Person are the Surety and Collateral for the Bond in which you have no idea about. This (unknowingly and unwillingly) is your very first introduction to U.S. Bond-age/Bondage and Commercial Slavery. Your Death Certificate also serves as a lucrative Bond Certificate which is monetarily retrieved and recouped (cashed in on) when you die without you or your family (and/or heirs) have no idea about. Your wealth then would be reverted back to the Money Master Criminals who set up and placed you in the system in the first place. DON'T YOU LOVE THE U..NITED S.NAKES !!!<b>BLACK Lawyers and NEGRO Attorneys</b> do not re-present the Natural Flesh and Blood Man or Woman. Their very exact positions are only known to serve and re-present the All-capital-Lettered Artificial/Fictitious CORPORATE Name which appears on your Birth Certificate. That All-Capital-Lettered Artificial/Fictitious Legal Entity is a Subject/Slave and Ward of the Corporation known as the UNITED STATES Inc. OF AMERIKKKA (which is the Corporate Interest of England). Mostly all Lawyers and Attorney are affiliated with an exclusive membership in the B.A.R. Association. B.A.R. is said to be known to stand for Barrister/British Aristocrat/Accreditation Regency/Register. These Slimy-Ass BLACK/NEGRO Attorneys and Lawyers hold a special Esquire Title of Nobility from the same entity in which you are sadly a helpless Subject/Slave to. Attorney and/or Lawyers do not ever favorably re-present you in the negative Corporate Status which you are currently in. They actually sell your Black Ass up the Commercial CORPORATE River Plantation and receive a hefty Salary from their British Masters of Blood-thirsty ENGLAND.What actually goes on in a U.S. Courtroom goes all the way back to the days of King Edward of Britain/England. What went on back then was known as the Statute Merchant. The Statute Merchant is a Bond of Merchant or Bond of Record (otherwise known as Bond-Age/Bondage or Slavery). These Corporate Statutes themselves are the Bond and what they do is duplicate the FAKE Statutes that they charge you under with what they call a recognizance Bond and the dumb-ass sheep-like people (U.S. citizens) sign the Recognizance Bond. Without reading what the bond says. What the bond says is that YOU (as a presumptive U.S. “Corporate citizen) voluntarily agree to pay back the National Debt of the U.S. Corporation (which was created in 1871 out of England). When you go into a U.S. Courtroom on what you thought was a Criminal Charge, the charge is actually CIVIL not CRIMINAL.Colored Black African-American U.S. Negroes desperately need to know how the admiralty works. Your U.S. Birth Certificate literally placed YOU in Admiralty Jurisdiction (atleast since 1933). There is a book out by John E. Hall entitled: Jurisdiction and Practice of the Law of Admiralty. This book was allegedly used in the Vice Admiralty Courts in the ORIGINAL Thirteen (13) British/English Colonies during the American Revolution. It is said that this same particular book started the American Revolution.What they are doing in these RACIST Artificial U.S. Courts are all about Bonds (Bond-age/Bondage or Slavery). When 14th Amendment Colored BLACK African-American U.S. Negroes go into the courtroom after you have been unlawfully arrested on some trumped up bullsh%t charges, these wicked-ass devils use two (2) different sets of Bonds. What they do when you are arrested is they fill out a Bid Bond. The united States/Snakes District Court uses 273, 274, and 275. SF means Standard Form. Standard Form 273, Standard Form 274, and Standard Form 275. This is the United States/Snakes District Court. There is another set of Bonds (Bond-age/Bondage or Slavery) and they are all put out by GSA.; General Services Administration. G.S.A. Form SF24 is the “Bid Bondâ€. The “Performance Bond†id SF25. The Payment Bond is SF25A and put out by the General Services administration which is abbreviated G.S.A. The G.S.A. is under the Comptroller of the Currency which is under the G.A.O. or General Accounting Office. What do you think that they would be doing with these bonds? What is actually going on in the courtroom is that they are suing you for a debt collection. What it actually is, is an action of ASSUMPSIT. The word PRESUME comes from the word Assumpsit which means I agree or I presume to do. An act of Assumpsit which means I agree to a collection of debt. If you look at these bonds. . . everyone of these bonds have a PENAL SUM attached to it. The reason for the Penal Sum is if you don't pay the debt, you automatically go into Default Judgement. That is what is going on in the courtroom. This is why all of these so-called Black People are sitting and rotting in U.S. Prisons and U.S. Jails wondering what the hell is going on. This current U.S. Court/Prison System is a Blood-Sucking Capitalist RACIST Criminal Operation in which the Sheep-Like U.S. citizens are unknowingly the fuel and basis to the overall production. Back in the days of King Edward I (of Britain/England), if you owed a debt, they would send a Sheriff out with a Warrant to arrest you. This is ALL CIVIL, this is NOT CRIMINAL. It's just a smoke screen to cover up what they are doing with Mercantile Civil Law and what they did when they arrested the people with a warrant and brought them into court, they were made to sign a bond to release until the civil suit commenced. What they do is arrest you, then they hold you. Basically they hold you until the suit has been completed and when they get Default Judgment on you because of failure to pay the debt, they put you in prison. Remember, the DEBT in which you supposedly failed to pay is the duplicated Statute (Fake Law) which has been presented to you in the form of a Recognizance Bond. You have already unknowingly signed this Bond.B.A.R. Lawyers and Attorneys exist to cover up the smoke screen operation on and against the people. Lawyers and Attorneys shamelessly and shamefully lead you into default judgment. They have become known to blatantly and coldly advise you to take an unfavorable Plea to something that you had absolutely nothing to do with in the first place (otherwise known as Plea Bargaining). This unfortunate act immediately results in a Default Judgmentâ€. Then the courts put you in prison and then they sell your Default Judgment. WHO DO THEY SELL THESE DEFAULT JUDGMENTS TO? These State Court Default Judgments are sold to the U.nited S.nakes District Court. And this is all being done in direct collusion with the U.nited S.nakes Department of Treasury.. What is being sold from the State Court and bought by the District Court are Commercial Items. Commercial Items are regulated in the Uniform Commercial Code as Commercial Paper. Commercial Paper are Negotiable Instruments. According to the Uniformed Commercial Code, anything that you put your signature on is a Negotiable Instrument. The Uniform Commercial Code is Lex Mercatoria which is Latin for Mercantile/Merchant Law. Remember, as of 1871, U..S. Congress created a U.S. Corporation (known as UNITED STATES Inc. OF AMERICA and is incorporated and chartered out of England). This U.S. Corporation is owned and operated by International Bankers and Foreign Creditors in which the Original de jure U.S. Republic treasonously and fraudulently surrendered it's Sovereignty over to. Up until this present day and very moment, all courts in this U.nited S.nakes ENGLISH Corporation are using Mercantile/Merchant Law because each and every one of you (by way of the All-Capital-Lettered SURETY Names listed on your U.S. Birth Certificates) are unknowingly under the presumptive status of appearing to be Merchants-at-Law. Because you use Commercial Paper/Negotiable Instruments every day (by the constant multiple use of your signature), you are firmly held to the overwhelming responsibility of being an expert in these Merchant Affairs and Merchant Law Operations. Every time you put your signature on a piece of paper, you are creating a negotiable/non-negotiable instrument (otherwise known as Commercial Paper). Every time you endorse something, you are unknowingly acting as an accommodation Party under the Uniform Commercial Code 3-419. An accommodation Party is anyone who loans their signature to another Party. When people in the Corporate U.S. numerously and constantly sign their names on any and all paper documents, you are loaning your signature out to be re-written and re-signed in any manner and on any document in which they choose. This is exactly what is going on in all of the U.nited S.nakes Corporate Courts. First of all, you are unfavorably signing and loaning your signature on a Corporate Statute (Fake Law/Fake Charge). These Corporate Statutes are the very basis of a negative Bond (meaning your Bond-age/Bondage or Slavery). Secondly, these statutes (Fake Laws/Fake Charges) or Bonds are then duplicated and held against you as a Recognizance Bond. Now, with your initial signature (in which you unknowingly loaned when you signed), the Slimy Sleazy Crooks can now duplicate your signature on a Performance Bond and then furthermore on a Payment Bond. All of these Corporate Statutes (Fake Laws/Fake Charges which are the actual Bonds) have an unseen Penal Sum attached to them. This is why the CORPORATE Enforcement Agents (otherwise known as Police Officers) charge you with something every time and every chance they get because they are the Revenue Enforcement Agents which initiates the fuel which is used to run the entire Commercial Slave matrix System. When you don't pay or can't pay the penal sum or DEBT of the Fake Law/Fake Charge Statute in which you are unknowingly held to, you immediately go into a Default Judgment Status and go straight to a U.S. Jail or U.S. Prison. This why an entire Nation of so-called BLACK People are sadly rotting and wasting in this HIGHLY-RACIST WHITE SUPREMACIST JAIL/PRISON System with absolutely no damned clue as to what is really going on.It's all about being fraudulently and unknowingly coerced to pay a <b>DEBT. YOU ARE UNDER THE NEGATIVE PRESUMPTION OF A PERPETUAL DEBTOR</b> (by way of that unlawful adhesion con-tract which your parents signed at your Birth). The name on that Birth Certificate is not YOU. It has been designed and created to make YOU (the Flesh And Blood Natural Person) permanently and unknowingly responsible for a fraudulent National U.S. DEBT of an “Artificial/Fictitious U.S. CORPORATION Legal Entity which is chartered out of Bloodthirsty England.<b>IF YOU DO NOT OR CANNOT PAY THE U.S. DEBT, YOU GO TO A U.S. JAIL OR A U.S. PRISON. EVERYBODY IS FEEDING OFF OF THE U.S. JAIL/PRISON SYSTEM. ALL MAJOR CORPORATIONS ARE FEEDING OFF OF THE U.S. JAIL/PRISON SYSTEM.</b>It is all being funneled through the Depository Trust Corporation located at 55 Waters Street in New York, N.Y. The D.T.C. is a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. One Trillion Dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) a day goes through the D.T.C. This One Trillion Dollar (daily revenue going through the D.T.C.) is generated off of the Statutes/BONDS which are constantly created off of the Dumb-Ass Sheep-Like U.S. citizens (mostly the Black Ones) who are literally being massively sold and re-sold up the river on the NEW Commercial/Corporate Plantation currently known as The UNITED STAES/SNAKES Inc. OF AMERIKKKA (otherwise known as Washington, D.C./District of Columbia). The U.S. Jail/Prison System is a global networking System that includes Paine Webber. Paine Webber has 10,000 Corporations in it and they are the major primary stockholder in C.C.A. (Correction Corporation of AmeriKKKa) out of Nashville Tennessee. Everyone should have and know the list of these 10,000 Corporations. What they have done is Privatized the Incarceration System for profit. Every Major Corporation and Industry is lucratively benefitting from this Private “for Profit Industry. Even the Real Eastate Industry (like Ginny Mae, Fanny Mae, H.U.D., etc.) are tied into this International Market. This U.S. Privatized Jail/Prison System is fully operational on the International Stock and Bond Markets.(NOTE: Barack Obama entire NEW U.S. Administration is known to have mostly come from Wall Street. Wall Street is famously known for trading and selling Stock. Another word for STOCK is SLAVE. The very first commodity on Wall Street were SLAVES. New York Wall Street runs directly down to the East River which is where the SLAVES came in).REIT stands for Real Estate Investment Trust and PZN refers to Prison Trust. All of the People and Real Estate are owned by Trusts and Corporations because they hold the Bonds to them. Lehman Brother Banking Cartel recently gave 6 million dollars to New York which had a deficit. This transaction formed some sort of a Treaty. The term Prison Facilities are replaced with the term Credit Facilities. Lehman Brothers are underwriting the Prison System. All Banks in the ‘Corporate U.S. are directly/indirectly connected with the E.I.S. Bank (of International Settlements) located in Switzerland.The Payment Bonds (mentioned earlier) are pooled into sets of three (3) and are then known to be considered as Mortgage Backed Securities which are now Investment Securities. These Investment Securities are then sold on the International Markets. YOU are funding this whole entire process because YOU are the Sureties and Bonding (Collateral) which is the basis of the Negotiable Instruments (otherwise known as Commercial Paperâ€). The Security & Exchange Commission and New York Stock Exchange is directly involved and are highly essential for the Commercial Slave Operation. This is what you get yourselves into when you go into default when you get railroaded into going to a U.S. Court. ALL CRIMES ARE COMMERCIAL.<b>WHO IS ACTUALLY RUNNING AMERIKKKA (Have you ever asked that question)?</b>Under the doctrine of Parens Patriae (which means Government as Parent), as the result of the manipulated bankruptcy of the UNITED SNAKES of AmeriKKKa in 1930, ALL assets of the American People, their natural labor/life energy, and the rest of this country itself are held by the Depository Trust Corporation at 55 Water Street, N.Y., N.Y., secured by Uniform Commercial Code Liens, which are then monetized as debt money by the Federal Reserve. It may interest you to know that under the umbrella of the Depository Trust Corporation lies the CEDE corporation, the Federal Reserve Corporation, the American Bar Association (the legal arm of the banking interests), and the Internal Revenue Service (the system collection agency for the entire Fraudulent Scam). Keep in mind that the mysterious CEDE Corporation is a controlled private unknown holding company of the Depository Trust Corporation.The Independent Treasury act of 1920 suspended the de jure (rightful) Treasury Department of the U.NITED S.NAKES Government.(Look up the word de jure in some type of law reference and you will see that it means by right of legal establishment.)The U.S. Congress turned the treasury department over to a private corporation. This private corporation (which is nothing more than a Fascist Monopolistic CARTEL) is none other than the Federal Reserve and their agents.. There is currently a very well-kept secret being held from the American People. The bulk of the ownership of the Federal Reserve System is held by a select group of International Banking Interests and absolutely NONE is held by the U.NITED S.NAKES Treasury.ROTHCHILD BANK OF LONDONROTHCHILD BANK OF BERLINWARBURG BANK OF HAMBURGWARBURG BANK OF AMSTERDAMLAZARD BROTHERS OF PARISISRAEL MOSES SEIF BANKS OF ITALYCHASE MANHATTAN BANK OF NEW YORKGOLDMAN, SACHS OF NEW YORKLEHMAN BROTHERS OF NEW YORKKUHN LOEB BANK OF NEW YORKWhat does all of this mean? It means that the Federal Reserve is at the root of most of the U.S. statutory regulations, U.S. Laws, and basicly in control and regulation of virtually ALL aspects of hue-man activity in the UNITED SNAKES.. The above mentioned International Banking Interests are the Foreign Creditors who are in absolute complete control of the Private “For-Profit/Commercial Agency Corporation currently known as the UNITED SNAKES Inc. of AmeriKKKa. The Federal Reserve Act was allowed to be passed in 1913 by a sneaky/conniving U.S. Senator (Politician/Politrickan) by the alleged name of Nelson Aldrich which was said to have been a Rothchild Agent.The bottom line is that it all boils down to the harsh reality and sad fact that THE FERDERAL RESERVE AND THEIR FOREIGN BANKING INTERESTS ARE YOUR RUTHLESS MASTERS. YOUARE THEIR DIRECT PROPERTY AND PERSONAL PRIVATE ASSETS. YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHTS TO DO ANYTHING. ALL YOU NOW HAVE IS CHILD-LIKE PRIVILEGES (And those will be taken completely away from you in a very short while “ during the inhuemane Global Enslavementand catastrophically-unnatural New World Order).<b>UNIFORMED COMMERCIAL CODE IS THE UNSEEN HAND !!!</b>YOU will personally change and revert back to the Natural Lawful Flesh and Blood SOVEREIGN MAN or WOMAN with unlimited Creator-Given Birthrights and Hue-Man Rights, Or YOU will remain under the presumption of being Un-Lawful Artificial/Corporate SUBJECT U.S. SLAVE Property and Assets with absolutely no rights or constitutional protections.<b>THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO MORE MIDDLE FOR THE SYNTHETICALLY-ENGINEERED COLORED BLACK AFRICAN-AMERICAN NEGROS IN NORTH AMERIKKKA.</b><br /><br /><object width="445" height="364" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/4AqevunsBb0&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" ></param><param name="allowNetworking" value="internal" ></param><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4AqevunsBb0&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" ></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false" ></param><embed wmode="opaque" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4AqevunsBb0&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="445" height="364" allownetworking="internal"></embed></object> <br /><br /><object width="445" height="364" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/fADeOwFHQyc&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" ></param><param name="allowNetworking" value="internal" ></param><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fADeOwFHQyc&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" ></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false" ></param><embed wmode="opaque" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fADeOwFHQyc&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="445" height="364" allownetworking="internal"></embed></object> <br /><br /><object width="445" height="364" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/uVr5-UM2m1k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" ></param><param name="allowNetworking" value="internal" ></param><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uVr5-UM2m1k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" ></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false" ></param><embed wmode="opaque" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uVr5-UM2m1k&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" width="445" height="364" allownetworking="internal"></embed></object> <br /><br />We are all being played by a Wicked BEAST<b>Come Out Of Her My People</b><br /><br /></div>Troy Speakshttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/troy-speaks-12009-01-08T05:18:07.000Z2009-01-08T05:18:07.000ZARighteousSistahttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/ARighteousSista<div><b>UPDATE: ANOTHER STAY FOR TROY"...let Justice roll down like water, And Righteousness as a Mighty stream"<img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828504651,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" width="140" height="240" style="float:left;" />Friends, I could not be happier to share with you that Troy Davis received a stay of execution - this means that his execution scheduled for Monday night is OFF! The stay is based on a new appeal that was filed Wednesday seeking permission to file a new lawsuit based on innocence claims.On behalf of GFADP, the board and our members, we offer our sincerest thanks to all the folks at the Georgia Resource Center, especially Tom Dunn, for their work on Troy Davis' case, especially on this week's filing. We are deeply grateful to you for making today's great news possible.It was just after delivering 140,000 petitions to the Parole Board and a letter to the Governor signed by over 100 Georgia clergy members that we heard the great news. Thanks to the beautiful people who braved the rain and the coldest day in Georgia yet this year to join in funeral procession - complete with a casket the represented the death of justice - for coming out today! We will keep you posted as the news unfolds.with hope and solidarity,Sara TotonchiLinks:Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty<a href="http://www.gfadp.org/">http://www.gfadp.org/</a>National Coalition Against the Death Penalty<a href="http://www.ncadp.org/">http://www.ncadp.org/</a>Amnesty International - USA<a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis">http://www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis</a>The Innocence Project<a href="http://www.innocenceproject.org/">http://www.innocenceproject.org/</a>Troy Anthony Davis<a href="http://www.troyanthonydavis.org">http://www.troyanthonydavis.org</a></b></div>FREE ANGOLA 3https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/2055350-BlogPost-128232008-09-15T07:30:00.000Z2008-09-15T07:30:00.000ZHTShttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/HTS<div><b>SUPPORT ANGOLA3 WEB-PAGE<a href="http://www.angola3.org/">http://www.angola3.org/</a></b><p style="text-align:left;"><b><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828504308,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="" width="120" height="93" /></b></p><b>-----------------------------------------------------COLOR OF CHANGE PETITION ANGOLA3<a href="http://www.angola3.org/">http://colorofchange.org/angola3/</a>---------------------------------------------------ANGOLA-3 YOU-TUBE<object width="425" height="344" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/RorvRbUWWTE&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never" ></param><param name="allowNetworking" value="internal" ></param><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RorvRbUWWTE&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1" ></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="false" ></param><embed wmode="opaque" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RorvRbUWWTE&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal"></embed></object></b></div>