A look at the injustice of American “Justice” and a Call to Action written for worldcantwait.net by Aaron McWaters, a high school journalist in Indiana.
The true
picture of American justice is far different from that perpetuated by the state propaganda fed to the People via the nightly news in this
post-September 11th world. That America
has been home to some of the worst miscarriages of justice while holding
desperately to the facade of liberty is thankfully no secret to most. That American prisons hold numerous political prisoners is known to many as well; just ask the
thousands of supporters that march annually for the freedom of Mumia and Peltier. And even
those with the foggiest understanding of politics know that the term “McCarthyism” has a vaguely
negative connotation. In fact, it is this understanding that makes it all the more imperative
that we fight its modern equivalents, embodied by the Patriot Act and the more recent Military
Commissions Act; both are blatant attacks on our civil liberties, where anyone can be
“blacklisted” as a terrorist for not agreeing with the Capitol (just ask Attorney Lynne Stewart), and
“enemy” combatants can be detained indefinitely in detention centers.
Walls
define the idea of justice in America,
and the walls of the prisons are only the manifestation of the walls in the minds of the People. How else can you explain that minorities and other disenfranchised groups have been fighting a traditionally
racist system since our nation’s foundation? One needs only to look at the numbers
to see the truth in this, where a minority of the population make up a majority of the prison
population. Walls define prison conditions, notorious for their inhumane conditions, where
beatings, solitary confinement, and humiliation create shells of human lives. Those in”corrections” facilities, Mumia
Abu-Jamal writes in his book Live From Death Row “…become further
damaged, and the merely warped are twisted.”In a country that still advocates
capital punishment, including for the mentally ill, this is not hard to
believe. Mr. Abu-Jamal would know; his
case is a prime example of the racism that permeates the courts, writing from an insider’s perspective
of twenty-four years. The sad fact is, we live in the biggest police state on the planet. According to Common Sense for Drug Policy, the Department of Justice has released data showing one in
every 136 Americans is incarcerated in the “land of the free,” a disproportionate number of them
minorities (Drug War Facts).
These
issues have a new face for the new millennium, shifting from blacks in prisons across the nation to Muslims in detention centers across the
globe. Walls have now been erected in our minds against these new victims of American justice,
by branding them as terrorists and “aliens;” therefore not deserving their basic rights as humans.
This is the biggest wall we have fabricated in this country; that there is a difference
between American and human rights. The recent Military Commissions Act mentioned above has received
much criticism lately because it is feared that it will be used to indefinitely imprison
citizens of the United
States who have become political enemies of the State. This is a valid fear, to be sure, and not
hard to believe if you look at the Bush Administration’s track record; but few
question the indefinite detainment of those captured on the battlefields of the Middle
East. Why do they not
deserve the rights that Americans do? Legally
they have no access to our courts, but does that justify the fact that some detainees have now been imprisoned for five years without
being charged for any crime? Are they less human than the rest of us?
Bush is not just the biggest violator of American rights we
have seen in decades, but the biggest violator of human rights. The fact that there is one innocent person
held as a terrorist is reason enough to change our entire policy towards “enemy”
combatants. Each case needs to be looked at by an impartial board of review, not a tribunal
appointed by Bush as suggested in the Commissions Act.
Every prisoner needs to be judged quickly and fairly, without bias and discrimination, and those without clear ties to Islamic
extremists need to be released. And it needs to happen NOW.
Should we stand by while minorities are profiled and locked
away by racist courts? We need to take down the barriers we have constructed between ourselves
and our fellow humans, physically and mentally; we need to speak out against
oppression and State mandated torture in prisons and detention centers. We need to tear down the walls of oppression
in this new year of 2007, and hope for a brighter future for humankind. The victims of American “justice” must not wait any longer.