In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
Florida is a right wing police state. If they give you a felony then you've just lost at least $250,000 dollars in income because of legal employment discrimination for life! That's right! Every felony is a punishment for life in the State of Florida because their is no expungement! In other states, a felony can be taken off your record in some cases automatically after much less time. Tell me how punishing someone for life over a line of cocaine is not cruel and unusual punishment? Tell me how using the criminal justice system to try and keep a permanent lower class stacks up to "freedom and liberty." The message is that if you have problems or you make mistakes then you better leave the State of Florida! A person who gets a felony will NEVER be able to recover from it if they don't leave. That's reality.
ReplyDeleteA good number of people who enter the "criminal justice system" don't want help and have no intention of turning themselves around. But I'm willing to bet an even greater number of people have that capability. When those people enter the "criminal justice system" they should be able to breathe a sigh of relief and say, "finally I'm gonna get some kind of help with whatever I have going on and the state will help me do this in a more effective way." BUT NO!! The state will at least do nothing to help you with anything and at most make your problems a lot bigger. They're more interested in some concept of justice through pain and oppression that somehow magically compensates society for your deviation. Nevermind the fact that society is cutthroat and atomized as it is with corruption baked in almost everywhere that you look. And nevermind that you are part of society so the state merely adds punishment to society along with whatever the offender has done. Injustice is only multiplied by the state when it acts in hostile ways against its citizens regardless of how that citizen has behaved. The state is derelict and cares less for people than any criminal. Otherwise they would help an offender with their problems instead of making them worse through never ending strings of punishments that actually inhibit people from doing better things in life. This in itself is a crime. The state presents itself as a sort of godfather or apex predator in regard to policing society. Just another gang.
ReplyDeleteThe police in Florida are right wing political soldiers for the Conservative Republicans regardless of their individual political affiliations. The whacked out judges are the judge, jury, and executioners...hand out millions of years in the corrupt and inhumane concentration camps. Nobody outside the evil system cares much because of the poor culture and lack of real morality and ethics by the majority of the population. People just accept that governments sole purpose is to be a bundle of rods to beat down who they determine to be the enemy of the state. That's all fine and dandy until it's you or a member of your family isn't it? Such is the path of the right wing.
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