A protester I hadn’t seen before:
I live in the shadows of where they were talking about building it. So I’m a little sceptical when they tell me that, you know, it’s safe.He told me his name, but my memory for names is like, er, what was I saying? Somebody please help identify him.They told me the same about Agent Organge before I went to Vietnam. It turned out it was dangerous to us.
Here’s the video: Continue reading
That’s at 2110 N. Patterson Street in Valdosta. Here’s the agenda:August 16, 2011 Industrial Authority Board Meeting 5:30 pm at the Industrial Authority Conf. Room
Just joking. They don’t publish their agendas! Or their minutes.
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Apparently VLCIA has few or no tracts of 200 acres or up
out of their 577 acres.
New Executive Director Andrea Schruijer said:
We’re looking at having prospects in, or existing industries are looking to come here, we don’t actually look like we have a 577 acre tract that we can market. It’s actually a lot smaller than that. So when a company comes in and wants 200 acres that’s something we have a gap in.She’s following up on former chairman Jerry Jennett’s request. Jennett remarked at this meeting Continue reading
Maybe you think you’re safe, because you’re not out on the street. Think again: Continue readingThe most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalised in America.
Photograph: Robyn Beck/EPAPerhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation.
Now that’s privatization of justice! Looks a lot like no justice at all. Makes you wonder how many other people are in prison who shouldn’t be.A northeastern Pennsylvania judge was ordered Thursday to spend nearly three decades in prison for his role in a massive bribery scandal that prompted the state’s high court to toss thousands of juvenile convictions and left lasting scars on the children who appeared in his courtroom and their hapless families.
Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking a $1 million bribe from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as “kids for cash.”
We don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend that tax money on rehabilitation and education.
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PS: Had to go to the Guardian for the picture, though.
Every protester has a story:
We’re here to protest the building of the biomass plant. We think it’s ill-conceived to contaminate our air. Our children, retirees, all sorts of folks….
Here’s the video:
Ill-conceived to contaminate our air –Barry Z. Hyatt @ VLCIA 19 April 2011
Biomass protesters,
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett chairman,
Brad Lofton Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 April 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
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Here’s the video: Continue readingWe cannot duck this issue. I couldn’t duck it any more. I couldn’t sleep, if I wasn’t out advocating getting rid of the War on Drugs. You can’t get to end the War on Drugs that the whole bureaucratic institution of the United States of America has declared, unless you end prohibtion. They couldn’t do it with alcohol, and you can’t do it with drugs.
—Alice Huffman, President, California NAACP
Dan Heyman wrote 12 January 2010 for Public News Service – WV, Churches: No Private Prison For Immigrants In WV,
CHARLESTON, WV – West Virginia’s largest church group has asked U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd and the rest of the state’s congressional delegation to oppose funding a private prison for undocumented immigrants in Pendleton County near the Virginia border.Continue readingThe Council of Churches is one of several groups discussing immigration reform ahead of expected congressional action on the issue. The Council has asked federal lawmakers’ help in the effort, arguing private prison operations have been rife with abuse. GSI Professional Corrections is seeking county commission approval to build the detention center near Sugar Grove to house 1,000 nonviolent immigrant detainees awaiting possible deportation.
Rev. Dennis Sparks, the Council’s executive director, complains private prisons operate outside the mainstream legal
Is this what you want for yourself and your children? If not, it’s time to stop ALEC crafting state laws to lock people up and then exploit them as slave labor.“more than 14 million pounds of beef infected with rat feces processed by inmates were not recalled, in order to avoid drawing attention to how many products are made by prison labor.”
We can start by not accepting a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia. Spend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.
Update 9:35 AM 6 Aug 2011: Fixed the links to the Democracy Now story. Thanks for catching that, Barbara!
Here’s a bonus link to the story in The Nation.
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PS: This post owed to Cheryl Ann Fillekes.
G. Norman Bennett advocated attending the
Wiregrass Tech town hall on a soft skills/work
ethics curriculum 8 August 2011.
“Georgia is leading the nation in workforce development.”Wiregrass Tech is one of the keys to local workforce development. If you’re interested in that, please go. It’s this coming Monday.
Here’s the video:
Workforce development meeting at Wiregrass Tech —G. Norman Bennett @ VLCIA 19 July 2011
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 19 July 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
I already posted another view of this,
by George Rhynes.
But that one was at the end of a video of me talking, and I think
what Norman Bennett had to say is important and deserves its own post.
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