Hello Difference Makers,
Waking up the oblivious public to the disaster that is our mental health and criminal justice systems, and reforming them, has been near and dear to my heart since I was 10 years old, and even more so since living with severe mental illness for years as an adult and getting caught up in the criminal 'justice' system myself. I have always tried to make a difference in reforming society to actually live up to our values and ideals, with the little influence I have. If every adult citizen in America had the same intimate, insider's look at how screwed up both systems are, from start to finish, they would be massively and fundamentally overhauled immediately. The problem is the vast majority of Americans don't know any better or just don't give a shit, because "it's not their problem." Yet, crime and mental illness affect us all enormously, regardless of where you stand in society.
Award winning Producer, Director & Human Rights Activist Matthew Cooke is calling for your help to build a reform movement by supporting completion of the documentary, "SURVIVOR'S GUIDE TO PRISON".
This documentary will enlighten the general public as to the actual realities of our hypocritical, self-destructive 'hell-on-Earth' prison system ("glorified dog-kennels" is sadly accurate) and to the reality of our most EGREGIOUS FAILURES as a country in modern times:
-not living up to our responsibility to ensure the most basic of human rights for those we strip of all choice and freedoms (including assuring their safety, wellbeing, and dignity)
-not doing more to help victims of poverty, abuse, and mental illness, to prevent THOSE victims from creating victims of crime
-not upholding the moral high-ground we currently claim to live up to
-not having basic/natural compassion for our fellow, equally-fallible human beings, by not giving the incarcerated REAL support and opportunities to rehabilitate themselves through EFFECTIVE education, therapy, substance abuse, and other social programs (using money we save from reduced populations in our broken system of incarceration), not the half-assed, underfunded, misguided, or otherwise ineffective programs already in place
-in sum, not living up to our social responsibilities as individuals, communities, states, and country.
The documentary is "...a chilling exposé of the criminal justice system in America, told through the eyes of its victims and narrator Matthew Cooke. Executive produced by Adrian Grenier and Susan Sarandon, and featuring Harry Belafonte, Deepak Chopra, Russell Simmons, Michelle Alexander, Tom Morello, and Brandon Boyd.
"SURVIVOR'S GUIDE TO PRISON exposes the horror of the criminal justice system-- from the time you get arrested, to the time you are tried, to your incarceration, to (if applicable) the MOMENT you are released. We tell you what to do to survive... no guarantees.
"The 3rd act focuses on solutions & how we can survive prison as a country.
"Statistics:
-the Innocence Project estimates there could EASILY be anywhere from 40,000 to over 100,000 people in US prisons who never broke a law at all.
-77% of Americans going into state prisons return within 5 years.
-If you're an American, you're more likely to go to prison than
anywhere else in the world.
-More black men are in prison now than the total enslaved in 1850.
-1/3 of all the women in prison in the world, are in US prisons.
-The U.S. has the largest prison population on the planet ([>25% of the world's incarcerated;] larger than China)
-The US has more prisons than colleges and universities.
"Some people ask me, with all these famous people in the film, why can't THEY just pay for the movie? GREAT QUESTION! They are investing in the movie not JUST financially but with their time — which is also worth a LOT of money.
"Power in numbers speaks much louder than a handful of celebrities in the movement for deep political change. My ideal scenario would be 2 million people donating 5 cents each, because that would mean 2 million people were invested in changing this broken system. And that would make it happen.
"Anything you can afford - a dime, a dollar or more - represents your heart's participation in this movement to reform criminal justice.
"Your support isn't just about this movie. It's about a movement to radically reform the criminal justice system which so desperately needs our help.
"If we collectively inspire each other across political and cultural lines to free ourselves from the school to prison pipeline, get victims of crime the healing they need, give offenders the hope to actually turn their lives around, and rehabilitate we will have truly earned the title 'civilization'.
"If we want to break crime cycles in communities, we need prevention through investing in jobs & education. We need more restorative justice programs, which are proven to be some of the most impactful experiences with a 90% success rate in preventing people creating any more harm.
"But none of this information happens without us banding together, and it can start with this film.
"SOME OF THE ORGANIZATIONS THAT WE ARE AND WILL BE SUPPORTING:
-Prison University Project
-Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
-Amnesty International
-The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice
-American Civil Liberties Union
-Innocence Project
-The Drug Policy Alliance
-The Dream Corps
-Homeboy Industries ["...provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community."]
"There are two ways to help:
1. Contribute - even small contributions raise their popularity and give them more visibility on the site.
2. Post to Facebook - in the end, the more people hear about them, the more likely they are to meet their target."
Thank you!
Matthew Lee Morgan
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
August 18, 2015
January 10, 2015
Homosexual Equality (the Lessons of History & Clarifying the Concepts of "Marriage")
[Originally Posted 9/24/09; edited and expanded 1/10/15]
Despite being 100% heterosexual, I find choosing to support homosexuals having equality of social status, as well as rights and protections provided under the rule of law, in amazingly simple decision to reach given the constitution and lessons provided by history. I realize large social changes take time, but how can so many of us still be so blind to the lessons of the past? It wasn't so long ago in the annals of world history that the majority of men struggled vehemently to deny women equal rights to own property and participate in the voting process of democracies. Not so long ago the majority of whites in this country so passionately fought, either through force or active bigotry, to deny blacks genuinely-equal social status and legal rights. And now, our society once again finds itself socially polarized, this time on the topic of homosexual equality. Well, let us be honest with ourselves. As past generations had their social revolutions, this generation is, too, experiencing a social revolution, and I would argue success in overthrowing the current social status-quo with regards to granting homosexuals equal social status and legal rights is as every bit as inevitable as the successes hard fought for by blacks and women over the last couple hundred years.
I was told a story recently about a black man who was obliviously broadcasting his side of a cellphone conversation about homosexuals to a small crowd sitting nearby him. Needless to say, his opinion of homosexuals was passionate, egregiously unfavorable, and, quite simply, astoundingly hypocritical. Past generations of this man's family, as recently as his parents undoubtedly, poured their blood, sweet, and tears into fighting and struggling against that very same prejudicial attitude towards blacks—simply because they were "different" in some relatively benign way compared to the majority. Nevertheless, there he was, as blind to the absurdity of his irrational attitudes towards homosexuals as whites' attitudes had been towards his ancestors. It just goes to show that personal self-awareness and rational reasoning can be absent in anyone, even someone whose heritage should have made him realize what a hypocrite he was being that day.
We all must always be on guard against and actively fight against prejudice and hatred, especially within ourselves. We each harbor a degree of stereotypical thought processes in our daily lives, usually without being consciously aware of its subconscious influence on our thinking and behavior, and occasionally have what would be deemed by our own self to be 'undesirable' emotional responses to certain circumstances we encounter. To provide a relatively clear-cut example: if you were a middle- or upper-class white, who genuinely believes they do not have a racist "bone in their body" thanks to a non-racist upbringing, walking through your nice, mostly-white family suburban neighborhood at dusk and see a young African-American male heading towards you on the sidewalk wearing a hoodie that hides all but part of his face and sagging, baggy jeans, there is a really good chance you are going to have an instinctually negative emotional reaction upon first recognition of those circumstances, such as a degree of anxiety, even though your conscious belief system reminds you seconds later that you should not judge that person and their potential threat to you based on a stereotype; despite this rational reminder you may continue to feel tense until you pass him without incident. This example was constructed to maximize the understanding of the general concepts, but countless, less clear-cut real life examples exist in practically everyone's daily life in which the brain is naturally, inherently, constantly interpreting and evaluating the things in its environment at a subconscious level, using probability as its guide in prioritizing how it evaluates what things should receive what percentage of the finite resource of one's attentive awareness at that moment, and judges what the safest instinctual interpretations of the things going on in that person's environment are. Because of the way the brain automatically processes information about its environment based on probabilities, which are determined by patterns recognized in past life experiences and engrained "background information"/knowledge, stereotypes we know about, whether we consciously object to stereotyping or not, factor into how the brain instinctively reacts to its environment. To a large extent, instinctual responses are unavoidable at the moment they occur, and can only be overridden through conscious evaluation of a given situation using good reasoning. Thus, the path towards social prosperity and harmony, which benefits us all in the end, must begin with a thorough, objective self-evaluation of the quality of one's own rational and moral reasoning and knowledge-base which forms one's established worldview, belief systems, and values.
We need to recognize that marriage under the law and marriage 'under God' need not, and should not, be considered one and the same thing in this debate. I myself was legally married in a court of law to my wife almost five years before we married through the church. The argument by the majority of religious people, who improperly entwine the concepts of legal marriage with "spiritual" marriage, and, in so doing, believe that allowing such legal marriages some how sullies the 'sanctity of marriage' ("sanctity" being a term that, by definition, can only be associated with religious marriage 'under God'), that legal marriage should be prohibited for homosexuals, despite the fact that our constitution specifies the necessity of recognizing a 'separation of church and state,' is simply untenable. Measuring how sanctimonious a marriage is has everything to do with how faithful, loving, and selfless the behavior of the two partners towards one another is, and has nothing to do with what is in their underwear—in similar fashion to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s belief that a person should not be judged based on the color of their skin, but "by the content of their character." There is no doubt in my mind that there are countless homosexual couples whose behavior is far more laudable than many heterosexual couples. Let us leave the religious side of the debate to the religious establishments and stop letting conservative religious arguments unconstitutionally influence our government from obeying its own constitutionally established protections. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This constitutional amendment did not happen by accident. It was one of the most consequential and direct results of the Civil War and the overall social struggle to restore the human dignity of, and establish legal rights and protections for, blacks. It will take time but it is certain that the 14th Amendment, and the same kind of revolutionary social attitude that gave birth to it that exists today, will earn homosexuals equal social status and protection under the law across this country in the years to come.
[The prediction I made nearly five and half years ago, when I first published this post, concerning the social progress that would occur to provide for equal social status and application of law for homosexuals turned out to be correct, though the good fight against prejudice continues....]
Despite being 100% heterosexual, I find choosing to support homosexuals having equality of social status, as well as rights and protections provided under the rule of law, in amazingly simple decision to reach given the constitution and lessons provided by history. I realize large social changes take time, but how can so many of us still be so blind to the lessons of the past? It wasn't so long ago in the annals of world history that the majority of men struggled vehemently to deny women equal rights to own property and participate in the voting process of democracies. Not so long ago the majority of whites in this country so passionately fought, either through force or active bigotry, to deny blacks genuinely-equal social status and legal rights. And now, our society once again finds itself socially polarized, this time on the topic of homosexual equality. Well, let us be honest with ourselves. As past generations had their social revolutions, this generation is, too, experiencing a social revolution, and I would argue success in overthrowing the current social status-quo with regards to granting homosexuals equal social status and legal rights is as every bit as inevitable as the successes hard fought for by blacks and women over the last couple hundred years.
I was told a story recently about a black man who was obliviously broadcasting his side of a cellphone conversation about homosexuals to a small crowd sitting nearby him. Needless to say, his opinion of homosexuals was passionate, egregiously unfavorable, and, quite simply, astoundingly hypocritical. Past generations of this man's family, as recently as his parents undoubtedly, poured their blood, sweet, and tears into fighting and struggling against that very same prejudicial attitude towards blacks—simply because they were "different" in some relatively benign way compared to the majority. Nevertheless, there he was, as blind to the absurdity of his irrational attitudes towards homosexuals as whites' attitudes had been towards his ancestors. It just goes to show that personal self-awareness and rational reasoning can be absent in anyone, even someone whose heritage should have made him realize what a hypocrite he was being that day.
We all must always be on guard against and actively fight against prejudice and hatred, especially within ourselves. We each harbor a degree of stereotypical thought processes in our daily lives, usually without being consciously aware of its subconscious influence on our thinking and behavior, and occasionally have what would be deemed by our own self to be 'undesirable' emotional responses to certain circumstances we encounter. To provide a relatively clear-cut example: if you were a middle- or upper-class white, who genuinely believes they do not have a racist "bone in their body" thanks to a non-racist upbringing, walking through your nice, mostly-white family suburban neighborhood at dusk and see a young African-American male heading towards you on the sidewalk wearing a hoodie that hides all but part of his face and sagging, baggy jeans, there is a really good chance you are going to have an instinctually negative emotional reaction upon first recognition of those circumstances, such as a degree of anxiety, even though your conscious belief system reminds you seconds later that you should not judge that person and their potential threat to you based on a stereotype; despite this rational reminder you may continue to feel tense until you pass him without incident. This example was constructed to maximize the understanding of the general concepts, but countless, less clear-cut real life examples exist in practically everyone's daily life in which the brain is naturally, inherently, constantly interpreting and evaluating the things in its environment at a subconscious level, using probability as its guide in prioritizing how it evaluates what things should receive what percentage of the finite resource of one's attentive awareness at that moment, and judges what the safest instinctual interpretations of the things going on in that person's environment are. Because of the way the brain automatically processes information about its environment based on probabilities, which are determined by patterns recognized in past life experiences and engrained "background information"/knowledge, stereotypes we know about, whether we consciously object to stereotyping or not, factor into how the brain instinctively reacts to its environment. To a large extent, instinctual responses are unavoidable at the moment they occur, and can only be overridden through conscious evaluation of a given situation using good reasoning. Thus, the path towards social prosperity and harmony, which benefits us all in the end, must begin with a thorough, objective self-evaluation of the quality of one's own rational and moral reasoning and knowledge-base which forms one's established worldview, belief systems, and values.
We need to recognize that marriage under the law and marriage 'under God' need not, and should not, be considered one and the same thing in this debate. I myself was legally married in a court of law to my wife almost five years before we married through the church. The argument by the majority of religious people, who improperly entwine the concepts of legal marriage with "spiritual" marriage, and, in so doing, believe that allowing such legal marriages some how sullies the 'sanctity of marriage' ("sanctity" being a term that, by definition, can only be associated with religious marriage 'under God'), that legal marriage should be prohibited for homosexuals, despite the fact that our constitution specifies the necessity of recognizing a 'separation of church and state,' is simply untenable. Measuring how sanctimonious a marriage is has everything to do with how faithful, loving, and selfless the behavior of the two partners towards one another is, and has nothing to do with what is in their underwear—in similar fashion to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s belief that a person should not be judged based on the color of their skin, but "by the content of their character." There is no doubt in my mind that there are countless homosexual couples whose behavior is far more laudable than many heterosexual couples. Let us leave the religious side of the debate to the religious establishments and stop letting conservative religious arguments unconstitutionally influence our government from obeying its own constitutionally established protections. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This constitutional amendment did not happen by accident. It was one of the most consequential and direct results of the Civil War and the overall social struggle to restore the human dignity of, and establish legal rights and protections for, blacks. It will take time but it is certain that the 14th Amendment, and the same kind of revolutionary social attitude that gave birth to it that exists today, will earn homosexuals equal social status and protection under the law across this country in the years to come.
[The prediction I made nearly five and half years ago, when I first published this post, concerning the social progress that would occur to provide for equal social status and application of law for homosexuals turned out to be correct, though the good fight against prejudice continues....]
January 9, 2015
The Right of the Individual to Keep & Bear Arms
I am a firm believer in a person's rights to self-preservation and protection from unlawful subjugation, and thus an avid supporter for the individual right to keep and bear arms in defense of self, other innocents, and one's property. As the Supreme Court has established (see District of Columbia v. Heller), the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms and is NOT a right only guaranteed to governmentally established militias. As the Supreme Court's own research concludes, this individual right was a "natural" (socially accepted and practiced) right that pre-dated the Constitution and was added to the Bill of Rights only to prohibit the government from making laws that restricted this natural right, not to declare a new right.
Many secondary sources of information (including many popular news media outlets) are ill-informed and/or biased. You would be doing yourself a disservice not to do your own research and form your own opinion. Do not be fooled by people who say gun control laws reduce crime. Criminals obviously don't give two craps about the law in the first place. Do you really think that gun laws that theoretically restrict all people, but only truly impede law-abiding citizens make us safer? By restricting law-abiding citizens' right to keep and bear arms we are making life safer and easier for criminals to conduct criminal activity.
Many secondary sources of information (including many popular news media outlets) are ill-informed and/or biased. You would be doing yourself a disservice not to do your own research and form your own opinion. Do not be fooled by people who say gun control laws reduce crime. Criminals obviously don't give two craps about the law in the first place. Do you really think that gun laws that theoretically restrict all people, but only truly impede law-abiding citizens make us safer? By restricting law-abiding citizens' right to keep and bear arms we are making life safer and easier for criminals to conduct criminal activity.
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