Its amazing isn't it? "What is?", I hear you ask. Well its amazing that while the "land of the free" is busy "freeing" another poor 24 million oppressed Iraqis we're busy locking up so many of our own. Yes, last week a tasty little news bite slipped under the radar that the American prison population had topped 2 million for the first time ever. Thats 1 in 140 Americans banged up behind bars and worse than that its twice the number who were in jail in 1990. Given what your average WASP has to do to get in jail that's a fair miracle - why these days you can be like Ken Lay and rob millions of people of billions of dollars and still get away with just a fine and stay well clear of the Federal Penitentiary.
That of course should come as no surprise when you consider a vastly disproportionate number (compared to those actually convicted of crime) of those behind bars are those of minority races. Some people care to take notice and publicise how Bush is doing everything he can to defend the lack of affirmitive action for minorities whilst sitting watch over the biggest proportionate increase in minorities behind bars since records began.
Besides the race issue it just blows my mind to think that on an average day every 1 in 140 people of this country are in jail. Its even more staggering when you consider how many are on probation or parole - over 4.7 million Americans - or one in sixty. If you add the two figures you get 6.7 million. Thats, wait for it... one in forty-two Americans who are either in jail, on parole, or on probation.
Just what does that say about our society to the rest of the world? Can Iraq soon look forward to a full taste of American pie which will include one in forty-two of their population in jail. Thats around 600,000, more than double the number of Republican Guard troops that once guarded their nation. It puts things into perspective doesn't it? Just who are we to be profligating our brand of utopian democracy (or plutocracy as it should more accurately be described) when we have such obscene numbers of our own people so out of touch with the American dream that they are prepared to risk being locked up behind bars to not tow-the-line.
And just remember, if one in forty-two Americans are behind bars, on parole or on probation at this moment, then the number who have, at any time in their life, being in that category will be much, much higher. This is to me, one of the biggest indicators that America is failing to even "Pass Go" let alone collect its $200 in the race for global respectability as a dream worth living for, or more tragically, dying for.