Do as I say, not as I do

The United States is "deeply troubled" by the conditions of prisoners in Cuba.

The United States on Tuesday urged Cuba to free two men who Amnesty International has called "prisoners of conscience," saying their imprisonment exemplifies how the Cuban government continues to silence its citizens' peaceful opposition.
..."We call on the government of Cuba to release all political prisoners immediately," the U.S. State Department said, adding that it was "deeply troubled" by reports that Urquiola was on hunger strike and in a critical medical condition.

This concern for prisoners in Cuba doesn't extend to ALL prisoners in Cuba. Our concern doesn't extend to prisoners in Gitmo.

A detainee on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay has accused officials of a sudden change in practice that could result in him starving to death.
Khalid Qasim, held at the prison for 15 years without charge or trial, told his lawyer that doctors stopped force-feeding him and another inmate three weeks ago, and are no longer monitoring their medical condition.

“They have decided to leave us to waste away and die instead,” Qasim, 40, told his lawyer by phone for an article published by the Guardian.

Of the 41 men remaining at Gitmo, 31 are being held in indefinite wartime detention without trial. In other words, they are political prisoners.
The United States is also worried about prisoners going on hunger strikes in Russia.

"The case of Oleg Sentsov is emblematic of the fact that in Russia today people can go to jail for peaceful resistance," said Tanya Lokshina, the Russia program director at the Human Rights Watch office in Moscow. "Russia is in fact swept up in the worst human rights crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, and that is something we cannot possibly ignore, no matter how much of a success the World Cup itself is."

It certainly is concerning when a prison system gets so bad that the prisoners have to go on hunger strikes.
These hunger strikes have happened just in 2018:

Kansas prisoners on hunger strike against CCA’s inhumane conditions
Hunger strike at Santa Clara County jail enters day 10
45 inmates at north Texas prison on hunger strike
17 Huntsville prisoners on hunger strike after lockdown
Norfolk inmate starts hunger strike over water
Florida Prisoners Prepare to Strike, Demanding an End to Unpaid Labor and Brutal Conditions

That's only what I could find on a Google search.

Just like our massive, oversized prison system, prisoner protests are massive.
In 2016, over 24,000 prisoners in 24 states took part in a strike.

The issues behind the prison strike included unfair use of prison labor, poor wages, and unsatisfying living conditions.[3] The main goal of the strike was to end the alleged prison slavery to which inmates are subjected.[4] According to the 13th Amendment in the Constitution of the United States of America, people convicted of crimes can be formally enslaved.[5]

Despite the high number of striking prisoners, the strike received little mainstream media coverage

A strike by slaves against slavery. No wonder the news media ignored it.

In 2013, over 29,000 inmates went on a two-month hunger strike in protest California's use of solitary confinement practices.
You probably didn't read about that one either.

The U.S. prison system has the world’s highest incarceration rate per capita. Currently, one in every 38 Americans is under the control of the corrections system.

The U.S. has more jails than colleges.

The tiny state of Rhode Island has more prisoners than the entire nation of Costa Rica.

Worst of all, of the 2.3 million people in U.S. jails at any time, most have not been convicted. They are awaiting trial.

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Bollox Ref's picture

made me laugh.

When has the US been seriously concerned about human rights?

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

Daenerys's picture

@Bollox Ref @Bollox Ref I was thinking today about how much the US loves to project its bad behavior onto other countries. 'This country is doing this, and that country is doing that; we have to bomb them!' while we do the exact same shit here, and worse. Look over there!! It's all to keep everyone distracted from how bad things actually are here. If the US were truly a Christian nation there wouldn't be so many people going without basic necessities all the time.

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This shit is bananas.

Bollox Ref's picture

@Daenerys

taunting Francis of Assisi for giving up his purchasing power, with regard to GDP.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

@Daenerys IS a Christian nation just doing what we do(fuck the We).
If ye enter, abandon all-ahh shit, I'm here. No hope.

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Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

detroitmechworks's picture

The deliberate break up of families and friendships by TPTB is so that we don't realize how many of us are in fact slaves. Everybody faces the system alone, thinking that they are the only one it is unfair against.

But if you had a large family, and every year the king demanded 3 men serve... You'd catch on pretty fucking quick.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiRHcbkrkzg]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks exactly as the seem.

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QMS's picture

are 'deeply troubled' by the domestic prison industry. We are only one little infraction away from becoming a part of it. The cops hold it over our heads constantly. Intimidation rules. When almost everything is against the law, the criminal class becomes the majority. And the biggest criminals own the justice system, so they can't be prosecuted. It's no wonder there exists little respect for authority in the united state of affluency.

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question everything

Amanda Matthews's picture

The United States is "deeply troubled" by the conditions of prisoners in Cuba.

on the Community Featured page and my thoughts immediately went to Gitmo.

As of May 1, 2018, 40 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay, according to the Federal government of the United States.[1][2][3] This list of Guantánamo prisoners has the known identities of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, but is compiled from various sources and is incomplete. In official documents, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) continues to make intermittent efforts to redact prisoner's names, and has not published an official list of detainees (As of September 2005). On April 19, 2006, the DoD released a list with 558 names in what appears to be a fax or other scanned image.[4] The Associated Press published the list in more accessible text form.[5]

[1].The New York Times
[2]. Rosenberg, Carol (January 19, 2017). "Obama to leave with 41 captives still at Guantánamo, blames politics". Miami Herald. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
[3].https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3382071/Obama-White-House-rep...
[4]. List of detainees who went through complete CSRT process' (PDF, scanned) Archived 2013-03-04 at the Wayback Machine. Department of Defense April 19, 2006.
[5]. Official Pentagon List of Detainees' (Text version of DoD list) Associated Press April 19, 2006.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guantanamo_Bay_detainees

My mistake.

Too bad they aren’t worried about prisoners here.

The 10 Worst Prisons in America

https://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigation/2013/05/01/10-worst-p...

(Mother Jones is absolutely useless when it come to politics, but great for stuff like this.)

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

The Aspie Corner's picture

Look at what the pigs and their sycophants project on to everyone else.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.