Hi, y’all.

Tomorrow is the third meeting of the Occupy Austin Conscious Relationships Discussion Group. So far the discussions have been deeply thought provoking, just by virtue of getting a bunch of people with wildly different viewpoints together — people choosing to live their lives in different ways, with different abilities, orientations, upbringings … (Here are the notes from the second meeting about assumptions)

The next meeting is about gender roles and how they fit, or don’t our actual lives. In preparation, I’ve posted some conversation starters on my Facebook, like this classic CRIMETHINC Gender subversion poster or John Scalzi’s recent article on privilege and straight white male geeks. You can imagine the lively discussion that has resulted.

I keep feeling though that I have to defend myself against the idea that we should just transcend our differences overnight — stop talking about sexual orientation, race, or maybe even class and just recognize our common humanity. Perhaps it’s a beautiful idea, but how do we get there without working (fighting!) to dismantle the old systems, the old ways of thinking about all these divisions? To me, it feels like a position of privilege to make this argument — I’ve never struggled with that (gender, sexual orientation, bigotry of many kinds), so you should just get over your struggles with it.

In a way, it’s similar to what Occupy Wall Street itself faces. We can imagine that “A Better World Is Possible,” but unless we have serious discussions about what that would look like, and what’s wrong with this world, I don’t know how we’ll ever get there.

That’s what’s on my mind today, what’s on yours?

This is today’s open thread.

Originally published at AlterPolitics

Most private prison entrepreneurs are rural sheriffs. From the collection of Dave Connor.

The $182 million private prison industry in Louisiana thrives from a system rife with conflicts of interest, not unlike the kinds found in the most corrupt third world countries. According to a scathing article this Sunday in The New Orleans Times-Picayune, the very people entrusted to enforce the law in the state have deep financial ties to the for-profit prisons, which house a majority of all Louisiana inmates.

The article states that “most prison entrepreneurs happen to be rural sheriffs,” and the “prison business model is built on head counts.”

In the early nineties, prison overcrowding had become such a massive problem for the state, that the cash-strapped government decided to forego building new state prisons, and instead encouraged sheriffs to pay for private prison construction. In return, they would, of course, enjoy a cut of all future profits. “The financial incentives were so sweet, and the corrections jobs so sought after, that new prisons sprouted up all over rural Louisiana.”

Two decades later, this now-entrenched private prison system has helped to double Louisiana’s prison population. In fact, the state wins the distinction of imprisoning more of its residents than any other legal jurisdiction on the planet.

Despite Louisiana having the highest murder rate in the country, it surprisingly “has a much lower percentage of people incarcerated for violent offenses [when compared to the national average], and a much higher percentage behind bars for drug offenses [when compared to the national average] …”

Why, you ask? Because violent criminals (murderers, rapists, armed robbers, etc) get sent to state prisons, whereas the non-violent offenders are housed at private ‘for-profit’ prisons. The sheriffs therefore have a financial incentive to find and charge non-violent offenders.

TPP Protest in Addison, Texas. Photo by Kit O'Connell.

Despite a petition with over 44,000 signatures, as well as recommendations by NGOs, legal experts, and congressmen, the Office of the United States Trade Representative still refuses to release the text of the TransPacific Partnership:

The first question, from Citizens Trade Campaign, was a request that text be made available to the public so that stakeholders could have more informed positions when speaking with negotiators. Weisel said that while the U.S. position is that constantly evolving TPP chapter texts cannot be released to the public.

While activists continue to work to obtain a list of those who have seen the complete text, Congressman Darrell Issa made the dramatic move to release the copyright and intellectual property portion of the agreement. Pieces of this chapter had been previously leaked, angering activists with  Electronic Frontiers Foundation, Anonymous, and supporters of an accessible, open Internet. They see the agreement as reproducing or worsening many of the more destructive portions of defeated laws like the Senate Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

In his press release, Issa said:

At a time when the American people and Internet users all around the world are rightfully wary of any closed-door negotiations that could adversely impact their ability to freely and openly access the Internet, the Obama Administration continues to pursue a secretive, closed-door negotiating process for the Trans Pacific Partnership.

My contacts suggest that this release, apparently the entire chapter on intellectual property, is more than most outside the shadowy negotiations have seen before today. The chapter is hosted on Keep The Web #Open, where the public is invited to read it and give the feedback, a process many believe should have been possible from the beginning.

Thanks to Anonymous for drawing my attention to these stories.

To the pitifully few who have followed him over the years, Khaled El-Masri is the man who arguably holds the world’s record of unsuccessful attempts to get his “day in court.”  He has knocked on courtroom doors all over the US and some overseas venues as well, and has each time been rebuffed.

El-Masri with his children. Photo by Joy Garnett.

This Wednesday he will try one more time. He will pursue Justice in the Grand Chamber of the European Court, which will hold a hearing on May 16, 2012. At the last hearing of this case, Macedonia entered an unbroken series of denials – no, it did not collude with the CIA to kidnap El-Masri from Germany. No, it did not seize his passport and force him to spend a month in a Macedonian hotel, interrogated without a lawyer, without contact with his family, and without the foggiest idea of why he was being held.

What El-Masri is seeking from the Macedonians is a fullblown investigation into his kidnapping and abuse. And while he is waiting, there are grim signs that El-Masri, the human being, is continuing his descent into chaos and confusion.

But even Macedonia’s denials – whether true or not – don’t begin to paint even a remotely accurate picture of what has happened to this Lebanese-born German citizen. To understand how he has come to where he has come to, it’s necessary to go back in history to a time when the never-ending black clouds began to gather over El-Masri’s head.

Rewind to 2004:

The Open Society Justice Initiative, (OSJI), which is El-Masri’s counsel for the Macedonia case, charges that the Macedonians stopped him at the border, confiscated his passport and other papers, and held him without charge for 23 days, accusing him of being a member of Al-Qaida.

They then drove him to the capitol’s Skopje airport and handed him to a  CIA rendition team who flew El-Masri to Kabul as part of the U.S.  “Extraordinary Rendition” program, where he was detained for four  months. The government of Macedonia denies any involvement in his  abduction.

Every attempt at justice has failed. El-Masri seeks an investigation to discover the truth.

The following is based on notes prepared by The Open Society Justice Initiative:

Written by Rep. Jan Schakowsky for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

Congresswoman Schakowsky delivered these remarks on a call with reporters and others last week. Her comments are reprinted here with permission.

I want to thank the National Immigrant Justice Center and the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence for organizing this very important call this morning.

Immigrant women at a protest. Photo by Elvert Barnes.

I appreciate the particular focus on the VAWA provisions that protect battered immigrant women – one of the most vulnerable of the vulnerable populations in our country.

Ensuring that immigrant women are able to leave their abusers and aren’t forced to stay because of threats of deportation, or because they are afraid to come out of the shadows has been a long-time focus of mine.

During past VAWA reauthorizations, I have gotten provisions to stop the deportation of eligible immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking included, as well as a provision to allow battered immigrant self-petitioners to receive their lawful permanent residency status in the U.S. without having to travel abroad.

I have introduced – along with Representative Judy Chu – the Violence Against Immigrant Women Act (H.R. 5331).  Our bill would streamline the processing of VAWA cases and make adjustments to help victims escape from their abusers and overcome the effects of victimization.  Our bill would ensure greater numbers of immigrant victims of domestic violence and sexual assault receive U visa protection, and it would allow victims of stalking, elder abuse, and child abuse to access these important protections.  It would also require DHS to issue employment authorization to victims in timely manner.  Because of delays, the majority of immigrant victims who have filed valid cases are forced to wait more than six months for work authorization, some can wait as long as a year.

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

F-35 jet. Photo by Rob Shenk.

Let’s start with this: according to the Pentagon, the production and acquisition costs of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet, the military’s most expensive weapons program, have risen yet again, this time by 4.3% since 2010 to $395.6 billion. If you’re talking about the total cost of the system, including maintenance and support for the nearly 2,500 planes that will some (endlessly delayed) day be produced for the military, that has now reached an estimated $1.51 trillion, a 9% rise since 2010. All this for a plane that some experts doubt has any particular purpose in the future U.S. arsenal.

At last, however, the House of Representatives seems to have had enough of wasteful spending programs. Perhaps its members also read the recent poll that shows Americans generally support more funds for the Defense Department — until, that is, they are told just how much is spent on defense compared to other budget items. Then, 75% of them (67% of Republicans) back significant cuts, an average of 18%, in that budget to reduce the federal deficit.

Whatever the explanation, last week the Republican-dominated House finally took out the pruning shears and acted with remarkable decisiveness. They sent a bill to the Senate cutting $310 billion from the deficit over the next decade. The F-35 program went down in flames.

Groups representing middle class families to hold discussion on national budget outside Pete Peterson’s elite gathering

WATCH SENATOR SANDERS LIVE STARTING AT 1:30PM ET

On May 15, Sen. Bernie Sanders will join with citizen groups to protest the Peter G. Peterson “Fiscal Summit” where elite power brokers including House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), former Sen. Alan Simpson, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and former President Bill Clinton will gather inside to discuss a so-called “grand bargain” budget that will cut Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.

Senator Bernie Sanders, Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future and Maya Rockeymoore, president of Global Policy Solutions, will join activists on Tuesday, May 15 at 1:30 p.m., at 1301 Constitution Avenue NW outside the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in Washington D.C. to protest conservative austerity plans and say, “Hands Off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”

The austerity protest is sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, Health Care for America Now, Progressives United, CREDO Action, Social Security Works, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare, and the National Organization for Women.

As a refresher about what they are talking about inside, below is a fact sheet we put together about how the Bowles-Simpson destroys Social Security (PDF).