prison and no shit there will be civil war...

i was talking with a friend about new mexico's prion riots now a few decades old. for those of you that don't know...they were nasty. and if you have ever visited a state run prison in new mexico (or anywhere in the country for that matter) prison riots and the horrible turns they take really aren't that surprising. for that matter, nor is the "relevations" of prisoner abuse in the "war" on terror...when prisoners in this country are treated as lower life forms and made to live like animals in a simultaneously fascinating and horrifying sub-culture, is it really shocking that it goes to the next level when dealing with people that were viewed as subhuman before they became prisoners?

if you have never visited a prison, or spoke to someone who has spent time in prison, i suggest you do so. it may change the way you view criminals...maybe you will even become one of the few that recognize that they are still human, no matter how hard we try to strip that from them. try to imagine being stripped of all your free will, just about every privilege you now take for granted...having to live with the constant knowledge that if anyone mentions your name as a snitch, you will spend the rest of your days looking over your shoulder trying to avoid the rath of a shank...the mental hell that must be "lock down" (whether you are put there to protect others or yourself) when you are allowed out of a small cell for all of one hour a day...imagine if your parents treated you worse than they would ever imagine treating their dog, if you were a source of amusement for them, to be beaten and humiliated for their pleasure. let's not kid ourselves, prison is not about rehabilitation in any way shape or form...it is society's vengence, plain and simple. and when it is run that way, bad things happen. treat a man like an animal, and he will act like one. prison riots are more horrible than you can imagine...but you can't just chalk it up to the criminal character of those participating.

iraq has spiraled into civil war...another big surprise. you would think we may have learned this years ago with what happened when the soviet bloc fell apart. when you force peoples that have deep-rooted historical issues with each other to live as a nation behind ficticious borders imposed by world powers after another big european war, and then keep them together and quiet through brutality and tyranny for decades, some for a century or more...there will be repurcusions. unfortunately, as in all other parts of the world that were part of imperialism on the part of the western "free" world and the "communist" (lest we forget they never made the final step) bloc, the middle east is no different. the problems in the middle east did not begin with the united states...unfortunately we are dealing with europe's parselling of the area followed by soviet intervention now...and we didn't learn from history, again.

so now we have civil war...we removed the dictator that kept it together through brute force (not to say he was not a horrible man that needed to be removed from power...only it might have gone smoother if we didn't show the "iraqi" people we didn't give two shits about them for a decade plus before "freeing" them)...the inevitable result...all this hatred, be it religious, ethnic, etc. can now bubble to the surface. we removed the leader of the state, but we did not remove the artificial state borders as defined by western european powers a century ago. did we really expect this to go any smoother than any other of the nations that were created to control peoples after colonization crumbling? civil war was bound to happen, and i have news for our leaders now...it will happen no matter how long we stay unless another tyrant is installed. call me crazy, but for some reason i foresee us going with a new tyrant.

go right back out there where you been...