‘A right without remedy is no right
at all’
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‘Cheap pot-shots’ undermine
AGR coverage
Editors, Asheville Global Report,
Your paper’s tendency to take cheap pot-shots at
Israel, Jews, and Zionists only serves to undermine what is otherwise
useful news coverage. I refer *THIS* time to the end of Kurt Nimmo’s
article about Bill O’Reilly and “enemies of the state,”
where Mr. Nimmo partly blames the impending war against Iraq on “Zionist
chickenhawks.” [AGR #217, Media Watch section, “Bill O’Reilly’s
enemies of the state”]
What exactly does the term “Zionist chickenhawks” mean? Who,
specifically, are these people? If your paper wants to expose actual
Israeli cruelties against Palestinians, then bravo. But if you’re
going to allow your “journalists” to inject their personal
emotions and prejudices, then you discredit yourselves. “Zionism”
is the belief in a Jewish homeland, nothing more, nothing less. Of course
some Zionists are cold-blooded murderers, but then so are some Palestinians,
so are some Americans, and so are some hippies, artists, athletes, street
people, office workers, laborers, etc.
You must not equate Zionism with the policies of the various Israeli
governments. That is simply deceptive journalism, and I think your paper
often runs such deceptions, either carelessly or perhaps willingly,
despite the appearance that you seek to represent Truth. Your treatment
of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict never has been very balanced. While
I don’t expect you to run articles that please me, the social change
which you profess to work for in your mission statement can only come
to be through telling the whole story.
Report on the issues, divulge the truth (perhaps you are indeed doing
just that in revealing your prejudices), and let the facts speak for
themselves.
Just curious: If Zionism (the belief in a Jewish homeland) is something
your paper condemns, does it also condemn the belief in a Palestinian
homeland?
Chuck Brodsky
Asheville, North Carolina
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‘A right without remedy is no right
at all’
Editors, Asheville Global Report,
Thank you for continuing to send Asheville Global Report,
my main source of printed media and the one I consider most truthful
and reliable.
Being a prisoner, naturally the page one article in issue No. 216, Mar.
6-12, 2003, “300,000 mentally ill in US prisons” caught my
attention.
I myself am currently awaiting psychiatric evaluation for emotional
distress inflicted by employees of Aramark Corp. in this prison. Aramark
contracts with the Florida prison system for the purpose of providing
dietary needs of inmates in accord with existing state and federal law.
In that endeavor they do fail miserably, but meanwhile it is still very
lucrative for them.
The only surprise I found in Duncan Campbell’s article is that
there are “merely” 300,000 mentally ill people in US prisons.
There must be 75,000 in Florida alone, and that’s not counting
guards with psychopathic personalities and criminal backgrounds.
If corporations like Aramark contracted to provide mental health services
it would increase political will to deal with the problem of incarcerating
mentally ill people, considering the politicians who invest in such
corporations. After all, Aramark isn’t doing business in Florida
because it saves taxpayers millions – they’re making millions!
However, if Aramark is as inept at mental health services as food service,
prisoner victims would rot in insanity as well as go hungry. How can
anyone profiting from this claim to really care?
Oscar Morgan of the National Mental Health Association should be a governor
instead of a senior consultant for NMHA.
The crisis for mentally ill prisoners is certainly a crazy situation.
Deinstitutionalization in the Reagan era criminalized homelessness for
many people. Dr. Karl Menninger said all prisoners have known helplessness
or hopelessness. People have merely “transferred” from mental
institutions to prisons. Is it more profitable to keep a con than a
nut? This is no joking matter, because eventually prisoners are freed
regardless of whether there has been any treatment or rehabilitation.
Sure, prisoners have a right to mental health treatment, but who will
enforce that? It is an oft-quoted maxim in jurisprudence that “a
right without remedy is no right at all.”
Maybe these thoughts will give someone the right ideas.
Gerald Niles
Century Correctional Institute
Century, Florida
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