Drapetomaniac

I attended the opening night festivities of Cine Las Americas film festival. Septiembres was the opening film and while it promised to be a documentary about a music contest in prison, it turned out to be a lot more. Most of the audience appeared to expect something more like American Idol with a lot more ins and outs of the competition. The film itself is sandwiched between two Septembers, the time of year the competition takes place.

Carles Bosch, the director, said the film actually started like an American Idol favor for the participating inmates - taking the prison competition and making it look as big as possible for the participants to be able to send their families a DVD. After that, though, the film was born and grew into an intimate portrayal of various kinds of confined love within the co-ed prison and outside the walls. The only kind of love missing was the brutal expectations Americans of come to expect from prison life.

We get to see growing and even disintegrating relationships and families grow. Near the end of the film, got a sudden jolt as if I were eavesdropping too much on a conversation. I've seen enough Reality television to expect the right to be a voyeur, but this documentary was a much more sincere look into the lives of the inmates.

In the United States, the Supreme Court just re-affirmed the death penalty as constitutional and is considering whether or not to expand it to crimes other than homicide. In the prisons we view in this film, several audience members were taken aback at the freedoms they were granted. Where the inmates likely saw slight niceties to help them get through the day - I saw a heel that could be used as a weapon, a guitar that could be used to overtake the guards... In the US, we banned hair extensions and braids in several prisons years ago.

Carles Bosch was asked if this freedom were typical, and he pointed out that the song festival itself took place in various prisons, but the grand finale was held in one of the more secure prisons with violent offenders. They, however, were in another building and since they were anti-social to begin with, weren't really a risk to consider when holding the festival. The freedoms observed were constitutional rights in Spain.

What the film makes plain is that confinement is quite enough to impact someone heavily. There is an overtone of anger, spite and vengeance when prisoners are discussed usually. Even the Supreme Court considering expanding the death penalty points to the increasing number of laws attempting to expand the death penalty and Scalia says, "It's the trend that counts." So, if our trend is more dehumanizing and angry, it seems some of the court will endorse the trend and a standard of our legal morals.

Even when freedoms like marriage or family gatherings ae seen in the film, we and everyone in the film is reminded they are in prison as a hand closes the door on the intimate gatherings and locks the prisoners and their family in the room. One of the singers celebrates New Years by dressing up and sitting in her cell with a friend until midnight, at which point the inmates yell out their windows to each other to celebrate. While it might seem like a lot of freedoms, it is quite obvious the impact confinement has on human beings. Those mothers, siblings and lovers outside and inside the walls. Any additional mistakes they make can aggravate their loss and any change in policy drive families further apart.

The film had a graceful end, but during the Q & A afterwards with Bosch, several of the people who repeatedly raised their hands for attention sighed when someone asked "What happened to them all?" All of the prisoners but one openly admitted to their crimes ranging from bank robbery to buying drugs. There was no question of guilt or the right of the Spanish justice system to punish them from the audience or the prisoners. Even with the freedoms that seem extreme to Americans, you can feel pain of confinement. The audience seems to want everyone to be released, which is the ultimate question of "What happened to them" when asked of prisoners. They don't want them to be released because they shouldn't be punished, but because the sense of confinement we are able to explore through the theme of love.

Bosch points out that 80% of prisoners in Spain are first time offenders, which shows a low rate of repeat offenders. I'm left wondering after the film if the ability to be human and express your humanity through song and love doesn't allow for greater individual reform. It's easier to be reminded of your loss when you are able to taste a bit of what is still fully out of reach over the years.

One disappointment was the prospect of distribution, even of the DVD within the United States. Carles Bosch didn't seem optimistic at all, and the film certainly goes against the expectations or seeming desires of the American public in regards to humanizing people who commit crimes. I personally think this film can be used as a Scared Straight tactic as well as advocacy for prisoners. Sacred Straight has a famous scene where a prisoner explains to at-risk kids that he could easily jump over the table and rape them before a guard could interfere. This film reached for the humanity instead.

Imagine you want to vote and you tell me who you want to vote for. I repeat it back to you and then write something down in to places. If it's disputed, I will take what I wrote down (whatever I wrote down) and print it out with all the others from the day. This is what Travis County in Texas considers "triple redundancy" and very secure.

Q: Some computer experts claim that there is no way to audit the vote without a paper trail? Does this system have paper backup?

A: This system provides voters with confidence that their vote will be counted as they intended. First, the voting device provides each voter with a summary of all votes, alerting the voter of any skipped races, and allowing the voter to make changes. The voter has visual confirmation that the vote was cast exactly as intended. To ensure the votes are recorded correctly, the system is publicly tested and validated before, during, after each election to ensure that votes are counted and reported as they are cast. There are many security features designed to test procedures, equipment and software. Finally, the system can print out all Cast Vote Records should that be required for a recount.
http://www.co.travis.tx.us/county_clerk/election/eSlate/faq.asp

The only thing I know when I cast my ballot is that the screen in front of me showed me what I put in. I have no idea what was actually recorded. And if there is a problem, they seem to indicate they are only printing out the problem...

Here is a description of what an election monitor observed in Venezuela. They have visual confirmation of the face of their candidate,the results are sent to a remote place as well, they vote electronically, visually see their paper ballot repeating their results and they place it in to a box (I believe with their thumbprint). Hands are also marked to prevent multiple vote attempts. After the vote, more than 50% of voting machines are audited (others recommend 3%).

I do think there are politicians who think it will be in the best interest to control the vote - time of war, criticial junction in the war on terror, etc. And while I do believe it may happen occasionally, I'm not on the bandwagon to say it's an all out conspiracy. The problem with joining the full conspiracy camp is that when your candidate wins, you look foolish and it makes it more difficult to argue there are problems. It's like arguing against the death penalty when you have a genocidal rapist as your poster child. You tend to lower your voice during those executions a bit.

What does concern me is the apathy by our elected official over the election process. It's not impractical to print paper - we did it for centuries. If apathy is the rule, then we will see a day when large scale fraud is carried out and there will be nothign to be done about it - if anyone notices.

Anyway - this morning, voting in Precinct 248 in Travis County, I arrived 10 minutes before polls opened. I couldn't vote until an hour later because the machines weren't setup and/or working. As a voter, all I know is the machines weren't working or an hour and I was one of the first dozen to use the machines after that.

Should I hope my vote was recorded?

ps - I hope the lady who discussed her bowel issues in great detail behind me in line for an hour feels better.

I've always had mixed feelings about some of the censorship rules in Europe. Having Nazi propaganda outlawed in Germany seems basically contrary to values of democracy and freedom and apple pie. But, while people openly support the right of Klan marches to march in the US, nobody would suggest that Al Qaeda should set up their "violence free" version in the United States. Could you honestly imagine a group marching on Veteran's Day with Al Qaeda signs and people saying, "I might detest their message but I'll fight to the death for their right to express themselves?"

Wrong or right, it's not likely to be tolerated or supported strongly. At least when they are silenced, the rally is likely to be slow and quiet. The hesitancy to speak up and the righteousness when you do is likely to do with your level of empathy for any given group.

The Ku Klux Klan is the first organizations recognized by the federal government as a terrorist organization (1869). And many fight for their right to express themselves out of principle. I do hear less rallying for the oppression of Nazi expression in Europe.

Do I support their right to expression? Yes. But I also expect consistency. "Peaceful" Al Qaeda or Hamas is not going to get a permit to march on Veterans day and I don't expect anyone to rally behind them, partially because it would make them targets of our current legal spray gun.

Just because humans are human, I don't expect that support to actually be there.

But, I become more suspect when folks rally behind bigots who are quite literally inciting hatred over the course of several years through the most basic series of known smears and stereotypes (check out the blog referenced) and then refer to the the outcry as banning something because it is distasteful. This is the Citizen Media Law Project. The original outcry was by a member of their board of directors, who referred to the objection as a matter of political correctness. The "politically incorrect" ideas he spreads are known lies like Muslims are compelled to killed non-Muslims (There are more than a billion Muslims, and plenty in the US- don't you think we would notice if they were all trying to kill everyone else?) He protests the building of mosques and has cartoons of a stylized muslim pregnant woman image captioned "The other Islamic bomb" (with her pregnant belly as a bomb).

Usually, the desire for a 100% pure Christian nation and the end of breeding by others and the spreading of other additional lies, known to be used by extremists is recognized as old fashioned bigotry.

My objection isn't that he should be arrested. I think bigots should be able to express themselves so they can be known and acknowledged.

What is objectionable is that reputable people look at long standing bigotry and refer to it as "politically incorrect." This is David Duke and Hitler styled speech promoted against Muslims. I sincerely doubt this otherwise reputable organization would refer to David Duke's speeches as "politically incorrect" or merely " distasteful." (Or maybe they would).

In trying to further their mission, the belittle very real hate speech based on old and traditional lies his own rhetoric for a pure England. They can argue against the law without belittling the fact that he is indeed spreading hate and incitement. In my comments to their post I said:

You don't do your reputation a service by trivializing "incitement" laws as simply distasteful. A brief review of history of German, the United States and many other nations will show you the difference of "distasteful" and "inciting." The question for proponents of all free speech is whether or not you believe someone has the free speech right to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre as a joke or "commentary" or "bomb" in an airport - which creates a public safety issue. If you do, then the end of the story. If not, then do you support someone yelling "Jews are setting fire" in the same way? There is a difference between incite, political correctness and distasteful.

As I said, I think it is a matter of empathy towards any given group. Or maybe antipathy.

I believe in free speech. I also believe in not trivializing the type of hateful dishonest speech equivelant to incitement.

People trivialize other positions in order to improve their own. But it weakens their own position when they do.

I'm met several people who aren't too sure what water boarding is. Gnooze.com (The G is silent) is one of my daily news sources. It's like a 2 minute Daily Show. Marta Costello has some brief visual aides for those still wondering what it is and if it's torture.