Do you want to see us make this movie for you?

Credit Risk is a crime thriller about Jack, a bank IT guy, who wants to be a full time actor, but has to provide for his wife and two kids, while getting involved with a friend and former porn star, Jenny, who is raped by Jack’s twin brother Will, which implicates Jack for the crime, who is now pursued by own his sister-in-law detective, and two other cops, who are actually more interested in surveillance of Jenny the famous porn star.

Credit Risk is like Pretty Woman, but not as pretty, not as Cinderella fantasy, not as rich, more down to earth, more complicated, real world dangerous, about real people, and in the street instead of a penthouse. It’s about a former porn star, not a call girl.

But they are both about the stigma towards women of certain professions. They are both about women and men looking to live in a better place than where they are. They are both about taking risks for money. They are both about finding love as redemption. And they are both about finding a way out, and finding a way to beat the odds.

I wrote this story, based on true events. I was, and still am, an IT guy, and that means I go through periods of unemployment when companies decide to outsource or restructure. I also have a family with three children. So I’ve been in challenging financial situations for years, and yet I’ve always had a love for making movies and acting. I’ve had my car nearly repossessed until I locked it in a garage. I’ve had times where it was challenging just to get a few dollars together to buy a loaf of bread for my kids to make peanut butter sandwiches. I never knew a porn star. But I can understand the financial binds that cause people to get into that business where it can be easy to make a lot of money fast.

I did make a short film with a bedroom scene once, and my grade school aged children somehow got the impression that there were naked actors in our house. There was no nudity. But their teachers got wind of this and we had some explaining to do. I think a tasteful love scene can be beautiful. And they do help to sell a movie.

Financial binds are hard on a marriage. And my wife was never too happy with my unpaid acting jobs. Other actors out there are much like me, striving to keep their head above water so they can take acting classes and try to get some decent roles. So all of these experiences contributed to the writing of this screenplay.

I also like thrillers where someone is running to stay alive. The threat of death or pain is a great character motivation. It can carry you all the way through a story, until the threat is neutralized.  In this film Will is the evil twin rapist, and yet I think every bad guy has a good side and every good guy has a bad side. So while Will was wrong to rape Jenny at the start of the story, you have to understand that it started out as mutual sex and just got too rough. [trailer]

The light gets broken and goes out. Jenny gets cut with blood coming down her legs and it looks horrific. But really, what happens is that Will, in the process of picking up glass in the dark tries to grab Jenny and cuts her leg, making it look worse than it really is. Or did he maybe try to rape her with a chard of glass?

In any case, Jenny is in shock and in fear for her life. All she knows it that the room went dark and she felt pain.  So her instinct is to run away from Will. And yet Will is a bad guy looking to get over by implicating his brother in his crimes. So the danger persists as Will worms his way into Jenny’s confidence and gets close to her. In the end he attempts to attack her again, but this time she’s ready and turns the tables on him.  Finally Jack is implicated and due to the identical DNA that they share, Will and Jack are exonerated. But Will also has a predator after him.

So it’s not a lot of violence. It’s more of a cat and mouse game with dangerous predators, mistaken identity, and two people in the face of danger, trying to scratch and claw their way into the kind of life they want to live.  Everybody deserves a good life. You deserve a good life.  Just like Jenny shouldn’t have to do porn to survive, neither should any of us have to do jobs hat we hate, just to eat. So it’s a story about all of us really.

Now, we need to fund our development phase even to be considered by distributors and investors as a serious project. We need to complete this short film version of the project to demonstrate our potential to deliver. We want to take advantage of the recent section 181 laws that allows investors to claim 100% of their film investment as deductible on their taxes. We want to offer not just perks, but investment opportunities online as the new Jobs Act has now allowed. For these things we need to register as a company, we need to hire a lawyer for the duration, and we need to have a professional film budget and shooting schedule done by a production manager. We may need to interest a co-producer with an established production company that can crew the film. We need to apply for state tax incentives. We need to print pitch materials like posters, maintain a website, go to film markets. All of this comes to around at least $50,000. And that would put us in the game to make this film.

And we’ll take this one step at a time. We’ll do continual research, tweak the script if necessary, rethink casting options, locations, and so on. Once we get the development stage funded we’ll pitch the project to distributors, and investors, and show them a trailer and scenes from our short film.

We do have a preliminary cursory budget of about $750,000 for the project. We could probably make the film for that amount without stars. But I think if we can get even half that amount together we will have the leverage to attract a few stars like Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Chastain, Michelle Williams, or maybe Michael Shannon or Jennifer Lawrence. And I like all those actors a lot. Ok, they sound expensive. But they’re known to consider passion projects if they like the script. And we have to be funded for them to take us seriously. Just their interest alone would then attract additional funding to give us a bigger budget. We can do this.

So do you want to see us make this movie for you?

Credit Risk: Hot Mess Opening featuring Hot Mess by Charlotte Rich

Check out our new trailer for Credit Risk.

Militarized Law: An Internal Terroism of Student Incarceration

At what point does the militarization of law enforcement become domestic terrorism? My kids were "locked down" in their high school for over *five hours due to a "threat". "Lock Down" is a term associated with prisons and incarceration. This is not the first time this has happened. Over 3,000 kids were locked into their classrooms, with no ability to even use a bathroom. Students were forced to urinate in trash cans in the same classroom with other students, while armed officers patrolled the school. This is a prison.

Meanwhile a SWAT team swings into action looking for a threat that does not exist. When was the last time a SWAT team stopped a school shooting? It is rare. The usual case is that police show up after the fact when it's too late. SWAT is a reaction. It is not protection.

Is there not a better way to handle this situation? Is it really necessary to subject innocent children to this terrorizing health threatening incarceration?

'The lock down was lifted after about three hours. But many students still had to wait another two hours for the processing to be completed. My kids were not freed until around 8PM from a lock down that began at around 3PM.

The Canyons: A Cool 60s Grindhouse Thowback Mirror of Hollywood

It doesn't take place in the 60s. It's modern day. But the style of the film is totally retro. It's grindhouse. I'd love to hear Tarantino's take on it. And if he hates it, I still love it.  We see Deen's character arc from bad to worse. And Lindsay's from scared to petrified. We see a world of people who live for money.  There is back stabbing, cruelty, cheating, and perversion. Yet there is love and romance amidst it all. But in the end the bad stuff extinguishes the good. This is true Hollywood with a true real Hollywood end. It's not the fairy tale people want to be lulled into complacency by.

And the music is great. Son of Perdition (featuring Rob James) sounds like a 60s Lee Hazelwood. The rest of Brendan Canning & me&john's soundtrack is great and hits that undercurrent of decayed Hollywood theaters, and decayed Hollywood people; topped of with classic Dum Dum Girls' Coming Down.

Yes, there are technical flaws, maybe. Or maybe it's just a casual style. There's stuff that an experienced contemporary filmmaker would look at and say, it's terrible, it's amateur. But is it really flawed or is it just that the viewer is so accustomed to homogenized perfect Barbie world tripe?  And that's part of the nostalgia. 60's films were like that; grungy, less than perfect. People didn't care. They just wanted to see the film, or maybe take their sex-mate to a drive in and get it on . And when was the last time a major Hollywood film was actually X rated? Today's world is so conservatively annal retentive about being political, fashionably, and financially perfect.

When I watch this movie I look past all that perfection crap and I look at the meat of the matter, and I'm not talking about James Deen's wad or Lindsay's naked breasts. I'm talking about the story and the quality of the basic cinematic story aspects. Get past where you think the lighting isn't right, or there's something distracting in the background. That kind of critical thinking is based on what you expect a  movie to be. It's a perception,  based on media hype about what a film should look like. But that definition of is only technical excellence. You may like the Hangover series. They are technically perfect. I think they suck ass. The Canyons is an unusual film about the decay of Hollywood. Not just the physical decay of abandoned movie theaters.  But the decay of the people who make films who stoop to personal fulfillment over some kind of selfless contribution to film (In case you're from Hollywood, selfless means you don't care about your self, over some kind of greater good).

I think the plethora of critics coming out in droves with hate and disdain for this movie, actually fear what they see in the mirror. Do any of them find anything good to say? Obviously none of them were brought up to stay silent unless you have something nice to say to people (neither was I). And that's why this movie is their mirror. If you believe something is bad and you tell others it's bad, then it's perceived as bad.

Acting is not Easy: You are Robert De Niro

Adrian Brody in The Pianist

When Adrian Brody took on the role of The Pianist, he first spent six months living in a tiny one room apartment where he starved himself. Would you go to this length to prepare for a role? How about if you were offered a few million to do it? What would you do for a role if you have that kind of money in return?

I think it was my acting teacher who said that Meryl Streep  never goes with her first choice in doing a role. She always goes back to look for other choices and that's one way that she comes up with the great work she does.

So now if you are just doing indie roles or low budget projects and you get paid nothing or next to nothing, or even scale, do you just blow off the role and don't put mush effort into it? Maybe you do spend some time to go over it and try a few things and then you're ready to go, right? It's not like it's a big production. But you know that this is not going to get you there. You know that to get the big roles you need to first have the ability to come across like you can do them. You need to go through the process of considering second and third choices.  Maybe spending six months in a tiny apartment is what you need to do. Maybe you already live in those conditions anyway.

So how about if you're playing an adult entertainer? Would you try to land a part time job doing some pole dancing? Would you go out and try to get some work doing internet porn or even just soft porn to advertise internet porn? That would put you in touch with the role, wouldn't it?

Okay, so you won't do porn or pole dancing. But you do have Google. You could spend an hour a day for a few weeks to research the role. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to go to some lengths to take your performance to a new level?

I've heard it said that some actors, like Robert De Niro, don't bother much with this kind of extensive prep. They just show up and do the role. Maybe that works for them. After all they're Robert De Niro. Are you at that point? Maybe you are. But what does it hurt to do some reseach and consider other choices?

My acting teacher once said to try and read through your lines with different emotions. Read through them all laughing. Then again crying. Then again angry or sad or happy. You'll find a lot of choices that way that you hadn't thought of.  Every character is the lead in their own life. You character is a lead. Every character has complexities. They are sometimes good, sometimes bad. They go through things. Think about what kind of crap your character has had to go through. Everybody has problems. You character has to have problems.  So what are they? You character has secrets. There are things you would prefer that no one else knows about you. Maybe you do share things with some intimate friends. How about your character? They do the same things.

Then again you don't want to get nerved racked over what choices to do. You don't want to show up
at a performance as a bundle of nerves. A little nervous energy may be good. But it's most important to be completely relaxed and at ease before you go on. It's great to do the prep and consider all the choices and work out ways to do it. You may show up with the ability to perform the role a number of different ways. You can show that off. But at the moment you go on, you have to forget everything. At that moment you are now that character. Forget the choices. All that is in your head and decided before. Now you simply become the character and you react as that character. It's maybe a bit crazy, skitzo. You are not expecting your partner's lines. You just react. You have to let everything go. At that point the prep is over and you are Robert De Niro.

Acting is not easy.

Mother's Day: A day for peace

Julia Ward  Howe- 1870, lest we forget, wrote this in the original Mother's Day proclamation:  

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Change for the Sake of Change

Change for the sake of change is a foul concept, or so my high school English teacher said to me when I would talk about how things need to change.  She didn’t get that I wasn’t suggesting “change for the sake of change,” as she suggested was my meaning. No. I was suggesting change for the sake of reason. The most unreasonable thing is consistency for the sake of consistency, or as I used to say, tradition for the sake of tradition. But that’s exactly what tradition is. It has no reason. Why do we follow tradition?

Cowardice.  Those who follow tradition only because of tradition itself, and not for a reason other than that, have no balls. But worse than that they have no mind, no soul, no thought, no reasoning, and no purpose. Tradition is not a purpose. In fact tradition is not even a thing. The word is not a noun. It’s an adjective, even if you say it’s a noun, even if Websters says it’s a noun. 

Can you see a tradition? Can you feel it? Oh you may say, well it’s abstract, like love or God. Really? Tradition is in the same realm as abstract concepts? In that case, it’s completely subjective and can only have meaning is a personal context. So any given tradition, like love or God, has a completely different meaning in the context it is used and by whom. 

You can say the very same things about change. But I don’t suggest change for the sake of change. I suggest it for reason. Is tradition suggested for reason? I don’t think so. You could stretch that to say tradition is for the purpose of pleasing those who honor tradition. But that’s just the same as saying that tradition is for the sake of tradition, which, for me at least, has absolutely no merit.  

You wouldn’t suggest that change has merit when it for the sake of those who honor change. That sounds ludicrous. So why doesn’t the same hold for tradition? Well, it does. Tradition for the sake of tradition is ludicrous, and if you suggest that tradition can be for some other valid reason, then it’s no longer tradition. It’s now a suggestion for a purpose of reason, and a purpose of reason cannot be a tradition, even though it may happen to be considered so.

Change for reason also cannot be change for the sake of change, for it is for a reason. Only concepts of reason can have merit and the reason of tradition cannot be a reason, because tradition has circulatory meaning and refers back only to itself, rendering it meaningless. And when it does mean something else, it’s not tradition, it’s now change.

It’s no stretch to substitute the word religion for tradition in the above. Religion also is meaningless and has circulatory meaning. The big argument for religion is faith, which is nothing more than to say the reason for religion is religion itself, for faith and religion are interchangeable and mean the same thing.

But tradition like religion allows people to feel secure in knowing how things are. But really that’s a lie. We can never know how things are. If we did there would be no such thing as change or surprise. If you believe in tradition you are a fallacy. You are deluded into thinking you know something. In reality you cannot know what you think you know. Surprise and change are inevitable and whatever it is you think you know eventually dissolves in the face of change. So you can only know things temporarily. But even then, not with any certainty. At any moment something could change unexpectedly.

For example. This could end and you might not have any clue as to why you bothered to read it. But the reason you read it is because you believe in change. You read anything and any story to find out what’s next and that is the act of seeking change. Everything changes constantly. There is no tradition. It is a myth.

Politics is tradition, is a lie, is meaningless, and in fact presumes lack of change. Otherwise we don't need politicians to argue for changes. Those in politics play with the word “change” like it’s a basketball. Politicians are steeped in tradition. They live and die for the sake of tradition, which amounts to nothing. All they can do is to suggest a change or two to give the appearance of life. But since they are well paid and use the opportunity to line their own pockets, it in fact amounts to self-preservation, greed, and profit. This suggests that the only value of tradition is for the sake of self-preservation of those who honor its existence. The only change that traditionalists want is the change that accumulates in their pockets. But we all knew that. So why do we bother to honor politics with the time of day? There can be only one reason: tradition.

The Truths of Narratives over Documentaries

We are in pre-production on a short romantic thriller, Credit Risk.  This is a 10 minute version of a feature length project.  We intend to use the short to assist with funding the bigger project.

With elements similar to Banshee and True Romance, a bank IT guy, seeking escape to an acting career, runs into an ex-porn star friend, unknowingly stalked by a serial rapist, who resembles him. Now he is pursued in mistaken identity by his own sister in-law detective, her FBI agent husband, and two beat detectives that are actually more interested in surveillance photos of the porn star they recognize from her past work.

The short film basically covers the opening of the feature and then a fast resolution, consolidating the climax and ending.  The premise of the feature film is the dilemma many people find themselves in with the current economy.  Job loss, tight finances, and having to support a family make for highly tense situations where things get crazy.  In the feature, the protagonist is married but wants to pursue an acting career.  He gets fired from his job at a bank, and the stress on his marriage and finances lead him to have his car repossessed and his wife throw him out when she finds out he still pursues acting and hangs out with a former pron star acting friend.

Another project we are looking to fund is Lost Love.   In the vein of Homeland and The English Patient, this is the story of a downed fighter pilot faced with a family destroyed by his missiles, and lost in regret of the love he left behind.  It is a pertinent war story that reflects the dilemma many troops and veterans have found themselves in, having to balance doing their job to kill, with a sense of morality.  This is what leads many of them to psychological stress, chronic depression. PTSD, and even suicide.  10,000 have taken their own lives since 9/11, twice the number killed in action.  So you can se how a narrative can be very pertinent to personal, political and societal issues.

After completion of got healthcare?, a documentary on healthcare reform, you may wonder why I would be interested in romantic thrillers.  To me, any film can address important issues.  Documentaries are considered to be a reflection of truth or reality.  In fact they are the filmmakers

Who really are these people?

vision.  In this regard, narrative films can be even more accurate and truthful in reflecting reality.  In a narrative we can get into the characters' heads.  We can see them perform in various situations and watch them doing things that real people would be very uncomfortable to have depicted in a documentary.  We can portray perhaps, global truths, and get right down to the points we want to bring home. So narratives actually have a huge advantage over documentaries in these story telling terms.

I've always had a knack and interest for writing romantic thrillers.  Romance takes you right into the characters' hearts and lets you find out exactly who they are.  How do they balance love with other interests in their lives?  What do they risk for love?  What do they risk without it?

Typical Two-Faced Political Bullshit: Fiscal Cliff (The Rich Man's Crisis)

$400 Billion in Cuts over the next decade, to be taken from the rest of the pie (mostly Medicare)

President Obama has proposed a $3.8 trillion 2013 budget.  He is currently negotiating with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to make needed cuts in the budget.  First on the chopping block is Medicare and other entitlement programs at a minimum of $400 billion to be cut.

Typical two-faced political bullshit

He has offered this as a bone to conservatives who will have to also deal with increased taxes, which serves as a bone to liberals who now have to deal with deep cuts into Medicare.  

Yet no effective Congressional authority will ever venture to even suggest cutting our health care overhead with a single payer system, a system that works to keep health care costs under control in every other industrialized country.  Medicare, without the corporate insurance industry overhead, would cost the government just 4% as opposed to the current 13% to 20% of health care costs, when the insurance industry takes its cut. Instead of having to pay exorbitant health insurance premiums, people would pay a 4% income tax to cover 100% all their health care needs, medical, dental, vision, and medications.  When they are out of work, they would still be covered.

All employer health care costs are eliminated by a single payer system.  Gone.  

Privatized corporate insurance has an overall 30% overhead for administrative costs (claims denials, advertising, and Wall Street profits).

A single payer system would be a major stimulus for the economy with $2.6 million in new jobs, $317 billion in business revenue, and $100 billion in wages (Single-Payer/Medicare for All. An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation; Robert Fountain, IHSP, NNOC/CNA).

Neither does anyone in Congress venture to ever discuss the $600 to $900 billion of future veterans' health care costs.  Over 50% of returning troops are eligible for disability.  600,000 have been treated since 9/11 so far (The True Cost of 9/11; Joseph Stiglitz).  Is this part of the entitlement programs to be cut? 

Doctor's, nurses, and other activists, have been calling for a single payer system for years (got healthcare?; documentary film).  Yet Congressional committees refuse to consider this option or send it to the budget office for fiscal comparison studies.  Nearly 60% of doctors and over half the public are for a single payer system (PNHP).

The aversion to single payer is the dreaded S word: socialism.  But there are many democratic countries that have single payer systems.  A government health care insurance program would cover all people for all medical expenses just like police, fire, highways, libraries, schools and many other government services that serve to guarantee a minimum standard of life.

A recent 2012 Harvard study found that 48,000 Americans die annually for lack of health care, and nearly 50 million Americans have no health insurance. The ACA (Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare) is suppose to give health care insurance to an additional 30 million. But some of this will be offset with these budget cuts, plus the unregulated health insurance industry gouging us with exorbitant premiums, deductibles, and denials.

The privatized corporate health care insurance industry is more accurately an American sick care profit center.  The sick care pharmaceutical, health insurance, medical device, and cancer industries serve their investors well by keeping people sick, on medications, chronically ill, and in need of expensive treatments.

People in America, unlike any other country, are forced into medical debt to stay alive.  Many have to sign over their houses.  Medical debt is responsible for over half, and up to 88% of bankruptcies and foreclosures (PNHP on medical debt).

So now Obama proposes to cut Medicare.  How many more will have to die for lack of health care?  What will the impact of Medicare cuts be on health care in America?  Why do we not cut deeply into war, which has cost us trillions and will cost hundreds of billions more in veterans' care?

Experiencing small towns: Deindustrialization, Militarization and Privatization

By guest writer, Maureen Cruise, RN

Know Justice: Know Peace

The destruction of Hostess Brands by corporate pirate "raid, strip & run"  strategy is just another resounding iceberg crash in the tragic meltdown of the glacial US economy.  Nationally the closure of 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes, 570 bakery outlet stores and the loss of 18,500 jobs will occur mostly in small economically fragile towns across the country.  Such closures plunge many small communities into depression era conditions while the rising tide of unemployed people struggle to stay in their homes and feed their families. Labor negotiations for livable wages, job security, pensions and health care are failing to trump corporate profiteering.

For some big picture reality:  19 Facts About The De-industrialization Of America That Will Make You Weep http://www.businessinsider.com/deindustrialization-factory-closing-2010-9?op=1 To this information should be added the 2008 Harvard Business School study that 42% of US jobs are vulnerable to being sent overseas.  The new generation of outsourcing not only "brawn but brains" is white collar professional jobs such as engineering, radiology, law, finance, IT management, research & development, clinical trials, book editing, even travel vacation/surgery.  "The Globalization of White Collar Work:  Facts and Fallout of Next generation Outsourcing." 2006.    

For a smaller picture, first hand recent observation of the deadly effects of corporate profit driven closures, merging with increased outsourcing of government agencies to corporate entities and in combination with the tax flow to the rise of a heavily policed and militarized state, read on.

I have just returned from Columbus GA, a small financially fragile city with an enormous military base where our tax dollars train foreign military and police forces in repressive and violent techniques including torture, kidnapping, mass evacuations of villages and assassination.  This base, Fort Benning, also features a new DRONE  research, testing and launch center.  In addition, we visited the largest Corrections Corporations of America for profit immigrant prison...Stewart Federal Detention center in near by Lumpkin, GA...an economically depressed community.

The intersection of three elements in this economically compromised area of Georgia provide a stark view of our rapidly deteriorating country. Depressed economies (business closures, job losses, social service strain) with increased tax dollar expenditures for enhanced local police departments, militarized response to community security, undercover operations and surveillance of ordinary law abiding citizens coupled with the most egregious federal tax dollar expenditures for wildly profitable private prisons.

Columbus GA:  400 workers just lost their jobs at Dolly Madison/Hostess bakery.
And Columbus recently increased it's police force by 100 officers "housed in a newly constructed 125,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility.  The Columbus Police Department is not only among the largest departments in Georgia, supporting 488 sworn officers and 98 civilian employees, but it is also one of the most modern in the region, fully capable of responding to bomb and terrorist threats. We are renowned across the nation for being progressive in our thinking and creative with our tactics, and our officers endeavor to uphold the highest level of professional and ethical law enforcement." Police dept. website.

In the 20010 census the per capita income for the city was $22,514. About 12.8% of families and 15.7% of the population were below the poverty line. Columbus has a total population of 189,885, 72,124 households, and 47,686 families residing in the city.  The largest employer is Fort Benning Military Base with 41,000 employees followed by the school district 6,000 and then financial, insurance and healthcare services representing about 20,000 jobs combined.

In Columbus, we few thousand people at the SOAW fully permitted, legal, constitutionally protected conference, rally and vigil were met with hundreds of state and local police, dozens of motor vehicles, roaming dog teams, helicopters, military police, surveillance stations and undercover agents, and most likely homeland security infiltrators. (Several of the infiltrating agents were identified at the conference and rally but the agency remains in question..some of the same agents greeted us across state lines in Alabama at a picket line for Farm Worker Justice. This leads me to assume they are probably feds of some sort.)

All this wasted tax money for heavy handed, armed policing and surveillance  of a fully permitted conference, rally & vigil of peace groups with a 23 year peaceful history in Columbus!!  While the numbers of unemployed rise.

In Lumpkin, GA ( Stewart County):  Visitors arrive to see a family member held at the Stewart Detention Center… (Don Bartletti/Los Angeles…)

Stewart Detention Center outside Lumpkin is the largest immigrant detention facility in the U.S. holding 1,752 inmates...many held without due process or convictions.   "Because they're paid per detainee, per day by whichever government entity they've contracted with, CCA and other private prison firms need a steady stream of inmates in order to remain profitable. They rely on lawmakers to ensure that demand for their product — prison bed space — remains high. A growing segment of the population believes illegal immigrants are to blame for much of what ails the state, from low employment to high crime." Correction Corporations of America uses some of their profits (tax payer money) to lobby legislators across the country to sponsor anti immigrant and harsh sentencing laws in order to keep their prison census at capacity.  Money is also spent producing the anti immigrant propaganda that softens the electorate to supporting that legislation (In California Governor Brown vetoed the 2012 Bill which would have ended "Secure Communities"  funneling of law abiding undocumented immigrants into the for profit prison system.   Also "Private Prison Finds Gold in California")

Who is paying for this? Taxpayers, of course, with detention budgets for ICE at $1.77 Billion last fiscal year, to detain approximately 33,442 people in jails nationwide. Many of whom are held for very minor immigration and traffic charges.  Corrections Corp. of America is a $1.6 billion and their business is booming. Federal taxpayers pay Stewart County $60.50 per inmate held at that jail per day through an agreement with ICE. That works out to $97,647 per day, based on the last fiscal year's average daily inmate count. Lumpkin county, however, keeps only 85 cents per inmate per day for its administrative costs and pays CCA the rest, or $59.65 per inmate per day. Since 2007, the county has collected about $1.7 million through this arrangement, county officials said. That represents more than half of the county's $3 million annual operating budget.

• Detainees have died at Stewart Detention Center (SDC)
• Families are still denied contact visits at SDC.
• On multiple occasions water service has been interrupted at SDC.
• Inmates have been denied meals.
• At least one American has been detained at and deported from SDC.
• Immigrants are still held in solitary confinement at SDC. Often guards make those determinations.
• Inmates who assist other inmates with language translation are labeled "gang leaders" and moved.
• Medical care is inadequate, Inmates are denied and delayed treatment. No MD on premises.
• Inmates perform many of the jobs at the facility, cooking cleaning, laundry for a few dollars a day.
• Corrections Corporation of America makes millions in profit at SDC.

Stewart County remains Georgia’s poorest county.  The per capita income for the city was $16,146. About 24.2% of families and 26.7% of the population were below the poverty line . The median income for a household in the city was $22,315, and the median income for a family was $27,321.  As of the census[1] of 2000, there were 1,369 people, 552 households, and 367 families residing in the city.

Legislators guarantee that federal tax dollars disappear into corporate coffers while tax subsidized corporations buy and crash domestic industries and outsource professional jobs.  The banks and credit entities write laws and lobby congress to ensure mounting debt for education, cheat people out of their homes, bankrupt the sick, disabled, poor and vulnerable.  These institutions cross our borders, they steal our jobs, they break the laws.....And the government response is to use our tax dollars for policing, private prisons, armaments and surveillance of "we the people".

Be well!
Maureen Cruise