This particular lie has to do with how Americans who are imprisoned, are
treated. Most of them do not have the capability or opportunity to tell the
public what really happens to them on a daily basis. But there are people, like
the author of this article, who can write or speak about what is being done and
who can actually have an audience, people who read their articles or listen to
podcasts or radio programs on which they appear. There is a growing prison
abolition movement.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 7:34 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Not for Human Consumption
Why tell the truth when a good lie can be told.
I remember the Princess who wept as she told of the babies being ripped from
their incubators and thrown onto the floor. And Americans bought it!
Carl Jarvis
On 1/16/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Not for Human Consumption
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
15 January 19
The Washington Post last week wrote one of a series of articles about
the federal shutdown that focused on the criminal justice system. The
reporters included the obligatory interviews with prison guards
talking about how overworked and understaffed they are, which is
likely true. But the article was inflammatory-not because of the
interviews with the guards, but because the Post reported that while
the poor guards were suffering, the prisoners were eating meals fit
for a king, including "grilled steak, steamed rice with gravy,
black-eyed peas, green beans, macaroni and cheese, and a choice of garlic
biscuits or whole wheat bread or an assortment of holiday pies."
USA Today also got in on the act, quoting the Post article and adding
that some prisoners "even had roast beef," and they "tucked into a
Christmas spread of herb-dusted Cornish game hens, cornbread dressing,
gravy, rice pilaf, and assorted pies."
The purpose of the articles was to outrage the public. How can these
criminals eat like this while the hard-working guards are suffering?
But it's all nonsense. Many times during the 23 months that I spent in
a federal prison for blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program,
I elected to go hungry or to surreptitiously cook something of my own,
rather than to eat the Bureau of Prisons' "gourmet" meals.
My first full day in prison was a Friday. One of my cellmates told me
that Friday was "fish day." "Oh, good," I said, "I love fish." "You
won't love this fish," he responded. "And you shouldn't eat it. We
call it sewer trout." I went to the cafeteria and got in line. When I
finally made my way to the serving area, where prisoners were dropping
ladles of slop onto plastic trays, I saw the boxes of fish stacked up
in plain view. The sides of the boxes were all clearly marked,
"Alaskan Cod-Product of China-Not For Human Consumption-Feed Use Only." I
skipped lunch.
I've written in the past about food in the federal prison system, but
the information bears repeating. Here's a typical story. Just before I
got to prison, a private food service company, John Soules Foods Inc.,
"accidentally" sold dog food to prisons to be fed to prisoners
mismarked as "ground beef." There was no punishment for the company or
its executives, other than a $392,000 fine, the cost of the investigation,
paid to the U.S.
Treasury. Prisoners got nothing. Not even an apology. And the shame of
the story is that nobody could even tell that it was dog food. It
tasted the same as everything else prisoners are served.
Let's get back to the Post and USA Today articles. It is true that on
Thanksgiving, prisoners are fed actual turkey. That's one decent meal
per year. And on Christmas they receive a disgusting, scrawny, greasy,
bony Cornish hen. I sold mine for two bags of tuna. The rest of the
menu is trash. In the two years I was in prison, for example, I never
saw the crown of a stalk of broccoli. Prisoners only get stems and
only fruits and vegetables that are so damaged and ugly that they
can't possibly be sold in a grocery store. The "selection of holiday
pies" was a chocolate "Cliff Bar"
that had expired a year earlier. Once we got bagels. But they were all
dyed green from the previous year's St. Patrick's Day, they hadn't
sold, and they had been frozen for a year. And "steak day" is also
once a year. I wouldn't call the charred hunk of gristle and fat that
they threw onto our trays a steak. I don't know anybody who would. If
the guard quoted in the Washington Post had wanted my "steak," I would
gladly have given it to him. He likely would have choked on it.
A subject for another column is how much of the money budgeted for
prisoner food is diverted and spent on better food that is served only
to the guards and administrators. A little of it is subsequently
stolen by kitchen workers and sold on the black market. That's how I
used to get decent fruit. But it's the guards who eat like kings, not
the prisoners.
The guards who lament their stations in life to the Washington Post or
USA Today are disingenuous at best and liars at worst. Their
complaints mean nothing to me or to any other former or current
prisoner. I would have been happy to change places with them any time they
wished.
Email This Page
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former
senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John
became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration
under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23
months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush
administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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