Here are some of the headlines and text that have caused my alarm meter to start ringing loudly:
NY Daily News State prisons are major breeding ground for Islamic radicalization
The concern about prisons incubating jihadists has been heightened in the debate over releasing Guantanamo terror suspects to facilities across the U.S.FBI Director Robert Mueller has called America's prisons "fertile ground for extremists."
A 2006 study called "Out of the Shadows" found "tight-knit communities of Muslims in prison are ripe for radicalization, and could easily become terrorist cells."
Newburgh neighbors stunned as cops see enough hate to kill in terror fiends
Prosecutors described the men as bloodthirsty wanna-be terrorists who crossed the line from minor crime to big trouble when they were caught planting what they thought were explosives at two Bronx synagogues.
The awful details of the group's year-long plotting were captured by hidden cameras and microphones, prosecutors said.
WHITE PLAINS, New York (Reuters)
- Four Muslim men suspected of a plot to blow up two New York synagogues and shoot down military planes were ordered to remain in jail on Thursday in what police called homegrown terrorism.
The case has shaken a wealthy neighborhood of New York City's Bronx borough where police said the men, who had been watched for nearly a year in a sting operation, planted what they thought were bombs in cars parked outside each synagogue.
The suspects then intended to shoot down planes with guided surface-to-air missiles, but the explosives and the missiles, which had been sold to the accused plotters by an FBI informant, were deactivated, police said.
(my bold)
The NY Times weighs in:
This latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real and underscores why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent terrorism," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement. The mayor was expected to appear at 6:45 a.m. Thursday at the Riverdale Jewish Center morning services, joined by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.
The charges against the four men represent some of the most significant allegations of domestic terrorism in some time, and come months into a new presidential administration, as President Obama grapples with the question of how to handle detainees at the Guantánamo Bay camp in Cuba.
I will spare you more quotes but let me explain where I'm going with this, and why I have Bantustan in the title.
Those of you who are not from NY State, and even some of you who are from NYC may not know anything about Newburgh NY.
Newburgh, and other small towns above NY city have become a dumping ground for the poor, the homeless, the dysfunctional members of our society, many of whom are black or latino. There has been a shift in the demographics in recent years, with an increasing number of people who can no longer afford to live in NYc, even in the depressed sections. Gentrification in the South Bronx, Harlem, The Lower East Side and sections of Brooklyn that formerly housed the cities poor, has driven more families out of the city; settling in counties upstate, but still in a 2 hour distance from the metropolis. During the Guiliani administration, his efforts to "clean-up" New York, resulted in a wholesale sweep of homeless residents, many of whom were shipped "upstate" to camps like one located in Orange County, Camp LaGuardia, where residents have been vocal about there area become a dumping ground for NYC's social ills. A city councilman there writes
Camp La Guardia needs to be in New York City
There needs to be a radical change in the compliance, control and especially the accountability of the camp operation and accountability of our county officials. This is the immediate short-term need. The long-term solution is that Camp La Guardia is neither fulfilling its original intent for New York City nor is it an acceptable entity in our growing residential communities, and must be removed.
The above conclusions are inescapable for anyone who understands the history of the camp, and the reality of the current situation. First, the specified purpose of the camp is to serve as a temporary and transitional facility for homeless men from New York City while they were evaluated in order to be and placed in the appropriate situations back in New York City. It was never intended to serve as a long-term housing facility, nor was it to house any of the criminal or more dangerous detainees.
The agreement actually specified a maximum number of days these unfortunate men were to stay here and be processed into permanent social solutions in the city. The round-robin of trips for undesirables to the camp, then back to New York, then back up here was never supposed to occur. And certainly, the shipping out of parolees, sex offenders, and mentally ill people to "Camp No Where," as some of the residents call it, was not the intent.
In fact, most of the residents, some of whom have lived here much longer than the allowed transitional time, want to be back in New York City. This is yet another example of a social institution from New York dealing with its own significant problems by shuffling them under the rug, and the rug is called Orange County.
Examine some of the economic data for Newburgh, current home for the "terrorists"
Residents with income below the poverty level in 2007:
Newburgh: 22.2%
Whole state: 13.7%
Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2007:
Newburgh: 9.2%
Whole state: 6.1%
The purported ringleader of the group of would-be terrorists lived with his girlfriend who he met at Camp LaGuardia.
The Haitian suspect, Laguerre Payen, according to neighbors "lived in a filthy crack den"
All of the suspects did lots of prison time for petty drug dealing and drug use offenses.
Am I surprised that they "converted to Islam" while in prison. Nope.
I've worked with incarcerated folks, and on prison reform since the 60's.
Our nations prisons are warehouses for the poor, and disproportionately full of cullard folks. If any of you have ever done prison time, you will understand that the prison experience in America is a nightmare. Survival in most men's prisons has little to do with the rules or the guards, but requires joining a group that will literally protect your ass.
And BTW, yes there is torture practiced in US prisons, not just GITMO. The entire experience is torture, but that is a subject for another diary.
Many of you are familiar with the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and know that he converted to the NOI in prison. In later years black Muslim groups were able to secure better food for their converts, and to provide protection from "booty bandits" who prey on "new fish" entering the systems. Since that time, protection groups in prison have proliferated, often along racial and ethnic lines. La Familia, The Netas, The Latin Kings, The Mexican Mafia, the Black Guerrilla Family, The Aryan Brotherhood, The Maras Salvatrucas (aka MS-13) all have large memberships in prison society.
You join a group, or you may die. Period. You may still die, since inter-group warfare is rampant, but you may avoid being raped, by other inmates or guards. (Yes "corrections officers" are part of the problem too)
So here we have a group of "Muslims", living in depressed Newburgh, smoking crack, unemployed, and encouraged to bomb Jews, and blow up shit.
Frontpage headlines, and a lot of noise, revving up the NIMBY folks.
Though not exactly a parallel, I remember the FBI infiltrator in the Black Panther Party in NY who encouraged members to "blow up the Botanical Gardens", which later became part of the police case against the NY Panther 21, who were acquitted of all the trumped up and COINTELPRO instigated charges against them on May 13, 1996.
Are prisons a breeding ground for hate? Are unemployed drug-addicted po' folks a good place to stir up resentments against those they see as the powerful? Yup, you betcha.
I'd like to see some reasoned discussion of what we plan to do with not the just detainees from GITMO, but all those members of our society who are released out of the hellholes of our prisons back onto the streets of our cities, and then pushed into the bantustans of America; jobless, drug dependent with nothing to do all day but fantasize between hits on a crack pipe.
The War on Drugs is a farce. The "War on Terror" (read Muslims) is another farce. The unnamed war on black folks, immigrants (dubbed "illegal aliens") and the poor, who get poorer each day is ongoing.
I'll stop here. But would like to hear what you think are solutions for the future.
Thanks for reading.
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