My prison conditions are a good measuring stick of Canada’s descent into this new Conservatism. Political leaders always tell us we should judge them by their actions. This is because what a political leader does, what a government does, is a reflection of the leader’s principles, character and beliefs.

When Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada from from 1968 to 1983 (with a 9 month interruption when Joe Clark was Prime Minister), was asked about putting Canada into a state of martial law under the powers of the War Measures Act in 1970, he said, “there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it's more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier.” At any cost? Trudeau was asked. “Just watch me,” he replied.

Watch what I do, decide what kind of person I am, then vote. This, perhaps, is the most basic and obvious political rule of all. When looking at a Prime Minister’s decisions, the question voters always ask themselves is this: Would I do the same thing? Does this action meet my definition of decency, fairness, justice and civilized behavior?

And while some issues are of a practical nature, such as taxes, others are of a moral nature and go directly to the character of the politicians involved. As an example, when Americans started to see Vietnam as an immoral war, President Johnson had to decline to run for a second term. Johnson was voted in on a wave of idealism over the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and his promise of the Great Society. Johnson’s willful deception and sacrifice of American idealism and lives to maintain a corrupt and hopeless South Vietnamese government betrayed both his American supporters and the Vietnamese people.

Nixon, on the other hand, was always despised by the idealists and won election appealing to racists, the fearful and reactionary ‘silent majority’. When Nixon proved to be a venal, paranoid, disgustingly bigoted war-mongering ogre of immense proportions, that didn’t betray the sentiment of those who voted for him. That’s who they voted for!

When I studied the civil rights movement in Taylor Branch’s trilogy on the life & times of Martin Luther King, I was stunned to realize that Jim Crow laws in the South were virtually unshatterable because America had tens of millions of vicious racists whose attitudes and behavior were completely grotesque – yet this was the ‘normal’ of its time throughout virtually all of white society in the South, and much of the rest of America too. This is incomprehensible to a ‘decent’ Canadian of our contemporary time, today. Yet this nasty, wretched racism was the dominant ethos in all southern states only 50 years ago, in my lifetime. Nixon proudly introduced the modern drug war as his legacy of revenge on the generation of young people and the counter-culture who were mostly responsible for his vilification and downfall (with a little help from Woodward & Bernstein).

One such moral issue is how a society punishes citizens and what it punishes them for. This is the single most important issue in ANY society, that of a government taking away a citizen’s freedom and under what conditions.

The decision to deliver me to an American prison was made by the government of Stephen Harper. While it would have previously been government policy to charge me under Canadian law and in a Canadian courts, and serve any jail sentence, were there to be one, in a Canadian jail, the Harper government changed that policy. Now I am in a US Federal prison for foreigners, a contract for profit concentration camp in the desolate southeast corner of Georgia.

Hundreds of thousands of people consider me to be the leader of a culture within Canada and in the world. A peaceful culture that is known for its pacifism and truth-telling. A culture that produced the greatest music of the last century. The great art, film, literature, comedy of our time is also the inspiration of the cannabis culture. I am this culture, and this culture is me. How I am regarded is how every individual in this culture is to be regarded. I am Bob Marley, Paul McCartney, Carl Sagan, Richard Branson, Michael Phillips, Lady Gaga, Carmelo Anthony, Tommy Chong, Rob Van Dam, Jack Nicholson and every individual whose life enriched others through their use of cannabis. And of course, I am you. I am now, at the pleasure of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his appointees in the Conservative government, and the US DEA, at D. Ray James Correctional Institution. D. Ray James CI is an accurate representation of the mind and moral character of ‘the Harper government’.

So, a voter, I hope, would ask him or herself, would I do to Marc Emery what Stephen Harper has done to Marc Emery?

From my perspective, Canada’s Harper government, the new Conservatism, endorses my situation;

1) I am crammed into a dorm with 63 other people, six are fluent in English. I have no privacy of any kind. No doors on toilets, showers. The water tastes bad is suspect. I am sentenced to be in this dorm another 40 months before my release date of July 7th, 2014, for raising money from consenting adults through the sale of seeds to empower a peaceful & honest political movement to legalize cannabis.

2) I am in a slave labor concentration camp segregated by our non-American-ness. I get 12 cents an hour. If I refuse to work the job assigned I get put into solitary confinement. The GEO Group Inc. is America’s largest prison corporation. Formally called Wackenhut, the name change was required when the endless criminal brutality of jail staff became public.

3) I am now part of the massive American prison slave labor system that has been subject of many contemporary books; I have 6 of them, Lockdown America being one of the best. Jail inmates must work to produce goods for the profit of American Corporations. Or it’s solitary. Maybe it’s making jeans, maybe it’s license plates, maybe it’s selling travel packages by phone. For me it’s paralegal and secretarial work at 12 cents an hour.

4) Dental care and medical care may or may not be available when I need it. One doctor and one dentist handle 2,250 inmates.

5) Water and food are nutritionally substandard. Heavy in fats, carbohydrates and sugars, the food lacks adequate Vitamins A, B, C, & D, essential fatty acids, calcium, potassium and most trace minerals. The water is yellowish and foul, and if tests were ever done, would likely show it unfit for human consumption.

6) Books are withheld from me, my letter mail is withheld by Security and read, my outbound mail is opened and read to see what I am saying about my captors.

7) From April to September it is unrelentingly hot and humid, insects of every kind proliferate here as we are beside a massive swamp.

8) There are no courses, career training and the reading library is deliberately kept useless and dysfunctional.

I never hurt anyone, I only did good. My cause is a just one, the majority of Canadians and Americans agree with the premise I have advocated, that cannabis prohibition should be repealed.

After I wrote the essay Injustice & Cruelty As A Laughing Matter, I had a dream that I was visited here at D. Ray James CI by the Grand Inquisitor from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s seminal work The Brothers Karamazov. Normally I never dream, I can never recall any dreams.

In that book, Christ had returned to Earth during the Spanish Inquisition. Heretics were being jailed, tortured and burned alive, all because they would not believe what authority wanted them to believe. In my dream, The Inquisitor is here, now. The Inquisitor has come back for an encore, for the Marijuana Inquisition. Heretics are being jailed, tortured, and terrorized, all because they will not believe what authority wants them to believe.

The Inquisitor has had me arrested, extradited, convicted and put me in D. Ray James CI. I was to go to a California Federal prison but this was not cruel enough for The Inquisitor. It did not satisfy the Inquisitor’s sadistic longings. The Inquisitor has taken over a modern government in this age of propaganda, and proudly releases a promotional photo of the GEO Group Inc., my hosts here at D. Ray James CI, boasting the use of growling German Shepherd dogs, automatic rifles, leading chained, handcuffed and leg-ironed prisoners into a GEO Group ‘Con-Air’ plane. This is the photo that is to soothe the citizenry about keeping a dangerous ‘propagandist’ like Emery, this heretic who would poison the minds of young and old alike, in captivity.

The Inquisitor ordered me to this human compression chamber. Scores of men live crammed together in single rooms. Of all The Inquisitor’s vast array of concentration camps, this is one of the greatest distance away from my wife, my true love.

As the Spanish Inquisition showed, and as history has documented ever since, these timeless Inquisitors feed on the pain of others. This is their trip. This is why they originally devised the most horrendous punishments imaginable, crushing bones, pouring molten lead into eyeballs, even exhuming dead heretics from the grave so their remains could be burned. There are museums of the Inquisition’s implements of torture in most every European country. Hundreds of instruments meticulously crafted for the use of the Inquisitor to painstakingly punish the heretics, the unbelievers.

This went on for centuries, six centuries to be precise, ending only in 1832. But the Inquisitors live on, though modern media has frustrated them. Modern television, newspapers and now the Internet have made The Inquisitor necessarily more shrewd in choosing the heretics targeted for destruction. The punishments must be more to the mind, behind closed doors, away from the revelatory images cast by the media. The Spanish Inquisition had over 17 million victims in 600 years; the last 50 years of the Inquisitors’ war on the drug culture, the cannabis culture and the others who put potions and chemicals in their bodies and into the world, numbers 26 million humans punished as heretics. The Inquisitors have not slowed down, but, in the age of propaganda, adapted brilliantly. Seeing is believing, so the Inquisitor makes the inquisition overwhelming, so that no image can capture the colossal onslaught against humanity.

70 years ago, images of thousands of heretics being brought to concentration camps by trains was extremely disturbing. The Inquisitor of that era did not wish such images to get out in the world. Today, in our supposedly more enlightened time, (Never Again?), the Inquisitors release publicity photos crowing about the hundreds of thousands shackled, being led onto buses and planes, being taken to concentration camps, by men with the same German Shepherds and automatic rifles. I was flown directly to Oklahoma City prison, the landing strip goes right up to the door of that windowless and dour processing hub. But hundreds of thousands of heretics being shipped across America in planes does not evoke the horror of 70 years ago. Something has happened to people since then. 26 million victims, persecuted for their potion, pill and plant consumption in the last 50 years, are still hounded unmercifully worldwide. America arrests over 1,000,000 heretics each year alone. There is no shock or shame.

Now, as the Inquisitor approaches the gates of D. Ray James, he reaches a frenzied state of excitement. He thinks of how he has separated two decent people who are deeply in love. He thinks of their longing for each other. He knows, from monitoring all of my letters, recording and listening to all my calls, that I break down and cry frequently from the void created by this rupture in existence. The Inquisitor knows Jodie suffers from the stress, strain and abuse this forced removal of her beloved husband has had on her. This excites him further.

He thinks of the constant sacrifice the delicate and exquisite Mrs. Jodie Emery must make to see her husband. For a woman who is beautiful inside and out is what the Inquisitor has always feared the most. After these delicious thoughts of vicarious misery, the Inquisitor licks his pale lips. He feels as if he has just had a good meal. The Inquisitor, and all the Inquisitors of humankind’s history, feeds on the denial of love.

The Inquisitor thinks warmly, as his government limousine approaches the sentry at the entrance to D. Ray James, of the thousands – no millions! – of women painstakingly tortured and obliterated as witches in the times past. Ah, the good old days. And he is bringing these days back. In truth, they never left. Torture jails are the new ‘act of Faith’.

I am called to a windowless, characterless room. My Inquisitor has pale blue eyes. Karla Homolka eyes. A disturbing, dead watery blue. Pale and pasty skinned, it occurs to me, in need of blood, vampire-like. He speaks. I say nothing for now. He tells me that Canadians do not believe me. He says he will be able to brainwash “the very people you have been trying to save for 30 years.”

To prove this, my Inquisitor tells me, “I have an army of Inquisitors, not with robes and crosses, but with the faceless anonymity of the bureaucracy and government” to keep me locked up here, until the very last day of my sentence, July 7, 2014, “and longer, if I can make you snap and forfeit your good time credit. And if your wife’s health should fail further, consider how that will make you behave. Worth pondering, yes? Jodie is everything to you, and you to her, yes? We know what we’re doing, or rather, I know what I’m doing. I will tell you why in short order. But consider years of anxiety as you watch the stress eat away at your young wife’s health and vitality. I see you have many more grey hairs now than you did a year ago. If you should, God willing, perish from such anxiety earlier than otherwise, then my work in the world has been done. Your wife would never recover from your demise here, and that would serve my purpose so utterly, don’t you agree?”

I want to gasp, but I only stare into the eyes.

The Inquisitor continues, “It’s remarkable, really, what humans will do for a paycheck. They do what I tell them, or they lose their jobs. I have an army I can pay to frustrate you. It really is hopeless for you Mr… Prince of Pot, isn’t it? As my car approached D. Ray James, here is the place, this Folkston, Georgia, this obscure place, it is a morbid sight, really. All the way here from the airport buildings are boarded up and deteriorating. This prison – you call it a concentration camp, I know, in your pathetic assertion of reality – is located in a barren landscape laid waste by unemployment and the cost of supporting the endless wars that I and my American counterparts never fail to convince the people they must have. We have destroyed the America they love, and they don’t even know it yet.

“And of course, Canada is next, you know I am working hard on that right now, all the more easily done because you are here, isn’t that right? There was a time in 2003 that I feared your cries in the wilderness were, shall I say, resonating with the Canadian people. The people, some judges, were going off script and finding favor with your vision of Canada. But it was only a momentary lapse into reason, and so we Inquisitors dealt with you promptly, and our lackeys in the courts, police and Parliament made the necessary adjustments, and the people, the sheeple, as we joke in our private chambers, were none the wiser. Can you imagine your beloved Canada laid waste like southeast Georgia? Anyone for one hundred miles around clamoring for a job as a concentration camp guard just so they can eat and survive? Can you imagine your Vancouver, your British Columbia, your Canada, in such a pathetic moral and economic prostitution? I know I can.

“I’m really enjoying my machinations in Mexico. You know what is going on in Mexico, don’t you, Prince? Sure you do, there are thousands of Mexicans here in this prison. We Inquisitors decided to annihilate Mexico years ago, as criminal government gangsters battle criminal non-government gangsters for control of the prohibition market. Thousands die month after unrelenting month. It never ends. It never will. Oh, I know you dream of ending it. That’s why we stopped you. There was a time… when you might have had a chance. But I’m repeating myself, and you are here, your body-less existence relegated to some Facebook page, I guess you’d have to admit.

“I really enjoy the evening news on my big TV, although torture and exquisite killing that goes on daily in Mexico is even now too blasé for American media, and the Mexican media are so fearful of reprisal that they have already cut out their own tongue. Ah, it’s like Europe at the height of the Inquisition, but even more satisfying, because with propaganda we have silenced the people’s most powerful resource and tool. Such recourse by the peasants in Europe centuries ago did not exist. We were their voice of the truth exclusively. There was no media. Now, we still are the voice of the truth because, as you and others now know, the price of stating reality is very, very high. And these people will sell their tiny souls as concentration camp guards for a few meals a day and shack roof over their head. Do you really want to save these people, Oh Prince?”

I stare at the Inquisitor. I hear music. It's ‘Sympathy For The Devil’.

His lecture continues. I listen, spellbound, silent.

“Dear Mr. Emery”, he says my name for the first time now, like he’s been holding back until now, “you people never learn. I told this to Christ long ago. Now I’ll inform you. Please pay attention. We tell people what to think. We tell people what to believe. We tell the people what to do. If they don’t follow us, we destroy them. Methods vary. Why is this so hard for you and Christ to understand? Just look at my track record. You made the same error he made. He also thought people would want the truth. He also thought people could rise above a paycheck. He also thought wrong. So do you. Here, look at this.”

I see the Inquisitor get a huge ledger book from out of a briefcase I hadn’t noticed before. It’s a book of pay stubs, job appointments.

“It’s all here, Mr. Emery. Over one thousand individuals who have been involved with putting you in this place. Tens of millions of dollars spent, we spared no expense, to put you in this gulag by the swamp. It took us two decades but it’s done. A DEA world government. The RCMP, a branch of the DEA. Vancouver police, a branch of the DEA. The American Justice Department a branch of the DEA. Judges, court clerks, court reporters, crown attorneys, assistant crown attorneys, District Attorneys, prosecutors, wire tappers, a local swat team in every community, police undercover operatives, confidential informants, anonymous tipsters, desperate drug addicts, paid internet trolls, Ignatieff, Layton, Canadian Senators, op-ed hacks, political operatives, prison guards, university professors, and most important of all, public relations firms. I pay them all. Metaphorically you could say – I know you, Mr. Emery, would say it thus – they have sold their soul for some paper with ink on it.

“Amazing, isn’t it, the true value of a person’s soul? In movies and books, the sale of a soul is made to be some Faustian big deal, but in truth, it’s a cheap, common, banal transaction less thought through than the swatting of a fly. That realization must drive you quite crazy, Mr. Emery. I’m sure it does. And you are here, where you can do nothing about it. Your helplessness delights me. But then, I’m stating the obvious, am I not?”

…Just as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints, wooo, wooo…

“I own these people, Mr. Emery. I pay them all. I bought them all. They are mine. They do what I say. If they want to eat, if they want a roof over their heads, if they want to get a new TV, if they want to take the kids to Disneyland, if they want to get the wife a new mini-van, if they want the husband to get a new copy of Guns & Ammo, if they want dental work, if they want a career, if they want a promotion, if they want to sit on The Supreme Court, if they want ego stuffing, then they do exactly what I say. It is as simple as that. I also educate them. This is how you can be put in a place like this. I educate them to believe they are fulfilling their destiny by working for me.

“This process was predicted long ago in the book ‘La Trahison des Clercs (The Treason of the Intellectuals)’ by Julien Benda. It was written in 1928, but no one believes there is much to learn from the past, certainly not the French, so these little prophecies are ignored in our disposable present tense. That is a mistake for the people, because that is where all the clues are, in books, in history, in all cultures.

“Let me read you what Benda said, In English translation, of course: ‘Our age is the age of the intellectual organization of political hatreds. It will be one of the chief claims to notice in the moral history of humanity. The condensation of political passions into a small number of very simple hatreds, springing from the deepest roots of the human heart, is a conquest of modern times. Now, at the end of the nineteenth century a fundamental change occurred: the clerks began to play the game of political passion. The men who had acted as a check on the realism of the people began to act as it’s stimulators.’”

The Inquisitor looked up at me from the book he had obviously brought for my edification.

“You see, Marc, this is… may I call you Marc?”

I smiled a faint smile, a wry affirmative.

…what’s confusing you is the nature of my game… wooo, wooo…

“You see, Marc, this is extremely simple. Do you know why I do this? I do it because I can. No other reason. There is no bigger thrill than to create life through propaganda, to look into the eyes of people and see emotions and beliefs you have created. We create things, Marc. And after we have created them, we look proudly at our creations and shout with joy, ‘It’s Alive! It’s Alive!’ Karloff was great in Frankenstein, wasn’t he? Such presence. And those eyes! It’s the maximum buzz, to use a word you might use. It’s like being God. Do you know what it feels like? Do you know what it’s like to hold people’s minds in your hands? Once you get a propaganda hit, you want more and more. You can never stop. Never, never, never. We are using you, Marc, as we have used others like you throughout history, to show there is no limit to this power of propaganda. We can make people believe anything. We can make people do anything. Propaganda put you here, Marc, put you in D. Ray James. I mean, really, what did you do? Seeds! In previous ages you would have been heralded and lauded like John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. Or even George Washington, the most prolific planter of cannabis seeds the United States has ever known! In the space of exactly 250 years, for George’s first massive planting of thousands of acres of cannabis from seed occurred by Washington’s own diary notes, in 1760, to 2010, when you were extradited to America and put here in D. Ray James CI, we’ve proven the power of propaganda. The first President of the United States, the revered father of this nation, was you 250 years ago. Two and a half centuries later we’ve demonized the very same behavior into one of the world’s 50 Most Wanted! Imagine what a triumph of metaphysical alchemy – propaganda – that truly is, what with all the evil in existence today, we could convince the public that you represented a greater threat than any dictator, murderer, drug lord, criminal syndicate and virtually any other agent of destruction that walks the earth today. We were not laughed at when we said you were #46 on world’s most wanted – therefore most dangerous – persons of this modern epoch!

“Five years in a Georgia compression dungeon for selling seeds from Canada to willing adult buyers? In 2011? Even now it amazes me, and I am rarely so impressed by my own work, and I am always effective. You know that. You’ve watched me for 30 years and railed on about me to Canadians and Americans alike but they ignored you. When you really needed them, they could do nothing for you. Only your wife holds a torch, a flame of truth you might say, for you. And we are watching her. Her health is failing. You think she can keep it up for 40 months more, Marc? I don’t think so. I’m sure you think about that yourself, but…”

The Inquisitor held his right palm to face me, “but you needn’t answer that little rhetorical remark. It’s not really a question. I’ve too much experience breaking down the bonds of loving adults to not recognize the signs. Mrs. Emery’s hair falling out? Skin in poor shape? Chest pains? Chronic weakness? Travel Exhaustion? Maybe you shouldn’t make her see you so often, Marc. Your being selfish is going to make the poor woman sick. How would you feel then?”

I clenched my teeth, and bore a steely gaze on him. He stuttered whenever he mentioned Jodie. It began to occur that he feared her more than he feared me. But he hardly missed a beat and continued.

“And to think, the government told licensed users to get their seeds from you. The majority of Canadians continually poll for legalizing cannabis. In your home province and city, two-thirds of the people want to legalize cannabis. But they do nothing for you Marc, have you noticed that? All those people with their point of view and nothing changed, nothing! You know there were colleagues of mine in government who told me it would be impossible to get rid of you. That you were loved as a great Canadian, a folk hero, a great humanitarian even. Told me to forget about getting rid of you. Told me Canada was a democracy and that you’d soon have the majority on your side. They laughed at me when I told them you had to be put far, far away for a long, long time. They laughed at me! They said it couldn’t be done. But I did it with ease. I humiliated you and exiled you and all your supporters could do was… nothing! I showed them to be impotent, and me the omnipotent. That’s democracy, I told my colleagues of little faith. Now who’s laughing?

“Here, I’ll show you proof of my absolute power. It is in the following paragraphs in the book the “biography of an idea: memoirs of public relations counsel edward l. bernays”. It’s a modest looking book for such a significant one, the title is all in the lower case, in a modest font. As you well know, Marc, Eddie is the self-proclaimed ‘Father of Public Relations’. A nephew of Sigmund Freud – the father of psychology to manipulate people, all without their ever knowing it. He called this propaganda method his ‘invisible government’, which he created through the engineering of consent. He did this by manipulating buttons in the subconscious sector of the mind. Eddie created the age of propaganda we are living in. His clients included… well, everybody.

“There is this single paragraph in his book that makes it saleable on Amazon for $200 for a fair condition copy, while a mint copy had a recent sale price of $2,000. Yet it is not that old. From 1965. It’s a first edition, but that’s not a big deal in this case. If you want the text, you can buy a Xerox reproduction. It is not personally signed, that $2,000 first edition. There is no leather binding, no gilt edged paged, no vellum paper. For those collecting cover art or dust jackets, there is nothing special here. As a former bookseller, you know this book would be something you’d usually find in the bargain bin and sell for $3.00. But it contains a single truth that allows it to demand this price. It is because of this one paragraph this book has become legendary. It’s on page 652.”

“Karl von Weigand, foreign correspondent of the Hearst newspapers, and old hand at interpreting Europe and just returned from Germany, was telling us about Goebbels and his propaganda plans to consolidate Nazi power. Goebbels had shown Wiegand his propaganda library, the best Wiegand had ever seen. Goebbels, said Wiegand, was using my book CRYSTALLIZING PUBLIC OPINION as a basis for his destructive campaign against the Jews of Germany.”

“What this means, Marc, is that people like me made up lies that tricked one group of people into making lamp shades out of the skins of another group of people. It means we were able to get those same people to put six million other people in ovens. As you can see from this paragraph, we have proven you can get people to do absolutely anything by using propaganda. And if you can do it in Europe’s most cultured nation, the nation of Beethoven, Goethe, Bach, then you can do it once, you can do it forever in every place.

“Remember, the German people who committed these atrocities, the volk, these weren’t monsters; there were well brought up, educated people with families, love, and normal upbringings. But in a climate of fear and bewilderment, propaganda easily took root. Dachau concentration camp, opened within months after the Nazis were elected to power, in 1933, was just like D. Ray James. The Nazis issued publicity photos to the German press and even the foreign press to show how well its ‘undesirables’ were being treated in these camps, just like GEO Group proudly does.

“At first, the concentration camps were much like D. Ray James is now. They became worse and far more sinister when the German people came to accept the ‘necessity’ of concentrating the ‘others’ into ghettos and gulags, as a normal aspect of life. Once you can herd the ‘other’ into overcrowded, dehumanizing barb-wire fenced prisons, it’s only a matter of time before a cultural genocide is underway. It took, what, just under ten years to go from a gulag of concentration camps to extermination camps? But then the Nazis were in a hurry and the allies were closing in. Still, it’s amazing that tens of millions of Germans could be convinced of the necessity of concentration camps with just a few years of targeted propaganda.

“What do you have here, illegals and those who trade in the ceremonial chemistries of the mind? This GEO Group gets $1 million a week to ‘house’ you. For what purpose ultimately? What is the point? Punishment of the ‘other’, the ‘heretic’, and the debasement of the citizen, who begins to think it’s normal to herd these people around a concentration camp so they can pay the rent? Do you think a German guard at Dachau in 1933 was brought up any different than a guard at D. Ray James today? They are not different at all. They weren’t evil – they needed to eat and put a roof over their head. Propaganda is the great equalizer between cultures. You’ve seen it in the drug war, in Rwanda, in Germany, you see it everywhere. Of course, Eddie has an explanation in the next paragraph:

“This shocked me, but I knew that any human activity can be used for social purposes or misused for antisocial ones. Obviously the attack on the Jews of Germany was no emotional outburst of the Nazis, but a deliberate, planned campaign.”

“Bernays refused to seize on the outcome of his brilliant methods and conclusions outlined in his book. The massive Joseph Goebbels Ministry of Public Enlightenment & Propaganda – the actual name, isn’t it wonderful – which covered every aspect of German life, simply misused his theories for that which was already pre-determined, according to Bernays limp explanation. Bernays was embarrassed (at least so he said) to take responsibility for what became the greatest triumph of propaganda in humankind’s history! To convince essentially good, decent people they must round up all these other decent people and put them in internment camps and within a few years exterminate them all! To destroy several millions women as witches took the Inquisition 600 years! To kill millions of Jews, homosexuals, communists, dissenters, idealists, and others took Goebbels only a few years of brilliantly orchestrated propaganda! Bernays refused to take credit for this staggering achievement. Sigh. Whatever.

“Regardless of how you slice it, propaganda is indeed the truth and the light, the power and the glory, the yin and yang, the alpha and the omega, the works. For is it now a fact that belief determines truth? Lies can be truth if you can make people believe them. Yesterday they were lies, today they are truth. After a few weeks, who cares? We made it all up. We always do. Somebody has to.”

I could see my Inquisitor was warming up to his task. He was setting the mood for some reason, some purpose.

…made damn sure that Pilate washed his hands, and sealed His fate… woooo, woooo…

“You must be thinking, Marc, because you are not talking, who could ever believe the notorious Marc Emery silent, is it for some principle, Marc, that even I’m unable to see? You must have asked yourself, ‘Why me?’ Why you Marc? Why are you in this place? You must, in your despair, ask yourself this question. And don’t try to convince me you don’t despair, I read those newsletters, Marc, I know you cry often, perhaps not over your predicament here at D. Ray James, though that can hardly be a comfort, but over your lovely wife’s absence. How old are you, Marc? 53, 54? What is it for? How many good years do you think you have left in you before you’re a drooling shell of a man, incapacitated from a stroke the same way your father perished, and his father, and his father. It IS hereditary, those things, alas. Surely you think about ‘what if I die in this godforsaken place?’ Don’t you wonder ‘what if I am never to be with Jodie in the outside world again?’ I know you must wonder that, don’t you?

“You are here to help me make a point. I have introduced legislation that will allow me to put all of your people in jail. For such a massive task, propaganda demands that you be demonized beyond even the level of the worst violent criminals. And then we must do things to you that no civilized person would ever do to you. This allows us to form a contract with the public.

“When the public allows us to do this to someone like you, an idealist and Canadian of truly outstanding achievements, personally and politically – I’ll admit you have an impressive record of patriotism, as it used to be understood – the public will accept any one of its own going to jail for trivial offenses and in any number. When the citizenry can’t help you one bit, and again, they’ve gotten you not one iota closer to any kind of freedom, in fact, the more they love you, the more we must deny you, it reinforces their helplessness. They just give up and give in. They join us, rather than be against us, because survival and prosperity is with joining us.

“They could help you. They could vote, they could organize, they could assert themselves, they could face up to the truth of what has happened to their country and really fight for it. But mostly they just write polite letters to their elected MP’s, who are, let’s face it, my lackeys who rubber stamp whatever I tell them. When the citizen’s only protest is a polite letter to these sycophants under my thumb, the citizens become our assistants, our partners in the conspiracy of lies, washing their hands with us, so to speak. They soon realize no one in the Ottawa is listening; they get a form letter back, for goodness sakes! And give up opposing us. After we correct their perceptions through propaganda, they join us, or are silent. Either one serves our purpose.

“It was the same back in the good old days. We never burned them alive. What we did, and here I quote, was ‘abandon’ the heretic to the masses. The public did the torture and killing with their own hands. They were the ones who set the fires. They enjoyed the screams as much as we did. They had been properly propagandized. They surrendered their integrity and their belief in truth for our lies, even the grotesque, uncomfortable lies. Their need to belong and conform, combined with our propaganda, crude as it was in those days compared to today, was all that was required.

“Do you recall, Marc, ever reading about any citizen rebellions to the excesses of the Inquisition? You don’t, because it almost never happened. In 600 years. How many ‘good’ Germans rose up against the concentration camps, the mass killings, in that brief, brilliant 13 years? Less than a few hundred. In what was regarded as one of the most advanced and enlightened intellectual societies on earth! But you can’t go around calling the people evil and expect to be loved the way I’m loved. So we tell them now what we told them then. We tell them it’s all good, that we’re just getting rid of a threatening ‘culture’. Now everyone’s happy. They’re working for ‘the good’. They’re getting well paid. And they’re going to heaven instead of jail.

“When the Jews were demonized, most Germans lived beside and interacted with dozens of Jews daily, good people they bought bread from, or worked with, and did so for decades without any untoward incident at all. Yet it was child’s play to convince these Germans that, contrary to all the experience accumulated over their lifetime, that Jews were vermin to be put in camps and destroyed.

“It’s the same with your people, Marc. Everyone knows a pot smoker. Known them forever, decades. All of us have someone we even love who smokes pot. How could we not? There are 5 to 7 million in a nation of 30 million. Odds are, every one of us has a family member who smokes or grows the stuff! Yet I will convince them their own loved ones should be jailed and perhaps raped in prison over a few weeds. How brilliant is that?!

“Here is my favorite part. They all use cannabis. Politicians use it. Police use it. Crown attorneys use it. Judges use it. Jail guards use it. Do you not find a beautiful symmetry here, Marc, a confirmation of the Grand Inquisitor’s Philosophy?”

I can see he’s ready to wrap up, he’s waving his arms in the air, spinning in his chair. There’s joy in him.

…Been around for many a long, long year; stolen many a man’s soul and faith… wooo, wooo…

“Look around you. Look around outside at Folkston. The name is humble enough, the folks’ town. Sounds sweet, doesn’t it? Rhymes with Volk’s town. What do you see in Folkston? You see people. They’re just like people everywhere. They’re not bad people. And some of the best are here in Georgia. Little Richard is just over there in Macon. But the only way most folks around here can survive is the same way much of America survives. This is by locking up their non-violent fellow human beings. Modern American survival depends on jails and prohibition. It’s pretty well all that’s left in a lot of places.

“We expect to effectively transfer this prison prohibition policy intact to Canada by Christmas. Rob Nicholson will make the announcement of the grandest prison-building scheme ever imagined in Canada wearing a Santa Claus suit. Nobody sells like Santa. Jobs for everyone, a prison in ever community. Nobody will ask, ‘who are we putting in these jails?’ We will have already told them all they need to know: a ‘culture’ we can do without.

“I can tell you all this now, Marc, because it’s unstoppable. It doesn’t have to be secret anymore. We can’t be beat. That election you’ve heard about, don’t think you can count on that. What did they throw the Liberals out for, 10 or 20 million to friends in Quebec for some advertising scam? We’ve put Canada in debt for hundreds of billions more, committed a half a trillion dollars to weapons and militarization, made Parliament irrelevant, and embraced a mania of secrecy the old East German Stasi would admire – and our poll numbers don’t drop! Check the stats. Canada has so many political parties that a prison prohibition punishment cult can get in with 30%, perhaps in perpetuity, no matter how we have transformed Canada into the dark bête noire most Canadians in their gut know is not what they want their children to live in.

“Incremental stages, incremental stages. You’ve read the book ‘Harper’s Team’. That Tom Flanagan. He almost gave away the game when he said Julian Assange ought to be killed for telling the truth about how our governments work. But Flanagan knows brainwashing, I’ll give you that. Add some true believers like Ezra Levant, and Kory Teneycke, and the propaganda brain trust is unstoppable. Now, I’m sorry that Kory put out on Twitter that joke, implying he hoped you’d be raped in D. Ray James here. That’s unbecoming of a man who was a bit too upfront and truthful about how much we relish what we’ve done to you. I did reprimand him for being so candid while media was paying attention, though I’ve got to like his instincts. Kory will make a fine Inquisitor himself one day. So will Ezra and Tom. There are always so many potential Inquisitors waiting to join in our holy crusade.

“But it’s all there in Flanagans’ book, ‘Harper’s Team’. We do it inch by inch. That’s the magic technique. Then, all of a sudden, the country wakes up and realizes it’s one big jail in a police state. We have achieved our goal. Done deal. Believe me, Marc, when you can have a democratic country in 2011 seriously debating putting a person in jail for six months for six weeds, this shows we know what we’re doing. Oh sure, there might be some fine tuning. Ignatieff and Layton will posture, but they’ll buy in. Maybe it’ll be two plants, maybe 20 plants. Maybe it’ll be five months, maybe even seven months. Maybe it will cost $5 billion in 3 years, or ten billion in 5 years. Maybe, as in your case, it’ll be 5 years for seeds. There are hundreds of shops selling those seeds now, aren’t there? But so what? Who cares? That’s not the point.

“The point is that it’s always jail. That’s the one constant. That never changes. Never. We’re talking about it all in a jail context. Totally. Entirely. More punishment. End early parole. End contact visits. End the prison farm program. Jails and the cruelty of punishment is what it’s all about. Making marijuana and jail synonyms in the public mind.

“You’re so well read, so I enjoy discussing this with you. There aren’t a lot of people who can understand what I’ve done. But that’s the price I pay for brainwashing. Sure, they’re great robots, and they’ll do anything I say, but it’s like taking to a fridge. Very cold and uninspiring. They lack the independence of mind to say anything original, and their reading consists solely of a TV Guide and a criminal code. But let’s face it, everyone likes a little appreciation, even a Grand Inquisitor like me. So what do you think? Are you impressed with my work?”

I say nothing. I just stare, waiting for the finale.

…or I’ll lay your soul to waste… wooo, woooo…

“Hmmmm, still not talking. This disappoints me, Marc. Your reputation promised otherwise. Marc, you could have had it all. You are a gifted person. You could be the one in a position of political power. And then you could be sending people to D. Ray James. Anybody you want. Just make a law. It’s easy. Here, watch. Bill S-11 will require cannabis people sent to jail to be whipped twice, once on entry and once on exit. You’ve read the book on us, called Slumming It At The Rodeo. You know this is a law that would meet with the approval of your current government. Indeed it was once a serious Conservative proposal. We’ve done internal polls and our 30% base didn’t flinch, didn’t question it.

“Sadly, you don’t seem to have a taste for torturing and abusing people. We checked and checked, looking for any woman, child, or anyone who could claim you’d shown some degree of hate or sadism or even a mean-streak. We came up empty-handed and, believe me, we looked. Couldn’t believe it, really; you’ve been that virtuous, Marc, that not one person came forward with a first hand tale of sordidness that showed you had the potential to be one of us. Not a single person said they had been harmed by you. We were pretty disappointed we received only seven letters in five years even agreeing with our decision to extradite you. Of course the 3,000 letters we received in the mail opposing your extradition were ignored. We know there isn’t much else they can do after they send those polite letters begging us to spare you from extradition to the gulag, to D. Ray James concentration camp.

“Such a shame, you didn’t become one of us. Here, I’ll tell you what you what I’ll do. You can be out this afternoon. Just do one thing. Confess! That’s all you have to do. Confess! Beg our forgiveness! We’ll let you out. Back to your wife…”

I saw him tremble. Does he always tremble when thinking of women? I wondered. He fears their inherent goodness and unconditional love. He dreads such love, for such love can destroy his power. Therefore, he must try to smash it ever chance he gets. He sees my curious gaze…

…Rode a tank, held a general’s rank, when the Blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank… wooo, wooo…

“Wife… yes, your wife,” he recovered, “Good food, nice clothes, even a few joints if you don’t tell anyone, clean air, non-poisonous water, food that can actually support human life. It’s all yours. Just make the following statement: ‘I, Marc Emery, have sinned. I beg forgiveness. I was led astray by the Devil’s harvest. If you use cannabis, you will develop schizophrenia, kill your family and commit suicide with an axe. I am truly sorry for the trouble I have caused. I will ask all my supporters to join me in helping elect Canada’s first Prime Ministerial Prison Warden. I believe our children are safer in jail until we eliminate the cannabis culture. As a bonus, mandatory minimums will keep the kids off the streets and busy in jail getting raped.

“After you say this, we’ll get you a job as a mainstream politician. The people will love you, Marc. You’ll be on TV whenever you want. You’ll get the best make-up. Free booze. Saunas. Super pension. Lots of money. And don’t give it all away this time. Are you nuts? Nobody gives money away, at least not their own money! But you must confess first. This has been our rule since the Spanish Inquisition, and it remains our rule today. Think of it as honoring a great tradition of changing a culture. That’s all you have to do. Just say it. Just say it once, publicly, stick by it, and you’re free. People trust you. They believe in you Marc, we know that. If you say it like you mean it, they’ll believe it too. If you say it, we’ll stop torturing you. Come on, Marc. What’s it matter? Really. Who cares? This is just the way the world is.

“Just say it. All my lackeys say it. Ignatieff says it. Layton says it. You can’t get a judicial appointment these days without saying it. You can’t get a nomination with any major political party without saying it. It’s not going to hurt you to say it. And trust me, it’s going to hurt a lot more if you don’t say it. A lot more.

“Still silent, eh? I gave you an offer. You’ve said nothing, so I’ll be leaving. I just wanted you to know why this all being done to you. You know that phrase, ‘no good deed shall go unpunished’? You have a lifetime of good deeds, Marc, and as you Grand Inquisitor I have a lifetime, and the power, to make you pay for them. And you will.”

…tell me, baby, what’s my name? Tell me, sweetie, what’s my game? All along the watchtower, who’s to blame?… wooo, wooo…

www.FreeMarc.ca

Marc Emery was transferred out of D. Ray James Correctional Institution on April 4th, and is currently in Oklahoma City waiting for transfer to Yazoo City Correctional Institution in Mississippi. Keep up to date on Marc's situation and efforts to come home at www.Facebook.com/PrinceOfPot, www.Facebook.com/MarcEmery, www.YouTube.com/PotTVNetwork and www.FreeMarc.ca

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March 9-15: This past Wednesday was extremely odd because I didn’t get a single ordinary sized letter. Odder yet when I didn’t get any letters on Thursday. Or Friday. Normally I get 8 to 10 letters a day. So today, Monday, March 7, I discovered that SIS (Security), led by Mr. Lindsay, is taking my mail from the mailroom after it has all been inspected and cleared of contraband, and then taking my letters to their office and reading each one.

I wouldn’t mind that so much but they are holding letters up to 5 days so they can read them, then I finally get them. None of my incoming letters are a security risk, threat or concern, so it can only be for titillation purposes, although I have never, alas, received a single letter I would consider licentious.

So letters I would have received last Wednesday, I’m receiving 5 days later. My outgoing mail, which in a low security facility is sealed by the inmate and is generally not opened by the facility, is taking a longer time to reach their destinations, so I can only assume security is going the same with my outgoing mail and reading it also, and delaying its posting. I find it remarkable that GEO Group never has enough money to provide fresh vegetables or fruit in our diet, or extra soccer or volleyballs or guitars, but can pay the security men here to read hours of my mail, and to no particular end that I can determine other than to upset me.

I was put on the CIM list two weeks ago, Controlled Inmate Monitoring. I did not realize that meant all my mail was now going to be detained, delayed and read. Since I have posed no threat to this facility, and in all valid assessments am a model prisoner, I find this ‘special’ treatment aggravating. I was able to pose this situation to the Acting Warden Mr. Zenk today. While he casually acknowledged I’m on CIM and my mail is being monitored, he said he would talk to security and see if the turnaround time could be lessened. I will be asking Security what they expect to find in my incoming or outgoing mail that justifies their time, effort and blatant interference in my correspondence.

Newsletter #7 was discussed with me line by line by Security when I issued it 10 days ago, which I did not mind. I was happy to have their input. I gave #8 to Security as soon as the final version was off the photocopier. I have obviously nothing to hide and consider my newsletter a window on the world of DRJ from the perspective of an inmate. In many ways, I do this facility a favor, at no cost to them, of telegraphing the problems of inmates before the problems become critical mass/crises. Many of the staff, families of inmates, and certainly SIS read this newsletter. The B.O.P. liaisons here read it. They have used my comments in their interactions with the GEO Group/D. Ray James staff.

Reading my mail and holding it up several days I regard as a betrayal of trust. I’m living up to my obligations to report fairly, truthfully and behave in a polite manner. What happens to me, matters to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people to in North America and the world. I don’t exploit that in any way. I don’t tell people to bombard DRJ or GEO Group in protest at the inadequacies here I have regarded of egregious. But there is a quid pro quo at work whether DRJ acknowledges it or not. If I am going to be targeted for harassment, which is what I consider this mail screening and delay to be, then I am being disrespected. Mail in the United States takes only 2 or 3 days at most to get here normally, so when I see letters today that are postmarked Feb. 28th and March 1st, I know my mail is being detained unreasonably for no purpose related to the security of this facility.

Along with DRJ’s perfidious blockade of my incoming mail and the snooping of my outbound mail for obscure purposes, I have discovered a systemic error in the Keefe Commissary computer that is ripping me off as well as every inmate here. As an inmate, I have a limit on spending on commissary of $320 a month. I buy a lot of my food I eat from commissary as the food served by DRJ is monotonous, lacking in Vitamin A, B, C, calcium, potassium, essential fatty acids, Omega 3 and 6, and is really just a regurgitation of carbs, fats, sugars and protein day after boring, tasteless day. I spend my limit usually the third week of the month, so for the last 7 to 10 days I have next to no food items to eat. I couldn’t figure out why this was so. Postage stamps and health items are supposed to be exempt from the $320 monthly limit. But I’ve checked my commissary records and that of numerous other inmates and found that I and all other inmates are having stamps deducted from our $320 monthly limit!

For me this has been devastating, as I buy $21 to $26 in stamps each week (the weekly limit is $26.20). The net result of this admitted error is that I am cheated out of being able to buy $100 worth of food a month, because my postage stamps are being subtracted from the $320 spending limit. This is cruel punishment that is inexcusable. In the DRJ Inmate Handbook it clearly states that the $100+ limit on postage stamps is above the $320 monthly limit. So over 4 months I’ve been cheated of $400 on my spending limits. This has affected hundreds and hundreds of inmates as running shoes were also erroneously debited from the $320 spending limit, messing with inmate spending budgets, along with postage stamps. This is unforgivable but I have the statements from Keefe to show they are deducting expenditures on postage stamps from the $320 monthly limit, so we shall see how long it takes this crooked outfit to rectify their previous errors (if they ever will) and stop ripping us off week after week.

So much mail sent to me here has never gotten to me, and numerous letters sent by me here are interfered with and do not arrive. Along with hijacking photographs and letters I send out, they cheat me of photographs that are taken that they don’t give me. My hand is on my wife’s buttock, so they say in denying me the last photo; before that it was a similar complaint. But they don’t show you the photo nor do they refund your $1, so you have to believe their warped interpretation of things, which, considering my experience here, they are completely unbelievable. Hopefully one day you will be able to see my photographs I’ve paid for and had taken of me at DRJ but I have my doubts. [Note from Jodie: The only photographs that had failed to arrive in the mail from Marc when he wrote this finally showed up in my mail on April 1. The photos were taken February 12 and 13.]

I’ve taken to listening in on Randy and Jon’s guitar sessions. Randy is from New Westminster, BC, vocalist of the Mojo Stars, and Jon is from South Africa. I sit in on their 90 minute sessions where they play about 20 songs, from Eagle’s Hotel California to Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills & Nash, Helpless by Neil Young, Under the Boardwalk (Drifters), Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison), House of the Rising Sun, the parody of life here ‘Folkston Prison Blues’ (the Johnny Cash song Folson Prison Blues reworked) and a few beautifully done original tunes as well. I’ve taken to sitting in and throwing requests at them, and filling in a few blanks in their recollection of lyrics. I did a rock and roll trivia board game in 1987 with 6,000 questions and answers, and from 1989 to 1991 had a Billboard Top 40 retrospective show on radio playing songs from 1955 to 1973 with history of the artists and the song.

While there are now up to 6 guitars for inmates to play available there is no sheet music, songbook or access to lyrics. So I asked Jodie to send me some songbooks I could lend the musicians, and she obliged by sending me sheet music of The Eagles, Sting, Tom Petty, and Neil Young. I mailed her a letter asking her to look up the lyrics of about 30 songs, including American Pie and Vincent by Don MacLean, The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot – as ubiquitous a Canadian song as you’ll ever hear, though it is about an American freighter ship plying Lake Superior (“the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee”), numerous Dylan songs, Joni Mitchell, and Cat Stevens.

If any one of my readers has any extra guitar songbooks lying about their homes or studios that you could part with, it would be greatly appreciated here. [Note from Jodie: mail cannot be sent to D. Ray James from this point on, as Marc is being transferred.] There are some songbooks that have an assortment of classic songs in them, with titles like 200 Classic Songs of the 60’s and 70’s, and that sort of thing, that would be of tremendous use here. Beatles, Bob Dylan, Talking Heads, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young (Harvest, After the Gold Rush, etc.), Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Hank Williams, Sr., Merle Haggard, any blues, western, pop and rock classics in guitar playing notation and lyrics (songbooks) would be appreciated.

Adam at the BCMP Vapour Lounge will be recording ‘Folkston Prison Blues’ next week, live, before an audience, and then it will be put on YouTube shortly afterward and linked to these newsletters. [Note from Jodie: The video and lyrics can be seen in Marc’s blog #8, posted here.] Our next parody song, “It’s D. Ray James As We Know It (and we’re doing time)” – REM song ‘It’s the End of the World As We Know It’ being the source song, is being worked on now for Adam to record after we perform it here. I’ll be part of the vocal chorus in our performance of ‘It’s D. Ray James As We Know It.’

I was pleased to hear that Tommy Chong was in Vancouver at the Rio Theatre doing a fundraiser for my best friend Dana Larsen who is seeking the leadership of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia, the party currently the opposition to the governing Liberal Party. The fundraiser was Monday, March 7, and the next night Tommy jammed with the house band at the BC Marijuana Party Vapour Lounge, helping raise another $1,500 toward Dana’s leadership race. The entry fee to run for the leadership was $15,000 into the party coffers, and Dana was accredited as a bona fide contender. The voting for NDP members to choose the leader of the BC provincial party is April 17. Follow Dana’s leadership campaign at www.VoteDana.ca. Naturally, repealing the prohibition of cannabis is central to Dana’s platform.

Thursday, March 10:

The D. Ray James business office spoke to me today to acknowledge that they have been improperly including postage stamps and health products in the $320 inmate monthly spending limit. The result of this for me is that I order $90-$100 in postage stamps monthly, these are supposed to be exempt from the $320 monthly spending limit; that has, in fact, been debited from my spending limit each month so far. So I’ve only been able to order $220 worth of food, which only lasts me 20 days of each month. I should be able to order $320 worth of food AND $100 in health care (ibuprofen, antibiotic ointment, etc.) and postage stamps per month. So for four months I’ve been cheated out of my full spending limit.

From the point of view of Keefe Commissary, they too have ripped themselves off of tens of thousands of dollars because inmates have been unable to spend their full limits. With 2,000 inmates, it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars of purchasing power negated all due to a computer inputting error! You’d think one of the Keefe or D. Ray James paid staff would have caught on before I had to alert them into making the correction. There will be no credit or compensation for our/my lost purchasing power, but at least I can take credit for correcting an egregious flaw here. The Business Office assures me that this has now been rectified for all future inmate purchases.

My spider bite on my left buttock is still getting a daily medical department look, and both I and they are pleased it is healing rapidly now, the draining having stopped three days ago after about ten days of blood and pus weeping out of the wound.

Monday, March 14 marks 365 days – one year – in prison so far on my sentence, including all of the time that I spent in North Fraser Pretrial Centre up in Canada before being extradited. My treaty transfer application has been in DC for two months, the decision is due to be made in the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Peter Maverick has appointed himself as a one-man books-for-prisoners resource. Peter has sent over 50 books in Spanish including a 25-volume history of each state in Mexico. I have discovered that my Mexican colleagues relate to the state they are from in a strong way, so these books about each state are read voraciously. The books are ordered through Amazon, and Peter has spent well over $750 on these books and postage to send them to me over the last 3 weeks, over 125 books. My personal collection of books, including my law & prison books, number less than 20; the vast bulk of books I have received are loaned to other inmates, and are read studiously and passed on when they are done reading it.

I just finished Michael Pollan’s beautifully written book ‘The Botany of Desire’ and I endorse this 250 page book to anyone who wants to be enthralled by every page while learning so many marvelous details and history about the apple, the tulip, the potato, and marijuana, and the co-evolution of these plants with humankind. Simply terrific book. I understand he has a contemporary bestseller on the NY Times Lists. I’d love that book.

In a triumph of anti-intellectualism here at D. Ray James Correctional Institution, I am on the bring-5-books, receive-5-books regime with the mail room here once again. Thus I must advise anyone sending me books to now only send books I have specifically requested. Recently, I have received perhaps 150 books in the last month which I have by and large lent out to other inmates, which they are devouring in a satisfying manner, satisfying to anyone interested in knowledge, literacy and disseminating knowledge. That, alas, excludes the decision makers here at D. Ray James. This decision would have come from Warden Zenk himself, with input from Security. I am reminded of that Who song ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”.

Books sent to me for the benefit of the Spanish-Language inmates have been extremely useful and well-received but will now have to stop. If I can’t store them and send them out once every two weeks, I’ll have to have the 5 I return destroyed each time because I can’t buy enough postage stamps to ship the 5-returnees to my friend Catharine Leach, or my supplier-in-chief Peter Maverick. But I’ll try to return to Peter the books I’m going to inevitably receive that I can no longer take possession of.

Sigh. Mail room nonsense has returned once more. Of course, in any sane place, I could donate them directly to the inmate library, where virtually no relevant books have been purchased and added to the reading library in 5 months since this concentration camp for foreigners opened – 5 months ago! That is why the books I’ve lent around are so welcome: the library is deliberately kept as useless as possible by management here.

I got my pay for February. I’m here every morning, afternoon, and evening shift, 7 hours a day. I missed a day and a half for lockdown, and a few hours in medical getting my infection dealt with, and I don’t get ‘paid’ for Presidents’ Day (February 21). Total pay for the month: $5.10. Yes, you read correctly, five dollars and ten cents. That was 12 cents an hour, and my official reinstatement wasn’t until February 10, but I’ve been here three shifts a day, every day, since December. My pay grade has been raised to 29 cents an hour. Ah, there’s no labor like slave labor. The GEO Group Inc. motto is “GEO Group: World-class employee, performance, behavior.”

IMPORTANT NOTE: On Friday, April 1st, Marc was informed that he will be shipped out to a new prison on Monday, April 4th. Federal inmates can be shipped anywhere in the USA, and are never told where they are going.

Please stay tuned to his progress here and at www.Facebook.com/PrinceOfPot and www.Facebook.com/JodieEmery where updates are posted right away.

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February 19 to 28 – In this issue: Warden Booker leaves the prison; GEO Group Vice President of Regional, Mr. Zenk, takes over as Acting Warden (he spoke with Jodie Emery by phone on February 10); a disruption in Q Building on February 22 (9 inmates go to SHU, solitary confinement); and a confrontational visitation on the long weekend of February 19-21.

On Tuesday this week Hispanic inmates initiated a boycott of the larger Chow Hall at lunch while GEO Group Vice-President of Regional Management, Mr. Zenk, was here. The timing was deliberate. Inmates are frustrated and increasingly intolerant of the seemingly willful management indifference to regular and routine “low” security protocols that occur at B.O.P. and even other GEO Group and CCA facilities. Rules here are invented daily that follow little rational thought or Bureau of Prisons procedure/policy.

Later that day, it was announced Warden Booker was moving on, leaving DRJCF in any case, and V.P. Zenk would be Acting Warden for a period of weeks. I have already had a conversation with him and he’s a good listener when I recited a brief catalog of grievances. But action is what the inmates are measuring, and there is little to point to here in the way of actual results. DRJCF has been open 5 months now and very little progress is evident; indeed, in many areas (visitation, food, quality of the yard), it has gone backward.

Some critical areas of inmate dissatisfaction:

– Food is nutritionally inadequate and monotonous. Surveys will circulate by the staff next week to sound out inmates’ desires on the food in Chow Hall. But action is what is in short supply.

– Numerous essential and other items so far have been denied to us at the commissary, including hats, sunglasses, calculators, fresh vegetables, alarm clocks, bathrobes, sleeveless undershirts, digital language translators, thermos, sweatbands, sewing kits, tennis balls, knee wraps, and other items we are allowed to posses, but cannot get (unless they arrive from our previous prison property).

– Two televisions are inadequate for 60 – 80 inmates and there are numerous altercations over them already. An additional TV is promised for each Pod in April. The wait is so additional electrical outlets can be installed.

– The tap water here tastes very bad, yet no bottled water, juice or soda is made available to buy. Vending machines have been promised but have yet to arrive. [Note from Jodie Emery: Since this was written, vending machines have been installed.] Inmates cannot posses or use cash so the purchase procedure will invariably take weeks or months for DRJ to put into play, which brings us to…

– MP3 players have been promised for over 3 months but have yet to be put on sale in the commissary. The better MP2 player, a prison issue one called “Secure Media Systems”, will cost $100.00. Downloading songs will cost $1.60 per song.

– Remarkably, over 500 handballs have been rendered unusable by the looping razor wire that is on every fence throughout the compound in the five months DRJ has been in “business”. The volleyballs being used are lopsided because of lacerations from hitting the razor wire. Basketballs and soccer balls are very worn, yet DRJ doesn’t spend money to replace them. This razor wire was recently reinstalled at this facility even though “low” security federal prisons are only supposed to have razor wire atop of a perimeter fence. The previous state prison that originally had this excessive razor wire installed was a medium-security prison housing some generally bad dudes.

– The visitation room seats only 26 inmates and their guests out of a prison population of nearly 2,000 now, causing visits to be terminated early to make room for arriving visitors, and hand-holding between inmates and their spouses/mothers/family has been inexplicably banned.

Later on that Tuesday the Associate Wardens were dispatched to all the pods to make promises on these and other areas, but inmates simply put no credibility on the word of management. The so-called ‘town hall’ that afternoon reeked of desperation and disingenuousness.

It has been hot here for weeks now, and it’s only February. When the wind blows, a sandstorm blows across the compound. All the grass that was here when we arrived is long ago dead and what little remains is rooted to sand. The entire place lacks topsoil for grass to root, so for 6-8 months there will be sand blowing about, getting in our eyes and mouths. Mosquitoes and sand fleas will be here soon. We are surrounded by the United States’ most famous swamp, Okefenokee (pronounced O-kuh-fen-O-kuh).

Last Sunday I was bitten on my left buttock by something that put two holes in my skin and I’ve had a painful swelling and infection since, making sitting and sleeping painful and difficult. I’ve been applying ice-packs to it at night and taking ibuprofen but it hasn’t subsided yet. The C.O. did give me an emergency permission to visit medical Wednesday night even during lockdown, and the nurse and doctor at medical moved quickly to examine it, gave me the ice-pack and antibiotics, which has had a very good effect of reducing the pain, swelling and infection by Friday afternoon, which is good because Jodie visited this Saturday and Sunday and I had to sit on it for 5-6 hours each day! Thanks to the nurses and doctor in medical! It started weeping Saturday, and now is drained (what a mess!) by Monday. I still continue to take the antibiotics and put fresh bandages on the area. After one week I can now sit comfortably. [Note from Jodie: Marc was bitten by a brown recluse spider, one of only two toxic spiders in North America. More details in Jodie’s videos at www.YouTube.com/PotTVNetwork and in Marc’s upcoming blogs.]

Across from the law library, the ceiling caved in, a huge mess, as water from broken pipes above the ceiling was leaking for weeks with no correction from maintenance until the light fixtures and ceiling came crashing down. Inevitably, the air conditioning in various units will break down. The inmates feel aggravated plenty now; 6 or 7 months of unrelenting hot and muggy weather will fray tempers further. It took DRJ 3 weeks to fix the heat for Pod 2 in Q building back in December. There was no heat but nothing was done until temperatures dropped below freezing and it became a liability issue for DRJ.

The inmates’ photographs ($1 each per print) started being done against a wall in the yard. After lining up for several hours on Sunday and finally having their pictures taken, Coach Williamson, in charge of the photo program, somehow deleted all 150 photographs taken that day, necessitating all the inmates to line up once again in the hot sun to have their photos redone. When they received them the following week, at least half of the prints had the inmate’s head cut off at the forehead. They had the option of lining up yet a third time in the hot sun for yet another photograph! At DRJ, even the simplest of things gets bollixed, and when these aggravations happen daily, it drives the inmates nuts, and they are always talking about the latest aggravating DRJ fuck-up.

Along with photographs I have taken every visit with Jodie, last weekend I had 5 photos taken of me in the yard. One of me and my friend Peter (Mennonite, with 9 children), one of me and another friend Bradley (a great fellow from my area at home), one of me in my khakis, one of me holding the clutch of envelopes I routinely carry to and from the library, and one of me wearing a khaki ball cap, sunglasses, and a pen clenched in my teeth, channeling the Hunter S. Thompson or General Douglas MacArthur, my alternate persona on the yard here.

I heard that visitation last weekend was tense. Eight women who came to visitation wore open-toed or open-backed shoes. They were ordered to buy closed-toed shoes at the only nearby store in tiny Folkston, a dollar store, before they could be admitted to visitation, as the visitation area was now considered a “construction” site due to painting – which, of course, makes no sense at all. Hand-holding is still forbidden, yet permitted at all other GEO Group and B.O.P. “low” security facilities. Guards have been standing right beside inmates and their guests instead of standing in the guard area at the front of the room. Several inmates and guests got into shouting matches with guards standing closely adjacent to visitation tables.

Vending machines, the source of lunch for visitors and inmates, are frequently empty or dysfunctional. The staff, apparently, purchase bottled water during the week from these vending machines so that by visitation days on Saturday and Sunday, there is no bottled water left in the vending machines for inmates and their guests! This has been true for numerous food items too. The following weekend, February 26 and 27, Jodie and I had a wonderful visit, but not being allowed to touch each other’s hands – or anything at all – for the 7-hour visit is very irritating and upsetting.

I did the paperwork this week (before I was locked down Wednesday and Thursday morning) for the inmate who has been trying to get GEO Group to replace his dentures that they lost last June, and have refused to replace with the excuse that since last June, the inmate has had less than a year remaining in his sentence (he is scheduled for release mid-June 2011), so they don’t want to spend the money. This despite that GEO Group or Federal Marshalls lost the dentures in transit and this fellow’s guns are swollen and bleed with most meals!

On Tuesday night, February 22, there was a noisy display of disruptive behavior in Q-2 Pod (my pod) when I was in the law library. At 7:00 pm I saw an inmate having some kind of seizure in Q-2. Two inmates went to the pod door leading into the sallyport where typically there is a C.O. There wasn’t one at this time – and, in fact, it would be 10-15 minutes (disputed) before a C.O. appeared to respond to the inmates pounding on the door. The emergency buzzers in each pod have been disabled, as my friend Bradley found out when he complained two weeks earlier (see Attachment A) “because a C.O. is always on duty” in the sallyport! The C.O.’s first remark, I heard it, was “If y’all didn’t cry wolf so often I would have responded sooner.”

The fellow was taken away, and then brought back 30 minutes later, where he had another seizure. This time the C.O.’s responded promptly, but took him out to the sallyport and laid him on the floor and held his head, which probably the correct response for a seizure or seizure-like situation. Quickly after this, however, inmates in Pods 1, 2 and 3 all got rowdy and threw objects at the guard observation window that towers above the door to the sallyport, made noise, and were rebellious. No one was harmed or attacked; it is really an expression of disgust with how every aspect of this place is aggravating and frustrating to the inmates. GEO Group receives $1,008,000.00 a WEEK to operate this facility, but it is very slow to spend any of it on amenities that are common at all other GEO Group Federal Prisons and B.O.P. Federal Prisons.

After the inmate required medical attention the first time, I was in the law library, where I was held until 10:30 pm and then returned to the Q building, which was locked down all through Wednesday until Thursday morning, when we were allowed to go outside and to work. Nine inmates from Q building were put in solitary and may get a disciplinary transfer to a medium-security prison, which nonetheless, might be a step-up in terms of living conditions compared to D. Ray James Correctional Institution.

If I were there in Q-2, I would have tried to discourage what I regard as futile and foolish over-reaction. It made a mess of our pod, got 7 people from Pod 2 in solitary, and had us locked down for 36 hours. I tend to believe venting and writing complaints to management and officials is painstaking, but ultimately more effective than disruptive behavior, which virtually forces the institution to take retaliatory action. But I am fairly alone in seeing that point of persuasion and communication, and DRJ makes it very challenging for most inmates to find satisfaction using the exasperating grievance process to motivate institutional change and improvement.

It’s probably just as well I wasn’t there because I might have been regarded as a traitor for speaking out against it, plus I am only one of few English speakers and without speaking Spanish I probably would not have prevailed.

On Wednesday, I received about 25 books in the mail, half in Spanish, about 7 magazines, and 3 catalogs, so they were distributed around to the inmates who needed some calming activities during lockdown. The timing was good for those books! Many of these books arrive with receipts from ABEBOOKS, Thriftbooks, or Amazon.com among others, but no clue as to who paid for them or sponsored them. Peter Maverick of Massachusetts has been a HUGE contributor of books, over 50 so far about spiritual matters, in Spanish and English, history, fiction, biographies.

Brand new books I received include #7 & #8 in the #1 Ladies’ Detective Series, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead, four new books by Herman Hesse (Demian, Narcissus & Goldmund, Steppenwolf & Siddhartha), Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, a Biography of Henry Ford, Mark Twain’s Autobiography Vol. 1, and American War Machine, which I wrote of in “Injustice & Cruelty As A Laughing Matter”, my editorial on Canadian and American politicians who laugh off the marijuana question. (Read that editorial in my previous blogs at www.cannabisculture.com, with a wonderful over-the-top painting of me nailed to a cannabis crucifix in ‘The Garden of Weeden’, juxtaposed as a sacrificial Jesus straddling the US and Canadian borders. Lady Liberty licking the blood flowing from the nails in my feet is quite the touch. I look forward to comments about the painting and the editorial it is paired with. The painting was done by Chris Wright of London, Ontario, Canada, someone I’ve known since he was a youth, whose work I truly admire and love.)

While I personally have enough reading material for a month, I still won’t discourage my supporters and friends from sending books and magazines in Spanish because the need is huge, especially in the infirmary where sick inmates can’t get out of bed. Books in English are greatly prized by the few other Canadians here. All the many magazines I receive get circulated to dozens of inmates each until I lose track of them. I even received, from Cindy Sleeman of North Vancouver, copies of Hispanic newspapers from the Vancouver ‘Latin American’ community of my hometown. Cindy has sent me a slew of great books, magazines, Spanish, English, including four from Alexander McCall Smith.

Thank to Mary Dague and Jimi Lawrence of Farifax, Virginia for books they sent. Mary sent Cutting Stone and The Longest War and the biography of Henry Ford. Jimi sent me some #1 Ladies Detective books and a 100 years of the GPO (Government Printing Office). Jimi has worked at the GPO for almost 30 years now, and is proud of his work there.

I very much appreciate the flood of books and magazines. I supply them to the infirmary, particularly Spanish magazine and books, as well as the inmates throughout D. Ray James. Today I had a ‘Santa Claus’ bag of new books that I simply will not be able to read (I have 20 lined up in my ‘Must Read’ box) so I supply the 12 other Canadians here and other English speakers I know who need books. Randy got my History of Black Sabbath because he’s a professional musician (and a delightful person), Grant from Montreal chose The Trial by Franz Kafka, and Short Stories by D.H. Lawrence.

I received some excellent books on Mexican folklore, histories of each Mexican State, in Spanish. The Mexican inmates relate to their state (Sinoloa, Chihuahua, etc.) and even have gatherings with food in the yard. It is a bonding thing, but also a bit of a mutual protection if the need arises. My friend, Peter, who is Canadian but was raised in Chihuahua state in Mexico until he was 13, is considered one of them, so Peter has 85 amigos here who hail from that state. Peter says this protects me too, as Peter and I are known to be best friends; we always eat and hang out together, as Peter is in pod 2 with me. I don’t need any protection as I have no enemies among staff or inmates, but it may one day be handy to have.

Thanks to Chris Goodwin and Erin Gorman for sending many wonderful Facebook pages of comments and political debate (which I really enjoy, so encourage people to send), and their frequent personal letters. Chris and Erin are setting up a downtown Toronto retail store and activist center for freedom called Freedom Culture Headquarters, or The Freedom Store. It will be a retail store selling libertarian, anarchist, anti-government, pro-freedom t-shirts, stickers, books, buttons, DVDs, magazines, posters, and all manner of product that speaks to liberty. Another part of the building will be used for Freedom Music nights, Freedom Debates, readings, lectures, even Freedom Comedy. Another part of the complex will be used as the Freedom Party of Ontario recruiting and campaign office.

Freedom Party is a pro-freedom registered political party in the province of Ontario, Canada that was founded by Robert Metz and I in 1982. It is now headed by a brilliant man, Paul McKeever, who did the remarkable video documentary of me called “Principle of Pot”. I have actually never met Paul McKeever in person, but we have a wonderful correspondence while I’m in jail. Paul is brilliant and I recommend his writings and blog as genius. Paul is a national treasure on the threshold of discovery by the people of Ontario and Canada. My great friend and a man I have admired for 32 years as a staggeringly lucid thinker and advocate for individual freedom is Freedom Party’s President, Robert Metz.

Watch "The Principle of Pot" for Marc's life mission and accomplishments explained! CLICK HERE!

Chris Goodwin currently heads up Ontario’s famous Vapour Central, a marijuana consumption lounge in downtown Toronto, 667 Yonge St. Chris was inspired by me in 2003 to open ‘Up In Smoke’ in Hamilton, Ontario, where baked goods were sold and marijuana consumed on the premises until the final visit after over 300 police visits put it out of business, and Chris was sentenced to jail for 4 months. Then Chris headed up Vapour Central in 2006, and has made it an incredible success. Chris and fiancé Erin will jointly be running both Vapour Central and Freedom Culture Headquarters.

The name is meant to be a tribute to me as co-founder of FREEDOM Party and Cannabis CULTURE HEADQUARTERS. I love this project and name. It is a retail project I have dreamed of doing myself and think Chris and Erin are perfect for doing this even better than I could. I can’t wait to see the “Jefferson is my homeboy” t-shirt and others by Bureaucrash at the Freedom Culture HQ. They will stock Free Marc t-shirts and all manner of FREE MARC material too. Chris and Erin expect to be open by mid-April; the location is the old Toronto Art Glass location at 2B Dundonald St, Toronto, Ontario, right off Yonge Street, and the website is www.FreedomCulture.ca (it will be online in the coming weeks). Naturally, repeal of prohibition and legalization of consensual activities will be a priority of this unique retail activism store, and I wish them all the best.

Send a quick letter to help get Marc home:

www.FreeMarc.ca – click “How You Can Help”

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February 8-14: On January 6, Warden Booker told me I was to be reinstated to my job in the law/reading library. After three weeks of waiting and going to the library daily in any case, I saw on the call-out sheets (daily assignment sheet) in late January that I was assigned to pick up garbage on the compound in the afternoon and evening. Considering any inmate can do this job but only 4 or 5 English speakers in the entire population can do the paralegal/secretarial work I was doing on behalf of the 1,500+ Hispanic inmates here, this new assignment was clearly an attempt by someone here to thwart the warden and humiliate me.

About 7 days ago I saw the warden and brought this to his attention. He remarked, “I’m a man of my word,” and proceeded to make a call on his cell phone to correct the ‘error’ on the call-out sheet. I left him to do that, and 7 days later, 30 days after the warden said I was reinstated, I am still unassigned but still available in the law library. We shall see what happens. [Note from Jodie Emery: Marc has since been reassigned and now works Monday through Friday in the library.]

I would get paid 12 cents per hour to do either job. What I can’t understand is how a private corporation like Geo Group can legally hire all these “deportable aliens,” none of whom have visas to legally work in the United States. Have they received a special exemption from the Federal government that allows a for-profit US corporation like GEO Group to do what no other US business entity is allowed to do: hire illegal aliens to work in their factory/business/enterprise? Many of these ‘illegal aliens’ here were undocumented workers doing labor for US businesses and they were incarcerated for doing precisely that. So by what political or legal alchemy can these same illegal “workers” be hired by GEO Group to essentially maintain this ‘industry’ here at D. Ray James Correctional?

And this business of 12 cents per hour: if you don’t concede to work on the assignment given to you, you can be put in solitary confinement. So a private, for-profit, US corporation, answerable only to shareholders, can put any inmate here in a lonely dungeon for 23 hours per day if they refuse to be a slave? The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery “within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” So either GEO Group seems to be illegally hiring illegal aliens, or employing slavery, or both, but I’d like to know what law permits a for-profit US corporation to do either.

Meanwhile, GEO Group has cut back on the hours of many of its employees here. Many Correctional Officers (C.O.’s) have had their hours cut from 40 to 32 hours a week. This was an unhappy bit of news for them because most, if not all, full-time workers cannot easily readjust their lifestyle and obligations with a 20% cut in pay. One extra unpaid day off in this economically depressed area is not something anyone who works here needs. One C.O. drives 52 miles a day to come to work here at D. Ray James, that tells one story of how difficult jobs are to come by in south Georgia and north Florida. The collapse of the housing market and the reduction of tourism from the recession and the Gulf oil spill have turned south Georgia and north Florida into one of the areas of highest unemployment in the United States. A competently run prison would be a benefit to the inmates here AND the local population so desperate for gainful employment.

More and more I am concerned about the quality of the water we are drinking here. The staff largely drinks bottled water, which is not available to inmates except in the visiting room, but staff have been buying all of the visiting room water bottles. That’s why the machines are often out of water for visitors on weekends. The water that we inmates have to drink is yellow when put in a white cup, smells, variously contains debris, paint flecks, etc. The water tower that recently was embellished with a massive GEO Group paint job has never had a filter changed within it, if it even HAS a filtration device within it all.

Ominously, the subcontracted group responsible for our very poor food diet, the Canteen Corporation, is about to get replaced by GEO Group’s own food services. GEO Group ran Rivers C.I. in Winton, North Carolina, which was closed down by order of the NC legislature, and many inmates from Rivers are here. All uniformly agree the food at Rivers was the worst they had ever encountered in the Federal system. So, incredibly, it’s possible what is already a monotonous and repetitive diet deficient in vitamins B, C, calcium, potassium, essential fatty acids and so much more, plus high in starches, sugars, and protein, is about to get even worse!

It would seem very few people running the show here are qualified to do so. The psychologist on staff has no degree in psychology or psychiatry; he’s a drug and alcohol counselor of some kind. The welding teacher has no credentials in welding. The recreation director has no credentials in health, fitness or physical education. The library does not have a certified librarian (it usually has no one supervising at all, to save money), and the director of education has no degree in education. The chaplain does not have a Masters of Divinity. Not a single Corrections Officer has ever worked in a Bureau of Prisons facility before; therefore they have no experience with federal regulations of federal prisons. Many of the staff here worked at the state D. Ray James prison, but state regulations are substantially different than federal regulations, and that results in a fair bit of confusion.

Most B.O.P. minimums and lows have an outdoor visitation area. D. Ray James has, according to the D. Ray James Procedure Statement, an outdoor visitation area. I sure hope one is planned because thus far, it’s not available. I will be asking the warden if one will be provided here, consistent with his statement SEC-014.06, which was signed by him only a few months ago: “Visitation may be conducted in a designated outdoor visitation area if approved by the Shift Supervisor. Only inmates who have had clear conduct for six months and have no security issues within the facility will be allowed to have visitation outside.”

Occasionally the visitation staff tells the inmates and their visitors not to hold hands, even though it is called a ‘contact visit’ and from my understanding, every federal minimum, low and medium security federal prison in the B.O.P. system permits handholding. The staff in visitation are otherwise good.

I’ve been reading ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do (The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country).’ This is a marvelous book by Peter McWilliams. Peter was stricken with AIDS in later life and after Proposition 215 was passed in California, proceeded to participate in a marijuana garden (with Todd McCormick, who spent over 4 years in jail) and was convicted under Federal law for growing marijuana. Peter used cannabis to stanch the nausea form the cocktail of AIDS medicines his doctors prescribed him. The Federal judge had forbade Peter from using marijuana for his nausea, and days later Peter McWilliams died in his bathtub choking to death on his own vomit. Peter was an author of many books on positive thinking, emotional survival and personal wealth (titles include ‘Surviving the Loss of a Love’, ‘You Don’t Have the Luxury of a Negative Thought’, and ‘Wealth 101’). I decided to re-read Peter’s great literary contribution to law and philosophy, ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do’ when the online curator of Peter’s legacy [click here] sent me a gift copy to inspire me here in jail. The book is truly brilliant and wonderful, at once straight forward and easy to read, and I’m learning so much; when you’ve been an advocate for 31 years, sometimes you think you can’t learn anything new about liberty, only to be proven delightfully wrong.

I found McWilliam’s discussion of relationships illuminating. “The idea behind laws against consensual activities is that if some people are in a bad relationship with something, then that thing should be banned. The problem is, that solution doesn’t solve anything: the problem doesn’t lie with the thing (or substance) itself, but with some people’s relationship to it. Yes, there are some things with which it is easier to be in a bad relationship with than others. Cigarettes practically beg for a bad relationship. But then, they were designed that way. For the several centuries prior to the Civil War, tobacco’s use was primarily recreational: people would inhale it, choke, get dizzy, fall on the floor, roll around. For the most part, people used tobacco (a botanical relative of the deadly nightshade) once or twice a week, and that was it. After the Civil War, the south needed a cash crop less labor intensive than cotton. A special strain of tobacco was developed that allowed people to inhale deeply without coughing. This let people smoke almost continuously if they liked it. It also resulted in almost immediate addiction. Almost every tobacco smoker is addicted. While there are many ‘social drinkers’, there are no ‘social smokers’. Smokers begin from the time they wake up to when they go to sleep… Addiction is a sure sign of a bad relationship.”

Sex, food, caffeine, gambling, religion, marriage, sports: all of these and virtually every other substance, activity or opportunity has the potential in all of us to be a good or a bad (or neutral) relationship.

Halfway through the book I’ve re-learned much about the US Constitution (and how, tragically, myself being a case in point, the United States has abandoned the Bill of Rights and other restraints on government), the history and ideas and strengths in the separation of church and state, and the separation of society and state. Peter makes it all fun too. I was being educated on every page with what seems like no effort.

The book I finished before Peter’s was ‘The 10 Cent Plague – The Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s’. This recounting of hysteria that surrounded comic books causing ‘juvenile delinquency’ from 1949 to 1956, putting 80% of all comic books out of business by municipal, state, and in Canada in 1949, Federal laws. There were huge public bonfires of comic books in dozens of communities, and a frenzy of indignation blaming comic books for all manner of crime and youth corruption. The US Constitution was no more an impediment on the US Government committee that hounded the comic book industry with scurrilous hearings, nor was the Bill of Rights any defense against state and city laws that saw sellers and producers arrested, fined, and even jailed. Over 800 people lost their jobs in the comic book industry and never got them back, as it took the comic book industry 15 years to recover. The hysteria resulted in censorship that drove out of business all the best comic books and left only the innocuous to survive.

At various times in US history, movies, television, more specifically horror movies, marijuana, racy pulp magazines of the 30’s, gum cards (Garbage Pail Kids), rock and roll records, religious “cults”, dance crazes, and more have all been subject to local or even state censorship, but none of the whipped-up furors ever had the destructive effect on free expression as did the 1949-1956 anti-comic book crusade. At its peak, comic book publications issued in 1952 totaled nearly 100 million copies monthly, by 1958, laws were passed, distributors, printers, producers, newsstands, intimidated, distribution was down to under 17 million copies monthly.

Sometimes censorship is disgusting on the smallest scale. The reading library here at D. Ray James Correctional is kept as useless as possible. No current books of the last 10 years, virtually no educational texts in math, English, science – nothing at all for a student to learn. No contemporary books like James Patterson, Stephen King, etc. Just beat up old library books from 10-40 years old, of no use to anyone. No magazines had been ordered since D. Ray James opened 4 months ago. Then one magazine arrived today, a Hispanic magazine, ‘ALMA’. It’s a terrific publication, and while it’s in a language I can’t read, it made me wish I could. It contained articles and interviews with Noam Chomsky, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jean Michel Basquiat, Orson Welles, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. There was a series of famous photographs by the “Three Giants of Photography” Stieglitz, Steichen, and Strand. The quality of all the magazine’s photographs is very good, the material very elegantly laid out, and it was clearly all very intellectually superior material.

Dr. Davis brought the magazine into the library, and before our very eyes scrawled in thick black marker “D R J C F” (the prison name initials) across every one of the 112 pages of the magazine. The reason given was that the Halle Berry photos were too lascivious, and that marking up every page would deter theft. I copied a selection of 16 pages of the defaced ALMA to highlight the experience of seeing a beautiful magazine defaced, while knowing the perpetrator is head of Library and Education Services. This one act describes the desperate and hopeless situation facing anyone here who wants to see the library here function with the noble purpose of knowledge and enlightenment.

I will admit I’ve been depressed over the most recent 8 days since Jodie’s visit on January 29 and 30. My daily life is full of frustrations and aggravations, but I can usually try to forget these hassles of D. Ray James life and move on. But as happened to me around Christmas for 10 days, sometimes a darker, more pervasive malaise sets in, and this makes each day an ordeal. My property should have arrived within 30 days of my arrival. But it hasn’t. It was sent to Taft where I was supposed to end up, but at the last minute I was somehow sent here instead. I miss my Sony radio, Koss headphones, and nighttime book light, my photo albums of Jodie. I’ve only had a half dozen to a dozen photos of Jodie in the 3 months I’ve been here. Jodie’s most recent letter to me did not arrive. One sent to me eight days ago from Alabama has not arrived. (Jodie was emailing letters to our friend Loretta who printed them up and mailed them here, usually it takes 2-3 days to arrive, as is typical of all US mail to me, vs. 6-8 days for a letter from Canada). Originally Jodie was going to try to send me a letter every day, once we no longer had “Corrlinks” email like at Sea-Tac FDC. In 5 months at Sea-Tac, she sent me approximately 500 emails and I sent her over 1,000 emails in that time (she saved every one of them). But Jodie is very busy, so in December I received only three letters and in January only one letter. Her letters are usually 4 to 8 typed pages full of wonderful detail and I treasure them above all others, but I am crestfallen at her sending me so few of them lately.

Today, when I went to the post office to mail Jodie a Valentine’s Day gift, the post office was arbitrarily closed. It is only open for one hour on Tuesday and Thursday, from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm, so when they close like that, with no explanation, it is very frustrating, as I have waited since Saturday to mail it (it’s in a home-made tube and needs weighing and a customs document to ship by mail), and if I had been able to mail it today, there was reasonable hope it would arrive by next Monday on Valentine’s Day. Of course, the obvious thing would be to hand it to her myself this weekend when Jodie visits me on Saturday February 12, and my birthday Sunday, February 13, but of course, here at (‘We Put the “D” in “Dysfunctional”’) Ray James won’t allow that.

Exercise of any kind, sit-ups, push-ups, jogging on the spot, walking around the pod, has been banned and inmates have been threatened with insubordination write-ups if they continue. All inmates are now ordered to exercise out in the yard only. To do sit-ups in the yard would be cold or muddy or dirty or uncomfortable, but that’s the rule, whether it’s raining, cold, hot, or humid. Currently we only get outside 5 to 6 hours daily tops, but are awake and in our pod up to 18 hours daily. There is no explanation for this enforced prohibition on stationary exercise. My sleeping has been disturbed for four nights in a row, usually I sleep soundly and without interruption, but these last few nights I am awake much of the night, shuffling and shaking. Most of the English speakers I know are fatalistic and sad or certainly resigned. I am more annoyed with the shrill whistling, yowling, yelling, and repeated childish voices that some of my Hispanic dorm mates persist in doing (reminder: we don’t have cells, we’re put into dorms with 64 bunks beds). Not all of them are annoying, mind you, but just enough to make me rue at the thought of three and half years of this depressing place. All these things and the additional daily frustrations are getting to me, I fear.

My eyesight is getting weaker. I need new prescription for glasses. I have no confidence in the medical services here. If I did get a new optometric prescription for my lenses, I’d mail it to Jodie and she’d send me a new pair of glasses. My request for a dental cleaning 7 weeks ago has thus far been ignored. I was assured that I was put “on the waiting list”. I haven’t had any dental work of any kind since I was put in jail last May.

I had written to my wonderful supporter and friend Catharine Leach asking her if Rhode Island had an initiative process, so cannabis legalization could be put on the ballot. The voters of Rhode Island voted for one in 1996, but the legislature did not pass an initiative process bill into law. There was also proposed legislation in both the House and Senate in 2010 to pass an initiative process and no vote was ever taken, thus the bills died. So that was disappointing, as we both wanted to get a legalization initiative mirroring Washington’s on the ballot in 2012. I think Rhode Island voters would approve legalization into law by the ballot if they had the chance.

A Maine state legislator, Diane Russell (Democrat), has made the news by introducing a legalization bill in the statehouse there. While 40-55% of New Englanders may support legalization, legislators who represent that view are still virtually non-existent. This is also the case, perhaps even worse, in Canada’s provincial and federal governments. That is why I was so excited to believe (mistakenly) Rhode Islanders could go through an initiative process.

Malcolm MacKinnon of High Times made an attempt to interview me here at D. Ray James for a feature article, but owing to High Times’ stated support of marijuana, the warden here turned down the request. So Malcolm submitted 16 questions to me and my expansive and candid answers should show up in an issue of High Times out in May or June. Jodie will also have some comments regarding her perspective on coping with my incarceration.

I would like to thank four people, none of whom I know, who put $50 in my commissary account here at D. Ray James, over the past two months: Martin M. (twice!, on Feb. 7), Lawrence J. (Feb. 1), Matthew W. (Jan. 4), and Ashley N. (Dec. 20). That helps relieve the pressure off my wife Jodie to send me money I need for commissary, phone calls, photocopy machine cards, photographs, and more. [Note from Jodie: You can send Marc money through Western Union now! Go to www.FreeMarc.ca for details.]

A special thanks to Paul Maverick of Massachusetts who sent me 34 books over the last 8 days. 11 I will try to read, the remaining 23 I’ve distributed around the pod for anyone else to read. Many of them are on spiritual matters, U.G. Krishnamurti in particular, which isn’t really my interest, but two books by Paul’s father Maury (a columnist for Texas newspapers) and 9 books of historical nature I’m going to try to tackle.

By Sunday, February 13, my 53rd birthday, I will have served 335 days on this 1,825 day sentence, with 235 days good time credit. That’s 570 days from my total 1,825 to be served, meaning there are 1,255 miserable days to go if I get stuck in this American gulag for foreigners. (July 7th, 2014 is my US release date). If I get approval from the US government in June for my transfer to Canada, and the Canadian government approves the application in the following months, I could be home by early next year. Please continue to write letters and make phone calls for my transfer to be approved – the addresses and details are at www.FreeMarc.ca.

Marc Emery #40252-086 Unit Q Pod 2
C.I. D. Ray James
PO Box 2000
Folkston, GA
31537

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Marc helps make changes in the D. Ray James Correctional Institution in Georgia — and his bad spider bite is getting better. Jodie shares an amazing present from Marc, a purse made out of folded-up chip bags, done by the artist inmates. The Toronto Freedom Festival is not so free… denied a permit for the first time ever. Cannabis Culture will still be there with 40,000 others marching in the Global Marijuana March, which is still happening at the same location as the Freedom Festival, as always. Go to http://www.CannabisCulture.com for updates!

http://www.FreeMarc.ca/
http://www.CannabisCulture.com/
http://www.TorontoFreedomFestival.com/

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To begin with, on Monday, January 31st, I received a treasure trove of new books, nine of them, including Marc Twain’s Autobiography Vol. 1, ‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great’, ‘Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in our Free Country’, ‘The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s’, ‘Last Call: The Rise & Fall of Prohibition’, ‘Uncle John’s Giant Bathroom Reader’, two prisoner lawyering books, some Buddhist philosophy books, 10 excellent letters from my serious correspondents, some photos from Jodie, and a few magazines. I’m receiving Surfer and North American Hunter magazines, gift subscriptions that my fellow inmates find interesting. I was denied a musical greeting card, but I’m aware of that because I received the proper paperwork advising me of its rejection by the mailroom.

 

All this unimpeded flow of books, magazines, and letters to me without having to go through the bizarre rigmarole I was required to do up till a few weeks ago had me reflect on progress here at D. Ray James. I got all my ‘cop-outs’ (complaint/request forms in the prison argot), and surprised myself with how many of my cop-outs have been resolved. I am often frustrated by the apparent lack or slowness here of progress at this facility, and I make it clear I think treating Canadians and other foreign nationals in the US federal prison system in a discriminatory manner is unjust. I regard myself an eyewitness, a truth teller, a journalist. So, I got out my file of official complaints/requests to management for a review.

 

This next section would have to be titled:

 

“In Defense of The Management at D. Ray James Correctional Facility”

 

Friday, November 19th, 2010:

To the Case Manager: “I would like to begin the treaty transfer process to return to the Canadian Correction system.”

 

Result: Process completed 7 days ahead of schedule when all my transfer paperwork is FedEx’ed to the US Dept. of Justice in Washington, D.C. on January 16th, 2011. The deadline was January 21st, 2011.

 

December 12th, 2010:

To Business Services: www.accesscorrections.com does not take Canadian credit cards for inmate deposits into their commissary accounts. It is also not possible to send inmates at D. Ray James Correctional Facility money orders to deposit into their accounts, nor are Western Union deposits allowed either. This makes the situation for Canadian inmates extraordinarily problematic. Will we be able to receive money by Western Union ever?

 

Result: On January 31st, 2011, it became possible for families and friends of inmates to deposit money in inmate accounts via Western Union. Canadians or Mexicans or individuals outside the USA must use cash and take the money physically to a Western Union location (in Canada, these are at Money Mart). The cost is $15.00 (which goes to Keefe Commissary Network) plus the fee that Western Union normally charges, anywhere from $5.00 to $39.00, depending on the $5.00 up to $2,000.00 being sent to an inmate’s account. This is a huge convenience for those who can afford these service fees, but it’s noteworthy that in the B.O.P. system for American citizens, a money order for the same amount, costing only $1.50 to $5.00 at most, can be mailed to that US citizen inmate’s account. Because these ‘for profit’ foreigner prisons must exploit every situation for the profit of GEO Group, the money order option is not available to us here.

When sending money to an inmate at D. Ray James (like myself, for example), you take cash to a Western Union, use the BLUE QUICK COLLECT form, with the following information:

Pay to: D. Ray James CF
Code City: DRayJames
State: GA
Acct. #: 40252-086 Emery
Attention: Marc Emery

(For any American depositing into my account, using credit cards at www.accesscorrections.com is a lower service charge.)

– 8(f) Nutritional information cards will be displayed for all prepared menu items listing calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium content of each item.

– 9(a) A nutritional analysis will be conducted annually by a registered dietician to ensure they meet the Daily Reference Intake (DRI) for nutrients published by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of the Sciences.

– 9(c) All nutritional analyses will be certified in writing by a Registered Dietician. This certification will cite compliance with the DRI’s.

I have not been able to find a single staff person here at D. Ray James who can confirm that the filter in the water tower holding all the drinking water has been replaced recently or regularly. I believe, since the surrounding area around Folkston is swampland and Jodie and I saw flecks of blue and black debris in the drinking water provided to us in the visitation room (bottled water has hardly been in the vending machines in visitation for 3 weeks), that the filter in the water tower – if in fact there is one – is not sterile or effective, and that the water here is unfit for human consumption. The water here should be tested; Jodie says it smells and tastes strange compared to the tap water at home in Vancouver. I believe a public safety official would order the water tower filters changed regularly. The water in the surrounding area smells of sulphur and other brackish elements; considering the huge area around Folkston is a famous swamp (the Okefenokee Swamp), the water should be plainly suspect here. GEO Group just spent thousands of dollars painting its blue GEO Group logo on two sides of the tower, a 10’ x 30’ job, to cover the “Cornell” logo from the private prison company that was bought out by GEO Group. Here’s hoping they’ll invest that much in clean water.

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January 24th-31st, 2011: In one of my previous blogs I wrote that the Chaplain was getting 25 guitars for a music program similar to other prisons where inmates have regular and easy access to instruments to play. This was the understanding of Randy, a Canadian here from New Westminster (near Vancouver) whose music business associations back home had his Canadian musician friends offer 25 Spanish guitars to DRJCI for inmate use, since hundreds of inmates here are musicians. The management here turned down this offer to have 25 guitars donated free to D. Ray James, no explanation offered.

Then, Randy’s understanding was that D. Ray James would provide these guitars, as of course they should. GEO Group receives $1,004,000.00 US EACH WEEK on this contract, enough to pay for standard inmate amenities. Yesterday I spoke to glum and dejected Chaplain Higbee who stated that he was unsure if GEO Group would provide for any musical instruments at all for D. Ray James. He was inclined to think they wouldn’t. Saving souls is his stock-in-trade, but I think he’s discovered he’s working for a devil of an employer!

So GEO Group turns down 25 free guitars for inmates, but won’t commit to providing any instruments with its total $2,450,000,000.00 (yes, $2.45 BILLION) received from the US taxpayers in 2010 alone! GEO’s competition, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), provide for inmates at the foreigner-only federal prison up the highway in McRae, Georgia; there they have a collection of guitars, drums, bongos, congas, and even two pianos for inmate use. There is a music practice room. Inmates put on concerts in the gym once a month for any musicians who put themselves on the concert performance list. There is a band practice room. There is a CD player room where inmates can plug in their headphones and listen to a CD currently playing. Most prisons have similar programs, but not this place.

One microwave oven per unit of 64-80 men is providing problematic. I put in a cop-out (request) for a second microwave in every unit and the written response was “no.” Yet the microwaves are in such constant use 18 hours a day they are burning out rapidly. It would probably save money and reduce wear and tear to have 2 microwaves in each unit, as well as easing tensions of long line-ups for use. Microwaves in Q building’s Pod 5 & 8 burned out in the past week, so inmates from those pods were invited into the pod next door (6 & 7) to use their microwave, making even longer line-ups and increased stress on the microwaves.

At McRae, there are seven (7) televisions in each unit or range: four in Spanish and three in English. Here we have just two televisions in each unit: one in Spanish (largely sports), and the other is supposed to be for English. However, because each unit here is 95% Hispanic [native language being Spanish], there is some unsubtle pressure in each unit to make both TVs Spanish-Language, a perspective I understand given the inmate population. But this brewing conflict is abetted by the stinginess of GEO Group management. When I posed this to the B.O.P. monitor on site, they remarked that the third TV for each unit is already here, but “coaxial and electrical issues” are the hold-up.

Nine days ago, ten exercise bicycles were put in the basketball courts for inmate use. As of today, all of them are out of order. I sat on every one of them and tested them myself. Despite a claim to have spent $2,000.00 per bicycle, they seem to be light-duty household models worth no more than $300.00 each. Something doesn’t jibe here. Bradley, another Canadian inmate here, just fixed them!

They installed a kiosk out in the yard area that is to be used to load songs onto the Mp3 players they plan to sell in commissary for $130.00 each. There is a satellite dish atop the rec office to receive the latest songs, which will cost inmates $1.60 per song to download onto their “Secure System” inmate Mp3 player (no iPods for us!). The Mp3 players are not for sale yet, so we’ll see how that goes. A critical matter is whether the $130.00 cost and $1.60 per song cost is to be counted towards the $320.00 monthly maximum limit inmates have on their commissary spending. For example, January has 5 commissary purchase days, which for my unit happens to be Mondays on January 3, 10, 17, 24 and 31st. As of today, January 24th, I’ve reached my limit, so next week, January 31st, I can’t buy anything from commissary, and I just typically order food. So if I order an Mp3 player, it means that month I’ll have to cut back on $130.00 worth of food (packaged meat, fish, condiments, tortillas, hot-sauce, spices, noodles, etc.) Ordering 20 songs in one month is a $32.00 purchase, and that means I’ll have to order $32.00 less of food. Even under regular circumstances like this month, I’m going to have to go a week on austerity rations. You can see someone is making money on these inmates because these songs are available from $0.79 to $1.29 per song from mainstream providers like iTunes and Amazon.

DRJCI now has an inmate photographer taking photos for $1.00 each in the visitation room every Saturday, Sunday and Federal Holiday, which is very good. Inmates will also be able to get a photo taken of themselves in the yard against a wall on every third Sunday for $1.00. The price is OK (although SeaTac FDC offered 2 copies for $1.00), but probably 200 to 300 inmates will be lined up to have a photo taken in the 7 hours (8:30 am – 3:30 pm) one Sunday a month. It means many will have to wait SEVERAL hours just to have their one photo taken. And if it’s raining and you have to wait outside, or on February 20th, raining and cold…? There’s no reason it can’t be done weekly, it just requires one camera and one inmate. After all, it will make money. The cost of a 4” x 6” glossy photo from a digital camera is approximately $0.20.

I’ve been reading numerous jailhouse lawyering and paralegal texts, and familiarizing myself with Lexus/Nexus, the database that contains all federal statutes. I made a disconcerting discovery in the last few days filling out forms, grievances, reviewing appeals, motions, requests for transfer of inmate funds, and all the useful activity I like to think I do on behalf of the inmates. When I started here on November 30th, the other paralegals, Guy and Darren, would fill out this “Half-Time” early deportation status request form on behalf of the largely Hispanic inmates and mail it to and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Atlanta, GA. All done at no charge, of course, as is all our paralegal work. This form was an application for an inmate who had never been deported before to get early deportation at the halfway point in their sentence.

Needless to say, this excited the inmates who “qualified”. Over the next six weeks I assisted a dozen inmates fill this “application.” A little leery, I asked my friend Loretta Nall to call the ICE office in Atlanta, GA to confirm the program existed. Buy by mid-January she had not done this for me. That is a glaring difficulty here, that there is no way for us to email or call any government office, lawyer or reference on the “outside” to corroborate the many legal concerns that come our way. Even though this is supposedly an Immigration & Naturalization Service Federal Prison for deportable “aliens”, there is no one here in any way knowledgeable in immigration matters to advise or assist us.

On Saturday, an inmate brought in a 2-page form (attachment B) called a “Motion for Sentence Relief under the Federal Prison Bureau Non-Violent Offender Act of 2003.” I found this suspicious immediately. It seems to be a motion, or application, for early release of a non-violent offender over the age of 45. It is framed as a motion, but H.R. 3575(a) is a House Resolution, meaning that this may have once been proposed legislation, but actual laws use differing numbering. Federal Prison Bureau doesn’t exist. It is the Federal Bureau of Prisons. When I put “non-violent offender relief act of 2003” into Lexus/Nexus, nothing came up. The so-called application was a fake; a hoax. The so-called law doesn’t exist. I came back to the inmate and said, “This is a fake.”

Attachment B (Page 1)

Attachment B (Page 2)

I then took it to Miguel, a Hispanic paralegal from Peru who has worked in law libraries for 14 years (1991-2004, 2009 to present), and is really knowledgeable around Lexus/Nexus, and he said, “of course it’s a fake. If it was real, I myself would qualify.” I asked him why hoax documents circulate in prisons, he said that so-called jailhouse lawyers charge money (commissary) to file these fake motions they’ve convinced other inmates are real, exploiting the hopes and frustrations of prisoners who are desperate to get out and whose English or knowledge of the law is unsophisticated. These unscrupulous people charge $5.00 or $10.00 or $15.00 or whatever they can to “help” inmates, largely Hispanics, to file bullshit motions, or writs of Habeas Corpus, or even these “half-time” early release applications.

Pondering this, I took a closer look at the so-called “half-time” release application we’ve dutifully assisted 30 to 40 inmates in filling out since I’ve been in the law library. I put the term ‘Stipulated Deportation Order’ and A.R.S. 41-1604.14’ and ‘Class 3’ ‘felony offense’ and ‘A.R.S. 13-1404’ and ’13-1405’ and ’13-1406’, ’13-1410,’ and ’13-604’ and I could not find ANY of these so-called statutes or terms anywhere in the Lexus/Nexus. For example, felonies are classified as “A, B, C, D, & E Class” felonies; there are no class 1-6 felonies. (Attachment A)

Attachment A

There is no term “Stipulated Deportation Order” anywhere in any deportation or immigration statutes or regulations. This “application”, too, is a hoax. I was careless and didn’t verity it early on, and sincerely helped a dozen inmates fill them in and send them off, no doubt giving them false hope of early release. After I “assisted” them, they looked at me and said “how much do I owe you?” and I was always so pleased to say “Nothing. This is my job to help you and I’m happy to do it.”

Now I feel foolish. I feel I should make an announcement in my unit that the half-time application is a hoax and apologize to the four people in my unit who got their “applications” filled out with me. I feel crestfallen giving false hope to those inmates. I even sent one by certified mail with $5.54 worth of my own stamps and I was somewhat curious when the ‘letter received’ signed portion never came back.

When I told Miguel of my discovery, he said, “of course it’s a fake. That is what I told them.” (‘Them’ being the two paralegals.) “What?!” I exclaimed, “You didn’t tell me!” “They didn’t want to believe me,” he said. “This fake notice is even at other prisons like Leavenworth (Kansas) and in Arizona.” The two paralegals are whom I learned from, so that disappointed me. They didn’t do due diligence on the authenticity of this bogus ‘application’. I went to them and said “The Half-Time for is a hoax. None of it checks out. None of it.” One said, “I’ve gotten a response.” Then he showed me his response (attachment C), which is a form-letter brush-off that doesn’t in any way acknowledge the “half-time” application. Basically the form-letter response says, “We don’t know you. There is nothing we are doing for you.” When I said we should tell the inmates it is a hoax, they said, “I don’t want to be the one to do that.”

Attachment C (Page 1)

Attachment C (Page 2)

This is the problem with having no connection to the outside world by email or phone. With only 300 minutes monthly, I can only afford brief 10-minute conversations once a day with Jodie; I have no minutes available to seek legal help from anyone. This discovery has made me a bit sad, but certainly wiser into doing my due diligence on any work, and not taking anything at face value until I’ve confirmed the actual facts of a matter.

Yesterday and today I filed two “Hail Mary” requests that are unlikely to get desired results with Bureau of Prisons. A “Hail Mary” is a very long shot attempt at something. Pablo, an Argentinean inmate in my unit, failed a urine test at McRae C.F. last year, a private prison run by Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) in Georgia, north of here. His dirty u/a (as a failed test is called) showed ‘marijuana metabolites’ in his urine. His punishment was severe and draconian, totally over-the-top, for a failed urine test; he received:

– 90 Days total in solitary confinement (30-days while waiting for the verdict, 60 days for the punishment)
– 67 days loss of good time credit (67 days extra jail time)
– 1 Year loss of Visitation
– 90 Days loss of Telephone
– Disciplinary Transfer to another prison

This is extraordinary for a solitary failed urine test; loss of 67 days’ good time credit, loss of visitation (for a year!), phone, and 90 days solitary confinement! Wow! That’s really piling it on. And then to get moved to another prison – all over maybe one joint! So I’ve filed a request to have some of his good time reinstated, appealing for mercy. To get this request to the B.O.P. Department that can relevantly make a decision, we will have to file the request 5 to 9 times, going to the next level as it gets refused, as it certainly will the first 4 times because DRJ cannot reinstate good time, particularly from a disciplinary action that took place at another (non-GEO Group) facility. Only by the 5th appeal does it get dealt with by Bureau of Prisons (B.O.P.).

Today I met Mr. Peters, the inspector from Washington D.C. for Bureau of Prisons, and had a twenty minute conversation with him. I went over my list of what I feel are necessary improvements that ought to me made here; Corrlinks/email, exercise equipment, additional TVs, additional microwave ovens, shower curtains for privacy, more money spend on current books and subscriptions to the library, a music program with instruments, practices and performance opportunities, legitimate accredited courses, a career room with pamphlets and brochures for correspondence courses, all the amenities and opportunities that are at McRae (again, it’s a facility exclusively for foreigners like this one) or any Federal low security prison for Americans. I added, “What did I do that was so bad you had to send me to THIS place?” Of course, I was emphasizing my point with the last remark. He dryly responded, “The designation center in Grand Prairie, Texas sent you here, it had nothing to do with me.”

He went on, “but I will say that when McRae opened – and I worked there for two years – they had none of those things they currently have now. All that progress was achieved by having a continual dialogue between the Warden and inmates. So keep taking your case to the Warden. I can’t order him to do anything in regards to expenditure of monies. You keep bringing your concerns and requests to the warden and things will come. I’m aware McRae has seven televisions per unit and an excellent music program, but that didn’t happen right away. When McRae opened, there was nothing. It came about over time.”

In fact, at McRae they have dozens of pull-up bars, exercise equipment (treadmills, steppers). After the Chow Hall is closed, it’s turned into a games room. There are special meals on all religious holidays, celebrating even the Santeria holy days for the Haitians. There is a veggie tray for vegetarians and Kosher meals. There is a special meal for all inmates of each nationality’s Independence Day (any inmate with a population of over 100, so the national holidays celebrated are the Mexican, Dominican Republic, Haitian, Cuban, and Colombian Independence Days.)

I pointed out that while it’s true everything takes longer than you think it ought to, one of our washing machines hasn’t worked since October 15th, 2010, over 3 months ago, and has never been repaired. The fire-alarm issues persist after 14 weeks of aggravating aural assaults. As to Western-Union deposits to inmate accounts, we are being told that for Canadians and others outside of the USA, that service should be available within the week. We shall see about that, but I hope so, because Canadians cannot put money into a Canadian inmate’s account here by money order, Western-Union, or Canadian VISA or MasterCards, so it’s impossible to put money into MY commissary account from Canada. How discriminatory is that?!

My friend and fellow paralegal Avedis, or “Mike”, has been a powerful voice for the rights of Jews here at DRJ, in regards to religious services, dietary requirements, and religious observation. The Rastas, Muslims, and other faiths have similar grievances to Mike. (See Attachment “M”).

Attachment M (Page 1)

Attachment M (Page 2)

Attachment M (Page 3)

The water to drink here contains sediment, floating flecks of black and blue. Jodie saw this when she came to visit and the pop and water machines were broken; we were given styrofoam cups for the drinking fountain water, but warily examined bits of debris or paint or metal in the bottom of the cups we had to drink water in. The tap-water here comes from a giant and old water tower on the DRJCI property. I talked to the infrastructure person on staff today and told them in my opinion the water here was unfit for human consumption.

His first response was “I’ve been drinking it for 13 years and I’m OK.” I agreed that was a good sign, but I questioned whether the water tower had any filters and whether those filters had been kept clean. They said that the water was filtered on the way into the tower but were unsure if it was filtered on the way out and how often, if ever, the filters were cleaned. Mike’s family is in the water bottling business and is familiar with potable water and reverse-osmosis filtration. His opinion is that the water here is unfit for human consumption, and that the area surrounding Folkston is swampland. The water would be of very poor quality.

DRJ’s Library made its first acquisition of “new” books today, about 150 remaindered books of little use to the inmates – but it’s a start I guess, albeit pathetic, penny-pinching response at that. The library needs 500 to 1,000 contemporary bestsellers like Stephen King, James Patterson, Dean R. Koontz, contemporary business books, modern text books, and contemporary Spanish authors en Espanola. Notably the inmates were not consulted about the books they would like to read, nor were any of the Library Aides, and especially not me. I’ve only had 35 years of bookselling and library experience, what would I know?

Whatever was cheap and easily available with the least amount of thought was what was acquired, so they can refute my repeated refrain that no money has been spent on the library since DRJ opened in October 2010. However, still no money has been spent on relevant paralegal or prisoner litigation books or newsletters for the law library. I have had to provide all of that. B.O.P. regulations require a certified librarian for a prison of this size, but there is not a certified librarian at DRJCI. The D. Ray James Correctional Institution’s inmate manual states: “D. Ray James provides easy access to a full range of materials for education and leisure purposes.” There is virtually no educational material at DRJ however.

There is still no progress on the Laotian man, Nong, being granted permission (as is his right) to marry his fiancé here at DRJCI, after 10 weeks of complying with all the requirements. No updates on the man requiring replacement dentures after GEO Group lost them 7 months ago.

Recently an inmate came into the law library to tell us the sad news his mother had died. He’s indigent and has no money on his phone account. He went to the Chaplain, explained what happened, and asked if the Chaplain could arrange a free call to his family. The Chaplain told the inmate that rules here required the inmate to “write or call your family and have them fax the death certificate” and THEN he could get the free “family emergency” phone call that DRJCI procedures allow for! The next day the paralegals, including me, brought this up with the Assistant Warden, and he immediately agreed, “That’s the wrong answer. He should get his call.”

My Political Agenda

All of this time in prison is helping crystallize my political agenda to take to the people of Canada upon my release. Canada and America are broken, and I can fix this. But it requires not tinkering, not soothsaying; it requires a rational prioritization of what government can provide and what it cannot. It must not attempt to indulge the futile, the irrational, the impossible.

Currently, The Conservative Party of Canada, propped up by opposition political parties too timid to go to the polls to push them from government, are indulging in a (sterile) orgy of deficit spending, military aggrandizement and aggressive prison building and incarceration. All three of these self-destructive policies drain the blood and treasure of any nation that travels this path to its inevitable destination, a ruinous police state.

The Canadian Military has been unnecessary for 50 years, and today serves no valid purpose, as we are not under threat from any outside force (except from, perhaps, those whom our troops, alongside the American military, terrorize and kill in occupied countries overseas – so any attacks against Canada would be the direct result of our government’s own actions).

The Tory policy of spending $450 billion over 20 years is catastrophic folly. Think what $450 billion could do in the pocketbooks of ordinary Canadians: it could pay for staggering improvements in health care, education, job creation and individual well-being and personal wealth. Prison expansion is emblematic of a failed society. The goal is to abolish prisons. Prisons are schools for criminality, they do not rehabilitate, nor, as our criminal justice system is structured, can this be made possible. Our society is made more unsafe and more violent by the policies that make incarceration inevitable: Prohibition, and prisons themselves, whatever the offense, make criminality more pervasive.

As I speak across Canada when I return, I will explain how Canada can be made perpetually prosperous, demonstrably free and just by:

1) Repealing the prohibition of cannabis and all substances.

2) Abolishing the military and withdrawing from NATO.

3) Ending the ‘security & surveillance’ state apparatus and repudiating the US government ‘security’ state integration.

4) Abolishing the current prison system and replacing it with home detention, restitution, and in the case of violent threats, remote-area detention. We live in a sophisticated electronic ear where it is easily possible to restrain individuals with total monitoring and electronic pain-control to correct behavior. Public safety in this regard is the only legitimate use of the ‘security’ system. Housing criminals together at such huge expense and no benefit must end.

5) Ending all corporate subsidies, loans, and monopolies by the federal or provincial governments.

6) Abolishing the Income Tax and taxes on Canadian-situated investment. Taxation required will be through consumption/consumer taxes (sales taxes).

7) Ending taxpayer financed foreign aid while abolishing the tariffs on products from developing nations, which will truly help the ordinary African or Latin American worker.

8) Ending any preferred status or monopoly privileges for phone, telecommunication, cable carriers. Unlimited Canadian based competition is to be facilitated.

9) The government will continue to finance the nation’s health care and schools. The nation’s health care program will expand to include universal dental care. Taxpayers will choose the recipient of their tax dollars in choosing schools, medical and dental services. Competition among service providers will be robust.

10) Deficit financing, provincially and federally, is outlawed. Prioritization as I have described it is imperative to maintain Canada’s standard of living.

11) The tar-sands oil extraction project is environmental insanity. No government should permit such poisonous defilement of a nation’s natural heritage.

Decisions regarding the governments’ priorities need to be made: I choose schools, hospitals, doctors, dentists, universities, the CBC, a just society, competition, and genuine wealth sharing with our lesser-off fellow workers in the third world. I reject failed or irrelevant institutions of the past: prisons, prohibition, the military, income tax, deficit financing, and all of the crime, crisis and economic malaise that comes with them.

Write me at:
Marc Scott Emery #40252-086 Unit Q Pod 2
D. Ray James Correctional Institution
PO Box 2000
Folkston, GA
31537
USA

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January 21st – 28th 2011: I just finished reading a 450-page adventure novel, "Pirates of Savannah" written by a fellow Libertarian. It’s a fun read about the early settlers of the area along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, taking place in the years 1720-1740. It’s a story of struggle by ordinary (but heroic & brave) folk (all prisoners from English jails released to go to the “New World”) vs. the King of England and villainous lackeys, referred to as “lobsterbacks”, “Red-coats” and other harsher terms.

In the course of this adventure tale the reader learns much of the history of coastal areas apparently known in Georgia and South Carolina as the “Low Counties”. It’s a self-published work in a handsome binding, released on December 10th. Tarrin Lupo, the author, sent me a copy on the day of its release. Last week I cracked it open and was intrigued enough to enthusiastically finish it in four days. Although the author/publisher clearly used a spell-check, I found over 100 words spelled incorrectly, or words missing, or words present that should have been deleted. In total there were 172 corrections or revisions I found that I, as a professional editor in my former life, needed to be done for this book to be considered print-ready. I realized the phenomenon of the self-published book era is upon us. A month ago, I received from Amazon.com a copy of a book called The United States Jailhouse Lawyers Manual by Esteban Garcia. Although it’s the best little book on describing the application of "Writs of Habeas Corpus", within the first fifty pages I found 164 spelling errors, many egregious mistakes beyond the kind I found in "Pirates of Savannah" by Tarrin Lupo.

In Lupo’s book, spellcheck still did not detect over 100 errors, because words that were spelled correctly in the proper context were the wrong words in the context used. I found “idol” instead of “idle”, “where” instead of “were”, “scared” instead of “scarred”, “scrapes” instead of “scraps” and so on.

In Garcia’s book, $20.00 on Amazon.com, its clear no spell-check was used, as errors found include “doctrime”, “disrrict”, “ptrscribed”, “prtition”, “chage”, “Teaxas”, “dome”, “wrot”, “shouls”, “in”; the latter eight examples all come from one page (pg 13) and ought to appear as “prescribed”, “petition”, “charge”, “Texas”, “done”, “writ”, “should” and “on”.

Both are excellent books whose credibility is undermined by absence of an editor. This is to inform all would-be self-publishers I am available and I am cheap, to edit your book BEFORE you publish it. I have offered up my edited copy of both books to their respective authors at no charge, as I hope they will publish new editions with corrections and improvements made.

In addition to my volunteer editing, I finished Keith Richard’s book “Life”. Not a single spelling error found in over 500 pages. (I know what you may be thinking, “If he doesn’t find any errors, he misses the whole landscape…”). Since I grew up hearing my older brother Steve play “(Hey, Hey, He, He) Get Off My Cloud” several hundred times in early 1965, I’ve been a Rolling Stones fan. This book sure comes across in Keith’s ‘voice’, and the man has ingested drugs-o-plenty and is candid and unapologetic about his previous passion for mind-altering substances. ‘Keef’ survived a decade of serious drug-abuse but the problem I find with these rockers who give up on hard drug abuse or self-destructive use, is though they can perform their music well sober, their creative productivity seems to end. I refer to the Stones, whose last great albums were several from “Let It Bleed” to “Some Girls” 8 years later (1967 – 1975), or Aerosmith, who since they have been sober (starting around 1983) have had all of two hits in nearly 30 years vs. about 15 hits from 173 to 1981 when they were admittedly drug-addicted.

Drug abusers seem to create incredible music, though maybe it’s a combination of drug excess and youth. I’d say the same creative characteristic is true of Eric Clapton, David Bowie, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and I’m sure you, my dear correspondent, can think of your own examples. I mean, Keith, Mick, Bowie, Tyler, Perry, Henley, and Walsh can sure PLAY their old songs that they wrote & created completely blotto on some dangerous substance really well, but when was the last time they WROTE a great song? Let add Fleetwood Mac to that list. Next up: “Doom Let Loose”, the history of Black Sabbath. Ozzy hasn’t written a great new song since “Crazy Train” thirty years ago, but he still abuses alcohol. After that, a history of Johnny Cash. Yikes, every great musician worth having an autobiography or biography was a notorious drug abuser. I read “Hammer of the Gods” (Led Zeppelin story), and am planning to read “‘Scuze Me While I Kiss the Sky”, the Jimi Hendrix story.

I started my serious study of speaking and writing Spanish. I’m using this wonderful book called Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish. I’m writing every lesson in notes, and saying the words aloud and getting feedback on my pronunciation from the 60 Hispanics in my dorm. Today I worked 5 hours on Spanish and that kind of concerted uninterrupted effort is productive. I’m feeling more comfortable attempting some Spanish phrases, but I’ve only just begun to comprehend the basics. But I’m going to try to study Spanish daily. I’m inspired by the approach this book takes. I received this book from my great friend Dana Larsen, who has sent me dozens of books over my 45 weeks in jail so far. Dana is even so considerate as to send books to other inmates who are in need of them. An acquaintance I made in Sea-Tac, who was the only other inmate from there that ended up here with me, named My, a Vietnamese gentleman, needed and English-Vietnamese dictionary, and asked me if the library could order one. Well, that’s never going to happen, and My is only one of two Vietnamese here, and speaks very little English but has decided its time to become bilingual so he is beginning to study English; at 37 years of age, it’s overdue. My is such an excellent fellow and I put it to Dana that he could really help my friend My out, and lo, My thanked me today for his dictionary that arrived yesterday in the mail here. He was elated and very optimistic about learning English.

There are improvements here at D. Ray James, but it’s fitful progress. There are now 10 stationary exercise bicycles in the basketball court areas. The inmates are using them. But they are cheaper home-use models meant, I think, for an hour or two use a day, not the kind of frequent use they are likely to see here. In the basketball court outside, they can only be used 7 hours a day. If we had then in our units, they could be used 18 hours a day (6:00am rise to Midnight bed). Many more inmates could make use of them. With over 1,400 inmates now, to rise to 2,500+ by summer, each pod needs 2 stationary bicycles of a heavy-duty quality; that is about 40 bicycles of better quality we require. The bicycles were put out Monday and 7 of the 10 are out of order already. [Note by Jodie Emery: Marc later spent time learning how to fix the bikes, finding a fault in the parts that has to be repeatedly attended to.]

The mailroom procedures have been made rational, conforming to Bureau of Prison policy and procedure, so my complaint about the mailroom has abruptly ended, as I am able to receive books and magazines without complications. I only hope that letters sent to me will not be returned to sender, as has been the case for about 25 letters sent to me thus far.

<a href="http://freemarc.ca/group/freemarcca/send-mail-and-money-marc-emery-us-federal-prison">Send Marc Mail!</a>

Dr. Davis, head of Education and Library Services, has been cheerful and helpful, though my official position at the library has yet to be printed up and instituted. I remain very busy with paralegal work and distributing books and magazines to my fellow inmates outside of the library aegis, so it is still fine.

Some things haven’t changed. The aggravating false fire-alarm went off six times yesterday, bringing the number of times it has gone off when I’m in the pod to 36. It has gone off over 85 times in Q pod since D. Ray James Correctional Facility (DRJCF) opened October 7th, 2010. Outside in the yard today I heard the fire alarm go off in R pod, so it’s a very annoying and insidious problem here. (Marc Note: Since written on Jan. 19th, on Thurs. Jan. 20th, it went off 4 more times, on Fri. Jan. 21st, 3 more times.)

While Jodie visited me last weekend for a wonderful three days, they had the halls outside the visitation room painted with pungent oil-based paint, giving some visitors and inmates a headache as the smell at times was overpowering. I would have thought that such noxious smells could have been avoided during visitation, especially since visitors have to travel far to get here and are a bit tired and weak from such a long trip – giving them hours of toxic fumes seems like something that could have been avoided. Oh well, DRJCF won’t be improved overnight. That much is certain! The visitation staff were extremely helpful and polite though, being very courteous. However, at the library on Thursday, January 20th evening, they had just painted the hallway and I developed a pounding headache. We are not allowed out, only on the hour, so by the time I got back to my unit at 9:15pm, I was very ill and threw-up and had the pounding headache for 2 hours – Toxic Fumes!

My friend Guy has typed up his adventures in bureaucracy at the end of this letter. It outlines in painful detail how some aspects of life here can be so exasperating. In Guy’s case, it is about his months’ long struggle to obtain a pair of orthopedic tennis shoes. I asked Guy to tell the tale because he recounts it so calm and deadpan.

My hair was getting longish. I wanted to get a trim, and what I discovered one night two weeks ago is that there is no Mexican/Hispanic phrase for “just a trim”. So I ended up with the shortest haircut I’ve gotten since I was 5 years old and my Dad gave what was in those days called the dreaded “buzz cut”. A whole generation of mine fought for the right to have long rebellious lengths of hair only to see kids and adults since the 1980’s embrace the very same “buzz cut” style I loathed in my youth. I got scalped is what I got, two weeks ago! Less than half an inch of hair was left! Ulp. Looked very strange to me when I looked in the mirror! Plus I have this ganglia on the left side of my neck below the nape of my hairline that looks like a serious tumor, but it isn’t. It’s just a buildup of sebaceous skin, a bump that looks freaky if you haven’t noticed it on my neck before. It’s been there for 25 years or so now, doesn’t hurt and doesn’t impact on my health so I’ve never had it removed. But now its visible and probably 40 or so inmates have said in worried tones, “Marc, there is a big lump on your neck, you should get that looked at.” I look completely different.

While looking on the commissary kiosk in our Q-2 pod, I saw that inmate photo tickets are finally available so I bought three for $1.00 each. That means on the next US holiday, an inmate photographer will be taking photos. I think Presidents’ Day is February 12th, which means that photos in the visitation room will be taken, which is Saturday, and Sunday February 13th is my birthday and Jodie visits me both those days so we’ll get our photo taken together, so that is 23 days away from today so my hair won’t look so starkly short. [Note from Jodie Emery: Photos are now available on every visiting weekend, so we got pictures taken on January 29th and will get them every weekend we visit.]

Last week, my transfer application was FedEx’d to the US Department of Justice. So now it is done and I wait for the verdict from the DOJ: approved or rejected. If approved by the USA, it then goes to the Canadian Minister of Public Safety for his approval or rejection. If approved by Canada, I get moved into the Canadian Corrections system within 3 months of the approval. To send a letter on my behalf to encourage my transfer home, go to www.FreeMarc.ca for the address to write your letter. Mine was the first transfer application done by the staff here at DRJCF, so I am grateful to my Washington, DC lawyer Sylvia Royce, and the supporters who I believe successfully cajoled the process along and raised money to hire Sylvia.

When I return to civilian life in Canada, one thing will be different; I’ve developed a taste for spicy food. To add flavor to the very bland food given to us, I use jalapeno peppers, minced garlic, half a bottle of hot-sauce, generous shakings of Mrs. Dash, mayonnaise, and olive oil. All these are available from the inmate store (commissary). I’ve suggested vegetables to be sold in the commissary, as is done at Taft and Moshannon Valley Prisons – both private prisons, the latter run by GEO Group like D. Ray James here – but there is resistance. I tried to emphasize that selling vegetables is keeping the inmates in good health (less demand on the doctor/medical staff) and would diminish the demand for vegetables on the “Black Market”. Some kitchen workers are known to steal the occasional vegetable and sell them to other inmates. Having these items sold in the Commissary, I put forward to the Warden, would take away the Black Market.

Shockingly, on Friday, January 21st, I enjoyed the best lunch ever served in the dining hall here. The baked beans had fresh tomato and jalapeños, the baked whole breast chicken was excellent, the salad had lots of carrot in it, green beans, a nice fresh bun, even the rice was special! I told the Head of Food Services “Great Job!! Best food here EVER!”

Unfortunately, because fresh fruit and vegetables are otherwise non-existent, I eat meat and fish that I can buy from commissary. I am looking forward to eating vegetarian when I get back to civilian life. Jodie, on her visits here, finds it difficult to get tasty and healthy vegetarian food in this part of the world. They like meat with everything, she finds, so she usually has salads (without the chicken that’s always included), and side orders of vegetables. I’m looking forward to making a spicy lasagna when I get home, with fresh spinach, ricotta cheese, and spicy tomato sauce. Oh, and to have a salad with broccoli, tomatoes, carrots tossed in a proper dressing. What I would give for a mango, a peach! I used to conk open a fresh coconut every week or so when I lived at home. Oh, nostalgia and excitement for the days back with my wife ahead!

My beloved hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks, are having their greatest season ever, and I haven’t seen a complete game this season (I saw three periods of one game at Sea-Tac only to have it go into overtime and then it was Lockdown). The Canucks are first place in the NHL, both conferences, if they can hold that premier position, it will be the first time the Canucks have won the President’s Trophy (first place over-all). Go, Canucks, Go! And save some glory for when I get back to (no longer GM Place) Rogers Arena, a few blocks from my home in downtown Vancouver!

Jumping topics, I wanted to say that Jodie’s visit Sunday, Jan. 16th, was notable because the Warden, Mr. Booker, came in the visitation room and introduced himself to Jodie and sat down with us exclusively, in a kind of gesture of recognition and interest. This is a courtesy on his part because he is well informed of my criticisms and complaints that find their way into the public discourse (internet & newspapers), as well as I rarely hesitate to tell him my complaints and concerns when I see him at chow hall.

One of the good things about the structure of D. Ray James is that most management staff can be found outside of the dining hall for 1 hour between 11:00 am and Noon, or Noon to 1:00 pm. On these occasions, Monday to Friday, any inmate can voice a concern or make an inquiry to the person responsible. Often I and other inmates are cynically inclined to believe nothing changes if you do voice your concerns, but I’m a believer in the adage the “squeaky wheel gets the grease”. A concern I am bringing up frequently is that Canadians cannot easily put money in a Canadian inmate’s commissary account here, not by Western Union or money orders, and not with a Canadian credit card, all of which are available if the Canadian is in the BOP system (like I was at SEA-TAC FDC). Only an American Visa or MasterCard is acceptable, which Canadians can only get by driving the USA and buying a pre-paid Visa or MasterCard at Wal-Mart. Angelo’s wife had to do this, drive from Bolton, Ontario to Niagara Falls, New York to buy $500.00 worth of pre-paid credit cards. The Canadian, Harris, had his wife go to Plattsburg, New York for the same reason.

The person responsible here for inmate money matters insists that by the end of this month, people will be able to send money to Canadians here via Western Union, but I have heard this since I arrived here 65 days ago. Same with the imminent release of Mp3 players; I heard that announced when I arrived here, but still no Mp3 players for sale (songs will cost $1.50 each to download). I also agitate for Corrlinks (inmate email) which all American inmates in the Federal Prison system have unlimited access to. No commitment to Corrlinks either.

One device that I’m hoping to convince the Warden to permit is the Kindle electronic book reading device. This would greatly save space for an inmate, allow us to read in the dark, poses no threat to the security of the prison and would further the education of any inmate. Since electronic devices like Sony portable radios and Secure System Mp3 players are now permitted at D. Ray James, I cannot see why Kindle book readers would not be allowed. I will let you know how that conversation goes. DRJ could even sell Kindles in the Keefe Commissary.

There is tension brewing in the units. Each unit houses up to 64 to 80 men. The 80 are in 40 2-man cells. Part of D. Ray James has 2-man cells now being used, just not the part I’m in. So each unit has only two televisions for all these men. In each range/unit, there are 55-60 Hispanics, and 3-20 English speakers. The Spanish speakers have one TV dedicated to them, and one TV is dedicated to English speakers. What is happening in numerous units is the Hispanics, greatly out-numbering the English speakers, are attempting to wrest control of the English TV. Today it reached violence in R-5 Pod, where an English speaker was intimidated, harassed, then confronted over his resistance to the Hispanics taking control of the TV. The answer is simple, but D. Ray James management resists the obvious: add another TV to each range, or put all the English speakers, number no more than two units (say, 120 – 140) in their own units, which is what all the inmates, including myself, would prefer. I would definitely rather be with all Canadians, Caribbeans, and others who speak English. Then we could converse, have 2 televisions in English, have all our notices on boards in English (instead of wading through Spanish Language notices), and our interaction in English.

Many Hispanics belong to gangs. None of the English speakers belong to gangs. The Hispanics tend to be nosier and less respectful of the idea of “quiet-time”, and if the Hispanics were all together, it would double the number of televisions in Spanish, which they would certainly welcome. I explained this to the Bureau of Prisons monitor here and she agreed it was a good idea, but she said “How would we look if African Americans were segregated from Caucasians, and the Hispanics, etc.” I pointed out that the difference is this is a situation created by D. Ray James, either add more TVs, or put people with their own language groups. The English speakers would be a mix of blacks, whites, and Hispanics whose native language is English. Other prisons have 3 to 4 televisions; it is only D. Ray James that limits a unit to two TVs. In Canada, at North Fraser, each cell has a TV, a cheap flat-screen that costs $150.00 each, paid for by the inmates from the inmates’ trust funds. The inmate trust funds here could easily cover the cost of additional microwaves, televisions, exercise equipment; all things that urgently needed! I should note that I never watch TV, so I pay no attention to what is on, and I have no objection to the TVs both being Spanish, but there is tension being created unnecessarily because of it. These situations that occur here, where the obvious answer seems unlikely to be implemented, is what makes life here unnecessary and miserable.

Still no progress on the fellow I mentioned in Newsletter #1 in getting dentures GEO lost 7 months ago replaced. Still no progress for the Laotian guy who has been trying for months to get married here and has done everything required by D. Ray James’ own procedure statements. (Update by Marc: word is the Laotian man has been given the ‘green light’ to get married at DRJCF! We’ll see if it happens, as rumours abound here.) I am still waiting for my property from Sea-Tac FDC to arrive, which is supposed to follow an inmate within 30 days. 65 days later and it has not arrived. I have written Sea-Tac advising them I am here. My radio, headphones, booklight, books, food (no doubt gone bad after this length of storage), correspondence, my political writings, my autobiography, my 2011 Canadian election guide, are all in this property which I believe is sitting at Taft Correctional in California, where I was designated to until last-minute I was directed to this remote ‘facility’. Most importantly, all my photographs of Jodie (including her sexy photos!) are in my photo albums in my two property boxes. [Note from Jodie: Marc’s property from Sea-Tac was indeed sent to the Taft prison in California, where Marc was supposed to be imprisoned, and has supposedly been shipped out after our lawyer contacted them asking for it to be forwarded to Georgia.]

Jumping topics again; I just received two books I’m about to read. One is called “Jailhouse Lawyers” by Mumia Abu Jamal, a man who has been on death row for decades, and work of fiction called “Cutting For Stone” by Abraham Verghese, a Booker Prize nominee for best work of fiction. Mumia’s book is about the jailhouse lawyers over the past 20 years whose efforts gave prisoners the few rights they actually have inside jail. “Cutting For Stone” is about conjoined twins who are separated and what epiphanies and tragedies befall them and the world around them. These books were sent courtesy of two supporters.

As of January 20th, I’ve put in 312 days on this 1,825 -day (5-year) sentence. With 235 days good time credit (provided I don’t lose all or part of that with disciplinary reprimands), that is 547 days off 1,825 – leaving 1,278 days to go if I serve every day of it in the US Federal Prison system. If I get transferred to Canada, I qualify for parole 6 months after I return to the Canadian Correctional system. The earliest I could be transferred back to Canada is this summer, if all goes well, so January or February 2012 is (optimistically) my hoped-for parole release date. The remainder of my time up to early 2015 would be on parole. If I serve the time in a US Federal prison, my release date (with good time) is July 7th, 2014.

You can write me or send books or magazines to me at:

Marc Scott Emery #40252-086 Unit Q Pod 2
D Ray James Correctional Institution
PO Box 2000
Folkston, GA
31537
USA

If you want to put money on my Commissary account, you can do this using an American credit card, at www.accesscorrections.com – register at the website, look me up at D. Ray James Correctional Facility using my name and prisoner # 40252-086, and that helps me pay for the photocopies for these newsletters that I send out in the mail. It also helps cover the large cost of postage I go through mailing them out.

Thank you for your continued support and activism to help end this drug war. I am only one of countless individuals locked up for being involved with the amazing cannabis plant, and I hope that by bringing attention to what a seed seller from Canada endures will motivate people to do everything possible to stop the continuation of this insane and unjust campaign of persecution. Don’t just wait for change to happen, make it happen yourself!

<i>"It’s possible that one person can undo the evil of several thousand people. You should never underestimate your power." – Marc Emery</i>

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<u>“It’s Just a Damn Pair of Tennis Shoes!”</u>

By Guy Atkins, D. Ray James Correctional

I started this painful story with my unfortunate arrival at D. Ray James on October 13th, 2010. After going through the initial arrival process (ouch) I was finally put in a unit with 62 inmates, ALL but one spoke no English. (As you’ve heard, this concentration camp is designed “mainly for the Devil’s rejects”; that’s how it was put to me by an un-named officer.) Well, after approximately a month of being here, D. Ray James decided that inmates can have their own tennis shoes IF you had them when you got here.

So I excitedly ran (yes, I did run) to R&D to retrieve my tennis shoes. I was met by a horrid woman, who first looked at me weird because I was talking English, not just any English, but the Queen’s English (I am British). She actually asked me to repeat myself more than once – which I did. Anyway, after checking my tame tag… twice… and checking the spelling… also twice (‘Guy Atkins’ what a difficult name…?) she disappeared to the property room and returned with a brown paper bag containing my tennis shoes. My tennis shoes are made by LaCoste. They are all white with exception of a red stripe no bigger than inch by two. She said told me that I cannot have them because they are red. I asked her to repeat herself, and sure enough, this “White Tennis Shoe” was being called “RED”. No shoes or items of clothing here can be any color. Only white, grey and black are allowed. So because it was being called “RED”, it is a gang color, which makes it contraband for me to have it. I tried to reason with her that the entire shoe is white NOT red, but I soon realized that I was talking to myself, so humble as I am, I walked away.

The following day I went to see the doctor. This couldn’t happen, because unless you are dying or dead, GEO Group policy will not allow  you to see at doctor. You have to first put in a request to see the doctor, and a few days later you’re met in the medical department by a nurse “with a smile”. So I told the nurse that due my car accident 6 years ago I usually wear orthopedic shoes. I told her I needed my shoes, as otherwise I will start getting back pains, etc. She said she understood, but still insisted on taking my temperature, blood pressure, and pulse (yes, I still had one). She told me she’d go through my records and get approval from the doctor that I should have my shoes.

As a week went by, I caught up with a staff member in medical by the name of Mr. Friday, who in front of me confirmed with the doctor that I am allowed my tennis shoes. He got on the phone and advised Major Gallindo to take care of my issue as per doctor’s instructions. Mr. Gallindo gave his “word” over the phone that it will be dealt with on that same day.

Another week went by and I approached Mr. Gallindo and asked him “Sir, I’m Atkins, Guy; have you had a chance to take care of my tennis shoe issue yet?”. I thought there was a plane crash behind me as I could swear he was looking right past me. Anyway, he replied “No”, and that he’d get around to it the following day. This told me his “word” is obviously no good to his fellow colleagues, so him telling me, an inmate, I couldn’t really believe it on face value.

The following day I returned to the doctor, this time due to a terrible flu which turned out to be pneumonia. The doctor actually remembered me and asked if I had gotten my shoes. I explained what happened and he made a call to Mr. Friday again, Mr. Friday then told him “he’s on it”, (I’m not quite sure what he was actually “on”). Later that day I saw Mr. Friday in the dinner hall. He asked me if I had gotten my shoes. I just had to smile. “No, Sir. I obviously haven’t.” He again called Major Gallindo and asked “what’s going on?” The message I got back was it will be dealt with today. Yet another week went past and nothing.

Finally I caught up with someone from “security” who told me that because of the slight “red” on my shoe, it’s considered a “gang color”. I tried to reason with this gentleman saying I understand that in certain places the color “red” symbolizes “Bloods” and “blue” for “Crips”, yet all our prison-issued jackets and platform shoes are “blue” so technically aren’t we all “Crips”? Needless to say he had no answer for me. I took it upon myself to return to R&D and ask an officer if I’m allowed to have the same tennis shoe sent in for me in all white. “Yes” he replied, as long as it’s ordered direct from the retailer and is sent directly here. So I ran (yes, I’m still running everywhere, as I’m scared if I walk and take my time the rule may change be the time I reach my destination). Ok, so I call one my girlfriends and ask her to go online and send me some all white tennis shoes, by LaCoste of course. So after a few days go by she confirms that she actually sent me two pairs (she must love me!) and that they should be at the facility in 3 days.

Four days later I turned up at R&D with a big smile on my face ready to collect my shoes which, according to the tracking number, had been delivered. I saw two boxes sitting on the table from LaCoste (Yay!). They were opened up in front of me and first shoe has a little green on the alligator logo. The logo is no more than an inch. “Sorry Atkins. They’re GREEN. You can’t have them.” “GREEN?” I replied. “The whole entire shoe is pure white.” I could tell I wasn’t going to win this argument, so I let it go.

We opened the second box and this was ALL WHITE, no logo of any color, just pure white. “Err, sorry Atkins, you can’t have these either.” I almost died (ok, slight exaggeration) but I was dumbfounded. “You can’t have them because they are over $100.00 as per the receipt here,” showing me the cost (it was $139.00). My smile again was taken away from me, what I have so far learned is that there is no point in arguing with the system. Just be smarter and find another way.

Now I had to go back to the unit, call my girlfriend and tell her what happened. Before I could say anything I further learned that she had just purchased some “all white” Louis Vuittons for me that I’d love. (Err, slow down honey!) I told her the story of what had unfolded. She agreed that it is a dumb silly rule, long(er) story short, she AGAIN purchased some ALL WHITE tennis shoes from LaCoste (of course), and under $100.00. Another 3 days later I went to the mailroom to check if my shoes had arrived yet. (Mailroom gets them first, then they give them to R&D.) “No Atkins they’re not here, and the rule NOW is you need to get a specific form that allows you to order shoes from outside.” It’s actually called a BP331 “Authorization to Receive Property.” I explained that I never required one last week. “That was last week. This is the new rule.”

Okay, so I went running (in case you haven’t noticed I am running a lot) to the unit in search of a BP331. The first 3 officers I asked looked at me like I was an alien asking for their mother’s date of birth. I finally came across Mr. Gray (a nice gentleman) who said he has one in his office. So I got the form, it’s pretty basic, I needed to put the name and address of the actual company shipping the shoes, the amount, and it has to be signed by an “Authorizing Officer,” so I managed to bump into case manager Mr. Maynor (another nice gentleman – very helpful) and he was kind enough to sign it, so I went back to the mailroom but it was closed. I left it there for them to attend to the following morning.

The following day it was confirmed that they received my package, but now it was questioned “who authorized” my paperwork? “Mr. Maynor” I replied. Well now I was being told that it HAS to be the Warden who can authorize it. So I pulled my copy of the signed BP331 and asked where does it say “to be signed by the Warden”. Nowhere exactly. It says “authorizing officer.” I could see where this was going, so I calmly walked out and went to medical yet again. I could not see the doctor until I put in a request, it just so happened that coincidentally I was on a callout the following to day to see the doctor about my “follow up” from my pneumonia. I saw the same doctor, who asked me if I got my shoes yet. “No sir” I replied. I gave him the latest events, he shook his head and signed a request form clearly stating “Give this inmate his Shoes”. That has been forwarded to the relevant parties. Today, January 20th, 2011, I approached a member of staff and asked if I can collect my shoes. I was told that she thinks I need the “other” doctor to sign my authorization too.

With this latest “smash on my face” I had to take a walk and, come on, have a bitchfit with this vintage 1960’s typewriter I’m typing on. I’m going to give this to my good friend Marc, who I’m sure will add it to his excellent newsletters! With me luck people. After all, it is just a pair of damn tennis shoes!

After I had my bitchfit moment and let myself calm down, I went to R&D today at 1pm. Upon my arrival a nice officer, Mr. Luggers, asked me to wait in one of the holding cells as it wasn’t quite 1:00pm yet. They only deal with R&D and mailroom issues between 1:00pm and 2:00pm sharp. Upon it being 1:00pm, I was asked to approach the desk. “Can I help you?” is what the officer said. “Yes sir, I’m here to collect my tennis shoes.”

He asked me to wait and went to the property room, retrieved my box and brought it out and started doing the paperwork to give me the shoes. I couldn’t believe it. I was finally going to get my shoes! Just then, a woman staffer started making comments saying that I shouldn’t be allowed to get them as “they are not orthopedic tennis shoes.” “And how would you know this Maam?” I asked in my broken voice. “Because I went online and looked it up, and they are not orthopedic.” I was speechless. No, really, just speechless. In fact, my mouth was probably left open but I found no words in my voice to push forward. “Maam, are you saying that you took the time to go online especially to check on my ever-so-fly-looking kicks, to check if they are orthopedic or not?” Wow, as she went on she was told (yes, told) by Mr. Luggers that as per the “procedure statement” that he just read and went over, I did actually follow all the procedures and that I should be given my shoes. I could feel the heat steaming from her head. Before it got any further I picked up my kicks, signed my paperwork and headed out. So, yes, I finally got my shoes.

Just so that you know, this stated on approximately November 15th, 2010. Today is January 20th, 2011. Yes, it took awhile, but thank God I finally have my ALL WHITE tennis shoes! Later on this day while I was walking towards the chow hall, I walked past the same lady who told me I “got the wrong doctor to sign my approval.” I will give you one guess where she was looking… and it wasn’t at my cheesy smile… Happy reading. I’ll keep you posted to further events.

– Guy

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