You Are Your Brother's Keeper [View all]

[H2O Man]

Many years ago, when Rubin Carter was undergoing surgery while incarcerated in a New Jersey prison, one of his associates sent word to be that the Hurricane could not be reached for a couple of weeks. “The Rabbi” was one of a small group of inmates at Rahway who took an interest in Rubin’s working with me …..not only on boxing, but on staying out of the types of trouble that angry teenaged males get in to. He said that if I had anything important, to mail it to him, and he would read it to Rubin.

Within a year, after Rubin’s eye surgery had healed, he and Tommy would run for the presidency and vice presidency of the Rahway inmates’ council. And win. This was at a heady time, when “prison reform” was in style. Under Rubin’s lead, the RPC would accomplish several significant changes in how inmates were treated. This included the planning for inmates’ release, in an attempt to curb recidivism. It also included a program called “Scared Straight,” to try to keep angry teenaged males from entering the prison system.

The “rough draft” of Rubin’s autobiography, “The Sixteenth Round,” had actually been done by way of his speaking into a tape recorder, and he used to send me those tapes after they had been transcribed. In time, he would gather a few friends to discuss the harsh, cold realities of life in prison in their attempt to keep me on the straight and narrow. Thus, the Rabbi had sent word of Rubin’s surgery on a cassette tape. And then he began speaking off the cuff, about prisons and inmates in general, and about Rubin.

When a new inmate arrives, Tommy said, they naturally begin to learn the institution’s system by keeping their eyes and ears open. Because that system requires the de-humanization of the inmates -- by first reducing their identity to a number, and dressing them in drab inmate uniforms -- the new inmate is initially intent upon identifying ways to maintain their sense of self, including self-respect. But, as days turn to weeks, that inmate will find ways to “get along” within the system, to avoid the infractions of rules that result in various punishments, such as solitary confinement.

In time, the new inmate begins to modify his behavior even further. Rather than simply avoiding trouble, he begins to find ways to engage in the types of behaviors that the system encourages. The system reinforces these behaviors with rewards. As the inmate finds more and more ways to gain the rewards that make his daily life more tolerable, he begins to lose sight of those distinctions between his being a unique human being, and his being an inmate in the institution. His behaviors are no longer defined as small compromises with the institution: he has instead surrendered his human identity, and become part of its system.

Rubin, he said, was the only individual he knew of -- and Tommy had spent his entire adult life behind bars -- who had never compromised himself. His stubborn refusal to make peace with the system had often resulted in long stays in solitary confinement, among other punishments. Rubin would not compromise his identity.

After that surgery, I encouraged Rubin to risk upsetting the curious balance he had within Rahway’s system, and run for the seat on the inmates’ council. As noted, he and Tommy ran as a ticket, and won. Soon, sociologists and politicians were coming to Rahway, because they were sincere about prison reform. Even the guards and their union were supportive. Gains were being made. For example, Rubin convinced other inmates to surrender the weapons that they had stashed throughout the prison. He was working on gaining educational opportunities for inmates.

The media began paying attention to what was going on inside Rahway State Prison. This included focusing upon Rubin. He had, a few years earlier, saved the lives of the warden and two guards when there had been a prison riot. In every way, Carter seemed different from other inmates. He refused to wear the inmate uniform, or to shave. Indeed, Rubin even refused to consume the prison’s food. For he was an innocent man, serving a triple-life sentence.

I still have all of the letters and cassette tapes and documents that Rubin sent me back then. I can identify the time when that system began to shift, to regain the balance that Carter seemed to threaten. I have, for example, the letters between the warden and Rubin, in which a man who believed himself “progressive” on prison reform was telling Rubin to slow down, that change takes time. But, when Rubin continued to attempt to make improvements -- at the point he was exposing how drugs were actually smuggled into the prison -- both he and Tommy were “removed” from Rahway, and placed in solitary at the Vroom Building -- New Jersey’s psychiatric unit, for the most dangerous of all inmates.

Years later, a federal court would rule that the prison administration had acted maliciously, and award Rubin a couple thousand dollars in punitive damages. That money paid for the private investigator who located the infamous Caruso file -- which showed that, without question, Carter had not been involved in the 1966 triple murder. In fact, a couple of police investigators had known, and covered-up, the identities of the actual murderers.

But what does this, you ask, have to do with the Democratic Party’s primary contest for the presidential nomination? Good question. Although our prison industrial complex is the largest, most expensive on earth, our polite society prefers to pretend it does not exist. If anything, politicians tend to exploit the general public’s fears, and promise to be tough on crime. The public tends to convince themselves that this massive prison system does not impact society in any way, other than taking super predators off the streets.

However, we are able to draw some parallels between various systems. Let me give you an example. About a decade ago, there was a Democrat running in a heavily republican region, for a seat in the House of Representatives. Although I did not know him personally at the time, I had been impressed by his record as a county prosecutor. It was evident that he could not win, if he went exclusively for Democratic support. More, he was unlikely to get any meaningful amount of republican cross-over votes. What is a Water Man to do in such circumstances?

I met him at a county Democratic headquarters, and explained that I could likely get him enough votes from the Democratic left to fuel a victory. Most people in his shoes would have thought that I was full of already digested baloney. But he hadn’t become a successful prosecutor by being dumb. He liked what I had planned.

A week before the election, I asked him what he thought? He said that it was too close to call, but that either way, he wanted to thank me. I responded by telling him that I habitually count numbers, and was confident we would win. In fact, I predicted the outcome, and was within ten votes overall.

We had become friends, and our families would socialize together from time to time. But, pretty soon, it was time for him to run for re-election. This campaign was tougher, as the republicans had been caught off-guard the first time. One evening, at the campaign headquarters, I explained why this one was too close to call. When no one else was around, he told me that he kind of wanted to win, but that even more, he hoped that he would lose.

That surprised me. I asked why? And he told me that he had been shocked at how corrupt Washington was. He said that he was extremely uncomfortable there, because the level of open corruption was shocking. Again, this came from a solid, moderate Democrat, who had served as a District Attorney with distinction. By the end of our discussion, he had made his mind up: he did not want me to invest the effort that could have made his re-election possible.

In terms of the model of systems I prefer -- a mobile hanging over an infant’s crib -- this illustrates how an entrenched system will attempt to reject a new piece, that threatens the balance. And make no mistake -- he wasn’t a Mr. Softie -- he was a tough man, a dedicated public servant. Just the type of person we want in Washington. But his code of ethics would not allow him to go along to get along.

Now, I’ve said all of that, to say this: Bernie Sanders is an unusual phenomenon in Washington. He goes by a strict code of ethics, and he hasn’t given up …..either upon the system, or on the American public. And that is distinct from literally everyone else in the DC establishment.

By no coincidence, the vast majority of his supporters are people who are marginalized by that Washington establishment. The only times we hear from most of our elected representatives is when they want something -- our money and/or our vote. But other than at these times, we inhabit very different worlds. They do not tend to socialize with our type most of the time, for we have little if anything in common.

Yet, by way of the internet, people from across the country, who have refused to conform to the system, are finding that there is quite a few people with similar opinions. More, there are lots of groups and individuals, with slightly different beliefs, that we can break bread with. And the more we really think about it, the funnier the 1%’s attempts to convince numerous groups that they are tiny minorities.

It is extremely rare that, at the same time people are demanding something new, a candidate with Bernie Sanders’s background comes forth. It appeals to those who know the system, but who have refused to become acclimated to the environment. And it speaks to the dreams of a huge segment of society. As we have shown, beyond question, we are not some tiny minority. Democratic politicians need to recognize -- by way od committed action -- that they do not take us for granted,

And we have to recognize that this system -- the structure put in place by Ronald Reagan -- cannot be left in place. We aren’t talking about fine-tuning the Reagan economy, or any version of it. And we are not satisfied to sit back and expect that establishment bureaucrats can deliver meaningful change.

There is no evidence -- zero -- that if Sanders does lose the Democratic primary, fair and square, that the majority of his supporters are going to buy in on the campaign of an establishment candidate. They understand that the establishment, like the administration of a jail or prison, would prefer to deal with a band of merry fools, rather than a lone, wise individual.

The struggle continues …..

Peace,
H2O Man