Jim Webb, D-VA, Recognized as One of 27 Brave Thinkers

[NJCher]

In Atlantic Monthly magazine. It is for taking on the nation's disgraceful prison system!

Here's to Senator Webb! :applause:

Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brave-thinkers2/22

snip

After squeaking into his seat in 2006, Webb became an activist for prison reform—an issue almost universally unpopular among voters, especially in a tough-on-crime state like Virginia. He introduced a bill in March that would establish a commission to review the nation’s prison system. A small step, certainly. But he’s taking on public apathy and a thriving privatized-prison industry that houses nearly 10 percent of federal and state prisoners and lobbies politicians with vigor. Webb has called our prison system a “national disgrace,” and he’s right: the U.S. incarcerates 2.3 million people (25 percent of the planet’s prisoners), and monitors another 5 million on probation or parole (more than 60 percent of whom will end up back in the clink). Huge numbers of inmates are mentally ill and more than 20 percent have been sexually abused while locked up; meanwhile the number of drug offenders behind bars (where they take up scarce space and resources) has increased by 1,200 percent since 1980. By tackling prison reform as a freshman senator, Webb has shown he possesses two things vanishingly rare in Congress: a conscience and a spine.

snip


Cher

edited to correct typo in title

[Octafish]

1. Webb gives a damn about working folks, too.

Class Struggle

[Hubert Flottz]

2. I'm proud of Virginians for having the good sense to elect

Senator Webb.

[NJCher]

3. bumping for the lunch time crowd

We need to see more of the good work done by Democrats.


Cher

[JimWis]

4. Jim Webb is among my favorite senators.

[katkat]

5. brave thinker?

This is the guy who thinks women are unfit to be in the armed forces. And that we all belong in the kitchen and bedroom.

[MissMarple]

6. I don't think he went quite that far about the kitchen and the bedroom

To be fair, he now seems comfortable about women in the military. For me, if a better candidate came along, so be it. Overall, however, he has good points. He's smart, he's clever, he can get things done and he's a progressive. But, he is old school, a product of his times and generation, my generation. I can see how that would be a problem.

He thought in 1979, that women couldn't fight. It reminds me of a comment the Michael Madsen character in "Species" saying, "You guys don't get out much." after he ask the scientists why they made the alien a female. They thought she would be docile. Huh. We all learn.

[katkat]

7. Webb, gak

I don't think Webb has changed one iota. I saw him on some television program a year or so ago (wish I could find the clip) and it was clear to me, at least, that any changes in his opinion were opportunistic and not real.

Someone like Senator Byrd, in contrast, really has changed.

Some of Webb's little gems:

http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/mediapolitics/2182.html

"And their presence at institutions dedicated to the preparation of men for combat command is poisoning that preparation.

..I have never met a woman, including the dozens of female midshipmen I encountered during my recent semester as a professor at the Naval Academy, whom I would trust to provide those men with combat leadership. (My note: Thank God I wasn't one of his students, although I had a few winners like him as professors at MIT.)...

The Hall, which houses 4,000 males and 300 females, is a horny woman's dream...

Many women appear to be having problems with their sexuality. Part of it comes from male scrutiny: What kind of a woman would seek out the Academy routine?"

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

8. I emailed him a while ago and told him how much I admired him for taking on

the orphan issue of prison reform. America, Home of the Free, has one of the highest incarceration rates on the planet. I am very, very grateful that Jim Webb ran and got elected and I think he has the potential to be a truly important American Senator and perhaps more.

My other Senator, Mark Warner, is pretty much nowhere to be seen on any issue. Strange, for a guy who so promoted as being one of the up and coming leaders of the Democratic Party. Webb is our stand out.