[ixtli]

I feel like this comment is gonna get crushed, but this is the attitude people need to have. This sort of thing should not be tolerated at all by those paying for it to happen, and the only way it's going to change is if people get mad enough to do something.

[contingencies]

Amen, it's not as if this is the only wrong (or even right) conviction leading to torture at the hands of the state that has occurred recently in the US, either. What is interesting about this one is that it is a frame-up by prison authorities rather than the police, which is far more commonly reported. Regular people walking down the street or sitting in their homes with absolutely no connection to an alleged crime have been frequently improperly given life sentences. In the probably small subset that has been eventually discovered and overturned, no apology or compensation is usually ever received from the state.

Just last month there was an exhibition in Paris at the excellent Jeau de Paume gallery featuring a video exploring this phenomenon in the US by artist Taryn Simon, who actually tracked down numerous people who had been falsely imprisoned for her 2003 project The Innocents. More info at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taryn_Simon and https://books.google.com/books?id=RRoiDl9rJtoC&printsec=fron....

I don't know how people can just passively stay in the US these days, wouldn't it be better to leave?

    First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Socialist.

    Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Jew.

    Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

[jonah]

That poem by Martin Niemöller always strikes me as such a powerful wakeup call.