Legless Man in Prison?
By: Chris Holbrook
Pennsylvania has MANY prisoners. It hates its own people
and likes to enslave them. Pennsylvania especially hates its
old people. Avoid Pennsylvania! Once the state has a
victim it doesn't let him or her go. Lifers,
for example, are really sentenced to death by old age.
One result of Pennsylvania's vindictive imprisonment policy is that there are thousands of old and sick prisoners. There are so many seriously ill and terminal prisoners that Pennsylvania has two prisons to store them while they wither and die. In the far northeast of the state is Waymart. It's a converted madhouse now used for seriously ill prisoners as well as for those who are completely insane. A few years in a Pennsylvania prison will drive almost anyone insane. Why are we keeping these seriously sick and terminal persons in prison? In the southwestern part of Pennsylvania is a second death camp, Laurel Highlands. Like Waymart, it's a converted insane asylum. In the days before the rabid "conservative" Republicans, we, as a culture, used to care about the mentally ill. We built institutions in which to care for them because they couldn't care for themselves. Now that the crazy Christians, conservatives and Republicans hold so much power, we've thrown the insane out on the street. They've become bag ladies and homeless derelicts. That's what the neo-Nazis, especially the Christians are really all about. They are NOT nice people! In place of doing good, the conservatives turned houses of help into houses or harm. The institutions became prisons. I was shocked speechless when I saw what Laurel Highlands near Somerset, Pennsylvania actually held. Hundreds of the prisoners were in wheelchairs. Dozens had lost one or both legs. Many were blind. I saw one fellow who appeared to have no eyes at all. One man was missing part of his head. There were countless cripples. Almost all the prisoners were in continual pain. Why are we keeping these persons in prison? Is our culture so cruel, so callous, so unforgiving that it must punish the man with no eyes or the one with no legs? That's the way of Christians and conservatives. For decent persons in a decent society, there are better ways. At Laurel Highlands there were many terminally ill patients. Some suffered from renal failure and were on dialysis. Others endured terminal lung diseases and heart diseases. Some were dying from cancer. Much of the prison is actually a hospital of sorts. Even if you're one of the Christian crazies, do you really want to extract your last ounce of flesh from the man bloated with cancer? Why do we have all these seriously ill and terminal persons in prison? What has our nature become? We must ask the dysfunctional Parole Board and the inane courts and prosecutors. Keeping these thousands of prisoners alive while we enjoy watching them linger and decay, costs a fortune. If conservatives don't care about people or being humane, maybe they care about their god, money? A hundred old men sitting around in wheelchairs gasping oxygen and spooning down Lasix has become the Pennsylvania way of punishment. Why? Ask the Parole Board. Ask the courts and prosecutors. Ask the crazy Christian conservatives.
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