> Washington, D.C. -- The number of adults in prison, jail, or on
> probation or parole reached almost 7 million during 2004, the
> Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced
>
> http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/ppus04.htm.
That's 3% of the US adult population, or roughly 5% (1 out of 20) of the total US adult workforce. Throw in the 2% of US adults serving in the military or working as wardens, cops, and guards, and an astounding 7% (1 out of 15) of the labor-force of the US Empire in its mad, decadent phase is engaged in the coercion-industries.
This is the structural reality underlying the US Right's viciousness and murderousness -- their seemingly nutty fixation on freedom, that magic word which washes away all the crimes of the Empire, expresses something real, the reality of one of the most gigantic engines of coercion ever devised. In the end, the Empire's freedom is just one of the many hells of neoliberalism.
-- DRR