Guantánamo by the Bay

Bagram. Photo by Tribune Express, Pakistan.

NPR did a story on the California prison hunger strike and the conditions in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison; they never mentioned Guantánamo, or detention in the former GWOT (now Overseas Contingency Operations (or OscOPs as I like to call them) in general, but they didn't need to; the parallels are pretty eerie.

The prisoners are held in the SHU, many of them, for specious reasons; for trivial breaches of discipline, or because they are profiled in, or because they were reported by another prisoner who gains an advantage from reporting them. Conditions amount to torture, and there's no hope of getting out.

The SHU is for holding "the worst of the worst"—ever heard that expression before? But

the California Code of Regulations, Title 15, Section 3315, outlines two dozen “Serious Rule Violations” that can result in placement in the SHU. These include “Possession of five dollars or more without authorization,” “Tattooing or possession of tattoo paraphernalia,” “Participation in a strike or work stoppage,” and “Self mutilation or attempted suicide for the purpose of manipulation.” Approximately 50 percent of California SHU inmates may have committed no offense at all; instead, they are held in solitary due to the gang “validation” process, in which inmates deemed to be active gang members are sent to six-year terms in the SHU. Gang validation can take place based in large part on anonymous accusations. Commonly, these anonymous charges come from validated inmates in the SHU, for whom the only hope for early release has been summarized as “Parole, Snitch, or Die.” Prisoners have also earned points toward gang validation simply by possessing the book The Art of War or making reference to prison activist George Jackson.

Remember how they condemned the suicides at Guantánamo as acts of "asymmetrical warfare"? Those cowardly detainees taking advantage of the jailers' tender feelings and purposely making them feel sad?

And then Governor Jerry Brown, assuming the position of Mohamed Karzai, tried telling the federal government to go away and stop interfering because

"We've gone from serious constitutional problems to one of the finest prison systems in the United States," Brown said at a news conference, where he announced that he had signed a proclamation declaring an end to a state of emergency in state prisons.