Rain on a River’s Face

Rain on a River’s Face

by | Aug 19, 2020 | Listening to the Land

The Ohio River is the most polluted river in the United States. In this series of essays entitled ‘The Ohio River Speaks,‘ Will Falk travels the length of the river and tells her story. Read the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth part of Will’s journey.

As the bow of my kayak slid into the Ohio River at the Buckaloons Recreation Area boat launch, on a cloudy morning in late July, all I wanted was a quiet mind. I was full of an anxious, noisy din produced by several sources.

After eight weeks of listening to and writing about the Ohio River, the stories the river was telling me – stories about mass extinction, the practice of scalping, and massacres – were emotionally exhausting. Meanwhile, national news was generally terrifying. COVID-19 surged while many humans believed the pandemic was a conspiracy designed to restrict their personal freedoms. Police brutalized citizens protesting police brutality. Reports from cities including Portland and New York described federal agents arbitrarily grabbing citizens off the streets and detaining them in unmarked vehicles. And, president Donald Trump, trailing Joe Biden in the polls, floated the idea of suspending the presidential election for the first time in American history.

I was also running out of the money I saved up to travel with the Ohio River. I spent a week and a half with my head buried in a computer screen while I created and shared an online fundraiser. Guilt accompanied my request for money. I felt guilty for not saving enough money. I felt guilty for not using my money more efficiently. Then, I felt guilty for feeling guilty because I wondered if the Ohio River thought my guilt in requesting money for her suggested I didn’t think she was worth requesting money for. To top this cup of self-loathing I brewed for myself off, I also felt guilty for spending time creating an online fundraiser when I could have been listening to the river.

My journey with the Ohio River was taking much longer than I originally planned for. I knew the Ohio River could speak. But, I was unprepared for how much she had to say. In eight weeks, I had only traveled the first third of the first third of the Ohio River, the part most commonly known as the upper Allegheny. Her answers to my two questions – “Who are you? And, what do you need?” – were rushing past me in a torrent profoundly more powerful than the proverbial firehose.

There were topics I sensed she still wanted me to write about before moving on. Truck engines hauling radioactive fracking wastewater throughout northern Pennsylvania and the ubiquity of their screeching brakes whined for me to investigate how dangerous that wastewater truly is. Pennsylvanians’ proper sense of pride in the dwindling, clean streams that still run through the state conflicted with Pennsylvanians’ misplaced pride in the role the state played in America’s first oil boom. The iron taste these conflicting prides left in my mouth wouldn’t wash out no matter how hard I tried to spit it out.

Black and white photographs in county historical society buildings haunted me. They showed hundreds of logs, the corpses of towering trees, floating down the Ohio River. They showed the eerie, bare hillsides those trees were stolen from. When I saw these photos, I felt the agony and anger the Ohio River still carries for being used to haul her forest friends, the old growth white pines and hemlocks that once grew along her banks, away. Once I felt this agony and anger, ghosts climbed from the shadowy photographs and cried out for attention.

Competing voices in my head struggled to be heard. One voice said, “Quick look away. Forget you saw it.” Another voice screamed angry obscenities. One voice asked, “Where’s my beer? Where’s my weed? What’s on Netflix?” My constant companion, the unwelcome guest in my head, the one who always tells me my writing sucks, acquired a bullhorn somewhere and was testing its volume against my ear drum. I despaired and thought maybe he was right that I had neither the time nor the talent to tell these stories adequately.

A few minutes before I pushed my kayak in the water, I saw a sign posted on the door to the Buckaloons men’s restroom. The sign warned visitors that “WE are STILL IN A PANDEMIC” before asking restroom users to keep the area clean and to adhere to social distancing. The sign concluded with: “We know that this place feels different, and it is! It can be a nice change of pace from the world; please help us keep it open.”

The realities underlying the sign’s rhetoric frustrated me. I knew the reason “that this place feels different” is because relatively undeveloped sections of rivers like the one at Buckaloons are becoming more and more rare. The reason a place like Buckaloons “can be a nice change of pace from the world” is because, for most people, “the world” is primarily human. “The world” is an office, a city block, a suburban house. “The world” exists online and onscreen, in headsets and TV sets. “The world” is no longer forests, rivers, mountains, and seas. The real world has become “a nice change of pace.”

 ***

Noise carries over water. And, just a few minutes after I pushed my kayak into the water, a family of nearby canoers began blaring Kenny Chesney from portable speakers. Someone asked the woman in charge of the music, “You like country music, huh?” And, the woman responded, “Yeah, there’s a time and a place for it.” I suppressed an urge to tell her this was neither the time nor the place.

Melissa Troutman accompanied me again. She graciously offered me one of her family’s kayaks and help with shuttling vehicles between the put-in at Buckaloons and the take-out fourteen miles away at the Bonnie Brae boat launch, just outside of Tidioute, PA. We originally planned to float about three miles down to Thompson’s Island where we would spend the day and camp for the night. We would float the remaining eleven miles the next day.

I was excited about Thompson’s Island because the island is home to some of Pennsylvania’s last remaining old growth forests. These forests were protected from the loggers by the relative inaccessibility posed by the Ohio River surrounding the island.  But, when we stopped on the island, the skies darkened and the clouds released a downpour.

The noise in my mind must have been so loud while I was preparing for the trip that I neglected to listen to the voice that suggested I bring rain gear on a day the weather services virtually guaranteed would rain. In addition to ignoring the need for rain gear, I left my phone in my car. Melissa, fortunately, had hers and checked the weather. Thunder storms were approaching and would likely last well into the next day. Not wanting to chance lightning while on the water, we decided to hustle the eleven miles down to the takeout. As our plans turned from a leisurely day resting on a beautiful island into a long day of paddling in a rainstorm, the noise’s volume increased.

Back in our boats, I was disappointed to find that houses and even a few mansions were built along much, if not most, of our route, despite the fact that it ran through the Allegheny National Forest. I had heard that this section of the river was one of the most well-preserved sections of the Ohio River basin. That may be, but my definition of “well-preserved” was different from what I found between Buckaloons and Tidioute.

There was beauty. I saw my first green heron. And, then my second and third. The last two looked like brothers with the big brother constantly running away from the little brother who really wanted to play. The joy I felt in seeing these green herons was undermined by my fear that encroaching development for vacation homes and fishing lodges would destroy the herons’ nesting grounds.

I saw half a dozen or so bald eagles. I even saw one make a successful dive for a fish. But, I soon lost myself pitying bald eagles for being chosen as the mascot for the American Empire. I hoped no one in the future would blame bald eagles for the sins of a nation they never asked to represent.

A couple of hungry ducks followed Melissa and I around for half a mile, quacking at us for food. Melissa gave them some bread and I wondered out loud whether diets high in carbohydrates could give ducks diabetes like those diets do to humans. When I saw a great blue heron silhouetted against invasive knotweed, I worried about the plants the knotweed was crowding out instead of admiring the heron’s legendary grace.

As the mental noise intensified, I began to ask myself: What sort of neurosis prevents a person from enjoying the sight of playful green herons? What kind of person worries that tossing ducks a few bites of bread would give them diabetes? Why can’t I silence this angst and simply enjoy the trip?

I thought about asking the Ohio River for help. But, each time I considered asking, I shot the idea down, chiding myself that the journey was about the river’s needs, not mine. Regardless, with a mile left to go and my surgically repaired shoulders screaming with every paddle stroke, the Ohio River gave me what I longed for.

I don’t know how she knew what I needed. Maybe her intuition is so strong she hears thoughts and emotions like humans hear the spoken word. I was paddling hard and sweating. Maybe the water forming my sweat rolled off my skin, fell into the river, and shared my secrets with her.

I sat in a strong current, resting with my paddle across the kayak’s bulkhead. I let the river do the work of pulling me to the dry warmth of my Jeep parked at the take-out. My physical weariness tuckered out the petulant voices in my head. I heard the rain falling on the Ohio River’s face. The infinite sound of individual rain drops joining the river in a communion of life-giving water created a murmur. The river and the rain hummed softly. A whisper shimmered in the air. The Ohio River said, “Shhh, shhhhh, shhhhhhhh.”

Then, a dark, majestic shape lit from a white pine branch hanging no more than twenty yards above my head. A golden eagle! She flew a wide arc over the water. And, as she turned upstream, another golden eagle lifted into the sky from another branch to join her. Their wings pulled the noise away from me. As the golden eagles disappeared in the distance, the Ohio River whispered, once again, “Shhhhh.”

And, my mind was quiet.

[The Ohio River Speaks] Everyday Ecocide and Garden-Variety Genocide

[The Ohio River Speaks] Everyday Ecocide and Garden-Variety Genocide

by | Jun 25, 2020 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Listening to the Land

In this writing, taken from ‘The Ohio River Speaks,‘ Will Falk shares the history and songs of the River. Through documenting the journey with the Ohio River, Will seeks to strengthens others fighting to protect what is left of the natural world. Read the first, second and third part of Will’s journey.

Everyday Ecocide and Garden-Variety Genocide

By Will Falk / The Ohio River Speaks

Just a few miles from where the Ohio River sang me her song of peace, she showed me war. She did so through a succession of experiences that forced me to confront the pervasive violence that maintains our way of life.

I originally planned to begin my journey with the Ohio River in March. But, I left my parents’ home in Castle Rock, CO just as the first states started issuing shelter-in-place orders to slow the spread of COVID-19. To wait out the virus, Melissa Troutman, her parents, and grandparents were gracious enough to let me stay in a little house on their property, not far from Coudersport and near the Ohio River’s headwaters. During this time, I was lucky enough to spend time with Melissa’s 89-year old, Italian-American grandfather who was born and raised in a house built a few yards from the Allegheny River in Coudersport. The family calls him Pop-Pop.

Put your shoes on when it rains.

Pop-Pop was a boy when, in just a few hours spanning July 17-18, 1942, nearly 30 inches of rain fell on Coudersport and the surrounding region. In fact, I found accounts of the “flood of ‘42” reporting that 30.7 inches of rain fell on nearby Smethport, PA in a 4 and a half-hour period.

Pop-Pop described how fast the river rose. He watched from an upstairs window as the neighbors’ chicken coop was torn clean-off its foundations only to collide with his family’s house. The impact shook Pop-Pop’s house “like an earthquake.” The cellar in Pop-Pop’s house had a drain that ran down to the river. After the chicken coop slammed into his house, he heard something in the cellar. He didn’t have time to put on shoes before he ran down to the cellar and found “the whole Allegheny River shooting up through the drain.”

The water was already up to Pop-Pop’s knees. But, he wanted to gather the jars of canned vegetables that were swirling around and crashing into each other. Some of the jars had shattered. And, as Pop-Pop grabbed as many jars as he could, he sliced his foot on underwater glass. Luckily, Pop-Pop’s sister was training as a nurse for deployment during World War II and she was able to stop the bleeding and mend the wound. With classic Italian mischievousness, Pop-Pop asked me what I thought the moral of the story was. When I hesitated, he said, “Don’t walk around in a cellar barefoot in a flood!” When I told him I would try not to, he responded, “Well, when it starts raining really hard, make sure you put your shoes on.”

Trout Splash Lullaby

The flood of ’42 was part of a series of floods in the 1930s and 40s that motivated towns throughout the Ohio River basin to implement so-called “flood control.” After Pop-Pop told me the story about cutting his foot during the flood, I asked him for his favorite memories of the Allegheny River. Pop-pop leaned back in his chair and the humorous light in his eyes was replaced by a wistful one.

Pop-Pop explained that his boyhood bed was placed beneath a window facing the Allegheny River. Not far from this window, hungry trout chased minnows from the river’s depths into rocky shallows. Nearly every night, the feeding trout splashed so loudly they woke him up. He loved to lie awake listening to the splashing trout and, eventually, the sounds put him back to sleep. “Those trout were the best lullaby,” he said.

When Pop-Pop told me the flood story, he looked me directly in the eye. He may have done so to judge the best times to strike with a well-placed joke. But, when he told me the story of the trout splashing outside his window, he did not look at me. He looked beyond me. He looked out the window we sat by to a place I could not see. I got the distinct impression he could still hear those trout splashing. After a few moments, he met my gaze once more and said, “Ever since they put in the flood control, they don’t splash like that anymore.”

A few hours after Pop-Pop shared his memories with me, I sat in my favorite recliner in front of an east-facing window in the little house Melissa’s family let me stay in. A light rain grew heavier. I smiled, put on a pair of thick-soled, rubber boots, and contemplated the other morals of Pop-Pop’s stories.

A Tune of Trucks and Songbirds.

Thirty yards from where I sat, I watched the rain falling on a ridge forming part of the edge of the Ohio River basin. Little rivulets of rainwater flowed towards me. They were just beginning the long journey to nearby Mill Stream, on to the Allegheny, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. Across the road, I studied the hemlocks and a pipeline right-of-way forming the edge of weary woods. A few mature hemlocks sighed with a wind whispering of former glory, of the majestic white pine and hemlock forests that grew here before a post-Civil war logging frenzy left the hills naked and exhausted. A woodpecker disregarded the rain and beat a rhythm while eating from a hollow tree trunk.

The tree’s hollowness reflected mine. I wondered if the scene might have been peaceful if it wasn’t for the sadness Pop-Pop’s story left me with. As that thought formed, four trucks carrying radioactive fracking wastewater to a nearby storage facility banged and clattered by on the gravel road running across the ridge. Diesel engines snarled to pull the toxic loads. My angst infested the sound. For two weeks, the trucks had been running day and night. During the day, songbirds did their best to fill the gaps between trucks, but the little hearts of birds are only so big. Night was worse. With few other sounds to compete with the trucks, they only grew louder. I was grateful for my prescribed sleep medication, but my hosts were not so lucky. Each morning, bags under their eyes were a little puffier, their eyes a little more bloodshot, and lines on their faces were harder-etched.

I tried to think of some way to help. If the truck drivers would have taken some time off, I might have succeeded in ignoring the destruction the trucks represented. Regardless, I heard the violence caused, and enabled by, this culture’s addiction to industrial energy in the sounds of grinding metal and the rapid explosion created by the smashing together of air and diesel in the truck engines. I saw the global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations rising with the clouds of truck exhaust. As the heavy loads rumbled by, I felt the land shaking with fear, trembling in her efforts to support all who depend on her despite her worsening condition.

Expressions of Life & Death

I wanted to distract myself from the trucks. My favorite distraction is writing. So, I grabbed my pen and notebook. I opened it up and was greeted with the last line I wrote in my last session: “All natural phenomena are expressions of Life – even ones that cause death. COVID-19 is a natural phenomenon. So, what is Life expressing through the virus?”

I sat with the question, but was afraid to answer it. I was afraid to describe something that has caused so much pain to humans as something positive like a lesson, or a message from the Earth, or even worse, an event necessary to draw human attention to ecological realities. I put my notebook down and sought distraction in my laptop. I ended up at the Johns Hopkins coronavirus map with its confirmed cases and death counters when the screeching brakes of a passing truck taking a curve too fast invaded my awareness.

And, that’s when I realized what Life expresses through COVID-19. Human encroachment into formerly remote and biodiverse lands is a major cause of the spread of pandemic viruses through human populations. Much of this encroachment is caused by humans seeking to exploit so-called “natural resources” like wildlife and land. The fracking trucks, and the industry they are part of, were a textbook example.

COVID-19 is another example. COVID-19 is a message from Life. It says: When humans violate Nature, when humans continuously invade Nature, when, humans wage war on Nature, there will be casualties.

With this in mind, I went looking in Coudersport for the flood control Pop-Pop told me about. As I entered town, a sign announced that I was crossing the “SPC Mike Franklin Memorial” bridge over the Allegheny River. But, when I walked onto the bridge, I did not find a river. I found a concrete tunnel. I found the flood control.

The Silence of Industrial Concrete

Water hurried through the tunnel. It made virtually no sound as it flowed over the barren, flat slabs of industrial concrete. There was no soil or stone for the water to dance over. There were no trees to offer shade for the water to linger under. There were no fallen leaves or branches for the water to twist and twirl with. And, without these, the water could not muster the songs of peace I had heard before. With the beauty of those songs still so fresh in my memory, my ears strained with anticipation and sought the Ohio River’s soothing songs. But, there were no songs. There was only an aggravating silence.

As the silence persisted, images flashed through my mind. I saw government workers scraping away the river bed. I saw them leveling the infinite inconsistencies on the river’s bottom and banks. I saw them pouring concrete slabs in perfectly ugly squares below the window from which Pop-Pop had once listened to the trout splashing as they chased the silver streaks of minnows across multi-colored pebbles lining the shallows. I saw them destroying the physical features that combine with water to create the liquid friction that gives the Ohio River her voice. Then, I saw the most disturbing image: I saw government workers pouring concrete down the Ohio River’s throat.

This hurt, but the Ohio River wasn’t finished with her lesson, yet. I followed the concrete tunnel about a few hundred yards to where Mill Stream converges with the Allegheny River. At this “convergence,” what I truly saw was concrete slabs arranged into two converging tunnels to form a massive letter Y. I stood in the crease of the Y, hoping the lesson would soon be over, when I stumbled over a small concrete marker set in the ground. The marker read: “In Memory of Jim Bushline (1936-1995). Writer, angler, friend. And, the Goodsell Hole. ‘For a century the greatest trout producing pool in Pennsylvania.’” This was a memorial for Jim Bushline. But this was also a memorial for the Goodsell Hole. It was commemorating the death of this natural community.

White Man’s Footsteps

The pain threatened to overwhelm me. Hoping that a direct question might yield a concise answer, I asked the Ohio River what she needed me to learn from these experiences. As I was listening for an answer, Melissa (who was accompanying me to help me learn how to use my new camera) pointed to a patch of what I had ignorantly assumed was weeds and said, “Look at this plantain patch. It’s one of the biggest and most healthy patches I’ve ever seen.” She explained to me that plantain is not a weed. Plantain is a soothing medicine. It has long been used to treat painful skin conditions, chronic digestive issues, and general nervous system ailments. When Melissa held a plantain leaf up to show me the way the leaf’s veins resembled the concrete convergence we stood near, I knew that despite the Ohio River’s voice being stolen by flood control, she still found a way to offer medicine by helping plantain to grow nearby.

Everyday Ecocide and Garden-Variety GenocideAs Melissa continued to describe plantain, the Ohio River’s lesson finally became clear. Some Native Americans, according to an herbal website Melissa found, call plantain “white man’s footsteps” because plantain proliferated wherever Europeans settled. I thought of the destruction of the Ohio River that followed the white man’s footsteps through her basin. Plantain is also known as “soldier’s herb” for the way the plant has served as battlefield first aid and infection prevention for centuries.

The Ohio River spoke to me through plantain, a plant that is a common resident of lawns across the United States. It can be found almost anywhere. War, today, can also be found almost anywhere. Plantain is an everyday, garden variety herb. To live today is to witness everyday ecocide and garden-variety genocide. To live today is to live with war.

Will Falk is the author of How Dams Fall: On Representing the Colorado River in the First-Ever American Lawsuit Seeking Rights for a Major Ecosystem . He is a practicing Rights of Nature attorney and a member of DGR. Photos by Melissa Troutman.

Pennsylvania: Energy Transfer Partners Pipeline Equipment Sabotaged

by | Apr 29, 2018 | Property & Material Destruction

Editor’s note: this is an anonymous communiqué previously published on Philly Anti-Capitalist. The featured image is unrelated to this action.

Early last week, we made the two tractors that Energy Transfer Partners was using to construct the Mariner East 2 pipeline near Exton, PA inoperative by cutting their hoses and electrical wires, cutting off valve stems to deflate the tires, introducing sand into their systems, putting potatoes in the exhaust pipes, using contact cement to close off the machines’ panels and fuel tanks, and a variety of other mischievous improvised sabotage techniques.

We feel called to fight for the natural world and would be lazy to submit to the demise of the earth, animal and self by not fighting against its destruction by machines and corporations who seek to kill it for capitalist growth. It was surprisingly easy and brought us so much joy. We’ve read since that ETP has had to acknowledge the damage, which they are usually careful to cover up, and see that this wreck of a project could be seriously compromised by the proliferation of more actions like these.

For those restless, angry warriors out there, we hope you find similar happiness in destroying little by little the tools of this capitalist settler-colonial nation. Death to colonization and capitalism… Shout out to everyone out there still attacking in spite of repression and grief.

Pennsylvania Township Legalizes Civil Disobedience

by | May 9, 2016 | Direct Action

New Law Shields People from Arrest for Protesting Project

By Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Grant Township, Indiana County, PA: Grant Township Supervisors passed a first-in-the-nation law that legalizes direct action to stop frack wastewater injection wells within the Township. Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) has sued the Township to overturn a local democratically-enacted law that prohibits injection wells.

If a court does not uphold the people’s right to stop corporate activities threatening the well-being of the community, the ordinance codifies that, “any natural person may then enforce the rights and prohibitions of the charter through direct action.” Further, the ordinance states that any nonviolent direct action to enforce their Charter is protected, “prohibit[ing] any private or public actor from bringing criminal charges or filing any civil or other criminal action against those participating in nonviolent direct action.”

Grant Township Supervisor Stacy Long explained, “We’re tired of being told by corporations and our so-called environmental regulatory agencies that we can’t stop this injection well! This isn’t a game. We’re being threatened by a corporation with a history of permit violations, and that corporation wants to dump toxic frack wastewater into our Township.”

Long continued, “I live here, and I was also elected to protect the health and safety of this Township. I will do whatever it takes to provide our residents with the tools and protections they need to nonviolently resist aggressions like those being proposed by PGE.”

In 2013, residents in Grant Township learned that PGE was applying for permits that would legalize the injection well. Despite hearings, public comments, and permit appeals demonstrating the residents’ opposition to the project, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a permit to PGE.

Finding themselves with no other options, residents requested the help of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). Grant Township Supervisors, with broad community support, passed a CELDF-drafted Community Bill of Rights ordinance in June 2014. The ordinance established rights to clean air and water, the right to local community self-government, and the rights of nature. The proposed injection well is prohibited as a violation of those rights.

PGE promptly sued the Township, claiming that it had a “right” to inject within the Township.

The case is ongoing. Last year, in October 2015, the judge invalidated parts of the ordinance, stating that the Township lacked authority to ban injection wells. Three weeks later, in November 2015, residents voted in a new Home Rule Charter. The rights-based Charter reinstated the ban on injection wells by a 2-to-1 vote, overriding the judge’s decision.

CELDF assisted the community with the drafting of the Charter and is representing the Township in the ongoing litigation with PGE.

Grant Township Supervisor and Chairman Jon Perry summed up the situation by saying, “Sides need to be picked. Should a polluting corporation have the right to inject toxic waste, or should a community have the right to protect itself?”

Perry continued, “I was elected to serve this community, and to protect the rights in our Charter voted in by the people I represent. If we have to physically and nonviolently stop the trucks from coming in because the courts fail us, we will do so. And we invite others to stand with us.”

Those others are showing up. Tim DeChristopher, co-founder of the Climate Disobedience Center, stated, “I’m encouraged to see an entire community and its elected officials asserting their rights to defend their community from the assaults of the fossil fuel industry, and I know there are plenty of folks in the climate movement ready to stand with Grant Township.”

CELDF community organizer Chad Nicholson has been working with the community since 2014. He added, “In our country’s history, we celebrate people standing up to challenge unjust laws. The American Revolution, abolition, women’s suffrage, the labor and civil rights movements, marriage equality – all required people to take action resisting illegitimate laws. All required creating new and more just laws in their place. We applaud the people of Grant Township for taking action as their community is threatened, and asserting their rights. It is an honor to stand with them.”

If you are interested in supporting the efforts in Grant Township, please contact Stacy Long, lemonphone28@gmail.com or 724.840.7214.

Solitary confinement frequently used to torture and break Black revolutionaries

by | Aug 22, 2012 | White Supremacy

By Kanya D’Almeida and Bret Grote / Al Jazeera

Russell “Maroon” Shoats has been kept in solitary confinement in the state of Pennsylvania for 30 years after being elected president of the prison-approved Lifers’ Association. He was initially convicted for his alleged role in an attack authorities claim was carried out by militant Black activists on the Fairmont Park Police Station in Philadelphia that left a park sergeant dead.

Despite not having violated prison rules in more than two decades, state prison officials refuse to release him into the general prison population.

Russell’s family and supporters claim that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) has unlawfully altered the consequences of his criminal conviction, sentencing him to die in solitary confinement – a death imposed by decades of no-touch torture.

The severity of the conditions he is subjected to and the extraordinary length of time they have been imposed has sparked an  international campaign  to release him from solitary confinement – a campaign that has quickly attracted the support of leading human rights legal organizations, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild.

Less than two months after the campaign was formally launched with events in New York City and London, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Juan Mendez agreed to make an  official inquiry  into Shoats’ 21 years of solitary confinement, sending a communication to the U.S. State Department representative in Geneva, Switzerland.

What the Liberals Won’t Tell You

While the state of Pennsylvania has remained unmoved in this matter so far, some in the U.S. government are finally catching on. Decades after rights activists first began to refer to the practice of solitary confinement as “torture,” the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights held a hearing on June 19 to “reassess” the fiscal, security and human costs of locking prisoners into tiny, windowless cells for 23 hours a day.

Needless to say, the hearing echoed in a whisper what human rights defenders have been shouting for nearly an entire generation: that sensory deprivation, lack of social contact, a near total absence of zeitgebers (cues given by the environment, such as a change in light or temperature, to reset the internal body clock) and restricted access to all intellectual and emotional stimuli are an evil and unproductive combination.

The hearing opened a spate of debate, with newspapers in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., Tennessee, Pittsburgh, Ohio and elsewhere seizing the occasion to denounce the practice as “torture” and call for a reversal of a 30-year trend that has shattered – at a minimum – tens of thousands of people’s lives inside the vast U.S. prison archipelago.

But as happens with virtually all prison-related stories in the U.S. mainstream media, the two most important words were left unprinted, unuttered: race and revolution.

Any discussion on solitary confinement begins and ends with a number: a prisoner is kept in his or her cell 23 or 24 hours per day, allowed three showers every week and served three meals a day. According to a report by U.N. torture rapporteur Mendez, prisoners should not be held in isolation for more than 15 days at a stretch. But in the U.S., it is typical for hundreds of thousands of prisoners to pass in and out of solitary confinement for 30 or 60 days at a time each year.

Human Rights Watch estimated that there were approximately 20,000 prisoners being held in Supermax prisons, which are entire facilities dedicated to solitary confinement or near-solitary. It is estimated that at least 80,000 men, women and even children are being held in solitary confinement on any given day in U.S. jails and prisons.

Unknown thousands have spent years and, in some cases, decades in such isolation, including more than 500 prisoners held in California’s Pelican Bay state prison for 10 years or more.

Perhaps the most notorious case of all is that of the Angola 3, three Black Panthers who have been held in solitary confinement in Louisiana for more than 100 years between the three of them. While Robert King was released after 29 years in solitary, his comrades – Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace – recently began their 40th years in solitary confinement, despite an ongoing lawsuit challenging their isolation and a growing international movement for their freedom that has been supported by Amnesty International.

But all these numbers fail to mention what Robert Saleem Holbrook, who was sentenced to life without parole as a 16-year-old juvenile and has now spent the majority of his life behind bars, pointed out: “Given the control units’ track record in driving men crazy, it is not surprising that the majority of prisoners sent into them are either politically conscious prisoners, prison lawyers or rebellious young prisoners. It is this class of prisoners that occupies the control units in prison systems across the United States.”

Holbrook’s observation is anything but surprising to those familiar with the routine violations of prisoners’ human rights within U.S. jails and prisons. The prison discipline study, a mass national survey assessing formal and informal punitive practices in U.S. prisons conducted in 1989, concluded that “solitary confinement, loss of privileges, physical beatings” and other forms of deprivation and harassment were “common disciplinary practices” that were “rendered routinely, capriciously and brutally” in maximum-security U.S. prisons.

The study also noted receiving “hundreds of comments from prisoners” explaining that jailhouse lawyers who file grievances and lawsuits about abuse and poor conditions were the most frequently targeted. Black prisoners and the mentally ill were also targeted for especially harsh treatment. This “pattern of guard brutality” was “consistent with the vast and varied body of post-war literature, demonstrating that guard use of physical coercion is highly structured and deeply entrenched in the guard subculture.”

Read more from Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/20128694647587767.html