Jim wrote:

For reasons I don't understand I am getting sample copies of a magazine
called "UTNE", sort of a combo new age, liberal, holistic thing.

Anyhow page 15 has a small insert titled "Land of the free?"

Incarceration rates in George W Bush's America and Stalin's USSR

U.S.S.R (1950) 1423 per 100,000

U.S.A (2000) 2298 per 100,000

Incarceration of black men in South Africa before ANC rule, and in
contemporary America

South Africa (1993) 851 per 100,000

U.S.A. (2002) 7150 per 100,000

Source U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Prison Policy Initiative "The
International Use of Incarceration" By Marc Mauer The Sentencing Project.



Yeah, we have a well-deserved rep in this country for being the
imprisonment capital of the universe, along with one of the few capital
punishment nations among western democracies. Oh...we also have a a dumb
ass as POTUS.