FROM.........BARS TO........WINDOWS

AuthorHouse

Contents

Why Should Anyone Listen to an Author Who Is Incarcerated?....................................................................................................................................................xixRecommended Reading...........................................................................................................................................................................................xxxiPublished Studies, Reports and Legal Essays...................................................................................................................................................................xxxiiiAbout the Title of This Book..................................................................................................................................................................................xxxviiWhat This Book Is Not About...................................................................................................................................................................................xliPreface.......................................................................................................................................................................................................liIntroduction..................................................................................................................................................................................................lviiChapter 1 Paradoxes: We Are Yet We Are Not...................................................................................................................................................................1Chapter 2 The Green Revolution: What It Is And Why It Has Not Come Sooner....................................................................................................................................3Chapter 3 Realities Which Confront Us........................................................................................................................................................................7Chapter 4 Our Current Economic Situation.....................................................................................................................................................................13Chapter 5 Predictions for America Are Increasingly More Bleak................................................................................................................................................21Chapter 6 Solutions to the Structural Problems Which Plague Our Financial Systems, Energy Industries, and Social Institutions................................................................................29Chapter 7 The Tri_Green_Revo_Project: What It Is and Why It's Desperately Needed.............................................................................................................................35Chapter 8 Our Nation's Flawed Prison Management Strategies Have a Diseconomizing Effect and Negative Impact on Viable Business Opportunities Within Our Nation's Correctional Facilities.....................39Chapter 9 The Tri_Green_Revo_Project Seeks to Abolish the Perverse Incentive System That Exists Within Most of Our Nation's Prisons..........................................................................51Chapter 10 Historical Analysis of the Origins of the Internet................................................................................................................................................63Chapter 11 Other Countries Have Done Exactly What the Tri_Green_Revo_Project Seeks to Do.....................................................................................................................73Chapter 12 Smart Business Oriented Legislation Is Needed to Facilitate the Rapid Expansion of a Profitable and Robust Renewable Energy Sector................................................................75Chapter 13 Solar Power.......................................................................................................................................................................................89Chapter 14 Wind Energy: The Winds of Change Are Blowing......................................................................................................................................................95Chapter 15 Fuel Cells: The Future of Energy Production & Storage.............................................................................................................................................109Chapter 16 Water Treatment/Purification and Desalinization Systems...........................................................................................................................................125Chapter 17 Solid Waste Management and Biomass Fuel Production................................................................................................................................................141Chapter 18 Disposable Laptops:Bridging the Digital Divide Requires Both Capital and Common Sense Investment Strategies.......................................................................................149Chapter 19 The Tri Green Revo Project:Fighting Poverty and Disease, Though Smart Green Technology Exports and Direct Business Support........................................................................155Chapter 20 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................................................................169FAQs..........................................................................................................................................................................................................171Appendix A Synopsis of Tennessee's State Correctional System.................................................................................................................................................185Appendix B The Tri_Green_Revo_Project, Not Redistributionist Policies, Is What's Desperately Needed in Order to Truly Help the Disadvantaged Segments of Our Society.........................................195Appendix C Why the Tri_Green_Revo_Project Is Desperately Needed..............................................................................................................................................243Appendix D The Tri_Green_Revo_Project Is Urgently Needed.....................................................................................................................................................261Appendix E How The Tri_Green_Revo_Project Can Operate within State Prisons...................................................................................................................................271Bibliography..................................................................................................................................................................................................279

Chapter One

WE ARE YET WE ARE NOT

In the United States of America we are characterized to a very large extent by our paradoxes. We have the distinction of being the most wealthy nation in the world, yet we have the largest national debt of any nation in the world with over $57 trillion in unfounded liabilities. We are, hands down, the most powerful nation the world has ever known yet we are the most dependent upon other nations for our energy needs. We use roughly 20 - 21 million barrels of oil every day; 60% is imported. We are the nation that is looked to as beacon of freedom and liberty, yet we have over 2.3 million of our own citizens incarcerated. This means that our incarceration rate is higher than any other nation on the planet, including communist China and North Korea, combined.

Fred Davie, president of Public/Private Ventures, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of social policies and programs, wrote: "The U.S. incarcerates a greater percentage of our citizens than any other country-while we have only 5 percent of the world's population. We have almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. If we don't implement solid strategies to help get former prisoners back on their feet, most will end up behind bars."

The highlighting of these paradoxes is by no means an attempt to demean our nation nor to be unnecessarily critical of it. Quite to the contrary, it's merely designed to lay out an honest and open assessment of our nation's current state of affairs. By doing this, we can then focus on creating intelligent strategies to address our most pressing problems. The authors believe that a new nationwide initiative is needed in order to address the most pressing problems and critical challenges that we face as a nation today.

This initiative needs to focus on the "rehabilitation" of the millions of convicted felons that we release back into our communities at a rate of almost 1,650 per day. This initiative also needs to address our ever eroding and poorly protected domestic manufacturing sector. This initiative should also focus on repairing our nation's crumbling infrastructure. This initiative should also do something truly useful to help bring about a "Green Revolution" so as to address the failed energy policies of our nation. Thus, this initiative must harness the inherent power of the "Green Revolution" in conjunction with a joint-national rehabilitative initiative in correction.

To this end we have created the Rehabilitative Initiative-Green Revolution Project (known as the Tri_Green_Revo_Project, for short; see Chapter 7 for an in-depth explanation).

Chapter Two

WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT HAS NOT COME SOONER

Our nation is in [an energy] crisis that threatens our very survivability..... we have no coherent rational energy strategy." John Hofmiester, president of Royal Dutch Shell American Div.

"....Consumers have got wired in their brain now that the words 'energy efficient' or 'green' equal more expensive." Suzanne Shelton, coordinator of the Knoxville-based "Energy Pulse" consumer survey

DEFINITIONS:

Green Revolution:

The ever expanding collective realization that a much smarter and environmentally friendlier energy policy can no longer be considered merely a nice Utopian ideal, but must now be viewed as a critical part of our national security and long-term economic stability.

Green:

Of or pertaining to renewable and domestically produced energy which eliminates our dependence on foreign oil and other fossil fuels and thereby eliminates or substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Green Collar Workers:

A whole new class of workers involved in the field of renewable energy production, management, transport and utilization.

Green Economy:

A set of markets characterized by the production of environmentally friendly goods and services that relies on "green collar" workers.

After burying our collective head in the sands for the last five decades, reality is finally starting to kick us in the pants. We are being forced to realize that our current lifestyle in the United States is simply unsustainable.

This is not to be confused with some type of diatribe that one would see in a unibomber-esque manifesto condemning the ecological malevolence of humans and our impact on the planet. Quite to the contrary, this is merely a recognition of a growing and commonly held view that while we should be able to enjoy comfortable lives and all of the modern day accoutrements that are associated with today's standards of living, we have got to be much smarter in how we produce and manage the energy resources that are needed to power these comfortable lives. To this end, a "Green Revolution" is sweeping the country.

Nationwide, Americans of all backgrounds, creeds, nationalities, races and economic levels are recognizing that "going green" is more then merely a Hollywood slogan or hippie doctrine that is being propagated by half naked Woodstock types. This "Green Revolution" is real.

As was stated earlier, the goal of the Green Revolution is three-fold: (a) environmental protection; (b) increased use of renewable energy sources (i.e., solar, wind, bio fuel, geo thermal etc.) so as to reduce our CO₂ Greenhouse gas emissions; and (c) substantially increase our energy independence and end our nation's dependence on foreign oil.

A vexing conundrum is encountered by both individuals and corporations alike who are seeking to capitalize on this new Green Revolution. There are monumental obstacles that prevent us from achieving the goals of the Green Revolution. Two of the biggest obstacles are the prohibitively high costs, coupled with a lack of readily available consumer friendly green technology support infrastructure. The up-front costs of various technologies (i.e., photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, etc.) have high initial capital outlay requirements which mean that these technologies have built-in disincentives which naturally favor traditional fossil fuels (i.e., coal, oil, natural gas, etc.).

These prohibitive costs put these technologies out of the reach of the average consumer, which in turn exacerbates two seemingly interdependent afflictions that we face as a nation. The built-in disincentives to alternative and renewable energy sources further undermines our national security interests by keeping us dependent on foreign nations to meet our rising energy needs. This is despite the fact that these nations are genuinely hostile to our national interests. Second, the built-in disincentives to alternative and renewable energy sources further contributes to the degradation of the environment by increasing our consumption of fossil fuels which generates billions of tons of carbon dioxide every year.

Chapter Three

"... we look out across a land where our families are disintegrating, our streets have become drug-war, combat zones, our classrooms are tuning out thousands of functionally illiterate and morally bereft young people, our economy looks like it's on a roller coaster. Our government deliberately keeps millions idle... The problem is so obvious that even a profoundly liberal New York Times editorialist like Anna Quindlen acknowledges: We are deeply dissatisfied with many of our social programs, if for no other reason than they don't work. Education, welfare, crime, have all come to seem like bottomless pits. Beneath them all is a black sea of poverty. Something is very wrong." -Why America Doesn't work

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) confirmed we are continuing to create a nation that is divided along meritocratic class lines. The top level is defined by a few, highly schooled and very competent upper-class to which in an information-based economy accrues a vast over-proportion of the nation's jobs, wealth, status and power. This class is disproportionately composed of whites and Asian-Americans.

The second class is made up of people who are educated enough to work in blue, pink and low to medium white collar jobs that often times pays far too little to support a person, much less a family. They also rarely offer any job security and hold little hope of advancement to the upper tiers.

The third class that we have emerging in our midst is quite broad and varied. This class is composed of people, who for all intents and purposes, are functionally illiterate. For these people life offers the wonderfully dismal prospects of bartending, shoe selling, retail outlet shelf-stocking, pool cleaning, fast-food order-taking, floor cleaning and the like. These people are far more likely to be underemployed and are often the first group of people to lose their jobs during times of economic downturns. The low wages that they earn will hardly afford them many opportunities to succeed in life. They are also more prone to suffer from serious injuries and sickness as they often do not have any health coverage or medical insurance. This "Third World" class of people also tends to self-perpetuate their own poverty by being mired in a state of government sanctioned intergenerational dysfunctionalism.

Members of this third "underclass," if you will, are overwhelmingly black, Hispanic and Native American. In light of such macabre realities, one can come to understand quite easily how it is that by the time they reach 9 years of age, urban minority children are already at an extreme disadvantage. On average they tend to rank fourth-grade levels behind their affluent and suburban white counterparts in terms of overall academic performance.

The NAEP in 2000 examined thousands of fourth graders across the country on reading skills and then ranked them in two general manners. First by numerical scale and second in terms of the individual student's reading achievement. There were four specific levels of achievement that the NAEP used. These were in descending order of skill: advanced, proficient, basic and below basic.

To put this in perspective let's look at what these categorizations mean in real terms. "Below basic" is used to classify those young students who can't understand even a basic or very general sense of the meaning of what they have read; obviously this is a ranking of disrepute and is indicative of a dismal educational status. These children are, for the most part, functionally illiterate! As if this were not bad enough, the truly frightening fact is that a whopping 37% of our nation's youth scored below basic! Though it would take even a keen literary genius to create a fictional scenario more troubling then this, the reality that confronts us as a nation has done just that. One percent of our students being functionally illiterate is dismaying, let alone 37% of them. When we dissect the "below basic" category and break them down into their respective demographic compositions, what we find makes us shake our collective heads in disbelief. Why? Because 63% of black fourth graders, 58% of Hispanic, 47% of urban students and 60 % of poor students in general scored below basic.

For those of you who may have a tendency to optimistically bend statistics and would suggest that perhaps the numerical rankings gave better results, it's with great displeasure that we inform you that, unfortunately, this is by no means true. A full 40% of whites tested above proficient, which means these students were able to understand and draw appropriate inferences from the texts they read. While this is quite good, what's extraordinarily bad is the fact that a whopping 88% of black kids could not do this; 84% of Hispanic and 83% of Native Americans could not do this either! In light of the foregoing it's by no means unreasonable or an exaggeration to conclude that, quite literally, we are looking at another lost generation in our nation. Former Tennessee state House of Representatives speaker Pro Term Lois DeBerry summed up this situation with unsurpassable accuracy when she stated:

"... a major failure of this generation is that it isn't insisting on educational excellence for today's children... We are producing an entire generation of non-readers, non-writers (and) non-thinkers. The resulting tragedy includes broken homes, increased instances of murder, premature deaths due to illegal drugs, teenage pregnancies, breakdowns in the family and babies being born with drug dependency due to addictions of parents."

So the challenges that confront us today as a nation are as formidable as they are real. We have failed a whole generation in many ways. During the last 3 decades we have spent over one-quarter of a trillion dollars on our children's primarily education. And what do we have to show for it? A nation that has failed to educate and train tens of millions of people while at the same time filling thousands of jails and prisons with millions of unproductive citizens.

Most of our political leaders in this country have grown up in stable and prosperous families. They and their children were afforded the opportunity to attend well run and properly funded schools. They were able to gain all the advantages of a good education and structured upbringing. They know little of the plight that effects a large segment of our "Third World" society.

Sadly, this is not the case for 60% of the poor and minority children who are dumped into shabby and under-performing schools across the nation. In a land that is so rich and resourceful it should be intolerable and wholly unacceptable that the best that we can do is to give a rubber stamp of approval to create a whole generation that is functionally illiterate. These people are totally unprepared to become independent and productive citizens of our democratic society. This has to be changed if we are to change the direction that we as a nation are headed. We've been blessed with the unfortunate situation of having one of the world's only economies that has at times experienced astronomical growth while at the same time creating a self-strangulating phenomenon of a growing social stratification along racial, economic and educational lines. To a certain extent this happens in all world economies to one degree or another. But in the United States in particular this event has grown to such proportions that it threatens the very structure and fabric of our society as we have come to define it.

Let us examine this in a little bit more detail. Collectively as a nation America is faced with a new and different economy that emphasizes the service sector with knowledge-based industries that require a new range of skills sets. Over two-thirds of our nation's economy is service-oriented.

Unskilled and marginally skilled workers who rely on traditional jobs in natural resources and manufacturing sectors are being replaced at an alarming rate by the application of ever emerging and evolving technologies. The best way for individuals to improve their competitiveness for these new jobs is to continuously upgrade and improve their skill sets and qualifications. These employees who can change and adapt to this ever-evolving work place will, as Darwinian theories presage, survive quite easily.

However, the overwhelming majority of workers in this country who lack such adaptive abilities due to their prodigious lack of education will go to the way of the feudal surf in an economic, political and social sense! In other words, the former group will be the leaders and movers and shakers of this country, while the latter group will be at their feet and as well as their mercy. Hence this brings us to the ever expanding and socially destabilizing "digital divide," which refers to the chasm caused by disparate technology-based prosperity.

On one side of this divide you have those very educated and highly skilled whites and Asians who have virtually unlimited choices for career opportunities, wealth, status and power accumulation. And on the other side, you have a majority of urban blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and poor rural whites. In order to see why this situation is what it is we can look to the fact that as of the year 2003 over 60% of jobs in the United States required basic computer literacy.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from FROM.........BARS TO........WINDOWSby Andrew Mcdermott Drexel Reid Copyright © 2010 by Andrew McDermott and Drexel Reid. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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