From: Barking@The.Moon   
      
       I dont know if anyone remembers an old TV commercial from the 70's, it   
   showed an ex-convict at a job interview and then it went on to say something   
   about how a criminal record stays with you, apparently the guy did not get   
   the job. It was an anti-crime commercial. That was in the 70's.   
      
       Before that, in the 60's and 50's, they would also deny employment to   
   people who were suspected of being communist sympathizers.   
      
       Interestingly, the levels of sympathy for communists has risen sharply   
   since then, and crime has also increased probably 10 to 20 fold since the   
   70's.   
      
       The American version of the Gulag is poverty. Piss off the wrong person   
   in Russia and they haul you off to Siberia. Piss off the wrong person in the   
   US and you get the American version of Siberia, you get to sleep under a   
   bridge somewhere, eat out of garbage cans, and sleep in the gutter.   
      
       The overall increase in crime during the last 4 decades is certainly not   
   exclusively attributable to employment deprivation, but when the employment   
   denial is so widespread that it starts affecting families and entire   
   neighborhoods, it also has the affect of creating more crime.   
      
       Looking back on the past 4 or 5 decades, can anyone really say that   
   employment denial has been an affective deterrent to crime, or is it merely   
   more of a vengefull payback ? Do people hate crime so much that they are   
   willing to sacrifice entire neighborhoods and any hope of rehab - simply for   
   the cheap thrill of a little payback ? Is this why the ghetto must continue   
   to exist ? Someone please say it aint so !!   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)