A Nation in Chains

by Chris Floyd
lewrockwell.com
05/23/06

The main engine of this mass incarceration has been the 35-year "war on drugs": a spurious battle against an abstract noun that provides an endless fount of profits, payoffs and power for the politically connected while only worsening the problem it purports to address – just like the "war on terror." The "war on drugs" has in fact been the most effective assault on an underclass since Stalin's campaign against the kulaks.

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Prison Song
System of A Down
2001

They're trying to build a prison

Following the rights movements
You clamped on with your iron fists,
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids,

Nearly 2 million Americans are incarcerated
In the prison system of the U.S.

They're trying to build a prison, (for you and me to live in)

Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don't even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich

The percentage of Americans in the prison system
Prison system, has doubled since 1985,

They're trying to build a prison,
For you and me

All research and successful drug policy show
That treatment should be increased,
And law enforcement decreased,
While abolishing mandatory minimum sentences,

Utilizing drugs to pay for secret wars around the world,
Drugs are now your global policy,
Now you police the globe,

Drug money is used to rig elections,
And train brutal corporate sponsored
Dictators around the world.

They're trying to build a prison, (for you and me to live in)