A noteworthy online columnist says the United States government is suppressing its people in order to maintain their submissiveness to the capitalist system.
A recent Human Rights Watch report has revealed critical issues facing Americans today including severe poverty, child labor, overcrowded prisons and a flawed judicial system.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Allen Roland, online columnist, to further discuss US tactics of suppressing citizen rights amid recent movements aimed at exposing the unequal distribution of wealth and power in government and business.
The following is a transcription of the interview.
Press TV: What does this recent report entail about the outlook of the US rights record, for a country that considers itself the leader of the free world?
Roland: This is indeed shocking, as one of the previous people you interviewed said. It's just totally shocking that we have, perhaps, 2.3 million people incarcerated, many of them blacks. We have the world's largest incarcerated population.
But the real truth of the matter is we have a prison industrial complex that's been going on for years building prisons. What's the reason, you might ask? What's the reason for this?
It's because, how should I put it, the military industrial complex and the establishment are not afraid of terrorists. They're afraid of the people armed with the truth.
And now we have the people being setup all over the United States just in case the Occupy movement gets any stronger. This is, indeed, a very unsettling time.
Last year, 300,000 immigrants detained and no regress for torture. By the way, that's torture, also, in our prison system. Yes, this is very shocking.
This is one of the truths that should be brought to the public's knowledge and the world's knowledge this coming year.
Press TV: Mr. Rolland, how should this report, which, in fact, is not the first to highlight blatant rights violations in the US both domestically and internationally, be regarded by the international community?
Roland: Basically shock too. But it's not news to them. It's news to the American people. Most of the Europe know this. What's “we”?
The United States has been bamboozled about our own basis of power including the incarcerated people in our prisons.
It's the United States that needs to have this come to the surface and be seen. The rest of the world knows this.
