The law shall be as follows…

Executions are carried out in the name of the people, either of a given state or the entire country in Federal cases. Therefore, it is only right and fitting that each citizen should bear the burden of responsibility, of duty, to carry out the will of their fellow citizens when called upon (as with jury duty and, formerly, military service) to do so. In the case of executions ordered by a state court, a lottery shall be held which would include the names of every person in that state over the age of 18. In the case of executions ordered by a Federal court, a national lottery of the same type would be held. The individual chosen in either case would then be ordered to report to the prison at which the execution was to take place (with a proper travel and lodging stipend provided where necessary), whereupon they would be taken to a anteroom near the death chamber and provided with a pistol loaded with two bullets.

At the appointed time, the condemned would be brought into the death chamber and strapped to a chair, facing away from the door leading from the anteroom. Their hair having been shaved away from the proper points behind their ear and at the base of their skull, the black marks made to guide the chosen citizen's aim would of course be clearly visible. The citizen would be lead into the death chamber and seated in a chair facing the back of the head of the condemned. The appropriate arm and hand would then be placed in the Firing Strap. Smelling salts would be at the ready, as would a sanitary bucket for nausea. The citizen would be required to sit, if necessary, for as long as it takes them to complete the task at hand.

Obviously, such a brutally honest death penalty practice would result in not a few shirkers. Because of the gravity of the duty, and to dissuade lottery "winners" from tucking tail and running away, a severe non-compliance penalty would of course have to exist. The best would be ten years in a maximum security Federal penitentiary, without the possibility of parole. This would have the added benefit of giving the citizen an excellent education in what is done, again in their name, to the other criminals.

The state and federal corrections systems of the United States are an abomination and a scandal. Rehabilitation has been abandoned in favor of "punishment" so brutally and systematically inhumane as to warrant investigation by the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. The charge? Crimes against humanity. If this seems severe, it is nothing compared to what is happening to every prisoner, to one degree or another, in every correctional facility in the United States. And all of this stems from the most pernicious form of corruption imaginable, the same kind that resided within the German people just prior to and during World War II.

This corruption takes many forms. For example, there is a very simple cause and effect reason why these conditions persist and worsen. Jails and prisons, like any other institutions, operate on budgets. These budgets are augmented when there is a need and cut if there is not. With the over-crowding of jails and prisons now epidemic, prison and jail administrators have found a perfect money-raising system: allow and even encourage prison conditions to reach the breaking point, and then cite the resultant violence as proof positive of the necessity for more money…and more prisons, of course.

Beyond the bureaucrats who justify their own existence and earn their living this way, there are their cultural cheerleaders, we the people in whose name these crimes are committed and who have been screaming these twenty years for more, more and more punishment. How much is enough? How many people really know that this is the minimum you can expect as a prisoner in these United States:

*You are convicted of a crime you have (or have not) committed, must stand before a jury of your peers, a judge, the prosecutor, your family and who knows who else and be told: "__________, you have been convicted of ____________. The sentence of this court is ___ years imprisonment at _______________."

*You are taken away from your family, job, friends, home, car, stuff, movies, restaurants, vacations, sunshine, parks, football games with friends on Sundays, plays, lovemaking and warmth and transported against your will to what amounts to a concrete and steel dungeon filled with malevolent strangers.

*You are ordered against your will to strip, and an officer inserts his/her fingers into your anus and/or vagina looking for "contraband". This will not be the last time this happens to you.

*You are placed in a (most likely) 5' X 8' cell and a steel-barred door is closed behind you. While you are in that cell you have NO privacy and NO rights (i.e., guards can enter at any time and examine - or steal - the meager belongings you are allowed).

*Have to make a bowel movement? You will make it on a freezing cold stainless steel hole in the floor in full view of everyone. When your cellmate has to make a similar movement you will have the pleasure of smelling it.

*You will be told when you can sleep, wake up, eat and move about. When you are outside your cell you will be forced to follow a (typically yellow) line on the ground. Any deviation from these rules, whether inadvertent or not, results in still more punishment.

*Every single diversion from the above-described routine will be presented to you as a "privilege", which can be taken away at a moments notice.

Juding from the rhetoric that seems to spout from every orifice of the media, I have no choice but to conclude that most are ignorant of these realities. Furthermore, we are all morally complicit in the barbarity of our prison systems by virtue of our insistence that "merely" having one's rights taken away and being confined is not enough, that there must still be more, and worse.

According to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the sort of institutionalized depravity that now exists in our prisons is considered torture, as indeed it is, and is further deemed inhumane, regardless of the crime or criminal. Furthermore, it has been established by international law and treaty that when someone is incarcerated they may lose their civil rights, but not their human rights. Currently in the United States this standard is ignored, with hideous results.

Rape and sexual assault have existed in our prisons for decades, but there's been an important change in its nature and practice. Now it is a fully ritualized, prison administration-approved, pseudo-cultural
and, worst of all, thoroughly common experience for all prisoners. Once upon a time - say, twenty years ago or earlier - a person in prison for the first time could avoid rape by following the simple rules of not accepting any favors from anyone, and letting it be known that you would not allow yourself to be "messed with".

Now it doesn't matter what an inmate does or how he or she does it. Rape is as much a part of the prison matriculation process as stripping upon arrival and being issued clothing and bunk material. The guards negotiate with gang members, saying "Look, we need you to work over so-and-so for such-and-such reason. Do a good job, and we'll throw you the best looking young blonde/black/Latino who comes in next." Official collusion in criminal acts is a clear sign of corruption in general; the standardization of savagery is part and parcel of the sort of deep corruption already discussed. There is, however, a possible remedy.

The War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague is currently sifting through mountains of evidence - including victim testimony - to bring indictments for crimes against humanity against Ratko Muladic and others. Among these crimes is mass rape, used as a means of fomenting terror and thus control. That is precisely the same thing that is going on in our prisons. W hen it comes to these sorts of atrocities I'm an internationalist; I say if the U.S. courts will do nothing comprehensive to stop this, then let's take it to the Hague. Even if nothing ever really happens to the perpetrators, even if they know they'll never be extradited, what they will know is that they will never, ever be able to leave the borders of the United States or even travel in international airspace without risking arrest (as with Pinochet). Their names and their deeds will be public knowledge, and the savagery they encourage and, with female prisoners, in which they actively engage will be known to all.

On the cultural front, since James Brown was imprisoned back in '89 and Arsenio Hall made his (now) legendary - and, in retrospect, rather politely oblique - reference to Brown being "a real sex machine now", prison rape has been a subject of snarky cultural humor, not to mention "street spice" added to dramatic films and TV shows for greater "realism". Currently on HBO is a show called Oz, about a maximum security prison, which, upon it's debut in 1997, was lauded for it's "brutal realism". What a joke. The fact is that the rapes and sexual slavery depicted in that show are mild precisely because they are shown as somehow dramatic, when in real prisons such horror is routine. The correctional system of this country is turning into a Monster Factory, cranking out viciously enraged and understandably anti-social people by the hundreds and thousands.

Case in point was the incident in Jasper, Texas where a black man was dragged behind a truck until he was torn in half. One of the men driving the truck, the instigator who was sentenced to death, had just gotten out of prison, where he was apparently raped by African-American inmates. That brought this man down to such a low place that when asked, after sentencing, if he would like to say anything to the family of the victim, his response (for the record) was a chilling "Yeah. Suck my dick." The abominable abuse he endured during his incarceration, while not an excuse, is certainly the explanation for his amoral callousness.

At a picnic in the summer of '98 my abdomen began to feel distended and swollen. It was also rigid in a strange way, as if my stomach had been replaced by a large rock. The next morning when I awoke it was worse: A pinching pain just above my navel and a visible bump in the same place, as if something had tried to poke through from my innards and gotten stuck. It was a hernia, and a bad one from the look and feel of it. I called my doctor that same morning and thus began an odyssey that would terminate with my deliverance into the hands of what I've now come to think of as the Meat Mechanics. You might know them as surgeons.

Most of us have had a discomfiting experience with our HMO, probably more than once. Those few of us who don't belong to an HMO have doubtless read about them and the often-tragic results of the shoddy care they too often provide. If we're lucky, though, we have no knowledge or experience with an HMO's Ninth Circle, the outpatient surgical center (OSC). Outpatient means exactly what it sounds like: you're out the door as quickly as they can move you. These facilities have existed for many years, but recently they have become almost mechanized. This machine shop atmosphere has bred a new type of surgeon (a chilly stratum of an already cold profession) who in my very unfortunate experience seems to view the human body the same way Mr. Goodwrench views the average Buick.

I went to my doctor, who touched the bump, pronounced "Oh my, yeah, that's real!" then recommended a surgeon, who later poked and prodded me while scratching his chin in a thoughtful manner. "You've got yourself an umbilical hernia there," he said, causing the word "mechanic" to pass through my mind for the first time. I was told the hernia would require surgery, and soon. A volleyball match ensued between my surgeon and my HMO, with an elusive authorization number acting as the ball being spiked back and forth over the net of my life as, somewhere beneath a graveyard in Prague, Franz Kafka rolled over and yelled "For pete's zake, pe'foam ze zurgery!"

Finally a date was set. I was given the usual pre-surgery warnings: no aspirin, no booze, etc, but with a little twist I hadn't expected: I would have to find a ride home or else the surgery would not be performed as scheduled because I would be going home the same day. Having been healthy and accident-free since before I was no longer covered by my parents' insurance, I had assumed that, this being an invasive procedure (i.e., my body would be cut open with a knife), I would be in the hospital at least one night. I was wrong, and furthermore there would be no hospital, but rather the medically glorified office building that is the OCS. How was I to get home? My grandmother seemed the only option, but the idea of her septuagenarian spine trying to walk my drug-leadened, post-operative body out to her car was not reassuring.

I thought back to my childhood, when I had my tonsils removed. Though fearful of being away from home, being very, very close to the people who knew how to save my life had been most reassuring. I would get no such comfort now. My mind turned to the children who might be having surgery the same day as me, and I wondered how they would deal with it. My own waiting brought dread. Most disturbing to my sleep was the apprehension I felt at the slip-shod way all of the preparations were being handled, and what that foretold of the surgery itself. My dreams filled with cries of "Flatlined! Flatlined!" or, worse still, "Oops!"

On the big day I reported to the OSC, was led to a phalanx of partitioned prep cubicles and told to undress, slip into a surgical gown, lie down on the bed and "relax". I was offered a magazine, which I accepted. My blood pressure was taken. I was given a pill, to help me "relax". I was briefed by the anesthesiologist, who asked a couple of quick questions, failed to adequately respond to my worries (chief among them the chance of waking up during the surgery because of a tolerance for drugs, one built up from four years of taking Xannax for panic attacks), and then explained how I was to be knocked out. Next came the surgeon, who said, "How are you? We'll be getting to you soon." I remember thinking to myself, "Did he say 'to you', or 'to your car'?" Again the word "mechanic" flickered across my consciousness.

I waited, and waited, and in the meantime was given a shot of something stronger than the pill. Several times some anonymous person in O.R. green would whisk open the curtain to my cubicle, glance at me, then swing it closed again. The curtain opened one last time as my bed and I were unceremoniously yanked out of the cubicle and shoved down a hallway. I mentioned to one of the orderlies that I didn't think the drugs were strong enough, I didn't feel like I was going to fall asleep, and was ignored. I once more mentioned the Xannax issue. Again, I was ignored. Once in the operating room I was pulled from the bed onto the operating table. I was gassed and fell unconscious. Then I woke up. Oh God in heaven, did I ever wake up.

As the world came into focus and was audible again I felt two nurses shaking me hard and heard them yelling "Come on, Mr. Anderson! Wake up! Time to get dressed and go! Come on…up, up, up." I was in the "post-op room". In the background a child was screaming in what sounded like quite literal agony. This child would be left shrieking for at least fifteen horrible minutes before it was merely wheeled away into a room where it could not be heard - this answered any questions I had about kids and surgery, to put it mildly. During those fifteen minutes I was given a swig or two of 7-Up, was asked if I was in pain ("YES!") and given extra morphine. This was a good thing, because I wouldn't be allowed to stay in the "post op room" for very long. It was full, with at least eight and perhaps as many as ten other post-surgical patients, all of whom were getting the bum's rush because the spaces were needed for still more surgical patients. And so on, and so on, precisely like a manufacturing floor. It was then that the term Meat Mechanics was born in my mind. It was the only term that fit the ordeal, and the ordeal was far from over.

Since I was meat, it was necessary to process and prepare me for delivery as quickly as possible. Therefore a nurse whose name I do not remember but whose words I'll never forget proceeded to dress me while - I kid you not - offering a running commentary on the fragrance wafting from my feet and my general physical condition, in that order. Ignoring my yelps of pain as the morphine wore off (albeit with merciful slowness), and offering no more of it, she badgered me into my underwear, pants and shirt, sat me down on a wheelchair and rolled me at a fast clip into the lobby of the OSC. My suturing had been completed less than an hour earlier.

My grandmother was late, but not because she was careless. Having helped my grandfather through several surgeries and been through a few of her own over the years, she expected that, despite being an "outpatient", I would be placed in a recuperation room for at least a few hours. Ten minutes after being wheeled into the lobby, the desk nurse briskly inquired where my "ride" was and when I slurred that I didn't know she walked away frowning. Twenty minutes or so later she stalked up again, this time visibly annoyed. "You DO have a ride home, don't you?" I answered in the affirmative, and was told rather abruptly that this waiting would not do, no, not at all. I was then asked my grandmother's phone number. I could bearly think, what with the drugs and the pain, but finally managed to cough it up. My grandmother was called, and when she arrived was shocked to see me already dressed and in the lobby, and said so. The desk nurse explained in a monotone that "it was policy that patients be picked up promptly." She was handed a prescription for a variety of medications. She asked if there was a pharmacy on the premises. The answer was no. She would have to get the prescriptions on our way home.

The desk nurse left my grandmother to deal with me, but we were lucky in that another nurse saw the difficulty she was having and offered to help. Together they pushed me out to her car. As she helped me get into ti, each movement I made felt like someone was twisting a white-hot knife into my belly. I recalled something told to me by a security guard once, of how he would rather be punched than slapped and shot than stabbed. When I had asked why, he had explained that all four had happened to him and that slapping and stabbing were much more painful. Now I understood all too well what he had meant.

My grandmother somehow managed to get me into the car, but not before having to shout "Robbie, be careful!" at least ten times. She drove to a pharmacy and went inside. I waited in the car for an hour, sweating, half-hallucinating and in almost unbearable pain. By the time she got back I felt as if I had done something terribly wrong and was now being punished, but what I'd done I simply couldn't remember. As we drove to my apartment she turned on the air conditioning, the blessed cooling of which balanced my temperature to the point that I fell into exhausted sleep.

Then I had to wake up again. "Robbie we're here. Can you get up those steps by yourself?" Did I fail to mention the fact that I live on the second floor of my apartment complex? A strange omission, that, because getting up to my room was the final interrogation of this, my own private Spanish Inquisition. It took just over a half-hour to climb twenty steps. Each time I lifted a leg I got that knife in the belly all over again.

I belabor my pain for a very simple reason. It was talking to me, warning me. And it is, like the pitiful screams of that anonymous child, the most compelling evidence I can present to prove beyond all rational doubt that my surgery and post-operative handling should never have been performed in the manner they were, and neither should anyone else's. These houses of pain that HMOs have set up must not be allowed to operate as they do. Even though my surgery was successful, I felt in the end the way a Confederate or Union field hospital patient must have felt during the Civil War, like I had survived a horrendous ordeal of pain and screams and misery. Just two problems: I was a civilian, and it was 1998.