As reported in the August 2018 WIP, Olympia’s City Council took a number of actions over the summer designed to foster more positive policies toward the homeless. Then, on August 21, the Council went into Executive session …. and two days later, City staff closed the Artesian Well that served as a “living room” for the homeless. Along with increased enforcement of the ban on sitting or lying on the sidewalk, closing down an encampment and scheduling others for sweeps, arresting homeless people—looks like staff favored the old, failed “deny and punish” approach to the “homeless problem.”
But this [didn’t] happen
The strike by individuals incarcerated in the US’s notorious prison system started on August 21 and ended on Sept. 9. After the initial announcement there was almost no coverage. We don’t know what the prisoners actually did (hunger strikes, refusal to buy from the commissaries, or to work). Nor do we know which reprisals they faced (prison-wide lock-downs, sending back mail, put in solitary or in death-row cells, cancellation of recreation, sudden long-distance transfers). That the US has the largest prison population in the world – 2.3 million behind bars—isn’t considered a story worth covering. As with our undeclared wars, periodic bombing events, military “interventions,” paramilitary exercises, massive arms transfer and support of other’s wars—not worth reporting.