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editor’s preface continueddible and impotent. In this way Citizens United scorns democracy and furthertilts the table toward an already strong and expanding corporate plutocracythat, by dint of sheer wealth, will now be even more capable of dominatingAmerican political discourse in favor of its own economic interests. Withthis decision the Court has interpreted the First Amendment as the right ofthe people to whisper among the throng at one of the two parties’ nationalpolitical conventions while corporate wealth and its flunkeys orate onstagebehind the din of bought-and-paid-for microphones. This issue closes withMr. Gespass’ review of Jeffrey Haas’ detailed exposé of one of twentiethcenturyAmerica’s most notorious and dispiriting acts of political murder,The Assassination of Fred Hampton.The second feature in this issue addresses the troubling trend toward theprivatization of the U.S. prison system. In America putting people in prisonis big business and, when it comes to contracts for building and operatingour houses of correction, is often open to the highest bidder. One of the morevexing moral perversities of U.S. state capitalism is that certain powerful privatecompanies, capable of influencing government, benefit financially whenthe state imprisons its own people. This mercenary incentive to constantlybuild and expand prison facilities and inmate populations while discouragingnon-punitive ways to reduce crime is nothing new. Prisons have beencontracting with private enterprise for goods and services in this country forcenturies. Whenever a judge’s gavel falls somewhere a wallet gets fatter.However, the social and ethical faults stemming from the artificial union ofpunishment and profit known as the prison-industrial complex have recentlyreached an alarming crescendo with the proliferation of fully privatized, forprofitprisons. In “Crime and Punishment in Private Prisons,” Matt Mulch, adeputy public defender in Colorado, chronicles the lengthy history of privateprisons in the United States in an effort to explain the profound economicand moral consequences concomitant with turning our prison system into acommercial enterprise.On April 16, 2009 President Obama uttered the falsest words of his youngpresidency when, announcing his administration’s refusal to investigatethe state torture program of his predecessor, he claimed “[N]othing willbe gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Ournational greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course inconcert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence.” 1 Thepresident fails to recognize that when the government violates its own lawsby instituting a political strongman’s buffet of inhumane military and intelligenceprograms repugnant to our values we are compelled to reexaminewhat America’s core values in fact are.