The "Wild West" is Now a Prison Industrial Complex

My family settled in Northern Arizona in the mid 1800s. My great grandmother's family the Bennetts came to Williams, Arizona from Texas and they had my great grandmother born Cora Bennett in 1900. The man she married in Williams,Arizona James McKay had come from Canada. Jim McKay's family were cattle ranchers and up in Williams, Arizona him and his new bride owned a winter ranch and a summer ranch. My grandmother Maxine ( a red head like her Scottish father) was born in Williams,Arizona in 1921. Williams, Arizona is actually "bill Williams mountain, he was an Alaskan trapper"

My grandmother told us stories of how her seven uncles and her father all rode the Chisholm Trail, how out of her mother's seven brothers only "one" wasn't a drunk. She told us how the one whom wasn't a drunk was a boxer and I saw a picture of him in his early 1900 boxing attire, and he was in World War One and came home on a train where he got off in Kingman ,Arizona and was robbed and stabbed to death with an ice pick by hobos. I know my grandmother was an incredible horseman, she isn't riding these days as she is now eighty eight years old. she told us about the San Francisco peaks, I asked her why they are called that. She told me that on a clear night on the very top you can see the lights of San Francisco, because San Francisco is on hills and is also one of my favorite cities.

Arizona had a lot of ghost towns, which were actually mining towns, there are several where you can drive into the town and see the "gigantic" crater/hole where it had been strip mined for copper and other resources. Some of them have come back, others have not. Growing up all over the state I know it pretty much and there "used" to be a lot of hidden, secret places where myself and my brothers, cousins grew up. It had a beauty that is/has not been appreciated.

Arizona used to be a "free" place, I mean Arizona and California were very similar, as we used to drive to ocean on weekends, holidays etc. Then "snow-birds" started moving here in hoards and have their 55+ communities, which is fine. However these folks that "moved" here usually were/are only here for part of the year, in the desert anyway. these folks started putting "their" folks in office and "their" folks ruined our home.

These people, along with the Reagan Administration " updated" the penal codes into the Arizona Revised Statue Codes. In this "revised" statue codes they created "mandatory" drug laws. They opened the doors of tasc (treatment assessment screening center) I was in my early twenties when they opened their doors. They made marijuana a serious "felony" then they send people to the tasc program where they pay $800.00 plus $14.00 per random UA. These folks get "NO" counseling, in fact if their "levels" don't go down "fast" enough, guess what their "treatment" is?Back to "felony" court. How is it the state of Arizona gets away with this for twenty plus years?

I watched a whole generation of people I grew up with go to prison for YEARS over a dirty UA, or commit suicide to "not" go back to prison, or die in prison. I am "not" advocating "for" drugs. I loathe drugs, in fact I think our troops should be on the Mexican border "stopping" drugs. I do not however believe they should be stripping our youth of their American rights by age eighteen for smoking a joint. If our government weren't "allowing" drugs into Arizona/America I might feel differently. How stupid do they think we are? Pretty stupid I guess, because they are doing it more and drugs are aplenty!

My son showed me some youngsters he went to high school with that are on heroin. They found eighteen agents dead in Mexico, a CIA guy's wife was caught trying to smuggle in cocaine.Another CIA guy crashed an airplane with a bunch of cocaine on it. Lets think about whom would be "able" to pull off drug trafficking into our country with all of the cameras and 24/7 satellite surveillance?

Because of seeing countless AMERICAN tax paying families "DESTROYED" behind drugs I feel that bringing drugs into America is a true act of "terrorism" and I feel that any American government person, agency, politician etc. involved in drug trafficking is a "terrorist". American families pay taxes to government agencies to "protect" their families from attacks on our soil. If "our" government really cared about their constituents and their children? they would of had troops on the Mexican border to "STOP" drugs from coming in a "LONG" time ago period.

So because "our" government won't stop it and in fact we are sure some agencies are actually deeply involved, it angers us to no end that here in Arizona and some other states these so-called "patriots" are destroying American lives for revenue. Stripping our youth of their rights so they can "never' change anything? Ludicrous, good looking out for our youth. These republicans here all of them hire illegals, they believe in "slavery". They don't believe in green energies. My family is embarrassed at how they use "their" prison system here to pay their bills. they have highway department workers for 17 cents an hour instead of a "REAL" salary and benefits. they have slave fire fighters, these republicans destroyed my family's dream for phoenix.

They were supposed to build a "huge" underground public train transit system way back in 1978. it never happened. I finally found out why in 2007. Auto makers etc. "paid" our representatives not to! No instead they built the Palo Verde Nuclear plant which powers California and "not" Arizona. We did NOT want it here. Last year they built a little "light rail" not for the public, no it is down town for all of "our" city, county and state employees. We treat them so good. How do they repay us??? Massive freeway hell with millions of medicated, youth hating, gun slinging retired people driving on them. We could of had a "huge" train system powered and air conditioned underground by "solar". The transit system they have in Phoenix? is awful and expensive. Oh yeah they treat "themselves" real good.

Then they raped the whole state with ugly track homes that looked like a graveyard after the big financial crash. To us there is absolutely "NO" excuse for Arizona to not have the largest "solar" grid in the world! No McCain and the likes want "more" nuclear everything. They have those red light cameras and I know they are rigging them to "make" people run red lights. they have freeway cameras for "revenue". The attorney general Andrew Thomas won't allow Arizona citizens to have "medical cannabis" like they "voted" for because it is a "gateway drug" he says. I beg to differ, I believe Alcohol is a "gateway, brain, body destroyer drug" as are cigarettes ( both LEGAL). I still don't think our medical cannabis should come from Mexico, NO drugs or products from Mexico!

No Arizona is "not" the wild west anymore and if your under 55 I recommend you don't move here, don't even visit, because they will put you in sheriff "Arpio's" county jail ( tent city in triple digit heat) They label him "toughest sheriff in the nation" hes from New Jersey and "his" republican buddies put him in office. he is a low life to me, as he and his "wanna-be" cowboys have all ran out the "REAL" cowboys. What does that tell ya??? There are no jobs here the "few" left are given to Mexicans whom come here to flee from the corporate scum whom "outsourced" millions of American jobs for slavery and to pollute, they come to escape the "slavery" conditions.

My entire family is leaving Arizona and it makes me cry, because she was such a beautiful, peaceful and FREE place and now she is "broken and sad" at the destruction of life and liberty here.