http://brucknerforillinois.com/
From his website:
Dear Republican:
Jim Oberweiss to visit Thomson Prison February 8 at 3pm.
We are at a vital crossroad in Illinois because there is so much waste, inefficiency and duplication that has resulted in reduced efficiency. Republicans must rise to the occasion by reducing government waste, rewarding efficiency and avoiding raising taxes. Following this path, I am running for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. On the reverse side is my resume. A Lieutenant Governor is a spokesperson for the people. He is a team member working with the Governor in executing the will of the General Assembly. As Lt. Governor, I envision four responsibilities:
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country.” (Lincoln, December 1, 1862). Thank you in advance for circulating petitions and returning them to me. By thinking anew and acting anew, we can move the capitol back to Springfield where as Lt. Governor Lawrence Bruckner and his family will live and work for you. Good government is based upon individual ability responsibly providing effective government closest to the people.
Sincerely, Lawrence L. Bruckner
Thomson Prison Information
The Thomson Correctional Center was constructed in the spring of 2001 with $140 Million Dollars of taxpayer money and never staffed. This state of the art facility could be the answer to overcrowding in Illinois Prisons.
With no actual increase in the Illinois budget the Thomson facility could be fully staffed and operational, yielding new jobs to an economically depressed area. In fact the prison is predicted to operate at a cost of $27,777 per inmate, significantly less than the average of $35,326 per inmate in Illinois.
The practical upshot of all of this is that the State of Illinois could not only lower the chance of violence in over crowded prisons by opening the Thomson Facility, it could also save money by moving inmates out of less efficient facilities.
Lawrence Bruckner is committed to wiping out waste in Illinois, and the first order of business is opening the Thomson Facility to make the Illinois prison system more efficient.
From empty prisons like the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, IL to the incarceration of innocent men and women, American Gulag examines numerous problems in the US criminal justice system that contribute to excessive waste… and offers rational thoughts about how to pare away the waste without jeopardizing the system or society.
Those who question the use of the word gulag might not do so had they experienced long-term incarceration in American prisons. The Soviet gulag system under Cheka and Stalin grew to include forced labor camps housing millions of prisoners in extremely harsh conditions. Prisoners in the Soviet gulag did not have adequate food or sufficient clothing for extreme temperatures. They had to work long hours, endure physical abuse by camp guards, and experienced a high death rate from disease and substandard health care. More and more, some American prisons, which warehouse men in cramped conditions, resemble the Soviet gulag. Improper nourishment, minimal clothing, abuse by officers, rampant disease unchecked by inadequate health care, and increased examples of wrongful deaths are commonplace.
One ray of hope comes from comparing the Soviet system then and our system now: the Soviet gulag eventually led to openness and enlightenment (glasnost) and the dismantling of the totalitarian state (perestroika). Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost as a way to make the Soviet Union’s management transparent and open to debate. His perestroika was a program of economic, political, and social restructuring.
The Soviets labored in camps for the good of the state. In our prison system, however, we should appropriate the gulag concept to make a paradigm shift from warehousing people to rebuilding their lives. Instead of using prisoners for the good of the state (nation), we would give them the opportunities to rebuild their lives for their own good, which ultimately is for the good of everyone. We can only hope that the American gulag returns our country to one where freedom of speech, debate, and dissent is once again respected and where domestic economic, political, and social restructuring takes priority over wars and uninvited interference in the business of other countries around the world.
A quote from Rev. Hal Taylor…in the Foreword:
American Gulag presents the problems in the American criminal justice system in a clear and concise manner. For the lay reader unfamiliar with prison issues this book will be disturbing. I hope many will heed its call for action starting with their own community and join with other communities to build a national coalition that can transform a grossly wasteful system to one that again builds the strength of our country.
More from the Foreword…
Forty years ago Karl Menninger in his book, The Crime of Punishment, pointed to deep flaws in our “corrections” systems. Instead of taking measures to correct the flaws identified by Menninger, state and national leaders responded to populist calls to get tough on crime. We have created a monster that threatens our competitiveness but which also poses a security threat.
We are beginning to see the emerging threat of terrorist groups taught in our prisons paid for by our taxpayers at a cost per annum equal to a Harvard education.
Paid for by Committee to elect Lawrence Bruckner Lt. Governor of Illinois
Dr. Arthur Donart Treasurer
Lawrence L. Bruckner
Issue 1: Waste: 1) Zero-base budget process; 2) reorganize state government (efficiency); 3) run state like your newspaper, i.e, business.
Issue 2: Agriculture: Lieutenant governor is chairman of Rural Affairs Council: 1) Live in Springfield (serve all people); 2) build resource center; 3) use my international experience (have visited 70 countries) to promote food processed in Illinois to hungry people around the world.
Issue 3: Crisis preparedness: As an Army Reserve mobilization officer, will work with Homeland Security, Illinois National Guard, reserves, police, fire, etc., to protect Chicagoland so we never end up like New Orleans.
From: http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/politics/naperville/n17ltgov.html