How much is too much? What does it take?

A colleague recently sent me this link to the BIG photography of Chris Jordon. Jordan gives us some perspective on the vastness of ecological and material abuse. I found the presentation of huge numbers of objects almost overwhelming. But, what really got to me was the photo of 2.3 million prison uniforms representing the number of people incarcerated in the United States. The number is unimaginable. Besides being consumers of almost uncountable objects, as Jordan shows, how could we, also, quietly imprison so many humans without even a examination of why this is happening? What has gone wrong?

I feel that because of the Iraq war, there is little citizen or government attention to the local problems of our own country. And then, too, because we have an administration that feels government should be shut down, there is no attention to the philosophy of government caring for its people. There is no government investigation of human issues and the work toward solving them. If government has no role in protecting and liberating its people from its various oppressions, who / what will do it? Instead, we have 2.3 million humans in cells, rotting.