Political statement on homepage

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orathaic
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Re: Political statement on homepage

#141 Post by orathaic » Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:20 am

Octavious wrote:
Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:33 pm

Why is, out of interest, that you're perfectly happy with community service as a punishment and yet describe working in prisons as akin to slave labour? Are they not essentially the same thing with a different label?
First, try reading about restorative justice.

Meanwhile, particularly in the US slavery was outlawed EXCEPT for prisoners. It was explicitly allowed. And when laws were passed to specifically target PoC (the war on drugs, as a recent example, but i'm sure the laws go back much further) you get to enslave many PoC again without the same outcry.

And to your previous point about B&E, I already addressed the fact that if people are threatened it is violent. As per my definition of violence above.

But to you specific problem with drug dealing. Selling thing s that people want would be allowed in a free market. It is a service. Poor consumer protections, pushing drugs, taking advantage of addictive personalities or otherwise at risk groups is a problem generally with free markets, and just more stark in relation to drugs.

The easiest way to actually disempower drug dealers is to take away their main source of income. Regulation (incl consumer protections/quality of product) and taxation (vat and possibly an additional sin tax) would allow policing to be focused specifically on the most dangerous/coercive/violent aspects of the trade - while allowing law abiding citizens to provide competition to disrupt the current dealers income.

It will not be perfect by any means, but alcohol and tabacco are already in the imperfect area and we mange them using other economic means to minimise the harm (like bans on advertising/sin taxes).

But this whole area is a separate conversation to prison abolition.

Where in I advocate for removing (expensive and harmful) prison sentences and replacing them with (cheaper and proven effective) education/training and restorative policies.

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#142 Post by orathaic » Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:25 am

flash2015 wrote:
Wed Jul 08, 2020 7:01 pm
Octavious wrote:
Wed Jul 08, 2020 6:20 pm
Flash, what are you trying to argue? Are you trying to say that they don't want to to dismantle capitalism? Because they very much do. My suspicions in this area were first aroused by the statement on their fundraising page that says
We’re guided by a commitment to dismantle capitalism"
https://uk.gofundme.com/f/ukblm-fund

What more do you want?
I am asking for actual evidence that they are implementing this. What are they actually doing to destroy capitalism?
And what, precisely has prison abolition to do with dismantling capitalism?

I have a really clear answer. Exploitation of imprisoned PoC amounts to slavery and is thus a continuation of centuries of capitalist exploitation under a different name.

However you seem to reject this line of thinking, so please explain if you agree that we can dismantle the prison system without furthering this goals of dismantling capitalism.

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#143 Post by Octavious » Thu Jul 09, 2020 12:12 pm

orathaic wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:25 am
explain if you agree that we can dismantle the prison system without furthering this goals of dismantling capitalism.
I'm trying to get my head around what it is you're asking, but frankly it's not making much sense. I don't know and I don't care is the only answer that springs instantly to mind.
orathaic wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:25 am
Exploitation of imprisoned PoC amounts to slavery and is thus a continuation of centuries of capitalist exploitation under a different name.

However you seem to reject this line of thinking
I believe the American expression "no shit, Sherlock" is appropriate in this instance.

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#144 Post by Octavious » Thu Jul 09, 2020 12:20 pm

orathaic wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:20 am
And to your previous point about B&E, I already addressed the fact that if people are threatened it is violent. As per my definition of violence above.
Yet you seem to be working under the impression that it is somehow possible to have breaking and entering without the homeowners feeling threatened. This is remarkably naive and demonstrates a callous disregard for an innocent person's well-being that is quite unlike you.

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#145 Post by orathaic » Thu Jul 09, 2020 4:25 pm

Octavious wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 12:12 pm
orathaic wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:25 am
explain if you agree that we can dismantle the prison system without furthering this goals of dismantling capitalism.
I'm trying to get my head around what it is you're asking, but frankly it's not making much sense. I don't know and I don't care is the only answer that springs instantly to mind.
You are claiming the BLM is trying to dismantle capitalism (which I have not denied).
Also that Prison Abolition is a part of this agenda.

I have claimed that Prison systems exploiting prisoners is equivalent to slavery and thus morally objectionable.

You seem to be denying that prisoners exploited for capitalist profits is a problem.

I'm was asking, if this prison exploitation isn't part of the capitalist system, do you think we can dismantle it without hurting capitalism.

Obviously my position is that capitalism encourages this kind of exploitation and should be dismantled. But you seemed to be rejecting at least one of these steps, despite claiming that BLM wants to dismantle capitalism...

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#146 Post by flash2015 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 4:46 pm

orathaic wrote:
Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:25 am
flash2015 wrote:
Wed Jul 08, 2020 7:01 pm
Octavious wrote:
Wed Jul 08, 2020 6:20 pm
Flash, what are you trying to argue? Are you trying to say that they don't want to to dismantle capitalism? Because they very much do. My suspicions in this area were first aroused by the statement on their fundraising page that says



https://uk.gofundme.com/f/ukblm-fund

What more do you want?
I am asking for actual evidence that they are implementing this. What are they actually doing to destroy capitalism?
And what, precisely has prison abolition to do with dismantling capitalism?

I have a really clear answer. Exploitation of imprisoned PoC amounts to slavery and is thus a continuation of centuries of capitalist exploitation under a different name.

However you seem to reject this line of thinking, so please explain if you agree that we can dismantle the prison system without furthering this goals of dismantling capitalism.
Expoitation of prisoners has been done by governments of all persuasions. You think the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam or other communist country didn't have prisons or slave labour? Perhaps the only thing I can think of as exclusively capitalist is the idea of private prisons or "prisons for profit". I am not in favour of those because of the horrible incentives they provide (e.g. a judge in Pennsylvania a few years ago was found to be bribed by private prisons to send more children to jail/gaol).

I see ideas about policing/prisons/spying not on the traditional capitalist/marxist axis but instead on an authoritarian/libertarian ideology axis (I also see a third social conservative/liberal axis too - I would regard myself as slight libertarian/moderate economically/socially liberal). You can be a libertarian capitalist and you can be a libertarian marxist (e.g. Rand Paul in the US would be a libertarian capitalist). You don't believe this is the case?

If you are trying to tightly couple police reform/prison reform with a very left wing economic ideology (i.e. it is all or nothing), then you are dooming yourself to not achieving anything. Democracy is about creating coalitions. Most of the people who are sympathetic to the causes of police and prison reform would recoil from this hard coupling with "destroy capitalism".

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#147 Post by orathaic » Thu Jul 09, 2020 7:02 pm

Sorry, Flash, my quote was aimed at Octavious. You are of course right about other regimes. But it is only in the US that Capitalism have turned to prison for profit.

I'm not sure what your capitalist vs traditional Marxist axis looks like, because traditionally Marxism has been defined simple as those things that we (American Capitalists) don't like. But given the rest of what you've said, I presume you have read the political compass. And further, when I look at specific examples, like US gimp residential candidates, I find they often fall in fairly straight lines (between authoritarian right vs libertarian left) - which is not to deny that leftie authoritarian have existed, or that rightie libertarians do... Just that they aren't currently mainstream.

Regardless. I am not trying to tie them together. Octavious seems to be implying that supporting BLM is anti-capitalist. And that they are all tied together. I am in favour of small steps towards a better society to live in, rather than revolutionary changes which (historically at least) have come back around on themselves (Emperor Napoleon? Head of Revolutionary France?) and those can each be achieved independently.

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#148 Post by taylor4 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:29 pm

Fabian Socialist "small" steps ? In no particular order, remedies and complex problems:
Legalization of marijuana, outlawed by federal legislation in the US, with the several states allowing medical/recreational use. (Historical footnote: One US state governor afflicted with cancer refused marijuana's pain-deadening affects.)
VAT and other sales taxes on "controlled" (hard and/or medical) drugs. The case of the opiod crisis in the US points to a judicial system wherein manufacturers (Big Pharma) can be fined some millions US$, which some of them consider a "Slap on the Wrist".
Morphine, in minute doses, is administered (not prescribed) by palliative care doctors of medicine. This I've noted occurred in cases of terminal stage of cancer or severe eye pain. In both of those instances the medicoes were not explicit as to the name, only the nature, of the "remedy" or painkiller.
-- Affirmative action as a remedy for four centuries of enslavement:
This is what may be for academics, reverse of PC - there was and maybe still is an admission policy of a "Jewish quota" at some Ivy League US universities. Of recent college admissions quotas, one thinks of Asians. Both are anachronistic stereotypes - there are multiple Asian nation-states, many shades of observant and non-observant Judaism - and, what about Islam, Roman Catholicism atheists, loony goat sacrificiers, C. of E. offshoots &c., &c., &c.
College admissions deans are adaptable and go with the flow: Recruit, in particular order: sports stars, Tex-Mex, Chicanos, women, the disabled, etc.
Social Promotion comes along in educational circles & students in high school in the US are near-illiterate and also require Remedial Math.
It's like Lord Redesdale, the Mitford sisters' pater, who only read Jack London's White Fang, nothing else; and unlike his ancestor who translated Japanese literature into English.
- Rights of freed prisoners, citizenship: Convicted felons (a sentence of at least one year plus a day) in many US states cannot legally vote (or cannot vote for some time period).

In the UK, Winchester students are chosen - how? Isn't it on their intellect?

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Re: Political statement on homepage

#149 Post by taylor4 » Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:50 pm

Adding to the above: The amendment to the US Constitution which allowed Prohibition, the illegality of alcoholic beverages, the resultant crime waves, notoriously Al Capone and the rise of the American mafia, the disrespect for the law (e.g., speakeasies - even Franklin D. Roosevelt had a private stock of rum, whisky, etc. in his New York City townhouse), and the reversal, a constitutional amendment which usually requires supermajorities' approval by the houses of Congress and also of the severteral states.
The supermajorities in the US republic are rare, but do happen.
All chat of the remedy via a systemic, Constitutional change would ignore the fact that after the American civil war, Reconstruction Amendments, and during the 1960s further civil right constitutional Amendments GUARANTEED liberty, the right to vote, etc. to all races of people.
American representative government then proceeded to discriminate against Chinese, Eastern European and Muslim immigrants. US citizens followed their so-called Leaders and one prime example could be the fatal shooting of a Sikh gentleman. Uneducated citizens, they vote, no ?

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