I wasn't contemptuous of her example out of her personal experience, so there's no irony. From what I remember, Doug, after being contemptuously and personally attacked by Yoshie, asked if she was willing to take a spore for the anti-empire and she responded that she took a mugging for the anti-criminal justice system. If she had a worse personal example to offer, you think she would have offered it to show how far she's willing to go for the cause. (The Turkish hunger strikers are hard to beat in my book. Then there are the guys who fly planes full of screaming people into skyscrapers.) If she does have worse and was merely being modest or didn't want to drag it up again, I sincerely apologize. Carrol on the other hand isn't afraid to share his experiences in group, and I find it darkly funny to think of him laying down law to some poor soul on his/her first day to the effect that one shouldn't say anything stupid along the lines of "I know how you feel." Carrol, you should check out Infinite Jest, a wonderful book about group therapy by a guy who used to teach in Bloomington, David Foster Wallace. He goes into all the weird dos and don'ts of group AA. Very dark humor.
The only way to falsify her point would be by empirical research, so I grant Yoshie could be right about the main function of the criminal justice system at this juncture in history. It certainly isn't its advertised function. I wonder what you and her made of General Pinochet being picked up by the the very conservative Special Branch of the British police. An accident? A ploy to throw off the anti-empire? And then they made him take visits from Baroness Thatcher! Very cruel and unusual.
Peter