Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> >I think a real serious case can be made (I believe Angela Davis has
> >written on this) that the criminal justice system creates more crime
> >than it prevents -- especially more street crime. And certainly, the
> >most vicious and destructive street gang in Chicago is the Chicago
> >Police Department.
>
> Nathan Newman, who's unfortunately taking a vacation from this list,
> pointed out to me yesterday that lefties who take these sorts of
> attitudes towards the criminal justice system obviously don't spend
> much time talking with working class people of color, who generally
> think the cops spend too much time repressing them and not enough
> time responding to their complaints and going after real bad guys.
Again, the primary question is not the support, _now_ , that a position can gain but simply whether it's true or not. And my core proposition above was, "A case can be made for X," not simply "X."
During my last 25 years of teaching I always had a high proportion of Chicago and East St. Louis black students in my classes, and I am quite aware of their perspective on law enforcement. I remember particularly this one woman, who vigorously saw my points about welfare, but who I just couldn't convince on the issue of the death penalty. (These topics kept coming up because the three major works studied in the course were _Odyssey_, _Oresteia_, and _Republic_, hence a lot of discussion of justice.
Increasing numbers of people, I believe, are becoming opposed to innoculations against illnesses. Should that be our point of departure for considering the issue, or should we start out with the clear understanding that death from tetanus is an extremely stupid way to die, even if it is suspicion of those terrible M.D.s that accounts for refual to have a tetanus inoculation?
Carrol