As any criminal defense lawyer will tell you (and I'm one at least part time), most prisoners are guilty as charged, and not of political offenses. (Of course not all the things they are charged with should be offenses -- like nonviolent drug crimes.)
There is a certain rate of miscarriages, convictions of innocent people, alarmingly high in death cases, and an even higher rate of constitutional rights violations, but these don't make criminals into revolutionaries or radicals or heroes. Likewise with people like Padilla and Hamdhi, who are civil liberties poster children but not heroes to be lionized.
There are a few prisoners who might fit the bill -- Mumia, Peletier, a handful of others. Now, Lynne Stewart and her translator --we should _really_ get behind these people in particular. She and he are heroes. (Stewart hasn't actuially been incarcerated yet, as far as I know.) Formerly, Reuben Hurricane Carter, now released as everyone knows. His alleged (manufactured) offense wasn't political, but his fight for freedom became political.
Anyway, I don't think you are on track with with this particular train, Woj.
jks
--- Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Wojtek wrote:
>
>
> >I object to something totally different, namely
> intellectuals trying
> >to turn prisoners into martyrs
> >and folk heroes. They really irk me, because I see
> it as an act of
> >passive aggression and uppity snobbery.
>
>
> Ok. You've said this many times. I think we get
> it. What I don't
> get is why you keep repeating it here. I can't
> think of anyone on
> the list who does what you're complaining about.
> The other day there
> was a fairly long thread about Tony Soprano and no
> one was turning
> him into a folk hero. I certainly have no illusions
> that there is no
> one out there who shouldn't be taken out of
> circulation. On the
> other hand, I'm a staff investigator working for a
> firm specializing
> in criminal defense, particularly sentencing
> mitigation, so I do have
> some informed opinions about serious problems with
> our criminal
> justice system.
>
> But every time this topic comes up you jump on this
> hobby horse and
> dialog becomes stymied by your fulminations about
> uppity snobbery and
> the like. Soon after the conversation just peters
> out. That's
> something that irks me.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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