[lbo-talk] Zizek: "Where to look for revolutionary potential?"

[andie nachgeborenen]

Drug use is not a revolutionary act, the 1960s
notwithstanding. Drug sales are not revolutionary
acts, they are illegal capitalist acts. The point that
drug criminalization is stupid and counterproductive
is not an answer to the observation that the priosns
are mostly filled with guilty criminals. People rarely
go to prison for possession of person use quantities,
btw; and people in prison for drug dealing, regardless
of whether they should be, and I agree that in the
main they should not, i.e., drug dealers or people
involved in drug conspiracies, are not revolutionaries
and (given the illegal nature of drug sales) they are
often violent criminals. 

One does indeed choose one's associates and clients,
and lots of people wouldn't handle mine, who tend to
be murderers -- not my associates, I mean my clients,
especially these days since I am no longer in
corporate practice. (Yes, yes, I know. I mean
individuals convicted, in my client's cases,
accurately if not necessarily without violation of
their rights, of murder.) My client roster has
included, not at present, gangbangers who deal drugs
and kill people. But I am a lawyer, I wouldn't advise
you to deal with them, and you should be glad they
they are in jail even though I am trying to get them
out.

The fact that revolutioonary activities are somtimes
crimes, (not always, in my experience most self-styled
revolutionaries are mainly engaged in 1st Amendment
protected work) does not mean that most people who
commit crimes are revolutionaries.

--- "W. Kiernan" <wkiernan at ij.net> wrote:


> andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>  >
>  > Hah. On lots of counts. I'm a criminal defense
> lawyer,
>  > among other things, and a professor who teaches
>  > criminal law, and I don't think you should
> romanticize
>  > or idealize inmates. Most people in prison are
> guilty.
>  > They mostly committed sordid crimes of greed and
>  > violence that most people do not commit even if
> they
>  > are poor and victims of discrimination.
> 
> Everybody I ever knew who spent any time in jail was
> there on drug 
> charges.  Of course one selects his acquaintances
> and steers clear for 
> fear's sake from violent sociopaths, but still.
> 
>  > Crime is not a revolutionary activity.
> 
> But, any revolutionary activity, even the most
> trivial (grafitti, e.g.), 
> is a crime.  How do cops treat citizens whenever
> there's a 
> demonstration?  Wearing a tee-shirt with certain
> words printed on it 
> while walking in the right-of-way gets you not just
> harassed, chased, 
> gassed and clubbed, but arrested and convicted. 
> While the anti-social 
> majority of (non-drug) inmates are nothing on which
> to hang 
> revolutionary hopes, anybody actually revolutionary
> (Lenin, King) will 
> almost certainly have a jail record.
> 
> Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> 

 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Now that's room service!  Choose from over 150,000 hotels
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097