>On Apr 7, 2009, at 9:35 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
>>i couldn't view that -- bad connex or something -- but it'd be nice
>>to have an explanation of what he meant by it.
>
>Can't speak for him, but it's pretty hard to read past a lede like this:
>
>>I somewhat disappointed in the lack of imagination on the part of most
>>responders to my proposal for elimination of the prison system. It
>>does
>>bear out, however, the failure of most to grasp what social
>>construction
>>means in material actuality (or at least a failure to incorporate that
>>understanding into their oridnary thinking). The comments in the
>>thread
>>were, consequently, quite banal. It sort of bothers me to be
>>forceed to
>>spell out the obvious, but I guess the intellectual and imaginative
>>limitions of posters to this list make it necessary.
>
>I read something like that and I just want to say "fuck you!" and hit
>the delete key. Which is what I did.
>
>Doug
heh. ok. but certainly he must be familiar with Davis's work and her concepts of abolition democracy and restorative justice. I'm guessing he has something more than a derisive response to that, since she doesn't really put it that way. she doesn't say that people lack imagination, though she does point out in that one about her brother's college paper from 1968 or so, that things we "in the air" then, which is one reason why people lack imagination
IOW, if you listen to her carefully, you can tell that she occasionally *does* suggest, just as CC did, that people lack imagination. I was irritated yesterday because it became clear from the discussion that few people had actually listened to what she had to say for if they had, they wouldn't have imagined that prison abolitionism has something to do with getting rid of all prisons. they wouldn't ask ignorant questions about what to do with John Wayne Gaycy (sp?). yes: because I'm a conceited asshole, I *do* get annoyed with people who have shitloads to say but can't be bothered actually reading what's under consideration. they just drag out their ideas that they've always had and wank over them in public.
You talk about how people won't be persuaded by numbers and facts. Is this why? This very behavior on LBO? I think so....
tangentially:
One thing I don't get about this position, where we need to concern ourselves with, as Sheldon said, "being taken seriously" is who we're trying to get to take us seriously.
I mean, consider religion. I really don't give a rat's ass about building a left that feels compelled to speak to the overwhelming belief in religion in this country. I don't think that what we have to do is cater to that crowd. I'm sick of them. I don't care if what I have to say turns some people off because I'm not going to pussy foot around and pretend to be all tolerant and stuph. Fuck the religious and spirituality assholes right in the ear, I say. I'm not worried about impressing upon them anything at all. Instead, I'm more interested in people who, while they may be religious and/or spiritual, and are not threatened by agnosticism. As such, those people are worth fighting for. (the faction of those folks, though, who worry about hurting the poor widdle fee fees of the religious and spiritual -- fuck them in the ear too. not worth my time)
So, why worry about people who can't fathom other possibilities than torturous punishment. In other words, if they can't fathom that the loss of freedom itself is bad enough, and if they feel that these people have to "pay for it" and etc., then who cares if they 'take us seriously'? I sure don't. If someone goes on and on about how they are so pissed off that someone stole a car and spends a year in jail taking college courses or learning a skilled trade, I just don't really think it's worth anyone's time to hassle with 'em. It's the other people who do think that's a worthwhile goal, who aren't interested in punishing the shit out of people, making them suffer, making them earn it, (*just like I did*), they're the ones who matter and who I would want to "take us seriously".
(I would suggest that our own system already contains the ideal that the loss of freedom is bad enough: the burden of proof is higher in cases where the loss of freedom is at stake as opposed to the loss of property)
I say "ideal" and am reminded that I'm reading good stuff by Postone about why ideology critique isn't simply about exposing the hypocrisy of bourgeois ideology. HA
shag
"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
-- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws