[lbo-talk] Prisons and The Left

[Carrol Cox]

> I think that's maybe Carrol's point (however bluntly put).  Having a
> lot of the workforce devoted to controlling people doesn't bode well
> for the social fabric.  Once upon a time when Wobblies still roamed
> the earth there wasn't much question whose side cops and jailers were
> on was there?

Yup. Part of the sadness is that there is a steady stream of
well-intentioned young men and womengoing into "corrections." Some get
out. Some adapt to the "Us" vs "Them" worldview. When w had teach-in on
the case of the Pontiac Brothers some 30 years ago, several families of
guards in Pontiac showed up. At one point, pretty explicitly dismissing
the question of guile, one of them let the cat out of the bag: "They"
got one of "us" -- Now we want some of "them" (a lottery will do the
trick as long as some black prisoners get shafted) One woman I knew whos
father was a Pontiac guard finally quit visiting home at all: she
couldn't stand the really extreme racist shit that flowed.

Carrol