Michael Smith:
I'm tempted to ask "Who cares what it means?"
I sense a confusion here between politics and policy. You don't have to worry about policy until *after* you've stormed the Winter Palace. Don't ask what you're going to do with all those real criminals until the responsibility for them is thrust upon you.
I used to be close to a little Maoist sect which was sorely puzzled about how to respond to the anti-nuke movement that welled up in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island incident. The cadres were very hesitant about signing on to the anti-nuke thing. "After all," as one of the honchos patiently explained to me, "once we take state power, we may have to *run* these reactors."
This covers not only the prison issue but almost every single issue a radical social movement raises. Fussing about _policy_ is of course particularly paralyzing in anti-war movements. It is connected to the error that movement demands are aimed at policy-makers or the unconvinced rather than at potential friends who are not yet acactive. As to the prison issue (which I regard as rather central, it is crucial in the _long-run unity of the left across ethnic lines. That sort of unity is not yet possible, the immediate barrier being what Glen Ford noted, that Obama is a "problem" for the Black Left, & inter-'racial' political unity depends on the existence of a strong Black Left. (That is the importance of understanding the Panthers.)
In addition: the Prison System is such an incredible horror. A left that doesn't flatly demand its abolition has no heart -- & therefore no guts.
Carrol
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Michael J. Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://www.cars-suck.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
"I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President, and I think I will go along with them."
-- Barack Obama
(Okay, okay, it was really Calvin Coolidge.) ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk