[lbo-talk] Prison system and the nonsense of public opinion

[Joseph Catron]

What light? She's heartened by an emerging awareness, "across a
transpartisan spectrum," that locking people up for stupid crap like
pot possession is pretty asinine from nearly every perspective,
including most capitalist ones. That's a far cry from abolition. See
what Ruth Wilson Gilmore, an actual abolitionist who cofounded the
California Prison Moratorium Project and Critical Resistance, among
other groups, has to say about this "tendency to cozy up to the right
wing, as though a superficial overlap in viewpoint meant a unified
structural analysis for action," yesterday:

http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/?p=2888

On Tue, Feb 24, 2015 at 6:00 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> A National Cry for Criminal Justice Reform
> by Katrina vanden Heuvel
> More Americans than ever, across a transpartisan spectrum, now understand
> that incarceration-as-usual isn't working.
>
> -------
>
> Even vanden Heuvel ses the light.
>
> I rather suspect that somewhat fewer than 98% of the population would now
> condemn my proposal for abolishing the prisons system.
>
> That was almost the only response on this list to my suggestion.
>
> Leftiists or those who  want to claim the label simply have to forget aboaut
> "public opinion" at any given moment.
>
> The polls are accurate but still irrelevant.
>
> Almost the core task of leftists is to CHANGE public  opinion; that is not
> done by worshipping  it.
>
> Carrol
>
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

-- 
"Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure
mægen lytlað."