From: l Doug Henwood Saturday, January 23, 2016 10:37 AM Re: Angela Davis on
Prisons & Police
> On Jan 22, 2016, at 11:35 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> Some years ago when I proposed the slogan, Abolish the Prison System,
among
> the 'rebuttals' was one citing Davis as proposing reforms rather than
> abolishing.
>
> Well. She spoke here tonight, and her first word on prisons was that they
> could not be reformed; we had to demand their abolition.
>
> Ditto for Police.
That sounds very militant. Did she have any more to say about how it would work? Because she didn't in her book on the topic.
======
Now the _fundamental_ question raised here has nothing to do with either militancy or legislation but with the empirical question, _Can the U.S. Prison *System* be reformed.
And the answer to that question is quite clear: No, it cannot be reformed.
Perhaps as a matter of tactics leftists should lie to the public, pretending that the system can be reformed. I personally do not think left tactics can be grounded in a lie, but I may be mistaken. I would like to see further discussion of the issues nvolve.
Carrol