Monday, August 25, 2014

it's really hard to unsee the "rule of law" as the extended phenotype of oppression...,


commondreams |  In Gaza, we see yet another example of the law’s injustice. At least 250 Palestinians were arrested during Israel’s ground operation in Gaza, many of whom were charged with “belonging to an illegal organization”—which, according to the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, generally refers to Palestinian political parties, especially but not only Hamas. Others are undergoing interrogation and have been denied access to a lawyer.

At least 15 of those arrested and later released were held under the “Unlawful Combatants Law.” Providing even less protection than administrative detention orders, this law allows the detention of Gazans for an unlimited period of time without charge or trial, in violation of international human rights norms. Enacted by the Israeli Knesset in 2002, the Unlawful Combatants Law embodies some of the many practices shared between Israel and the United States, which codified its own legal definition of “unlawful combatants” who could be indefinitely detained under the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

The death and destruction inflicted on the Palestinian people in recent weeks, part of what Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has referred to as Israel’s policy of “incremental genocide,” is one reminder that incarceration and more overt forms of violence are not mutually exclusive.

The Israeli government also employs a variety of other tools to repress and dispossess the Palestinian population. These include forced evictions, land grabs and other forms of ethnic cleansing, the denial of the right of return of Palestinian refugees, significant monetary and military support for settlements, and apartheid policies and practices—including the “community-shattering” separation wall and the system of checkpoints and permits restricting the free movement of Palestinians.

Mass Incarceration in the Land of the Free
On the other side of the globe, the burgeoning U.S. prison population now comprises a quarter of all the prisoners in the world.

Close to 70 percent of all people in U.S. incarceration, moreover, are people of color. As Adam Gopnik observed in The New Yorker, “there are more black men in the grip of the [U.S.] criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery” on the eve of the civil war.

Over the past three decades, the U.S. prison population has quadrupled. This is in large part a result of the “war on drugs.” Since the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was passed, incarceration for nonviolent offenses dramatically increased—disproportionately impacting poor black people. “Relegated to a second-class status” by their experience with prison, notes legal scholar Michelle Alexander, an inordinate number of black men have once again become “disenfranchised,” losing the right to vote, to serve on juries, and to be free of legal discrimination in regards to employment, education, and access to public services.

This exponential increase in incarceration has accompanied the unprecedented rise in the detention of undocumented immigrants as well as the growth of the prison-industrial complex, demonstrating the salience of the political economy of incarceration. These developments are rooted in the socio-economic changes of the post-industrial era and the retrenchment of social safety net programs that occurred in the United States from the 1980s forward, paralleled by the spread of the neoliberal economic paradigm to the Global South. As the scholar and social justice activist Angela Davis has highlighted, prisons were central to the government’s strategy of addressing the structural violence “produced by the deindustrialization, lack of jobs,” and “lack of education” that has characterized this era, impacting poor people of color in particular.

15 comments:

DD said...

This is very interesting! Extractive, dehumanizing, us vs. them, willingness to betray your "true" group for mercenary convenience. Darin doesn't have to be racist to mimic his sociopath momma-why hate one kind of people when you can look at all of them as prey? He's still got 1% potential if he applies himself.

BigDonOne said...

@Subrealism...You can hysterify all you want about oppression and flaws in the criminal justice system, BD will summarize his predictions to date on how Ferguson is ultimately going down. Officer Wilson will be justifiably exonerated. All that will be necessary is to show jury the photos taken at the hospital of his injuries and top it off with the X-ray of the cracked eye socket. Plus the accounts of MB's advancing on Officer Wilson from non-criminal witnesses with no civil-suit axe to grind. And further realize, that if a perp has not been cuffed an searched, then he is still a lethal threat regardless of whether his hands are up (cops have been killed by perps with hands up who suddenly whipped a 9 out of their ass-crack and fired. Barring an outrageous Obama/Holder executive intervention, slam dunk exoneration.....

National SHTF will happen following the exoneration.......

Uglyblackjohn said...

Even brotha's on the street understand to shoot for the legs to avoid an attempted murder charge.

CNu said...

Po thang, he ain't hardly ever have a chance....,

DD said...

He's a victim of his upbringing, wherein he was trained to be a victimizer. You can't make this stuff up.

DD said...

Wrong thread dammit

CNu said...

It's a very encompassing system. the bad news redounds to those who imagine that such a construct can be reasoned with.

BigDonOne said...

@Kurman....Y'all need to move to upwardly-mobile Seattle. The burger-flipping, luggage-toting and toilet-scrubbing minimum wage is now $15/hr.......

BigDonOne said...

BD figgered anyone who can comprehend all those mashed-up rap lyrobonics would have no trouble with that one....

John Kurman said...

Aww, I hurt your feelings. I suggest you should channel this aberrant spike of altruism into cleaning up that long-term feces smear buttering your backside. I know you are used to carrying that big load in your short-boy pants, but others around you could use a break!

Constructive_Feedback said...

So let me get this straight.......


Showing a video of "Michael Brown" stealing some cigarettoes via a strong armed robbery prior to him "Getting HImself Kilt" is evidence of RACIAL INSENSITIVITY and thus amplified the LOOTING......




BUT showing a picture of the WHITE COP'S background, without any hint of a 'Criminal record" as a teen or a lawsuit from actions taken while a member of a corrupt, racist police force that was disbanded is good "CHARACTER ANALYSIS"?


Or is this "Opposition Research" on your part Brother Cnu?

Naive Tom said...

Off topic


You ever heard of Dunning-Krueger effect testing where they let the subjects decide whether to speak up or not? I'm betting that will boost the effect.

CNu said...

quoting JK:The institutions seem to brain damage oppressed and oppressor alike.Fascinating dichotomy when you have Christian Ken still deeply and sincerely stuck on rationalizing torture and then you have this pathetic excuse for a man crying with the girls - let it out sister - about tear gas on national teevee.

Vic78 said...

Lol@'let it out sister.' That whole scene on MHP was disturbing. Why is the big dude crying like that on national tv? MHP should interview some of the people from Ed's link. I want to break a bottle after seeing whatever the hell that was on MHP.

Vic78 said...

I forgot he was supposed to be a comedian. I have no memory of him ever being funny. Things do make sense now that you mention it. It's easier to prop up Big Soft than to deal with the unpredictable grassroots. They couldn't deal with a Fred Hampton or a Malcolm X type today.

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