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Year of the Plague: A Capitalist Disaster in U.S. Prisons By Chris Kinder The capitalist structure in the U.S. is in crisis, facing multiple challenges to its right to exist as it is. Masses are in the streets day after day, and around the world, attacking the U.S. ruling class for its racist police murderers, and proposing radical reforms up to and including abolition of the police. This is an uprising of unprecedented extent in the post-World War II environment in the U.S. It is an existential challenge to the system, and all in the context of a world-wide pandemic. The capitalist state specifically is in crisis, as the official head of state has lost the confidence of a good portion of the ruling class, despite the favors he has heaped on them. Trump is under attack from many sides. Knowing he is in danger of losing his reelection bid, Trump openly eggs on a reactionary, racist minority of armed thugs, white supremacists, and conservatives generally; while his Republican toadies are accelerating a long-standing plot to steal elections through many forms of voter suppression chiefly aimed at Black and Brown urban communities, and now including efforts to prevent mail-in ballots right in the midst of the pandemic. Trump actually said that Republicans would “never” be elected again if it was easier to vote! Mass protest movement demands change Hundreds-of-thousands of protestors in the streets every day since the sickening, outright murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis on the 25th of May have not only changed the dialogue considerably, but led to talk of reforms at local and state levels—some even being implemented—such as banning choke holds and preventing police from hiding their disciplinary records from public scrutiny. On June 19 dock workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union—shut down all 29 ports on the West Coast to demand an end to police murders of Black people, and honor the memory of Juneteenth, the day in 1865 that the slaves of Texas had finally been freed. This powerful show of workers’ power was accompanied by ten-to-15,000 militant protestors (very rough estimate) in a march and caravan—led by the ILWU motor cycle squad—from the port to the Oakland police headquarters and a rally at Oscar Grant Plaza (at City Hall). Protestors add prisons to their agenda Throughout the protests, many identify capitalism itself as the core of the problem that needs to be done away with. And prisons, like police, are an integral part of the capitalist state. And not just the capitalist state. The French Revolution, which overthrew the feudal nobility and their monarchy, began with the assault on the Bastille, a horrific dungeon/prison in Paris, on the 14th of July 1789. This revolution marked the coming to power of the capitalist class in Europe, but it did not mark the end of prisons! Prisons are a product of any class society that must exploit and oppress the peasants (in older societies) and working classes, as well any minorities which might be “expendable” or a challenge to class rule. The U.S., as the imperialist monster extending its tentacles throughout the world and seeking “full spectrum dominance,” is also the most backward of the major capitalist nations. The U.S. has more incarcerated people per capita than any other country, and they are all in incubation centers for a highly contagious virus. Prisons are a petri-dish paradise for the virus There are more COVID-19 cases in some U.S. prisons than in entire countries. According to one report, as of the early weeks of June, there were over 1600 clusters of 50 or more cases of the coronavirus across the U.S., in prisons, nursing homes, meat packing plants, etc. The largest clusters were centered in either prisons or meat processing plants—which most meat packer workers see as entirely too similar to prisons. Overall, fewer people contracted coronavirus in the countries of Cyprus, Jamaica, and Iceland than they did in the Smithfield Foods pork processing facility in Sioux Falls South Dakota, the source of 1,098 cases. U.S. prisons are over-crowded hell holes. They have no ability to physically distance inmates, and they have inadequate supplies for hand washing, little or no personal protective materials, inadequate healthcare, and no way to deal with an expanding pandemic. The only solution for this is mass releases of prisoners, with provisions for places to live, get healthcare, food, and the other requirements of life, as well as adequate measures for safety among those who remain incarcerated. This includes obvious things like soap, sanitizing facilities, frequent showers, and personal protection such as masks and vinyl gloves. Read more at: http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/julaug_20/julaug_20_03.html _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
