[Buddha-l] Beyond Hope

[curt]

Debs was a revolutionary socialist - he viewed capitalism as inherently 
unjust - and, as a system, totally incapable of dispensing justice. For 
Debs the police, the courts and the prison system were just instruments 
of capitalism - and so every prisoner was a victim of injustice. The 
solution, in Debs view, was the overthrow of capitalism and its 
replacement by socialism. That is not an immediately practical answer to 
the very real problem of the incredible rate of incarceration in the 
United States (higher than anything Stalin or Mao ever achieved) - but 
the more one is familiar with the realities of the U.S. prison system, 
the more revolutionary one is likely to become in one's outlook.

Between now and the revolution there's work to be done - if for no other 
reason than simple humanitarianism and compassion for the over 2 million 
people in prison in the US. Getting as many of them out of prison as 
quickly as possible is probably one good goal. One way to achieve that 
would be sweeping reform of drug laws - specifically laws that put 
people in prison for non-violent drug-related charges. An excellent 
source of information on the "war on drugs" and its relationship to 
prison issues and "law and order" issues in general is Michael Parenti's 
"Lockdown America". Parenti makes a good case that if we just returned 
to drug policies and laws that were championed by Richard Nixon (!), 
there would be a vast decrease in the prison population (basically 
treating drug addiction as a public health problem rather than as a 
political bludgeon for Republicans to swing at Democrats).

- Curt

P.S. Debs was also an anarchist - or at least there is anecdotal 
evidence for that. Supposedly he once met Emma Goldman and after they 
had talked for a while Goldman exclaimed, "Why, Mr. Debs, you're an 
Anarchist!". To which Debs replied, "that's Comrade Debs."

Gad Horowitz wrote:
> It's SO EASY for us righteous "liberals"--hey, we're "compassionate"
> "buddhists too--to oppose the death penalty.  Whatever happened to the
> movement for PRISON ABOLITION?  Eugene Debs:"While there is a soul in
> prison, I am not free".  He did'nt say "innocent soul"
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Erik Hoogcarspel" <jehms at xs4all.nl>
> To: "Buddhist discussion forum" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 7:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Beyond Hope
>
>
>   
>> jkirk schreef:
>>
>> The death penalty seems to me to continue the bellicosity and belief in
>>     
> the
>   
>> value of aggression of those who, and the societies that, impose it. But I
>> have "given up hope" that in this country it will be ended. Even working
>> against it seems to get nowhere, much less working for peace.
>>
>>
>> Joanna
>>
>> for people like us who want deathpenalty to disappear altogether, it
>>     
> doesn't matter much in which country it's still being carried out. But I
> repete that this is what Camus meant with Sysiphus being a happy and wise
> person and also what it means in the Bhagavad Giita when K.r.s.n.a advises
> Arjuna to give up any attachment for the results of action and finally what
> it means in Buddhism when a bodhisattva will bring an unendless multitude of
> beings to bodhi and still doesn't have the idea that anyone has been brought
> to bodhi.
>   
>> Erik
>>
>>
>> www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
>> weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> buddha-l mailing list
>> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
>> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
>>     
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
>
>
>