Am I A Communist?

I am relieved that the nervousness of teaching my own lesson is over with. Today’s class sparked some amazing conversation, however I never was able to fully dive into the theories of Foucault and how the supermax prison industry illustrates those theories explicitly. I want everyone to understand his discourse on social control, but I will not discuss it here (you will have to complete the reading for that).
I am constantly trying to figure out how to change policy; how to make real change. Lenny, you said that rallies are great, but what do they really accomplish? You need to go through the process of talking with officials and changing legislation, and waiting years for visible change; which nobody wants to do. Alex, you said that they best way to accomplish change is to become a politician, make changes from the inside out. Honestly, I am far past this. I feel that by negotiating with legislators or becoming a politician would be playing their game, and I am not about playing games. Foucault says that without knowledge you do not have power. But I know that in this society, you also do not have power without money. My ideal existence would be one without money, but I know that this will not be a reality anytime in my near future. Until then, I propose that we attack those with the power where it hurts the most; their pockets. I feel that the whole system needs to be dismantled completely and rebuilt from scratch. We already learned from several recessions that when there is economic crisis, things begin to crumble. The amount of social control that is being imposed on us is getting stronger by the second; even as I post this blog entry. So my question is, Do you think this is possible? Do you think that I am being too radical? Can anyone provide a solution that does not bow down to the American Corporatocracy? Does that make me a socialist, or a communist to say that the availability of shelter, food, water, education, healthcare, and contentment should be available for all, including internationally? What is so wrong with communism anyway? The theory is great, it is the dictator that gives this ideal model for society a bad name.

CJA's Purpose

Although I enjoyed the trip, I was hoping to give the classmates a more thorough tour throughout the facilities. We were fortunate enough to see the "above ground" portion of the legal system, the court system and computer room, but to truly get the all-around treatment one must go down to the holding cells. Despite the legitimate and understandable comment made that the prisoners did not want to be seen as if they were animals in a zoo, I find that it is difficult to truly empathize with, and want to help, those locked away by the law without witnessing the cells. To see the holding cells is to feel a gutteral urge to free the people held within them, the sight exhibits a repulsion and desire to undo what is in front of you.

The second thing I wished to clarify is why CJA recommends, or does not recommend, people for release and the consequences of such a decision. CJA seeks to keep people out of jail during their trial so long as it is unnecessary to have them incarcerated. If it is reasonable that the person will return to court for their trials, the basis of which is how unlikely they are to flee the state abandoning their families, jobs, schools, and homes, then upon verifying the existence of such community ties CJA can recommend the person to be released. This in no way facilitates the prisoners release, that is solely in the hands of the judge who may release someone CJA did not recommend or detain someone who was recommended. Keeping someone unnecessarily detained costs thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours, if they are not a menace to society, and it is unnecessary to do so, then everyone wins.

Another thing to keep in mind: this system is obviously not fool-proof, as illustrated by the Son of Sam incident and many others that may come to mind, such as any time a person is released on parole only to commit more crimes. The American Justice system presumes people to be innocent until proven guilty in order to protect the innocent at the expense of allowing some of the guilty to Unfortunately slip through the cracks. It is this premise which forbids torture, and on which CJA bases its actions. In an ideal world the innocent would never be harmed, and only the guilty would be punished, and I believe the system we have in place tries hard to facilitate such an ideal.

What do you think?

I'd like to open up the blog this week to questions or responses you have about today's visit by Jeff Gural. To get the ball rolling, I'll note the things that struck me.

He suggested that the desire to help people might be genetic. There is some science out there for this: in 2008, German researchers claimed to identify an "altruism gene" that makes some people more inclined than others to donate money. What do you think about this? And if it were true, would the genetic impulse necessarily be determining? Might a powerful cultural influence (for example, being raised in a family/church/school that emphasized helping others) be more significant than a gene?

He also suggested that a powerful motivator for people was "advancement." In his experience, this illustrates why capitalism works (even as he admits that it is currently "off its rails"), why some people put up with a bad boss in order to, one day, be the boss. Do you think this explains why some people navigate the unfair terrain of life better than others?

He is clearly a pragmatist in the Herb Sturz school. But in listening to his many stories, did you still hear idealism?

What would you ask him in a third hour of the Vera seminar?

What do you need?

A friend who teaches pre-school told me years ago, when my own children were small, that her school was attempting to reimagine punishment. Instead of paying all the attention, albeit negative, to the kid who did something wrong, they ignored the perpetrator and instead turned to the victim and asked him/her: "What do you need?" I have tried this with my own kids and have always been intrigued by how this functions. It isn't always successful. But it is always enlightening. Sometimes, one really seems to "need" vengeance -- anger is powerful -- but often the answer is "a hug" or "you to do something with me" (being a victim is, among other things, a profoundly isolating experience). Or the answer is "I don't know" and then a conversation begins about causes (what happened before), consequences, behavioral patterns, etc. Such conversations are much more effective paths towards closure and the kinds of self-understanding that lead to better choices down the road.

Pre-school is not the real world, in which there are, as we said in class, a range of transgressions from being in the wrong place at the wrong time to rape and murder. But I was struck by how reading Oliver's story of his own post-incarceration victimization by the PRI opens up the conversation to thinking about whether we are getting what we need from the way we punish. How does the answer to that question change as we think about the different stakeholders involved?

Since so much of our spring semester is organized around "point of view" and how it acknowledges (or not) the range of perspectives in any given issue, I also wanted to open up the conversation to the choices that are made (consciously or unconsciously) when recounting one's own particular perspective. This was the really interesting thing about Oliver's story to me: he never mentioned what his crime was. So as I was reading I was thinking a range of things: maybe it was so bad he didn't say because it would prejudice the reader against him; maybe he was relatively innocent (an addict caught up in the drug laws, for example) but he wanted to insist that he did not = his crime (his point being he did his time and it is OVER); or maybe it is still traumatic for him, and academic argument (even in the first person) enables a safe kind of way both to talk and not to talk about it. So even in a straightforward four-page essay, there are lots of complicated perspectives. How on earth can justice then be systematized (i.e. a justice system) to give us "what we need"?