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And we are only hearing the details bc he is American. Think of how many yrs we are taking off of ppl's lives w the conditions at these Border Control facilities. For comparison: 1 yr in a U.S. prison takes 2 yrs off a person's life expectancy. (And let's address that too pls.)
A person doesn't have to die immediately for a system to be guilty of killing them. Convincing us otherwise keeps this system afloat. Bc one of the primary functions of our government is to maintain our belief in/cooperation with capitalism/white supremacy -- even as they kill us
When a company sells a product that causes ppl to die prematurely, we recognize that they are culpable for a death. When our government does this, the crime is simply part of the order of the things -- the way shit is and the way it isn't. The system is inevitable bc it says so.
Imagine if we viewed intentional actions by the state that resulted in our premature deaths as murderous and reacted accordingly. Imagine what accountability would like look for politicians and for the system itself. truthout.org/articles/repub…
Perhaps we would learn to extend our empathy to those ppl who premature death is imposed upon because they are deemed as having no place in our society. People who are, as Angela Davis put it, catapulted beyond the bounds of democracy.
But even the immediate torture & murder of caged people goes largely unchallenged in the U.S. If ppl understood their liberation was bound up in that of caged ppl, we might get somewhere. The thing is, our destruction is bound up in theirs too, if you look at the long game.
When ppl say that they call the facilities along the border concentration camps (I agree) bc it captures a lineage of violence that reaches its way back thru Nazism to the inspiration it took from Jim Crow & Native genocide, I agree, but there's something missing there: prisons.
To be real, most of the analysis we're seeing does not connect the Holocaust to the inspiration Hitler took from Jim Crow & manifest destiny, but even when it does, the prison industrial complex -- the larger vehicle for ALL carceral torture/detention in the US -- rarely comes up
People have mapped out how the prison industrial complex functions for decades. So how does it fail to show up in so much contextual analysis under Trump? Bc we were already conditioned not to imagine anything beyond it -- which is a kind of violence we've ALL experienced.
When a government has successfully disarmed the imaginations of those it rules, it is poised to conquer so much more. Its mythologies create pillars and inevitabilities that hold up a system we might otherwise process critically and dream beyond. We trade away so much.
People who oppose the death penalty don't usually get riled up about prison conditions. To them, that suffering is unfortunate background noise, much like war. If we weren't desensitized to carceral violence, how much fiercer would our response to the inhumanity at the border be?
.@MayaSchenwar and I wrote about some of these ideas here: truthout.org/articles/they-…
@MayaSchenwar Prison abolitionists are often ridiculed & treated w scorn for wanting to build a society where this torturous system -- that has flung millions into bondage -- has no place. It somehow makes more sense to ppl to stick w a system that deems millions of PEOPLE as having no place.
Detention centers have always been nightmarish btw. Folks who are just stepping into things can't be in denial about that. If the border crisis got under your skin and got you moving, then you're stepping into a whole realm of injustice & you've gotta be willing to see it.
The stakes couldn't be higher. As instances of ecological collapse spread over time, economies will collapse. And if this kind of leadership is in place when that spiral occurs, we are def looking at either entropy or authoritarianism & either would lead to full blown fascism.
To be clear, that's just one road to all-out fascism. There are a number of possible routes. I think about them too much.
We can see the progression. The fascist rallies, the positioning of marginalized ppl as enemies who must be disposed of. The camps. He has appointed 131 judges. He abuses executive power, dictates reality to his base & just heard he could be charged w crime when he steps down.
But returning to the camps & their carceral context, Trump's treatment of the exonerated five and his assertion, back then, that hate might get things done, connects w his carceral violence now. Today, he brought back the death penalty at the federal level. It's all connected.
Let's also look at the way Trump lies. His supporters insist he's speaking the truth. Most others barely react to his lies anymore, unless we find them funny. Bc it's normal now. When atrocities escalate, these conditions will be in place. Caged people are incredibly vulnerable.
But what we know right now is definitely happening: carceral violence is being inflicted on ppl in Border Control custody. Some ppl are dying, many more are suffering in conditions that will take yrs off of their lives. There's a larger system of cages this is occurring within.
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