Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Oct 9, 2021 6 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Thread: I was just invited to speak to students at Harvard about how to pursue social justice in the face of pressure to work for wealthy corporations. As I walked on campus, I passed the Arthur Sackler museum, and it got me thinking about how our society defines “crime.” ImageImage
Sackler built a fortune in part by pioneering new marketing techniques for exploiting drug monopolies and bribing doctors for prescribing his drugs. This was possible b/c U.S. criminal laws permit the rich to hoard even publicly funded patents that could save millions of lives.
We live in a society in which the wealthy have decided that it isn’t a “crime” to watch someone die by hoarding insulin medication developed with public investment but it is a “crime” to take a dose of insulin without paying for it.
As an aside, after he died, Sackler’s family and company caused the opioid epidemic using the bribery marketing techniques Arthur Sackler championed. But the family are still billionaires, and his name adorns buildings in the richest university in the world.
What about the poor? Police and prosecutors have gorged themselves on prosecuting human beings addicted to opioids, putting them in grotesque cages and taking them away from their children and loved ones. They used this crisis to squeeze record budgets for cops and prisons.
I discuss this concept with hundreds of interesting and infuriating examples here. It’s worth reading and thinking about how the concepts of “crime” and “law enforcement” are shaped by people who own things. yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-puni…

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More from @equalityAlec

Oct 12
THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.
First the basics: The vast bulk of physical and sexual violence in our society is *not* perpetrated by strangers, but by people who know each other. Obscuring this fact is a critical feature of copaganda in the news. People are shocked to hear it. Why?
A simple answer is that the news makes people extremely scared of strangers--the person next to you at CVS, the person walking down the street, the unhoused person in a tent, the anonymous burglar, etc. These are the kinds of crimes associated with surveillance, policing, etc.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 2
THREAD. In Trump's speech to an unprecedented gathering of generals, he announced he was preparing to order them to use U.S. "cities as training grounds for our military." I want to highlight a few other bone chilling statements and put them into context that media obscures.
First, although it didn't get as much coverage, Trump also said the U.S. is facing "a war from within" against "the enemy from within." This essentially declared to military leaders--who Hegseth had just essentially told he would be purging of disloyalty--a new civil war.
Second, Trump specifically added that this "war" was something the "people in this room" (i.e. military generals) would "straighten out" in domestic deployments to cities run by Democrats "one by one." He added: "inner cities" are "a big part of war now. It’s a big part of war."
Read 16 tweets
Sep 27
THREAD. I happened to be in Portland yesterday to give a university lecture as Trump called it “war ravaged Portland” while illegally ordering the deployment of the U.S. military to use “full force.” Image
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This kind of outrageous misinformation would not be possible without the culture of fear spread for years by the mainstream media. He is playing on the prodigious ignorance and irrational fear cultivated by the way the news media distorts our sense of safety.
Portland, needless to say, is nothing remotely like what Trump describes. But the mass media has created an entirely delusional public perception of what threats we face and from whom.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 25
THREAD. PBS recently aired a dangerous news segment, full of misinformation. The incident is not only embarrassing for PBS and Democrats, but it portends dark days for the future of our society that it was published. People at PBS should be doing some deep soul searching.
First, the article is a mind-boggling interview with the Democratic New Mexico governor. She validates and increases hysteria about street crime at the same moment such crime (which was and is down) is the precise (and false) pretense of national authoritarian takeover.
Worse, the reporter (cheering along like an AI-bot) lets Governor do it at a time of near-historic crime lows in New Mexico. Even worse, reporter lets her demand more authoritarian repression as a solution to fear, despite the evidence that this is like flat-earth stuff.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 6
THREAD. I don't know what there is left to say about the New York Times and Democrats, but documenting their support for fascism still feels important. If there's any chance to walk back from the fascist cliff, we must see why things like today's article are so dangerous. Image
The article today is premised on the idea that--while some Dems are uncomfortable with Trump deploying military to cities without consent--they want more federal resources (even military) to flood their cities for surveillance, police, prosecution, and prison. Image
As with any article, ask yourself: Why is this a news story? Who benefits from it being news, from how it's framed, from what info is included and what is ignored? Always look: who are sources quoted, and which perspectives are ignored? Take a look at the sources in order: Image
Read 14 tweets
Aug 29
THREAD. For over a decade, I've been working across the country to challenge unconstitutional cash bail. So, why is Trump trying to entrench it?
The for-profit cash bail industry exists only in U.S. and Philippines. Even though you're presumed innocent, you're stuck in a jail cell while you wait for your day in court if your family doesn't have cash to pay a private company to secure your release.
Basing bodily liberty on a person's access to cash destroys millions of lives. It makes us all less safe. It's unconstitutional. But it makes a lot of people a lot of money, and it gives huge leverage to prosecutors and police to force people to plead guilty in low-level cases.
Read 8 tweets

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