We are all Slave now.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

“A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think everything was possible and that nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynicism the vice of superior and refined minds. Mass propaganda discovered that the audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

The Origins of Totalitarianism

Alternative title: How Ty killed the PB in the years 2001-2008.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Alternative title: How Ty killed the PB in the years 2001-2008.

I made the trains run on time, and the uniforms were sharp.

[Replaced_Texan]

I think most people who care probably already got this, but just in case there are one or two who didn't, this is a resource for lawyers who want to help out kids at the border:

More than 2,000 kids have been taken from their parents at the border, with more taken daily and shipped to child "detention centers." While many have said they feel helpless in the face of this tragedy, you are not. There's a lot you can do.

Below are a few ways you can help - but because things are moving so quickly, you can expect updates to the list coming soon.

1. Sign up to volunteer remotely or in-person.

The L4GG Foundation has partnered with AILA (the American Immigration Lawyers' Association) to help meet the need for volunteer lawyers to assist with the current humanitarian crisis.
If you need to work remotely (from home), you can help with remote bond hearings or prepare parole packets, or conduct country conditions research for pro se asylum seekers.
If you can travel for a week to Dilley, TX, you can volunteer with a group of L4GG lawyers to help immigrant mothers prepare for credible fear interviews.
If you live in Colorado, New Jersey, or Ohio, there are other ways to help in-person.
If you speak Spanish fluently, you can help translate (over the phone) for lawyers who don't speak Spanish but have time to represent immigrant clients. Training is available for most of these opportunities.
Bottom line: go to this form and fill it out so we know how you can help. Once you've filled it out, you'll get an email about next steps. Follow the instructions in the email.

2. Register for the family separation webinar on Wednesday (6/20) at 1pm Eastern.

We will provide an update on immigrant family separation, and you'll learn about volunteer opportunities.
You can also ask questions about any of the volunteer opportunities listed above.
If you can't attend in person, you will be able to view a recording afterwards.

3. Participate in protests and other actions to end family separation (join this Facebook group to learn more).

L4GG set up this group to help event organizers find one another, and to help interested activists connect with event organizers.
Join the group, read the posts, connect with event organizers, and do what you can to help/participate.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

“A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think everything was possible and that nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynicism the vice of superior and refined minds. Mass propaganda discovered that the audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

The Origins of Totalitarianism

From Empire of Illusion, by Chris Hedges, who compulsively cites Arendt:

Materialism

“The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay. Consumers recklessly rang up Coach handbags and Manolo Blahnik shoes on credit cards because they seemed to confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered them, used them, and have now discarded them”

Populism

“A furious and sustained backlash by a betrayed and angry populace, one unprepared intellectually and psychologically for collapse, will sweep aside the Democrats and most of the Republicans. A cabal of proto-fascist misfits, from Christian demagogues to simpletons like Sarah Palin to loudmouth talk-show hosts, whom we naïvely dismiss as buffoons, will find a following with promises of revenge and moral renewal. The elites, the ones with their Harvard Business School degrees and expensive vocabularies, will retreat into their sheltered enclaves of privilege and comfort.”

“The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and disenfranchised working class presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash. I spent two years traveling the country to write a book on the Christian Right called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. I visited former manufacturing towns where for many the end of the world is no longer an abstraction. They have lost hope. Fear and instability have plunged the working classes into profound personal and economic despair, and, not surprisingly, into the arms of the demagogues and charlatans of the radical Christian Right who offer a belief in magic, miracles, and the fiction of a utopian Christian nation. And unless we rapidly re-enfranchise our dispossessed workers into the economy, unless we give them hope, our democracy is doomed.”

Kicking the Can

“Ironically, the universities have trained hundreds of thousands of graduates for jobs that soon will not exist. They have trained people to maintain a structure that cannot be maintained. The elite as well as those equipped with narrow, specialized vocational skills, know only how to feed the beast until it dies. Once it is dead, they will be helpless. Don’t expect them to save us. They do not even know how to ask the questions, And when it all collapses, when our rotten financial system with its trillions in worthless assets implode and our imperial wars end in humiliation and defeat, the power elite will be exposed as being as helpless, and as self-deluded, as the rest of us.”

The "Elite"

“The elite, and those who work for them, were never taught how to question the assumptions of their age. The socially important knowledge and cultural ideas embodied in history, literature, philosophy, and religion, which are at their core subversive and threatening to authority, have been banished from public discourse.”

Corporatism

“Sadism dominates the culture. It runs like an electric current through reality television and trash-talk programs, is at the core of pornography, and fuels the compliant, corporate collective. Corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice and diminishing the individual to force him or her into an ostensibly harmonious collective. This hypermasculinity has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our lack of compassion for our homeless, our poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed, and the sick. ... We accept the system handed to us and seek to find a comfortable place within it. We retreat into the narrow, confined ghettos created for us and shut our eyes to the deadly superstructure of the corporate state.”

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

I think most people who care probably already got this, but just in case there are one or two who didn't, this is a resource for lawyers who want to help out kids at the border:

Thanks, this is useful.

Now can we go back to men talking about feminism?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Ah, the ineffable majesty of the law.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Godwin has officially suspended Godwin's Law.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Godwin has officially suspended Godwin's Law.

This stems from the border issue. I've not read much about that issue, but one would hope the focus on that cruel practice would bleed over to a focus on the impact of ludicrous sentences on the children of inmates.

I understand we should not allow people to avoid justice simply because they have families. But the children of inmates have committed no crimes. Jailing a young mother for a decade under a mandatory minimum drug charge* sentences the kid to a lousy childhood and higher likelihood of committing a crime him/herself.

I doubt this conversation will take place, however. If we'll effectively jail kids of people who've committed no crimes, there's 0000.00 chance we'd consider mercy for the kids of those who have actually done so.

_____
*Or, really, almost any other crime, as sentence is based on the amount of loss some prosecutor can attach to the crime (usually speculative and puffed to 5X the actual loss), reminding all Americans: The most significant rights, if not the only rights, our state and fed governments give even a hint of a shit about are property rights. And if you doubt this, compare sentences for violent crime other than murder to crimes involving economic loss. Steal money, go away for a decade. Rape somebody, do three years, out in two and change with good behavior.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This stems from the border issue. I've not read much about that issue, but one would hope the focus on that cruel practice would bleed over to a focus on the impact of ludicrous sentences on the children of inmates.

I understand we should not allow people to avoid justice simply because they have families. But the children of inmates have committed no crimes. Jailing a young mother for a decade under a mandatory minimum drug charge* sentences the kid to a lousy childhood and higher likelihood of committing a crime him/herself.

I doubt this conversation will take place, however. If we'll effectively jail kids of people who've committed no crimes, there's 0000.00 chance we'd consider mercy for the kids of those who have actually done so.

Tyler Cowen rightly made that point in his most recent column but I'm not sure it's really getting any traction. Seems pretty obvious that there's often greater harm in jailing parents and leaving the kids in limbo than in foregoing jail time as punishment.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This stems from the border issue. I've not read much about that issue, but one would hope the focus on that cruel practice would bleed over to a focus on the impact of ludicrous sentences on the children of inmates.

I understand we should not allow people to avoid justice simply because they have families. But the children of inmates have committed no crimes. Jailing a young mother for a decade under a mandatory minimum drug charge* sentences the kid to a lousy childhood and higher likelihood of committing a crime him/herself.

I doubt this conversation will take place, however. If we'll effectively jail kids of people who've committed no crimes, there's 0000.00 chance we'd consider mercy for the kids of those who have actually done so.

_____
*Or, really, almost any other crime, as sentence is based on the amount of loss some prosecutor can attach to the crime (usually speculative and puffed to 5X the actual loss), reminding all Americans: The most significant rights, if not the only rights, our state and fed governments give even a hint of a shit about are property rights. And if you doubt this, compare sentences for violent crime other than murder to crimes involving economic loss. Steal money, go away for a decade. Rape somebody, do three years, out in two and change with good behavior.

I may hear more about this than others because I talk daily to one of the people leading justice reform in Massachusetts, but I think there is a lot of attention to these issues right now. I think you'll see the Blue states address them productively, the red states compound the problem, and the Republicans in Congress, not surprisingly, help the red states, get in the way of the blue states, and fuck up the national policy as much as possible. There are a handful of sensible Republicans on the issue, but they have zero influence.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I may hear more about this than others because I talk daily to one of the people leading justice reform in Massachusetts, but I think there is a lot of attention to these issues right now. I think you'll see the Blue states address them productively, the red states compound the problem, and the Republicans in Congress, not surprisingly, help the red states, get in the way of the blue states, and fuck up the national policy as much as possible. There are a handful of sensible Republicans on the issue, but they have zero influence.

Generally, Republicans tend to be more tough on crime. But in conservative states, the Democrats aren't much help either.

The punitive mindset remains. Which I understand. People cannot be allowed to get away with crime. But these eye-for-an-eye sorts tend to be the same people who refuse to raise taxes.

If you wish to jail lots of people for non-violent crime, at costs of $85-150 per day, you need to understand the cost of doing so.

This right here should be replicated in every state, and at the federal level: https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news...476987333.html

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Tyler Cowen rightly made that point in his most recent column but I'm not sure it's really getting any traction. Seems pretty obvious that there's often greater harm in jailing parents and leaving the kids in limbo than in foregoing jail time as punishment.

Conservatives do not want to put people in prison out of an empirical belief that it reduces aggregate harm to society. At the risk of stating the obvious, the attraction of putting people in prison and separating families, whether they are immigrants or citizens, is that it signals and reinforces dominance and power. Trump can, almost in the same breath, say that Arpaio and D'Souza and Manafort have been treated unfairly, while there is zero tolerance for other charges. Mercy and fairness are not abstract goods, but the benefits of being at the top of the hierarchy. They see politics as a zero-sum game for control and status.

This was a response to Adder's post, but it's more a response to Sebby. No one really gives a sh*t about the costs of crime. The people who want to jail lots of people for non-violent crime certainly don't. They want to jail lots of people for non-violent crime because they want to jail those people, and it's not Manafort's non-violent crime they care about.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Conservatives do not want to put people in prison out of an empirical belief that it reduces aggregate harm to society. At the risk of stating the obvious, the attraction of putting people in prison and separating families, whether they are immigrants or citizens, is that it signals and reinforces dominance and power. Trump can, almost in the same breath, say that Arpaio and D'Souza and Manafort have been treated unfairly, while there is zero tolerance for other charges. Mercy and fairness are not abstract goods, but the benefits of being at the top of the hierarchy. They see politics as a zero-sum game for control and status.

This was a response to Adder's post, but it's more a response to Sebby. No one really gives a sh*t about the costs of crime. The people who want to jail lots of people for non-violent crime certainly don't. They want to jail lots of people for non-violent crime because they want to jail those people, and it's not Manafort's non-violent crime they care about.

I can buy most of this. But I cannot concede that there isn't also some Puritan psychosis behind our prison state. And I cannot agree that the costs of incarceration aren't an issue for conservatives.

Human sacrifice hasn't existed for millennia for no reason. People are animals, and a lot of them get some form of catharsis - some twisted release of primordial urges toward violence - from inflicting pain on others. You're correct a lot of it is about dominance. But you credit the minds of the tough on crime crowd too much by citing dominance primarily. The elite, educated nihilists in this camp see the dominance benefit. The dumb, lower class shlubs who get behind tough on crime initiatives are filled with bloodlust, anger, and a desire to punish proxies for their loserdom (i.e., sacrifice junkies).

And there are a ton of conservatives who are very much concerned with the cost of incarceration. But like conservatives who balloon the debt for tax cuts, they're all cognitive dissonance.

Regarding conservatives who worry about the cost of economic crime, that's a pillar of their philosophy. They don't give a damn about a minority being assaulted, robbed, or raped, but pull a Bernie Ebbers on them - cost them a few hundred grand of their portfolio - and you'll go away forever. Hence rape gets you an average of three years, while Bernie does 25.

Is there anyone who thinks and Ebbers, or a Madoff, is more a threat to society than a rapist? How in the fuck do we square the disparity in sentences there? Shit, the whole fucking Fed Crim Code is one big pile of outlandish, draconian penalties for property crime. (Where it isn't a minority-control instrument.)

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

But I cannot concede that there isn't also some Puritan psychosis behind our prison state.

And racism. Black and brown people who do things wrong, and we *know* they all do, deserve to be imprisoned and maltreated. They are animals to be controlled.

It doesn't hurt that private prison campaign donors also can be enriched either.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

And racism. Black and brown people who do things wrong, and we *know* they all do, deserve to be imprisoned and maltreated. They are animals to be controlled.

It doesn't hurt that private prison campaign donors also can be enriched either.

I didn't omit racism. I just kind of figure at this point, any comment on why we imprison people is assumed to start with, "In addition to racism,..."

People who are interested in punishing people are inherently suspect sorts. You've got to be a very strange fuck to think, "I want to devote my time to making sure punishment is meted out." It's a psychologically creepy mindset.

I get we need to have these weird people in society. But I don't want to hang out with any of them. I don't even want them near me.