Tag: BurnPrisons

US Prison Strike Takes us to the Dark Heart of Capitalism: Support Needed

New US Prison Strike Takes us to the Dark Heart of Capitalism

shared from LIBCOM  and Enough is Enough

Prison labour is a billion-dollar industry, and the corporate beneficiaries of this slave labour include some of the largest corporations and most widely known brands. There are literally hundreds of corporations and firms that exploit prison labour.

One year ago the largest prison labour strike in US history took place. More than 24,000 prisoners across 29 prisons in 12 states protested against exploitation and inhumane conditions.

 

 

 

It was timed to mark the anniversary of the Attica Prison uprising1 of 46 years ago over prisoners’ demands for better living conditions and political rights. Attica prisoners rioted and took control of the prison, taking 42 staff hostage. When the uprising was over, at least 43 people were dead, including ten prison staff, and 33 inmates.2

see also : Two Weeks Into #PrisonStrike, Inmates Speak Out

One year on, another major prison strike is now spreading across the US and Canada which has entered into its second week. The strike began on August 21 and is set to last a total of 19 days. Naturally, it has been subjected to a media blackout by the mainstream media in the US; and reliable information about the progress of the strike is difficult to come by. Continue reading “US Prison Strike Takes us to the Dark Heart of Capitalism: Support Needed”

A world without police: Peter Gelderloos

“posted by Julius Gavroche      As a continuation of the collection of accounts of police violence-intervention from our last post, we share an essay by Peter Gelderloos on the function of the police within modern, capitalist society.  

Image result for a world without police.. anarchist

 No radical politics is possible except against the police, for they are an integral and fundamental instrument in the reproduction of capitalist social relations.  This does not mean however they they should become the object of any open and exclusive counter-violence; but rather, that all should be done to create conditions in which the violence of the police is rendered pointless and they themselves cease to be necessary.Image result for a world without police.. anarchist

In the mass protests-occupations of spain’s cities in 2011, for example, the police were often simply marginalised by the sheer scale of the mobilisations, or pushed back in many smaller, but determined, protests.  The creation and defense of spaces of autonomy is only viable not against the police, but against the society as whole to which they belong.  In other words, autonomy lies beyond policed societies.

A world without police

by Peter Gelderloos (Originally published with Counterpunch)

In two previous essay, I discussed the role of the Left in protecting the police through cautious reformism, and the effectiveness of a pacified, falsified—in a word disarmed—history of the Civil Rights movement to prevent us from learning from previous struggles and achieving a meaningful change in society.

The police are a racist, authoritarian institution that exists to protect the powerful in an unequal system. Continue reading “A world without police: Peter Gelderloos”