Robespierre2.0
7th May 2010, 15:27
From my personal experience, I found that once I had become a socialist, I had arrived at the point where I was holding capitalist and socialist countries to the same standards- in other words, realizing that the repressive state machinery in the USSR was not somehow more 'totalitarian' than what was going on in the U.S.
Once you're at that point, if you're not a fan of being repressed, you're going to side with socialism, which seeks to abolish classes, and thus the need for state repression.
However, getting to that point is difficult for many people, because many have been indoctrinated with this 'freedom' vs. 'totalitarianism' dichotomy by the capitalist media since birth, not realizing that it is the function of the state to grant 'freedom' to one group of people, and rule oppressively over another. In order to destroy those illusions, you are going to have to confront people with the ugly truth.
That's why I'm posting this link
http://reidscones.com/prison/ (warning: pretty damn depressing)
This is a compilation of someone's research on the American prison system. Highlights include the fact that after the Attica prison riot, prisons actually encourage racialized prison gangs and a means of preventing inmates from uniting together as a whole.
Also of note is Angola, a prison in Louisiana which is basically a time capsule from the good ol' days of slavery- It is a massive plantation, where the predominantly black inmates are forced to pick cotton and soybeans without any help from machinery.
It's a daunting task, but perhaps we'd have a great propaganda tool if we created an article that placed these statistics side-by-side with information regarding the Soviet gulag system.
Once you're at that point, if you're not a fan of being repressed, you're going to side with socialism, which seeks to abolish classes, and thus the need for state repression.
However, getting to that point is difficult for many people, because many have been indoctrinated with this 'freedom' vs. 'totalitarianism' dichotomy by the capitalist media since birth, not realizing that it is the function of the state to grant 'freedom' to one group of people, and rule oppressively over another. In order to destroy those illusions, you are going to have to confront people with the ugly truth.
That's why I'm posting this link
http://reidscones.com/prison/ (warning: pretty damn depressing)
This is a compilation of someone's research on the American prison system. Highlights include the fact that after the Attica prison riot, prisons actually encourage racialized prison gangs and a means of preventing inmates from uniting together as a whole.
Also of note is Angola, a prison in Louisiana which is basically a time capsule from the good ol' days of slavery- It is a massive plantation, where the predominantly black inmates are forced to pick cotton and soybeans without any help from machinery.
It's a daunting task, but perhaps we'd have a great propaganda tool if we created an article that placed these statistics side-by-side with information regarding the Soviet gulag system.