this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2023
21 points (73.3% liked)

Abolition of police and prisons

342 readers
1 users here now

Abolish is to flourish! Against the prison industrial complex and for transformative justice.

See Critical Resistance's definitions below:

The Prison Industrial Complex

The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.

Through its reach and impact, the PIC helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other privileges. There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant. This power is also maintained by earning huge profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces; helping earn political gains for "tough on crime" politicians; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination and reorganization of power in the US.

Abolition

PIC abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.

From where we are now, sometimes we can't really imagine what abolition is going to look like. Abolition isn't just about getting rid of buildings full of cages. It's also about undoing the society we live in because the PIC both feeds on and maintains oppression and inequalities through punishment, violence, and controls millions of people. Because the PIC is not an isolated system, abolition is a broad strategy. An abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives.

Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Ultimately, this “generous offer” amounted to turning the West Bank into non-contiguous cantons, crisscrossed by a network of settlements, roads and Israeli areas. Even the supposed “capital” of the Palestinian state would mostly be under Israeli control, with stipulations and conditions that stripped any real sovereignty from any area of the supposed Palestinian “state”. Not even the sky above Palestinian heads would be under their control, nor the water under their feet, as Israel still demanded access to water resources under the West Bank.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] mambabasa 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This means that any kind of live-alongside-each-other situation is going to require significant security concessions from the Palestinians as part of the total package.

Oh you mean a security concession like apartheid? Literally Palestinians have nothing to concede beyond leaving Palestine.

EDIT: Let it be clear that the first step to peace HAS ALWAYS BEEN in Israel’s court. They have to be the ones to start treating Palestinians with dignity and respect, to stop the occupation and apartheid. Palestinians have nothing left to concede other than their own destruction.

[–] silence7 -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're also not willing to concede living in the same country with equal rights. So not many options left

[–] mambabasa 4 points 1 year ago

And whose fault is that? I guarantee that if Israel starts treating Palestinians with respect, the Palestinians will be more amendable to a single country with equal rights. If you have lived 75 years under martial law, you will inevitably get these views where co-habitation becomes impossible. We saw it in South Africa. But look at South Africa now: the indigenous Black population and settler minorities now live together with equal rights. The end of apartheid is possible, but the initiative has to come from Israel, not the Palestinians.