Prison is not designed to be a place for rehabilitation. Prison is designed as:

• A profit center
• A method for people who want to exert control over the populace to do that

It is, as you said, actively hostile to the goal of rehabilitation. Some of that is deliberate, because recidivism is further profit for the people involved in the system, and some is just how it happens.

The system also happens to occasionally fulfill a useful goal of keeping violent or dangerous people off the streets, but almost every single other thing that it does is harmful.

Sounds about right. A lot of these situations are symptoms of societal rot. Investing in punishing crime after the fact does basically nothing to reduce it, where fixing economic working conditions so that people won’t be put into desperate situations helps to resolve theft and violence because people can just live and be normal and it’s okay. Imagine that.

That said I am deeply skeptical of the idea of abolishing prisons before doing that so that all these broken people can just be loose roaming the streets damaging others in the meantime. But you’re not wrong I think about the uselessness of it as a permanent solution. And making police and prisons more punishing as a solution to invest any type of effort into, because there is still crime because our society is broken, is worse than useless.

Tim Leary’s autobiography has a fascinating part about this, about him organizing a research project inside a prison, trying to use LSD and meditation to bring people to an actual awareness of themselves as humans. It’s fucking fascinating. By far the best part was that because he was actually rehabilitating people and bringing them to a positive solution where they as individuals could be functional members of a working society, people inside the system predicted to him that the project would be shut down because it’s unprofitable to go that way. I don’t know if that was why it got shut down, but it did get shut down. Even though it was bringing great results even within the awful limits of our broken society and system. Exactly as predicted. Go figure.

They do not work for their alleged intended purpose (often just making things worse) and treat people like shit.

I partly agree with this part, definitely as they are implemented in the US. What do you think the solution should be if someone robs a liquor store or rapes their neighbor?

I think that’s some weird behavior of the web site… for me, on VPN it redirects to YouTube, but when not using a VPN it gives the text article.

Maybe they’re redirecting non-US visitors to their YouTube channel or something? I have no idea honestly.

Trump is probably nettled about Russia’s claim to have tested a long-range, nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik

Let me tell you a little story about an American missile called the “snark.”

The name was the sort of joke that weapons engineers like to make. It was supposed to navigate itself autonomously to its target in the Soviet Union by watching the stars. It did not have horizontal stabilizers, and flew itself pointed in a weird nose-up attitude the entire way. Once it arrived at its destination, it was supposed to detach the warhead and then pull up violently in order not to get in the warhead’s way, which caused it to break apart in flight. They said with a straight face that the falling debris would help to confuse enemy radar, as if this had been a purposeful design element rather than something that they weren’t bothering to fix.

It did not do its navigation very well. One of the strategic bomber pilots was quoted as saying that he felt a hell of a lot better about flying his bomber knowing that the plan was for a bunch of these things to be wandering aimlessly above Asia and distracting everyone’s attention from what his bomber was up to.

Anyway, they tried it in about 1961, and it sucked so they stopped. And I think the US in 1961 was in a lot better position than modern Russia to do these kinds of things effectively.

Just a little story to distract everyone from the horror of Trump and what he is doing

One thing about this is that it seems to labor under the assumption of a symmetrical (or near symmetrical) fight, and that is exactly the last thing that a resistance group should be doing.

He talks about guerilla war in parts of it.

All these human traffickers have homes to go back to at night, and if enough face repercussions, it will quickly become difficult to find people willing to stick their neck out and possibly become yet another new fountain.

The same is true of judges, Democratic congresspeople, state governors… all kinds of people. So you’re right back to the symmetrical conflict.

His patch says “US Border Patrol,” so presumably CBP. Of course the whole thing is such a shit show that it could potentially be just a patch he slapped on there or something, but I would guess that he is CBP.

I demand satisfaction

You are totally besmirching me

Look, buddy. I know a lot about the law and the various other lawerings. I’m well educated. Well versed. I know that situations like this – agg assault wise – they’re very complex.

Yeah, it is excellent. He put it in the public domain, it’s on the internet:

https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/126900/8008_FDTD.pdf

He wrote a bunch more that are a little more in depth (there are references in the appendix for some specific details about particular tactics), but that one is the pamphlet condensed version which is still pretty comprehensive.

Pro tip for anyone in this situation: Squaring up on someone that close to them is assault (as distinct from battery which is if you make contact with them), and the woman not getting back when they told her to is obstruction. He’s guilty of a felony and she can be arrested for a misdemeanor, if they really want to push either or both of those issues.

If you’re going into it to maybe get arrested to make a point then fine. It’s possible that the charges will be dropped or the grand jury won’t indict, and giving resistance to these guys is absolutely a good thing to do. But, it’s also possible that the legal consequences will be severe (even if they’re following the normal rules instead of just snatching you to ICE detention). Honestly, they should be getting this type of stuff everywhere they show up. I’m just saying this so that people know what the deal is if they do decide to do this. There are a lot of TikTok lawyers who think that “not even doing anything” is in the statute, but it isn’t.

The second frog turns to the first and says “you’re being alarmist, things aren’t that bad.”

This sounds like the second frog.‡

You gotta read what I wrote again then lol

You definitely have way more faith in our (metaphorical) neighbors and the system than I do.

Absolutely not. Actually one of the really alarming things to me is that I don’t think this country has the structures and traditions in its society anymore that would enable it to build and maintain a working technological society (let alone a working democracy). I hope I am wrong, but I actually don’t even think that the current fascism crisis is the worst thing that we’re facing. I think it is a symptom of a much deeper disease which is a lot harder to get rid of than any one leader or political faction no matter how fascistic.

It would help if you included resources that prove that that book was the pretext for double digit successful revolutions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Dictatorship_to_Democracy

It’s known to have been directly involved in Burma, the Arab Spring, Serbia, and Angola. It’s been translated by local activists into Amharic, Arabic, Azeri, Bahasa, Belarusian, Burmese, Chin, Chinese (simplified and traditional Mandarin), Dhivehi, Farsi, French, Georgian, German, Jing Paw, Karen, Khmer, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Nepali, Pashto, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Tibetan, Tigrinya, Ukrainian, Uzbek, and Vietnamese. I have no idea how many of those led to it later being involved in a revolutionary attempt (let alone a successful one) in a “proof” sense. I was just telling you what I think about it.

Here’s a story: https://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/23/world/gene-sharp-revolutionary/index.html

The author is the real deal. He’s spent time in federal detention in the US, he’s spent a lot of time with people in resistance movements in these places.

I want to call your attention to this part specifically:

The Burmese were amazed by Sharp’s theories. They couldn’t believe they had been fighting and killing for 20 years when there was an alternative.

I don’t know if you can really call modern Myanmar a “success story” but to me they seem like they’re making more progress now than in 30 years of bloody armed confrontation with the military, which of course is more capable at military things.

You likely have no idea who you just killed and who’s coming to investigate it

I saw a bodycam video once where some cops were attempting to speak with a woman who had signs of mental illness who was alone in the house with a small child. One of her relatives was alarmed by this situation, called the cops, and a couple cops were now trying to retrieve the child from the house calmly, without success.

The sergeant showed up, said maybe it was a fake custody situation, said maybe someone was in the country illegally, yelled at the woman who had called the police, and had everyone leave.

Once the cops left, the woman he had yelled at tried to go in the house and resolve things herself, the mentally ill woman physically attacked her, and the cops came back and long story short it all got sorted out. The sergeant actually apologized to the woman for being an “asshole” in his words. Sure. But also, the situation could easily have ended with a dead kid or the woman who called the cops getting shot or something.

Bottom line: Yes. There are plenty of good cops out there, don’t listen to Lemmy about it. But there are also plenty who are incompetent or it’s just not a good day for them. Don’t just give a goddamned statement.

fascism does not care about legality, and it doesn’t care about pretext

Very very true. However, most of the country does. If they were already “doing it themselves” and this stuff didn’t matter, they would have arrested Pritzger, kicked Jimmy Kimmel off the air, that CBP commander in Chicago wouldn’t be showing up to court every morning, things like that. There is a reason they’re starting by focusing on vulnerable communities without much support from the rest of society, and obeying this elaborate pretense that they’re “enforcing immigration law” and pretending to stay inside those boundaries so elaborately.

I can pretty much guarantee you that if the citizens of Chicago had been obeying your advice here so far, Pritzger would have been arrested by some sort of federal agents already.

All I can really say is read the book. I know you have your way of looking at it and I’m honestly not trying to disrespect it, because I get it, but also, how many successful revolutions have you written the guidebook for? I think for Sharp that number is close to double digits now.

Yeah. I mean you might be fine. If the cops show up, you explain what happened and you didn’t do anything wrong, and everything checks out, you might get to go home and the detective might call you the next day just to close out the loop and you’ll be fine. But… do you want to bet the rest of your life on it working out that way?

Again, be polite. As a matter of realpolitik it is extremely important that you not fit into the “hostile suspect who just killed somebody” bubble. But, also, while you’re being polite and getting access to your lawyer as quickly as possible so you can clear the air and give you reasonable statement to them, it’s still Shut the Fuck Up Friday. You have no idea what the cops and prosecutors may decide to read into what single sentence you happened to randomly blurt out while your blood is still pounding in your ears.

I also started training in Brazilian jiu jitsu which is a pretty fun way to get into shape. I am getting good at grappling and choking big guys out.

Honestly everyone should take some kind of self-defense classes. I know something about it but I am horribly out of shape right now, which probably isn’t a good idea.

And it doesn’t hurt to level up some skills that you can use to help your community if the does unthinkable happen.

This is very sincerely a really good point. I might do some first aid classes and things, it does indeed seem like shit will get quite a lot wilder before it ever gets unwild again.

But I do have an expectation that I’ll need a gun eventually, and if that’s true, I should have one now so that I can practice with it.

Yeah, I feel you on that. You’re not wrong.

My van was down by the river though, it’s good because you can go swimming every morning like John Quincy Adams