Nah, look up Larry Krasner in Philadelphia. Prosecutors have a ton of power, and getting someone in office who will use that power to better ends is good. It's the quickest, easiest way to put a decarceration program in place.
You can be a prosecutor who doesn't prosecute people, if you're an elected one, right?
You're on the right track.
First, there's a distinction between unelected federal prosecutors and your local, elected prosecutor (your district attorney). Federal prosecutors don't have the latitude or political independence to change charging policies (e.g., setting a blanket policy to decline prosecution on simple drug possession charges). Your local district attorney can do that, but note that this latitude doesn't extend to the front-line prosecutors in every local DA's office. Only the elected person -- the DA -- gets to set that policy. If you get hired as a front-line prosecutor and the DA who runs your office wants to hammer people on marijuana charges, you either get with the program or you'll lose your job. But, if you're in an office where the elected DA is trying to put decarceration policies into practice, then yes, you can choose to decline prosecution on practically any case.
Here's a policy memo from a DA running this sort of program. Skip down to page 46 of the PDF if you want to see highlights of other DAs doing similar things, and skip down to page 55 if you want a look at what types of cases will lead to the DA's office declining prosecution (or using a diversion program as a first step rather than incarceration).
I mean, it's been a week since the election. Time to move on, can't dwell on the past, every problem is solved thanks to Biden.
The dumbest people. Holy shit.
enby icon wakko warner is the only one who can pull off a red baseball cap in 2020
"how are you dismantling white supremacy?" you know, the thing
Yeah nobody has ever associated Biden himself with violence, oppression, and imperialism. This is a good post, I love to see it.
Sometimes I think about all the people the Nazis killed, and the cold horror of those who saw the swastika flag coming to their town, knowing they and their loved ones would soon be kneeling in front of a bloody trench. I think about the gruesome and nightmarish deaths the Nazi scientists devised for the billions they deemed "inferior", the casual colonial arrogance and disgusting inhuman giddyness with which they dealt it out. Then I think about the hideously long list of genocides the US Empire committed and still commits to this day, We've murdered more innocent people that the third Reich ever could have dreamed, and that's what most of the human race thinks of when they see our ugly fucking flag. Where will the next missile arrive? When will the soldiers come to my street?
Then there's that one asshole in the twitter thread like "Omg, it's like being a kid in the 90s again!"
Personally I’ve been thinking of a rural/patriotic pipeline into the left and I think at some point we’ll have to embrace some form of American patriotism to do that. But this isn’t it.
If we're talking First Nations / indigenous peoples I'm in! Otherwise... :amerikkka:
You're being downvoted, but I see no inherent contradiction between patriotism and leftism. So long as patriotism is understood as civic-mindedness and hatred for corruption and hierarchy, and not as xenophobia or exclusion.
I think for a lot of people, especially rural/working-class folk, the allegiance to the idea of their country is too primary to oppose. It's something that needs to be evolved out of, not just abolished outright. You'll only make unnecessary enemies if you tell them to 'abandon your father and mother, Amerikkka sucks, burn the shit down.' That's a message for urban youth, not rural families.
If that doesn't make sense to you - go back to theory. Not all classes are ready to support outright communism, they need a certain progression of change to get there. Or if you're taking the Maoist approach, you have to identify with the concerns of the class you're championing, you can't impose urban cosmopolitanism on a rural inward-looking population; unless you're doing it at gunpoint, I suppose.
Of course, you have to watch out for how patriotism is defined already, what the venerated symbols stand for. The American flag could be associated with a kind of Jeffersonianism, the opposition to central authority, the rights of the little folk who control their own means of production. But it's got a lot of baggage to overcome, and not just racism/imperialism/war - the standard school/media propaganda defines America as liberal and capitalist, so that's what a lot of people will default to.
Yes, thank you. That’s what I had in mind. I just think of Beau of the fifth column and how effective he is at talking to conservatives, particularly rural ones.
