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bor: i took a shower after i wrote the above and while moistening myself i realized that someone could take what i wrote as you did: my lack of clarity is at fault--the basic argument i am making is that 15 years to wholly out of whack. it is surreal in its excess. i would not argue that no sentence was required once these folks were caught and tried--but that 15 years is ridiculous.
second: these actions seem to me the result of the class order that the americans have chosen to allow for themselves. i think they are readily understandable in those terms, even if you still argue that some sort of sanction was appropriate.
third: i derived my take on the posts that approved of such a draconian sentence simply from reading through them. same logic over and over: stealing is stealing, let em fry. i dont buy it.
fourth: civilization is not simply a matter of constraints imposed from the outside, is it? you internalize social norms, you perform them, they shape what you see and how you see it, what you do and how you justify that doign to yourself. what breaks down in a situation like katrina is the system of outward constraints, the arm of the states monopoly on "legitimate violence" that functions to enforce the system of property relations--which may or may not be the same thing as what you might call "civilized"---you would hope, for example, that a civilized order would respect the dignity of all its members----including those least advantaged, wouldnt you?
i dont see that in the american class system.
i dont know how anyone could.
but hey, that's just me.
the confusion probably came from blurring two types of claims--one about the sentences and another about the class order in the states. sorry about that.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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