"While there is a soul in prison, I am not free"
About 30 years ago I was in Atlanta to argue a case before the 11th Circuit. My co counsel, who was from Miami, mentioned that he had just run across some of my clients in the airport. They had been on their way to Mobile to visit their relative and had seen a Eugene Debs quote on the back of his shirt and from that reasoned that he was a priest. "It was one of your firm shirts", he said.
Arthur and I are pretty much old school. We don't advertise. It might be a conceit but we rely on our reputation and see advertising as something tacky. But the one thing we do (or, more accurately, I did, Arthur just never fought me about it), was that we had firm tee shirts. I would pass them out to family, friends and the Downtown folks. It was bartender ware.
Our very first shirt was a quote from Socialist Eugene Debs: "While there is a soul in prison, I am not free". It encapsulates the idea that criminalization is a form of oppression, that we need to work towards educating and improving that system and the people it serves.
Fast forward to today when a lot is being made of the abolish the cops, abolish prisons blather. I have no doubt that there are some dingbats that are saying that and mean it, every word, been there, done that. But in my mind, it's meant to communicate that what is happening with ICE is a travesty. What is happening with government at this point, anywhere it's being practiced by the Trump administration, is something that needs addressing. We have to work at fixing things. I don't think anyone means to crash the system, but it's broken. And if you think unbreaking them is bad, then you're not with us, and I get that. and shame on you.
But as it relates to me and to many of us that are progressives, we work within the system and always have. Prior to it becoming DSA, there were two groups, DSOC and NAM, in Mobile. I was a member of both. They merged into DSA, I don't remember if our chapter became officially a DSA chapter. It's been 40 years. But the idea that you can just lump them in as somehow members of a Stalinist horde is crazy, never mind that you're excusing the rantings of a President that openly commiserates with the Alt-Right and other fascists (the "nice people"), excuses the attack on the Capitol as just another tourist misadventure and then pardons them after the legal system finally asserts itself, when you have people openly espousing fascism and your response is that other people are communists, then you're not looking deeply enough at what the problem is.
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