As long as w have the legal system we now have, the death sentence is
nothing more than vindictive. A system that holds trials based on who
can afford the best legal supports, and a system thast turns justice
into a game show, and a system that favors wealth, this is not a
system that any working class citizen can support.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/29/21, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Abolish the death penalty, a tool of capitalist oppressionAs long as w have the legal system we now have, the death sentence is
https://themilitant.com/2021/01/23/abolish-the-death-penalty-a-tool-of-capitalist-oppression/
Statement by Joanne Kuniansky, Socialist Workers Party candidate for New
Jersey governor Jan. 20.
“An enormous machine for grinding people up,” is how Cuban revolutionary
Ramón Labañino described the capitalist “justice” system. Labañino was
one of the Cuban 5, framed up and imprisoned in the U.S. for up to 16
years for acting to defend their revolution.
Nowhere can that be seen more clearly than in 13 federal executions
carried out over the last seven months, after a 17-year hiatus. The two
most recent were sanctified by a big majority of the black-robed
“justices” on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Jan. 13 execution of Lisa Montgomery — a woman diagnosed with
serious mental disorders and kept in solitary confinement since 2007 —
is just one example of the barbarity of the capitalist rulers.
They use the death penalty as a class weapon to terrorize and break the
spirits of workers and farmers. It has been used against working-class
militants who stand up to bosses in decades past, like the Haymarket
martyrs and Industrial Workers of the World militant Joe Hill. It will
be used again in the future as workers and farmers defend ourselves and
rebel against attacks by the bosses and their government.
Thousands more are sentenced to death by the dangerous speedup and
working conditions imposed by the bosses in search of higher profits at
factories, warehouses, construction sites and railroads across the
country. All working people have a stake in fighting for workers control
of production and safety on the job. And demanding an immediate end to
the rulers’ use of the death penalty and joining actions to protest its
use.
Alongside executions and the deadly violence cops mete out, the U.S.
rulers incarcerate a higher proportion of the population than any other
country in the world, overwhelmingly working class and
disproportionately Black. Prisons, rife with the abuse of inmates’
rights, are tools of ruling-class retribution. The capitalist ruling
families are only a small minority of the population. To maintain their
rule, they use a court system rigged against working people.
Onerous bail terms ensure thousands languish in jail for months, and
even years before trial. Prosecutors use threats of long prison
sentences to force workers to cop a plea bargain so only a tiny fraction
of those charged with a “crime” ever get to court. This is a blow to the
right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The injustices and brutalities inherent to capitalist rule can be
checked for a time as a result of working people’s struggles. But the
foundation for sweeping them away can only be established when we
organize ourselves independently to fight in our millions to replace the
dictatorship of capital with a workers and farmers government, as
working people have done in revolutionary Cuba.
That’s the most powerful tool our class has to deepen the struggles
necessary to wipe out all exploitation and oppression.
The Socialist Workers Party demands: End the death penalty!
US gov’t pushes aside legal appeals, executes 2 inmates with coronavirus
Cory Johnson was pronounced dead after being executed Jan. 14, and
Dustin John Higgs was killed two days later, at the federal death-row
prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Their executions mean the U.S.
government has put to death 13 federal…
Front Page Articles
Workers need our own party, a labor party!
India farmers set protest and global solidarity actions Jan. 26
Abolish the death penalty, a tool of capitalist oppression
Join Socialist Workers Party campaign in 2021 elections
Build solidarity with NY produce strikers in ‘fight for our worth’!
US gov’t pushes aside legal appeals, executes 2 inmates with coronavirus
‘Thought control’ sedition charges are threat to workers’ rights
Feature Articles
Working-class fight for power is central to ‘Jewish Question’
Also In This Issue
‘Stimulus’ fund for ‘Militant’ at $49,267, and growing!
Vote for union set at Amazon warehouse center in Alabama
Protests against joblessness, cop violence rock Tunisia
UK gas workers strike over pay cuts, work hours
Liberals use Capitol ‘insurrection’ to target political rights
US has long history of rigged elections
Books of the Month
Cuban Five ‘defended revolution against colossal injustice’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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--
George H. Smith “It is my firm conviction that man has nothing to gain,
emotionally or otherwise, by adhering to a falsehood, regardless of how
comfortable or sacred that falsehood may appear. Anyone who claims, on
the one hand, that he is concerned with human welfare, and who demands,
on the other hand, that man must suspend or renounce the use of his
reason, is contradicting himself. There can be no knowledge of what is
good for man apart from knowledge of reality and human nature, and there
is no manner in which this knowledge can be acquired except through
reason. To advocate irrationality is to advocate that which is
destructive to human life.” ― George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against
God
