r/WorkReform • u/zzill6 🤝 Join A Union • 4h ago

😡 Venting Breaking: Four House Democrats just introduced an amendment to condemn socialism & the DSA. Josh Gottheimer (NJ) Hillary Scholten (MI) Tom Suozzi (NY) Jared Moskowitz (FL) We’re living through the horrors of capitalism while Democrats join with Republicans to condemn socialism.

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7.2k Upvotes

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578

u/El_Chilangisimo 4h ago edited 59m ago

That’s a weird way of saying you don’t want to be a house representative anymore.

-36

u/NicNash08 1h ago

Feel like im taking crazy pills, there is no world where DSA is a wise thing to do. Hate them for other things, but not for opposing DSA

27

u/FinancialRip2008 56m ago

10+ year old accounts with absolutely insane pro-oligarchy comments is a thing you never saw just a few years ago. what's up with that?

16

u/peppaz 54m ago

my account is almost 20 years old and I have been offered 5 figures for it

so that's what's happening lol

5

u/FinancialRip2008 52m ago

dang, never realized spinning up a new reddit account every coupla years was poor financial planning

2

u/Islandplans 37m ago

Hi, I'm ignorant as to the whole 'upvotes', karma, etc. process.

What is the actual, practical value to an older account or one with a lot of 'karma'?

Who would offer you actual money for it and why?

Thanks.

7

u/peppaz 32m ago

Nothing besides credibility that you are likely a real human being and not a bot, which there are many of. So companies or propaganda outlets will buy older accounts to seem like a legit established user and then post their nonsense.

-7

u/NicNash08 50m ago

That's quite a leap. Disagreeing with the DSA doesn't automatically mean I support an oligarchy. Nuance exists outside of 'us vs. them' binaries.

6

u/FinancialRip2008 25m ago

i appreciate your use of irony

-160

u/Few-Improvement9978 4h ago

Or maybe they just don’t want prisons abolished?

91

u/Bazillion100 3h ago

Why would you not want to live in a world that has no need for for-profit prisons? Thats what prison abolishment is, not opening the gates and crossing your fingers

61

u/T-Weed- 3h ago

Sadly they aren't gonna read that. They are just here to parrot their gotcha bullshit

-30

u/DJDemyan 3h ago

We would all love to eliminate the need for prisons, but where has that happened? How could that happen?

That’s also not part of the DSA mission statement the fella you’re replying to is referring to. The need for prisons is a different discussion

Even so, the countries with highest standard of living still have prisons.

25

u/Bazillion100 3h ago

In truth, I can’t imagine that world, but I have lived and been to communities where needs are met and the need tor dysfunction/crime is greatly minimized. To me the abolishment is thinking and making decisions that acknowledge the US prison system is ineffective and exploitative and that changes to wealth inequality, access to education and community driven change is the actual answer to get people away from incarceration.

Tl;dr ; Prison abolition is the acknowledgment that the US prison system does not fulfill its purpose and should be replaced

-11

u/DJDemyan 2h ago

Can’t both things be true? We can work to mitigate the need for prisons through making sure people’s needs are met, on that I agree with you thoroughly and eagerly.

My point is simply that bad people will continue to exist even in a utopia, what are we supposed to do with them?

15

u/Bazillion100 2h ago

Yeah both things can be true. Thats the point!

What do we do with them? Detain them lol. So as long as its a fringe outlier and there isn’t a whole industry built around creating and profiting off their detention.

-9

u/DJDemyan 2h ago

Okay, detain them… what, indefinitely?

Isn’t that just putting them in jail all over again?

All I’m saying is we still need jails, but I agree we should eject any profit incentive from the prison system.

6

u/JaneReadsTruth 57m ago

Yep, like anyone in this current administration hiding the Epstein files or being named repeatedly in them should see the inside of a prison cell. They cannot be redeemed, cured, or forgiven, regardless of which version of their bible they shake at convenient times. Also, the Tate brothers.

I'm not a fan of imprisoning people who steal bread to feed their family. We know, whether most will admit it or not, that the system isn't fair or just. The right is treating the poverty created by their system as a moral failure and criminalizing the poor and homeless. The atrocities in America will end up with more innocent lives lost...but hopefully the instigators of the violence and the American citizens who are enforcing the violence will see the justice they deserve.

8

u/The_R1NG 2h ago

“For profit” =\= “all”

Your lack of understanding is the first hurdle

-16

u/_Eggs_ 1h ago

no need for for-profit prisons?

Is this a real life example of the motte-and-bailey defense? I just learned about this from another Reddit comment and it’s the first time I have seen one.

The motte-and-bailey defense (or fallacy) is a form of argument where a speaker mixes up a bold, controversial claim with a safe, easy-to-defend position. When people attack the hard claim, the speaker retreats to the safe one, but acts as if they still proved the big one.

He said “don’t abolish prisons”, and you added the “for-profit prisons” qualifier yourself.

I saw nothing in his comment that suggested he supports the profitability of prisons. I also saw nothing to suggest that he doesn’t “want to live in a world that has no need for prisons”. You added that as well, as if he is against a crimeless world.

21

u/WholeTomatillo5537 1h ago

Because that's not what prison abolition is. No one is arguing for zero prisons zero rehabilitation.

-6

u/Smayteeh 1h ago

The DSA is literally arguing for 0 prisons.

https://www.dsausa.org/working-groups/abolition-working-group/

"For all of the working class to achieve collective liberation we must constrain, diminish, and abolish the carceral forces of the state — from prisons and police themselves, to their manifestations in all forms throughout society."

8

u/Nagoragama 1h ago

Please learn English

-3

u/Smayteeh 1h ago

ad hominem

6

u/Nagoragama 1h ago

You misunderstood the campaign position of the DSA, I dunno what else to tell you

-2

u/Smayteeh 50m ago

Nobody that responded to any of my comments has provided any sources, so I find it much more believable that the people commenting are doing so without having any idea what the literal source document says. They're going by "vibes" rather than the literal English words printed on the page.

When you make up rationalizations so that reality fits your narrative you're pulling a play straight out of the Republican playbook. You can't just pick and choose your facts so that the situation is convenient for you.

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u/WholeTomatillo5537 1h ago

Read my comment again "zero prisons zero rehabilitation" they are arguing for zero prisons and *only* rehabilitation. What this can look like can be different person to person but yes people who commit crimes will still face consequences and restrictions to protect others.

1

u/Smayteeh 1h ago

That's a totally valid viewpoint, and I concede that this might be what was intended, but they don't actually mention rehabilitation at all on that page. For someone reading their platform without previous background knowledge, all of the rhetoric comes across as "these unjust systems are repressing workers and therefore must go".

13

u/Bazillion100 1h ago

I used the term ’for-profit prisons’ to better clarify the purpose and origin of prison abolition. The US prison system is exploitative, profit driven, and ineffective which is their reasoning for abolishment. Not trying to cross your motte and i acknowledge that we are on a reddit thread not some formal debate :)

-9

u/VanillaSkittlez 1h ago

Only 8% of the prison population is in for profit prisons.

So what’s your plan for the 92% that aren’t?

9

u/Bazillion100 1h ago

Again, prison abolishment goes much beyond the physical buildings and reframes the criminal justice system as exploitative.

Im not trying to start debates, just trying to say prison abolition is not just closing down buildings

0

u/VanillaSkittlez 56m ago

I don’t disagree with you entirely, but your original comment said to imagine a world where there’s no need for private prisons. That’s fine and all, but doesn’t cover 92% of the incarcerated population which is most of the problem.

And if the proposal is to get rid of the criminal justice system entirely, well, point me to an example of a country that has actually done away with police and prisons in any meaningful way.

Most leftists seem to believe that there will be no crime if we get rid of poverty and that’s just asinine. Some people will always commit crime and will need punitive measures as they’re often non responsive to rehabilitating measures.

4

u/Bazillion100 44m ago

I used the term ’for-profit prisons’ to better clarify the purpose and origin of prison abolition. The US prison system is exploitative, profit driven, and ineffective which is their reasoning for abolishment.

No one is advocating to removing the current justice system without alternative. Don’t know where that came from.

Eliminating all crime is impossible and prison abolition acknowledges that. Prison abolition argues that the justice system unfairly targets marginalized and poor vulnerable groups of people

-4

u/Shot-Arugula8264 1h ago

But it… also has something to do with closing down buildings.

Which is a problem.

You get that, right?

8

u/Bazillion100 56m ago

Closing a prison because no one is committing crime sounds like a good thing. Thats what prison abolitionists want to do.

No one is advocating to release dangerous and crime-loving people.

0

u/Smayteeh 35m ago edited 31m ago

Are you sure? Here's an exact bullet point from their platform.

Freedom for all incarcerated people

Emphasis is mine.

I'm pretty sure that the "dangerous and crime-loving" prisoner population you mentioned is actually a subset of "all" incarcerated people.

So I'm wondering what happens to this group of people when you release all the prisoners. Do they remain in prison? Please explain.

And don't tell me that this is a plan for after rehabilitation. The document makes no mention of rehabilitation, and instead lists the bullet point above as a "demand" that must be met first so that it "clears ground for us to build the institutions of a society to serve our communities with real justice and equality."

5

u/Bazillion100 30m ago

No, they send them to the houses of argumentative pedants who have a need to be right instead of acknowledging that we are all trying to move in the direction of more sustainable and reasonable society who frequent reddit.

-1

u/Shot-Arugula8264 23m ago

because no one is committing crime

Oh so they’re just playing fantasy land lmao

We can put Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Terry Nichols, Harvey Weinstein, and the next Jeffrey Epstein in your house then.

-3

u/FixerofDeath 55m ago

Maybe change your stupid slogan, then? Why are leftists so awful at sloganeering? I swear every major slogan has to be accompanied with a "Um, Sweety, the slogan doesn't actually mean what it says, maybe you should educate yourself on what it really means."

5

u/Bazillion100 44m ago

Lots of worse for ‘I judge books by their cover’.

0

u/FixerofDeath 42m ago

THAT IS LITERALLY THE ENTIRE POINT OF A SLOGAN.

1

u/Bazillion100 34m ago

Do you get upset eating skittles and there not being a rainbow too? Atleast prison abolition is part of prison abolition, silly

48

u/dbd1988 3h ago

Lmao get a load of this guy 👆You think that’s a popular position? Every leftist I know wants to see Trump and all his cronies behind bars.

-51

u/Few-Improvement9978 3h ago

Ok that sounds fantastic.

Then take that shit off the DSA policy list. Isn’t difficult

41

u/ArgyleGhoul 3h ago

Abolishing the privatized prison complex and abolishing prisons are not the same thing

0

u/Ian10 2h ago edited 2h ago

The DSA platform calls for the abolition of all prisons and release of all incarcerated people. This is right off of their site (bold mine):

DSA Political Platform

For all of the working class to achieve collective liberation we must constrain, diminish, and abolish the carceral forces of the state — from prisons and police themselves, to their manifestations in all forms throughout society. Each step forward in reducing the size, power, and authority of the repressive forces of the state expands the space for mass, organized, and collective action of the working class, and clears ground for us to build the institutions of a society to serve our communities with real justice and equality.

We are committed to the horizon of abolition and the path leading us there. Our demands:

  • Defund the police by rejecting any expansion to police budgets or scope of enforcement while cutting budgets annually towards zero
  • End the criminalization of working-class survival
  • Freedom for all incarcerated people
  • Demilitarize the police and end colonial policing of our cities and neighborhoods
  • Freedom of working-class self-organization and democratic political action
  • Invest in community self-governance and care, not cops

https://www.dsausa.org/working-groups/abolition-working-group/

Now obviously most DSA candidates aren’t out there saying we should shut down every prison and let criminals walk free. As it stands, this part of the platform is a liability and should be updated to reflect reality. I want more socialist candidates elected, and intellectual wet dreams like this only serve to distract from the parts of the platform that would massively improve the lives of the people.

-7

u/Smayteeh 3h ago

I was curious so I searched up their platform, and it kinda does sound like they want to abolish all prisons, not just private ones.

Quote: "Demilitarize police departments, disempower police unions, and redirect funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor."

Source: https://program.dsausa.org

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u/KrytenKoro 2h ago

which protects the rich and jails the poor.

Defining clause right there.

-4

u/Smayteeh 2h ago edited 2h ago

Respectfully, I disagree. It's incredibly grammatically ambiguous.

It could mean "we want to abolish the systems which protect the rich and jail the poor", but it can just as easily be read as "we want to abolish this current system, which is protecting the rich and jailing the poor.".

According to The Sentencing Project nonprofit, roughly 8% of the US inmate population is in a private prison.

If the DSA platform is talking about dismantling a system that "protects the rich and jails the poor" it makes much more sense that they're talking about including the current US public prison system which accounts for the vast majority (92%) of the 1.2 million total incarcerated.

4

u/Correct_Ad5807 2h ago

you are giving the DSA too much credit. if they didnt want to truly abolish all prisons they would propose an alternative system or at least steps to take rather than just say we want it gone.

0

u/Smayteeh 1h ago

I'm not giving them anything.

I was curious about their platform because I didn't know the specifics, so I went to their official website and found that exact quote in their pamphlet. There's nothing else talking about prisons in there.

How is it my fault for believing something that they've literally printed in their documentation to help people understand their platform better?

13

u/faudcmkitnhse 2h ago

It's not worded as well as it ought to be but you'll notice it says abolishing the police and prison system, not police and prisons. In America the way those things have been designed from the start is to function in a way that targets the poor and privileges the rich. That system of policing and incarceration needs to go.

-1

u/Smayteeh 1h ago

Look, I'm not even disagreeing with the premise here. I'm not some kind of sicko that loves prisons (of any kind), but if we take a literal reading of the line, they include the words "fully" and "abolishing".

To fully abolish something would be to remove it in its entirety. Prisons (private and public) are part of the current system. I agree that it's not the whole story, since a lot of the injustices stem from systemic issues, but you have to agree that in order to completely remove the current system, that would mean removing all the prisons as well.

I even looked through the rest of the documentation to see if they elaborate anywhere or provide alternative solutions, but no, the word prison is mentioned a single time and it's in the quote I shared, so I'm just going off of what is presented to me.

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u/VikingsLad 2h ago

So... mr. Reading glasses over here can do a little critical thinking and think hmmmm... maybe they want prisons that don't enrich rich people and punish poor people.

What would that look like? Maybe a stronger focus on rehabilitation and therapy, expunging state-level harmless drug possession, things that pump the numbers up and give fistfuls of cash to prison owners from taxpayer's pockets.

If you remove the profit motive from police work, then maybe you'll have a healthier police system? Crazy thought, i know.

-1

u/Smayteeh 2h ago

92% of the incarcerated US population is in a public prison which is non-profit and paid for using taxpayer dollars.

How about you stop being an ass on Reddit and put on your critical thinking cap instead.

If the vast majority of the population is incarcerated in the public system (~1.1 million people), and the DSA platform talks about abolishing the system, gee, I wonder which of the systems they could be talking about.

But yeah, it's way easier to dunk on people via Reddit comments without doing any work to read all the information and data available to you with a few clicks.

Source: https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/

1

u/fuggingolliwog 1m ago

"System." It's literally right there in your quote.

-6

u/UnknownExo 2h ago

That sounds insane. While I agree that private prisons are a problem I dont see how abolishing the police or prisons would lead to anything but chaos.

Im happy to hear how any of that would actually work

4

u/JackBurton52 2h ago

DSA wants to abolish the current system, not abolish them entirely. its a slogan, not a policy position. DSA and all socialists wants to have a prison system that prioritizes rehabilitation back into society. our current system does not do that since recidivism means more money for the for profit prisons. abolishing prisons in its entirety is more of a noble end goal but not something that we will likely achieve in our lifetime.

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u/panrestrial 2h ago

Lucky you, it's already not there

-14

u/DJDemyan 3h ago

So of course it’s Reddit and people just downvote you but yeah you’re right - part of the DSA platform is to abolish prison and almost eliminate law enforcement in favor of “self governance and care”

Sounds great on paper but a little more anarchist than most people care for. I certainly believe in the defunding and demilitarization of the police, but they (and prisons) still serve a purpose.

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u/ArgyleGhoul 3h ago

You'd have to be pretty thick to believe this nonsense. Abolishing privatized prison removes profit incentives for incarceration of innocent people, which is a huge part of underlying problems in our "law enforcement"

0

u/Smayteeh 1h ago

It's not nonsense though.

The quote on their website about prisons talks about fully abolishing the police and prison system. In the US, there are ~1.2 million incarcerated total, with 92% of those being held in the public (non-profit) system. When the DSA platform talks about abolishing the system, they clearly mean to include the public system which accounts for the vast majority of prisoners in the country.

And that's not even to say that they are wrong. They might be totally correct in that removing all the prisons is the best way forward, but I think the specifics are important, and this is the specifics of what is written on their website and platform.

At least in my reading, their platform makes pretty clear that there are severe injustices in the current system, and therefore it needs to go completely. There is no other mention of prisons in the pamphlet, but I would be more than happy to learn more and educate myself further about their mission if you have sources available.

1

u/ArgyleGhoul 2m ago

You're also being reactionary and assuming that this will be instantly implemented at 100% intent and efficacy, which has never happened in government in the history of ever. Again, anyone who thinks this is going to result in thousands of prisoners suddenly flooding the streets in droves isn't thinking about this logically.

1

u/DJDemyan 3h ago

https://www.dsausa.org/working-groups/abolition-working-group/

• Defund the police by rejecting any expansion to police budgets or scope of enforcement while cutting budgets annually towards zero

•Freedom for all incarcerated people

Where does it say anything about specifically private prisons? I’m against privatized prisons. I’m sure most people are.

I don’t see how it’s thick to read what’s written on the DSA website in black and white, dude. We keep shifting the argument to something off topic.

2

u/shung 54m ago

Checked the link and the very first thing you see is "Defund. Abolish. Create." Seems like they want to get rid of the system we have and create something better.

8

u/leokz145 3h ago

Abolish PRIVATE FOR PROFIT prisons.

-2

u/DJDemyan 2h ago

Okay that’s great, why aren’t we saying that part?

I doubt many people, myself included, disagree with abolishing private/for-profit prisons.

But incarceration is an unfortunate reality of having a society. We can reform and minimalize the need for it, but awful people will continue to exist even in a utopian society

7

u/leokz145 2h ago

The only person saying that DSA wants to abolish prisons altogether is the troll you responded to.

1

u/DJDemyan 2h ago

No, they say it themselves. Have a look:

https://www.dsausa.org/working-groups/abolition-working-group/

• Defund the police by rejecting any expansion to police budgets or scope of enforcement while cutting budgets annually towards zero

•Freedom for all incarcerated people

Where does it say anything about specifically private prisons?

8

u/Peglegfish 3h ago

Set aside our American fetish for criminal justice, for a moment.

I think if you analyze the problems of our public education to for-profit prison pipeline, you might notice that a lot of money goes to enriching prison owners compared to actual systemic crime prevention, harms mitigation, and criminal rehabilitation. Those three things don’t fit very well on a slogan or snappy bullet point.

Is “abolish prisons” reductive? Sure. But can we all stop acting like talking points on the left should be taken verbatim under the strictest interpretation, while the right outright lies and spews verbal diarrhea?

-1

u/DJDemyan 2h ago

Well how hard is it to change “abolish prisons” to “abolish private prisons” or such? I don’t think adding one or two words is too much to ask to be taken seriously and clearly if we are facing a problem of literal interpretation.

6

u/KrytenKoro 2h ago

They did add those words, and they're being ignored anyway.

which protects the rich and jails the poor.

-3

u/DJDemyan 2h ago

Which one of those words is the following? :

Abolish
Private
Prisons

2

u/JackBurton52 2h ago

sounds like the "Abolish Prisons" slogan worked on you. it made you interested in the position that you made a comment, read what people told you, maybe looked into it further and now know what the DSA policy position is. any other questions let me know!

2

u/Peglegfish 2h ago

I’m not in charge of the content creation or delivery for the DSA.

You’re dodging the point. 

It’s clear that the issue at hand is abolishing private prisons and the peripheral industries that profit from criminal justice without solving any problems.

Since we all know what each other’s talking about now, are you still so invested with m attacking the DSA without any viable alternatives beyond “more of the same?”

-1

u/DJDemyan 2h ago

All I’m doing is agreeing with the dude downvoted into oblivion that maybe the notion of eliminating the concept of incarceration shouldn’t be part of the DSA mission statement. I’m not “attacking the DSA,” I’m doing my own research into a controversial statement before jumping on the downvote train like everyone else.

5

u/Peglegfish 2h ago

There’s absolutely nothing controversial about the position to anyone after it’s been explained appropriately, beyond the lack of “for-profit” between “abolish” and “prisons.”

You keep acting like the DSA wants to eliminate incarceration as a core concept, and that’s simply not true. You’re hellbent on attacking the spirit of their position, again with nothing to say about how their platform compares to the rest of the American political spectrum.

All you can do is point out how the DSA isn’t messaging perfectly. What are your grand ideas for tackling poverty, criminal justice, corruption, affordability, the climate crisis, or really anything except a fucking missing word on a political party’s website?

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u/Azair_Blaidd 2h ago

Abolishing the current prison system doesn't mean walking away without a new one. Close the incarceration as slavery loophole from the 13th Amendment, get rid of for-profit prisons, fire all the bad apples in the police force so they stop spoiling the bunch, and build a more fair system that values justice over prejudice.

4

u/Islanduniverse 2h ago

Isn’t that the entire point of prisons? To go out of “business” because we have a good society where people aren’t committing crimes with abandon? And on the flip-side, that we aren’t criminalizing people for things that don’t require prison, like non-violent drug offenses?

I feel like you are being a bit myopic in your criticism and not being willing to even think about why they would hold such a stance.

There are so many alternatives to prisons for the majority of crimes as well… even murderers might be better off in state hospitals where they can be more closely monitored and perhaps even contribute to research about why people murder, etc…

I personally don’t think closing all prisons in a day is the right thing to do, but I would be all for a society that seeks to make prison irrelevant, and even if there always has to be one prison for the people we can’t stop from committing violent crimes, that’s much better than jailing massive amounts of people for nonviolent offenses (more than half in federal prisons, and about a third in state prisons are nonviolent offenders).

4

u/hurler_jones 2h ago

That's not what the platform says though. It says abolish the SYSTEM. Currently, that system disproportionally targets black and brown people and the poor.

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u/ToxicTurtle-2 1h ago

liberals dont want to abolish prisons. where else would all these Trump cabinet members rot when its over? They dont get to escape their punishment

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u/Few-Improvement9978 2m ago

I’m good with that - but the DSA specifically calls for the abolishment of prisons.