Prairieland Is Everywhere
Or Abolition Now
Prairieland Is Everywhere
Or Abolition Now
On June 23, 8 Prairieland defendants were sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in prison for a noise demonstration at an ICE detention facility in Texas. Some who were sentenced did not even attend the protest. Charged with ‘conspiracy to conceal documents,’ Daniel Sanchez Estrada drew a 30 year bid for allegedly moving a box of zines, even though transporting political literature is protected by the first amendment. Trial judge Mark Pittman ran a kangaroo court, allowed the prosecution to suppress exculpatory evidence, manipulated voir dire to ensure that a jury inclined to convict was installed, failed to investigate juror misconduct, and admitted that the unduly harsh sentences he gave the defendants were motivated by the federal government’s political desire to send a message. Clearly the convictions and sentences must be appealed. You can find out how to support the defendants here.
‘We’ must also keep in mind that the bogus conviction and unreasonable sentencing of the Prairieland Defendants isn’t an aberration. It’s not a special case of the US ‘justice system’ taking political prisoners. In the US all prisoners are political prisoners. The system of mass incarceration and the border regime are designed for political attacks on anyone poor or not white — Black people in particular. The cops who arrested the Prairieland Defendants, the court that put on their show trial, and the facilities that imprison them are part of the same set up as the concentration camp where they were protesting. All police, including ICE, the National Guard, every prison and jail, as well as every criminal and immigration court is part of the fascist power base. That base is and has been the brutal practical side of far right political power while each component also exerts itself as a fascist political agent. Moreover, the growth of prisons, ICE, police, and the rest strengthens the political force of the venture capitalists who invest in provisioning and building them by further integrating those VCs with the state. The same hideous machine torturing the Prairieland Defendants is driving the US further down the drain and into the sewer of white supremacy, and ‘western values’ exerted as a martial virtue ethic made unmistakably legible in Alex Karp’s The Technological Republic and Palantir’s tweeted manifesto based on it. In order to even survive, and in order to truly free all of our friends in the system, we must use every means at our disposal to end this cycle of accumulation by death.
If they are to weather the murderous depredations of the state, of those with status in society, of the ruling class and its government institutions, ‘socialist’ electoral formations like the DSA have to fight for the release of the Prairieland Defendants, the DAMN 15, and everyone who suffers incarceration. If they don’t, it will be game over before they can ‘grow power.’
Electoral organizations must support the struggles in the streets on which their power depends. There is no question that, like Joe Biden’s election, the recent growth of the DSA was facilitated by the George Floyd Uprising in 2020. The subsequent anti-zionist movement, of which Mayor Mamdani was once a part in his ‘globalize the intifada’ days, also contributed to the organization’s growth, particularly in New York City. Most importantly electoral organizations and political parties must realize that abolitionist commitments cannot be put on hold for the sake of ‘counter-hegemonic strategy.’ It would be a tragic and unforced error for ‘left’ organizations to believe they have much time before the fascists use the state’s coercive capacities against them. Every budget increase for a police department, every day that billionaire commissioners like Jessica Tisch remain in power, every endorsement of a candidate with equity in Elbit like Brad Lander, every compromise with ICE, every delay in shutting down arms dealers like those in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, every day that the jails and prisons remain brings ‘sewer socialists’ and progressives closer to being destroyed by the fascist institutions they make faustian bargains with.