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Reposted by alec karakatsanis

Alex Wakeman Rouse @awakerouse.bsky.social · 5h

This is a really important thread for everyone who calls themselves a progressive. We need to challenge the narratives we’ve been told about safety and danger.

alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.

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Reposted by alec karakatsanis

Heidrun @heidrunmead.bsky.social · 5h

This is a very interesting and important thread:

alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.

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Damon Agnos @damonagnos.bsky.social · 4h

Highly recommend this book! I wish everyone would read it

alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

I try to set this out in my Copaganda book. All royalties donated to charity that fights surveillance. Can use code TNP30 to order it directly from The New Press for 30% off, and also we have big bulk discounts and free copies for teachers and anyone in prison. Help spread the word.

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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · 6h

Great thread.

alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

I try to set this out in my Copaganda book. All royalties donated to charity that fights surveillance. Can use code TNP30 to order it directly from The New Press for 30% off, and also we have big bulk discounts and free copies for teachers and anyone in prison. Help spread the word.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

Making people afraid of marginalized strangers, and avoiding cultivation of skepticism of state power essential to any meaningful democratic civic life, is one of the most dangerous aspects of so-called Abundance and other various corporate neo-liberal attempts to co-opt a coalition against fascism.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

What does this mean? One thing is that, in addition to stopping their ludicrous validation of fascist lies, Democrats and mainstream news must also attempt to make clear how this process works, and how it will transform daily life for essentially everyone in our society.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

When this ends, we enter a period of the total, corrupt weaponization of state power for vigilante purposes, which then can lead to total repression through anticipatory regression into private spheres because any public articulation of decency is corruptly and publicly crushed.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

As I wrote in The Punishment Bureaucracy, in some sense this is always how the legal system has functioned, but there have traditionally been checks on this power and an ability to use the system's own need for legitimacy to force people in power to abide by some of their stated values.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

Much more generally, on a variety of fronts, we are seeing the attempted wholesale conversion of the coercive power of the state into a tool for extremely small, organized groups of people to command obedience (bullies, universities, schools, businesses, etc.).

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

Everyone knows witnesses won't come forward, people will suffer in silence, etc. The scope of this harm is hard to overstate--nothing short of millions of people enduring grotesque physical and sexual harm.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

And this leads to one thing, among many, that scares me a lot now: Things were already very bad on this front, but the unhinged gestapo tactics of ICE grant enormous power to predators across society in positions of power to prey upon vulnerable people: employers, abusers, etc.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

But when you realize that most violence is not by strangers (hence police violence being large %), you see why it's vital for cops to obscure it: no one believes more $$ for punishment bureaucracy is a solution to the reasons people **in some kind of relationship with each other** hurt each other.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

A simple answer is that the news makes people extremely scared of strangers--the person next to you at CVS, the person walking down the street, the unhoused person in a tent, the anonymous burglar, etc. These are the kinds of crimes associated with surveillance, policing, etc.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

First the basics: The vast bulk of physical and sexual violence in our society is *not* perpetrated by strangers, but by people who know each other. Obscuring this fact is a critical feature of copaganda in the news. People are shocked to hear it. Why?

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 6h

THREAD. Did you know that at about 1/3 of all stranger homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated by police? But there's something hidden here that is important to understand in this authoritarian moment.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 1d

It's helpful just to tell your local store that you're interested in it and that they should carry it.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 1d

you can buy directly from The New Press website, and use the code TNP30 to get it 30% off. Otherwise, any local independent bookstore!

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 2d

They apparently complained offline to local officials that the poster for my book event was disrespectful to police. The poster had my photo, and event logistics, and the book cover lol.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 2d

Last night in New York, Copaganda was awarded a book prize. It's nice, because the book continues to be essentially blacklisted by major outlets. I sadly missed the ceremony, but I had an incredible time in Milwaukee, where police complained about my book talk... goddard.org/bookprizes/

Book Prizes | Goddard Riverside

The Goddard Riverside CBC Youth Book Prize and Stephan Russo Book Prize celebrate the power of the written word to create change in the name of justice for all people—a value shared by the publishing ...

goddard.org

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Andrew Quemere @andrewqmr.bsky.social · 2d

By the way, journalists do a huge disservice to their readers with stories that quote cops and right-wing lawmakers upset about judges setting affordable bail without citing the evidence that pretrial detention leads to more crime and causes people to plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit.

alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · Jan 14

Despite this, mainstream media engaged in a years-long panic about “bail reform” that looks a lot like the tobacco industry and fossil fuel industry’s deception. U.S. and Philippines are the only two countries in the world with for-profit bail industry: equalityalec.substack.com/p/the-news-m...

The News Media and Bail

A case study in fear and science denial

equalityalec.substack.com

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 3d

Thanks to Jack Dodson for making the film and making it widely available now.

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 3d

Also, an older film I was involved with from a decade ago about modern debtors prisons--still extremely relevant--was recently re-released and is now widely available. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaSs...

Pay or Stay — 2016 mini documentary on debtor's prisons and U.S. incarceration for poverty

YouTube video by Entropy Journal

www.youtube.com

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 3d

I'm proud to have been involved in this new musical documentary by Robe Imbriano about the horrors of the money bail system and the Harris County jail. It was many years in the making, but it has finally premiered for the public today: www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

A Musical Indictment of the Harris County Jail in “Criminal”

Robe Imbriano’s documentary short uses music and animation to illustrate the grave injustices taking place at Houston’s notorious jail and in the cash-bail system at large.

www.newyorker.com

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alec karakatsanis @equalityalec.bsky.social · 3d

Update: because of the breaking news from Gaza, our episode will be recorded and aired later. Will update when I know the details.

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