
The Making of the American Gulag - anarbadalov
https://bostonreview.net/war-security/stuart-schrader-making-american-gulag
======
sailfast
Let me get this straight - this author is trying to tie post-war US Spending
to counter Soviet policies, fear of communist expansion, and the cold war, to
the current state of police budgets and behavior in the United States? (so
they can use the name Gulag in the title of the piece? - just speculating...)

First: It's completely within the power of communities to NOT fund their
police, but most of them want to fund the police. I highly doubt it's because
they believe their police are building gulags / exhibiting secret police
behavior, or because, you know, "no matter what protect the thin blue line
because we're conditioned as a police state!"

Second: Militarization of the police is much more a result of the recent
terrorist attacks and surplus equipment and military training from the Iraq /
Afghanistan wars than anything having to do with the cold war. (Focus on
response to mass shootings with automatic weapons, requiring / wanting to wear
body armor, etc vs. community policing approaches have different perceived
risk profiles)

Third: I'll give you the prison industrial complex is a thing, but there is
simply no data in the article presented about overall private prison usage vs.
publicly funded prisons. I think private prisons should be outlawed, but a
quick look yields 8.5% of people incarcerated are in private prisons.
[https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-
priso...](https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-prisons-
united-states/)

The hyperbole in this article is offputting, doesn't help the purpose of the
author, and honestly misses so many facts about postwar military spending and
WHY that it boggles the mind of any reader with any sort of background in
this. Hard pass next time.

~~~
kilo_bravo_3
>Second: Militarization of the police is much more a result of the recent
terrorist attacks and surplus equipment and military training from the Iraq /
Afghanistan wars than anything having to do with the cold war.

The thing I don't get about the "militarization" of police is that:

1\. Police responses to mass civil disturbances is probably less militarized
today than it has ever been in the history of the United States. See: Philly
police dropping actual bombs on citizens, all of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, George
Washington himself sending several regiments of the newly-formed US Army to
pacify tax protestors, and everything in between.

2\. Everywhere that keeps records going back several decades has seen police
shootings decrease. In New York City in particular both shootings and deaths
have decreased at a rate that exceeds the drop in crime and are the lowest
they've ever been-- and NYPD is one of the most "militarized" police forces in
the US (so I've been told).

In 1972, NYPD fired 2,510 shots during 994 incidents, injuring 145 subjects
and killing 66.

In 2017, NYPD fired 52 shots during 242 incidents, injuring 9 subjects and
killing 10.

3\. Surplus military equipment has always been given to police forces. Some
police forces used to have belt-fed machine guns and hand grenades in their
armories.

A libertarian publication, Reason, used to maintain a meticulously-curated
list of SWAT raids, with handy-dandy links to purchase their publications on
the downward spiral of American society and the trampling of the rights of
every citizen at the hands of the militarized police, which they terminated
around 2012 when their own graphs showed incidents of police brutality falling
off a cliff.

Today, the most police forces have to report every time they strike, tase, or
shoot, a subject.

Back in "the good old days" when police "weren't militarized" they just
sprayed bullets at people, dumped the corpses at the morgue, and went out for
a drink.

One hundred years ago, during the May Day Riots and Red Summer of 1919 the
police used the actual, literal, military (including WWI tanks) to kill
protestors (mainly socialists and African Americans).

When were the police (and the overall response to civil unrest by authorities)
LESS militarized than they are today?

~~~
monetus
I get the sense you two are talking about seperate things. That is, he is
referring to the presence of military equipment and training while you are
talking about the breadth of the discretion police have to use violence. It
makes me wonder at differences in their impact.

~~~
sailfast
You’re right - that said thinking about both of these aspects and their
contributions is interesting. I appreciate you bringing up the distinction.

------
Clubber
We need to let the USA PATRIOT act expire. They renew it every year. It should
be a top political theme in 2020. This would at least be a good start. The
fact that Kamala Harris is tanking after Tulsi described her as a prosecutor
is heartening. Historically, prosecutors benefited from perverting the justice
system because they were "tough on crime."

GenX (my generation) is too small to do much politically, but the Millennials
will be the next big power in US politics, handed over from the Boomers.
Millennials, make sure you not only fight to preserve every freedom, but fight
to regain ones we've lost since the Cold War. It's getting pretty dark in the
US.

~~~
ASalazarMX
> GenX (my generation) is too small to do much politically

Wait, didn't the boomers become famous for having lots of kids? GenX should be
the biggest.

Edit: It's not the biggest: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/797321/us-
population-by-...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/797321/us-population-
by-generation/)

~~~
ThetaOneOne
Boomers did have a lot of kids, the millennials. GenX is the in between
generation.

~~~
goto11
The boomers are the result of the post-war baby boom. They are known for being
numerous, not for getting particularly many children themselves.

If anything, millennials would be their grandchildren.

~~~
ameister14
If you were born in 1955, you are a baby boomer. If you were born in 1985, you
are a millennial. 1985-1955=30. 30 isn't the normal age for a grandparent.

~~~
Clubber
Early Boomer: 1946 Early GenX: 1966 Early Millenial: 1986

40 years, it fits just fine when you don't take the latest possible boomer and
the youngest possible millennial.

~~~
ameister14
Latest possible boomer is early 60's. I took pretty much smack dab in the
middle of the boomers. Millennial starts in what, '81-82? so about 16-20 years
between, which is generation X. The earliest possible boomer is early 50's
when the latest millennial is born. The latest possible boomer is 19 when the
earliest millennial is born.

------
rpmisms
It's going to take a catastrophic event to disrupt the MIC and current
"Everything is fine" attitudes. The 2016 election helped, as many people
realized that maybe lots of government power _isn 't_ a good idea, especially
if you don't like who's in office.

I wonder what the next disruption will be.

------
Merrill
I think there is a fundamental difference. Gulags destroy the body through
forced labor. Prisons destroy the mind through forced idleness.

------
rcktmrtn
> The idea that fundamental differences in approaches to incarceration drove
> the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union strikes an odd
> chord from our current vantage point. Today 2.3 million people are locked up
> in the United States, and an additional 4.5 million are on parole or
> probation, for a total of around 2 percent of the population under state
> control.

If you're looking for the "fundamental differences in incarceration" that
separate Gulag from prison, maybe it would be wise to also consider how
executions and severity of forced labor come into play. This statistic
generated by adding number of people on parole to people locked up strikes me
as meaningless BS.

I'm not happy that the US seems to be developing police state tendencies and a
lot of the rest of this article rang true, but based on how disingenuous the
intro seems I can't help but assume the whole thing is trash.

