[Marxism] On the Democratic Party question

[Lajany Otum]

Bill Clinton memorably entered the White House 
eight years ago over the body of poor, lobotomized 
Ricky Ray Rector, whose execution he had hurried 
back to Arkansas to attend. As he departs, the 
American prison population stands at two million, 
an all-time high, up from 1,429,000 in 1992, with 
a disproportionately soaring rate of incarceration 
among young black men. His administration saw the 
introduction at Federal level of the ‘three 
strikes and you’re out’ sentencing policy 
(imposing life prison-terms, without parole, on a 
third conviction) and increased penalties for 
drug-related crimes in the Sentencing Commission’s 
mandatory guidelines. It actively promoted 
‘truth-in-sentencing’ provisions (prisoners 
forced to serve at least 85 per cent of their 
sentences before parole), pumping Federal funds 
into prison-building projects in states where 
such practices prevailed. Small wonder that 
Gore and Clinton failed to protest at the 700,000 
or so (predominantly black) Florida voters 
disenfranchised as a result of previous felony 
convictions; these were policies they had been 
conniving at for the past eight years.

http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2304 
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