The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War - Michael S. Sherry

This post has 4 comments with rating of 4.5/54

• 
  privateero
  September 3rd, 2023
  

  Strange coincidence that this change started with a man who was believed to be partly responsible for JFK’s assassination?

  The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War - Michael S. Sherry
• 
  koloko
  September 3rd, 2023
  

  Militant fascism in the USA is the direct result of white christians’ low confidence, fear, anger, immaturity, paranoia, violent-mindedness, tough guy-ism and general inability to live in an equal, non-enslaved society.

  The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War - Michael S. Sherry
• 
  BlueSun03
  September 8th, 2023
  

  

  privateero - “a man who was believed to be partly responsible for JFK’s assassination?” There are so many conspiracy theories around JFK’s assassination, that, even though I was a teen in history class in Pennsylvania when JFK was shot, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that I was suspected of being on the grassy knoll that day. I have my doubts about the single-bullet theory, but it only takes 2 to make a conspiracy. So, was it the CIA, LBJ, Ted Cruz’s father, the various mob heads pissed off over JFK’s refusal to lend air support to the Bay of Pigs, preventing them from taking Cuba back as their personal gambling haven? I think Sidney Powell & Rudy Giuliani think it was Hunter Biden. My theory was that it was aliens from the 8th dimension. That or “Five” from the Umbrella Academy.

  The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War - Michael S. Sherry
• 
  skay
  January 31st, 2026
  

  

  This book is more timely than ever. It would be great if someone would re-upload and re-seed if need be. The author Michael S. Sherry is not just some pundit or freelancer or even “just” a reporter. He’s an academic historian who has specialized in the rise of the actual military, and I think he wrote the first book on the history of USAF strategic bombing, exploring the rationale for fire-bombing cities (deterrence …sound familiar?). He also wrote about the development of US military power in the 1930s on. He is well qualified to write this history book here. So it would be great if it were available to all of us. We are living in the most punitive era ever, I think, in the US. From the top levels of government punishing FBI prosecutors & investigators who were simply doing their job and not committing crimes against US law or international law, to poorly trained agents on the street attacking people who do nothing more than insult them (I’m referring to my own experience at anti-Ice protest in Portland Oregon, where a truly non-violent demo [unlike those downtown in 2020] was met with hourly assaults my ice agents firing rubber bullets, throwing flash bangs into the crowd, launching huge amounts of tear gas, and using pepper balls. Reportedly, beanbag guns were also used, but I didn’t see that, or feel that. One of those penetrated a young man’s skull in 2020, causing permanent brain damage. That was fired by a federal agent deployed by Trump, who had not been trained in crowd control. If I remember correctly, he was actually border patrol.) And of course entire states and state politicians are being punished for simply voting for or belonging to the Democratic Party. And just this past week, the Trump administration told Minnesota that if they turned over their entire voter rolls, the 3k+ extra ice agents in Minnesota would be withdrawn from the state. So anyhow, this is a very very relevant book.

  The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the United States Learned to Fight Crime Like a War - Michael S. Sherry

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