Tim Barrus: New York Times

I am a communist. It’s been a generational 300 year war of ideas. China has employed the legalized ideas of communism and has forged that relationship in fire and blood. To little effect. The little red book is a legal ruse. “On Contradiction” is more like it. The American Supreme Court is illegitimate. The Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China is illegitimate. A structure modeled on us. Who. Us. Rikers Island is a gulag. Mao confronted war, famine, contraception, and a legal system of Revenge. Economics was itself a hierarchy that rewarded corruption of the upper class. Americans pretend to make little sense of it. Where are we going. Right here. Murder essentially defines the courtroom skeleton to hang your hat on. The only thing that surprises me is the extent to which corruption and class warfare do not end with executing defendants right there in the court. One bullet. China is a hybrid. A bill for the one bullet family. Our own gulags are everywhere. Riker’s Island is a gulag of extraordinary labyrinthine legal hatred. We cannot point fingers. The Great Fear is not unlike the Great Wall. That the legal system in New York is more ancient than the fall of Rome makes time a conspirator. Legality becomes gravitas. We live our lives in such a manner as to completely avoid the gaze of brutal authority. Here or there. It scares us. Criminals scare us. Ubiquitous anal examinations scare us because we are not sure we can comply. And there it is. Comply. Ephemeral prosecutors rearrange the furniture.