The Trump administration wants to jail poor people because they cannot pay court fines or fees and/or suspend their driver’s licenses.
I am sad to say that Michigan is one of five states practicing this heinous injustice and would be at this very hour, save for a preliminary injunction blocking the state from suspending driver licenses. The injunction was issued by U.S. District Judge Linda Parker on 14 Dec 2017.
History does not favor jailing poor people because they cannot pay debts or unjust court fines. These are fees that by their very nature preclude one’s ability to pay. In fact, the French people fought a righteous and fearsome revolution over that issue and others, from the 1790s through 1850.
While historians agree that the June revolution of 1832 depicted in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables accomplished little, progressive reforms which were an outgrowth of the French Revolution as a whole did, living to this day as part of the foundation of modern France and Western Democracy.
Yet, today, in Michigan alone, more than 100,000 of our citizens are already condemned to a lifetime of underclass servitude because they are denied driver’s licenses. In Metro Detroit, where public transportation to jobs in distant suburbia is nonexistent, these people have no way to get to a workplace, in most cases located miles away, that could pay a decent wage.
“Since 2009, the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) and ACLU affiliates across the country have been exposing and challenging modern-day debtors' prisons, and urging governments and courts to pursue more rational and equitable approaches to criminal justice debt.”
The ACLU explains:
“State and local courts have increasingly attempted to supplement their funding by charging fees to people convicted of crimes, including fees for public defenders, prosecutors, court administration, jail operation, and probation supervision. And in the face of mounting budget deficits at the state and local level, courts across the country have used aggressive tactics to collect these unpaid fines and fees, including for traffic offenses and other low-level offenses. These courts have ordered the arrest and jailing of people who fall behind on their payments, without affording any hearings to determine an individual's ability to pay or offering alternatives to payment such as community service.”
No doubt, history will not be kind to Mr. Trump and his would-be slaver, Mr. Sessions. Not only for this despicable modern-slavery action, but also for much more, including as Lucian K. Truscott, IV enumerates, the Trumpian Republicans’ accomplishments:
“Suppress the votes of fellow citizens who are black, latino, and poor? Check. Keep them in poverty by refusing to raise the $7.25 minimum wage? Check. Allow owners of restaurants to collect tips and dole them out any goddamn way they want? Check. Take away the ability of teachers to deduct money they spend out of their own pocket to help educate their students? Check. Tax contract workers’ income at regular rates while taxing owners’ pass-through income at lower rates? Check. Lower corporate tax rates while raising workers’ taxes? Check. Repeal the Johnson Amendment so billionaires could make tax-deductible “donations” to churches which could turn around and spend the same money on political campaigns? Check. Make it harder for workers to file discrimination suits? Check. Make it easier for polluters to foul the air and water? Check. Appoint a Secretary of Education who wants to privatize public education? Check. Allow billionaires to deduct certain expenses for their Gulfstreams? Check. Leave in place laws that allow offshore trusts and other tax avoidance schemes used by millionaires and billionaires? Check. Prepare the upcoming 2020 Census so it will provide a population count ripe for corrupt gerrymandering? Check. Pass an insane law that will enable lunatics to carry concealed guns across state lines into places where concealed-carry is illegal? Check.”
The paramount question we face in 2018 is: Must Mr. Trump’s mental deficiencies; his psychopathy; his racism; his bigotry and his failures, plus those of his acolytes, whom he has empowered, condemn the rest of us to poverty and modern-day slavery in 2018?
I’m betting that sooner rather than later, world-wide, we will not be slaves again.
Les Misérables: Do you hear the people sing: Sung by 17 Valjeans from around the world
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!!
Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!
Will you give all you can give
So that our banner may advance
Some will fall and some will live
Will you stand up and take your chance?
The blood of the martyrs
Will water the meadows of France!
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