Political prisoners like Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Fred Burton, “Xinachitli” Alvaro Hernandez, Reverend Joy Powell, Ghassan Elashi, Mufid Abdulqader and Shukri Abu-Baker, Eric King, Daniel Hale, Alex Saab, Ed Poindexter, Veronza Bowers, Jessica Reznicek, Emmanuel Quinones, or any of the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers illegally detained at the border and held in concentration camps every year? Or lest we forget Edward Snowden, who fled the nation to avoid becoming a political prisoner, or Chelsea Manning who spent 7 years as a political prisoner, or Julian Assange of course?
Look, I’m not defending political prisoners, I’m calling out your random talk of gulag as what it is, a lack of reflection on the most heavily criminalized and incarcerated society in known history and a rabid reactionary whataboutism when faced with the inherent injustice the system we currently have represents.