Police, prison and abolition

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 11, 2021 11:43 am

Freedom Rider: The Truth About Defunding Police
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist 09 Jun 2021

Image
Freedom Rider: The Truth About Defunding Police

“Defunding” the police has often turned out to be an accounting trick, but community control of police – a righteous demand – must also ensure that all government functions address human needs.

“The armed forces of Russia, Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan all receive less money than American police departments.”

One year ago, thousands of people engaged in protest in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis, Minnesota police officer. A persistent protest demand was for defunding police departments. The appeal of this rallying cry was obvious. Police in this country are a law unto themselves, killing and brutalizing at will, and rarely being called to account. Often these fatal encounters occur after minor offenses are committed or in the case of black people, when a call for assistance instead leads to death.

The premise of defunding police is well intentioned but faulty. In the past year we have seen sleight of hand in cities like New York where alleged funding cuts amounted to nothing more than budgetary trickery. Even in Minneapolis, where the movement began, defunding became nothing more than a name change.

It isn’t hard to understand why change in this area is so difficult. As of 2018, police departments in this country received more than $118 billion in funding. Only the military in the United States and China receive more money. The armed forces of Russia, Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan all receive less money than American police departments. They are in fact a domestic military force.

“Defunding can become nothing more than a name change.”

Why then do so many people insist that police budgets have been cut? Because this particular trope gives credibility to racist politics and practice. When Democrats lost seats in the House of Representatives in 2020, the losers immediately claimed that the concept of cutting police budgets was to blame for their defeats. Republicans have leaped on the story and as usual engage in strict message discipline, insisting that the police are short of money and that increases in crime are the result.

The media adds to the drama with their usual determination to take the side of the powerful. William Bratton led police departments in New York and Los Angeles and in a recent New York Times interview said,“ They got what they wanted. They defunded the police. What do they get? Rising crime, cops leaving in droves, difficulty recruiting. Now, they’re waking up to the fact that our cities are unsafe.”

Not only should this propaganda be rejected, but the original questions about police funding should be revived. Police do have far more money than they need to do their jobs. Bloated budgets are a feature of police work in a society dedicated to racist practice. The modern day slave patrol is a racket that gives good paying employment to people who otherwise wouldn’t have it while simultaneously keeping Black people under physical control. But even if reducing funding were a realistic proposition, is that what the demand should be?

“Bloated budgets are a feature of police work in a society dedicated to racist practice.”

Community control of the police should be the goal but that can’t happen unless all government functions address human needs. Without real democracy and a true commitment to human rights, policing will not change. Of course, any discussion of law enforcement is inextricably linked to anti-Black racism, the controlling feature of many aspects of public policy in this country.

No one should allow themselves to be confused by racist pro-police propaganda or to be convinced that they should stop agitating for change. But questioning previous actions, even those made with the best of intentions, is always a positive step.

The United States as currently constituted can’t function without huge police departments and the big budgets that go with them. An increasingly stressed society must be kept under watch precisely because popular discontent may erupt at any moment. Last year’s protests prove that there are many very discontented people and the domestic military will be ready to keep them all under as much control as it possibly can.

“Without real democracy and a true commitment to human rights, policing will not change.”

We are left where we started out before anyone knew the name George Floyd. The struggle for change is difficult but it must continue with the knowledge that cutting police budgets or changing their practices in any way will be fought tooth and nail. Dishonest statements about rising crime or lost elections come with the territory.

The issues of police brutality and budgets cannot be approached as if they are separate from anything else. Community control of police cannot be separated from demands for peoples’ control over any other aspect of their lives. In short, revolutionary change is still what the people need. Everything from policing to housing to health care cannot be improved unless there is fundamental and systemic change. Of course that is a much bigger fight but it cannot begin without speaking truth about our condition and the difficult process of bringing about real justice.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/freed ... ing-police

*******************************************

Bad apples or bad system? Lying cops still on duty despite Brady list
Marlanna BullockJune 10, 2021 514 minutes read

Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... osts/95454

“I really think we should not need a Brady list, because there should be no such thing as a police agency that keeps cops with histories of lying, or false arrests, or brutality, or fabricating reports, or other misconduct,” – Anita Khandelwal, director of the King County Department of Public Defense.”

Crosscut.com

Almost 200 Washington state law enforcement officers have been placed on the Brady list, a list of officers who may not be considered trustworthy in a court of law.

USA Today in an extensive investigation found that “thousands of people have faced criminal charges or have gone to prison based in part on testimony from law enforcement officers deemed to have credibility problems by their bosses or by prosecutors.”

Although these officers have proven themselves unsafe for the public, law enforcement agencies continue to employ and rehire untrustworthy officers and take no real accountability for the abhorrent and violent behavior committed by officers.

“The lists are not designed to track people who should not be officers. Rather they are a tool prosecutors use to identify those whose past conduct might raise questions about their fairness or truthfulness as a witness in a trial – and require disclosure to defendants.”

USA Today

These law enforcement officers are sometimes referred to as Brady cops, referencing the lists’ most commonly known name, but the list can also be referred to as the “Giglio” list and is officially known as the The Potential Impeachment Disclosure list.

The Brady list is usually compiled by a prosecutor’s office or a police department, containing the names of officers with sustained incidents of lying, minor convictions or other issue that place their believability into question.

In essence the Brady list is a record of the “bad apple” cops who’ve been found guilty of lying enough times that the state finds it necessary to document and alert defense lawyers and judges because their testimony cannot bear the same weight as that of others when they testify in court cases.

Brady list violations range from “untruthfulness” and “bias” to any crimes an officer commits other than domestic violence, driving under the influences and motor vehicle misdemeanors.That DV and DUI are not considered impeachable offenses is itself telling.

A recent investigation by Crosscut in Washington state found “at least 183 police officers flagged for issues such as dishonesty, bias and excessive force remain in law enforcement.” (Crosscut)

Two are currently working as law enforcement officers in Eastern Washington’s Benton and Franklin Counties.

In January, Washington States’ Benton County Sheriff Jerry Hatcher was placed on the Brady list. Though the Benton County Sheriff’s name has been legally placed on the list he still retains the authority and influence inherent to his law enforcement position.

Hatcher was placed on the Brady list this year for 26 different allegations including, “violating County anti-discrimination policy” “intimidating public servants” and “making false and misleading statements to law enforcement and the courts.” (LRIS)

These are serious charges that would get most of us fired from our jobs if we were to commit them. These charges would also likely lead to our arrests but not for police officers because “across the United States, prosecutors aren’t tracking officer misconduct, are skirting Supreme Court “Brady” rules and sometimes leading to wrongful convictions.” (USA Today)

Though the Benton County Sheriff’s name has been placed on the list, he still remains on the job, retaining his jurisdiction over the lives and safety of the citizens of Benton County.

According to the Benton County Sheriff offices’ website, similar to many other law enforcement websites, their mission is in part to “safeguard life and property, preserve the peace, prevent and detect crime, and protect the rights of all citizens” but this only raises the question: how can any of that be accomplished by the same law enforcement officers who are actively taking lives, disturbing the peace, and oppressing the rights of citizens?

Historically these behaviors have permitted and often justified by the law enforcement agencies that continue to employ them. By continuing to employ these officers, agencies proceed to impose on citizens dangerous officers who have proven themselves of such untrustworthy character and have been caught committing upon the public egrigious and illegal acts with frequency that lists must be compiled. How much protection can a system claim to be providing for its citizens when it allows for repetitive abusers to continue to maintain so much destructive authority over human lives?

Another Washington law enforcement officer, Franklin County’s Deputy Cody Quantrell, “had enough violations at his past job to warrant serious counseling from the police chief” and “on the day of the Deputy Quantrell counseling in Toppenish a motorcyclist registered a complaint against Quantrell for pulling a gun on him for alleged reckless driving.” (Tricities Observer)

Even after multiple complaints deputy Quantrell was allowed to continue working in law enforcement, eventually moving to a new precinct working in Pasco, Washington, when “on November 18, 2019, deputy Cody Quantrell shot to death former Marine and combat veteran Dante Jones in during a traffic stop in “circumstances similar to those he had been counseled about in Toppenish” as reported in the Tricities Observer.

Notwithstanding all of the evidence, Quantrell’s name hasn’t even been considered for addition to the Brady list, nor have any charges been filed against him as of yet. The rules that guide who gets placed on Brady lists seem arbitrary and decisions about who goes on the Brady list “rely too much on police agencies investigating themselves and issuing disciplinary findings against officers, which doesn’t always happen,” public defender Anita Khandelwal told CrossCut.

How effective are Brady lists if in the places where they do exist thousands of citizens are still being prosecuted based on the duplicitous testimony of Brady cops? How effective is the existence of the mandate for a Brady list when at least 300 prosecutors’ offices across the nation don’t take the needed steps to keep a list tracking dishonest or otherwise untrustworthy officers? (Crosscut)

Even though these officers have shown they are not safe for our communities, law enforcement agencies protect these officers. They are permitted to keep their jobs and to move to new jobs in new communities seemingly no matter their appalling behavior.

This situation raises questions such as: How can law enforcement’s mission be to safeguard the lives of the public when it is the same law enforcement apparatus that knowingly retains these bad actors? Can these officers just be “bad apples” if the entire system is set up to support violent, law-skirting officers via non-compliant prosecutors’ offices working in collusion with police departments and cop unions?

https://www.liberationnews.org/bad-appl ... rationnews
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 14, 2021 2:21 pm

Medical neglect kills prisoners in Washington state
Juni HannaJune 13, 2021 623 minutes read
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... osts/95470

A recent article in the Seattle Times revealed that Stephen Sinclair, the head of the Washington state Dept. of Corrections, was forced by Gov. Jay Inslee to resign in January due to the gross mishandling of inmate health care. Initially framed as though he had simply decided to retire, the article reveals that he was actually forced out. The health care crisis in Washington state prisons had gained too much bad publicity to continue to be ignored, and as the overseer of the entire prison system statewide, Sinclair was held responsible and ousted.

How bad is healthcare for prisoners in Washington? In July 2020, Michael Boswell, an inmate of a Washington state prison died of melanoma a month after starting chemotherapy. His cancer had been left untreated despite repeated requests, complaints and grievances beginning in May of 2019. By the time Boswell was finally allowed treatment, it was too late. Another anonymous patient had been experiencing bloody urine since 2017. It became a daily occurance in January 2020, and between March and July he was treated for a urinary tract infection five different times. A large mass was discovered in July, and it wasn’t until August of that year that he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He has undergone chemotherapy and will likely require extensive surgery

These cases follow a trend of prisoners with undiagnosed cancers being completely ignored by prison medical staff. A recent investigation report from the Office of Corrections Ombuds reveals complaints from 11 inmates whose cancer diagnoses were delayed, in some cases, as much as a year and a half from the time symptoms were reported.

Inmates in these facilities submitted grievance after grievance, and medical kite after medical kite, in order to recieve appointments for biopsies and scans, which were then often delayed and rescheduled for months. They were prescribed medications to simply treat the bare minimum of their extremely serious symptoms. Patients experiencing severe abdominal pain and bloody stool were given constipation medication, which unsurprisingly gave no relief of the symptoms. The unnamed patient above did not recieve any urology tests until his ongoing hematuria progressed from occasional and relatively mild to a severe and daily occurance. When diagnoses and treatment of their cancers were finally procured, patients like Boswell had large, aggressive metastatic carcinomas.

Early diagnosis is crucial for patients’ chances for survival. Ignoring cancer symptoms in prisons works effectively as a death sentence for these inmates. If regular cancer screenings had been provided for Washington state inmates, they could have avoided more extreme treatment options and most importantly in too many cased, a painful and avoidable death. However, the prison system has no motive to invest in the health of its inmates. It’s much easier on their budgets to at best, provide palliative care or transfer them to another facility, and at worse, condemn them to death.

Interview with a prisoner

Liberation News spoke to a Washington state inmate, who shared: “Many of the sicknesses, and diseases and injuries that occur in society, they exist in our microcosmic prison-industrial complex as well.”

Often the societal issues that we deal with day to day are even more pronounced in our prisons, where they are left to go unchecked in a large, densely packed population. The prisoner revealed further oversights by the prison system. “Some time ago in Airway Heights, they had a water problem with foam that was found linked to a local Airforce Base. It somehow had leaked into the drinking water and was connected to forms of cancer that began surfacing in some of the prison population on the East side.”

This firefighting foam, used by some military installations, had been leaking into local aquifers for decades. This chemical runoff was not only a problem in the Airway Heights facility; Airway Heights prison’s food production factory distributes food to several other Washington state prisons, as well as 70 other customers, according to an article in the Spokesman Review. This decades-long health and safety issue, coupled with severe negligence by the prisons’ medical system towards inmates with early and sometimes advanced cancers, combined catastrophically.

The DOC, in a public statement, expressed little more than begrudging disappointment in the current state of their inmate healthcare system. In the DOC’s response to OCO’s report, they wrote: “It is not acceptable for those under our care to experience waits for diagnostics and treatments that could potentially impact their well being,”

To say DOC put it mildly would be an understatement. Delayed cancer diagnoses are not a matter of “well being;” they are almost always a matter of life and death.This thinly veiled indifference towards the life and health of prisoners does nothing to assure the improvement of DOC’s conduct going forward.

All progressive and revolutionary people must stand with prisoners in their struggle for dignity and basic human rights including the right to health care. Those responsible for prisoners dying due to medical neglect must be held accountable. As long as the prison industrial complex exists, it will continue to allow those who have been deemed unproductive to capital to be casualties to their profits until a strong movement for justice rises up of people from both sides of the prison walls.


https://www.liberationnews.org/medical- ... rationnews

This in oh-so-progressive Washington State. Contemplating how it is here in SC is a disturbing endeavor.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 14, 2021 2:21 pm

Medical neglect kills prisoners in Washington state
Juni HannaJune 13, 2021 623 minutes read
Download PDF flyer https://flyer-generator.herokuapp.com/? ... osts/95470

A recent article in the Seattle Times revealed that Stephen Sinclair, the head of the Washington state Dept. of Corrections, was forced by Gov. Jay Inslee to resign in January due to the gross mishandling of inmate health care. Initially framed as though he had simply decided to retire, the article reveals that he was actually forced out. The health care crisis in Washington state prisons had gained too much bad publicity to continue to be ignored, and as the overseer of the entire prison system statewide, Sinclair was held responsible and ousted.

How bad is healthcare for prisoners in Washington? In July 2020, Michael Boswell, an inmate of a Washington state prison died of melanoma a month after starting chemotherapy. His cancer had been left untreated despite repeated requests, complaints and grievances beginning in May of 2019. By the time Boswell was finally allowed treatment, it was too late. Another anonymous patient had been experiencing bloody urine since 2017. It became a daily occurance in January 2020, and between March and July he was treated for a urinary tract infection five different times. A large mass was discovered in July, and it wasn’t until August of that year that he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He has undergone chemotherapy and will likely require extensive surgery

These cases follow a trend of prisoners with undiagnosed cancers being completely ignored by prison medical staff. A recent investigation report from the Office of Corrections Ombuds reveals complaints from 11 inmates whose cancer diagnoses were delayed, in some cases, as much as a year and a half from the time symptoms were reported.

Inmates in these facilities submitted grievance after grievance, and medical kite after medical kite, in order to recieve appointments for biopsies and scans, which were then often delayed and rescheduled for months. They were prescribed medications to simply treat the bare minimum of their extremely serious symptoms. Patients experiencing severe abdominal pain and bloody stool were given constipation medication, which unsurprisingly gave no relief of the symptoms. The unnamed patient above did not recieve any urology tests until his ongoing hematuria progressed from occasional and relatively mild to a severe and daily occurance. When diagnoses and treatment of their cancers were finally procured, patients like Boswell had large, aggressive metastatic carcinomas.

Early diagnosis is crucial for patients’ chances for survival. Ignoring cancer symptoms in prisons works effectively as a death sentence for these inmates. If regular cancer screenings had been provided for Washington state inmates, they could have avoided more extreme treatment options and most importantly in too many cased, a painful and avoidable death. However, the prison system has no motive to invest in the health of its inmates. It’s much easier on their budgets to at best, provide palliative care or transfer them to another facility, and at worse, condemn them to death.

Interview with a prisoner

Liberation News spoke to a Washington state inmate, who shared: “Many of the sicknesses, and diseases and injuries that occur in society, they exist in our microcosmic prison-industrial complex as well.”

Often the societal issues that we deal with day to day are even more pronounced in our prisons, where they are left to go unchecked in a large, densely packed population. The prisoner revealed further oversights by the prison system. “Some time ago in Airway Heights, they had a water problem with foam that was found linked to a local Airforce Base. It somehow had leaked into the drinking water and was connected to forms of cancer that began surfacing in some of the prison population on the East side.”

This firefighting foam, used by some military installations, had been leaking into local aquifers for decades. This chemical runoff was not only a problem in the Airway Heights facility; Airway Heights prison’s food production factory distributes food to several other Washington state prisons, as well as 70 other customers, according to an article in the Spokesman Review. This decades-long health and safety issue, coupled with severe negligence by the prisons’ medical system towards inmates with early and sometimes advanced cancers, combined catastrophically.

The DOC, in a public statement, expressed little more than begrudging disappointment in the current state of their inmate healthcare system. In the DOC’s response to OCO’s report, they wrote: “It is not acceptable for those under our care to experience waits for diagnostics and treatments that could potentially impact their well being,”

To say DOC put it mildly would be an understatement. Delayed cancer diagnoses are not a matter of “well being;” they are almost always a matter of life and death.This thinly veiled indifference towards the life and health of prisoners does nothing to assure the improvement of DOC’s conduct going forward.

All progressive and revolutionary people must stand with prisoners in their struggle for dignity and basic human rights including the right to health care. Those responsible for prisoners dying due to medical neglect must be held accountable. As long as the prison industrial complex exists, it will continue to allow those who have been deemed unproductive to capital to be casualties to their profits until a strong movement for justice rises up of people from both sides of the prison walls.


https://www.liberationnews.org/medical- ... rationnews

This in oh-so-progressive Washington State. Contemplating how it is here in SC is a disturbing endeavor.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 21, 2021 1:07 pm

Image

Unanswered Questions Fuel Protests Against Police in Minnesota
By Sam Richards, Contributor June 17, 2021

Minneapolis, MN – Since Winston Smith was killed nearly two weeks ago in a secretive federal raid, no video evidence or any names of officers involved have been released. Minneapolis has seen another wave of protests not only because Smith was denied due process and executed while he sat in his car, but also due to the complete lack of accountability surrounding his death.

Smith’s death, coupled with the murky narratives offered by authorities, has further eroded residents’ confidence in state and local police and their federal partners.

This report covers new developments in Twin Cities surveillance, recent task forces like Operation Safety Net, FOIA stonewalling and the latest turns in law enforcement drone policy making.

Winston Smith and Statewide Camera Issues
Accusations of a coverup have fueled protests in the Uptown neighborhood where Smith was on a date prior to being gunned down by the North Star Fugitive Task Force. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said the names of the officers will not be released due to the fact that they were serving in an undercover capacity. Releasing the names of officers involved in shootings routinely happens within days of a shooting but in this case, Smith’s family and the public may never receive answers. The task force that killed Winston Smith was directed by the U.S. Marshals Service but included various agencies – the two deputies who fired shots are reportedly from the Hennepin County and Ramsey County Sheriff’s Offices.

Public mistrust in police accountability has been further eroded by mixed messages given by officials about the federal task force’s body camera policy. Police first claimed that no body camera footage of the shooting death of Smith existed because the federal led task force was prohibited from using body cameras. However, the public soon learned this was not exactly the case: “In October 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a Body-Worn Camera (BWC) policy to permit TFOs to utilize body-worn cameras on federal task forces,” the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

This inconsistency triggered widespread condemnation from activists and residents but also from local law enforcement partners that were actively working with the North Star Fugitive Task Force until Smith’s killing became a public relations liability. Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office pointed the finger at the U.S. Marshals Service and subsequently decided to pull their staff from work on the Task Force over the body cam debacle. Sheriff Fletcher even went so far as to put out a statement that claimed the U.S. Marshals, “refused to allow us to wear body cameras.” The Minnesota Department of Corrections also withdrew from the Task Force. Authorities also claim no squad car footage of the incident exists, exacerbating concerns about the secretive targeted police killing that has reopened wounds in a city still reeling from the police murder of George Floyd.

(The body camera issue is hardly the only inconsistency surrounding the police killing of Winston Smith. It was first claimed, then later retracted, that Smith was a murder suspect which news outlets regurgitated. Only a few hours later, that narrative crumbled when it was revealed that Smith was not a murder suspect but was wanted on firearms charges instead. Furthermore, law enforcement insist that police opened fire because Smith had fired a gun, while attorneys for a woman present with Smith at the time of his killing say she never even saw a gun on him.)

Body cams are by no means an end-all-be-all solution, and the issues surrounding transparency over their use extend beyond just the Twin Cities. A recent report by KSTP-TV shows the selective decisions in how police deactivate recordings meant to hold them accountable and that it is emblematic of law enforcement throughout the state. Aitkin County sheriffs’ deputies pulled over the wrong car and hid the fact that they had made a mistake. KSTP reports, “every officer on the scene who had a body-worn camera recording the incident either turned it off or muted the audio at some point during the traffic stop.“

KSTP as a network routinely takes a very pro-police stance in their reporting and prominent reporters at the outlet often work hand-in-hand with police in the crafting of their stories. If even a TV network with an ardently pro-police position such as KSTP is investigating issues with police body camera misconduct, that serves to show how widespread the corruption extends.

No Body Cameras for Drone Pilots

Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office policy draft (PDF) states that drone pilots’ “Body Worn Camera (BWC) must be off and removed during operation. The flight compass will not work due to interference from the camera.” Due to the drone policy forbidding body cameras, the public and the courts can’t observe the conduct of deputies operating drones – they can only see the footage from the drone itself.

Currently, state law streamlines the use of drones by law enforcement without a warrant and offers a number of exemptions that can be easily plugged into agencies’ overall usage reports.

Image
The form police departments use to explain their deployment of a drone without a warrant to be submitted and catalogued by the BCA. The summary data of police drone use statewide is to be published on June 15th of each year.
A state report on police use of drones, published Tuesday, shows Minnesota law enforcement flew drones 1,171 times in 2020 without warrants.
A total of 93 police agencies in Minnesota own drones, according to the report. Exemptions to warrant requirements for drone operations include things like “an emergency situation”, and “officer training or public relations” as well as vague conditions like “to collect information from a public area if there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” (“Reasonable suspicion” is utilized as a catch-all justification in other surveillance operations in violation of state “Tracking Warrant” provisions. )

Image

Police Cover Badge Numbers, Withhold Public Records

Although the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) was apparently not involved in the execution of Winston Smith, mounting concerns with the lack of transparency and accountability from the MPD fuel ongoing unrest in Minneapolis. During police responses to activists who have been regularly taking space and blocking traffic in Uptown to call attention to the death of Smith, MPD officers routinely cover up their badge numbers and refuse to provide them upon request — a direct violation of official police department policy.

Image

The MPD Policy and Procedure Manual (April 2021 edition PDF) requires officers to “provide name and badge number when requested, preferably in writing or on a business card.” The policy manual also requires “sworn employees… give their name and badge number to any person upon request.”

The same document also explicitly bears out that these minimalist transparency measures are to be extended during the deployment of riot police as well and requires, “the employee’s badge number [to be] placed on the front and rear of each [riot] helmet.”

An activist who goes by Plant Daddy was denied this information from unidentified officers deployed to recent protests, and turned to Minneapolis City Hall for follow up. Data requests were filed in order to reveal their identities but those requests were met with similar obfuscation. “You have not requested government data that is maintained or provided by the City of Minneapolis so your request will remain closed,” officials wrote in an email response to one data request. Public records laws in Minnesota are relatively strong compared to most states, but the Minneapolis Police Department frequently denies public records requests without proper cause or explanation, violating state law. This lack of transparency over even basic items such as badge numbers, while ignored and brushed aside by Minneapolis officials, has caused investigations into departments in other states.

Activists are not the only ones facing outright denials when seeking public records from police in the Twin Cities — journalists with mainstream media are also being barred from publishing what is rightfully public information. When Susan Du of the Star Tribune asked numerous law enforcement entities who were part of Operation Safety Net for information about their supply of “less-lethal” riot munitions, she was met with blanket denials. Included in the list of agencies denying her records request was the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, who previously provided Unicorn Riot with a trove of data on the subject which would seem to be more in-line with a correct interpretation of state public records laws. Instead, when Du asked the DNR and partner agencies for similar information all she was sent was a brochure from police vendor Safariland, or her records requests were denied entirely.

Susan Du told Unicorn Riot, “not a single agency listed as a member of Operation Safety Net fulfilled my data requests — most cited the security exemption to state law. Only the incident commander in Brooklyn Center, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, responded with a general Safariland catalogue. A spokesperson for the Metro Transit Police Department said the agency did not want to inform protesters how far away they should stand to avoid being struck.”

Lack of Transparency over Aerial Surveillance

Following the publication of over two hours of video captured by the Minnesota State Patrol’s SR-22 spy plane by Unicorn Riot, MSP has blocked further requests for footage gathered by the surveillance aircraft. Multiple requests for footage captured by State Patrol aircraft including surveillance of protests in Brooklyn Center after the police killing of Daunte Wright as well as protest actions in other areas of the Twin Cities have since been met with denials.

This obfuscation from the State Patrol started while Operation Safety Net – the branded campaign for multi-agency police operations during the Derek Chauvin trial – was still active. It’s unclear if the clampdown on information was part of the overall strategy of Operation Safety Net but the pattern is quite clear. Although the State Patrol is the “responsible authority,” they now regularly point data requesters to file requests for their records with other law enforcement entities. This shifting of responsibility was the case when Unicorn Riot sought footage from State Patrol helicopters as they circled Brooklyn Center. Brooklyn Center is outside the jurisdiction of the Minneapolis Police Department, however, requests for State Patrol footage from the helicopters over protests in Brooklyn Center were referred to Minneapolis.

Transparency And Trust

While Minnesota has some of the strongest public records and transparency laws in the United States, police routinely violate these statutes, claiming the right to operate in secrecy. While The Star Tribune has received some flack from activists over their seeming deference to police information sources, particularly over their labeling of Winston Smith as a “murder suspect,” a claim the paper took five days to correct and apologize for, even they are fed up with police violations of records law. The paper is currently suing MPD, claiming the Department “uses a linguistic loophole to hold back records that should be public under state data law.”

Struggles for transparency often end in lawsuits, sometimes ones that result in new government policies. The strategy of some in power seems to be to deter reporters and concerned citizens by making it cumbersome and difficult to obtain public records (or in the case of Winston Smith’s killing, any facts at all), in hopes that people just give up.

Cover composition by Dan Feidt.

https://unicornriot.ninja/2021/unanswer ... minnesota/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:52 pm

Image
The Revolutionary Meaning of the George Floyd Uprising Shemon Salam & Arturo CastillonThe Revolutionary Meaning of the George Floyd Uprising Shemon Salam & Arturo Castillon

The Revolutionary Meaning of the George Floyd Uprising
Posted Apr 19, 2021 by Arturo Castillon, Shemon Salam, Atticus Bagby-Williams

Preface
Arturo Castillon & Shemon Salam

Image
LOS ANGELES – MAY 30, 2020: Police car attacked during the protest march against police violence over death of George Floyd.

At least 28 people died in the wave of social unrest that rocked the United States from late May until late July in 2020. In this 10-week period, there were 574 riots; 624 arsons; 2,382 incidents of looting; 97 police vehicles set on fire; and 16,241 people arrested for protest-related activities. In addition, at least 13 police were shot, 9 were hit by cars and 2,037 were reported injured in the riots, mostly because of the tossing of rocks, bricks, and other projectiles.(1)

In early May few would have predicted that by the end of that month widespread riots would sweep across the country. Even those expecting something like this were caught off guard by the sheer ferocity and intensity of the riots. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown, skyrocketing unemployment, and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life, the George Floyd uprising flashed across the sky like a blazing meteor, opening up a new chapter in the revolutionary history of the U.S. proletariat(2) (or working class) which was finally joining the global wave of revolt that had convulsed the world—in places like Haiti, Sudan, Lebanon, and Chile—since 2019.

Beginning in Minneapolis on May 26th, the day after the video of the brutal police murder of George Floyd went viral, protesters began vandalizing the third precinct police station where the officer that murdered Floyd worked. The police dispersed the crowd using tear gas, but that night dozens of buildings were set on fire in the surrounding area. Over the next three days, the third precinct was overtaken and set ablaze, and hundreds of businesses were looted and burned throughout the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan areas.(3) By May 30th, these tactics had generalized throughout much of the nation, with riots hitting almost every major city, as well as dozens of smaller cities and suburbs. Cop-cars, courthouses, municipal buildings, and retail stores all went up in flames.

The first two weeks of the uprising were unprecedented in terms of property destruction. By June 8th, a week and a half after the rebellion began in Minneapolis, people across the country had inflicted upwards of $2 billion in property damage—the highest recorded damage from social unrest in U.S. history.(4) Though this included damage to some middle-class people’s homes, most of the property damage was suffered by the capitalist class, big and small businesses alike, and to a lesser degree, the police state.

Police departments were quickly overwhelmed and out-maneuvered as multi-racial crowds stormed the commercial centers of countless cities, big and small. When police came to quell the rioting in one place, the crowd would break apart and spread the revolt elsewhere. In cities like Rockford, Chicago, Louisville, and Philadelphia, people formed looting caravans which travelled throughout the city and suburbs, converging on particular shopping centers and then driving off together to other locations.

By early June, 200 cities had imposed curfews.(5) Since it was clear that the police could not control the situation, at least 96,000 National Guard troops were mobilized in 34 states,(6)(7) in addition to those that had already been 7 deployed to the capital, where protesters had clashed with Secret Service agents, injuring at least 50 of them, as others rushed President Trump into the bunker of the White House.(8) As the National Guard occupied dozens of cities throughout the country, the intensity and reach of the riots began to subside, while lawful, non-violent protests led by politicians and non-profit organizations began to dominate the political landscape once again. In contrast to the concrete actions of the uprising, these protests focused more on performative displays of radicalism, diversity, and anti-racist virtue, while shunning the illegal and confrontational tactics of the riots. Still, whether by carrot or stick, the counterinsurgency did not fully stamp out the insurrectionary upsurge of the proletariat. In response to continued instances of police violence, localized rebellions continued to pop up in specific cities, like Atlanta in mid-June; Portland throughout June and July; Chicago and Kenosha in August; Rochester, Lancaster, and Louisville in September; and Wauwatosa and Philadelphia in October.

The uprising in the streets merged with many other forms of struggle, including solidarity actions in workplaces and in prisons. For example in Chicago federal inmates banged on their windows and flashed their lights as protesters passed by.(9) In California, ICE detainees held a hunger strike in solidarity with the uprising.(10) The intersection between the uprising and workplace struggles was highlighted when bus driver unions in Minneapolis, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC refused to collaborate with the police in transporting detained protesters.(11) The uprising also coincided with a growing movement for housing, best exemplified in the occupation of a Sheraton hotel in Minneapolis in early June and its transformation into a homeless shelter.

As the riots and protests continued throughout the summer, workers continued to show support for the uprising. On June 19th, thousands of workers from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union as well as United Auto Workers stopped working for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, representing the amount of time that the cop that murdered George Floyd kneeled on his neck before he died. Then on July 20th, tens of thousands of workers in healthcare, transportation, food services, retail, education and other sectors walked off their jobs across the country.(12) There was also a wave of sports strikes in response to the rebellion that erupted in Kenosha in late August following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. In solidarity with the Kenosha rebellion, athletes refused to play in their scheduled sports events, from the National Basketball Association, to Major League Baseball, to Major League Soccer, to the Women’s Tennis Association, to the National Hockey League.

The fact that the uprising reverberated far and wide reflects its depth and complexity. It was an autonomous movement, unmediated by any party, state, organization, or subculture. It was expansive, including anyone who was willing to take part in it. While the Black proletariat certainly led the charge, others also joined the fight, demonstrating new possibilities of multi-racial struggle. A new spirit of inter-racial solidarity was born in the streets as people came together to confront the authorities and watch them flee under a barrage of bottles, rocks, and bricks. It’s an experience that is hard to forget. Despite the repression and counterinsurgency that ultimately prevailed, it’s hard not to feel a new spirit of revolt, a certain mix of unity, defiance, and triumph. The uprising demonstrated that the existing order is not eternal or stable. There were thousands of young people in the streets willing to fight the police and take immense risks.

Beyond the moment of collective street action, however, the movement began to run into clear limits that couldn’t be ignored. Aside from the predictable white racist backlash and mounting state violence, one of the greatest challenges that prevented the deepening of the uprising was the rise of a Black led counterinsurgency. The Black leaders who took a hard stand against the illegal and violent aspects of the uprising were very effective in co-opting the revolutionary fervor of masses of proletarians and forcing the politics of the movement back into the bounds of reformism. Furthermore, there were also clear limits to the uprising when it came to gender. When it was time to riot for Breonna Taylor, few were willing to fight as hard as they had for George Floyd. We consider these and other uncomfortable truths in the opening text, “Race, Class, and Gender in the 2020 Uprising.” While grappling with these contradictions, we also focus on what we see as the insurgent self-activity of the class. This is the starting point for any attempt to overcome the internal limits of the movement, which ultimately can only be worked out in the process of mass struggle.

With this background about the strengths and contradictions of the uprising, we turn to several other key developments. The second text, “Cars, Riots, and Black Liberation” provides a first-hand reflection on the Walter Wallace rebellion in Philadelphia, where the Black proletariat refined the tactic of looting by car, one of the greatest tactical innovations of the uprising. The third text, “Prelude to a New Civil War”, traces the mounting hostilities of the uprising back to the unfinished business of the first U.S. Civil War. A controversial position for some, we argue that the tensions and contours of the 2020 riots indicate the unique relationship between civil war and revolution that is so pronounced in the United States. The fourth text, “Fire on Main Street”, looks at how the uprising played out in small cities and suburbs throughout the country, focusing on the strategic implications that these peripheral areas pose for questions of insurrection and revolution. The final text in the collection, “Postscript on the 2020 Riots”, looks at some of the developments that defined the end of the uprising, namely the rise of rightwing, pro-Trump riots in the context of Joe Biden’s presidential election.

1. Class, Race and Gender in the 2020 Uprising
Arturo Castillon and Shemon Salam

While it is clear enough that the George Floyd uprising was a response to racism, specifically anti-Black racism, it must be emphasized that this was also a class conflict the likes of which our generation has never seen. While the anti-police riots were generally initiated by proletarian Black people, it’s also true that white, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous people all fought in the uprising. It wasn’t just a Black uprising but also an uprising of young white people and other racialized groups. This dialectic between Black liberation and universal revolt is what gave the uprising its immense potential—unemployed, precarious wage-laborers, blue-collar workers, and middle-class renegades all coalesced in a multi-racial battle against the state and bourgeois society.

At the same time, we can’t ignore the uncomfortable fact that much of the counterinsurgency was led by Black police, Black politicians, Black owned businesses, and Black non-profits, which played a key role in co-opting the uprising. When these groups showed up to the protests and scorned the illegal tactics of the proletariat, militants who were ready to riot often went home, unsure of whether they would receive any political support from these officials of the movement. Alongside the raw violence of the police and paramilitaries, the reactionary politics of the Black led counterinsurgency helped force the horizon of the uprising back into the bounds of budget reforms and electoral politics. As the summer wore on and the counterinsurgency went into full swing, the riots became less frequent, and racial boundaries were increasingly reimposed by a loose alliance of “white allies” and “Black leaders” working in tandem with local politicians, non-profits, and businesses.

Alongside race and class, gender also defined the internal dynamics of the uprising, as women, men, and people of all genders took part in the riots. But if it was anti-Black racism and the class oppression of Black proletarians that initially set off the uprising, it was through the contradiction of gender that it began to come to a close. In the case of the Breonna Taylor protests that followed on the heels of the initial George Floyd uprising, it seemed like fewer proletarians were willing to come out and fight for Breonna. The George Floyd uprising was shot through with these and other contradictions. Without accounting for them, we cannot hope to fully understand the internal dynamics of the uprising, much less develop its insurgent possibilities.

A Multi-Racial Uprising Led by the Black Proletariat
Frequent cases of racist police violence in the U.S., especially against Black Americans, have long resulted in rebellions like those that took place throughout the 1960s, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Ferguson in 2014, Baltimore in 2015, Baton Rouge and St. Paul in 2016. What’s unique about the 2020 riots, however, is the degree to which non-Black people participated. Most surprising was the large number of whites who took part. Of course, this wasn’t the first time that white people rebelled alongside Black people, but still, white participation in the 2020 riots was far more pronounced than previous cycles of riots, demonstrating that whiteness could no longer be counted on to hold all the whites together as a counter-revolutionary bloc. The 2020 riots revealed a layer of white people who we can describe as “race-traitors”—radical white anti-racists who fought (and even died) alongside militants of color in the uprising.(13)

The George Floyd uprising was layered by many interrelated crises, including police brutality, mass incarceration, and anti-Black racism, but also the COVID-19 pandemic, and the more general crisis of capitalism. It’s in the context of these intertwined crises that we must situate the expansive multiracial dynamics of the uprising. The class divide between the proletariat and bourgeoisie has deepened considerably since the 1970s and the current proletariat has suffered decades of deindustrialization, declining wages, deepening poverty, financial crises, and jobless recoveries. On top of all these downward trends, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically lowered the proletariat’s living standards and created the worst global recession since the 1930s. When you add the uneven racial impact that all these structural crises have on Black and Latinx people, the result is a large and highly diverse crosssection of very dissatisfied and very unruly proletarians.

A Black-Led Counterinsurgency
As the summer went on, the Black counterinsurgency was a decisive force in halting the momentum of the uprising. In the absence of a larger milieu of Black revolutionaries, few militants were willing to defy the Black liberals who, far from siding with the Black proletariat in revolt, were openly hostile to it. This was not a local phenomenon in one or two cities, but a dynamic that played out across the nation. When Black politicians, Black police leaders, and Black nonprofits showed up and began denouncing the illegal aspects of the uprising, many obeyed and fell in line. Even though the Black proletariat continued to launch sporadic rebellions throughout the summer and fall, some opponents of the uprising went so far as to claim that outside agitators were responsible for all the unrest, a narrative well within mainstream consensus. When wielded by respectable Black leaders, this narrative was especially effective in discouraging further revolt.

The problems that led to the fires of 2020 would certainly have been easy to resolve if outsiders or provocateurs were responsible, but this narrative only obscured the reality that this was a multi-racial uprising against a multiracial ruling class. It was an uprising of Black proletarians and their multiracial allies against a multi-racial, largely Democratic, urban establishment that often included Black politicians, Black police, Black capitalists, and Black non-profits. This was the case in Minneapolis, Chicago, Kenosha, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Birmingham, Tampa and many other cities. No doubt, behind the Black elite lies billion-dollar philanthropies, universities, the state, and ultimately, the white elite. Still, this doesn’t change the fact that a Blackled counterinsurgency played a leading role in neutralizing an uprising led by the Black proletariat.

This argument might be shocking to some, but it reflects concrete material changes that have come about since the 1960s, in particular the hardening of class tensions among Black people. Of course, this isn’t entirely new—the uprisings of the 1960s had already revealed a growing conflict between the Black proletariat and a small Black elite. Over the decades, this class conflict has only deepened, reaching new heights in the 2020 riots.

Gender in the Uprising
The police murdered Breonna Taylor in March 2020 as they served a no-knock warrant at her house in Louisville, Kentucky. The protests and actions that took place following the announcement of the verdict in that case were arguably the least militant of any of the major protests in 2020. Why? Why did people not fight as hard for Breonna as they had for George? Was it because the momentum of the uprising was over by the time the protests happened in late September? Was it because the National Guard prevented a rebellion? Or was it simply because the movement won’t fight as hard when the police murder a Black woman?

The most obvious explanation is that there was no viral video of the incident that led to Breonna Taylor’s death. In contrast, there was a very brutal and detailed video of George Floyd’s murder. While this factor might have much to do with why people feel more compelled to riot in one case and not another, we can also point out that plenty of anti-police rebellions have happened when there was no video, especially before the 1992 Los Angeles riots. There was no video when people in Chicago rioted and looted in response to the police shooting of Latrell Allen in early August 2020.

Then there’s the argument that the momentum of the uprising was starting to wane by the time they announced the verdict in late September. This is certainly a factor. The initial uprising was on a downward trend at this point. Yet localized rebellions were still happening—there were two very intense rebellions in Wauwatosa and Philadelphia the next month, in October. So, the argument that the momentum of the riots was over, also doesn’t hold up.

The fact that the National Guard occupied Louisville in anticipation of the protests is a big factor behind the lack of militancy. As would happen with Kenosha in early January of 2021 following the verdict on the cop who shot Jacob Blake, the National Guard was able to prevent a rebellion in Louisville by preemptively occupying the city. Both Louisville and Kenosha confirmed that when the state anticipates a riot and is actively prepared for it, it is almost impossible for the proletariat to defeat the state. Unable to riot in downtown Louisville, Black proletarians began looting in a few areas on the outskirts of the city, but that was it.

Similar to Minneapolis, Kenosha, Portland, or Seattle, Louisville is a majority white city. Unlike the George Floyd riots that happened in these places in Louisville in late May, however, white proletarians were noticeably absent during the Breonna Taylor protests in late September. This signaled a shift in the composition of the riots, from multi-racial to Black, a divergence which would repeat itself in the rebellions in Wauwatosa and Philadelphia in October. If the multi-racial proletariat went on the offensive in the summer and sporadically in the beginning of the fall, by the middle of the fall it seemed like only the most insurgent elements of the Black proletariat were still willing to riot. It seems like the crucial shift happened in September. While there was a multi-racial rebellion in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the beginning of September, this trend seemed to stop by the end of that month.

So, what does the lack of a rebellion in Louisville tell us about gender in the uprising?

It’s inescapable that the most militant anti-police revolts so far have been about the murder of Black men. While we can interpret this as a sign of patriarchy, it also reflects the basic fact that, aside from Indigenous men, Black men are the most likely people to be incarcerated and murdered by the police. If we want to break it down by gender, 1,377 Black men have been murdered by police since 2015, in contrast to 48 Black women.(14) Given the disproportionate level of police violence that Black men experience, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this group is the driving force behind most anti-police rebellions.

In an attempt to stop people from rioting, activist peace-police(15) accuse men rioters of endangering women and children, affirming non-violence in their name. This line of thinking reduces women to passive bystanders to men’s rage and violence, when in fact women were active participants in the uprising. While the common logic is that men are the fighters and women are the care-takers, the uprising exploded this binary, showing us that women weren’t only providing medical aid and food and other forms of social reproduction, but were also smashing windows, fighting cops, starting fires, and looting. A cursory look at those arrested in the riots last year confirms this.(16) Now, we are certainly not denying the monopoly of violence that men wield in a patriarchal society. While we are hesitant to reach generalizations, our experience is that Black men took a leading role in the looting, property destruction, and street fighting during the uprising. We can acknowledge this, and the reasons for it, while at the same time recognizing the Black women in Philadelphia and Chicago who were looting and fighting the cops, or the Black women in Louisville who were openly carrying pistols and rifles during the Breonna Taylor protests. While many believe that rioting and looting are inherently masculine, anarchist militant Vicky Osterweil has pointed out how these activities can actually be quite feminine.(17)

To summarize: elements of the Black proletariat responded with some armed marches and a few nights of looting in Louisville, but the Breonna Taylor protests did not develop into a full-blown rebellion. This was the result of a combination of various factors which came together to limit the insurgent potential of the protests:

Preemptive repression. The National Guard preemptively occupied Louisville, making the proletariat lose the element of surprise (as it also did in Kenosha in early January 2021).
The narrowing composition of the riots. The composition of the riots changed significantly from the beginning of September, when a multi-racial riot erupted in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In contrast, by the end of September, only the most militant sections of the Black proletariat were still in revolt.
The marginalization of Black women in the struggle against the police. The proletariat generally does not riot when Black women are murdered by police. While on the one hand this reflects a major limit in regard to gender, including the failure to recognize and amplify women militants, on the other hand, this also reflects the basic fact that Black men are disproportionately murdered by police.
Conclusion
Over and over again during the 2020 uprising, proletarians of all colors and genders joined together to smash the police state and loot capitalism. It took the National Guard occupying dozens of cities throughout the country to bring the initial uprising to an end, and even then, localized rebellions continued to emerge throughout the fall. The radical alliances that emerged in the streets upended common sense notions of gender, class, race, solidarity, politics, and organization. However, this movement also ran into clear limits as the counterinsurgency went into effect and the shared unity in the streets dissipated.

If we are going to prepare for the next upsurge of resistance, we will have to engage with the internal contradictions sketched out in this text, among them the rise of a Black-led counterinsurgency, declining white participation in the riots, as well as the tendency to frame the riots as male-centric while ignoring the women who took part. Still, whether we are able to overcome these internal limits largely depends on whether proletarians are willing to address them in the process of struggling together against their common class enemies. Revolutionaries can help make this happen by articulating a strategy of revolutionary struggle that directly tackles the specific contradictions of gender, race and class within the movement.

(much more, get the pamphlet.)
At Monthly Review Essays, we are happy to publish The Revolutionary Meaning of the George Floyd Uprising. Daraja Press has published this work as a printed pamphlet, which is available for purchase here. We encourage you to consider buying a copy, to review the other excellent publications that Daraja Press has been producing, and to donate here. Daraja Press can consider discounts for larger numbers of the pamphlet for use in organizing if you request them here.
https://darajapress.com/publication/geo ... d-uprising
https://darajapress.com/

This pamphlet is part of the joint series, Thinking Freedom and Moving Beyond Capitalism–Now! You can find out more about the series, including how to participate as an author, here and here.

We thank Firoze Manji, publisher at Daraja Press, and Howard Waitzkin, editor of “Moving Beyond Capitalism–Now!,” for their collaboration.

If you want to put the George Floyd rebellion in its proper political and historical context, this is one of the works that you have to start with. The Revolutionary Meaning of the George Floyd uprising makes the unquestionable case that what we witnessed was not just a series of events aiming to reform the empire, or tamper its edges, as the bourgeois media would have us believe, but a mass movement that at its heart was and is aiming to eradicate the empire and construct a new, uncertain future. This work is a critical starting place to understand why, and further, it addresses how you can get deeper engaged.

— Kali Akuno, co-founder, Cooperation Jackson

Fanon says about decolonization that in trying to change the very order of the world it is “clearly an agenda for total disorder.” By this he means it is an absolute demand, unable to be mediated by policy modifications. Such a demand returns in the flames ofthe Third Precinct in Minneapolis, in the summer of 2020. No one has come closer than Shemon and Arturo to capturing this unfolding struggle, to naming the extraordinary and contradictory character of the George Floyd Uprising—how it escapes the very history that produces it, both unique and inevitable, a true insurgency, progenitor to a hundred counterinsurgent formations. These communiqués from the rebellion offer clarity reg arding the desperate and extraordinary victories, and the forms that theenemy will take. This text is a bearer of the summer’s possibilities, proposals, and problems; I can imagine no better fate forwriting.

— Joshua Clover, author of Riot.Strike.Riot: the New Era of Uprisings.
https://mronline.org/2021/04/19/the-rev ... -uprising/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:17 pm

The Thin Blue Lies Behind Crime Wave Hype
JOSMAR TRUJILLO

Image
NY Post: Gunfire explodes over seven bloody hours in NYC
Image
It’s always possible to produce alarming headlines about crime—even in the safest year in New York City history, as the New York Post (7/30/18) demonstrated.
The stories were horrible.

A woman tied up[/img] and fatally shot in her own apartment. Her neighbor was killed in his apartment two days later in the same way. In another tragic episode, a young teenager was killed in a horrendous machete attack in the Bronx that made national headlines. The New York Post (7/30/18) reported on a violent stretch of seven hours where 16 people were shot, one fatally, in 10 separate incidents: “Gunfire Explodes Over Seven Bloody Hours in NYC.”

There were almost 300 reported murders in New York City that year, almost one per day. There were over 20,000 reported felony assaults, about 55 per day, and more than 12,000 robberies, 35 on an average day. The year was 2018, and it was the safest year in New York City’s recorded history. In a city of over eight million residents, crime, even in the safest times, will always be a headline.

Fast forward to 2021 as the city, and nation, begin to climb out of a pandemic that saw mass economic and social fallout—to say nothing of the lives lost. A historic, once-in-a-lifetime worldwide event destabilized the lives of countless people, and also led to an undeniable rise in shootings and homicide across the country. However, right-leaning media have used the uptick in certain crime categories to weaponize a counter-narrative to social justice movements, one that argues we need more cops and law enforcement to save our cities.

‘Fear City’

The narrative isn’t a new one, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be a genuine one. Local conservative tabloids, like the Post and the New York Daily News, have for years tried to stir fear of a city overrun by crime (FAIR.org, 6/21/21). As we’ve pointed out at FAIR (6/28/18), the local tabloids were apocalyptic in their predictions for the city when stop and frisk, a dragnet policing tactic, was ruled unconstitutional in its application by the NYPD. These papers have supported controversial police tactics like “broken windows”—a crackdown on minor offenses in poor communities, no matter the costs on vulnerable populations. (“Broken Windows ‘Works,’ and if It Hurts Immigrants—‘Too Bad,'” was how FAIR summarized the Daily News‘ position—3/8/17.)

The Post, which has been sounding the alarm bells since Democrat Bill de Blasio took office in 2014, has operated much like a media outlet that wants crime to increase. It seems to have an ideological drive to frame the city the way police unions in the 1970s once did: as “Fear City” The cartoonishly predictable newspaper’s pro-police bias is well-documented.
NY Post: With squeegee men back, NYC’s bad old days can’t be far behind
Image
To the New York Post (2/18/20), “squeegee men” have long been a terrifying symbol of disorder.
Their fascination with squeegee workers (people that go up to cars to clean windshields for tips), for example, is in itself a master class in hyping a moral panic for a larger public policy goal. In 2014, Post headlines railed against squeegee workers making a “comeback” (the prevailing belief being they were run out of the city by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani) and “terrorizing” the city (8/7/14). In 2020, before Covid, the Post editorial board (2/18/20) was arguing that with squeegee workers “back,” “the bad old days can’t be far behind”—only to then run a story (5/31/21) declaring that the “pandemic gives way to return of NYC’s infamous squeegee men.”

Unable to decide whether squeegee workers are now “back” or had already “returned” (or perhaps never really left at all), the Post‘s reporting was never anything less than a naked attempt to signal a shadowy side of Gotham that is perpetually lurking around the figurative corner. With certain categories of city crime increasing from the previous year, media fearmongering has hit the ground running.

In the city, tabloid and television media have tried to explain crime increases—often described as “crime waves”—primarily in two ways. One, as a result of police reforms, notably New York state’s passage of legislation aimed to modestly reduce the use of cash bail (reforms that were watered down amid right-wing scare tactics). And secondly, to a “defunding” of police, as some municipalities have reduced official police spending. Quoting controversial former police commissioner William Bratton, the Post (6/10/21) made both arguments, claiming that city and state lawmakers (who make and maintain laws to make crime, well, illegal) “went too far to aid criminals.”
Image
It’s unlikely that bail reform has had a major impact on crime, because bail reform hasn’t had all that much impact on bail. (Chart: Center for Court Innovation)
Data, however, doesn’t back the assertion that bail reform has led to crime increases. The Center for Court Innovation found “no evidence to support the claim” that bail reform was behind a spike in gun violence. In a more recent publication, the New York City–based non-profit that works closely with the state’s court system (not exactly a radical anti–law enforcement outfit) also found that more people have been in pre-trial detention, despite what the mayor and police commissioner were telling the public:

Beginning in May 2020, and increasing throughout the summer as some New York City public officials made unsupported claims linking bail reform to a spike in gun violence, judges reverted to setting bail more often. Combined with the effect of the July 2020 amendments to the original legislation—which made more cases again eligible for bail—this contributed to a steady, months-long rise in the number of people in jail awaiting trial.

‘Defunding’ police
Fox News: Dermot Shea: Defunding the police in NYC had a 'significant impact' on crime surge
Image
A police commissioner telling you that you need more cops (Fox News, 9/25/20) should be treated with the same skepticism as a McDonald’s executive telling you that you need to eat more burgers.
What about “defunding” the police? Since those three magic words were seen on protest signs of George Floyd demonstrators last year—and become the fascination of right-wing pundits (and even establishment Democrats, as I wrote about last year—Medium, 11/16/20)—some have claimed that not only have the police been defunded, but that that defunding is to blame for increases in violence.

The New Republic (5/26/21) did a rather succinct job last month of bursting that bubble, showcasing the National Fraternal Order of Police’s twitter graphic of “SKYROCKETING MURDER RATES,” which claimed elected leaders in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles “turned the keys over to the ‘Defund the Police’ mob.” The FOP, the New Republic‘s Matt Ford pointed out, actually

took care not to link the rise in homicides explicitly to actual material declines in police budgets. That’s because some cities did not actually “defund the police” in any meaningful way.

In other words, the very premise that reducing, even moderately, police spending caused a crime increase was flawed, because the asserted cause didn’t really happen in some cities.

In fact, that’s the case in New York City, a city that conservatives have breathlessly complained “defunded” the police (with help from the police commissioner: “Dermot Shea: Defunding the Police in NYC Had a ‘Significant Impact’ on Crime Surge”—Fox News, 9/25/20). New York did reshuffle some school police spending. However, the much-hyped decrease in the police budget by $1 billion annually was found by an independent budget watchdog to be only about a third of that. Any of the so-called cuts wouldn’t figure into the policing puzzle, because increases in shootings began early last summer, before the “defunded” budget would have even been felt in the police department.

In fact, the city saw crime increases as its police department was still far and away the largest and most expensive urban police department in the history of mankind. (This, of course, begs the question as to why the police themselves aren’t blamed for the increase in violent crime, because they certainly are given the credit when there is decrease in crime.) Further undermining the supposed causal relationship between “defunding” police and increases in crime is the fact that several cities saw increases in violent crime even as they increased police spending (Chicago Tribune, 6/10/21).

National outlets pile on
Fox: The Ingraham Angle on the Radicals Behind America's Crime Wave
Image
Fox News‘ Laura Ingraham (6/10/21) explains how criticizing racist police violence causes crime to increase.
While local media has been increasingly reporting about crime for more than a year, national outlets have also piled on. Fox News host Laura Ingraham (6/10/21) ranted against activists in Minneapolis recently: “Now, a year after the ruinous deadly riots that ripped apart America, we see the corrupt poisonous fruits of BLM’s work.” The show, framed as Ingraham’s analysis of “the radicals behind America’s crime wave,” also included an interview with right-wing pundit Heather MacDonald—who was promoting a crime wave six years ago, when there was no crime wave (FAIR.org, 6/10/15).

MacDonald’s visceral hatred of the Black Lives Matter movement led her to complain to Ingraham that “thanks to this phony, racist attack on law enforcement, Black lives are the ones that are lost.” MacDonald, who is frequent contributor to the Post, the Wall Street Journal and City Journal (the magazine of the right-wing Manhattan Institute), has also claimed that “No, the Cops Didn’t Murder Sean Bell” (City Journal, Winter/07) after cops murdered Sean Bell, so you have to take what she says with several mountains of salt.

Attempts to tie violent crime to the racial justice movement has been an ongoing theme for the right since Black Lives Matter entered mainstream national discourse. MacDonald’s initial attempt to do so was with the conservative fairy tale known as the “Ferguson Effect” back in 2015, when several media outlets, including the New York Times (6/4/15), opened their pages for her to argue that the “vitriol” of protesters and police critics led to cops not being “proactive” enough to stop crime.

Columbia University professor Bernard Harcourt, a critical theorist who countered the Broken Windows theory of policing and also debunked MacDonald’s “Ferguson Effect” fiction, notes the historical parallels:

The attacks on the movement to defund policing or reform bail come straight out of the conservative playbook. It’s the same script from the 1960s and the reactionary response to the civil rights movement.

Harcourt notes conservatives see easy political opportunities from high crime or increases in crime. “It’s what turned crime into a national priority with Goldwater and Nixon.”

Politicization of crime
Image
Rudy Giuliani took credit for a decline in crime that was going on all over the country. (Chart: Pew Research, 11/20/20)
New York City—where our crime increases, notably in reported shootings and murders, still only result in a fraction of city crime levels in the early 1990s—has experienced this before. Former mayor Rudy Giuliani was elected twice on a law and order platform that seized on fear of crime and laid the groundwork for decades of mass arrests and stops of mostly Black and Latino New Yorkers.

After his election, in a sort of inverse of what is happening today, Giuliani took credit for declines in crime in the ’90s that began a year before Giuliani became mayor and were part of a nationwide crime decrease. “The same politicization of crime happened in the 1990s with broken windows policing. Each time, it’s just manipulation to score a political point,” Harcourt reminds me. That crime decrease benefited not only Giuliani and law and order Republican politics, it also gave police leaders like William Bratton, Giuliani’s commissioner, political power by defining them as saviors of the city.

However, more than a quarter century later, there is no consensus of what caused that crime decline. Similarly, the causes of this current crime increase probably won’t be clear for a long time—although the pandemic’s destabilizing effects on society are a very likely culprit—so the voices that claim to immediately know the causes are saying so based on a predetermined agenda. “If there are national trends in crime and strong variations in policing across jurisdictions,” Harcourt notes, “it’s likely that police strategy has little to do with those trends. And that applies when crime is going down, as well as when it is going up.”

The media, unfortunately, tend to gravitate to quick assessments rather than correct ones. As such, the industry’s tendency to rely on police for answers—which they habitually do in everyday crime blotter journalism (Washington Post, 6/30/20)—subtly works to center police expertise, and therefore power.

CNN’s ‘bloody summer’
CNN: How US cities are preparing for a potentially bloody summer of gun violence
Image
What makes this a CNN headline (6/9/21) is that Fox News would have left out “potentially.”
CNN (6/9/21) did its part with coverage warning its audience of a “bloody summer,” featuring an interview with a representative of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement policy group. The network didn’t focus on why crime has gone up, but rather on the police response to it. In fact, CNN quoted four police leaders and one former police commissioner, which narrowed the entire concept of crime to something that only police are experts at addressing. This sort of journalism, while not as inflammatory as the New York Post or Fox News, reinforces the politics that favor police as saviors.

Chuck Wexler, spokesperson for the policy group, told CNN, “It’s challenging to be a police officer right now but it’s also from a police chief’s standpoint. They’re not getting much sleep.”

CNN‘s Jim Sciutto followed up with a police ride-along piece (6/22/21) where they quite literally jumped into police cars so that cops could explain to them the crime situation. “Here’s what they told us about spiking crime in the city,” which was part of the story’s headline, is in fact what any reasonable person would identify as police stenography—uncritically regurgitating police talking points. CNN apparently likes to embed themselves with cops. In 2014, CNN‘s Jake Tapper agreed with the police chief’s request for the network to report alongside cops after initially reporting on how militarized police were attacking protesters (FAIR.org, 8/19/14).

If one doesn’t simply take the police’s word on what is causing crime, there are numerous factors to consider. For example, in addition to the pandemic’s social economic and human toll, there has been an unprecedented surge in gun sales across America that can often work their way into urban centers.

Whatever the reason for certain crime increases—and again, while some violent crimes, like shootings, have increased, overall crime in America has not (FAIR.org, 6/21/21)—the media’s fascination with crime and crime-fighters embraces simplistic, digestible police-provided soundbites (e.g., “NYPD Blames Police Reform for Violent Holiday Weekend“—NY1, 7/6/20) and ready-made police heroes.

This form of journalism completely omits the idea that social and socio-economic stability profoundly affects crime—which might make people want to address crime by addressing those underlying conditions, rather than reflexively relying on police. By hyping a crime trend and platforming police experts in how to deal with it, the media show that they aren’t neutral observers but actually providing a journalistic cover to the idea that police—or the “thin blue line“—are the only thing standing between us and bloody carnage.

https://fair.org/home/the-thin-blue-lie ... wave-hype/

The hyping of 'gun violence' serves several purposes. Besides bolstering the right wing's fetishizing of the cops and the necessity of 'keeping 'them others' down' it also motivates the anti-gun lobby into hyperactivity which consequently obtains the expected reaction thereby goosing the polarization of the working class which is the ultimate bulwark of bourgeois rule.

The media is every bit as complicit in the support of the ruling class as the politicians and their complicity is even more damnable given their self appointed role of 'tribunes of the people'.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Fri Jul 02, 2021 12:58 pm

DOCUMENT: Internal Security Act of 1950
Editors, The Black Agenda Review 01 Jul 2021

Image
DOCUMENT: Internal Security Act of 1950

The terms of the McCarran Act strategy offer a wide catchment that has the potential to ensnare any progressive or radical movement.

“All those who have even mild criticisms of the US government can— and will—be caught up within the anti-terrorist dragnet.”

While rabid right wing rabble-rousers spit and spume over the more mild brands of leftist thought — like “Critical Race Theory,” that subdiscipline of supposed race-hate, or the 1619 Project, accused of historiographical terrorism — we should not forget that it is liberals, not aytpically, who are quietly and systematically circumscribing the limits of radical speech. Exhibit A: US president Joe Biden’s recently-unveiled strategy for countering “domestic terrorism.”

On the surface, the strategy is meant to monitor and contain the United States’ more vulgar white supremacist tendencies, while overlooking a happily normalized liberal white supremacist culture. Yet the terms of the strategy offer a wide catchment that has the potential to ensnare any progressive or radical movement. Under its definition of “domestic violent extremists” — or the catchy abbreviation “DVEs” — we find descriptions of both “militant violent extremists,” extremists who see the US government as an overreaching, totalitarian presence, and “sovereign citizen violent extremists,” extremists who believe they are immune from the US government’s authority and laws.

The DVE definition also includes “anarchist violent extremists,” extremists who “oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which are perceived as harmful to society.” The danger here is not only in the continued demonization of the range of anarchist philosophy and practice. It is also in the inevitable way by which all those who are tainted with the brush of “anti-capitalism” and all those who have even mild criticisms of the US government can— and will—be caught up within the anti-terrorist dragnet.

“The DVE definition includes ‘anarchist violent extremists,’ extremists who ‘oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which are perceived as harmful to society.’”

Biden’s proposed strategy is part of a longer history of US anti-radical policy that has targeted not only anarchists, but, of course, communists. It is also a history of persecuting immigrants, African Americans and, indeed, any individual or group unwilling or unable to fit into the prescribed norms of US society and citizenship. Among the most notorious examples of this legislative history was The Internal Security Act of 1950 — also known as the McCarran Act (after its sponsor, Nevada senator Pat McCarren), the Subversive Activities Control Act, and the Concentration Camp Law.

The McCarran Act identified Communism as a specter haunting the United States and working to overthrow the US government. Among the most draconian anti-Communist legislation signed into law, in hysterical, paranoid fashion, the Act proscribed a series of measures meant to contain the threat of communism, including the mandatory registration of communists and those accused of being communist, and the detention of anyone presumed to be planning acts of sabotage against the state. The Act explicitly targeted immigrants and would-be migrants, preventing their entry to the U.S. and threatening those considered disloyal or subversive with denaturalization and deportation. The Act functioned through the tribunal-like setting of the Subversive Activities Control Board. Claudia Jones was deported for violations of the McCarran Act while other Black communists, including Claude Lightfoot, were targeted by the Subversive Activities Control Board.

Harry Truman had attempted to veto the act because he saw its potential to infringe on civil liberties. When it comes to his domestic counterterrorism strategy, Biden apparently does not share such concerns. The preamble to the McCarran Act is reproduced below.

AN ACT

To protect the United States against certain un-American and subversive activities by requiring registration of Communist organizations, and for other Purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the "Internal Security Act of 1950."

TITLE I-SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES CONTROL

SECTION 1.
(a) This title may be cited as the "Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950" .

(b) Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize, require, or establish military or civilian censorship or in any way to limit or infringe upon freedom of the press or of speech as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and no regulation shall be promulgated hereunder having that effect.

NECESSITY FOR LEGISLATION

SEC. 2.
As a result of evidence adduced before various committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, the Congress hereby finds that-

(1) There exists a world Communist movement which, in its origins, its development, and its present practice, is a world-wide revolutionary movement whose purpose it is, by treachery, deceit, infiltration into other groups (governmental and otherwise), espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and any other means deemed necessary, to establish a Communist totalitarian dictatorship in the countries throughout the world through the medium of a world-wide Communist organization.

(2) The establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship in any country results in the suppression of all opposition to the party in power, the subordination of the rights of individuals to the state, the denial of fundamental rights and liberties which are characteristic of a representative form of government, such as freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, and of religious worship, and results in the maintenance of control over the people through fear, terrorism, and brutality.

(3) The system of government known as a totalitarian dictatorship is characterized by the existence of a single political party, organized on a dictatorial basis, and by substantial identity between such party and its policies and the government and governmental policies of the country in which it exists.

(4) The direction and control of the world Communist movement is vested in and exercised by the Communist dictatorship of a foreign country.

(5) The Communist dictatorship of such foreign country, in exercising such direction and control and in furthering the purposes of the world Communist movement, establishes or causes the establishment of, and utilizes, in various countries, action organizations which are not free and independent organizations, but are sections of a world-wide Communist organization and are controlled, directed, and subject to the discipline of the Communist dictatorship of such foreign country.

(6) The Communist action organizations so established and utilized in various countries, acting under such control, direction, and discipline, endeavor to carry out the objectives of the world Communist movement by bringing about the overthrow of existing governments by any available means, including force if necessary, and setting up Communist totalitarian dictatorships which will be subservient to the most powerful existing Communist totalitarian dictatorship. Although such organizations usually designate themselves as political parties, they are in fact constituent elements of the world-wide Communist movement and promote the objectives of such movement by conspiratorial and coercive tactics, instead of through the democratic processes of a free elective system or through the freedom-preserving means employed by a political party which operates as an agency by which people govern themselves.

“Communist action organizations endeavor to carry out the objectives of the world Communist movement by bringing about the overthrow of existing governments by any available means, including force if necessary.”

(7) In carrying on the activities referred to in paragraph (6), such Communist organizations in various countries are organized on a secret, conspiratorial basis and operate to a substantial extent through organizations, commonly known as "Communist fronts," which in most instances are created and maintained, or used, in such manner as to conceal the facts as to their true character and purposes and their membership . One result of this method of operation is that such affiliated organizations are able to obtain financial and other support from persons who would not extend such support if they knew the true purposes of, and the actual nature of the control and influence exerted upon, such "Communist fronts".

(8) Due to the nature and scope of the world Communist movement, with the existence of affiliated constituent elements working toward common objectives in various countries of the world, travel of Communist members, representatives, and agents from country to country facilitates communication and is a prerequisite for the carrying on of activities to further the purposes of the Communist movement.

(9) In the United States those individuals who knowingly and willfully participate in the world Communist movement, when they so participate, in effect repudiate their allegiance to the United States, and in effect transfer their allegiance to the foreign country in which is vested the direction and control of the world Communist movement.

(10) In pursuance of communism's stated objectives, the most powerful existing Communist dictatorship has, by the methods referred to above, already caused the establishment in numerous foreign countries of Communist totalitarian dictatorships, and threatens to establish similar dictatorships in still other countries.

(11) The agents of communism have devised clever and ruthless espionage and sabotage tactics which are carried out in many instances in form or manner successfully evasive of existing law.

(12) The Communist network in the United States is inspired and controlled in large part by foreign agents who are sent into Commissions, and in similar capacities, but who use their diplomatic or semi-diplomatic status as a shield behind which to engage in activities prejudicial to the public security.

(13) There are, under our present immigration laws, numerous aliens who have been found to be deportable, many of whom are in the subversive, criminal, or immoral classes who are free to roam the country at will without supervision or control.

(14) One device for infiltration by Communists is by procuring naturalization for disloyal aliens who use their citizenship as a badge for admission into the fabric of our society.

(15) The Communist movement in the United States is an organization numbering thousands of adherents, rigidly and ruthlessly disciplined. Awaiting and seeking to advance a moment when the United States may be so far extended by foreign engagements, so far divided in counsel, or so far in industrial or financial straits, that overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence may seem possible of achievement, it seeks converts far and wide by an extensive system of schooling and indoctrination. Such preparations by Communist organizations in other countries have aided in supplanting existing governments. The Communist organization in the United States, pursuing its stated objectives, the recent successes of Communist methods in other countries, and the nature and control of the world Communist movement itself, present a clear and present danger to the security of the United States and to the existence of free American institutions, and make it necessary that Congress, in order to provide for the common defense, to preserve the sovereignty of the United States as an independent nation, and to guarantee to each State a republican form of government, enact appropriate legislation recognizing the existence of such worldwide conspiracy and designed to prevent it from accomplishing its purpose in the United States .

https://www.blackagendareport.com/docum ... y-act-1950

… Christ, you know it ain't easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They're gonna crucify me


(Massively out of context I can tolerate that philistine.)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Mon Jul 12, 2021 11:57 am

Image

K. Michael Williams
‘Hard Day’s Work for the Poleeseman’
Originally published: Re/Creation by K. Michael Williams (2021 ) - Posted Jul 12, 2021
EmpireUnited StatesNewswire
(with thanks to Douglas Williams)

Got to the precinct early

Ready to get to work

Changed into the blues

Sat thru roll call

Sippin’ coffee

Anxious

Finally

I hit the streets

Before I

Could finish muh joe

I get my first call

Barely out the gate

Call for an assist

Suspicious person

Rape suspect

I hustle

Join my buds

We move in

Find him in

A vestibule

Yup

Suspicious as hell

We tell him to freeze

He doesn’t

He reaches

We got no choice

Later they say

41 shots

Springsteen’ll write a song

But the shoot’s righteous

Suspect was reachin’

Had no choice

I get back

On the streets

Barely

Before

I hear bout

Fight on the subway

Not far

I get down there

Commotion’s deep

Folks detained

Looks okay

Maybe I’m not needed

Wait —

There’s drama…

I hurry over

Some kid

We get him down

He’s scared

And he’s off

To my mind

I pin ‘im face down

Like the job says

I got him

But like I say

Kid’s off

I get my piece out

Just in case

Y’know

It’s the job

Kid gets himseIf

Shot in the back

Like I said

Kid’s off

What am I s‘pose ta do?

I gotta look out

Gotta get back to my family

Right?

I’m back in my ride

Go for that cup of joe

Sittin’ in the holder

Finally…

Never got a sip

‘Nother call

Suspect givin’ cops

Hard time

I radio I’m goin’ in

I arrive

Guy givin’ it as hard as he gets

I join the scrap

He’s refusin’ to go easy

Big guy

I get my arm around his big throat

Need to send a message

People watchin’

Need to know

You listen we cool

You don’t it goes hard

So we take ‘im down

Over some damned smokes

He’s moanin

Can’t say

I’m listenin’

By time medics get there

I’m already on my next call

Badass wit’ a gun

Threatenin’ a community center

I skid to a stop

In the recreational area

I see ‘im

Gun tucked in his waistband

He’s that close

I get my gun out before I get the car door open

One shot

He’s done

Damned shame

A kid…

Walkin’ round wavin’ a gun

That wasn’t a gun

When these kids gonna learn?

New call

I’m out

Undercover sting

Gone wonky

Backup requested

I get there

It’s already crazy

Black guy

Runnin’

[Big surprise]

We catch up

Take him down

He wrestles

He wiggles

He resists

He gets shot

Later

They’ll say

I thought

It was

My taser

They’ll say it was

A slip and capture

Hell

They’ll say

Tunnel vision

Diminished hearin’

Autopilotin’

But I just

Did the job

And that’s

When I spy

With my little eye

Some fool

Sellin’ CDs

Coupla cops are

Dealin’ with it

But I go over

It’s what you do

We get him on

The ground

When one of my

Brother officers yell

“He has a gun.”

I do

What’s necessary

Nothin’ left to do

‘Sides

I got more work to do

Radio’s screamin’

Abandoned vehicle

Middle of street

I get there

And here’s a guy

Who ain’t listenin’

Wanderin’ round

Walkin’ when

Told to stop

SUV in road

Like they say

Doors open

Everything

Wrong

We tell ‘im to stop

Ova and ova

He doesn’t

He reaches in the car

Someone tasers him

I don’t

I do what

I’m s’pose to do

I do

My job

Then

I’m back

Behind the wheel

Sippin on cold joe

Thinkin it’s time

To get a fresh one

But I don’t get the chance

Before I know it

I’m goin’ thru

A door

No knock

We’re in

We’re movin’

Somebody

Takes a shot

Hittin’ one of ours

We shoot

Someone

Somewhere

Gets hurt

What you expect?

You don’t

Shoot

At us

End of story

No matter

How much they

Say her name

End.

Of.

Story.

I finally stop

To get that fresh cup

But it don’t happen

Somethin’ crazy

Goin’ down

Wit’ some of

My boys

We get the suspect

Down

I get my knee

In his neck

Baby’s cryin’

For his momma

My brotha blues

Keep back

The whiners

With their

Video tapin’

Their outrage

Suspects ain’t whinin’

No more …

I leave my peeps

To finish the job

Won’t be a problem

He ain’t movin’

Easy-peasy

I get my fresh cup

Long day

I go home

Sleep

Like a baby

Next day

I’m ready

Get back out there

They say no

They’re actin’ like

I did

Somethin’ wrong

I did the job

They sayin’

I’m not

Sayin’ I’m

Responsible

For the death of

Two blacks a week

Assholes

They don’t get it

Just

Doin’ my best…

What’d you think would happen?

https://mronline.org/2021/07/12/hard-da ... oleeseman/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 07, 2021 2:00 pm

Image

Repressing radical protest, tolerating reactionary violence: The U.S. double standard in historical context
Posted Aug 03, 2021 by Barry Murdaco

The repression of Black Lives Matter protests over the summer of 2020 stands in contrast to the response to the Capitol Riot on January 6. In typical disingenuous fashion, conservatives attempt to draw a false equivalency between the Capitol Riot and BLM protests. While the Capitol Riot was a singular event characterized by its violence and insurrectionary quality, BLM protests were a multiplicity of events, over 7,000 with the vast majority (more than 95 percent) non-violent, according to Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman.1 To the extent there was violence it was mostly directed at protestors, like in Lafayette Square in June 2020, or NYPD officers running people over with SUVs, and thousands arrested (at least 8,500 according to Chenoweth and Pressman). The Capitol Riot left five people dead, including a police officer, and hundreds injured. However, aside from seeing—in real time—Trump supporters storming the Capitol, what stands out most was the impotent response from the Capitol Police against the throng of rabid “Trumpites,” at least until they breached the Capitol, and in some instances, police were caught on video opening barriers for the insurrectionists and posing for pictures. Imagine the carnage unleashed against BLM protestors if they attempted what the mostly white, middle-class Trump supporters did on that day!

So far, at least 66 off-duty or retired police and military officials are among the 535 arrested.2 There is still yet to be a full investigation of the coordination between fascist militias, police, military, intelligence officials, and Republican Party members. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley (who marched with Trump after the violent clearing of Lafayette Square in June 2020) referred to this as Trump’s “Reichstag moment.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims, in a recent interview, that a difference of 60 seconds could have ended in a “martial state,” and called it “an all-out attempted coup.” Despite occurring only six months ago, at the time of this writing, most liberals have moved on. Most media hardly write or report anything about this event after January, and if they do, they downplay the significance of it. In this essay, I would like to examine the reasons for the different reactions to radical and reactionary protests and situate them in a larger historical context. I argue the capitalist state will tolerate reactionary violence to a large extent since it represents no threat to capitalist property relations while severely repressing any movement that even remotely resembles a socialist movement (as BLM cannot truly be called a socialist movement due to its reliance on identity politics framing).

Many decry the double standard in how the state responds to radical and reactionary protests, but how can it be explained? The massive nation-wide crackdown on BLM protests was not only authorized by Trump but occurred in many Democrat-controlled cities. Undoubtedly, racism plays a role in this double standard among law enforcement who are often recruited from the most reactionary segments of society, but how does that explain the actions of identity-obsessed Democrats, who engage in spectacles like Nancy Pelosi kneeling in kente cloth? Like most events in American politics the class dimensions are obscured. Simply put, BLM protests alarmed the ruling class fearful of a large, multiethnic working-class movement, even if many BLM organizers frame their movement though the lens of identity politics, although activists, like Cori Bush, now Representative from Missouri, also express a commitment to democratic socialist politics. Several prominent black politicians and public figures, like Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, principal author of the discredited “1619 Project,” and activists connected to the Democratic Party, like Raymond Winans, even denounced white people participating in BLM protests, branding them as “outside agitators.” Despite the reliance on identity politics among middle-class liberals there is strong support for socialism among the youth who are confronted with extreme social inequality, debt, and stagnant wages, further exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, thus creating the conditions for a potential explosion of social conflict the likes of which have not been seen for decades in the U.S. This also explains the reluctance of liberals and many “leftists” from treating the Capitol Riot seriously as it could trigger wide-spread protests if the true threat to what remains of democratic forms of government were revealed.

This double standard supports the Marxist view of the state. Marx never articulated a fully developed theory of the state (his most important insights are found in the Eighteenth Brumaire), although beginning with Engels many theorists have tried to fill this gap.3 These theories range from the Leninist view that the state is part of the superstructure that derives from the economic base of society, thus epiphenomenal, and wholly subordinate to the interests of the ruling class.4 Other theorists, like Gramsci, Poulantzas, and Thomas argue the state ultimately serves the interests of capital, but is somewhat autonomous from the capitalist class, whose short-term thinking would be too unstable (a polite way of saying too stupid and shallow) to ensure the relatively smooth operation of capitalist society, or what Thomas calls “alien politics,” since the state is to some extent alienated from civil society.5 From either Marxist perspective, it is not surprising the state would act decisively to suppress protests that evince a socialist political persuasion, while downplaying reactionary protests that pose no threat to capital’s monopoly of power, or who might even serve as the shock troops for crushing radical protests should they continue to grow in strength.

There are many historical examples when the state has crushed potential revolutionary situations while treating reactionaries with a light touch. One notable example was the early days of the Weimar Republic in 1919 when the Ebert government crushed the “Spartacist Uprising” in Berlin and allowed the proto-fascist paramilitary Freikorps to murder Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Later that year, Freikorps also crushed the Bavarian Soviet Republic in Munich, which afterwards became a hotbed of reactionary activity. When Adolf Hitler staged the “Beer Hall Putsch” in Munich in 1923 he was given the proverbial slap on the wrist, serving less than a year in prison which afforded him the time to write Mein Kampf, before emerging as a celebrity to the right-wing hordes of Germany. It was not until the Great Depression, however, that the Nazi’s became the dominant force in German politics.

These events are impossible to understand apart from the context of the Russian Revolution and the fear of communism it sent up the spines of the ruling classes of the world. The U.S. was hardly exempt. Documentation of the repression of socialists during this time can be revealed through analyzing several landmark free speech cases that came before the Supreme Court, and the events surrounding these cases. Despite the sacrosanct importance of free speech in American constitutionalism, the actual record of the courts in protecting speech is fairly poor. Although these cases are usually studied for their importance in jurisprudence, they also reveal the government’s egregious treatment of socialists and other radicals. This double standard runs deep through American history and demonstrates a pattern of forcefully suppressing radical protest, through legal and extralegal means, while tolerating and downplaying reactionary violence that continues to this day. Although fear of communist revolution is nowhere near what it was in the early twentieth century, one disturbing parallel is the extreme social inequality that existed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the era of the robber barons. According to Piketty and Saez, since the 1990s the U.S. has again reached Gilded Age levels of income and wealth polarization which has continued to grow.6 As Michael Hudson points out, Piketty’s analysis actually underplays the extent to which the U.S economy has become a giant debt pyramid funneling wealth to the top.7 Stagnant incomes for the bottom 50 percent and resulting debt peonage has resurrected socialism in the U.S., as seen in the Occupy movement and the popularity of Bernie Sanders, and the ruling elites have noticed and quickly crushed these movements. The ruling class’ “solution” for extreme inequality are mass incarceration and pervasive police violence and will crush any movement that oppose these responses, as they did over the summer of 2020.

By locating both the severe repression of BLM protests and weak response to the Capitol Riot in the larger historical context of repression of socialist movements, and tolerance of reactionary violence, I am hoping to create what Walter Benjamin called Erfahrung (integrated experience).8 Integrated experience is a collective, communal memory or experience, an experience that is historically grounded and transmitted through tradition, or what people used to simply call “wisdom.” This type of experience is contrasted with Erlebnisse (isolated experience), an individualized, fragmented form of experience disconnected from historical context, sometimes celebrated as “immediate experience,” here manifested in the tendency to downplay the significance of the Capitol Riot and ignorance of the larger history of the repression of socialism. Benjamin wrote the capacity for Erfahrung had severely atrophied due to the conditions of modern capitalist production, and traumatic shocks of urban life, particularly after the first World War. The irony is not only were socialists repressed during this period, but so is the capacity to experience these events in a way that can be integrated into a larger historical context.

Schenck, Abrams, and Gitlow

Repression of socialists in this period was not merely limited to the legal system as extrajudicial killings were common. One of the worst perpetrators of this kind of violence was the American Legion (founded in 1919), often working in conjunction with law enforcement, for example the Centralia Massacre of 1919, which resulted in several deaths including the lynching of one member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) by a mob. The American Legion’s Commander Alvin Owsley later said in 1923:

If ever needed, The American Legion stands ready to protect our country’s institutions and ideals as the Fascisti dealt with the destructionists who menaced Italy! … The American Legion is fighting every element that threatens our democratic government—Soviets, anarchists, IWW, revolutionary socialists and every other red … Do not forget that the Fascisti are to Italy what The American Legion is to the United States.9

It is tempting to think the only difference between a fascist and neofascist is that neofascists do not overtly praise fascism anymore, but the behavior is the same, including the alliances between law enforcement and militia groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers in suppressing BLM protests. Other incidents, like the Ludlow Massacre of striking miners in 1914 was covered in detail by Upton Sinclair’s book The Brass Check (1919). Overall, the U.S. had the most violent labor struggles of any industrialized country, largely directed at workers by law enforcement and private security forces like the Pinkertons and groups like the American Legion.10

Schenck v. United States (1919) stemmed from an event after the U.S. declared war in 1917, when socialists Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer dropped leaflets urging soldiers to resist the draft (the first draft since the Civil War), but advised only using peaceful means.11 Their leaflet which bore the headline “Long Live the Constitution of the United States,” proclaimed the Constitution as “one of the greatest bulwarks of political liberty…born after a long, stubborn battle between king-rule and democracy,” argued the draft was unconstitutional according to the thirteenth amendment’s prohibition against involuntary servitude, however their patriotic appeal to the Constitution did not win them any favors. Schenck, who was General Secretary of the Socialist Party in Philadelphia, along with Baer, both members of the Executive Committee, were charged with conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act, the first major legislation to punish disloyalty since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The law was intended to suppress dissent against the war, and prohibits “any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the Constitution, the form of government of the U.S., the flag, or the uniform of the military.12 The law was further strengthened by amendments passed the following year, known as the Sedition Act. Although the more severe Sedition Act was repealed in 1921, the former law is still in effect, and ruthlessly imposed by the Obama administration’s “war on whistleblowers,” invoking the law more than any other administration combined.13

Crackdown on dissent is not surprising since support for the war was unpopular at first. Woodrow Wilson infamously campaigned on keeping the U.S. out of the war in 1916, although secretly Wilson had already become convinced the U.S. would enter the war. To mobilize public support a massive propaganda campaign, the likes of which had never been seen before, was launched under the Committee on Public Information, also known as the Creel Commission, whose members included the founder of “public relations” Edward Bernays. Despite the unrelenting propaganda of songs like George M. Cohan’s “Over There,” recruit numbers were underwhelming and so a draft was initiated. The disillusionment that set in after the war (which was proclaimed “the war to end all wars”) was so great the U.S. public quickly retreated into isolationism, passed strict immigration quotas in 1924 that would last for over 40 years, and remained walled off to the rest of the world until World War II, and even then, did not join the war until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Defying Wilson, the Senate voted against joining Wilson’s League of Nations. The most influential journalist in the U.S. and co-founder of The New Republic, Walter Lippmann, wrote the dismally pessimistic book Public Opinion (1922) whose thesis was the public could not be counted upon to deliberate and act rationally and would forever need elites to guide them to wise policy choices, in other words to “manufacture consent.”

Schenck and Baer appealed their conviction on first amendment grounds, but the conviction was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., one of the most lauded, cited, and influential Justices in the history of the Court, argued their flyer posed a “clear and present danger,” and famously compared this to shouting fire in a movie theater:

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic…. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.14

It is ironic the idea of falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic almost perfectly describes Trump’s actions on January 6 by repeatedly declaring the election was stolen, a claim echoed by many Republicans in Congress, and other prominent figures like Rudy Giuliani. The “shouting fire” metaphor was even invoked by Rep. Jamie Raskin during Trump’s second impeachment. The “clear and present danger” test established by this case became the standard for judging free speech cases until Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) when it was replaced by the more lenient “imminent lawless action” test, in this case overturning a conviction against a member of the KKK (the only case discussed in this article where a conviction is overturned). The latter test stipulated: “Advocacy of force or criminal activity does not receive First Amendment protections if (1) the advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action.”15 It can be argued even under this more lenient standard, Trump (and other instigators like Giuliani) would still be liable since there was a strong likelihood of inciting violence given the violent track record of his supporters in Charlottesville and the counter-protests to BLM protests over the summer of 2020.

What awkwardly stands out about Schenck is that Holmes interprets what is unequivocally the actions of pacifists as violence. By his reasoning, Holmes would have convicted Tolstoy and Gandhi for inciting violence as well. Although Schenck and Baer broke the law during war (a mitigating circumstance noted by Holmes), the constitutionality of a military draft is a legitimate question. Speaking against forceable military conscription, Daniel Webster said in 1814:

The administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the regular army by compulsion… Is this, sir, consistent with the character of a free government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our Constitution? No, sir, indeed it is not… Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war, in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty?16

The tradition of civil disobedience in the U.S. obligates one to break unjust laws, as Martin Luther King once said (quoting Augustine) “an unjust law is no law at all.” Thousands of “conscientious objectors” were imprisoned for refusing to serve during World War I and other wars like the Vietnam War. This is a moot point now as there is no longer a draft, but even the reasons behind this were clearly strategic since it was done by the Nixon administration in 1973 (who campaigned in 1968 on ending the draft) to undermine the anti-war movement and resistance to the Vietnam War (and quite successful in accomplishing this task). There is nothing really to prevent the government from reinstituting the draft as citizens and immigrants between 18-25, and assigned male at birth, are still obliged to register for the Selective Service System (created in 1917).

Abrams v. United States (1919) involved several Russian immigrants, who in 1918 threw leaflets from a window in New York City denouncing the U.S. sending troops to Russia and the production of weapons to be used against Soviet Russia.17 They were convicted under the Sedition Act. Ostensibly, the U.S. invasion was undertaken against Germany, who had invaded after the Russian Revolution, but the U.S. was also there to support the White Russian forces then engaged in Civil War against the Soviets. This is a chapter of American history that is still rarely discussed, as most people do not know that the U.S. ever invaded Russia and even engaged in military operations against the Bolsheviks. The defendants’ convictions were upheld, including Mollie Steimer, who was deported to the Soviet Union, then fled to Germany after being deported from the Soviet Union, later fled the Nazis, placed in an internment camp in France, before finally settling in Mexico where she died in 1980.18 One of the defendants, Jacob Schwartz, was beaten by police and died from his injuries before he could go to trial (recorded as death from Spanish flu).

This case is famous for Holmes’s dissenting opinion, although it did not stop the rest of the Court from upholding the convictions by a 7-2 majority (with Justice Louis Brandeis being the other dissenter). The conventional wisdom is that Holmes reconsidered his opinions after receiving a strong backlash for his opinion in the Schenck case, however the circumstances of the case are quite different. In Schenck, Holmes stresses that his opinion is influenced by the fact that the U.S. is at war and Schenck and Baer were sabotaging the war effort which will prolong the war (which is how Holmes gets to his convoluted reasoning for arguing Schenck and Baer were inciting violence). The defendants in this case, on the other hand, were concerned with a country the U.S. was not at war with—Soviet Russia–who the U.S. did engage in military operations against despite lacking a formal declaration of war which would mean these operations were illegal (regrettably the idea of any checks and balances on the use of military force now seems an antiquated notion). Czarist Russia had been an ally of the Western powers during the war, and after that government was overthrown, the Bolsheviks had taken Russia out of the war. So, these defendants were essentially convicted for denouncing illegal military operations.

Gitlow v. New York (1925) concerned Benjamin Gitlow, a socialist, who distributed a “Left Wing Manifesto” in 1919 (after the war was over) calling for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism through strikes and “class action of any form.”19 Gitlow was arrested under New York’s Criminal Anarchy Law which punished advocating overthrowing the government by force. According to Oyez:

At his trial, Gitlow argued that since there was no resulting action flowing from the manifesto’s publication, the statute penalized utterances without propensity to incitement of concrete action. The appellate division affirmed his conviction, as did the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in that state.20

His conviction was also upheld by the Supreme Court, again by a 7-2 majority, again with Holmes and Brandeis dissenting. The case against Gitlow was so thin that it could not even meet the standards of the clear and present danger test and regressed to an even earlier formulation the “bad tendency” test that traces its origins to Blackstone’s Commentaries, here expressed in the opinion of the Court: “That a State, in the exercise of its police power, may punish those who abuse this freedom by utterances inimical to the public welfare, tending to corrupt public morals, incite to crime or disturb the public peace, is not open to question.”21 So, beginning with Schenck, it is interesting how each case rests on ever shakier foundations, essentially criminalizing strikes and class action by the working class, with the first, at least, involving an example of someone breaking a law while the country is at war (whether the law was constitutional is debatable); to calling for strikes to denounce military action against a country the U.S. was not at war with; to calling for strikes after the war is over.

1919 was a critical year in American history (the same year Luxemburg is murdered) as it was the beginning of the first Red Scare resulting from the Russian Revolution. This year saw several significant strikes including: the Seattle General Strike (Feb. 6–11); the May Day riots in Cleveland (May 1); the Boston Police Strike (Sep. 9); the Steel Strike of 1919 (Sep. 22–Jan.8); and the Coal Strike of 1919 (Nov. 1–Dec. 10). Several anarchist bombings attributed to the followers of Luigi Galleani, also occurred in 1919, the first being in late April when dynamite bombs were mailed to several prominent officials including Attorney General Palmer and John Rockefeller. Then, on June 2, 1919, anarchists detonated nine bombs in eight cities almost simultaneously. The government responded with the “Palmer Raids” from November to January which saw thousands arrested and hundreds deported. On September 16, 1920, a bomb was detonated on Wall St. that killed 40 people and injured hundreds. Another important event in 1919 was known as “Red Summer,” in which a series of white supremacist terrorist acts and race riots occurred throughout the year (and after) but particularly intense during the summer. The escalation of this violence is attributed to many factors including the economic recession following World War I, and the “great migration” of African Americans to Northern cities like Chicago. Many of the perpetrators of violence, including lynching, acted with impunity, provoking a public outcry at the lack of response on the part of state and federal authorities, thus illustrating the double standard as socialists were being thrown in jail and deported at the same time for handing out leaflets.

Debs and Other Notable Cases

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. Other notable cases were: Patterson v. Colorado (1907) when the Court upheld contempt charges against newspaper editor and former Colorado Senator Thomas M. Patterson who published articles and a cartoon implying the Colorado Supreme Court was beholden to the public utility trust; Frohwerk v. United States (1919) unanimously upheld the conviction against Jacob Frohwerk, a socialist, who criticized the war as a “mistake” on behalf of the “great trusts,” but did not explicitly advocate draft resistance; Debs v. United States (1919) also unanimously upheld the conviction against Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs. He was arrested for giving a speech outside a prison for socialists convicted under the Sedition Act.22 Debs did not explicitly advocate resistance to the draft, and warned listeners he had to be careful of what he said. Douglas C. Dow writes: “According to Holmes, Debs’s warning that he had to be careful with his words meant that the audience was free to infer an underlying meaning,” showing the extent the Court was willing to twist his words to uphold a conviction.23 This led to his fifth and most memorable Presidential campaign as he ran from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, garnering almost one million votes, or 3.4 percent of the popular vote (his second strongest showing after the 1912 election where he won 6 percent of the vote). Wilson was particularly vindictive against Debs and refused to pardon him, despite several calls to, even from his own advisors. His sentence was eventually commuted (not pardoned) by President Harding, Christmas Day 1921 and he died in 1926.

Two other Supreme Court cases upheld convictions against socialists who founded political parties: Whitney v.California (1927) and Dennis v. United States (1951). Whitney also stemmed from an incident in 1919 but was not tried until 1927. This case involved the conviction of Charlotte Anita Whitney, one of the founders of the Communist Labor Party of California, who was prosecuted under the California Criminal Syndicalism Act for organizing a group that sought to effect political and economic changes through the unlawful acts of violence.24 Whitney denied this was what the group was organized for. Her conviction was also upheld unanimously (including former President William Howard Taft, now Chief Justice of the Court), also using the bad tendency test. Holmes and Brandeis wrote concurring opinions, disagreeing with the use of the bad tendency test, but concurred that the record showed evidence of a criminal conspiracy (ironically, despite concurring Brandeis’s opinion is considered one of the important defenses of free speech). The second case, Dennis v. United States (1951) originates during the second Red Scare, more commonly known as “McCarthyism.” This case involved eleven leaders of the Communist Party of the United States who were convicted under the Smith Act: “to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government;” even though they had called for socialist reforms.25 In a 6-2 decision their convictions were also upheld, this time using the clear and present danger test.

After the McCarthy era, the threat of communism, though never fully vanishing, subsided until the 1960s when a new wave of political violence was directed against “black radicals” the names of which should be familiar to everyone: King, X, Evers, Hampton, the list goes on. These radicals, as was the entire civil rights movement, were often denounced by the FBI as being influenced by outside agitators, in this case the Soviet Union, and at least some commentators have even depicted BLM as being influenced by Putin, the Democrats new favorite boogey man and apparent source of all social conflict in the U.S. Another tactic was learned from the Creel Commission: intense efforts to propagandize the population, the results of which has created a simple-minded understanding of socialism in the U.S. that persists to this day. With the collapse of the Soviet Union many believed socialism was obsolete, leading to Francis Fukuyama’s “middle-class fiction” we have reached the end of history. Marxist professors were called “academic dinosaurs,” and there is a very noticeable gap in the academy as being radical increasingly meant adopting identity politics. This has led to embarrassing moments like the Democratic Socialists of America cancelling Adolph Reed Jr. for being a “class reductionist.” The revival of socialism in the Sanders campaigns and BLM is recent, barely more than five years old at this point, though still, frankly, yet to materialize any substantial political gains other than “changing the conversation.”

The double standard in how the government represses radical movements and tolerates reactionary violence is still alive today. The right-wing government in Florida has already passed a law criminalizing protests for police brutality (and absolving motorists who run over protestors), with other states likely to follow. Trump continues to call the election stolen, most recently at CPAC, as the Republican Party further morphs into a fascist party under his personal rule, with some calling for his reinstatement as President before the end of the year. Despite the growing fascist threat, feckless Democrats emphasize a message of “unity,” obscuring the complicitly of their Republican “colleagues”, with calls for even more surveillance and funding for the police. As trials begin for those arrested at the Capitol, it is unlikely the ringleaders, including Trump himself, will ever face prosecution or be held accountable. This is a sobering lesson for any socialist movement that challenges the institutions of the United States, who will use any means to defend ruling class interests whether it be dubious prosecutions or enlisting violent reactionary groups, often aligned with law enforcement, to suppress socialist movements.

Notes:
1↩ Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman, “Black Lives Matter Protesters Were Overwhelmingly Peaceful, Our Research Finds,” Harvard Radcliffe Institute, October 20, 2020, Accessed May 17, 2021
2↩ Clare Hymes, Cassidy McDonald, and Eleanor Watson, “What We Know About the Capitol Riot Arrests,” CBS News, July 16, 2021, Accessed July, 20, 2021
3↩ Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marxists.org (1852); Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring, Part III, Ch. II, Marxists.org (1877)
4↩ Vladimir I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Marxists.org (1918)
5↩ Paul Thomas, Alien Politics: Marxist State Theory Retrieved (New York: Routledge, 1994
6↩ Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, “Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 118 (1): 1-39, 2003; Piketty, Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, “Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 133 (2): 553-609, 201
7↩ Michael Hudson, “Piketty vs. the Classical Economic Reformers,” Real-World Economics Review, 69: 122-130, 2014
8↩ Walter Benjamin, “On Some Motifs in Baudelaire,” in Illuminations (New York: Schocken Books, 1969) 155-200
9↩ Alec Campbell, “Where Do All the Soldiers Go? Veterans and the Politics of Demobilization,” in Irregular Armed Forces and Their Role in Politics and State Formation, eds. Anthony W. Pereira and Diane E. Davis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 110
10↩ Philip Taft and Philip Ross, “America Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome,” The History of Violence in America: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, eds. Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr (1969) Accessed May 17, 2021
11↩ Geoffrey R. Stone, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004)
12↩ “The Espionage Act of 1917,” Digital History (2021) Accessed May 14, 2021
13↩ Caitlin Johnstone, “Trump Continues Obama’s War on Whistleblowers, Arrests Another Alleged Intercept Source,” Caitlinjohnstone.com, May 10, 2019 ,Accessed May 14, 2021
14↩ “Schenck v. United States,” Justia, Accessed May 14, 2021
15↩ “Brandenburg v. Ohio,” Justia, Accessed May 14, 2021
16↩ Daniel Webster, “Webster’s Speech Against Conscription,” Wikisource, (1814) Accessed May 14, 2021
17↩ Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, The Supreme Court, and Free Speech (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999)
18↩ John Simkin, “Mollie Steimer,” Spartacus Educational (2020) Accessed May 14, 2021
19↩ Eric T. Chester, Free Speech and the Suppression of Dissent during World War I (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020)
20↩ “Gitlow v. New York,” Oyez, Accessed May 14, 202
21↩ “Gitlow v. New York,” Justia, Accessed May 14, 2021
22↩ Chester, Free Speech
23↩ Douglas C. Dow, “Debs v. United States,” The First Amendment Encyclopedia, 2009 Accessed May 14, 2021
24↩ “Whitney v. California,” Oyez, Accessed May 17, 2021
25↩ “Dennis v. United States,” Justia, Accessed May 15, 2021

https://mronline.org/2021/08/03/repress ... l-context/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10588
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 13, 2021 1:40 pm

Image

Midwest Connections: A Regional Fight For Abolition
By Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot August 11, 2021

Awave of prison abolition actions and demands have swept the United States every August since 1979 from inside the walls to outside. New groups in the Midwest such as Abolition Is a Practice and Community Not Cages (CNC) are carrying on the Black August traditions. With a proposed new county jail in Winona, Minnesota, slated to cost taxpayers at least $28 million, we heard from abolitionists opposed to the project about their efforts.

With a population of ~27,000 in southeastern Minnesota, Winona is the seat of Winona County and a town that sits on the western edge of the Mississippi River across from Wisconsin. The Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) inspected the Winona County Jail in 2018 and after finding the building wasn’t up to standards, the DOC gave the jail a closing date of September 30, 2021, unless a plan is in place for a new facility.

The county has since created the Jail Construction Planning Committee and has made plans for a new facility and to remodel other government buildings and offices in the area. Winona County has tapped the jail-construction extraordinaire firm of Klein McCarthy to draft the plans and Market & Johnson to manage the construction. The bid is due on August 19 and the county is holding a special meeting of the Winona County Board on Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at 9:00 a.m., to review and approve the Guaranteed Maximum Price proposal from Market and Johnson for the Jail Project.

Image
Exterior sketch of proposed new Winona County Jail by architectural firm Klein McCarthy of St. Louis Park

Opposition to the new jail and millions in expenditures has been growing. Community Not Cages, a community network committed to abolition and the liberation of Indigenous people based in Winona, held a ‘People’s Public Hearing’ on July 23 in the space in which construction on the new jail is set to break ground this fall.
“We are a community network that is committed to public research and narrative building to see local investment in our community and divestment from the prison industrial complex. Through the organizing efforts of this coalition and the community at large, Winona area public schools removed the police in schools, we stopped the building of a juvenile detention center, and folks are rethinking what public safety really means for this community. We believe that strong communities make police and jails obsolete… One of our visions for public safety looks like mutual aid..!”

Community Not Cages
CNC invited Abolition Is a Practice, a bi-monthly abolitionist working group based in South Minneapolis to the people’s hearing. In early August, Unicorn Riot spoke to collective members involved with Abolition Is a Practice about the efforts against the prison.

UR: What prompted you all to go from Minneapolis to Winona for the People’s Public Hearing?

Abolition Is a Practice: They’re building a $28-million jail in so-called Winona. In Itasca. In Carlton County. They are trying to re-open a jail in Appleton. And that’s just in the settler-colonial entity known as Minnesota alone. All around us, billion-dollar facilities with “innovative” and “more humane” designs are proposed. Across Turtle Island [the U.S.] judges declare they have “no choice but to build a new jail.”

In the so-called Midwest, the prison-slavery complex hides in plain sight. Jails and prisons stand out in any area. But throughout occupied Dakota territory – the southern portion of Minnesota – such concentration camps barely attract attention. Centuries of white-supremacist control and conditioning have normalized captivity. No need to conceal the sites of torture and bondage when most folks don’t even notice the ‘correctional’ facilities along their drive. No need to conceal the fact that they’re attempting to build more of them as we speak. This is everyday fascism, both cruel and supremely confident. The increase of jails and prisons is both a warning and a challenge. Their presence hints at the true extent of our enemy. Fighting a carceral regime that has scarred landscapes far and wide will take coordination.

In order for the revolutionary abolitionist movement to grow, we must connect struggles across regions; going beyond our specific city-based experience is necessary. So we ventured to occupied Winona to meet the group CNC in hopes of forging bonds of mutual solidarity, to aid each other in this war on prisons, pigs, profit, and property.​​​​​​​ Also, Winona City Council recently denied CNC the opportunity to speak against the jail at a city council meeting, citing ​​​​their illegitimate rules for public comment. So the group found their own way to be heard.

UR: What organizing steps did you take?

Abolition Is a Practice: Pulling inspiration from Black Ink’s Building a Midwest Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, we looked at ways we could understand the political landscape of an area outside of the so-called Twin Cities, using this information to better connect the one struggle between the two areas. But how does a group of abolitionists support the disorganization of a jail from afar? Observation, research, and networking. Meaning we read about the jail, called Winona County representatives, and made connections with CNC organizers. For every proposed jail, there are groups of disorganizers ready to fight them.

We arrived with zines and posters in hand, adding to the existing literature table that had been set up and getting hugs from a CNC organizer we had been communicating with from afar. Importantly, a mutual aid table had been set up with food and clothes to take as needed. Then we settled in on the grass and listened to the stories of those intimately familiar with the Prison-Industrial Complex tell their stories.

UR: Were there stories that should be shared?

Abolition Is a Practice: A young person told her story of six years in the juvenile system between heaving and light sobs. The unforgiving cruelty of the prison industrial complex had touched her very early through the criminalization of substance usage, and instead of care and support she received condemnation, isolation, and trauma. The bravery of those kidnapped and/or surveilled by the State never ceases to stun us. And the immense cruelty that the state throws at problems instead of love, tenderness, and humanity is baffling and rage-inducing.

We heard from a CNC organizer, who spoke with fire and conviction on behalf of someone who chose to remain anonymous (Winona is a small town and the concern of pig retribution is on the collective mind). The organizer recounted the story of a teenager who was unhoused and in poverty for years. A drug charge led to a bail that was insurmountable. Beyond this, their attorney did not even appear for sentencing, instead sending his wife in his place. In the story he noted how familiar she was in the courtroom, and how incredibly uneasy that made him. This almost certainly guaranteed the maximum sentencing guidelines were followed. That stand-in attorney would go on to become the Winona County Attorney.

Finally, a mother spoke of truancy laws being used to criminalize youth. During the Zoom relayed school year it was revealed that students were accumulating tardies despite performing well. This tardiness was being referred to the Department of Corrections, and people would receive a mailer from the police calling them into court or asking them to essentially plead out and admit their child into the system of corrections. We cannot imagine how many kids were caught up in this web. We cannot imagine how many folks who did not speak English as a first language had cops knocking on their door with no clue. We cannot imagine how many folks did not have the time or resources or energy to fight these egregious attempts at criminalization like this woman did, whose son’s charges were eventually and arbitrarily dropped.

UR: What happened after the speakers?

Abolition Is a Practice: After speakers had finished and attendees were offered to take the mic we intentionally traveled through the crowd, passing out zines directly rather than relying on folks to come grab them. We believe conversation in itself is an act of political education and part of what forges our relationships with others. We met several people all active in the Winona community and we were all thrilled to meet each other. We had long discussions about women and gender studies, Palestine, and of course, abolition (all intersect with each other). We invited them to Abolition Is a Practice and they invited us to return to Winona for disorganizing.

It is a powerful reminder of what simple acts of solidarity can do. And in that same spirit, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak has put out the call for Shut ‘Em Down 2021 actions (pdf), to take place at ICE, jails, prisons, and higher-learning institutions that support prison labor and policing. Bringing outside to the inside, it’s a chance to bend the bars through solidarity on the two days that have defined the Black Liberation Movement and revolutionary abolition—August 21 and September 9​​​​​​​. The pigs assassinated imprisoned militant George Jackson on the west coast, and then the Attica prisoners on the east coast rose up against the pigs. 50 years ago, all in less than three weeks. As we near those days, it’s time for us to solidify existing cross-regional connections and seed new ones. Revolution is a global process, so we can at least do our part in the urban and rural areas of the Midwest.

Power to those who are agitating for open space of community care and survival, against life-destroying structures of incarceration. We were told that the land proposed for the jail is sacred to the Indigenous peoples who still inhabit it in spite of genocidal colonization. Power to Community Not Cages to our south, power to those resisting Enbridge’s Line 3 invasion of Anishinaabe lands to our north, for we must connect with all areas of struggle in this region. We are everywhere and we are with you in this fight.

UR: What exactly is Abolition Is a Practice?

Abolition Is a Practice: Abolition Is a Practice is an abolitionist working group that meets twice a month, every second and last Friday at The Landing Strip (2614 30th Ave S. Minneapolis, MN), where we read and discuss zines, build community, and collective power to undo the carceral systems of oppression and reimagine relations. The group ranges in size and each meetup is unique. Our next event is a screening of “Attica” on Friday, August 13, 8 p.m., to commemorate Black August and educate ourselves to action—as accomplices of the imprisoned millions—in this all-out war for total liberation.

Image


Cover image features three pictures posted by Community Not Cages.

https://unicornriot.ninja/2021/midwest- ... abolition/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply