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"Veterans of the civil rights movement have called on Derry people to return to the streets this Saturday 19th July to defend the right to protest and to demand an end to the proscription of Palestine Action. This is an issue of freedom of speech. Back in the 1960s, the Special Powers Act limited freedom of speech and thousands came onto the streets of this city to oppose that, and sectarian discrimination across the North. The same issues arise today.
While a genocide is livestreamed to our phones and we see children starving to death in Gaza, the British government has deemed Palestine Action a “terrorist organisation”, expression of support for which could open one to arrest, charged with supporting terrorism. This is precisely what happened in the 1960s when to express support for the civil rights movement meant being denounced by the authorities as supporting “terrorism”. This was said over and over again in the 1960s. It wasn’t true then and it is not true now: what Palestine Action is doing is peaceful, non-violent direct action.
We know better than anyone else in these islands what it is to have civil liberties suspended, that is why we will be back this Saturday afternoon – in Waterloo Place at 3.00pm - to continue this campaign.
We note that Winston “Winkie” Irvine was not charged under the Terrorism Act, despite being found with a carboot load of weapons and with UDA paraphernalia. The double standards are glaring, just as the double standards in relation to what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank are glaring.
We call on people to come out again on Saturday to express their opposition to the double standards involved in this and to the proscription of Palestine Action. People in Derry who have a sense of their own history and their own struggle against oppression and for civil rights will feel a relationship with this issue because of their own experience."
Derry IPSC, United Against Racism - Derry and North West Derry Anti War Coalition
Are we allowed to say "death to the IDF" in the UK? Somerset police don't seem to think so.
Death to the IDF could mean many things. It could be metaphorical as in "I want to see the IDF come to an end", kind'a like saying "death to apartheid". It could be literal as in "I want to see the death of any soldier that harms civilians", kind'a like saying "they deserve the death penalty". Or it could be literal as in "I want to see every last IDF soldier dead because they're in a genocidal army".
Of course, Zionists have decided those words go even further than the last example: they have decided the Glastonbury chant means wishing death upon every Israeli. The Mail On Sunday even rewrote "death to the IDF" as "death to Israelis" on its front page, even though those words weren't said. This could easily be considered libellous.
If you have no idea what I'm banging on about, here is a quick summary: Sir Keir Starmer tried to get Kneecap banned from Glastonbury and when he failed, the BBC decided to cut Kneecap from their live feed because neutrality means agreeing to government censorship requests.
It seemed we were all safe from wrong think, but no one foresaw some guy called Bob Vylan stealing the show by getting the crowd to chant "Death, death to the IDF" live on air.
Hilariously, Bob Vylan also called out the BBC and now the establishment is in meltdown because they have lost control of the narrative. Anti-Zionism is cool, the youth know how badly we have been lied to about Israel, and no matter how much censorship comes next, no matter how many prosecutions we see, you aren't putting that toothpaste back in the tube.
Police have opened an investigation into Bob Vylan and while we don't know if they will press charges, the fact they are even considering it tells us so much about their biases. If they don't press charges, you can expect indignant politicians to change the law.
Just know they don't have enough prison cells to jail us all and their dreams of conscripting us to fight Iran are dead. Every time a politician speaks in defence of Israel, they simply alienate the youth more.
The establishment made Kneecap into superstars by trying to silence them and it could be about to do the same to Bob Vylan. Ironically, I hadn't heard of either act until politicians started getting their knickers in a twist.
Clearly, they have no clue about the Streisand effect and are being hilariously ill-advised. Instead of ignoring these acts and pretending to care about the genocide to dampen down the flames, these geniuses want to use the full force of the law.
Without wanting to sound too much like an AI, this raises serious free speech concerns. I can say with a high degree of confidence we are allowed to say "Death to Hamas" and while you might say, "Well, of course, they are a proscribed organisation", the IDF is committing genocide.
I'm confident you can say "Death to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps" or "Death to the People's Liberation Army", but neither Iran nor China have lobbyists that are whiny bitches.
I'm not even sure saying "Death to the British army" would have attracted as much fury as "Death to the IDF", but then again, the establishment thought it was cool when our soldiers used Corbyn's head for target practice and they can't have it both ways. Not unless it comes to Israel.
What this all boils down to is there is a special group of people that have an extra level of privilege that goes way beyond the rest of us. This explains why Zionists love woke identity politics, even though they represent the very opposite of what it is meant to stand for. Woke identity politics gives them the opportunity to play the victim.
What we are seeing here is a perversion of woke identity politics, the idea that it is a hate crime to offend a genocidal army. Genocidal armies are a protected minority now. Well, only one genocidal army - the IDF.
What is particularly sickening is how the IDF is carrying out daily aid massacres and poisoning flour with oxycodone to make Palestinians terrified to eat, but we're still expected to consider the feelings of the soldiers more than the feelings of their victims.
The Israeli press is publishing testimony from IDF soldiers that they received orders to gun down civilians in aid queues, even when there was no threat. And while we don't need the Israeli press to tell us this, it highlights the absurdity of calling people antisemites for discussing Israeli war crimes.
We are talking about the world's most immoral army. The world's most barbaric army. The world's most genocidal army. And our leaders prioritise the safety of this army over the safety of Palestinians. And while I don't wish death upon IDF soldiers, I very much wish for every Israeli war criminal to spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
Any IDF soldier who loses their life while committing genocide deserves no sympathy whatsoever. And no one who wishes death upon them deserves any condemnation.
While Zionists might argue the words of Bob Vylan were hurtful or offensive, I would argue that pandering to a genocidal army is far more hurtful and offensive. It is not wrong to say death to any genocidal army and frankly, I'm sick of pandering to genocide supporters.
Thank you for reading. All of my content will always be freely available, but if you wish to support my work, you can do so at Ko-fi or Patreon. Likes, shares and comments also help massively.
This is a post from Arnaude Betrand on
X (Formerly Twitter). He publishes quite a lot of interesting material on China.
He is also involved in Traditional Chinese Medicine and his website Me&Qi is here. Here is something from today. His Twitter handle is @RnaudBertrand This is a
forward to a Chinese report on human rights violations in the US. The forward
itself is interesting enough. It gives us some idea of how another world power views the U.S.
They're
extremely detailed about it and often quite spot on. To me the most interesting
aspect about it is that you always hear the US lecture every one about human
rights but never the contrary: this highlights the fact that all countries have
their own human rights issues, and also often brings much needed reflection on
what human rights are.
Let me past the foreword of this year's report:
"The human rights situation in the United States continued to deteriorate
in 2023. In the United States, human rights are becoming increasingly
polarized. While a ruling minority holds political, economic, and social dominance,
the majority of ordinary people are increasingly marginalized, with their basic
rights and freedoms being disregarded. A staggering 76 percent of Americans
believe that their nation is in the wrong direction.
Political infighting, government dysfunction, and governance failure in the
United States have failed to protect civil and political rights. Bipartisan
consensus on gun control remains elusive, contributing to a continued surge in
mass shootings. Approximately 43,000 people were killed by gun violence in 2023,
averaging 117 deaths per day. Police brutality persists and at least 1247 deaths
were attributed to police violence, marking a new high since 2013, yet the law
enforcement accountability system remains virtually nonexistent. Taking up less
than 5 percent of the global population, the United States accounts for 25 percent of
global prison population, earning the title of a "carceral state."
Political infighting intensifies as parties manipulate elections through
gerrymandering, leading to "Speaker crisis "for twice in the House of
Representatives, further diminishing the government's credibility, with only 16
percent of Americans trusting the federal government.
Deep-rooted racism persists in the United States, with cases of severe racial
discrimination. United Nations experts point out that systemic racism against
African Americans has permeated the U.S. police force and criminal justice
system. Due to significant racial discrimination in the healthcare sector, the
maternal mortality rate for African American women is nearly three times that
of white women. Nearly 60 percent of Asians report facing racial
discrimination, with the "China Initiative" targeting Chinese
scientists having far-reaching consequences. Racist ideologies proliferate
across multiple sectors such as social media, music, and gaming, and spill over
across borders, making the United States a major exporter of extreme racism
internationally.
The United States is witnessing intensified wealth inequality, with the
phenomenon of "Working poor" becoming more pronounced, and the
economic and social rights protection system is seen as ineffective.
Long-standing disparities in the distribution of income between labor and
capital have resulted in the most severe wealth gap since the Great Depression
of 1929. There are 11.5 million low-income working families in the United
States, but the federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. As of
2023, the purchasing power of one U.S. dollar has declined to 70 percent of its
value in 2009. Low-income families struggle to afford basic necessities such as
food, rent, and energy, leading to over 650,000 people experiencing
homelessness, reaching a new high in 16 years. "Working poor" has
shattered the "American Dream" for hardworking individuals, contributing
to the broadest wave of strikes since the beginning of the 21st century,
occurring in 2023.
Women and children's rights in the United States have long been systematically
violated, with constitutional provisions for gender equality remaining absent.
The United States remains the only UN member state that has not ratified the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and
the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In April 2023, the U.S. Senate
rejected a constitutional amendment to guarantee gender equality. In the United
States, approximately 54,000 women lose their jobs annually due to pregnancy
discrimination. Over 2.2 million women of childbearing age cannot access
maternity care. At least 21 states have enacted bans or strict restrictions on
abortion. Maternal mortality has more than doubled in the past two decades.
Sexual violence is rampant in workplaces, schools, and homes. Children's rights
to survival and development are in jeopardy, with many children excluded from
healthcare assistance programs. Gun violence remains a leading cause of child
deaths, and drug abuse is rampant among youth. Forty-six states have been found
to underreport around 34,800 cases of missing foster children.
The United States, a country that has historically and presently benefited from
immigration, faces severe issues of exclusion and discrimination against
immigrants. Practices of exclusion and discrimination against immigrants have
been deeply ingrained in the U.S. institutional structure, from the infamous
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the internationally condemned “Muslim Ban” in
2017. Today, the immigration issue has become a tool for partisan gain and
political blame-shifting, with politicians disregarding the individual rights
and welfare of immigrants. Immigration policies are simplified into partisan
positions of "If you support, I oppose," ultimately becoming
political theatrics to manipulate voters. The immigration crisis falls into a
vicious cycle, with immigrants and children subjected to widespread arrests,
human trafficking, and exploitation. The hypocrisy of political polarization
and the hypocritical nature of American human rights are glaringly evident in
the immigration issue.
The United States has long pursued hegemonism, practiced power politics, and
abused force and unilateral sanctions. Continuous delivery of weapons such as
cluster munitions to other countries exacerbates regional tensions and armed
conflicts, resulting in a large number of civilian casualties and severe
humanitarian crises. Extensive "proxy forces" operations undermine
social stability and violate the human rights of other nations. Guantanamo Bay
prison remains open to this day."
Frederick Engels said that, “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory”. This doesn’t mean theory
is not important. But we learn so much through the struggle on the ground, in
the workplace, the university, the community; through action. That’s what we
are witnessing at this moment as students protesting the Zionists genocide in
Gaza are being brutally assaulted by the US security apparatus and without
doubt drawing conclusions from it. They are standing firm and they are on the
right side of history.
The gang that occupies the US Congress and the class they
represent are very concerned that the growing student movement could spread
beyond the universities in to the community colleges and the working class
communities of America, and particularly the ranks of organized labor. And so
they should be.
Biden’s loyalty to Zionism---he is a Zionist and friend of
the fascist Netanyahu this stupid bourgeois announces to the world---has
nothing to do with fondness for Jews or their safety, the US ruling class is
rife with anti-Semites, but a genuine concern that this European settler colony,
US Imperialism’s only reliable ally in the region, has made a major blunder that
threatens U.S. Imperialism’s interests in the region.
The heroic Palestinian resistance in Gaza to the Zionist genocide,
against occupation and a decades old attempt to drive them and their culture in
to oblivion, is the basis for the student rebellion which is spreading throughout
the world.
The US ruling class and its western allies is having a hard time blaming
everything on anti-Semitism which has lost much of its meaning since US efforts
to link it to criticism of Israel and Zionism. Efforts to make the genocide a
war against a political organization the US denotes as a “terrorist” have also
lost traction.
The movement in support of Palestinians and their right to a
state and the objection to hundreds of thousands of foreigners taking their
land and homes on a religious basis is solid. It’s somewhat comical to listen
to the mainstream US media, the BBC included, whine about anti-Semitism in this
movement when so many young Jews are leading it and are openly anti-Zionist.
The situation has laid bare the class nature of society even
further. In contrast to the Jews that are in the forefront of the opposition to
genocide some Jewish billionaires are having to be more open about their
support for the Zionists. Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots
was one of the first to withdraw financial support from Columbia University.
Now there is a more concerted effort to head off the storm.
Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban worth $3 billion and
a major Democratic donor is angry at Biden and wants him to send more 2000-pound
bombs.Real-estate billionaire Barry
Sternlicht (worth $4.6 billion) has started a campaign to counter world opinion
and raise billions to, “define Hamas to
the American people as a terrorist organization.
According to Semafor.com, “Bill Ackman and Apollo CEO Marc Rowan criticized
universities for their handling of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations,
and Michael Bloomberg donated
$44 million to Israel’s nonprofit emergency medical service.”
In the UK, anti-Zionist Jews have been expelled from the UK
Labor Party for anti-Semitism. They declare themselves as “The wrong Kind of Jew.” The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called
Jewish Voice For Peace a “hate group”
Here are some of the others that the campaign is appealing
to and their net worth according to Forbes
Bill Ackman 4.3 billion USD
Barry Sternlicht $4.6 billion
Eric schmidt $24.4 billion *
Michael Dell $95.8
billion
Miriam Adelson worth, $42 billion is one of the 42 Israelis
on Forbes 400 list in 2024. Such a small country has so many because many of
them, like her, are US citizens or citizens of other countries.
So, while anti-Semitism, which is very real, and must be
called out whenever it raises it’s ugly head, is simply being used in order to
protect the investments of Jewish and non-Jewish capitalists that profit from
the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the settling of European colonists. We are in
the midst of a shift in class relations globally. We should not fool ourselves,
the response from the global elite will be ruthless and violent. They will
attempt to divide us on racial, religious and gender lines. We must combat
these divisions that undermine working class unity. Working people have the
power to change the course of events. We have the numbers. If we don’t work, society
doesn’t function.
I thank the
Palestinian resistance for their heroic struggles and sacrifice that have
changed the world in more ways than one.
*If you haven’t
read it, check out When
Google Met Wikileaks and support freedom for Julian Assange.
It is highly unlikely the leadership of the Alameda or and Francisco Labor Council's or affiliated unions will make the real effort to reach in to the depths of the memberhips of the affiliated locals and bring them out. In all my years as a delegate to the Alameda Council, this was never the strategy. It's is too risky mobilizing the troops because there is much anger among among union members and working people as a whole and controlling that anger, directing it in ways that will not threaten the status quo, is first and foremost. However, it's important to try attend this and to raise it in your workplace and union.
Richard Mellor
Labor Vigil to Demand an End to Police Brutality on Feb. 16th
Local 21 Union Siblings, Enough is enough.
It is a battle to believe and have hope that these injustices and
atrocities will ever stop. We must take a stand and organize to demand
that they do. In
coalition with San Francisco Labor Council, Alameda Labor
Council, Contra Costa Labor Council, and community organizations, we
will participate in a vigil on Thursday, February 16, 2023 at 5:30pm that demands an end to police brutality. One of the demands of the vigil is the passage of the George Floyd Act in Congress, as well as action at the state level in Sacramento. We demand an end to police brutality and all racially-motivated violence. Black lives matter. What: Labor & Community Coalition to Demand the End of Police Brutality When: Thursday, February 16th at 5:30pm Where: Steps of San Francisco City Hall, 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Pl, San Francisco, CA 94102
"We mourn
the death of Tyre Nichols and the countless other victims of police
brutality. IFPTE Local 21 vows to recommit to the fight against
racially-motivated violence, especially against Black lives and other
people of color."
Below is an appeal from Bob Mandel of
the Adult School Teachers United (ASTU) Bargaining
Team in Richmond California. Learn more below.
Greetings
Unexpectedly, Mumia Abu-Jamal has a shot at
freedom. Judge Lucretia Clemons of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas
has ordered the District Attorney’s office to turn over its entire file, up to
200 boxes, to the defense.
Mumia’s lawyers expect to find even further
evidence that he was framed, that the police coerced and bribed witnesses, and
that conscious racism and judicial bias have permeated all the proceedings
against him. The judge has stated that she will issue a ruling within
60-90 days, roughly Feb.16-Mar. 16.
This is the hour to fight for Mumia’s
freedom. On Feb. 16, longshore workers in ILWU #10 will shut down
the Ports of Oakland and San Francisco, holding a stop-work meeting to demand
his immediate release. Teachers in the SF Bay Area are organizing to
teach on his case around that same date, Feb. 16, the middle of Black History
Month.
In less than a week, a delegation from ILWU #10
will travel to a labor conference in South Africa and ask that unions
there act again in his defense. NUMSA, the largest union in
South Africa, played a critical role in getting Mumia life-saving medicine
when he nearly died from hepatitis. In a letter to Pennsylvania’s then-governor
Wolf, it compared Mumia’s medical neglect to the treatment prisoners received
under the apartheid regime.
We urge you to fight for Mumia’s freedom now.
As a first step, write to Judge Clemons demanding that he be released
immediately. Then take whatever action you can—rallies, workplace
meetings, political strikes—to give power to the demand.
Judge Clemons address:
Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County
1220 Criminal Justice Center
1301 Filbert Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
215-683-7020
The judge’s order opening the files came after
the filing of an Amicus Brief by the U.N. Working Group of Experts on People of
African Descent; a public statement by then-sitting Judge Wendell Griffen of
the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, Arkansas, that the law
requires Judge Clemons to release Mumia immediately; an outpouring of
international labor support; and a letter writing campaign to the judge herself
based on the contradiction between her preliminary ruling against Mumia and her
statement to the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese Racial Healing
Commission: http://bitly.ws/z9Yt
After 41 years in prison, 29 of those
on death row, Mumia has a real chance now to win his freedom. Mobilizing
our unions can truly make a difference. We’re hoping you and your union
will join us!
Please keep us posted on your actions,
In solidarity, Bob Mandel, member, Adult School
Teachers United (ASTU) Bargaining Team
Richard Mellor| Afscme Local 444, Retired GED/HEO 7-17-22
I just returned from visiting friends and relatives back in
Ireland and the UK and, as usual, the differences between the countries, in
general between the US and Europe stand out. One experience was very different
as my friend and I had occasion to visit an ER in North London; my friend wasn’t
feeling well.He was booked in, they
checked his temperature blood pressure sat us down and gave us a COVID test.
They determined we were positive and told us to drink lots of fluids, take paracetamol
for pain, sleep eat well and isolate. They never asked us for money, never even mentioned it.
Just sent us on our way.
A couple of times I saw pairs of young cops,
usually male and female, walking the neighborhood. I said to them jokingly that
I was from the US (have to say this as I have an English accent) and how do you
stop or apprehend people when you have no guns? Why should I stop? The last
response I got to this was, “we don’t
need them here” Now I have to add, when your down in the city in the
tourist area I did see cops with automatic weapons, but every other time they
were just walking in pairs and unarmed. In the instances here it was on the
Holloway road and Seven Sisters Road, close to my old neighborhood.
I get back to the US and read about this young
Black guy, Jayland Walker, who was shot and killed in Akron Ohio. He fled a
traffic stop and ended up dead. He was not only dead, he was riddled with
bullets despite being unarmed. Reading the reports a cop apparently heard a
gunshot coming from the drivers side window so all hell was let loose.
So, this 25 year-old kid runs from the cops
and get blasted. According to the reports I read this morning, he had 46
gunshot wounds and 26 bullets inside his body; he had also been tased. One bullet can cause more than
one wound like exiting and entering the body for example. He was unarmed in the
end and a gun and loaded magazine were left on the driver’s side seat so clearly
he didn’t want to be in possession of a weapon if the cops caught him.
This sort of thing is inconceivable in the UK
or Ireland. It is rare. But the US is an extremely violent country. Everything
about the US has a military or violent component; the media, the sports events
that are attended by military bands and often flyovers by the jets that bomb
countries around the world, the police shows on TV where guns are always present and lets not forget foreign policy where everyone else in the world is our enemy.
The injuries to this unarmed man were extensive
as one would expect from 46 gunshot wounds. According to the report, the
bullets hit his heart, lungs and a major artery to his leg. This injury caused
him to lose blood rapidly. A gunshot wound on Mr. Walker’s face fractured his
jaw. Do they not train this guys in the skills of shooting?
This type of violence by the police is
normal, and not just directed against Black people but all Americans. The
poverty, social situation and racist recruitment in to police forces
historically means that as victims, Black folks, Native Americans and other
marginalized sections of the working class are percentage wise greater victims
when it comes to the population as a whole. But make no bones about it, cops can
murder and get away with it very easily in the U.S. It's only in the most recent
past that police were even charged with any violent acts against the population
at all. The introduction of cell phone cameras have had a lot to do with this.
The most disgusting aspect of yet another
unarmed Black man shot by police, one who was fleeing the scene as well, is that
when the dead man’s body arrived at the medical examiners, he was handcuffed.
Just to make sure he was in complete control of the forces of the state.
I am not alone on the left in being critical of the Jacobin Magazine as the author of this review points out. But like him I have also read a few, not too many, very good articles in the past and this is one of them. I recall two in particular that I posted to this blog and this is another one. I think I will republish them. Excellent material here. We share this commentary from The Multiracial Unity Blog. The author is Joseph G Ramsey.
Capitalism can't live without racism. We can't live with it.
Don’t Judge an Issue Just by Its Cover – 12 Important Points from Jacobin’s Latest Issue: “Reduce the Crime Rate”
by Joseph G. Ramsey
November 27, 2021
It’s not enough to judge a left journal by its cover. A recent case
in point: people in left social media circles of late have been taking
shots at the democratic socialist magazine Jacobin’s latest issue (https://jacobinmag.com/issue/lower-the-crime-rate),
with its provocative (and maybe confusing) cover bearing the slogan
“Lower the Crime Rate.” A range of radical voices online have reacted to
this cover as if it amounts to a kind of endorsement of police
repression in liberal guise. But actually the lead articles inside the
issue are, in this comrade’s view, quite good. From the Opening
Statement by Benjamin Fogel to the interview with Marie Gottschalk, the
contents here are valuable for the way they highlight major blindspots
structuring liberal and much “left” common sense and activism around
policing, prisons, and the carceral state these days. The issue deserves
wide engagement, as it can help us to see more clearly some of the real
challenges that lie before us in terms of radically changing the system
of “criminal justice” in the USA. One need not share Jacobin‘s
emphasis on electoral politics (or the specific organizational vehicle
of the Democratic Socialists of America) to find value in the magazine’s
pages.
Among the main takeaways:
1) That last year alone 21,570 people in the USA were murdered, a
significant surge from the years prior. It follows that the widespread
left talking point that the rise in crime is all an imaginary product of
right-wing hysteria and sensationalist mass media is false. The USA is
between 3 and 30 times more violent than its wealthy “peer nations”;
violent crime remains a reality structuring US working-class life. It
follows that would-be working-class organizers need to take it
seriously.
2) That a black person in the US is 35 times more likely to be killed
by another civilian than by a police officer. The US Black population’s
murder rate exceed that of all countries on earth, excepting Jamaica
and El Salvador. The 1000 or so people killed by police each year in the
USA remains a perpetual outrage, but we must not allow this outrageous
police violence to lead us to neglect the real problem of violent crime
in this country, a problem which disproportionately affects Black (and
poor, and Latin@ and Native) people.
3) That polling shows that a vast super-majority of Americans at
present (apparently 86%!?) want the police to spend as much or *more*
time in their neighborhoods as they do now, even as strong majorities
think that “policing requires major changes” (58%) and think that
“police violence is a serious problem” (79%). Such (contradictory)
numbers can certainly be read symptomatically–as reflecting dominant
media, politicians’ framings and general social fears–but, even so,
police abolitionists thus have, to put it mildly, a lot of *persuading*
to do if they are going to build a majority that can make such a change
viable in most parts of the country.
4) That while the Black incarceration rate in the USA is off the
charts compared to other countries (as is now well-known), being around 5
times that of the white incarceration rate in the US, even the
incarceration rate for white individuals alone is still 4-15 times the
incarceration rate of Japan and Western European countries. Thus, to
frame the expansion of imprisonment in the USA as simply a “New Jim
Crow” or an expression of anti-Black “systemic racism” is clearly
inadequate. Even if the US released every single Black prisoner
tomorrow, this country would still be imprisoning more people than any
other country on earth. Framing incarceration as primarily an
anti-“Black” problem risks blinding us to half the problem, and half of
the potential mass base for its transformation.
5) That the main driver of mass incarceration in the US has not been
non-violent drug offenses–and certainly not non-violent offenses linked
only to petty drugs like marijuana. (Such marijuana only offenses amount
to only around 1% of those in prison.) Even if ALL prisoners whose
primary charge is a drug offense were released tomorrow, that would
reduce the prison population by only 20%, still leaving the US by far
the main jailer in the world. Drug decriminalization then, however
correct (and this author mostly supports it), does not yet speak to the
heart of the problem: a growing punitiveness in US society and
government that is at once increasing the violence of this society,
while responding (and often compounding) high levels of real violence in
the society more generally. (The place of property crimes here deserves
more attention than the Jacobin issue provides.)
6) That there are more than 200,000 people in the US serving “life
sentences,” many of them without even the prospect of parole. This is
more than many countries incarcerate at any one time, for any amount of
time, and around the *total* number of prisoners held in the USA before
the prison boom and the “war on crime” launched in the late 70s. It
represents a startlingly state-sanctioned condemnation of our fellow
human beings, a mass policy of flushing people away without even the
hope of rehabilitation or redemption.
7) That in the USA today, more $$$ value is stolen by employers via
“wage theft” each year than the total $$$ of property stolen as a result
of “robberies, burglaries, larcenies, and motor vehicle thefts.” Thus,
even without going deeper to the Marxist point that all wage-labor
involves a kind of theft through exploitation, the employer class is a
massive source of criminality, host to a massive amount of robbery.
8)That the hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of dollars of
private and corporate wealth that is held (often “legally”) in tax
havens like the Caiman Islands or Panama is not only a massive social
theft of tax resources from the people, but also creates a swamp of
shadow banking and underground finance that attracts, feeds, and enables
organized crime the world over.
9) That crime among the masses can and should be viewed not as
right-wing (or liberal) invention to justify militarized policing, but
as a genuine “index of oppression,” “born out of poverty and the
miseries of capitalism.” As such, it requires action not just (and not
primarily) at the level of policing or public safety (though the reality
of these levels cannot be bypassed), but a deeper social transformation
of the entire economic system. The goal of bringing down the crime
rate, and thus the widely felt need for expansive policing, requires a
broader kind of *abolitionism*, one aimed at abolishing poverty,
abolishing homelessness, making quality health care (including mental
healthcare) as well as quality education available to all, providing
sustaining and meaningful employment to those who currently lack it, and
generally redistributing wealth and power downward to reduce the vast
inequalities in our midst.
10) That, within the current system, the kind of radical reforms
above are going to *cost much more* than the current state strategy of
intensive policing and punishment. Shifting the resources from existing
police institutions to social programs, public health, or prevention,
however well intended or symbolically powerful, will *not* be anywhere
near enough (by a factor of more than 10). Indeed, to the extent that a
focus on “defunding the police” takes our focus off of fighting to
expand the total federal and state revenues for things like universal
healthcare, public housing, jobs programs, as well as redistributive
progressive taxation, it risks becoming a self-defeating endeavor.
(Furthermore, some studies show that underfunded police departments may
in fact become *more* abusive, not less.) We need to keep our eyes on
the real prize.
11) That the current system response to the economic stagnation since
the 1970s has in many ways been a response based on not only social
control priorities of the elite, but controlling things on the *cheap,*
keeping taxes on the rich and corporations low, maintaining
profitability, etc. We should be honest about the massive social
investments–and the need to expropriate the social wealth controlled by
capital and the rich–that will be necessary for this kind of program of
radical reform. You can’t squeeze public health and social safety from
the bloody budget of a SWAT team or a Bearcat.
12) Reducing the glut of guns in the USA, shifting drug offenses from
the frame of “crime” to “public health” would all be good things, and
transferring the deadly militarized budget surpluses of US police to
social programs and community based crime prevention initiatives would
also (aka “Defund the Police” or even better “Demilitarize the Police”).
So would ending the CIA, whose criminal anti-communist crusades have
seeded the terrain for organized crime and drug trafficking for
generations. But without deeper transformations in Americans political
consciousness and society, reforms (radical or moderate) at the level of
policing are not only unlikely to accomplish the ends of harm
reduction, but may in fact play into the hands of far-right politicians
who love nothing more than to run on “law and order,” as if their
policies of increasing punishment, surveillance, militarization, and
racist profiling are the only way to keep communities “safe.” The left
cedes the ground of serious public safety to the right at its peril.
Joseph G. Ramsey teaches English and American Studies at UMass
Boston, where he is active in the Faculty Staff Union (FSU/MTA) and in
struggles to defend public higher education. He is presently working on
a book recuperating the critical communism of Richard Wright: <
Rittenhouse walking behind a cop holding an AR-15 This pic says it all.
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444,
retired
The law, or what we
call the justice system which includes the police the courts, the prisons and
so on, is not some sort of divine institution. We are definitely taught to view
these institutions in that way as we are the state (government) itself.
The US Supreme Court
is also portrayed in this way by the mass media, the media owned by a handful
of capitalists; the same people that own the judges on the so-called Supreme
Court which, is a bit like the old politburo in the former USSR. It’s a panel
of old men and women lawyers whose job it is to protect the existing system and
the interest of the few thousand people who actually run society.
US prisons are full
of working class people, millions of us who fall prey to the laws and legal
system that has an avowed bias. If the law was neutral, Henry Kissinger, George
W Bush, Donald Trump, Donald Rumsfeld, Hilary Clinton, and a whole bunch of other characters
would be in jail and Julian Assange would not.
The little child
Nazi, Kyle Rittenhouse, a very competent and ruthless killer is on trial in
Kenosha Wisconsin. Kyle killed two people that night and seriously injured a third.
He is being charged with “intentional,
reckless and attempted homicide” according to today’s Wall Street
Journal.I am a little perplexed at this
one. If Rittenhouse shot two people and killed them, is that not homicide rather than “attempted” homicide.
Rittenhouse, who is
clearly in the camp of anti-working class people and fascists, left his home
with an illegal weapon and traveled the 20 miles or so to Kenosha to play policeman.
He took an AR 15 with him. It’s important to understand which side of the class
divide he is on.
Most workers would
oppose and do oppose the destruction of small businesses when the anger in
society at abuse and oppression by the state and the security apparatus of the
state willfully and with intent, kill working class people. While the police in
the US kill a lot of working class people as well as functioning as strike breakers, in
this case we are talking of the disproportionate murder of black people. In
2019, U.S. police killed 1,099 people, 24% of whom were black who are about 13%
of the US population.
I knew who threw paint thinner in the face of a driver who crossed the picket line during our strike but I did not hand that guy over to the police or the bosses. I shared my objection to this method at the union hall but in times like these, workers get desperate and strike out in anger. This is what happened the past few years over police killings. If justice could be found by other means people take it, if not, we see what happens. But we don't act as agents of the class enemy. They defend their own we defend ours.
Kyle Rittenhouse is
a fascist. He does not hide his views. He is very clear which side he is on in
the struggle of workers and the poor against big business, racism and exploitation.
He identifies not with the worker or the striker but the police and the state.
He claims self-defense
like the right wing thug from a bourgeois family that killed Trayvon Martin. He
armed himself and traveled in to a
very volatile situation not as a peacemaker, or medic despite carrying some
sort of medical kit, and not as a neutral bystander as he claims, but as a man
on a mission and he knew what his intentions were.
The prosecution has
to show that the little Nazi’s belief that he faced imminent danger or “interference” as they put it in the
media, was not justified and that the only way he could remove that threat of
danger and possibly serious harm was his actions that day.
I have been in many
situations like that including picket lines and I never took a weapon to them.
Had he been without a weapon, an illegal weapon at that, he likely would have
faced no hostility except from the police perhaps, but they are his heroes.
Another way he could
have avoided killing two people and injuring a third was to have stayed home.
