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El periódico «La Voz de los Trabajadores»: Edición de marzo-abril
La guerra de Estados Unidos e Israel contra Irán es una escalada importante en el Medio Oriente que tiene implicaciones peligrosas para los trabajadores de todo el mundo. La brutalidad del asalto imperialista a nivel internacional va junto con el ataque a las libertades civiles por parte del régimen de Trump dentro de Estados Unidos. Esto incluye las operaciones continuas del ICE y la Patrulla Fronteriza, las amenazas a las elecciones de mitad de período de 2026, los retrocesos ambientales que afectan profundamente a la comunidad negra y la brutalidad policial sin control.
Nuestro editorial en este número nos advierte: «Existe un gran peligro de subestimar la determinación de la élite empresarial estadounidense de llevar adelante esta iniciativa. No podemos confiar en que las sentencias judiciales o las próximas elecciones nos salven. Debemos organizarnos ahora, no solo para realizar manifestaciones masivas y crear redes comunitarias contra la violencia del ICE, sino para encontrar el camino hacia la construcción de un nuevo partido de la clase trabajadora a través del cual podamos organizar nuestra defensa política en todos los planos y todos los días».
En este número también tenemos artículos sobre los archivos de Epstein y la clase dominante, la huelga de maestros de San Francisco y una reseña del nuevo álbum de U2.
La edición de marzo-abril de 2026 de nuestro periódico está disponible en formato impreso y en línea como PDF y contiene articulos en ingles y español. ¡Lee hoy mismo el último número de nuestro periódico con una descarga gratuita en PDF! Como siempre, agradecemos cualquier donación que ayude a sufragar los gastos de impresión.
Haz clic en la imagen para leer el periódico o envíanos un mensaje para recibir una copia impresa:
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Climate, Environmental Crisis and Coronavirus: Nature is not Passive
Nature’s reaction to the unhindered capitalist exploitation has taken place over the last decades and last years. There are many warnings about the consequences of global warming, which we already see and feel, like floods, droughts, storms, hurricanes, forest fires, etc… And thought we have already seen reactions to the spread of a series of zoonotic diseases, this was not the major concern, nor the most discussed and widespread. However this is the path of the reaction which, in a brief span of time, took the consequences to the world stage, and which is part of the same, and only, crisis. If we do not defeat capitalism it is possible that Nature defeats it, but it will defeat us along with it.
By Lena Souza
There are many explanations for the arise of Covid-19. Some consider the coronavirus God’s punishment for a society which does not respect his teaching, saying it had been predicted by the Bible. Other believe it is a natural event which was impossible to predict, and that nobody is to blame for it. And there are also denialists, usually the same that deny global warming, and, faced with the harsh reality of deaths, either say there ain’t no such thing as a pandemic, that it is a manipulation of public opinion, or say that a lot of people are indeed going to die… so what? And that we must fight it and keep the system running.
There are those who are guilty of Covid-19. And they are the same responsible for global warming
Coronavirus came from Nature, however it is not a natural consequence that it has reached humanity. Coming to human beings and transforming into a pandemic is a consequence of the degradation of one of the bases of production, of the source of resources, that is, of Nature. The irresponsible advance against natural resources has caused the recent epidemics humanity has gone through. And all of them are zoonoses, that is, originated on animals. This happened with Ebola (1969), Nipah (1999), SARS (2002), H1N1 (2009), MERS (2012) and now Covid-19 (2019). Covid had already been preceded by 5 declarations of health emergency since 2009[1]:
April 25, 2009 – H1N1 pandemic
May 5, 2014 – international spread of poliovirus
August 8, 2014 – outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa
February 1, 2016 – Zika virus and increase in numbers of microcephaly and other congenital malformations
May 18, 2018 – outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Studies prove that “counting with the originator of the current Covid-19 pandemic, science has already identified and isolated seven coronaviruses circulating among humans. All of them have jumped from animals to people in a little over a century, but the most pathogenical ones emerged over the last 20 years. There are still thousands of them in nature, the immense majority yet to be described.”[2]
The relation between these diseases and the destruction and indiscriminate use of natural resources
Considering that zoonotic illnesses are responsible for 60% of the infectious diseases known and 75% of those that have evolved over the last decades, we could conclude that it is natural that we are contaminated. But that is not true. The pathogens of these animals cross the borders between animals and humans are spread quickly due to the devastation of forests and the increase in global warming.
Many scientists, including those of UNEP – United Nations Environment Programme – state that interference with nature and the loss of forests is responsible for the contact of human beings and wildlife, and the spread of viruses from animals to humans. This, along with wildlife trafficking, puts us more and more in contact with infectious agents.
“There have never been so many opportunities for pathogens to cross over from wild and domestic animals to people”, says the executive director of UNEP, Inger Andersen. “Our continual erosion of nature has left us uncomfortably close to carrier species – that is, animals and plants which house diseases that can be transmitted to human beings“.[3]
And with the devastation of forests and as a consequence of that, climate change is provoking the melting of the Polar Regions, which, according to scientists, have buried beneath meters and meters of ice latent, unknown germs, which are now being liberated by the thawing.
Is it necessary to interfere so much with nature?
Capitalism treats nature and the natural resources as potential commodities. Being interested solely in profit stops us from, within this system, having a sustainable, friendly relationship with nature. The logic of maximization of profit and the productivism which follows make evident that the idea of a “sustainable capitalism” is an illusion, and as a consequence there is no possibility of balance in this system.
Capitalism has as one of its foundations the idea that our relationship with nature is one of DISPUTE. That is, we must also dominate, separate ourselves from nature, and treat it as an inexhaustible source of resources, one that we utilize to produce goods without considering and analyzing its capability of reproduction and reaction. Engels already considered this question in his text of 1876, The Part Played By Labor In The Transition From Ape To Man:
“Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed that by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of water for the greater part of the year, and making it possible for them to pour still more furious torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not aware that with these farinaceous tubers they were at the same time spreading scrofula. Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.”
Over the last years, the majority of the poor working population has been witness and victim to the irresponsibility of governments and the bourgeoisie of the planet, which take from nature ever more natural resources in an ever shorter span of time, finishing non-renewable resources and stopping renewable ones from regenerating.
The consequences of global warming and zoonotic diseases have been harsher with every year, reaching and killing millions of workers and poor people worldwide. However, as a response, those that dominate and concentrate most of the money of the planet, as well as their representatives in governments, have done nothing but environmental summits, with the goal of deceiving the majority of the population with empty ideas that are impossible to realize in this system, such as the decrease in the emissions of hothouse gases.
The destruction of forests and the contact with millions of viruses
The destruction of forests hastens global warming, bringing many consequences, and it also opens the way for viruses which bring diseases we did not know such as Covid-19. The more natural habitats are destroyed, the greater the chance that viruses cross over from animals to humans.
And this destruction is growing fasters. In 2018 alone, the tropics have lost 12 million hectares of forest cover, and amongst these were 3,6 million hectares of primary tropical forests, an area similar to that of Belgium. These forests store more carbon (which is responsible for global warming) that others and, once cut down, do not return to their original state.
2019 was no different. Brazil, for example has had a burst of woodcutting and forest fires in the Amazon, as a consequence of Bolsonaro’s policy of allowing mining, farming and logging in the area for the big industrial and agribusiness bosses. Forest fires happened in many other places across the globe, as a result of the long drought generated by climatic changes resulting from global warming.
And in 2020 the devastation goes on. In the three first months alone 1.202km² of the Brazilian Amazon were cut down, according to the National Institute for Space Research (INPE)’s satellites, which represents an increment of 55% over the same period in 2019. And in April 2020, according to information from the Deforestation Alert System (SAD), 529 km² of the forest were destroyed, the biggest amount of the last 10 years for this month. “With this number, the region had, comparing to April 2019, 171% more deforestation”.[5]
According to researcher David Lapola, the Amazon is “a huge jar of viruses” and adds that, by destroying it, we put our lives on the line.[6]
Are we going to allow the planet’s bourgeoisie, these irresponsible multibillionaires, to keep on destroying nature and our lives?
Whose life is at stake?
As we have seen in a series of studies, the consequences of global warming hit directly the poor, and the poor are those that see their lives turned to nightmares, or lose theirs or their relatives’ with floods, hurricanes, fires, droughts, etc..
With the coronavirus, things are no different. Although, as with global warming, they try to convince us that the consequences do not choose social class or race, we seen in practice that this is a big lie. The poor and the workers, and among them, the most vulnerable sectors such as women, Blacks and immigrants, are those who suffer and die the most.
While those that cause such calamities live in a paradise, spending their quarantine in their beach mansions and isolated farms which are luxurious in ways we cannot even fathom, we, the poor and the workers, suffer the consequences of their irresponsibilities.
And we risk not death through infection and lack of health resources, but also every other consequence such as unemployment, wage reductions, etc…
Our only way out is to transform our suffering and grief into rage and fight to topple the capitalist system
Our response cannot be to resign ourselves as the rich want us to. We cannot accept the deaths caused by the pandemic as if they were inevitable. We cannot resign ourselves to the lack of hospital beds, the lack of food, the lack of the minimal sanitary conditions to fight the pandemic. We cannot resign ourselves to the wage cuts and layoffs. We cannot resign ourselves to, once again, paying for the crisis which the rich have birthed.
Besides, we cannot delude ourselves that the current owners of the planet, that is, the multibillionaire bourgeoisie, will learn something from the pandemic, then become goody two-shoes, create a more equal society and seek a more harmonious relationship with nature. Though they try to make us believe that, we know well that they will try to recover their profits on our backs and destroy nature even more.
Instead of resigning ourselves and believing in “pretty” words and in “Solidarity Corp”, we have to organize and prepare to take over control over society, removing the controls from those irresponsible who will, it is clear, lead us on a path of destruction along with nature.
Nature is no longer just giving out signals, it is reacting to destroy its enemy. But it has awareness of the class it must destroy, and the consequences of this reaction fall on our own class.
Those who can and must act with consciousness are we, the workers and poor people, who are the only one interested in building an egalitarian society, one that grows and develops with the exploitation of man by man, harmoniously with nature.
[1] https://www.paho.org/bra/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6101:covid19&Itemid=875
[2] https://brasil.elpais.com/ciencia/2020-04-20/os-outros-coronavirus-que-habitam-entre-os-humanos.html
[3] https://www.unenvironment.org/es/noticias-y-reportajes/reportajes/seis-datos-sobre-la-conexion-entre-la-naturaleza-y-el-coronavirus
[4] https://blog.globalforestwatch.org/data-and-research/mundo-perde-area-do-tamanho-da-belgica-em-florestas-tropicais-primarias-em-2018
[5] https://g1.globo.com/natureza/noticia/2020/05/18/desmatamento-da-amazonia-em-abril-foi-o-maior-em-10-anos-diz-instituto.ghtml
[6] https://www.uol.com.br/vivabem/noticias/afp/2020/05/13/amazonia-pode-ser-maior-repositorio-de-coronavirus-do-mundo-diz-cientista.htm
[translated by Miki Sayoko] -
Essentia Health workers rally in Duluth
By RALPH HANSENOver 120 workers and community members swarmed the Essentia Health campus in Duluth, Minn., on June 1. They came in cars and on foot to protest the proposed elimination of 900 health-care jobs.
The heart of the action was a car caravan of about 60 cars decked out with the slogans, “No Layoffs at Essentia!” and “Honk for Healthcare Workers!” These cars drove around and around the large campus, while zealously honking their horns. Dozens of other cars driving by joined in, dramatically amplifying the honking to the point at which it reverberated throughout downtown Duluth.
At the same time, workers and supporters held informational pickets on the corners of the main streets that run through the campus—holding signs and handing out handbills. And just like with the passing cars, pedestrians in their overwhelming majority indicated support for the workers.
Despite receiving almost $80,000,000 in federal aid, and already having several hundred workers on unpaid furlough, Essentia Health appears to have decided to use the excuse of the pandemic to conduct a major downsizing operation. The company, which is far and away the largest employer in the region, is in the midst of building a new hospital, which has run into major cost overruns.
In addition to this, the company has decided to use funds to buy an additional hospital in Moose Lake, Minn. And the workers are paying the price. Many departments are already seriously understaffed, since Essentia has been using attrition to reduce the workforce for some time. Now, despite being in the midst of a pandemic, the company has decided to make far deeper cuts. Officially the company is claiming that it has to do this because of lost revenues, but in reality the drop in patient volumes has dramatically turned around in the past month.
Because of all of this, workers are outraged. To be a health-care worker laid off in the midst of a pandemic is not only absurd on the face of it, but to suddenly have to join the ranks of the uninsured, when health insurance is so crucial, is devastating.
There are several unions at Essentia Health. The June 1 action was organized by United Steelworkers Local 9460—the largest union at the company, and the one that represents workers from the janitorial staff to the Clinical Assistants. A number of other unions were present in solidarity at the action. Local 9460 is planning additional actions in the weeks ahead, and just signed a billboard contract to challenge Essentia’s narrative of these layoffs.
Meanwhile, the layoffs are underway, making the stakes of this fightback campaign all the more dire.
Photo: Jess Morgan
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Monuments to racism come tumbling down
The Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Va. (Ned Oliver / Virginia Mercury) By HUGH STEPHENSON
Activists for years have demanded the removal of Confederate monuments from public spaces, only to see their demands fall on deaf ears of Democratic and Republican politicians or get tangled in government red tape. Sometimes this was done to pamper racists that use these symbols to further their cause.
It’s important to understand, statues and memorials to Confederates have nothing to do with preserving history, as those who defend their existence would have us believe. They pay homage to the oppression of African Americans.
The majority of Confederate monuments were erected in the late 1890s through the 1920s in a concerted effort by organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy to reduce Black Americans to a status little better than slavery. This is the point in American history when Jim Crow became the unofficial law of the land. Additional statues were erected in the 1950s, during the Civil Rights movement, to intimidate African Americans and keep them from joining the fight against Jim Crow.
With the Minneapolis cops’ murder of George Floyd, demonstrations exploded from the Southeast to the Northwest of the United States; from the Americas to Africa, Europe, and Asia; from small towns to large cities. People are calling for an end to police oppression and murder of African Americans. At the same time, across the South, from Baltimore to Birmingham, people are combining the demand for justice with that of ridding the landscape of Confederate monuments. In many cases, demonstrators have taken it upon themselves to complete the task and have torn down or destroyed statues.
In an effort to quell protesters’ anger and demands, Southern governors and mayors, many of whom opposed removing these statues to racism, are now ordering their banishment. Virginia’s Governor Northam recently announced the removal of Richmond’s iconic Robert E. Lee statue. Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy, and a series of dead Confederates line what became known as Monument Row. Northam ordered removal of all Confederate monuments despite their being tourist attractions for the city. On June 9, a Richmond judge issued a 10-day injunction against removing the Lee statue. Some activists suggest leaving the Lee monument standing, covered, as it is now, in Black Lives Matter and George Floyd graffiti, as a fitting tribute to racist America.
City workers in Louisville, Ky., removed Confederate officer John B. Castleman’s statue from a prominent city space, Cherokee Triangle. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin ordered the removal of a Confederate statue from city grounds, knowing the city would face a $25,000 fine. The Alabama state government has filed a lawsuit against the mayor and city.
It’s likely the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va., is also going to be removed. This is the same statue that was the focus of the infamous Unite the Right Rally of 2017, which saw the murder of Heather Heyer, an anti-racist activist, by the neo-Nazi James Alex Fields. Activists have unsuccessfully tried to have this statue removed for over a decade.
The attack on racist statues isn’t limited to the U.S. South. Protesters in England are going after icons to their country’s racist past. In Bristol, protesters toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston and tossed it into the city’s harbor. In London, activists at a Black Lives Matter rally surrounded a Winston Churchill monument and jeered and graffitied it with “Churchill was a racist.” Churchill was a notorious racist against Indians, Irish, Africans, Indigenous Australians, and others that were not of his skin color and class.
It’s taken years of struggle to remove some of the racist tributes to the Confederacy. Now, with the masses in the streets demanding justice for George Floyd, statues are being toppled in a matter of days and even hours. Such is the power of working people.
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George Floyd Was Strike Three
We Need To End Racist Police Violence Now and Fight for Justice, Jobs, Housing and Healthcare For ALL
Since the racist police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, a new wave of national protests against racist murders and social injustice has swept the United States. For the last 10 days, almost 600 cities have had protests. This rebellion,led by Black youth, has mobilized a true multi-racial coalition of working class youth—with the support of other sectors of the population who cannot protest because of the high risk of contagion in the midst of this pandemic.
In response, more than 76,000 National Guard troops have been mobilized in 33 U.S. states, and more than 80 cities (including Washington D.C.) have declared curfews. The scale of these mobilizations echoes the mass uprisings in the 1960s that began in Watts in 1965 and culminated in the national wave of protests after the assassination of Dr. King in 1968, as well as the Los Angeles Uprising of 1992 demanding justice for Rodney King that spread nationally and beyond. So far the protests have accomplished some partial and preliminary victories—the charging of the fourcops implicated in the murder of Floyd, and the beginning of lifting of some of the curfew measures—but the struggle is far from over.
The Racist Murder of George Floyd Was the Spark
This uprising is happening in the midst of a pandemic and an historical social and economic crisis comparable to the 1930s. As many protesters say, this murder was strike three in two ways: first, the murder of George Floyd is the third racist police killing that has made the national news since the beginning of the pandemic; second, racist police violence is now piling up on the devastating effects of an ongoing pandemic that remains out of control, with more than 100,000 people dead, and a growing economic crisis. On top of the 40 million unemployed, there is growing food insecurity throughout the country, and it is predicted that 54 million Americans will go hungry if the government does not intervene.
The George Floyd murder has sparked a revolt of Black people and wider sectors of the working class who are saying enough is enough. Many white, Latino, and Asian young demonstrators are joining the protests, as well as unionists.
The pandemic and the crisis have shown that capitalism has only one motive—the increase of profit—and that big corporations and its governments are willing to sacrifice the lives of working people for it. Yet this system that is killing working people is a racialized one: racism is endemic to the capitalist system, which assigns a lower value to Black and Brown bodies and their labor. Here are some figures:
The pandemic has inflicted a higher death toll among Latinx people and especially among Black Americans, who are dying at nearly three times the rate of white people:- 1 in 1,850 Black Americans has died (or 54.6 deaths per 100,000)
- 1 in 4,000 Latino Americans has died (or 24.9 deaths per 100,000)
- 1 in 4,200 Asian Americans has died (or 24.3 deaths per 100,000)
- 1 in 4,400 White Americans has died (or 22.7 deaths per 100,000)
“More than 20,000 African Americans—about one in 2,000 of the entire black population in the US—have died from the disease.” “Collectively, Black Americans represent 13% of the population in all areas in the U.S. releasing COVID mortality data, but they have suffered 25% of deaths.”Police are using social distancing to increasingly crack down on communities of color while relaxing their policing of white people: “In New York, blacks made up a staggering 93 percent of coronavirus-related arrests. There are similar racial disparities in Chicago.” More recently city governments have imposed curfews. This is in contrast to the freedom of movement and police protection of armed gangs of far right whites who demanded reopening the economy in early May—in one case going so far as to enter the Michigan state capitol, forcing postponement of government business.
Trump and Governors Are Escalating the Crackdown on Protests
The response from state authorities to these protests has been heavily militarized and brutal from the start. State authorities rapidly deployed the National Guard and quickly resorted to tear-gassing, savagely beating, and shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, in some cases ramming into crowds with patrol cars. Furthermore, the Pentagon, under the direction of Trump, has offered to send in the military and some troops have already been deployed. In his June 1st speech, Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act to send in the military to quash the protests. As he spoke, police and National Guard could be heard tear-gassing and beating protesters to clear the way for him to walk to a nearby church for a photo op.
Minneapolis is a Democrat-run city, and so is the state of Minnesota. So far there has been no difference in the response to protests by both parties; there is a clear bi-partisan consensus that these protests need to be suppressed. Trump wants to use force to “dominate” and militarily defeat the protests by any means necessary. The Democrats want to repress the movement and at the same time look for a possible electoral co-optation of the anger of Black people. For example, cops in several cities have “taken a knee” to claim solidarity with protesters’ denunciation of the murder of George Floyd. City officials have made a major point of verbally opposing racism in the police apparatus. Even as they repress protesters, they claim to oppose police brutality. The fact that they feel the need to make these gestures, for the first time in U.S. history, shows the depth, breadth, strength, and anger of this movement.
But Democrats cannot have it both ways, and contrary to what they were able to do through the cooptation of the BLM movement (transformed now into Movement 4 Black Lives with a broad reformist and electoralist platform), these protests show the huge gap between the needs and aspirations of Black people and the DP.
We demand the immediate withdrawal of all the National Guard from all cities and also of the U.S. Military Police units in Minneapolis, as well as an end to all curfews. We defend the political rights of working people to have free speech, assemble and demonstrate because we need to be able to organize against those who are trying to kill us directly and indirectly—by denying healthcare, jobs, housing, and food.Who Are the Looters?
We further oppose the criminalization of the ongoing protests, whether this is under the pretext that they involve looting and vandalism or under the label of “antifa,” etc. We recognize these labels as attempts by the capitalist class and their politicians to delegitimize the uprising, to demonize and divide its participants. The majority of the protests are peaceful, but we defend our right to self-defense when attacked. We support this mass rebellion despite its messiness, and for those who are concerned only or firstly with looting and the destruction of private property, we want to restate that the working class creates all wealth. We can tear it down and build it again.
As Tamika Mallory has pointed out, “America has looted Black People. America looted Native American people when they came here. We learned violence from you.” And she is obviously right, whether it be in the labor looted from Black people under the system of chattel slavery, the exploitation of prison labor, or the resources looted through American imperialist exploitation of Latin America and the Middle East. Indeed, the very land upon which this country was built was looted from the Native Americans over the course of more than two centuries of violent expansion. The U.S.is a country built on looting, and it continues to survive on looting. This reality is becoming increasingly clear to working people in this current moment.
The ongoing protests are happening in a context of massive and unprecedented unemployment: 40 million Americans, and countless other non-Americans, documented and undocumented, have lost their jobs; many are months late on their rent and mortgage payments. There is a sense of deep social desperation in our country, and the $1,200 stimulus money is insulting and insufficient to meet even basic needs. The insult is compounded by the billions of dollars lavished on the ruling rich in the form of tax breaks and bailouts.We Need to Organize Broad Solidarity and Joint Mobilizations with Unions and Working-Class Communities
The shocks of economic crisis, Covid-19 and now this most blatant murder of George Floyd hasthe potential to shake things up, and the organized sector of the U.S. working class holds a key to advance the class struggle. This time we are seeing a reaction from Labor and working-class communities that goes beyond rhetorical support: the refusal of municipal bus drivers to be “bust” drivers, transporting those arrested in the protests, led to the positioning of several Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) locals against working with the police to transport protesters or cops. We need to deepen this movement to de-solidarize our unions from state repression and police, and formally break any ties with these institutions. Instead, we must actively and visibly join the protests. We are committed to organizing the rank-and-file to mobilize their union locals and their co-workers to join the protests, and also to connect the ongoing protests to the fight against austerity, layoffs, and pay cuts on the job.
As socialists, we need to actively participate in this mass rebellion by agitating among all sectors of our class—including unions, but also community organizations, youth groups, the vast majority of workers who are unorganized and the unemployed—to support these protests and join the fight against racism and police violence. We need to join and organize the ongoing mass actions of civil disobedience in a democratic and independent manner, with community security and with a clear political platform that unites our struggles so we can win real change.
Black Lives Matter!
Abolish The Police!
Jail for ALL Killer Cops! Justice for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor!
Immediate Withdrawal of the National Guard and All U.S. Military Troops!
Immediate End to All Curfews and Mass Arrests! Drop All Charges!
Jobs, Income, Healthcare, Housing, and Justice for All!
Trump Must Go!
Signed,
Revolutionary Socialist Network
RSN Affiliates:
Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists
Denver Communists
Seattle Revolutionary Socialists
Workers’ Voice / La Voz de los Trabajadores
Socialist Resurgence -
RSN: George Floyd was strike three!
George Floyd protest in Washington, D.C., May 30 (Peter Vucci / AP) We Need To End Racist Police Violence Now and Fight for Justice, Jobs, Housing and Health Care For ALL
STATEMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST NETWORK
June 6, 2020 — Since the racist police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, a new wave of national protests against racist murders and social injustice has swept the United States. For the last 10 days, almost 600 cities have had protests. This rebellion,led by Black youth, has mobilized a true multi-racial coalition of working class youth—with the support of other sectors of the population who cannot protest because of the high risk of contagion in the midst of this pandemic.
In response, more than 76,000 National Guard troops have been mobilized in 33 U.S. states, and more than 80 cities (including Washington D.C.) have declared curfews. The scale of these mobilizations echoes the mass uprisings in the 1960s that began in Watts in 1965 and culminated in the national wave of protests after the assassination of Dr. King in 1968, as well as the Los Angeles Uprising of 1992 demanding justice for Rodney King that spread nationally and beyond. So far the protests have accomplished some partial and preliminary victories—the charging of the fourcops implicated in the murder of Floyd, and the beginning of lifting of some of the curfew measures—but the struggle is far from over.
The Racist Murder of George Floyd Was the Spark
This uprising is happening in the midst of a pandemic and an historical social and economic crisis comparable to the 1930s. As many protesters say, this murder was strike three in two ways: first, the murder of George Floyd is the third racist police killing that has made the national news since the beginning of the pandemic; second, racist police violence is now piling up on the devastating effects of an ongoing pandemic that remains out of control, with more than 100,000 people dead, and a growing economic crisis. On top of the 40 million unemployed, there is growing food insecurity throughout the country, and it is predicted that 54 million Americans will go hungry if the government does not intervene.
The George Floyd murder has sparked a revolt of Black people and wider sectors of the working class who are saying enough is enough. Many white, Latino, and Asian young demonstrators are joining the protests, as well as unionists.
The pandemic and the crisis have shown that capitalism has only one motive—the increase of profit—and that big corporations and its governments are willing to sacrifice the lives of working people for it. Yet this system that is killing working people is a racialized one: racism is endemic to the capitalist system, which assigns a lower value to Black and Brown bodies and their labor. Here are some figures:
The pandemic has inflicted a higher death toll among Latinx people and especially among Black Americans, who are dying at nearly three times the rate of white people:
- 1 in 1,850 Black Americans has died (or 54.6 deaths per 100,000)
- 1 in 4,000 Latino Americans has died (or 24.9 deaths per 100,000)
- 1 in 4,200 Asian Americans has died (or 24.3 deaths per 100,000)
- 1 in 4,400 White Americans has died (or 22.7 deaths per 100,000)
“More than 20,000 African Americans—about one in 2,000 of the entire black population in the US—have died from the disease.” “Collectively, Black Americans represent 13% of the population in all areas in the U.S. releasing COVID mortality data, but they have suffered 25% of deaths.”Police are using social distancing to increasingly crack down on communities of color while relaxing their policing of white people: “In New York, blacks made up a staggering 93 percent of coronavirus-related arrests. There are similar racial disparities in Chicago.” More recently city governments have imposed curfews. This is in contrast to the freedom of movement and police protection of armed gangs of far right whites who demanded reopening the economy in early May—in one case going so far as to enter the Michigan state capitol, forcing postponement of government business.
Trump and Governors Are Escalating the Crackdown on Protests
The response from state authorities to these protests has been heavily militarized and brutal from the start. State authorities rapidly deployed the National Guard and quickly resorted to tear-gassing, savagely beating, and shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, in some cases ramming into crowds with patrol cars. Furthermore, the Pentagon, under the direction of Trump, has offered to send in the military and some troops have already been deployed. In his June 1st speech, Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act to send in the military to quash the protests. As he spoke, police and National Guard could be heard tear-gassing and beating protesters to clear the way for him to walk to a nearby church for a photo op.
Minneapolis is a Democrat-run city, and so is the state of Minnesota. So far there has been no difference in the response to protests by both parties; there is a clear bi-partisan consensus that these protests need to be suppressed. Trump wants to use force to “dominate” and militarily defeat the protests by any means necessary. The Democrats want to repress the movement and at the same time look for a possible electoral co-optation of the anger of Black people. For example, cops in several cities have “taken a knee” to claim solidarity with protesters’ denunciation of the murder of George Floyd. City officials have made a major point of verbally opposing racism in the police apparatus. Even as they repress protesters, they claim to oppose police brutality. The fact that they feel the need to make these gestures, for the first time in U.S. history, shows the depth, breadth, strength, and anger of this movement.
But Democrats cannot have it both ways, and contrary to what they were able to do through the cooptation of the BLM movement (transformed now into Movement 4 Black Lives with a broad reformist and electoralist platform), these protests show the huge gap between the needs and aspirations of Black people and the DP.
We demand the immediate withdrawal of all the National Guard from all cities and also of the U.S. Military Police units in Minneapolis, as well as an end to all curfews. We defend the political rights of working people to have free speech, assemble and demonstrate because we need to be able to organize against those who are trying to kill us directly and indirectly—by denying healthcare, jobs, housing, and food.
Who Are the Looters?
We further oppose the criminalization of the ongoing protests, whether this is under the pretext that they involve looting and vandalism or under the label of “antifa,” etc. We recognize these labels as attempts by the capitalist class and their politicians to delegitimize the uprising, to demonize and divide its participants. The majority of the protests are peaceful, but we defend our right to self-defense when attacked. We support this mass rebellion despite its messiness, and for those who are concerned only or firstly with looting and the destruction of private property, we want to restate that the working class creates all wealth. We can tear it down and build it again.
As Tamika Mallory has pointed out, “America has looted Black People. America looted Native American people when they came here. We learned violence from you.” And she is obviously right, whether it be in the labor looted from Black people under the system of chattel slavery, the exploitation of prison labor, or the resources looted through American imperialist exploitation of Latin America and the Middle East. Indeed, the very land upon which this country was built was looted from the Native Americans over the course of more than two centuries of violent expansion. The U.S.is a country built on looting, and it continues to survive on looting. This reality is becoming increasingly clear to working people in this current moment.
The ongoing protests are happening in a context of massive and unprecedented unemployment: 40 million Americans, and countless other non-Americans, documented and undocumented, have lost their jobs; many are months late on their rent and mortgage payments. There is a sense of deep social desperation in our country, and the $1,200 stimulus money is insulting and insufficient to meet even basic needs. The insult is compounded by the billions of dollars lavished on the ruling rich in the form of tax breaks and bailouts.
We Need to Organize Broad Solidarity and Joint Mobilizations with Unions and Working-Class Communities
The shocks of economic crisis, Covid-19 and now this most blatant murder of George Floyd hasthe potential to shake things up, and the organized sector of the U.S. working class holds a key to advance the class struggle. This time we are seeing a reaction from Labor and working-class communities that goes beyond rhetorical support: the refusal of municipal bus drivers to be “bust” drivers, transporting those arrested in the protests, led to the positioning of several Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) locals against working with the police to transport protesters or cops. We need to deepen this movement to de-solidarize our unions from state repression and police, and formally break any ties with these institutions. Instead, we must actively and visibly join the protests. We are committed to organizing the rank-and-file to mobilize their union locals and their co-workers to join the protests, and also to connect the ongoing protests to the fight against austerity, layoffs, and pay cuts on the job.
As socialists, we need to actively participate in this mass rebellion by agitating among all sectors of our class—including unions, but also community organizations, youth groups, the vast majority of workers who are unorganized and the unemployed—to support these protests and join the fight against racism and police violence. We need to join and organize the ongoing mass actions of civil disobedience in a democratic and independent manner, with community security and with a clear political platform that unites our struggles so we can win real change.
Black Lives Matter!
Abolish The Police!
Jail for ALL Killer Cops! Justice for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor!
Immediate Withdrawal of the National Guard and All U.S. Military Troops!
Immediate End to All Curfews and Mass Arrests! Drop All Charges!
Jobs, Income, Healthcare, Housing, and Justice for All!
Trump Must Go!
Groups Affiliated to the RSN:
Central Ohio Revolutionary Socialists
Denver Communists
Seattle Revolutionary Socialists
Workers’ Voice / La Voz de los Trabajadores
Socialist Resurgence
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Police: Capitalism’s enforcers in blue
Protesters in Oakland, Calif. (Zoe Schiffer / The Verge) By JOHN LESLIE
articolo in italiano
The police murder of George Floyd on May 25 has ignited a firestorm of protest. In hundreds of cities, peaceful protests have been attacked by riot police. At last count, 10 protesters have been killed and thousands more arrested and injured by rubber bullets and tear gas. What we have witnessed from Minneapolis to Philadelphia to Atlanta to Washington, D.C., is a national police riot by an out-of-control racist institution.
Liberals want us to believe that police are neutral and that they are here to “protect and serve.” We are asked to believe that it is only a “few bad apples” who are engaged in violent and racist behavior. Socialists reject these illusions. Police exist as the armed enforcers of a racist capitalist system. This violence has deep roots extending down to chattel slavery’s slave catchers.
Epidemic of police violence against people of color
Recent years have seen countless victims of police murder and violence. Many incidents have been caught on video by witnesses, with little or no consequences for the police involved. The Black Lives Matter movement, which began in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin, continued to mobilize as police murdered Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, and so many others.
Breonna Taylor was shot eight times in her sleep when cops executed a “no-knock” search warrant. The warrant was supposedly for a person who was already in police custody. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought that there was a break-in fired on police, wounding one. He was charged with first-degree assault on a police officer and attempted murder. These charges were later dropped. There were no drugs in the house.
The vigilante murder of Ahmaud Arbery was at first covered up until video of the horrific killing was released on social media. Arbery’s murderers were arrested not long before the lynching of George Floyd.
Of course, there has always been resistance to police repression. In Houston, in 1917, Black U.S. Army troops took up arms against local police after cops attacked a member of their unit. During the 1960s, there were rebellions against police repression in Detroit, Los Angeles, Trenton, and other large cities. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles rebellion followed the acquittal of cops who savagely beat Rodney King. More recently, Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore exploded after the police murders of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray.
Capitalism, police, and the state
The question of the police and their relationship to society is an important one for socialists. Many unionists, members of oppressed nationalities, and social movement activists have experienced police repression. Any worker who has been on strike knows that cops are called to suppress workers’ picket line actions and break strikes.
The police attack on counter-protesters during a 2018 far-right demonstration in Portland is another example of the reactionary role of cops. During a far-right “free speech” mobilization, there were friendly exchanges and “high fives” between police and ultra-right protesters. Cooperation with rightist “Oath Keepers” extended to one of the reactionaries’ assisting police with the arrest of a counter-protester.
Earlier this week, Philadelphia police fraternized with Proud Boys and other rightists who formed a vigilante mob of over 100 people, armed with baseball bats and other weapons near a police substation on Girard Avenue. Cops high-fived and cheered on these goons, even after they had intimated Black Lives Matter protesters, physically attacking three of them. It is reported that there were chants of “white lives matter.”
The state is not something particular to capitalism. The state is the expression of the division of society into social classes with conflicting interests. In “The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State,” Frederick Engels writes that the state is “a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ‘order’; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.”
The state does not exist to “reconcile” the interests of the various classes; it exists for the subjugation of workers and oppressed people by the dominant, or ruling, class. This is expressed in the formation of police, the army, prisons, and other instruments of coercion aimed at keeping working people in line.
In the U.S., policing cannot be separated from the racist nature of the system. The origins of police in the U.S., especially in the South, can be partially traced to the slave patrols formed to catch runaway slaves. Later, police were the enforcers of Jim Crow segregation. They remain an essential component of the regime of mass incarceration, which imprisons hundreds of thousands of young Black and Brown men and women.
Police and fascism
In Italy and Germany, during the rise of fascist movements, there was cooperation between police and fascist groups. This cooperation extended to Italian police training of Mussolini’s Black Shirts. In the U.S., there have been demonstrated links with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and neo-Nazi groups. For instance, in Houston in the 1970s, it was estimated that as many as 40% of the police department were members of the KKK. The same could be said of police departments across the South.
Racist policing is not something isolated to the South. Northern cities have enforced de facto segregation for years through racist policing. Philadelphia, supposedly the “city of brotherly love,” has a long history of racist cops. The most famous is the former police commissioner and mayor of Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo. Rizzo’s cops were infamous for attacks on the Black community. This included carrying young Black people into hostile white neighborhoods so that they had to run for their lives to get home. Under Rizzo, the police violently attacked the Black Panther Party and Black civil rights organizations.
The racist attitudes of the Philadelphia police department culminated in the May 1985 bombing of the MOVE house on Osage Avenue. On May 13, police surrounded the house, firing more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition at the home and used fire trucks to spray the house with more than 450,000 gallons of water. Later in the day, a police helicopter dropped a bomb on the roof, sparking a fire. Rather than use the fire department to extinguish the fire, the decision was made to “let the fire burn,” ultimately destroying 61 homes, leaving 250 people homeless, and killing 11 members of the MOVE organization, including five children.
The only person to be imprisoned after this crime was MOVE’s Ramona Africa, the sole adult survivor of the police attack (one child, Birdie Africa, also came out alive). No police or public official faced any legal consequences.
Cop “unions”
Building resistance to police violence means exposing the reactionary role of police “unions” in society and the labor movement. Cop unions not only make excuses for the murderers in their ranks, they support racist and reactionary policies like mass incarceration. Within the ranks of organized labor, cop unions play a reactionary role by opposing progressive initiatives.
The Fraternal Order of Police and Police Benevolent Association are the largest police unions. The Teamsters, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and the Service Employees International Union also represent police and prison guards. Building labor solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement within the labor movement means challenging the role of police unions and demanding that labor federations cut ties to these reactionary anti-worker organizations.
Revolutionary socialists reject the notion that police are a legitimate part of the workers’ movement. While police may be drawn from the ranks of the working class, they serve the interests of a racist capitalist social order. It’s the role they play as enforcers of the existing state and economic set-up that is decisive.
Leon Trotsky, writing about cops in the 1930s, said, “The worker who becomes a policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a worker. Of late years, these policemen have had to do much more fighting with revolutionary workers than with Nazi students. Such training does not fail to leave its effects. And above all: every policeman knows that though governments may change, the police remains.”
Socialists reject calls for more cops and for “law and order,” since these policies always disproportionately target oppressed nationalities and workers. This is why, for example, we opposed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s call for adding thousands of more police in Britain in the wake of terror attacks.
We must continue to mobilize for justice against police violence and work to expose the links between neo-fascist groups and cops. The future of the various movements depends on our ability to link the struggles for justice against the system. This means holding the system’s enforcers in blue accountable.
Jail killer cops! Justice for George Floyd! Justice for Ahmaud Arbery! Justice for Breonna Taylor! For Black Community control of the Black community! Release all arrested! Drop all charges!
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Socialist Resurgence statement: Jail killer cops! Black lives matter! Change the system!
Police attack protesters in Detroit on May 30. ( Matthew Hatcher / Getty Images / AFP) A STATEMENT BY SOCIALIST RESURGENCE
- Black Lives Matter! Jail killer cops!
- Reparations now! For Black control over Black communities!
- Evacuate the prisons! Stop the spread of coronavirus!
- Not one more eviction! Free quality public housing for all!
Demonstrations against police brutality and the systemic oppression of Black people have exploded around the country in hundreds of cities. The immediate spark was the lynching of George Floyd, a Black man, by four Minneapolis police officers. The murder followed the deaths of Ahmed Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others at the hands of police and their vigilante allies
U.S. capitalism uses Black oppression as a means of dividing the working class and creating conditions of hyper-exploitation for Black workers. Black, Brown, and immigrant workers do many of the most essential jobs in food production, distribution, health care, and education, but are paid less than white workers and forced to live in worse conditions on average. Over recent decades, as income inequality between the rich and the poor has dramatically increased, so too has the racial wage gap between Black and white workers. The racially unequal effects of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as police brutality, underline the racial inequalities of U.S. capitalism as a whole.
The Role of the Police
Police are the first line of defense for capitalism—protecting the rights of property over people, carrying out evictions, harassing the homeless, and violently breaking strikes. Police are the organ of the state that puts down protests against poisoned water in Flint, Mich., intimidates victims of domestic and sexual violence, and even scabs on striking workers.
Jail Killer Cops!
The all-out reaction by police against the movement calling for justice for George Floyd demonstrates how seriously U.S. capitalism believes it has the right to terrorize Black and Brown people. Because of racism, Black people are 2 ½ times more likely to be killed by a cop than whites are. While Mumia Abu-Jamal and other innocent people spend their whole lives behind bars waiting for a fair trial, police and racial terrorists like George Zimmerman receive a slap on the wrist for cold-blooded murder. While Chauvin may still receive a sentencing, there are still hundreds of police killings a year (1004 in 2019), yet virtually no killer cops are arrested. The capitalist state is incapable of putting an end to this pandemic of police murder.
Build the Movement! Change the System!
Daily demonstrations against police brutality and for a better world have created two seemingly contradictory responses from the capitalist state. On one hand, capitalist politicians and even police are trying to save face and act like they stand with the protests. But this lie has been exposed, as we see increasingly militarized repression, including thousands of arrests, half a dozen killings of protesters, and numerous cases of serious bodily harm from crowd dispersal techniques that violate even the bourgeois standards of the Geneva Convention.
Capital is willing to make minor concessions, including replacing police with private security at some schools and businesses, but it is unwilling to touch the systemic problem that lies at the root of the crisis.
Today, we must unify around the slogan of “Black Lives Matter” and build a movement to definitively end police repression and to dismantle the ruling class’s biased “justice” system. Simultaneously, it is necessary to begin the process of constructing democratic mass organizations capable of mobilizing people to replace the profit-driven capitalist system—which is at the root of Black oppression—with a system that puts the needs of people and the environment at the forefront.
An appeal to our readers: If you liked this article, please consider making a donation to our Socialist Resurgence Summer Fund Drive, to help us continue to bring commentary and analysis to you from a revolutionary socialist point of view.
YOU CAN DONATE ONLINE AT THE FOLLOWING LINK: HTTPS://CHUFFED.ORG/PROJECT/SRFUNDDRIVE
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Yankees Go Home: No More Troops or Military Bases in Colombia
Showing the Colombian Government’s lackey character, the U.S. Embassy announced that a U.S. Army Security Force Assistance Brigade, SFAB, has just arrived and will be conducting operations in Colombian territory for 4 months.
By: Executive Committee – PST May 28, 2020
800 Yankee soldiers are in Colombia without the Duque government having even requested authorization from the U.S. Congress. On the contrary, the military leadership is being put at the service of the U.S. troops, who will be in territories that have been ravaged by abandonment and armed conflict for four months.
Without any hesitation, Admiral Craig Faller, commander in chief of the United States Southern Command, said: “The SFAB mission in Colombia is an opportunity to show our mutual commitment against drug trafficking and support for regional peace, respect for sovereignty and the lasting promise to defend shared ideals and values.
The U.S. soldiers are present in the so-called Future Zones, which were launched by the Duque government as a complement to the so-called Territorially Focused Development Programmes, TDPs, which are the result of the FARC demobilisation process. The Future Zones are: Pacífico Nariñense, Catatumbo, Bajo Cauca and southern Córdoba, Arauca and Chiribiquete.
The presence of the US military in these zones, which constitute 2.4% of the national territory, is a violation of sovereignty and a mockery of Colombian institutions and legislation, which states that the presence of foreign troops must have permission from the Colombian Congress.
Colombian “sovereignty”
In reality, in spite of what the regulations say, there is no sovereignty in Colombia, but rather the country has a semi-colonial relationship with the United States. The U.S. Army owns 51 buildings in Colombia and leases 24 more, which add up to more than 50 thousand square meters. In addition, they act as “advisors” to the military leadership, when in fact they have them under their command.
The current mission of 800 military personnel will have under its command the joint task forces Hercules, Vulcano and Omega of the Colombian Military Forces, and will supposedly be in anti-narcotics operations, but recent events in which a mercenary action was planned to make an imperialist incursion into Venezuela, increase suspicions about the participation of the Colombian state in such action.
Useless and dangerous
There is also fear among the population because of the treaties that prevent the prosecution of the U.S. military for their crimes. We must remember that in the Tolemaida base more than 50 girls were raped by US soldiers who today enjoy impunity in their country, without the Colombian Government having at least spoken out. Therefore, the presence of these troops not only violates sovereignty, but is a real danger to the women and girls of these territories, as well as being another threat to social fighters.
Additionally, the excuse with which they are brought in to fight drug trafficking falls apart when we know that it is the Colombian political class itself that runs that business and that the United States is the main consumer. The policies of forced eradication or persecution only increase the cost of drugs, increasing the profitability of the business and leaving a wave of death in its path. The only solution to the problem of drug trafficking is the legalization and nationalization of the drug business. This “fight” is nothing more than an excuse to continue taking possession of territories in the semi-colonies and a provocation against neighboring Venezuela.
Yankees go home !
In view of the scandalous presence of the U.S. troops in Colombia, the Democratic Center has stated that it is an “endorsement” to the anti-drug struggle, corroborated by the presence of the imperial troops in our territory. For its part, reformism has rejected this presence because it has not fulfilled the procedure in the Congress of the Republic as the law dictates.
For socialists, the imperialist interference in Colombia is inadmissible. We understand the presence of these 800 soldiers as an aggression against our sovereignty and demand their immediate withdrawal. The working class in Colombia cannot accept the fact that the U.S. Army with the collaboration of the Colombian Army continues to attack the communities of the so-called Future Zones, much less serve as a platform for intervention in Venezuela.
For this reason, once again we must reject the presence of the troops, demand the withdrawal of the yankee military bases, and denounce this government that is taking advantage of the pandemic to continue with the systematic murder of social fighters, precisely in the areas where they have the greatest military presence.
Translation: Blas ( Corriente Obrera LIT – CI ) -
Which direction for the justice for George Floyd movement?
A Seattle police officer hollers at George Floyd protesters at a June 3 rally at City Hall. (Elaine Thompson / AP) By STEVE LEIGH
Steve Leigh is a member of the Seattle Revolutionary Socialists and the Revolutionary Socialist Network.
SEATTLE, June 3 — The movement for Justice for George Floyd is at a crossroads. After over a week of mass protest and often violent repression by the police, the movement is facing a choice of direction.
In Seattle on June 2, over a thousand demonstrators surrounded the city’s operation center. Mayor Jenny Durkan and Police Chief Carmen Best addressed the skeptical crowd. Two “leaders” of the demonstration urged everyone to listen. The mayor and chief oozed sincerity, claiming to be outraged by the murder of George Floyd. They pledged that the Seattle Police Dept. would investigate claims of police misconduct. They pledged to be engaged in dialogue with the movement to enact needed reforms. The “leaders” agreed to participate in this effort.
The demonstrators were skeptical for good reason! From Saturday May 30 onward, the police in Seattle have regularly used violence against protesters. Since Saturday, over 14,000 complaints have been filed against the police . This is the usual number of complaints in a full year! The Office of Police Accountability promises to look into these complaints but says it may take a year or more.
One of the most egregious examples was from Saturday, when police pepper sprayed a crowd, including directly into the face of a little girl who was at the protest with her father. This disgusting event has been shown regularly on TV. But this is only one example. On both evenings of Monday, June 1, and Tuesday, June 2, hours-long peaceful protests were finally broken up by the police using tear gas, pepper spray, and flash-bang grenades. Even rubber bullets have been used. Ironically, on at least one occasion, some police “took a knee” to say they were in solidarity with demonstrators only a few hours before attacking them with pepper spray !
None of this has been in response to supposed violence. The looting and property destruction on Saturday has largely ended. The police have been violent in order to assert and maintain control and let demonstrators know who is boss. One Washington State Patrol officer said in whipping up fellow cops, “ Hit them hard!” The actions of the police show their fundamental role: to “serve and protect” the power and profit of the rich against the poor and oppressed. (See: https://rampantmag.com/2020/03/31/abolish-the-police/ )
Every day has seen larger and larger demonstrations, usually in the many thousands.
Certain “leaders” of the movement have called for cooperation with the mayor and police chief for reform. On June 3, they had their first round-table meeting with the mayor and police chief. Demands discussed including sensitivity training and implicit bias training for police. These demands assume that the fundamental role of the police is fine as long as they carry out their duties properly.
The concrete changes so far are moves toward stopping police from covering their badge numbers and a withdrawal of the city of Seattle’s attempt to get its police department out from under Justice Department supervision.
On the other side, more radical voices are calling for defunding the police. Some 20,000 people have signed a petition calling for cutting the police budget in half. This call recognizes that the problem with the police is not “bad apples,” poor training, or better communication with the public. The problem is the fundamental role of the police itself. They understand that the movement should support reforms that weaken the police and undermine its repressive function:
“Police reform efforts—from Minneapolis to Seattle—have failed. To stop police violence, the police must be reduced in size, in budget, and in scope. The police have never served as an adequate response to social problems. They are rooted in violence against Black people. In order to protect Black lives, this moment calls for investing and expanding our safety and well-being beyond ‘policing.’
“Our schools, workplaces, and government offices frequently collaborate with police. The police are an occupying force in Black communities. Their brutality towards Black people is condoned and accepted as business as usual. We urge all local governmental and non-governmental entities to cut ties with the SPD. When they put on their badges, police officers cease to be members of the working class. In fact their primary role is to surveil, control, and silence all forms of dissent to support the continuity of a racist, harmful, murderous status quo. …
“#BlackLivesMatter #DefundSPD #DisarmSPD #DismantleSPD #DecriminalizeSeattle #CareNotCages #FreeThePeople #FreeThemAllWA #DecriminalizeSeattle #CharleenaLyles #ShawnFuhr #TommyLe #CheTaylor #JTWilliams #IsaiahObet #JesseSarey #JusticeForStoney #SayTheirNames”
On Wednesday afternoon, June 3, over 12,000 people rallied in Cal Anderson Park and then marched a few miles to City Hall to turn in petitions calling for cutting the police budget. On the way down, they chanted, “Defund the SPD,” “ Say his name, George Floyd,” “Say her name, Breonna Taylor,” and the most popular: “Back Up, Back Up, We Want Freedom, Freedom! These racist ass cops, we don’t need ’em, need ’em!”
At one point , Mayor Jenny Durkan came out from her discussion with movement “leaders” to address the Defund the Police rally to mixed response.
The movement, at least in Seattle, has come to a crossroads: Reform the police but keep their basic function the same, or oppose the institution of the police wholesale. Most activists have not come out clearly on one side or the other. Many would support both efforts to reform the police and to defund the police. Over time, the debate over the direction of the movement will likely sharpen. The initiative by the “Defund the Police” movement has been important in sharpening this debate and leading the way forward.
Previous movements against the murders of Black people by police have accomplished little in terms of structural change. Since 2014, when the Black Lives Matter(BLM) movement erupted, the police have continued to kill over 1000 people per year. The racial disparity in these murders has continued. The chief accomplishment of the Black Lives Matter movement has been to raise public awareness. Even large numbers of white people now see racist police brutality as a major problem as a result of BLM.
In the long run, the political direction of the movement will determine whether it can be more effective at limiting the destructiveness of the police.