Friday, June 5, 2020
Revolution, Not Riots: Prospects for Radical Transformation in the Covid-19 Era
ANTHONY DIMAGGIO
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/03/revolution-not-riots-prospects-for-radical-transformation-in-the-covid-19-era/
The murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police served as yet another wakeup call for a nation that has historically struggled with recognizing structural violence against people of color. The ensuing protests and riots represent a renewed effort to sensitize Americans to the reality of pervasive racism in their country. Recent events follow a familiar cycle:
1. racial profiling and police brutality persist, largely unabated, until public anger reaches a critical mass and boils over into protest and violence after a catalyst event – in this case, the murder of George Floyd;
2. Media coverage is heavily sensationalized, marginalizing the protesters who are non-violent, emphasizing looting and riots, and thereby obscuring the reasons for the protests;
3. National guard and police forces are mobilized to suppress the protests, further inflaming tensions and exacerbating the violence through the heavy-handed tactics of the police;
4. Millions of Americans nod in recognition of the travesty of racism and police brutality, while millions of others – including many whites – lament the destruction of property, while downplaying the loss of black lives to police violence;
5. Despite sensational media coverage, the basic point that millions of people of color are mad as hell at police brutality and societal racism manages to seep through, with it becoming increasingly difficult for most Americans to deny that race relations in the U.S. have reached crisis levels;
6. Reforms ensue, geared toward increased pressure on police forces to improve transparency, to rely more heavily on community policing initiatives, and to further sensitize Americans to the problem of structural racism. And the cycle repeats.
Covid-19, however, appears to have exacerbated public anxieties beyond a level seen in previous rounds of Black Lives Matter protests. Communities under pressure, particularly poor people of color who are worst hit by Covid-19, have reached a breaking point, and are rebelling in mass against the status quo of record economic inequality, racial oppression, rising unemployment, and a near-complete non-response from the federal government to the worst public health crisis in a century. Within the context of these intensified protests, many self-identified radicals I have talked to believe we are witnessing the beginnings of a political and economic revolution, in light of the violent protests that have now taken over dozens of cities in the U.S. But we should be wary of romantic celebrations of revolution. Americans are nowhere near developing the radical working-class consciousness that’s needed for a socialist revolution. And efforts to frame riots as revolution are fraught with peril in a country where the large majority of Americans lack critical working-class consciousness, let alone revolutionary consciousness.
Before examining the challenges faced by protesters and leftists who are seeking societal transformation, it’s important to emphasize the positive elements of this latest race rebellion in the struggle for democracy. First, protests are absolutely essential to drawing attention to police violence and repression in a country where large numbers of people have become willfully ignorant to recognizing these problems, despite a mountain of social science and journalistic evidence documenting the ways in which the “criminal justice” system routinely criminalizes people of color. Second, the protests represent a much-needed reorientation of our priorities, toward recognizing the tragedy of the loss of human life due to police repression, and away from the priorities of many privileged whites, who prefer to lament the destruction of property, while ignoring the countless lives lost to police violence. Third, most of the protesters in the streets are committed to non-violent action, and should be applauded for such restraint in the face of police repression. White affluent communities throughout the U.S. have long been allowed to self-police, with residents only engaging law enforcement when they are called to assist in defusing disturbances. I have little doubt that whites would be angry as hell, and many would riot too, if police treated them the same as they do people of color in communities that are severely over-policed.
Looting and riots across the country are the product of society’s failure to listen to those, like George Floyd, who are literally suffocating under the boot of police repression. Martin Luther King famously said in a speech assessing the prospects for change during times of violent protest and riots: “it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.” MLK’s reflection represents a nuanced understanding of the frustrations that African Americans face in a society that systematically practices racial discrimination, as related to educational, occupational, residential, legal, and cultural repression. He recognized the legitimacy of the frustrations shared by people of color, without endorsing violent acts that provide an excuse for a “criminal justice” system to further suppress minority communities.
Despite the positive aspects of recent protests, there are some red flags that should be raised, and that threaten to undermine these protests. For one, it’s still disturbing how much we don’t know about many of those responsible for violence across American cities. Early accounts claimed that 80 percent of protesters arrested in Minneapolis were from out of state, although that conclusion was undermined after a review of arrest data showing that these protests were homegrown. With these efforts to marginalize demonstrators discredited, there is still the question of the extent to which white supremacists have participated in violence, in an effort to discredit the movement. A number of recent reports have spotlighted highly suspicious whites who are seeking to stoke riots, and who clearly have no interest in playing a positive role in protesting police brutality. Most perversely, some white supremacists have even used the protests as an opportunity to assault black protesters.
A second concern is the haphazard way that protesters have thrown caution to the wind by failing to make good-faith efforts to practice social distancing, in order to prevent the rapid transmission of Covid-19. It should be too obvious a point to remind people who have been told repeatedly for the last three months that it’s a really bad idea to be out in large groups in public without remaining six feet apart. Despite being a long-time (20 year) participant in progressive and radical social movements, I’ve made the decision, as someone with multiple immune system disorders, to refrain from participating in these protests. From all the news footage I’ve seen in recent days, and from the many individuals I know personally who have engaged in protests of Floyd’s murder, it’s become abundantly clear that large numbers of demonstrators are simply failing to practice social distancing. This failure carries perils. As public health experts are warning, large protest congregations, even with individuals wearing masks, threaten to further spread Covid-19 in heavily-populated urban areas. Furthermore, the failure to practice social distancing makes a mockery of leftists’ condemnations of “reopen America” protests, considering the main criticism put forward against these individuals was that they were flaunting basic public health and safety concerns. The failure to put public health first opens up Black Lives Matter protesters to charges of hypocrisy. Viruses, after all, don’t distinguish between worthy and unworthy political goals.
Most importantly, it is vital that we recognize there is a mountain of difference between rioting and revolution, and that we are nowhere near the latter at this time. It’s tempting to see people rising up in the streets and conclude that system-level change is afoot. And that may well end up being the case if these protests continue. But the difficult work of organizing and movement building to achieve system-level change has not been done. The worker strikes at Instacart, Amazon, McDonalds, Whole Foods, and elsewhere are an encouraging start for Americans seeking to assert themselves in the workplace. But the goals are hardly revolutionary. They include a $15 minimum wage – which has now become mainstream policy in the Democratic Party – and efforts to protect workers from Covid-19 infections in the workplace, among other reforms. And the labor movement in the U.S. remains a shadow of its former self, with only one in ten Americans being a member of a union as of 2019. Perhaps this pattern can be reversed, but it will require major struggles beyond this first round of Covid-19-era labor activism.
Furthermore, if revolution is the goal, no viable or radical mass worker organization yet exists that can help individuals in their workplaces to coordinate a national campaign to agitate for and demand collective expropriation and ownership of the means of economic production. We still appear to be very far from revolution, at least one that’s based on a libertarian vision of socialism in which workers decide their own fates and control occupational decision-making. And in order to get there, there will need to be a rapid rise in working-class identity and consciousness – and radical class consciousness – both of which have been in short supply to date.
The vast majority of Americans – approximately 90 percent – see themselves as some version of “middle class,” not as revolutionary proletarians. Even when a “working-class” option is provided in surveys, less than a third of Americans identify as such, while a sizable majority – almost two-thirds – prefer the amorphous “middle-class” designation. And as of early 2020, only 28 percent of Americans hold a favorable view of socialism, which includes less than 40 percent of younger Americans aged 18 to 38. Even for those who support socialism, most have little understanding of what it would look like in practice. They’ve been socialized by Bernie Sanders and his supporters to think that socialism means Scandinavian-style New Deal reformism and progressive-liberalism. That definition has little to do with historic understandings of socialism as founded upon grassroots, radical revolutionary politics, and worker takeovers of the means of economic production. A miniscule one percent of Americans cite “cooperative”-style work arrangements, in which workers are empowered to make their own decisions, as constituting the core of socialism. Clearly, we are very far from any sort of bottom-up organic socialist revolution when the vast majority of Americans don’t even understand the historical meaning of the concept, and overwhelmingly associate it with general notions of “equality” and government run public goods like Medicare-for-all.
The latest uprisings against racist policing are encouraging and can serve as a launching point for renewed efforts to combat inequality in America. But we should be careful not to romanticize rioting or mistake it for revolutionary change. If we seek the latter, then our nation has to work toward developing a radical working-class consciousness – one that understands capitalist owners of the means of production (the “bourgeoisie” in Marxian terms) as retaining fundamentally contradictory interests compared to the vast majority of Americans who are facing rapidly rising economic stresses in the Covid-19 era, and who have been squeezed by decades of corporate capitalism, unrestricted by basic obligations to the citizenry. Without an understanding of society that centers on class conflict and the incommensurable interests that exist between working Americans and political and business elites, there is little chance of working toward revolutionary transformation.
A Superpower In Chaos
Chandra Muzaffar
https://countercurrents.org/2020/06/a-superpower-in-chaos/
Minneapolis could not have happened at a worse time for the US elites. While violence perpetrated against African Americans by White police officers has happened a number of times before, its occurrence right in the midst of a huge health emergency that has already claimed more than a 100,000 lives and a related massive economic disaster that has robbed 30 million people of their jobs, is truly unprecedented. The mayhem and chaos accompanying the violence have spread to a number of other cities right across the United States of America.
What has sparked outrage among thousands of Americans (and not just those of African descent) was the way in which an unarmed Black civilian, George Floyd, suspected of using a counterfeit banknote was killed by a White police officer. The officer had pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for 5 to 9 minutes forcing him to plead that he could not breathe until he went silent and limp. The officer has now been charged with third degree murder though a lot of the protesters are demanding that three other police personnel who were with him at the time of the incident should also be punished.
If there is a lot of anger among thinking, caring Americans about the Floyd incident, it is mainly because they know that discrimination against African Americans is still pervasive and is a manifestation of the larger marginalisation of the community. True, through education there has been some mobility for groups within this minority especially in the decades following the civil rights movement but large segments remain trapped at the bottom of the heap. The current economic devastation has underscored the vulnerability of these segments just as the coronavirus pandemic has also revealed how the poor and disadvantaged in the US and elsewhere are more likely to be the victims of the scourge than others.
That the US is not really able to protect the well-being of the poorer and weaker segments of society is obvious when we look at the situation of yet another minority, the Hispanics. In the last few decades their economic and social burdens have been exacerbated by an irrational fear of their alleged demographic challenge to the White majority. This fear was exploited successfully by candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election as it will be manipulated again in the forthcoming November 2020 election through issues such as building a wall to protect the US’s southern border.
There is a third minority, better positioned than the first two, which is also the object of racist attacks from time to time. Broadly classified informally as ‘Asians,’ they are often equated with Americans of Chinese origin. Since the coronavirus crisis and president Trump’s attempt to pin the blame upon China, the harassment of Chinese and Chinese looking Americans has escalated. Indeed, verbal and even physical abuse of members of the community has been going on for a while given the constant negative targeting of China by some US elites on a variety of issues ranging from trade and technology to alleged human rights violations and suppression of minorities. Though independent research has shown that there is a great deal of distortion and exaggeration in these allegations, they appear to have impacted upon ordinary Americans through community and social media.
Why China is subjected to such vile treatment, it is not difficult to understand. The US elites and a section of the media see the ascendancy of China as a challenge to US dominance and control of the planet, or US hegemony, and are therefore determined to tarnish and subvert China. Other countries which are independent-minded and unwilling to submit meekly to US power are also often targeted. Sometimes, prejudice against a particular religion or specific ethnic communities — this is true of the prevailing attitude of certain segments of American society towards Islam and Muslims — tends to warp inter-community relations.
The US pursuit of global hegemony has affected adversely the rights and interests of millions of Americans in a number of ways. By spending so much on the military — in 2019 it was 732 billion US dollars — and maintaining some 800 military bases encircling the world, the US has sacrificed the essential needs of its people such as well-equipped hospitals and schools. Gross neglect of the economic and social rights of the people has emerged as a tragic reality for everyone to witness when the nation is confronted by a twin health and economic crisis of gigantic proportions.
Indeed, given its wealth, the US failure to enhance the rights of millions of its citizens including the underclass within the White majority is simply criminal. In the domestic arena, as in international politics, it is the height of hypocrisy of the US political elite to present itself as a champion of human rights and democratic rule. In fact, on a number of occasions in international politics —- Iran 1953; Chile 1973; Palestine 2006; and Egypt 2013 —– the elite had directly and obliquely participated in the suppression of democratic principles.
Today, through the two crises that have overwhelmed the superpower and the righteous anger vented in the streets of the nation by ordinary citizens of all shades —- anger that stems from centuries of contempt and scorn heaped upon a people —- the truth about the elites’ lack of respect for human rights and human dignity is exposed for all to see. Will this lead to some sincere soul-searching especially among young Americans?
De Blasio Staffers Demand `Radical Change from Mayor' in Open Letter
Two-hundred thirty-six current and former staffers for Mayor de Blasio signed an open letter calling on him to live up to the promises of reform that initially drew them to work for him. One demand is to cut the $6 billion police budget by 1/6.
Shant Shahrigian
https://portside.org/2020-06-04/de-blasio-staffers-demand-radical-change-mayor-open-letter
We are former and current de Blasio Administration staffers.
We came to the Mayor’s Office from different places and walks of life, but we all shared a common goal: to work for a fairer, more just New York City.
None of us joined the de Blasio Administration believing this mayor would be radical on criminal justice policy. That was apparent from the moment he hired Bill Bratton to be his police commissioner. But we saw in Bill de Blasio a chance for real change.
He made his opposition to “Stop and Frisk” a pillar of his run for the mayoralty. He spoke passionately about his duty as a parent to make New York City safer for his Black son and daughter. He called for cuts to the City’s jail population, and for the closure of Rikers Island.
It was our hope that these words were a starting place. That we could push the Administration further to reform New York City’s racist criminal legal system. That together we could create real, lasting change for a City and police department that have failed Black and brown New Yorkers, generation after generation.
Our time in the Mayor’s Office showed us that the change we had hoped for, and fought for, might never come.
We saw up close the Administration’s unwillingness to challenge the abuses of the NYPD—the Mayor’s refusal to fire Daniel Pantaleo for choking the life out of Eric Garner, the continuation of the failed “Broken Windows” policing strategy that criminalizes our Black and brown communities, the rejection of even basic accountability measures like making information public about police officers accused of misconduct.
We saw how, while crime rates are at record lows, the Administration has continued to pour money into the NYPD budget—which is now almost $1 billion larger than when de Blasio took office—heightening the over-policing of Black and brown communities.
We saw how the Mayor refused to end the use of solitary confinement, which took the lives of New Yorkers like Kalief Browder and Layleen Polanco, in the City’s jails.
We saw the aggressive push for the construction of new borough-based jails, at a cost of $9 billion, despite activists’ cries to invest that money in jobs and alternatives to incarceration.
The chasm between Mayor de Blasio’s promise to reform the criminal legal system and the actions of his Administration has only widened in the past year.
De Blasio expanded the City’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which wages war on our immigrant communities.
He joined with police and prosecutors as they demonized the progressive bail and discovery reforms that activists and advocates spent years lobbying for in Albany.
He sat by as thousands of our fellow New Yorkers remained locked in cages on Rikers Island, while a deadly virus raged inside its jails.
And these past long days, as New Yorkers have taken to the streets demanding an end to the racist policing that humiliates, maims, and kills Black New Yorkers, he stood with the very police who perpetrate that violence.
Many of us marched at these protests. We’ve all seen the images and read the stories. Crowds of cops swarming over a single protestor, raining down blows with their batons. Protestors rammed with police cars. A rampaging cop throwing a protester to the curb, sending her to the hospital with seizures. A cop drawing his gun and pointing it into a crowd. A cop macing a defenseless young man with his hands in the air. Cops covering their badges so they could act with utter impunity.
What was the Mayor’s response? He said that the NYPD had “acted appropriately.” That police had “shown a lot of restraint.” That he “was not going to blame” officers who were trying to deal with an “impossible situation.”
And while the Mayor did attempt to walk back some of his comments on Sunday morning, by Tuesday he had implemented an 8:00 PM citywide curfew, an unprecedented attempt to silence New Yorkers’ cries for justice.
We have joined together in writing this letter because we could not remain silent while the Administration we served allows the NYPD to turn our City into an occupied territory. Our former boss might not hear the cries for justice from Black and brown New Yorkers, but we do.
We are demanding radical change from the Mayor, who is on the brink of losing all legitimacy in the eyes of New Yorkers.
1. Reduce the NYPD operating budget by $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2021, and reallocate that money to essential social services, including housing support and rental relief, food assistance, and health care, in alignment with the demands of the NYC Budget Justice campaign.
2. Immediately fire all NYPD officers found to have used excessive force—or to have covered their badges—at protests.
3. Release the names and official disciplinary records of all NYPD personnel who have been accused of using excessive force, covering their badge numbers, or other misconduct.
4. Appoint an independent commission, in the vein of the Knapp and Mollen Commissions, composed of civil rights attorneys, journalists, and activists, including abolitionist organizers, to investigate the response of the Mayor’s Office and the NYPD to the May and June 2020 protests against police violence.
We are also calling upon all former and current staffers of conscience to stand with us in our call for change.
We all chose to serve for a better New York. Stand with us now and demand justice—for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery. For Eric and Erica Garner. And for all Black and brown New Yorkers.
Signed,
Aarati Cohly, Aaron Ghitelman, Aaron S., Abdul Hafiz, Abe E., Abigail Cook-Mack, Aileen Almanzar, Aisha Pasha (Public Engagement Unit), Alacia Lauer (Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice), Alejandro Cintron (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Alex F. (Public Engagement Unit), Alex Washington, Alexandra R., Alexis H., Alyssa Lott, Amanda Clarke, Amen Ra Mashariki, Amrita Dasgupta, Amy Furman (Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency), Andrea H., Andrew Schustek, Angela Sherpa, Angela Lascala-Gruenewald, Angela Terry, Angie Carpio (Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice), Anthi Markatos, Anthony Jackson (Mayor’s Office of Creative Communications), Arelis Hernandez, Ariel L., Ashe Mcgovern, Ashley C., Ashley Dinzey (Gracie Mansion), Ashley Putnam (NYC Office of Workforce Development), Audrey Crabtree-Hannigan (Office of Research & Media Analysis), Ayesha D., Ayesha I., Ben Kantor, Ben Sarle (Mayor’s Press Office), Benita Miller, Benjamin Mandel (Mayor’s Office of Sustainability), Bianca Guerrero (Mayor’s Office of Policy and Planning), Brad Raimondo (de Blasio for Mayor 2017), Brandon G. Brandon West (Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget), Brandt Hamilton (Mayor’s Office of Speechwriting), Brian Erickson (Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery Operations), Brian Johnson (Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget), Bridgit Donnelly, Camara Cooper (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Cara F., Carly Fleming (Public Engagement Unit) Carlyn Cowen (Mayor’s Office of Contract Services), Catherine Almonte, Cathy Pasion (Mayor’s Office of Sustainability), Chai Jindasurat (Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget), Charlette Renault-Caragianes, Christopher Collins-McNeil (Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs), Colin Stayna-Wynter, Cristina Gonzalez (Mayor’s Office of Appointments), Cristine K. (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Curtis Cravens (Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency), Daniel B., Daniel Backman, Daniel Edelman, Darren Martin, David Vincent Rodriguez (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Deena Patel, Diana G., Dina Rybak, Dina Simon, Dorothy Suchkova (Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice), Douglas Nam Le (Climate Policy and Programs), Eden T., Elisa Gahng, Elizabeth Olguin, Ellen P., Elvin Garcia (Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit), Emily Apple, Emily Preuss, Emnet Almedom (Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity), Eric G., Erika Lindsey, Esai Ramirez (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs) Essence Franklin (Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity), Esther Rosario, Eve Grassfield (Office of the Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives), Ezra Cukor (CCHR), Felicia H., Frances Chapman, Gabriela Martins (NYC Census 2020), Gagan Kaur, Giulianna S., Gloria Medina (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Gwendolyn Litvak, Hanif Yazdi (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Hannah Shaw (Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity), Harrison N., Helen Ho, Hermanoschy Bernard, Hina Naveed (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Ian Hanson, Ifeoma Ike (Young Men’s Initiative), Irina Tavera (NYC Census 2020), Jacqlene Moran (Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency), Jacqueline Crossan, James N., Janie K., Jasmine Fernandez, Jason Spear (Young Men’s Initiative), Jean Bae, Jen Samawat (Office of the First Lady of New York City), Jenna Tatum (NYC Mayor’s Office of Sustainability), Jennifer Scaife (Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice), Jennings Louis, Jeremiah Cedeño (NYC Census 2020), Jerry Bruno, Jessica Woolford (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Jesús Alejandro C., Joi Rae, Jonathan Soto, Joseph Desimone (de Blasio for Mayor 2013), Joshua C., Juana Silverio, Julie Kim (NYC Census), Julie W., June Glover, Karen Coronel (Mayor’s Office of Appointments), Kate Bernyk, Kate Van Tassel, Katerín Fernández (Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services), Katie Unger, Kimberly P., Kristen Grennan, Kunchok Dolma (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Lacey Tauber, Leah R., Leigh Shapiro, Lexi I., Lilly L., Lily K., Lindsay F. (Mayor’s Office of Operations), Lindsay Mollineaux (Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics), Lindsay Scola, Lois S., Lucia Goyen (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Manvir Singh (Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs), Maria Cruz Lee, Mariana Veras, Maribel Hernández Rivera (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Marielle Sanchez (NYC Office of Workforce Development), Marissa Jackson (Mayor’s Office for International Affairs), Marv McMoore, Jr. (Mayor’s Office of Appointments), Mary Bruch, Matthew Dhaiti (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Matthew M. (Mayor’s Office of Appointments/PEU), Megan Abron (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs) Megan Macinnes, Melissa Lachan (Mayor’s Office of Appointments), Michael Cox, Michael Shaikh (Mayor’s Office of Sustainability), Mike D’Armi (Public Engagement Unit), Minden K., Minelly De Coo, Mirjam Grunenfelder-Reig, Mitsue Iwata (Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics), Moeena Das, Molly Cohen, Molly Dexter, Molly Hartman, Morgan A. (Mayor’s Office of Food Policy), Natalie Leary (Mayor’s Office of Special Projects and Community Events), Nathifa Forde, Nick Gulotta (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Nicole B., Nora Stephens, Onnesha Roychoudhuri, Oonagh J., Pascale Mevs, Pooja Podugu, Rachael Berkey (Mayor’s Office of Creative Communications), Rachel F., Rachel G. (Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity), Rachel Patterson, Rachel Smith (Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer), Radhe Patel (Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services), Raphael Pope-Sussman (Mayor’s Office of Speechwriting), Reagan S. (Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice), Rebecca B. (Mayor’s Office of Operations), Rebecca F., Rebecca H., Rebecca Lynch, Richard André (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Ricky Da Costa, Robin D., Rodney Stiles, Rosalia Contreras, Rosanna E. (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Rose Destefano (Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development), Ross Karp, S. Wright, Sam Hersh (Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency), Sam S. (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Samantha Adelberg, Samantha Grassle (Mayor’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer), Samantha Villella, Sara Nitschke, Sara S., Sarah Bennett, Sarah L., Sarah Nolan (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs) Sarah Shuster (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Sasha Beder-Schenker, Schuyler Mapp-Williams, Shaddi Zeid (Mayor’s Office of Appointments), Shaheen M. (Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services), Shehab Chowdhury, Shevani P. (Mayor’s Office of Operations), Shifra G. (Mayor’s Office of Operations), Shira Mitchell (Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics), Silvia S. (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Simon Rimmele (Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics), Sofia M., Sona Simran Kaur Rai, Sophia Cho, Sophie Pauze (ThriveNYC), Stacy L. (Mayor’s Office of Sustainability), Suzanne Herman (Public Engagement Unit), Tatianna Echevarria, Taylor Yasui, Travis Hardy (Mayor’s Office of International Affairs) Trenton Seubert (de Blasio for Mayor 2017), Ufei Chan (Mayor’s Office of Sustainability), Valentina Strokopytova, Victoria A., Yamilka M. (Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs), Zain Khan, Zakiya Robinson
NYT Rebuked for Tom Cotton Op-Ed Calling for US Military to Use ‘Overwhelming Show of Force’ Against Protests
https://citizentruth.org/nyt-rebuked-for-tom-cotton-op-ed-calling-for-us-military-to-use-overwhelming-show-of-force-against-protests/
“This is the most openly authoritarian piece of writing I’ve read from an American politician who has been in power during my lifetime.”
(By: Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams) The New York Times drew sharp criticism on Wednesday for publishing an op-ed by Republican Sen. Tom Cotton calling for the military to be deployed to the nation’s streets to respond to the protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
The op-ed was titled “Send in the Troops.”
Fulya Apaydin@Fulya_Apaydin
Seriously NYT?!? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html … https://twitter.com/jeremyscahill/status/1268266429750685696 …
Opinion | Tom Cotton: Send In the Troops
The nation must restore order. The military stands ready.nytimes.com
jeremy scahill
✔@jeremyscahill
This was published today by @nytimes.
11
2:52 PM - Jun 3, 2020
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In the op-ed, Cotton (R-Ark.) claimed that “[o]utnumbered police officers, encumbered by feckless politicians, bore the brunt of the violence” from the unrest. He added that certain “elites have excused this orgy of violence in the spirit of radical chic, calling it an understandable response to the wrongful death of George Floyd.”
He also suggested that suggested the protesters are “nihilist criminals… simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.”
To respond to the social justice uprising, Cotton called for “an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain, and ultimately deter lawbreakers,” and reiterated his call for President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy military to streets, dismissing opponents of using that 1807 law as “excitable critics, ignorant of both the law and our history.”
“Some governors have mobilized the National Guard, yet others refuse, and in some cases the rioters still outnumber the police and Guard combined. In these circumstances, the Insurrection Act authorizes the president to employ the military ‘or any other means’ in ‘cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws,'” claimed Cotton.
“Why, New York Times, why?” tweeted Jason Lyall, a political scientist at Dartmouth.
“Trump is not the only problem of this country,” tweeted writer and historian Massimo Faggioli. “I am not only referring to Sen. Cotton, but also to the NYT choosing to publish this.”
Tayari Jones
✔@tayari
Wow. Is this where we are, @nyt???
Send In the Troops https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html?smid=tw-share …
Opinion | Tom Cotton: Send In the Troops
The nation must restore order. The military stands ready.nytimes.com
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3:48 PM - Jun 3, 2020
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Others responding to the new op-ed focused on Cotton’s language and claims.
“This is the most openly authoritarian piece of writing I’ve read from an American politician who has been in power during my lifetime,” tweeted author and HuffPost reporter Zach Carter.
“Tom Cotton is a fascist,” tweeted journalist Walker Bragman. “Hate oozes from every word of this dehumanizing screed.”
Cotton had already urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in recent days, saying in a Monday interview on Fox News, “If local law enforcement is overwhelmed, if local politicians will not do their most basic job to protect our citizens, let’s see how these anarchists respond when the 101st Airborne is on the other side of the street.”
The Times has previously published op-eds by Cotton, including one from last year in which he argues the U.S. should buy Greenland, a purchase Trump also floated.
Dissenting Voice: Defense Secretary Mark Esper Opposes Use of Insurrection Act
Daniel Davis June 3, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/dissenting-voice-defense-secretary-mark-esper-opposes-use-of-insurrection-act/
“The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now.”
US President Donald Trump wants to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to mobilize the military against protesters, but Pentagon officials have vocally opposed the idea. Chief among them is Defense Secretary Mark Esper. At a Wednesday press conference, Esper told reporters “I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act,” Phil Seward reported for Reuters on Wednesday.
Esper Dissents
“The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now,” Esper said.
Esper also apologized for describing demonstration zones as “battlespaces,” saying he regretted the word choice. The word, he said, is “something we use day in and day out … it’s part of our military lexicon the I grew up with … it’s not a phrase focused on people,” according to CNN.
The secretary is the first cabinet official to speak out against the president’s idea to deploy the military to “quickly solve the problem for” governors and “dominate the streets,” as POLITICO reported.
Notably, Esper was a member of the delegation that joined Trump fro a photo-op on Monday in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church next to the White House. However, Esper claimed he was not informed beforehand that the event was designed to be a photo-op.
White House insiders told CNN that Esper’s press conference did not sit well with the president, with three of them describing the reactions of Trump and other advisers as “not happy.”
Discontent in Pentagon
The administration was reportedly unaware of the nature of Esper’s remarks before the press conference. Esper’s briefing is the first public break between the Defense Department and Oval Office. Rumors circulated this week that Pentagon officials are hesitant to follow Trump’s plan to summon the military.
“There is an intense desire for local law enforcement to be in charge,” one defense official told CNN.
Esper phoned governors to ask them to supply National Guard troops to provide security in the capital. The governors of Virgina, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New York all declined to provide Guards. Some cited a need for keeping security forces in their states in the event they are needed and others, like Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, said he would not support sending Guards who would be taking orders from Attorney General William Barr instead of the Washington, D.C., mayor.
The Next to Leave?
The public breaking of the ranks could expedite Esper’s ouster from the administration, some aides told CNN. Trump has reportedly been displeased with Esper in recent weeks, CNN reported, and White House sources said “I think this is the end for him.”
National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien is also behind the outrage at Esper, sources claimed. In particular, Trump and O’Brien are not convinced Esper is onboard with Trump’s military ambitions.
O’Brien has been crucial to swaying the president, speaking to him in private about Esper’s remarks, often pointing out how the secretary offers half-hearted defenses of the administration. O’Brien even printed out Esper’s remarks on a topic and compared them with his own.
Some administration officials said O’Brien is interested in a new post as either secretary of state or secretary of defense. The former position is filled by Mike Pompeo who has repeatedly insisted he is happy in his post, even refusing calls by Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R–Ky., to run for senator. Therefore, Esper’s seat might be the next vacancy O’Brien can jump into.
Congress Has Questions for Esper
Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been summoned to testify before the House Armed Services Committee by Rep. Adam Smith, D–Wash., to “explain this domestic engagement to the American people.”
“I have serious concerns about using military forces to respond to protestors. The role of the US military in domestic US law enforcement is limited by law. It must not be used in violation of those limits and I see little evidence that President Trump understands this fundamental premise,” Smith said.
An open hearing on the matter is scheduled for next week, CNN reported.
Yes, the Looting Must Stop
Thom Hartmann June 3, 2020
https://citizentruth.org/yes-the-looting-must-stop/
African Americans and Hispanics have been looted of trillions in reduced pay by racist employers and giant corporations, while their safety, lives and peace of mind have been looted by racist police.
(Common Dreams) Looting is the word of the day, on the lips of every newscaster, the president, and elected officials across the country. And, indeed, looting is a major problem in America.
In 1981, when Ronald Reagan ended the New Deal era, crushed labor unions, and massively cut the top personal and corporate tax rates, he kicked off the most massive and widespread looting of America since the 1920s.
Working people all across the nation have seen over $7 trillion of their wealth looted by the top 1 percent just in the past two decades, reducing them from the middle class to the working poor.
Small and medium sized businesses, since Reagan stopped enforcing the Sherman AntiTrust Act in 1983, have seen their companies looted by giant monopolies and predatory banksters like Mitt Romney.
Millions of homeowners across the nation had their homes looted by thugs like Steven Mnuchen, California’s “Forclosure King,” and Wall Street banksters like Jamie Dimon, a practice that’s again exploding.
Hungry people across America have had their food supplies looted by defense contractors whose ever-increasing chunk of federal spending has come at the expense of food stamps and other agricultural supports.
Billionaires and the Trump Crime Family looted out nation’s treasury to the tune of $1.5 trillion in 2017, and have looted over $2 trillion out of monies appropriated recently to help COVID19 victims.
Betsy DeVos has looted billions from our public schools to give to her buddies in the for-profit and religious education industries.
George W. Bush looted trillions out of Medicare when he partially privatized the program in 2005 with so-called “Medicare Advantage,” throwing the system into crisis.
Bush and his fellow thugs also looted the Post Office, taking $5 billion a year from them for a decade to stop them from converting their fleet of vehicles to electric and hydrogen power, and set the USPS up for sale to FedEx or USP.
Students across the country have lost $1.7 trillion to banking looters empowered by Bush’s 2005 bankruptcy “reform” legislation that will force them into debt, in some cases, until the day they die.
Sick people have been looted—to the tune of over a trillion dollars a year—by giant insurance companies that pay their executives millions and sometimes even billions.
African Americans and Hispanics have been looted of trillions in reduced pay by racist employers and giant corporations, while their safety, lives and peace of mind have been looted by racist police.
Asylum seekers and immigrants have had their lives and children looted from them by brutal thugs like Steven Miller and Donald Trump.
Our air and water—and the survival of our planet—have been looted by giant fossil fuel companies and the billionaires who own them, leading to mass migrations and millions of deaths every year.
Local media, cable systems, and small internet service providers have been looted by giant corporate thugs, to the point where news has become infotainment, Americans are dumbed down, and the average American family pays more than twice—sometimes ten times—as much for internet and cable TV service as people in other developed countries.
Our food supply has been looted by giant corporations that have destroyed family farms, poisoned rural communities with factory farms, and provoked an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
It’s time for looting to stop in America.
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