The racist murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, is no accident. It is part of what an American Civil Liberties Union report, “The War Comes Home,” labels “The militarization of American policing….policies, practices, and weaponry [which]…have turned…many…neighborhoods into war zones” (Report, page 3). And it is racist to the core. The battleground is “disproportionately… in [black and Latin] communities” (p. 2). “The majority — 79 percent — of SWAT deployments…studied were for…executing a search warrant, most commonly in drug investigations.” And 61 percent of all people subjected to these SWAT raids were black and Latin (p. 31, p. 36). The Report depicts a typical scenario:
You are at home with your family, sleeping soundly in the early morning hours. You awaken suddenly to a loud explosion and the sound of glass shattering. A bright light blinds you and there is a terrible ringing in your ears. You cannot see anything, but…you hear the harrowing sound of your front door being broken down as your children begin to scream….You look outside your window and see what appears to be a tank in your driveway. Suddenly people…break through your bedroom door….They are wearing black and carrying assault rifles, and their faces are masked. You hear people yelling at you and your partner to get on the floor and put your hands behind your back. Your children are still screaming in the next room and your dog is barking….The people lead you…into the living room, pointing rifles at you….Someone quickly handcuffs you to the chair. More people then bring your partner and your children into the living room at gunpoint. Your dog is still barking and one of the people shoots it, killing it instantly….They proceed to ransack your home, breaking down doors and shattering windows….The explosion you heard earlier came from a grenade….They hold you and your family at gunpoint for the next several hours, refusing to answer any questions about why they are there and what they are looking for. Once they have finally left, you find your home in shambles. Broken glass litters the floor….Your dog lies breathless in a pool of its own blood. Tables are overturned, papers are strewn about, and electronic equipment had been ripped from the walls….Your partner is desperately trying to calm your hysterical children.
…This is not a scene from an action movie and did not happen during…a…battle in an overseas war. This is the militarization of…state and local police, and events like this are happening every day in homes throughout America (p. 12).
U.S. Death Squads
“Across the country, heavily armed …SWAT teams are forcing their way into people’s homes in the middle of the night…deploying explosive devices such as flashbang grenades to temporarily blind and deafen residents, simply to serve a search warrant on the suspicion…of a small amount of drugs.
“American policing has become…dangerously militarized…through federal programs that have armed state and local…agencies with the weapons and tactics of war….Using federal funds…have amassed military arsenals purportedly to wage the failed War on Drugs (p. 2).
“SWAT raids are…violent events…20 or more officers armed with assault rifles and grenades approach a home, break down doors and windows.…using battering rams….and scream for the people inside to get on the floor…pointing their guns at them….often…use Armored Personnel Carriers….deployed when there were children present…which the SWAT team knew in advance….” (p. 3).
The ACLU estimates there are 45,000 such SWAT raids every year, an average of 124 every day!
U.S. Ruling Class’s Blueprint for Fascism
In the 1990s prior to 9/11, the Clinton administration created the Hart-Rudman Commission whose report outlined a plan to concentrate all government branches concerned with policing the U.S. population into one overall agency: the Department of Homeland Security. CHALLENGE marked this event as a step towards full-blown fascism and noted that racism was its cutting edge. The racist militarization described above is the result — a Gestapo to terrorize workers from rebelling against the effects of a declining capitalism that is completely impoverishing our class — as well as to keep in line those bosses whose short-term profit outlook the ruling finance capitalists view as threatening the long-range existence of their system.
Actually “SWAT teams [were] created to deal with emergency scenarios such as hostage or barricade situations” but with the emergence of the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s, their “use to execute search warrants 
in drug investigations has become commonplace….[It] essentially amounts to the use of paramilitary tactics to conduct domestic drug investigations in people’s homes…. The majority (79 percent) of SWAT deployments the ACLU studied was for…executing search warrant, most commonly in drug investigations” (p. 31). And 61 percent of those SWAT raids were against black and Latin people (p. 36).
The militarization of U.S. policing “has occurred as a direct result of federal programs that use equipment transfers and funding to encourage aggressive enforcement of the War on Drugs by state and local police agencies” (p. 16).
“The Department of Defense operates the 1033 Program…whose motto is ‘from warfighter to crimefighter….’ The program has transferred $4.3 billion worth of property through the 1033 Program. Today the 1033 Program includes more than 17,000 federal and state law enforcement agencies from all U.S. states and territories” (p. 24).
In 2007, “the U.S. spent $50 billion to produce 27,000 MRAPs [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles] and deploy them in Iraq and Afghanistan….MRAPs have made their way into local communities….through the 1033 program.” These programs “create incentives for state and local police to use…aggressive weapons and tactics designed for the battlefield” (p. 6, p. 22). “Agencies…received funding from….Federal Department of Homeland Security Grant Programs…[and] State Homeland Security Grant Programs” (p. 10). In Arizona alone this weaponry included:
1034 guns, of which 712 are rifles
64 armored vehicles
17 helicopters
42 forced entry tools, such as battering rams
32 bomb suits
830 units of surveillance and reconnaissance equipment
13,409 personal protective equipment and/or uniforms
704 units of night vision equipment
120 utility trucks
21,211 other types of military equipment
It is with these kinds of battlefield armaments that the police could appear on the streets of even small cities like Ferguson to enforce the rulers’ racist attacks in the 17,000 police agencies in the 50 states and territories mentioned above.
Historically — particularly in World War II — it has been communists who have led the fight to smash fascism. It was the Red Armies of the Soviet Union and China and the partisan and resistance movements in Europe and Asia that smashed Hitler’s Nazis and the Japanese fascists. It is from these heroic fighters that Progressive Labor Party is inspired to build a revolutionary communist movement to topple today’s fascists — whether they be in the White House, in Israel, in Beijing, in the European Union or Moscow. Out of a class war against the world’s capitalists communists can lead the struggle to erect a society run by and for the working class and rid the earth of the evils created by the profit system — unemployment, poverty, racism, sexism and imperialist war.
The anti-racist rebellion in Ferguson, sparked by the cold-blooded murder of 18-year old Michael Brown, shows that when push comes to shove, the racist police are no match for a united fighting working class. Led mostly by unemployed youth, the rebels have basically routed the Ferguson and St. Louis County police and the black State Police Captain, broke the curfew and forced the Governor to call in the National Guard. And they are still fighting back.
PLP members were warmly welcomed by the rebels, with about 250 of them receiving CHALLENGE newspaper. We are in touch with dozens of fighters, and sending more comrades to the scene.
Despite the racist news coverage, there has been almost no looting, with the rebels’ anger focused like a laser on the cops. And the more they fight back the rebels are receiving overwhelming support here and internationally.
So now the FBI, State Police, Highway Patrol and National Guard troops are swarming this town of 21,000 people that no one much cared about two weeks ago. But not only have they stood up to the armed force of the racist capitalist class, they have also defied the ruler’s snake-oil salesmen, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who rushed there to put out the fire. And they have defied the pleas of Obama to “protest peacefully.”
Michael Brown would have been another in that long line of racist police killings, except this time the youth exploded in anti-racist rebellion, showing us all what’s possible. The racist billionaires and their government can’t teach our kids to read and can’t create jobs for young people. But when the people rebel, there’s no limit to what they will spend in military equipment and personnel and racist media coverage to try to stamp it out.
The anger in Ferguson is more than justified. And whatever violence has taken place has been fueled by the viciousness of the cops and the system they protect. The murder of Michael Brown is not an isolated event. This is not going to stop, until we stop it, by overthrowing the racist rulers with armed communist revolution. The cops are killing us because they need to terrorize us into accepting that the racist profit system that has nothing to offer but a future of poverty and war. We don’t accept it, and neither do the Ferguson rebels and their countless supporters.
We call on everyone to build support for the rebellion at school, at work, in your church or union. Participate in mass rallies and marches and get your union or community group to join in. But most of all join and build the revolutionary communist PLP. Let’s build a world based on equality, where racist terror is outlawed and the racist billionaires buried.
The competition among imperialists inevitably leads to war. This reality is evident in the conflict over oil that is once again spreading across the Middle East. The forces of ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, now command an area larger than Great Britain. They rule a third of Syria and a quarter of Iraq. Their ascendance is a product of decades of U.S. imperialism and the bosses’ increasingly desperate grab for control over the Middle East’s third-largest oil producer, after Saudi Arabia and Iran.
To secure Iraq’s energy resources, U.S. capitalists invaded Iraq in the Gulf War of 1990-1991. After 12 years of death-dealing sanctions, they invaded again in the Iraq War of 2003-2011, producing some unintended consequences, notably the rise of ISIS. The breakaway movement’s leaders were initially financed by Saudi Arabian rulers, who wanted to use them against their Shia enemies abroad. But now ISIS is pursuing its own agenda, helped by the support of Sunnis persecuted by deposed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki.
The emergence of ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “has been shaped by the United States’ involvement in Iraq — most of the political changes that fueled his fight or led to his promotion were born directly from some American action” (NYT, 8/11).
Amid this imperialist carnage, the international working class has nothing to gain from supporting any group of bosses. Our class can escape the horrors of capitalism only by overthrowing the entire system. The one solution is a communist revolution to create a world without bosses or profits. We must fight for a society run by and for the working class, the class that produces everything of value. That is the goal of the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party.
‘Humanitarian’ Obama
Killing Children Worldwide
When Obama launched the U.S. imperialists’ latest air raid campaign against ISIS, he claimed it was a “humanitarian” action to save ISIS victims trapped without food and water. This is the same “humanitarian” whose drones are killing men, women and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s the same war criminal who puts guns, bombs and helicopter gunships at the beck and call of Israeli rulers to murder the children of Gaza. It’s the same capitalist stooge who ignores the racist cops murdering black youth on the streets of New York and St. Louis (see front page).
Obama says his air war “could last months” but won’t require “boots on the ground,” although 130 soldiers were deployed on August 12. He calculates badly on both counts. U.S. bosses, represented by the two Republican Bushes and Democrat Clinton, have killed 3.3 million Iraqis since 1991 (Global Research, 12/16/12). They have deployed more than 1.6 million troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over 10 years. Yet they still can’t nail down control of Iraq’s oil.
As the James A. Baker Institute (which helped engineer the 2007 U.S. troop surge) noted in 2011, “Iraq has the potential to increase production from 2.5 million barrels a day to over 5 million b/d or more in the next five to ten years [and] an ambition to reach 10 to 12 million b/d of production....in line with the productive capacity of Saudi Arabia.” Exports today average 2.4 million barrels a day.
But ISIS, the latest rival frustrating U.S. oil production hopes, cannot be defeated from the air alone. Rapidly conquering territory, winning recruits, slaughtering potential foes, and threatening U.S.-led oil operations, ISIS has U.S. bosses terrified. Many are demanding a stronger military effort from Obama.
ISIS, Greater Threat than al Qaeda
The profit-driven leaders of ISIS, an offshoot of al Qaeda, are mobilizing Sunni religious fanatics to forge a conservative Islamic state. ISIS has significant advantages over Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda. It now controls territory in Syria and Iraq. It has a formidable military machine, boosted by the capture of U.S. weaponry abandoned by quick-to-run Iraqi forces. ISIS also has huge sources of funding, including captured oil fields. As Patrick Cockburn reported in the London Review of Books, (8/1/14), it may soon be seeking new conquests from Iran to the Mediterranean:
As the attention of the world focused on Ukraine and Gaza, ISIS captured a third of Syria in addition to the quarter of Iraq it had seized in June. The frontiers of the new Caliphate declared by ISIS on 29 June are expanding by the day and now cover an area…inhabited by at least six million people, a population larger than that of Denmark, Finland or Ireland.
Some form of [U.S./EU] military attack, direct or indirect, will probably happen once ISIS has consolidated its hold on the territory it has just conquered....For America, Britain and the Western powers, the rise of ISIS and the Caliphate is the ultimate disaster.
ISIS’s commanders turn out to be shrewd, ruthless capitalists, rather than devout clerics. Oil has proven a lucrative source of funding for ISIS bosses. As ABC News reported on August 9:
ISIS reaps $1 million per day in Iraq in oil profits and if they get the Syrian fields the total would be $100 million per month for both Iraq and Syria combined. They sell it for $30 a barrel because it’s a black market. It’s not pegged to international standards for oil prices, which are over $100 a barrel.
Oil’s at the Root of It All
The U.S. and its Big Oil allies dream of reaping $1.2 billion a day (at current prices) from Iraq. That’s why Obama vowed to defend Erbil and Baghdad. Erbil is the capital of Kurdistan, from which ExxonMobil pumps crude through Turkey in an effort to win it to the U.S. side in a larger global conflict. Losing Baghdad to an ISIS southern march would destroy what’s left of the Iraqi government and imperil Exxon’s access to much richer oil regions.
In Iraq’s Shiite-dominated south lie the mega-fields, including Qurna and Manjoun. Exxon and its allies have large but disappointing operations there. With no viable army, Iraq’s governing Shiites are without an effective counter to ISIS, which has enlisted skilled veterans of Saddam Hussein’s army which the U.S. disbanded. The U.S. bosses have eagerly dumped the disastrous Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.
Saudi Arabia, a major funder of ISIS, is the oft-unmentioned gorilla in this room. Cockburn quotes Richard Dearlove, ex-head of MI6, Britain’s CIA: “Saudi policy towards jihadis has two contradictory motives: fear of jihadis operating within Saudi Arabia, and a desire to use them against Shia powers abroad.”
Saudi Faction Financed ISIS
Financing for ISIS’s successful summer offensive came in the form of “private donations” from Saudi Arabia, Dearlove said. The donors are disgruntled capitalists frozen out by the Saudi royals, who are keeping a tight hold on both state power and oil revenues. The bin Laden clan belong to this class of ultra-rich but disenfranchised and power-hungry Saudis. Today they are led by the al Rajhi family, who own the biggest Saudi bank and bankroll jihadists like Ayam al-Zawahiri. By May, once ISIS started winning, this al Qaeda chief sought reconciliation with the breakaway movement.
Obama is taking heat from both imperialist Republicans and Establishment policy think tanks. “Sen. Lindsey Graham... sharply criticized President Obama’s limited military response to ISIS” (New York Times, 8/10/14). On July 29, Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations testified before Congress that the U.S. needed at least 10,000 soldiers on Iraqi soil. That will be but a small down payment if ISIS forces ever reach Saudi Arabia. U.S. access to Saudi Arabia’s unsurpassed oil production capacity, guaranteed by U.S. military might, is an indispensable cornerstone of U.S. imperialism. A genuine threat to Saudi oil could trigger an all-out U.S. invasion, with all-out opposition from Iran, China, and Russia.
But to mount that kind of offensive, the U.S. ruling class must win the working class to a now unpopular military draft. Worker support for the Afghan-Iraq wars wouldn’t have happened without the 9/11 attack on the homeland. U.S. bosses would exploit a similar attack in order to use workers’ anger to build patriotism and war.
The dominant finance capitalists, who control both the White House and mainstream Republicans, will exert more fascist control to discipline wayward capitalists who balk at their war plans. The dominant bosses will also use racism to further oppress and divide the working class, which will pay for the next war in taxes, increased poverty and the lives of their sons and daughters.
Join, Build PLP Now!
That is why PLP is organizing in the bosses’ mass organizations to win workers away from the Democratic Party. Our goal is to build a revolutionary communist party that will smash capitalism and its mass racist unemployment, racist police murders, the super-exploitation of women, and unending imperialist wars. Now is the time to join and build PLP.
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Cops’ Racist Murders — No Justice Under Capitalism
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- 14 August 2014 392 hits
FERGUSON, MO., August 11 — “Ferguson police just executed my unarmed son” reads a sign held here by the stepfather of Michael Brown, another black youth who’s become the latest victim of racist police murder. At a vigil angry protestors chanted “No justice, no peace” and “Stop police terrorism!”
Soon a rebellion erupted. Hundreds of youth, tired of police terror, smashed cop cars and storefronts in reaction to the blatant murder. “The only good cop is a dead cop” was painted on the walls of businesses. “RIP Mike” and “burn the city down” appeared on the side of a burned-down store. Youth fired gunshots at cops and police helicopters attempting to quell the rebellion. In response, the police have turned the town into a war zone.
We should applaud these black youth for sending a strong, violent message against racist murder. We need more such reactions when the bosses’ media, politicians and preachers are telling youth to “be patient” and “wait for answers” from the same people who are responsible for these murders.
No Justice in Bosses’ Courts
In NYC, antiracists are reacting in horror to the video of Eric Garner being choked to death by an NYPD officer as Emergency Medical Services stood by, despite Eric’s pleas of “I can’t breathe.” The Brooklyn District Attorney has shown us in the cases of Kimani Gray, Kyam Livingston and Shantel Davis that we need communism. Neither elections nor grand juries will stop racist police murders. Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio’s election didn’t save Eric Garner, and it didn’t bring killer cops who roam the Flatbush neighborhood or any part of NYC closer to justice.
Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson has announced that no indictment will be brought against officer Mourad Mourad who murdered Kimani Gray with eleven bullets and watched him bleed to death on an East Flatbush sidewalk in March of 2013. The same district attorney has told the Shantel Davis family that unless witnesses present themselves at his office the case of Shantel’s murder at the hands of racist detective Phillip Atkins will also be closed. And the same authorities have refused to do anything about the murder of Kyam Livingston who was left to die in Brooklyn Central Booking while pleading for medical attention.
Brooklyn’s black DA Thompson’s actions prove the working class should not rely on any agents of the capitalist state.
Members of the Shantel Davis Committee for Justice and Beyond and PLP secured witnesses months ago, but they have been lost in the shuffle of a cynical legal system in which justice is an afterthought at best. On TV, liberal mayor de Blasio tells us to look for justice in the courts. Meanwhile, politicians like Jumaane Williams, Al Sharpton, and Charles Barron show up at the scenes of racist murders and in the living rooms of the survivors to deliver the same racist message, attacking black youth. They give the family false hopes of justice while blaming youth for being murdered by cops.
We need More Rebellions
As the frustration mounts with each new message that black youth are — in the words of Kimani’s mother Carol Gray — “expendables,” more and more rebellions will occur. Their only missing ingredients are communists and antiracists who see the problem as the system of capitalism, not black or Latin youth. This exploitative system spawns racist unemployment, wars and police murders which no amount of voting or reforming departments can change.
Kimani’s friends and family rallied two consecutive nights when the news was announced that his killer would go free. The following Monday a picket line was held at the Brooklyn DA’s office. Kyam Livingston’s family and supporters confronted the cops outside Brooklyn Central Booking last month on the anniversary of her death, demanding justice and an end to the hellish conditions at that site.
The Shantel Davis Committee organized the second annual Hoops for Justice basketball tournament in both Shantel’s and Kimani’s memory in these recent weeks. Players waiting to compete looked through CHALLENGE as announcers mixed in play-calling with political consciousness. Teachers determined to see their students as more than suspects united with Shantel’s sister and local coaches to pull off the event. Young people in attendance wanted to know the date of the next demonstration at the 67th precinct.
CHALLENGE is not only connecting the dots of racist, senseless murder — from Gaza to Ukraine to New York City to Missouri. It’s also become the news source for many youth. The youth are listening. Families stricken by racist cop murders are forming new bonds with each other. We refuse to forget our working-class brothers and sisters taken from us. PLP will carry the call for justice forward to the only solution that can put a stop to racist cop murders: communist revolution.
“Operation Protective Edge,” Israel’s latest invasion of Gaza, is now in its final stages, as politicians of both sides hammer out a long-term cease-fire agreement. This war saw sporadic rocket and mortar fire from Gaza (mainly by Hamas) and massive bombing and shelling of Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The latest death toll: 67 Israelis (three of them civilians) and 1,948 Palestinians (1,402 of them civilians). In addition, 11,855 homes were destroyed in the impoverished Gaza strip, and 425,000 Gazans are now homeless (United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 8/10/14). For the most part, the victims were ordinary working people.
The goals of Israel’s racist rulers are simple, though often kept hidden behind a wall of lies. They desire as many Jews as possible on as much land as possible, and as few Arabs as possible on as little land as possible. Their land-grab objective hasn’t changed since the inception of Zionism in 1882. Moshe Feiglin, deputy speaker of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), spilled the beans on Israel’s plans for ethnic cleansing by calling for the deportation of Gaza’s population into concentration camps on the Egyptian border, pending deportation to other countries. Then Gaza would be reconstructed as an Israeli (Zionist) city on the ruins of Palestinian Gaza (Mail Online, 8/4/14). This prime piece of coastal real estate, which sits on huge natural gas deposits, would generate super-profits for Israeli tycoons and contractors.
But Jewish workers in Israel will never profit from such racist schemes. Under misleaders like Minister of Economics Naftali Bennet, who has a net worth of $25 million (The Times of Israel, 9/3/13), Zionist bosses are attempting to abolish overtime pay and force workers to work long hours at base rates (Calcalist, 9/1/13). The Israeli ruling class claims that it fights to defend the south of the country from Gaza rocket attacks, which are virtually harmless. Then, it uses the rockets as a pretext for mass killing in Gaza.
Hamas Profiteering
Hamas claims they are fighting to defend the Palestinian residents of Gaza from Zionist aggression. But in reality, they are content to see the Gazan working class starve from the siege or die from Israeli bombings, while Hamas rakes in massive profits from exploitation. Khaled Mashaal, head of the Hamas political wing, has an estimated net worth between $2.5 billion and $5 billion, much of it invested in real estate throughout the Arab world. Ismail Haniyeh, until recently the Hamas Prime Minister of Gaza, is worth an estimated $4 billion. How did these fat cats make their fortunes? From the Israeli-Egyptian siege. To help feed the starving population and provide for their necessities, Hamas buys goods cheap in Egypt, smuggles them into Gaza through tunnels, and sells them at a much higher price to the starving locals (Asharq Al-Awsat, 8/31/12). From this misery, they have grown monstrously rich. The death of more than a thousand unarmed workers doesn’t faze them — it’s just the cost of doing business.
Like all capitalist wars, the latest conflict in Gaza is a war for the rich that is fought by workers. For the international working class, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Hamas counterparts are all enemies. Zionism is a death trap for Jewish and Palestinian workers alike. For workers, the only way forward is communist revolution. Tyrants and profiteers must be eliminated and replaced by workers’ rule, the dictatorship of the proletariat. We call all oppressed people in Israel-Palestine to unite and rise up against war, exploitation and racism, and to build a mass communist movement for a better future.
