the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 4, 2016
Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who are running for the presidential nominations of the Republican and Democratic parties, claim to be “outsiders.”
And both are lying.
Trump is a billionaire real estate speculator. He brags about paying off politicians of both parties to get what he wants. He brags about his social and financial links to the rich and powerful. Some “outsider”! And Trump’s basic message is not different from what politicians of both parties say. Trump just says it more openly in a game of political one-upmanship. While the politicians of both parties try to divide workers against each other by blaming immigrants for unemployment and low wages, Trump openly calls Mexican immigrants street thugs and worse. While politicians vote for measures that criminalize black men, Trump openly incites violent attacks on people protesting the killings by cops. While politicians of both parties support policies that restrict working women’s right to control their own bodies, Trump makes statements that are openly derogatory and sexist. And while Democrats and Republicans support government spying on the whole population, Trump openly calls for banning Muslims from coming into the country.
Neither is Bernie Sanders an “outsider.” Sanders may call himself a “socialist” and denounce the growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else. But he is running for the nomination of the Democratic Party, the party of the wealthy and the banks, the capitalist class. Throughout his political career, Sanders has voted with the Democratic Party leadership 98% of the time, faithful to the last. Sanders supported measures that increased the criminalization of black men. He voted for the government bailout of the banks and other corporations. He voted for the U.S. war in Afghanistan and the budgets that paid for all the other wars. He supported the Senate’s unanimous statement of support for Israel’s attack on Palestinians in Gaza in 2014. Sanders consistently supports the policies of the powerful and wealthy against working people and the oppressed.
Both of these candidates are a danger and trap for the working class. Trump reinforces violent anti-immigrant views and other reactionary ideas floating around in parts of the working class. He makes it acceptable to say these things openly–and therefore to act on them, as vigilantes are trying to do along the border with Mexico. Trump’s open sexism makes the daily violence against women at home and at work more acceptable.
As for Sanders, he’s playing the role that other Democratic politicians posing as outsiders have played before him, especially Jesse Jackson. That is, Sanders is being used to divert working people who are angry, to mobilize young people who want to be active, in order to bring them right back inside the Democratic Party, when the long primary campaign is over. Sanders already said he will support the party’s nominee–as he has for years.
So, in the upcoming election, working people have no reason to look to either the Democrats or Republicans, no matter who they run. Both parties put forward candidates who pretend that what’s good for the capitalist class is good for everyone.
But, in fact, that is just a cover for the class war that the capitalist class is waging against the working population to further its own enrichment and wealth.
Working people need policies that take the workers’ side, that counterposes the workers’ answers and solutions to those of the capitalists. And those answers are not just for the working class, but for broader sections of the population that are under attack today.
For working people to get sucked into looking for something to support in either party, Democrat or Republican, is a trap. It takes us away from tackling the necessary work to build a working class party. Only a working class party can consistently put forward workers’ solution and answers to the enormous problems that all working people face.
Jan 4, 2016
In California, average federal, state and local taxes and fees for wireless users reached a record 18%, according to the organization Tax Foundation. This rate is now at least twice as high as the state sales tax for other goods and services. In the U.S., wireless users are paying about 5.8 billion dollars annually in state and local taxes and fees, in addition to five billion in federal wireless surcharges.
Today, wireless communication has become a daily necessity for most people. What a bonanza for federal and state governments, which rest on taxes that penalize the poorest the most, taking a bigger chunk out of their income!
Jan 4, 2016
Maternal death rates have been declining dramatically in most developed countries. One notable exception is right here in the United States. New research conducted by the World Health Organization has found that death rates in the U.S. increased from 12 to 14 women per 100,000 live births since 1990. This makes the U.S. rate twice as high as Canada’s and more than four times higher than Greece’s or Iceland’s. The U.S. is just one of 13 countries–including North Korea and Afghanistan–where maternal death rates are rising.
Poor people in the U.S. still don’t have access to quality health care. Countries that provide universal health care have the lowest maternal mortality rates.
So the U.S. may have the best health care in the world–but only if you can pay for it!
Jan 4, 2016
Concussion tells the true story of how an unknown Nigerian immigrant doctor discovers that playing football can cause degenerative brain damage. The movie also shows the NFL’s reaction to this discovery, which is similar to big tobacco’s response to the idea that cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health. Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) worked as a forensic pathologist at the Allegheny County Coroner’s Office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2002, and he performed the autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster.
Webster had died suddenly and unexpectedly, following years of struggling with cognitive impairment, destitution, depression, drug abuse and suicide attempts. The movie’s devastating portrayal of this football Hall of Famer, “Iron Mike,” and his downward spiral and death by age 50 shows the real damage. After helping the Steelers win four Super Bowls in the 1970s, he was left literally dazed and confused, living out of his pickup truck. He Super Glued his rotting teeth and tasered himself.
Although Webster’s brain looked normal at autopsy, Omalu wasn’t buying it. He reasoned that someone that crazy had to have something wrong with his brain. So he conducted independent brain tissue analyses, which he paid for out of his own pocket. He suspected Webster suffered from dementia pugilistica, a dementia induced by repeated blows to the head found in boxers—“punch drunk.” Using specialized staining, Omalu found large accumulations of tau protein in Webster’s brain affecting mood, emotions, and executive functions, similar to Alzheimer’s disease. Together with colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh, Omalu published his findings in the journal Neurosurgery in 2005, titled “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in a National Football League Player.”
Omalu believed NFL doctors would be “pleased” to read it and that his research could be used to “fix the problem.” Wrong. Decidedly not pleased, the NFL began a campaign to discredit Omalu and his research as totally bogus and to intimidate him.
There is a scene in the film where Omalu is demonstrating how the brain becomes damaged playing football. While holding a fluid filled jar containing a brain, he explains that the brain is free floating in fluid inside the human skull. Then he shakes the jar. In that moment, it becomes clear what is meant by G-forces and acceleration. Helmets can’t prevent the brain from sloshing back and forth inside the skull. Omalu argued that Webster’s position as center put him at extra risk by exposing him to repeated blows of 100-g-forces in over 200 professional games.
In 2012, some four thousand former NFL players joined civil lawsuits against the League, seeking damages over the League’s failure to protect players from concussions. On April 22, 2015, a final settlement was reached between the players and the NFL for 75 million dollars for “baseline medical exams” for retired players, 10 million dollars for research and education, and an uncapped amount for retirees “who can demonstrate they suffer from one of several brain conditions covered by the agreement,” with total payments expected to exceed one billion dollars over 65 years.
In September of 2015, the CSTE (Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy) announced that CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) had been identified in 87 of 91 former NFL players, or 96 percent of the sample.
Coming out just weeks before the Super Bowl, Concussion shows the discovery of CTE in football players, the devastating effects of CTE on the players and their families, and the NFL digging in its heels to hold onto its multibillion dollar industry by intimidation and lies. Warning: watching football through the lens of Concussion might forever alter the game experience.
Jan 4, 2016
Since the reestablishment of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, the two countries have opened embassies and negotiations are progressing. Now the urgent question of money is on the table.
Negotiations have begun over compensation for property the Cuban state nationalized when the U.S. broke off all relations with the Cuban revolution. Almost 6,000 pieces of property are involved, going from homes to businesses. These include several large hotels, including the Hilton, and others belonging to the Mafia. Before 1959, Cuba was practically an annex of Las Vegas.
The amounts of money at stake are often less than a million dollars, but some are large–like the $267 million for the Cuban electric company. Among the U.S. companies demanding compensation, there are big corporations like Texaco and Colgate, but also the Catholic church.
Today, the U.S. demands eight billion dollars, which includes inflation over the years plus interest. The Cuban negotiators on the other hand demand $120 billion in compensation for the more than half century of the embargo.
Obama promised the multinationals that the recognition of Cuba would lead to a big new market, with tens of billions of dollars in sales. So maybe the negotiations will lead to a compromise. It remains to be known what price Cuba will pay, whose population has already paid very dearly for the embargo.
Jan 4, 2016
On October 23, workers noticed a natural gas leak from a 40-year-old oil well near Porter Ranch, an affluent community of 30,000 people about 25 miles north-west of Los Angeles. In the two months since the leak was discovered, more than 100,000 pounds of methane gas has been blowing into the air each hour, amounting to one-fourth of all the methane emissions in the entire state of California!
Residents have reported nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and vomiting, and children have been especially vulnerable. The L.A. County health agency found that highly harmful, cancer-causing chemicals, such as benzene, have been measured in the leak. And methane being a highly flammable gas, there is the constant threat of an explosion or a huge fire–so much so that the FAA has issued a no-fly zone over the Porter Ranch area until March 8. That deadline may well be extended–the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) says it will take four months to seal the well and block the leak!
It’s a disaster of enormous proportions–and a disaster long in the making. Residents have been trying for years to stop oil and gas companies from drilling near Porter Ranch. But the companies have continued to drill, adding more and more wells.
And government officials continued to let them do it, for decades, while allowing homes to be built almost right on top of the wells.
In fact, the only measures taken to help residents so far–the relocation of hundreds of residents to hotels at SoCalGas’s expense; the relocation of two nearby elementary schools by the L.A. school district–have been the result of constant protests by the residents themselves. It was also the residents who released an infrared video of the huge amounts of methane blowing out of the well and hovering over the ground.
Under pressure of the protests, the City of L.A. in December announced a lawsuit against SoCalGas. But events prove that any solution for this problem will come from the residents’ own ability to stay organized and fight to impose their interests on SoCalGas and the other companies drilling in Porter Ranch, not from government officials.
Jan 4, 2016
The following is a shortened version of the presentation made at a Spark public meeting in Detroit.
Too many people in prison—that’s what politicians of both parties have been saying.
Too many? You bet! This country holds the sorry record for the highest rate of incarceration in the world. With less than 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. holds almost 24% of the world’s prisoners.
This is the result, not of increasing crime, but of the so-called “war on drugs,” which started under Nixon and continued under every president since. It was a 40-year revamping of the “criminal justice” system, which has condemned massive numbers of people to prison. In 2013, U.S. prisons and jails held almost 2.3 million adults and juveniles—seven times as many prisoners as they held in 1970.
The “war on drugs” was started under Nixon as a way to get him re-elected, and it was bullshit. Pardon the language, but that’s how a Nixon adviser, John Dean, described it: “I was cranking out that bullshit on Nixon’s crime and drug policy before he was elected. And it was bullshit, too. We knew it.”
But it was more than just election propaganda. The war on drugs was also used against a whole generation that had gone into the streets in the urban rebellions of the 1960s.
Another Nixon adviser, John Erlichman, later on wrote: “We understood we couldn’t make it illegal to be young or poor or black in the United States, but we could criminalize their common pleasure. We understood that drugs were not the health problem we made them out to be, but it was such a perfect issue that we couldn’t resist it.”
Drug laws were rapidly changed. In 1980, 41,000 people were sent to prison for a drug offense. By 2011, the number had reached 500,000, half a million people, 12 times as many. And despite all the talk about rounding up the big drug lords, more than three quarters of the people who went to prison for drugs went for simple possession, not for the large-scale sale or manufacture of drugs.
But other laws were also changed. Minor infractions—actions that had been called misdemeanors and ignored by the police—were turned into felonies, requiring mandatory prison time. A Rutgers University study concluded that 3/4 of all Americans break one of these new felonies, often without knowing it. But most people don’t go to prison—young men do, especially, young black men.
Congress and the states wrote thousands of repressive laws. One of the worst, the 1970 RICO statute was supposedly aimed against the Mafia. In fact, up until 1980, it was used against Civil Rights and Black Power activists (Black Panthers especially), people who organized against the Viet Nam war, people who organized for Puerto Rican independence, and against communists and socialists.
That statute is also the basis of the stop-and-frisk raids cops carry out in poor urban neighborhoods—which have led to so many young men being killed by the police.
This so-called “war on crime” was, in reality, a war on people. And it was directed by Washington. The federal government gave money to states and counties to get them to step up drug arrests and increase prison time.
At first, most police departments resisted the politicians’ call for a war on drugs. In cities beset by real crime, with murder an everyday occurrence, the last thing police wanted to do was round up people for smoking marijuana.
So, in 1994 under Clinton, Congress imposed quotas for drug arrests on local police departments. They had to meet their quota to get federal money.
Arrests in poor neighborhoods shot up. Cops were ordered to use every pretext: stop everyone, search everyone. If they found drugs, arrest them. It was a bounty system that filled the prisons to overflowing.
The federal government sponsored a boom in prison construction. In the 1990s alone, 3,300 new prisons were built, costing 27 billion dollars. Some Fortune 500 companies made big profits, building and running the prisons.
There may be some vicious people who become cops, some who are blatant racists. But that’s not all of them. There are always people who join the police as a job; some who become cops because they think they can make a difference in their old neighborhoods.
But it doesn’t matter what individual cops want to do. The police are used to enforce military repression on poor neighborhoods.
This is what pushes the cops into actions in which they kill young men on the street.
Look at how Michael Brown was killed by a cop in Ferguson Missouri. The police say they suspected him of shoplifting three cigarillos. But he was actually stopped for walking down the middle of a neighborhood street, a crime in Ferguson. He could have been stopped for wearing his pants too low, or wearing a hoodie that obscures his face. Those, too, are crimes in Ferguson and many other cities, pretexts used to stop anyone and everyone. A bullshit stop like this led to the shots that killed Michael Brown.
Look at how Freddie Gray was killed. Stopped on a Baltimore street corner—loitering as the cops would put it—he was stuffed into a police van after the cops found a pocket knife on him. He was given a “rough ride.” That’s the term Baltimore cops use for what they did—letting him bounce around the back of the van, unsecured by a seat belt.
The police control poor neighborhoods by pro-actively using violence to “teach young men a lesson.” Did the cops expect Freddie Gray’s neck to snap, for him to die? Probably not. But Freddie Gray did die....
Millions of young men and some young women have been swept up and locked away for such reasons—and sometimes killed.
Out of all proportion to their numbers, the people rounded up, picked up, sent to prison or killed are black. Black people are arrested more often than whites for drugs usage, even though black people don’t use drugs more often, as the U.S. Center for Disease Control concluded.
When picked up, black people are three times as likely to be charged as whites, when the offense is the same. When charged, they are almost two times as likely to be convicted. When convicted, they get longer sentences. A black man serves almost as much time for a drug offense (59 months) as a white man does for violent crime (62 months).
It’s obvious: in a racist society, law will be imposed in wildly discriminatory fashion.
But this is also the result of conscious choices made by the political class of this country. H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, recorded this conversation in the presidential diary for April 28, 1969: “The [president] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the WHOLE problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this, while not appearing to.”
The consequences of this vile calculation have been devastating for the black population. One third of all black men born since 1970 have spent time in prison. Over two-thirds of all black men without a high school diploma have spent time in prison.
In 1980—before the harsh changes in criminal law really took effect—only 14% of black children were raised by one parent. Today, two-thirds of black children are raised by only one parent, mostly women. Such a rapid and enormous demographic change is almost unthinkable, and it is directly tied to policies that criminalized poor black men.
This prison-house regime may have started under Nixon for his own electoral purposes, but every president since, right up to and including Barack Obama, has helped to continue it. The capitalist class, which they serve, has been unable or unwilling to provide enough jobs to absorb the new generations of people coming up. It would reduce their profit. Instead of providing jobs for young people, they had them locked up.
This last July, Bill Clinton said he had made a mistake signing laws which he admitted put people in prison who shouldn’t have been there, kept others in prison for too long. And Clinton told the NAACP convention “he was sorry.”
“Sorry”???? He presided over policies that stole years, if not decades, from people’s lives—for “bullshit” offenses, to use Nixon’s term—but Clinton now says he’s “sorry”?
Not by a long shot. He did exactly what the capitalist class wanted done. Prison sucked up the unemployed, preventing them from congregating on street corners, preventing them from revolting as people did in the 1960s.
For 40 some years, we have lived through one capitalist crisis after another. Not enough jobs for everyone, not enough money for good schools for every child, not enough medical care, not enough decent housing. The capitalists’ answer to growing destitution has been to throw away the surplus population, lock them up, prevent them from revolting.
“Hyper-criminalization” and “hyper-incarceration” were capitalism’s way to prevent an explosion by the permanently unemployed.
About 700,000 prisoners are released every year. They are sent back into their communities, given little or no training or education while in prison, and none when they get out. They are sent back to the community with no money, no arrangements for a job, and most places won’t hire them. They can’t get welfare—that was cut off for ex-prisoners in 1996. Can’t get into public housing—that was closed to ex-prisoners in 1988.
Without money or any possibility of a job, most go back to prison within three years time. That’s why someone who goes to prison the first time for simple possession of drugs can end up finally condemned to prison for life.
Some people protest that those who come out of prison are hardened criminals.
Maybe so. Prison is a hard school. Someone who went into prison for a minor offense learns to be hard while there—just to survive.
Not only are the prisons a hard school. The streets of big cities like Detroit are a hard school. A society that won’t provide enough jobs turns people hard, turns some of them into so-called “criminals.” It’s no accident that crime goes up when unemployment goes up, and down when unemployment goes down
Maybe some of these hard young men fight each other, maybe they victimize their own neighborhoods, rob others. When they do, they are attacking their own class.
But they could be fighting against the real robbers, the capitalist class that created the situation that impoverishes them. They could be pulled along with the whole working class when it fights. They could be the fighters the working class needs, its best fighters.
But there’s the problem. The working class has been quiet for decades, and these hard young men see no prospects. They see no force able to take on this society that victimizes them.
These hard young men could be used by reactionary forces to attack the rest of their class. But they can be pulled over to fight alongside their class. And this is our best hope for the future.
Jan 4, 2016
In 2015, Mergers and Acquisitions, where one company buys up another, increased tremendously. They added up to a record $4.6 trillion, up 41% from 2014. The previous record was in 2007, on the eve of the financial and economic crisis, which still hasn’t ended.
These figures show that the capitalists continue to prefer to use their accumulated profits to buy up other companies rather than invest in developing production. Since these Mergers and Acquisitions usually lead to thousands of layoffs at each company, far from helping end the crisis, they wind up making things worse.
Jan 4, 2016
Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, is on the eve of buying its competitor Allergan, for the small sum of $160 billion!
The merged company would be the biggest pharmaceutical maker in the world, ahead of Novartis, the Swiss company. Pfizer, with $50 billion in sales, is known for Viagra, while Allergan, with $13 billion in sales, is known for Botox.
It’s said this merger will give the company new means to develop its research and maybe discover new medicines, which could be a real therapeutic advance. But this isn’t the main problem for the directors and stocks owners of both companies, who put together the merger so the new company would pay the least taxes.
So while Pfizer is by far the bigger of the two companies, Allergan will exchange one of its shares for 11.3 Pfizer shares and cash. As a result, the Allergan stockholders will own 45% of the capital of Pfizer and the new company will become, on paper, an Irish company. Its headquarters will be in Dublin, allowing it to benefit from a 12.5% tax on corporate profits, while in the U.S. the official rate is 35%. But the CEO of Pfizer will be the CEO of the new company. According to Barclays Bank, this merger acquisition will save the company 1.4 billion dollars a year.
The capitalists of the pharmaceutical sector have no need to envy other companies when it comes to seeking maximum profit!
Jan 4, 2016
The main explanation of the steel crisis given by everyone–from the bosses and politicians to union leaders–is that China is “flooding” the world market with under-priced steel.
However, this is little more than a red herring. The world price of steel started falling after the 2008 banking crash, losing 75 percent of its value since. But over that whole period of time, China’s exports to the entire world have always been very low, around one percent of the world’s production! This is hardly a flood!
Besides, who mentioned the fact that China mostly exports raw steel, whereas the British steel industry produces mostly more technologically advanced finished products? In fact, China actually buys 15 percent of Britain’s steel exports–a bounty for Britain’s steel companies!
So, rather than being undermined by China’s “mischief,” it may well be that these British-based companies are scaling down their production in anticipation of a sharp reduction in China’s imports of their steel products, as a result of its own economic difficulties. China is such a convenient scape-goat!
Jan 4, 2016
The following two articles have been reprinted from Workers’ Fight #69, published by the revolutionary workers’ group of the same name active in Great Britain.
The steel industry is in turmoil. Two big steel producers—SSI UK and Caparo UK—are under bankruptcy administration, with SSI closing down its large Redcar site and Caparo shutting five sites in the Midlands. Meanwhile, Tata Steel will close its Scunthorpe site and two others near Glasgow.
In total, more than 4,000 workers—more than 20 percent of the industry’s 18,000 workforce—have been laid off in less than two months. And this is not counting the thousands of workers employed by companies supplying these steel mills.
Predictably, the leaders of Community, the industry’s main union, rushed to request from Cameron a rescue package for ... the steel bosses—including better protection against foreign steel and subsidies both to reduce their energy bills and to make up for the high pound. The steel industry’s lobby group, UK Steel, couldn’t have argued the steel bosses’ case better!
But isn’t it ironic that no mention was even made of the fact that all these three companies are in fact very wealthy? Outside Britain, Caparo has an empire of very profitable businesses. Thailand-based SSI is South-East Asia’s largest steel producer. As to the even larger Tata conglomerate, it also owns Jaguar-Land-Rover and employs around 620,000 workers worldwide! And these giants need rescuing? On the contrary, they need to be read the riot act!
Jan 4, 2016
The Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) and the federal government are helping to poison children in Chicago.
When a nurse diagnosed Lanice Walker’s 4-year-old daughter with lead poisoning, which can permanently damage children’s brains, Walker suspected crumbling lead paint in her apartment. The Walker family lived in subsidized but private Section 8 housing, so she asked the CHA for an emergency move.
But CHA officials turned her down. The amount of lead in her daughter’s bloodstream was more than double the standard set by the Centers for Disease Control–but federal housing regulations set a limit FOUR TIMES higher than the CDC’s! So the CHA said that if she wanted to keep her housing subsidy, she had to stay.
Eventually, all nine of her children got elevated lead levels from living in that apartment!
Since 2012, as least 178 other young children in Section 8 housing in Chicago have fallen into the same gap, and have had to stay in apartments with poisonous lead paint–EVEN AFTER they were diagnosed.
Chicago’s city government–with federal help–has proven once again how little it cares about the lives of its poor residents. As Lanice Walker said: “They treated me like I was nothing, like my daughter didn’t matter.”
Jan 4, 2016
Twenty-eight Montgomery County, Maryland Public Schools have elevated levels of radon. Radon is an invisible, odorless radioactive gas created during the natural decay of uranium in rocks and soils. It is found in nearly all soils. Radon typically moves up through the ground and into homes and buildings through cracks and other holes in the foundation. Breathing air that contains radon can cause lung cancer. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoking and the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.
Parents and teachers were outraged upon learning about the elevated levels of radon and that nothing had been done about it. Some of the radon test results date from the past five years and some results are even older. The interim superintendent claims the schools are safe, even though some schools tested THREE TIMES higher than the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) safety limits!
Parents and teachers took a stand at a school board meeting, and now the officials are retesting. What do they have to do to get the schools to actually FIX the problem?!
Jan 4, 2016
A grand jury chose not to indict two Cleveland cops for the infamous murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014.
It’s yet another outrageous case among many around the country of murdering cops being allowed to get off scot-free despite indisputable video of their guilt. Every D.A. knows how to use a grand jury to get what he wants. The system is set up that way. This prosecutor clearly did not want to prosecute–and got the result he wanted.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty chose not to cross-examine the two cops, despite the fact they waived their First Amendment rights in order to testify on their own behalf! He also decided not to mention that one of the cops, Timothy Loehman, had been deemed unfit for service in 2012 when he worked in the nearby suburb of Independence. Nor did he raise that Cleveland paid out $100,000 in 2014 to settle an excessive force lawsuit against the other cop, Frank Garmback.
McGinty even selected three “expert” witnesses, all of whom testified the cops acted “reasonably” in shooting 12-year-old Tamir Rice. And if that was not enough to ensure the grand jury would rule against indictment, Prosecutor McGinty told them an indictment would be unlikely to lead to conviction, which he and other Cuyahoga County prosecutors claim they were “ethically bound” to inform the jury about.
Yes, if your ethics are those of a system that says it’s okay for cops to kill a 12-year-old child holding a toy gun!
In the words of the Rice family’s attorneys, this was a “charade process aimed at exonerating the officers.” It was Prosecutor McGinty’s statement that, for all practical purposes, means the Cleveland Police will continue to shoot first and ask questions later and can expect to go unpunished.
This is what the working class and the black population can expect from the American system of “justice.”
Jan 4, 2016
On December 26th, Chicago police murdered two more black people: nineteen-year-old college student Quintonio LeGrier, who according to his father had “emotional issues,” and 55-year-old grandmother and factory worker Bettie Jones, who was shot as she opened the door to let the police in.
Even by Chicago standards, this was a clear-cut case of double murder by cop.
These people were killed by a Chicago Police Department already under the spotlight for the police murder of seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald, shot sixteen times while he was walking away from the cops.
Of course, the police try to justify the killings, claiming in this latest one that someone said they saw Quintonio LeGrier with a baseball bat. They issued a statement that officers “were confronted by a combative subject resulting in the discharging of the officer’s weapon.” Who can believe them? And this is the same department where every cop swore that Laquan McDonald was threatening them, was coming at them with a knife–when the video showed exactly the opposite.
The black population of this country has learned by long experience not to expect much “justice” from this “criminal justice” system. Still, it’s hard to imagine more egregious cases than the killings of these three people in Chicago.
And it’s not just a few bad cops–the rot goes all the way to the top. It took 13 months for the video of Laquan McDonald’s killing to come out because Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his cronies did everything they could to bury the video. His interim superintendent John Escalante’s solution is to institute a new policy–to put murdering cops on fully-paid desk duty for a month.
By their actions, Emanuel and his superintendent are extending the Chicago cops’ license to kill black people.
This didn’t start recently. The Chicago police have been killing black people with impunity for a century.
And this rot goes up even higher than Emanuel, all the way to Obama. As the Laquan McDonald video was coming out, Emanuel’s staff and Obama’s were in close communication. “Hope all is well and sorry for the Sunday email,” an Obama aid wrote to Emanuel’s staff. “We’ve been tracking the media coverage of the Laquan McDonald case and would like an update.” Media coverage! In other words, the Obama administration couldn’t care less about what’s happening to the victims, or in the neighborhoods. It’s not interested in seeing the murdering cops prosecuted. Obama’s office only wants to make sure Emanuel isn’t getting bad press that might reflect badly on Obama himself!
Many of the protestors in Chicago say Emanuel must go. They’re right–this rat should be dragged out by his hair and dumped in the lake. But that’s not enough. This whole system that depends on state violence has to go.