The People Confront the Militarized Police

Latest

pt.2014.10.03
The militarization of the police in America has reached frightening proportions. We are practically living under an open, fascist police state, and more people must take a stand or things will only get worse.
The heavily armed military-style units that turned out to confront protesters in Ferguson, Mo., after the police execution of Michael Brown are just one of the latest examples. The people dare not show up in the street to raise their voices without running the risk of confrontation with what amounts to a local army.
The militarization of local police departments began in the 1980s and escalated radically after 9/11. The “war on drugs” and the “war on terror” created the justification to turn local police forces into armies of occupation and instruments of terror. Local police across the country acquired tanks, helicopters, machine guns and armored vehicles, among other things, some of it donated by the Pentagon and some of it bought with $35 billion in grants to state and local police from the Department of Homeland Security.
Police SWAT teams are now dispatched on such routine missions as serving warrants for nonviolent offenses. SWAT team deployments escalated from just 3,000 in the early 1980s to 50,000 a year now. More than 120 SWAT team raids occur in America every day, often resulting in deaths or serious injuries. Demonstrations against police violence or for jobs, decent wages, health care, etc., are often met with tear gas, billy clubs and rubber (and real) bullets.
Government repression marks the last stand of an economic system based on the private property of the billionaires and that is unable to provide jobs, livable wages, food, water, housing, health care or a safety net for tens of millions of people. Jobs are automated or shipped overseas, and the wealthy owners of industry and finance will not pay to support labor they don’t need.
Labor-replacing electronic technology has created a new section of the working class—a new class—that has no future in an economy based on wage labor.  Their needs can only be met in a cooperative society where the people own the means of producing what we need to live and where everyone has the necessities of life. That means the people forced out of the system are a threat to the ruling class. The same automation that is eliminating jobs could give us a world of abundance if the people controlled our society.
The legacy of discrimination and racism that came out of slavery left the bulk of Black workers in those jobs that were eliminated first by labor-replacing technology, so they are at the heart of this new class. Thus the Black workers are suffering the worst of the attacks by the police. But make no mistake: They are moving toward an attack on the entire working class and the whole of society.
The police are becoming a law unto themselves, standing above the people and dictating to them. But the people are beginning to open their eyes to this. We must fight every attack on our liberty, and do so with the understanding that we are fighting for a new society, for the world of peace and freedom that electronics makes possible.

PT Logo collage
+ Articles by this author

Free to republish but please credit the People's Tribune. Visit us at www.peoplestribune.org, email peoplestribune@gmail.com, or call 773-486-3551.

The People’s Tribune brings you articles written by individuals or organizations, along with our own reporting. Bylined articles reflect the views of the authors. Unsigned articles reflect the views of the editorial board. Please credit the source when sharing: ©2024 peoplestribune.org. Please donate to help us keep bringing you voices of the movement. Click here. We’re all volunteer, no paid staff.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Featured

Pushing People into a Really Bad System Will End Really Badly

President Trump's executive order fuses drug use and homelessness, ignoring that homelessness can cause or exacerbate substance use because people use drugs to cope with pain. Forced institutional settings rather than housing will not help the ill or unhoused.

Chicago Resistance Speaks: ‘Until All Are Free, None Are Free’

An uprising is growing as the government tries to impose a dictatorship. Chicago resistance leaders recently offered their thoughts in public remarks made at demonstrations and press conferences.

Los Angeles Continues to Rebuild and Resist

Angelinos, suffering from the profit over people economy, continue to rebuild after the fires and to protest immigration raids, while also experiencing joy in such difficult times.

Chicago Teachers Union Says: Trump, Stay Out of Our City

Chicago Teachers Union rejects any unlawful federal occupation of their city, while welcoming federal leadership that fully funds public education, restores SNAP, and expands Medicaid to healthcare for all.

Journalist Says Why ‘I Can No Longer Work With Reuters’

A photojournalist says why it is impossible for her to maintain a relationship with Reuters "given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza."

More from the People's Tribune