Hardly a day goes by before some new video goes viral vividly showing police brutalizing and gunning down working class Americans. As the bodies of the poor murdered by police pile up, so do the protests against it. In response, the ruling class is criminalizing protests and targeting anyone who resists in the slightest.
When homeless protesters are caught sleeping or activists caught feeding the homeless, they are often routed, cited or arrested. When protesters for clean water get in front of judges they’re having the book thrown at them. A woman was arrested at a protest in Flint, Michigan, charged with battery for trying to defend herself against security guards who physically attacked her and took away her bull horn. When she went before the judge, the judge likened her actions to the shooting of police officers in Dallas, Texas.
A reporter described her arrest in Baton Rouge while covering a protest against the murder of Alton Sterling by police there. “I was pulled into the street by the police and then arrested. Papers were already pre-filled out with charges. When police showed up to that protest, they were militarized with bomb resistant vehicles, body armor, and assault rifles which they pointed at peaceful protesters with their fingers on the triggers.” This has become the norm since Ferguson.
So why is all this happening?
These are revolutionary times. Although none of the mainstream presidential candidates dare speak about it, the jobs aren’t coming back. Labor-less production is throwing more and more workers out of industrial manufacturing and even white-color jobs permanently by replacing them with computers and robots. As a result, equality is being found in common poverty and violence from the police, and people are coming together.
Whites are showing up to protests with signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and “stop killing Black people.” In Washington DC, a Black organizer told a crowd that suffering and being killed by police is spreading, adding, “We have to move beyond being allies to being comrades in this struggle.” A son of Mexican immigrants, outraged about the police killing of a Fresno, CA teen, said, “He’s white and he died in the streets the same way a lot of brown and Black people have.”
While there have always been workers who have attempted to reach across color lines to form bonds of class, now, because of the economy, for the first time in history, wide scale poverty is making class unity possible.
The electronic revolution in the economy is pulling all of us into the future. The ruling class is escalating their violence against us to prevent our unity. The rulers need a police state as a step toward a fascist future where their wealth and private property are protected. But a powerful movement demanding true democracy — economic rights — is growing. The working class needs unity as a step toward building a cooperative future where human life matters and the means of life are provided to all equally.
We must continue to utilize this electoral season to push forward our demands for an end to police violence, for food, housing, healthcare and for government to be our government. This is a step toward a cooperative future where everyone’s needs are met.
