Monday, February 29, 2016

Cops are Gangsters

police-corruption-Intro: There are millions of oppressed people inside the borders of the u.s., but I’m not one of them. I come from a privileged background. I’m not the main victim of the police. Nor am I a leader in the growing struggle against police violence. Recognizing how far I am from the front lines, I hesitated to write about cops at all.

 In the end I decided that it’s important for all radicals, whether oppressed or privileged, to struggle for clarity about cops’ place in society.

 There are many kinds of police, ranging from elite national political police like the FBI to local auxiliaries who direct traffic and write parking tickets. But at the heart of the police in the u.s. are its bands of street cops. These are the people who physically maintain “order,” dealing out street justice and funneling civilians into the prison system. All other aspects of police power revolve around them, and that’s what I discuss below.   –B


 

U.s. cops killed over 1,130 people last year. They brutalized and tortured many thousands more. This systematic violence has nothing to do with “rogue cops” or “poor training.” It’s the predictable result of a carefully-camouflaged fact: cops are gangsters.

It’s not just that cops act like an ocupying army in oppressed peoples’ communities. Even though that’s certainly true. Or that cops repress ordinary people in the interests of the rich and powerful. (That’s true too, of course.)

I’m saying something additional: cops are literally criminals. That’s not an epithet or an insult; it’s a plain description. Cops have the parasitic vocation and the lumpen outlook of gangsters, violently preying on civilians to build themselves up. That’s their social and psychological character. It’s their class.

 Capitalists and gangsters

To put this in perspective: The ruling class collaborates with gangsters—with organized crime—all the time. This is a perfectly normal part of modern capitalism.

In fact, there’s no hard and fast line between gangsterism and “legal” capitalism. Take the era of Prohibition, for instance. From 1920-1933, alcoholic beverages were illegal in the u.s. During that time the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcohol became the focal point of intense, murderous gangster competition, involving iconic mobsters like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Today these exact same activities are completely legal and peaceful.

On the flip side, marijuana was a normal legal commodity in the u.s. until it was outlawed in 1937, during a burst of racist backlash against Mexican immigrants (who supposedly used it to seduce white women). Today this same crop is a major profit center for deadly and powerful gangsters, and thousands of people are in prison for possessing, selling or transporting it.

As historian Gerald Horne puts it, “Organized crime – the ‘big lumpen’ – historically has been one of the bourgeoisie’s chief allies in this nation in maintaining its hegemony. In return, gangsters have been allowed, in some instances, to evolve “respectably” to bourgeois status themselves. In any case, mobsters in this nation have enjoyed a form of enrichment that the bourgeoisie in many nations will never see. This has added a level of coarseness and lack of principle to the otherwise crude and unprincipled rule of the bourgeoisie.”

We know that some of the biggest capitalist fortunes in the u.s. were accumulated through organized crime. The “robber barons” like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Morgan became rich through the systematic use of thug mercenaries, corruption and fraud. The Kennedy clan made its first big money in bookmaking and bootlegging during Prohibition. They worked closely with the Mafia for decades. Henry Ford allied with organized crime to suppress unions.

Successful gangsters often try to diversify by investing their criminal assets in legal capitalist businesses. While for their part, “legal” capitalists turn readily to gangsterism to accomplish objectives that are difficult to achieve by other means. Modern capitalism as a whole is heavily dependent on organized crime, partly because the drug trade, human trafficking and arms smuggling are among the most profitable industries in the world.

In fact, the financial system would collapse overnight without gangster money. A few years back a whistleblower revealed how billions of dollars in profits from the Sinaloa cartel ended up in Wachovia Bank accounts in the u.s. between 2001 and 2004. Gangsters deposited their drug profits in small amounts at local currency exchange agencies (casas de cambio) in Mexico. This cartel money was then accepted for wire transfer to Wachovia branches here, where it became “legal,” no questions asked. Similarly, HSBC was recently forced to admit that they laundered billions of dollars belonging to Russian mobsters and Latin American drug cartels. The Bank of  New York used shell corporations to organize the illegal transfer of $7 billion of  Russian mafia money into the u.s. In 2011 the U.N. conservatively estimated that there was about $580 billion in organized crime money sloshing around in the world financial system, much of which was in the process of being transformed into “legal” investments.

Gangsterism and legal capitalism interpenetrate on many levels, and have various power relationships. Sometimes gangsters become strong enough to control large parts of a capitalist state, like narco cartels do now in Mexico. Many uniformed, official cops there report directly to the traffickers. (This hasn’t prevented Walmart and General Motors from making big profits in Mexico.) In the u.s., at least for now, it’s legal capitalists and their state who have the upper hand. These capitalists are proactive in their dealings with organized crime, though: they not only collaborate with gangsters, they also organize new gangs.

The interrelationship of u.s. capitalists and gangsters has a long history. Before permanent police forces even existed in the u.s., mercenary gangs were authorized to clear the way for settler land theft, and to enforce slave “law and order” for the capitalists and their governments. Gangs of “Indian hunters” such as the Pit River Rangers and the Oregon Militia were given official bounties for each Native person killed. California alone paid millions of dollars out of public funds to these murder squads. Slave patrols of white vigilante thugs were rewarded by plantation capitalists for capturing and “chastizing” escaped slaves. These early genocidal gangster mercenaries were the precursors of modern cops.

When radical labor insurgency erupted in the u.s. starting in the 19th  century, leading industrialists relied on private police forces like the Pinkerton Coal and Iron Police to repress workers. These freelance mercenaries worked side by side with government cops and the military, acting with complete impunity. It didn’t matter that they didn’t have official badges. They used their own bombs, snipers, blackmail, arson and machine guns, and they reported directly to the capitalists who hired them.

In the 1980’s, the CIA collaborated with urban gangs to flood Black communities with crack cocaine and automatic weapons. The profits generated from this illegal trade were used to fund similarly illegal counterinsurgency gangs in Latin America. This kind of activity is routine. Criminal organizations, mercenaries and death squads have been employed by u.s. capitalists to repress the Left in dozens of places, from the New York waterfront to the streets of San Salvador.

Official gangs

Where do modern u.s. cops fit into this broader landscape of gangsters working for and with the ruling class?

First of all, police are institutionalized, “official” gangs. This reflects the fact that they are meant to act for the whole ruling class, rather than just a single capitalist group. Cops are sponsored and endorsed by the state; employed to keep the population under long-term control and to combat other gangsters who get too independent.

Instead of being paid as contractors, or through bounties, modern police get a regular government paycheck. But this doesn’t in any way indicate that street cops are mere government functionaries carrying out a list of instructions passed down through the political bureaucracy. While police may be paid as employees, they actually function as a confederation of loosely controlled gangs, with a broad mandate to terrorize civilians. Cops are given a free hand in enforcing “order.” They are also encouraged to create insular, thuggish, semi-militarized cliques that breed a lumpen culture with its own hunger for power. Like other organized crime groupings, they have their own strict internal codes of ethics and conduct that override and exist outside the law.

Cop influence extends outward into broader social layers, generating networks of informants, groupies, wannabes, hangers-on, cheerleaders and private donors. Cop-lovers attend rowdy cop parties, sign up as eager auxiliaries (like George Zimmerman), sponsor foundations to benefit cops, bring them donuts and plaster pro-cop stickers on their cars. These networks of civilian loyalty exist independent of the state, and are in fact generally contradictory to official state control. They have nothing to do with cops being civil servants. Rather, these support networks are drawn to cops’ independent street power. They are similar to the civilian networks that gather around other criminal confederations like the the Cosa Nostra and the Yakuza.

Intended to terrorize

When the capitalist state establishes and supports official police forces, it intentionally gives them wide leeway to function as semi-autonomous gangs. This has proven to be an effective formula that permits the ruling class to maintain a layer of separation and denial between themselves and the gangster violence they unleash. Capitalists pretend to have clean hands, even acting shocked by criminal cop behaviors. If public outcry becomes strong, their politicians re-shuffle top police leaders or initiate drawn-out bureaucratic investigations, making a superficial show of reining in police abuse. Nevertheless, it is fundamental to the ruling class’s repressive strategy that street cops operate with broad independence and impunity.

Cop violence is specifically intended to operate outside the law as well as inside. Police criminality isn’t a problem for the ruling class—it’s a solution. Cops are doing dirty work that regular state functionaries can’t do. Institutionalized, state-backed gangsterism is an effective tool of social dominance: it causes generalized fear and submission, while it also can be targetted at specific enemies. The ruling class recognizes that mad-dogging, upredictable sadism and deadly brutality are indispensible parts of the gangster arsenal, and considers their use by cops to be both inevitable and, with some limits, desirable.

From the cops’ point of view, impunity for criminal acts is a basic guarantee, an integral part of their vocation and their identity. They have little patience for politicians’ anxieties about public opinion, or capitalists’ desire to maintain ideological legitimacy. Cops strain to be let off the leash completely. Their lumpen instinct is to dominate the population through unchecked terror.

Cops push back hard against any attempts by civilian managers to establish day to day operational control. Police gangsters usually have the upper hand too, because they are indispensable to the ruling class and intimidating in their own right. Police have the power to make or break elected politicians. That’s why New York City Police Commmissioner William Bratton, currently the u.s.’s biggest celebrity cop, gets away with dictating policy to his supposed boss Mayor DeBlasio and publicly insulting the City Council. (His disrespectful comments play well with his underlings, although overall he is considered too compromising by regular NYPD cops.)

A parasitic way of life

Like other gangster forces, cops recruit heavily from the ranks of high school bullies, sadists and losers. Military drop-outs and children of cops also gravitate towards policing. All these people have a good idea of what they’re getting into. They want to become cops precisely because they get paid and rewarded for intimidating, assaulting and shooting people. San Antonio cop Daryl Carle could be the poster child. He bragged on Facebook that he loves his “job” because he can “kill people and not go to jail.” His bosses did think that was a little indiscreet of him. But nevertheless he’s still out there on street patrol with a badge and a gun.

As thugs, cops love the thrill of combat—as long as it’s one-sided in their favor. Listening to the media mythology about a so-called “war on police,” you might think that cops must take a lot of casualties. But actually, over the course of the police slaughter and torture that rolled across the u.s. last year, fewer than 40 cops were killed by suspects. Most of those deaths happened while responding to domestic disputes. As a point of comparison, hundreds of cops commit suicide every year in the u.s. By any statistical measure, being a cop is less dangerous than being a construction laborer or long-haul truck driver.

Then again, being a cop isn’t just a job; it’s a lumpen way of life.

Detective Louis Scarcella was an alpha cop in Brooklyn starting in the 1980s. He was involved in literally hundreds of murder investigations there. Scarcella, who was praised as one of New York’s top homicide detectives, is now suspected of obtaining fifty or more murder convictions using false evidence. At least six of these convictions relied on testimony from a single “eyewitness”—a desperate crack addict who appeared over and over in Scarcella’s cases, despite the fact that she kept contradicting herself. The entire “criminal justice system” looked the other way as Scarcella fabricated confessions, “lost” vital evidence, and pressured inmates to finger his hand-picked suspects in return for time out of jail, prostitutes and crack cocaine. Nobody even bothered to look for the real killers. Due to recent revelations by the media, a few of Scarcella’s victims are having their convictions thrown out; a handful of men (and one woman) are being released after more than 20 years in prison. Others are still incarcerated. Scarcella, meanwhile, has been enjoying a happy, taxpayer-funded retirement since 1999.

A recent Guardian investigation explored how routine it is for the most brutal cops to be protected, honored and promoted in Chicago. “A crew of detectives…used electric shock, suffocation and mock executions to coerce confessions of more than 120 men from the 1970’s through the early 90s.” The ringleader, Jon Burge, was convicted years later on trivial charges (obstruction of justice and perjury). He served only three and a half years in prison, and is still collecting his pension. The other cops involved in these crimes have never been charged at all. Another alpha Chicago cop, Francis Valadez, was honored several times and eventually promoted to Commander, even though he’s accused of coercing six murder confessions, plus battery and assault. In one case he tortured an injured man for 36 hours to obtain a confession that was later proved false by DNA testing. His resume also includes the fatal shootings of four people–so far. His most recent killing, in August, was of Rafael Cruz Jr., an unarmed man fleeing in his car. According to the Guardian, “Valadez has garnered 131 awards across three decades on the force.”

Cops are determined to dominate every situation they encounter. They insist on immediate obedience, whether warranted or not; legal or not. Attempts by civilians to protest their treatment or assert their rights are routinely answered with intimidation and violence. This carries over into cops’ private lives too. They walk around with feelings of entitlement and superiority even when they’re not on duty. Cops flash their badges and draw their weapons during traffic incidents and barroom brawls; they terrorize their personal enemies; they often beat up their families and their “beloved” K-9 dogs. They demand special privileges and civilian submission at all times.

Every day there’s new proof that u.s. police kill, rape and brutalize with impunity. Cops are also notoriously corrupt. Nightclubs, casinos and restaurants bribe them to get special treatment. Tow companies pay them off to generate more tows. Drug dealers and crime syndicates put cops on their payrolls as shields from arrest and prosecution.

Groups of cops run protection, arms and narcotics rackets; they rob banks and carry out murder for hire and human traficking. Many have dual gang loyalties. For instance, Texas “Cop of the Year” Noe Juarez turned out to be working for Los Zetas, one of Mexico’s most vicious drug syndicates. He got them assault rifles, police scanners and access to police databases in the u.s., among other things. In the 1990’s, more than 70 supposed “anti-gang” police in L.A. were implicated during an investigation that uncovered assassinations, theft of massive amounts of impounded cocaine, routine use of false testimony and a level of brutality unusual even for the LAPD. It turned out that several of the cops were actually Bloods associates, who joined the police to get the upper hand over rival gangsters.

Corruption and outside illegal moonlighting can obviously undermine a police force if it gets too far out of hand. But a certain amount of individual criminal initiative is expected and admired. It’s normal lumpen behavior. Cops aren’t supposed to be choir boys; they’re gangsters.

Increasingly, u.s. police are encouraged to grab property, cars, electronics and jewelry from the civilians caught up in their investigations—even those who are completely innocent. Cops hold seminars to learn which items are easiest to resell, and how to “legally” get away with ripping off “little goodies,” as one enthusiastic DA calls them. In 2012, $4.3 billion worth of so-called “civil assets” were seized by police; seizures have gone up rapidly since then. Much of the loot from this “for-profit policing” goes right back into police department coffers to spend on anything they want. Some of it is handed directly to individual cops as bonuses.

Two tiny police forces in Florida—Bal Harbour Police and Glades County Sheriff’s Office—were recently discovered to have laundered over $55 million belonging to narco gangs. Under the pretext that they were conducting an “undercover investigation” into how illegal drug money got turned into legal assets, these enterprising cops accepted millions in money-laundering “commissions” from a range of criminal groups. Flush with unaccountable cash, the cops bought fancy cars, guns and computers, partied at high end resorts, and withdrew over $831,000 in cash out of a slush fund. They didn’t arrest a single “money launderer.”

Cops lie about pretty much everything. That goes with the badge. Scarcella, Burge, and Valadez are no isolated examples. It’s completely routine for cops to plant evidence, frame innocent people using false testimony, coerce confessions through torture and doctor their reports. The other gangster cops cover for them unconditionally under a strict code of silence. If civilians happen to inconveniently catch a cop in a lie, nothing serious happens to them anyway, no matter how dire the consequences for innocent people.

In the early days of the u.s., police were virtually all white settler thugs. Most of them still are. A key function that police carry out for their political sponsors—and for themselves—is to repress whatever rebellions and freelance organized street gangs emerge among oppressed peoples. Cops are eager to do this. Their own goal in carrying out repression has nothing to do with safety or security for civilians. They’re not even mainly concerned with helping their capitalist patrons. Instead, their aggressive presence in ghettos, barrios and reservations is an opportunity to advance their “careers” and to enforce their own violent gang supremacy. Within oppressed communities, cops look at rebels and street gangs as turf rivals, to be dominated and eliminated as competitors.

The police are riddled with (and sometimes led by) extreme white supremacist sub-cliques. For example, the “Lynwood Station Vikings” was just one of a series of “elite” racist sub-gangs that have emerged inside the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department over the years. Fully-blooded Vikings (including some top department officers) had “998” tattood on their ankles, referring proudly to the code for “officer-involved shooting.” Membership in this gang-within-a-gang was by invitation only.  But all the cops knew about it. The walls of Lynwood Station were openly decorated with racist cartoons of Black men as well as a map of the police district drawn in the shape of Africa. Efforts to discipline the Vikings were heavily discouraged by top LASD brass, even in the face of negative publicity and numerous costly civil rights lawsuits.

Historically, membership in police gangs has served as an access point into white privilege in the u.s. For instance, immigrant Irish—a nationality that was originally considered “non-white”—took advantage of police affiliation as part of a process of “graduating” to whiteness. By participating in officially-sanctioned armed gangs to enforce ruling class “law and order”—especially, repressing people of color—Irish cops proved their loyalty to u.s. capitalism, augmented their social prestige and helped their communities move up the racial heirarchy.

Although the FBI has taken the lead in organizing the repression of political dissent in the u.s., they often count on street cops as their rank and file enforcers. The larger urban police forces have their own counterinsurgency forces, too. It was LAPD cops—350 of them—that fired round after round into the Los Angeles headquarters of the Black Panthers in 1969, (trying unsuccessfully) to murder everybody inside. It was the Philadelphia Police department that attacked a MOVE house in 1985 with automatic weapons and firebombs, killing six adults and five children, and burning down more than 50 homes in the Black community.

Cops are predators. They intimidate, bludgeon, shoot and terrorize their way into a position of power, material comfort, prestige and privilege. Their “job” is actually a hustle; a disguised protection racket through which public money is used to oppress the public; we get to pay our own oppressors. On top of that, police use their gangster power to generate opportunities for endless corruption and sadistic gratification. But what about the good cops? The idealistic, friendly ones who just want to help their community?

No good cops

Gangsters, like all of us, are friendly or unfriendly depending on their personality and the specific situation. Some criminal organizations even like to project a benevolent façade alongside the lurking threat of violence. Good public relations can certainly be an asset for a gang, just like it is for a rapacious corporation or an opportunist politician. (Consider the mobster Giovanni Gambino, who made this carefully-calibrated pitch in an interview on NBC News: “The Mafia has a bad reputation, but much of that’s undeserved. As with everything in life, there are good, bad and ugly parts….”)

But what’s most important to us about police is their actions, not their image. And contrary to the usual media propaganda, police “work” is fundamentally incompatible with idealism or community service. How friendly a gangster acts doesn’t change their basic criminality when push comes to shove.

During the very first year on the street, each rookie cop witnesses incidents of sadistic cop brutality, blatant racism and glaring corruption right in front of their eyes. More often than not, these police crimes are committed by “role models”—the ones you’re supposed to admire and imitate if you want to succeed as a cop. After witnessing or participating in repeated abuse of civilians and other gangster behavior, a rookie cop’s collaboration becomes virtually irreversible. They’ve become part of a criminal subculture. Whatever their original dreams or loyalties were, they’ve now joined a gang and accepted its code. (In D. Watkins’ The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America, an East Baltimore resident describes a cop acquaintance: “He ain’t Black no more, he’s white! Better yet, he’s blue, he’s with the biggest gang in the city.”)

I want to emphasize this last point, because I believe it’s central to analyzing cops’ position in society. There are no good cops, no “public servant” cops. This isn’t a personal thing. But nobody can be part of the constant, pervasive racism, institutional brutality and ingrained corruption of policing in the u.s. and come out with clean hands.

In that respect, police are no different than other organized crime groups. Most organized crime is actually non-violent. And many gang members want it to stay that way; they are the growers, smugglers, lookouts or salespeople, who would prefer to live a fairly normal life. That’s understandable, but it doesn’t matter much in practical, class terms. Their affiliation with a parasitic criminal enterprise, their complicity, their loyalty and their silence makes them gangsters.

The same is true of “reluctant” u.s. cops: the ones who try to avoid gratuitous violence; the ones who wish they could just have a regular “career” enforcing the law, without all the unpleasant brutality. That’s not going to happen, though. If they really wanted to enforce the law, the first thing they’d have to do is arrest their partner, or their boss. They know better. And so should we.

Working class heroes?

Many u.s. citizens evade this reality. Instead of acknowledging that cops are gangsters, a lot of civilians mentally classify them as heroic skilled workers. That’s what we were taught, after all. The script is that cops are public servants doing a dirty but necessary blue-collar job, complete with union card.

The twisted pretense that police are working class heroes resonates strongly among privileged civilians, especially the worker elite, which often shares cops’ macho values and fear of the proletariat. Once we classify cops as exemplary workers worthy of our grateful support, why would we want to tie their hands? Aren’t police “working conditions” tough enough already?

The idea that cops are working class heroes should be easy to refute, since they repress each and every freedom struggle—including, of course, the struggles of oppressed workers. Cops have no intention of carrying out any actual labor, either.

For their part, police unions are notoriously rabid defenders of cop illegality, loudly demanding an absolute free hand in terrorizing the population. Cop “labor contracts” are full of provisions preventing prosecution—or any accountability at all—for the most sadistic elements in their ranks. Still, the tendency to identify cops as salt-of-the-earth uber-workers is remarkably persistent, suggesting it is deeply rooted in u.s. class politics.

No matter how many videos and eyewitness accounts of racist, murderous cops come to light, no matter how many popular political leaders are railroaded and assassinated, no matter how many picket lines and demonstrations are viciously beaten down, there’s still a loyal audience that clings to a narrative of heroic “good cops” who are being undercut by ungrateful civilians and unfairly tarnished by a few “bad apples.”

Some civilians argue that cops should be given immunity when they use illegal violence, because they are upholding righteous “law and order.” At the same time, others argue that cop criminality is completely abnormal—something that only happens when there is a rare breakdown of discipline. Logically, these two arguments cancel each other out. If cops are already acting legally, they don’t need impunity from criminal acts. And if you give cops impunity, you can’t pretend that they are supposed to act in a legal manner. These are in fact simply two contradictory threads of a single hypocritical authoritarian ideology. Meanwhile, out in society, thugs with paychecks and unions are still just thugs.

Depending on gangsters

Cop gangs are the largest organized crime groups in most parts of the u.s. Openly displaying their weapons, oozing arrogance, they have the run of the streets. In daily life, it’s almost impossible to completely avoid them. What’s worse is this: Because the police are so institutionalized, we ourselves can easily become complicit in their criminality.

Most of us are poorly-armed; vulnerable to criminals. To our misfortune, we sometimes find ourselves depending on a group of cop criminals to defend us. That isn’t just ironic; it’s disastrous. It undermines our freedom struggles and offends our human dignity.

We rationalize that it’s the cops’ “job” to protect us. (Even though we know that repressing people isn’t really a job.) We tell ourselves that, however bad the cops may be, at least they’re official, “approved” thugs, which makes them better than those “unapproved” thugs down the block. A more practical part of our brains calculates that the cops have their own selfish reason to protect us from the other criminals: they’re maintaining their status as the dominant gang.

Calling in cops may sometimes seem like the best of our bad options. Which means we need better options.

For one thing, asking for police protection often backfires. Cops have utter contempt for civilians, especially civilians who don’t have connections or privileges. We have to be very careful how we speak to them, constantly pantimoming respect and submission. Cop aggression is notoriously volatile, and can turn on us in a split second.

But even when calling the cops doesn’t backfire in such an immediate practical way, it still damages us. When we ask cops to protect us—to take control of emergencies in our lives and and resolve our problems—that helps make their ongoing atrocities against other people more legitimate. It draws us into the orbit of police criminality. To a greater or lesser extent, they take on the role of our preferred gang, our chosen thugs. That in turn becomes a point of poisonous unity with our rulers.

Because we live surrounded by violence and insecurity, civilians are tangled up in a knot of fear, helplessness and dependency on criminal cops. We have to untangle that knot before we can become free.

The new upsurge of mass struggle against cop violence in the u.s. is a very hopeful sign. But we also have to be prepared for what happens when the struggle against police power intensifies; when cops and their paymasters feel that their dominance on the street is threatened. Some of our most important radical leaders have been assassinated by cops. Others have spent decade after decade in hellhole prisons, captured in actual warfare with cops. When revolutionary struggle rises again, there will be more captives, and more casualties.

We don’t yet have a strong enough movement to carry out widespread community self-policing or militant counter-repression. In the meantime, it’s important to understand our enemy as deeply as possible. There have been desperate cries to end police brutality for a long time. But stopping it, I think, will involve recognizing cops’ fundamental criminality. Cops in the u.s. aren’t civil servants to be reformed. They aren’t workers to be retrained. They’re gangsters.


 

Postscript:

Even after I became a radical, I had a hard time really comprehending that the police were my enemy. I understood the concept, intellectually. But because I lived a sheltered life, it was kind of abstract. Are those macho working class guys you call when somebody steals your car really all that bad?

The first time I was in a demonstration that was violently attacked by police, it affected me strongly. Those cops really enjoyed beating and gassing us, even after we fled. Especially after we fled. In that moment, things were not so abstract.

Later I was in other demonstrations and picket lines attacked by cops. At the same time, cops kept murdering, framing and imprisoning prominent radicals. I was outraged, shaken. These were leaders of my movement. But in retrospect, I realize that I kept drifting back into a default civilian frame of mind about cops. Yes, I was a radical activist. And pigs were pigs; I got that on some level. But even my personal negative experiences didn’t fully revolutionize my attitude towards cops.

For a few years I worked at a job site where a bunch of cops hung out. They would come by to collect their payoffs, play with their guns and dogs and swap war stories. They didn’t know my political views of course. Seeing how cops acted when their guard was down was an eye-opening experience for me. I was particularly surprised that Italian mafia guys hung out at the same place (although usually not at the same time). The owner was “connected,” but he was also in tight with the cops. It worked out fine for him. This fascinatingly ugly scene did make a lasting impression. But afterwards, my attitude about cops was still full of contradictions. These cops were acting like criminals. But were they all like that, all the time? Or did they have some kind of dual role in society?

When I began working in industrial jobs, I saw that many of my co-workers also had contradictory thoughts about cops. Attitudes would ebb and flow. The baseline  assumption was that cops were some kind of uber-workers—macho and elite like us, but more so. Then suddenly, if we went out on strike, cops took on a whole different aspect. It was crystal clear that they were on the other side of the struggle. Their intent was to dominate us and help the employer. We didn’t necessarily know exactly how things were going to play out, though. Sometimes cops posed as reluctant enforcers—fellow union members who sympathized with our cause but had a job to do. Then again, sometimes they seemed like pure thugs who got a kick out of pushing us around. Eventually even the longest strikes would end, and cops would begin to slip back in the mental “heroic worker” box, until the next time. (This is clearly different from how proletarians interact with cops, which is much less ambiguous.)

What my personal experience has taught me is that denial about cops’ gangster role in society is extremely powerful, especially among the privileged. Respect for cops is a key element of the authoritarianism indoctrinated into us from birth, an element that’s constantly reinforced by u.s. culture. Pro-cop propaganda is relentless. It surrounds us every place we go—school, movies, TV, books, parents, friends. Much of the Left is vulnerable to this mindset too, especially during periods when the movement is weak. For example, lately some activists have been talking wistfully about police as “part of the 99%.” (Among other things, this clueless assertion implicitly marginalizes the prisoners of war and political prisoners held captive inside the u.s. gulags.) It seems like privileged people are always trying to make excuses for cops in our minds, even when it’s against our better judgment.

There may be a kind of stockholm syndrome at work here. Cops have so much real and mythological power over civilians that we can be seduced and intimidated into acting like their compliant hostages. On an everyday level it’s hard to treat them as enemies—it’s too frightening and depressing. In that respect civilians in the u.s. are no different from other civilians around the world who are forced to tolerate organized crime. Like Italian civilians living under the thumb of the ‘ndrangheta, submitting to the mafias yet at the same time trying to ignore them as much as possible. Or middle class Tokyo civilians, going about their daily business, pretending that yakuza syndicates don’t control big chunks of their economy using violence and intimidation. After all, cop gangsterism tends to only become a pressing issue when it crashes into our personal lives. For some people, that’s every day. But for privileged people, it may be rare.

Most of my life I viewed cops as some sort of mutant labor elite, morphing back and forth between labor aristocrats and “agents of repression.” But as wiser comrades pointed out, this just doesn’t work as a useful explanation for how cops operate in society. It mystifies them instead of explaining them. I realized finally that I needed to dig deeper and think harder about their class nature. I know that analyzing cops more accurately isn’t going to stop their crimes. But it seems like a step in the right direction.

I used to have the naive impression that gangsterism was an exotic subcultural activity on the seedier margins of capitalism. And I used to assume that the lumpen were desperate outcasts or pathalogical parasites at the bottom fringes of society. But what I think now is that organized crime has become a massive, normal feature of everyday capitalist life. It’s a complex social space that can draw in people from a variety of classes; it generates its own stratifications and internal conflicts. Most of the lumpen is made up of very poor people with radically limited options. But there are some other people who gravitate toward the lumpen not only to survive, but also to “succeed,” and to participate in male bonding and conquest. Inside the working class, there are parts of the lumpen that have a higher standard of living than the proletariat. Examples in the u.s. include many motorcycle gangs, mercenaries, mafiosi—and cops.

Lumpen activity is “an integral part of the social whole,” Rosa Luxemburg wrote. “All sections of bourgeois society are subject to such degeneration. The gradations between commercial profiteering, fictitious deals, adulteration of foodstuffs, cheating, official embezzlement, theft, burglary and robbery, flow into one another in such fashion that the boundary line between honorable citizenry and the penitentiary has disappeared.” The examples she gives of lumpen activity may sound mild compared to the rawness of crime in the u.s. these days. But her point remains: criminality is all around us, in a multitude of “legal” and “illegal” guises.

“Cops versus criminals” is the default mindset in the u.s. We’re indoctrinated to use these ideologically-burdened categories to designate opposite poles of society. But in reality cops are criminals too. They’re associates of a certain subset of criminal gang: the ones that capitalists organize, permit and encourage to violently dominate and control us. Like other gangsters, cops exist to prey on civilians and, especially, on the oppressed.

Bromma, February, 2016



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Saturday, February 20, 2016

SONGS OF SUBVERSION: an interview with Vi Subversa by Lynna Landstreet

poisongirlsThe following appeared in the Toronto anarchist newspaper Kick It Over #14 Winter 1985/86:

Poisongirls, who recently played in Canada for the first time, at Lee’s Palace in Toronto, are a British band who have their roots in the punk movement, but have grown much more musically diverse over the eight years they’ve been together. One thing that has remained consistent, though, through the five LP’s two EP’s, and numerous singles (I think that’s right) that the band has released, has been their commitment to their anarchist feminist political convictions, expressed through both their lyrics and their involvement in the independent music scene. After releasing several records on the Crass label, they starred their own label, XNTRIX, on which many other bands, such as Toxic Shock, Rubella Ballet, and Conflict got their start. One thing that particularly distinguishes Poisongirls, within the predominantly youth-oriented punk movement, is lead singer Vi Subversa’ s age – she recently turned 50. Also, the band’s emphasis on feminism stands out, since even the politically-oriented punk bands tend to be mostly male-dominated.

The Toronto gig was quite an experience for me, not only because I got to meet and talk to my favorite band, but because it was the first time I’d attempted to organize a show. Even though I didn’t do it all on my own, it was still very empowering to realize that putting on a gig is not some kind of arcane skill belonging only to an elite few, but something that anyone can do – with the advice and help of some friends. I also discovered that ticket prices don’t have to be as high as they usually are. We managed to keep it down to $6.00 – less than a lot of North American bands charge. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of organizing a gig is that you may be deluged with requests to organize shows for other bands, benefits for every political group you’ve ever participated in, etc. One thing that I’ll try to do differently in the future is to hold all-ages shows, rather than using a licensed club, which can make an event inaccessible to anyone under 19 (unless they look older or have fake ID). Although, of course, we didn’t ask anyone for ID, some clubs may insist on having their own people working the door, in which case the organizers have little or no control, unless they want to pass out free fake ID outside (Now there’s an idea!).

I interviewed Vi Subversa, guitarist Richard Famous, bass player Max Volume, and drummer Agent Orange (the latter two have only been with the band a year) before the show.

KIO: On the new album, Songs of Praise, it sounds like your views on feminism have changed a bit.

VS: Well, there’s been a lot of things happened. I first started using the word “feminist” about 10 years ago, and there was an assumption, a sort of magical assumption, suddenly, between women, that we could talk honestly to each other, that we could trust each other, that we could work together. And we did, and I think that we – when I say we, I mean I’m speaking for a lot of women – have actually changed the face of the world somewhat. But meanwhile, we’re not working in a vacuum, and there’s been a considerable backlash. The status quo has, I think, learned to incorporate us, and to defuse us quite a lot. The statement that opens that album is “I don’t believe in the brotherhood of man. No state of grace, no five year plan.” That’s saying that the state of our system politics needs a kick up the ass. We can’t take anything for granted anymore. And then I go on to say “‘I don’t believe in sisters against the men. My sister has betrayed me yet again.” That’s saying the same to us as women. What I’m wanting to say, what I’m wanting to do, is to say that we can’t take anything for granted. I feel like going right back to first principles, to square one. We’ve got trapped in a lot of dogma, trapped in notions of what we think we ought to believe, and what we ought to be doing, and how we ought to be relating to each other. And some of it’s just not true. It’s just not happening, there’s a lot of bullshit about it. So in a way I haven’t changed, I’ve just had ten years of quite exciting and also quite tiring experience. And what I want, and I’m challenging any woman who wants to tackle me about it like you are, is to say: Let’s not give up. Let’s not lose heart because of what’s happened, either in the lies between us or in the backlash that’s coming back at us. Let’s be brave enough to start again, where a lot of women started ten years ago, and indeed ten years before that, it’s ongoing. So that’s where I am, I’m prepared to start again. Whatever we’ve done of value in the last ten years will stay. I don’t want to hang onto any false security about what feminism is.

KIO: I’ve found that a lot of people, mainly because your lyrics are so strongly feminist, tend to assume that it’s an all women band. How do the men in the band feel about that?

AO: Well, it’s nothing if not deliberate.

RF: For me, the politics of Poisongirls comes under the heading of feminist, but it also comes under the heading of personal politics. I mean, the advances in the ways of looking at problems that came through what happened within the women’s movement, I think, is the main change in politics that has happened over the last ten years. And Poisongirls for me, and I’ve been there since day one, has been about trying to make it possible to sing about things that are real. And if that means that that’s defined as feminist, that’s fine by me. I don’t – well, I’ve juggled with the ideas, but I don’t consider myself a feminist, because I don’t think I can, it’s not possible. But I also don’t think it’s impossible for me to be in a band which talks about personal issues from a woman’s point of view. Especially seeing as Vi’s such a strong and fluent thinker and speaker and poet, and in that way, l think that the ideas that go into the band are beyond feminism inasmuch as they’re pushing away boundaries and not stuck with dogma.

VS: Well, I think that, what you said about it being about issues of reality, is that feminism created a context for women to redefine reality, in a way that gave us some space, and that, before that, my childhood didn’t seem to give me much space in the way that it gave boys space. There were a lot of places and a lot of activities that were out of bounds to me. And over the last few years, we have – women in the women’s movement have – been pushing out the boundaries, trying to create more space for ourselves. And of course, this is going to change the view that men have of what space is available to them. They’ve got to share space more. I mean, I work with men, and I’m a sexual being, most of my life I’ve had heterosexual relationships – that’s a horrible word, but I’ve loved men and loved with men. I’ve also had some relationships and loved with women. And all of us are sort of redefining what’s possible. And as women take more space, the reality is that a lot of men, from the beginning and maybe still, are afraid that’s going to leave them with less space, but I don’t think that’s right, actually. I think it’s reclaiming space for all of us.

MV: [first part cut off by being too far from the tape recorder] … Now men are taking on that responsibility too, on a very personal level. That’s a huge problem for men too, and that is incorporated in feminism as well.

RF: I’d just like to say that I don’t think the name “Poisongirls” was chosen as an attempt to mislead the public. People have said, right from the beginning, “Oh, we thought it was an all-girl band. blah blah blah,” and it wasn’t a deliberate attempt to pretend that we’re “girls”. At the beginning it was a pun. A departing guitarist said “You ought to be called ‘Poisongirls’ cause it sounds like “boys and girls’,” cause there were two women and two men at a time. And we’d had fifteen names in two weeks or something before that, and it stuck. That’s how names happen.

VS: I also say to some of the people who say “Oh, you’re not girl, you’re not all girls, only one girl,” l say, “No, there are no girls, I’m a woman.” Puts us all on an equal footing for a start, cause there’s a put-down implicit in the word “girl”.

KIO: Yeah, if you’re not a woman by your age, I don’t know when you are.

VS: That’s right… Another thing that’s happened over the last ten years is that, together again with a lot of women, the men that we relate with have surely learnt a lot. A generation has grown up now with a whole lot of women doing a whole lot of work, at home, in the bedroom, in the kitchen, with a whole generation of children.

RF: It’s hard to imagine that in 1976 the whole idea of women musicians was you know, Suzi Quatro… And that was it. And although it’s still remarked that there are women working in music, at least it’s accepted as a possibility.

VS: Having said that about the ten years that a lot of work was done, I am appalled when I listen to young women of my daughter’s age, 18, teenage women and young women in their early twenties, to hear that they have exactly the same problems. Whatever has been done has been done between ourselves, maybe, in terms of creating a language. But I’m not going to kid myself, I don’t think any of us can kid ourselves, that we’ve made a lot of ground our there. Women are finding themselves at a time of economic hardship, and of an increasing kind of terror in the world, not a lot better off. And that’s another reason for saying, look, let’s start again, let’s just start with all that energy as if we haven’t had any disappointments, start again.

RF: The other interesting thing, which is, again, ten years old, is Rolling Stone magazine saying that the epitome of American feminism is Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. And you just think “WHAT?!” Well, Rolling Stone, I imagine, is a male-dominated industry paper, trying to subvert the term “feminism” to include more-

VS: More sexual availability from young women. That’s it.

RF: But they do it in terms of saying that Madonna and Cyndi Lauper are actually “doing what they want to do in a man’s world, doing it as women” and that’s really the American Way. And, you know, will it happen again? Will people buy it again?

KIO: It’s like they’ve co-opted the word “feminism” to mean something else, something that’s still serving men, serving society… About the song “The Offending Article”, that really started a big controversy, and got you into a lot of trouble. Do you think that shows that people have a hard time dealing with angry women?

VS: With women allowing themselves to be angry, yes. When I was a little girl, before I discovered that I don’t have to go on being a little girl, I was very frightened by anger. I spent a long time in my adolescence and young womanhood feeling that I wasn’t angry, that I looked down on people who were angry, that I’d achieved some kind of a clear state. And looking back now at the things I was putting up with at the time, I was seething angry, I was shit-hot angry! And a lot of the anger that I can draw on now is anger that I can remember. I feel like I was frightened by anger, I felt that anger was somehow ugly, almost obscene, for a woman. When my mother was angry, it was very frightening. When my father was angry, it was somehow O.K., he had a right to be angry. And men have images of anger which are – well, we find it hard to get away from images of angry men, the threatening men prowling around, but what about our anger! So, O.K., in “The Offending Article”, I was surely angry when I wrote that. I was angry because of a certain complacency that I felt was creeping into one of the issues that are a part of liberation, namely the animal liberation movement. I felt that it was becoming sentimentalized, and a hell of an easy one. Especially in England, where everyone loves animals. And nobody was making the connections between the oppression of animals and the oppression of women, who are also treated like pets as long as they’re pretty and docile, etc. etc. And I don’t want to talk about people’s personal lives by name, but I was in touch with a young woman who had a boyfriend who was an animal liberationist, and he screwed her, and she got pregnant, and I just wanted to say something to him and to all those lads who were kind of congratulating themselves on their liberationism, and could not see what was going on between themselves and young women and each other. And sure, there still isn’t a safe and reliable contraceptive, and abortion is something that we have granted by a certain law which can be taken away, and has been, and none of these things should be forgotten at the expense of concern about animals. Sure, making the connections. It’s right, animals are treated diabolically. But that’s what that was about. And I know that a lot of people were upset at the image of a woman castrating a man, or having the fantasy. I mean, I’ve never actually chopped a guy’s prick off. I’ve never even actually met a specific guy whose specific prick I wanted to chop off –

KIO: I have!

VS: – but there are men in this world who have done such things that I wanted to be free to use that image of anger, and not sit on it any more.

KIO: Since it seems to be mainly men who are bothered by that image, how do the men in the band feel?

RF: I don’t know how much of the background of the piece is necessary, but it was written from the heart, and it was also written as a kind of a mischievous piece, in the context of the anarcho-vegetarian elite, who you know, go around London and were getting into a sort of a moral trip.

MV [I think]: And still are.

RF: And still are, and the way that they talk to each other, within the context of “acceptable politics”, acceptable statements, is totally over the top. And you can be totally over the top about war, you can be totally over the top about religion, you can be totally over the top about vegetarianism, but some things you can’t, some things you can’t actually say. And by actually saying them out loud, that these things are real, and are thoughts that go through people’s heads – you know, just like every pacifist has at some point thought “I would like to fucking kill that per son”, or “I would like them not to exist; I don’t necessarily want to kill them, I just would like them not to exist.” Which is the same thing, actually. And I think it was the confrontation of that, that got us as a band into a lot of trouble. Because of that piece, Crass, the band that we’d worked with for two and a half years, sent all our records back, all our artwork back –

VS: Wanted nothing more to do with us.

RF: They were manufacturing and distributing our records at the time, and they put everything into a taxi and sent it to our house. Didn’t talk to us about it, didn’t say anything. Because of that track.

VS: We had to pay for the taxi, too.

RF: And it was dumped on our doorstep when we were on tour. I think that, in terms of the imagery that was used, the fact that it’s misunderstood is because people don’t want to read it properly. We keep getting told that it says “All men are butchers,” which it doesn’t say, it says “All butchers are men”, which is a completely different statement. And O.K., all men might be butchers. We didn’t actually say that, but maybe it would have been better to have said it our loud, and included ourselves.

VS: Basically, it’s an equivalent statement to rape. It doesn’t even say that this woman who might rise up will kill a man, just that she will de-masculinize him. Or terminally humiliate him. It’s an image of reaction to rape.

RF: Active reaction, rather than passive reaction.

KIO: Back when you were still working with Crass, you released a single with them to raise money for an anarchist centre you were trying to start. What happened with that?

RF: We weren’t trying to start it. What happened was that some people came to us and said that they were trying to. Some of the people we knew were implicated in the “Persons Unknown” trial, which was some people who got arrested for having sugar and weedkiller in their house (allegedly to make bombs with). It was all tied up with “The Irish Problem, blah blah blah,” and it was a big test case about Persons Unknown, because they weren’t named. If the establishment had won that case, it would have meant that they would have been able to arrest and try people without even naming them. So these people were held without anyone being told who they were. They were wanting to start an anarchy centre, and it was the time of the Persons Unknown trial, so we brought the record out with us and Crass, “Persons Unknown” and “Bloody Revolmion”, and the money from that went to fund the Anarchy Centre. We didn’t actually have anything to do with the running of it. What happened was that it lasted for about six months, and then it ran into difficulties of energy, because of the old-style anarchists. or the “political” anarchists as they like to think of themselves, couldn’t come to terms with the anarcho-punks, who were a new phenomenon at the time, and they just couldn’t deal with the level of energy that the punks were trying to put in. It was before punks actually became acceptable as some kind of political force, or had some political identity. The establishment politics couldn’t handle them, didn’t know how to handle them at all.

VS: Personally. I was quite skeptical about the likelihood of success, but I think that it was fortunate that the record created enough interest in the idea. I mean, it raised some money, and some people got some experience at taking responsibility for initiative.

RF: It raised about £5000. It was a lot of money then – more than it is now.

KIO: Are those kind of conflicts still going on now?

RF: In London, there isn’t a lot of cohesion at all within the anarchist movement in general, and I think there’ll always be a conflict between the mainstream, or the old guard, and the new energy. But I think it’s more connected now than it ever has been.

VS: I think it’s got something to do with the generation gap. I discovered, when I first started working with the band, that we were up against sexism, that myself as a woman, at that time, playing guitar and singing about the sort of things that I was doing at the time, was quite unusual. And we introduced ideas of sexism, and feminism, into a whole kind of a youth movement, but since then, it’s become clearer and clearer to me that there is just as much wastage in terms of the divide-and-rule division between the generations, as there is between the sexes. A whole lot of experience that the older people do have is lost while there’s that fear, from both sides, and a whole lot of energy that the younger people have is lost to the older people. And the trouble is that it’s quite fun, in a way, to talk about sexism, because it has “sex” in the word! But you talk about ageism and that’s no fun, because who wants to own that there’s such a thing as age, and eventually death? These are much heavier taboos.

RF: So we were going to call it “youthism”…

VS: Youthism, yeah,but that’s not right either. It’s an issue of well, the old phrase, the generation gap, but that’s boring. What we need is a sexy way of talking about that.

KIO: Do you run into a lot of problems with ageism?

VS: I guess so… We have been told, I mean just very recently in New York, by some people in the business who were wanting to work with us that, well, the phrase was “Majors [major record labels] won’t touch you with a barge pole.” and that’s very much because an older woman isn’t considered to be – well, we’re up against a stereotype.

RF: But who wants to be touched by a barge pole, anyway?

VS: Especially with a major on the other end of it! Maybe we should chop their barge poles off.

RF: They’d only get it grafted on again.

KJO: Only if you do it in Australia. [This refers to a newspaper article we had been talking about earlier about a man in Australia who had his penis chopped off and then grafted on again.]

RF: Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to be touched by an Australian barge pole! [Much laughter from everyone.]

KIO: But you don’t really run into that problem with young punks?

VS: No, no, because –

RF: This relates to what happened on your 50th birthday, which was that the whole thing got blown as a sham. Before that, everyone –

VS: in the press –

RF: was very cagey about “middle­aged singer Vi Subversa, blah blah blah,” and then she came out and said, “Look, it’s my 50th birthday, and we’re going to have a party!” And we had a fucking great party! One of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. And suddenly it’s all changed, it’s like coming out of the closet.

VS: So now instead of saying “middle-aged”, “49-year-old”, or “50-year-old Vi Subversa,” they just say “Vi Subversa”. It’s a great achievement, fantastic. But you see, the whole thing about the young punk movement is that, what’s partly behind it, the “no future” idea, is that, over the age of 20, 21, 25 or 30 – death! And especially young women are saying to me, “Look, it’s great, you give me the feeling that when I’m as old as you I could be doing something as well.”

KIO: In one civil disobedience action I was involved in – we have this tradition here in CD actions of giving names of people you admire so you get women giving their names as Susan B. Anthony, Emma Goldman, and so on – but in this one action, against nuclear power, this one woman, about 16 years old, gave her name as Vi Subversa.

VS: Really? Oh, that’s wonderful!

KIO: And then we found out that the name you give goes in your permanent RCMP file as an “alias”, so she’s got that as an “alias”, and I’ve got “Ann Hansen” for mine – you know, from the Vancouver Five. We had the names of all the Five at that action.

VS: When I do see a woman of my sort of age, though, at home in London, who isn’t hiding, it takes quite a bit of courage between us to look at each other and say “hi”. But the more of us there are who do come out like that, the easier it’s going to get. What I was saying before, about some experience, you know, I can be stupid just like anyone else, but women of my sort of age have done some things, we’ve raised some children, we know that some things are ongoing, that problems to do with sexuality don’t stop when you’re 20, 30, 40 even, they go on, and it’s still important, and we have to talk to each other about these things, and the feeling that maybe in the States or in Canada, I don’t know, is that there are more women who are prepared not to hide under a grey costume any more.

KIO: Yeah, the woman who gave her name as Doug Stewart of the Vancouver Five, she always non-cooperates to tally in CD actions, more than anyone else, goes on hunger strikes in jail and everything, and she’s 56, I believe. And my mother is 44, and says that she’s the “den mother of the anarchist community”, she’s still kind of a hippy.

VS: Well, there’s a whole lot of hippies that kind of disappeared in the face of the “punk onslaught,” cause it appeared a bit like that at the time, but it seems to me that things are softening a bit between those divisions now, and a lot of punks who used to talk down about hippies, like “hippies are a bunch of shit” or whatever, are coming to realize that there were a whole lot of things in common. There are some things that have changed, but I think the paranoia between the two is lessening. There’s a lot in common really, between what was happening in the sixties and now, except that I think that hippie women hadn’t had a lot of the benefit of the women’s movement.

KIO: Yeah, my mother’s told me a bit about what happened to women in the Sixties – making coffee and typing leaflets.

VS: That’s right, and a lot of women were left after the hippie period of peace and love with loads of kids that they were left on their own to bring up… There are a lot of people I’ve lost touch with from the Sixties, old friends of mine and I’m finding them again – because their children are coming to our gigs.



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Akwesasne under surveillance by military counter-intelligence unit: documents (repost)

(The eastern tip of Cornwall Island from St. Regis Village, Akwesasne. APTN/File) Jorge BarreraAPTN National News The Canadian military’s counter-intelligence unit has been conducting surveillance of a Mohawk community straddling the Canada-U.

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One of the All-Time Most Important Cult Movies Is Back on the Big Screen at Last (repost)

The movie Born in Flames seemed almost outlandishly radical in 1983, when it came out. But now, Lizzie Borden’s movie about a feminist uprising feels even more relevant and challenging than ever. And now, you can see a restored version of it on the big screen in New York.

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Akwesasne under surveillance by military counter-intelligence unit: documents



(The eastern tip of Cornwall Island from St. Regis Village, Akwesasne. APTN/File) Jorge BarreraAPTN National News The Canadian military’s counter-intelligence unit has been conducting surveillance of a Mohawk community straddling the Canada-U.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Akwesasne under surveillance by military counter-intelligence unit: documents



One of the All-Time Most Important Cult Movies Is Back on the Big Screen at Last



The movie Born in Flames seemed almost outlandishly radical in 1983, when it came out. But now, Lizzie Borden’s movie about a feminist uprising feels even more relevant and challenging than ever. And now, you can see a restored version of it on the big screen in New York.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at One of the All-Time Most Important Cult Movies Is Back on the Big Screen at Last



Friday, February 19, 2016

Canada’s prisons are the ‘new residential schools’ (repost)

In September, three reporters from Maclean’s and Discourse Media spent two days in downtown and North Central Regina—at the Cornwall Centre mall, at Victoria Park, in churches, and in residents’ homes—speaking with dozens of Indigenous residents about police interactions.

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Treatment of Inuit in Quebec jails called ‘unacceptable’ by ombudsman (repost)

Quebec’s ombudsman has released a scathing report on the treatment of Inuit in the provincial justice system. She says the detention conditions are “below current standards” and infringe on the constitutional right to human dignity.

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Canada's prisons are the 'new residential schools'



In September, three reporters from Maclean’s and Discourse Media spent two days in downtown and North Central Regina—at the Cornwall Centre mall, at Victoria Park, in churches, and in residents’ homes—speaking with dozens of Indigenous residents about police interactions.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Canada's prisons are the 'new residential schools'



Treatment of Inuit in Quebec jails called 'unacceptable' by ombudsman



Quebec's ombudsman has released a scathing report on the treatment of Inuit in the provincial justice system. She says the detention conditions are "below current standards" and infringe on the constitutional right to human dignity.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Treatment of Inuit in Quebec jails called 'unacceptable' by ombudsman



Thursday, February 18, 2016

Treatment of Inuit in Quebec jails called 'unacceptable' by ombudsman



Quebec's ombudsman has released a scathing report on the treatment of Inuit in the provincial justice system. She says the detention conditions are "below current standards" and infringe on the constitutional right to human dignity.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Treatment of Inuit in Quebec jails called 'unacceptable' by ombudsman



Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The Anti-Imperialism of Fools



As we all witnessed yesterday Syria’s foreign minister Walid Muallem said that Syria will offer to help the US fight the Islamic State (IS) militant group. This of course has left the so called Anti-war camp and “Anti-Imperialist” left in the U.

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The Anti-Imperialism of Fools (repost)

As we all witnessed yesterday Syria’s foreign minister Walid Muallem said that Syria will offer to help the US fight the Islamic State (IS) militant group. This of course has left the so called Anti-war camp and “Anti-Imperialist” left in the U.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at The Anti-Imperialism of Fools



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Monday, February 15, 2016

The Limits of Language (repost)

The best class I took in college was on the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Until that point, I had avoided philosophy of language as simply being too esoteric and hermetic to be of use. David Pears, a prodigious yet modest and approachable figure visiting from Oxford, changed my mind.

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Antifa International (repost)

So What Happened To Roosh V.’s Misogynist Fanboys On Saturday? You’re probably well-aware that rapist and misogynist “Roosh V.” cancelled his well-publicized global public meetups for sad MRA neckbeards this past Saturday.

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The Limits of Language



The best class I took in college was on the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Until that point, I had avoided philosophy of language as simply being too esoteric and hermetic to be of use. David Pears, a prodigious yet modest and approachable figure visiting from Oxford, changed my mind.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at The Limits of Language



Antifa International



So What Happened To Roosh V.’s Misogynist Fanboys On Saturday? You’re probably well-aware that rapist and misogynist “Roosh V.” cancelled his well-publicized global public meetups for sad MRA neckbeards this past Saturday.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Antifa International



Mark Cook Speaks, in Buffalo & Brooklyn, Feb. 18 & 20

mark_cook_webMark Cook is a former Black Panther, member of the George Jackson Brigade, and political prisoner. Twenty four years in prison could not break his spirit or commitment to Black liberation and Mark Cook is as active an organizer now as ever. These events will be worth traveling for, as Cook will only be speaking on these two dates while on the east coast, before heading back to the Pacific Northwest.

IN BUFFALO:

WHEN: Thursday February 18 at 7pm
WHERE: Burning Books, 420 Connecticut St., Buffalo, New York 14213
FACEBOOK: http://ift.tt/20VV8xS

IN BROOKLYN:

WHEN: 7:00pm, Saturday, February 20th, 2016
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free
WEB: http://ift.tt/1R4qwC9



on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/20VV9St



Sunday, February 14, 2016

Support Parole for Jalil Muntaqim!

jalil

Anthony Bottom (Jalil A. Muntaqim) has been in prison since 1971, one of the longest held political prisoners in the world. Having spent more time in prison than Nelson Mandela, Jalil is scheduled to appear before the parole board again this June, 2016.

Once again, comrades are preparing for Jalil’s upcoming parole hearing in June. Since the PBA, the FOP, and the Correctional Officers union are able to collect thousands of signatures against parole, we must work to gain as many signatures and letters of support for Jalil as possible. In addition to the online petition, there is a hard copy that can be downloaded here. Since many members of our community do not have regular access to the internet, it is important to use the hard copy and return it to us.

You can also download and print out the parole campaign brochure explaining Jalil’s case as a way of educating people about the political nature of the case and the parole board’s constant denials despite national and international support for Jalil’s release on parole.

Be sure to read the wonderful letter from Jalil’s Mom Billie: A Mother’s Cry in support of her son’s release.

Check out the videos of Jalil discussing the Case of the New York 3, Cointelpro, Plutocracy and
some history leading to the formation of the Jericho Movement, of which Jalil is a co-founder.

Also check out the videos from an interview with Jalil in 1988 by Paper Tiger TV, especially Part 3, which includes a response to Badge of the Assassin with Safiyah Bukhari, Attorney Brian Glick and the New York 3.

Watch videos of Jalil’s brother Dave speaking about Jalil here.

Sign the online petition to Tina M. Stanford, Chairwoman of the NYS Board of Parole, for Jalil’s Release on Parole in 2016!

Jalil has also prepared a fact sheet for those who would like to write letters to the Parole Board on his behalf.



on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/1RCWd7J



Portland, OR March 10 — Fade to Black: Political Prisoner Jalil Muntaqim Book Release & Fundraiser

escapeprism_webTHE JERICHO MOVEMENT PRESENTS Fade to Black: Political Prisoner Jalil Muntaqim Book Release & Fundraiser

WHEN: Thursday March 10th 2016, 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
WHERE: Social Justice Action Center,
400 SE 12th Portland Oregon

$5-10 sliding scale donation @ door!
All ages and open to the public!

Facebook: http://ift.tt/20U407f

Join us for another amazing political education/fundraising community event. The event will help to promote the recent book release of Jalil Muntaqim. Jalil is a Political Prisoner and Prisoner of War from the Black Liberation Movement. He organized with the Black Panther Party in the Bay area and was underground with the Black Liberation Army. He was captured when he was 19 in 1971 and has been locked up ever since. His parole reviews (over five) continues to be slandered by the Fraternal Order of Police.

Jalil has maintained his innocence and continues his legacy of activism, civic engagement, education and commitment to scholarship. He has written numerous position papers, blogs, poetry and books. This event will feature his most recent collection of essays and poetry and forwards by Walidah Imarisha and Ward Churchill.

Featuring local talent & activists:

  • Blacque Butterfly
  • Mic Crenshaw
  • Walidah Imarisha
  • Kent Ford
  • Talilo Marfil
  • Ibrahim Mubarek
  • Chauncy Peltier
  • Ahjamu Umi

Co-sponsored by Oregon Jericho, Portland Anarchist Black Cross, NW Alliance
for Alternative Media & Education, Right 2 Survive

To order your copy, visit leftwingbooks.net or AK Press or Amazon

Escaping the Prism is also available as an ebook from Amazon.

You can download a press sheet about Escaping the Prism here: escapeprism_press-sheet

For more information about Jalil: www.freejalil.com/

To learn about other political prisoners and prisoners of war held by the United States government: http://ift.tt/1qplrcx

What People Are Saying

Jalil Muntaqim’s prose and poetry analyze life within “America as prison.” Decades of sacrifice and resistance allow him to critique state oppression and social acquiescence. We are reminded here of democracy’s capacity for repression and terror through police, courts, and captivity; and the mystification and near disappearance of political prisoners who resisted such as Muntaqim, who writes that his name is spoken either as taboo or in reverence. Aided by Ward Churchill’s invaluable afterword, remember the historical and ongoing wars against dissent, and the brutal punishments activists risked in order to expand freedom. In the current debates about racism, legal duplicity and lethal violence, Escaping the Prism instructs that in our love for freedom, “let the spirit guide us.”
–Joy James, Seeking the ‘Beloved Community’

When soldiers of a nation-state return home from war, they are thanked for their service. When they die in battle, they are honored posthumously. But there are no medals for an army of slaves. Escaping the Prism…Fade to Black is a stunning anthology of rare and tender love poems, unflinching struggle poems, and requiem poetry for a people whose personhood is denied. Muntaqim’s poems as well as the political vignettes and biographical sketches contained herein should be required reading for students who wonder why the world is on tilt. For forty-three years as a prisoner of war (nearly twice as long as Mandela who was released after 27 years), BLA soldier Jalil Muntaqim has nurtured us with his pedagogy and his poetry. Thank you for your service.
–Frank B. Wilderson III, author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid

In his powerful new book of poetry, Jalil Muntaqim writes, “my poetry is my life.” He also writes, “My poetry has a chip on its shoulder,” as well it might given the decades he has spent living in the state’s cages. Yet despite his lifelong sacrifice as a political prisoner and prisoner of war, this book is proof that Jalil’s deepest thoughts are rich and his commitment to liberation remains as strong as ever. The poems in Escaping the Prism… Fade to Black reveal Jalil’s deep determination and love, and will no doubt serve as a source of inspiration for us all.
–Claude Marks, Director of the Freedom Archives and former political prisoner

Jalil Muntaqim is known for his letters and petitions and essays. Now, for the first time, we have a collection of his poetry. The poems are analytical and tender, inspiring and angering, nostalgic and sobering. In Escaping the Prism Jalil meditates on life, love, struggle, music, and everything else that prisons contain but fail to crush.
–Dan Berger, author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era

Another consciousness-raising magnificently written book from New Afrikan prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim, a man i’m proud and honored to know as a comrad and brother. The preface by sista Walidah Imarisha sets the tone with her poignant insights and clear flow, hinting at the depths to come. Then, like a building storm about to break, Jalil starts the rain of poetic words connected in combinations that put today’s so-called best rappers to shame. Bending, twisting, and redefining the colonial language in paradoxical and often mindbogglng ways that demand our total attention and a rewind of our reading in order to digest the reality of what’s written. Never have i had the pleasure of being so educated by such dynamic prose and poetry as presented here. And yet there’s more, for Jalil then infuses blogs of essays written about each contemporary malady arresting the development of our struggle for freedom, and does so as deftly as a skilled surgeon performing a total organ transplant. “Hands Up, Dont Shoot? Hell no! Fist up, fight back!” Jalil shouts from his prison cell in Attica, reminding us that an unarmed movement is a dead movement. And yet he’s not preaching, but even if he was i would listen, because he is in a position to know where the traps and landmines are buried, for he is a beloved combatant of our Black Liberation Army. As if Walidah Imarisha’s introduction to Jalil’s poetry and essays weren’t enough, Escaping the Prism is closed out by the revolutionary scholar Ward Churchill of the American Indian Movement. A cold combination of jab, overhand left, and a knockout uppercut. Ward Churchill’s footnotes alone raise consciousness, his historical knowledge of the long sixties that instruct us in ways few other comrades can. i am personally grateful to comrad brotha Jalil for his life and example. Let’s get him, and in the process ourselves, free!
Sanyika Shakur, August 3rd Communist Organization

 



on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/1Qfx1Ph



February 27 in Buffalo, NY: Escaping the Prism Book Launch!

escapeprism_webWHEN: Saturday, February 27at 5:30 PM – 7 PM
WHERE: El Buen Amigo & LACA Non-Profit, 114 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, New York 14201
FACEBOOK: http://ift.tt/20U41rP

Come celebrate Black History Month & launch the newly revised edition of Black Panther political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim ‘s Escaping the Prism, with afterword by Ward Churchill.

Jalil Muntaqim is one of the many victims of the notorious COINTELPRO program that targeted, harassed, vilified, falsely imprisoned and outright murdered members of revolutionary groups like the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and the Chicano Liberation movements. He has spent over 45 years behind bars on a dubious conviction of murder, and has written numerous books and articles.

There will be readings, reflections and reviews of Escaping the Prism, and opportunities to support Brother Jalil Muntaqim as his next parole date approaches in June 2016.

Co-hosted by Buffalo Save the Kids, Burning Books, El Buen Amigo & LACA Non-Profit

About Escaping the Prism: Poetry and Essays by Jalil Muntaqim

Captured in 1971 and railroaded by a COINTELPRO-type FBI operation, Jalil Muntaqim is one of the longest held political prisoners in the world today. This collection of Jalil’s poetry and essays, written from behind the bars of Attica prison, combines the personal and the political, affording readers with a rare opportunity to get to know a man who has spent most of his life — over forty years –- behind bars for his involvement in the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. With an introduction by Walidah Imarisha, and a detailed historical essay by Ward Churchill.

To order your copy, visit leftwingbooks.net or AK Press or Amazon

Escaping the Prism is also available as an ebook from Amazon.

You can download a press sheet about Escaping the Prism here: escapeprism_press-sheet

For more information about Jalil: www.freejalil.com/

To learn about other political prisoners and prisoners of war held by the United States government: http://ift.tt/1qplrcx

What People Are Saying

Jalil Muntaqim’s prose and poetry analyze life within “America as prison.” Decades of sacrifice and resistance allow him to critique state oppression and social acquiescence. We are reminded here of democracy’s capacity for repression and terror through police, courts, and captivity; and the mystification and near disappearance of political prisoners who resisted such as Muntaqim, who writes that his name is spoken either as taboo or in reverence. Aided by Ward Churchill’s invaluable afterword, remember the historical and ongoing wars against dissent, and the brutal punishments activists risked in order to expand freedom. In the current debates about racism, legal duplicity and lethal violence, Escaping the Prism instructs that in our love for freedom, “let the spirit guide us.”
–Joy James, Seeking the ‘Beloved Community’

When soldiers of a nation-state return home from war, they are thanked for their service. When they die in battle, they are honored posthumously. But there are no medals for an army of slaves. Escaping the Prism…Fade to Black is a stunning anthology of rare and tender love poems, unflinching struggle poems, and requiem poetry for a people whose personhood is denied. Muntaqim’s poems as well as the political vignettes and biographical sketches contained herein should be required reading for students who wonder why the world is on tilt. For forty-three years as a prisoner of war (nearly twice as long as Mandela who was released after 27 years), BLA soldier Jalil Muntaqim has nurtured us with his pedagogy and his poetry. Thank you for your service.
–Frank B. Wilderson III, author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid

In his powerful new book of poetry, Jalil Muntaqim writes, “my poetry is my life.” He also writes, “My poetry has a chip on its shoulder,” as well it might given the decades he has spent living in the state’s cages. Yet despite his lifelong sacrifice as a political prisoner and prisoner of war, this book is proof that Jalil’s deepest thoughts are rich and his commitment to liberation remains as strong as ever. The poems in Escaping the Prism… Fade to Black reveal Jalil’s deep determination and love, and will no doubt serve as a source of inspiration for us all.
–Claude Marks, Director of the Freedom Archives and former political prisoner

Jalil Muntaqim is known for his letters and petitions and essays. Now, for the first time, we have a collection of his poetry. The poems are analytical and tender, inspiring and angering, nostalgic and sobering. In Escaping the Prism Jalil meditates on life, love, struggle, music, and everything else that prisons contain but fail to crush.
–Dan Berger, author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era

Another consciousness-raising magnificently written book from New Afrikan prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim, a man i’m proud and honored to know as a comrad and brother. The preface by sista Walidah Imarisha sets the tone with her poignant insights and clear flow, hinting at the depths to come. Then, like a building storm about to break, Jalil starts the rain of poetic words connected in combinations that put today’s so-called best rappers to shame. Bending, twisting, and redefining the colonial language in paradoxical and often mindbogglng ways that demand our total attention and a rewind of our reading in order to digest the reality of what’s written. Never have i had the pleasure of being so educated by such dynamic prose and poetry as presented here. And yet there’s more, for Jalil then infuses blogs of essays written about each contemporary malady arresting the development of our struggle for freedom, and does so as deftly as a skilled surgeon performing a total organ transplant. “Hands Up, Dont Shoot? Hell no! Fist up, fight back!” Jalil shouts from his prison cell in Attica, reminding us that an unarmed movement is a dead movement. And yet he’s not preaching, but even if he was i would listen, because he is in a position to know where the traps and landmines are buried, for he is a beloved combatant of our Black Liberation Army. As if Walidah Imarisha’s introduction to Jalil’s poetry and essays weren’t enough, Escaping the Prism is closed out by the revolutionary scholar Ward Churchill of the American Indian Movement. A cold combination of jab, overhand left, and a knockout uppercut. Ward Churchill’s footnotes alone raise consciousness, his historical knowledge of the long sixties that instruct us in ways few other comrades can. i am personally grateful to comrad brotha Jalil for his life and example. Let’s get him, and in the process ourselves, free!
Sanyika Shakur, August 3rd Communist Organization



on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/20U41I9



Thursday, February 11, 2016

Racism against aboriginal people in health-care system ‘pervasive’: study (repost)

?Michelle Labrecque pushes herself gingerly in a wheelchair down the hallway of a hotel. The Oneida woman was recently found to have a fractured pelvis, but she says it took three trips to the hospital and increasing pain before she received that diagnosis.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Racism against aboriginal people in health-care system ‘pervasive’: study



on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/1V5rpeM



Racism against aboriginal people in health-care system 'pervasive': study



​Michelle Labrecque pushes herself gingerly in a wheelchair down the hallway of a hotel. The Oneida woman was recently found to have a fractured pelvis, but she says it took three trips to the hospital and increasing pain before she received that diagnosis.

Read the rest of this post on the original site at Racism against aboriginal people in health-care system 'pervasive': study



Monday, February 08, 2016

February Sale at Kersplebedeb Leftwingbooks.net!

Kersplebedeb has knocked off from 20-60% on over sixty titles, for a great big book sale throughout the month of February!

Discounted titles include “time sensitive” products like the Slingshot Desktop Organizer and Certain Days Calendar fro 2016, as well as classic works like J. Sakai’s Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat and Butch Lee’s Jailbreak out of History, and even recent releases such as Kevin Rashid Johnson’s Panther Vision, Ed Mead’s Lumpen, and many more. Check them all out at http://ift.tt/1urGEpC

Here is almost everything that is on special:

                                                             

 Or in plain old text:

 



on the main Kersplebedeb website: http://ift.tt/1QR5hDP