We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, December 27, 2014

Police Violence and Violence Against the Police

Click here to access article by Rob Urie from CounterPunch.

It looks like people are starting to realize that a ruling class can engage in domestic imperialism against ordinary people within a class structured society just like they do against foreign countries. The end result is the same: people will fight back, and they have a human right to fight back.
The existence of a heavily armed, highly militarized, wholly unaccountable army to protect a class and race based social order is totalitarian by degree— those on the side being repressed bear the brunt leaving the illusion of justice for those not paying attention. The one-sided response of the political leadership and police spokespersons to the tragic murder of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos is evidence of the social order being protected. Left entirely unaddressed is the historical role of the police in maintaining an unjust race and class based social order from slave patrols to convict leasing to mass incarceration and for-profit prisons to class and race-based enforcement of selectively repressive laws. And to be clear, it is the political leadership that has designated and so-armed the police to be the quasi-military force they now are.