The State Can't Isolate the Imagination: Vernon T. Bateman and the Struggle to Free Them All

[Photo: Vernon T. Bateman and his supporters at “Eclipsing Injustice” at the District Theatre in Indianapolis. Credit: Indianapolis Liberation Center.]

By Jay Grillo and Derek R. Ford

U.S. prisons are universally known for their exceptional brutality and terror, with even corporate media covering their routine barbarity. What is less widely acknowledged, however, is the ongoing history of resistance against the mass incarceration system that is organized behind, across, and outside of prison bars. This political resistance is visible in the heroic hunger strikes and uprisings of our people behind enemy lines; it is also evident in the hope and creativity that not only survive, but actually foster in such isolating and despairing conditions.

There is perhaps no better example of this resistance that defies the state’s repressive apparatus than Vernon T. Bateman who, in 1998, was falsely charged and convicted of rape, criminal deviant conduct, and confinement in Gary, Indiana. The state had no evidence connecting him to the crime. Even worse, what physical evidence existed never materialized in court. As detailed below, Bateman was convicted based entirely on prosecutorial misconduct and false testimonies that were later recanted, yet he wasn’t released from prison until 2023, and he continues to live in a social prison under severe parole conditions. Although Bateman has maintained his innocence and fought for his freedom since 1998, the organized battle for his full exoneration is just beginning.

Imagination Flourishing and Isolating Conditions

Most people don’t know Bateman’s history of wrongful incarceration. He is, however, widely known for his art, something his grandfather–a poet, framer, and painter–introduced him to as a child. Vernon could draw years before he could read or write, skills he only learned once incarcerated. He did more than learn common literacy, however: he combined writing and drawing with his burgeoning artistic imagination, and he realized that creative capacity under the most repressive conditions.

Out of his 25 years served in prison, the state subjected Bateman to 10 years in solitary confinement. He turned a box meant to isolate and torture him into a space of imagination, resilience, and even community building. Solitary confinement was where Bateman, using crayons smuggled into the prison, wrote his first children’s book: Mommy I Want 2 Fly. Published in 2012, he wrote the first of what would be several children’s books as a way to parent his child from behind bars after her mother was killed by a drunk driver. The next year he published They Can’t Hurt Me No More, which tackled anti-LGBTQ bigotry and bullying.

Bateman’s art continues to expand, as does the people’s desire for it. At the end of March 2024, he unveiled his “Eclipse Murals” at The District Theatre in downtown Indianapolis to a crowd of artists, faith leaders, community organizers, friends, family, and passersby. If you watch Bateman discuss the murals, you can hear, see, and feel his dedication to community, creativity, and  justice. Originally created as gifts for the public, he eventually gave into the venue owner’s insistence on remuneration.

How the State Sent Another Innocent Black Man to Prison

Maintaining his innocence, Bateman refused to accept any plea deals. Within a few years of his sentencing, the disturbing systemic injustices and significant irregularities in the state’s case against Bateman started surfacing, ones that do more than establish reasonable doubt; they establish his innocence. Nonetheless, Bateman spent 25 years in prison, over half of his life so far. Although he was released from prison in 2023, he continues to be subjected to conditions that amount to house arrest, including ankle monitoring and curfews, the inability to attend therapy or take driving classes to get his license, and more. He hasn’t even been able to meet his own grandson yet.

Fortunately, a growing community of support is working to exonerate Bateman, a fight you can aid by signing a petition demanding his full and immediate exoneration. A new documentary provides a glimpse into the humility, kindness, optimism, and commitment to justice Bateman and his artistic work and community projects, like Baby22 Gun Safety LLC, exemplify.

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A Corrupt Detective, False Testimony, and a Lying “Eyewitness”

When the trial started on September 14, 1998, Angela Truitt, the complaining witness, failed to appear causing the judge to issue a bench warrant; however, the next day, the same judge granted the State a continuance until September 22, 1998, rather than dismissing the charges against Bateman. That Bateman’s public defender did not object or ask for a dismissal evidenced the ineffective assistance he received at trial. Truitt’s absence is notable, especially when accompanied by the self-revelation that she did not come to court because she had “reasonable doubt” that Bateman was even involved in the crime at all.

In 2004, the alleged victim, Angela Truitt, testified under oath that chief investigator Detective Mary Banks told her to identify Bateman as one of her assailants. After confirming this, Attorney Ray L. Szarmach asked if it “was, in fact, Vernon Bateman at the rape, or was Vernon Bateman in that rape?” In her sworn testimony, Truitt said “I’m not sure. I told you they told me that’s who it was. I didn’t know who none of them guys were. The police told me he was a suspect.” When asked why Truitt recanted her testimony and if she wanted him to be free, she responded “Yes.”

The other testimony used by the state was delivered by Det. Banks, who said she got Bateman’s name “from the other suspect [Sa’ron Foley] that was in custody.” Foley was a co-defendant tried separately for the same crime. He never appeared on the stand during Bateman’s trial, depriving Bateman of his constitutional right to cross-examination. Banks delivered his testimony, which he later admitted was fabricated. Since at least 2005, Foley has adamantly worked to atone for his lie. In a 2009 affidavit, Foley stated that he “made falsified statements against Vernon Bateman on 1-23-98 to Det. M. Banks,” and that he had contacted Bateman’s attorney about five years prior to relay his willingness to testify on Bateman’s behalf. He never heard back.

Nine years later, in a handwritten letter addressed to FOX59 and reporter Angela Ganote and signed by a Notary Public, Foley wrote he had “been silent for too long” and “this evidence should have been brought to the court’s attention 20 yrs ago… Vernon Bateman was never [at the scene of the alleged crime]... That was made up by me & Det. Mary Banks.”

That same year, Foley even dedicated an entire hearing before the parole board, which only happens once a year, to advocate for Bateman’s freedom rather than his own. Foley lied because of a grudge he held against Bateman, but, as Ganote reported, “he has been trying to make things right for decades. He has written attorneys, a judge, the governor and me. He says no one will listen.” The state’s continued refusal to listen is the answer to Foley’s question.

A “Missing” Rape Kit

What is perhaps most perplexing–or rather, convincing–is that the sexual assault forensic exam performed on Truitt, the very thing that could exonerate Bateman, was never entered into evidence. Bateman’s motions requesting the results of the examination and to submit his own DNA into evidence were denied.

A physician at Methodist Northlake Hospital examined the alleged victim, Angela Truitt, and released the sexual assault kit to Det. Banks. However, the state neither tested nor introduced the rape kit as evidence during Bateman’s trial. When asked if the examination results came back during cross-examination, Banks said “I don’t know.” In 2019, when Indiana reporter Angela Ganote tried to track it down, the hospital referred her to the Gary police, who referred her to the city’s attorneys, who “told me they didn’t have it.”

To this day, the kit hasn’t been recovered. The prison authorities later explicitly denied Ganote from visiting Bateman while he remained behind bars.

Throughout this period, various legal petitions and appeals were filed, including petitions to challenge Bateman's conviction and justify his release. These efforts were met with resistance and legal hurdles, further prolonging Bateman's unjust imprisonment. Notably, a petition to vacate highlighted violations of Bateman's constitutional right to cross-examine his accuser, including the loss of crucial evidence such as the rape kit and ineffective assistance of counsel, were denied.

Join Bateman’s Struggle and Free Them All!

Bateman says he doesn’t have any ill feelings towards Truitt. “You got to understand, people like me aren’t mad at the alleged victims, but at the system. In my case, my accuser was a victim of the system, too,” he said in an April 2024 interview with the Indianapolis Liberation Center.

Bateman, his family, and even his former enemy have been fighting for his freedom for decades. The state remains unwilling to acknowledge the abundant judicial misconduct, recanted testimonies, and police corruption that kept an innocent man in prison for over half of his life and to this day keep him locked in a social prison. They can only do so as long as his story remains hidden.

What will it take to exonerate yet another innocent man held captive by the state of Indiana? An organized struggle that forces the truth into the open and makes it impossible for the state to continue avoiding accountability. This struggle, which is only possible because of Bateman’s enduring belief that justice will prevail in the end, is one that needs your support, whoever and wherever you are.

Bateman’s story demonstrates that, despite all of its repressive powers, the state remains impotent when confronted by the imagination, creativity, and resilience of humanity. That is the most powerful lesson–the one often neglected in the doomsday pieces about the racist and capitalist U.S. mass incarceration system–that Bateman’s words, works, and very being teach us every day. It’s up to us to learn and act on that lesson to win freedom not only for Bateman, but for all wrongly convicted, political, and social prisoners in the United States.

Exonerate Vernon T. Bateman now!

Of Acorns and Martyrs: Reno 911, Police Violence, and the Prospect of Reform

By Owen Symes

Cop shows have been around since TVs first gained popularity in the 1950s. From the 1970s onwards, they’ve weighed heavily upon the popular imagination, making up around 20% of the scripted output of major US television networks even as recently as 2020. From the beginning, shows like Dragnet, Police Story, Law & Order, or SWAT have often advertised their authenticity, claiming to entertain audiences with at least somewhat plausible or realistic stories. But most of these shows are little more than copaganda. Despite the occasional episode involving police misconduct, only a few procedurals have focused on criticizing the police, most notably The Wire in the early 2000s. But as recent news has amply demonstrated, the most realistic cop show isn’t that prestigious HBO drama, but rather an oft-overlooked mockumentary that began airing around the same time: Reno 911.

Bad Boys, Good Cops

If you’re not aware, Reno 911 began as a parody of the reality TV show Cops, a pioneer of the genre which presented audiences with half-hour episodes filled with vignettes of officers out on patrol. In the world of Cops, the streets are usually dark, the civilians uncooperative and suspicious, the law enforcers competent, knowledgeable, worldly, sometimes even philosophical. The shaky footage and pitch-black vistas of the show are given meaning by the explanatory narration of the police themselves. Their perspective is the truth.

Reno 911 took the same cinematic techniques employed by Cops but used them to skewer, rather than valorize, the police. Instead of presenting the cops with some baseline of professional competence, as even critical dramas like The Wire typically do, Reno 911 deflates its cops, bringing them down from the mythic cultural pedestal they’ve occupied for nearly a century. In so doing, the show highlights aspects of policing that we rarely see on US television: the stupidity, cupidity, timidity so common in real departments. Nothing illustrates this better than the opening scene of the pilot episode.

While on evening patrol, deputy Garcia hears on the radio that there is an officer down and shots fired. He flares his lights and speeds to the address provided. Arriving on scene, Garcia makes for the entrance and, gun drawn but without backup, lunges into the domicile. He shouts into the darkness, “Sheriff’s department!” The lights come on and we see a wall of cops starting to yell Surprise! It’s clearly a birthday party for Garcia. Already keyed up for action, however, Garcia discharges his weapon and hits an officer. The other cops look at their fallen comrade, then back at Garcia, then begin to scan the room awkwardly as they murmur surprise. The camera zooms in on deputy Jones, who sheepishly radios: “We have an officer down…”

The cops of Reno 911 are fundamentally fearful creatures: afraid of losing respect at least as much as they are of losing their lives. Recent news out of Okaloosa County, FL and Washington, DC has made the reality of this fear abundantly, maddeningly, clear.

Acorn Comes Into Frame

As detailed by a recently-released police report on the incident, early on the morning of November 12, 2023, police arrived at a woman’s house in the Florida suburbs responding to a call about a missing car and a threatening boyfriend. Soon after the police arrived at the woman’s house, the boyfriend appeared. He offered no resistance while he was searched. He was then handcuffed and placed inside the vehicle of one deputy Hernandez, a non-combat military veteran who had recently become a cop.

When news arrived that the girlfriend’s car had been found, Hernandez began moving back to his SUV in order to search the boyfriend again. As he later recounted, Hernandez approached his vehicle and heard:

…what I believe would be a suppressed weapon off to the side. Definitely heard this noise. At the same time, I felt an impact on my right side, like upper torso area…Um, so I feel the impact. My legs just give out. Um, I don't know where I'm hit. I think I'm hit.

He then summersaulted away from his vehicle in a desperate attempt to gain some distance from the shooter. Now on his back, Hernandez panicked like a flailing turtle, drew his service pistol, and discharged the entire magazine into his own vehicle.

Nearby, the experienced and long-serving sergeant Roberts saw Hernandez fall, saw his terror-stricken face, and heard him screaming that he had been shot. Without taking any time to understand what was happening around her, Roberts immediately went for her gun. She fumbled the quickdraw, accidentally dislodging her spare magazine from its pouch. As it struck the ground, she began firing haphazardly in the direction she thought the shooter was. Afraid of being struck by friendly fire, Hernandez crawled to cover.

When the smoke cleared, the officers belatedly began to assess the situation. Miraculously, the hapless boyfriend, still handcuffed inside the vehicle as it was being pulverized, survived unscathed. No other civilians (or police) were harmed during the fusillade. Medical staff later confirmed that Hernandez had never suffered a gunshot wound. What had happened?

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During the subsequent investigation, Hernandez gave his statement and was allowed to watch his bodycam footage. Then he was shown a still photograph from that footage. Investigators pointed out a tiny object striking the officer’s vehicle. Gears turned within the deputy, then clicked into place, prompting him to ask a vital clarifying question: “Acorn?”

An Investigator responded with appropriate brevity: “Acorn.”

Amid stutters and pauses, Hernandez tried but failed to articulate a response, eventually admitting that it was possible that an acorn had made the inciting noise. An investigator followed up with a question I’m sure every civil servant dreads: was Hernandez, “…in general…familiar with the sound of acorns striking vehicles?” He answered in the affirmative.

Investigators now offered him a chance to watch the footage again, that he might analyze the evidence anew and judge if the acorn had in fact been the mainspring of his actions. He declined.

Deputy Hernandez resigned from the department before the investigation concluded. Ultimately, the investigators found that Hernandez had acted unreasonably. They also determined, however,  that sergeant Roberts, the other officer who discharged their weapon at the scene, had behaved within reason. The investigating officers concluded that Roberts had acted under the impression that another officer had just been shot, thus justifying the (haphazard and panicked) use of her firearm.

Why Don’t FireFighters Carry Guns?

On February 25th, 2024, Air Force member Aaron Bushnell self-immolated outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC in protest against the Gaza Genocide. Having just received a call about potentially “distressing” behavior, uniformed Secret Service officers were already on the scene when Bushnell began his protest. The Secret Service response was captured by Bushnell’s livestream.

The video begins with Bushnell matter-of-factly explaining that he is about to engage in an extreme act of protest. Having done so, he calmly sets his camera down, walks into center frame, douses himself in accelerant, and lights himself on fire, yelling Free Palestine. Off screen, we hear responding officers trying to communicate with him. Once the flames appear, they begin shouting that a man is on fire, that they need fire extinguishers. But we also hear someone repeatedly yelling for the young protester – already aflame – to get on the ground. We hear this over and over: Get on the ground! Get on the ground!

Officers then appear on camera. One rapidly engages his extinguisher, befogging the area. Despite the cloud of extinguishant, Bushnell’s fire still rages. Another officer appears on camera with his service weapon drawn and pointed at the protester. As officers move around Bushnell – and through this Secret Service agent’s field of fire – we hear further pleas for extinguishers. An officer, I think it’s the one who’s been calling for extinguishers the whole time, finally exclaims, “I don’t need guns. I need fire extinguishers!”

When later asked to comment on the officer pointing his weapon at a dying man, the Secret Service told a journalist at Reason: "The armed officer was ensuring the safety of the two Secret Service officers who were working to extinguish the fire and render aid to the individual." Once again, the police had judged their own actions to be reasonable.

“Get some cops to protect our policemen!”

- Intertitle from Buster Keaton’s 1922 short Cops

From their origins in the 19th century up through the 1920s, cops were not respected in the popular imagination. They only achieved a degree of social respect in the 1930s thanks to PR campaigns by the likes of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and LAPD chief William Parker, with the cooperation of radio and TV producers like Phillips Lord and Jack Webb. Despite this new-found respectability, however, cops could never shake their fear of losing status. As a group, they remain afflicted by a Napoleon Complex, wanting to be treated as professionals on par with doctors and lawyers but fearful that people will cease to honor their authority and expertise. We see this anxiety manifest in the innumerable small indignities and petty punishments meted out at traffic stops and metro turnstiles. Sometimes we see it explode in bouts of comic farce or deadly violence.

In achieving professional credibility, cops have built for themselves another world, one where they are the put-upon sheep dogs defending the ungrateful and ignorant sheep from the wolves of society. So whenever embarrassments or fiascos occur, many cops fall back on the an refrain: we have tough jobs; it’s a dangerous world out there; we’re doing the best we can with the meager resources you give us! Secret Service communications chief Anthony Guglielmi echoed this rhetoric when he defended the February 25th response, claiming: "[T]his situation was unpredictable and occurred rapidly. In that instant, the level of threat to the public and the embassy was unknown, and our officers acted swiftly and professionally." The swiftness of the response is undeniable, but it can only be characterized as professional if we take that to mean, as the police themselves do, that cops have a primary professional duty to defend themselves from any threat, regardless of its actual potential to inflict harm upon them, and regardless of the cost to the public.

Reformers, well-meaning but naive, recognize some of the shortcomings of police and recommend improved training, stricter use-of-force policies, better equipment. These reforms are stillborn, however, because cops don’t take them seriously. They can’t. Simply put, they don’t think that outsiders are qualified to judge police behavior. They’re happy to accept additional funding and resources, and maybe the savvy police executive will tow the reformist line during budget meetings, but once they have a greater share of the budget, cops will invariably do whatever they want. More money for reform simply results in more cops to protect policemen. 

Right after World War 2, sociologist William A Westley imbedded himself in the department of a mid-sized US city for about a year. The book that resulted, Violence and the Police: A Sociological Study of Law, Custom, and Morality, remains a seminal work in the study of police culture. He identified the police as a society in miniature, with its own customs and its own moral code. Paramount to that code was – and remains – a determination to repel critics and outsiders. Thus, he observed, while most cops did not engage in violence, and a surprising number actively tried to avoid it, the brutes and the thugs that did exist were given a wide berth. Sadism was met with silence, badges deployed as a shield wall against the slings and arrows of ignorant critics.

Westley summarized the world of the cop:

The policeman’s most significant contact is with the law-evading public, which defines him as a malicious and dangerous intruder into their business and acts accordingly. His resolution of this problem includes an insistence on his will and on obtaining respect, by the use of violence, if necessary…He is exposed to public immorality. He becomes cynical. His is a society emphasizing the crooked, the weak, and the unscrupulous. Accordingly, his morality is one of expediency and his self-conception one of a martyr. [Emphasis mine]

Deputy Hernandez, the yet-unnamed Secret Service officer, and all the other members of that copper fraternity are given power, a gun, and a chip on their shoulder, so to go out and do battle with the demons of their own mind and making: with the hiss of acorns and the crackle of a true martyr’s flames. Our stories often bolster this state of affairs. They can do better. Reno 911 showed us how.

From Atlanta to Palestine: Liberation By Any Means Necessary

[Pictured: US and Israeli soldiers conduct joint urban warfare training near Jerusalem. Credit: Tsafrir Abayov/AP]

By Alex Ackerman

On May 31st, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Atlanta Police Department conducted a raid and arrested three Atlanta Solidarity Fund organizers. The activists’ work has supported those arrested for protesting against Cop City, a $90 million police training facility planned to be built in the Weelaunee Forest, known as one of the “four lungs” of Atlanta. In 2021, the Atlanta City Council voted to approve the plan to build Cop City, despite overwhelming popular opposition. In an eerie echo of history, on June 5th of this year, the council voted to approve the funding of Cop City, culminating in $67 million of taxpayers’ money. Hundreds of Atlanta residents spoke for more than 17 hours in opposition, yet the City Council aligned with the ruling class and the forces of capital. 

The “Stop Cop City” movement opposes the construction of this facility due to the combination of environmental harm it stands to inflict and the heightened threat of police violence against the surrounding neighborhoods, whose residents are primarily Black. The imminent destruction of 381 acres of forest to build a mock city for police training epitomizes the United States’ settler-colonial legacy of theft of indigenous life and land. Cop City would strengthen police tactics and expand resources for urban warfare, which law enforcement currently utilize across the country, particularly against Black people. The raid against the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, carried out by a heavily armed SWAT team, marks an escalation of state-sanctioned violence, as those in power work to maintain the hegemony of the capitalist state at any cost.

The recent raid against bail fund organizers highlights the encroaching presence of fascism and the broader militarization of police. In the United States, police violence serves as a continuation of settler violence waged against internally colonized populations, particularly Black and indigenous communities. In January of this year, queer and indigenous forest defender and “Stop Cop City” organizer Tortuguita was shot 57 times by Georgia state troopers, who were carrying out a similar militarized raid of the protestors’ encampment in the forest that is slated for destruction. This execution exemplifies the necessity of resisting Cop City, as such indiscriminate executions will only continue and be systematized with the completion of the facility. On a national level, this escalation of police violence is evidenced by the fact that police killed more people in 2022 than in any other year on record, with 1,241 people murdered, 97 percent of whom were killed in police shootings. Originating from slave patrols, police in their modern context function as an extension of the state to terrorize captive populations, preventing any potential disruption of the capitalist status quo. When any threats to this domination arise, the ruling class will expend all available resources to quell the opposition. For example, 42 protestors face domestic terrorism charges after Atlanta police stormed a music festival held by activists in the Weelaunee Forest. Additionally, three organizers face felony charges, with the potential of serving 20 years in prison, for the simple act of placing flyers that identified Tortuguita’s killer on mailboxes. These tactics of repression reflect a concerted effort to crush the growing dissent of the Stop Cop City movement. In this manner, the police raids in Atlanta, the murder of Tortuguita, and the charges of domestic terrorism demonstrate the lengths to which the capitalist class will go to preserve their hegemony, weaponizing the police as a cudgel against the masses. 

The United States is not the only settler-colonial, imperialist force heightening state-sanctioned violence. Across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have carried out mass raids, indiscriminately arresting Palestinians and wreaking havoc through destruction, injury, and death in the dead of night. Specifically, occupation forces murdered two-year-old Mohammed Al-Tamimi, who succumbed to his wounds after being shot in the head. Furthermore, on Wednesday, June 7th, the IOF detained university student and ex-political prisoner Layan Kayed after ransacking her family home at dawn. The state-sanctioned inhumanity against the Palestinian people serves as a means of tormenting Palestinians, enforcing their subjugation by the Zionist entity with the aim of humiliation and demoralization. In essence, the cruelty is the point. These nightly raids comprise a fraction of the extensive violence enacted by the Israeli state and settlers, which are co-constitutive, whose goal is the complete eradication of Palestinians from the land. 

In addition to the raids, just this past week, Zionist occupation forces have assaulted Palestinians at apartheid checkpoints, uprooted more than 100 olive trees, demolished at least five family homes in East Jerusalem, and bombed a house in Ramallah. The IOF intentionally targeted and shot Palestinian journalists Mo’men Samreen and Rabie al-Munir, who were wearing their press uniforms, during a Ramallah raid. This attack is reminiscent of the deliberate and cold-blooded murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, another Palestinian journalist. These campaigns elucidate the reality of settler colonialism as an ongoing process of dispossession. Just as the United States arose as a European settler colony, so, too, does “Israel” share such colonial origins. In the monograph Zionist Colonialism in Palestine, Fayez A. Sayegh illustrates the alliance between British imperialism and Zionist colonialism:

“On the one hand, Britain, by utilizing Zionist influence in the United States and in France, would avert international rule in Palestine, on the pretext that a British-sponsored program of Zionist colonization required British rule in Palestine. On the other hand, by playing a catalytic role in bringing about the designation of Britain as the ruling Power in Palestine, Zionism would at last be able to embark upon the long-awaited program of large-scale colonization in the coveted territory under the auspices and protection of a Great power…For the Zionist settler-state, to be is to prepare and strive for territorial expansion.”

Though alliances have shifted with the emergence of the United States as the dominant imperialist power following the second World War, the primary contradiction of settler-colonialism persists. The existence of the Zionist state presupposes the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and the military aid supplied by the United States equips them with the resources to materially realize the decimation of Palestinian life and land. 

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From Atlanta to Palestine, the resistance against occupational forces is directly enmeshed in the material struggle for the land. As Frantz Fanon elucidates, “For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.” The struggles against Cop City and for the liberation of Palestine are mutually imbricated, as they both demonstrate state-sanctioned, settler-colonial violence by imperialist powers. Furthermore, the collaboration between the US and the Zionist state is the result of the impetus to further entrench their domination over colonized and working class people. 

Situated in the very site of the Stop Cop City movement, the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) illustrates this connection between the settler-colonial, imperialist powers. This joint project between Georgia State University and Georgia law enforcement facilitates international exchanges, subsidized by the Department of Justice, wherein the IOF and American police participate in cooperative training sessions. Not only do these settler-colonial states exchange tactics of warfare, but each also manufactures models of surveillance that the other can exploit against its own population. Specifically, the Atlanta Police Department created the Video Integration Center, a network of over 5,300 public and private cameras, after former Chief of Police George Turner visited “Israel” and observed the command and control center in Jerusalem. Such collaboration highlights the boomerang effect of colonialism, in which Palestine is used as a laboratory to develop technologies of surveillance and brutality that are imported into the imperial core and deployed against colonized and working class people. 

This boomerang effect remains far-reaching and reveals the interconnected nature of monopoly capitalism, imperialism, and settler-colonialism. Imperialist states and transnational corporations cooperate in a manner that serves their common interests: the perpetuation of their hegemony. Microsoft, for example, funded the startup Anyvision to produce technology utilizing thousands of cameras and facial recognition software to monitor hundreds of thousands of Palestinians across the West Bank and Jerusalem. Employed by Zionist occupation forces, this project directly infringes on Palestinians’ liberties and right to self-determination, especially when even a Facebook post criticizing “Israel” marks a Palestinian as a target. Anyvision’s executives stated themselves that Palestine was a “testing ground” for this technology. In an effort to dodge the backlash sparked by the revelation of Palestinian surveillance, Anyvision rebranded to Oosto. This technology now extends its reach internationally, utilized by both private companies, such as casinos and sporting stadiums, and the American government, specifically the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol. More recently, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence has engendered new ways by which surveillance technology can be wrought against the colonized. The Zionist entity has installed remote-controlled guns that use AI tracking systems to target Palestinians, with one gun located in the Aida refugee camp. Before long, such weaponry will also be used to target marginalized people and political organizers in the United States, such as those in Atlanta. 

The nature of monopoly capitalism is such that the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie entails cooperation between state governments and transnational corporations. Moreover, the alliance between the United States and “Israel” further speaks to their interdependence, characterized by their common weaponization of state-sanctioned violence. The United States funds the Zionist forces by appropriating $3.8 billion annually, the majority of which consists of military assistance. In return,  the Zionist entity functions as an extension of American imperial interests in the Middle East. Kwame Ture aptly describes the relationship between the US and the Zionist state in that “[t]he United States is the greatest dehumanizer in the world, and Israel is nothing but a finger of the United States of America.” In this manner, the shared tactics of state repression unite these settler-colonial, imperialist projects with the goal of solidifying their domination. The struggles in Atlanta and across Palestine, therefore, must be understood in the context of the international movement for decolonization and liberation from imperialism. 

Confronting the garish violence deployed by the capitalist state and settlers alike, resistance remains steadfast, despite the immense power and resources at the disposal of the settler imperialist empire. Organizers have engaged in a wide variety of actions in opposition to Cop City, including protests, juridical avenues, sabotage of police equipment and surveillance technology, and occupation of the forest through community encampments, which have been continuous targets of police raids. In a groundbreaking moment of direct action, forest defenders overtook a police outpost at the proposed building site, setting ablaze multiple vehicles, construction infrastructure, and a mobile surveillance tower. Pursuing avenues for political expression outside of bourgeois-controlled channels signals a shift in class consciousness and a growing understanding of the power of collective, organized action. 

Palestinians resist the occupation on a daily basis, incurring the wrath of Israeli forces yet prevailing nonetheless. The summer of 2021 saw the widespread mobilization of Palestinians across occupied territories, known as the Unity Intifada, resulting in global rallying cries for Palestinian liberation. This mass uprising evinced the revolutionary spirit of Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle for liberation. In September of the same year, six Palestinian political prisoners dug their way to freedom in an historic prison break, using six spoons as their only tools. Militant resistance continues to manifest across Palestine, illustrated by the Lion’s Den, an organization that gained momentum in 2022 after responding to heightened Zionist settler violence. These manifestations of popular revolt against state-sanctioned displacement and death explicate the will of the colonized in that no amount of brute military force can dissipate the steadfast conviction in the cause for liberation. 

To bring an end to settler-colonialism, imperialism, and all oppressive systems necessitates resistance by any means necessary. In an effort to maintain their illegitimate power, both settler-colonial entities criminalize this resistance with the aim of intimidating opposing forces into silence. The three Atlanta forest defenders arrested for flyering were detained in solitary confinement for multiple days, a purposefully torturous warning to every activist who dares defy the construction of Cop City. That these organizers faced legal retribution designates them as political prisoners subjected to persecution by the settler capitalist state. This form of state repression is rampant in Palestine, where over 1,000 political prisoners are incarcerated without charge or trial. In the face of this policy of administrative detention, detainees remain at the forefront of the struggle by organizing hunger strikes for their freedom. The deployment of this tactic across Atlanta and Palestine has only further intensified in recent years in response to growing resistance movements. 

The interconnected nature of these struggles highlights that resistance to imperialism requires solidarity across borders. The United States finances the Zionist occupation of Palestine, wherein weapons and technology are tested and subsequently imported back into the imperial core. Make no mistake: this fascist violence will not be contained only to Atlanta. If Cop City is built, the implications will reverberate not only across the country but also around the world. 

This escalation of state-sanctioned violence represents the fear of popular support and proliferating solidarity. Walter Rodney connects people’s political consciousness to their material conditions, explaining that “[s]o long as there is political power, so long as a people can be mobilized to use weapons, and so long as a society has the opportunity to define its own ideology and culture, then the people of that society have some control over their own destinies…” (255). If people take their destinies into their own hands, if people imagine a future free from capitalist and imperialist domination, these hegemons will crumble before our very eyes. Every martyr who has sacrificed their lives for the sake of this common cause against settler-colonialism and imperialism is not just a number, and they have not died in vain. The people with whom they shared a uniting goal uphold their memory by resisting every day until they achieve victory.  

State Repression Targets the "Stop Cop City" Movement

[Pictured: Kamau Franklin of Community Movement Builders and other organizers announce a ballot referendum effort at a June 7 press conference in Atlanta.] (Photo: Twitter @Micahinatl)

By Margaret Kimberley

Republished from Black Agenda Report.

Cop City is an effort to ensure that state violence will bring the most draconian methods to bear against Black people. State violence is also being used proactively, in an effort to end opposition to this creation of Atlanta's white ruling class and their errand boys and girls who ostensibly control a fake mecca for Black people.

“The politicians don’t care about the people. They don’t work for the people. They work for corporations, the developers, and the police. The Atlanta City Council ignored the largest mass mobilization ever because the corporate-funded Atlanta Police Foundation controls them.”

— Kamau Franklin, Community Movement Builders

Atlanta, Georgia is no mecca. The idea that it is a “good for Black people” city is a lie. Atlanta is little more than a glorified plantation where powerful white people give directions to the Black people they choose to be overseers. The power of the latter group is severely limited of course. They can always be counted on to act on behalf of the white power structure they serve.

No one should be shocked that members of the Atlanta City Council listened to hours of impassioned testimony from their constituents opposing what they call a Public Safety Training Center yet still voted to approve an initial $31 million expenditure by a vote of 11 to 4. The center is commonly and more accurately known as Cop City and thousands of people have mobilized to keep it from being built.

In the days before the vote the degree of official perfidy was revealed when the public were informed that the estimated cost for the center was more than double what they had been told. The cost to the city is $67 million , and not the $30 million figure that has been stated ever since the project was announced.

The state of Georgia and their Atlanta lackeys swung into action after the budgetary fraud was exposed and arrested three organizers of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund , a bail fund used to support protesters who have been arrested. The city and state had already mobilized brute force, killing one protester, Manuel Paez Teran, with 57 bullet wounds and charging others with terrorism. Before the bail fund arrests, three other organizers were charged with felony intimidation of an officer when they shared already public information which identified the killer police.

Atlanta Solidarity Fund organizers were arrested by a SWAT team and charged with charity fraud and money laundering because they reimbursed themselves for expenses. Judge James Altman released the three on $15,000 bond each. “Paying for camping supplies and the like? I don’t find it very impressive. There’s not a lot of meat on the bones of the allegations that thousands of dollars are going to fund illegal activities.”

But the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia are not alone in their acts of repression. The federal Department of Homeland Security has also weighed in calling protesters “militants” who they say comprise a “violent far-left occupation.” When the DHS report was made public, online access was suddenly removed.

Cop City would be more than a police training center. The 85-acre site would be a mock city, used to train police in “crowd control,” methods. It would be a militarized policing center training law enforcement from around the country. Cop City is a response to the 2020 protests which sprang up across the country after the police killing of George Floyd and the protests in Atlanta which took place after the killing of Rayshard Brooks. The reaction against the new movement was swift and Atlanta’s local oligarchs demanded that their Black figureheads do something to ensure that any further protests be met with the harshest measures possible.

Yet the people of Atlanta weren’t fooled, and they lined up for hours to give testimony before their so-called representatives who don’t really want to hear from them. Atlanta resident Robell Awake spoke for many when he said, “I cannot believe I am standing here, pleading with you not to spend the tax dollars of a Black city, to tear down a forest in a Black neighborhood, to increase the policing and caging of more Black people. All this in a city with Black leadership. It breaks my heart.”

As we have said many times at Black Agenda Report, we don’t have Black political leadership in this country. We have misleadership, a corrupt buffer class who do the bidding of Black people’s enemies while pretending to be our representatives.

The next step in stopping the Cop City scam is to put a referendum on the ballot. Organizers must secure 75,000 signatures from registered voters within the next two months in order to give voters a voice in the process. Direct democracy is the tool, but the same people who use SWAT teams to arrest organizers won’t stop either.

Cities, states, and the federal government will all work together at the behest of the ruling class whenever the people choose to act in favor of their own interests. They will bring terrorism charges, kill protesters, and buy off politicians in order to get what they want. As always, the question is how the masses will respond. Atlantans are ready and they are showing the way.

Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon  and also find it on the Twitter  and Telegram  platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com.

More than Mercenaries: Police as the Crucible of Fascism in the U.S.

By Comrade Dremel

Republished from The Red Clarion.

Fascism is ascendant in the imperial core. The U.S. and its junior partners are waging an increasingly bloody war on all fronts, in an attempt to bolster the decaying husk of capital. The foot soldiers in this war are the police. Armed to the teeth and trained to kill, police are positioned as an occupying force in every locale across the empire. The violence perpetrated by police increases in magnitude with each passing year, with the targets of this violence being overwhelmingly the poor, Black, Indigenous, immigrant, queer, and disabled populations most despised by the empire. Even a cursory glance through the history of law enforcement in the U.S. exposes its role as the assault engine of white supremacy and capitalist hegemony.

Even before the settler-republic declared independence, slave patrols were organized to deal with the ever-growing population of enslaved African labor and the threat of rebellion. Hired guns would patrol the property, investigating and brutally punishing dissent, the possession of weapons, and attempted escapes. As far back as 1643, the English colonies were organizing themselves into confederations, pledging to enforce each others’ “right” to the return of fugitive slaves and indentured servants:

It is also agreed that if any servant run away from his master into any other of these confederated Jurisdictions, that in such case, upon the certificate of one magistrate in the Jurisdiction out of which the said servant fled, or upon other due proof; the said servant shall be delivered, either to his master, or any other that pursues and brings such certificate or proof.

Following the establishment of the United States, plantation owners quickly began entreating state legislatures to form standing patrols, as well as laws that explicitly targeted all Black people — regardless of their legal status. These fugitive slave laws and the patrollers enforcing them curtailed Black freedom of movement and assembly, subjected them to constant questioning, and inflicted unspeakably violent punishments. These practices spread throughout the colonies, and the institution of policing as a means of oppressing Black and Indigenous populations went from ad hoc posses to state machinery.

Following the U.S. civil war, despite the legal end of slavery, slave patrols prowled the countryside. Anti-Black violence, once perpetrated by pre-war slave-catching squads, took on the same form as anti-Indigenous violence: it shifted to the domain of terror groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. These vigilante terror organizations were, in many cases, composed of the elite of Southern and Western U.S. society: plantation owners, former Confederate officers, and ex-slave-catchers. Not only were these men enlisted by the secretive, semi-legal terror societies, but they also joined the rush of explicitly authorized “Indian fighters” – U.S. soldiers and cavalrymen, hired guns, and bounty hunters that poured into the Indigenous lands still left west of the Appalachian chain that the young settler-republic had determined must belong to white men.

To support this new drive, laws were carefully rewritten to empower police to enforce the political and economic repression of non-white people. This fundamental principle of U.S. settler law laid the foundation for the white-supremacist laws of today. The disproportionate impact of law enforcement on racialized populations has been thoroughly examined and excoriated for decades. The verdict is clear: law enforcement is systematically constructed to perpetuate white supremacy.

Since the creation of municipal and regional police in the 19th century, they have not only targeted Black and Indigenous persons. The police were not merely the enforcement arm of the theft of Native land and the suppression of Black labor; they have been the armed fist of capital, serving to break strikes, attack unions, and halt the labor movement in its tracks. Capitalists have consistently called upon police, private security, and the military to break strikes, often with deadly force. Under the guise of “peacekeeping,” cops respond to mass demonstrations by cracking skulls. Since the cold war, the intelligence wing of law enforcement has used the specter of communism to harry and infiltrate militant labor movements. With the blood of thousands of workers on their hands, the presence of police “unions” in labor federations like AFL-CIO is a grotesque mockery. The police are not workers: they are our most violent oppressors.

Cops are not simply hapless mercenaries, selling their labor as cogs in a repressive machine. They are not blameless workers caught up in a Kafkaesque machinery beyond their capacity to change. They are active participants in murder, genocide, labor suppression, and all the heinous acts for which they were created. They are the active agents of colonial and imperialist oppression. Indeed, the nature of policing as a tool of enforcing white supremacy and capital hegemony makes it especially appealing to a particular class of ideological actors. Police forces are staffed by the most motivated white supremacists. Fascist militias are largely populated by cops (active and retired), military veterans, and small business owners, as well as those with aspirations to law enforcement. They dedicate huge amounts of time, money, and labor to organizations designed to enforce white supremacy – all while comfortably employed in service of an empire built on those ideals. Many such groups paint themselves as “anti-government,” because they believe the U.S. government is holding them back from their fascist aims. That is, they resent the fact that the state has itself attempted to regulate white supremacist violence into a form it can control; they long for the early settler-republic, when any white man could wreak his will with a riding crop, a fist, or a Colt and no one would gainsay him.

State-sanctioned violence and extrajudicial fascist terrorism cannot be so identified as pointing out a badge.  In a recent database leak, exposing membership lists of the fascist Oathkeepers, numerous high ranking officers and sheriffs were identified among the hundreds of law enforcement officers on the books. One such lieutenant — who signed up for the Oathkeepers with the promise to use his position to recruit for the organization — was transferred to administrative duties upon knowledge of his involvement. Months later, he was back to his normal duties, as if nothing had happened. The police are police whether they wear their badges or not.

Law enforcement often dedicates some labor toward monitoring white supremacist extremism, although this is vastly overshadowed by its investment in tracking and attempting to entrap leftist organizations. Undercover agents and confidential informants insinuated into fascist groups often fail to report vital information, use their position to testify in defense of these groups, or are simply ignored by their handlers. The FBI, generally tasked with handling these investigations, are simply uninterested in the incrimination of fascists, instead instructing their informants to gather intelligence on the opponents of fascism. Law enforcement is deeply invested in the project of maintaining a white supremacist status quo. It has a long history of surveilling and violently repressing those who seek liberation, while giving unending leeway to those who attempt to heighten that oppression.

The overlap between fascist groups and law enforcement is sporadically reported on by bourgeois institutions, including media exposes, academic reviews, and even intelligence reports. Like all liberal exposes, however, these serve a dual purpose; by presenting the information, they defang it. The framework of these reports usually presents the presence of “bad apples” and promises that the issue merely needs some pressing reform. Thus, these liberal bourgeois reports disguise the fundamental nature of the white supremacist violence that pervades settler society. Through the lens of liberal “analysis,” all social ills are the result of scoundrels sullying otherwise valorous institutions. However, this misunderstands not just the material base out of which these very institutions were crafted in the first place, but also the insidious ways in which they get continuously reproduced, refined, and made more suitable to their primary purpose: maintaining the particular property relations of capitalism.

Policing presents its semi-legitimate face as “protecting the people,” originally with an explicitly racialized definition of “the people,” then retreating into implications and dog whistles. To bolster the white supremacist mythos that paints racialized populations as the source of civil strife, the ruling class has spent centuries pumping money into bad studies and employing racist professors to espouse the theory that certain populations are inherently “criminal.” Every new measure passed to empower the police has come with corresponding narratives stoking the fascist flames: “superpredators,” “crack epidemic,” “migrant caravans”. This has served to simultaneously drive recruitment and political support for the police from among the beneficiaries of white supremacy. The attractiveness of law enforcement to today’s fascists is unsurprising, given this historical context.

Law enforcement itself serves as a crucible of fascism, concentrating the most destructive aspects of the ideology into a superheated core. Its role as the violent arm of the state provides fertile soil for recruiting, training, and organizing nascent white supremacists into capable, radicalized cadres, indoctrinated with fascist ideology and inoculated against empathy. Combined with the tendencies of groups toward polarization (a meta-analysis of which can be found here), the overtly oppressive role of law enforcement creates an environment that drags its members toward fascist radicalization. This radicalization happens in much the same way that all institutions (fascist or not) mature into hegemonic forms, through the mutually-reinforcing processes of selection and intensification.

Selection is the process of sorting masses of individuals based on their demonstrated values and selecting the “best” — i.e. most well-suited to the group’s aims — for promotion, deeper into the institution. Although this can be a rigidly-defined process, as in the case of deliberately constructed organizations (such as workplaces), selection also takes place constantly throughout social life. Friend groups, community associations, activist circles, and more are constantly going through a loose process of selection; those who best fit in with the group and its purpose tend to find themselves more deeply involved in it, encouraged by those already integrated within it. The values being selected for vary from group to group, and can cover an immense range of criteria: specific skillsets, existing social ties, resources, even fashion sense or humor. The most common value being heuristically screened for, across all social structures, is how well an individual “clicks” with the existing group: like selects like. “Promotion,” of course, can also be a spectrum: anywhere from simply spending more time with like-minded individuals to actively being given more responsibilities and privileges within an organized structure. As specific traits get selected for, the individuals exhibiting those traits become better positioned to do the selecting, bringing in other individuals who share those same traits that brought them through the process themselves.

Intensification is the deepening of existing values, making individuals that move through an institution become more suited to the institution’s purpose. Again, this process can be explicit or informal, depending on the specific context. Individuals can be formally trained in specific skills, subjected to exercises designed to impart values and lessons through experience, go through rituals to promote group cohesion, or simply be subtly influenced by existing members of the group in a passive process of socialization. The more formally-organized a group is, the more explicit the programs of intensification that tend to be employed, but the social aspect is always present, and is often of the most relevance. As social creatures, humans are primed to modify our own behaviors and ideals to best integrate into our particular social environments. Over time, whether through passive or active means, groups tend to engender in their members deeper commitment and competence. Whether as education, radicalization, or collegiality, intensification works to define the character of both a group and the individuals within it.

These two processes act in concert, at all levels of institutions, playing into each other to best adapt a group to its niche. Selection elevates those individuals best adapted to modulate the intensification of others: the most charismatic speakers, the most skilled leaders, the most committed to the cause, inevitably find themselves brought up into a position to bring up their like-minded compatriots. Intensification serves as an indicator for selection, with those for whom the process yields the most favorable results increasingly demonstrating their fitness. Those who fail or refuse are seen as poorly-suited to the group and become ever-more estranged, if not outright ejected from the group. As an institution takes shape, these processes can cause it to calcify and regiment its process. Selection becomes increasingly based on set criteria, with explicitly delineated measures of promotion. Intensification practices become standardized trainings and rituals aimed at achieving specific results. But even in the absence of formal protocols, the social structure itself continues to set the pace of its own development, through the placement and shaping of its members.

Nowhere is this more typified than in the crucible of fascism. A new recruit on the force has already gone through several steps of selection and intensification that are adapted to the niche fascism aims to occupy. To even want to join, an individual must already believe in the myth of police as “peacekeepers.” They must ignore the blatant violent excesses of the institution. They already have an instinct toward protecting capitalist, white supremacy hegemony — whether they fully realize it or not. In other words, the police recruitment process itself has already selected for people who tend toward violence, chauvinism, ego, and myopia in service of capital (even if these traits are not always fully-formed in the novice). These traits are intensified during training, where recruits are taught laws, practice with firearms and other weapons, learn interrogation tactics, go through drills on handling “hostiles,” and more. Every step of the training serves to viscerally engrain in these recruits that they are the last line of defense for society against a violent, degenerate, implacable enemy, that their fellow brethren are comrades-in-arms, that the mission of the police is pure and righteous, worth laying down their very lives. They are taught that violent confrontation is not only inevitable, but righteous. In short, by the time they even become a full member of the force, people who were already filtered for traits suitable to fascism have already begun being radicalized into an ideological resentment toward the communities they police.

And then the process really gets started.

When that recruit walks into headquarters, he is entering a building absolutely packed with people who were just like him when they were recruits. Some were simply idealistic and justice-minded, without much regard for the obvious systemic horrors of the institution. Some were white supremacists from the beginning, and saw those horrors as noble. All of them went through a refinement process, and all have been modified by it in some way. They may have nervously laughed off bigoted comments, or they may have made some themselves to fit in. They may have seen squadmates commit acts of brutality, and thought to submit an official complaint — provoking the ire of their compatriots — or they may have eagerly joined in. They have spent every working day being exposed to propaganda, both informal and officially-sanctioned, about crime rates and the dangers of their profession and the fundamental threat posed by “certain communities.” They are promoted officially based on their arrests, tickets, experience, and the approval of higher ranking officers. They are promoted socially based on their cohesiveness within a group that has gone through these same radicalizing processes.

Those who couldn’t cut it — those who were too turned off by the systemic abuse, casual chauvinism, and blatant lies — are not in the room when that recruit walks in. Those who have best embraced that regressive atmosphere are introduced to him as mentors. In a radicalizing environment, the least radical have the least influence and the most radical dominate. In the case of police specifically, fascists find themselves easily making friends, enforcing “law and order,” and rising through the ranks, both institutionally and socially. They find themselves in positions of influence, and continue to shape the process that helped shape them. This attracts more of their ilk to the force, further impacting its development — and theirs. The state gains ever-more violent and rabid enforcers, while the fascists gain ever-more combat experience, fresh recruits, and institutional backing.

Whatever the particular proclivities of that recruit, he will find himself either becoming more immersed in the fascist milieu, more aligned with their ideals, tactics, and even extrajudicial organizations — or he will find himself ostracized, friendless, demoted, fired. The more the members of fascist militias integrate themselves into the (already fascistic) institution, the less common that latter outcome occurs. The initial selection process becomes implicitly more discerning, with potential recruits needing to meet a higher and higher threshold for what level of brutality they think is justified. The training and propaganda become more intense, directed as they are by those already selected for fascist allegiance. The distinction between state-sanctioned violence and paramilitary formations becomes more and more irrelevant.

This is the real reason all cops are bastards: all cops are subjected to a potent, omnipresent bastardization apparatus. They are recruited by fascists, trained by fascists, mentored by fascists, promoted by fascists. If they happen to join another fascist organization, that’s simply them branching out. And when they do, they bring with them tactical training, weapons proficiency, social prestige, state support, and an intensified clarity of purpose. The enemy of the working class is an active army: well-armed, well-resourced, well-organized, and highly motivated. They can be met with nothing less.

Comrade Dremel is a member of the Unity-Struggle-Unity Staff, an experienced educator, organizer, and scientist based in Maryland. Their organizing work has largely centered around labor agitation and fostering scientific literacy, with an emphasis on climate change and pandemic preparedness.

Too Little, Too Late: Biden's Self-Congratulatory Marijuana Reform Falls Short

By Youhanna Haddad

On October 6th, 2021, President Joe Biden issued a blanket pardon of those federally convicted of marijuana possession, noting that “no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.” This pardon, while seeming huge, releases exactly zero prisoners as no American is in federal prison for simple marijuana possession. Biden further stated that the federal government’s classification of marijuana as more serious than fentanyl “makes no sense,” with the attorney general and Department of Health and Human Services reportedly initiating a process to review marijuana’s scheduling. “Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana,” Biden said. “It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

Biden’s pardon disrupted the more than a century-long history of anti-marijuana policy at the federal level. While the pardon affects but a small minority of total possession convictions, the potential rescheduling or even descheduling of marijuana has not been seriously considered in the United States since the late 1980s. This is thanks in large part to the Controlled Substances Act, which schedules drugs without any regard to their scientifically understood qualities.

To examine the eclectic legal quagmire that is marijuana prohibition, one must explore the history of the plant: its use over time and geography. While the first culture to use marijuana frequently changes as anthropologists continue uncovering older instances of use, it is widely acknowledged that the psychoactive variety of the plant has been consumed for over two millennia. Little to no scholarship has uncovered any historical use of marijauna leading to the decline of living standards anywhere near the level of drugs such as opium.

In the United States, the first marijuana regulations appeared in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War in the mid-19th century. Motivated by the white-supremacist ideology of Manifest Destiny, the United States government pushed westward, running into the then much larger nation of Mexico. After the Mexican-American War, thousands of Mexicans found themselves in newly “American” territory.

To avoid sharing resources, white-American settlers employed a mixture of vigilante and state-sponsored violence to subjugate the Mexican population. They fixated on Mexican use of “locoweed” — a slang term for marijuana — and used prohibition as a means of subjugation. Criminalization thus turned Mexicans into an outlaw class. This served to both reign in the Mexican population and reinforce settler propaganda regarding the “Mexican Menace.”

But it wasn’t just Mexicans who became associated with marijuana around this time. The global phenomenon of jazz music was well underway by the early 20th century. An art form with unmistakably black roots, the popularity of jazz in urban centers led to black male performers gaining fame across the United States.

Concerns over white women in jazz clubs potentially having sexual relations with these men incited panic, particularly in white, bourgeois families. Worrying their daughters might be mesmerized by the siren song of the performers, they sought to restrict the influence of the jazz wave. This manifested in a reinvigorated opposition to marijuana — a known favorite of many jazz performers such as Cab Calloway, whose song ‘Reefer Man’ lauds the drug’s benefits. 

White imagination thus associated Latino and black peoples with marijuana. This set the stage for white outrage at the drug in order to suppress both populations. Rhetoric focused on the potential of marijuana to be used by men of color to dull the inhibitions of white women, facilitating their seduction. While the reality may have been that white women were simply interested in relations with these men, or wanted to explore jazz nightlife, the settler masses adopted this hyper-sexualized rhetoric. The newly established Federal Bureau of Narcotics capitalized on these racist lies in the early 1930s, with leader Harry J. Anslinger proclaiming that marijuana use promoted interracial sex:

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

This rhetoric, which ignored widespread white use in order to racialize the issue, was successful in convincing Congress to pass the first truly restrictive federal regulation of marijuana: The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which effectively made the drug illegal to possess or distribute. It took until 1969 for an infamous Supreme Court case to invalidate the law for its violation of 5th Amendment protections against self-incrimination. One year later, President Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act, which classified marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning the federal government did not recognize any medicinal value and recognized a high potential for abuse.

While obviously nonsensical, this scheduling seemed to make sense to John Ehrlichman, who served as domestic policy chief under Nixon. In a 1994 interview, Ehrlichman stated that there was significant political motivation from the Nixon administration to target certain communities through the Controlled Substances Act. He explained that:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate [them with drugs] we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Nixon’s presidency is widely recognized as a particularly embarrassing chapter in American history, largely due to the Watergate scandal. Only escaping the scandal through a presidential pardon, Nixon was caught red-handed by the nation and world. In light of his crimes, it is unsurprising that the administration sought to quell political opposition through the legal route provided by the Controlled Substances Act.

Today, arrests for marijuana possession follow the same racist logic that birthed prohibition. In 2018, black Americans were 3.64 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession. In Montana and Kentucky, they were over 9 times more likely to be arrested. This is despite the fact that black and white Americans use marijuana at similar rates.

There is no state, including all states where marijuana is legal, that arrests white and black citizens at equal rates. Even in Colorado — the first state to legalize recreational use — black people are 1.54 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession (even “legal” states have possession limits).

Incredibly, there are 19 counties in the United States where black people are more than 20 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana. In Georgia’s Pickens County, black people are over 97 times more likely to be arrested! These statistics demonstrate the racist nature of marijuana enforcement — an enforcement that has never separated itself from its roots as a tool of subjugation of nonwhite populations.

In the best-case scenario, Biden’s directive to reschedule marijuana would result in complete descheduling. That means marijuana would no longer be prohibited by the Controlled Substances Act. While this would undeniably be an overdue victory, it wouldn’t expunge or pardon any past convictions from draconian laws that unjustly decimated generations of black communities. Descheduling alone, therefore, does little to right the wrongs Biden claims to be so concerned about. In order to properly address this state-sponsored terror campaign, all prisoners whose charges derive from marijuana possession must be freed and their records expunged. Anything less is a frivolous distraction masquerading as a step toward justice while keeping the victims of prohibition in bondage.

The Power of Pull-Over Prevention Clinics ("POPs")

By Joseph Lobodzinski

Throughout many leftist circles, debates are taking place over the best way to achieve police abolition. Some insist that the most realistic path is through an electoral struggle, wherein police abolitionists run for local, state, and federal positions. Once elected, they can slash police budgets and implement different policies that will bring us closer to a society without military-like “peacekeepers.” Others put their faith in community-based action such as, but not limited to, abolition read-ins and food/clothing donation events. These efforts seek to model a community wherein social ills are eradicated through basic human compassion, rendering a police presence unnecessary.

Abolitionist inquiry has yielded many great proposals addressing the destructiveness of America’s current police apparatus. As we continue this inquiry, we must take stock of all the meaningful ways people have advanced abolition within their communities.

One particular mode of abolitionist praxis has proved especially successful. It has shown an ability to protect marginalized people not just from cops, but immigration officers as well. Pull-over prevention clinics — or “POPs,” as they’re sometimes called — are free, volunteer-run repair shops. Crews of off-duty mechanics and community handymen help fix tires, install lights and booster seats, and refill essential fluids. This work, of course, allows people to safely conduct their required daily travel. But it also does much more than that. By ensuring compliance with legal standards, pull-over prevention clinics preempt “unsafe [and] discriminatory interactions with law enforcement.”

Ypsilanti, Michigan — located in the Huron Valley between Ann Arbor and Detroit — is a hotspot for this sort of mutual aid. In a remarkable display of solidarity, individuals from all walks of life are banding together to help protect the most marginalized members of their community.

The Ypsilanti Mutual Aid Network is one of many organizations in the Huron Valley region conducting POPs. They explain their reasoning as follows: 

“Police and immigration officers use minor automotive issues as reasons to stop, search, fine, and deport people. POP volunteers provide repair and advice for these issues, share repair skills, and promote access to local resources.”

Since 2020, some local chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America have also assisted hundreds of motorists in the Huron Valley through POPs. In those two years, POP events have grown significantly in both scope and frequency.

An increasing number of organizations in the Huron Valley go beyond car repair to provide other types of community-care work. Roughly once a month, residents of southeast Michigan can receive free COVID and flu shots, test kits, and masks provided by the Washtenaw County Health Department and Packard Health. Free lunches are given away by FedUp Ministries, free pet food and other supplies are provided by Pet Pals Mutual Aid, and clinics often have volunteer DJs and other entertainment for children to enjoy while their parents’ cars are being fixed. While not directly tied to policing, these services nonetheless help build the abolitionist project by drawing in more people who — whether they realize it or not — become part of an effort to eradicate social ills through community action rather than criminalization.

To increase accessibility, information on POPs is always published in both English and Spanish.  This allows word to travel quickly, increasing turnout and thus broadening the impact of POPs. That should encourage organizers, whose efforts will almost surely create positive ripple effects throughout their locale.

In a society with little sense of community, alienation is a staple of American life. It is therefore hard to organize aid efforts with quick, direct, and long-lasting effects — especially when the intended goal is abolition. While the notion of a society without police has gained traction since the murder of George Floyd, much of America is still tentatively supportive of the current approach to law enforcement. As liberal reforms continue to fail, and cities like New York shovel billions of dollars into their police departments, we must show those on the fence that there are better ways to promote public safety. Pull-over prevention clinics might be an integral part of an overall strategy to do just that.

Police Departments Spend Vast Sums of Money Creating “Copaganda”

[PICTURED: Officers from the Norfolk Police Department in Virginia danced to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” as part of a lip-sync challenge created by police departments nationwide. - via Norfolk Police Department]

By Alec Karakatsanis

Republished from Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

In May of this year, I testified at a hearing in San Francisco where city leaders questioned the police department’s funding and use of public relations professionals. That funding was heavier than you might expect.

According to police department documents provided to the County Board of Supervisors, budget items included a nine-person full-time team managed by a director of strategic communications who alone costs the city $289,423; an undisclosed number of cops paid part-time to do PR work on social media; a Community Engagement Unit tracking public opinion; officers who intervene with the families of victims of police violence and who are dispatched to the scenes of police violence to control initial media reaction; and a full-time videographer making PR videos about cops.

San Francisco is not unique. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has forty-two employees doing PR work in what it calls, in Orwellian fashion, its “Information Bureau.” The Los Angeles Police Department has another twenty-five employees devoted to formal PR work.

Why do police invest so much in manipulating our perceptions of what they do? I call this phenomenon “copaganda”: creating a gap between what police actually do and what people think they do.

Copaganda does three main things. First, it narrows our understanding of safety. Police get us to focus on crimes committed by the poorest, most vulnerable people in our society and not on bigger threats to our safety caused by people with wealth and power.

For example, wage theft by employers dwarfs all other property crime combined — from burglaries, to retail theft, to robberies — costing some $50 billion every year. Tax evasion steals about $1 trillion each year. There are hundreds of thousands of Clean Water Act violations each year, causing cancer, kidney failure, rotting teeth, and damage to the nervous system. Over 100,000 people in the United States die every year from air pollution, five times the number of all homicides.

But through the stories cops feed reporters, the public is encouraged to measure a city’s safety by whether it saw an annual increase or decrease of three homicides or fourteen robberies — rather than by how many people died from lack of access to health care, how many children suffered lead poisoning, how many families were rendered homeless by illegal eviction or foreclosure, or how many thousands of illegal assaults police committed.

The second function of copaganda is to manufacture crises or “crime surges.” For example, if you watch the news, you’ve probably been bombarded with stories about the rise of retail theft. Yet the actual data shows there has been no significant increase. Instead, corporate retailers, police, and PR firms fabricated talking points and fed them to the media. The same is true of what the FBI categorizes as “violent crime.” All told, major “index crimes” tracked by the FBI are at nearly forty-year lows.

The third and most pernicious function of copaganda is to manipulate our understanding of what solutions actually work to make us safer. A primary goal of copaganda is to convince the public to spend even more money on police and prisons. If safety is defined by street crime, and street crime is dangerously high, then funding the carceral state leaps out to many people as a natural solution.

The budgets of modern police departments are staggeringly high and ever increasing, with no parallel in history, producing incarceration rates unseen around the world. Police and their right-wing unions (which have their own PR budgets) want bigger budgets, more military-grade gear, more surveillance technology, and more overtime cash. Multibillion-dollar businesses have privatized nearly every element of these bureaucracies for profit, from the tasers and AI software sold to cops to the snacks sold at huge markups to supplement inadequate jail food. To obtain this level of spending, they need us to think that police and prisons make us safer.

The evidence shows otherwise. If police and prisons made us safe, we would have the safest society in world history — but the opposite is true. There is no link between more cops and decreased crime, even of the type that the police report. Instead, addressing the root causes of interpersonal harm like safe housing, health care, treatment, nutrition, pollution, and early-childhood education is the most effective way to enhance public safety. And addressing root causes of violence also prevents the other harms that flow from inequality, including millions of avoidable deaths.

The insistence that increased policing is the key to public safety is like climate science denial. Just like the oil companies, the police are running an expensive operation of mass communication to convince people of things that aren’t true. Thus, we are left with a great irony: even if what you most care about are the types of crimes reported by police, those crimes would be better reduced by making our society more equal than by spending on police and prisons.

Powerful actors in policing and media both manufacture crime waves and respond to them in ways that increase inequality and consolidate social control, even as they do little to actually stop crime. Copaganda not only diverts people from existential threats like imminent ecological collapse and rising fascism, but also boosts surveillance and repression that is used against social movements trying to solve those problems by creating more sustainable and equal social arrangements.

Hearings like the one I testified at in San Francisco are needed across the country. Local councilmembers should scrutinize the secretive world of police PR budgets, because the public deserves to know how police are spreading misinformation. It is possible to achieve real safety in our communities, but only if we end the copaganda standing in its way.

Alec Karakatsanis is a civil rights lawyer and the founder of Civil Rights Corps. He is also the author of the book Usual Cruelty and a weekly newsletter called Alec’s Copaganda Newsletter.

Two Years Since George Floyd’s Death, Has Anything Changed in the U.S.?

By Natalia Marques

Republished from People’s Dispatch.

Police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd on May 25, 2020, shocking the consciousness of the entire United States. On May 25 of this year, President Joe Biden announced that he will instate an executive order which is a watered-down version of a police reform proposal that previously failed to pass in the Senate. The failed proposal would have altered “qualified immunity”, a doctrine that makes it difficult to sue government officials, including police. The proposal would have kept the doctrine intact for individual officers, but made it easier for police brutality victims to sue officers or municipalities. 

This new executive order would merely create a national registry of officers fired for misconduct, in addition to directing federal agencies to revise use-of-force policies, encouraging state and local police to tighten restrictions on chokeholds and no-knock warrants, restrict the transfer of most military equipment to law enforcement agencies, as reported by the New York Times. 

The real concern for activists and those who are targeted by police is primarily the police who are still on the job, and may have several complaints against them for violence already. This was the case with Chauvin, who had used excessive force in six previous arrests. Even of the officers who are fired for misconduct, of which there are few compared to the massive number of victims killed by police, nearly 25% are reinstated because of police union-mandated appeals. 

Government officials are not responding with the seriousness compared to the intensity of the crisis of police violence that plagues the United States. This is especially true in light of the radical demands generated by the mass movement which followed the death of George Floyd. Some of the most popular were: end police brutality, jail killer cops, and defund the police. This movement shifted the mainstream language on police violence, which had originally placed the blame on individual cops or “bad apples”, to include more discussion of systemic, institutionalized racism. 

“Even though you had the largest social uprising that had ever hit the country, in terms of numbers of people actually hitting the streets, you’ve seen no substantive reforms to address the issues, even in a small way regarding racism and bias in policing,” socialist organizer and journalist Eugene Puryear told Peoples Dispatch, speaking of the 2020 anti-racist uprising. Polls estimate that between 15 and 26 million were out on the streets, making these uprisings the largest protests in US history.

Movement demands

The movement shouted “Jail killer cops!” and “End police brutality!” in the streets, but the state has fallen short on delivering these demands. 

There was no reduction in police killings in the US from 2020 to 2021, according to data compiled by the website Mapping Police Violence. Police killed 1,145 people in 2021, 12 more than in 2020, and 16 more Black people specifically. 

2021 was marked by landmark trials that broke the paradigm of convictions for vigilante and police killings of Black people. The most notable example is Derek Chauvin’s guilty-on-all-counts verdict, for which he was sentenced to a historic 22.5 years. 

However, there was also no notable spike in the number of convictions and sentencing in general of police officers, although there is some evidence that public outrage does generate results. Of the 1,145 police killings in 2021, only two have resulted in convictions thus far. One of them is the trial of Kim Potter, whose murder of Daunte Wright made headlines when she gunned down the 20-year-old Black father 10 miles from where Chauvin was standing trial at the time.

A notable setback, however, was the not-guilty verdict for the killer of Breonna Taylor, Brett Hankinson, who, alongside other officers, killed Breonna by firing 16 rounds into Taylor’s apartment during a raid while she was sleeping. Hankinson was never even on trial for the killing of Taylor. In fact, the officers responsible have faced no criminal charges at all for her death. Hankinson was on trial for “wanton reckless endangerment” for firing ten shots through a wall into Taylor’s neighbor’s apartment. Even for this, he was found not-guilty on May 3 of this year. “Thank you Jesus!” tweeted John Mattingly, another officer involved in Taylor’s murder.

Were the police ever defunded?

“One of the things that was the most notable in the context of the George Floyd uprising, and the rise of the slogan ‘defund the police’, it went beyond simply the issue of police brutality,” Puryear told Peoples Dispatch. “It was connecting at a deeper level, the reality of white supremacy in causing oppression for Black Americans across almost every single social sphere that exists, policing being one of the most egregious examples of this racism and this discrimination and the xenophobia that’s directed towards Black Americans.”

“Defund the police” was indeed a radical slogan in a country in which police budgets as a share of general city expenditures have only increased since the 1970s. These budgets followed the trend of the rise in incarceration, both of which were part of the “war on crime” era of racist policing and incarceration that served to suppress 1960s and 70s Black rebellion. 

As a result, police budgets in the United States are some of the largest in the world, especially compared to underfunded schools and social services. According to a study, schools in the US are short of funding by nearly $150 billion every year. Meanwhile, in a city like New York, the annual police budget is over $10 billion. If the New York Police Department (NYPD) were a military, it would be one of the world’s most well-funded. 

Did city governments ever respond to demands and defund the police? Generally, the answer is no. While the 50 largest cities reduced their police budgets by 5.2% in aggregate, police spending as a share of general spending rose slightly from 13.6% to 13.7%. Many of the budget reductions that did occur were a result of larger pandemic cuts, in which other parts of the city budgets were also reduced. 26 out of 50 major cities actually increased their police budgets.

These numbers are the material reality, but in the full swing of the uprisings, city governments were making lofty promises to their people, who were marching outraged in the streets. In June of 2020, a veto-proof majority of city council members in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, promised to dismantle the police entirely. But when it came time to deliver on these demands, city council members backtracked, claiming that the pledge was “in spirit” or “up to interpretation”. In the end, the city did not dismantle their police force. However, they did end up reducing the police department’s ability to spend overtime and began sending mental health and medical professionals instead of police to respond to emergencies. Activists also won a $8 million cut from the city’s police budget. 

Some city officials resorted to blatant deception, making it seem as if activists won demands when in reality, little had changed. In New York, for example, the mayor pledged to move $1 billion out of the massive NYPD budget. But even at the time of this pledge, activists and progressives were calling out the mayor for “just moving money around”. “Defunding police means defunding police,” said Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “It does not mean budget tricks or funny math.” As described by a report authored by Andrea J. Ritchie and published by Interrupting Criminalization, the mayor claimed to have cut $300 million from the NYPD budget by moving police officers stations in schools out of the NYPD budget and into the Department of Education Budget. This was never a demand of the movement against police brutality, which has always agitated for “police free schools”. In the end, however, this $300 million was never even cut from the NYPD budget, while the Department of Education budget was actually defunded by over $780 million.

Were there any victories?

Although the post-2020 realities are disappointing for many, there were some notable victories. Some cities did in fact make major cuts, such as Austin, which cut a third of its police budget. And the uprisings did in fact halt the trend of ever-increasing police budgets that had existed since the “war on crime” began. Budgets did decrease across major cities, however minimally. 

According to Ritchie’s report, organizers shifted $840 million countrywide away from police forces, and secured $160 million for community services. Activists moved police out of schools, where they often generate more violence than they prevent. 25 cities canceled contracts with police departments operating in schools, saving a total of $35 million. Activists have also begun to demilitarize the highly militarized US police forces, winning bans on chemical/military-grade weapons in 6 cities and facial recognition in 4 cities.

But the key victory of 2020, argues Puryear, was the changing of mass consciousness. “The very fact that you could have a situation where a majority of people are recognizing the fact that there is racism, the fact that there is tremendous discrimination against black people in policing, in prisons and in the criminal legal system, and not have any change whatsoever, shows how intrinsic racism is to capitalism in the US context,” Puryear said. 

He continued, “[Those in power] actually cannot afford to eliminate these clear and obvious biases that exist. It’s essential to the social control of the black community, as a part of the broader efforts to super exploit black people, as it has been since the first slaves arrived here as a central pillar of the capitalist system. 

“It exposed once again the deep relationship between capitalism and racism, and the inability to overcome racism without overcoming capitalism. Because it isn’t just incidental, it isn’t a few bad apples, it isn’t just the attitudes of certain people, but it’s structural and it’s systemic in a way that can’t be changed by good intentions.”

No Letup In Economic And Social Decline: How Capitalism is Pushing the U.S. and World to the Brink of Disaster

By Shawgi Tell

Economic and social conditions have been worsening for decades at home and abroad, especially in the context of the neoliberal antisocial offensive which was launched more than 40 years ago by the international financial oligarchy. But they have been getting even worse in recent years and over the past two years in particular.

Inequality, poverty, and debt, along with homelessness, unemployment, and under-employment are on the rise in an increasingly interconnected globe. It is no surprise that suicide, depression, illness, and anxiety persist at very high levels. There is an unbreakable connection between economic, social, and personal conditions. As economic and social conditions decline, so too do people’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

Below is a current snapshot of deteriorating economic and social conditions in the U.S. and elsewhere. The U.S. population currently stands at 332,403,650. The world population is 7,868,872,451 (December 30, 2021. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/news-years-day-2022.html). 

CONDITIONS IN THE U.S.

American student loan debt increased at a rate of 20 percent in the last ten years, leaving college graduates with hefty payments. The student loan debt in the US is a growing crisis with college graduates owing a collective $1.75 trillion in student loans. In 2021, there are 44.7 million Americans who have student loan debt averaging about $30,000 at the time of receiving their undergraduate degree (December 22, 2021. https://www.the-sun.com/money/4271983/how-many-americans-have-student-loan-debt/). 

The number of Americans living without homes, in shelters, or on the streets continues to rise at an alarming rate (December 28, 2021. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/whats-behind-rising-homelessness-in-america). 

The $5 trillion in wealth now held by 745 billionaires is two-thirds more than the $3 trillion in wealth held by the bottom 50 percent of U.S. households estimated by the Federal Reserve Board (October 18, 2021. https://inequality.org/great-divide/billionaires-2-trillion-richer-than-before-pandemic/). 

The official poverty rate in 2020 was 11.4 percent, up 1.0 percentage point from 10.5 percent in 2019. This is the first increase in poverty after five consecutive annual declines. In 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty, approximately 3.3 million more than in 2019 (September 14, 2021. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html). 

After the longest period in history without an increase, the federal minimum wage today is worth 21% less than 12 years ago—and 34% less than in 1968 (December 21, 2021. https://www.epi.org/blog/epis-top-charts-and-tables-of-2021/). 

CEOs were paid 351 times as much as a typical worker in 2020 (August 10, 2021. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/). 

[F]or seven months of 2021, workers have been quitting at near-record rates (December 8, 2021. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-why-workers-quit-jobs-this-year-great-resignation-2021-12). 

More than 4.5 million people voluntarily left their jobs in November [2021], the Labor Department said Tuesday. That was up from 4.2 million in October and was the most in the two decades that the government has been keeping track (January 4, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/business/economy/job-openings-coronavirus.html). 

According to a report by UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Initiative, Latinas are leaving the workforce at higher rates than any other demographic. Between March 2020 and March 2021, the number of Latinas in the workforce dropped by 2.74%, meaning there are 336,000 fewer Latinas in the labor force (December 28, 2021. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/12/10759406/latinas-leave-jobs). 

The adult women’s labor force participation rate remains blunted at 57.5%—well below pre-pandemic levels. In fact, it’s worse than pre-pandemic levels (January 5, 2022. https://www.fastcompany.com/90710355/where-are-all-the-women-workers). 

U.S. job openings jumped in October to the second-highest on record, underscoring the ongoing challenge for employers to find qualified workers for an unprecedented number of vacancies. The number of available positions rose to 11 million from an upwardly revised 10.6 million in September (December 8, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-08/u-s-job-openings-rose-in-october-quits-rate-dropped#:~:text=Meanwhile%2C%20the%20quits%20rate%20fell,to%2010.5%20million%20job%20openings).  

As of November [2021], 15.6 million workers in the US are still being affected by the pandemic’s economic downturn; 3.9 million US workers are out of the labor force due to Covid-19, 6.9 million workers are still unemployed, 2 million workers are still experiencing cuts to pay or work schedules due to Covid-19, and another 3 million workers are misclassified as employed or out of the labor force, according to the Economic Policy Institute (December 17, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/17/americans-coronavirus-unemployment-holidays). 

About 2.2 million Americans remain long-term unemployed — about 1.1 million more than in February 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (December 3, 2021. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/03/long-term-unemployment-fell-again-but-at-slowest-pace-since-april.html). 

[I]n 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in November that more than 100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, May 2020 to April 2021, with about three-quarters of those deaths involving opioids — a national record (December 27, 2021. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-crisis-2021-insys-kapoor-sackler-purdue-record-deaths/). 

U.S. death rate soared 17 percent in 2020, final CDC mortality report concludes (December 22, 2021. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-death-rate-soared-17-2020-final-cdc-mortality-report-concludes-rcna9527). 

Life Insurance CEO Says Deaths Up 40% Among Those Aged 18-64 (January 3, 2022. https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/life-insurance-ceo-says-deaths-40-among-those-aged-18-64-and-not-because-covid). 

Suicide rates increased 33% between 1999 and 2019, with a small decline in 2019. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. It was responsible for more than 47,500 deaths in 2019, which is about one death every 11 minutes. The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher. In 2019, 12 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.5 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.4 million attempted suicide. Suicide affects all ages. It is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-34, the fourth leading cause among people ages 35-44, and the fifth leading cause among people ages 45-54 (https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/index.html#). 

Alarming Anxiety & Depression Toll making All Time Record Highs Impacting 30% of all Americans (December 29, 2021. https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/559441306/alarming-anxiety-depression-toll-making-all-time-record-highs-impacting-30-of-all-americans). 

[Depression] has been rising for well more than a decade in teens and hiked further during the pandemic. And after a pandemic-induced spike, depression symptoms now plague more than a quarter of U.S. adults. More than 13% of Americans were taking antidepressants before Covid hit and during the pandemic, prescriptions shot up 6% (June 17, 2021. https://elemental.medium.com/the-real-problem-with-antidepressants-898e83133bbc). 

At least 12 major U.S. cities have broken annual homicide records in 2021 (December 8, 2021. https://abcnews.go.com/US/12-major-us-cities-top-annual-homicide-records/story?id=81466453). 

Private health insurance coverage declined for working-age adults ages 19 to 64 from early 2019 to early 2021, when the nation experienced the COVID-19 pandemic (September 14, 2021. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/09/private-health-coverage-of-working-age-adults-drops-from-early-2019-to-early-2021.html). 

In 2020, 4.3 million children under the age of 19 — 5.6% of all children — were without health coverage for the entire calendar year (September 14, 2021. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/09/uninsured-rates-for-children-in-poverty-increased-2018-2020.html). 

INTERNATIONAL CONDITIONS

Even as tens of millions of people were being pushed into destitution, the ultra-rich became wealthier. Last year, billionaires enjoyed the highest boost to their share of wealth on record, according to the World Inequality Lab (December 26, 2021. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/26/business/global-poverty-covid-pandemic-intl-hnk/index.html).

Global wealth inequality is even more pronounced than income inequality. The poorest half of the world’s population only possess 2 percent of the total wealth. In contrast, the wealthiest 10 percent own 76 percent of all wealth, with $771,300 (€550,900) on average (December 9, 2021. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/12/09/sfpa-d09.html). 

The pandemic has pushed approximately 100 million people into extreme poverty, boosting the global total to 711 million in 2021 (December 9, 2021. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/12/09/sfpa-d09.html). 

More than half a billion people pushed or pushed further into extreme poverty due to health care costs (December 12, 2021. https://www.who.int/news/item/12-12-2021-more-than-half-a-billion-people-pushed-or-pushed-further-into-extreme-poverty-due-to-health-care-costs). 

World leaders urged to halt escalating hunger crisis as 17% more people expected to need life-saving aid in 2022 (December 2, 2021. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/world-leaders-urged-halt-escalating-hunger-crisis-17-more-people-expected-need-life). 

33% of Arab world doesn't have enough food: UN report. The Arab world witnessed a 91.1 per cent increase in hunger since 2000, affecting 141 million people (December 17, 2021. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211217-33-of-arab-world-doesnt-have-enough-food-un-report/). 

The 60% of low-income countries the IMF says are now near or in debt distress compares with less than 30% as recently as 2015 (December 15, 2021. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/how-to-spare-low-income-countries-from-economic-collapse/). 

According to a recent Gallup poll, 63 percent of Lebanese would like to permanently leave the country in the face of worsening living conditions (December 15, 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/12/15/lebanese-look-to-cyprus-as-local-economy-crumbles). 

25% of households in Israel live in poverty (December 21, 2021. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211221-25-of-households-in-israel-live-in-poverty/). 

Turkey's annual inflation rate is expected to have hit 30.6% in December, according to a Reuters poll, breaching the 30% level for the first time since 2003 as prices rose due to record lira volatility (December 28, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/turkish-inflation-seen-above-30-december-amid-lira-weakness-2021-12-28/). 

Kazakhstan government resigns amid protests over rising fuel prices (January 5, 2022. https://www.ft.com/). 

Pakistanis squeezed by inflation face more pain from tax hikes (December 13, 2021. https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/pakistanis-squeezed-by-inflation-face-more-pain-tax-hikes-2021-12-13/). 

November saw inflation rise by 14.23 percent, building on a pattern of double-digit increases that have hit India for several months now. Fuel and energy prices rose nearly 40 percent last month. Urban unemployment – most of the better-paying jobs are in cities – has been moving up since September and is now above 9 percent (December 28, 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/28/india-economy). 

Sri Lanka is facing a deepening financial and humanitarian crisis with fears it could go bankrupt in 2022 as inflation rises to record levels, food prices rocket and its coffers run dry (January 2, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/covid-crisis-sri-lanka-bankruptcy-poverty-pandemic-food-prices). 

Index shows South Africa’s economy is shrinking (December 14, 2021. https://businesstech.co.za/news/finance/546978/index-shows-south-africas-economy-is-shrinking/). 

COVID-19 spike worsens Africa's severe poverty, hunger woes (December 24, 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/12/24/1067772373/covid-19-spike-worsens-africas-severe-poverty-hunger-woes). 

Latin America’s biggest economy [Brazil] is seen remaining stuck in recession as it confronts double-digit price increases (December 11, 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/brazil-grapples-with-old-nemesis-inflation-amid-pandemic-11639234804). 

Japan admits overstating economic data for nearly a decade (December 15, 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/15/japan-admits-overstating-economic-data-for-nearly-a-decade). 

New Zealanders are feeling pessimistic about the economy, worried about rising interest rates and the prospect of new Covid-19 variants, Westpac’s latest consumer confidence data shows (December 20, 2021. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300482163/pessimism-reigns-as-nz-ponders-2022-economy-without-elimination-strategy). 

Canadians’ optimism towards their financial health and the economy at large reached its lowest point in more than a year during the final work week of 2021, according to Bloomberg and Nanos Research (January 5, 2022. https://www.mpamag.com/ca/mortgage-industry/market-updates/canadian-financial-and-economic-sentiments-reach-new-low/321010). 

Polish Inflation to Rise Sharply in 2022, Central Bank Boss Says (December 30, 2021. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-30/polish-inflation-to-rise-sharply-in-2022-central-bank-boss-says?srnd=economics-vp). 

Inflation is at its highest level in the UK since 2011 (December 21, 2021. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/12/22/cost-d22.html). 

The Resolution Foundation predicts higher energy bills, stagnant wages and tax rises could leave [U.K.] households with a £1,200 a year hit to their incomes (December 30, 2021. https://www.businessghana.com/site/news/Business/253660/UK-cost-of-living-squeeze-in-2022,-says-think-tank). 

Air travel in and out of UK slumps by 71% in 2021 amid pandemic. Report from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows domestic flights were down by almost 60% (December 29, 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/29/air-travel-in-and-out-of-uk-slumps-in-2021-amid-pandemic). 

Annual inflation in Spain rises 6.7% in December, the highest level in nearly three decades (December 30, 2021. https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2021-12-30/annual-inflation-in-spain-rises-67-in-december-the-highest-level-in-nearly-three-decades.html). 

Germany's Bundesbank lowers 2022 economic growth forecast (December 17, 2021. https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-bundesbank-lowers-2022-economic-growth-forecast/a-60156000). 

OECD predicts Latvia to have the slowest economic growth among Baltic States (December 2, 2021. https://bnn-news.com/oecd-predicts-latvia-to-have-the-slowest-economic-growth-among-baltic-states-230531). 

While deteriorating economic, social, and personal conditions define many other countries and regions, the main question is why do such horrible problems persist in the 21st century? The scientific and technical revolution of the last 250 years has objectively enabled and empowered humankind to solve major problems and to meet the basic needs of all humans while improving the natural environment. There are a million creative ways to affirm the rights of all safely, sustainably, quickly, and on a constantly-improving basis. There is no reason for persistent and widespread instability, chaos, and insecurity. Living and working standards should be steadily rising everywhere in the 21st century, not continually declining for millions. Objectively, there is no shortage or scarcity of socially-produced wealth to meet the needs of all.

Under existing political-economic arrangements, however, systemic instabilities and crises will persist for the foreseeable future, ensuring continued anxiety and hardship for millions. The rich and their political representatives have repeatedly demonstrated that they are unable and unwilling to solve serious problems. They are out of touch and self-serving. As a result, the world is full of more chaos, anarchy, insecurity, and violence of all forms. The rich are concerned only with their narrow private interests no matter how damaging this is to the natural and social environment. They do not recognize the need for a self-reliant, diverse, and balanced economy controlled and directed by working people. They reject the human factor and social consciousness in all affairs.

It is not possible to overcome unresolved economic and social problems so long as the economy remains dominated by a handful of billionaires. It is impossible to invest socially-produced wealth in social programs and services so long as the workers who produce that wealth have no control over it. Every year, more and more of the wealth produced by workers fills the pockets of fewer and fewer billionaires, thereby exacerbating many problems. Wealth concentration has reached extremely absurd levels. 

It is extremely difficult to bring about change that favors the people so long as the cartel political parties of the rich dominate politics and keep people out of power. Constantly begging and “pressuring” politicians to fulfill people’s most basic rights is humiliating, exhausting, and ineffective. It does not work. No major problems have been solved in years. More problems keep appearing no matter which party of the rich is in power. The obsolete two-party system stands more discredited with each passing year. Getting excited every 2-4 years about which candidate of the rich will win an election has not brought about deep and lasting changes that favor the people. It is no surprise that President Joe Biden’s approval rating keeps hitting new lows every few weeks. People want change that favors them, not more schemes to pay the rich in the name of “getting things done” or “serving the public.” “Building Back Better” should not mean tons more money for the rich and a few crumbs for the rest of us.

A fresh new alternative is needed that actually empowers the people themselves to direct all the affairs of society. New arrangements that unleash the human factor and enable people to practically implement pro-social changes are needed urgently. All the old institutions of liberal democracy and the so-called “social contract” disappeared long ago and cannot provide a way forward. They are part of an old obsolete world that continually blocks the affirmation of human rights. This law or that law from this mainstream party or that mainstream party is not going to save the day. The cartel parties of the rich became irrelevant long ago.

We are in an even more violent and chaotic environment today that is yearning for a new and modern alternative that affirms the rights of all and prevents any individuals, governments, or corporations from depriving people of their rights. People themselves must be the decision-makers so that the wealth of society is put in the service of society. Constantly paying the rich more while gutting social programs and enterprises is a recipe for greater tragedies.

Shawgi Tell, PhD, is author of the book “Charter School Report Card.” His main research interests include charter schools, neoliberal education policy, privatization and political economy. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu.