Rebellion2020

Reporter Sues Newspaper For Prohibiting Her Coverage Of Protests

June 18, 2020 Louise Hall, The Independent. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), Media, Racism, Rebellion2020

A reporter in Pittsburgh is suing the newspaper she works for after the company prohibited her from covering the city’s Black Lives Matter protests because of a tweet concerning the issue. The suit claims that Ms. Johnson was prevented from pursuing stories on jailed protesters or social-media efforts to raise bail funds after she posted a tweet on 31 May highlighting the different treatment black and white people regarding property damage. “Horrifying scenes and aftermath from selfish LOOTERS who don’t care about this city!!!!!” the tweet says. “.... oh wait sorry. ”No, these are pictures from a Kenny Chesney concert tailgate. Whoops." Post-Gazette managing editor Karen Kane previously declined comment. Ms. Johnson’s fellow reporters, her union, and the city’s mayor have all voiced support for the reporter. Guild President Michael A Fuoco, who is also a Post-Gazette reporter, said that guild leaders were “appalled” by the paper's move.

UAW Work Stoppage On Juneteenth To End Racism

June 18, 2020 Rory L. Gamble, United Auto Workers. Resist! General Strike, Labor Union, Racism, Rebellion2020

As trade unionists and as Americans, we were outraged and heartsick at the horror of George Floyd’s death on May 25. It was yet another tragedy in a long and sorrowful history of the divisiveness of racism in this nation. Since that day in communities from coast to coast, we have seen Americans from all walks of life, black, brown and white, stand together to demand change. To demand – finally – that we address the systemic racial divide that has plagued our nation since its inception. On Friday, June 19, at 8:46 a.m. in each time zone, UAW members and allies across the globe will pause for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the agonizing amount of time that George Floyd lay on an American street begging for his life. We do this in support of the millions who are demanding an end to racism and hate and calling for real reforms.

The Police May Pull The Trigger, But It’s The System That Kills

June 16, 2020 Richard E. Rubenstein, Transcend. Strategize! Police violence, Poverty, Rebellion2020, Systemic Racism

Fifty years ago this year, I published my first book, entitled Rebels in Eden – an exploration of mass political violence in America focusing on the uprisings that had by then incinerated substantial portions of the inner city communities of Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, as well as scores of smaller towns and cities.[i] Those riots were far more destructive than anything experienced in the protests following the recent killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery by police and ex-police officers. The sixties uprisings killed several hundred people (almost all Black civilians), injured more than 12,000, and caused billions of dollars in property damage.

To Deal With Police, We Must Understand Why They Even Exist

June 15, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Community control of police, Police Abolition, Police violence, Rebellion2020

The recent protests across the country following the murder of George Floyd have elevated the demands to defund and abolish the police. This comes on the heels of the nationwide resurgence of a movement for community control of police led by the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. We speak with author and activist Max Rameau of Pan African Community Action about the role of police in the bigger picture of the evolution of human beings as protectors of private property and wealth, the pitfalls of defunding police if this dynamic is not addressed and what community control of police looks like. Max is co-author with Netfa Freeman of an upcoming book, "Community Control over Police."

Growing Revolt Among Black Journalists

June 15, 2020 By Betsey Piette, Workers World. Resist! Media, Racism, Rebellion2020, Strikes

Black and Brown reporters, journalists of color are speaking up and taking action against decades of major publications refusing to address racism — especially in two notable newsrooms — the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times. On June 4, 44 journalists of color at the 200-year-old Philadelphia Inquirer staged a sick-out strike one day after forcing a public apology from the Inquirer editorial staff for a blatantly racist headline — “Buildings Matter, Too” — posted on June 1. This article addressed plans to repair property damages to buildings and infrastructure following May 31 anti-racist protests in communities of color that exploded in an expression of outrage over unaddressed systemic racism.

The Democratic Party Exists To Co-Opt And Kill Authentic Change

June 15, 2020 By Caitlin Johnstone, CaitlinJohnstone.com. Educate! Congress, Democratic Party, Propaganda, Rebellion2020

The entire role of the Democratic Party is to enthusiastically agree with American support for movements calling for real changes that benefit ordinary people, while making no actual moves to provide no such changes. The actors read the lines but remain motionless. Barack Obama made a whole political career out of this. People elected him because he promised hope and change, then for eight years whenever hopeful people demanded changes he’d say “Yes, we all need to get together and have a conversation about that,” express sympathy and give a moving speech, and then nothing would happen. The actors remain motionless, and Godot never comes.

Will The Death Of George Floyd Mark The Rebirth Of America?

June 15, 2020 By Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch. Create! George Floyd, Police violence, Racism, Rebellion2020

I you had told me that, in the span of a few months, a novel coronavirus that dates back only to last year and systemic American racism that dates back to 1619 would somehow intersect, I wouldn’t have believed it. If you had told me that a man named George Floyd would survive Covid-19 only to be murdered by the police and that his brutal death would spark a worldwide movement, leading the council members of a major American city to announce their intent to defund the police and Europeans halfway across the planet to deface monuments to a murderous nineteenth-century monarch who slaughtered Africans, I would have dismissed you. But history works in mysterious ways.

Unfinished Revolution: Where Do The George Floyd Protests Go From Here?

June 15, 2020 Tosh Anderson, Josephine Lee, Zishun Ning, The Indypendent. Strategize! Equal Rights, George Floyd, Police violence, Rebellion2020

Will we release some steam for a few days, be satisfied with the prosecution and (if we’re lucky) conviction of a few cops, accept a few reforms of a police system that will never be accountable to anyone else but their maker — the ruling class? Will we settle for mere survival, be content not to be killed, so that we can live under the peace of everyday violence and robbery forced upon our communities, our health, and our lives? Will we hang onto illusions that equate equal opportunity with being as exploited as a vanishing group of white, middle-class workers are or as a few black and brown faces rising into positions of power and wealth? That is not the liberation of us all. If we’ve learned anything from our history, it is that our history’s turning points failed to turn toward true transformation and liberation for people because at each critical juncture from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement to the recent Occupy Wall Street movement, ruling power has hereto been able to disunite working people...

The Uprising Is Only Beginning: Building Power To Win Our Demands

June 14, 2020 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance. Newsletter Abolish Police, Capitalism, Community control of police, Defund the police, Inequality, Police violence, Racism, Rebellion2020

The current uprising against police violence and racism is just beginning. It is rapidly shifting public consciousness on issues of policing, violence against Black people and others, and systemic racism. The movement is deepening and becoming broader as well as putting forward solutions and making demands. The confluence of crises including recent police violence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and economic collapse along with the ongoing crises of lack of healthcare, poverty, inequality, homelessness, personal debt, and climate plus awareness of mirage democracy in the United States have created a historic moment full of possibilities. If we continue to organize and build power, the potential for dramatic change is great.

George Floyd, Coronavirus And Inequality Stealing Black Lives

June 14, 2020 By Susan Smith Richardson, Public Integrity. Educate! Climate Change, Inequality, Police violence, Rebellion2020

Several Black protesters have said, “If the police don’t get you, the coronavirus will.” Floyd pleaded for mercy as Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into his neck until Floyd could no longer breathe. His death triggered the protests of the past week. But the issues that have driven people to the streets are the same as those identified in the 1968 Kerner report. Over the years, the report has become a benchmark for racial progress. Though it is typically cited for indicting a white, paternalistic perspective in the news media, it also proclaimed “white racism” as the catalyst for the unrest, condemned police brutality and proposed destroying structural barriers to racial equality.

From Rebellion To Revolution

June 14, 2020 Kali Akuno, Viewpoint Magazine. Strategize! Capitalism, General Strike, George Floyd, Rebellion2020, White Supremacy

The Floyd rebellion is changing the world before our very eyes. What type of change and to what degree it will shift the balance of forces between rulers and ruled, haves and the have-nots remains to be seen. What is clear is that there is an active and open political contest to shape the outcome. For the moment, the right wing and the Republicans have been relatively sidelined in this debate. The real contest as it stands is between the liberals and Democrats on the one hand and the radical mass that has taken the streets all over the country and the world, which is increasingly examining and advancing critical left demands emerging from anarchist, communist, revolutionary nationalist, and socialist analytical and organizing traditions, such as police and prison abolition, economic democracy, and decolonization.

US State Propaganda Outlets Censor Black Lives Matter Protests

June 14, 2020 Yasha Levine, Immigrants as a Weapon Educate! Censorship, European Union (EU), Media, Rebellion2020

With a budget that hovers around $100 million, RFE/RL broadcasts to something like to 22 countries in 26 languages. And the same censorship regime extends to just about every RFE/RL language division. I’ve looked at about a dozen of them. Most have no coverage of the protests at all. A couple — like the Russian and Afghanistan division — do have a tiny protest stories, but they are given very little attention. In the case of RFE/RL’s Russian coverage, the protests are presented from the most reactionary perspective possible: denying racism and blaming the violence on organized armed anarchist communist groups — aka Antifa. In short: Radio Liberty (originally known as “Radio Liberation from Bolshevism”) blames everything on radical anarchist bolsheviks!

A Tale Of Two Protests

June 14, 2020 By Danny Haiphong, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Hong Kong, Racism, Rebellion2020, Regime Change

The rebellions in Hong Kong and Minneapolis have received vastly different responses from the U.S. ruling class. In Minneapolis, masses of people took to the streets on May 26th to express their outrage over the police murder of George Floyd and the many Black Americans who have shared a similar fate. The rebellion quickly spread to cities across the country with corporations, police stations, and even the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, GA all facing some form of property destruction. Protestors in Hong Kong have been treated with honor from the corporate media in stark contrast to the homegrown uprisings occurring in U.S. cities.

On Contact: Analysis Of George Floyd Protests

June 14, 2020 Chris Hedges, RT. Resistance Report Chris Hedges, Misleaders, Rebellion2020, Ruling Class

On the show today, Chris Hedges discusses the George Floyd protests erupting in over 140 American cities with Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda Report. "And the black misleadership class seems to be more upset and angry about this than the white misleadership class. Sometimes it's funny. Activists have coined the term 'coopaganda,' to describe these funny gestures by cops and other authority figures to be kneeling. A gesture of submission to the demands but of course it's a diversion, a distraction designed to soften people attitude toward the rulers. And it shouldn't fool anyone.

What The Heck Is Going On In Seattle?

June 14, 2020 By Emily Pothast, Medium. Create! Police Killings, Police violence, Racism, Rebellion2020, Seattle Autonomous Zone

Since a lot of the narratives swirling around about Seattle right now are less-than-insightful, I’m sharing a few points to help contextualize the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in the bigger picture of the dizzying terrain that is Seattle history. Meanwhile, in the interest of amplifying the work being done by the collective Black voices on the ground, I would like to direct your attention to this document, which explains what is being asked for in the aftermath of what they’re calling the “George Floyd Rebellion.” Also, Seattle author Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race is an important resource that just climbed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Finally, while you’re buying Seattle books, check out Black Imagination: Black Voices on Black Futures, curated by local artist Natasha Marin.

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