Rebellion2020

The World On Fire

June 14, 2020 By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio. Resist! George Floyd, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Police Killings, Rebellion2020

Protests from London to Paris; from Berlin to Nairobi; from Toledo, Ohio, to Tokyo, Japan. Protests in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police aggression and racism. Protests stemming from the cruel brutality that led to the slow-motion killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn. The solidarity from Sydney, Australia, stems in part from the long-standing discontent from the dark Aborigines, the Indigenous communities in Australia and New South Wales, who like Black folk in America, have suffered from generations of state repression. And how have the cops responded to this challenge? With tantrums. With attacks on protesters, male or female. A 75-year-old white man who was pushed to the ground as they stepped over his fallen and bleeding body.

The National Guard Crushes Protests Just Like The Military Does

June 14, 2020 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. Educate! Democrats, National Guard, Rebellion2020, US military

On June 2, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot firmly rebuked President Trump for threatening to unleash a military crackdown on Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the country. Trump made his menacing remarks at a press conference the day earlier, declaring that he would deploy the U.S. military to any city or state that “refuses to take the actions” to quell mass protests against police, touched off by the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man. Responding to Trump at a press conference, Lightfoot proclaimed, “It's not gonna happen, not in my city. And I'm not confident that the president has the power to do that. But we have our lawyers hard at work, and if he tries to do that and usurp the power of our governor, and myself as the mayor, we will see him in court.”

The Black Lives Matter Protests Are Working

June 14, 2020 Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, Lydia O’Connor, and Celeste Lavin, Huffington Post. Resist! Black Lives Matter (BLM), George Floyd, Police violence, Rebellion2020

so far, the Black Lives Matter protests — which built off years of work by BLM activists since 2013, in the streets, in halls of government and educating the public — have spurred some significant changes. From cities redirecting funding from police departments to Confederate monuments coming down in droves, here are some of the steps toward racial justice and ending police brutality that we’ve seen in just 16 days since protests began. For activists out on the streets today and the movement for Black lives and racial justice more broadly, the work is far from over. Much of these moves represent incremental change or simple promises of change, and fall far short of what activists are calling for. For instance, while over a dozen cities are considering reducing police budgets, Minneapolis’ city council is still the only one to go so far as to announce it will “dismantle” its police force, and it still has to develop a plan for what “transformative public safety” model will take its place.

Power Over The Police

June 13, 2020 By Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Dissent Magazine. Strategize! Demands, Police Abolition, Police violence, Rebellion2020

The clashes between police and protesters in response to the recent police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and others throughout the country expose the violence inherent to the U.S. system of policing. Social media has been inundated with hundreds of videos chronicling police aggression and brutality. Cities nationwide, particularly in the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C., have faced unprecedented militarization of their streets. Police have wielded weapons typically used only by special forces in overseas military campaigns, even going as far as to use a Lakota helicopter with Red Cross markings in a show of force against protesters (in violation of the Geneva Convention).

Seattle: The Demands Of Collective Black Voices At The CHAZ

June 13, 2020 Free Capitol Hill, Medium. Resist! CHAZ, Demands, Rebellion2020, Seattle

In credit to the people who freed Capitol Hill, this list of demands is neither brief nor simplistic. This is no simple request to end police brutality. We demand that the City Council and the Mayor, whoever that may be, implement these policy changes for the cultural and historic advancement of the City of Seattle, and to ease the struggles of its people. This document is to represent the black voices who spoke in victory at the top of 12th & Pine after 9 days of peaceful protest while under constant nightly attack from the Seattle Police Department. These are words from that night, June 8th, 2020. For ease of consideration, we’ve broken these demands into four categories: The Justice System, Health and Human Services, Economics, and Education.

Minneapolis Organizers Are Building The Tools For Safety Without Police

June 13, 2020 Jae Hyun Shum, Truthout. Create! Minneapolis, Police Abolition, Police violence, Rebellion2020

In 2018, members of the Minnesota grassroots groups Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective dropped a banner at Minneapolis City Hall. On it were two lists: on the left, three budget items on the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) budget, totaling $9 million. The right side was significantly longer, listing programs and organizations where the city could invest those $9 million to promote community safety — like domestic violence programs, housing and harm reduction. We were calling on the city to move our community’s dollars out of the violent, untrustworthy MPD, and into programs that actually keep us safe. That year, the city council moved $1 million from MPD’s budget into violence prevention — a drop in the bucket of the MPD’s $180 million budget, but a significant investment for underfunded anti-violence work.

USA: Hate And Fury

June 13, 2020 By Arantxa Tirado, Resumen English. Educate! Capitalism, Human Rights, Police violence, Rebellion2020

The streets of the US are burning. Demonstrations by armed Trump supporters pressing for the opening of the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic have been replaced by protests for the umpteenth police murder of an African American citizen, in this case George Floyd. The reaction is reminiscent of the days of hate and fury that broke out in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the police officers who had beaten Rodney King a year earlier. Just two examples of the many that could be used, both recent and old, that demonstrates that American democracy has great difficulties applying within the country what it demands from other countries outside its borders, those that they declare war on for their alleged violation of human rights.

To Police Of Good Conscience: These Protests Are For You Too

June 13, 2020 Lucas Johnson, Waging Nonviolence. Educate! Police, Police violence, Rebellion2020, Transformation

To the police of good conscience: What if all this demonstrating was also for you? What if the pain you are feeling right now — the pain of feeling misunderstood and mischaracterized — is connected to the same pain expressed by protesters in the streets of Minneapolis, Atlanta, Louisville and hundreds of other cities steeped in grief? You understand that suspicion of theft or fraud doesn’t justify murder and whatever legal battles will unfold won’t change the morality of that fact. I know the protest chants and the opinion articles don’t cover it all. It’s a hard job and the criticism doesn’t always speak to the nuances, or the aches and pains deep in the crevices of your lives.

Cops Out Of Our Unions And Hospitals

June 13, 2020 Socialist Healthcare Workers, Left Voice. Resist! Healthcare workers, Police, Police Abolition, Rebellion2020

Over the last few weeks, thousands have spilled onto the streets, joining Black youth who rose up in response to the savage murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and countless other Black people at the hands of police. Healthcare workers who are on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic are taking part, painting protests across the country with green and blue scrubs, white coats and surgical masks. This condemnation of the police and systemic racism has been expressed through the lens of health care with the words, “Police are a threat to public health.” Over 1,700 healthcare workers signed our statement condemning the racist murder of George Floyd. Actions have been organized in the name of “WhiteCoats4BlackLives” (WC4BL) and “Frontlines for Frontlines.”

ILWU To Shut Down Ports For Juneteenth

June 13, 2020 NBC San Diego. Resist! Dock Workers, Juneteenth, Rebellion2020, Strike

On June 19, union members who work at the Port of San Diego will stop operations for eight hours in honor of Juneteenth, the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation being first enforced in Texas. The members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at 29 ports from San Diego to Washington State will halt work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On June 19, 1865, Black slaves in Texas -- the most isolated rebel state in the South during the Civil War -- were told about their emancipation from slavery two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln, which was immediately changed the legal status of enslaved Blacks in the slave-holding states from slave to free.

It Won’t Be Protests That Bring On The Next Big Wave Of COVID19

June 12, 2020 Jim Naureckas, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! COVID-19, Media, Police, Rebellion2020

As people across the nation and the world came out to protest the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, corporate media carried a warning: Demonstrations against police violence risk creating a major upsurge in the spread of the coronavirus. As ABC (6/3/20) put it: As thousands of demonstrators continue to protest the killing of George Floyd, health experts are worried that a second wave of Covid-19 infections could be sparked by the mass gatherings. An opinion piece in USA Today (6/8/20) warned, “George Floyd Protests Create Risk of Deadly Coronavirus Resurgence.” “The absence of social distancing during the George Floyd protests could lead to a significant increase in cases in Minneapolis and across the country,” the subhead added.

Humanity Is Escaping From The Abusive Relationship With The Police State

June 12, 2020 Caitlin Johnstone. Create! Abolish Police, Police State, Police violence, Rebellion2020

Abusive relationships where the abuser is a transparently horrible monster don’t tend to last long, because it becomes obvious to the victim very quickly that they need to head for the door. The ones that last are the ones where the abuser is an adept manipulator, who is able to elicit sympathy and attachment in the victim while constructing a prison of mental narratives in their head. The hardest of these to escape from is the “nice guy” abuser, the kind of abuser whose manipulations revolve around framing themselves as good and virtuous while squeezing the psychological noose on the victim tighter and tighter. These are difficult to escape because by design they are hard to recognize as abusive while you’re in them, even while you’re being drained of life, liberty and happiness to the abuser’s benefit.

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, Where Seattle Protesters Gather Without Police

June 12, 2020 By Evan Bush, Seattle Times. Create! Autonomous Zone, Police abuse, Rebellion2020, Seattle

Welcome to the CHAZ, the newly named Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, where most everything was free Tuesday. Free snacks at the No-Cop Co-op. Free gas masks from some guy’s sedan. Free speech at the speaker’s circle, where anyone could say their piece. A free documentary movie — Ava DuVernay’s “13th” — showing after dark. A Free Capitol Hill, according to no shortage of spray paint on building facades. And perhaps most important to demonstrators, the neighborhood core was free of uniformed police. A new protest society — centered on a handful of blocks in Seattle’s quirky, lefty Capitol Hill — has been born from the demonstrations that pushed the Seattle Police Department out of its East Precinct building.

A Report From The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone In Seattle

June 12, 2020 It's Going Down. Resist! Occupy, Police, Rebellion2020, Seattle

The other day, the police announced that they were gathering their things and leaving their precinct. What do you make of this? This, to be very honest, is anyone’s guess. There are many theories around why they abandoned the precinct. Some feel that they ran out of resources, some feel that it was a politically expedient move on the Mayor’s part. From my perspective-this was a “good” move on the city’s part. They were getting hammered in the press for the nightly tear gas barrages and street clashes, and the crowds never really got smaller. When an active shooter was on the scene, people rushed to the neighborhood to give support.

Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone Forms Around Emptied East Precinct

June 11, 2020 Jake Goldstein-Street and Alex Garland, CapitolHillSeattle.com. Create! Autonomous Zone, Police violence, Rebellion2020, Seattle

The first night in the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone that has formed in the wake of police giving up the week-long blockade of the East Precinct was rainy and peaceful and full of speeches from activists, agitators, poets, and socialist city council members. “I guess whatever the fuck we’re doing is effective,” one organizer identified as Magik said over a megaphone early in the night as police were still clearing the area. “They are going to move up. They are going to get everybody out of here and we are free to move through these streets and protest and march.” “Yesterday we were on 11th and Pine. Today we have victory on 12th and Pine. They tried to stop us!,” another exclaimed.

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