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Neoliberal Militarization Archives - accuracy.org

Is the Solution Defunding the Police, Or Community Control?

June 11, 2020
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MAX RAMEAU, afrimax at niainteractive.com
NETFA FREEMAN, netfa at ips-dc.org, @Netfafree
Rameau and Freeman are writing a book, Community Control Over Police, and just wrote the piece “Community Control vs. Defunding the Police: A Critical Analysis” which was published by Black Agenda Report.

They write that it is “undeniable that policing in the U.S. is out of control and outrageously overfunded. Since 1977 crime has continued to fall, but police budgets have almost tripled to a staggering $115 billion per year.”

But, they argue, “Defunding the police will not abolish the police. Far from purging classism, racism and patriarchy from its ranks, defunding the police is likely to bring them back in their purest form and with a vengeance.”

They note that historically, “the shift from private security to public utility created the contradiction that allowed civil rights organizations to fight for equal protection under the law, public transparency and other reforms. Of course, this did not end police brutality or alter the fundamental function of police as protectors of wealth and enforcers of the will of the ruling class, but turning the police into a public utility did provide some important tools necessary for the reduction of harm and heightening contradictions when those harms came.”

They point to other examples around the world to illustrate their argument: “South Africa is a modern capitalist country that is mostly post-industrial and features pockets of development that mirror the wealthiest western nations. Yet, the government there does not spend anywhere near the amount of resources on police as the United States. So how do upscale malls, financial districts, wealthy white neighborhoods and other configurations of the ruling class protect themselves from the majority of residents living in poverty? They hire private security firms to enforce the rules of the establishment — not the laws of the province or country.”

Rameau is a Haitian-born Pan-African author and organizer with Pan-African Community Action. Freeman is on the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and an organizer in Pan-African Community Action which published a longer version of their new piece.

Filed Under: , , Tagged With: Black Lives Matter, classism, community control, defund the police, George Floyd, Neoliberal Militarization, Pan-African Community Action,

Rev. Hagler on Trump and Protests

June 2, 2020
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Protestors face off with MPDC officers in riot gear at Lafayette Square following the murder of George Floyd.

Rev. GRAYLAN S. HAGLER, gshagler at verizon.net, @graylanhagler
Rev. Hagler is senior pastor of Plymouth United Church of Christ in Washington, D.C. and chairperson of Faith Strategies, an interfaith coalition. He tweeted about Trump using militarized forces to clear Lafayette Square so that he could hold a Bible in front of a church — and about how some esteem property over human life.

On Sunday, he delivered a sermon, “Divided We Fail,” saying: “I can’t stop thinking about where we are as a country because I do not see this unity or this sacred essential purpose in our existence as people in this America.”

Describing the death of George Floyd, Hagler asked: “Why didn’t the other cops hear [Floyd’s words, ‘I can’t breathe’] and respond? It was because they protect their own, occupy us, for the purpose of keeping us in our places.”

He spoke of “the long-held truth that whites see the police as their protectors of property and themselves against people who are black and not like them.”

In contrast to how police treat African Americans, he pointed to how “gun-touting white men can storm the Michigan Statehouse. …

“The problem with white America [is the] deluded and myth-based thinking that they built this country and made it wealthy. No, its wealth is because of exploited and enslaved labor” concluding that “unless the nation can confess … it will remain divided.”

Filed Under: , , Tagged With: Black Lives Matter, defund the police, George Floyd, lafayette square dc, Neoliberal Militarization, occupy movement, Trump holding bible, washington dc, white America,

Police Targeting Reporters; Big Media Hiding Police Abuse

June 1, 2020
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TREVOR TIMM, trevor at freedom.press, @trevortimm
Executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, Timm tweeted a string of links to videos of police attacking journalists, writing: “Police are purposefully targeting reporters all over the country, in video after video. There’s no other way to describe it.”
Another tweet reads: “This might be the worst one yet. Journalist complies with order to get down, while making it known he’s press. While he is on the ground defenseless, a cop pepper sprays him at point blank range.”

Timm is a columnist for GEN magazine. In response to a Twitter thread about a series of videos showing a pattern of police violence against protesters from a fellow columnist, he tweeted: “I’ve been watching cable news for the last two hours, it is completely devoid of this reality. It’s been almost all about random looters, virtually zero coverage of the dozens of truly disturbing videos of cops brutalizing civilians for no reason.”

Timm has done extensive work on drones and notes that a Predator Drone launched from Grand Forks Air Force Base was deployed over the Minneapolis protests.

See past accuracy.org news releases on the militarization of the police.

Filed Under: , , Tagged With: cable news, defund the police, Freedom of the Press Foundation, journalists under attack, Minneapolis, Neoliberal Militarization, police targeting journalists, police violence, rubber bullets, tear gas,

Honduras Elections Amid “Intensified State Terror”

November 22, 2013
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http://www.accuracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/honduras_military_police_2013_11_22.jpgMARK WEISBROT, beeton at cepr.net
Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and recently wrote the piece “South American Governments Should Support Hondurans’ Rights To Sovereignty and Free Elections” for the Guardian, which states: “In 2009, the country’s left-of-center President Mel Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup that was heavily supported (and, according to Zelaya, organized) by the United States government. After six months and a lot of political repression, the coup government was re-established with an election that almost the entire hemisphere — except, you guessed it, the United States — rejected as illegitimate. Four years later — on [Sunday] November 24 — Honduran voters will go to the polls again…” The group will be live blogging the election, see: cepr.net.

ADRIENNE PINE, pine at american.edu, @adriennepine
Assistant professor of anthropology at American University, Pine is currently on leave on a Fulbright scholarship, residing in Tegucigalpa and teaching at the National Autonomous University of Honduras. She blogs at quotha.net.

Pine recently wrote the article “Where Will the Children Play? Neoliberal Militarization in Pre-Election Honduras”, which states: “In the months leading up to the first national elections since the 2009 coup in which members of the Resistance movement will participate, state-led terror and the criminalization of social protest have intensified.Juan Orlando Hernández, the presidential candidate for current president Porfirio ‘Pepe’ Lobo’s National Party, has made the promise of security through militarization his central campaign theme. …

“The Honduran military and the judiciary both were primary institutional state actors in the 2009 coup against president Manuel Zelaya, whose wife Xiomara Castro is running for president against Hernández on the Resistance-affiliated LIBRE (Liberty and Refoundation) Party ticket.”

DARÍO EURAQUE, dario.euraque at trincoll.edu
Euraque is professor of history and international studies at Trinity College in Connecticut. Euraque served as director, under President Manuel Zelaya, of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History. Euraque is the author of numerous books in Spanish and English on Honduran history, culture and politics, including a 2010 memoir about the 2009 coup against Zelaya and its devastating impact on cultural heritage projects. He will arrive in Tegucigalpa Sunday to vote in the national elections.

Tagged With: Adrienne Pine, coup, cultural heritage, Dario Euraque, elections, Honduras, judiciary, Manuel Zelaya, Mark Weisbrot, Neoliberal Militarization, political repression, Xiomara Castro,