Report Back on Anti-Police Demo

Report Back on Anti-Police Demo

(raimd.wordpress.com)

On August 28th, a march against police brutality was held in Denver, Colorado.  The march was held in response to a series of police brutality cases coming to light.

The march was organized by members of Aurora Copwatch, West Denver Copwatch and the All Nations Alliance.  Though the pig media lied and initially reported only “dozens” of protesters, at its height on the 16th Street Mall there were well over 200 participants, including not only much of the more ‘radical’ of the Denver activist scene but also people who had joined in as the march passed by.

The recent cases of police brutality and the reaction they sparked have been unprecedented.  They have led to Mayor John Hickenlooper, who is running for governor this year,  to bring in the FBI to investigate certain cases.  It has also led to city public safety manager Ron Perea resigning,
and the city council settling many cases with millions of city dollars.(1)

The public anger of these cases, and many others not as known, set the mood for this march.  Days before the march a group of religious leaders denounced plans for a march, and instead called for talks with the pigs to reform themselves.(2)  But one cannot negotiate with pigs, and many people outraged about the incidents came out to show it that day.  In the press release announcing the march the organizers announced:  “It is anticipated that Denver police will be present during the march. We want to be clear in our position that due to the actions of its officers, we no longer trust DPD with its ability to protect our community.  We request for the safety of the community members present at the march and rally, and that law enforcement officials keep a reasonable distance from the participants. We are engaging in a peaceful, non-violent exercise of our federally protected First Amendment rights and DPD interference is not welcome.”(3)

The march began by the downtown skatepark, next to where Mark Ashford was beat up by two Denver pigs. He was beaten after speaking with the driver of a vehicle the police had pulled over wrongly, offering to be a witness for the driver in court. The next stop of the march was at 15th St. and Larimer, where Micheal DeHerrera was assaulted by Denver’s grimiest as he was was talking on the phone outside of a club while police were arresting his friend. These two incidents of police brutality were videotaped by H.A.L.O., a network of video surveillance cameras in the downtown area monitored by the Denver Pig Department. The march and protest ended at  Denver’s new $158 million, 1500 prisoner capacity “Justice” Center. There, Marvin Booker, a Black street preacher arrested on drug paraphenalia charges, was killed by the pigs running the detention center. He was beaten to death after he reached to get his shoes, his only possessions of value.  The pigs have refused to release a video tape of the death citing ongoing investigations, but with the similarities to a previous death in police custody, many see an ongoing cover up that has been typical of DPD.

The protesters carried signs and banners. One read, “All Cops are Murderers.”  Others listed the names of recent police victims. RAIM brought signs that read : “Fuck Pigs (And Snitches),” “Self Defense Makes Sense, Defeat Nazi Pigs,” and “Revolution is Good! Resist Amerikkkan Occupation.” Unlike other activist marches in the city, the militancy of this march was evident from the beginning.  The march started with a chant “No Justice No Peace, Fuck the Police.”  Other chants that echoed through the march were “Oink Oink, Bang Bang, Everyday the Same Old Thing,” “Cops, Pigs, Murderers,” and “When Our Communities Are Under Attack, What Do We Do? Stand Up, Fight Back!”  RAIM also did its modest part to raise the militancy of the march, helping lead and initiate such chants through a megaphone.

Overall, like most marches in the First World, the message was mixed to the effect of confusing friends and enemies and in the process miscalculating the actual strength of each.

One positive thing was the rhetorical refutation of pacifism. When the crowd began chanting emotionally-charged slogans, one person put up a peace sign with their fingers. One pacifist type berated a RAIMer for leading slogans against the pigs through a megaphone, saying to us some metaphysical tripe about love conquering hate and peace overcoming violence.  We politely brushed the person off and continued to assist in leading chants. Beyond the inane idea that RAIM-Denver was acting violently with no more power than a megaphone is the ideological wrecking-ball that is pacifism. While ultimately the degree of militancy in a single march in Denver is inconsequential, the idea itself, spread by well-to-do cracker-liberals from places like Boulder and Denver, is poisonous to the struggles of oppressed and exploited peoples globally. In a sense, pacifism is much like Christianity in that it is promoted to Third World peoples by Amerikans and various organizations they support, to the effect of diverting the proletarian from actual strategies for liberation. (We suggest everyone read Pacifism as Pathology by Ward Churchill and Negroes With Guns by Robert F. Williams for arguments against pacifism.)

With the presence and influence of pacifists and deescalaters limited, the march soon took parts of the streets, which isn’t usual for Denver protests. The pigs themselves stayed out of sight the whole time. This was a PR tactic as their presence would have surely escalated the toned of the march further and perhaps created even more instances of brutality. But we are sure that they were observing the march from a distance.

At the end of the march, in front of the Injustice Center, the crowd chanted “Fire to the Prisons” and Asesinos, Spanish for “Assassins.”  There were speeches by activists highlighting the above pig terror cases and by victims of pig brutality telling the crowd their experiences.  A coffin symbolizing the death of Marvin Booker was brought by the marchers and left there at the jail.

Common with virtually all protests in Denver and occupied North America was the great number of stares from people not participating. At times, the march walked past restaurants in affluent neighborhoods. Some protesters expressed affinity with the diners, encouraging them to join the march. Allusions were made that even the rich ‘liberal’ Denverite gawkers would “stand up” against the police.

We ask, why muddy up the picture with outright First Worldism? Rather, these people should be identified, albeit not merely in an agitational manner, for what they are: parasite reactionaries who more often than not support the pigs and the system they represent. Needless to say, the ‘militant’ pleas to shoppers and diners were fruitless.  Ultimately, it was chants of ‘Fuck the Police!’ which got large numbers of passer-by youth to join the demonstration, not pacifism or First Worldism.

At another point in the march, the protesters paused to repeat a chant part of which said that they themselves had “…nothing to lose but our chains” (origanally said by Marx, but of course not attributed to him in the chant).  RAIM didn’t participate in the contrived bit of self-delusion. We ask those who did to compare themselves to the average person from Latin America, Africa or Asia and take an honest account of the many things they could in fact lose. Though such slogans might give oneself a short-lived sense of self-importance, they do little in the long run to advance the revolutionary struggle. It is only by taking a realistic account of the world that one can hope to meaningfully advance the revolutionary struggle.

The contradiction between the police (or more accurately the system they represent) and the majority of Amerikans is not antagonistic, i.e. it will not lead to sustained revolutionary struggle. Not to say that we do not support reform efforts to reduce police terror, but only see the limitations that these reform efforts will do.  There will be attempts by the city to appease the public outrage with more “accountability”, but police brutality is but a symptom of an unjust social order.  Thus it will continue, as in these cases against non-white oppressed nationality peoples and others outside of mainstream society.  Thus RAIM sees any effective revolutionary strategy inside imperialist Amerika as minoritarian, one that effectively repudiates the majority of Amerikans while seeking to work in alliance with the broad masses of the Third World, whom do in fact constitute majorities in their respective homelands. So-called radicals should promote an independent identity and culture of resistance amongst the oppressed in Amerika as well as a spirit of affinity and solidarity with the Third World masses, not a fallacious, reformist and First Worldist ‘unity’ between the oppressed and White activists as a stand in for a non-existent White proletarian.

More actions on these cases will come up, as they have been so publicized they will stay in the spotlight.

==============

Here is a video of the march from West Denver Copwatch.  Check out their website for more information about these cases and their interactive database of Denver pig activity.

Sources:

1.  http://cbs4denver.com/investigates/excessive.force.denver.2.1878320.html

2. http://cbs4denver.com/news/ministers.chief.talk.2.1877579.html

3. http://westdenvercopwatch.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/press-release-for-saturday-march-and-rally/

Killer of Oscar Grant Gets Off: No Justice in Amerikkka

Killer of Oscar Grant Gets Off: No Justice in Amerikkka

(raimd.wordpress.com)

Justice did not materialize in Oakland for Oscar Grant, just as it is delayed and denied for millions of victims of Amerikkka.

The BART pig who killed Grant, Johannes Mehserle, was given the lightest sentence possible short of acquittal, involuntary manslaughter, and the jury rejected the more serious charge of second degree murder. This despite the fact that the shooting was caught on camera and the pig had claimed he was reaching for his taser and not his gun when he shot Grant, who was unarmed.

The people were justifiably angry. There were protests and rebellions in Oakland following, and self-proclaimed community leaders attempted to keep the people calm for the benefit of the system. 78 people were reported arrested in Oakland.(1) Solidarity protests happened across the country, as people all over were outraged.  In Denver a solidarity protest turned out 50 people, organized by the local Anarchist Black Cross chapter at the last minute.(2)

The claim of mistaking a Taser for a gun is so dubious in and of itself. Local author and indigenous rights activist Ben Whitmer, who is also a concealed carry holder, tears apart the ridiculousness of that defense here: http://benjaminwhitmer.com/index.php/2010/07/looking-at-johannes-mehserles-defense-from-the-vantage-point-of-an-amateur-gun-nut/

Of the twelve jurors on the trial, held in Los Angeles, not one of them was Black, and several of the jurors admitted to being friends or relatives of cops.(3) Attorney John Burris, representing the Grant family, said at a press conference, “In my long history being involved in police matters since 1979 and well over 30 homicides with police, never have I had a case when a police officer was convicted of any crime against an African American male.”(4)

Oscar Grant is one of several non-white people killed or brutalized by cops, almost all of whom never get convicted. The fact that the pig got even manslaughter is surprising, only after going to trial following much publicity from being filmed.  Amerikans supposedly pride themselves on being a nation of laws, but look the other way when the law attempts to bring Amerika accountable. There was no convictions with the Rodney King beating in the 1990’s. Recently pigs killed Aiyana Jones with no one being brought to trial. The cases of pig brutality in Amerika are endless. Abroad military troops commit vast atrocities and are never brought to justice. Despite the photographic evidence at Abu Gharib hardly any of the perpetrators were brought to trial. And recently a video of a massacre by Amerikan troops was brought to light throught the Wikileaks site, with no one hurrying to prosecute.

Often in these cases the Amerikan populace comes to support these pig cops and troops. It is considered sacrilege to question the police and military. Even Barack Obama came under heat for saying that the pig who arrested Henry Louis Gates “acted stupidly.” He was forced to apologize and invited the pig to the White House for a beer.  No matter how much mass murder Obama does for the empire, criticizing cops no matter how mildly is frowned upon.

Mao Zedong once observed that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Amerikan power that its citizenry wallows in comes from the vast weapons it has and uses. The police and the military of Amerikkka are the shock troops that keep that imperialist system of exploitation running. They bring terror to the populations they oppress, and millions fall victim to the system they enforce. Justice in turn will come to Amerikkka by the oppressed people of the world bringing it to them in turn. It is right to rebel against all reactionaries!

(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/us/10oakland.html?_r=1

(2)http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/oscar-grant-denver-stands-in-solidarity-with-oakland/

(3)http://racerelations.about.com/b/2010/06/14/no-black-jurors-in-oscar-grant-murder-trial.htm

(4)http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/07/oscar_grant_verdict_whats_inside_the_jurys_ruling.html

RAIM Global Digest Vol. 2 Issue 4

RAIM Global Digest Vol. 2 Issue 4

Contents:

-RAIM Seattle Drives Away Crackers from Mayday

-Mayday 2010 Denver

-RAIM Protests Teaklanners and Amerikkka

-Arizona SB1070, the Continuing War Against the Mexicano People

-Big Majority of Amerikans Support Racist Arizona Law

-On the Upcoming Election in the Philippines

-Pigs Kill Aiyana Jones While Being Recorded for Reality TV

-Movie Review: Clash of the Titans

Pigs kill Aiyana Jones while being recorded for a police reality TV show

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

One of the latest victims of the pig brutality is Aiyana Jones, a 7 year old girl who was living in Detroit who was murdered by gunfire earlier this month. (1) The assailant responsible for her death, Officer Joe Weekley, has recently been put on paid leave. (2) Blacks who are murdered in this way will sometimes receive media attention, but in general life goes on as usual for Amerikans, who have displayed little interest in Jones’ death. Rather than being the object of widespread outrage or condemnation, the brutality and murder of oppressed peoples cause most Amerikans to end up siding with the pigs no matter how blatant the their aggression. Jones’ death is not an aberration on an otherwise just police system. Rather, it is part of the systematic violence aimed at Blacks living in the United $nakes.

In a display of absurdity, one of the most incriminating pieces of evidence is an unreleased recording for a television series called “Detroit Police Tech: SWAT Team,” a show meant to glorify the pigs. There is currently some disagreement about what exactly is depicted in the recording. Geoffrey Fieger, the lawyer representing the victim’s family, claims that the video shows that the shooting was intentional. In contrast, the pigs claim that the gun was accidentally fired while they fought with Aiyana Jones’ grandmother. Even if the pigs are telling the truth and Jones’ death was an accident, her death was preventable and a direct result of the pigs’ inclination towards using excessive force. These types of shows that aim to glorify the pigs as heroes add cultural fuel to the fire of gross police violence. These shows are a dime a dozen. Among the worst are shows like “Border Wars” and “Detroit Police Tech: SWAT Team,” which glorify subduing oppressed nations by force.

Such shows are popular with many Amerikans. However, Mayor Dave Bing of Detroit, who claims to have no knowledge of what his police were doing, has since banned reality TV from accompanying Detroit police officers. (4) However, capitalist culture dishes up so much reactionary slop that whether or not this particular show continues to air matters little. If this show is banned, there are a hundred copycat, or even worse, shows to take its place. Like so much trashy pig culture, such a television program has no place in socialism, except, perhaps, to make known the failings of past culture. As a rule, such shows will be condemned to the dustbin of history.

Still, in our current environment there is a pattern where recordings that were not intentional on the part of the state end up exposing the state’s actions. This was the case during the public execution of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California, and was similarly the case when Saeed Chmagh and the other Iraqis around him were gunned down in Baghdad. If the state possesses such videos itself, it consistently fails to release them. It would not be unreasonable if, instead, all actions undertaken outside of Amerikan society by its police and military were recorded by an impartial third party, and the videos placed in a publicly viewable archive online. Of course, this will never happen under capitalism.

In “Detroit Police: SWAT Team,” the intended message very clearly is that Detroit needs a White overseer. In a promotional video for the show, a pig representative proudly explains the SWAT team’s special role in enforcing state oppression, thus giving a backdrop for the series. (5) When most Amerikan viewers see the show, they will accept without question that Detroit, a city with an 84% black population, needs a White overseer armed with tanks and submachine guns to keep Blacks in line. (6)(7) So entrenched is imperialist culture that the idea of subduing Blacks with tanks makes perfect sense to Amerikans, who are increasingly fascist in their mentality. After all, the United States is a country that was founded upon conquest, murder, and genocide. Frighteningly, fascist-styled organizations such as the Minuteman Project have already begun to develop and take root in U$ society. Fascism has a strong social base of support in Amerikan the labor aristocracy. This reactionary class, which comprises the vast majority of the Amerikan population, is dependent on imperialism for its survival. The labor aristocracy will fight tooth-and-nail for imperialism to protect its privileges.

Virtually all Amerikans are thoroughly reactionary. Amerikans consistently align with imperialism against the Third World. Only a tiny minority of Amerikans are willing to stand with the vast majority of humanity against imperialism. Imperialism is a beast that demands constant sacrifices. Aiyana Jones’s was one of its latest victims. Until imperialism is destroyed along with Amerika itself, more and more people will continue to be sacrificed to the beast. Imperialism’s appetite for blood is unrelenting. Even more people will be killed indirectly through starvation, lack of medical treatment, or other problems created by unnecessary poverty. This way of things does not advance humanity in any meaningful way, but instead only exists to transport stolen wealth from the Third World to a global minority in the First World. To move forward, the beast must be slain and all the world’s people set free.

Notes.

1. http://detnews.com/article/20100516/METRO/5160325/Detroit-Police-shoot-7-year-old-girl-in-house-search#ixzz0p1pAUJTY
2. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/05/officer_whose_bullet_killed_ai.html
3. http://www.newser.com/article/d9fp3utg0/reality-series-crew-was-with-Detroit-police-during-search-where-7-year-old-g irl-was-killed.html
4. http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/25/1646828/detroit-mayor-bans-tv-crews-from.html
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWvgo17dHik
6. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-context=adp&-qr_name=ACS_2007_3YR_G00_DP3YR5&-ds_name=ACS_2007_ 3YR_G00_&-tree_id=3307&-redoLog=true&-_caller=geoselect&-geo_id=16000US2622000&-format=&-_lang=en
7. “Black” is not capitalized here to signify that the US census is not talking about nations, but simply “ethnic” qualities such as skin color. Rather than focusing on “race” or “ethnicity,” Marxists tend to focus on the more scientific concept of nations. Even though the US census thus does not divide people in a scientific way, the qualities that lead one to be labelled as “ethnically black” still correlate roughly to membership of the Black Nation, so this percent offers a good picture of Detroit practically speaking.

May Day 2010 Denver

May Day 2010 Denver

(raimd.wordpress.com)

This year the May Day events in Denver, as elsewhere in occupied Amerika, were about migrant rights and were influenced by the recent passage in Arizona of SB1070 that would further criminalize migrants without documents.  There were two different events in Denver, each illustrating the different politics around the most recent struggle for migrant rights.

The first event was one RAIM participated in and helped organize.  The May Day March for Social Justice, Human Dignity, and Self-Determination was made up of a loose coalition of more radical and independent tendencies.  RAIM Denver marched with our allies Resistencia Mexicana, with banners featuring Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata.  At least 500 people participated in this march, which went from the State Capitol through downtown, ending in Skyline Park for a rally.  A Mexica/Aztec dance group performed a ceremony and led the march.

photo by Shareef

This particular march was unique with respect to the diverse makeup of the participants, who had a more clearer understanding of the repressive character of the state’s response to the “immigrant rights” movement.  It showed that there is a progressive sector in Denver that is against reform oriented liberal politics and for more radical change.  There were many beautiful banners and signs, good chants, and a more liberatory attitude. The rally included music, food, tables of the participating groups, and speakers.

photo by Resistencia Mexicana

photo by Resistencia Mexicana

photo by Shareef

The first speaker was Ricardo Romero, a long time Chicano/Mexicano human rights organizer and a leader in the Mexican National Liberation Movement, who brought up the ongoing war against the Mexican people exemplified by the anti-migrant movement.  Romero pointed out that there is a coming fascist offensive against the Mexicano peoples on their own occupied homeland, and highlighted the need to get educated, organized, and prepared for self-defense and national liberation.

Antonio spoke on behalf of RAIMD, stating that the recent struggle in Arizona is only one of many that has happened since 1848 when the U.S. settler empire invaded Mexico and imposed a border on its northern half. Today, the fight continues on many fronts with Third World peoples fighting against the exploiter countries of the First World. Antonio pointed out that it is important to support the struggles against imperialism everywhere.

RAIMD also brought a pinata for the festivities, in the form of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as a pig.  The elementary school-aged children at the rally enjoyed participating in the beating of the pig Brewer, and tore it open for the candy and toys inside.

Kids getting candy and toys from "Jan Brewer" pinata. Photo by Resistencia Mexicana

At the rally at Skyline RAIMD and other organizations had tables and distributed information.  Here many groups handed out a wide range of literature outside of mainstream discourse.  Our own materials were well received by the participants there.  We distributed: over two hundred of our program in support of Mexican nation liberation; around 75 new and old RAIM Global Digests; dozens of Troublemaker DVDs; copies of chapter eight from Lin Biao’s ‘Long Live the Victory of People’s War’ and some interviews with J. Sakai, author of ‘Settlers, the Mythology of the White Proletariat;’ even some child-sized t-shirts. Our material sparked many conversations and drew both nods of approval and skeptical looks.

The rally ended later that afternoon with some good music and on a positive note.  Despite our real political differences with many of the groups there, overall it showed that there is an organized progressive sector in Denver that is nominally against reform oriented liberal politics and for more radical social change, no matter how small that sector is.

The Other Rally

We should note the other event that went on that day, which was much larger for many reasons.  It was organized by Reform Immigration for America, a liberal reformist group that steers the migrant rights struggle into the safe hands of the Democratic Party realm.  To illustrate their strategy, at their massive immigration reform rally in Washington back in March of this year, they ended it with a televised speech by President Obama promising reform.

While the coalition that did the May Day March for Social Justice was planning this march months in advance, the liberal groups did not want a march at all.  Their last minute changes in response to our organizing and to a changing public opinion show their opportunistic nature.  Their original event for May 1st was going to be a “Grade Your Senators” event at Sunken Gardens Park, where participants would fill out faux report cards on legislators.  Basically directing people into electoral work, using Latinos as another interest group to gain leverage on the legislative level.  The response to Arizona changed this.  The days before there were many school walkouts organized in protest of the law in Arizona.  In Denver on April 30th many schools walked out and ended at a rally at the Capitol that day.  The energy level on May 1st was high, people wanted to march.  Also, the legislative campaign would not appeal to the mostly youth and non-citizens that were mobilized.  So the liberal non-profits changed plans at the last minute and tailed where the mass movement was going in order to regain leadership.

This is what awaited marchers at the reformist event at Sunken Gardens Park

The resulting march that went from Sunken Gardens through downtown and back to the park turned out about 10,000 people at its height.  Their larger turnout was due to the liberal groups larger resource base.  They purchased advertising on Spanish television and radio the day before.  The organizers brought several pre-printed signs and Amerikan flags to promote “We Are America.”  The crowd was encouraged to chant “USA, USA.”

The liberals did what they are expected to do, channel discontent into safe and controllable arenas.  In this case promoting assimilationist and reformist messages.  Their hope is that mainstream Amerika will see that immigrants are “Americans” too.  In the end this strategy, which denies the people the right to their identity, culture, and land, will weaken the necessary independent struggle that is needed to build power to fight against repression.  The non-profit industrial complex serves those that use it to continue to get grant funding and patronage, not the people itself.

Our comrades at Monkey Smashes Heaven said this of May Day:

“May Day, May First, or International Workers Day, originally was a day to commemorate the victims of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886.  Chicago workers had called a general strike for the eight-hour workday.  The peaceful strikers were fired on by police. A bomb exploded.

Several deaths of strikers and police occurred. Some of the police deaths were a result of their own hand, “friendly fire.”  [Eight organizers were tried and wrongfully convicted, with some getting the death penalty before they all were exonerated (RAIM)].  Since then May Day has been embraced by revolutionaries and reformists in the labor movement alike.  However, May Day means nothing to the vast majority of First World peoples who have no interest in building socialism or ending imperialism. May Day when celebrated by First Worldists is nothing but a parody.”

This march we participated in gave some mixed messages too,  but created a space where RAIM, Resistencia Mexicana, and others presented alternatives to Amerikan assimilation and to build real power to bring national liberation.

Shout out to West Denver Copwatch

A bunch of troublemakers, West Denver Copwatch, has recently unveiled a database of local pigs.

Also check out their videos featuring Denver’s grimiest.

Amerika “Disappears” Migrants into Secret Detention Facilities

Amerika “disappears” migrants into secret detention facilities

https://raimd.wordpress.com

Recently, journalist Jacqueline Stevens uncovered a list of 186 previously-secret Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sub-field offices. The list reveals the locations into which an unknown number of migrant workers and other non-citizens have been “disappeared.”

According to Stevens, the hidden-plain-sight facilities, five of which are near Denver, Co, are often located in suburban office parks or commercial warehouses. The buildings carry no signs or flags to indicate a government operation. The facilities themselves were designs for processing and transporting detainees; they have no beds or showers. Nonetheless, Stevens states as many as 100 detainees are held at some facilities on any given day. Rather than being deported or sentenced for a crime, they are shuffled between facilities for periods of months, making it virtually impossible for individual detainees to be located by family or legal counsel. They are not told where they are going nor when they will be released.

Such treatment is unusual even by US prison standards. However, it should be of no surprise those with the least power in US society, “illegals,” should be targeted with the most extreme and unusual forms of state oppression. The story for migrants in the US is ironic and sad. Often victims of imperialist-sponsored state-terror and economic strangulation in Latin America, those few who have escaped past Amerika’s militarized borders find themselves criminalized and threatened by both vigilante groups (such as the Minutemen) and  extra normal, police-state measures. Many migrants are returning to land that was originally theirs, as the US/Mexican border was established by gun-point after the 1848 invasion and occupation of Mexico.

‘Working’-class Whites are often the biggest proponents of the modern police state. This is because they see it as attacking others within US society, oppressed nations, and not themselves. They have an economic incentive also: rural prisons and border policing provide well-paid pig-jobs that require little, if any, college education. All of this feeds into the fascistic, anti-migrant, anti-Third World sentiment expressed by many Whites.

Thus far, the Amerikan public has shown little outrage over ICE raids, secret, quasi-legal detentions or similar acts of state oppression directed towards migrants. Ultimately though, it matters little what Amerikans think of the system they’ve set up to oppress other people. Real justice will come when Amerika and Amerikans are judged by the masses of the Third World and their allies.

Source:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100104/stevens

Full list of ICE sub-field offices:

Click to access ICEFieldSubfield0909.PDF

New RAIM Video: Fuck The Kops

Pigs On a Rampage in Denver Area

Pigs On a Rampage in Denver Area

https://raimd.wordpress.com

Over the past few months three men have been shot by the police in the Denver Metro area. The events behind the multiple shootings are sketchy.

The latest was Darius Murray, shot on Saturday May 9th. The Aurora Pig Department originally claimed that 18-year old Darius Murray shot himself in the forehead after already being wounded by their officers (1). Later they backtracked and admitted that all of Murray’s wounds were caused by the officers. He remains in critical condition at University of Colorado Hospital.

According to the family’s lawyer, Derek Cole, the story the police are giving on the incident has constantly changed. The pigs say they were called out on an attempted burglary and when they tried to question Murray he “fired first” and “fired multiple times” before himself being shot in the leg, shoulder and head. He is being charged with attempted murder.(2)

The pigs refused to identify Murray as the shooting victim for two days after he was shot. The Murray family said the police never contacted them to let them know what happened. The family is not confident of police investigating police. The Aurora police chief, after saying he would not respond to the family’s concerns, issued a statement saying the shooting of Murray was justified(3).

Darius grew up in south Aurora and graduated from Colorado High School last year. While the details of the case are hazy, one thing is clear: he is another young Black male struck down through police terrorism.

This latest shooting follows two other shootings the month prior. In what sounds like an execution-style killing, the pigs killed an unarmed, un-named man on East Fifth Avenue and Lafayette St. on February 27th (4). And, in Arvada, police shot an unarmed, unnamed male on Feb.16, 2009 (5). Both shootings followed traffic stops.

Police terror is a mark of national oppression in the cities of Amerika. With oppression comes resistance. For oppressed nations within Amerika, this resistance is rightfully directed against the occupying army of violent, oppressive pigs. The Black Nation has the right of self-defense against police terror. For Blacks and oppressed nations the world over, freedom will come when it throws off the oppression that comes with Amerika.

Sources

(1). “Family wants answers after teen shot by officers.” 9News. http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=115606&catid=346

(2). “Colorado Crimes: Suspect in officer-involved shooting didn’t shoot himself.” Tuesday, May 12, 2009. http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/05/colorado_crimes_suspect_in_off.php

(3). “Aurora chief calls police shooting justified.” Denver Post. May 13, 2009. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12359557 ;
“Aurora police chief defends officers’ shooting of suspect.” Denver Post. May 14, 2009. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_12364347

(4). “Police Shooting Murky.” Mike McPhee. Denver Post. February 28, 2009. http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11804532

(5).“Suspect Shot After Assaulting Arvada Officer.” http://arvadapd.org/about-arvadapd/suspect-shot-after-assaulting-arvada-officer

Remember Oscar Grant: The Struggle Is Not Over

This New Years Day 2009 in Oakland, California another tragic incident of police terror against a young Black man occurred.  Oscar Grant III, 22 years old, father of a 4 year old daughter, was shot execution-style by a transit cop.  Videos of the incident clearly show he was shot in the back while face-down on a subway platform, unarmed and posing no threat.

The incident was filmed by bystanders, and police attempted to confiscate most of the videos.  But a few made it to Youtube and were viewed around the world.  Outrage at this incident spread, with protests and rebellions happening in response to this atrocity in the Bay Area and elsewhere.

John Burris, a civil rights lawyer for the Grant family, called this murder one of the worst cases of police terrorism he ever witnessed.  Recently Johannes Nehserle, the pig shown on the video shooting Grant, was charged with murder after he quit the BART police force and fled the state to avoid questioning.  Along with calling for criminal charges against the cop, Burris is helping file a 25 million lawsuit for Grant’s family.

Although this case may be one of a few where justice is brought against a killer cop, it will be too little too late.  Terrorism and injustice are nothing new for Black people in Amerikkka.  It enslaved and killed millions of African people in one of the most brutal slavery systems known to man.  It subsequently lynched thousands of Blacks in its long history of colonial and neo-colonial oppression.  Other non-white peoples have been victims of Amerikkka in its long history of exploitation, land theft, and genocide.

With oppression comes resistance.  The Black Liberation struggle and the leaders it produced have long been an inspiration to oppressed peoples in every corner of the globe.  We take this time on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to remember that spirit of resistance.

This year’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincides with the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first “Black” president of the United States.  While objectively historic, it should be seen as it is, a reinvention of U.S. imperialism as a multicultural empire with a Black figurehead.  As seen by the murder of Oscar Grant, the Obama presidency will not end the police killings of non-white youth.  It will not end the huge incarceration rates of non-white peoples inside the United States.  It will not free Mumia Abu-Jamal and the hundreds of other political prisoners who are continually denied freedom and justice.  It will not end the U.S. instigated bloodbaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. support for Israel’s aggression against Palestine, or U.S. harassment against independent nations like Venezuela and Bolivia.  And it will not end the parasitic capitalism that steals resources and labor from the Third World to fuel Amerika’s opulent consumerism.

Even Martin Luther King Jr. saw the realities of the political, economic, and military imperialism the United States was inflicting not only to oppressed nations inside the country but all around the world:

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, ‘This is not just’” (“Beyond Vietnam”).

The investments they continue to use to take profits from poor nations were received from previous thefts the U.S. committed throughout its history.  This cycle must stop.

At the same time Oscar Grant was killed, over 1000 Palestinians lost their lives in Gaza by the settler occupation of Israel, funded by the United States.  True freedom and justice will not come by accepting a bigger part of U.S. imperialism but by rejecting and abolishing it outright.  Oppressed nations everywhere must gain their freedom and determine their own destinies.  These freedom struggles are in solidarity with all oppressed peoples in the world, in bringing about a truly just world where an end to oppression with no concessions is more than just a dream.

PDF Flier

Oakland Pigs Execute a Young Black Man

Oscar Grant, a black youth in Oakland, became another victim of police terror as BART police shot and killed him execution style.  It was captured on video, and sparked many rebellions in the Bay Area.  No word yet on whether the pig who executed him will stand trial, but we’re not holding our breath for Amerikkkan (in)justice.

RAIM-D Commemorates the Legacy of Fred Hampton

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement- Denver commemorates the legacy of Black Panther members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, who made the ultimate sacrifice, being murdered by the Chicago Police and the FBI, on December 4, 1969, in Chicago Illinois.

The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary organization which advanced a line of Black Liberation and anti-imperialism in the mid 1960’s through the 1970’s. Fred Hampton was a Chicago Panther leader. Mark Clark was a Panther leader from Peoria, Illinois. Both were members of this militant Maoist Black organization which opposed capitalist imperialism and fought for socialism and the liberation of all of the oppressed. Because of the oppression of the Black nation by white settler U.S. imperialism and because the Black Panther Party operated within the “belly of of the beast,” they were targeted by the U.S. government through infiltration and eventually a plot to destroy the organization by killing and jailing its leaders.

As can be seen in the video, The Murder of Fred Hampton, Hampton was killed as part of a conspiracy by a Black undercover traitor, William O’Neal, the Chicago Pig Department, and the FBI’s counter-intelligence units. Hampton’s assassination demonstrates the depraved character of U.S. imperialist, racist police: the Black Uncle Tom traitor, O’Neal, placed drugs in the juice that Hampton drank on the eve of his murder. The drugs, supplied by the FBI, were designed to sedate Hampton heavily, so that he would not awaken during the police raid later that evening. During the raid, pigs murdered Mark Clark upon entry into the West Chicago apartment where many Panthers from Chicago and Illinois slept. Hampton’s bedroom had been marked on a hand-made map delivered to the FBI by O’Neal with an X. The cops murdered Hampton after killing Clark, allowing the blood from Hampton’s point blank head shooting to flow onto the mattress and bedding upon which he lay. After assassinating Hampton, the other Panthers in the same apartment were also shot and wounded by the killer cops of the Chicago police.

From the murders of Hampton and Clark, decades later there is not a functioning Black Liberation Movement or large anti-capitalist, anti-racist, revolutionary internationalist movement in the U.S.A. This is no doubt partly due to the murder of ‘Chairman’ Fred Hampton.

The enemy U.S. imperialist state does not want the masses of the Black nation to emulate the actions and program of its most advanced revolutionary elements, such as the Panthers. Revolutionary ideals and deeds are consistently and repeatedly denounced by Uncle Tom misleaders in the Black community, such as U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama. In revving up his program for the continuation of oppression of the Black masses and terroristic violence directed towards the people of the world, Obama, from Chicago, has the blood of Hampton clearly on his hands. The FBI all the way down to local racist police departments will not be touched by Obama and his administration.

But what will be done to oppose this? This writer proposes that revolutionaries of all persuasions every year commemorate the Black Liberation Movement with celebrations of Black revolutionary struggle on the day of the assassination of Black Panther’s Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Additionally, from these yearly struggles, political education and action campaigns must be built nationally and internationally that fight for a revolutionary movement and liberation for the oppressed. A movement supporting the political line of Fred Hampton must be rebuilt. This is clearly what Comrades Fred Hampton and Mark Clark would demand of us. In a often quoted speech, Hampton said as much. ” I might be anywhere , but when I leave you can remember I said with the last words on my lips, that I am a revolutionary, and you are going to have to keep on saying that. You are going to have to say ‘I am the proletariat, I am the people, I am not the pigs.’ You’ve got to make a distinction, and the people are going to have to stand up against the pigs. That ’s what the Panthers are doing all over the world.”

Long Live the Revolutionary Legacy of Chairman Fred Hampton!

Forward with the Revolution!

Upcoming Dead Prez Shows

Dead Prez has two shows coming up. Proceeds from both are going to Tent State University and Recreate 68 to support the ‘Festival of Democracy’ and other peaceful protests against the Democratic National Convention.

Tuesday, May 6, 8 pm at the Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder
Wednesday, May 7, 8 pm at Cervantes, 2637 Welton St., Denver

As it turns out, last February Dead Prez played at show at Evergreen College. What began as a peaceful protest when campus police arrested a concert-goer, turned into a “riot” only after the Olympia Pig Department ran in brutalizing the growing crowd.

Here’s a short documentary on it.

Here’s more footage, doesn’t include any “riot” footage

Part 1

Part 2

Fuck the Pigs

Prisons in Amerikkka

Prisons in Perspective

As of February 3rd, 2005 there were 2.1 million people in prison or jail, and another 4.6 million on parole, probation, under house arrest, or in jail awaiting a trial. That’s 6.7 million people or over 2% of the population.

Although nationally oppressed peoples make up about 25% of the population, they are 65% of the prison population. Conversely, although whites are about 75%, they make up only 35% of the prison population.

This is not racism carried out by individual racists. It’s national oppression carried by one part of society against another. It’s one nation’s oppression of others carried out within the arbitrary borders of Amerikkka.

Black males have 32% chance of being imprisoned in their lifetimes; Chicanos/Mexicanos a 17% chance; and white males only a 6% chance. So Blacks basically have a 1 in 3 chance of being locked up at some point in their lifetimes and are more that five times more likely to be imprisoned than whites.

Despite everything white amerikkka has already done to First Nation peoples, they are imprisoned at an even higher rate.

Amerikkka imprisons more of the people within its borders than any other nation in the world. Amerikkka, despite calling itself a beacon of freedom in the world, has the largest prison population in the world.

But is this really surprising for Amerikkka? After all, we are talking about the very country, and indeed people, that enslaved Blacks and tormented them for generations with the terroristic KKK; that emptied an entire continent of people so that they could take the land and mineral wealth for themselves; who took those indigenous peoples and imprisoned them onto reservations and made them adopt Anglo imposed social-economics norms and a foreign culture; and who today imprisons the entire world through economic imperialism.

No, it’s not a surprising at all. It’s Amerikkka.

Pigs Assualt Peaceful Protestors