2014-08-23 by Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency [https://www.facebook.com/groups/425464974257183/permalink/483850761751937]
Thirty members of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club marched through South Dallas armed with rifles, shotguns, and AR-15s this week. The group also entered a restaurant where the Dallas police were eating lunch. Among the chants of the armed protest were "justice for Michael Brown". Although the group was followed by undercover police, the protest took place without incident.
Michael Brown, 18, was an unarmed Black man who was shot and murdered by the Ferguson, Missouri police while his hands were in the air.
The Huey P. Newton Gun Club emphasizes that they are armed for self-defense. On their website they explain:
"Individuals across this nation have been stripped of due process, subjected to state-sponsored police terrorism, and continue to suffer the fate of being terminated extra-judicially.
'In Dallas the police have murdered over 70 unarmed individuals, most of the black and brown men, over the last ten years. Excluding a recent incident where police testimony was contradicted by surveillance footage, there have been no indictments since 1973.
'The people, who are gunned down and murdered by violent and militarized police forces, have formed the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, for the specifc purpose of self defense and community policing.'
The Revolutionary Tendency stands with the right of the Black community to self-defense. This was emphasized in the following article written a couple days after the police murder of Michael Brown. Since the following article was written, mass protests have spread to over 70 cities and they have continued for two weeks in Ferguson, despite heavy police repression and two protesters being shot with so-called "non-lethal" ammunition. In addition, as reported in the corporate media on August 22nd, the FBI is investigating the cyber attacks on the police that were promised by Anonymous and reported in this article.
Missouri: Direct Actions Challenge the Epidemic of Police Murders in the United States
by Steven Argue
Another unarmed man has been murdered by police. This time it was Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson Missouri. Michael Brown, a Black man, was about to begin college. According to a study of racial profiling in Ferguson, Black men are twice as likely as whites to be stopped by police.
Mayor James Knowles has urged people to "have faith in the process", but the people know better. Two days of rebellion and police abuse have ensued since the murder. Anonymous has threatened to take down government computers. Here is their statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOSRQ-c1XW0
Justice is extremely rare under America’s racist capitalist government. In the case of Rodney King, despite videotape showing the cops using enough force to kill a man, the police were acquitted in their first trial. In that case it took a mass six day uprising in 1992 that destroyed over a billion dollars in property to win a new trial for the criminal cops. In the subsequent trial, two cops, Koon and Powell, were found guilty. For a change, two brutal cops went to prison for their crimes. In addition, the 1992 uprising forced the resignation of LA’s Chief of Police. On a small scale, property was also redistributed through “looting”. Yet, the people paid a heavy price for this action with all kinds of repressive government forces mobilized in the streets including the Marines, 53 people were killed, around 2,000 people were injured, and nearly 20,000 people arrested. Yet, the destruction of a billion dollars in property was not without sense, because much of what was destroyed was owned by the ruling capitalist class, our oppressors and exploiters.
Another rare case where a small amount of justice was won was the case of Oscar Grant in Oakland California. Oscar Grant was clearly shown in video being handcuffed and executed by Oakland’s BART Police. Yet, to jail the guilty cop took a mass movement that included protests and a strike by the Oakland Longshore union (ILWU) shutting the Port of Oakland down. The killer of Oscar Grant got off easy with a conviction on a manslaughter charge, but the case was unusual in the fact that the cop did any time at all for his crime.
The true predators in America span from the politicians and judges who hold the highest positions of power all the way down to their badged minions and racist wannabes who patrol the streets, killing with impunity. They represent the wealthy capitalists who own America. Obviously, in capitalist America for those who hold power, the lives of young Black men are cheep. No protest, no strike, and no rebellion by itself will change these facts. To truly jail all of the criminals who are responsible and bring racial justice to America will take a proletarian revolution carried out by America’s multi-racial working class. That revolution must completely smash the capitalist state, at its heart the police, courts, prisons, and military to build new institutions based on racial equality and economic justice. Instead of destroying the property of the capitalists, our goal needs to be one of completely expropriating the entire capitalist class and using our ownership of the economy to guarantee everyone a job, housing, education, healthcare, security, and a clean environment through a new socialist economy based on human needs rather than profit. Building the kind of revolutionary party capable of leading such a revolution is a goal of the Revolutionary Tendency.
Justice for Michael Brown! Fight Police-State Terrorism!
For Armed Workers’ Self-Defense to Protect Ourselves, Our Families and Our Homes!
Towards a Revolutionary Party of the Multiracial Working Class!
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