Category Archives: Law/Justice

Antifa Punks and Boogaloo Bois: A Tale of Two Scapegoats Reply

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

It was the kind of story that always seems to fly just beneath the radar. You probably missed it. I nearly did. Somewhere between the Pride parades and the Fourth of July, while the country was busy hyperventilating over the latest Coronavirus spike and I was busy scrubbing the glitter and gunpowder from my crack, a memo from Attorney General and Melvin Purvis impersonator William Barr was published by those fine parasites at the Washington Post. In this memo, Barr directed the Justice Department to form a task force devoted to combating the vague scourge of “Anti-Government Extremists.” The task force was to be led by a junta of state attorneys and would gather information on individuals and organizations deemed to be a threat by the same Attorney General who brought us Ruby Ridge.

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U.S. Supreme Court deems half of Oklahoma a Native American reservation Reply

by • Law/Justice, Race and Ethnicity

On the surface-level at least, this seems like a major victory for native rights and may actually be, even if the overarching presence of the federal regime remains. If the lumpenproletariat (the most oppressed social class) is the class vanguard in the struggle against the state, Native American tribes (the most oppressed ethnic communities) would have to be the ethnic vanguard.

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday recognized about half of Oklahoma as Native American reservation land and overturned a tribe member’s rape conviction because the location where the crime was committed should have been considered outside the reach of state criminal law.

The justices ruled 5-4 in favor of a man named Jimcy McGirt and agreed that the site of the rape should have been recognized as part of a reservation based on the historical claim of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation – beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities.

The decision means that for the first time much of eastern Oklahoma is legally considered reservation land. More than 1.8 million people live in the land at issue, including roughly 400,000 in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city.

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the ruling, joining the court’s four liberals in the majority.

Gorsuch referenced the complex historical record that started with the forced relocation by the U.S. government of Native Americans, including the Creek Nation, to Oklahoma in a traumatic 19th century event known as the “trail of tears.” At the time, the U.S. government pledged that the new land would be theirs in perpetuity.

“Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word,” Gorsuch wrote.

Gorsuch rejected the state’s arguments, which he said would require turning a “blind eye” to the federal government’s past promises.

In a joint statement, the state, the Creek Nation and the other four of what is known as the “Five Tribes” of Oklahoma said they were making “substantial progress” toward an agreement on shared jurisdiction that they would present to the federal government. The other tribes are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Seminole.

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Authorities execute search warrant on St. Louis couple who pointed guns at protesters 3

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Law/Justice, Left and Right

This case is going to be a major culture war focus. Anyone who wants to know what’s going on politically right now needs to read Carl Schmitt’s “The Concept of the Political” and “The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy,” which were written in the 1920s as the Weimar Republic was falling apart. Increasingly, the Red Tribe and Blue Tribe view each other as existential enemies (Schmitt’s “friend/enemy” distinction). Likewise,  bourgeois liberal concepts such as “parliamentary democracy” or “rule fo law” can only function when all sides recognize the process as legitimate and the losing side is willing to lose peacefully or gracefully on the assumption they will get another chance, or when there is some basic consensus on what law is or ought to be.

By Marty Johnson

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Racist Police Violence Reconsidered Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties, Race and Ethnicity • Tags:

By John McWhorter

Quillette

Tony Timpa was 32 years old when he died at the hands of the Dallas police in August 2016. He suffered from mental health difficulties and was unarmed. He wasn’t resisting arrest. He had called the cops from a parking lot while intoxicated because he thought he might be a danger to himself. By the time law enforcement arrived, he had already been handcuffed by the security guards of a store nearby. Even so, the police officers made him lie face down on the grass, and one of them pressed a knee into his back. He remained in this position for 13 minutes until he suffocated. During the harrowing recording of his final moments, he can be heard pleading for his life. A grand jury indictment of the officers involved was overturned.

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Taking Steps Towards a City Without Local Police Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties

This article is 100% spot, at least as far as the local component of the police state is concerned, and far as the “criminal law” aspect of statism is concerned. Of course, even at the local level, we could develop a far more comprehensive critique of statism. The role of zoning in creating localized fiefdoms and oligarchies, licensing laws as a means of creating monopolistic professional guilds, the school system as child prisons, and CPS as a component of the wider nanny state aspects of the police state would be just a few examples.

By

Recently, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender was interviewed regarding the Council’s latest political move towards abolition of the local police department. The interview left me underwhelmed. She gave no indication that she was familiar with the technical details of what abolishing the police could look like. I am not surprised by this though. The speed with which the City Council acted to signal willingness to change gave them no time to thoroughly think through the implications of, or a set of reasonable steps to take towards, abolishing the police.

The first point to consider is that, much to my dismay, nobody is talking about getting rid of all publicly funded law enforcement in Minneapolis. As it stands, there are a series of overlapping jurisdictions, of which the local police are only one. Park police, transit police, the County Sheriff’s department, State patrol, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and any number of federal law enforcement agencies will still operate as they always have. Many investigations, arrests, and incarcerations will be handled by essentially the same people handling them now.

Don’t worry Minneapolis City Council, we have you covered! Here are a list of steps you should be seriously considering:

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Getting the Police Issue Right Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, Economics/Class Relations, Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties, Race and Ethnicity

The main limitation of most liberal and left critiques of the police state is that these are primarily limited to dubious killings of civilians, racial disparities, and official forms of “police misconduct” as conventionally defined. And usually, these critiques are limited to the municipal police. That’s a start but nowhere near enough. Some further left critics also include the class dynamics that are inherent in the police state. That’s an advancement to the next level but still not nearly enough. We need a critique of the police state that is more in line with the kind of critique we might have of the Third Reich, the USSR, or perhaps contemporary China. I don’t think the US is presently as bad as any of those three but that’s the direction things are headed, not the other direction.

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Anti-eviction protests ends with arrests, window smashed at downtown Richmond courthouse Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations, Law/Justice

Nice work. A small gesture, but every little bit counts.

BY C. SUAREZ ROJAS Richmond Times-Dispatch

An anti-eviction rally and protest march ended with arrests and a smashed window at the John Marshall Courthouse in downtown Richmond on Wednesday.

Following the rally at the courthouse plaza and a march that passed city hall and the governor’s mansion, approximately 100 demonstrators returned to the courthouse. Tensions escalated as sheriff’s deputies attempted to arrested several people who had entered the building, according to witnesses. A courthouse window was smashed moments later. The crowd then dispersed as more law enforcement arrived on the scene.

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The End of Policing Reply

by • Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties • Tags:

Alex Vitale’s book is probably the most comprehensive scholarly work on this topic at present. Thanks to Vince for the summary.

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– The origin of policing as a control mechanism for the upper class and rich to suppress the lower class and minorities. Strike breaking, enforcement of racial segregation, and punishment of supposedly immoral but non criminal behavior.
– The disaster that is the War on Drugs, which was originally conceived to control and suppress racial groups and political opponents. The War on Drugs does almost nothing to actually limit the availability of drugs or even deter drug addiction and instead its enforcement represents a massive threat to civil and human rights.
– The misguided use of police to solve social problems that they simply are note equipped to handle. Homelessness is a social problem, yet homelessness is essentially criminalized throughout the US. Portland police, for instance, spend most of their day attempting to address (while armed) the social, mental, and material needs of our exploding homeless population.

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SHOCK SCOTUS decision on abortion shows GOP SELLOUT to big business Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Law/Justice

This is the best analysis of how the Supreme Court actually works that you will ever see in “big media.” The SCOTUS exists to ratify and uphold the class interests of the power elite and the state while deciding social issues on the basis of the prevailing consensus of the dominant factions of the “educated classes” (as Justice David Souter once called the power elite and managerial classes).

Justice Dept. announces first felony charges in attempted toppling of Andrew Jackson statue near White House Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Law/Justice

Four troops down and more resources turned over to the state in the form of fines, bails, and lawyer fees. And for what? Were any resources liberated from the ruling class? Were any state functions rendered inoperative even for a single day? Think tactically, folks.

By Evan Semones

Politico

The Justice Department on Saturday announced that four men face felony charges after protesters attempted to tear down a statue of President Andrew Jackson in a park near the White House.

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After weeks of protests, meaningful police reform appears unlikely Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Law/Justice, Left and Right, Police State/Civil Liberties, Race and Ethnicity

You don’t say? Imagine that.

Analysis by Josh Campbell, CNN Security Correspondent

The dramatic images rocked the nation — hundreds of thousands of people from all races taking to the streets across the United States, demanding an end to excessive police force against people of color.

What began as local outrage in response to George Floyd’s death following an encounter with Minneapolis police officers soon spread throughout the country.

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“The New Jim Crow” Michelle Alexander VS. Jesse Lee Peterson on Mass Incarceration Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Law/Justice, Left and Right, Police State/Civil Liberties, Race and Ethnicity

An interesting debate between a black leftist and a black conservative.

I would generally agree with Michelle Alexander’s thesis that the police/carceral state and prison-industrial complex is merely the modern version of American black slavery or Jim Crow. But where I would disagree is that I think her analysis is too limited to the race issue in a way that ignores the context of state and class,

The US ruling class response to the black insurgency of the 1950s and 1960s was the standard strategy: co-optation with the left-hand, repression with the right-hand. The creation of the civil rights paradigm, the expansion of the welfare state, race-based policy initiatives, and the “diversity” ideology were intended to co-opt the black middle class, expand its size, and incorporate it into the wider system.

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Glenn Loury: ‘We’re Being Swept Along by Hysteria’ About Racism in America Reply

by • Activism, Anarchism/Anti-State, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Fourth Generation Warfare, History and Historiography, Law/Justice, Left and Right, Military, Police State/Civil Liberties, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism, Race and Ethnicity, Secession, Strategy, Therapeutic State

A somewhat interesting interview with a leading black conservative.

I would be inclined to argue that, at present, substantial sectors of the capitalist class (including some major capitalist entities) along with their allies in the new clerisy/new class that dominates the “ideas industries” are fueling anti-racism hysteria in order to deflect attention away from the class-based nature of the insurrection. They do this because a race war is less antithetical to their interests than a class war. However, contra the Marxists and left-anarchists, it doesn’t stop at class either. Even a class war is more co-optable than a direct war against the state itself.

All of this follows an easily identifiable pattern in US history.

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My Family Saw a Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween. Then I Learned How NYPD Impunity Works. 1

by • Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties

So I guess the main thing James Fields did wrong was not becoming a cop before he ran over Heather Heyer.

By Eric Umansky

Pro Publica

Last Halloween, my wife and then-6-year-old daughter were making their way home after trick-or-treating in Brooklyn. Suddenly, an unmarked NYPD car with sirens wailing began speeding against traffic up a one-way street, our neighborhood’s main thoroughfare. The officer seemed to be going after a few teenage boys.

Then, in an instant, the car hit one of the kids.

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FBI Posts Photos Of Far left Rioters, National Guard Deployed As Fanatics Plan To Tear Down Lincoln Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Law/Justice, Left and Right, Police State/Civil Liberties • Tags:

Here it comes. The state attacks with the right hand and co-opts with the left hand.

FBI Posts Photos Of Far left Rioters, National Guard Deployed As Fanatics Plan To Tear Down Lincoln. Trump announced last night hundreds of arrests of far left rioters over the destruction of statues.

Republican establishment’s court strategy is TOTAL FAILURE Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Law/Justice, Left and Right

I am sometimes asked by leftists why, if I reject the left/right model of the political spectrum, I criticize the left more harshly or more frequently than the right. I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve actually had some hard words for the right over the years, mostly referring to them as useful idiots for the military-industrial complex. However, it is true that I see that right as essentially being the losing team. The right is currently swimming against every demographic, cultural, generation, economic, and technological tide. Meanwhile, the left is a rising force, particularly the cultural left, which is being co-opted by the state and the ruling class. If you want your team to win the World Series, then you train your team to face off against the teams they’re likely to meet in the playoffs, not the ones with a net loss of games.

About the only thing I want from the political Right, from the most mainstream Republican voter to the most insane survivalist hiding from the lizard people in a mountain bunker, is for them to renounce the US system en masse in favor of dissolution, and forget about all this “Reclaim America for Real Americans” nonsense. A lot of them seem to think that the Supreme Court is their last hope, which is why I was thrilled to see the two recent SCOTUS decisions on DACA and LGBTQ rights. The objective is to deprive the military-industrial complex of its primary constituency.

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Mapping the State’s Strategy of Repression Against the Rebellion Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State, Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties

It’s Going Down

While the recent rebellion against the police and white supremacy has been historical, it has also been coupled by an attempt by the State to drown the uprising in a sea of tear-gas and rubber bullets. While demonstrations and actions continue, the State is now gearing up for a more long-term strategy of repression, as a vast network of FBI agents, attorneys, and local police comb through hours of footage and social media, looking for targets.

Already, over 10,000 people have been arrested across the so-called US and around 75 currently have federal charges; many of which carry extensive prison sentences. Moreover, there are reports of FBI door-knocks and visits to those that have recently been arrested. Often times people are being asked if they are involved in “antifa” while some are even propositioned with becoming informants.

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Kamala Harris: “Everyone can finally bear witness to the violence” against Black citizens by police Reply

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism, Law/Justice, Left and Right, Men and Women, Police State/Civil Liberties, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism, Race and Ethnicity

Kamala Harris would be the ruling class’ ideal figurehead at this point. A “woman of color” who consolidates the totalitarian humanist ideological framework with the left hand, while strengthening the police/carceral state with the right hand.

Sen. Kamala Harris speaks on the Senate floor about historical and modern violence visited upon Black Americans by the police.