therealnews--2020-06-09--Trump Creates Chaos By Using The Military To Respond To Racial And Economic Injustice

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Mark Steiner : Welcome to the Real News .
This is Mark Steiner .
Good to have you all with us once again .
You know , I ’ ve been thinking a lot about this .
Trump authoritarian and racist predilections were always there from his loud mouth real estate days to his insulting reality shows on TV , and they began to manifest themselves as soon as he became president .
The perfect storm has arrived of a COVID pandemic , economic collapse @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its evil and ugly head and it converged all together to heighten the Trumpian threat against our democracy and laid bare the authoritarian underpinnings of not just Trump , but the political forces around him .
There ’ s one man who ’ s been running a great deal about this for The Nation , for Truthout and other places is Sasha Abramsky and he joins us right now .
He ’ s an author of eight books , the most was the one called Jumping at Shadows : The Triumph of Fear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the article he wrote in The Nation that got our attention was Where Does America Go from Here ?
and is about to have another article out in Truthout on militarization and the police .
And welcome , good to have you with us once again , Sasha .
Sasha Abramsky : Always good to be on the show , Mark .
Thanks .
Mark Steiner : Let me start from this one quote , which says a lot to me about where this administration is going and how they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demonstrations taking across the country .
When he quoted Chief Walter Headley , this arch-segregationist police chief from Florida in 1967 , “ When the looting starts , the shooting starts , ” and that whole sentiment .
I mean , when he speaks , when he says things , people think that because he ’ s a buffoon , it ’ s an accident .
To me , this is no accident .
This is who he is .
This is what he ’ s pushing as a way of running this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absolutely .
And one of the things that I ’ ve been doing is I ’ ve followed Trump ’ s political career over the last five years from when he was a candidate through when he first won the presidency through the last three and a half years is look at Trump ’ s language .
And what you see is , time after time after time his borrowing a phraseology from authoritarian leaders .
From Mussolini , from Adolf Hitler , the quote this week about when the looting starts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of backpedals and says , “ Oh , I didn ’ t know the historical references .
I didn ’ t know who I was copying , ” but coincidentally , everybody he accidentally copies is an authoritarian from the far right of the political spectrum .
He never accidentally stumbles into quoting Martin Luther King or accidentally stumbles into quoting the Dalai Lama or accidentally stumbles into quoting Mother Teresa .
The people he accidentally quotes are people who spew violence , racial division and hatred .
And so the thing that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stunned me on one level , but on another level it ’ s been entirely unsurprising , has been that as this country faces this triple implosion , the implosion around the pandemic , the implosion around the loss of jobs that then accompanied the shelter in place measures and now the implosion around civic stability , as these three things have overlapped , trump has made zero effort to unify .
He ’ s made zero effort to reach out , to try to calm the waters .
He ’ s made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ White House with people to bring them into the political discussion , make people feel empowered , make people feel listened to .
Instead , as the German foreign minister put it the other day , he has thrown oil onto the fire .
But the thing is , if you throw oil onto a fire that ’ s already waging with this intensity , you lose all ability to control that fire .
And so what Trump is doing is , he ’ s trying to create such unrestrained chaos , such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ violence that he can militarize his administration .
And you said at the beginning , militarize the police .
It ’ s actually way beyond that .
The police have been militarized for many , many , many years .
That precedes Trump .
That goes back to the use of surplus military equipment after 9/11 and the Iraq War , it goes back to the war on crime in the 1990s and 1980s .
It goes back to Richard Nixon ’ s war on drugs .
We have a half century of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the Vietnam War period onwards .
What we ’ re seeing now , and this is unprecedented , is the President of the United States backed up by his Attorney General and at least , in part , backed up by his Secretary of Defense , has tried to introduce US military personnel and US military equipment , helicopters , even apparently Trump asked if he could use tanks , onto the streets first of Washington , DC , which is where they have direct operational control of the National Guard , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place in DC .
But what Trump has asked for essentially , is the right to militarize a response from coast to coast .
What he wants to do , and he said it very clearly , is use the military in a show of domination to reign in protesters .
And he ’ s describing it as well , “ I only want to rein in the moochers .
I don ’ t want to rein in the good guys , the peaceful protesters.
” If you look at what he did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a photo op outside a church , they personally , Trump and William Barr , personally ordered heavily-armed US military personnel to violently clear a crowd of nonviolent protesters whose only sin was , they were standing in Trump ’ s path as he hoped to walk toward a photo opportunity outside a church .
And this is why , if you look at what ’ s happened over the last three days , this array of top military figures from General Mattis to ex-General Allen , too ex-head of the Joint @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they have all published public letters saying that Trump is now a threat to the constitutional order .
And I don ’ t know if you and your audience have had time to read Jim Mattis ’ piece in particular , but I doubt you will ever have encountered , in American history , an ex-cabinet minister talk about and write about the president he served in such language .
Because what he did was , he compared the Nazi tactics of divide and conquer in the 1930s and ’ 40s to Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ today .
[ inaudible 00:06:14 ] was a threat to the constitutional order .
He said we ’ ve had three years without mature leadership , and this is what we get to .
And he basically said that Trump ’ s orders to the military are illegal and for those who uphold the oath of the constitution , they can not be obeyed .
That is a simply extraordinary public letter from the ex-Secretary of Defense to issue to the American people .
It is a warning that lest we stop this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dictatorship .
Mark Steiner : So let me pick up on that point here .
It ’ s interesting to me .
I mean , I was thinking about this tweet that Tim Shorrock from The Nation , the Washington correspondent put out .
He said , “ The numbers of US military security forces in DC right now , it ’ s just ridiculous .
This is pure intimidation .
Trump is , ” he capitalized , “ Very afraid .
The longer we stay in the streets , the more frightened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that point and what you just said .
There ’ s one aspect here that ’ s really interesting to me and I ’ m very curious as to your analysis .
So Jim Mattis and the others who are former generals in the United States Armed Forces , military leaders , are not exactly , they ’ re not neo-liberals , they ’ re not on the left .
They ’ re not liberals .
They ’ re not part of the spectrum beyond the left side of the political spectrum .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with this seeming contradiction here ?
When you have these forces around Trump that I ’ ve referred to as these kind of white racist mobs , like the ones who took over the capitols in a couple of states armed and the neo-conservative lead who ’ s getting their way through Trump to change the entire nation , environmental laws , laws around voting rights and more .
And then you have the generals who clearly are conservative , and many of them on the right , saying enough is enough .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ contradictions to go around here .
I mean , how do you put that together ?
Sasha Abramsky : The contradictions have reached their breaking point .
So you had a sort of uneasy alliance of convenience holding Trump ’ s presidency together .
So you had the white nationalists who have some institutional power , I guess , within some of the uniformed forces in particular , but by and large they ’ re on the outside .
They ’ re the militias , they ’ re the people who take to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ et cetera , et cetera .
Then you have the economic neo-liberals who want nothing more than deregulation and tax cuts .
And that ’ s probably more where Mitch McConnell stands .
And then you have the people who care sort of all about the courts .
It ’ s about abortion .
It ’ s about getting conservative justices in .
Trump ’ s been able to hold that circus ring together in some ways .
And what ’ s happening now is the tensions are so overwhelming .
The sheer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been sort of suddenly thrust on the country is so vast and has no end point in sight .
But when you have 43 million people unemployed , you ’ re essentially looking at a situation where one in three in the American public , and now , if you think there are 43 million unemployed , that ’ s probably a hundred million people all total [ inaudible 00:09:09 ] , you ’ re looking at a level of economic destitution worse even that the height of the great depression .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sort of societal crisis .
You then add in the conflagration that ’ s emerge over race relations and over this just stunningly brutal video of police essentially lynching a black man in Minneapolis , and you throw all that into the mix .
And even with the most skilled rhetoric coming from the White House , you ’ d have an almost uncontrollable crisis .
When you add into that , that Trump has no desire to control the crisis , but every desire to make it worse so that he can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and try and sort of recreate Nixon ’ s silent majority , that ’ s when people start getting really scared .
And so someone like Mattis , you ’ re absolutely right .
He isn ’ t some sort of political radical , liberal , subversive blah , blah , blah .
He ’ s as much a part of the establishment as any other human being in this country .
And he ’ s right at the top of that power nexus .
But the fact that so many ex-generals yesterday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that the active head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , Milley , felt compelled to send a memo to every head of the different branches of the armed forces yesterday saying , “ Remember , you have all sworn an oath called the constitution and the laws of this country , and people have a right to rightful protest and peaceful protest.
” The fact that the current head of the armed forces was compelled to say that tells you where we are and what they fear is about to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that all four surviving ex-presidents , Jimmy Carter , Bill Clinton , George Bush , Barack Obama at pretty much the same time , all felt compelled to come out and warn of the dangers of conflagration and warn of the necessity to listen to the voices of the disempowered .
The fact that that is all happening at once , tells you everything you need to know about how much people who really are on the inside , not outside , just like me and you , but people on the inside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the unleashing of presidential emergency powers , the fact that they are all now compelled to go public in the way they are , tells you how dangerous this moment has become .
Mark Steiner : So let ’ s pick up on that point .
I mean , in the piece you just wrote for The Nation , I love this line , you write , “ The country claims to be the great exception has revealed itself to be something of a Greek tragedy instead.
” And so when you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and then you talked about these kind of white racists marching down your street , saying “ go after the jungle bunnies , ” as they put it .
And you wrote about how the breakdown of order and the collapse into warring gangs and tribes and the militarized police response .
So picking up on that point and pushing it further , but it… You have to ask the question from the things you ’ ve been writing and what you just said , does your analysis say that Trump isolated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is he not isolated with all these kind of armed groups around the country who support him , plus parts of the armed forces , other places , and police who also support him ?
I mean , it ’ s just so… Sasha Abramsky : The answer is Trump is in some ways , extraordinarily politically weak .
He ’ s been impeached .
He ’ s sagging in the opinion polls .
He ’ s lost his core support bases .
He ’ s now trailing among older voters .
By @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beyond repair .
The thing about Trump is , the weaker he gets the more dangerous he gets and this has been true throughout his presidency , but it ’ s been this sort of operating principle throughout his entire life , that he is a street fighter of the worst sort .
He plays dirty , not for any greater good , but he plays dirty simply for personal self advancement .
It ’ s gangster politics .
It ’ s mafia politics .
Now , the thing about our moment that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact that all these different groups are ready for a fight .
So when I was writing about the white vigilantes on my street , my area is in midtown Sacramento and there were these huge peaceful protests over the weekend , but then late at night , as the police broke up the peaceful protests , smaller groups that probably were sort of more concerned with looting stores than any political analysis , smaller groups peeled off into the midtown area , breaking into and destroying shops and restaurants and pharmacies and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quite hair-raising .
I mean , I , in no way , shape or form want to romanticize what was happening .
It was really destructive .
But by about midnight or 1:00 in the morning , there was sirens everywhere .
There were helicopters overhead .
You could hear from my front door , you could hear the stun grenades going off .
You could hear the volleys of rubber bullets being fired .
And then by about 1:00 in the morning , I was seeing two things .
I was seeing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like they were probably sort of riding through the residential neighborhoods , looking for looting opportunities .
But I also saw these young white men patrolling .
And when I went out and asked one of them stuff , he started talking , as you said , about jungle bunnies or old ghetto bunnies .
He was using really inflammatory language .
And it made me really realize something .
I knew it already , but it brought it right onto my front doorstep .
The sort of realization that you have these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of ideological vision , though that ’ s part of it .
But colossal clashes of warring tribes almost at this point , of gangs , of people out looking for trouble .
It sort of reminded me in a way of the football hooligans that you ’ d see in England when I was growing up in the 1980s and ’ 90s where you ’ d these very organized groups .
There was nothing spontaneous about the football riots .
They were organized , they were tribalistic , they were based around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ affiliation .
Sometimes they were based around what pub you drank in , and they ’ d sort of clash together .
It was almost social entertainment .
They ’ d both come at each other and there ’ d be bottles thrown and knives thrown .
And it was a Saturday evening on the town .
The problem with extending that analogy to 2020 America is you ’ re talking about 300 million people in this country and more than 300 million guns in this country .
You ’ re talking about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earth .
And people are increasingly taking those guns with them to political protests and to rallies and to their public expression .
If you bring in guns and other armor into an already tense situation , there ’ s the potential for a calamity .
And when you then have the president basically egging on the rioters or egging on the fighters or egging on whatever you want to call these different groups , you have the president essentially using his bully pulpit , not to calm things down , but to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way you can understand that is , he has to think at this point , it ’ s just his political advantage to cause as much chaos as possible and scare as many suburbanites as possible back into his camp , despite the economic collapse , despite the completely inept response to the pandemic .
It ’ s his only survival mechanism .
And if he has to invoke martial law to do it , if he has to invoke emergency powers to do it , if he has to bring US military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shown every indication he will do that .
And again , coming back to what I was saying , that is why this moment is not just a moment that we can sort of say , “ Oh , well , it ’ s like this previous moment , or this previous moment.
” It ’ s pretty much unprecedented .
The overlap of all of these simultaneous crises at the same time as Trump is doing all that he can to stir up trouble , makes it an unprecedented moment .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ every American of good conscience has to be out on the streets to protect democracy .
And I know we ’ re in a pandemic , we have to do it with masks on .
We have to do it with as much social spacing as we can , but of all the things on earth , it is worth risking getting sick for , preserving American democracy and preserving American community has to be at the top of that list .
Mark Steiner : I have a great deal more I could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but I want to conclude it on that last comment you made , because I think it was a very powerful and very important for us to understand .
As we look calling out the military , the militarization of the police , the armed nature of our society , we are facing a really dangerous moment .
And I think you articulated it better than I ’ ve heard before .
So thank you once again for joining us , it ’ s always a pleasure talking to you , Sasha @ @ @ @ @ @ @ luck to all of us .
Sasha Abramsky : Thank you , and stay safe and stay healthy .
Mark Steiner : You , too .
We ’ ve been talking to Sasha Abramsky , writes for The Nation , Truthout , is a noted author as well , and has joined us before and hopefully will join us again .
And I ’ m Mark Steiner here at the Real News Network .
Thank you all for joining us .
Please stay safe and masked as much as you can , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some depth to save what we have in this country and to move it forward .
So thank you so much for joining us .
Again , Mark Steiner here for the Real News Network .
Take care .

Nation contributor Sasha Abramsky thinks the wheels might be coming off, and discusses his articles “Where Does America Go From Here” and “Trump is Framing US Residents as Enemies to be Met by Force.”
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Mark Steiner: Welcome to the Real News. This is Mark Steiner. Good to have you all with us once again. You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Trump authoritarian and racist predilections were always there from his loud mouth real estate days to his insulting reality shows on TV, and they began to manifest themselves as soon as he became president. The perfect storm has arrived of a COVID pandemic, economic collapse, and the depth of racism rearing its evil and ugly head and it converged all together to heighten the Trumpian threat against our democracy and laid bare the authoritarian underpinnings of not just Trump, but the political forces around him.
There’s one man who’s been running a great deal about this for The Nation, for Truthout and other places is Sasha Abramsky and he joins us right now. He’s an author of eight books, the most was the one called Jumping at Shadows: The Triumph of Fear and the End of the American Dream and the article he wrote in The Nation that got our attention was Where Does America Go from Here? and is about to have another article out in Truthout on militarization and the police. And welcome, good to have you with us once again, Sasha.
Sasha Abramsky: Always good to be on the show, Mark. Thanks.
Mark Steiner: Let me start from this one quote, which says a lot to me about where this administration is going and how they’re responding to the rebellions and resistance and demonstrations taking across the country. When he quoted Chief Walter Headley, this arch-segregationist police chief from Florida in 1967, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” and that whole sentiment. I mean, when he speaks, when he says things, people think that because he’s a buffoon, it’s an accident. To me, this is no accident. This is who he is. This is what he’s pushing as a way of running this country.
Sasha Abramsky: No, absolutely. And one of the things that I’ve been doing is I’ve followed Trump’s political career over the last five years from when he was a candidate through when he first won the presidency through the last three and a half years is look at Trump’s language. And what you see is, time after time after time his borrowing a phraseology from authoritarian leaders. From Mussolini, from Adolf Hitler, the quote this week about when the looting starts, the shooting stars and then he sort of backpedals and says, “Oh, I didn’t know the historical references. I didn’t know who I was copying,” but coincidentally, everybody he accidentally copies is an authoritarian from the far right of the political spectrum. He never accidentally stumbles into quoting Martin Luther King or accidentally stumbles into quoting the Dalai Lama or accidentally stumbles into quoting Mother Teresa. The people he accidentally quotes are people who spew violence, racial division and hatred.
And so the thing that has just, I mean, it stunned me on one level, but on another level it’s been entirely unsurprising, has been that as this country faces this triple implosion, the implosion around the pandemic, the implosion around the loss of jobs that then accompanied the shelter in place measures and now the implosion around civic stability, as these three things have overlapped, trump has made zero effort to unify. He’s made zero effort to reach out, to try to calm the waters. He’s made zero efforts to hold summits at the White House with people to bring them into the political discussion, make people feel empowered, make people feel listened to. Instead, as the German foreign minister put it the other day, he has thrown oil onto the fire. But the thing is, if you throw oil onto a fire that’s already waging with this intensity, you lose all ability to control that fire.
And so what Trump is doing is, he’s trying to create such unrestrained chaos, such a fear of civic unrest and civic violence that he can militarize his administration. And you said at the beginning, militarize the police. It’s actually way beyond that. The police have been militarized for many, many, many years. That precedes Trump. That goes back to the use of surplus military equipment after 9/11 and the Iraq War, it goes back to the war on crime in the 1990s and 1980s. It goes back to Richard Nixon’s war on drugs. We have a half century of militarization of the police, pretty much from the Vietnam War period onwards. What we’re seeing now, and this is unprecedented, is the President of the United States backed up by his Attorney General and at least, in part, backed up by his Secretary of Defense, has tried to introduce US military personnel and US military equipment, helicopters, even apparently Trump asked if he could use tanks, onto the streets first of Washington, DC, which is where they have direct operational control of the National Guard, because there is no state system in place in DC.
But what Trump has asked for essentially, is the right to militarize a response from coast to coast. What he wants to do, and he said it very clearly, is use the military in a show of domination to reign in protesters. And he’s describing it as well, “I only want to rein in the moochers. I don’t want to rein in the good guys, the peaceful protesters.” If you look at what he did in DC the other day in pursuit of a photo op outside a church, they personally, Trump and William Barr, personally ordered heavily-armed US military personnel to violently clear a crowd of nonviolent protesters whose only sin was, they were standing in Trump’s path as he hoped to walk toward a photo opportunity outside a church.
And this is why, if you look at what’s happened over the last three days, this array of top military figures from General Mattis to ex-General Allen, too ex-head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, they have all published public letters saying that Trump is now a threat to the constitutional order.
And I don’t know if you and your audience have had time to read Jim Mattis’ piece in particular, but I doubt you will ever have encountered, in American history, an ex-cabinet minister talk about and write about the president he served in such language. Because what he did was, he compared the Nazi tactics of divide and conquer in the 1930s and ’40s to Trump’s tactics of divide and conquer today. [inaudible 00:06:14] was a threat to the constitutional order. He said we’ve had three years without mature leadership, and this is what we get to. And he basically said that Trump’s orders to the military are illegal and for those who uphold the oath of the constitution, they cannot be obeyed. That is a simply extraordinary public letter from the ex-Secretary of Defense to issue to the American people. It is a warning that lest we stop this madness now, we will slide into dictatorship.
Mark Steiner: So let me pick up on that point here. It’s interesting to me. I mean, I was thinking about this tweet that Tim Shorrock from The Nation, the Washington correspondent put out. He said, “The numbers of US military security forces in DC right now, it’s just ridiculous. This is pure intimidation. Trump is,” he capitalized, “Very afraid. The longer we stay in the streets, the more frightened he gets.” So picking up on that point and what you just said. There’s one aspect here that’s really interesting to me and I’m very curious as to your analysis. So Jim Mattis and the others who are former generals in the United States Armed Forces, military leaders, are not exactly, they’re not neo-liberals, they’re not on the left. They’re not liberals. They’re not part of the spectrum beyond the left side of the political spectrum. What does it mean to you, with this seeming contradiction here? When you have these forces around Trump that I’ve referred to as these kind of white racist mobs, like the ones who took over the capitols in a couple of states armed and the neo-conservative lead who’s getting their way through Trump to change the entire nation, environmental laws, laws around voting rights and more. And then you have the generals who clearly are conservative, and many of them on the right, saying enough is enough. So there’s a lot of contradictions to go around here. I mean, how do you put that together?
Sasha Abramsky: The contradictions have reached their breaking point. So you had a sort of uneasy alliance of convenience holding Trump’s presidency together. So you had the white nationalists who have some institutional power, I guess, within some of the uniformed forces in particular, but by and large they’re on the outside. They’re the militias, they’re the people who take to their weapons and intimidate Gretchen Whitmer, et cetera, et cetera. Then you have the economic neo-liberals who want nothing more than deregulation and tax cuts. And that’s probably more where Mitch McConnell stands. And then you have the people who care sort of all about the courts. It’s about abortion. It’s about getting conservative justices in. Trump’s been able to hold that circus ring together in some ways.
And what’s happening now is the tensions are so overwhelming. The sheer level of economic misery that’s been sort of suddenly thrust on the country is so vast and has no end point in sight. But when you have 43 million people unemployed, you’re essentially looking at a situation where one in three in the American public, and now, if you think there are 43 million unemployed, that’s probably a hundred million people all total [inaudible 00:09:09], you’re looking at a level of economic destitution worse even that the height of the great depression. So you have all the makings of a sort of societal crisis.
You then add in the conflagration that’s emerge over race relations and over this just stunningly brutal video of police essentially lynching a black man in Minneapolis, and you throw all that into the mix. And even with the most skilled rhetoric coming from the White House, you’d have an almost uncontrollable crisis. When you add into that, that Trump has no desire to control the crisis, but every desire to make it worse so that he can then impose a sort of authoritarian answer and try and sort of recreate Nixon’s silent majority, that’s when people start getting really scared.
And so someone like Mattis, you’re absolutely right. He isn’t some sort of political radical, liberal, subversive blah, blah, blah. He’s as much a part of the establishment as any other human being in this country. And he’s right at the top of that power nexus. But the fact that so many ex-generals yesterday felt compelled to say this, the fact that the active head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Milley, felt compelled to send a memo to every head of the different branches of the armed forces yesterday saying, “Remember, you have all sworn an oath called the constitution and the laws of this country, and people have a right to rightful protest and peaceful protest.” The fact that the current head of the armed forces was compelled to say that tells you where we are and what they fear is about to be unleashed by the president.
The fact that all four surviving ex-presidents, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama at pretty much the same time, all felt compelled to come out and warn of the dangers of conflagration and warn of the necessity to listen to the voices of the disempowered. The fact that that is all happening at once, tells you everything you need to know about how much people who really are on the inside, not outside, just like me and you, but people on the inside with an understanding of what is meant by the unleashing of presidential emergency powers, the fact that they are all now compelled to go public in the way they are, tells you how dangerous this moment has become.
Mark Steiner: So let’s pick up on that point. I mean, in the piece you just wrote for The Nation, I love this line, you write, “The country claims to be the great exception has revealed itself to be something of a Greek tragedy instead.” And so when you look at this other thing when you, and then you talked about these kind of white racists marching down your street, saying “go after the jungle bunnies,” as they put it. And you wrote about how the breakdown of order and the collapse into warring gangs and tribes and the militarized police response. So picking up on that point and pushing it further, but it… You have to ask the question from the things you’ve been writing and what you just said, does your analysis say that Trump isolated and therefore not a danger? Or is he not isolated with all these kind of armed groups around the country who support him, plus parts of the armed forces, other places, and police who also support him? I mean, it’s just so…
Sasha Abramsky: The answer is Trump is in some ways, extraordinarily politically weak. He’s been impeached. He’s sagging in the opinion polls. He’s lost his core support bases. He’s now trailing among older voters. By most traditional measures, Trump is hobbled beyond repair. The thing about Trump is, the weaker he gets the more dangerous he gets and this has been true throughout his presidency, but it’s been this sort of operating principle throughout his entire life, that he is a street fighter of the worst sort. He plays dirty, not for any greater good, but he plays dirty simply for personal self advancement. It’s gangster politics. It’s mafia politics.
Now, the thing about our moment that makes that even more dangerous is the fact that all these different groups are ready for a fight. So when I was writing about the white vigilantes on my street, my area is in midtown Sacramento and there were these huge peaceful protests over the weekend, but then late at night, as the police broke up the peaceful protests, smaller groups that probably were sort of more concerned with looting stores than any political analysis, smaller groups peeled off into the midtown area, breaking into and destroying shops and restaurants and pharmacies and so on. And it was really quite hair-raising. I mean, I, in no way, shape or form want to romanticize what was happening. It was really destructive. But by about midnight or 1:00 in the morning, there was sirens everywhere. There were helicopters overhead. You could hear from my front door, you could hear the stun grenades going off. You could hear the volleys of rubber bullets being fired.
And then by about 1:00 in the morning, I was seeing two things. I was seeing groups on bicycles that looked to me like they were probably sort of riding through the residential neighborhoods, looking for looting opportunities. But I also saw these young white men patrolling. And when I went out and asked one of them stuff, he started talking, as you said, about jungle bunnies or old ghetto bunnies. He was using really inflammatory language. And it made me really realize something. I knew it already, but it brought it right onto my front doorstep. The sort of realization that you have these sort of colossal clashes, not necessarily of ideological vision, though that’s part of it. But colossal clashes of warring tribes almost at this point, of gangs, of people out looking for trouble.
It sort of reminded me in a way of the football hooligans that you’d see in England when I was growing up in the 1980s and ’90s where you’d these very organized groups. There was nothing spontaneous about the football riots. They were organized, they were tribalistic, they were based around region. They were based around football affiliation. Sometimes they were based around what pub you drank in, and they’d sort of clash together. It was almost social entertainment. They’d both come at each other and there’d be bottles thrown and knives thrown. And it was a Saturday evening on the town.
The problem with extending that analogy to 2020 America is you’re talking about 300 million people in this country and more than 300 million guns in this country. You’re talking about the most heavily armed civil society on earth. And people are increasingly taking those guns with them to political protests and to rallies and to their public expression. If you bring in guns and other armor into an already tense situation, there’s the potential for a calamity. And when you then have the president basically egging on the rioters or egging on the fighters or egging on whatever you want to call these different groups, you have the president essentially using his bully pulpit, not to calm things down, but to make things worse.
And the only way you can understand that is, he has to think at this point, it’s just his political advantage to cause as much chaos as possible and scare as many suburbanites as possible back into his camp, despite the economic collapse, despite the completely inept response to the pandemic. It’s his only survival mechanism. And if he has to invoke martial law to do it, if he has to invoke emergency powers to do it, if he has to bring US military tanks onto the streets, he has shown every indication he will do that. And again, coming back to what I was saying, that is why this moment is not just a moment that we can sort of say, “Oh, well, it’s like this previous moment, or this previous moment.” It’s pretty much unprecedented. The overlap of all of these simultaneous crises at the same time as Trump is doing all that he can to stir up trouble, makes it an unprecedented moment.
And I think it is a moment when every American of good conscience has to be out on the streets to protect democracy. And I know we’re in a pandemic, we have to do it with masks on. We have to do it with as much social spacing as we can, but of all the things on earth, it is worth risking getting sick for, preserving American democracy and preserving American community has to be at the top of that list.
Mark Steiner: I have a great deal more I could ask and continue this conversation with Sasha, but I want to conclude it on that last comment you made, because I think it was a very powerful and very important for us to understand. As we look calling out the military, the militarization of the police, the armed nature of our society, we are facing a really dangerous moment. And I think you articulated it better than I’ve heard before. So thank you once again for joining us, it’s always a pleasure talking to you, Sasha. Good luck to you. Good luck to all of us.
Sasha Abramsky: Thank you, and stay safe and stay healthy.
Mark Steiner: You, too. We’ve been talking to Sasha Abramsky, writes for The Nation, Truthout, is a noted author as well, and has joined us before and hopefully will join us again. And I’m Mark Steiner here at the Real News Network. Thank you all for joining us. Please stay safe and masked as much as you can, and we’ll be covering this with some depth to save what we have in this country and to move it forward. So thank you so much for joining us. Again, Mark Steiner here for the Real News Network. Take care.
Production: Genevieve Montinar, Will Arenas, Andrew Corkery
Studio: Will Arenas
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therealnews--2020-06-09--Pandemic 2.0: Amazon Deforestation Could Unleash A Wave Of Pandemics Sooner Than We Think

Picture the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic .
Since the novel coronavirus spread from Wuhan , China , global deaths from COVID-19 have surpassed 400,000 .
Economic loss estimates range from an optimistic $ 3.3 trillion up to $ 82 trillion in case of a depression .
And social norms changed overnight as people adjusted to self-isolation , face coverings , and social distancing .
Now imagine the world coping with a new pandemic every month .
This is not a prophecy or a piece of dark fiction , and surely not a plot for an upcoming Hollywood flick .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ leading climate scientists are warning will happen when , not if , the planet ’ s ecological balance with microorganisms tips over , unleashing waves of pandemics of varying severity .
At the heart of this cataclysmic scenario is the loss of global ecological reservoirs , such as the Amazon rainforest , which maintains the delicate balance between the natural world and the human colony .
But despite the recent wildfires that ravaged the rainforest and drew global calls for action , Jair Bolsonaro ’ s right-wing government is encouraging rapid deforestation to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with links to Brazil ’ s military and police .
Antonio Oviedo , a researcher at the Socio-Environmental Institute ( ISA ) , a nonprofit defending indigenous rights in Brazil , told The Real News that deforestation in the Amazon in the first three months of 2020 was 51 % higher than in the corresponding period last year .
“ And it shot up by a whopping 170 % in April compared to April 2019 , and about 90 % of this deforestation is illegal , ” Antonio added worryingly .
Terra Brasilis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current year ( Aug 2019—Jul 2020 ) is the worst ever for deforestation , with almost 6000 km2 of the Amazon chopped down .
That ’ s almost twice the area cleared last year .
According to Greenpeace , the present waves of deforestation “ pose a serious and imminent threat to the roughly one third of indigenous land that has not yet been demarcated by the state , and will encourage even greater deforestation.
” Bolsonaro ’ s government has tried to pass legislation in recent weeks to legalize huge land seizures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proposed law is still before Brazil ’ s congress and is expected to go to a vote in the coming weeks .
To facilitate large-scale agribusinesses and other commercial use of the Amazonian forest , Bolsonaro ’ s government has employed tactics such as defunding regulatory bodies and relaxing environmental safeguards through executive orders .
A number of indigenous lands in Brazil await formal approval from the president ’ s office for their protected status .
On April 16 , the government agency which implements policies relating to indigenous people , FUNAI , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made available for agribusiness .
Claudio Angelo , spokesperson for the Climate Observatory organization in Brasilia , estimates some 90 indigenous territories out of more than 700 lands are awaiting the president ’ s signing , the last step in a lengthy bureaucratic land claim process .
The pressure on federal regulatory agencies to relax rules has emboldened illegal operators who have reportedly moved inside protected lands .
Oviedo says an estimated 20,000 illegal gold miners are inside the Yanomami lands alone—the largest of indigenous tribes located in the north of Brazil , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ and they are within 5 kilometers of local tribes.
” He added that in March FUNAI enacted a law forbidding outsiders from entering the protected lands , “ but illegal miners are crossing over freely , increasing the risk for native populations ’ exposure to COVID-19.
” Despite the attempts by native tribes to self-isolate and move deep inside the forest , COVID-19 has spread to indigenous communities , causing the deaths and suffering forewarned by experts .
According to the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health ( Sesai ) , Brazil ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the native peoples , 2085 indigenous people have tested positive for COVID-19 , and 82 have died so far .
But the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples ’ Association ( APIB ) , which tracks all indigenous cases , has reported 2600 cases and 247 deaths among 94 ethnic groups .
APIB claims the actual count is likely much higher due to underreporting .
And health provisions are nauseatingly inadequate because of the budget cuts that severely constrain Sesai and its suboffices from delivering healthcare to the native people .
Problems caused by Sesai ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staffing and a dearth of ventilators , and the nearest healthcare units are located nearly 200 miles from native communities , reports suggest .
“ Medical facilities are working as hubs for spreading COVID-19 because of untrained staff and indigenous people have reportedly contracted COVID-19 after visiting there , ” Oviedo told The Real News .
“ Also , food security is becoming another problem and indigenous people are told to go to cities for food assistance , which serves as an invitation to get the virus and take it back to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ systematic dismantling of regulatory bodies and healthcare systems that protect the Amazon and its native people has already resulted in massive deforestation and created conditions for environmental catastrophe of epic proportions .
In an exclusive interview with The Real News , Dr. Carlos Nobre , the leading environmental scientist in Brazil , said all new COVID and SARS viruses that cause epidemics and pandemics are generated by the lack of ecological balance with microorganisms .
“ There are hundreds of species of coronavirus present in the Amazon and there are hundreds of thousands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” Dr. Nobre said .
“ If we disturbed this most diverse sanctuary of biological diversity that would mean disturbing the ecological balance of millions of species of microorganisms .
If we moved beyond the tipping point in the next few decades , we have to be prepared for one pandemic a month.
” Dr. Nobre adds the native people of the Amazon survived in the forest for 11,000 years because of their sense of maintaining a balance with the natural world .
“ Given the number of microorganisms existing in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a virus or bacteria would have exterminated them .
But they are very smart and they evolved the vision of living with the forest .
And for 11,000 years there was not a single pandemic across the indigenous communities.
” He lamented that the number of indigenous people in Brazil fell from 10-15 million to a mere 70,000 in the 1940s .
“ We ’ re the ones to cause that imbalance and bringing viruses to these native tribes.
” Dr. Nobre ’ s three decades of research also warn of the Amazon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of growing deforestation , urbanization and global warming .
“ Those three factors happening simultaneously are driving a very large portion of the forest becoming a dry savanna ( a drier forest compared to tropical rainforest where it rains all year ) .
In our estimates , we are seeing 50 % -60 % of the Amazon almost at the edge of suburbanization and the tipping point almost being crossed because the forest in those areas are becoming drier.
” He warned that if global warming and deforestation is not halted , most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ transition to savanna , inevitably disturbing the ecological balance .
The Right-Wing Orchestration of Death and Destruction Dr. Nobre blames the right-wing government of Jair Bolsonaro for encouraging illegal activity inside the Amazon .
“ The political discourse the president has been issuing since he came into office in January 2019 has been encouraging environmental criminals because they feel there will be no punishment.
” He observed that Brazil ’ s law-enforcing agencies have shrinking budgets , and some of the heads of divisions were fired because they were acting lawfully .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Amazon criminals was , we are never going to jail anymore because we have a president who supports what we are doing , who supports opening up more areas , who supports invasion of indigenous territories for illegal mining for illegal selective logging.
” In an interview with The Real News , Poirier said the Bolsonaro regime has been an abject disaster for the Amazon , its peoples , and for the planet .
“ When we saw essentially fascists come into power last year with a package of regressions , regressive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and environmental protections , we saw a process that has led us to the catastrophe we ’ re seeing today , which is actually not being talked about enough.
” He lamented that not enough is being said about the catastrophic impact the Amazon ’ s destruction will have on the climate crisis , and that “ all of this is being spurred simultaneously by this recklessly , this criminally irresponsible regime.
” Highlighting the mitigation actions Amazon Watch is undertaking , Christian Poirier said : “ We helped spearhead a moratorium on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and around indigenous territories during the COVID crisis that were signed onto by more than 200 global organizations and endorsed by all of the principal indigenous federations and organizations in the Amazon areas in which we work.
” He said this action calls on governments to fulfill their duties , and for companies to be mindful of the consequences of their actions in the Amazon .
“ These businesses should know their activities are exacerbating this crisis gravely and they need to respect the moratorium at this critical moment , ” he asserted @

Picture the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the novel coronavirus spread from Wuhan, China, global deaths from COVID-19 have surpassed 400,000. Economic loss estimates range from an optimistic $3.3 trillion up to $82 trillion in case of a depression. And social norms changed overnight as people adjusted to self-isolation, face coverings, and social distancing.
Now imagine the world coping with a new pandemic every month. This is not a prophecy or a piece of dark fiction, and surely not a plot for an upcoming Hollywood flick. This is what the world’s leading climate scientists are warning will happen when, not if, the planet’s ecological balance with microorganisms tips over, unleashing waves of pandemics of varying severity.
At the heart of this cataclysmic scenario is the loss of global ecological reservoirs, such as the Amazon rainforest, which maintains the delicate balance between the natural world and the human colony. But despite the recent fires that ravaged the rainforest and drew global calls for action, Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing government is encouraging rapid deforestation to facilitate agribusinesses owned by political establishment figures with links to Brazil’s military and police.
Antonio Oviedo, a researcher at the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA), a nonprofit defending indigenous rights in Brazil, told The Real News that deforestation in the Amazon in the first three months of 2020 was 51% higher than in the corresponding period last year. “And it shot up by a whopping 170% in April compared to April 2019, and about 90% of this deforestation is illegal,” Antonio added worryingly. Terra Brasilis, another Brazilian organization, estimates the current year (Aug 2019—Jul 2020) is the worst ever for deforestation, with almost 6000 km2 of the Amazon chopped down. That’s almost twice the area cleared last year.
According to Greenpeace, the present waves of deforestation “pose a serious and imminent threat to the roughly one third of indigenous land that has not yet been demarcated by the state, and will encourage even greater deforestation.” Bolsonaro’s government has tried to pass legislation in recent weeks to legalize huge land seizures, mostly comprising indigenous territories. The proposed law is still before Brazil’s congress and is expected to go to a vote in the coming weeks.
Dismantling of Environmental Institutions and Safeguards
To facilitate large-scale agribusinesses and other commercial use of the Amazonian forest, Bolsonaro’s government has employed tactics such as defunding regulatory bodies and relaxing environmental safeguards through executive orders. A number of indigenous lands in Brazil await formal approval from the president’s office for their protected status. On April 16, the government agency which implements policies relating to indigenous people, FUNAI, received instructions that those lands can be made available for agribusiness. Claudio Angelo, spokesperson for the Climate Observatory organization in Brasilia, estimates some 90 indigenous territories out of more than 700 lands are awaiting the president’s signing, the last step in a lengthy bureaucratic land claim process.
The pressure on federal regulatory agencies to relax rules has emboldened illegal operators who have reportedly moved inside protected lands. Oviedo says an estimated 20,000 illegal gold miners are inside the Yanomami lands alone—the largest of indigenous tribes located in the north of Brazil, with lands equaling the size of Portugal—“and they are within 5 kilometers of local tribes.” He added that in March FUNAI enacted a law forbidding outsiders from entering the protected lands, “but illegal miners are crossing over freely, increasing the risk for native populations’ exposure to COVID-19.”
Despite the attempts by native tribes to self-isolate and move deep inside the forest, COVID-19 has spread to indigenous communities, causing the deaths and suffering forewarned by experts. According to the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai), Brazil’s federal body for providing healthcare for the native peoples, 2085 indigenous people have tested positive for COVID-19, and 82 have died so far. But the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples’ Association (APIB), which tracks all indigenous cases, has reported 2600 cases and 247 deaths among 94 ethnic groups. APIB claims the actual count is likely much higher due to underreporting.
And health provisions are nauseatingly inadequate because of the budget cuts that severely constrain Sesai and its suboffices from delivering healthcare to the native people. Problems caused by Sesai’s shoestring budget are compounded by low staffing and a dearth of ventilators, and the nearest healthcare units are located nearly 200 miles from native communities, reports suggest. “Medical facilities are working as hubs for spreading COVID-19 because of untrained staff and indigenous people have reportedly contracted COVID-19 after visiting there,” Oviedo told The Real News. “Also, food security is becoming another problem and indigenous people are told to go to cities for food assistance, which serves as an invitation to get the virus and take it back to the community,” he added.
A Pandemic A Month
This systematic dismantling of regulatory bodies and healthcare systems that protect the Amazon and its native people has already resulted in massive deforestation and created conditions for environmental catastrophe of epic proportions. In an exclusive interview with The Real News, Dr. Carlos Nobre, the leading environmental scientist in Brazil, said all new COVID and SARS viruses that cause epidemics and pandemics are generated by the lack of ecological balance with microorganisms.
“There are hundreds of species of coronavirus present in the Amazon and there are hundreds of thousands of other types of viruses found there,” Dr. Nobre said. “If we disturbed this most diverse sanctuary of biological diversity that would mean disturbing the ecological balance of millions of species of microorganisms. If we moved beyond the tipping point in the next few decades, we have to be prepared for one pandemic a month.”
Dr. Nobre adds the native people of the Amazon survived in the forest for 11,000 years because of their sense of maintaining a balance with the natural world. “Given the number of microorganisms existing in the forest, you can be certain that a virus or bacteria would have exterminated them. But they are very smart and they evolved the vision of living with the forest. And for 11,000 years there was not a single pandemic across the indigenous communities.” He lamented that the number of indigenous people in Brazil fell from 10-15 million to a mere 70,000 in the 1940s. “We’re the ones to cause that imbalance and bringing viruses to these native tribes.”
Dr. Nobre’s three decades of research also warn of the Amazon reaching a tipping point in the face of growing deforestation, urbanization and global warming. “Those three factors happening simultaneously are driving a very large portion of the forest becoming a dry savanna (a drier forest compared to tropical rainforest where it rains all year). In our estimates, we are seeing 50%-60% of the Amazon almost at the edge of suburbanization and the tipping point almost being crossed because the forest in those areas are becoming drier.” He warned that if global warming and deforestation is not halted, most of the Amazon will irreversibly begin the transition to savanna, inevitably disturbing the ecological balance.
The Right-Wing Orchestration of Death and Destruction
Dr. Nobre blames the right-wing government of Jair Bolsonaro for encouraging illegal activity inside the Amazon. “The political discourse the president has been issuing since he came into office in January 2019 has been encouraging environmental criminals because they feel there will be no punishment.” He observed that Brazil’s law-enforcing agencies have shrinking budgets, and some of the heads of divisions were fired because they were acting lawfully. “So, the message that went to the Amazon criminals was, we are never going to jail anymore because we have a president who supports what we are doing, who supports opening up more areas, who supports invasion of indigenous territories for illegal mining for illegal selective logging.”
Christian Poirier of Amazon Watch echoes Dr. Nobre’s sentiment.
In an interview with The Real News, Poirier said the Bolsonaro regime has been an abject disaster for the Amazon, its peoples, and for the planet. “When we saw essentially fascists come into power last year with a package of regressions, regressive actions to cut down hard-fought human rights and environmental protections, we saw a process that has led us to the catastrophe we’re seeing today, which is actually not being talked about enough.” He lamented that not enough is being said about the catastrophic impact the Amazon’s destruction will have on the climate crisis, and that “all of this is being spurred simultaneously by this recklessly, this criminally irresponsible regime.”
Highlighting the mitigation actions Amazon Watch is undertaking, Christian Poirier said: “We helped spearhead a moratorium on all industrial activities and criminal activities in and around indigenous territories during the COVID crisis that were signed onto by more than 200 global organizations and endorsed by all of the principal indigenous federations and organizations in the Amazon areas in which we work.” He said this action calls on governments to fulfill their duties, and for companies to be mindful of the consequences of their actions in the Amazon. “These businesses should know their activities are exacerbating this crisis gravely and they need to respect the moratorium at this critical moment,” he asserted.
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therealnews--2020-06-10--Why You Should Give a F*ck | Ep. 1 | Power

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therealnews--2020-06-10--Stir Crazy! Episode #50: Where Do We Go From Here?

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therealnews--2020-06-10--LA County Closing Three Juvenile Prisons, Perhaps Setting a Precedent

Kim McGill talks about the impact of closing three youth prisons in California , the history of mass incarceration in @ @ @ @ @ vision for what will happen next .

Kim McGill talks about the impact of closing three youth prisons in California, the history of mass incarceration in LA County, and the vision for what will happen next.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Eddie Conway: Welcome to this episode of Rattling the Bars. I’m Eddie Conway, coming to you from Baltimore.
Recently, Governor Newsom of California had decided to close down three youth jails. California’s youth jails are some of the most notorious jails in the country. They are rife with abuse, and all kinds of other activities, including locking the youth in their cell for 23 hours a day, with only one hour out.
Joining me today to explain all this is Kim McGill, from the Youth Justice Coalition. Thank you for joining me today, Kim.
Kim McGill: Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here.
Eddie Conway: Okay. Now, I understand that the reason for the closing of these youth detention centers is about the budget and covid-19. So how is that impacting the youth treatment in the rest of the centers, and the social programs?
Kim McGill: Well, I can speak to not only Division of Juvenile Justice, which used to be known as the California Youth Authority, also known as the nation’s most notorious youth prison system. In the early 2000s, it had 10,000 youth in it.
Now, today, there’s far less than 1,000 youth on [inaudible 00:01:36] system. But there’s also juvenile halls and probation camps, or probation ranches. Probation camps and ranches are California’s version of local county youth prisons. Then we have juvenile halls for predisposition for young people that are being detained, going back and forth to court throughout the state, also.
And then, of course, we have county jails. LA County has a largest county jail system in the world, the largest juvenile halls and youth prison system in the world, and feeds into the world’s largest prison system. So all of those facilities have been dramatically impacted by COVID.
We have hundreds of people that have been kept, tested positive in the LA County jail, had our first death this week, unfortunately. We’ve been suing the state, as well as local county officials, our organizations, Youth Justice Coalition, and Dignity and Power Now, are named plaintiffs on the local lawsuit. And then, we’re named plaintiffs on a state lawsuit, but the courts have refused to hear the case to date.
We’ve also seen, and in state prisons, there’s even more deaths, and in the federal prisons, of course, deaths also. So we have Lompoc, here in California, Lompoc Federal Prison, and Terminal Island Federal Prison. Both have had over 10 deaths now. So we have, again, hundreds of people testing positive, and dozens of deaths. For people in custody, the rates are much higher than general population on the outside. That’s just on the covid, Yeah.
Eddie Conway: And I’m not sure about this number, but I have a number that says it costs $300,000 a year per youth to incarcerate youth in California. Is that number correct? And if that’s the cost, is that going to impact other jails and prisons, even around the country? That’s that’s really excessive.
Kim McGill: So it fluctuates a little bit, county by county. That’s the rate, for sure, for LA County juvenile halls and camps. It’s about that, and DJJ similarly, a little bit higher, actually. The reason for that is complex, though, and important to know.
Because people in the system will tell you that the costs are high because they’re giving young people all kinds of resources, and that due to organizing and lawsuits, there’s a demand for young people to get better quality education or better quality mental healthcare, or better quality youth development. But still, most young people are not getting quality education or access to quality programming.
What’s really happened, when you look more closely is, that crime rates are at their lowest level since the 1950s and ’60s. That’s throughout the country, not just in California, yet the budgets for LA County Probation and probation departments throughout the state, as well as local law enforcement, local sheriffs and state corrections, has increased. So at a time when they have many less bodies inside, their budgets have increased dramatically.
For example, LAPD’s budget has gone up by nearly a billion dollars. The Sheriff’s budget annual budget has gone up by a billion dollars a year. Probation’s budget is up by $550 million a year. So they’re getting not just a little bit of increases, but dramatic increases, at a time when their numbers, like for example, LA County Probation in our juvenile halls and camps, has 80% of the population declined.
In other words, since 2007, we have 80% less young people in our juvenile halls and camps in LA County. But again, the budget has increased by 550 million. So what you see is that the increase in costs for custody really has more to do with the system getting ever richer off less and less people.
And we have this imbalance, this addiction to incarceration in our county, that has also spread throughout the nation, at the expense of parks, playgrounds jobs, youth centers, after school programs, housing for people. We can’t afford anything else because our local and municipal budgets, our county budgets and our state budgets, are saturated with law enforcement, with probation, with courts, and with incarceration.
Eddie Conway: Okay, so now, once these facilities are closed, I understand the youth will be put in county youth detention centers. What’s the difference between those kinds of centers, and the ones that the state was running?
Kim McGill: I think that’s what the community is trying to push back on. So we have a letter that we can share with people, with our specific demands and vision, out of the Youth Justice Coalition. A number of groups signed onto it, and we have a statewide letter that we could share, for groups throughout the state.
And what people are pushing for is that young people not have punitive prison-like facilities in their counties. What could happen with the closing of Division of Juvenile Justice is that we see an increase of young people in pushed into adult court. We could see upcharging increased, upcharging by DAs. We could see an increase of young people that are transferring to state prisons, or we can see probation departments use very punishment-oriented juvenile halls as the place where young people are sent.
For us, that would be the mini-supermax prison known as the Compound, in Sylmar juvenile hall, 20-foot high fences. It has all the prison supermax cell confinement architecture that a regular supermax prison would. Young people don’t have access to programming. Oftentimes, they’re on lockdown for long parts of the day, even as we’ve outlawed solitary confinement in California for more than four hours, and only then, when other options have been exhausted.
So there’s a lot of problems with the way the system is crafting this transfer to county. We have until 2023, which is not much time to develop a different kind of vision. What we’re really pushing for is that most young people would be in community care or in their homes. We want this to really be coupled with a huge change in our penal code in our state WIC Code, Welfare Institutions Code. So many more cases are divertable away from the system altogether.
We think that community-based organizations, job training programs, et cetera, better able to work with young people. And for that small fraction of young people that have the most serious charges, where the courts might not allow for community or home care, then we want young people and youth development centers run by youth development experts, coaches, artists, teachers, not by corrections officers or probation guards. So that’s what we’re hoping to push for in LA County and across the state.
Eddie Conway: Oh, so I’ve noticed that there’s talk about closing two other state prisons, prisons for adults. Do you have any information about that?
Kim McGill: Yes. We’re still not confirmed, which prisons will be closed, and families are scrambling to try to push for more closures. We have a coalition of families that meets on Monday nights, families whose loved ones are inside the state prison system. And they’ve been organizing around mergers, around covid-19 in the prisons, as well as around improved conditions of confinement and access to good time credits so people could come home earlier.
We’re trying, they really are taking a lead, in trying to find out more information on what those closures mean. Of course, if we go back to 1980, we had between 26,000 and 30,000 people in our state prison system. By 2010, we had 171,000 people in our state prison system.
So with all the changes that people have pushed for, Prop 57 Prop 47, AB 109 realignment, the changes that people have made to law, penal code laws to bring people home earlier, to have slightly better sentencing, we’re still at 121,000 people in our state system, way farther than the 26 to 30,000 we had in 1980.
For us, we really want to go back to the future. How can we have our goal set for abolition of prisons, abolition of juvenile halls and camps? But in the meantime, how can we at least get back to 1980 numbers, where we can eliminate our addiction to incarceration?
Eddie Conway: Is Governor Newsom behind this effort to limit the amount of time people spend on parole once they’re released, from five years down to two years? And also, to be able to get off of supervised parole within a year, or 18 months? Is this an effort coming from grass roots, or is this an effort coming from the Governor’s Office?
Kim McGill: There’s a growing number of organizations in California and across the country, too, led by formerly incarcerated people and our families. And so, I think that this policy change, like most policy changes in California, are coming from the ground.
But we have done a lot to pressure elected officials, including Governor Newsom, to be more progressive in these areas, not where we want people to stand yet, but getting slightly closer. And I think he will support it.
Eddie Conway: Well, it seems like, at this point, California is leading the effort, to change how people are incarcerated. Are you working with other groups in other states, that’s also organizing around prisons? And do you think that this California is making from the grass roots level is going to impact other states?
Kim McGill: I mean, I think that mass incarceration of people of color has its epicenter in LA County. We have always led in incarceration, going all the way back to 1848. From 1848 to 1871, we had the highest lynching rate in the nation. People don’t talk about Los Angeles County that way, but that’s a fact. And it came off of policies that were pushed by law enforcement, and local government officials, who wanted to eradicate people of color from LA County, as well as to maintain white supremacy.
We had engaged in an illegal war with Mexico, that brought this land into American control. And that led to that high lynching rate. That’s when we first got our gang labels. People were labeled as bandits, who are trying to reclaim their land, and were punished severely or killed.
We had the highest extermination of Native people also during that time. So it’s not to say that Native American extermination didn’t happen across the world, across the nation, but LA County and California lost 90% of its Indigenous population during that time, from 1848 to 1890. And so that, those massacres, those genocides that occurred, were really what were the roots of our jail and policing system here in LA County.
Of course, that continued throughout the 20th Century. But by the time the 1960s came, then we also led the nation in militarized policing. So Chief Parker, who kind of claimed to rid the LAPD, Los Angeles Police Department, of corruption, also put in place a very military structure and the use of military equipment.
So the use of Army tanks against the civilians was first used in the ’65 Watts rebellion. That was also used against the United Farm Workers, later in Bakersfield, and became the inspiration for the first SWAT units here in LA County. Philadelphia was experiencing similar things.
The first gang units were created here in LA County at that time, and the first gang unit created in 1973 was known as TRASH. So, horrible name, it says everything about how the police were seeing communities of color. Total Resources Against Street Hoodlums was the name for it. Later became CRASH, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums.
By the mid-1980s, we’d created the world’s first gang databases. Those were first paper, and then, later, computerized shared files, where law enforcement could tap in. And anyone who was alleged to be involved, either as an associate or a member of a “gang,” there was no right to know if you were put on those files, no right to challenge, no right to removal. They claimed to purge those files, but there was no proof of that. So until we passed laws recently to challenge that, there was no accountability, no transparency in those shared gang databases.
LA County created the first gang injunctions in the world, in the early ’80s, not in areas of the county that were experiencing the highest levels of violence, but in areas of the county where white people were fearful of “people of color” moving into their communities, or where white communities were next to communities of color. And there was a real push to criminalize those communities. So gang injunctions were really more a tool of gentrification, displacement and community control, than they were public safety.
Then LA County, of course, has built up the largest infrastructure for policing and prisons. So we have the largest infrastructure for municipal and county police, the largest sheriff’s department in the world, largest County jails in the world, largest courts in the world, largest juvenile halls and youth prisons in the world, right here in our county.
And because we’ve also exported the laws around that, of course, we gave the world Richard Nixon and the war on drugs, and the law and order backlash that first came out in response to the ’60s movements led by young people of color. We gave the world Ronald Reagan, and the war on drugs on steroids, and Iran-Contra. We’ve led the nation in deportations, largely driving those war on drugs and war on gangs policies.
And so, we’ve exported violence out of the United States, out of LA County worldwide, because of deporting people. We of course created that violence in Central America, and forced people, through Iran-Contra, into the streets of Los Angeles. So all of that has its roots in LA County, not to mention the fact that fast foods has its roots here, Hollywood has its roots here, televangelism has its roots here.
It’s considered a liberal place, but it’s been an epicenter for mass incarceration and mass punishment for a long, long time. Given that, we have an obligation to export better things out of California.
So I am hopeful that some of the things that are changing will catch on across the country. But I also know that people are already leading their grass roots efforts, their community efforts, everywhere they are, and that the vision that’s being driven by people that have experienced the system firsthand, by formerly incarcerated people in our families, will win out as long as people stay strong, will win out.
The vision and the change for Arkansas is going to be different than the vision and change for California, same for New York, same for Wisconsin. People know best what they need in their own states, in their own regions. And hopefully we can be a support and an inspiration to each other.
Eddie Conway: I understand that five major prisons in California is now the epicenter of covid-19. What’s being done in the state? I heard you earlier saying something about filing a suit. But what’s being done to protect the prison population? And can you talk a little bit about that?
Kim McGill: Yeah. Well, first, just to connect covid to the closing of DJJ, when we first got involved in the battle to close CYA, which was the California Youth Authority, the name that DJJ used to have, we got involved because one of our members, our families, their son was in DJJ. And his name was Deon Whitfield.
He was 17 years old, a person who was in a cell with locked down for 23 and a half hours a day. They only came out for showers. They had all their programming, so-called programming, in the cell. So they had school packets thrown at them on lockdown for months. Not for punishment. That was just the way that young people overall were treated.
They were also given Prozac without their parents’ knowledge. It was later determined that Prozac has the opposite effect on young people than it does for adults. It actually increased depression. So Deon Whitfield and Durrell Feaster were found hung in their cells.
During that same time, five young people overall, in a very short period, a period of about a year and a half, were found dead in CYA facilities. So this idea in California and across the nation, that juvenile halls, camps, jails, prisons are safe places for people is a myth. The death rate is very high, the violence rate is very high. Sexual assault and physical assault by staff against people inside is incredibly high.
Of course, the people that are running these facilities, the prison guards, the probation staff, the sheriff’s deputies in the jails, have the highest domestic violence, the highest alcoholism, the highest substance abuse rates, the highest child abuse rates of any profession. The violence that they impact, the violence that they inflict on others, eventually impacts them and their own families. And so, it’s a foul system that breeds violence, and breeds corruption.
So when covid hits that kind of an environment, where there’s already widespread abuse, where there’s already not medical care, or even the concern for people’s medical care inside, where we’ve already seen viruses like Hepatitis C, HIV, staph infection, tuberculosis, measles, things that are pretty much not an issue in the general population in the United States any longer, but sweep through lockups, and are incredibly impactful in communities, where they’re confined.
You can only imagine that when covid hits, it has a similar impact on people. And so, we’ve seen, again, that in our county jails, we have deaths in ours, in our federal prisons, a lot of deaths, and now, in our state prisons. The CIM has gotten hit the hardest. I don’t have today’s figures, because the figures change every day. But we recently had members that were at an action in front of CIM and Chino. And by then, there was nine people dead, just in that one facility.
Across the state, people can con get onto the CDCR website, that’s California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Rehabilitation, just think of it as a name. Nothing real in that name, really, but you can get onto the CDCR website, and it’ll give you the daily updates on how many people are contracting the virus, how many people are dying, including how many staff have it.
In the county jail, similarly, we’re seeing a huge infection rate, and we’re getting dozens of calls from people inside, including men that are crying, that are fearful of dying, that have been incubated, that have no access to their families, that don’t know if they’ll talk to anyone before they die. And so, it’s really devastating.
I know in Mississippi, there’s another facility that’s been hit particularly hard. I mentioned federal prison in Terminal Island, federal prison in Lompoc, have the highest rates in the federal system. They’re right here in California. We had an action with families in front of Lompoc, to where that day, there had been nine deaths by then. Now there’s more.
So we urge everyone with loved ones inside to contact us, and we can help you find who in your state, who in your region is fighting what we call incarceration virus. We’re pushing for the immediate release of as many people as possible, an immediate release of everyone on misdemeanors, and immediate release of anyone who’s medically vulnerable or elderly, an immediate release of anyone who’s there on probation or parole violations, and a case by case, a case review, to release as many people as possible.
Unfortunately, our judges have also cut, shut down the courts. People aren’t having access to their due process rights, due process to arraignment, to speedy trial. So we’re trying to fight all of that too. Anyone in California, or I would just say, and anyone in the nation, if you’re not sure who to connect with in your local area, you could contact us at action@youth4justice.org, and we’ll try to find out who’s got a similar campaign going in your area.
Eddie Conway: Okay, Kim, that’s an excellent report. And hopefully people around the country will get in touch with your organization, Youth Justice Coalition.
Thanks for joining me. And hopefully we’ll come back together, and talk about this a little more later on.
Kim McGill: Thank you. I really appreciate you covering this issue. It’s a huge honor to be here.
Eddie Conway: And thank you for joining this episode of Rattling the Bars.
Studio: Cameron Granadino
Production: Cameron Granadino, Ericka Blount Danois, Andrew Corkery
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therealnews--2020-06-10--This is Not a Drill: Rebellions, Repression, and Elections

The explosion of the largest urban rebellions in the US since the 1960s has sharpened the political and economic crises that were already unfolding .
In the backdrop of all of these overlapping crises , November 's election looms large , as Trump 's promised escalation of state violence and his drumming up of authoritarian sentiments puts the high stakes of the general election into sharp relief .
How do these urban rebellions and the state 's violent reaction reshape the political terrain ?
What new capacities do we now have and what new challenges must we grapple with so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our movements ?
How must we shift our 2020 strategy ?
Join us for the next episode of This is Not a Drill : LIVE as we talk 2020 political and electoral strategy in the face of uprisings , pandemic , and crisis .
Hosts Adam Gold and Rishi Awatramani are joined by special guests Nelini Stamp , Jennifer Epps-Addison , Tami Sawyer , and Max Elbaum to discuss strategic questions facing left organizers at this crucial historical juncture .
Guests : Nelini Stamp , Working Families Party Jennifer Epps-Addison , Center for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Matter Max Elbaum , Organizing Upgrade

The explosion of the largest urban rebellions in the US since the 1960s has sharpened the political and economic crises that were already unfolding. In the backdrop of all of these overlapping crises, November’s election looms large, as Trump’s promised escalation of state violence and his drumming up of authoritarian sentiments puts the high stakes of the general election into sharp relief. How do these urban rebellions and the state’s violent reaction reshape the political terrain? What new capacities do we now have and what new challenges must we grapple with so that we may defeat Trump and grow our movements? How must we shift our 2020 strategy? Join us for the next episode of This is Not a Drill: LIVE as we talk 2020 political and electoral strategy in the face of uprisings, pandemic, and crisis. Hosts Adam Gold and Rishi Awatramani are joined by special guests Nelini Stamp, Jennifer Epps-Addison, Tami Sawyer, and Max Elbaum to discuss strategic questions facing left organizers at this crucial historical juncture. Guests: Nelini Stamp, Working Families Party Jennifer Epps-Addison, Center for Popular Democracy Tami Sawyer, Black Voters Matter Max Elbaum, Organizing Upgrade
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therealnews--2020-06-11--Stir Crazy! Episode #51: All the Sleeping Giants Are Awake

Host, The Marc Steiner Show
Marc Steiner is the host of "The Marc Steiner Show" on TRNN. He is a Peabody Award-winning journalist who has spent his life working on social justice issues. He walked his first picket line at age 13, and at age 16 became the youngest person in Maryland arrested at a civil rights protest during the Freedom Rides through Cambridge. As part of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, Marc helped organize poor white communities with the Young Patriots, the white Appalachian counterpart to the Black Panthers. Early in his career he counseled at-risk youth in therapeutic settings and founded a theater program in the Maryland State prison system. He also taught theater for 10 years at the Baltimore School for the Arts. From 1993-2018 Marc's signature “Marc Steiner Show” aired on Baltimore’s public radio airwaves, both WYPR—which Marc co-founded—and Morgan State University’s WEAA.
marc@therealnews.com
@marcsteiner


therealnews--2020-06-11--‘We Can’t Wait’ Defund The Police Has Its Moment

The movement to defund the police has grown exponentially in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25 .
The idea of defunding police is rooted in the decades old prison abolitionist movement .
In the midst of increasing protests , and increasing police violence against protesters , It ’ s become a topic of national conversation .
“ The movement is aimed at creating a world where public safety is not defined by police and crime but how communities use their resources to care for each other , ” said Ralikh Hayes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a grassroots member-led collective demanding Baltimore cut police spending in half to fund education and social services in disinvested Black communities .
Democratic and Republican leadership has so far rejected the idea of defunding the police , “ The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms , ” presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden said in a USA Today op-ed published Thursday .
However , it continues to catch fire in cities across the country .
President Donald Trump has falsely accused Biden of supporting defunding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spending an additional $ 300 million on community policing , along with reforms that activists have rejected as ineffectual .
“ We know that policing in this country hasn ’ t worked for a long time and Biden ’ s response shows how out of touch the Democratic Party is with its base of Black people , ” Hayes said .
Grassroots pressure has resulted in victories on a local level .
A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council supports disbanding its police department .
Mayors in Los Angeles and New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police budgets to invest in local communities .
In Baltimore , activists and progressive council people targeted recent week-long budget hearings to highlight excessive police spending in the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget , which is greater than education , healthcare and civil rights combined .
For the 2020 fiscal year , the city budgeted $ 536 million for the Baltimore Police Department ( BPD ) versus $ 278 million for public education ( Baltimore City Schools ’ FY20 budget was $ 1.1 billion , the majority of which is funded through the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capita on police among large cities .
City Council President Brandon Scott , recently declared the winner of the June 2 Democratic primary– which effectively decides the election — told The Real News he is committed to reducing police spending and increasing spending on social programs such as education .
Scott says he ’ s identified tens of millions of dollars of potential cuts in the police budget , urging Mayor Jack Young in a June 8 letter to “ re-allocate its budget away from the current dependence on the police department.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our historically underfunded neighborhoods by building a new , more equitable system and bringing our budget into greater alignment with our values as a city , ” Scott wrote Young responded by cautioning “ against making any dramatic cuts that may result in unintended consequences for the City of Baltimore.
” Due to Baltimore ’ s ‘ Strong Mayor ’ system of governance , only the mayor has power to add money to the budget , the council can only cut funding .
Hayes , who is helping organize a protest on June @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vote on the police budget , said Scott ’ s proposal was not enough but organizers were open to having a dialogue with him .
Organizing Black is also demanding state lawmakers turn over control of the Baltimore Police Department to local authorities .
The conversation around defunding police has alarmed some prominent journalists and commentators , who note that relative to L.A. or New York , Baltimore ’ s crime and homicides rate remains high , even as crime rates have dropped across the country .
But activists argue grassroots-led efforts that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ better results in reducing violence than Baltimore ’ s scandal-ridden police department .
“ We know for a fact that programs like Safe Streets , community mediations…work , and need to be brought to scale , ” said Hayes .
Studies have found the Baltimore Ceasefire movement , which fights violence through outreach , connecting vulnerable populations with resources and by building community , reduced shootings by 52 percent .
Meanwhile Safe Streets has been credited with reducing shootings by over 50 % .
Hayes says opposition to defunding the police is rooted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policing instead of the investment in education and other social services given to affluent , white communities .
“ It shows that they are not ready to redefine what public safety looks like , ” says Hayes .
“ I challenge them to follow Black leadership , and trust we have thought about this for a while and that we ’ re ready to create a pathway to make that happen.
” Leading calls to defund the police are The Youth , an organization of young people in Baltimore who have led a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the streets .
“ We decided this is now or never .
As Black youth , our lives are on the line , ” said A ’ niya Taylor an 11th grader at City College High School , who helped organize a June 10 march from The School for the Arts to the City Schools Headquarters .
Taylor ’ s demands include cutting the police budget to fund clean drinking water in schools , increased mental healthcare for students , and a culturally relevant curriculum that empowers Black students .
The Youth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presence of police in schools .
In recent years students in Baltimore have marched to demand more funding for education , the lack of adequate heat and air conditioning in classrooms , gun violence , to demand action on climate change and to oppose arming police officers in schools .
“ There ’ s a chance if we don ’ t do this , we could be the next victims of police brutality , ” Taylor said .
Many , including parent-activist Melissa Schober have noted Baltimore City ’ s investment in policing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ youth , while spending more than $ 7 million dollars a year on its own school police force .
Baltimore is the only jurisdiction in Maryland with its own school police force .
“ Given the economic downturn , it ’ s really , concerning that we ’ re going to spend $ 7 million of scarce resources…on a police force , ” Schober said .
She explained that Baltimore City school students meanwhile , don ’ t have drinkable water , efficient HVAC , textbooks , laptops or internet access .
Officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maryland announced they were joining a growing number of districts such as Minneapolis and Portland to remove school resource officers ( SRO ) from schools .
On June 10 , the Maryland Office of the Public Defender joined that demand .
“ We can not wait for a catastrophe at the hands of an armed police officer in our schools to make a change , ” OPD ’ s statement read .
“ By removing SROs from our schools , this Board can take the first important step in dismantling the school security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Together , we can create the safe schools our students deserve.
” Eleventh grader Taylor said that police simply aren ’ t necessary in schools .
“ I feel like students don ’ t need police , we go to schools to learn , for a lot of students schools are a safe place for us , ” Taylor said .
“ When we see police officers it ’ s a fear factor , we should invest in guidance counselors and prevention teams , ” she said .

Photo courtesy of Neal Golden
The movement to defund the police has grown exponentially in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25. The idea of defunding police is rooted in the decades old prison abolitionist movement. In the midst of increasing protests, and increasing police violence against protesters, It’s become a topic of national conversation.
“The movement is aimed at creating a world where public safety is not defined by police and crime but how communities use their resources to care for each other,” said Ralikh Hayes, Deputy Director of Organizing Black, a grassroots member-led collective demanding Baltimore cut police spending in half to fund education and social services in disinvested Black communities.
Democratic and Republican leadership has so far rejected the idea of defunding the police, “The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms,” presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden said in a USA Today op-ed published Thursday. However, it continues to catch fire in cities across the country.
President Donald Trump has falsely accused Biden of supporting defunding the police. Instead Biden has proposed spending an additional $300 million on community policing, along with reforms that activists have rejected as ineffectual.
“We know that policing in this country hasn’t worked for a long time and Biden’s response shows how out of touch the Democratic Party is with its base of Black people,” Hayes said.
Grassroots pressure has resulted in victories on a local level. A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council supports disbanding its police department. Mayors in Los Angeles and New York have vowed to cut their multi-billion dollar police budgets to invest in local communities. In Baltimore, activists and progressive council people targeted recent week-long budget hearings to highlight excessive police spending in the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget, which is greater than education, healthcare and civil rights combined.
For the 2020 fiscal year, the city budgeted $536 million for the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) versus $278 million for public education (Baltimore City Schools’ FY20 budget was $1.1 billion, the majority of which is funded through the state). Baltimore spends the most per capita on police among large cities.
City Council President Brandon Scott, recently declared the winner of the June 2 Democratic primary– which effectively decides the election — told The Real News he is committed to reducing police spending and increasing spending on social programs such as education.
Scott says he’s identified tens of millions of dollars of potential cuts in the police budget, urging Mayor Jack Young in a June 8 letter to “re-allocate its budget away from the current dependence on the police department.”
“We must reinvest these dollars in our historically underfunded neighborhoods by building a new, more equitable system and bringing our budget into greater alignment with our values as a city,” Scott wrote
Young responded by cautioning “against making any dramatic cuts that may result in unintended consequences for the City of Baltimore.”
Due to Baltimore’s ‘Strong Mayor’ system of governance, only the mayor has power to add money to the budget, the council can only cut funding.
Hayes, who is helping organize a protest on June 12, the day the Council will vote on the police budget, said Scott’s proposal was not enough but organizers were open to having a dialogue with him. Organizing Black is also demanding state lawmakers turn over control of the Baltimore Police Department to local authorities.
The conversation around defunding police has alarmed some prominent journalists and commentators, who note that relative to L.A. or New York, Baltimore’s crime and homicides rate remains high, even as crime rates have dropped across the country.
But activists argue grassroots-led efforts that operate on a shoe-string budget have far better results in reducing violence than Baltimore’s scandal-ridden police department.
“We know for a fact that programs like Safe Streets, community mediations…work, and need to be brought to scale,” said Hayes.
Studies have found the Baltimore Ceasefire movement, which fights violence through outreach, connecting vulnerable populations with resources and by building community, reduced shootings by 52 percent. Meanwhile Safe Streets has been credited with reducing shootings by over 50%.
Hayes says opposition to defunding the police is rooted in racist views that Black communities need policing instead of the investment in education and other social services given to affluent, white communities.
“It shows that they are not ready to redefine what public safety looks like,” says Hayes. “I challenge them to follow Black leadership, and trust we have thought about this for a while and that we’re ready to create a pathway to make that happen.”
Leading calls to defund the police are The Youth, an organization of young people in Baltimore who have led a series of marches that have brought thousands into the streets.
“We decided this is now or never. As Black youth, our lives are on the line,” said A’niya Taylor an 11th grader at City College High School, who helped organize a June 10 march from The School for the Arts to the City Schools Headquarters.
Taylor’s demands include cutting the police budget to fund clean drinking water in schools, increased mental healthcare for students, and a culturally relevant curriculum that empowers Black students.
The Youth are also demanding an end to the presence of police in schools. In recent years students in Baltimore have marched to demand more funding for education, the lack of adequate heat and air conditioning in classrooms, gun violence, to demand action on climate change and to oppose arming police officers in schools.
“There’s a chance if we don’t do this, we could be the next victims of police brutality,” Taylor said.
Many, including parent-activist Melissa Schober have noted Baltimore City’s investment in policing pales in comparison to its investment in youth, while spending more than $7 million dollars a year on its own school police force. Baltimore is the only jurisdiction in Maryland with its own school police force.
“Given the economic downturn, it’s really, concerning that we’re going to spend $7 million of scarce resources…on a police force,” Schober said.
She explained that Baltimore City school students meanwhile, don’t have drinkable water, efficient HVAC, textbooks, laptops or internet access.
Officials in Prince George’s County, Maryland announced they were joining a growing number of districts such as Minneapolis and Portland to remove school resource officers (SRO) from schools. On June 10, the Maryland Office of the Public Defender joined that demand.
“We cannot wait for a catastrophe at the hands of an armed police officer in our schools to make a change,” OPD’s statement read. “By removing SROs from our schools, this Board can take the first important step in dismantling the school security apparatus, and reimagine schools without police. Together, we can create the safe schools our students deserve.”
Eleventh grader Taylor said that police simply aren’t necessary in schools.
“I feel like students don’t need police, we go to schools to learn, for a lot of students schools are a safe place for us, ” Taylor said. “When we see police officers it’s a fear factor, we should invest in guidance counselors and prevention teams,” she said.
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therealnews--2020-06-12--Stir Crazy! Episode #52: First Nations Friday

On today’s show: Journalist, organizer, and founding executive director of Crushing Colonialism Jen Deerinwater, Miwok journalist and community organizer Desiree Kane, and journalist and community builder Johnnie Jae. Hosted by Kim Brown.
If you have questions/comments/suggestions for the show email us at stircrazy@therealnews.com
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