Upcoming Events

International | Anti-Capitalism

no events match your query!

New Events

International

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link Ukraine Shoots Down F-16 With Patriot, A... Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:53 | Anti-Empire

offsite link Surprise Offensive Puts 300 km² of Russ... Fri Aug 09, 2024 08:44 | Marko Marjanović

offsite link The Wholesome Photo of the Month Thu May 09, 2024 11:01 | Anti-Empire

offsite link In 3 War Years Russia Will Have Spent $3... Thu May 09, 2024 02:17 | Anti-Empire

offsite link UK Sending Missiles to Be Fired Into Rus... Tue May 07, 2024 14:17 | Marko Marjanović

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.  We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below). 

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link 1,000 km of Pylons Needed to Hit Net Zero Targets Sun Nov 03, 2024 19:00 | Richard Eldred
New analysis reveals that Britain needs 1,000 km of new power lines and pylons ? and 4,500 km of undersea cables ? to meet its legally binding 2030 Net Zero target.
The post 1,000 km of Pylons Needed to Hit Net Zero Targets appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Covid Vaccine Banned for First Time in Idaho Counties Sun Nov 03, 2024 17:00 | Richard Eldred
In a historic move, a U.S. public health authority has voted to ban COVID-19 vaccines, claiming that the risks now outweigh the benefits
The post Covid Vaccine Banned for First Time in Idaho Counties appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link How Kemi Badenoch?s Tories Can Rebuild Britain Sun Nov 03, 2024 15:00 | Richard Eldred
With Kemi Badenoch now at the helm, the Conservatives must fearlessly launch a Restoration to undo New Labour's radical changes and restore parliamentary sovereignty, says David Starkey.
The post How Kemi Badenoch?s Tories Can Rebuild Britain appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Curse of Masks in Health and Social Care: Testimony From the Scottish Covid Inquiry Sun Nov 03, 2024 13:00 | Dr Gary Sidley
The harrowing testimonies from the Scottish Covid Inquiry reveal how mask mandates dehumanised residents and shattered communication in health and social care, says Dr Gary Sidley.
The post The Curse of Masks in Health and Social Care: Testimony From the Scottish Covid Inquiry appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Lucy Letby Was Not on Duty When Many the Babies She Was Accused of Murdering Went Downhill Fastest, ... Sun Nov 03, 2024 11:00 | Richard Eldred
A new audit of baby deaths at Lucy Letby's hospital shows many occurred when she was off duty, bolstering her defense's claim that systemic failures, not her actions, may be to blame.
The post Lucy Letby Was Not on Duty When Many the Babies She Was Accused of Murdering Went Downhill Fastest, New Audit Finds appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N°106 Fri Nov 01, 2024 12:21 | en

offsite link Luis Arce allegedly planned the assassination of his rival Evo Morales Fri Nov 01, 2024 12:12 | en

offsite link In Kazan, the order of the world changed , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Oct 29, 2024 07:01 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N°105 Sat Oct 26, 2024 05:27 | en

offsite link Settlers prepare for 'resettlement in Gaza' Fri Oct 25, 2024 12:46 | en

Voltaire Network >>

George Floyd: one death too many in the “land of the free”

category international | anti-capitalism | other press author Tuesday June 23, 2020 23:58author by 1 of indy Report this post to the editors

The murder of Floyd is not a once-off incident. Last year 1,099 people were killed by the US police, of which a sizeable proportion are black. 99% of these murders remain in absolute impunity –an alarming impunity rate only rivalled by the likes of Colombia in the continent, which goes to demonstrate how police violence, far from an anomaly, is condoned by the US establishment. By all of it, whether Republican or Democrat.
cartoonstatueoflibertyamended2.jpg

George Floyd: one death too many in the “land of the free”

At last people had enough in the self-proclaimed ‘land of the free’. The brutal murder of George Floyd, who was tortured to death by asphyxiation for 10 minutes in broad daylight, turned to be the spark that started the prairie fire. Floyd’s life was certainly cheaper in the eyes of the police than a fake, lousy U$20, he was accused of possessing. Protests have erupted all over the country, facing unspeakable government violence and threats from the president Donald Trump, who has threatened with weapons, shootings and vicious dogs. Let us think for a second what would happen if, let’s say, Maduro in Venezuela or Rouhani in Iran resorted to this blatantly threatening language and to these repressive actions –surely by now, there would be economic sanctions in place, extraordinary meetings in the UN Security Council, talk of military intervention, or “smart” bombardments of police stations to protect “poor citizens” from the butchers in the institutions. Maybe even a bogus interim president à la Guaidó would have already been recognised by the G-7.

Michelle Bachelet, the hypocrite in chief (ie., Human Rights chief) at the UN, deplores the killing of Floyd but has failed to speak in equally strong terms about State violence against protestors. Her words pale in comparison to her vehemence at Venezuela; while Almagro of the OAS –who kicks up a fuss even if Maduro farts- has remained conspicuously silent. Isn’t it obvious that in the World Order there is one rule for the rich club and quite another for the rest of the world?

The murder of Floyd is not a once-off incident. Last year 1,099 people were killed by the US police, of which a sizeable proportion are black. 99% of these murders remain in absolute impunity [1]–an alarming impunity rate only rivalled by the likes of Colombia in the continent, which goes to demonstrate how police violence, far from an anomaly, is condoned by the US establishment. By all of it, whether Republican or Democrat.

As elections approach, the Democrats are smelling votes in the fumes of the riots. But who among the Democrats have any moral authority to complain about racism or violence? Obama, the top one president when it comes to deportations and the man who presided racial repression at Ferguson? The man who shed crocodile tears at the murder of Eric Garner in 2014, in circumstances almost identical to those of Floyd’s, but failed to take any real action? The Clintons, who started building the wall with Mexico, starved and bombed Iraq, and handsomely armed, supported and financed their Al-Qaeda darling jihadists who butchered willy-nilly, left and right, the people of Syria? Sanders, whom, for all his “socialist” talk is unable to confront even the establishment in his own party? It is time to call the Democrat gang for what they are: a fraud. They are part of the problem, not the solution, and all they care about is the next elections. They don’t give a flying toss about structural racism and police violence as they have shown time and again while in power.

Class and racial violence in the US is a structural problem, which requires a radical transformation of the institutions. Nothing short of this can be of any use. The murder of Floyd is tearing apart the farcical myth of the ‘land of the free’, of the land ‘of tolerance’ built supposedly by free, loving and equal migrants –a favourite fabrication of the Democrats during the anti-Trump protests of 2016. The ugly face of structural racism (which precedes Trump by over two centuries) is being revealed, exposing the stench of a country built over the genocide of millions of Natives and chattel slavery. A country built over the mass deportations of those who thought differently during the Red Scare of the 1920. A country which lynched in the thousands blacks and trade unionists. A country where a white supremacist hooligan such as John Wayne is revered as a hero, while proper artists were banned and censored during McCarthyism. A country whose so-called justice system, which executes on a routine basis as many people as any other tyranny, has in its putrid closet the skeletons of the Haymarket affair, of Sacco and Vanzetti, and of the Rosenbergs, among so many others, all murdered in mickey mouse trials that were nothing but legal lynching.

The people are right to be angry. Big time. This is not only about Floyd. It is about over two hundred years of oppression and savagery. Those who demand that protest remains “civic” and harmless, deploring “vandalism” in far more strident terms than they deplore racism, are nothing but hypocritical defenders of the status quo. The real vandals are those who think that carrying a blue uniform gives them a right to maim, torture and kill at will. The focus of what is happening and why people are out there on the streets should not be lost: as Albert Camus remarked, we should despise less acts of violence by the oppressed than the institutions of violence [2]. The time has come to question and change the institutions, the structures of violence, deeply rooted in the State and an economic model which, right now, is condemning millions to death by unemployment induced starvation.

The system is the problem, not this or that police officer, not this or that president, not this or that party. It requires deep transformation of the political institutions which are the product of this legacy of brutality, segregation, exclusion, war, militarism, invasion and imperialism. Trump denounced the presence of “professional anarchists” among the protestors. Fair play to them. They deserve a standing ovation. Hopefully they help the masses in revolt to imagine a different country, built from the bottom up, in peace with the rest of the world and permanently at war with domestic injustice. A country free of racism, sexism, and the exploitation of the working class. A real alternative at a time in which the world is critically endangered to a great degree because of the actions of the US as a world power. The people on the streets today have the answers, while the Republican and Democrat ruling elites don’t even know the questions.

José Antonio Gutiérrez D.
3rd June, 2020

[1] https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
[2] Quoted in John Foley, “Albert Camus: From the Absurd to Revolt” (London, Rouledge, 2008, p.49)

Related Link: http://www.anarkismo.net/article/31916
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy