Sunday August 17, Editorial
One week into the struggle for justice for Michael Brown and everything has changed—and nothing has changed.
August 17, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Everything has changed: people stood up and fought back and refused to back down in the face of bullets and tanks, scolding and phony sympathy, and everything else. Fighting back and simply demanding justice for Michael Brown and that these pigs stop murdering young Black men. Simply demanding that the humanity of millions of youth be recognized. And when they did—when they went right up against the dogs and the gas and the bullets—they got sympathy from all over the world, they inspired others to stand up, and they put this question squarely on the agenda and changed the terms in which everybody thought and talked about it. People stood up and showed that the people who run this are NOT all-powerful, and that the force they use against the people is NOT legitimate. This is real progress, and it is solely due to determined struggle.
At the same time, nothing has changed. There is no justice at all—whatsoever. The pig who murdered Michael Brown still walks around uncharged. In fact, we don’t even know the number of bullets that he fired into Michael! We don’t even know why these pigs let Michael lie in the street like a dog for FOUR HOURS after he was shot and who made that ugly, horrible decision. And that damn chief of pigs who released the video designed to assassinate Michael’s character still has his job. There is not even a whisper of consequence for any of these pigs. God DAMN this shit!
Right now is no time to stop the struggle, or try to turn it into some bullshit voting thing or some demands on some lying politicians somewhere else. Right now is time to redouble the struggle, to take it to a HIGHER level. These righteous demands—to indict and jail this pig, to fire the pig chief, to give a full accounting ASAP—these have to be met now, not next week or next year.
Don’t tell us that “it takes time to charge someone”—it doesn’t take time to charge and indict a Black or Latino youth who they think might have done something. Hell, it doesn’t take time to kill them, when they don’t get onto the sidewalk fast enough or stop selling cigarettes or just look the wrong way.
We don’t need promises about how the Department of Justice is gonna take care of it—the Department of Justice is the Department of IN-justice. The only thing it takes care of is protecting this goddamn system.
Let’s be real clear: if people had listened to those at the middle of the week who said “trust in Ron Johnson”… if people had listened to those who said “okay, be angry but don’t be too angry”… if people had stayed out of the streets when the pigs told them to… then none of any of the progress that HAS been made would have been made. This struggle has to keep going and it has to go higher and broader, involving more people.
And as we keep on struggling, ask yourself this: WHY does this keep happening? WHY, after all the years of voting, of trying to get an education, of “doing all the right things” and all that… WHY? Because it’s a system—and right now this system has no more use for millions of Black and Latino youth and they are penning them in, locking them down, and killing them off. They are demonizing and dogging these youth to justify all that. We need a revolution to deal with this—one that dismantles all their state power and brings in new power, which really does serve the people in getting emancipated, and contributing to emancipation all over the world.
We don’t need people telling people to vote, to trust in the Justice Department, and all that mess. We don’t need people saying that they’re militant, then acting like deputies and junior cops. We need unity, demanding justice—NOW!
INDICT and JAIL the KILLER COP!
FIRE THE POLICE CHIEF!
FULL ACCOUNTING OF WHAT HAPPENED: IMMEDIATELY!
FIGHT THE POWER, AND TRANSFORM THE PEOPLE, FOR REVOLUTION!
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