On June 6, the Atlanta City Council heard 16 hours of passionate opposition by hundreds of people opposed to the funding of Cop City—a massive facility planned for just outside Atlanta that will destroy a forest to create a training center for militarized, brutalizing pigs. Hundreds more, not allowed in, rallied outside. People called out a vote to fund Cop City as “a public endorsement of war, of human rights abuse, of militarized streets in our city” and “a destruction of the Constitutional protections of speech, due process, representation, and ultimately dissent.” With anger and angst speakers asked why “our” elected officials were continuing to ignore cries for justice.

And then the City Council, majority Democrats, led by Black Mayor Andre Dickens, voted 11-4 to approve Cop City as the outrage of hundreds inside City Hall echoed through the building: “Stop Cop City!” “Cop City will never be built.” And “Viva! Viva, Tortuguita!”—Manuel Esteban Paez Terán (who went by “Tortuguita’), the 26-year-old "forest defender" protester who was shot at least 57 times and killed by police on January 18 during a raid on the site on which Cop City is to be built.

Cop City will feature a compound that simulates an inner-city community with a convenience store, a nightclub and a home; a staging area for pigs to train for and rehearse the kind of terror and violence the U.S. Army carries out around the world, against communities of the oppressed in this country.¹

THIS Is What BOURGOIS DEMOCRACY (CAPITALIST DICTATORSHIP) LOOKS LIKE

About what is going down in Atlanta: Contrary to the popular chant "This is what democracy looks like," this is what bourgeois (capitalist) democracy looks like. That democracy is a form of dictatorship—of violently enforced rule—that rests on and serves a system of exploitation and oppression. The rights it promises are all framed by that. And if you go up against anything with real stakes for those who actually rule the society and if you do this in any kind of meaningful way and begin to gather a following, they will move to crush you—and then legitimize what they do with a "vote” by people they have told (and convinced) you are “your representatives.”

You think the answer is “inclusivity”? The Atlanta City Council is a model of “inclusivity.” It includes eight Black members, five white members, two Iranian Americans, one Chinese American, and three openly LGBTQ members. And with all that, the majority of the Democrats on the Atlanta City Council, the Black mayor, and the minority Republicans voted 11-4 to approve Cop City. And that is what “inclusivity” looks like, as defined by and incorporated into this system built on exploitation and oppression.

People opposing Cop City, overwhelmingly through peaceful protest, have been subjected to ferocious repression, raids, brutality, criminal charges of “domestic terrorism” for “crimes” like trespassing. Tortuguita was killed in a hail of police bullets. And after the City Council vote, a SWAT squad of city and state pigs, guns drawn, broke down the door of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund and arrested three activists for raising bail money and organizing legal support for protesters victimized and arrested. All these people need to be defended. 

Two Futures: What Will YOU Do?

What does it tell you that the rulers of this country are hell-bent on building Cop City? And that the Atlanta City Council members were compelled to “blow their cover” and expose their real role in this system to rubber stamp it?

“Cop City” is not designed to train pigs to prevent crimes against individuals. It is designed to enable them to control and occupy neighborhoods. The plans for Cop City tell you that those who rule over this system foresee and are preparing for social and political earthquakes that will rock their system of exploitation and oppression. But it also tells you that the rulers of this country fear the potential of those on whose necks they have their knees. Potential to not just resist, but bring down this whole system.

Why else would they put so much "political capital" into ramming this training center through—exposing the iron fist behind the thin glove of “democracy” for all to see? Think about it—why would they do this if they were not worried about violently keeping masses of people under control? The lesson that they draw from the wave of uprisings that began with Ferguson in 2014 and came to a head in the beautiful rising against the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor is NOT that it showed that people are powerless. The lesson that they drew is that this upsurge showed the potential, if people’s sights are raised to the character of the enemy and the real solution—which is revolution, nothing less—for the system itself to be rocked to its foundation and even—if other things come together—to be overthrown.

What is going on in Atlanta is a wake-up call. People need to stop deluding themselves that these monsters and their front men can be implored, convinced, or in any lasting or fundamental way pressured into being what they can never be. And people need to get with the only force that has the actual science, strategy and leadership to actually lead and carry forward a real revolution: the revcoms.

As the Revcoms themselves say in their recent Proclamation, WE ARE THE REVCOMS:

We are the revcoms… we are seriously working for, and we will settle for nothing less than, this real revolution—and we are calling on YOU to become part of this emancipating revolution.