A protest sparked by another police killing of an unarmed, black man spread in days beyond the U.S. Can this upheaval produce serious reform of policing and economic policy? With Margaret Kimberley, Garland Nixon, Brian Becker and Richard Wolff.
(Show description below).
It has been a time, it seems, that many have anticipated, but whose timing could never precisely be predicted.
After 40 years of economic policies designed to create massive income inequality and after 400 years of oppression of African-Americans—and in the midst of a historic pandemic—the social explosion has occurred.
A protest sparked by yet another police killing of an unarmed, black man filmed with mobile phones spread in days beyond the United States. One act of police brutality has led to hundreds of horrific incidents of police violence, dramatically exposing what the true nature of the American police appears to be.
Forget the shield for a moment, and what one sees are heavily-armed, black-clad agents of state violence to protect powerful interests from a population, defrauded and deceived, suddenly no longer accepting it.
The very essence of a 30-year program to militarize local police seemed to be geared towards just this moment, when an abused nation would not take it anymore.
There were numerous questions that explored on tonight’s program.
One was the role of violence in social protest. Martin Luther King’s quote about a riot being the “language of the unheard,” has aptly been making the rounds on social media. The blaming of “outside agitators” emerged again from the depths of the 1960s Deep South, or from Middle East dictators in 2011, when embattled leaders try to deflect their responsibility for pushing a society to the brink.
Authoritarians are fond of saying of their enemies that “violence is the only language that they understand.” But can that be turned around to say that that is the only language understood by oppressive leaders? Are the acts of a few looters and brick throwers being used to smear massive, peaceful demonstrations? Are police staging looting to blame on protestors as some videos appear to indicate? Can peaceful protests be sustained long enough to force change?
Ultimately, the question is: can this moment in American history produce serious reform in policing and economic policy to address decades of legitimate grievance?
With us tonight to discuss these and other questions were:
Brian Becker, a long time coordinator for the ANSWER Coalition and co-host of the radio program Loud and Clear.
Margaret Kimberley, journalist, author and columnist at the Black Agenda Report.
Richard Wolff, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts, author and a commentator on political and economic issues, and
Garland Nixon, a former Baltimore police major and now radio co-host of the show Fault Lines.
Watch the replay of “America in Revolt” here with your hosts Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria.
Absolutely incredible news program. Thank-you. I’m listening now as I type this and I’m very interested in listening to the final guests.
There is no denying the “police can not be won over”, but please remember that the police are not the enemy. Neither the police nor the military. Both the police and the military are run by a few and if you are looking for an enemy it is amongst them. It is amongst the few “leaders” and not the individuals who are members of the organization. Those individuals could be the ones who form the base of a new way of keeping order where order is needed.
Big changes on the way.
Excellent group of guests. I’d like to see this group reconvened later in the summer to discuss what has and hasn’t happened in the interim, what still needs to happen and why. Thank you to the moderators and guests for a really enlightening discussion.
This was an excellent discussion, with very competent and urgent observations by all.
Difficult to moderate, as all had much to say, but all made excellent observations.
Joe your introduction was beautifully done..
Not surprisingly, Richard Woolf puts economic insight to the issues in a clear and understandable way (its great editing to watch the other participants raptly each his presentation). I’ve never heard the history of plastic credit, and it makes total sense.
All in all, a classic economic argument by a master. And “tinder,”powerful! His prediction ominous! “Now in the Worst depression”…
The vivid descriptions of street violence by Brian Becker, chilling and fascinating. “A Revolution” scary.
Margret Kimberly, “there all in trouble.” Wow!
Garlan Nixon, “First Wave”, again, Wow.
Consortiumnews has long been an island of great reporting, now that has extended into the visual realm. As Always, Thank You.
Thanks Bob
Neither PEACEFUL PROTESTS nor RIOTS will achieve justice and our RIGHTS.
Only going after the PEOPLE AT the TOP, our RULERS , who have assumed that role without our Informed CONSENT.
WHO are those RULERS we need to ARREST and TRY for “Crimes Against Humanity”, under COMMON LAW – House of Rothschild, House of Windsor and the Vatican
When do you EVER hear them being talked about, other than in the light of how Nice and “Human” they are?
All this blabber on all alternative,so-called “News” sites, is simply story-telling, designed to DISTRACT us from doing what TRULY needs to be done and going after those who need to be held responsible – our so-called RULERS
Those “RULERS” are why we never get our TRUE RIGHTS and they are smart enough to make sure we FIGHT EACH OTHER, instead of them and MOST MEDIA are their accomplices and even PROMOTERS..
No. We keep repeating this same cycle. The rare tragedy that captures the media’s (therefore the public’s) attention is declared a “game changer,” and nothing changes. The issues are too complicated to address in the public forum, and regardless, the pols and pundits will spin the issues beyond all recognition.
The issues are NOT “too complicated”
It is a all a game designed to keep us as slaves, and when those people, I mention in MY comment, no longer need us they make WARS,of one kind or another, including Biological, to get rid of us
Take out those RULERS I mention, in whatever way is necessary and only then what you believe is “complicated”, WILL DISAPPEAR !
Perhaps, DH, the “issues” are not “complicated”.
Perhaps they are only made to appear that way.
Consider that a society may be understood very easily, simply by looking at how members of a society treat other members of that society.
For example, Jane Elliot asked a simple question of an audience of white U$ians;
“If you white people would like to be treated like black people, please stand up.”
No one stood up.
Why?
Elliot went on to say that the reason no one stood up was because each white personal there knew full well what was, and is, going on.
Frankly, everything that is going on, however obscured, propagandized, appealed to prejudice, ignorance, hate, or self-interest it may be, comes down to precisely that level.
For example, why did the rich, in the U$ get bailed out twice, while everyone else got screwed?
Or, why does the U$ spend so much of its wealth on weaponry?
And so very little on infrastructure?
Who benefits and why?
Oh, right,
It is just too complex to explain or understand.
Really?
Let’s look, then, at something which has long, and justifiably so, occupied the attention of Consortium News, the nonsense, the vile concoction known as Russiagate.
It appears complex.
Yet it is simply calculated deceit, a multi-faceted lie, a convenient and cynical distraction.
As were “weapons of mass destruction”, “the Gulf of Tonkin ‘incident ‘”, “the gas attacks” in Syria, and the”rape charges” manufactured against Julian Assange, who languishes in prison for exposing the (simple) truth of U$ war crimes in wars which themselves are an affront to honest International Law.
These things were simply made to appear complex and “real”, just as the excuses for the fast approaching economic Depression will be spewed out like tear gas to obscure and blind people to the fact that it was cynically engineered, as official policy, over decades, while the Calvinistic “Puritan Ethic” was enforced, by societal osmosis, to ensure that individuals (and those around them) would blame themselves (and each other) for their own economic precarity as being “lazy” or “lacking ambition”.
What an amazingly successful psychological and sociological assault the “best and brightest” have successfully waged on the rest of “civil” society.
How very, very clever they were.
Perhaps, too clever?
By much more than half.
For the people are awakening to the “complex” deceit.
Yet, the oligarchs and their willing minions do have most all the money, which means they have, or imagine that they have, most all the power,
But only so long as they can continue to fool the many … or … not enough of the many have, as yet, “nothing to lose”.
That is how simple, or “complex”, it really is.
Will tyranny succeed by unleashing horrifying punishment, by viciously lashing out, both here and abroad?
Will domestic vapulation continue until morale improves?
Or will people, finally, have reached the collective point where enough is ENOUGH?
The young will decide.
It is their future, after all.
Which side will we older “folks” support?
Is that too complicated for public discussion and rational debate?
That is an existential question.
The human species, as a whole, faces at least two others.
And neither are really, if we are truly honest, too “complex” or too “complicated” to understand or discuss.
Both, however, are tied to profit, power, and control.
All things which certain people would rather that most people do not think about, understand, or talk about.
Do you think the “reasons” for that desire of the elite are “complicated”?
Or, in fact, in truth, quite simple?
My continuing apprection to CN and all who participated in this necessary, useful, and most educational discussion.
I look forward to the next.
DW
I wanted to hear more from Garland
His internet connection went down. Fortunately he was able to make a significant contribution before that happened.