CHICAGO — “The City of Chicago is united in rejecting the provocation of the Trump administration in sending hundreds of militarized, highly armed secret-police gunmen into our streets in the midst of a public health crisis and economic catastrophe.”
So says the Communist Party of Illinois in a statement released Friday, July 24.
In the wake of the federal government’s highly controversial introduction of unidentified forces onto the streets of Portland, Ore., supposedly to quell protest and establish “law and order” and “command the streets,” opposition has arisen in city after city across the United States that does not wish to welcome a repeat performance of such unconstitutional abuse.
“The Communist Party of Illinois condemns this cynical ploy by Donald Trump to divert attention from the criminal failure of his administration to safeguard the well-being of America’s people.”
The statement goes on to critique the cynical arms industry:
“The primary responsibility for our city’s plague of gun violence—for the hundreds of lives lost, thousands of bodies maimed, mostly Black and Latinx youth—rests with the gun industry and its political supporters. They countermand every effort to keep these tools of death out of our working-class neighborhoods. Chicago’s ban on handguns was overturned and its gun registry eliminated by these very forces, leaving our citizens and democratically elected mayor and city council stymied in attempts to stop the flow of illegal weapons into the city’s neighborhoods. Billions of dollars in profits for the gun industry and its lobbyists are the other side of this deadly equation.
“Responsibility also rests with corporate policies that have concentrated the wealth created by our nation’s working class in the vaults of a tiny class of billionaires, leaving neighborhoods without essential services and a pandemic crisis that is disproportionately killing African-Americans and Latinx Americans.”
With Chicago and our great cities reeling from the coronavirus, unemployment, and endemic poverty, “the fascist-minded Trump and his corporate backers, discredited and on the defensive, seek to heighten tension and unleash a secret police force on our people.” The CP of Illinois statement continues: “That’s an ominous step toward sabotaging the people’s will in this November’s election that must not pass.”
In the meantime, Americans are eagerly awaiting action from Congress to alleviate widespread suffering, not only from COVID-19 but from joblessness, homelessness, and hunger. Shelby Richardson, organizer of the Illinois district of the CPUSA, told People’s World, “Passage of the HEROES Act would really help Chicago, while secret police coming here would not only not help but make things worse.”
Based on its century-long experience with the Chicago Police Department, the CPI believes that “Trump’s paramilitia, infiltrated by white supremacists from the Border Patrol and other agencies, will only encourage and ally with the worst white supremacist elements in the Chicago Police Department, which already has a long history of racism, brutality, ‘Red Squad’ surveillance, murder, and disruption of progressive activists and organizations.”
The CPI hails the “courageous young generation” who are “rising up and taking to the streets, demanding that Black Lives Matter, the Fight for $15, abolition of prisons and defunding of police, passage of Civilian Police Accountability Council, and a massive investment to make schools safe to attend.”
To many Americans, this sounds like a telegraphed version of a program the country needs to adopt moving forward in 2021 after the Trump administration and its corporate allies go down to a crushing defeat.
CONTRIBUTOR
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