Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.
Biden’s DOJ uses a Trump tactic: Federal prosecutors label Black Lives Matter protesters terrorists
In an odious sort of sequel to yesterday's blog post, I'd like to share this opinion piece by Rachel Barkow over at the Daily News. Maybe I'm just not the brightest light on the porch, but liberals are going to have to answer a simple question for me on this one. Namely, which part of stopping the fascists is this?
How exactly does continuing to push accusations of terrorism in what amounts to a property damage case, serve the public interest or match Biden's political rhetoric about racial equality? These folks are absolutely not terrorists, and they put no lives whatsoever in danger. The NY Daily News used their mug shots, but both of the defendants (Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman) are lawyers who were protesting against racialized police violence during the George Floyd demonstrations. In other words; in the 1960's the papers would be calling them civil rights workers. We're trying to put civil rights workers in jail for decades still, even after Trump? What kind of Hooverism is this Joe?
Don't think for a second that I'm exaggerating here. Sentencing these two as "terrorists" for throwing a Molotov at an abandoned police car, while not perusing the same "terrorism" escalator in a case that involved burning a police vehicle, but had nothing to do with protesting for racial justice, makes it clear that this prosecution is purely political. The Department of Justice is cutting deals that reduce a fascist coup attempt to misdemeanor charges, but they're trying to put a couple of racial justice activists with law degrees away for decades. Does that sound like justice, or stopping white supremacy to you?
As the author notes, Palooka Joe's hand picked U.S. Attorney for Eastern New York could step in and stop this travesty, but there's plenty of reasons to believe the president probably won't tell him to do so. This is after all the guy who ran on law and order against Downmarket Mussolini of all people. Like I said yesterday, Biden and the Democratic Party's right wing always planned to sacrifice the left and activists to appease the fascists. This is what it looks like in real time; sending civil rights activist lawyers to jail for decades to look tough for cornpone nazis in the cracker discourse.
nina illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic, and analyst.
You can find my work at NIDC, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog
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