Nina-Bytes: Murderpigs, Class War, and Abolition Over Reform

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Diversifying the Police Force Won’t End Police Violence

At this point, I don't think it will surprise anyone to hear that I am not a fan of ongoing efforts to "reform" policing; or for that matter, a so-called American justice system that grinds civil rights protesters and antifascists to paste, while letting nazi murderers walk with a pat on the head. As I discussed in a recent Quickshot Quotation, the plain truth is that most folks, particularly Americans, have no idea what the real role of policing is in our society. Indeed, a careful study of American history, such as that found in books like "Badges Without Borders" by Stuart Schrader, or "Our Enemies in Blue" by Kristian Williams, reveals that pretty much every prior round of "police reform" has only further empowered police to repress protestors, activists, and anyone who would harm the objectively fascist socioeconomic order in the United States. 

Unfortunately, and despite these objective truths, even some folks on the left continue to insist that cosmetic reform measures will make a measurable difference in the behavior of fascist murderpigs whose job is basically to conduct class warfare on behalf of capital. Today on Nina-Bytes then, I'd like to turn your attention to a November 17th, 2021 Op-Ed written by abolitionist Reina Sultan over on Truthout, to provide a concrete example of why this approach is doomed to failure. 

While the author's main focus is debunking the ridiculous notion that you can reform police by ensuring more brown faces are doing the actual racialized oppression, the fact is that virtually every argument she puts forward to do so, speaks to the larger misjudgment of the police's function that beleaguers most Americans. As Sultan notes, the funny thing about hiring more diverse police officers is at the end of the day, you're still hiring more police officers and those officers are still the enforcement arm of a brutal, white supremacist, openly neofeudalist socioeconomic order that currently dominates life throughout the Pig Empire. More importantly however, the author hits the nail on the head by noting you really can't "reform" a system that's working exactly as it was designed to function:

"Because policing and incarceration are inherently violent and racist institutions, prison-industrial complex abolitionists have been working to dismantle them in the hopes of creating a safer and more just world. Without the prison-industrial complex, abolitionists argue that we can divert resources to life-giving resources and services, rather than death-making institutions.

Prison-industrial complex reformers and preservationists generally argue that the system is “broken” — that it has problems that are ultimately solvable, but that maintaining its existence is imperative for public safety. The truth is that the prison-industrial complex is functioning exactly as it is meant to; its creation was never intended to provide justice, but instead it was born of the desire to maintain white supremacy and racial capitalism. When we reframe our understanding of the prison-industrial complex, it becomes clear that it is accomplishing its intended purpose."

 

Obviously, you don't really need me to tell you that American policing is out of control; anyone who tuned on the nightly news during the George Floyd protests knows that. I fear however that the real scope of the policing problem, and its role in the ongoing class war being conducted by billionaire supervillains against, well essentially the rest of us, is being lost in the noise. In the war against neofeudalist mass murderers, and an oncoming Pig Empire slide into overt fascism, violent reactionary murderpigs will be the machine's first and favorite response to anyone who doesn't want to go gently into that good night so Elon Musk can escape to Mars.

Not only is it impossible to reform police, but if we intended to dismantle capitalism and save all life on earth, abolishing them as quickly as possible is imperative; the survival of the species might just depend on it.

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

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Nina-Bytes: They Are Who We Thought They Were

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Corporations Donated $164,000 to Anti-Voting Rights Senators Despite Pledges

Earlier today I published a couple of micro-blog posts that touched on why the capitalist liberal establishment simply cannot be our allies in the fight against fascism. Unfortunately, because ruling class propaganda in America has a stunning power to transform the very meaning of words in our society, I'm concerned that folks may not even understand what I mean when I say "the liberal establishment." Sure, I'm talking about the Democratic Party, but only because they are the most visible (and feckless) face of that establishment in America. The Pig Empire liberal establishment however, comprises virtually the entire capitalist class, and many of their overseers in the petite bourgeoisie.

Today then, I'd like to use this November 8th, 2021 post by Sharon Zhang on Truthout, to both expose that larger liberal establishment and demonstrate how they instinctively support fascism, regardless of the presumed lean of their social politics. With a big assist from a report produced by watchdog group Accountable.US, Zhang reveals that at least eight major U.S. corporations that signed a pledge to support the John Lewis voting rights act, have given thousands of dollars this year to GOP Senators actively blocking it. And we're not talking about the My Pillow guy here either. These are major players in corporate America, all of whom at least front a socially progressive position to consumers; companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.

Obviously, the focus here for liberals is going to be on the hypocrisy involved; after all, this story pretty much comes down to a bunch of billion dollar corporations trying to craft a socially progressive image that will entice customers, while openly supporting politicians who threaten the franchise. This matters, but it's also important not to miss the forest for the trees in this story. The message corporate America is delivering here could not be more obvious; they're completely fine with fascism because it doesn't interfere with the capitalist order and their bottom lines. Hell, electing Trump actually got them the mother of all tax cuts last time!

I hate to say it kids, but when I tell you fascism is an inherently capitalist reaction, I'm not speaking in metaphors here. The private sector isn't going to help us fight fascism, and neither are their in-pocket politicians or muppet stenographers in the media. If this is going to end in anything other than mass graves, it's going to be on the people to stop reactionary ruling class elites from driving the car off the cliff. Clearly, if it's a choice between working with nazis, or paying his taxes, you can pretty much bet guys like Jeff Bezos are going to find a way to get comfortable with fascism.

That's what I really mean when I say the liberal establishment would prefer fascism, to sharing.

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

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. 

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Globalization, Neoliberalism, and COP26 Promises

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Corporations Have the Power to Sue Governments Over Resource Extraction Policies

As a woman whose herky-jerky journey towards becoming a socialist began in the anti-globalization movement of the late 1990s, it's been pretty surreal watching the dystopian future I was fighting against back then, become today's everyday reality. In those days, plenty of analysts on the left warned that more than a fight about jobs and wages, the battle over free trade policies was a contest about surrendering state power to corporate control. With each new trade agreement, came new international rules and bodies to enforce a capitalist framework on the participating countries; essentially forever, and certainly regardless of who they elected. 

Although I didn't know anything about it at the time, this line of reasoning tracks closely with theories about neoliberalism published by David Harvey and Karl Polanyi. Harvey in particular argues that the foundational goal of neoliberalism is to restore and increase ruling class power, specifically at the expense of democracy and people power. As Yanis Varoufakis and the citizens of Greece discovered, even if you elect a nominally socialist government, these agreements can prevent you from enacting socialist reforms. Which begs the question, what happens when socialist reforms become literally the only way to save life on Earth?

Well, as it turns out the answer is nothing good. In this November 2nd, 2021 article by Manuel Pérez-Rocha at Truthout, we come face to face with the results when globalization's free trade regime comes into conflict with preventing climate crisis. The answer is, rich guys and corporations can sue your government in a corporate kangaroo court, to block action and/or collect millions, if not billions of dollars in damages. To the surprise of precisely no one, this system has primarily been used by resource extraction companies in the global north, against developing nations in the global south; because capitalism is nothing if not consistently racist.

All of which brings us to the same problem with the COP26 climate summit that we discussed yesterday; none of the promises world leaders make in Glasgow mean anything at all, as long as the policies and agreements they pursue at home continue to lock us into a dystopian climate apocalypse. Telling me you're serious about fighting climate crisis while simultaneously signing and enforcing trade agreements that allow corporations to sue for their right to destroy the world, is a little bit beyond just insulting my intelligence. Literally nobody at COP26 is going to talk about dismantling the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system, which means most of their bold pledges are demonstrably nothing more than hot air.

Which sadly, is par for the course I'm afraid.

- nina illingworth

 

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook.

Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

 

Nina-Bytes: Give the Devil Her Due

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

 

Explosive Report Says GOP Congress Members Helped Plan Jan. 6 Capitol Attack

Well my friends, it's good to know that during my recent illness-related absence, I really didn't miss anything important in the ongoing Pork Reich putsch storyline. You know what's coming next, right? I promised myself I wouldn't do this twice in one week, but I feel like events have forced my hand here. In the immediate aftermath of the coordinated fascist coup attempt in the U.S. on January 6th, 2021, I published an essay explicitly laying out the key details of what just happened. From that essay:

"This was a planned insurrection, attended by (ex) members of the military and American law enforcement, aided by Capitol Hill Police and the Department of Defense, funded by rich fascists, inspired by right wing media, as well as an openly fascist Republican Party and the goddamn president of the United States; this wasn’t harmless, people literally died and members of Trump’s fascist mob clearly had designs on committing politicized acts of violence against their perceived enemies."

As confirmed by every new piece of evidence revealed since, I was right. This was a planned coup attempt and the plotters do indeed reach into the highest levels of the Republican Party and the private sector. Of course its easy to say in hindsight that this was obvious, but frankly that wasn't a popular opinion in either the mainstream media or the online circles I was writing in at the time. Now, this October 25th article by William Rivers Pitt over on Truthout, really just puts the icing on the cake.

Pitt's report (which isn't paywalled) draws from two recent blockbuster stories in the mainstream media; one at The Washington Post, and the other in Rolling Stone. The first story reveals that a key team of Trump advisors, lawyers, and other conservative minions rented a space in the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. to use as a "war room" in ongoing efforts to overturn the 2020 U.S. election. Why did someone rent a "war room" if this was a political protest that spontaneously got out of hand? You'll have to ask Republicans; who are clearly lying because they're guilty of trying to run a coup to keep Trump in power.

The second report is even more explosive and damning; it's not every day you hear that a sitting Congressman offered Trump supporters blanket pardons in the event of a successful fascist coup after all. On October 24th, Rolling Stone reported that two January 6th (coup) organizers have described "participating in “dozens” of planning briefings" ahead of the coup attempt, with multiple Republican members of Congress and Trump White House staffers. As Pitt notes for Truthout:

"The report describes two January 6 protest insiders who claim they worked “back to back to back” with several Republican House members — Representatives Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert and Marjorie Taylor Greene — and their senior staffers, who they allege were “intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.”

Now this list of names is interesting for two reasons. First, it looks awfully similar to the list of people I (and others) insisted Biden's Department of Justice should immediately arrest back in March of this year. Furthermore, the list includes the name of Lauren Boebert; who actively live-tweeted out the location of the Speaker of the House during the coup attempt. Clearly, the Congresswoman from QAnon was quite busy in the post election period. 

Of course none of this is particularly shocking, but it does all add up to a conclusion so obvious even the American political class can't ignore it; January 6th was a premeditated attack on the U.S. capitol to overturn the results of the election. In other words, it was a coup attempt; and since it was conducted by fascists, it was a fascist coup attempt. Will the fact that everyone knows that now change one single thing about how this plays out? Maybe, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for justice if I were you.

Jokes aside, I didn't post this blog just for sweet "I told you so" action. This is serious, and the coup is clearly not over. As a rule, reactionary putsch attempts have to be stopped, and fascists have to be confronted. You don’t beat these people by giggling nervously and ignoring them; that’s how they beat you. Refusing to go after billionaire fascists and their in-pocket politicians after a coup attempt isn’t just cowardly, it’s suicidal.

Lock 'em up Merrick, or god help us all come 2024.

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

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Nina-Bytes: A Question of Priorities

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

Senate Quietly Adds $10 Billion to Pentagon Budget While Blocking Climate Action

Look, I don't want to say that the mainstream media always lies, because most of the time they don't really have to. As I've explained before, it's pretty easy to abuse context, or lack thereof, to distort how the news is perceived, while still technically reporting "the truth." Recently for example, I've watched this technique being deployed while reporting on various aspects of federal spending by the Biden administration. Consider for a moment the wildly different ways our record $778 billion defense budge for 2022, and the social spending in the budget reconciliation bill are being reporting.

Not only is the focus on reporting the highest possible spending number (over 10 years) when reporting the reconciliation bill, but the media also credulously accepts the complaints of so called budget hawk Senators demanding huge funding cuts for social and environmental programs. As Sharon Zhang notes over on Truthout however, nobody even bats an eyelash when those same "budget hawks" fall all over themselves to give the Pentagon more money than it asked for! Sorry kids; we're pawning your future so Lockheed Martin can bill the government for more Javelin missiles we absolutely don't need. This situation is not only absurd, but it's an active threat to what passes for American democracy. Oh, and also all life on earth.

As I've written recently; figuring out why Democrats can't pass the Build Back Better Act isn't a convoluted mystery. The answer is bald-faced corruption; anarcho-capitalist billionaires and corporations have bribed two Senators to sink it at all costs. Maybe you can argue that the political media in America can't report that because bribery is effectively legal. I don't agree with that argument, but it exists. A truly adversarial free press however, would at least report the fact that these guys are shoveling cash at a carbon-spewing war machine, at the same time as they're crying that the country's coffers are too short to pay for climate crisis reduction programs. 

The problem here of course is that we don't have a free and adversarial press. We have a corporate propaganda machine actively partnered with the war machine, to make bucket loads of money keeping America perpetually prepared for, or engaging in, another war. Social spending costs rich people money, while weapons contracts make rich people money; this isn't that complex. Obviously in an economy built on blood and oil, the survival of the species just doesn't rate. 

Maybe poor kids and polar bears should hire themselves some lobbyists.

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

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

Nina-Bytes: Big Oil, Political Will and Crimes Against Humanity

 

Editor's note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web.

Fossil Fuel CEOs Will Testify About Role in Climate Denial Before Congress

As announced yesterday, Congress is hauling in the CEO's of four major oil companies, and two powerful lobby groups, to testify (presumably under oath) before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Environment. The group, which includes executives from ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, will specifically face questions about the industry's role in supporting climate change denial. The hearing, which is scheduled for October 28th, probably wouldn't have happened without the threat of a potential subpoena; although subcommittee chair Ro Khanna was too polite to do more than imply as much in the media. The obvious question here however is, what exactly is Congress hoping to learn?

Did Big Oil collectively lie about fossil fuels and climate crisis? Unquestionably, yes! We've caught them doing so. Did these same companies fund climate science denial propaganda? Absolutely! Once again, we caught them red-handed. Furthermore, none of this is new information; I was reading about it myself in books like Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate" in 2014, and Oreskes and Conway's "Merchants of Doubt" way back in 2010. Frankly, these people have never stopped lying about fossil fuels and climate crisis! The fact that these executives and their predecessors are not already in prison for what amounts to mass murder, is one of the most galling injustices of our time.

If you're asking me in a vacuum whether it's better to have these hearings, or to not have them, when discussing the objectively genocidal activities of oil executives over the past five decades, my answer is that having them is better than nothing. As many in the media have already noted, there are significant potential parallels between this situation and the 1994 Congressional hearings that ultimately brought Big Tobacco down to size; or at least into court, to get sued. Maybe someone talks too much. Maybe someone gets caught spouting obvious lies under oath. I'm not so cynical I'd pass up a chance to fuck with Big Oil and see if they panic. But I'm not getting my hopes up either.

The reality here is that we already know who is responsible for the climate crisis. We already know fossil fuel companies knew what they were doing. We know they purposely mislead and deceived the public. Even if nobody in power will admit it, we know they're responsible for the deaths of millions already; with perhaps billions more on the horizon. There's no mystery here for the subcommittee to solve; no secret to expose on live TV. It's not a lack of knowledge preventing society from holding these folks accountable, it's a question of money, power, and political will.

Let's be very clear now. We don't need a hearing, we need to start making arrests; and Ro Khanna doesn't have the power to make that happen. These folks have openly destroyed the world with absolute impunity for forty years; telling obvious and outrageous lies to protect their profits. It's not a secret, everyone, including everyone in government knows; yet they're allowed to continue unmolested. That isn't going to change because of this hearing. Until oil executives start going to jail for what they've done, there's no reason to expect anything to change at all.

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

Updates available on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”