The Whole Damn Criminal System is Guilty as Hell, Not the #A14 Protestors Who Stood Up Against It!
By Joe Veale and a member of the LA Revolution Club
December 1, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
As the imperialists—whom Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party has referred to as fouler, more monstrous criminals than mythology has ever invented or jails ever held—commit the most horrendous crimes against the people of the world, their system’s police, courts, and prisons work to keep the people they rule over “here at home” in control through murder and mass imprisonment. Millions are kept locked in their prisons, while their brutal murdering police routinely snuff the life out of an unarmed Black or Brown person. These monstrous crimes are not the problem, say the courts; it is the people who call them out as crimes.
On April 14, 2015 thousands of courageous people throughout the country took to the streets to protest police murder and brutality. They dared to expose the murdering, white supremacist nature of this system’s repressive forces after the powers that be had been working so hard to push resistance to their racist oppression back down since Ferguson had erupted a few months before. The protestors let society know that they weren’t going to let resistance just die down and allow murder after murder by police to become the new normal. People shut down freeways, blocked traffic, and stopped passenger trains by taking their protest to the railroad tracks. For this they are being dubbed criminals, they are being prosecuted and three have already been tried and convicted in Los Angeles (See, “No Jail Time for Political Resisters!: LA Fighters Against Police Terror on Why They Acted”)
The reality is that it is this whole system that is criminal, including the courts that enforce “the rule of law”, not the people standing up against it. Their courts almost never do anything about rampant police murder—and when they do it’s only because people go outside the "proper channels" and wage determined resistance—but they’ll prosecute people who stand on the railroad tracks, arms linked in righteous indignation and courageously call it out.
The #A14 protestors in Los Angeles have been prosecuted not for breaking the law, they’ve been prosecuted for taking a moral stand, for their courage, and for their willingness to go beyond the limits of normal protest that the real criminals find acceptable. The message that is being sent is, “We will continue to brutalize and murder people we have no use for under this system and anyone who refuses to accept this will suffer the consequences.”
Fuck that! We can’t let bullying murderers set the terms. Whoever you are, you must search your conscience and take a side. We can’t respond to the political persecution of #A14 protestors by cowering down and staying within the limits drawn for us by a system that carries out and justifies murder by its enforcers on a daily basis. We need to show no less courage than these freedom fighters who took a stand to say that murder by police must stop. We have to let all of society know how this system deals with people who speak out against its crimes and mobilize others to flood the courtrooms where they are being tried and sentenced, demand no jail time, and all charges dropped. If they want to jail anybody for committing crimes, than demand they jail the killer cops NOT the protestors. Check out, “It’s right to protest murder by police!: Oppose the Convictions of April 14 Protestors and Drop the Charges Against All Those Arrested for Protesting Police Terror." This movement needs YOU.
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