“A Day at the Park/A Night of the Iron Heel”
(NOTE: After the May 30th riots in LA protesting the death of George Floyd, I was asked by Megan Garvey, one of the senior editors at the LAist to write an opinion piece on the events. I wrote it in June, but I asked that they hold off publishing it until I finished the other photo essays I already planned out. Which I believe would take about two months. Instead it took five months and I was only able to turn in my opinion piece a week before the election, by which time most of what I originally wrote had become obsolete, and my predictions had been proven wrong. Hence the editors at the LAist and myself decided it couldn’t be published in its entirety. Unfortunately it was also one of the best articles I’d written, so I decided to post it on my own here.)
“We are in power. Nobody will deny it. By virtue of that power we shall remain in power. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In the roar of shell and shrapnel and in the whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. You have been in the dirt since history began, and in the dirt you shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words — Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power.”
“The Iron Heel”
Jack London
In 1908 Jack London published “The Iron Heel” in which he wrote out his prophecies of what would happen in the United States in the coming years: First there would be a great accumulation of wealth. America would be one big party, until the world’s financial markets crashed creating a worldwide depression. Foreseeing not only the prosperity of the Roaring 20‘s but the Great Depression of the 30‘s that followed.
In the rest of the world, Japan would conquer the far east and join with Germany in starting a world war. He predicted though tempted, the United States would stay out of the conflict — he failed to envision the attack at Pearl Harbor, that dragged the originally reluctant U.S. into the war and ultimately doomed Japanese domination of Asia. It’s strikingly one of the few events he was unable to foresee.
He wrote with remarkable accuracy how the labor unions would become incredibly powerful during the depression, demanding more pay and better working conditions. However he also foresaw how specifically the steel, iron, and transportation unions would sell out to the corporations after getting concessions that would make their members lives a comparative paradise.
“They were set apart from the rest of labor. They were better housed, better clothed, better fed, better treated. Good dwellings, modern and sanitary, were built for them, surrounded by spacious yards, and separated here and there by parks and playgrounds.” London was already seeing the inevitable emergence of suburbia that became reality in post World War II America.
Ultimately these unions would slowly weaken and go soft with their well- fought for comforts, and eventually their children, and children’s children would loose all the reforms they had fought so hard for. As for the middle class: “The sturdy skeleton of it remained; but it was without power.”
The dismantling of workers rights in the former Labor strongholds of Scott Walker’s Wisconsin and republican Michigan would prove this out.
As the middle class evacuated the cities for the suburbs, those left in the inner cities are what London called “The People of the Abyss”. Through decades of neglect and repression their lives would be made below livable. Whose only life options would be prison, death or a lifetime of dead end labor.
“The people of the abyss, were sinking into a brutish apathy and content with misery. Herded back at the bayonet point to their tasks in the cities, there they broke out in ever recurring mobs and riots, they had nothing to lose but the misery and pain of living. And to gain? — nothing, save one final, awful glut of vengeance.” He even points to Chicago as being the one of the largest epicenters of these riots.
These inner city dwellers would be kept under control by police forces or “Military Mercenaries.” He said these mercenaries would be officially of the government of the people, but in fact they would be wholly in service of the Oligarchy.
“The Mercenaries constituted a race apart. They dwelt in cities of their own which were practically self-governed, and they were granted many privileges. They were losing all touch and sympathy with the rest of the people, and, in fact, were developing their own class morality and consciousness.”
We are only now beginning to see the realization of this Dystopian nightmare notably documented in Radley Balko’s Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces. (NOTE: When I wrote this in June I believed that London was referring to the militarization of the local police forces. However since then there has been a rise in the Right Wing Militia Groups aiding the police. Which indicates that London’s description of nationwide “Military Mercenary Force” will prove more accurate.)
During this time a handful of secretive powerful intellectuals would be the driving force behind the creation of an Oligarchy, which began a slow and silent takeover of the government until “the captains of war will be commanded by the captains of industry” . See what Smedley Butlers wrote in “War is a Racket” in 1935:
Their power and control would not be revealed in a quick and immediate takeover, but a patient methodical subversion, chipping away at democracy over time, most easily justifying it with the threat of terrorism. Terrorism that they themselves would either openly provoke, or secretly manufacture. Until democratic voting was an empty joke, and the presidency itself a powerless occupation, slash pseudo monarchy such as the Bush and Clinton family political dynasties. And perhaps the beginning of a Trump family dynasty. Jane Mayer gives the most recent chronicle of this process in her ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right,’
While presidents and politicians came and went, real power would be consolidated by this small secret group of intellectually brilliant Oligarchs, which London named “The Iron Heel”.
“And through it all, with a serenity and certitude that was terrifying, continued to rise the form of that monster of the ages, the Oligarchy. I cannot lay too great stress upon this high ethical righteousness of the whole oligarch class. This has been the strength of the Iron Heel, and too many of the comrades have been slow or loath to realize it. Many of them have ascribed the strength of the Iron Heel to its system of reward and punishment. This is a mistake. Out of the ethical incoherency and inconsistency of capitalism, the oligarchs emerged with new ethics, coherent and definite, sharp and severe as steel. With iron hand and iron heel it mastered the surging millions, out of confusion brought order, out of the very chaos wrought its own foundation and structure.” For descriptions of two of the strains of this hundred-headed Hydra see Nancy McLean’s “Democracy in Chains” and Kurt Anderson’s “Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America”.
In his day London apparently encountered one of these secret collectives, still in their infancy, which he describes and named “The Philomaths”. It seems to be the same type of elite secret society that JFK was aware of a half a century later, by then in full bloom, and who he was referring to in his speech months before his death.
Today while many look with eager anticipation at the fall of capitalism, as its current state seems unsustainable, London warned more than 100 years ago that from the rotting corpse of capitalism will not emerge a new form of Democratic Socialism, but the rise of true Oligarchic Fascism in America. This Oligarchy or “Iron Heel” he wrote would eventually crush all serious resistance for 300 years before it would be finally overthrown, ushering in “The Brotherhood of Man”.
112 years later
May 30th 2020
Los Angeles, CA.
I am used to seeing videos of cops beating and killing black people, and those videos eventually moving off the collective timelines, and then ultimately dealing with the frustration of the police completely getting away with it 99.9% of the time.
That’s what I sincerely believe is going to happen again, so I tried not to get emotionally involved in the whole story. But the situation was impossible to shake off. Social media was awash with the images and video. And every time I saw them it stuck in me and didn’t leave. It never does.
Curiously for some reason this story, unlike countless others that happen everyday and vanish, wasn’t going away. More and more people chimed in on the narrative, and the feelings of frustration and hopelessness about what I saw as the eventual outcome just kept piling up inside my guts.
Encase it’s not known I’m a career homeless black man living in Los Angeles. I sleep in the alleys in the general vicinity of the Fairfax District where Pan Pacific Park is located. I heard there was gonna be a protest in the park the day before. Because of an old hip injury I needed a shopping cart to get around. That morning I was thinking of asking someone to keep an eye on it while I go down into the park and take some photos of the protest.
But when I went to get some breakfast at Coffee Bean on Third St., I was taken back by the number of people with professional cameras. As people began to arrive, it seemed like a minute wouldn’t pass without seeing someone with mid range to high- end Canon, Nikon or Leica in their hands or around their neck. Sometimes two cameras at the same time. I started to think there was nothing I was gonna photograph down there that any of these photographers weren’t gonna get. Besides I don’t like shooting just for the sake of shooting. I’m no fan of big crowds of any type, and I didn’t know where I was gonna put my shopping cart. That was three strikes for me.
I stopped there at Coffee Bean and sat on the ground. Because of COVID-19 they no longer put out chairs on the patio. My friend Derrick was also there to use the internet. He’s homeless too, but he always brings his own foldable chair.
I sat there on the concrete and watched people headed to the park with their cardboard and paper signs, most often in groups of people or with girlfriends and boyfriends. The atmosphere was very calm and peaceful as people walked by, almost cheerfully. I started taking out my various cameras and photographed them as they passed by from a low angle. Hopeful if I could get one good shot the day would be worth it.
People who I knew in the neighborhood would occasionally walk by me and ask me what I thought of it all. And whether this was gonna be like the ’92 riots?
I assured them that was impossible. The burning and looting and rioting in ’92 was all done in south central, where the cops let them have at it. They wanted them to burn their own neighborhoods down. To teach them a lesson on how much they needed the police force.
But this was too close to the people of power. They won’t let it happen here around all these $2.5- $5 million dollar houses. Because they had the power to hold the cops accountable if shit kicks off. This is too close to Beverly Hills, Bel Air and the Hollywood Hills, where the people of power live. No way the cops would let anything happen here.
There were still no bad vibes in the air when the reports started to come back that there was trouble. On Instagram and Facebook, posts were coming in that the protest had gotten ugly. But as I was watching the same people who had come with their signs walking toward the protest earlier, who were now walking back, nothing seemed unusual. That same peaceful calm feeling pervaded.
Then a friend of mine down the street posted on Instagram that an angry mob had set a SUV on fire just two blocks away from where I was. What??? I couldn’t match that with the people in front of me. There was nothing on their faces that indicated anything was amiss. There was no anger or confusion in the air at all. What was going on?
People started coming back saying there was fighting up on Fairfax, and that the cops were starting it. The news from social media and people I was talking to was getting hairier. Now there was talk of looters. I was thinking why would the cops start shit up on Fairfax. Why would their bosses LET THEM start shit on Fairfax?
I started to hear shotguns and large booming sounds that seemed to come out of the sky. Talk coming back now was the cops were now firing tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters. I still wasn’t grasping it. Usually when something like this is about to happen, I can feel it in the air. But sitting there I wasn’t feeling any danger or tension that corresponded with what people were saying, and the battle sounds I was hearing.
It was around 4 o’clock when I started seeing people moving towards the park again. However these weren’t protesters. Young men and teenagers, Blacks, Latinos and I was surprised how many Whites were walking in groups, but they weren’t carrying signs and they didn’t have any girlfriends with them. They had masks on, but not for COVID-19. Some were in black from head to toe, and they were headed towards Fairfax. It was obvious that as word went out about the rioting and looting what they were there for. They weren’t here before because they were not interested in coming to peaceful political protest (anymore then I was), but now that it was turning more action packed…well.
My friend Derrick who was still in front of Coffee Bean with me in his own chair, got up and said “We better get out of here, I can feel it coming our way.”
I didn’t agree. Where we were, there was only a Coffee Bean and an Organic bedding and mattress store. If there is going to be any looting it’s gonna be on Fairfax with all those shoe stores.
But I was finally starting to feel something, and I had been sitting there all day anyway, so I gathered up all my stuff and left, walked down the alley to another stoop to sit, and figure out what I wanted to do.
I was sitting there for a while when I started seeing people walking down the street carrying organic beddings all wrapped up in plastic. I later found out soon after I left, that the mattress store and Coffee Bean got busted into.
NOW I could really feel the tension. When the announcement went out of a city wide 8 o’clock curfew, the sky over these $2–5 million dollar homes was darkening, as it filled up with the chopping sounds of police helicopters and thin films of smoke.
— — — — — — — — — — — -
The next day I was beginning to grasp what had happened. Not the events themselves, but what they meant. Talking to the people who were in various parts of the neighborhood when things kicked off, it turned out they didn’t just let the riot and looting occur on Fairfax. But on Melrose they had several hours of looting before the police were even seen. And they even let the protests reach all the way to the heart of Beverly Hills: Rodeo Drive???? One of the wealthiest parts of the city??? This is where the people in power were!!!
Then it started hitting me. It always gave me a headache to listen to people’s over emotional opinions, loopy conspiracy theories, and naive primitive postulations about political situations they had neither the knowledge or intelligence to grasp. But in that context my own words had come back to haunt me.
“They won’t let it happen here around all these $5 million dollar houses. Because they have the power to hold the cops accountable if shit kicks off. This is too close to Beverly Hills Bel Air and the Hollywood Hills, where the people of power are. No way will they let anything happen here.”
I suddenly realized that was one of the most naive, stupidest things I had ever said in my life, and I genuinely believed it until this very moment. I honestly thought the powers that be lived here, or at least close to these $5 million dollar houses. What they LET happen 30 years ago in South Central, and they would NEVER LET it happen here.
But I had left out of the equation 30 years of exponentially accumulated wealth, not by the 1%, but by the top 100, maybe even just the top 15 people in this country. They had concentrated so much wealth and power into their hands over the last 30 years, that $5 million dollar homes in Beverly Hills was now the equivalent of South Central to them!
The powers that be were no longer here, or anywhere near here. They lived in a galaxy so far far away, that they could watch Beverly Hills burn as if it was Compton. On an intellectual level I knew this. When I ran into people who talked about how I hadn’t made anything of myself, I pointed out that a billionaire riding by here could say the same thing about them. And seeing the us of side by side, me with my shopping cart, and them in their Mercedes SUV, from their level of wealth they wouldn’t make all that great a distinction between us.
Their petite bourgeoisie self importance was such a joke. They refuse to believe they were as expendable as I was. It was a dream of mine to be there the day they found out that wasn’t true. Because it wasn’t new to me. I grew up knowing my life was expendable. It was one of the first things one learns growing up black…back when I was growing up anyway. In my fantasies that are directly inverse to my powerlessness, I imagined gloating when they observed how useless they were in the larger context of REAL power and wealth.
That was the dream, but now the dream was reality. And I didn’t feel like gloating at all. In fact…..I was overwhelmed with grief realizing so many lives were worth nothing. And should it come to necessary sacrifice, the potential of them all being so easily wiped out. My perpetual anger, hate and most sick and twisted desires of revenge, seemed to me now of microscopic importance.
I felt this crushing disappointment to my naive optimism that I hadn’t experienced since I was a teenager. The optimistic teenage love for the humanity that is slowly calcified and calloused by the years of actually physical contact with humanity. In that moment I was no longer conscious of all the whips and scorns I had endured over a lifetime. For some very brief moments I was what I was before I consciously developed the scar tissue to prevent me from living the rest of life experiencing the world like an open wound. I was re-experiencing that youthful state of painful naivety, right before finding out what the real world is like, at the age of 51.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
QUESTION: SO IT’S NOT ABOUT RACISM, IT’S MORE ABOUT CLASSISM?
BUMDOG: “It’s not about race, it’s about class” is a phrase that stands on equal steps as: ‘ALL LIVES MATTER’ “The Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.” “Segregation had nothing to do with racism.” “The Holocaust never happened.” And my favorite “The American Indians were all killed off in self defense.” They insist on these beautiful lies because the world would be a much more beautiful place if they were true. But they aren’t true. And the world is a much more uglier place because they aren’t.
It is a phrase that at worst is deliberately deceptive, and at best a high purely intellectual point of view. It’s so high that it has nothing to do with anything down in the real world. Or as Woody Allen said, “The problem with intellectuals is you can be absolutely brilliant and still have no idea what’s going on.”
To a certain degree it’s clear that there’s no fundamental difference between races. But to conclude from that fact that there is no such thing as racism, shows someone is just living in a world of theory in their own minds, and confusing it with the real world everyone else lives in. It’s a mental state that says: If there is no rational reason for something to be happening, then it isn’t happening.
They completely leave out human experience. They, as white people, may have no experience of being racially discriminated against for being black. But they, as white people, may have been discriminated against in terms of their class status. So according to their experience, racism doesn’t exist, just classism. And when blacks recount experiences of racism to them, whether by the police, getting jobs or housing, or just randomly everyday events, just because of their black skin, these intellectuals scoff at them. “Oh you silly, silly people. You aren’t discriminated against because of your race. You’re only discriminated against because of your class. Same as me. You just need a good historical, sociological education on the subject.”
Then you will hear some white women intellectuals who will admit that racism does exist, but only to add that sexism is even stronger. A view they establish on their non-experience of racism, their own experiences with sexism, and watching Hillary Clinton not being elected president… twice. Their conclusion to that is: privileged, college educated, white women elites are more discriminated against than black men. Of course only a few of them come right out and say it like that, because most are smart enough to know how ridiculous it would sound out loud.
FOR YOU CLASSISM AND RACISM DON’T HAVE THE SAME EFFECT?
There is a quantum difference between the two. And I am speaking from experience, not from a college educated thesis I’m writing. I know what it’s like to be black in incredible racist environments. I also know what it’s like to be discriminated against because of classism, myself also belonging to the lowest class in society pushing a shopping cart around one of the wealthiest cities in the world. I’ve experienced the ill effects of both, from all different classes and races. There is a difference between racism and just being discriminated against. You can be discriminated against because you’re poor, for example in an expensive clothing store or restaurant where they may not bother to serve you. However if they find out that you are not poor and can actually afford whatever it is they are selling, their attitude, treatment and opinion of you can change on a dime. And this is where racism and classism can overlap. Not where racism ends and classism begins, but where what race you are in defines what class you’re in. Because for many if you are black, you belong to a certain class, the lowest class, and they don’t care if you are driving a Mercedes or pushing a shopping cart.
Racial discrimination is different from what you could call honest racism. Honest racism is not just discrimination, its also an open desire to control, humiliate, torture, rape and murder. It’s also one of the many reasons why people who are blatantly prejudice, resist being called “racist”, because they say they don’t want to humiliated, torture, rape or murder black people. Or at least they aren’t OPEN about it, but these same people will make endless excuses for it when it actually does happen.
Racism has nothing to do with classism. They can hate black people, and if they find out you personally are worth a billion dollars that hatred might increase or decrease, depending on which way they swing.
If you are white you can escape the discrimination of poverty, or your “class status” if you want to be more vague about it, and that would be the end of it. But if you are black you can raise yourself above all of your circumstances, and still be thought of as the lowest of the low, and still have to deal with racism everyday of your life. Not being just discriminated against, but people being able to control, humiliate, and murder you, and get away with it. And knowing it’s not just you, but something your children, and children’s children will have to deal with it as well.
That’s the kind of experience these “it’s not racism it’s classism” types can’t even conceive of. In fact it’s hard to conceive of it even while you’re experiencing it. Just listen to Elijah McClain and George Floyd’s last words:
I
TO YOU THIS PURELY INTELLECTUAL POINT OF VIEW IS A HINDRANCE TO PROGRESS?
No, I think it’s a hindrance to anyone who isn’t purely intellectual. There has been a historic shift in thinking in America. Some people are comparing it to the sixties. I wouldn’t know I didn’t live during the sixties. But it’s definitely the most powerful shift in consciousness I’ve experienced during my lifetime.
This shift is from a purely intellectual and practical thinking consciousness to a very emotional empathic consciousness. The white intellectuals and pragmatists are complaining that the protests are too emotional and reactive. Of course they are emotional and reactive, if they weren’t emotional they wouldn’t be happening at all. Intellectually speaking everyone knows about police brutality, but they’ve reacted the way intellectuals always do: observe and comment on it. And this observation and commentary is what they consider “action”. And pragmatists will say there is something wrong with what’s happening but will only support “practical action”, which 95% of the time means just accepting the situation as it is as a matter of pragmatism.
But this time, and why this time is up for infinite debate, this time white people reacted not intellectually but emotionally. They don’t want to just comment on it anymore. For the first time their empathy was with the man slowly being killed, not with finding justifications for him being killed. For the first time they didn’t care whether he had broken the law, whether he was resisting arrest, or if he was drunk or on drugs, or he had a criminal record. Again why this time after all these decades is a mystery, but this time they were sensitively empathic to the point of pain, and said this must stop, and they don’t care how practical or impractical an approach has to be taken.
However it must be pointed out this was the white Americans reaction. Black America’s reaction was something different. For us watching it caused a collective depression. We saw this and just gave up. The thinking being “This is never gonna stop. They’re gonna keep on doing this to us and nothing is ever gonna change.”
Metaphysically it’s only when you let go, and surrender things happen. And that’s what occurred. The moment we gave up was the same moment White America finally decided to do something.
I’m talking about this shift in consciousness with Black Americans because that’s my culture, and White Americans because that’s the dominant culture. What this shift in consciousness was, if there was any, in the American Hispanic, Asian and Middle Eastern cultures obviously I cant speak on.
DO YOU SEE THIS SHIFT AS PERMANENT OR JUST PEOPLE JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON?
First we have to acknowledge there are people who haven’t been affected at all by this shift in empathy. They are the ones who see empathy as a weakness. I know this conservative white guy I met in person once, who I argue with allot on Facebook. He himself was once brutally beaten up by the police, which even he says they did just for kicks. And he had a friend who he said was wrongfully shot dead in the streets by the cops. And he still supports the police against the protesters.
“If I can watch my friend get killed by the cops, do you really think I give a rat’s ass about police killing black people?”
When I questioned him further about it he came right out and said “I have no empathy. I’ve gone beyond that. I think personally you have to.”
There are people who honestly don’t believe in empathy even when it comes to themselves.
Still others go even further, getting real pleasure seeing people in pain. Who loved watching videos of cops beating up and strangling people to death. Watching George Floyd slowly die was not tragic to them, but a moment of entertainment. There is an incredibly large block of people like that in America, many of them in power. And not just police power. Which means it may be awhile before we see any real advancement from this shift in consciousness.
Still it is a shift. It’s a very visible viable change in the way many Americans feel about things. How effective it will be remains to be seen. Maybe the full effectiveness won’t be realized until years from now, but it definitely marks an important flash point in history.
And this shift in consciousness is really represented by the people who were against the BLM movement to begin with. Like Roger Goodell and John Elway saying they were wrong about the kneeling. There is no benefit to them to say that. In fact its the opposite because they are going against a large part of their fan base. NASCAR banning the confederate flag is huge, because the majority of their fans are actually for it. They aren’t jumping on a bandwagon, they are going against their own. They are in the minority and they are taking a stand no matter what. That also goes for the police who’ve been taking a knee which for many is career suicide.
People talk about these people jumping on the bandwagon. But who I see really jumping on it are all these people who never had a real opinion on it either way, and probably still don’t, all of a sudden talking about how wrong it is. The people in the march with Black Lives Matter signs, but as soon as they see me on the side street, women pull their purses over their shoulders, and men put their arms around their girl friends. All the “BLACK LIVES MATTER” signs in store windows who would still call the police if they saw me in front of their store too long. The people jumping on the bandwagon are those looters who didn’t go to the peaceful protest hours before, but when word got out there was a possibility of rioting, and being able to bust into the stores where they buy their $200 shoes, then they arrived. Those were the people jumping on the bandwagon. Along with the poetry jams for Black Lives Matter, bike rides for Black Lives Matter, meditation circles for Black Lives Matter etc.
There are also allot of black people doing their best to cash in on it all. The whole “buy black” campaign, while is founded in altruism, there are allot of blacks who themselves actually don’t give a fuck who the police fuck up as long as it isn’t them. Even the actual groups who call themselves Black Lives Matter, they are getting millions of dollars in donations, but what exactly do they even do?
WHAT ABOUT THE PROTESTERS PROMISING “NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!” TO THE ELITES IN POWER? DO YOU CONSIDER THAT A VALID STRATEGY?
When you talk about the “elites in power” you have to realize that there are two types of elites. The left wing Liberal/ Intellectual elites. And the right wing Power elites. Both of these sides are white, although the right have newly given in to tokenism as in Herman Cain and Ben Carson, and the left practice a “Equality among Elites”, Obama being the greatest example of that trope.
As far as “No Justice No Peace”, that threat only works on the left liberal/intellectual elites, who we know want peace for themselves, but only care about the facade of justice when it comes to the rest of the populous, in other words enough of a facade that it doesn’t disturb their peace. But the mistake that we’ve come to believe is by attacking them we are attacking power. We are not, because they have no power. Left wing liberal elitism is a privilege, the effect or result of the accumulation of power, not the cause or root of it. The real power is held by the right wing Power Elites. These Power Elites want neither justice nor peace, and the threat of taking away the latter to achieve the former is a belly aching laugh to them. Not only are we barking up the wrong tree, we are setting the wrong tree on fire.
HOW DO WE APPEAL TO THESE “POWER” ELITES?
You don’t. Or at least you can’t appeal to right wing power with left wing liberal ideals. They only understand power and force, they don’t give up anything unless something with superior power and forces compels them to. The American Revolution was not fought by common ordinary Americans against the King of England, but by the richest most powerful men in America, who even at that time were some of the richest most powerful men in the world, against the richest most powerful men in England. Slavery was stopped because the most powerful men in the Northern states resented the unfair advantage Southern plantation owners had with the free labor costs of slaves. Add to that a hundred years later the power of the North forcing those southern states to desegregate, not by negotiation but by brute force.
The only time the power establishment of any entity is defeated is by superior power, and circumstances that have evolved beyond anyone’s control. Not just by one or the other, but both in tandem. And to the right wing it is “defeat”. The right wing has no consciousness of compromise. Unlike the left which considers compromise a victory in of itself. To the right wing there is only absolute and total victory, or defeat. With any ‘compromise’ constituting defeat.
AND YOU THINK BECAUSE OF THIS THERE WILL BE NO REAL REFORM?
I’m saying these two factors have to be in play for real reform to occur. There is a lot of talk about Camden, NJ, where they defunded and overhauled their police department. And if you look closely those two factors were in play: superior power and circumstances beyond anyone’s control. Let’s look at the circumstance evolving beyond anyone’s control. Camden was broke. It literally didn’t have enough money to pay their police at union salaries rates. A union is powerful as long as the company is profitable. If the company starts going under, the union loses all its bargaining power. Police unions are one of the most powerful and politically influential in the country. But they were also up against a superior power in the coalition of not just progressive reformers, but also Republican conservatives all the way up to Chris Christie who was the governor of New Jersey at the time, who despite their law and order dictum, consoled themselves with the opportunity to cut costs and wipe another Labor Union off the map.
WHAT’S BEEN YOUR GENERAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE POLICE?
It’s been different at different times and places. When I was growing up the cops were just another gang you had to deal with. When you encountered them you never knew what was gonna happen. They could fuck with you for no reason, just like gang members. Like gang members they all seem to have some chip on their shoulders, and they’re just out to hassle you in general. Both could kill you if they wanted to, and both liked letting you know that. The police take it as an insult if you say to them they are no better than gangsters, and gang members take it as an insult if you tell them they are no better than cops.
The difference was the cops lived way out in suburbs like Simi Valley, and they came into the neighborhoods with the mentality of big game hunters. Or as Jack London called “Military Mercenaries’’. They came in as if everyone they saw was the enemy. While the gang members who lived there, they also had the same “anyone not in my clique is the enemy.” Their instinct was paradoxically warrior like, self preservationist, as well as self destructive, and having a good time while they did it. Whereas the cops seemed to function on purely sadomasochistic urges that their “qualified immunity” gave free rein to, and like the gangsters, having a really good time while they did it.
An ex cop once wrote that 15% of cops are just in it for sadism sake. And the fact that they know they can get away with anything. Then he said there are the 15% who are genuinely “good cops” incorruptible and who will do that right thing no matter what. The remaining 70% follow the lead of whoever they happen to be with. Which is clear when you look at the George Floyd killing. The three cops, who represent 70% of cops, were following their lead cop, who in this case represented the most sadistic 15%.
HAVE YOU HAD ANY POSITIVE EXPERIENCES WITH THE POLICE?
Yes. And that is important to note. When I was homeless in Santa Monica, I lived right on the border line between the City of Santa Monica and the City of Venice. Venice is patrolled by the LAPD, whereas Santa Monica has its own police force separate from LAPD. And in that one block on Rose street I got fucked with more by LAPD than I did in all my time in the city of Santa Monica. I later found out that Santa Monica kept their police force under control. The Santa Monica city council made it very clear that they would not allow their police force to intimidate and bully them. So it was basically against the rules for the police to fuck with people. And they didn’t, I had lots of run ins with the police while I was in Santa Monica, but they usually just told me as long as I don’t cause any trouble there won’t be any problems. Some even went so far as to say if I needed any help with anything to let them know. Which was really bizarre to me, and that’s was the first time I realized that most police officers didn’t even want to fuck with you. If they are told not to do it they won’t. There was those times when I ran into some cop who I knew wanted to fuck me up. But it was against the rules so they couldn’t do it.
When I read up on how Camden NJ disbanded the police and put it back together again under city council control, I realize that Santa Monica already had something very similar in place.
Also when I got back from Thailand in 2014 something had changed in the policing of the homeless in LA. There was obviously some sort of directive from the top to stop fucking with us. I see the cops coming at me and I’m thinking “Aw fuck, what now?” But almost all my encounters with the police have been of them giving me info on homeless resources. They’ve been going out of their way to be helpful. While I did run into cops who I could see wanted nothing better then to fuck me up, luckily they were with a lead officer who wasn’t gonna allow that to happen. Again in the George Floyd killing the cop on his neck was the lead officer.
WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT THE ISSUE OF “BLACK ON BLACK” CRIME?
It depends on how the issue is used. Because it’s almost always used by the police to comparatively minimize, or even justify police brutality and killings. Sometimes they even use it in the context of equal rights. “Blacks kill blacks all the time. Why can’t we police get it in on the fun?”
Idealistically speaking the police should have the OPPOSITE EFFECT to the murder and mayhem that occurs in a community, not just a smaller contribution to it. And when you add to it the blatant discrimination of the justice system and prison for profit industry, instead of being the answer to the problem of crime in the black community, all three are in fact huge contributing factors to the problems that black communities across the country have to struggle with.
On the other hand the term “black on black” crime when phrased primarily by activists in the black community, is used to rightly identify the most destructive issue facing black communities. But I still think it’s a misnomer. If you need something but don’t have anything, you look for someone who has something. That’s the basic criteria for theft and robbery. Then there are reasons separately for gang violence and drug violence. Although all three can intertwine, they are all three different types of crimes, and they are all committed for three different reasons. It is true if you commit a crime against a black person you are far less likely to get caught, or even sought after, then if you committed it against a white person. And there is an expressive self creative/self destructive dynamic that is intrinsic within Black culture. And a certain percentage of the human race are just born career criminals, it’s a matter of simply being born into an environment fertile to it. But black people don’t start out robbing, killing or selling drugs to other black people because that other person is black, or because they are intentionally trying to destroy their community. So trying to appeal to them to stop because “they are black, and they are harming other black people’’, or because it’s destroying the black community, is not addressing any of the root causes of their motivations to begin with. Which is why it often goes in one ear and out the other of the people they are trying to communicate with. And when I say “black person” I would have to put out a caveat for the Candace Owen types.
WHAT EFFECT DO YOU THINK THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT WILL HAVE IN THE FUTURE?
An amazing amount has been done already in the conversations, proposals and actual policy changes that have been made in just the last couple of weeks. But I’m not optimistic. Not at all. I base that pessimism on the two other popular movements I saw get crushed over the last decade: The Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011, and Bernie Sanders’s campaign in 2016. In both cases at first they were dismissed, then they began to swell and get serious popular support and it seemed like something was really going to happen. Then the corporate media completely blacked them out, and the Democrats co-opted their lingo while systematically dismantling them.
It’s almost hard to remember but Occupy Wallstreet had tens of thousands of people together across the country protesting. You would think something on that scale would not be easily stopped, much less ignored. But that is what happened to it. The media simply stopped reporting on it, and we know that the Obama administration while giving lip support for the movement was using the police and FBI hand in hand with Wallstreet to actively undermine it.. Which punches a hole in the argument that many progressives have, that its best to vote for Hillary or Biden because they will be easier to hold accountable and pull to the left when they are in office. Many of those protesters pinned their hopes, on the publicity they were garnering for the problems they were protesting, and on Obama responding positively to their protests. But the opposite happened. They were given hope, then that hope was snuffed out. Very symbolic of the Obama administration in general.
Same with the Bernie Sanders campaign. That was even more dramatic, the amount of enthusiasm and passion that it brought out in people was stunning. It was really unprecedented, and it went way beyond Sanders himself. People got so involved. My mother sent him $27, the first political contribution she had made in years. Even I started campaigning for him, went to rallies and phone banked. I saw people who hadnt done anything creative in years, suddenly bought markers and paints to make signs and tshirts. It was really a cultural happening.
You would think that the media would have covered him the way they covered Obama in 2008. But they purposely black out any news of him with shocking disregard. Rallies with hundreds of thousands of people, with nare clip on mainstream media. Then you had the DNC establishment openly say that they were gonna pick who the nominee was, and that the voting process was a mere formality.
That seems to already be playing out again. The media reported non stop the looting and violence, which if you added it all together wouldn’t even constitute one square city mile. But the protest in Hollywood with a 100,000 people peacefully marching wasn’t heard of at all, or downplayed. And the Democrats are doing their kneeling in African scarfs on capitol hill, while already making deals with the police unions to insure the best way to water down the “police reform bill” as to make it meaningless.
DO YOU THINK BLM MOVEMENT WILL HAVE ANY EFFECT ON THE ELECTION?
It could have an effect on regional politics. Something could be done about the voter suppression of blacks in Georgia and the rest of the south, which hasn’t been done so openly since the 50’s. There might be something finally done with Flint Michigan’s water pollution. Maybe even places like Standing Rock. There are several proposals to reform the police and systematic racism in housing. Whether they will win or not, the point is at the local political level people are fighting and not backing down. And that could have an effect on local elections of the Congress and Senate.
But as far as the general election, I believe there is zero chance Biden will beat Trump. (In June of 2020 Biden was leading Trump in the polls by double digits.)
WHAT DO YOU BASE THAT ON?
It goes back to when Obama was elected, in his inauguration speech he talked about how the cynics were wrong about him ever becoming president because there had been a paradigm shift in the ground beneath their feet. He was right. That was the most accurate statement I ever heard him make. And that paradigm shift that elected a black man named Barack Hussien Obama President of the United States in 2008, was the same shift responsible for electing a openly clownish, inexperienced, unqualified, con man, reality show star to be the most powerful man in the world 8 years later.
People wanted radical change in 2008, and thought the act of electing a black man, which was quite an extraordinary historical event at the time, with his promises of hope and change would do the trick. But it was all smoke and mirrors, as Obama campaigned from a strong left position that he never had any intention of following through with. No sooner was he elected he made it clear that the fact that he was black REALLY didn’t matter, that there wasn’t going to be any changes, and he wasn’t going to govern from the strong left, which is why most people voted for him, especially in the primary, but that he was going to govern from moderate conservative middle-right. Which is what the majority of people had just voted against, in the primaries and the general, and he followed through by being frustratingly disciplined at Bill Clinton’s “middle road” “third way” and “leading from behind” strategies for 8 straight years.
In 2016 people still wanted radical change, since they didn’t get any of it for 8 years, even though they voted for it 8 years before. And this time it was gonna be real change. There was going to be no more middle road. The democrats had had enough of the “Conservative Liberalism” of the Clinton/Obama eras. And the republicans were not going to elect another “Compassionate Conservative’’ to lead the party. While all the political analysts on the left and right were making their supremely confident predictions as to who was gonna win the primaries (and later the general), based on history, statistics and conventional logic, they were completely oblivious that the emotional FEEL of the country was that Americans were going to elect someone historically unconventional to either the right or to the left. That was one of the many reasons they couldn’t see that Hillary Clinton was never going to be president. That’s the main reason Jeb Bush was never going to be President. Neither were those who were just a little to the left or a little to the right like Elisabeth Warren, Ted Cruz or Rubio. And that’s why Joe Biden was not then, or now, or will ever be President. In 2016 America was going to vote in someone who didn’t just say they were going to change things, but someone whose very existence was going to change things. That was either going to be the Jewish Socialist or the Orange Reality Show Star. They didn’t allow the Jewish Socialist to be an option. So the country decided to give the Orange Reality Star a chance. Which even more than Obama’s election was an extraordinarily shocking historical event.
People are promoting Biden as a “return to normal”. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they made that his campaign slogan.They are again underestimating how many people would rather risk things changing for the worse than to return back to what that normal was.
SO YOU DON’T THINK ANYTHING WILL FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE?
All the levers of power are controlled by those who either don’t want any fundamental change, such as the financial establishments, the DNC and the corporate media, which you could probably classify as one single body. Or those, ‘those” being the Koch Brother Republicans, who want radical revolutionary change, but in the direction of abolishing all social programs that benefit anyone but themselves, such as public schools, medicare, social security, welfare, minimum wages, nationwide infrastructure etc.
The Democratic Party’s platform, and the mainstream corporate media message that works in lockstep with them is “Things will either stay the same for you, or they will get worse.” The DNC obviously offering the first option, and using Republican Party as the threat of the second. And the Democrats and the corporate media have been shocked that the public keeps choosing the Republicans, with the conscious knowledge that things will get worse, rather than things staying the same. Or as the democrats like to call it “People voting against their own best interests’’. I say “keep choosing” because it didn’t start in 2016, it was the 2014 midterms when the Democrats were appalled that not only didn’t they win back the house but lost the Senate, just when they thought they were doing such a magnificent job. Instead of taking stock in themselves, and wondering if maybe they weren’t doing such a great job. They simply blamed the voters for being stupid. That was a harbinger of what was to come two years later, and maybe the same this November.
(Biden would go on to win the Presidency aided by the greatest world wide cultural effort in history to remove a US President, a once in a hundred year plague, and two shocking GOP loses. One in Georgia due to Stacy Abrams extraordinary work in voter reform, and in Arizona caused by the equally remarkable organizing of the Native American communities who were adversely effected by COVID-19. Biden won 7 million more votes than Trump, but that didn’t tell the whole story. Like Hillary and her 3 million more votes in 2016, those 7 million votes came from running up the score in two states: New York and California. But Trump would win more votes than Obama in 2012. Pointing out that in 2016 Trump was elected by the electoral college by less than 80,000 in 4 swing states. In 2020 Biden won the electoral college by wining only 48,000 more votes in three states.
And that bares repeating: with 200,000 Americans dead from Corona virus, threatening nuclear war with North Korea with his Twitter account, and an uncountable four years of hourly “Duck Soup” news stories coming out of the White House, DONALD TRUMP WAS 48,000 VOTES FROM BEING REELECTED.
While most dems were dancing in the street with joy, the DNC itself was unable to hide their disappointment. They predicted a landslide, solidifying their majority in the house and winning back the senate, but they lost 12 seats in the Congress and only won the senate because of Stacy Abrams in Georgia’s two senate race runoffs. And were only 48,000 votes and a pandemic away from losing to Trump again. Predictable this underperformance the Democrats openly blamed on the voters, not themselves. However a few were thinking more clearly. If this was not just their best, but their greatest effort, and they barely won, what’s gonna happen next time? Most didn’t even consider that, as they were too busy cheering how the country has been “saved” and had turned away from disaster. But those remembering further back and thinking further ahead noted: isn’t this the way people reacted when Obama was elected? That his Presidency was a new era and the country had finally turned the corner on politics and race relations, completely oblivious to what lay ahead. People are crying tears of joy at the first woman of color Vice President, the same as Obama’s inauguration [and some of the exact same people]. But if Obama’s two sound victories over competent candidates laid the foundation for a Trump presidency, is Biden/Harris just squeaking by the most incompetent leader in history of modern world politics signifying a future, not only more horrifying than Trump, but more prepared, competent and permanent than him?)
THEN WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENING IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF YEARS?
There is no way of predicting the future like that. Or at least I can’t. We are certainly living in nonlinear times. The center is definitely not holding. Just when you think you’ve gotten used to the “new normal”, every time it seems the horror has plateaued, it goes up another level. A few weeks ago we were grinding on 100,000 Americans dead from a once in a 100 year plague. Today 100,000 people dead is a mere afterthought. In fact it’s nostalgic now to think back a few years ago when our only worry was nuclear war with North Korea. I think it’s becoming inevitable that in a year or two from now we will be living in circumstances that will make us look back on 2020 as the calm before the storm. What those circumstances will be I can’t conceive of, and really don’t want to think about.
AND YOU DON’T FEEL THERE IS ANY HOPE THAT WE CAN AVOID THAT DISASTER?
In many ways I don’t think we can avoid it, and in some other ways I don’t think we should avoid it. When Jack London wrote “The Iron Heel” in 1908 he was a politically active socialist. But even he predicted that it would be 300 years before socialism would be able to take hold in America. This centuries long prophesy completely caught his socialist contemporaries off guard with its pessimism. Primarily because they were optimistic in 1908, that a socialist revolution in America was just a few years away.
But London wrote “I should like to have socialism. Yet I know that socialism is not the next step; I know that capitalism must have its life first.”
Trump is not the cause, but an unconscious, and maybe even unwilling result of a constricting energy that’s happening all around the world: Brexit, Putin, Erdoğan, Modi, Duarte, Bolsonaro etc. the list is quite tiring. This authoritarian rebirth has a collective consciousness and will to live all its own, and it is determined to march through all left wing appeals to logic and empathy. Trump simply being the ultimate example of it.
There’s no doubt that our day will come, but there is no denying that for Trump, Koch, the Brexiters, Putin, Erdoğan, Modi, Duarte, their days are now. They are in power and by virtue of that power they, and those who come after them, will remain in power for a very long time. Maybe even beyond our lifetimes. That is until a superior power, and I’m not talking about “people power” I’m talking about “POWER POWER”, goes up against them along with circumstances that go beyond anyone’s ability to predict or control.
People talk about how another four years of Trump could turn this country into something like Hitler’s Germany. I think that’s over dramatic. For one because, and this is an understatement, Trump doesn’t have anywhere near the level of mind it takes to recreate the culture in that Germanic model, even if he did aspired to it.
However what I do see him “achieving”, is pulling back the curtain on the Oligarchy that this country has already become. Remember all the powers he has now he didn’t create, he inherited them from Bush and Obama. The Patriot Act, that Obama campaigned on toning down, but instead subtlety increasing its powers after he was elected, such as giving the president the power to arrest anyone without cause or trial. Trump now has those powers, and he won’t be subtle about using them. And when he does he will reveal this country to be no better than a Banana Republic. We don’t think of the country in those terms because of the comparative competency and efficiency in which the United States is run compared to a Latin American dictatorship. But another 4 years of Trump could irreparable cripple the competency and efficiency in which this government functions. Because he openly eschews those two qualities in preference to his own personal survival instincts, whims, and will power. Which are all the traits of an incompetent dictatorship, and personality traits that a huge swath of his supporters share. There’s a good chance he will imprint those personality traits on the presidency itself from here on in. His legacy might be that he openly and permanently puts the “Banana” in front of the American “Republic”.
But as to concerns of America becoming another Nazi Germany, you have to remember before World War II, the pogroms of eugenics, racial superiority, segregation and Imperial colonialism were not outside mainstream thought. The truth being in America it was mainstream thinking. The only thing that concerned most people about Hitler was that he was German. And their primary fear of him was not his racist laws and beliefs, again which many countries shared and were sympathetic to especially in the US, but the historic power and the willingness of the Germans to go to war with their neighboring white Europeans.
It was only after the Nazis had run their inevitable course and the world saw the results of those long held beliefs finally taken to their ultimate conclusion, that such catch words as racism, anti semitism and colonialism began to acquire negative connotations, as did the first genuine efforts to confront them.
In just a few short years what occurred was the most powerful transformation of human thought in the known history of the world. What about the 70–80 million people that were killed? I know it may sound pathological callous, but death and transformation can’t be separated. Both results are locked to each other.
Which is what makes me so dreadful and simultaneously hopeful for the future. Although I have to admit there is very little basis for hope, and overwhelming evidence for dread.
THAT’S A PRETTY DEPRESSING NOTE TO END ON.
Maybe, but you’re the one who just asked a career homeless bum sleeping in an alley for his political opinion. What were you expecting?
