The multiracial rebellion in Ferguson serves as an inspiration for workers everywhere. In the aftermath of the indictment, masses of anti-racists around the world are demonstrating in solidarity. The youth in the streets understand that they cannot wait for “justice” under the same system that killed Mike Brown. We commend these antiracist fighters in Ferguson for rejecting the bosses’ false promises. Many of them have come to see that capitalist “democracy” is a fake veneer for the rot of capitalist exploitation. Their growing understanding marks an important advance for the international working class. 
Anti-black racism is at the foundation of the racist treatment and division of all workers. Black workers are hit the hardest, and black workers will lead the fight to smash this murderous system. Ferguson has set a new standard for U.S. workers’ fightback. As black workers in Missouri rebel, the entire world watches and follows their lead. Ferguson has inspired mass demonstrations in Mexico, Haiti, Colombia, and many other countries.
State Power Rules
This is what capitalist democracy looks like: Michael Brown was shot six times by Ferguson kkkop Darren Wilson. Steered by the St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, a grand jury decided on no indictment. Wilson got away with racist murder because he was backed by the racist injustice system. Cops, courts, prosecutors, and juries — the whole state apparatus — are all controlled by the bosses. Consider:
In almost every case, murders by cops are completely legal. McCulloch is now batting 0-for-5 in getting indictments against cops who shot unarmed civilians (Daily Kos, 11/25/14). In Houston, grand juries haven’t indicted one cop since 2004; in Dallas, over a five-year period, grand juries looked at 81 cop shootings and returned one indictment (Daily Kos, 11/24/14).
Meanwhile, 14 teenagers — at least six of them black — have been killed by the Klan-in-blue since Michael Brown was gunned down in cold blood three months ago (The Daily Beast, 11/25/14).
Meanwhile, federal data shows that black teenagers are 21 times more likely than white teenagers to be shot and killed by police (ProPublica, 10/10/14).
Meanwhile, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot dead by a cop outside a Cleveland recreation center — for waving a toy pellet gun.
After more than a hundred days of national fightback since Michael Brown’s murder, how is it that racist kkkop Wilson is free to kill again without even a public trial? The answer is state power — and who holds it.
Under capitalism, the “state” — including all levels of government, the so-called justice system, the police, the military, the schools, and the media — is an instrument of ruling-class oppression and violence against the working class. As Frederick Engels pointed out in 1884, the state “is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel” (The Origin of the Family, Private Property and State).
Capitalism is a society based on exploitation, accumulation of profit, and private property. The modern state developed to protect the capitalists’ interests. Contrary to liberal misleaders like Barack Obama, the “democratic process” cannot possibly resolve the antagonisms within capitalist society. The state is no neutral player. While it appears to regulate conflicts from above the fray, its role is to ensure business as usual, regardless of how many workers’ lives are destroyed.
Leading up to the grand jury decision, every media outlet and politician preached non-violence and restraint. Yet racist Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency a full week before! Nixon has deployed 2,200 National Guard troops in Ferguson. Riot police are firing tear gas canisters, stun grenades, and beanbag munitions at protesters.
Under capitalism, “non-violence” means the working class accepts violence by the state and is not allowed to retaliate.
From Slave Patrols to Killer Cops
Legalized killings and mass imprisonment are age-old capitalist tools to control the working class. The first modern police force in what is now the United States, beginning in South Carolina in 1704, was the slave patrol. These forces hunted down and punished runaway and “defiant” slaves; they were a form of organized terror to deter revolts that might threaten plantation profits.
The original Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1865, just after the end of the Civil War. As Eric Foner noted in Reconstruction, America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, “In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired restoration of white supremacy.” In the mid-20th century, according to historian Diane McWhorter, the Klan formed alliances with governors’ administrations in states like Alabama and Mississippi. Throughout the South and Midwest, Klan members and local cops (often the same people) conspired to attack and murder civil rights activists.
Darren Wilson in the KKK?
So it’s not surprising that the so called cyber-activist group Anonymous has found evidence — reportedly from a mole connected to the St. Louis County Police — that links Darren Wilson to the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Or that three high-ranking members of the TAK KKK recently attended a support rally for Wilson in Imperial, Missouri — the hometown of Wilson’s wife, a fellow Ferguson police officer.
To this day, state-sanctioned racist terror against black workers and youth is an indispensable weapon for the capitalist class.
In 1991 in Los Angeles, a gang of five cops beat Rodney King while other cops watched.
In 1997 in New York City, a cop assaulted Abner Louima by shoving a broken broomstick up his rectum.
In 2005 in New Orleans, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a cop murdered Henry Glover before his fellow cops burned Glover’s body.
In 2012 and 2013 in Brooklyn, the cops killed Ramarley Graham, Shantel Davis and 16-year-old Kimani Gray, all without a single indictment.
According to the latest figures from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, black workers and youth account for 50 percent of the approximately 2 million people in U.S. prisons and jails, or about four times their percentage of the general population. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, black people in the U.S. are incarcerated at about six times the rate of white people.
The problem with capitalist injustice isn’t about “a few bad cops” or a few obviously racist prosecutors like McCulloch. The state apparatus is racist to its core, because racism is the lifeblood of capitalism. Bosses keep the working class divided by perpetuating racist ideology. Economic super-exploitation of immigrant workers pits them against black, Latin, and women workers, which in turn drives down the wages of all, including white and male workers.
As the sharpening global competition between U.S. and rival imperialists cuts into the bosses’ profit rates, racist attacks against workers are escalating. An economic crisis spells mass unemployment, budget cuts in education and healthcare, tuition hikes — and more killer cops. The capitalists need cutbacks to funnel their resources into the bigger wars to come. In their run-up to global combat, they are turning schools into jails with surveillance cameras and metal detectors. Their police are occupying black and Latin working-class neighborhoods. They are spying on and detaining Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian youth.
Why are they doing these things? To intimidate workers and discourage our fightback. The bosses fear that workers are fed up and won’t take their oppression much longer.
Revolution is Non-Negotiable
We didn’t negotiate out of slavery and we won’t negotiate our way out of capitalism. From slave patrols to the hyper-militarized cops of today, the bosses’ state is the sworn enemy of the working class. The youth in Ferguson are rejecting passivity and dead-end electoral distractions. The capitalist state cannot be reformed — it must be abolished with communist revolution. For that we need organized, revolutionary violence. Under the communist leadership of the Progressive Labor Party, the movement in Ferguson can be the beginning of an all-out fight toward revolution.
From Gaza to Ferguson to Guerrero, Mexico — smash racism! Smash the capitalist state!
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) fights to destroy capitalism and the dictatorship of the capitalist class. We organize workers, soldiers and youth into a revolutionary movement for communism.
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Thursday, December 11, 2014 at 3:27PM 