Tag Archives: Issue 1

Beyond Justice

By now everyone is familiar with some version of this story. Jamar Clark was shot by the police on the morning of November 15th and died a few days later in the hospital. What occurred leading up the shooting is something else entirely and will not be explored here. Most are likely familiar with what followed: an occupation of the 4th Precinct’s lawn, a night of rioting, a white supremacist shooting, and more. Eventually the cold set in and the occupation was cleared, leaving many waiting to hear whether or not the officers would be indicted for their actions.

Participation in these actions was diverse; a variety of perspectives came together in one place. However, the most dominant voices were those calling for the officers to be prosecuted. Smaller demonstrations centered around this demand took place regularly after the removal of the encampment.

On March 30th it was announced that the officers who had killed Jamar Clark would not be charged. This sparked a day of protests across the city. Remarkably, the tone of these demonstrations had changed very little, as the crowds continued to chant “prosecute the police!” On June 1st, the FBI announced they would not indict the officers either. Protests have taken place since then and have remained faithful to this slogan, demanding what has already been unquestionably denied.

This brings certain tensions to the forefront: we cannot appeal to one part of the system for justice against another part; it is all the same system. Putting the police on trial and even behind bars will never dismantle the entire structure of cops, courts, and prisons—in fact, one might argue it actually supports that structure. Yet protesters continue to demand such a thing.

It is important to remember that from the beginning the call to “prosecute the police” did not speak for everyone. Especially within the first few days following the shooting, the chant was commonly interrupted with “fuck the police.” From this perspective, the demand for prosecution is less about actually prosecuting the officers and more about bringing into the political system those who previously existed outside of it. To say “fuck the police” is to
say to the government: ‘there is nothing you can do for us.’ By channeling this sentiment into a political demand (for prosecution, something the government can do) it lowers the possibility of destabilizing unrest, the likes of which was seen on the night of November 18th. If people believe that there is something the government can do for them they can easily be bought off with a small carrot, and ultimately, swept under the rug while self-appointed leaders consolidate their power.

This would explain why there are still protests for prosecution despite its impossibility. People are still angry, as are we, that police officers get away with murder. But this is nothing new. The state has always had a monopoly on violence and the police are the armed guards of the social order. Let us not forgot that in this country the police evolved from slave patrols. In many of these past instances, people have recognized that there is no justice to be found from the same system that deals us injustice—and so they burnt everything down. The fires of Baltimore and Ferguson still burn fresh in our memories, but we can’t forget Los Angeles in 1992 or the countless revolts of the 60’s and 70’s.

In these cities, however, police continue to kill with impunity. So the answer is not simply to burn everything down, although perhaps that is a good start. We must simultaneously destroy the structures that dominate and oppress us (such as the police) as well as build our communities so that we don’t need things like police anymore. It is important in this process that we do not replicate what the police do, but instead reevaluate our understandings of law, crime, justice, and pretty much everything. A small glimpse of this world could be seen during the 4th precinct occupation in November, when everyone was given food and shelter for a short time. It was far from perfect, but it is crucial to know that these are not fantasies in our heads but realities that we create.

For a world without police!

Feeling Bernt Out?

You know that Trump is a scary fascist stirring up xenophobia and that Hillary is a war monger co-opting “feminism.” But here’s the thing: Bernie effectively served as the establishment’s sponge, soaking up the mess of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Bernie Sanders channeled the energy from these movements and campaigns into the mire of electoral politics, where despite Bernie’s best intentions, no consequential change will ever occur. Rather than bringing the “political revolution,” his campaign reigned in radical activity by reducing us to deferring to the state for change. Had Bernie won, any changes we got would have been too little, too late.

Now that Sanders’ moment has passed, you may be feeling disillusioned. Many of us have held hope in progressive politicians—Nader or otherwise—at one point in our lives only to have that hope dashed. The question is, where to go from here? There are a number of directions the anti-establishment energy upon which Sanders has capitalized within the US will flow. Some will resign themselves to attempting to push the Democrats to the left, supporting Clinton while gearing up to run another social democrat such as Elizabeth Warren next time around. Others, inspired by examples such as SYRIZA in Greece and Podemos in Spain, will try to build a new progressive party to challenge the stranglehold the two major parties have on political power in this country. Many will lapse back into apathy or despair and return to bingeing on Netflix. And some who are fed up with petitioning the government to stop being so terrible and who yearn for a life worth living will instead set out not to reform governance but rather to oppose it in all its manifestations, from the parties to the cops to the seemingly benevolent social workers. We want to lay out why the latter approach is vital. If there’s one thing we know it’s that we have nothing but contempt for this world of environmental destruction, continuous war and racial apartheid.

Agitating for the reform of the American state demonstrates a fundmanetal misunderstanding of the history of this world we inhabit. The economy, as well as the states and corporations which compete for control of it, was birthed by the extermination and enslavement of hundreds of millions across every inhabited continent on earth. Furthermore this destruction has never ceased, as it is necessary to continuously deploy new waves of expropriation and violence to resuscitate the economy during the periodic crises of capitalism. In this context, arguing that positive social change will come through electing a president who will more generously distribute the spoils of this destruction among the citizens of a single country is naive at best and incredibly self-serving at worst, ignoring all the past, present and future suffering upon which this wealth is based.

Aside from this, recent events in Greece clearly show that running so-called ‘movement friendly’ candidates in elections is a waste of valuable time and energy. In 2015 Greek citizens voted the party SYRIZA (an acronym standing for Coalition of the Radical Left) into power based on their promises to end austerity and confront the bureaucrats of the IMF and the EU, who were looting the country as payment for unsustainable loans that the Greek government had taken out (under pressure from these same institutions) back in 2008 in order to bail out the private banks. SYRIZA promised to play hardball in order to force these institutions to agree to write-off some of the debt. However, seven months into their reign, following an exodus of capital from the already emaciated Greek economy, SYRIZA signed on to a new round of austerity including further slashes to pensions and public spending and a massive fire-sale of public property, including priceless historic and environmental sites. All of these conditions were mandated by the IMF and the EU in exchange for further loans to keep the government solvent, even though the IMF’s own research clearly showed that these further cuts would cause the economy to contract even further, inevitably precipitating another crisis (leading to another round of loans and another round of cuts) a few years down the line. Many have argued that the reason these institutions pushed and continue to push loans they know are toxic is because they have never been primarily concerned with being paid the money “owed” them by the people of Greece. Rather they are carrying out their assault on the living standards of these people in order to discipline them for the fierce rebellions of the past eight years and in order to demonstrate to the much larger populations of states like Spain, Italy and France, all facing impending debt crises of their own, that resistance will not be tolerated.

Just as the IMF predicted, the policies implemented “with reluctance” by SYRIZA have proven to be even more destructive for the people and environment of Greece than the policies of the previous government which SYRIZA came to power by opposing. The reason SYRIZA was forced into going against its stated ideals is that it simply had no bargaining power with which to bring about the changes it promised. Heads of state are powerless to challenge the inherently violent logic of the capitalist power structure from within and devoid of any vision for life outside of the miserable train which they find themselves piloting. Every second we spend paying attention to them is a second we could spend talking to each other. Now, as before, the only real threats to capitalist hegemony in Greece lie in the street-based movements that are fighting borders, looting supermarkets to give away the food and attacking destructive industrial projects such as mining and logging operations. The only difference is that now the militarized police that are deployed against them are commanded by a party ‘of the radical left.’

Greek comrades discovered left-wing tear gas tastes just like right-wing tear gas. Syntagma Square, June 2015
Greek comrades discovered left-wing tear gas tastes just like right-wing tear gas. Syntagma Square, June 2015

At the end of the day the actions of governments are not expressions of “the will of the people” or any such nonsense. Governments, whether totalitarian or democratic, always have been and always will be tools by which to manage the inherently unstable process of accumulation, keeping it from overextending itself and bringing about the collapse of the whole tower of bullshit. Governments do this by channeling popular discontent into ineffective forms of resistance, granting cosmetic changes that do nothing to alter the underlying structures of domination and violently crushing those who persist in rebelling. Contrary to what we are taught in school, positive changes that have occurred since the founding of this country have not taken place because of the benevolence of patriarchs like Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR or LBJ. Governments adjust their oppressive structures only when they are forced to by the threat of insurrection. We should oppose them not in order to force them to give concessions or govern more humanely but instead to destroy the power that gives them the ability to so throughly fuck our lives over in the first place. The more we do this the more we will open space to live our lives as we wish.

There is no concrete program of how we should go about doing this. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. It’s not as simple as joining an organization or signing a petition. An autonomous and anti-hierarchical oppositional practice will take patience, experimentation, and a willingness to learn and be challenged on the part of each of us. There will be as many different practices of rebelling as there are rebels.

On The Slowdown

Author’s Note: The following, originally published in the first issue of NIGHTFALL, is put in a new light given certain recent events. The murders of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge by gunmen who were motivated by the high profile killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile has cops everywhere terrified that they might be next. Numerous police departments—including Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Anthony and Maplewood locally—have announced that cops will patrol in pairs rather than alone for the foreseeable future. Rather than engaging in tired moral debates on the justifications or lack thereof to kill cops, we should turn our attention to the fact that the police have had their coverage of the city cut down significantly. Do the math: if every officer who previously patrolled alone now has to travel with a partner, there are now half as many. It is now less likely to encounter officers on patrol, and more likely to have longer response times when crimes are reported. This means less harassment, less brutality, and more breathing room. It’s not clear how long these orders will remain in effect, let’s make the best of it!

A news story made the rounds this spring about rumors of a slowdown in the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th precinct. The story alleged that during the month of April there had been a 51% drop in stops in the precinct, a 45% drop in arrests, and a 32% drop in stop and frisks. We are told that the slowdown is because officers are reluctant to do their jobs if they will be chastised for it, supposedly related to some bad publicity MPD received after officers pulled over a Target executive. However, it is obvious to anyone that the heightened hostility between MPD and the local population sparked by the shooting of Jamar Clark is at least partly responsible.

Some community groups have spoken out against the officers’ unwillingness to “protect and serve.” We will join no such chorus. In fact, we would like to encourage MPD to do their jobs less, or not at all. We consider this slowdown to be a regrettably missed opportunity—just imagine how much more we could have gotten away with while the police took the scenic route to answer 911 calls! Squatters could have cracked a new home while MPD ignored a report of potential trespassing. A suspicious person or two walking down the street would be saved the frisk while out writing anti-police slogans that demoralized the officers even more, extending the slowdown. Unfortunately, not everyone missed the opportunity to capitalize on the strike; shootings have proliferated in the area so far this year. It’s important to emphasize that this occurs not because of the police’s absence, but due to the conditions imposed on these communities (often via police).

In any case, the residents of north Minneapolis were subjected to a few less interactions with the pigs this year. This slowdown simply directs our attention to the importance of conceiving of police not as a mythical entity but instead as a group of individuals who are tasked with controlling populations. We don’t say that to inspire empathy—the opposite, in fact—but to point out that as humans their control is not infinite. They utilize cameras, cars, and snitches to expand their reach but it is still far from total. Minimizing their capacity to function is in our best interest, not as a goal in and of itself but rather as a means to facilitate the transformation of life and the creation of new worlds.

Editorial from Issue #1

Why a paper? Why now? The past few years have been turbulent, not simply for the Twin Cities but for the planet. The fire sparked in Ferguson spread to Minneapolis last November as insurgent youth laid siege to the 4th Precinct on the Northside, but the police continue to kill with impunity. A blatant neo-fascist has been nominated for president of the United States. The current president continues to deport friends and loved ones while assassinating whole families with drones overseas. Every week brings chilling new reports from climate scientists that pretty much assure us that we are all doomed.

In the face of this a newspaper seems quite insignificant. However, in order to adequately confront these problems we need to reevaluate our approach. We are sick of remaining silent while politicians and activists monopolize resistance, incessantly assuring us that the structures of power will listen to our complaints so long as we stay passive. Please please don’t try to take things into your own hands. Fuck that. If we want something done we need to do it ourselves.

So expect perspectives from rebellions near and far. Expect takedowns of the myriad ways that people are kept isolated and afraid, from overt repression to more subtle forms of social management. Expect dives into the vibrant if often-supressed history of resistance right here in the land of ten thousand lakes. Expect jokes, if we can work up the nerve.

Until next time, stay free.