Arrests Orchestrated by White Supremacist Politicians and Capitalist-Funded Private Police Foundations
On August 29, Georgia’s Attorney General filed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) indictments against 61 participants in the effort to Stop Cop City. For over two years, this popular movement has done mass organizing to prevent green space in a Black community from being built over by a $100 million militarized police base. The Stop Cop City coalition has had mass marches, meetings, and sit-ins. Hundreds have attended city hall meetings.
Repression has not stopped the movement. On September 7, after the announcement of the RICO indictments, activists carried out an act of civil disobedience by chaining themselves to bulldozers, temporarily blocking construction at the site. “They knew that they potentially faced domestic terrorism charges [and] RICO charges, but they still decided that we have the power as people to fight back,” said Kamau Franklin of Community Movement Builders. “Stewards, organizers, environmentalists, community people, young people…you represent the core elements that have kept this struggle going. It’s through you and the people of Atlanta that we will Stop Cop City.”
The charges follow a successful petition drive that collected over 100,000 signers supporting a ballot referendum to give residents of Atlanta a vote to stop Cop City. The Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition gathered signatures despite police intimidation, slander, arrests, and the police assassination of activist Tortuguita. The false charges, indictments, and other attempts to portray organizers as thieves, conspirators, and terrorists show how desperate the capitalist government is to stop this popular movement by any means.
Corporations Building Private Police Armies
Funding for Atlanta’s Cop City comes from mega-corporations, including Coca-Cola, UPS, oil companies, Amazon, Norfolk Southern, Home Depot, Uber, Bank of America, Verizon, and more. Police foundations exist in almost all major cities to allow capitalists to openly direct police repression to enhance their profits. Major banks, insurance, oil, mining, tourism, and real estate companies fund the New Orleans Police & Justice Foundation.
Georgia Republican Attorney General and candidate-for-governor Chris Carr used his office to back the January 6 violent break-in at the Capitol. Like Jeff Landry’s in Louisiana, Carr’s gubernatorial campaign openly calls for police violence. This position goes hand-in-hand with their opposition to unions, higher minimum wages, workers’ and tenants’ rights, lower insurance costs, immigrant rights, anti-racist history, and quality public education. Carr’s and Landry’s campaign chests come from the same corporations that fund the police foundations.
Federal RICO Charges—Used Against Unions, Environmental Groups, and More
The government has repeatedly used RICO, the 1970 anti-racketeering law, to silence, intimidate, and repress the people. Corporations like Chevron have also been filing RICO charges. This writer, NYC solidarity coordinator for the 1982 Greyhound Strike that occupied the main bus terminal, was visited by the FBI (NEVER speak to the FBI) after Greyhound threatened to indict the Amalgamated Transit Union in a RICO case and destroy the union.
Corporations file RICO charges and other lawsuits against unions as a conspiracy to harm them economically, especially during a strike. When unions were illegal in the US, they were considered a terrorist conspiracy, and the rich are trying to bring this back. RICO suits target environmental groups and pipeline protesters also. While many suits have failed, defending against them has taken away precious resources and time from organizers. If the government succeeds in prosecuting the Stop Cop City defendants, the government will target any movement.
These indictments follow the indictments of Omali Yeshitela, Chairman of the African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP), and two APSP solidarity organizers, Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel. Troops surrounded their homes, setting off flash-bang grenades, and destroyed APSP offices in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis. The APSP has been targeted because of their important work in Black communities and decades-long opposition to US imperialist wars. Heavy charges are also pending against indigenous and other water protectors and pipeline protesters, as well as anti-racist student protesters in Tampa.
Why Is Repression Ramping Up?
Atlanta’s Cop City is not the only center for police repression in the works. Last month, police and their capitalist funders proposed a $330 million “tactical village” in the predominantly Black neighborhood of West Baltimore.
Seeking greater profits, capitalists are turning to militarism, prisons, and war, paying for this by cutting social programs while attacking civil rights. Stagnant wages and inflation in rents, food, healthcare, and insurance are causing greater and greater hardships for workers and oppressed people. More migrants are detained, and racist police murders continue unabated. Fossil fuel companies reap billions in subsidies while oil and gas drilling permits are handed out at record rates. These repressive and destructive actions are not just the outcome of bad politicians or policies; these are features of the capitalist system destined to get worse unless we push back as a united force. Republicans lead the charge in attacking the people, but Democrats have also played a leading role in subsidizing corporations and raising war budgets with the stated aim of dominating the world by economic and military means.
What We Don’t Stop Abroad Is Coming Home to Us
In Colombia South America, Coca-Cola-funded death squads that killed union organizers at their plants. The Biden administration has used more than $100 billion of our tax dollars to put cluster bombs and tanks in the hands of Nazi soldiers in Ukraine. The Department of Justice has admitted that violent white supremacists are the number one terror threat in the US but does nothing about it.
70% of the federal budget goes to war profiteers. The military-industrial-banking complex now dominates the civilian sector, and this control is reflected in government policy. We cannot divorce low wages, racist violence, repression, union busting, and cuts to critical programs from increasing US militarism and endless wars. We need to see that the direct control of corporations over federal, state, and city budgets, and the police is connected to the worsening climate crisis. Because of the corporate control of the government, price-gouging companies rake in record profits while we struggle to pay for food, our mortgages, rent, and bills. Repression is growing as the capitalists prepare for more resistance. But repression and economic, social, and political attacks on our lives will breed resistance too. We can take inspiration from the Stop Cop City movement. Show them solidarity now:
Contact the Georgia Attorney General: law.ga.gov, (404) 458-3600
Contact the Atlanta City Council: atlantacouncil@atlantaga.gov, (404) 330-6030
Donate to the Community Movement Builders: https://cash.app/$cmborg