Big Brother’s Eye on the Hood
In a June 4, 2014 article in the New York Times by James C. McKinley, Jr., titled “Police and DA Team Up to Reduce Crime,”
“As part of a new template for relations between the two agencies, the district attorney’s office will provide the police with more than $20 million from drug forfeiture cases to pay for new technology. That money will go for security cameras, fiber-optic information systems and hand-held tablets that will feed police officers data about suspects…”
“The Police Department, in turn, will provide the district attorney’s Crime Strategies Unit access to more of the data it collects not only on reported crimes but also on suspects…
“The commissioner said he envisioned a ‘seamless web’ of information flowing between prosecutors and the police.”
In another Times article dated June 8, 2014 by Matt Apuzzo titled, “War Gear Flows to Police Departments,”
“Weighing 30 tons and built to withstand land mines, the armored combat vehicle is one of hundreds showing up across the country, in police departments big and small.
“…as President Obama ushers in the end of what he called America’s ‘long season of war,’ the former tools of combat—M-16 rifles, grenade launchers, silencers and more—are ending up in local police departments, often with little public notice….
“During the Obama administration…police departments have received tens-of-thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.
Putting two and two together
Clearly, the United States government is preparing for an outburst of outrage by working people at the increasingly deteriorating quality of life they must endure. Capitalism is helpless to stop the decline of living conditions. It must inflict austerity on workers in order to increase the rate of profit and accumulation of wealth among the tiny, one-tenth-of-one-percent who are the commanders of the capitalist class and their minions.
They will not aim these grenade launchers and armored tanks inside the gated communities of the wealthy. They won’t send drones into the backyards of the mansions to look through their windows to spy on their private lives. These weapons of mass destruction and the spyware associated with them will be planted in the communities of the poor and working class.
And while the CEOs collect billions in bonuses, the pennies, credit records and bank statements of the masses of working people will be scrutinized under a microscope to expose even the tiniest irregularity that can be used against someone, turning poverty into the ultimate crime.
This is the nature of a dictatorship—rule by force of violence by a tiny minority. It is barbaric. Capitalism is the highest stage of barbarism—there is no democracy under capitalism.
The only solution to this horror is to take democratic control of our society and create a world without hate, greed, war and injustice—a world where production is based on need, not profit—a loving and compassionate world where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
The only way to achieve this reachable goal is organize democratically and in unity and solidarity with each other based on our common interests and desires. We must stay committed to the idea that an injury to one is an injury to all. This is the fundamental basis of power behind our ability to create a new and beautiful world. We are the majority. Together we can win a new world!