Earlier today, I sent the following letter (or slight variations thereof) to my elected legislators:
- US Senator Dick Durbin
- US Senator Tammy Duckworth
- Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky
- State Senator Laura Fine
- State Representative Robyn Gabel
So far, my congressional delegation has all made public statements questioning or condemning the police violence across the country, but I don't believe anyone in government has yet gone far enough.
I am posting the Senator version here as well to make it available to anyone who wishes to use it as a template for their own letters to their elected representatives.
Dear Senator,
My name is Larry Garfield. I am an Illinois resident in the City of Evanston and one of your constituents.
Like most of the country, I have been sickened by the events of the past week. Yet another American citizen was murdered by a police officer in broad daylight, for no reason other than the color of his skin. In response, Americans of all colors and backgrounds have taken to the streets to express their Constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. In protests across the country (and indeed even in other countries) people have stood up and declared that enough is enough, and police brutality must end.
In response, police forces in cities across the nation have attacked, gassed, and shot at peaceful protesters, injuring or even killing them. In more than 100 documented cases, the police have openly attacked, arrested, or fired upon journalists doing their job as members of the press. Several have been permanently injured by police officers. In Minneapolis and other cities, police have attacked civilians on their own property or even in their own homes.
Rather than attempt to de-escalate or address the immediate issue, or the long-standing underlying issues that led to this outrage, President Trump has openly and repeatedly called for police forces to be even more aggressive and brutal and "dominate the streets." In a speech on 1 June 2020, he declared that he would activate and send the US military to "quickly solve the problem." A threat to use military force against unarmed civilians is unacceptable. He also, curiously, invoked "second amendment rights," which would seem odd to those who hold that the second amendment exists to protect the people from an overbearing or tyrannical government; the government that Trump is threatening to turn against the American people. Like many, I fear his intention was to encourage civilian-on-civilian violence by his "base."
President Trump has repeatedly blamed "Antifa" for the violence surrounding many of the protests, despite Antifa not being an actual organization, and ample video evidence showing police as the aggressors in the vast majority of cases. He has additionally threatened to label "Antifa" a terrorist organization. As Antifa is not an actual organization, and wears no discernible uniform, this label being applied to these American civilians would authorize the use of deadly force against any American protesting in a way he dislikes.
Antifa is short for "anti-fascists," a position that all Americans should share.
President Trump also ordered federal agents to fire tear gas at peaceful protesters prior to an established curfew, seemingly so he could cross to a nearby church for a photo-op in which he held up a Bible, decried the rioters for harming the church, and then walk back to the White House. This behavior is unacceptable, it is unamerican, and it is illegal. This is all on top of his utter and catastrophic failure to manage the COVID19 pandemic, resulting in the deaths of over 100,000 Americans so far.
As your constituent, I call on you to take the following actions.
Immediately, publicly, and unequivocally condemn police violence and brutality against peaceful protesters and members of the press, call for the arrest of police officers who have assaulted peaceful protesters and members of the press, and the resignation of all police chiefs involved in such acts of aggression against law-abiding Americans.
Immediately, publicly, and unequivocally condemn President Trump's threats to escalate force against unarmed peaceful protesters.
Push for nation-wide structural reform of police departments, including, but not limited to,
- the immediate termination of the practice of selling surplus military equipment to police departments, as Senator Brian Schatz has proposed;
- the establishment of stricter policies regarding use of force nationwide, in accordance with the recommendations of the Use of Force project (http://useofforceproject.org);
- mandatory independent review boards and prosecutor's offices for police misconduct;
- the requirement that officer misconduct records be made public and available in a nation-wide database to prevent officers terminated for misconduct from getting a new job as a police officer in the next town over, as Senator Cory Booker has proposed;
- and the disbanding and reconstitution of new police departments in cities with the worst records.
Join with other Senators to filibuster any further judicial appointments or other business promoted by Senator Mitch McConnell that do not relate to serious police reform or constructive COVID19 response. Do it the old fashioned way if you have to, by simply not shutting up.
Call on your House colleagues to begin an inquiry as to whether President Trump's calls for violence against American citizens constitute an impeachable offense. (That Senator McConnell would not entertain such an impeachment is entirely irrelevant.)
If you are unwilling to take these steps to protect our fragile and actively threatened democracy, then I ask you to resign and be replaced by someone who will.
The Reichstag is burning. The next escalation may cross the line into martial law. It is time for all citizens, but especially public servants and government leaders, to declare, unequivocally, that never again is right now.
lol
English Wikipedia:
"The Antifa movement in Germany is composed of multiple far-left, autonomous, militant groups and individuals who describe themselves as anti-fascist. The use of the epithet fascist against opponents and the understanding of capitalism as a form of fascism are central to the movement.
The Antifa movement has existed in different eras and incarnations. The original organisation called Antifa was the Antifaschistische Aktion (1932–1933), set up by the Stalinist Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the late history of the Weimar Republic and which regarded all other parties than KPD as fascists.[1] In the Soviet occupation zone and East Germany, the remnants of the first movement were absorbed into the ruling communist party and became part of its official apparatus, ideology and language,[2][3][4] with "anti-fascism", understood primarily as an anti-capitalist and anti-imperalist ideology, elevated to "state doctrine" of East Germany.[5]"
"The KPD did not view "fascism" as a specific political movement, but primarily as the final stage of capitalism, and "anti-fascism" was therefore synonymous with anti-capitalism."
Do you believe the same shit like old communists?
We don't want/ need fascists, but also not communists.
We finally want decentralization and a free market economy!
Then you don't want anything even slightly resembling the current kleptocracy and corporate centralization regime the US pretends is capitalism.
Of course, pure free-market capitalism naturally devolves toward oligopoly and monopoly. That's how that works, unless there's a counter-veiling force to prevent is. Aka, a functioning government. We don't have that right now, of course; we have a government that has been wholly captured by corporate interests, which includes the interest in keeping the rest of us fighting each other on pointless ethnic grounds rather than fighting the real enemy, which is private centralization of wealth and power.
All that is tangential to the core point, though, which is that police brutality must end.
I don't think so.
I believe in natural mechanisms like self-organisation, self-regulation, via decentralization.
Free markets tend to decentralize instead of centralize. You don't want and don't need central attack points if you want an anti-fragile system. Nature is the best example and it works perfectly - even when we "were apes"
People ask for a government monopoly to protect them from monopoly.
I hope you see the problem.
But free markets can solve every problem better, if you let it work and don't block the natural mechanisms.
There will be a time we have hard money and free markets (not only for goods or money, but also ideas) and then everyone will hopefully realise that everyone can create own wealth.
We don't need socialism to redistribute.
Monopolies will die naturally cuz of how they work and what they want.
Fighting against them will only stronger them - you have no time and aint productive and even your state is now helping these oligopols.
Interesting points. Rehived.
Response letter from my state senator, Laura Fine:
Response letter from US Senator from Illinois Tammy Duckworth:
Response from my Congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky (9th District, Illinois):