Dear Progressive Reader,
Protests continue across the country. Initially sparked by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, the demands of these demonstrations and marches, and the responses by law enforcement agencies to them, have expanded significantly. Much of the recent media attention has been focused on Portland, Oregon, where federal agents have been deployed. Late on Wednesday night, they even managed to teargas Portland’s mayor Ted Wheeler. Donald Trump has announced that he plans to send federal enforcers (many of whom wear almost no identification) to several other cities over the next few weeks. As award-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates, the main reason for this may not be, as stated, “protecting federal property” but rather to help boost the President’s poll numbers in an election season.
As James Goodman reports this week, “Arrival of the federal agents brought a new and more vicious violence to Portland.” Goodman explains, “Trump’s rapid deployment team sent to Portland includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents—the foot soldiers in the President’s war against immigrants. . . . The deployment of CBP, which includes agents from the Border Patrol’s BORTAC tactical unit, and ICE to Portland is a scary reminder how much Homeland Security’s bloated bureaucracy has grown since it was created in 2002, in the aftermath of 9/11.”
Eric Stoner of Waging Nonviolence writes this week, “To reduce our reliance on policing and prisons, racial justice leaders are urging that resources devoted to law enforcement be used instead to address the root causes of violence, such as the lack of affordable housing, health care, education and jobs.” And, he continues, “The Pentagon, which was granted a whopping $740.5 billion by the Senate on July 23, should be next on the chopping block.”
Meanwhile, as Sarah Jaffe notes, “Capitalist realism may, in the coming months, finally get the stake in its heart it so richly deserves. But we should be clear-eyed about the size of the crisis that is roaring toward us, and what we will need to build to weather the worst of it. We have lived through nearly fifty years of the stripping away of what little security the American working class ever had, in a system that was never built for us to thrive. We need to begin to construct what will replace it.” And Edward Hardy points out that “The only direct financial support that the CARES Act provided to all Americans was a one-time $1,200 payment in the form of a so-called ‘stimulus check,’ which wasn’t even enough to cover their basic expenses during the coronavirus-induced economic shutdown.” As Congress continues to debate the next bill, he says, “the Republican Party’s refusal to provide necessary support to struggling Americans while, at the same time, funneling huge amounts of taxpayer money to the wealthiest has exposed the GOP for what they truly are—fiscal hypocrites.”
Finally, Washington, D.C.’s football team has abandoned their racist name, and for Dave Zirin it was none too soon. Billionaire owner Daniel Snyder, he says in a column for our next issue of The Progressive, “has been officially humbled by forces beyond his plutocratic control.” And this Sunday marks the anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Carlos Ríos-Espinosa of Human Rights Watch points out, in an op-ed for our Progressive Media Project, that while “the ADA has become a global model for disability access and inclusion,” it is still a work-in-progress. “On the ADA’s 30th anniversary,” he writes, “we should reflect on what’s still missing to make sure that all people with disabilities are included in the United States.”
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
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