On this episode of The Future Is A Mixtape, Matt & Jesse deepen their discussion on the bad, bad behavior of The Misfit 12 by branching beyond myth-busting to diagram how we might abolish the police in strategically smart and tactical ways. The central core myths of what have kept them in power so long, as well as the brutal costs they create in their wake, go far beyond the victims, family members and the beloved community at large; even when we don’t see the sun from seashore, The Carceral State’s cloud-eyes peak over the financial aid packages of college students, monitor truancies of 12-year old Black children from their buses to their schools, strip-search working-class girls and check the inside of our souls without our consent. So to seize the means to abolish the police, how do we “defund, disarm, dismantle?” Where do we start? In what order? Or is it better for us to think about leverage-points than simple-step chronology? Our co-hosts will talk about the “low hanging fruit” of getting cop-killers and cop-gropers out of our K-12 system, freezing—then melting—police budgets and pouring that money into The Golden Square: Food, Shelter, Healthcare & Education. Jesse & Matt will also talk about how this realization of abolishing the police—amid the societal collapse of COVID-19—allows for new terrain struggles for Universal Basic Income & Medicare for All to make it into the Mixtape of the Now. And finally, they will suggest why this might be the right type of righteous storm to blow down the trap-house of capitalism, cleansing the Earth of its Visigoths and Goldman-Sachs ghouls, so we can return to our mother, Freedom—the same mother George cried out for. Only when we strip property definitions from our bodies, can we begin to decommodify the Earth’s ecology and get on that Rainbow Light of the Utopian Sphere.
Mentioned In This Episode:
#8ToAbolition: Demands, Claims and Solutions
Movement For Black Lives - Policy Platform
Adam Liptak in The New York Times: "Civil Rights Law Protects Gay and Transgender Workers, Supreme Court Rules"
Katelyn Burns in Vox: “The Supreme Court Has Given Trans People Reason to Hope Again”
Mark Joseph Stern in Slate: “While Saving DACA, John Roberts Made It Harder to Challenge Racist Policies”
Nina Totenberg in NPR: “Supreme Court Rules For DREAMers, Against Trump”
YouTube Clip: GCAS Interviews Professor Henry Giroux
YouTube Clip: Octavia Tried to Tell Us V: Parable for a Pandemic with guest adrienne maree brown
Octavia’s Parables - A Podcast Co-Hosted by Toshi Reagon and adrienne maree brown
Ruth Wilson Gilmore Makes the Case for Abolition on the Intercepted Podcast
Keir Milburn’s short, thoughtful non-fiction book: Generation Left (2019)
Brian Rokos in The Press-Enterprise: “Sheriff Denies Deputy Broke Car Window During Riverside Protest”
Brian Rokos in The Press-Enterprise: “Protesters Seek Ouster of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco”
While The Police Wants More Money, Activists Want to Defund Them: as Seen in Jeff Horseman’s Article in The Press-Enterprise: “Riverside County Supervisors Asked to Defund Sheriff’s Department”
All of Us or None: The Organization’s Riverside Chapter Website
The 2016 Presidential Election Results for California: Riverside County Went 49% to Hillary Clinton with 45% Going to Donald Trump
Database for Police Abolition - d4pa.org
Critical Resistance is an organization that wants to create an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex: Here is their website.
CRITICAL RESISTANCE - Reformist Reforms vs. Abolitionist Steps in Policing
While Sanders was running for President, German Lopez provided a breakdown in Vox: “Bernie Sanders’s Criminal Justice Reform Plan, Explained”
Tobais Hoonhout in Yahoo News: “Sanders Dismisses Progressive Calls to Defund Police, Says Departments Need More Resources”
Aaron Bastani Interviews Alex S. Vitale on Novara Radio: “The End of Policing With Alex Vitale”
Michael Moore’s Rumble Podcast: “Episode 90: No More Police State (feat. Alex S. Vitale”
Ivan Evans in Critical Legal Thinking: “‘Adjunct Faculty’ in the Neoliberal University”
Colleen Flaherty writes Inside Higher Ed: “A Non-Tenure-Track Profession? Some 73 percent of all faculty positions are off the tenure track, according to a new analysis of federal data by the American Association of University Professors.”
Tom Tapp in Deadline: “Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, City Officials Cutting $100 Million-$150 Million From LAPD Budget, Funds To Be Reinvested In Communities Of Color”
Oliver Milman in The Guardian: “Minneapolis pledges to dismantle its police department – how will it work?”
Collin Jones in The Post Millennial: “12 People Shot in Minneapolis Amid Calls to Disband the Police”
Abolish the Police: Liberal vs. Revolutionary Perspectives: By Brian Bean - Here is the Audio Recording of the Talk
Brian Bean in Rampant Magazine: “The Socialist Case Against the Police”
Alex S. Vitale Appears in Doug Henwood’s Behind the News Radio Show - Much as how Ruth Wilson Gilmore said in the Intercepted podcast, Vitale also argues that going after the police in our K-12 Schools should be the first and most immediate goal & he gives some shocking figures on how many police officers are in the NYC system in contrast to nurses, counselors and career guidance professionals.
Felecia Mello & Vanessa Arredondo: “Cal Matters: Students Push UC to Abolish Police Departments”
Nancy Fraser in the American Affairs Journal: “From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump—and Beyond”
Michelle Mark in Insider: “How Columbine Changed American Schools Forever”
David Ehlrich in Indiewire: “Michael Moore on Bowling for Columbine in the Trump Era: ‘I’m Seriously Fed Up with Having to Make These Movies’”
Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields’ Non-fiction Masterwork: Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in America (2012)
Inland Equity Community Land Trust
Slavoj Žižek on the Crypto-Fascism of The Dark Knight Rises as he describes in the New Statesman: “The Politics of Batman - From the Repression of Unruly Citizens to the Celebration of the “Good Capitalist,” The Dark Knight Reflects Our Age of Anxiety.”
Eoin Higgins in Common Dreams: “Big Oil Taking $1.9 Billion in CARES Act Tax Breaks Aimed at Helping Small Businesses in 'Stealth Bailout': Report”
Shahar Ziv in Forbes: “Don’t Be Fooled By Official Unemployment Rate Of 14.7%; The Real Figure Is Even Scarier”
Nathan Heller in The New Yorker: “Who Really Stands to Win From Basic Income?”
Thomas Colson in Business Insider: “Spain Is About to Bring in a Basic Income Scheme which the Government Thinks Will 'Stay Forever'”
Matt Breunig--from The People’s Policy Project--on Universal Basic Dividend (UBD): The Social Wealth Fund for America
As Our Comrades from Crimethinc Say: “Capitalism Is a Death Cult”
Stephanie Kelton’s New Book: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy
To Learn More About What’s Going on in Maple-Leaf-Lands: Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB)
Tom Gara in Buzzfeed: “The Real Economic Catastrophe Hasn’t Hit Yet. Just Wait For August”
Katy O’Donnell in Politico: “Black Community Braces for Next Threat: Mass Evictions”
Victoria Yuen in Center for American Progress: “Mounting Peril for Public Higher Education During the Coronavirus Pandemic”
Presidential Election 2020: Janet Hook in The Los Angeles Times: “In Trump vs. Trump, the Winner Is Joe Biden”
Lee Fang in The Intercept: “Nancy Pelosi to Receive First Genuine Left-Wing Challenge in 30 Years”
John Nichols in The Nation: “Charles Booker Is the Democrat With the Best Chance of Beating Mitch McConnell”
David Sirota in Jacobin Magazine: “We’ve Always Had the Money for Medicare for All — We’ve Just Given It to Corporations Instead”
Alex Press in Dissent Magazine: “On the Origins of the Professional-Managerial Class: An Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich”
Barbara and John Ehrenreich Now Legendary Essay in Radical America: “The Professional-Managerial Class”
Amanda Mull in The Atlantic: “Brands Have Nothing Real to Say About Racism”