Cops & courts:
Friends or foes of movement?
By Bev
Hiestand
Buffalo, N.Y.
Are the police and courts friends or foes of those
struggling against oppression and right-wing violence?
That critical question was the focus of an April 20 meeting
organized by Workers World Party. The urgency of the answer lay
in the fact that a national right-wing mobilization was under
way in Buffalo while the meeting was taking place.
Many of the 90 people who turned out for the evening event
had been up well before dawn defending women's health clinics.
And others had spent the day making preparations for defense of
local gay and transgender bars and clubs.
Youths predominated. High school students outraged by the
anti-abortion onslaught at their schools attended. And so did
an eighth grader who said she was angry that she wasn't
learning the truth about the women's liberation movement and
the war against Yugoslavia in her history classes.
The audience listened with rapt attention as Leslie
Feinberg, a managing editor of Workers World newspaper, talked
about the role of the state: the cops, courts, prisons and
military.
Feinberg pointed to four current struggles: Buffalo's
pro-choice clinic defense, the national rise in racist and
anti-gay attacks, the efforts to stop the execution of
political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the Pentagon war
against Yugoslavia.
"The concept of how we will build massive movements--not
just to hold the line against attacks but to press forward with
our demands--hinges on how we view our relationship to the
state," Feinberg said.
"Some people think that we should build a movement that
demands that the politicians and the police and courts do their
job and protect us. But in a society based on inequality and
injustice, their mandate is to defend the status quo."
Feinberg received a standing ovation after concluding that
people who face different forms of oppression can unite to
shape history when they build a powerful movement to defend and
advance their own interests.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
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