A declining empire

By Benny Schaft

This summer has exploded — not with fireworks, but with a fury fueled by decades of exploitation, settler violence and systemic oppression. Across the U.S., tens of thousands have taken to the streets in what can only be described as a mass, growing rebellion. From Latine, Black and immigrant communities to students, workers and longtime movement veterans, the people are making one thing clear: we’ve had enough.

At the heart of this uprising? SOLIDARITY. With the Palestinian people, facing a genocidal assault. With the Lebanese people under constant siege. With Iranian comrades, targeted by U.S. and Israeli aggression. And with each other — from Black neighborhoods to immigrant communities under occupation by ICE and police.

June 14 alone saw coast-to-coast demonstrations — from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Chicago to the Bronx — where protesters carried not just slogans but history. This kind of history lives in the blood of oppressed people, in the memory of every family torn apart by a fascist state’s boot.

Protesters declared an end to the gestapo tactics of ICE and the violent kidnappings of our immigrant comrades — people snatched from homes, churches, jobs, even graduation ceremonies. Their only “crime?” Existing in a white supremacist, capitalist empire built on colonization and enforced through fear.

This system — the same capitalist order that props up genocide abroad — is now turning inward, panicking as its own foundation rots. The detainment centers are modern-day concentration camps. Conditions are brutal. Sexual violence is rampant. Women sit in their own excrement. Palestinian children are starved. And these atrocities are not accidental — they are engineered, normalized and brushed aside by liberal politicians who feign outrage, then quietly fund ICE behind closed doors.

Let’s be real: the media has chosen its side. Major outlets run breathless coverage about “violent protesters” while ignoring the violence of settler colonialism, imperial war and daily state repression. They ask why demonstrators carry the flags of their homelands — Palestine, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and more — but never ask why this country demands erasure to begin with.

Democrats — the so-called opposition — continue to urge “civility,” telling organizers to wave U.S. flags so as not to provoke the right. Meanwhile, many of these same politicians sign off on ICE raids, military budgets and police expansion. They speak the language of compromise, while our communities are being crushed under the boot of bipartisan fascism.

None of this is new. The Black Panther Party warned us back in 1968. BPP co-founder Bobby Seale made it plain: “Concentration camps in Tule Lake, in Arizona and Oklahoma are now being rejuvenated … for us.” (Bobby Seale speech, YouTube) The state prepared for this. They knew resistance would come. They thought they could stop it before it started.

But this time, they were wrong.

Our class is rising

What makes this a revolutionary summer isn’t just the chaos — it’s the clarity. Organizers, students, mothers, youth, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities and elders are rallying, linking struggles, building power. What’s unfolding now echoes the spirit of the late 1960s rebellions, not just in scope, but in substance. The people are no longer asking. They’re taking action. They’re building community defense. They’re fighting back.

And the ruling class? They’re scrambling. Trying to close Pandora’s Box, trying to undo the radical momentum they unleashed when they showed us — again and again — who they are.

We are seeing the cracks in the empire. And no, the people aren’t laying down. They are rising — together, loudly and with purpose.

Because real liberation won’t come from the ballot box, from polite conversation or from the halls of Congress. It will come from the streets, the picket lines, the occupied buildings and the organized communities that refuse to let this fascist, settler-colonial machine grind on without resistance.

From Gaza to the U.S. border, from LA to Brooklyn — this summer, the people have made one thing clear: We will not be silenced. We will not be caged. And we will not be stopped.