To read what is happening on the ground, Tempest members in the USA have been on the protests in LA. Read their account here.
As soon as Donald Trump won the popular vote in 2024 promising mass deportations of over 20 million people, his regime was on a collision course with communities like LA.
Over the last few months ICE agents have been raiding workplaces and homes. They have also been travelling around in unmarked cars, wearing ski masks and abducting people off the streets. The US government has not just been deporting ‘illegal’ immigrations, it has been deporting US citizens, working with authoritarian governments in Central America to imprison them.
To be clear this was also happening under Biden’s administration.
But the Trump administration is pouring more fuel onto the fire, happy to more overtly stoke racism to show which side they are on in the so-called culture war.
The provocative raids by ICE agents in LA, targeting a Home Depot and other workplaces, where undocumented workers might be gathered, led to a community fight back.
Tens of thousands of people have united into protests to challenge the ICE agents and drive them out of the city. But the protests are bringing together a range of issues, including targeting Waymo self driving cars to set fire to them.
One climate activists spoke out about why Waymo was being targeted, “There is no human element to Waymo. It’s expensive and bought-out politicians are using it as an excuse to defund public transit. I pray on Waymo’s downfall.” Clearly this urban uprising is about the direction of the USA in general.
The security forces have reacted by deploying more cops, sheriffs and other armed forces to ‘retake control’.
Currently they are using tear gas and rubber bullets, but these are heavily militarised police forces, the threat of violence is real. The bravery of people is inspiring; sticking together and refusing to back down even when Trump deploys the army in the form of the National Guard to end the protests.
Trump’s decision to send in the marines as well is a huge breach of the constitution. But Trump does not care, he craves to use extreme force on people to spread terror – just like an authoritarian regime would anywhere else in the world.
What the battle of LA shows us
Three things are clear. The capitalist state is a violent force there to impose order even when that is brutal and cruel. The LAPD, ICE, sheriff’s department, National Guard and marines are all being deployed to ‘pacify’ the people. The state is not neutral and is absolutely part of the racist, class oppression of the capitalists against the rest of us.
The violence recently meted out against peaceful Palestine protestors at universities across the US is another example. Don’t imagine that the British police are any better.
Second, the Democrats and those establishment politicians are no allies to the people. They say weasel words of support for the general idea of opposing the most blatant ICE raids but the Democrats as a party have also deported countless immigrants, locked kids up in cages and separated families. They backed the slaughter in Gaza and then launch weak legal challenges over the army being deployed to LA. Even Bernie Sanders urges people to protest ‘peacefully’ and not provoke Trump further.
This is the language of defeat. Clearly people need to be focussed and not adventurist but demanding pacifism in the face of the violence of the US state is a clear and direct route to defeat. They quote Martin Luther King Jr – who was not against using organised self defence when required – forgetting he was murdered by the same political forces rampaging through downtown LA kidnapping people for deportation.
The third is that mass deportations are a form of terror and violence. Unlike what the Democrat establishment say, it is right to resist them. Mass organised community resistance shows what is possible and the people of LA performed brilliantly.
The creativity and bravery that people show when they are fighting against oppression and to defend their communities from the police is remarkable and a lesson for all of us.
Resist! Revolt! Rise Up!
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