Racist Thugs of US Imperialism Attack Migrants, Anti-Racist Protesters
SEATTLE (US), August 28—Last week, a community college student described a demonstration she recently attended. In part, she and her friends protested against racist inequality in educational opportunity. “It was peaceful,” she added.
This led to a short, inadequate conversation about where the widespread violence that accompanies these demonstrations comes from.
In the last few months, many of us have participated in protests where the cops rioted. But even for experienced comrades, the emergence of federal paramilitary forces was an eye-opener.
The US federal paramilitary first arrived in Portland, then Seattle, Chicago and now Kenosha. It is a fascist force akin to the Nazi Stormtroopers and Latin American death squads. It grew out of the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), a division of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
This fascist force has been in development since long before the Trump regime. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have nurtured it. Over the last decade, they have poured hundreds of billions into its coffers.
The ideology that drives this unit was initially anti-immigrant racism. Last year, the non-profit news outlet ProPublica uncovered fascist memes shared among a group of 9500 CBP agents. These memes made fun of dead immigrants.
These were “clearly xenophobic and sexist,” wrote University of Arizona sociologist Daniel Martinez. “This isn’t just a few rogue agents or bad apples… [The postings reflect] a pervasive culture of cruelty aimed at immigrants within the CBP.”
From there it’s a short step to sweeping attacks on anti-racist demonstrators.
Cops on a Racist Rampage
This does not let local police off the hook! In every region of the US, police and sheriffs have been linked to racist groups and militias. The latest example is the cops’ response to protests supporting Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man shot and paralyzed by police in Kenosha on August 23.
Two days later, a teenaged self-described militia member shot three demonstrators at point blank range, murdering two of them. The Kenosha Police chief blamed the protesters themselves! “They shouldn’t have been out after the curfew,” he declared. Meanwhile, his troopers gave water to roaming racist militias, openly appreciating their presence.
But we should have no illusions. The mobilization of BORTAC is a higher level of federal government-organized fascist violence, not seen for many years within the U.S.
BORTAC’s operations spread beyond the U.S.-Mexican border years ago. Border Patrol Tactical agents have been stationed in many corners of the world. They are busy establishing what they refer to as “global border sets.”
In dozens of countries, they have nurtured fascist border units modeled after the Tactical Unit in the U.S. Each of these units indoctrinates their agents using racism and nationalism. The European Union has its own version of border sets in northern Africa, as do other imperialists. In the U.S., eyes are trained on the southern border, while equally horrendous brutality is now visited on migrant workers around the world.
The Border Patrol Tactical Unit was originally created to intimidate immigrants at the southern border. It soon became an arm of U.S. imperialism. Recently, it has been turned into a weapon against U.S. workers and students. That’s the way racism works.
Only Communism Can Abolish Fascist Violence
The crisis of capitalism begets fascist violence. Neither voting nor the bosses’ “democracy” can stop it. Only communist revolution can do the job.
Fascism doesn’t come about spontaneously. The capitalist ruling class has spent billions of workers’ hard-earned dollars building organizations like BORTAC to hurry it along.
Communist revolution won’t come about spontaneously either. No matter how militant the response to fascist provocation, it won’t spontaneously build the communist party we need.
Our main job today is to build that party by recruiting and developing communist organizers. We invite you to join the International Communist Workers’ Party. The international working class needs you.
For more information, see Todd Miller, Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (2019).
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