From: blosser_cy@lrc.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: THE HIDDEN STORY OF THE L.A. REBELLION
Date: 11 Sep 92 16:49:27 EDT
Organization: Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC

		THE HIDDEN STORY OF THE LOS ANGELES REBELLION: 
		    DOMESTIC POLITICS IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER

	By the Los Angeles Rebellion Support Project of Refuse & Resist!

	On the afternoon of April 29, 1992, an all-white jury acquitted four
Los Angeles cops in the video-taped beating of Rodney King.  In utter disbelief,
thousands of people poured into the streets as the news spread. Within a few
hours, a rebellion swept the Los Angeles metropolitan area from Long Beach in
the far south to the San Fernando Valley north of the city.
	By the next day, the streets belonged to the poeple in much of the city.
The police were driven out of major housing projects by gunfire.  The systematic
burning of hated targets was in full swing.  And a wholesale redistribution of
merchandise was under way.  A pall of smoke hung over the city for days and
planes were diverted from the L.A. International Airport because of gunfire at
police and press helicopters.
	It was reminiscent of explosions of the poor in Third World countries
when new "austerity measures" are forced on the country by the International
Monetary Fund to meet debt payments--so-called IMF riots.  Only, for the people,
"pay back time" has a different meaning!
	At the national level, there was enormous shock and fear over the scope
of the rebellion adn speed with which it had spread.  President Bush stumbled 
for words, issuing new statements every few hours and promising a federal 
inquiry into the beating of Rodney King.  The alarm in Washington was not just
because of events in Los Angeles.  Social conditions of Los Angeles are not all
that different from the rest of the country, and most major cities are a Los
Angeles waiting to happen.
	The real hidden story of the L.A. Rebellion concerns the intervention
of the federal government from day one, how the crisis was managed from
Washington, and the new plans for total police control of major urban areas.

		The Character And Extent Of The Rebellion

	Everyone knows that had this same revolt occurred in Poland ten years
earlier, its participants would ahve been hailed by the U.S. press as freedom
fighters, and the looting would have been explained as the justifiable response
of a people denied the basic necessities of life.
	But here in America the victims of a vicious social system are lambasted
as wanton criminals.  Never mind that South Central Los Angeles has the highest
prison incarceration rate in the world.  Never mind that unemployment there is
higher than in Soweto, South Africa.  Never mind that, as the Kerner Commission
pointed out long ago, America has developed as two nations, one of them 
miserably poor and oppressed.
	Unavoidably, the Los Angeles Rebellion raises the question of where the
middle class wil stand.  with the poor and oppressed who dared to rebel, or with
the privileged few and their New World Order?
	Here in the heart of the country that had declared itself a model for
all humanity, in the heart of the free market system that was supposed to 
provide wealth and abundance for all, in the heart of "freedom" where the rule
of law and equal justice were supposed to prevail in opposition to "totalitarian
tyranny," mases of people rose up and blasted a giant hole in the facade of what
America is supposed to be.
	Internationally the U.S. was ridiculed.  Who was the U.S. to demand that
Libyans be extradited for a "fair trial" after the Rodney King beating verdict?
Throughout the world, common people were delighted and rulers were alarmed at
the apparent lack of domestic stability in the U.S.  In Berlin, May Day marchers
carried banners reading "Congratulations in Los Angeles!"
	While statistics alone cannot paint the full picture, they demonstrate
that the L.A. Rebellion outstripped anything that happened in the 1960's.  
Forty-five people were killed and hundreds wounded, many by police gunfire. 
12,545 people were arrested, making it the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.
2,708 felony cases were filed.  The fire department listed 623 buildings burned 
down in Los Angeles alone.  Insurance adjusters are rating the L.A. Rebellion
as the largest rebellion and the fifth largest "disaster" in U.S. history by
insurance claims.
	Contrary to the media portrayal, the L.A. Rebellion was not a "race
riot."  News photos consistently showed multinational crowds in the street, and
one shocked reporter even mentioned Asian lotters.  Arrest statistics show that
45% of those arrested were Latino, 41% were Black, and 12% were white.
	What was stunningly revealed by the L.A. Rebellion was the fragile and
unstable condition of the U.S. society at the very moment of its supposed global
triumph.  Only a year earlier the U.S. had basked in the glory of the Persian
Gulf war and the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Yet these "victories" had not
produced the promised New World Order of U.S. ascendancy and economic recovery.
If anything, conditions had grown worse for millions at the bottom.

			Why It Happened In Los Angeles

	The beating of Rodney King shocked people throughout the country, but
the only thing that was unusual about the event was that it was captured on 
tape.  For the oppressed and the poor of Los Angeles, murders and beatings by
the police are commonplace.  (See _Torture, Ill-Treatment and Excessive Force
by Police in Los Angeles, California_ by Amnesty International, 1992.)  
A morbid joke in Los Angeles is that after the beating of Rodney King, the
motto of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was changed from "To protect
and serve" to "We treat you like a King!"
	Over the last few years, Los Angeles has been the scene of the most
outrageous police-state experiments in the country.  Under "Operation Hammer,"
a war on drugs inspired program, over 50,000 minority youth have been arrested
on every imaginable petty charge (such as curfew violation, outstanding parking
tickets, and spitting on the sidewalk).  A major goal of the program was to 
build a rap sheet on every kid in the targeted communities that would then serve
as justification for heavier sentencing and the application of "career criminal"
provisions of new criminal statutes.  (After the rebellion, authorities piously
announced that 40 percent of those arrested had criminal records.)
	As bad if not worse than the LAPD has been the Los Angeles County 
Sheriff's Department, that ranks second in the nation among police departments
in the number of brutality complaints filed with the federal government.  The
Sheriff's Department maintains the country's largest local police computer data-
base called GREAT (for Gang Reporting Evaluation and Tracking).  The GREAT 
system is based on arrest records, intelligence reports, graffiti, tips, and 
just plain rumors.  According to GREAT statistics, 47 percent of all Black youth
in Los Angeles County have been "identified" as gang members or associates!
	Los Angeles is also the home of Operation Cul-de-Sac, the controversial
police plan to create prison neighborhoods.  Communities are walled off by 
street barricades that block all automotive traffic except through police-
controlled entry and exit points.
	Los Angeles has become notoriouis for freeing killer cops.  To people in
other parts of the country, the verdict in the Rodney King beating might seem
like an isolated miscarriage of justice.  In Los Angeles it was just a par for
the course.  In the same time period, two Samoan brothers were forced to kneel
before being shot in the back, the cop firing 18 times, and a housing project
resident was shot down near his home.  In the days following the rebellion, the
cops in both these killings were set free, and the LAPD shot and killed a tow
truck operator who refused to produce registration papers for his truck.
	Perhaps the case that did more to set the terms of the rebellion than
any other was the murder of Latasha Harlins, a 15 year old Black woman, by a
Korean shop owner.  Like the Rodney King beating, this was too was clearly 
captured on a video camera.  And like the King beating case, video-taped 
evidence counted for nothing.  After an argument at the counter, Latasha turns
and walks away.  The store owner pulls a gun from under the counter and shoots
her in the back of the head.  The verdict: guilty of manslaughter. The sentence:
no time at all, and five years probation!
	When the Rodney King verdict came down, many Angelenos were not 
suprised.  Many in fact expected it and had formed some prior notion of what
an appropriate response might be.

			The Recapture Of The City

	On May 2 a major effort was made to recapture Los Angeles.  By this time
sufficient forced had been assembled.  These included 5,000 LAPD cops, 1,000
Sheriff's deputies, 950 county marshals, 2,300 Highway patrol officers, 9,975
National Guard troops, 3,300 Army troops and U.S. Marines, and approximately
1,000 federal marshals, FBI agents, and Border Patrol SWAT teams. The federal
marshals included their Special Operations Group that was deployed in the 
invasion of Panama to arrest Manuel Noreiga.
	The National Guard troops were federalized immediately, so that while
the L.A. County Sheriff was in nominal command, the federal government was 
really calling the shots.  Post-rebellion emergency aid was put under the 
control of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which has national
responsibility for the maintenance of civlian government in a national 
emergency.  And public statements by President Bush set the tone for the 
operation.  In a special address from the Oval Office, he pledged to use 
'whatever force is necessary to restore order . . . . As your President, I
guarantee you: This violence will end."
	The recapture of the city took the form of a massive retaliatory attack
against the neighborhoods that dared to rebel.  Major utilities such as power,
phones, water, bus service, and mail delivery were cut off.  People could not
get to work, and vast lines formed at Post Offices by people desperate to get
their welfare and social security checks.  A city-wide dusk-to-dawn curfew was
imposed, but it was only enforced against people of color in the rebellion
areas.  In the white West Side, major restaurants remained open.
	To the outside world, the end of the rebellion was presented as an
exercise in brotherhood and clean-up, with suburbanites and movie stars pitching
in with neighborhood folks to sweep up the rubble.  The beating of a white truck
driver was shown *ad nauseam* on national TV, but all scenes of police brutality
and murder were censored.  An account allowed three weeks after the rebellion in
the _Los Angeles Times_ gives us some hint of what really went down:
	"Far from the cameras, as shops blazed on the perimeter of the 
Nickerson Gardens housing project, police fired 88 rounds in firefights with
snipers.
	"When the smoke had cleared, longtime Watts residents DeAndre Harrison,
Anthony J. Taylor and Dennis R. Jackson were dead, killed by LAPD bullets.
Police said the three wre roving bands shooting at officers, but friends and
relatives have questioned the official accounts."
	An accompanying photo shows the mother of those killed standing by her
apartment which is riddled with bullet holes. 
	The government took advantage of the confusion to make special attacks
on immigrants and the homeless.  Thousands were swept up for curfew violations,
some even arrested while standing in their own front yards.  The homeless were
particularly vulnerable, with some arrested while standing outside city shelters
waiting for them to open.  Federal Border Patrol and INS agents were 
deliberately assigned to neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. 
Together, the Sheriff and LAPD turned over 1,542 suspected aliens to the INS,
of whom 856 were deported by May 20.
	In addition to the thousands of selective curfew arrests, hundreds of
poor people scavenging burned out stores were arrested in police sweeps.  These
people were charged with 2nd degree burglary (a felony) rather than the usual
trespass or petty theft.  To keep people in jail as long as possible without a
chance of bail, Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature rushed to
vote unanimously for legislation to extend the time a person could be held in
jail before being brought before a judge from two working days to seven working
days (nine real days).  Thus prisoners in California can now be held in 
preventive detention as in South Africa during civil disorders.
	A few "lucky" curfew violators were able to post the normal $250 bail,
but those who were held for court found the local prosecutor asking for
$15,000 bail for ALL misdemeanor charges.  In a "let's pretend" show of judicial
independence, most judges reduced this amount to a mere $8,000. Persons facing
felony charges had much higher bails set.  The California judicial system also
invoked emergency regulations to double the length of time a defendant could be
held before being brought to trial.
	The result was that thousands of people pleaded guilty to bogus charges
after being brought to court in batches and told they could pled guilty and be
sentenced to time served, OR . . . they could elect to plead innocent and 
possibly sit in jail for two months awaiting trial.  Similarly, immigrants were
told they could accept "voluntary" deprotation, or be held to face heavy 
criminal charges--and then be deported after their sentences were served! [See
_Civil Liberties in Crisis: Los Angeles During the Emergency_, ACLU of Southern
California, 1992.]
	Yet another form of attack on the communities were the mass warrantless
searches that occured.  Police went door to door through buildings seizing any
new-looking merchandize for which residents could not produce sales slips.  One
sleazy merchant took advantage of this by putting out leaflets warning of the
searches by the LAPD, national guard, and FBI and offering to sell neighborhood
residents sales receipts on credit!

			The Political Counter-Attack

	While the federal government was certainly concerned with the physical
reoccupation of Los Angeles, it was even more concerned with the political
message broadcasted by the rebellion.  Already support rebellions had flared up
in Las Vegas (where tanks were deployed), San Francisco (where 1,400 were 
arrested), Seattle, Atlanta, Toronto, and elsewhere.  Polls showed an 
overwhelming majority of whites saw the acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney
Kng as a travesty of justice.  *The great danger was that people might see the
rebellion as just.*
	Federal policy makers moved immediately to produce official explanations
of the rebellion, to find scapegoats for the rebellion, and to popularize a
counter image to the stunning effects in people's minds of the beating of Rodney
King.
	One major political explanation of the rebellion offered up by 
authorities was that it was the work of "criminal opportunists."  Yes, this 
explanation goes, there may be cause for question concerning the verdict in the
Rodney King beating trial, but people who engaged in violence, burning, and
looting didn't care anything for Rodney King or police brutality issues--they
simply took advantage of the climate of anger to engage in criminality.
	This explanation is refuted, however, by any examination of the broad
extent of the rebellion, its participants, and what they had to say about what
they were doing.  People stood along the streets holding signs denouncing the
verdict.  Crowds attacked the police headquarters and smashed windows in the
criminal justice building downtown.  People were smiling and excited.  Crimes
against people such as rape and gang shootings virtually disappeared as people
poured into the streets against a common enemy.
	The widespread arson was used by the establishment to raise the charge
that mindless criminal violence was at play and people (i.e. Black people) were
burning down their own neighborhoods.  In fact, analysis of the fire sites
shows that far from burning down their own neighborhoods, almost no housing was
burned (a few housing units were destroyed when nearby fires at commercial
sites accidentally spread to them).
	Further, there appears to have been a conscious targeting of businesses
that were seen as parasitic on the community.  For example, there was extensive
burning of liquior stores, reminiscent of the burning of shabeens (illegal
saloons) in South African townships.  One could easily ask whether the community
was harmed or helped by this.
	Other targest were banks, electronic shops, "swap meets" (indoor flea
markets noted for shoddy merchandise), and furniture stored (noted for juice-
loan interest rates and frequent repossessions).  Gun stores were widely looted.
The 30,000 square-foot military enlistment center for all nine counties of 
Southern California was burned to the ground the first night.  "Criminal 
opportunism" or conscious political acts?  You be the judge.  Finally a number
of Korean-owned markets were burned in Black neighborhoods, perhaps an effect
of Louis Farrakhan's ideology that emphasizes Black-owned capitalism, perhaps 
the effect of the Latasha Harlins murder and repeated friction between the
poor and small shopkeepers.
	As long lines developed for food distribution points following the
rebellion, press commentators were quick to ascribe the food lines to the
burning of stores and pushed the "destroyed their own neighborhood" line. In
reality, therew as more food in neighborhoods after the rebellion than before
because of the relief effort, and the only reason there were no food lines
*before* the rebellion was that no one was given out free food then.
	The second political explanation for the rebellion by authorities was 
that it was a "race riot."  Despite the obvious fact that the rebellion was
multinational and more Latinos were arrested than Blacks or whites, national
news magazines homed in on white fears of attack by Blacks.  This coincides with
a major national strategy to criminalize Black urban youth and present *any*
rebellious outbreak from below as a race riot.  The aim of this strategy is to
polarize white Americans against Black youth and prepare whites to accept any
form of police violence and mass incarceration as necessary.  The centerpiece
of this strategy was the fixation on the beating of white truck driver 
Reginald Denny (see below).
	The other form of racial explanation was the overt promotion of 
antagonism between Blacks and Koreans.  In Washington's strategy for dealing
with the rebellion, Koreans quickly took on "most favored nation" status.  While
any trip through L.A.'s Koreatown will quickly show there was no wholesale
destruction of Korean stores (arson was selective there as elsewhere), Korean
merchants were held up as the embodiment of the American dream by Washington.
They were hard-working immigrants who didn't ask for welfare.  They looked after
their own, educated their children, had pride in their community, etc., etc.
	While any political demonstrations against police attacks were 
immediately crushed by the police and National Guard, 30,000 Koreans were
allowed to hld a nationally televised march for peace on May 2.  While Blacks
seen in the street with guns were likely to be immediately fired on, Koreans
were pictured in the media shooting down the street at looters and carrying
automatic weapons with no interference from police.
	These racial explanations of the rebellion also share a common theme.
They seek to portray Blacks as the real racists, and divert attention from the
systematic and institutional racism of the system and the authorities.
	A corollary of both the "crimianl opportunists" and "race riot" 
explanations is that the rebellion must always be described in the "responsible
media" as a RIOT, not a rebellion, insurrection, or uprising--terms that could
imply justifiable political opposition to New World Order.  Just as the
opposing terms "right to life" and "reproductive freedom" seek to set the terms
of debate in the abortion struggle, so the choice between "riot" and "rebellion"
denote whether the events in Los Angeles are seen through the eyes of the rulers
or those ruled over.
	The third explanation of the rebellion, or at least why it grew so 
large, was that LAPD Chief Darryl Gates had not acted forcefully enough at the
very beginning of the rebellion to suppress it.  Even some of the same liberal
forces that criticized Gates' tenure as chief for promoting a general climate
of vicious brutality and fatal chokeholds used by officers now joined this
criticism.  So in a matter of 48 hours media commentary swung around from 
discussing the beating of Rodney King to discussing why the LAPD was not there
faster beating heads!

			The Search For Scapegoats


	If you are going to ascribe the rebellion to criminal opportunists,
you have to come up with some certifialble "outlaw elements" on which to pin
the blame.  Three canditates for this honor were proposed immediately:
communists, illegal immigrants, and street gangs.  Dan Quayle's attempt to blame
it all on Murphy Brown doesn't really count.
	In the weeks preceding the rebellion, the _L.A. Times_ quoted police as
saying that the city faced the possibility of violent events, with the great 
threat coming from the Revolutionary Community Party (RCP).  On May 3, L.A.
County Sheriff Sherman Block told the press that there was no doubt that the RCP
ws involved in looting and fires on the first night of the rebellion.  He
repeated these charges the next day at a Board of County Supervisors meeting and
called for federal government prosecutions.  Subsequent press accounts quoted 
LAPD commanders charging that "the RCP was part of a group that excited the
riots" and that "people who appeared to look like RCP members . . . were break-
ing windows."
	Indeed there was so much concern about the influence of revolutionary
ideology that city crews wer employed the first few days scraping down thousands
of May Day proclamations from walls rather than cleaning up damage from the
rebellion.  Perhaps the most dramatic account appeard on the op-ed page of the
_L.A. Times_: "On that Saturday morning, I did see truckloads of Revolutionary
Communist Party stalwars race thorugh South Central, red flags flying in the
smoke-soiled breeze."
	As of this writing Washingon has held back from indicments against the
RCP which would stamp the rebellion as an explicitly political act, but that
could change.  The RCP was the only political organization singled out by
authorities in connection with the rebellion.
	The second canditate for certifiable outlaw element has been the L.A.
immigrant community.  Immediately in the wake of the rebellion, Republican 
presidential canditate Pat Buchanan toured the whie enclaves of Southern 
California charging that 1,000 illegal immigrants were among those arrested for
looting in Los Angeles.  "I am calling attention to a national disgrace," said
Buchanan, "the failure of the national government of the United States to 
protect the borders of the United States from an illegal invasion that involves
at least a million aliens a year.  As a consequence of that, we have social
problems and economic problems and drug problems."
	Buchanan also renewed his call for a wall and ditch that would 
physically seal the Mexican border, whle other politicians have called for
legislation that would strip the childrenof undocumented immigrants born in the
United States of citizenship.
	Aside from the President not wanting to subscribe to a rival's views, 
the general move in Washington through the North American Free Trade Agreement
and other programs is to turn major parts of Southern California into a giant
"enterprise zone" that utilizes Mexican labor at Third World wage levels.
Tijuana, just across the border, is already the second largest metropolitan
area in Mexico, and blends economically into one region with Los Angeles and
San Diego.  Economic integration at new levels of exploitation is more the order
of the day than walls and ditches.
	The third, and so far leading canditate for certifiable outlaw element
si gangs.  Gangs conjure up precisely the Willie Horton image used so success-
fully by Bush in his 1988 campaign.  It is clear that the gangs are the
principal form of organization among the masses in the inner city that is not
under control.  Gangs are already the centerpiece of police attacks on minority
communities.  And the federal government has endorsed and augmented the
"war on gangs" for a long time.  For example, in January of 1992 Attorney
General William P. Barr announced that a major component of the "peace dividend"
with the end of the Cold War would be the reassignment of 300 FBI agents from
tracking West European spies to tracking urban street gangs.  The Los Angeles
field office now has almost 600 agents assigned to it.
	The major legal tool envisioned for use against the gangs is the RICO
(Racketerring Influence and Corrupt Organizations) law.  RICO is very dangerous
law, because under RICO, if the government establishes a pattern of crime, a
whole organization can be outlawed and all its assets siezed.  It criminalizes
whole classes of people and allows hundreds to be penalized at once without
proof of individual guilt.  Association with the "corrupt organization" is
sufficient.
	Targeting the gangs is not without its political problems.  During and
following the rebellion, the major Black gangs declared a truce.  After years
of bitter blood feuds, major sections of the Crips and Bloods declared an end
to the killing that took the lives of hundreds of young men and innocent by-
standers.  To attack the gangs at the very moment they are doing what everyone
has asked for is a very big problem.
	In declaring their truce, the gang members made it abundantly clear who
they think their real enemy is.  This, and the prospect of an end to gang 
violence, has driven the LAPD into a frenzy of denunciations and attacks. Every
time there is an attempt to hold peaceful joint meetings of the rival gangs,
hundreds of riot-equipped cops show up to break it up.
	On one question, however, there is complete unity among politicians and
the media.  The beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny and the arrest of
four alleged gang members (the L.A. 4) is to be the keystone of the national
campaign to overcome the political effects fo the beating of Rodney King and
the L.A. Rebellion.
	
				The Case of the LA 4

	From the first day of the L.A. Rebellion, Washington siezed on the 
beating of Reginald Denny.  This incident, quite atypical of the five-day
rebellion, appeared to President Bush and his advisors as a godsend.  In fact,
had this incident not occured, the government would have had to create it.  It
is their antidote to the Rodney King beating and their "Get Out Of Jail Free"
card for the L.A. Rebellion.  It graphically captured the image the government
wanted to promote, the fantasy that the L.A. Rebellion was a giant race riot
directed at whites.
	By using the Denny incident to characterize the rebellion, the govern-
ment seeks to alienate the middle class as a whole from the people who rose up.
This is why no one who seeks justice can stand aside from the case of the LA 4
or avoid taking sides.
	Over and over, the national TV audience was shown the video of Denny
being dragged from his truck and beaten.  In his Oval Office address to the
nation on the evening of May 1, President Bush highlighted the beating of Denny
for his audience.  There was no mention of police shooting people in the streets
or kicking in doors in mass warrantless searches.
	The L.A. Rebellion did not begin at the corner of Florence and Normandie
nor did the beating Denny several hours into the rebellion serve as the "spark
for the riots."  Carefully kept from the national audience was the story of what
happened several hours earlier at the intersection when police provoked an
incident and then were driven out of the neighborhood by a large crowd of angry
residents.
	Whether Denny provoked his beating as some eyewitnesses charged is not
the issue.  In any rebellion, thousands are swept into motion, bringing with 
them differing ideologies and plans of action.  Some people threw rocks at white
motorists, others burned down military installations.  But all were part of a 
single political upsurge in response to the outrageous aquittal of a gang of
vicious, racist cops.  In the course of the rebellion, the question of who are
friends and who are enemies got clearer to many people and incidents of attacks
on people soley because of race were confined to the first evening.
	Far more significant then the beating of Denny was its aftermath and
how the incident was used.  In his May 1 address, the President announced that
the Justice Department was making an accelerated investigation into whether the
beating of Rodney King had violated federal civil rights statutes and that a
federal grand jury had already issued subpoenas.  But the actual first act of 
the federal task force, acting on orders from Washington, was to subpoena TV 
news coverage, raid private homes to sieze home video shot at Florence and
Normandie, and devote every effort to identifying the men who attacked Denny.
	A few days later a small army of cops and agents descended on the 
neighborhood around Florence and Normandie.  Streets were blocked off, 
telephone service to the neighborhood was cut, and four arrests were made--the
defendants now known as the LA 4.
	In contrast to the beating of Rodney King, where the cops were charged
with assault, the LA 4 are charged with attempted murder, mayhem, and torture.
In contrast to the ocps who never spent a moment in jail and easily posted bail
ranging from $5,000 to $30,000, the LA 4 were thrown into maximum security,
brought into court shackled in chains, and three ahd bail set at over $500,000.
In contrast to the 25 cops at the scene who were supposedly trained
professionals, among whom none tried to intervene to stop the beating or help
King, in the heart of South Central other Black citizens came to Denny's aid
and helped him drive to a hospital.  Thus while the acquitted and smirking cops
are now writing books giving full vent to their racism, the LA 4 are stigmatized
as viscious gang members and hoodlums.
	For these reasons, the case of the LA 4 has become a touchstone for
where people really stand on the fight against racism and national oppression.
It simply will not do to reatreat into pious maxims like "two wrongs don't make
a right" or "they should be given a fair trial."  They are NOT going to get a
fair trial.  They have been singled out for a legal lynching by the highest
offices in the land, and people have to take sides.  You can help break up the
lynch mob, or you can help hold the rope.
	
			Plans for Post-Rebellion Los Angeles

	The overall plan for post-rebellion L.A. is captured in President Bush's
"weed and seed" program:
	"We have a program that ties in and fits nicely to solving the problems
in not only Los Angeles, but the problems that are plaguing our cities. . . . 
The first hting I would say is we have to support our law enforcement people. .
. . We have a program now that is called "weed and seed"; weed out the criminals
and then seed these neighborhoods with hope and opportunity.  But we must not
move away and try to explain away those who do--the gang members and terrorists
in our cities. . . . We must support our police. . . . 
	"The next ponit, though, is not just weed, it's not just law enforce-
ment, law and order; it is also seeding the area with hope and with opportunity.
This program we have--anti-drug, pro-family, pro-investment--is a good one. So
we start with our first incentive: Fund our weed and seed program.
	"The second one, we've got to rebuild a community. . . . The enterprise-
zones--there is an idea whose time has come.  And every place Jack [Kemp] and I
went in the neighborhood, whether it was Hispanic, whether it was a Korean
neighborhood, whether it was largely Afro-American neighborhoods, those 
community leaders were saying: Give us enterprise zones.  Change the tax 
structure so that this place can serve as a magnet to bring jobs with dignity
into the private sector." [From Bush's May 21 stump speech; incoherence in the
original.]
	The essence of weed and seed is intensified police-state activity to
contain the inevitable social explosions resulting from reduced standards of
living that will attend the new enterprise zones.
	The man in charge of "seed" is Peter Ueberroth, Chairman of the Rebuild
L.A. Committee.  He is a rich, white, Republican from reactionary Orange County,
whose major recent accomplishments were serving as baseball commisioner and
chairing the committee for the 1984 Olympics in L.A.
	Ueberroth has been rather candid about the prospects for rebuilding
L.A.: There is not going to be any significant federal or state money, so forget
about that.  There are not going to be any programs to assist uninsured small
businesses to rebuild.  So forget about that also.  And, according to 
Ueberroth, any new jobs are more likely to be "in the neglected areas, not
necessarily the devastated areas . . . of the greater Los Angeles Basin."
	All South Centeral is gong to get is a few new franchised distribution
outlets like the much ballyhooed rebuilding of a Taco Bell in 48 hours.  As for
"public services," the only thing being built in South Centeral is a giant new
prison.
	For Ueberroth, economic recovery means recovery for the corporate 
economy.  But any growth connected to big capital can only occur on the basis
of cost standards set by the global economy.  That is, tax rates and labor 
costs would have to be competitive with those in the Third World.
	This is what "enterprise zones" mean.  They are actually "exploitation
zones" where "burdensome government regulations" are relaxed and tax rates are
reduced (thus destroying the local tax base).  The only scenario for an economic
renaissance for L.A. will actually make it more like the manufacturing zones 
just over the border in northern Mexico.
	This is where the "weed" part comes in, and the man in charge of weeding
is Willie L. Williams, the new "reform" police chief of Los Angeles.  Since the
economic future for L.A. is at best dismal, the main form of social preparations
for the future is in intesified policing.  Williams has moved quickly to repair
relations between liberal politicians and the police, while continuing the
Darryl Gates program toward the underclass.
	The analogue to enterpise zones for the weed sector is "community-based
policing."  There is a great deal of confusion about the term community-based
policing, or community policing.  The confusion is deliberate as the name is
intended to suggest the idea of a community control of police.  The essence of
community-based policing, however, is police control of the community.  In the
name of better police-community relations, community-based policing seeks to 
integrate every aspect of the community from education and recreation to 
churches and political life into the police effort.  A mainstay of community-
based policing is the establishment of a block-by-block snitch system.
	A recent issue of the _FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin_ [May 1992] was
devoted entirely to singing the praises of community-based policing.  One 
article lays it out in some detail:
	"Over the years, the police have assumed many of the responsibilities
of community agencies, mostly because the police department is the only agency
open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  However, this does not mean that 
community agencies should not become a part of the community policing effort.
On the contrary, their backing is a key ingredient to the success of community
policing."
	The LAPD's Project Summary for Operation Cul-de-Sac helps to define
the concept of "community":
	"Operation Cul-de-Sac is a specialized method of concentrating police
resources in a carefully selected, high-crime neighborhood.  It involves the
physical barricading of selected streets to artificially create a 'community'
coincident with a very high level of police activity, community mobilization
and crime analysis."
	Older Jewish residents of Eastern Europe would doubtless be familiar
with the concept.
	
		Amnesty for the Prisoners of the L.A. Rebellion

	The Refuse & Resist! statement, written in 1987, speaks clearly and
forcefully to the causes and aftermath of the Los Angeles rebellion:
	"Let us not mince words.  A political and ideological program of 
'Resurgent America' [= New World Order] is being cultivated and guided from
the highest offices in the land.  It's prominent themes--a 'moral reawakening
of the nation' and the drive for America to be Number One in the world by
force of arms-have a distinctly fascist aura and raise the spector of a police
state.
	". . . A compassionless market economy is glorified, and for those who
can't make it--tough . . . Under the call for a 'war on drugs' there is a naked
grab for new police and military powers.  More jails and quicker executions are
posed as the solution to 'society's problems' . . . 
	"No one can afford to close their eyes to where this 'Resurgent America'
is heading--and thousands have already stepped forward to resist. Standing with
them, we call on those who have remained silent until now to step forward before
it is too late."
	This is why Refuse & Resist! welcomes the Los Angeles rebellion as a
massive act of resistance to a new police-state atmosphere.  This is why Refuse
& Resist! says, you can't talk about standing up to the system unless you stand
with those who actually did!
	The activists and supporters of Refuse & Resist! between them hold many
different political visions for the future, and we disagree among ourselves on
many points.  But on the basic issue of standing up for justice and against
police-state attacks we agree.
	To quote again from the Refuse & Resist! statement: "There can be no
communality of purpose, healing of divisions, or coming together as one nation
behind this new course.  To acquiesce further in silence is to be complicit.
It is not enough to hope that all of this will simply go away.  There must be
massive resistance."
	We urge you to join with us in mounting a national campaign for amnesty
for all those arrested in the Los Angeles rebellion.  The call for amnesy is
just because:
	1)  The L.A. rebellion itself was just.  If the people had not risen in
up in response to the acquittal of the police who beat Rodney King, there would
be no restraints at all upon the police, nor would the voice of oppressed ever
be heard.
	2)  The rebellion was a social act of people rebelling against injustice
and not a criminal act.  Reducing mass collective resistance to individual 
criminal cases is the system's way of punishing rebellion while denying the 
relevance of issues behind it.
	3)  This system of injustice has no right to judge those who rebelled.
The oppressed communities have no control over the court system.  Thousands of
defendants will recieve punitive treatment by those who rule in an attempt to
defer future rebellions against authority.
	4)  Punitive measures will do nothing to rectify the underlying causes
of the rebellion and, in fact, are a continuation of those causes.

			NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE. AMNESTY FOR ALL.

For a photocopy of this article send $1.00 (or a donation) to:

	REFUSE & RESIST!
	305 Madison Ave., #1166 
	New York, NY 10165
	212-713-5657
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(painstakingly typed in by Christopher, all spelling mistakes mine, of course)