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dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39445-with-executive-order-on-policing-trump-declares-racialized-war-on-dissent">http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39445-with-executive-order-on-policing-trump-declares-racialized-war-on-dissent</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">With Executive Order on Policing, Trump
Declares Racialized War on Dissent</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">Flint Taylor - February
10, 2017<br>
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<p>On the heels of the much ballyhooed meeting that an
obsequious Donald Trump conducted this week with local
law enforcement officials from across the country, the
president titillated the gendarmes with <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/us/texas-democrats-donald-trump.html?_r=0"
target="_blank">a threat to destroy -- COINTELPRO
style -- an unnamed Texas state senator</a> rumored to
be introducing legislation to prevent law enforcement
from financing police operations by seizing arrestees'
property before they have been found guilty in a court
of law. On Thursday, Trump followed up with <a
href="https://readabill.com/eo-preventing-violence-against-federal-state-tribal-and-local-law-enforcement-officers-966263659018#.4azj6023d"
target="_blank">an executive order</a> that gave the
recently confirmed Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard
Sessions a <em>carte blanche</em> to bring down the
wrath of the federal government on anyone who is
unfortunate enough to have a confrontation with a cop, a
prison guard, a border patrol officer or who knows who
else outfitted with a badge and carrying a gun.</p>
<p>At first blush, the order could be seen simply as a
wildly unpopular president playing macho man to our
nation's police departments and their <a
href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17520/police_unions_racist"
target="_blank">reactionary police unions</a>. The
unions have been chafing over being curbed by the
previous administration's Department of Justice (DOJ),
which, by means of pattern-or-practice investigations
and consent decrees, <a
href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/chicago-police-department-doj-report-sessions-laquan-mcdonald/"
target="_blank">started to put the brakes on racist
police violence</a>. On its face, Trump's new order
looks like much bluster, with no enforcement mechanisms.
Many of the provisions will need to be passed by
Congress, receive funding and ultimately, pass
constitutional muster -- a hurdle that the authoritarian
Trump administration, with its white supremacist hatchet
men at the helm, seems unwilling to pay even a trifling
respect.</p>
<p>On further analysis, however, the order can be read as
an official authorization, from one white supremacist --
Steve Bannon -- to another -- Jeff Sessions -- to pursue
the most racist and reactionary criminal legal policies
in recent memory. The overriding theme of the order is
"to develop strategies led by the Department of Justice
… to further enhance the protection and safety of
Federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement
officers." What first comes to mind, quite
intentionally, no doubt, are cops killed in the line of
duty, the <a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/36792-resisting-the-pro-police-backlash-after-dallas"
target="_blank">shooting in Dallas</a> being the most
prominent recent example. The policy statement -- either
explicitly or implicitly -- appeals to fears about
people of color and the demonization of Black Lives
Matter (BLM), resonating with the barely coded racist
refrains of "blue lives matter" and "law and order."</p>
<p>Within the rubric of that declaration, and the details
that follow in cold and calculating procession, the
order, at bottom, takes aim at protesters, most urgently
the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, BLM protesters
across the nation, people protesting the Muslim ban and
many others who practice acts of civil disobedience that
bring them into conflict with law enforcement. Not
content with local prosecutors dealing with these
confrontations, this order encourages Sessions and his
Department of Justice to find more punitive federal laws
to charge protesters, to seek the passage of new federal
laws to further aid this effort and to seek new
mandatory minimum sentences to enhance the punishment of
protesters, all under the guise of protecting law
enforcement from "violence."</p>
<p>Additionally, the order directs the Department of
Justice to work with other federal agencies -- no doubt
the FBI, CIA and NSA prominent among them -- to "develop
an executive branch strategy to prevent violence against
Federal, State, tribal, and local law enforcement
officers." As I typed those words, I had a chilling
realization: This was the same rationale, and almost the
exact same language, that the notorious J. Edgar Hoover
used in his <a
href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-flint-taylor/the-fbi-cointelpro-progra_b_4375527.html"
target="_blank">COINTELPRO directives that targeted
Black liberation leaders</a> Dr. Martin Luther King,
Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Fred Hampton
and their organizations, and permitted wildly illegal
government surveillance and orchestrated state violence
during the 1960s.</p>
<p>The order also calls for the DOJ to evaluate "all grant
funding programs currently administered by the DOJ to
determine the extent to which its grant funding supports
and protects" law enforcement and to seek legislation
that would "adequately support and protect" these
agencies. What seems apparent from these provisions is
that funding for police reforms in training, discipline,
monitoring and the like will be quashed, while funds for
wartime armaments such as SWAT tanks, drones,
high-powered weapons and sophisticated 21st-century
surveillance will be the norm.</p>
<p>This order, like the similar legislation that the
American Legislative Exchange Council is pushing on the
state level, is designed to criminalize and quash
dissent. Like the attack on the media, it is aimed at
defeating, with broad authoritarian strokes, growing
popular opposition to a wannabe neo-fascist regime.
Wrapped in "law and order" and protecting the police,
the next target after those who practice civil
disobedience may well be the millions who have been
taking to the streets.</p>
<p>Yet, clearly, executive repression will not signal the
end of resistance. This battle will continue to be waged
in the streets, in the media and in the courts. Our very
existence depends on the outcome.<br>
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<div>
<h2><a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/50427">Flint
Taylor</a></h2>
<div>
<p>Flint Taylor has been litigating <a
href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/chicago-police-department-doj-report-sessions-laquan-mcdonald/"
target="_blank"
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/chicago-police-department-doj-report-sessions-laquan-mcdonald/&source=gmail&ust=1486841500449000&usg=AFQjCNHOUGbdxCZAJXDUfrloNlHB0O-5FQ">cases
against police torture</a> in Chicago for 30 years
and is one of the lawyers for the families of slain
Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
Together with his law partner Jeffrey Haas, Taylor
was trial counsel in the marathon 1976 civil trial.
For more information on the Hampton/Clark case, the
history of the Black Panther Party and the FBI's
program to destroy it, visit <a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/peopleslawoffice.com"
target="_blank"
data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.truth-out.org/peopleslawoffice.com&source=gmail&ust=1486841500449000&usg=AFQjCNExIby3iCze0fyxVmlUiPnaSsq8pg">PeoplesLawOffice.com</a>.</p>
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