Understanding the 1992 Los Angeles uprising helps explain today’s America of the Great Recession and mounting poverty for people of all colors. “It was a race riot,” insisted the government and mainstream media, “sparked by a few rogue cops abusing blacks in low-income areas,” and Bill Clinton won the presidency that year promising more jobs, more cops, and more civil rights. But after four presidents from both major parties, the only promise kept was for more cops. As hi-tech global capitalism replaced America’s industrial economy with robotics and lower living standards, instead of most poor African Americans starting to live like middle class whites, the opposite has come true.
People know there has been a “class war” of the rich over the last twenty years, and billionaire Warren Buffett even publicly jokes about it. Thus the 1992 LA Rebellion was not a “race riot,” but is best understood as the first stage of an American social revolution in response to the electronic economic revolution. The Occupy Wall Street movement and its slogan that “We are the 99%” show that this process continues to develop as what started decades ago has spread and deepened. But so has the militarization of local police under the Dept. of Homeland Security. Some abusive cops have been prosecuted, but that is tactical and temporary, while attempts to repress the growing movement are inevitable as the struggle against capitalism continues to grow.
Let them do their worst. With the uprising, we left one era and entered another. The L.A. Rebellion was the day that makes twenty years.
March/April 2012. Vol22.Ed2
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