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791 results for “mallory_sinn”
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@npd + @mallory's latest report describes technologies used for #NetworkSlicing & outlines recommendations for an approach – for operators & regulators – to enable it while maintaining #NetNeutrality, protecting #privacy & promoting competition.
It will be essential that network providers regularly contribute to reporting on how #NetworkSlicing is currently deployed & its potential impact. Telecoms regulation must go hand-in-hand w/ consumer protection/enforcement of fundamental privacy rights.
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@npd + @mallory's latest report describes technologies used for #NetworkSlicing & outlines recommendations for an approach – for operators & regulators – to enable it while maintaining #NetNeutrality, protecting #privacy & promoting competition.
It will be essential that network providers regularly contribute to reporting on how #NetworkSlicing is currently deployed & its potential impact. Telecoms regulation must go hand-in-hand w/ consumer protection/enforcement of fundamental privacy rights.
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Review: Cicero James, Ardent Fool by Hal Emerson
A brash and brilliant slice of urban fantasy, Cicero James, Ardent Fool by Hal Emerson combines familiar societal stakes with immortal defenders and reality-shattering enemies that have been duking it out since time began. Cicero James has come back to life - again - following his last torturous clash with Mallory Shrike and her defenestration [...]…
https://www.selfpublishingreview.com/2026/05/review-cicero-james-ardent-fool-by-hal-emerson/ -
Introduction
On May 25, 2020, police in Minneapolis Minnesota murdered George Floyd in cold blood. Responding to allegations of counterfeit money, police arrested Floyd, with one officer kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes, ultimately suffocating him. The killing was captured on video and quickly spread across the internet.
Protests soon followed. The first protest organized in Minneapolis was on May 26. By May 28 the protests had spread to the nearby cities of St Paul and Duluth with riots occurring in Minneaopolis that evening. Mostly notably, the third precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department was besieged and burned. Minnesota activated the National Guard on May 29 in response to the unrest.1 The American state’s disastrous response to COVID-19, massive unemployment, and indiscriminate police killings that disproportionately target people of colour provided the impetus for an enormous and unprecedented outpouring of rage; protests, many of them violently targeting the police, spread across the United States like wildfire.
While the initial uprising was ferocious in its explosive anger and militancy, within just three weeks the protests seem to have been channeled largely into the decidedly less militant demand of “Defund the police.” What happened? I largely agree with what Kandist Mallett wrote in a brilliant article in Teen Vogue, in which she argued that: “those in power…are working tirelessly to destroy this wave of unrest before it becomes a tsunami they cannot control.… They are trying to kill this movement.”2 The defanging of the George Floyd Uprising was not accidental but was rather a deliberate attempt on the part of the American ruling class to regain social control in the wake of the most militant protests in recent memory—and, as a movement, possibly the largest in U.S. history.
What I want to do in this article is to examine the dimensions of how this defanging took place: how, within the space of two weeks, we went from burning down a police station to making small budgetary demands. I argue that the massive effort to defang the George Floyd Uprising should be understood as a deliberate counter-insurgency operation, combining the (sometimes coordinated) efforts of: various police forces, the capitalist media, the American military, NGOs, the Democrats, both state and federal governments, and other liberal establishment figures. What I also want to show is that these efforts were not extraordinary: there was no shadowy conspiracy to intervene. Rather, each of these apparatuses functioned exactly as intended to in order to defend the existing capitalist order. By examining the response to the George Floyd Uprising, the left can gain a better understanding of just how difficult it will be to overthrow capitalism and the capitalist state and potentially avoid pitfalls in the future.
Before continuing, I want to address the initial and most obvious opposition to my argument. If the efforts to defang the protests should be understood as a counter-insurgency, then it stands to reason that the George Floyd Uprising should be considered an insurgency. Is this not hyperbolic? Given the extent of the crisis of legitimacy the protests created for the American state, I do not think it is hyperbolic at all. As Kristian Williams argued in “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing”, insurgency and counter-insurgency is precisely the lens through which the American state views much of its domestic policing activity, from gang-related operations through to protest management.3
The uprising truly created a crisis of legitimacy for the American state. It needs to be stated outright that the burning of a police station and the forced retreat, under siege, of the police inside is unprecedented in the history of modern American protest. The vulnerability of the police was put on full display: the following night police were attacked in Los Angeles and New York, among other locations. The National Guard was deployed throughout the United States. While not as historically unprecedented for dealing with dissent, there were concerns, at least in Minnesota, that the National Guard would be insufficient to quell the uprising. Governor Tim Walz on May 30 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “We do not have the numbers… We cannot arrest people when we are trying to hold ground.”4 Three days later, a Senior Airman in the Minnesota National Guard said in an interview that he was “waiting for the scales to tip” with regards to the “riot purgatory” that existed; the National Guard had, as of June 2, been unable to gain control of the city.5 Trump was even rushed to his White House bunker in response to protests in Washington D.C.; the last time those bunkers were used was during the September 11 attacks.6 Transit workers used their collective power to refuse to transport arrested protestors.7 Inspired by the protests, longshore workers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union struck and shut down ports across the West Coast in mid-June.8 And in terms of putting numbers to the crisis of legitimacy faced by the American state, on June 3 a Monmouth University survey reported that 54% of Americans thought that the burning of the precinct was justified, higher than the level of support enjoyed by either Biden or Trump.9
Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency
The United States military, in Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, defines an insurgency as: “The organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region.” Counter-insurgency then is defined as “Comprehensive civilian and military efforts designed to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes.”10
It is worth quoting from the manual at length to demonstrate the sophistication with which the U.S. Military approaches counter-insurgency operations.
Highlighting the specificity of counter-insurgency operations, the manual argues that:
COIN [counter-insurgency] is distinguished from traditional warfare due to the focus of its operations—a relevant population—and its strategic purpose—to gain or maintain control or influence over—and the support of that relevant population through political, psychological, and economic methods.11
Central to how the U.S. Military sees insurgency is the question of political legitimacy:
The struggle for legitimacy with the relevant population is typically a central theme of the conflict between the insurgency and the HN [host nation] government. The HN government generally needs some level of legitimacy among the population to retain the confidence of the populace and an acknowledgment of governing power. The insurgency will attack the legitimacy of the HN government while attempting to develop its own legitimacy with the population. COIN should reduce the credibility of the insurgency while strengthening the legitimacy of the HN government.12
And in turn, central to the question of legitimacy is the task of building and controlling narratives:
COIN planners should compose a unifying message (the COIN narrative) that is consistent with the overarching USG narrative, which is coupled to the USG [U.S. government] objective. Narrative is a structure of planned themes from which both messages and actions are developed. Narrative provides a common thread of communicative influence. The objective speaks to desired outcome; narrative communicates the story of the how and why of an operation. Common themes within a COIN narrative may be: reinforcing the credibility and perception of legitimacy of the HN and USG COIN operation, exploiting the negative aspects of the insurgent efforts, and preemptively presenting the expected insurgent argument along with counter-arguments. … The COIN narrative should be the result of meticulous target-audience analysis conducted by cultural and language subject matter experts … The COIN narrative should provide the guidance from which themes, actions, and messages can be planned in support of the COIN objectives.13
Narrative construction and control is reiterated in practical terms later in the Manual:
In COIN, the information flow can be roughly divided into information which the USG requires to guide its political-military approach (i.e., knowledge of local conditions) and information which the USG wishes to disseminate to influence populations. At the same time, counterinsurgents also seek to impede the information flow of insurgent groups—both their intelligence collection and their ability to influence the relevant population. 14
One of the tactics emphasized to impede the ability of insurgents to influence the target population is working with local authorities—especially non-governmental ones like religious leaders, and NGOs- to coopt the message of the insurgency and explicitly to moderate it.15 This latter point is extremely important; while moderate movements may enjoy more popular support, they are also far less successful at winning their demands.16 It is therefore in the interest of those defend the existing order to support the moderate elements of a movement.
All this is to say then that the U.S. Military understands insurgency and counter-insurgency as being not just a military question, but rather a question of politics. To this end, the Manual heavily emphasizes the importance of political action in counter-insurgency operations:
To be effective, officials involved in COIN should address two imperatives—political action and security—with equal urgency, recognizing that insurgency is fundamentally an armed political competition…. COIN functions, therefore, include informational, security, political, economic, and development components, all of which are designed to support the overall objective of establishing and consolidating control by the HN government. … This is the core of COIN, because it provides a framework around which all other programs and activities are organized. As described above, depending on the root causes of the insurgency, the strategy may involve elements of political reform, reconciliation, popular mobilization, and governmental capacity building.17
If we understand insurgency and counter-insurgency as involving both a military and political aspect, in which the political is primary, with insurgency being primarily about building a counter-legitimacy to the state and counter-insurgency being primarily about the political isolation of insurgents through the creation of narratives, we can begin to see how such an understanding is useful to apply to American domestic politics. The George Floyd Uprising saw insurgents directly undermine the legitimacy of the existing state, especially the police, through both armed and political action. In turn, the state and establishment responded with both armed and political actions, the latter in the form of co-optation and narrative control.
But the connections between American counter-insurgency and domestic politics are not just on the discursive level. In “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing”, Kristian Williams provides an excellent overview of the material relationship between American military counter-insurgency programs and American policing. This is specifically evident with regard to trends towards the militarization of the police and so-called “Community Policing” initiatives. Williams demonstrates how, in a modern example of the “imperial boomerang”18, many of the methods employed by modern police forces were developed and refined by the American military, including during its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In turn, the military partnered with police forces to learn how to better control conquered populations, be they black people living in American cities or Iraqis living under American occupation in Iraq.19
Of particular interest is the role that NGOs play in this process. As was noted earlier, the U.S. Military makes special mention of NGOs in the process of counter-insurgency. An earlier version of the Manual, published in 2006 and authored by David Petraeus, is more explicit, remarking that “some of the best weapons for counterinsurgents do not shoot” and referring to NGOs as “force-multipliers”. Williams is able to show how NGOs were directly involved in de-escalating responses of the community to murders committed by American police in Oakland, as well as involved in anti-gang activities in Boston. Both of these separate efforts fall under the playbook of counter-insurgency.20
Before going in depth into the George Floyd Uprising, it is worthwhile looking at the “why” of counter-insurgency. Why is it that the police and military have developed a comprehensive strategy intended to undermine threats to the existing order? Fundamentally, the modern state exists to protect the interests of the capitalist class—namely the continuation of capital accumulation and exploitation—against the interests of everyone else. In turn, specific states exist to protect the specific interests of their specific capitalist classes. Thus anything that attempts to undermine capitalism, or the ability of capitalists to exploit, must be itself undermined. The state has a myriad of tools at its disposal to help with this process. Some are ideological (they convince people exploitation is in their own interest) whereas others, like the police, are repressive. Insofar as the goal of counter-insurgency is ultimately to protect the accumulation of capital, we should understand counter-insurgency as extending beyond just the actions of the repressive apparatuses of the state. What I will explore below is that in this case, counter-insurgency was a joint effort of the entire American ruling class, both inside and outside the state, to defang the George Floyd Uprising. The American ruling class used both violent and non-violent means to defang the uprising: they deployed what could be called a carrot-and-stick approach in order to protect the social order.
The Carrot…
The Media Narrative
In the days following the murder of George Floyd, the media worked tirelessly to defang the George Floyd Uprising. They did this not by creating reality through discourse, but by selectively and pointedly reporting on certain aspects of reality. As a result, they encouraged people to think about the uprising in specific ways, and in turned called them into action in specific ways. I will focus primarily on the Minneapolis Star Tribune; the narrative trends developed there were later repeated in media across the United States.
Initial media reaction to the uprising directly condemned property destruction. After a Target was looted on the night of May 27, the Star Tribune spent the following day reporting on the impact that riots would have on small businesses.21 True to form, the Star Tribune printed a call for peace from the family and partner of George Floyd22 as well as from “political, faith, community leaders” calling for an “end to riots.”23 The latter story was particularly interesting insofar as the group was called together for a conference by Minnesota governor Tim Walz, and included both church leaders and NGO managers. Here is an example of a top state official picking and choosing who counts as a “community leader” without direct input from the community. In turn, the Star Tribune reported on the meeting treating these externally hand-picked “community leaders” as though their legitimacy derived from the community itself.
In the following days, the Star Tribune shifted focus to the human cost of the riots to the local community. The publication blamed the riots for creating a food desert due to the closing of large corporate grocery stores.24 Rioters were also blamed for the lack of access to medicine now faced by the local community due to the closure of pharmacies.25 Rioters were alleged to have burned down nearly 200 units of affordable housing, thus exacerbating the housing crisis.26 The riots were also allegedly responsible for devastating Minneapolis’ famed Lake Street, home to immigrant-owned business and a hub, according to the Star Tribune, of multi-culturalism.27
In its discussion of the immediate impact of the uprising on the local community, not once did the Star Tribune go beyond surface-level condemnations of the rioters. Suddenly concerned with access to food and medication, the stories did not include discussions as to why the closure of a few grocery stores could create a food desert. There was no discussion on the increased price of food and wealth-disparity. There was no discussion on the monopolization of food sources by large chains. There was no discussion on the effects of for-profit healthcare on access to medicine. No discussions on gentrification and stagnant wages leading to the necessity of specifically designated “affordable” housing. No discussions on the context of the riots: namely 40 million unemployed Americans staring down a pandemic with miniscule government relief. No discussion of looting as a means of getting necessities such as medicine, food, and clothing; no discussion as to why Target and pharmacies became targets. Instead the riots were presented largely without context, as simply an irrational outburst of anger, alone causing problems to the community. Those fighting back against the existing order were blamed for the worst effects of the very order they fought against.
In addition to direct condemnation, the Star Tribune also took a more nuanced approach to the riots. Instead of the riots being an organic expression of community anger, they were presented—both by the media, and the government—as being the work of (usually white) “outside agitators”. Rioting was purported to be the work of secret white-supremacists that had infiltrated the protests in order to cause mayhem. In that same meeting of community leaders called together by Tim Walz on May 30, the executive director of the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage put it succinctly: “White people from other communities are coming into my community, our communities as some kind of perverse poetry, as if it wasn’t bad enough already. … Go home now. The fascists on the plan right now, turn around.”28 The Star Tribune reported on an Illinois man who had been arrested with explosives in Minneapolis, who had specifically traveled there to riot.29 The mayor of St Paul and the governor of Minnesota had each tweeted that the vast majority -80% to all- of the arrestees in the week preceding June 6 had been from out-of-state despite the fact that there was no evidence to back up such claims. The claims were so ludicrous that the Star Tribune ran a story walking back many of the claims about outside agitators; well after the damage had been done to the protests.30
The goal of these various media narratives—first, condemning the riots; second, emphasizing the damage to the community; and third, blaming outside agitators- was to drive a dual process of bifurcation within the protest movement. The goal of the ruling class was on the one hand to separate “peaceful” liberal protestors from the more radical element, both to avoid radicalization of the moderate protestors but also to isolate the radicals within the movement. Second, the goal was to lump the radical protestors together with apolitical opportunist looters, whether or not the latter group actually existed, and in turn ignore the radical critiques of both policing and society as a whole that the radicals put forward. Thus the establishment attempted to call into being two groups: a group of good, peaceful, moderate protestors; and a second group of opportunist, violent protestors who did not care about the injustice the protests were about. The tactics and message of the first group was to be lauded, whereas the tactics and message of the second group was to be condemned.
Meanwhile, seemingly out of nowhere, another narrative appeared in the media. Across both social and traditional media outlets, stories appeared showing police supporting the protests. Most famous were the images of police (and sometimes National Guard) kneeling with the protestors. Often times this was displayed as the result of a request from the “good protestors”, who were then portrayed as applauding police initiative. However, in this case reality cut through the media spin: the American police were simply too vicious for their “spontaneous” (more on this below) outpouring of empathy to be taken seriously. There were abundant accounts of the same police transitioning from kneeling to attacking protestors within the space of hours.
As the protests spread in the early weeks of June, it was no longer possible for the media to rely on the “outside agitator” platitude. Indeed, with protests in literally every major city in the United States, there was no “outside” for the agitators to come from. And with the utter inhumanity of the police on full display, stories of police taking a knee simply didn’t hold water. The media then turned to focusing almost exclusively on the efforts of liberal NGOs engaged in “rebuilding” efforts31, and the activities of the “good” protestors. The degree to which the “good” protestors were signal-boosted by the media is evident in the speed at which the “Defund the Police” slogan, itself a moderated version of the already moderate “abolish the police” demand, became the public rallying cry of the movement as a whole.32 Finally, towards mid-June, with the protests now largely contained and the radical element isolated, the media began largely ignoring the massive protests that are still occurring, instead only providing local coverage of incidental events.
While I have focused largely on the narrative created in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the same pattern (from demonization, to outside agitators, to focusing on the community cost, the good/bad protestor division, the police sympathy, to NGOs and liberals, to ultimately ignoring the movement) was a pattern that was repeated more-or-less within all major media sources in North America. Why was this the case? The similarity in editorial line between media companies does not indicate direct coordination between media onwers nor does it point to state intervention or censorship. Rather, insofar as media in North America is either owned by large corporations or run by the state, the commonality of interests that exists between rich owners and rich state managers is inevitably reflected in the editorial line of the media which they run.33 It makes total sense then that the media would relay a narrative which had as its effect the defanging of the George Floyd Uprising; such an action was absolutely within the interests of the large capitalists which control the media. The capitalist class, by owning the media and therefore controlling its content, was able to utilize media narratives as part of the counter-insurgency effort against the George Floyd Uprising.
In the case of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the connection between ownership and editorial line could not be clearer. Glen Taylor, the billionaire former state senator, admitted as much when he bought the newspaper in 2014. In an interview with MinnPost, he stated that his ownership of the paper would result in the editorial line being less liberal.34 It is unsurprising then that the overall editorial position of the paper reflects Taylor’s public position, namely that the problem is not specifically law enforcement and that protests are only legitimate if they are peaceful.35 Insofar as the George Floyd Uprising threatened the existing order in Minneapolis, an order that Glen Taylor benefitted from, the Star Tribune would come out against the uprising. This same process played out across the United States over the course of the uprising.
The Copaganda Machine
No account of how the media treated the George Floyd Uprising would be complete without a discussion of something that is often overlooked in accounts of reactionary media spin: the absolutely massive public relations machine employed by the police themselves. While it is possible that the speed with which stories of police “taking a knee” with protestors went viral was entirely natural, it is far more likely that in the wake of the largest anti-police protests in a generation that the police PR machine jumped into overdrive.
The goal of police public relations (PR) is, like any public relations campaign, to influence how the public views the police. In one article written for Police One, the largest English-language online community of police boasting literally tens of thousands of members, the point of police PR is described as “to establish a positive relationship with the community before an incident occurs.” The point of PR is directly contextualized to counteract the public’s reactions to racist police terror: “Events dating back to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, Rodney King, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray and others have been covered extensively in the media and have tarnished the reputation of many agencies. The public relations team must establish or repair the image of the agency within the community.”36 In another article on the same website, another officer describes the utility of “branding” (using a PR campaign to build a police “brand”) insofar as it allows police departments to control messaging and make clear a department’s “value proposition.”37 The goal of branding is to build preconceptions about the role of police, thus filtering any observations through the preconceived image of how police should act. This allows the police to have greater impunity in their actions, as anything they do is seen immediately through the lens of police being good and necessary protectors.
On the surface this seems fairly obvious and innocuous. All firms employ PR strategies in one form or another, in which the firm seeks to use the media to influence public reaction to the firm. However if we consider the social role of police, namely a repressive apparatus of the capitalist state designed to protect the conditions which allow for exploitation, the police use of PR becomes more sinister. Police directly attempt to manipulate public perceptions of their actions in their favour, including racist murder.
How widespread is the police use of PR? It is difficult to say. An examination of several police budgets over the past years of cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Toronto turned up little information; the police are remarkably good at concealing precisely what they spend their money on. There is some scattered information though that suggests that the police spend a staggering amount on PR. For instance, in 2016 the Denver Police Department was revealed to have spent $1.3 million over three years on its “media relations unit”.38 The Metropolitan Police in the UK had, in 2015, a 10 million pound annual PR budget that employed 100 communications staff, with a police across the UK spending 36 million pounds annually on PR.39 The LAPD, rather than just employing a Public Information Officer (PIO), has an entire Public Relations Unit.40 In Toronto, the 2019 police budget requested an additional $7.9 million to be partially used on nine new positions in the Corporate Communications Unit, increasing the total staff from 16 to 25, to be used to “help increase capabilities in public relations, internal communication and digital strategy.”41 And in 2020, the NYPD allotted $3.2 million for public relations, in order to tell their “side of the story.”42
Direct police department expenses on PR are just one of the PR avenues available to police. Police unions also hire PR firms to improve the image of their officers or to advance specific goals.43 Individual police officers can also hire PR firms to represent them in times of need. One such service, Cop PRotect, allows officers to pay $50 per month for guaranteed representation if something should go wrong. In a story placed in Police Magazine, the need for such a service is related directly to the Ferguson Uprising:
Cops today are completely at the mercy of activists who don’t care about the truth … Darren Wilson was nearly murdered and now lives in hiding, while the man who tried to kill him is declared a hero by activists. Cop PRotect gives cops like Darren Wilson a trusted friend to tell their stories in ways agency information officers, union representatives and the media cannot or will not.44
In this case, the firm was created directly to mitigate community blowback against individual officers in the wake of racist police terror.
While the amount that is spent on pro-police PR is hard to find, the indirect effects make it more obvious. Indeed, there exists an entire parasitic cottage industry of pro-police PR firms and consulting services, which exist solely to increase public perceptions in the police. For instance, a quick search turned up John Guilfoil Public Relations which specializes in the public sector, including the police. A testimonial from the chief of the Massachusetts Police Department states that the firm “provides an extremely valuable service to those agencies that want to be proactive in … getting out a positive message to the community.”45 PolicePR in Indiana offers a Public Information Officer boot camp, in partnership with the Greenwood Police Department.46 Melissa Agnes, a crisis management strategist who has been featured on Police One, has a whole series of articles and talks dealing specifically with police misconduct, ranging from “Discussing the Divide Between Police and Their Communities” to “Discussing The #Ferguson Crisis with Tim Burrows”.47 None of these firms or services would exist if the police were not paying for them.
Police PR strategies are not limited to traditional media. To give the strategies a more organic feel, police forces and their hired PR firms make frequent use of social media in order to help control the narrative around their actions. Police Chief Magazine warns officers that “Hiding and Hoping is Not a PR Strategy”; police forces not only need to monitor social media to see what perception of the police force is after an incident, but must also build “a social media presence”. This latter point can include spreading information about a suspect in the event that video showing police misconduct spreads.48 As part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s ‘Community Oriented Policing Services’ (COPS) Strategic Communication Practices guide, there is an entire section on the importance of social media.49 Another article on Police One suggests that police departments send officers onto Reddit, both to get ahead of a story, but also to intervene in the discussions as police.50 These efforts can be bolstered by using “community outreach programs” to “build an online army of supporters.”51
Lest anyone think that the police simply use social media to inform their audience about their activities, the police consciously use social media to manipulate public opinion during moments of crisis. Taken from another Police One article (a fantastic resource for those wanting to understand the mindset of police), this one published ominously on May 28, 2020, titled “12 things every police department’s civil unrest plan needs”, there is an entire section on social media. Departments are instructed to be aware that protestors can use social media to amplify and coordinate their activity; departments should also be aware and be ready to counter those that would “lower the perception of [their] department.” If that fails, there’s always the National Guard.52 Force Science News published an article/advertisement featuring Melissa Agnes in 2018, which advised departments to have prepared a ‘Communications Bible’ to help navigate crises such as “officer-involved shootings”.53 In a mid-June Police One leadership briefing, after weeks of anti-police protests, authors mockingly reflected: “Now do you recognize the power of social media?” arguing that police “must start viewing… social media as an integral tool in policing.”54
All this is to say there exists a massive and highly coordinated police PR machine, which the police use to try and directly control media narratives in their favour. They do this as part of a broader effort to maintain the current social order. While it is impossible to prove this soon, I strongly suspect that it was this machine which was responsible for the flood of sympathetic stories about the police that featured prominently across traditional and social media in early June. Despite the best efforts of the police, their unions, and their employed PR firms, they were unable to shift the broader media narrative for more than a few days; the brutal actions of police across the United States spoke for themselves and undermined attempts to portray the police in a positive light.
While ultimately unsuccessful, the wave of pro-police media in early June gave credibility to the more moderate argument that the institution of policing itself is not the problem, but rather that it is only some “bad apples” amidst an otherwise salvageable police force. This in turn gave more ideological power to moderate and liberal elements, the so-called “good protestors”, within the broader protest movement. To tie this back into counter-insurgency, control over information in the form of both narrative construction and information dissemination is one of the main tools of counter-insurgency strategies. The police consciously did just this, and in the process strengthened the moderates within the movement.
The Non-Profit Industrial Complex
As noted earlier, the U.S. military considers NGO partnerships to be a vital part of counter-insurgency efforts. Much has been written about the negative effects of non-profits on social movements. In the classic collection of essays titled The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Andrea Smith argues that capital and the capitalist state use nonprofits to: monitor and control social movements, divert public resources into private hands, manage and control dissent, redirect activist efforts towards careerism and away from mass-based modes of organizing, allow corporations to mask exploitation through philanthropy, and encourage social movements to model themselves in terms of structure and politics after capitalist models.55 For the purposes of this essay, I want to focus on two areas: first, how NGOs have a moderating effect on the politics of a movement. Second, I will talk about how NGOs frequently work with the police to protect the current social order under the guise of changing it.
How is it that non-profits are able to moderate social movements? The capitalist class is well aware of their own interests and spends an inordinate amount of money defending them. In the process, they create philanthropic foundations. These philanthropic foundations not only allow capitalists to transfer wealth inter-generationally without taxation (giving their children positions in the foundations) but also fund charitable activities, such as non-profits. There is a catch though: the capitalists will not fund anything that does not fit their interests, namely the continuation of exploitation. They are happy, for instance, to fund affordable housing initiatives insofar as those initiatives do not tackle the root causes of homelessness, namely private property. Capitalist foundations therefore provide resources to NGOs which act in line with their interests. In turn, NGOs knowingly moderate themselves in order to better secure resources. Furthermore respectable NGOs can become the public face of a movement, effectively forcing the more radical organizations out of the public eye.
The Civil Rights and anti-police movements are full of examples of the moderating effects of NGOs. For instance, in the 1960s white philanthropist Stephen Currier set up the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership in order to channel foundation funding to Civil Rights groups. The so-called ‘Big Six’ were brought together; of the six, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the most radical of the groups, received the least amount of funding. More radical groups, such as the Nation of Islam, were completely excluded. In 1963 Malcolm X specifically criticized the Big Six and the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership in his famous ‘Message to the Grass Roots’ speech in which he reflected on the March on Washington which had taken place earlier that year.56 The goal of these maneuvers by white philanthropists was clear: fund the more moderate element of the Civil Rights movement to avoid the movement taking a radical turn and undermining the ability for American capitalism to operate.57
Fast forward 50 years, and the same pattern reoccurs. In Oakland in 2009, non-profits directly intervened to deradicalize the response to the killing of Oscar Grant. Ahead of a major rally in January 2009, the Oakland police arranged meetings with various nonprofit and church leaders in order to defang the protests before they even began.58 Religious leaders asked their congregations to not attend the protests. A coalition of NGOs came together and formed the Coalition Against Police Execution (CAPE). CAPE explicitly called for a lack of militancy in their protests, and stood as a physical barrier between police and protestors. 59 In turn, CAPE became the public, legitimate face of the protests, which was reinforced through media coverage.
The uprising in 2014 in Ferguson saw a similar process play itself out. There the NGO influence was given an organizational existence in the form of Black Lives Matter. I want to be clear here; when speaking of Black Lives Matter I am talking about the official organization and not the broader movement of the same name. Black Lives Matter, while first conceived of in 2013, organized its first major action in 2014 with the Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride in response to the killing of Michael Brown by the Ferguson police. Black Lives Matter became the public face of the movement. Despite the Ferguson uprising originating in riots, Black Lives Matter and other organizations planned a series of actions over the course of the summer of 2014 that channeled local activism into safer and less rebellious avenues.
Following the Ferguson uprising, moderate elements of the Black Lives Matter movement became a relatively safe outlet for liberals to support and into which the capitalist class could channel outrage. Black Lives Matter and the constellation of new organizations and networks around it received an absolutely immense amount of donations from larger donors like The Ford Foundation and George Soros.60 The more liberal elements of the movement, able to secure donations, were able to take centre-stage. For instance, one recipient, the Organization for Black Struggle, used some of its funding to create the Hands Up Coalition. This coalition popularized the “hands up, don’t shoot” slogan used by protestors; this ran against slogans by more militant black power activists such as “arms up, shoot back” and “fists up, fight back”. More radical yet equally active groups, such as the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, received no funding. In 2016, Black Lives Matter and 27 other organizations, as part of the Movement for Black Lives, issued a platform of demands titled A Vision for Black Lives. Rather than a comprehensive plan and program to mobilize the masses to fight for their own liberation, the document is a set of policy guidelines. The effect is that efforts are taken off the streets and channeled into traditional power structures where they are ultimately destined to fail.
The founders of Black Lives Matter were first introduced to each other through an NGO known as Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD). The board of directors of BOLD, those who decide its political direction, is made up of managers of other NGOS.61 BOLD also receives an immense sum of money from private donors, such as through the “philanthropic intermediary” known as Borealis Philanthropy62 and through Funders for Justice.63 This latter group, also created in response to the Ferguson Uprising, in turn receives funding from The Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations; hardly groups interested in a radical transformation of the social order or the end of exploitation. I don’t bring this up to allege a conspiracy that Black Lives Matter is being secretly run by The Ford Foundation, but rather to show that even Black Lives Matter has its origins within the non-profit industrial complex milieu, which in turn effects its politics. Turning back to the George Floyd Uprising, it is unsurprising that in a recent Reddit Ask-Me-Anything, Kailee Scales, the Managing Director for Black Lives Matter, condemned the riots and announced efforts to channel the George Floyd Uprising into voter registration and “civic engagement” through the #WhatMatters2020 campaign.64
The ways in which non-profits have attempted to moderate explosions of rage during the George Floyd Uprising are too many to list. One example I want to focus on, however, is particularly telling. On May 30, two days after the burning of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis, a local non-profit called Pillsbury United Communities had a press conference. Pillsbury United Communities is an incredibly well established NGO; founded in 1879, it runs a number of outreach and education programs, community programs (such as free COVID-19 testing), as well as “social enterprises” including a grocery store. The press conference on May 30 brought together Jamie Foxx, Stephen Jackson, BLM activist Tamika Mallory, alongside George Floyd’s family. Speakers were explicit in their calls for peaceful protests, but generally did not condemn the riots. A peaceful rally followed.65 Thus at the height of the militant protests, people were asked by “legitimate” community leaders to temper their anger and engage in traditionally and easily ignored protests. These calls were amplified by liberals outside the community and the media.
A few days after the rally, Pillsbury United Communities used George Floyd’s death to issue a fundraising call; it is unclear from their website how the money will be used to ensure “Justice for George Floyd”.66 But individual donations are not the only way that Pillsbury United Communities raises funds. It also receives donations from massive foundations such as the Greater Twin Cities United Way, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the St. Paul & Minnesota Foundation. The United Way, for instance, acts as a “philanthropic intermediary”, collection donations from large corporations, and then granting money to non-profits. In this specific case, the money given to Pillsbury United Communities comes from sources such as 3M, U.S. Bank, Cargill, and Target.67 The latter, notably, also provides hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to police foundations.68 One can see the issue of an organization fighting for justice against the police having similar funding sources to the police themselves. It is also unlikely that the capitalist class would fund those capable of truly undermining it.
That an NGO intervened in a mass struggle to both channel the movement in a more liberal direction while monopolizing resources is not particularly surprising. What is particularly interesting though is Pillsbury United Communities’ connection to community policing. A 2006 report by the Minneapolis Department of Health & Family Support lists Waite House, a Pillsbury United Communities site, as a “Weed & Seed Safe Haven”.69 Weed and Seed programs, for context, gained prominence in 1992 after the Rodney King riots as a way to connect police and community leaders in order to ostensibly combat gang violence70; they made cohesive the militarization tactics (weed) and community policing tactics (seed) employed in counter-insurgency efforts.71 In December 2014, the FBI gave Pillsbury United Communities its “Director’s Community Leadership Award”, an annual award given to groups for crime prevention efforts.72 Then-president and chief executive, Chanda Smith Baker, accepted the award. Coincidentally, Chanda Smith Baker—now working for the Minneapolis Foundation—also sits on the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s newspeak titled “Working Group on Police-Involved Deadly Force Encounters”. The goal of the working group was to “identify ways to reduce deadly force encounters with law enforcement”73. Members of the group included the Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, the Minnesota Attorney General, Philando Castile’s (killed by police in Minnesota in 2016) uncle, and other judge’s, academics, politicians, and NGO managers. Tragically and ironically, the working group released its findings in February 2020; that George Floyd was murdered, just a few months later in a “police-involved deadly force encounter”, demonstrates the extent to which so-called community policing is useful to the community.
One final interesting link between NGOs and the police in Minneapolis: as mentioned earlier, Chanda Smith Baker, after working for Pillsbury United Communities, went on to work as the Senior Vice President, Impact for The Minneapolis Foundation. The current president and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation is R.T. Rybak, who was also the former mayor of Minneapolis. R.T. Rybak also sits on the board of a company called Benchmark Analytics: an IT company which has designed a system capable of predicting when officers will become problematically violent. Rybak therefore has a direct material interest in “reforming” the police. In an article written on June 2, titled “I Was the Mayor of Minneapolis and I Know Our Cops Have a Problem”, Rybak recalls surveying the damage to Minneapolis after the riots with Chanda Smith Baker, before advertising his firm’s solution to police violence.74 Unsurprisingly he emphasizes the humanity of the police, and he sees the solution as being community policing informed by predicative behavior technology.
The organizational and interpersonal links between NGO managers, politicians, police leadership, “community leaders”, and the board members of large capitalist firms points to the existence of a ruling capitalist class. The above is just a small illustration of how the ruling class rules in Minneapolis.
To summarize all of this: Pillsbury United Communities is an established, well-respected local NGO. It is part of the non-profit industrial complex, relying on philanthropic intermediaries for much of its funding, which in turn are funded by massive corporations. It came out very vocally in the early stages of the George Floyd Uprising, urging a more liberal and institutional approach to activism as opposed to the riots. And, it has close ties to the Minneapolis Police Department and state police through community policing programs. It is just one textbook example of many of how NGOs act as elements of a counter-insurgency strategy.
The Democrats
The Democrats have been referred to as the “graveyard of social movements” insofar as they absorb, coopt, and disorganize them.75 Their approach to the George Floyd Uprising is no different. What the Democratic Party sought to do in the wake of the George Floyd Uprising was a combination of repression (in those places in which it exercised power, such as Minneapolis, New York, L.A., etc.) and coopt its energies into the Biden 2020 campaign. Given the unpopularity of Biden and the overall increasing disinterest in electoral politics by much of the left the attempt to coopt the movement, at least ostensibly, has been unsuccessful. It is, however, still worth examining in order to paint a full picture of the counter-insurgency campaign against the uprising.
At the beginning of the uprising, the Democratic Party machine jumped into motion but was unsure how to act. While top Democrat strategists spoke to media about how the uprising could affect the election76 (indicating that they were in fact working on a response), there was little in the way of official high-level statement or actions for almost a week. Then on June 2 two fairly major events occurred. First, Biden publicly brought Julian Castro into his campaign; Castro had been a vocal proponent of liberal police reforms during his bid to become the Democratic nominee for president.77 Second, Pelosi, the multi-millionaire Speaker of the House, asked the Congressional Black Caucus to draft a series of police reforms.78
On June 8, following a ridiculous display in which Pelosi and other top Democrats took a knee wearing Ghanaian kente cloths, the Justice in Policing Act was revealed. The act is fairly milquetoast—far behind the nebulous demands of the uprising—and includes provisions for more easily prosecuting police in cases of brutality, mandatory body cameras, as well as a ban on chokeholds. The Act does absolutely nothing to abolish or even defund police departments. 79 Nor is the act likely to become law; even if the act was to pass the Republican-majority Senate, Trump has announced his attention to veto it.80
Rather than an accident, the unlikelihood of the bill passing is a feature, one of the ways in which so-called “checks and balances” help protect the current order. The Democrats know this; had it been likely to pass the bill would have been even more muted. The inaction of the Democrats in the face of the George Floyd Uprising is not surprising; they are one of the two parties that have overseen the construction and maintenance of the white-supremacist order in the United States. Biden is himself a career segregationist and author of a 1994 crime bill81 which was a cornerstone in the construction of the modern for-profit prison behemoth.82 The Congressional Black Caucus has itself helped to make the police a “protected class”, and also contributed to the militarization of police through the 1033 program.83
Despite the lack of success of the official Democrat cooptation attempt of the George Floyd Uprising, I want to point out one of the more insidious ways that the Democrats are attempting to coopt outrage against police murders through social movements themselves. It is worth first pointing out that Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, is a supporter of the centrist-wing of the Democrats, specifically Elizabeth Warren.84 Black Lives Matter has recently launched a campaign called #WhatMatters2020. The goal of the campaign is to bring “BLM supporters and allies to the polls in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election to build collective power and ensure candidates are held accountable for the issues that systematically and disproportionately impact Black and under-served communities across the nation.”85 A campaign video calls on people to vote for an America where “police are held accountable” and “where we have access to quality healthcare”. The problem with this campaign, of course, is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are even pretending to deliver on promises like this. Biden does not support medicare for all, and was an architect of the current racist criminal justice system. The #WhatMatters2020 campaign is a cynical sheepdog campaign, bringing black people angry at the current injustices of American white-supremacist capitalism back into the Democrats.
Invasion of the Liberals
Earlier in this article, I mentioned that the media was attempting to call into existence a group of “good”, peaceful protestors. I want to spend more time now talking about this process. Ideology is both produced by practice, but also exists as a way of calling particular types of people into activity.86 When the media began focusing almost exclusively on “good” protestors, it was at first inventing this category out of almost thin air; the line it was drawing was an artificial one. But by putting forward this ideological pole, the media called into action people who had hitherto not been involved. The media, alongside notable liberal politicians and other establishment figures, created a group of liberal protestors out of inactive liberals who now saw themselves and their own political predilections reflected in the ongoing uprising. Included in these efforts by the media and liberal establishment figures is a now-famous essay by former president Barrack Obama, posted to Medium on June 1, in which he said he supported the protests, condemned violence, and urged reform efforts to be focused on institutional channels.87
The flip side of the liberal “call to action” is that it also acts as a safeguard against radicalization. When reality confronts ideology, it is often ideology that is changed. Reality forces a rupture in one’s worldview which can lead to radicalization. In this case it became difficult to substantiate the story of a good, neutral, and protective state in the face of ubiquitous police violence against even peaceful protestors. If reality can be changed or if powerful narratives can reinforce ideology, ideology is cemented rather than discarded. In this case, liberalism as a worldview was able to escape challenge due to the emergence of establishment liberals in support of the protests.
The result of the liberalization of the protests on public opinion is interesting. By mid-June, 67% of Americans reportedly supported the ongoing protests. The racial breakdown was more stark: 60% of white people supported the protests, whereas 86% of black people supported them. Despite this, 59% of Americans (including 62% of white Americans compared with 43% of black Americans) believed that the protests were spurred on at least in part as a means for people to engage in criminal behavior.88 Thus the liberalization of the protests resulted in a situation in which the majority of a country deeply enmeshed in white supremacy supported protests proclaiming the value of black lives, despite the majority of the country materially benefitting from that same unjust racial hierarchy. That major politicians like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate Mitt Romney joined the protests—both politicians with significant power to change the conditions against which they protested- signals only that the political message of the uprising had shifted in the popular consciousness away from “dismantle white supremacy” to the base level of “black people are human”. That nearly one third of America could not even support such a basic affirmation of humanity is telling.
The liberal invasion had three main effects on the uprising. First, the influx of liberals into the rallies not only led to the proliferation of protests and an increase in attendance, but also to their pacification. Protestors began to self-police, modifying their tactics in line with the interests of the existing order. Protestors made sure to demarcate themselves and their actions as “peaceful”, thus robbing themselves of even the specter of militancy. To a certain extent there is a degree of “selection bias” here; militant protestors are more likely to be arrested, and therefore over time the composition of a protest will naturally become more liberal. Police are aware of this and consciously seek to tie up activist time and resources in legal proceedings.
Internally to the protests, liberal protestors acted like “peace police”, disrupting the activities of militants. Examples included liberals in Washington DC turning over a “rioter” to the police (at an anti-police march!) at the end of May,89 as well as the doxxing by liberal activists of Rayshard Brook’s girlfriend, pegged as an outside agitator.90 She is accused of setting fire to the Wendy’s outside of which her partner was murdered by police. Another high-profile example of the liberalization of the protests on the tactical level is Al Sharpton’s call for a march on Washington in August, which took place at the height of militant protests occurring in Washington D.C..91 Such a call, not to support the existing protests but to postpone them, was a calculated attempt to de-escalate the uprising.
Second, the influx of liberals into the movement has paved the way for false victories. By this I mean superficial gains that ultimately leave the underlying power structure which gave rise to the protests unchallenged. Included here is the “Black Lives Matter” street mural in Washington D.C., various corporate black-washing campaigns, the changing of band names, and the cancelling of shows like COPS. One notes the irony of the mayor of New York ordering that “Black Lives Matter” be painted outside of Trump Towers while overseeing a police department which brutalizes black people and and while also opposing efforts to defund the NYPD.
Third, the influx of liberals into the movement had an effect on defanging the demands of the movement. Black Lives Matter was quick to issue the demand to defund the police in the early days of the George Floyd Uprising: they explicitly pushed for a defunding of the police, without going into detail as to what that would entail.92 Other activists seized on the space this opened up and stated that “defund” meant “defund everything”. They argued that the police were not reformable and therefore had to be abolished.93 What followed was a discussion in the media about whether or not “defund” actually meant “defund”. There was no shortage of liberals assuring other concerned liberals that defunding didn’t actually mean that there would be no police.94 While Minneapolis has since begun steps to disband their police force, demands in other locations seem to ask for a portion of police budgets to be re-allocated to community resources, in line with the Movement for Black Lives policy demands.95
The conceptual slippage of “defund” has not gone unnoticed by the police themselves. In a June 18 article on Police One, Mike Walker, a police officer for 27 years, wrote that “defunding is really just a way of saying reduced funding.”96 In the same article he offers assurance to worried police officers by noting that budget cuts were already on the agenda due to COVID-19, and that most municipalities legally cannot function without police due to their municipal charters.
That at least some police are fine with temporarily defunding the police speaks to the heart of just how defanged a demand “defund the police” actually is. But “abolish the police” as a slogan absent a critique of the conditions that give rise to the police is itself a demand that does not cut to the heart of the matter. The police exist because capitalism requires force to defend inequality and exploitation. Without ending exploitation, there will still need to be some form of coercive apparatus to ensure the continued existence of exploitation. Thus the coercive functions of the police will be offloaded to other state apparatuses; there will still be violent, racist coercion whether or not the police exist. This is something that already happens; consider, for instance, the racist terror that child welfare services across Canada (not armed, not police) put Indigenous people through for years. The George Floyd Uprising opened the space for discussions about the fundamental nature of society, about capitalism, imperialism, and racial inequality in America. Liberals shifted the overton window to exclude visions of radical transformation, instead focusing on the degree to which police should be defunded. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s now viral Instagram post which stated that police abolition looks like white suburbia, an atomized capitalist dystopia, makes total sense in this context.97
The liberal invasion resulted in a defanging of protest tactics, results, and even the demands themselves. This process, which was aided by the police, the media, and “legitimate” community leaders, was nothing less than the political side of a counter-insurgency campaign by the American ruling class directed against the George Floyd Uprising. Thus a movement which began with the burning of a police station has been transformed into one of requesting minor amendments to municipal budgets.
…And the Stick
The majority of the article has focused on the less-obvious methods that the American ruling class has used in its counter-insurgency efforts against the George Floyd Uprising. However, while counter-insurgency is more effective if it involves elements of soft power, no counter-insurgency effort is complete without open repression. The efforts against the George Floyd Uprising are no exception.
It is hard to overstate the scale of the police operation against protestors over the past month. For instance, by June 2 there already been over 11 000 arrests of protestors.98 The volume of arrests was used as an excuse to temporarily suspend habeus corpus in New York.99 There have been numerous documented arrests and attacks on journalists from even liberal platforms such as CNN. To my knowledge there are no up to date figures on the total number of arrests. In terms of the intensity of the police response, over the past month there have been countless scenes of police using tear gas and pepper spray to clear otherwise peaceful protests. An online database has logged over 670 individual incidents of police brutality caught on video.100 Police have killed at least four protestors over the course of the uprising. Many more have been maimed.101 As a result there are at least 40 different lawsuits currently underway against police departments for brutality during the George Floyd Uprising.102
As if the level of direct repression was not enough, there has also been an increase in surveillance of activists. A recent leak, titled “Blue Leaks”, has revealed that the FBI monitored social media extensively during the protests and forward information it thought relevant to local police departments.103 FBI agents have also harassed activists after they attended recent protests against police brutality.104 The goal of FBI harassment in general is to intimidate protestors and organizers into inactivity as a means of disorganizing movements. These most recent incidents are reminiscent of FBI surveillance and intimidation of the anti-war movement and COINTELPRO.
The extraordinary level of police terror was not enough to contain the uprising. The National Guard was deployed to 31 states and Washington D.C.. This involved over 62 000 soldiers.105 The National Guard was itself involved in the violent repression of the protests.106 Over 200 cities imposed a curfew, which affected more than 60 million people.107 Trump went as far as to threaten to use the American military to impose order on cities where the protests could not be contained by conventional repression.108
One final aspect to overt repression of protests which needs to be included is the role of far right organizations and militia groups. While these are ostensibly distinct from the state, there is significant overlap and cooperation between police forces and far right organizations; a now infamous 2006 FBI report details the extent to which white supremacists have infiltrated police departments.109 For instance, in early June police in Oregon were caught on video coordinating with the far-right Proud Boys to help them avoid arrest after they intimidated George Floyd protestors.110 Much has also been written about the so-called Boogaloo Movement, which has targeted anti-police brutality protests.111
There have been many attacks by the far right on recent protests. Incidents include a mob of armed counter-protestors in Bethel, Ohio which attacked a black lives matter rally searching for “antifa”.112 The KKK has also been active in these efforts: they attacked a black lives matter rally in Nevada,113 and a local KKK leader in Virginia drove his car into a protest in mid-June.114 The autonomous zone set up in Seattle has also been a magnet for far-right attacks; on June 15 the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer entered the zone and beat a man,115 and there have been five shootings directed at the zone in recent weeks, somehow allowed by police. The most recent one resulted in the death of two attackers and injuries to a 14 year old boy.116 Far right groups have also announced a plan to “retake” the zone on July 4.117
Police and national guard brutality, police harassment and surveillance, threats of military intervention, and attacks by the far right all serve as the coercive elements to the American establishment’s counter-insurgency efforts against the George Floyd Uprising. Without the threat of violence the “carrot” side of the “carrot and stick” formula would not be as attractive. The end goal however, is the same: the maintenance and defense of an order defined by exploitation and white supremacy.
Conclusion
Over the course of this article what I have sought to do is outline some of the ways that the American ruling sought to defend itself during the course of one of the largest threats to its own existence in recent years. I have shown how combined and coordinated efforts by: police forces, the military, capitalist media, NGOs, the Democrats, far-right groups, and liberal establishment figures have all combined to undermine the George Floyd Uprising. Thus far these efforts seem to have been rather successful.
The beautiful thing about history, however, is that it is never predetermined. The future is not written. While the establishment has a mind-boggling array of resources and sophisticated counter-insurgency techniques at its disposal, it is not infallible. Indeed, it does (and has!) made mistakes. It is these mistakes that provide openings for revolutionary forces to intervene and change the existing social order. Even the outcome of these protests is not yet decided: they continue, and the protestors become increasingly sophisticated in fighting back. The massive uprising of the past few weeks has shown the degree to which the people do possess power. But the events have also shown the pitfalls into which movements of resistance can fall. By writing this article I hope to have exposed some of these pitfalls, so that liberation struggles now and in the future can avoid them.
Notes
- ↩ VOA News, “Minnesota Calls National Guard to Quell Violent Protests in Minneapolis”.
- ↩ Kandist Mallett, “The Black Lives Matter Revolution Can’t Be Co-Opted By Police and Lawmakers”.
- ↩ Kristian Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing,” Interface, Vol 3, No 1, May 2011.
- ↩ Aaron Morrison and Tim Sullivan, “Minneapolis overwhelmed again by protests over Floyd death,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Reid Forgrave, “On patrol in St. Paul, National Guard waits ‘for the scales to tip’”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Jamie Ehrlich, “The hidden history of the secret presidential bunker,” CNN Politics.
- ↩ Hilary Hanson, “NYC Transit Union Backs Bus Drivers Who Refuse To Transport Protestors For NYPD”. HuffPost U.S., May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Joe DeManuelle-Hall, “West Coast Dockers Stop Work to Honor George Floyd”. Labor Notes, June 11, 2020.
- ↩ Matthew Impelli, “54 Percent of Americans Think Burning Down Minneapolis Police Precinct Was Justified After George Floyd’s Death,” Newsweek, June 6, 2020.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, GL-5.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, xiii.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, I-7.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, I-8.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, III-6.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, III-14.
- ↩ Feinberg, M., Willer, R., & Kovacheff, C. (2020). “The activist’s dilemma: Extreme protest actions reduce popular support for social movements”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, III-5.
- ↩ Connor Woodman, “The Imperial Boomerang: How colonial methods of repression migrate back to the metropolis”.
- ↩ Kristian Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing,” Interface, Vol 3, No 1, May 2011.
- ↩ Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing”.
- ↩ Kavita Kumar and Miguel Otarola, “Small-business owners pick up the pieces after night of rage, destruction”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Paul Walsh, “Seeing his city on fire would ‘devastate’ George Floyd, girlfriend says”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Briana Bierschbach, “Minnesota’s political, faith, community leaders plead for an end to riots”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ John Ewoldt, “Minneapolis neighborhoods face food desert after looting closes multiple stores”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Kavita Kumar and Adam Belz, “In riot-hit Twin Cities neighborhoods, a hole where pharmacies used to be”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Jim Buchta, “Minneapolis vandalism targets include 189-unit affordable housing development.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Kathleen Hennessy and Tim Sullivan, “Unrest devastates a city’s landmark street of diversity.” Minneapolis Star Tribune. May 31, 2020.
- ↩ Briana Bierschbach, “Minnesota’s political, faith, community leaders plead for an end to riots”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Andy Mannix, “’We came to riot’: Illinois man livestreamed lighting fires, handing out explosives in Minneapolis, charges say”. Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Torey Van Oot. “’Fog of conflict’: Minnesota officials responding to George Floyd protests, violence helped spread of misinformation”. Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 6, 2020.
- ↩ Kelly Smith, “Minneapolis, St. Paul foundations aim at rebuilding, criminal justice reform after riots.”. Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 5, 2020; “How To Give Back To Your Besieged Community”. CBS Minnesota, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Sam Levin. “Movement to defund police gains ‘unprecedented’ support across U.S..” The Guardian, June 4, 2020; Jack Kelly. “The Movement To Defund Or Disband Police: Here’s What You Need To Know Now.” Forbes, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media.
- ↩ Britt Robson, “New owner Glen Taylor: less liberal Star Tribune ahead.” MinnPost, April 16, 2014.
- ↩ Chris Haynes. “Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor calls George Floyd’s death ‘a shame’ and ‘a tragedy’”. Yahoo Sports, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Dan Grossi, “Public relations in law enforcement: Is the PIO obsolete?” Police One, January 8, 2020.
- ↩ W. Michael Phibbs, “Why your police department needs a brand.” Police One, September 7, 2017.
- ↩ John Ferrugia, Brittany Freeman, Jason Foster. “Denver police defend public relations spending”. The Denver Channel, February 17, 2016.
- ↩ William Turvill. “UK police forces spend more than £36m a year on PR and communications”. Press Gazette, May 1, 2015.
- ↩ Los Angeles Police Department. “Public Relations Unit”, Official Site of The Los Angeles Police Department.
- ↩ Mark Saunders, Chief of Police. “Toronto Police Service—2019 Operating Budget Request”.
- ↩ Jake Offenhartz, “NYPD Defends Its Massive Budget As Social Services And Youth Programs Are Cut”. The Gothamist, May 15, 2020.
- ↩ Joel Rub, David Zahniser. “L.A. police union hires PR firm in bid to win pay raises”. Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2015.
- ↩ POL Staff. “PR Firm Launches Service to Defend Police Officers from Anti-Cop Activists.” Police Magazine, November 17, 2015.
- ↩ John Guilfoil Public Relations. “Sectors We Serve”.
- ↩ PolicePR.
- ↩ Melissa Agnes. “Discussing the Divide Between Police and Their Communities, on The Police Podcast”. Melissa Agnes: Crisis Management Strategist. January 27, 2015; Melissa Agnes. “TCIP #011—Discussing The #Ferguson Crisis with Tim Burrows”. Melissa Agnes: Crisis Management Strategist. August 17, 2014.
- ↩ Julie Parker. “Hiding and Hoping Is Not a PR Strategy.” Police Chief Magazine.
- ↩ Darrel W. Stephens, Julia Hill, Sheldon Greenburg. Strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives.
- ↩ Sean Whitcomb, Jonah Spangenthal-Lee. “3 reasons your agency should be on Reddit.” Police One, May 2, 2019.
- ↩ P1 Staff. “Roundtable: How to match your agency’s social media strategy with community needs”. Police One, May 2, 2019.
- ↩ Heather R. Cotter. “12 things every police department’s civil unrest plan needs”. Police One, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ “Are you ready for the crisis that may be heading your way?” Police One, July 5, 2018.
- ↩ Yael Bar-tur, Mathew Rejis, “Now do you recognize the power of social media?”. Police One, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Andrea Smith, “Introduction”, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, 3.
- ↩ Malcolm X, “Message to the Grass Roots”. Black Past.
- ↩ Netfa Freeman, “Movement Ferguson, Beware the Nonprofit Industrial Complex”. Black Agenda Report, January 21, 2015.
- ↩ George Ciccariello-Maher, “Chronicle of a Riot Foretold”. Counterpunch, June 29, 2010.
- ↩ Advance the Struggle. “Justice for Oscar Grant: A Lost Opportunity?”. Advance the Struggle, July 15, 2009.
- ↩ Netfa Freeman, “Movement Ferguson, Beware the Nonprofit Industrial Complex”. Black Agenda Report, January 21, 2015.
- ↩ BOLD. “Board”. BOLD.
- ↩ Borealis Philanthropy. “Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity”.
- ↩ BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) Funding Page.
- ↩ “Let me be clear: we do not advocate violence in protests of any kind—not by any protester and not by police. We do not advocate or condone destruction of property. We believe in the value of human lives.” Reddit.
- ↩ Patrick Reusse. “Stephen Jackson, other activists score with straight talk at Minneapolis City Hall rotunda.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Adair Mosley. “Justice for George Floyd”. Pillsbury United Communities, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Greater Twin Cities United Way. “Corporate Partners” .
- ↩ Kari Paul. “How Target, Google, Bank of America and Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations”. The Guardian, June 18, 2020.
- ↩ Minneapolis Department of Health & Family Support. “City of Minneapolis Weed & Seed Initiative”.
- ↩ Community Capacity Development Office, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. Weed and Seed Implementation Manual.
- ↩ Kristian Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing,” Interface, Vol 3, No 1, May 2011.
- ↩ “FBI recognizes Pillsbury United Communities for its service to diverse neighborhoods.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 15, 2014.
- ↩ Working Group on Police-Involved Deadly Force Encounters. “Executive Summary of Recommendations”, 2.
- ↩ R. T. Rybak. “I Was the Mayor of Minneapolis and I Know Our Cops Have a Problem”. Benchmark Analytics, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ August H. Nimtz. “The Graveyard of Progressive Social Movements: The Black Hole of the Democratic Party”. MR Online, May 9, 2017.
- ↩ Brian Schwartz, “How Joe Biden’s leading VP contenders stack up in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s death”. CNBC, June 1, 2020; Daniel Strauss, “’A national crisis’: how the killing of George Floyd is changing U.S. politics”. The Guardian, May 30, 2020; Nicholas Fandos, “Congress Plans Hearings on Racial Violence and Use of Force by the Police”. New York Times, May 29, 2020.
- ↩ Suzanne Gamboa, “Joe Biden pulls Julian Castro into campaign, asks for help to ‘tackle police reform’”. NBC News, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Kelsey Snell, Claudia Grisales. “Pelosi Asks Black Caucus To Come Up With Police Reforms Following Protests”. NPR, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Catie Edmondson, “Democrats Unveil Sweeping Bill Targeting Police Misconduct and Racial Bias”, The New York Times, June 8, 2020.
- ↩ Lisa Mascaro, “Police overhaul dims, but House Democrats push ahead on vote”. Police One, June 25, 2020.
- ↩ German Lopez, “The controversial 1994 crime law that Joe Biden helped write, explained”. Vox, June 20, 2019.
- ↩ Glen Ford, “The Movement Gets BIG—and Its Enemies Reveal Themselves”. Black Agenda Report, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ Danny Haiphong, “The Rebellion Against Police Repression Must Guard Against ALL Enemies, Whether Red, Blue, or Green”, Black Agenda Report, June 17, 2020.
- ↩ Justine Coleman, “Warren endorsed by Black Lives Matter co-founder’s Black to the Future Action Fund”, The Hill, February 20, 2020.
- ↩ “BLM’s #WhatMatters2020”, Black Lives Matter.
- ↩ Louis Althusser, On the Reproduction of Capitalism.
- ↩ Barack Obama, “How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change”, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Kim Parker, Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Monica Anderson. “Amid Protests, Majorities Across Racial and Ethnic Groups Express Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement”. Pew Research Center, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ TooFab Staff, “DC Protestors Drag Rioter Into Police Custody”. Too Fab, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Vincent Barone, “Accused Wendy’s arsonist Natalie White was Rayshard Brooks’ ‘girlfriend’: lawyer”. New York Post, June 23, 2020.
- ↩ Lisa Hagen, “Al Sharpton Calls for Aug. 28 March on Washington at George Floyd Memorial”. U.S. News, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ “#DefundThePolice”. Black Lives Matter, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Miarame Kaba, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.” The New York Times, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Sean Boynton, “What does ‘defund the police’ really mean? Experts say confusion harming progress”. Global News, June 18, 2020; Amanda Arnold, “What Exactly Does It Mean to Defund the Police?”. The Cut, June 12, 2020; Andrew Ferguson, “‘Defund the Police’ Does Not Mean Defund the Police. Unless It Does.”. The Atlantic, June 14, 2020.
- ↩ “Invest-Divest”. Movement for Black Lives.
- ↩ Mike Walker, “The difference between police defunding and police disbanding”. Police One, June 18, 2020.
- ↩ Emily Dixon, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Was Asked About Defunding the Police and Her Answer Went Viral”. Marie Claire, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Scott Pham, “Police Arrested More Than 11,000 People At Protests Across The U.S.”. BuzzFeed News, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Jan Ransom, “Despite Virus, Hundreds Arrested in Unrest Are Held in Cramped Jails”. The New York Times, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ Greg Doucette, George Floyd Protest Police Brutality Videos.
- ↩ “Violence and controversies during the George Floyd protests”. Wikipedia.
- ↩ Stephen Gandel, “At least 40 lawsuits claim police brutality at George Floyd protests across U.S.”. CBS News, June 23, 2020.
- ↩ Rainer Shea, “Intelligence leaks reveal just how ready the police state is to crack down on dissent.” June 25, 2020.
- ↩ Chris Brooks, “After Barr Ordered FBI to “Identify Criminal Organizers,” Activists Were Intimidated at Home and at Work”. The Intercept_, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Katie Warren and Joey Hadden, “How all 50 states are responding to the George Floyd protests, from imposing curfews to calling in the National Guard”. Business Insider, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ Dylan Lovan, Bruce Schreiner. “Investigators: Man fatally shot on night of protests was killed by Kentucky National Guard rifle”. Military Times, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Maria Sacchetti, “Curfews follow days of looting and demonstrations.” The Washington Post, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Christina Wilkie, Amanda Macias. “Trump threatens to deploy military as George Floyd protests continue to shake the U.S.”. CNBC, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ FBI Counterterrorism Division. “(U) White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement”.
- ↩ Rachel E. Greenspan, “Oregon police told armed white men that they didn’t want to look like they were ‘playing favorites’ when they advised them to stay inside after curfew”. Insider, June 5, 2020.
- ↩ Craig Timberg, “As Trump warns of leftist violence, a dangerous threat emerges from the right-wing boogaloo movement”. The Washington Post, June 17, 2020.
- ↩ Rachel E. Greenspan, “Violent counter-protesters mobbed a small-town BLM demonstration in Ohio amid false rumors of antifa”. Insider, June 16, 2020.
- ↩ Lee Brown, “Men in Ku Klux Klan-style hoods crash Nevada Black Lives Matter rally”. New York Post, June 11, 2020.
- ↩ “KKK ‘leader’ charged for attack on Black Lives Matter protesters”. BBC News, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Kelly Weill, “The Far Right Is Stirring Up Violence at Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”. The Daily Beast, June 16, 2020.
- ↩ Konstantin Toropin, “Another shooting in Seattle’s police-free autonomous zone kills man and critically injures boy”. CNN, June 29, 2020.
- ↩ “‘American Patriots’ are planning to retake the so-called Seattle “autonomous zone” from CHAZ insurrectionists”. Law Enforcement Today, June 16, 2020.
Source: MROnline
#copaganda #CounterInsurgency #Ferguson #GeorgeFloyd #GeorgeFloydRebellion #GeorgeFloydUprising #insurgency #WhatMatters2020
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Introduction
On May 25, 2020, police in Minneapolis Minnesota murdered George Floyd in cold blood. Responding to allegations of counterfeit money, police arrested Floyd, with one officer kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes, ultimately suffocating him. The killing was captured on video and quickly spread across the internet.
Protests soon followed. The first protest organized in Minneapolis was on May 26. By May 28 the protests had spread to the nearby cities of St Paul and Duluth with riots occurring in Minneaopolis that evening. Mostly notably, the third precinct of the Minneapolis Police Department was besieged and burned. Minnesota activated the National Guard on May 29 in response to the unrest.1 The American state’s disastrous response to COVID-19, massive unemployment, and indiscriminate police killings that disproportionately target people of colour provided the impetus for an enormous and unprecedented outpouring of rage; protests, many of them violently targeting the police, spread across the United States like wildfire.
While the initial uprising was ferocious in its explosive anger and militancy, within just three weeks the protests seem to have been channeled largely into the decidedly less militant demand of “Defund the police.” What happened? I largely agree with what Kandist Mallett wrote in a brilliant article in Teen Vogue, in which she argued that: “those in power…are working tirelessly to destroy this wave of unrest before it becomes a tsunami they cannot control.… They are trying to kill this movement.”2 The defanging of the George Floyd Uprising was not accidental but was rather a deliberate attempt on the part of the American ruling class to regain social control in the wake of the most militant protests in recent memory—and, as a movement, possibly the largest in U.S. history.
What I want to do in this article is to examine the dimensions of how this defanging took place: how, within the space of two weeks, we went from burning down a police station to making small budgetary demands. I argue that the massive effort to defang the George Floyd Uprising should be understood as a deliberate counter-insurgency operation, combining the (sometimes coordinated) efforts of: various police forces, the capitalist media, the American military, NGOs, the Democrats, both state and federal governments, and other liberal establishment figures. What I also want to show is that these efforts were not extraordinary: there was no shadowy conspiracy to intervene. Rather, each of these apparatuses functioned exactly as intended to in order to defend the existing capitalist order. By examining the response to the George Floyd Uprising, the left can gain a better understanding of just how difficult it will be to overthrow capitalism and the capitalist state and potentially avoid pitfalls in the future.
Before continuing, I want to address the initial and most obvious opposition to my argument. If the efforts to defang the protests should be understood as a counter-insurgency, then it stands to reason that the George Floyd Uprising should be considered an insurgency. Is this not hyperbolic? Given the extent of the crisis of legitimacy the protests created for the American state, I do not think it is hyperbolic at all. As Kristian Williams argued in “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing”, insurgency and counter-insurgency is precisely the lens through which the American state views much of its domestic policing activity, from gang-related operations through to protest management.3
The uprising truly created a crisis of legitimacy for the American state. It needs to be stated outright that the burning of a police station and the forced retreat, under siege, of the police inside is unprecedented in the history of modern American protest. The vulnerability of the police was put on full display: the following night police were attacked in Los Angeles and New York, among other locations. The National Guard was deployed throughout the United States. While not as historically unprecedented for dealing with dissent, there were concerns, at least in Minnesota, that the National Guard would be insufficient to quell the uprising. Governor Tim Walz on May 30 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “We do not have the numbers… We cannot arrest people when we are trying to hold ground.”4 Three days later, a Senior Airman in the Minnesota National Guard said in an interview that he was “waiting for the scales to tip” with regards to the “riot purgatory” that existed; the National Guard had, as of June 2, been unable to gain control of the city.5 Trump was even rushed to his White House bunker in response to protests in Washington D.C.; the last time those bunkers were used was during the September 11 attacks.6 Transit workers used their collective power to refuse to transport arrested protestors.7 Inspired by the protests, longshore workers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union struck and shut down ports across the West Coast in mid-June.8 And in terms of putting numbers to the crisis of legitimacy faced by the American state, on June 3 a Monmouth University survey reported that 54% of Americans thought that the burning of the precinct was justified, higher than the level of support enjoyed by either Biden or Trump.9
Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency
The United States military, in Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, defines an insurgency as: “The organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region.” Counter-insurgency then is defined as “Comprehensive civilian and military efforts designed to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address its root causes.”10
It is worth quoting from the manual at length to demonstrate the sophistication with which the U.S. Military approaches counter-insurgency operations.
Highlighting the specificity of counter-insurgency operations, the manual argues that:
COIN [counter-insurgency] is distinguished from traditional warfare due to the focus of its operations—a relevant population—and its strategic purpose—to gain or maintain control or influence over—and the support of that relevant population through political, psychological, and economic methods.11
Central to how the U.S. Military sees insurgency is the question of political legitimacy:
The struggle for legitimacy with the relevant population is typically a central theme of the conflict between the insurgency and the HN [host nation] government. The HN government generally needs some level of legitimacy among the population to retain the confidence of the populace and an acknowledgment of governing power. The insurgency will attack the legitimacy of the HN government while attempting to develop its own legitimacy with the population. COIN should reduce the credibility of the insurgency while strengthening the legitimacy of the HN government.12
And in turn, central to the question of legitimacy is the task of building and controlling narratives:
COIN planners should compose a unifying message (the COIN narrative) that is consistent with the overarching USG narrative, which is coupled to the USG [U.S. government] objective. Narrative is a structure of planned themes from which both messages and actions are developed. Narrative provides a common thread of communicative influence. The objective speaks to desired outcome; narrative communicates the story of the how and why of an operation. Common themes within a COIN narrative may be: reinforcing the credibility and perception of legitimacy of the HN and USG COIN operation, exploiting the negative aspects of the insurgent efforts, and preemptively presenting the expected insurgent argument along with counter-arguments. … The COIN narrative should be the result of meticulous target-audience analysis conducted by cultural and language subject matter experts … The COIN narrative should provide the guidance from which themes, actions, and messages can be planned in support of the COIN objectives.13
Narrative construction and control is reiterated in practical terms later in the Manual:
In COIN, the information flow can be roughly divided into information which the USG requires to guide its political-military approach (i.e., knowledge of local conditions) and information which the USG wishes to disseminate to influence populations. At the same time, counterinsurgents also seek to impede the information flow of insurgent groups—both their intelligence collection and their ability to influence the relevant population. 14
One of the tactics emphasized to impede the ability of insurgents to influence the target population is working with local authorities—especially non-governmental ones like religious leaders, and NGOs- to coopt the message of the insurgency and explicitly to moderate it.15 This latter point is extremely important; while moderate movements may enjoy more popular support, they are also far less successful at winning their demands.16 It is therefore in the interest of those defend the existing order to support the moderate elements of a movement.
All this is to say then that the U.S. Military understands insurgency and counter-insurgency as being not just a military question, but rather a question of politics. To this end, the Manual heavily emphasizes the importance of political action in counter-insurgency operations:
To be effective, officials involved in COIN should address two imperatives—political action and security—with equal urgency, recognizing that insurgency is fundamentally an armed political competition…. COIN functions, therefore, include informational, security, political, economic, and development components, all of which are designed to support the overall objective of establishing and consolidating control by the HN government. … This is the core of COIN, because it provides a framework around which all other programs and activities are organized. As described above, depending on the root causes of the insurgency, the strategy may involve elements of political reform, reconciliation, popular mobilization, and governmental capacity building.17
If we understand insurgency and counter-insurgency as involving both a military and political aspect, in which the political is primary, with insurgency being primarily about building a counter-legitimacy to the state and counter-insurgency being primarily about the political isolation of insurgents through the creation of narratives, we can begin to see how such an understanding is useful to apply to American domestic politics. The George Floyd Uprising saw insurgents directly undermine the legitimacy of the existing state, especially the police, through both armed and political action. In turn, the state and establishment responded with both armed and political actions, the latter in the form of co-optation and narrative control.
But the connections between American counter-insurgency and domestic politics are not just on the discursive level. In “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing”, Kristian Williams provides an excellent overview of the material relationship between American military counter-insurgency programs and American policing. This is specifically evident with regard to trends towards the militarization of the police and so-called “Community Policing” initiatives. Williams demonstrates how, in a modern example of the “imperial boomerang”18, many of the methods employed by modern police forces were developed and refined by the American military, including during its occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In turn, the military partnered with police forces to learn how to better control conquered populations, be they black people living in American cities or Iraqis living under American occupation in Iraq.19
Of particular interest is the role that NGOs play in this process. As was noted earlier, the U.S. Military makes special mention of NGOs in the process of counter-insurgency. An earlier version of the Manual, published in 2006 and authored by David Petraeus, is more explicit, remarking that “some of the best weapons for counterinsurgents do not shoot” and referring to NGOs as “force-multipliers”. Williams is able to show how NGOs were directly involved in de-escalating responses of the community to murders committed by American police in Oakland, as well as involved in anti-gang activities in Boston. Both of these separate efforts fall under the playbook of counter-insurgency.20
Before going in depth into the George Floyd Uprising, it is worthwhile looking at the “why” of counter-insurgency. Why is it that the police and military have developed a comprehensive strategy intended to undermine threats to the existing order? Fundamentally, the modern state exists to protect the interests of the capitalist class—namely the continuation of capital accumulation and exploitation—against the interests of everyone else. In turn, specific states exist to protect the specific interests of their specific capitalist classes. Thus anything that attempts to undermine capitalism, or the ability of capitalists to exploit, must be itself undermined. The state has a myriad of tools at its disposal to help with this process. Some are ideological (they convince people exploitation is in their own interest) whereas others, like the police, are repressive. Insofar as the goal of counter-insurgency is ultimately to protect the accumulation of capital, we should understand counter-insurgency as extending beyond just the actions of the repressive apparatuses of the state. What I will explore below is that in this case, counter-insurgency was a joint effort of the entire American ruling class, both inside and outside the state, to defang the George Floyd Uprising. The American ruling class used both violent and non-violent means to defang the uprising: they deployed what could be called a carrot-and-stick approach in order to protect the social order.
The Carrot…
The Media Narrative
In the days following the murder of George Floyd, the media worked tirelessly to defang the George Floyd Uprising. They did this not by creating reality through discourse, but by selectively and pointedly reporting on certain aspects of reality. As a result, they encouraged people to think about the uprising in specific ways, and in turned called them into action in specific ways. I will focus primarily on the Minneapolis Star Tribune; the narrative trends developed there were later repeated in media across the United States.
Initial media reaction to the uprising directly condemned property destruction. After a Target was looted on the night of May 27, the Star Tribune spent the following day reporting on the impact that riots would have on small businesses.21 True to form, the Star Tribune printed a call for peace from the family and partner of George Floyd22 as well as from “political, faith, community leaders” calling for an “end to riots.”23 The latter story was particularly interesting insofar as the group was called together for a conference by Minnesota governor Tim Walz, and included both church leaders and NGO managers. Here is an example of a top state official picking and choosing who counts as a “community leader” without direct input from the community. In turn, the Star Tribune reported on the meeting treating these externally hand-picked “community leaders” as though their legitimacy derived from the community itself.
In the following days, the Star Tribune shifted focus to the human cost of the riots to the local community. The publication blamed the riots for creating a food desert due to the closing of large corporate grocery stores.24 Rioters were also blamed for the lack of access to medicine now faced by the local community due to the closure of pharmacies.25 Rioters were alleged to have burned down nearly 200 units of affordable housing, thus exacerbating the housing crisis.26 The riots were also allegedly responsible for devastating Minneapolis’ famed Lake Street, home to immigrant-owned business and a hub, according to the Star Tribune, of multi-culturalism.27
In its discussion of the immediate impact of the uprising on the local community, not once did the Star Tribune go beyond surface-level condemnations of the rioters. Suddenly concerned with access to food and medication, the stories did not include discussions as to why the closure of a few grocery stores could create a food desert. There was no discussion on the increased price of food and wealth-disparity. There was no discussion on the monopolization of food sources by large chains. There was no discussion on the effects of for-profit healthcare on access to medicine. No discussions on gentrification and stagnant wages leading to the necessity of specifically designated “affordable” housing. No discussions on the context of the riots: namely 40 million unemployed Americans staring down a pandemic with miniscule government relief. No discussion of looting as a means of getting necessities such as medicine, food, and clothing; no discussion as to why Target and pharmacies became targets. Instead the riots were presented largely without context, as simply an irrational outburst of anger, alone causing problems to the community. Those fighting back against the existing order were blamed for the worst effects of the very order they fought against.
In addition to direct condemnation, the Star Tribune also took a more nuanced approach to the riots. Instead of the riots being an organic expression of community anger, they were presented—both by the media, and the government—as being the work of (usually white) “outside agitators”. Rioting was purported to be the work of secret white-supremacists that had infiltrated the protests in order to cause mayhem. In that same meeting of community leaders called together by Tim Walz on May 30, the executive director of the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage put it succinctly: “White people from other communities are coming into my community, our communities as some kind of perverse poetry, as if it wasn’t bad enough already. … Go home now. The fascists on the plan right now, turn around.”28 The Star Tribune reported on an Illinois man who had been arrested with explosives in Minneapolis, who had specifically traveled there to riot.29 The mayor of St Paul and the governor of Minnesota had each tweeted that the vast majority -80% to all- of the arrestees in the week preceding June 6 had been from out-of-state despite the fact that there was no evidence to back up such claims. The claims were so ludicrous that the Star Tribune ran a story walking back many of the claims about outside agitators; well after the damage had been done to the protests.30
The goal of these various media narratives—first, condemning the riots; second, emphasizing the damage to the community; and third, blaming outside agitators- was to drive a dual process of bifurcation within the protest movement. The goal of the ruling class was on the one hand to separate “peaceful” liberal protestors from the more radical element, both to avoid radicalization of the moderate protestors but also to isolate the radicals within the movement. Second, the goal was to lump the radical protestors together with apolitical opportunist looters, whether or not the latter group actually existed, and in turn ignore the radical critiques of both policing and society as a whole that the radicals put forward. Thus the establishment attempted to call into being two groups: a group of good, peaceful, moderate protestors; and a second group of opportunist, violent protestors who did not care about the injustice the protests were about. The tactics and message of the first group was to be lauded, whereas the tactics and message of the second group was to be condemned.
Meanwhile, seemingly out of nowhere, another narrative appeared in the media. Across both social and traditional media outlets, stories appeared showing police supporting the protests. Most famous were the images of police (and sometimes National Guard) kneeling with the protestors. Often times this was displayed as the result of a request from the “good protestors”, who were then portrayed as applauding police initiative. However, in this case reality cut through the media spin: the American police were simply too vicious for their “spontaneous” (more on this below) outpouring of empathy to be taken seriously. There were abundant accounts of the same police transitioning from kneeling to attacking protestors within the space of hours.
As the protests spread in the early weeks of June, it was no longer possible for the media to rely on the “outside agitator” platitude. Indeed, with protests in literally every major city in the United States, there was no “outside” for the agitators to come from. And with the utter inhumanity of the police on full display, stories of police taking a knee simply didn’t hold water. The media then turned to focusing almost exclusively on the efforts of liberal NGOs engaged in “rebuilding” efforts31, and the activities of the “good” protestors. The degree to which the “good” protestors were signal-boosted by the media is evident in the speed at which the “Defund the Police” slogan, itself a moderated version of the already moderate “abolish the police” demand, became the public rallying cry of the movement as a whole.32 Finally, towards mid-June, with the protests now largely contained and the radical element isolated, the media began largely ignoring the massive protests that are still occurring, instead only providing local coverage of incidental events.
While I have focused largely on the narrative created in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the same pattern (from demonization, to outside agitators, to focusing on the community cost, the good/bad protestor division, the police sympathy, to NGOs and liberals, to ultimately ignoring the movement) was a pattern that was repeated more-or-less within all major media sources in North America. Why was this the case? The similarity in editorial line between media companies does not indicate direct coordination between media onwers nor does it point to state intervention or censorship. Rather, insofar as media in North America is either owned by large corporations or run by the state, the commonality of interests that exists between rich owners and rich state managers is inevitably reflected in the editorial line of the media which they run.33 It makes total sense then that the media would relay a narrative which had as its effect the defanging of the George Floyd Uprising; such an action was absolutely within the interests of the large capitalists which control the media. The capitalist class, by owning the media and therefore controlling its content, was able to utilize media narratives as part of the counter-insurgency effort against the George Floyd Uprising.
In the case of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the connection between ownership and editorial line could not be clearer. Glen Taylor, the billionaire former state senator, admitted as much when he bought the newspaper in 2014. In an interview with MinnPost, he stated that his ownership of the paper would result in the editorial line being less liberal.34 It is unsurprising then that the overall editorial position of the paper reflects Taylor’s public position, namely that the problem is not specifically law enforcement and that protests are only legitimate if they are peaceful.35 Insofar as the George Floyd Uprising threatened the existing order in Minneapolis, an order that Glen Taylor benefitted from, the Star Tribune would come out against the uprising. This same process played out across the United States over the course of the uprising.
The Copaganda Machine
No account of how the media treated the George Floyd Uprising would be complete without a discussion of something that is often overlooked in accounts of reactionary media spin: the absolutely massive public relations machine employed by the police themselves. While it is possible that the speed with which stories of police “taking a knee” with protestors went viral was entirely natural, it is far more likely that in the wake of the largest anti-police protests in a generation that the police PR machine jumped into overdrive.
The goal of police public relations (PR) is, like any public relations campaign, to influence how the public views the police. In one article written for Police One, the largest English-language online community of police boasting literally tens of thousands of members, the point of police PR is described as “to establish a positive relationship with the community before an incident occurs.” The point of PR is directly contextualized to counteract the public’s reactions to racist police terror: “Events dating back to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, Rodney King, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray and others have been covered extensively in the media and have tarnished the reputation of many agencies. The public relations team must establish or repair the image of the agency within the community.”36 In another article on the same website, another officer describes the utility of “branding” (using a PR campaign to build a police “brand”) insofar as it allows police departments to control messaging and make clear a department’s “value proposition.”37 The goal of branding is to build preconceptions about the role of police, thus filtering any observations through the preconceived image of how police should act. This allows the police to have greater impunity in their actions, as anything they do is seen immediately through the lens of police being good and necessary protectors.
On the surface this seems fairly obvious and innocuous. All firms employ PR strategies in one form or another, in which the firm seeks to use the media to influence public reaction to the firm. However if we consider the social role of police, namely a repressive apparatus of the capitalist state designed to protect the conditions which allow for exploitation, the police use of PR becomes more sinister. Police directly attempt to manipulate public perceptions of their actions in their favour, including racist murder.
How widespread is the police use of PR? It is difficult to say. An examination of several police budgets over the past years of cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Toronto turned up little information; the police are remarkably good at concealing precisely what they spend their money on. There is some scattered information though that suggests that the police spend a staggering amount on PR. For instance, in 2016 the Denver Police Department was revealed to have spent $1.3 million over three years on its “media relations unit”.38 The Metropolitan Police in the UK had, in 2015, a 10 million pound annual PR budget that employed 100 communications staff, with a police across the UK spending 36 million pounds annually on PR.39 The LAPD, rather than just employing a Public Information Officer (PIO), has an entire Public Relations Unit.40 In Toronto, the 2019 police budget requested an additional $7.9 million to be partially used on nine new positions in the Corporate Communications Unit, increasing the total staff from 16 to 25, to be used to “help increase capabilities in public relations, internal communication and digital strategy.”41 And in 2020, the NYPD allotted $3.2 million for public relations, in order to tell their “side of the story.”42
Direct police department expenses on PR are just one of the PR avenues available to police. Police unions also hire PR firms to improve the image of their officers or to advance specific goals.43 Individual police officers can also hire PR firms to represent them in times of need. One such service, Cop PRotect, allows officers to pay $50 per month for guaranteed representation if something should go wrong. In a story placed in Police Magazine, the need for such a service is related directly to the Ferguson Uprising:
Cops today are completely at the mercy of activists who don’t care about the truth … Darren Wilson was nearly murdered and now lives in hiding, while the man who tried to kill him is declared a hero by activists. Cop PRotect gives cops like Darren Wilson a trusted friend to tell their stories in ways agency information officers, union representatives and the media cannot or will not.44
In this case, the firm was created directly to mitigate community blowback against individual officers in the wake of racist police terror.
While the amount that is spent on pro-police PR is hard to find, the indirect effects make it more obvious. Indeed, there exists an entire parasitic cottage industry of pro-police PR firms and consulting services, which exist solely to increase public perceptions in the police. For instance, a quick search turned up John Guilfoil Public Relations which specializes in the public sector, including the police. A testimonial from the chief of the Massachusetts Police Department states that the firm “provides an extremely valuable service to those agencies that want to be proactive in … getting out a positive message to the community.”45 PolicePR in Indiana offers a Public Information Officer boot camp, in partnership with the Greenwood Police Department.46 Melissa Agnes, a crisis management strategist who has been featured on Police One, has a whole series of articles and talks dealing specifically with police misconduct, ranging from “Discussing the Divide Between Police and Their Communities” to “Discussing The #Ferguson Crisis with Tim Burrows”.47 None of these firms or services would exist if the police were not paying for them.
Police PR strategies are not limited to traditional media. To give the strategies a more organic feel, police forces and their hired PR firms make frequent use of social media in order to help control the narrative around their actions. Police Chief Magazine warns officers that “Hiding and Hoping is Not a PR Strategy”; police forces not only need to monitor social media to see what perception of the police force is after an incident, but must also build “a social media presence”. This latter point can include spreading information about a suspect in the event that video showing police misconduct spreads.48 As part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s ‘Community Oriented Policing Services’ (COPS) Strategic Communication Practices guide, there is an entire section on the importance of social media.49 Another article on Police One suggests that police departments send officers onto Reddit, both to get ahead of a story, but also to intervene in the discussions as police.50 These efforts can be bolstered by using “community outreach programs” to “build an online army of supporters.”51
Lest anyone think that the police simply use social media to inform their audience about their activities, the police consciously use social media to manipulate public opinion during moments of crisis. Taken from another Police One article (a fantastic resource for those wanting to understand the mindset of police), this one published ominously on May 28, 2020, titled “12 things every police department’s civil unrest plan needs”, there is an entire section on social media. Departments are instructed to be aware that protestors can use social media to amplify and coordinate their activity; departments should also be aware and be ready to counter those that would “lower the perception of [their] department.” If that fails, there’s always the National Guard.52 Force Science News published an article/advertisement featuring Melissa Agnes in 2018, which advised departments to have prepared a ‘Communications Bible’ to help navigate crises such as “officer-involved shootings”.53 In a mid-June Police One leadership briefing, after weeks of anti-police protests, authors mockingly reflected: “Now do you recognize the power of social media?” arguing that police “must start viewing… social media as an integral tool in policing.”54
All this is to say there exists a massive and highly coordinated police PR machine, which the police use to try and directly control media narratives in their favour. They do this as part of a broader effort to maintain the current social order. While it is impossible to prove this soon, I strongly suspect that it was this machine which was responsible for the flood of sympathetic stories about the police that featured prominently across traditional and social media in early June. Despite the best efforts of the police, their unions, and their employed PR firms, they were unable to shift the broader media narrative for more than a few days; the brutal actions of police across the United States spoke for themselves and undermined attempts to portray the police in a positive light.
While ultimately unsuccessful, the wave of pro-police media in early June gave credibility to the more moderate argument that the institution of policing itself is not the problem, but rather that it is only some “bad apples” amidst an otherwise salvageable police force. This in turn gave more ideological power to moderate and liberal elements, the so-called “good protestors”, within the broader protest movement. To tie this back into counter-insurgency, control over information in the form of both narrative construction and information dissemination is one of the main tools of counter-insurgency strategies. The police consciously did just this, and in the process strengthened the moderates within the movement.
The Non-Profit Industrial Complex
As noted earlier, the U.S. military considers NGO partnerships to be a vital part of counter-insurgency efforts. Much has been written about the negative effects of non-profits on social movements. In the classic collection of essays titled The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, Andrea Smith argues that capital and the capitalist state use nonprofits to: monitor and control social movements, divert public resources into private hands, manage and control dissent, redirect activist efforts towards careerism and away from mass-based modes of organizing, allow corporations to mask exploitation through philanthropy, and encourage social movements to model themselves in terms of structure and politics after capitalist models.55 For the purposes of this essay, I want to focus on two areas: first, how NGOs have a moderating effect on the politics of a movement. Second, I will talk about how NGOs frequently work with the police to protect the current social order under the guise of changing it.
How is it that non-profits are able to moderate social movements? The capitalist class is well aware of their own interests and spends an inordinate amount of money defending them. In the process, they create philanthropic foundations. These philanthropic foundations not only allow capitalists to transfer wealth inter-generationally without taxation (giving their children positions in the foundations) but also fund charitable activities, such as non-profits. There is a catch though: the capitalists will not fund anything that does not fit their interests, namely the continuation of exploitation. They are happy, for instance, to fund affordable housing initiatives insofar as those initiatives do not tackle the root causes of homelessness, namely private property. Capitalist foundations therefore provide resources to NGOs which act in line with their interests. In turn, NGOs knowingly moderate themselves in order to better secure resources. Furthermore respectable NGOs can become the public face of a movement, effectively forcing the more radical organizations out of the public eye.
The Civil Rights and anti-police movements are full of examples of the moderating effects of NGOs. For instance, in the 1960s white philanthropist Stephen Currier set up the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership in order to channel foundation funding to Civil Rights groups. The so-called ‘Big Six’ were brought together; of the six, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the most radical of the groups, received the least amount of funding. More radical groups, such as the Nation of Islam, were completely excluded. In 1963 Malcolm X specifically criticized the Big Six and the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership in his famous ‘Message to the Grass Roots’ speech in which he reflected on the March on Washington which had taken place earlier that year.56 The goal of these maneuvers by white philanthropists was clear: fund the more moderate element of the Civil Rights movement to avoid the movement taking a radical turn and undermining the ability for American capitalism to operate.57
Fast forward 50 years, and the same pattern reoccurs. In Oakland in 2009, non-profits directly intervened to deradicalize the response to the killing of Oscar Grant. Ahead of a major rally in January 2009, the Oakland police arranged meetings with various nonprofit and church leaders in order to defang the protests before they even began.58 Religious leaders asked their congregations to not attend the protests. A coalition of NGOs came together and formed the Coalition Against Police Execution (CAPE). CAPE explicitly called for a lack of militancy in their protests, and stood as a physical barrier between police and protestors. 59 In turn, CAPE became the public, legitimate face of the protests, which was reinforced through media coverage.
The uprising in 2014 in Ferguson saw a similar process play itself out. There the NGO influence was given an organizational existence in the form of Black Lives Matter. I want to be clear here; when speaking of Black Lives Matter I am talking about the official organization and not the broader movement of the same name. Black Lives Matter, while first conceived of in 2013, organized its first major action in 2014 with the Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride in response to the killing of Michael Brown by the Ferguson police. Black Lives Matter became the public face of the movement. Despite the Ferguson uprising originating in riots, Black Lives Matter and other organizations planned a series of actions over the course of the summer of 2014 that channeled local activism into safer and less rebellious avenues.
Following the Ferguson uprising, moderate elements of the Black Lives Matter movement became a relatively safe outlet for liberals to support and into which the capitalist class could channel outrage. Black Lives Matter and the constellation of new organizations and networks around it received an absolutely immense amount of donations from larger donors like The Ford Foundation and George Soros.60 The more liberal elements of the movement, able to secure donations, were able to take centre-stage. For instance, one recipient, the Organization for Black Struggle, used some of its funding to create the Hands Up Coalition. This coalition popularized the “hands up, don’t shoot” slogan used by protestors; this ran against slogans by more militant black power activists such as “arms up, shoot back” and “fists up, fight back”. More radical yet equally active groups, such as the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, received no funding. In 2016, Black Lives Matter and 27 other organizations, as part of the Movement for Black Lives, issued a platform of demands titled A Vision for Black Lives. Rather than a comprehensive plan and program to mobilize the masses to fight for their own liberation, the document is a set of policy guidelines. The effect is that efforts are taken off the streets and channeled into traditional power structures where they are ultimately destined to fail.
The founders of Black Lives Matter were first introduced to each other through an NGO known as Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD). The board of directors of BOLD, those who decide its political direction, is made up of managers of other NGOS.61 BOLD also receives an immense sum of money from private donors, such as through the “philanthropic intermediary” known as Borealis Philanthropy62 and through Funders for Justice.63 This latter group, also created in response to the Ferguson Uprising, in turn receives funding from The Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations; hardly groups interested in a radical transformation of the social order or the end of exploitation. I don’t bring this up to allege a conspiracy that Black Lives Matter is being secretly run by The Ford Foundation, but rather to show that even Black Lives Matter has its origins within the non-profit industrial complex milieu, which in turn effects its politics. Turning back to the George Floyd Uprising, it is unsurprising that in a recent Reddit Ask-Me-Anything, Kailee Scales, the Managing Director for Black Lives Matter, condemned the riots and announced efforts to channel the George Floyd Uprising into voter registration and “civic engagement” through the #WhatMatters2020 campaign.64
The ways in which non-profits have attempted to moderate explosions of rage during the George Floyd Uprising are too many to list. One example I want to focus on, however, is particularly telling. On May 30, two days after the burning of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis, a local non-profit called Pillsbury United Communities had a press conference. Pillsbury United Communities is an incredibly well established NGO; founded in 1879, it runs a number of outreach and education programs, community programs (such as free COVID-19 testing), as well as “social enterprises” including a grocery store. The press conference on May 30 brought together Jamie Foxx, Stephen Jackson, BLM activist Tamika Mallory, alongside George Floyd’s family. Speakers were explicit in their calls for peaceful protests, but generally did not condemn the riots. A peaceful rally followed.65 Thus at the height of the militant protests, people were asked by “legitimate” community leaders to temper their anger and engage in traditionally and easily ignored protests. These calls were amplified by liberals outside the community and the media.
A few days after the rally, Pillsbury United Communities used George Floyd’s death to issue a fundraising call; it is unclear from their website how the money will be used to ensure “Justice for George Floyd”.66 But individual donations are not the only way that Pillsbury United Communities raises funds. It also receives donations from massive foundations such as the Greater Twin Cities United Way, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the St. Paul & Minnesota Foundation. The United Way, for instance, acts as a “philanthropic intermediary”, collection donations from large corporations, and then granting money to non-profits. In this specific case, the money given to Pillsbury United Communities comes from sources such as 3M, U.S. Bank, Cargill, and Target.67 The latter, notably, also provides hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to police foundations.68 One can see the issue of an organization fighting for justice against the police having similar funding sources to the police themselves. It is also unlikely that the capitalist class would fund those capable of truly undermining it.
That an NGO intervened in a mass struggle to both channel the movement in a more liberal direction while monopolizing resources is not particularly surprising. What is particularly interesting though is Pillsbury United Communities’ connection to community policing. A 2006 report by the Minneapolis Department of Health & Family Support lists Waite House, a Pillsbury United Communities site, as a “Weed & Seed Safe Haven”.69 Weed and Seed programs, for context, gained prominence in 1992 after the Rodney King riots as a way to connect police and community leaders in order to ostensibly combat gang violence70; they made cohesive the militarization tactics (weed) and community policing tactics (seed) employed in counter-insurgency efforts.71 In December 2014, the FBI gave Pillsbury United Communities its “Director’s Community Leadership Award”, an annual award given to groups for crime prevention efforts.72 Then-president and chief executive, Chanda Smith Baker, accepted the award. Coincidentally, Chanda Smith Baker—now working for the Minneapolis Foundation—also sits on the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s newspeak titled “Working Group on Police-Involved Deadly Force Encounters”. The goal of the working group was to “identify ways to reduce deadly force encounters with law enforcement”73. Members of the group included the Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, the Minnesota Attorney General, Philando Castile’s (killed by police in Minnesota in 2016) uncle, and other judge’s, academics, politicians, and NGO managers. Tragically and ironically, the working group released its findings in February 2020; that George Floyd was murdered, just a few months later in a “police-involved deadly force encounter”, demonstrates the extent to which so-called community policing is useful to the community.
One final interesting link between NGOs and the police in Minneapolis: as mentioned earlier, Chanda Smith Baker, after working for Pillsbury United Communities, went on to work as the Senior Vice President, Impact for The Minneapolis Foundation. The current president and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation is R.T. Rybak, who was also the former mayor of Minneapolis. R.T. Rybak also sits on the board of a company called Benchmark Analytics: an IT company which has designed a system capable of predicting when officers will become problematically violent. Rybak therefore has a direct material interest in “reforming” the police. In an article written on June 2, titled “I Was the Mayor of Minneapolis and I Know Our Cops Have a Problem”, Rybak recalls surveying the damage to Minneapolis after the riots with Chanda Smith Baker, before advertising his firm’s solution to police violence.74 Unsurprisingly he emphasizes the humanity of the police, and he sees the solution as being community policing informed by predicative behavior technology.
The organizational and interpersonal links between NGO managers, politicians, police leadership, “community leaders”, and the board members of large capitalist firms points to the existence of a ruling capitalist class. The above is just a small illustration of how the ruling class rules in Minneapolis.
To summarize all of this: Pillsbury United Communities is an established, well-respected local NGO. It is part of the non-profit industrial complex, relying on philanthropic intermediaries for much of its funding, which in turn are funded by massive corporations. It came out very vocally in the early stages of the George Floyd Uprising, urging a more liberal and institutional approach to activism as opposed to the riots. And, it has close ties to the Minneapolis Police Department and state police through community policing programs. It is just one textbook example of many of how NGOs act as elements of a counter-insurgency strategy.
The Democrats
The Democrats have been referred to as the “graveyard of social movements” insofar as they absorb, coopt, and disorganize them.75 Their approach to the George Floyd Uprising is no different. What the Democratic Party sought to do in the wake of the George Floyd Uprising was a combination of repression (in those places in which it exercised power, such as Minneapolis, New York, L.A., etc.) and coopt its energies into the Biden 2020 campaign. Given the unpopularity of Biden and the overall increasing disinterest in electoral politics by much of the left the attempt to coopt the movement, at least ostensibly, has been unsuccessful. It is, however, still worth examining in order to paint a full picture of the counter-insurgency campaign against the uprising.
At the beginning of the uprising, the Democratic Party machine jumped into motion but was unsure how to act. While top Democrat strategists spoke to media about how the uprising could affect the election76 (indicating that they were in fact working on a response), there was little in the way of official high-level statement or actions for almost a week. Then on June 2 two fairly major events occurred. First, Biden publicly brought Julian Castro into his campaign; Castro had been a vocal proponent of liberal police reforms during his bid to become the Democratic nominee for president.77 Second, Pelosi, the multi-millionaire Speaker of the House, asked the Congressional Black Caucus to draft a series of police reforms.78
On June 8, following a ridiculous display in which Pelosi and other top Democrats took a knee wearing Ghanaian kente cloths, the Justice in Policing Act was revealed. The act is fairly milquetoast—far behind the nebulous demands of the uprising—and includes provisions for more easily prosecuting police in cases of brutality, mandatory body cameras, as well as a ban on chokeholds. The Act does absolutely nothing to abolish or even defund police departments. 79 Nor is the act likely to become law; even if the act was to pass the Republican-majority Senate, Trump has announced his attention to veto it.80
Rather than an accident, the unlikelihood of the bill passing is a feature, one of the ways in which so-called “checks and balances” help protect the current order. The Democrats know this; had it been likely to pass the bill would have been even more muted. The inaction of the Democrats in the face of the George Floyd Uprising is not surprising; they are one of the two parties that have overseen the construction and maintenance of the white-supremacist order in the United States. Biden is himself a career segregationist and author of a 1994 crime bill81 which was a cornerstone in the construction of the modern for-profit prison behemoth.82 The Congressional Black Caucus has itself helped to make the police a “protected class”, and also contributed to the militarization of police through the 1033 program.83
Despite the lack of success of the official Democrat cooptation attempt of the George Floyd Uprising, I want to point out one of the more insidious ways that the Democrats are attempting to coopt outrage against police murders through social movements themselves. It is worth first pointing out that Alicia Garza, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, is a supporter of the centrist-wing of the Democrats, specifically Elizabeth Warren.84 Black Lives Matter has recently launched a campaign called #WhatMatters2020. The goal of the campaign is to bring “BLM supporters and allies to the polls in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election to build collective power and ensure candidates are held accountable for the issues that systematically and disproportionately impact Black and under-served communities across the nation.”85 A campaign video calls on people to vote for an America where “police are held accountable” and “where we have access to quality healthcare”. The problem with this campaign, of course, is that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are even pretending to deliver on promises like this. Biden does not support medicare for all, and was an architect of the current racist criminal justice system. The #WhatMatters2020 campaign is a cynical sheepdog campaign, bringing black people angry at the current injustices of American white-supremacist capitalism back into the Democrats.
Invasion of the Liberals
Earlier in this article, I mentioned that the media was attempting to call into existence a group of “good”, peaceful protestors. I want to spend more time now talking about this process. Ideology is both produced by practice, but also exists as a way of calling particular types of people into activity.86 When the media began focusing almost exclusively on “good” protestors, it was at first inventing this category out of almost thin air; the line it was drawing was an artificial one. But by putting forward this ideological pole, the media called into action people who had hitherto not been involved. The media, alongside notable liberal politicians and other establishment figures, created a group of liberal protestors out of inactive liberals who now saw themselves and their own political predilections reflected in the ongoing uprising. Included in these efforts by the media and liberal establishment figures is a now-famous essay by former president Barrack Obama, posted to Medium on June 1, in which he said he supported the protests, condemned violence, and urged reform efforts to be focused on institutional channels.87
The flip side of the liberal “call to action” is that it also acts as a safeguard against radicalization. When reality confronts ideology, it is often ideology that is changed. Reality forces a rupture in one’s worldview which can lead to radicalization. In this case it became difficult to substantiate the story of a good, neutral, and protective state in the face of ubiquitous police violence against even peaceful protestors. If reality can be changed or if powerful narratives can reinforce ideology, ideology is cemented rather than discarded. In this case, liberalism as a worldview was able to escape challenge due to the emergence of establishment liberals in support of the protests.
The result of the liberalization of the protests on public opinion is interesting. By mid-June, 67% of Americans reportedly supported the ongoing protests. The racial breakdown was more stark: 60% of white people supported the protests, whereas 86% of black people supported them. Despite this, 59% of Americans (including 62% of white Americans compared with 43% of black Americans) believed that the protests were spurred on at least in part as a means for people to engage in criminal behavior.88 Thus the liberalization of the protests resulted in a situation in which the majority of a country deeply enmeshed in white supremacy supported protests proclaiming the value of black lives, despite the majority of the country materially benefitting from that same unjust racial hierarchy. That major politicians like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate Mitt Romney joined the protests—both politicians with significant power to change the conditions against which they protested- signals only that the political message of the uprising had shifted in the popular consciousness away from “dismantle white supremacy” to the base level of “black people are human”. That nearly one third of America could not even support such a basic affirmation of humanity is telling.
The liberal invasion had three main effects on the uprising. First, the influx of liberals into the rallies not only led to the proliferation of protests and an increase in attendance, but also to their pacification. Protestors began to self-police, modifying their tactics in line with the interests of the existing order. Protestors made sure to demarcate themselves and their actions as “peaceful”, thus robbing themselves of even the specter of militancy. To a certain extent there is a degree of “selection bias” here; militant protestors are more likely to be arrested, and therefore over time the composition of a protest will naturally become more liberal. Police are aware of this and consciously seek to tie up activist time and resources in legal proceedings.
Internally to the protests, liberal protestors acted like “peace police”, disrupting the activities of militants. Examples included liberals in Washington DC turning over a “rioter” to the police (at an anti-police march!) at the end of May,89 as well as the doxxing by liberal activists of Rayshard Brook’s girlfriend, pegged as an outside agitator.90 She is accused of setting fire to the Wendy’s outside of which her partner was murdered by police. Another high-profile example of the liberalization of the protests on the tactical level is Al Sharpton’s call for a march on Washington in August, which took place at the height of militant protests occurring in Washington D.C..91 Such a call, not to support the existing protests but to postpone them, was a calculated attempt to de-escalate the uprising.
Second, the influx of liberals into the movement has paved the way for false victories. By this I mean superficial gains that ultimately leave the underlying power structure which gave rise to the protests unchallenged. Included here is the “Black Lives Matter” street mural in Washington D.C., various corporate black-washing campaigns, the changing of band names, and the cancelling of shows like COPS. One notes the irony of the mayor of New York ordering that “Black Lives Matter” be painted outside of Trump Towers while overseeing a police department which brutalizes black people and and while also opposing efforts to defund the NYPD.
Third, the influx of liberals into the movement had an effect on defanging the demands of the movement. Black Lives Matter was quick to issue the demand to defund the police in the early days of the George Floyd Uprising: they explicitly pushed for a defunding of the police, without going into detail as to what that would entail.92 Other activists seized on the space this opened up and stated that “defund” meant “defund everything”. They argued that the police were not reformable and therefore had to be abolished.93 What followed was a discussion in the media about whether or not “defund” actually meant “defund”. There was no shortage of liberals assuring other concerned liberals that defunding didn’t actually mean that there would be no police.94 While Minneapolis has since begun steps to disband their police force, demands in other locations seem to ask for a portion of police budgets to be re-allocated to community resources, in line with the Movement for Black Lives policy demands.95
The conceptual slippage of “defund” has not gone unnoticed by the police themselves. In a June 18 article on Police One, Mike Walker, a police officer for 27 years, wrote that “defunding is really just a way of saying reduced funding.”96 In the same article he offers assurance to worried police officers by noting that budget cuts were already on the agenda due to COVID-19, and that most municipalities legally cannot function without police due to their municipal charters.
That at least some police are fine with temporarily defunding the police speaks to the heart of just how defanged a demand “defund the police” actually is. But “abolish the police” as a slogan absent a critique of the conditions that give rise to the police is itself a demand that does not cut to the heart of the matter. The police exist because capitalism requires force to defend inequality and exploitation. Without ending exploitation, there will still need to be some form of coercive apparatus to ensure the continued existence of exploitation. Thus the coercive functions of the police will be offloaded to other state apparatuses; there will still be violent, racist coercion whether or not the police exist. This is something that already happens; consider, for instance, the racist terror that child welfare services across Canada (not armed, not police) put Indigenous people through for years. The George Floyd Uprising opened the space for discussions about the fundamental nature of society, about capitalism, imperialism, and racial inequality in America. Liberals shifted the overton window to exclude visions of radical transformation, instead focusing on the degree to which police should be defunded. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s now viral Instagram post which stated that police abolition looks like white suburbia, an atomized capitalist dystopia, makes total sense in this context.97
The liberal invasion resulted in a defanging of protest tactics, results, and even the demands themselves. This process, which was aided by the police, the media, and “legitimate” community leaders, was nothing less than the political side of a counter-insurgency campaign by the American ruling class directed against the George Floyd Uprising. Thus a movement which began with the burning of a police station has been transformed into one of requesting minor amendments to municipal budgets.
…And the Stick
The majority of the article has focused on the less-obvious methods that the American ruling class has used in its counter-insurgency efforts against the George Floyd Uprising. However, while counter-insurgency is more effective if it involves elements of soft power, no counter-insurgency effort is complete without open repression. The efforts against the George Floyd Uprising are no exception.
It is hard to overstate the scale of the police operation against protestors over the past month. For instance, by June 2 there already been over 11 000 arrests of protestors.98 The volume of arrests was used as an excuse to temporarily suspend habeus corpus in New York.99 There have been numerous documented arrests and attacks on journalists from even liberal platforms such as CNN. To my knowledge there are no up to date figures on the total number of arrests. In terms of the intensity of the police response, over the past month there have been countless scenes of police using tear gas and pepper spray to clear otherwise peaceful protests. An online database has logged over 670 individual incidents of police brutality caught on video.100 Police have killed at least four protestors over the course of the uprising. Many more have been maimed.101 As a result there are at least 40 different lawsuits currently underway against police departments for brutality during the George Floyd Uprising.102
As if the level of direct repression was not enough, there has also been an increase in surveillance of activists. A recent leak, titled “Blue Leaks”, has revealed that the FBI monitored social media extensively during the protests and forward information it thought relevant to local police departments.103 FBI agents have also harassed activists after they attended recent protests against police brutality.104 The goal of FBI harassment in general is to intimidate protestors and organizers into inactivity as a means of disorganizing movements. These most recent incidents are reminiscent of FBI surveillance and intimidation of the anti-war movement and COINTELPRO.
The extraordinary level of police terror was not enough to contain the uprising. The National Guard was deployed to 31 states and Washington D.C.. This involved over 62 000 soldiers.105 The National Guard was itself involved in the violent repression of the protests.106 Over 200 cities imposed a curfew, which affected more than 60 million people.107 Trump went as far as to threaten to use the American military to impose order on cities where the protests could not be contained by conventional repression.108
One final aspect to overt repression of protests which needs to be included is the role of far right organizations and militia groups. While these are ostensibly distinct from the state, there is significant overlap and cooperation between police forces and far right organizations; a now infamous 2006 FBI report details the extent to which white supremacists have infiltrated police departments.109 For instance, in early June police in Oregon were caught on video coordinating with the far-right Proud Boys to help them avoid arrest after they intimidated George Floyd protestors.110 Much has also been written about the so-called Boogaloo Movement, which has targeted anti-police brutality protests.111
There have been many attacks by the far right on recent protests. Incidents include a mob of armed counter-protestors in Bethel, Ohio which attacked a black lives matter rally searching for “antifa”.112 The KKK has also been active in these efforts: they attacked a black lives matter rally in Nevada,113 and a local KKK leader in Virginia drove his car into a protest in mid-June.114 The autonomous zone set up in Seattle has also been a magnet for far-right attacks; on June 15 the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer entered the zone and beat a man,115 and there have been five shootings directed at the zone in recent weeks, somehow allowed by police. The most recent one resulted in the death of two attackers and injuries to a 14 year old boy.116 Far right groups have also announced a plan to “retake” the zone on July 4.117
Police and national guard brutality, police harassment and surveillance, threats of military intervention, and attacks by the far right all serve as the coercive elements to the American establishment’s counter-insurgency efforts against the George Floyd Uprising. Without the threat of violence the “carrot” side of the “carrot and stick” formula would not be as attractive. The end goal however, is the same: the maintenance and defense of an order defined by exploitation and white supremacy.
Conclusion
Over the course of this article what I have sought to do is outline some of the ways that the American ruling sought to defend itself during the course of one of the largest threats to its own existence in recent years. I have shown how combined and coordinated efforts by: police forces, the military, capitalist media, NGOs, the Democrats, far-right groups, and liberal establishment figures have all combined to undermine the George Floyd Uprising. Thus far these efforts seem to have been rather successful.
The beautiful thing about history, however, is that it is never predetermined. The future is not written. While the establishment has a mind-boggling array of resources and sophisticated counter-insurgency techniques at its disposal, it is not infallible. Indeed, it does (and has!) made mistakes. It is these mistakes that provide openings for revolutionary forces to intervene and change the existing social order. Even the outcome of these protests is not yet decided: they continue, and the protestors become increasingly sophisticated in fighting back. The massive uprising of the past few weeks has shown the degree to which the people do possess power. But the events have also shown the pitfalls into which movements of resistance can fall. By writing this article I hope to have exposed some of these pitfalls, so that liberation struggles now and in the future can avoid them.
Notes
- ↩ VOA News, “Minnesota Calls National Guard to Quell Violent Protests in Minneapolis”.
- ↩ Kandist Mallett, “The Black Lives Matter Revolution Can’t Be Co-Opted By Police and Lawmakers”.
- ↩ Kristian Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing,” Interface, Vol 3, No 1, May 2011.
- ↩ Aaron Morrison and Tim Sullivan, “Minneapolis overwhelmed again by protests over Floyd death,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Reid Forgrave, “On patrol in St. Paul, National Guard waits ‘for the scales to tip’”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Jamie Ehrlich, “The hidden history of the secret presidential bunker,” CNN Politics.
- ↩ Hilary Hanson, “NYC Transit Union Backs Bus Drivers Who Refuse To Transport Protestors For NYPD”. HuffPost U.S., May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Joe DeManuelle-Hall, “West Coast Dockers Stop Work to Honor George Floyd”. Labor Notes, June 11, 2020.
- ↩ Matthew Impelli, “54 Percent of Americans Think Burning Down Minneapolis Police Precinct Was Justified After George Floyd’s Death,” Newsweek, June 6, 2020.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, GL-5.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, xiii.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, I-7.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, I-8.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, III-6.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, III-14.
- ↩ Feinberg, M., Willer, R., & Kovacheff, C. (2020). “The activist’s dilemma: Extreme protest actions reduce popular support for social movements”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication.
- ↩ Joint Publication 3-24: Counterinsurgency, III-5.
- ↩ Connor Woodman, “The Imperial Boomerang: How colonial methods of repression migrate back to the metropolis”.
- ↩ Kristian Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing,” Interface, Vol 3, No 1, May 2011.
- ↩ Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing”.
- ↩ Kavita Kumar and Miguel Otarola, “Small-business owners pick up the pieces after night of rage, destruction”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Paul Walsh, “Seeing his city on fire would ‘devastate’ George Floyd, girlfriend says”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Briana Bierschbach, “Minnesota’s political, faith, community leaders plead for an end to riots”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ John Ewoldt, “Minneapolis neighborhoods face food desert after looting closes multiple stores”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Kavita Kumar and Adam Belz, “In riot-hit Twin Cities neighborhoods, a hole where pharmacies used to be”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Jim Buchta, “Minneapolis vandalism targets include 189-unit affordable housing development.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Kathleen Hennessy and Tim Sullivan, “Unrest devastates a city’s landmark street of diversity.” Minneapolis Star Tribune. May 31, 2020.
- ↩ Briana Bierschbach, “Minnesota’s political, faith, community leaders plead for an end to riots”, Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Andy Mannix, “’We came to riot’: Illinois man livestreamed lighting fires, handing out explosives in Minneapolis, charges say”. Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Torey Van Oot. “’Fog of conflict’: Minnesota officials responding to George Floyd protests, violence helped spread of misinformation”. Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 6, 2020.
- ↩ Kelly Smith, “Minneapolis, St. Paul foundations aim at rebuilding, criminal justice reform after riots.”. Minneapolis Star Tribune, June 5, 2020; “How To Give Back To Your Besieged Community”. CBS Minnesota, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Sam Levin. “Movement to defund police gains ‘unprecedented’ support across U.S..” The Guardian, June 4, 2020; Jack Kelly. “The Movement To Defund Or Disband Police: Here’s What You Need To Know Now.” Forbes, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media.
- ↩ Britt Robson, “New owner Glen Taylor: less liberal Star Tribune ahead.” MinnPost, April 16, 2014.
- ↩ Chris Haynes. “Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor calls George Floyd’s death ‘a shame’ and ‘a tragedy’”. Yahoo Sports, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ Dan Grossi, “Public relations in law enforcement: Is the PIO obsolete?” Police One, January 8, 2020.
- ↩ W. Michael Phibbs, “Why your police department needs a brand.” Police One, September 7, 2017.
- ↩ John Ferrugia, Brittany Freeman, Jason Foster. “Denver police defend public relations spending”. The Denver Channel, February 17, 2016.
- ↩ William Turvill. “UK police forces spend more than £36m a year on PR and communications”. Press Gazette, May 1, 2015.
- ↩ Los Angeles Police Department. “Public Relations Unit”, Official Site of The Los Angeles Police Department.
- ↩ Mark Saunders, Chief of Police. “Toronto Police Service—2019 Operating Budget Request”.
- ↩ Jake Offenhartz, “NYPD Defends Its Massive Budget As Social Services And Youth Programs Are Cut”. The Gothamist, May 15, 2020.
- ↩ Joel Rub, David Zahniser. “L.A. police union hires PR firm in bid to win pay raises”. Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2015.
- ↩ POL Staff. “PR Firm Launches Service to Defend Police Officers from Anti-Cop Activists.” Police Magazine, November 17, 2015.
- ↩ John Guilfoil Public Relations. “Sectors We Serve”.
- ↩ PolicePR.
- ↩ Melissa Agnes. “Discussing the Divide Between Police and Their Communities, on The Police Podcast”. Melissa Agnes: Crisis Management Strategist. January 27, 2015; Melissa Agnes. “TCIP #011—Discussing The #Ferguson Crisis with Tim Burrows”. Melissa Agnes: Crisis Management Strategist. August 17, 2014.
- ↩ Julie Parker. “Hiding and Hoping Is Not a PR Strategy.” Police Chief Magazine.
- ↩ Darrel W. Stephens, Julia Hill, Sheldon Greenburg. Strategic Communication Practices: A Toolkit for Police Executives.
- ↩ Sean Whitcomb, Jonah Spangenthal-Lee. “3 reasons your agency should be on Reddit.” Police One, May 2, 2019.
- ↩ P1 Staff. “Roundtable: How to match your agency’s social media strategy with community needs”. Police One, May 2, 2019.
- ↩ Heather R. Cotter. “12 things every police department’s civil unrest plan needs”. Police One, May 28, 2020.
- ↩ “Are you ready for the crisis that may be heading your way?” Police One, July 5, 2018.
- ↩ Yael Bar-tur, Mathew Rejis, “Now do you recognize the power of social media?”. Police One, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Andrea Smith, “Introduction”, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, 3.
- ↩ Malcolm X, “Message to the Grass Roots”. Black Past.
- ↩ Netfa Freeman, “Movement Ferguson, Beware the Nonprofit Industrial Complex”. Black Agenda Report, January 21, 2015.
- ↩ George Ciccariello-Maher, “Chronicle of a Riot Foretold”. Counterpunch, June 29, 2010.
- ↩ Advance the Struggle. “Justice for Oscar Grant: A Lost Opportunity?”. Advance the Struggle, July 15, 2009.
- ↩ Netfa Freeman, “Movement Ferguson, Beware the Nonprofit Industrial Complex”. Black Agenda Report, January 21, 2015.
- ↩ BOLD. “Board”. BOLD.
- ↩ Borealis Philanthropy. “Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity”.
- ↩ BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) Funding Page.
- ↩ “Let me be clear: we do not advocate violence in protests of any kind—not by any protester and not by police. We do not advocate or condone destruction of property. We believe in the value of human lives.” Reddit.
- ↩ Patrick Reusse. “Stephen Jackson, other activists score with straight talk at Minneapolis City Hall rotunda.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Adair Mosley. “Justice for George Floyd”. Pillsbury United Communities, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Greater Twin Cities United Way. “Corporate Partners” .
- ↩ Kari Paul. “How Target, Google, Bank of America and Microsoft quietly fund police through private donations”. The Guardian, June 18, 2020.
- ↩ Minneapolis Department of Health & Family Support. “City of Minneapolis Weed & Seed Initiative”.
- ↩ Community Capacity Development Office, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. Weed and Seed Implementation Manual.
- ↩ Kristian Williams, “The other side of the COIN: counterinsurgency and community policing,” Interface, Vol 3, No 1, May 2011.
- ↩ “FBI recognizes Pillsbury United Communities for its service to diverse neighborhoods.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 15, 2014.
- ↩ Working Group on Police-Involved Deadly Force Encounters. “Executive Summary of Recommendations”, 2.
- ↩ R. T. Rybak. “I Was the Mayor of Minneapolis and I Know Our Cops Have a Problem”. Benchmark Analytics, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ August H. Nimtz. “The Graveyard of Progressive Social Movements: The Black Hole of the Democratic Party”. MR Online, May 9, 2017.
- ↩ Brian Schwartz, “How Joe Biden’s leading VP contenders stack up in the wake of protests over George Floyd’s death”. CNBC, June 1, 2020; Daniel Strauss, “’A national crisis’: how the killing of George Floyd is changing U.S. politics”. The Guardian, May 30, 2020; Nicholas Fandos, “Congress Plans Hearings on Racial Violence and Use of Force by the Police”. New York Times, May 29, 2020.
- ↩ Suzanne Gamboa, “Joe Biden pulls Julian Castro into campaign, asks for help to ‘tackle police reform’”. NBC News, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Kelsey Snell, Claudia Grisales. “Pelosi Asks Black Caucus To Come Up With Police Reforms Following Protests”. NPR, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Catie Edmondson, “Democrats Unveil Sweeping Bill Targeting Police Misconduct and Racial Bias”, The New York Times, June 8, 2020.
- ↩ Lisa Mascaro, “Police overhaul dims, but House Democrats push ahead on vote”. Police One, June 25, 2020.
- ↩ German Lopez, “The controversial 1994 crime law that Joe Biden helped write, explained”. Vox, June 20, 2019.
- ↩ Glen Ford, “The Movement Gets BIG—and Its Enemies Reveal Themselves”. Black Agenda Report, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ Danny Haiphong, “The Rebellion Against Police Repression Must Guard Against ALL Enemies, Whether Red, Blue, or Green”, Black Agenda Report, June 17, 2020.
- ↩ Justine Coleman, “Warren endorsed by Black Lives Matter co-founder’s Black to the Future Action Fund”, The Hill, February 20, 2020.
- ↩ “BLM’s #WhatMatters2020”, Black Lives Matter.
- ↩ Louis Althusser, On the Reproduction of Capitalism.
- ↩ Barack Obama, “How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change”, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Kim Parker, Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Monica Anderson. “Amid Protests, Majorities Across Racial and Ethnic Groups Express Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement”. Pew Research Center, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ TooFab Staff, “DC Protestors Drag Rioter Into Police Custody”. Too Fab, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Vincent Barone, “Accused Wendy’s arsonist Natalie White was Rayshard Brooks’ ‘girlfriend’: lawyer”. New York Post, June 23, 2020.
- ↩ Lisa Hagen, “Al Sharpton Calls for Aug. 28 March on Washington at George Floyd Memorial”. U.S. News, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ “#DefundThePolice”. Black Lives Matter, May 30, 2020.
- ↩ Miarame Kaba, “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.” The New York Times, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Sean Boynton, “What does ‘defund the police’ really mean? Experts say confusion harming progress”. Global News, June 18, 2020; Amanda Arnold, “What Exactly Does It Mean to Defund the Police?”. The Cut, June 12, 2020; Andrew Ferguson, “‘Defund the Police’ Does Not Mean Defund the Police. Unless It Does.”. The Atlantic, June 14, 2020.
- ↩ “Invest-Divest”. Movement for Black Lives.
- ↩ Mike Walker, “The difference between police defunding and police disbanding”. Police One, June 18, 2020.
- ↩ Emily Dixon, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Was Asked About Defunding the Police and Her Answer Went Viral”. Marie Claire, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Scott Pham, “Police Arrested More Than 11,000 People At Protests Across The U.S.”. BuzzFeed News, June 2, 2020.
- ↩ Jan Ransom, “Despite Virus, Hundreds Arrested in Unrest Are Held in Cramped Jails”. The New York Times, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ Greg Doucette, George Floyd Protest Police Brutality Videos.
- ↩ “Violence and controversies during the George Floyd protests”. Wikipedia.
- ↩ Stephen Gandel, “At least 40 lawsuits claim police brutality at George Floyd protests across U.S.”. CBS News, June 23, 2020.
- ↩ Rainer Shea, “Intelligence leaks reveal just how ready the police state is to crack down on dissent.” June 25, 2020.
- ↩ Chris Brooks, “After Barr Ordered FBI to “Identify Criminal Organizers,” Activists Were Intimidated at Home and at Work”. The Intercept_, June 12, 2020.
- ↩ Katie Warren and Joey Hadden, “How all 50 states are responding to the George Floyd protests, from imposing curfews to calling in the National Guard”. Business Insider, June 4, 2020.
- ↩ Dylan Lovan, Bruce Schreiner. “Investigators: Man fatally shot on night of protests was killed by Kentucky National Guard rifle”. Military Times, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Maria Sacchetti, “Curfews follow days of looting and demonstrations.” The Washington Post, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ Christina Wilkie, Amanda Macias. “Trump threatens to deploy military as George Floyd protests continue to shake the U.S.”. CNBC, June 1, 2020.
- ↩ FBI Counterterrorism Division. “(U) White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement”.
- ↩ Rachel E. Greenspan, “Oregon police told armed white men that they didn’t want to look like they were ‘playing favorites’ when they advised them to stay inside after curfew”. Insider, June 5, 2020.
- ↩ Craig Timberg, “As Trump warns of leftist violence, a dangerous threat emerges from the right-wing boogaloo movement”. The Washington Post, June 17, 2020.
- ↩ Rachel E. Greenspan, “Violent counter-protesters mobbed a small-town BLM demonstration in Ohio amid false rumors of antifa”. Insider, June 16, 2020.
- ↩ Lee Brown, “Men in Ku Klux Klan-style hoods crash Nevada Black Lives Matter rally”. New York Post, June 11, 2020.
- ↩ “KKK ‘leader’ charged for attack on Black Lives Matter protesters”. BBC News, June 9, 2020.
- ↩ Kelly Weill, “The Far Right Is Stirring Up Violence at Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”. The Daily Beast, June 16, 2020.
- ↩ Konstantin Toropin, “Another shooting in Seattle’s police-free autonomous zone kills man and critically injures boy”. CNN, June 29, 2020.
- ↩ “‘American Patriots’ are planning to retake the so-called Seattle “autonomous zone” from CHAZ insurrectionists”. Law Enforcement Today, June 16, 2020.
Source: MROnline
#copaganda #CounterInsurgency #Ferguson #GeorgeFloyd #GeorgeFloydRebellion #GeorgeFloydUprising #insurgency #WhatMatters2020
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https://www.lovenba.com/1766808/ Mallory Edens – Milwaukee Bucks Draft Lottery Post-Reaction #Bucks #BucksDraft #BucksDraftLottery #BucksDraftReaction #BucksFrontOffice #BucksGM #BucksNews #BucksOffseason #BucksRebuild #BucksRoster #CentralDivision #CyroAsseo #EasternConference #HoopsHype #MalloryEdens #MilwaukeeBucks #MilwaukeeBucksDraft #MilwaukeeBucksNews #NBA #NbaDraft #NBADraft2026 #NbaDraftLottery #NbaDraftReaction #NbaNews #NbaOffseason #NbaRumors
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https://www.lovenba.com/1766808/ Mallory Edens – Milwaukee Bucks Draft Lottery Post-Reaction #Bucks #BucksDraft #BucksDraftLottery #BucksDraftReaction #BucksFrontOffice #BucksGM #BucksNews #BucksOffseason #BucksRebuild #BucksRoster #CentralDivision #CyroAsseo #EasternConference #HoopsHype #MalloryEdens #MilwaukeeBucks #MilwaukeeBucksDraft #MilwaukeeBucksNews #NBA #NbaDraft #NBADraft2026 #NbaDraftLottery #NbaDraftReaction #NbaNews #NbaOffseason #NbaRumors
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♦️DNC Chair #Jaime #Harrison,
a former corporate lobbyist and South Carolina party chair who was tapped to be chair by Joe Biden,
-- is not running for another four years in his position.Two candidates for DNC chair have announced:
first was former Maryland Gov. #Martin #OMalley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration,
then Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman #Ken #Martin, a vice chair of the DNC.
Others considering runs include Wisconsin Democratic Party chair #Ben #Wikler;
Democratic strategist #Chuck #Rocha;
former DNC vice chair #Michael #Blake, of New York;
former Chicago mayor #Rahm #Emanuel;
and Michigan state Sen. #Mallory #McMorrow.
Another name in the mixis former Texas Rep. #Beto #ORourke.
https://readsludge.com/2024/11/26/a-fight-for-the-soul-of-the-dnc/
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Latest news from first Week 18 practice https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/644309/ #American #AmericanFootball #Anthony #AnthonyRichardson #Bernhard #BernhardRaimann #blackmon #Breaking #Colts #daniel #DanielScott #danny #DannyPinter #Football #Hub #Indianapolis #IndianapolisColts #IndianapolisColts #Mallory #Mekhi #MekhiBlackmon #Neutral #news #NFL #NFLHub #Overall #OverallNeutral #Pinter #Raimann #Richardson #Scott #SMG #SMGBreakingWire #Sports #SportsNews #will #WillMallory #Wire
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Latest news from first Week 18 practice https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/644309/ #American #AmericanFootball #Anthony #AnthonyRichardson #Bernhard #BernhardRaimann #blackmon #Breaking #Colts #daniel #DanielScott #danny #DannyPinter #Football #Hub #Indianapolis #IndianapolisColts #IndianapolisColts #Mallory #Mekhi #MekhiBlackmon #Neutral #news #NFL #NFLHub #Overall #OverallNeutral #Pinter #Raimann #Richardson #Scott #SMG #SMGBreakingWire #Sports #SportsNews #will #WillMallory #Wire
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Latest news from first Week 18 practice
Here are the latest injury updates …
#NFL #IndianapolisColts #Indianapolis #Colts #American #AmericanFootball #Anthony #AnthonyRichardson #Bernhard #BernhardRaimann #blackmon #Breaking #daniel #DanielScott #danny #DannyPinter #Football #Hub #Mallory #Mekhi #MekhiBlackmon #Neutral #news #NFLHub #Overall #OverallNeutral #Pinter #Raimann #Richardson #Scott #SMG #SMGBreakingWire #Sports #SportsNews #will #WillMallory #Wire
https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/644309/ -
Latest news from first Week 18 practice
Here are the latest injury updates …
#NFL #IndianapolisColts #Indianapolis #Colts #American #AmericanFootball #Anthony #AnthonyRichardson #Bernhard #BernhardRaimann #blackmon #Breaking #daniel #DanielScott #danny #DannyPinter #Football #Hub #Mallory #Mekhi #MekhiBlackmon #Neutral #news #NFLHub #Overall #OverallNeutral #Pinter #Raimann #Richardson #Scott #SMG #SMGBreakingWire #Sports #SportsNews #will #WillMallory #Wire
https://www.rawchili.com/nfl/644309/ -
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https://www.europesays.com/news/26849/ One Big Headache for Politicians These Days: a Messy Digital Footprint #Abdul #Carl #DonaldJ #ElSayed #Headlines #James #Jeremy #Julia #Letlow #Mallory #mamdani #MarkK(1968) #McMorrow #MidtermElections(2026) #News #PoliticsAndGovernment #RedditInc #Robinson #SocialMedia #Talarico #TopStories #trump #UnitedStates #Wahls #X(FormerlyTwitter) #YouTubeCom #Zach(1991) #Zohran
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#Meta now permits, on #Threads, #Facebook and #Instagram:
Allegations of #mental #illness or abnormality directed at trans* and homosexual persons
Calling for gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement participation for the same groups, based on religious beliefs
Accusing people of specific ethnicities, e.g. Chinese people, of bearing responsibility for the Covid-19 pandemic.
The "Social Web Foundation" @swf and with it, expressly its founders @evanprodromou, @mallory and @tomcoates still boast, on their website:
»Industry support
The founders are supported by advisors from the social networking world including […]:- Meta«
They choose to stay silent on their Fediverse accounts, so far. The post is still up, on their website.
In a hilarious move away from his drooling #Threads fanboy statements so far, #EugenRochko @Gargron now boosts posts of OTHERS saying »The best time to abandon anything Meta touches was years ago. The second best time is today.«
As predicted, #Rochko, #Prodromou, #Knodel and #Coates were enablers and gate openers for #Meta, while everybody else was crystal clear about the track record of this rotten corporation, and what threat it is to the Fediverse.
These #Fediverse "protagonists", obviously, have a serious integrity problem.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-immigration-gender-policies-change/
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Started four more #wikipedia articles for April: Elizabeth Rhodes Jackson (1875-1955) wrote fantasy books and stories set in #Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Rhodes_Jackson Adrienne Remenyi von Ende (1873-1945) was a Hungarian-born #soprano and voice teacher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Remenyi_von_Ende Kathleen Moore Mallory (1879-1954) and Carrie T. Burritt (1870-1955) were heads of women's mission boards in the #SouthernBaptist and #FreeMethodist denominations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Moore_Mallory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_T._Burritt @wikiwomeninred
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Meet Bambi O’Shea - a charming character from future book by Mallory Robertson 💋 Comission art :artcapy4:
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‘Rich AF’ Series Based On Vivian Tu’s Book In The Works At Amazon, From Mallory Rosenthal, Sarah Kucserka & Patrick Moran’s PKM
#News #AmazonMGMStudios #MalloryRosenthal #PatrickMoran #PKMProductions #RichAF #SarahKucserka #VivianTuhttps://deadline.com/2026/02/rich-af-series-vivian-tu-book-amazon-development-1236729570/
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A Remarkable Place to Die, mystery series from New Zealand
A Remarkable Place to Die brings a new mystery series from New Zealand. Chelsie Preston Crayford stars as homicide detective Anais Mallory who returns to her hometown of Queenstown to join the police force there. […]https://oldaintdead.com/a-remarkable-place-to-die-mystery-series-from-new-zealand/
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⭐ JOB POSTING⭐
Memphis Museums of Science & History, Executive Director.
The Board of Trustees of the Memphis Museums of Science & History (MoSH), seeks an Executive Director to lead and manage the MoSH properties: Pink Palace Museum, Lichterman Nature Center, Coon Creek Science Center, and Mallory-Neely and Magevney historical homes.
Salary range is $175,000 - $210,000 per annum. Submit confidential application online👇
https://secure.recruitly.io/public/job/32452/82/Executive_Director__Museums_of_Science_and_History__Memphis
#globalmuseum #museumjobs -
Started four more #wikipedia articles for April: Elizabeth Rhodes Jackson (1875-1955) wrote fantasy books and stories set in #Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Rhodes_Jackson Adrienne Remenyi von Ende (1873-1945) was a Hungarian-born #soprano and voice teacher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Remenyi_von_Ende Kathleen Moore Mallory (1879-1954) and Carrie T. Burritt (1870-1955) were heads of women's mission boards in the #SouthernBaptist and #FreeMethodist denominations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Moore_Mallory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_T._Burritt @wikiwomeninred
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Started four more #wikipedia articles for April: Elizabeth Rhodes Jackson (1875-1955) wrote fantasy books and stories set in #Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Rhodes_Jackson Adrienne Remenyi von Ende (1873-1945) was a Hungarian-born #soprano and voice teacher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Remenyi_von_Ende Kathleen Moore Mallory (1879-1954) and Carrie T. Burritt (1870-1955) were heads of women's mission boards in the #SouthernBaptist and #FreeMethodist denominations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Moore_Mallory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_T._Burritt @wikiwomeninred
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Started four more #wikipedia articles for April: Elizabeth Rhodes Jackson (1875-1955) wrote fantasy books and stories set in #Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Rhodes_Jackson Adrienne Remenyi von Ende (1873-1945) was a Hungarian-born #soprano and voice teacher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Remenyi_von_Ende Kathleen Moore Mallory (1879-1954) and Carrie T. Burritt (1870-1955) were heads of women's mission boards in the #SouthernBaptist and #FreeMethodist denominations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Moore_Mallory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_T._Burritt @wikiwomeninred
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Started four more #wikipedia articles for April: Elizabeth Rhodes Jackson (1875-1955) wrote fantasy books and stories set in #Boston https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Rhodes_Jackson Adrienne Remenyi von Ende (1873-1945) was a Hungarian-born #soprano and voice teacher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Remenyi_von_Ende Kathleen Moore Mallory (1879-1954) and Carrie T. Burritt (1870-1955) were heads of women's mission boards in the #SouthernBaptist and #FreeMethodist denominations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Moore_Mallory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_T._Burritt @wikiwomeninred
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KD5ZZU’s very elegant build of “Old Barebones” – a Z-match tuner
Back in October 2024 I wrote a post with the title “Old Barebones” – A QRP Z-match Builder Project. The project’s purpose was to construct a simplified version of the Norcal Z-match tuner (which I also owned) to use with my QRP Labs QMX transceiver. The Norcal tuner included some features that I simply did not need – such as balanced transmission line terminals, a simple LED SWR indicator and three switches (Balanced line/BNC, Tune/Operate, High/Low impedance). The schematic was copied from the Norcal tuner – a superb design that I didn’t think I could improve. The end result was a very simple device with three BNC connectors, a toroidal inductor and two polyvaricons, all packaged in a small Amazonian plastic enclosure. Alright, it is an ugly device mainly due to the inelegant knobs I chose to use. But it works very well indeed and has become my main QRP portable antenna matching unit. Heck, it cost me a big fat nothing to build thanks to my extensive junque box stocked from years spent hoarding miscellaneous bits and pieces. When I have finished twiddling the knobs I can always put my hat over it to hide its lack of elegance.
Then, out of the blue, I received an email from Mallory KD5ZZU who expressed an interest in building her own version of “Old Barebones”. Mallory queried whether the design would work on the high bands. I had only tested mine on 20m, 30m and 40m, so I hooked it up to my home 80m EFHW and my portable 13ft tripod vertical antennas to test whether a low SWR could be achieved with Old Barebones on 17m, 15m 12m and 10m. Fortunately Old Barebones did a splendid job on both antennas so Mallory took the plunge and built her own version.
Note: My 80m EFHW (End-Fed Half Wave) is used primarily on 80m but is also useful on 40m and 20m. Using a tuner to obtain a low SWR on the higher bands protects the radio from high SWR but does not imply that the antenna is useful on those bands.
Mallory experienced a hitch in the construction though. Her first build did not function as expected and she asked for ideas on what to look for to resolve the problem. It turned out to be the connections to the polyvaricons that were the problem. Polyvaricons often have several sets of vanes and multiple connection points. I had used a capacitance meter to identify the correct connections in my original build. Realizing this may be the problem, Mallory quickly identified the correct connections and got her tuner working. She wrote that she was able to achieve a nice low SWR on all bands from 20m to 10m with her 71ft EFRW and 9:1 unun. A great result.
But Mallory doesn’t need to cover her version of Old Barebones with a hat to disguise its appearance. It is a beautiful design built into a custom 3D printed case with 3D printed knobs and looks terrific.
If anyone else is interested in building this simple construction project Mallory has kindly provided links to an online source for the parts and the 3D print files:
- Polyvaricons: https://a.co/d/hOYgP2f
- Toroids: https://a.co/d/7mItRXw
- Magnet wire: https://a.co/d/ffqdHo9
- BNC posts: https://a.co/d/5mwLEVI
Here is a link to the 3D print design of the knobs: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3035549/files
Here is a link to the file to 3D print; it’s a print profile (modification) from the original designer of a customizable enclosure box: https://makerworld.com/en/models/2002942-custom-enclosure-box#profileId-2400746
A note on the use of Old Barebones
I designed Old Barebones for use with my QRP Labs QMX transceiver which has a convenient “Tune SWR” feature that reduces the output power to 25% to reduce the stress of high SWR on its delicate finals during the tuning process. I have also used Old Barebones with my Yaesu FT-817 but I manually reduce the power to 1 watt or less during tuning. If using Old Barebones with any radio that does not have an SWR indicator I recommend incorporating an SWR indicator in the tuner circuit similar to the original Norcal BLT design.
Polyvaricons?
The word “polyvaricon” is presumably a contraction of “Polymer Variable Condenser” meaning a plastic enclosed variable capacitor using a plastic dielectric. It is believed to be the trademark of a Japanese company that manufactures these devices. But shouldn’t it be called a “polyvaricap”. I remember back in the dawn of my existence that capacitors were called “condensors” but that term disappeared a long time ago. Strange old world.
What is a Z-match?
“Antenna tuners” are often named after their topology. For example, an L-match comprises a series inductor or capacitor and a complementary parallel capacitor or inductor. The combination of inductor and capacitor forms an “L” shape. However, there is no immediately apparent “Z” shape to the components in a Z-match, so I presume the “Z” refers to impedance. Let me know in the comments if I am wrong.
Pros and Cons of the Z-match
From the GQRP organization in the UK:
Advantages of the Z-Match
- Matches balanced loads without the use of lossy baluns.
- Being a parallel resonant circuit, the Z-match can provide some band-pass filtering for your receiver and harmonic attenuation for your transmitter.
- A well-designed Z-match tuner has a high Q and is more efficient (less lossy) than other types of tuners.
- The fixed inductor simplifies construction (no switches or rollers needed).
Disadvantages of the Z-Match
- Tuning is usually very narrow and can be a bit touchy sometimes to tune up
Thanks again to Mallory KD5ZZU for sharing her build with Ham Radio Outside the Box and congratulations Mallory for turning my original inelegant build into something with class!
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Turning Saffron into Slop – Treylya Safran yn Skomblans
Kernewek is under attack. The attacker? Machine-made rubbish. Fresh from companies dictionary-bashing to make terrible ‘translations’ for their black-and-gold-washing brandification of Kernow, the shoddiness has spiralled.
Error-riddled AI ‘Kernewek textbooks’ have appeared on Amazon, by ‘authors’ who are at best well-meaning but harmful and at worst out to exploit us. Worse, a prominent crackpot is ‘translating’ conspiracy theories into ‘Cornish’ en masse. It’s not just nonsensical; it ties our language to fascism faster than we, making content by hand, can work to untie it.
There are those who believe that the best defence is to put down our shield and join the opposing forces: to ‘buy in’ to AI in the hope of coming out the other side with a useful tool for the language and a stronger community. Such hopes must be abandoned. What follows is a look why this approach is wrong-headed, as evidenced by universities, activists and indigenous groups.
Kernewek yw yn-dann omsettyans. An omsettyer? Atal gwrys dre jynn. Nowydh devedhys a gompanis ow pylla gerlyvrow rag gul ‘treylyansow’ euthyk rag aga merkegyans yethwolghi a Gernow, an pilyekter re wrug pesya.
‘Dysklyvrow’ ‘Kernewek’ gwallblagys re apperyas war Amazon, gans ‘awtours’ neb yw teg aga thowl dhe’n gwella ha drogusus aga hwans dhe’n gwettha. Lakka, yma koyntwas a vri ow ‘treylya’ tybiethow kesplottyans dhe ‘Gernewek’ yn routh. Nyns yw gocki hepken; y kelm agan yeth orth faskorieth uskissa es dell yllyn, dre wul dalgh dre leuv, oberi dh’y digelmi.
Yma nebes a grys bos agan gwella difres gorra an skoos dhyworthyn ha junya an ostys er agan pynn: dhe ‘unverhe’ gans SK gans govenek dos yn-mes gans toul dhe les rag an yeth ha kemeneth kreffa. Res yw hepkor govenegow a’n par na. An pyth hag a sew a vir orth prag yth yw an devedhyans ma penn-gam, dell yw dustunys gans pennskolyow, gweythresoryon ha bagasow teythyek.
Note: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come to be synonymous with Generative AI (GenAI) and with Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, in common parlance. Unless explicitly stated, I use the terms interchangeably.
Kernewek is under attack. The attacker? Machine-made rubbish. Fresh from companies dictionary-bashing to make terrible ‘translations’ for their black-and-gold-washing brandification of Kernow*, the shoddiness has spiralled.
Error-riddled AI ‘Kernewek textbooks’ have appeared on Amazon, by ‘authors’ who are at best well-meaning but harmful and at worst out to exploit us. Worse, a prominent crackpot is ‘translating’ conspiracy theories into ‘Cornish’ en masse. It’s not just nonsensical; it ties our language to fascism faster than we, making content by hand, can work to untie it.
There are those who believe that the best defence is to put down our shield and join the opposing forces: to ‘buy in’ to AI in the hope of coming out the other side with a useful tool for the language and a stronger community. Such hopes must be abandoned. What follows is a look why this approach is wrong-headed, as evidenced by universities, activists and indigenous groups.
LOW-RESOURCES AND LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY
Simply adding a language to an AI model leads to a spike in poor-quality articles, drowning out quality writing by humans. AI has “industrialized the acts of destruction—which affect vulnerable languages most, since AI translations are typically far less reliable for them.”1 Wikipedia editors from varied languages evidence that machine translation tools have made it easier than ever before to create shoddy articles in minoritised languages, causing massive damage in minutes. AI leads to non-speakers producing much longer, truthier rubbish, Sámi computational linguistics expert Trond Trosterud notes: “the problem [is] that they are armed with Google Translate. Earlier they were armed only with dictionaries.”1
Kernewek, like all but 60 of the world’s roughly 7,000 languages, is designated “low-resource”, meaning it lacks sufficient data to train a machine.2 It is tempting, therefore, to assume that the solution is to provide more data. However, training an LLM requires petabytes of text, audio and video—manually categorised and in a machine-readable format—a vast trove that Kernewek simply does not have.3 Professor Will Lamb, Chair of Gaelic Ethnology and Linguistics at Edinburgh University, speaks of “millions of work hours devoted to just one aspect” of a working AI.4
Even if ChatGPT is trained on another language than English, the time and labour required may make it largely unviable. Current assessments of the performance of ChatGPT for different languages have shown that it performs worse in all tasks.5
Prof. Lina Dencik, Data Justice Lab
Furthermore, the amount of data and work is not the only barrier; at issue is the nature of the language itself. Microsoft has found that languages such as Breton—and thus Kernewek—cause a high rate of errors distinct from the size of their dataset, due to grammatical features, such as mutation, not present in well-sourced languages. As such, they remain poor without significant additional work.6 Essentially, simply adding more Kernewek may not help. Thus, engaging with AI is, for Kernewek, to tie ourselves to slop.
Noten: Skians Kreftus (SK) re dheuth ha bos kesstyr gans SK Dinythus (SKDin) ha gans Patronyow Yeth Bras (PYB), kepar ha ChatGPT, yn lavar kemmyn. Marnas bos menegys yn kler, my a us an termys yn keschanjyadow.
Kernewek yw yn-dann omsettyans. An omsettyer? Atal gwrys dre jynn. Nowydh devedhys a gompanis ow pylla gerlyvrow rag gul ‘treylyansow’ euthyk rag aga merkegyans yethwolghi a Gernow*, an pilyekter re wrug pesya.
‘Dysklyvrow’ ‘Kernewek’ gwallblagys re apperyas war Amazon, gans ‘awtours’ neb yw teg aga thowl dhe’n gwella ha drogusus aga hwans dhe’n gwettha. Lakka, yma koyntwas a vri ow ‘treylya’ tybiethow kesplottyans dhe ‘Gernewek’ yn routh. Nyns yw gocki hepken; y kelm agan yeth orth faskorieth uskissa es dell yllyn, dre wul dalgh dre leuv, oberi dh’y digelmi.
Yma nebes a grys bos agan gwella difres gorra an skoos dhyworthyn ha junya an ostys er agan pynn: dhe ‘unverhe’ gans SK gans govenek dos yn-mes gans toul dhe les rag an yeth ha kemeneth kreffa. Res yw hepkor govenegow a’n par na. An pyth hag a sew a vir orth prag yth yw an devedhyans ma penn-gam, dell yw dustunys gans pennskolyow, gweythresoryon ha bagasow teythyek.
ASNODHOW ISL HA TIPOLOGIETH YETHEL
Keworra yeth yn sempel orth patron SK a led orth spik yn erthyglow drog aga kwalita, ow peudhi skrif a gwalita gans tus. SK re wrug “diwysyansegi an aktys diswrians—hag a nas yethow goliadow an moyha, drefen bos treylyansow SK lieskweyth le lel yn tipek ragdha.”1 Golegydhyon Wikipedia a yethow divers a re dustuni re wrug medhelweyth-treylya y wul bos esya dell veu bythkweth kyns gwruthyl erthyglow pilyek yn yethow lyharivhes, ow kawsya damach kowrek yn mynysennow. SK a led orth digowsoryon owth askorra atal lieskweyth hirra ha gwirekka, konnyk yethonieth reknansek Sámi Trond Trosterud a not: “an kudyn [yw] aga bos ervys gans Google Translate. A-varra nyns ens ervys marnas gans gerlyvrow.”1
Kernewek, kepar hag oll marnas 60 a ogas lowr 7,000 yeth a’n bys, yw klassys avel “isel y asnodhow”, ow styrya nag eus dhodho kedhlow lowr dhe drenya jynn.2 Rakhenna, dynyek yw desevos bos an assoylyans profya moy a gedhlow. Byttegyns, res yw petavaytys a dekst, son ha gwydhyow—klassys dre leuv hag yn furvas redyadow gans jynn— dhe drenya PYB, tresorva efan nag eus dhe Gernewek yn sempel.3 Y kews Professor Will Lamb, Kaderyer Ethnologieth ha Yethonieth Wodhalek orth Pennskol Karedin, a “vilvilyow a ourys ober sakrys orth unn wedh hepken” a SK owth oberi.4
Hogen mars yw ChatGPT trenys war yeth a-der Sowsnek, an termyn hag ober yw res a styr y vos martesen anhewul dre vras. Arvreusyansow a-lemmyn a berformyans a ChatGPT rag yethow dyffrans re dhiskwedhas y perform gweth yn oberennow oll.5
Prof. Lina Dencik, Data Justice Lab
Pella, nyns yw an myns a gedhlow hag ober an unsel lett; a vern yw natur an yeth y honan. Microsoft re drovyas y kaws yethow kepar ha Bretonek—hag ytho Kernewek—kevradh ughel a wallow diblans a vraster aga sett kedhlow, drefen nasyow gramasek, kepar ha treylyansow, nag usi kevys yn yethow ughel aga asnodhow. Yndella, i a bes orth bos drog heb meur a ober keworransel.6 Yn essensek, possybyl yw ny wra keworra moy a Gernewek yn sempel gweres. Yndelma, oberi gans SK yw, rag Kernewek, omgelmi orth skomblans.
CORNISH UNDER CAPITALISM
But surely we can improve things over time? It will take a lot of help from AI companies, but it will be worth it. Sadly, Gabriel Nicholas, a research fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, has found that once a tech company has established basic capabilities for a language, they pat themselves on the back and move on.7
Big tech companies are just that: companies. They exist to make a profit. Unfortunately, a market dominated by big languages gives them no incentive to invest in improvements for small ones.
All of the speech technology, smart homes and voice interaction systems used today are the products of commercial research. To put it bluntly, they exist to either make money from your data, to sell you more goods and services, or to influence your thinking. None of this AI exists for the public good. […] Unless there is a strong enough economic argument, don’t expect big companies to rush into producing Welsh, Gaelic or Cornish speech systems.8
Prof. Ian McLoughlin, University of Kent
Should they decide that a Kernewek AI is a viable profit-making enterprise, our situation may even be worse than abandonment. As Dr. Fintan Mallory remarks, the dominant means of profit for privately-funded AI enterprises is to convert their tools into surveillance devices.9 As Kernewek is currently one of the UK’s only languages which is not currently easily surveillable, this poses a huge risk to Kernewek activism and the fight for self-determination in a state that seeks to criminalise dissent.
While we’re on the subject of Kernewek and its position under capitalism, let’s consider the human cost. I lost my 13-year career in language to AI as soon as English output became viable enough to excuse not paying a human. In the unlikely instance that we achieve an AI that can produce quality Kernewek, why would anyone bother paying speakers? The idea of AI sucking all the life out of my heritage language when we are struggling to survive as-is is appalling.
Simply put, profit is antithetical to people. While AI is the new favourite toy of profit, it will be antithetical to people. And a language is its people.
KENEDHEL HEB YETH, KENEDHEL HEB KOLON
Combinations of characters on a screen mean nothing without agency and intention.10
Ross Perlin, Endangered Language Alliance
While language is not unique to humans, it is one of the chief parts of being human. It cannot be reduced to mere data, but is a highly social process.11 We all know how synthetic customer support via robot sounds or how AI fails to pick up nuance. As Dr. Mallory comments, “Language [is] something more like the soul of a community. You can’t store this in a machine. You can’t solve a human problem like linguicide with a view of language that removes the human component.”12
AI cannot comprehend Kernewek or any other language. It is a stochastic parrot: predicting what word is likely to follow the previous one.13 It cannot understand us. It cannot intend anything. If it tells you it feels delighted to help you, it is lying. I want our community to grow, but one hundred ‘Cornish-speaking’ computers do not add to it. One human does—bringing ideas and hopes and fears and foibles—and I do not think the Kernewek ‘speaking’ computers will add even one human to our community.
Worse, if it does, there is evidence from Microsoft to suggest that the use of GenAI on language tasks, even once a week, impairs cognitive ability to learn, leading to decreased engagement with the topic, overreliance on the technology and hobbled skills in independent problem-solving.14 By using AI tools to ‘teach’ a learner Kernewek, we may in fact be impairing their ability to learn the language at all without this crutch. We will make regurgitators in place of speakers.
Perlin also emphasises the human element, saying that when we hold community central to our languages, as we do, the stochastic parrot can feel like a violation.15 At the moment, I can tell when someone is using AI ‘Kernewek’ to me. The idea that one day I will not know when an outsider—someone I would welcome if they took up a book or a class—is puppeting my ancestors’ jaws and speaking through them is ghoulish. It has the instant sting of colonialism, of appropriation when one could appreciate, of parroting when one could join our chorus.
Hawai’ian scholar Ha‘alilio Solomon agrees: “It is painful, because it reminds us of all the times that our culture and language has been appropriated. We have been fighting tooth and nail in an uphill climb for language revitalization.[…] People are going to think that this is an accurate representation of the Hawaiian language.”16
TRUST AND COMMUNITY FEELING
The anti-machine backlash has long been simmering but is now seemingly breaking to the surface.17
NBC NEWS
The explosion of insults for AI itself (clanker, tinskin, toaster), its output (slop, dross, brainrot) and its users (slopper, groksucker, botlicker, second-hand thinker)—as well as others more clearly based on real-world slurs than I am comfortable to include—tells a tale of the general attitude of distrust and disgust towards the technology and its use on anglophone and other majority language internet.18 While the attitude among tech bros and corporates remains bombastic, for the general public AI is “becoming interchangeable with things that sort of suck.”19
Further, it’s not just majority languages with this negative view of AI as taint. A quick sampling of social media comments and likes regarding AI and Scottish Gaelic by Professor Lamb showed a split of 54% negative, 33% positive and 13% neutral. (Lamb, 2024) The sentiment of the top-rated negative comment was that AI is harmful and the second-highest that AI should be kept away from heritage languages.
What are we telling our descendants? That our language and culture isn’t worth the personal effort? That’s how I might read it, if I were them.20
Kernewek survey respondent
Kernewek paints an even starker picture, especially among younger and more technologically-savvy learners and speakers. A survey on Cornish Discord and Whatsapp found that 65% felt AI would be bad (11.5%) or very bad (53%) for the language. When asked what the community response should be to AI, 46% said we should prevent it and 27% avoid it, with only over-60s thinking that we should work with it.20
31% of respondents said using AI in Kernewek would cause them to feel estranged from the language, while 54% said that they would feel strongly estranged and 23% a little estranged from any organisation, resource or teacher using AI.
The response from those who gave their knowledge of AI as either “expert” or “good” was particularly damning. Everyone in this group responded that AI would be harmful for the language, that the use of AI would estrange them from a source strongly and that we should prevent the use of AI for Kernewek.
IDENTITY, AUTHENTICITY AND DIVERSITY
Aristotelis Ioannis Paschalidis, writing for UNESCO, was not speaking specifically about minoritised languages when he asked this, but the question resonates even more strongly for us: “How much loss of identity is one willing to sacrifice for efficiency?”21
Identity is of paramount importance to Kernewek speakers. Ute Wimmer’s study Reversing Language Shift: the Case of Cornish identified the language’s “function as a symbol of national identity” as the second highest motive (66%**) among speakers and learners, beaten only by Cornish culture (80%).22 This would seem cause for celebration, but when AI is added to the mix, it becomes a risk. Vincent Koc of Hyperlink states that AI can “inadvertently contribute to the dilution of language and cultural identity.”23
He also identifies that automating language learning or generation “may diminish the richness and authenticity that comes from human speakers who carry cultural histories in their speech.” Indeed, four studies by the University of Southern California have shown that using LLMs to assist writing “is linked to notable declines in linguistic diversity and may interfere with the societal and psychological insights language provides.”24
This is in English, one of the richest and largest languages in the world. Imagine the possible impact on a smaller language like Kernewek—with less documentation, less data, a tiny speakerbase and basically no money—and on its many language varieties and orthographies. Particular to the Kernewek context, Late speakers are already struggling to be seen as valid under the dominance of Middle. Do we think AI knows the difference? Thoughtlessly, it will either mix everything together, confusing everyone, or it will use Middle to overwhelm Late.
Generative AI-driven content creation, by favoring standardized languages, risks the disappearance of regional dialects.25
Barcelona supercomputing Center ….
Not only are varieties at risk; AI threatens to drown Kernewek as a whole. Perlin agrees that the linguistic flattening that occurred over centuries in English could manifest overnight in a minoritised language with AI at the helm—as it would be, being able to effortlessly outstrip human Kernewek. He raises concerns of LLMs freezing a language in place and even defining what it means to know the language, especially with low numbers of native speakers.26
Garbage translations multiply online like fake news. Native speakers of the languages in question are bypassed as being “too hard to find,” compared with automated methods of vetting that are completely disconnected from real-life communication. While larger and more powerful language communities may be able to hold the bots to account and even make strategic use of them, it is all too easy to imagine [a minority language] being overwhelmed.26
Ross Perlin, Endangered Language Alliance
Uncontrolled and in the hands of tech giants, synthetic Kernewek will outnumber and outmanoeuvre human Kernewek.
DATA SOVEREIGNTY AND COLONIALISM
Indigenous data sovereignty is the right of [an indigenous nation] to govern the collection, ownership, and application of its own data.27
Native Nations Institute
There are, however, indigenous cultures that are working on a more equitable relationship with AI. Tech without the giant requires resources, but it allows communities to retain data sovereignty over the cultural asset that is their language. Te Mana Raraunga, the Māori Data Sovereignty Network, has created a list of principles for the creation, use and sharing of Māori data, prioritising the need to enhance control for current and future Māori.
They raise a key point that should be considered carefully by stewards of linguistic and cultural knowledge: “Data from us, and about us and our resources, are valuable assets. Once control of it is lost, it is difficult to regain.”28 Decisions must not be taken lightly or hastily; we can always say “yes” if we have previously said “no” to a particular dataset’s use, but can never say “no” if we have already said “yes”.
The AI field, like any other space, is occupied by people who are set in their ways and unintentionally have a very colonial perspective.29
Michael Running Wolf, First Languages AI Reality
This is vital in the context of the potential control of Kernewek data by powerful external corporations. Capitalist extractivism has long been a bane on societies in the imperial periphery and our Cornish society is no different, having faced centuries of its wealth and natural resources being stripped and sold by and large for the profit of those outside Cornwall.
The book Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy notes that current data relations can be seen as “a continuation of the processes and underlying belief systems of extraction, exploitation, accumulation and dispossession that have been visited on Indigenous populations through historical colonialism.”30 This extractive understanding of information is, they note, not disrupted but rather replicated by paying people for their data.
Ultimately, our language must not lie in outside hands governed by proprietary principles that do not allow us sufficient sovereignty over one of our most valuable natural resources: our language. We must have open data principles, not bow to corporate control. We must steer and steward the use of our data, rather than expose it to use against our interests and for the pockets of big tech.
Rather than approaching language preservation as a technical problem, I think indigenous communities need to be politically empowered, whether that be funding from governments or legal protections to use their languages.31
Dr. Fintan Mallory, Durham University
We must prioritise language-as-community and seek open, equitable and ethical use of our language, heritage and other cultural assets. We must avoid thinking of AI as the magic that it promises and invest in basic research, driven by our own community. Corporations will not save us and, indeed, may do us great harm.
NO CORNISH ON A DEAD PLANET
Global capitalism and governments […] are addicted to ‘free’ market ideology over the wellbeing of communities, people and the planet.32
Cymdeithas yr Iaith Maniffesto 2022
Honestly, most takedowns of AI would have hit this point already. It’s one of the main arguments against Generative AI, but in case you’re not familiar with it, we will briefly look over the main points.
Water used in cooling AI data centers must be drinkable water. AI guzzles this water. The University of California has reported that “global water demand from AI could reach 4.2-6.6 billion cubic meters by 2027. That exceeds 50 percent of the UK’s annual water use in 2023.”33 All this while the Global Commission on the Economics of Water has declared “a rapidly accelerating water crisis” to which Kernewek should not be contributing.34
We have become utterly dependent on private technologies manufactured and controlled by a handful of opaque companies [who] appear mostly indifferent to the social consequences of their activities and only invest minimally if obliged by government regulations to enhance their public image.35
Iker Erdocia, Dublin City University
AI requires vast quantities of hardware at the cost of mining rare earth minerals. These are difficult to extract and purify and come with heavy environmental and social costs. They are often extracted from mines in countries with poorer environmental and labour protections. Reset states that “communities living near these mines, often indigenous or minority groups, regularly face land degradation, water contamination and human rights abuses. Much of this can be directly linked to the AI hardware.”36 When the hardware inevitably cooks and is useless, it is then thrown out as e-waste into poor communities. The potential advancement of Kernewek must not come at the expense of our sister indigenous and minority communities.
Training an also AI requires huge amounts of energy, soon perhaps as much as a small country37 and has an enormous carbon footprint.38 What is clear is that—through water usage, extractive industry, energy consumption and carbon footprint—AI is bad news for the struggling environment of the planet we live on and there is no Cornish on a dead planet.
MAKING AI AN EX-PARROT
Rather than making minority languages more accessible, AI is now creating an ever expanding minefield for students and speakers of those languages to navigate.39
mit technology review
We have heard of the vast improbability of getting AI to be able to mimic Kernewek in light of the costs in data, work, time and technology. We have considered the likely choice of cold negligence or surveillance product and the importance of data sovereignty. We have read about the effects on the livelihoods of Cornish speakers, as well as the the catastrophic costs to the environment and indigenous peoples.
We have learned that linguistic flattening by AI impoverishes its subjects and how AI may decide for us how our language must operate. We have seen the inescapability of language as human and the risks of creating ‘learners’ who cannot learn and ‘speakers’ who cannot speak. We have seen the dangers to reputation and trust for any organisation who would shovel what is seen as ‘slop’.
We have heard why giving in to the juggernaut of AI would be a mistake for Kernewek and how our community does not support our laying down of the shield. Instead, we must fight. We must make Kernewek a space as free of slop as possible, we must educate botlickers into ethical and effective language learning and use, we must avoid second-hand thinking.
We must make our language a no AI zone, a network of reliable humans and their human creations, built on authenticity, community, effort and trust: a Kernewek for the people, of the people and by the people.
KERNEWEK YN-DANN GEVALAV
Mes yn sur y hyllyn ni gwellhe taklow dres termyn? Y fydh res meur a weres a gompanis SK, mes y talvia dhyn. Yn trist, Gabriel Nicholas, kesvroder hwithrans orth an Center for Democracy and Technology, re drovyas pan wrug kompani tek fondya gallosow selyek rag unn yeth, i a omgeslowenha yn ughel hag ena movya yn-rag.7
Kompanis tek bras yw yndella poran: kompanis. Ymons i ena rag gwaynya budh. Y’n gwettha prys, ny wra marghas rewlys gans yethow bras ri kentryn dhe gevarghewi yn gwellhe rag an re byghan.
Oll a’n deknegieth kows, chiow konnyk ha systemow ynterweythres lev usys hedhyw yw an askorrasow a hwithrans kenwerthel. Dhe vos sogh, yth yns i po rag dendyl arghans a’th kedhlow, po gwertha gwara ha gonisyow, po delenwel dha dybyansow. Nyns yw tra vyth a’n SK ma rag an les kemmyn. […] Mar nag eus argyans erbysek krev lowr, na wra gwaytya kompanis bras dhe fyski dhe askorra systemow kows Kembrek, Godhalek po Kernewek.8
Prof. Ian McLoughlin, pennskol kint
Ha mars ervirons bos SK Kernewek aventur a yll gwaynya budh, possybyl yw bos agan studh gweth ages dell via gans forsakyans. Dell lever Dr. Fintan Mallor, an fordh vrassa a waynya budh rag kompanis SK arghesys yn privedh yw kedreylya aga thoulys yn devisyow aspians.9 Drefen bos Kernewek onan a’n yethow boghes y’n RU nag yw aspiadow yn es y’n eur ma, hemm yw peryl kowrek rag gweythresieth Kernewek ha’gan strif a-barth omdhetermyans yn stat a vynn galweythegi dissent.
Ha ni ow tochya Kernewek ha’y savla yn-dann gevalav, gwren ni mires orth an kost denel. My a gellis ow soodh 13 bloodh yn yethow dhe SK kettooth ha dell veu eskorrans Sowsnek hewul lowr dhe askusya sevel orth tyli den. Y’n kas diwirhaval may kevyn SK hag a yll askorra Kernewek da, prag y hwrussa nebonan omankombra ow pe kowser? An tybyans a SK ow tenna oll an bewnans a’m taves ertach ha ni ow kwynnel dhe dreusvewa dell on yw skruthus.
Yn sempel, budh yw gorthenebel orth tus. Hedre vo SK an degen nowydh flamm a vudh, y fydh gorthenebel orth tus. Ha yeth yw hy thus.
KENEDHEL HEB YETH, KENEDHEL HEB KOLON
Nyns eus styr dhe gesunyansow a lytherennow war skrin heb dewis ha heb mynnas.10
Ross Perlin, Endangered Language Alliance
Kyn nag yw yeth dibarow dhe dhensys, onan a’n rannow chif a vos denel yw. Ny yll bos lehes dhe gedhlow hepken, mes yth yw argerdh sosyel dres eghen.11 Ni oll a wor py mar synthesek y sen skoodhyans prener der SK po fatel yll SK fyllel orth konvedhes arliwyow. Dell gampol Dr. Mallory, “Yeth [yw] neppyth moy kepar hag enev a gemeneth. Ny yllir gwitha hemma yn jynn. Ny yllir assoylya kudyn denel kepar ha yethladhans gans gwel a yeth hag a remov an gerann denel.”12
Ny yll SK konvedhes Kernewek po taves vyth aral. Papynjay chonsus yw: y targan py ger yw gwirhaval wosa an huni kyns.13 Ny yll agan konvedhes. Ny yll mynnes tra vyth. Mar kwra derivas orthis y vos pes da dha weres, gow yw. My a vynn agan kemeneth dhe devi, mes ny wra kans jynn-amontya a yll ‘kewsel Kernewek’ keworra orti. Y hwra unn den—ow tri tybyansow ha govenegow hag ownow ha gwanderyow—ha ny dybav y hwra an jynnys-amontya kernwegorek keworra unn den hogen orth agan kemeneth.
Gwettha, mar kwra, yma dustuni a-dhyworth Microsoft hag a brof y hwra an devnydh a SKDin war oberennow yeth, unweyth an seythen hogen, aperya gallos godhvosel a dhyski, ow ledya orth omworrans lehes gans an desten, gorfydhyans y’n deknegieth ha sleyneth sprallys a assoylya kudynnow yn anserghek.14 Der usya toulys SK dhe ‘dhyski’ Kernewek, possybyl yw ni dhe shyndya gallos dyski an yeth vytholl heb an kroch ma. Ni a wra gul mimyoryon yn le Kernewegoryon.
Ynwedh Perlin a boslev an elven dhenel, ow leverel pan wren ni synsi kemeneth avel kres agan yethow, dell wren, an papynjay chonsus a yll bos klewys kepar ha defolyans.15 Y’n eur ma, my a aswon pan eus nebonan owth usya ‘Kernewek’ SK dhymm. An tybyans ny wrav vy unn jydh godhvos pan eus estren—nebonan a wrussen vy dynerghi mar pe lyver po klass ganses—ow popettya diwawen ow hengerens ha kewsel dresta yw bedhrosus. Yma dhe’n dra an wan dhistowgh a drevesigeth, a berghenegyans pan yllir gwerthveurhe, a bapynjaya pan yllir junya agan kesgan.
Unver yw skolheyk Hawai’i henwys Noah Ha‘alilio Solomon: “Ankensi yw, drefen ni dhe vos kofhes a’n prysyow oll re beu agan gonisogeth ha yeth perghenegys. Ni re beu owth omladh dre dhens hag ewines yn batel gales a-barth dasvewheans yeth.[…] Y hwra pobel krysi bos hemma representyans ewn a’n yeth a Hawai’i.”16
TREST HAG OMGLEWANS AN GEMENETH
Hir re beu an kil-lash gorthjynn ow kovryjyon mes lemmyn yma va ow terri an arenep dell hevel.17
NBC NEWS
Tardh an arvedhennow rag SK y honan (clanker, tinskin, toaster), y askorras (slop, dross, brainrot) ha’y usyoryon (slopper, groksucker, botlicker, second-hand thinker)—keffrys hag erel selys moy yn kler war geryow kas gwir dell ov attes gans aga heworra—a re hwedhel a stons ollgemmyn a wogrys ha divlases war-tu hag an deknegieth ha’y devnydh war an kesrosweyth Sowsnek ha yethow bras erel.18 Kynth yw an stons yn-mysk gwesyon dek ha korforeth hwath gwresek, rag an boblek gemmyn y hwra SK “dos ha bos keschanjyadow gans taklow tamm kawgh.”19
Pella, nyns yw marnas yethow moyhariv gans an gwel negedhek ma a SK avel podrek. Sampel uskis a gampollow media sosyel ha meusi ow tochya SK ha Godhalek Alban gans Professor Lamb a dhiskwedhas fals a 54% negedhek, 33% posedhek ha 13% heptu. (Lamb, 2024) Sentiment an kampol negedhek an moyha talvesys o bos SK dregynnus hag an nessa y talvia dhyn lettya SK rag kestav gans tavosow ertach.
Pyth eson ni ow leverel orth agan diyskynysi? Ny dal agan yeth ha gonisogeth an strivyans personel? Hemm yw martesen fatel wrussen vy y redya, a pen vy i.20
Gorthebydh sondyans Kernewek
Kernewek a baynt aven moy serth, yn arbennik gans dyskoryon ha kowsoryon yowynka ha moy skentel gans tek. Sondyans war Discord ha Whatsapp Kernewek a drovyas bos 65% a grysis y fia SK drog (11.5%) po pur dhrog (53%) rag an yeth. Pan veu govynnys pyth a dal bos gorthyp an gemeneth orth SK, 46% a leveris y kodh y hedhi ha 27% y woheles, gans an dus moy ha 60 bloodh hepken ow tybi y kodh oberi ganso.20
31% a worthebydhyon an sondyans a leveris y hwrussa an devnydh a SK yn Kernewek aga fellhe a’n yeth, hag ynwedh 54% a leveris y fiens i pellhes yn krev ha 23% pellhes tamm a by kowethas, asnodh po dyskador pynag ow tevnydhya SK.
An gorthyp a’n re a leveris bos aga godhvos a SK po “konnyk” po “da” o dampnus yn arbennik. Pubonan y’n bagas ma a worthebis y fia SK dregynnus rag Kernewek, y hwrussa an devnydh a SK gans pennfenten aga fellhe a’n bennfenten na yn krev hag y kodh dhyn hedhi an devnydh a SK rag Kernewek.
HONANIETH, LELDER HA DIVERSETH
Nyns esa Aristotelis Ioannis Paschalidis, ow skrifa a-barth UNESCO, ow kewsel yn komparek a-dro dhe yethow lyharivhes pan wrug ev y wovyn, mes an govyn a dhassen yn kreffa ragon: “Pygemmys koll a honanieth a vynnir sakrifia rag effeythuster?”21
Honanieth yw a’n moyha bri rag Kernewegoryon. Studhyans Ute Wimmer Reversing Language Shift: the Case of Cornish a henow “gweythres [an yeth] avel arwodh a honanieth kenedhlek” avel an nessa ughella skila (66%**) yn-mysk kowsoryon ha dyskoryon, fethys gans gonisogeth Kernow (80%) hepken.22 Yth havalsa hemma bos acheson solempnyans, mes pan vo SK keworrys, y teu ha bos peryl. Vincent Koc a Hyperlink a lever y hyll SK “kevri dre wall orth an gwannheans a yeth ha honanieth wonisogethel”.23
Ev a aswon ynwedh y hallsa awtomategi dyski po dinythi yeth “lehe an rychedh ha lelder hag a dheu a gowsoryon dhenel neb a dheg istoriow gonisogethel y’ga hows”. Yn hwir, peswar studhyans gwrys gans Pennskol Kaliforni Soth re dhiskwedhas bos devnydhya PYB dhe weres gans skrifa “kelmys orth dyfygyansow nosedhek yn diverseth yethel hag y hyll mellya gans an konvedhes brysoniethel ha kowethasel yw proviys gans yeth.”24
Ha hemm yw yn Sowsnek, onan a’n yethow an ryccha ha brassa y’n bys. Dismyk an effeyth war yeth byghanna kepar ha Kernewek—gans le a dhogvennans, le a gedhlow, sel kowsoryon munys hag ogas hag arghans mann—ha war y lies orgraf hag eghen yeth. Yn arbennik yn gettesten Kernewek, seulabrys yma kowsoryon Diwedhes ow strivya dhe vos gwelys avel vas gans gwartheyvans Kres. A dybyn y hwor SK an dyffrans? Heb preder, y hwra po kemyska puptra warbarth, ow sowdheni pubonan, po devnydhya Kres dhe fetha Diwedhes.
An gwruthyl a dhalgh herdhys gans SK Dinythus, dre favera yethow savonegys, a argyl an vansyans a rannyethow ranndiryel.25
Kresen woramontyorieth Barcelona
Nyns yw eghennow hepken yn peryl; SK a wodros beudhi Kernewek yn tien. Akordys yw Perlin y hallsa an platheans yethel a hwarva dres kansbledhynnyow yn Sowsnek hwarvos dres nos yn yeth lyharivhes gans SK orth an fronnow—dell via, ow pos gallosek a bassya Kernewek denel heb assay. Ev a venek prederow yn kever PYB ow rewi yeth yn hy le ha hogen ow settya pyth yw an styr a wodhvos an yeth, yn arbennik gans niverow munys a gowsoryon deythyek.26
Treylyansow leun a atal a liesha warlinen kepar ha nowodhow fug. Kowsoryon deythyek a’n yethow ma yw passyes avel bos “re gales dhe drovya”, komparys orth fordhow awtomategys a surheans kwalita hag yw disjunys yn tien a geskomunyans y’n bys gwir. Kynth yw possybyl rag kemenethow yeth brassa ha moy gallosek synsi an bottys ma dhe akont ha’ga devnydhya yn stratejek hogen, re es yw dismygi [yeth lyhariv] ow pos reverthys.26
Ross Perlin, Endangered Language Alliance
Heb kontrol hag yn diwla an gewri deknegieth, Kernewek synthesek a wra gornivera ha gorthrabellhe Kernewek denel.
SOVRANEDH KEDHLOW HA KOLONEGIETH
Sovranedh kedhlow teythyek yw an gwir gans [kenedhel teythyek] a woverna an kuntel, perghenogeth ha gweytha a’y hedhlow hy honan.27
Native Nations Institute
Byttegyns, yma gonisogethow teythyek hag usi owth oberi war geskowethyans moy ewnhynsek gans SK. Tek heb an kowr a res asnodhow, mes y as kemenethow gwitha sovranedh kedhlow war an gerthen wonisogethel hag yw aga yeth. Te Mana Raraunga, Rosweyth Sovranedh Kedhlow Māori, re wrug rol a bennrewlys rag an gwruthyl, devnydhya ha kevrenna a gedhlow Māori, ow ragwirhe an edhom a grefhe maystri rag Māori a-lemmyn hag a dheu.
I a venek poynt posek hag a dalvia bos konsidrys gans rach gans stywards a skians yethel ha gonisogethel: “Kedhlow ahanan, a-dro dhyn ha’gan asnodhow, yw kerthennow a bris. Pan vo maystri kellys, kales yw y dhaskemeres.”28 Ny dal gul erviransow yn skav po yn uskis; y hyllyn pupprys leverel “ea” mar kwrussyn leverel “na” kyns orth us sett kedhlow, mes ny yllyn nevra leverel “na” mar kwrussyn leverel “ea” seulabrys.
An desten SK, kepar ha pub le aral, yw leun a dus hag yw settys y’ga maneryow ha gans gwel pur drevesigel yn tidowl.29
Michael Running Wolf, First Languages AI Reality
Hemm yw pur bosek y’n gettesten a’n kontrol possybyl a gedhlow Kernewek gans korforethow gallosek a-ves. Estenegieth jatelydhek re beu molleth war gowethasow y’n amal emperourethek ha nyns yw kowethas Kernewek dyffrans, wosa enebi kansvledhynnyow a’y rychys hag asnodhow naturek ow pos destryppys ha gwerthys dre vras gans budh tus yn-mes a Gernow.
An lyver henwys Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy a verk lemmyn y hyllir gweles perthynyansow kedhlow avel “pesyans a’n argerdhow ha systemow-krysi isworwedhek a estennans, drogusyans, kuntellyans ha diberghenogeth re beu gwrys war boblansow Teythyek dres trevesigeth istorek.”30 An konvedhes estennek ma a gedhlow yw, dell verkons, hevelebys a-der goderrys gans tyli pobel rag aga hedhlow.
Wostiwedh, res yw ma na vo agan yeth gorrys yn diwla a-ves routys gans pennrewlys perghenogel na as dhyn sovranedh lowr a onan a’gan asnodhow naturel an moyha posek: agan yeth. Res yw dhyn kavos pennrewlys kedhlow ygor, a-der plegya orth kontrol korforethel. Res yw dhyn lewya ha gidya an devnydh a’gan kedhlow, a-der y usya erbynn agan lesow ha rag pocketys tek bras.
A-der drehedhes an arwithans a davosow avel kudyn teknegiethel, my a dyb bos res dhe gemenethow teythyek bos reythhes yn politek, po der arghasans a wovernansow po dre dhifresyansow laghel dhe dhevnydhya aga yethow.31
Dr. Fintan Mallory, Pennskol Durham
Res yw dhyn ragwirhe yeth-avel-kemeneth ha hwilas devnydh ygor, ewnhynsek hag ethegel a’gan kerthennow yeth, ertach ha gonisogethel. Res yw dhyn goheles tybi a SK avel an hus mayth ambos ha kevarghewi yn hwithrans selyek, lewys gans agan kemeneth. Ny wra korforethow agan selwel ha, hogen, i a yll agan shyndya.
NYNS EUS KERNEWEK WAR BLANET MAROW
Governansow ha kevalav ollvysel […] yw omres dhe ideologieth marghas ‘rydh’ moy es dell yns omres dhe sewena kemenethow, pobel ha’n planet.32
Cymdeithas yr Iaith Maniffesto 2022
An brassa rann a vreusyansow a SK a wrussa meneges hemma seulabrys. Onan a’n argyansow brassa yw erbynn SK Dinythus, mes rag own bos ankoth dhis, ni a wra mires orth an chif boyntys.
Res yw bos evadow an dowr goyeynhe pub kresen kedhlow SK. Y kollenk an dowr ma. Pennskol Kaliforni re dherivas “y hallsa demond dowr ollvysel SK hedhes 4.2-6.6 bilvil metrow kubek erbynn 2027. Henn yw moy es 50 kansran a us dowr bledhynnyek an RU yn 2023.”33 Y kettermyn, an Desedhek Ollvysel Erbysieth Dowr a dheklaryas “barras dowr ow tardha yn uskis” ma na dal Kernewek kevri dhodho.34
Ni re dheuth ha bos yn hwir omres dhe deknegiethow privedh gwrys ha kontrolys gans dornas a gompanis diskler [hag] a hevel bos mygyl dre vras orth an sewyansow sosyel a’ga gwriansow ha kevri yn ispoyntel marnas mars yns i konstrinys gans rewlys an wovernans dhe wellhe aga imach poblek.35
Iker Erdocia, Pennskol Sita Dulyn
Yma edhom dhe SK a vynsow kowrek a galesweyth orth kost palas monyow tanow. Kales yw estenna ha purhe an re ma hag yma kostow kerghynedhel ha sosyel poos. Estennys yns i yn fenowgh a hwelyow yn powyow gans difresyansow lakka rag lavur ha’n kerghynnedh. Reset a lever “yn fenowgh y hwra kemenethow yw trigys yn ogas dhe’n hwelyow, yn fenowgh bagasow lyhariv po teythyek, enebi gwethheans an tir, defolyans an dowr hag abusyans gwiryow denel. Meur a hemma a yll bos kelmys yn tidro orth an galesweyth SK.”36 Pan yw an galesweyth kegys yn sertan hag euver, ena tewlys yw avel e-wast yn kemenethow boghosek. Res yw nyns yw an avonsyans possybyl a Gernewek orth kost agan kemenethow hwor lyhariv ha teythyek.
Ynwedh res yw myns hujes a nerth rag trenya SK, yn skon martesen an keth myns ha pow byghan37 hag yma ol troos karbon kowrek.38 Kler yw—der usadow dowr, diwysyans estennek, konsumyans nerth hag ol troos karbon—bos SK yeyn nowodhow rag kerghynnedh ow strivya a’n planet mayth on ni trigys warnodho ha nyns eus Kernewek war blanet marow.
GUL DHE SK BOS EKS-PAPYNJAY
A-der gul dhe yethow lyhariv bos moy hedhadow, lemmyn yma SK ow kwruthyl tardhek pupprys owth omlesa rag studhyoryon ha kowsoryon a’n yethow ma dhe wolya.39
mit technology review
Ni re glewas a’n anwirhevelepter efan a wul dhe SK gallos mimya Kernewek yn golow an kostys yn kedhlow, ober, termyn ha teknegieth. Ni re gonsidras lycklod an dewisynter dispresyans yeyn po askorras-aspia ha’n posekter a sovranedh kedhlow. Ni re redyas a-dro dhe’n effeythyow war vewnansow Kernewegoryon, keffrys ha’n kostys katastrofek rag an kerghynnedh ha poblow teythyek.
Ni re dhyskas y hwra platheans yethel gans SK boghosekhe y destennow ha fatel yll SK martesen ervira a’gan parth fatel godh dh’agan yeth oberi. Ni re welas an anwoheladewder a yeth avel denel ha’n peryllyow a wul ‘dyskoryon’ na yll dyski ha ‘kowsoryon’ na yll kewsel. Ni re welas an peryllyow orth bri ha fydhyans rag kowethasow a wrussa palas an pyth hag yw gwelys avel ‘skomblans’.
Ni re glewas prag y fia omblegya orth an jagganat a SK error rag Kernewek ha dell na vynn agan kemeneth skoodhya gorra an skoos a-dhyworthyn. Yn y le, res yw dhyn batalyas. Res yw dhyn gul dhe Gernewek bos spas mar rydh a skomblans dell yll bos, res yw adhyski orth botlapyoryon yn dyski ha devnydh yeth yn ethegel hag yn effeythus, res yw goheles tybi wortaswerth.
Res yw dhyn gul dh’agan yeth bos parth heb SK, rosweyth a dus fydhyadow ha’ga gwriansow denel, drehevys war lelder, kemeneth, assay ha trest: Kernewek hag yw a-barth an bobel, a’n bobel ha gans an bobel.
Niwlen Ster
Notennow
* A prime example is the laughably-unaffordable restaurant RenMor, which The Headland Hotel thinks is a version of “Re’n Mor”, which they believe means “by the sea” as in “next to the sea” but actually means “by the sea!” like saying “by Zeus!”. This is both hilarious and enraging.
** A figure perhaps lower than it should be if you consider that many of the “emotional motives” which were not counted in this category, such as “I’m Cornish, what better reason do you need?”, do also refer to identity.
FENTENNOW
1. Judah, J. (2025) How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral, MIT Technology Review.
2. Ackermann, A. (2023) When AI doesn’t speak your language, Coda.
3. Crichton, D. (2024) AI and the Death of Human Languages, Lux.
4. Lamb, W. (2024). Could Artificial Intelligence save Scottish Gaelic?, The University of Edinburgh.
5. Dencik, L. (/2025) AI Inequalities: Minority Languages, TUC Cymru.
6. Joshi, P., Santy, S., Budhiraja, A., Bali, K., & Microsoft Research, India. (2020). The State and Fate of Linguistic Diversity and Inclusion in the NLP World. Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics.
7. Ackermann, A. (op cit)
8. McLoughlin, I. (2018) How to teach AI to speak Welsh (and other minority languages), The Conversation.
9. Mallory, F. (2025) RISE UP Panel Discussion & Q&A: What AI Can and Cannot Do for Minoritised Languages, YouTube.
10. Perlin, R. (2024) AI Won’t Protect Endangered Languages, The Dial.
11. RISE UP (2025) #4 RISE UP Event Summary: What AI Can and Cannot Do For Minoritised Languages, RISE UP.
12. Mallory, F. (2024) European Day of Languages: Will lesser spoken languages soon only be kept alive by AI technology? Durham University.
13. Bender, E., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., & Mitchell, M. (2021) On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency
14. Lee, H.-P., Sarkar, A., Tankelevitch, L., Drosos, I., Rintel, S., Banks, R., & Wilson, N. (2025) The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers. Microsoft.
15. Perlin, R. (op cit)
16. Judah, J. (op cit)
17. Abbruzzese, J., & Wile, R. (2025) Is an AI backlash brewing? What ‘clanker’ says about growing frustrations with emerging tech, NBC News.
18. Webster, K. (2025) Why Using ChatGPT at Work Could Hurt Your Reputation, Inc. Magazine.
19. Herrman, J. (2024) Is That AI? Or Does It Just Suck?, Intelligencer.
20. Wilson, L. (2025) Skians Kreftus ha Kernewek/Artificial Intelligence and Cornish
21. Paschalidis, A. I. (2025) AI and the great linguistic flattening, UNESCO.
22. Wimmer, U. (2010). Reversing Language Shift: the Case of Cornish. Cornish Language Board, p. 113
23. Koc, V. (2025) Generative AI and Large Language Models in Language Preservation: Opportunities and Challenges, ResearchGate.
24. Sourati, Z., Karimi-Malekabadi, F., & Ozcan, M. (2025) The Shrinking Landscape of Linguistic Diversity in the Age of Large Language Models, ResearchGate.
25. Melero, M. (2024) The Future of Language (and Cultural) Diversity in the Age of AI, CLARIN.
26. Perlin, R. (op cit)
27. Russo Carroll, S., Rodriguez Lonebear, D., & Martinez, A. (2017). Data Governance for Native Nation Rebuilding, Native Nations Institute.
28. Te Mana Raraunga. (2018). Frequently Asked Questions, Te Mana Raraunga.
29. Ackermann, A. (op cit)
30. Walter, M., Kukutai, T., Carroll, S. R., & Rodriguez-Lonebear, D. (Eds.). (2020). Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy. Taylor & Francis, p. 24
31. Mallory, F. (op cit)
32. Cymdeithas yr Iaith (2022) Cymru Rydd, Cymru Werdd, Cymru Gymraeg., p. 27
33. O’Sullivan, L. (2025). How AI’s Failure on Linguistic Diversity is Deepening Global Inequality, RESET – Digital for Good.
34. Harvey, F. (2024). Global water crisis leaves half of world food production at risk in next 25 years, The Guardian.
35. Erdocia, I., Migge, B., & Schneider, B. (2024). Language is not a data set—Why overcoming ideologies of dataism is more important than ever in the age of AI. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 28(5), p. 23
36. O’Sullivan, L. (op cit)
37. Erdenesanaa, D. (2023) A.I. Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country, The New York Times
38. Heikkilä, M. (2022) We’re getting a better idea of AI’s true carbon footprint, MIT Technology Review.
39. Judah, J. (op cit)#4 #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Breus #Cornish #Cornwall #data #generativeAI #history #jynn #kedhlow #Kernewek #Kernow #Kernowek #LLM #machine #PYB #SK #SKDinythus #SkiansKreftus #Sordya
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👇🏻 Glad to be a founding donor! Mallory is the upcoming one to watch so let’s go! #McMorrow #Senate
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3t6p72tfzqoatz3kzu6qf242/post/3llt54whmy22p -
👇🏻 Glad to be a founding donor! Mallory is the upcoming one to watch so let’s go! #McMorrow #Senate
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3t6p72tfzqoatz3kzu6qf242/post/3llt54whmy22p -
♦️DNC Chair #Jaime #Harrison,
a former corporate lobbyist and South Carolina party chair who was tapped to be chair by Joe Biden,
-- is not running for another four years in his position.Two candidates for DNC chair have announced:
first was former Maryland Gov. #Martin #OMalley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration,
then Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman #Ken #Martin, a vice chair of the DNC.
Others considering runs include Wisconsin Democratic Party chair #Ben #Wikler;
Democratic strategist #Chuck #Rocha;
former DNC vice chair #Michael #Blake, of New York;
former Chicago mayor #Rahm #Emanuel;
and Michigan state Sen. #Mallory #McMorrow.
Another name in the mixis former Texas Rep. #Beto #ORourke.
https://readsludge.com/2024/11/26/a-fight-for-the-soul-of-the-dnc/
-
♦️DNC Chair #Jaime #Harrison,
a former corporate lobbyist and South Carolina party chair who was tapped to be chair by Joe Biden,
-- is not running for another four years in his position.Two candidates for DNC chair have announced:
first was former Maryland Gov. #Martin #OMalley, a former commissioner of the Social Security Administration,
then Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman #Ken #Martin, a vice chair of the DNC.
Others considering runs include Wisconsin Democratic Party chair #Ben #Wikler;
Democratic strategist #Chuck #Rocha;
former DNC vice chair #Michael #Blake, of New York;
former Chicago mayor #Rahm #Emanuel;
and Michigan state Sen. #Mallory #McMorrow.
Another name in the mixis former Texas Rep. #Beto #ORourke.
https://readsludge.com/2024/11/26/a-fight-for-the-soul-of-the-dnc/