DEMOCRACY NOW – Page 3 – RUPTURE.CAPITAL

Filmmaker Yoruba Richen, director of The New York Times documentary “The Killing of Breonna Taylor,” says the 26-year-old EMT’s killing was not just a devastating blow to her friends and family, but a “loss of the entire community.” Police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, fatally shot Taylor during a raid on her home in March, part of a botched drug investigation. Richen says that in visiting Louisville and speaking with Taylor’s loved ones, she “personally felt the trauma that we endure as African American people” as a result of police killings.

Democratic lawmakers say the Trump administration is sabotaging the United States Postal Service ahead of the November election, when a record number of votes are expected to be cast by mail. Since taking office, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — a major Trump donor — has instituted a number of cost-cutting measures that have slowed down the delivery of mail, and overhauled the leadership of the agency in a move that critics say will give him more power. This comes as President Trump continues to attack mail-in voting, claiming the post office can’t handle an increase in ballots. We speak with Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, and David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect and author of the new book, “Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power.”

We go to Minneapolis, where the community has taken over a Sheraton hotel to provide shelter to more than 200 unhoused people amid protests and the pandemic. Now they face eviction. “Using hotels for emergency housing is an obvious answer,” says Rosemary Fister, community organizer. “They are largely vacant as we enter an economic depression in the midst of a global pandemic.”

In the largest nationwide uprising since the 1960s, protesters shut down cities across the United States over the weekend following the police killing of George Floyd, an African American man in Minneapolis. “These are not just repeats of past events,” says scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. “These are the consequences of the failures of this government and the political establishment … to resolve these crises.”

In a powerful address among people in Minneapolis protesting the police murder of George Floyd, activist and former Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory demanded, “Charge the cops. … Charge them in every city across America where our people are being murdered.”

Archive for category: DEMOCRACY NOW

Log in with your credentials

Forgot your details?