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We absolutely need to defund the police and put the money in social services. To attack inequality and invest in poor and working-class neighborhoods of color, we need a massive increase in public spending. That means wresting resources from the rich.
Defunding the police means cutting bloated local police budgets and diverting the resources to social programs. Politically, it’s right up Bernie’s alley. He should embrace it.
The combination of rising property values and billowing police budgets have transformed New York City since the 1970s. Now, movements to defund the police are coalescing with calls to cancel rent.
The reforms that have been pushed by presidents and police chiefs, mayors and city councils in response to the horrifying, unending stream of blatant police brutality and police murder have failed and will continue failing. The police aren’t going to get any nicer — we must defund them, full stop.
Police unions, prison guard unions, district attorney associations, and others in the law enforcement lobby have long wielded their power to nix any reforms that attack the carceral state. To defund the police, we’ll have to challenge their power head-on.
Entire sectors of the economy are now invested in a state of permanent war and surveillance. Here’s what it would mean to defund the US military and put that money to meeting human need instead.
Republicans are simply outraged at calls to defund the police. But for years, they've had no problem defunding the agencies tasked with enforcing laws against the world's most hardened, powerful criminals: corporations.
For years we’ve heard about body cameras and bias training to reform the racism and brutality of the police. That won’t cut it. The only way to get better policing is to get less of it — by defunding the police.
In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, calls to cut police budgets have spread like wildfire. In an interview with Jacobin, two Chicago city council members explain why they’re calling to defund the police and why the city’s mayor Lori Lightfoot can’t credibly call herself a “progressive.”
A new autopsy of the Democrats’ 2020 electoral underperformance supports the Left's arguments about the weaknesses of the party’s strategies. The only surprise is where the report came from: Wall Street–funded neoliberal think tank Third Way.
Critics of the demand to “defund the police” cite current polling snapshots as supposed proof of protesters’ electoral malpractice. They’re politically shortsighted — and confused about the key role of mass protest movements in dragging such demands from the margins to the mainstream.
Our cities have siphoned money away from public goods like education and social services, and funneled the cash into ever-larger, ever-more-militarized police forces. It's time to reverse that.
In last night’s New York City mayoral debate, socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani warded off attacks about “defunding the police” by articulating a principled and compelling message on public safety.
Bromides about a V-shaped economic recovery after the pandemic just distract us from the size of the task that we face. We were already headed for crisis before COVID-19 — only a far-reaching reorientation of the economy can stave off social collapse.
Representative Barbara Lee wants to slash America’s bloated military budget. It’s a necessary move that’s long overdue.
Since the election, Democratic centrists have harshly criticized Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Left for their own poor electoral showing. But AOC has bravely hit back — standing up for left-wing politics and refusing to be cowed by the centrist attacks.
Activists and advocates in New York City have long called for the city to make sharp cuts to the NYPD, the nation's largest police force. The uprising against police brutality, in New York and around the country, has suddenly put serious momentum behind those demands.
While it’s far too soon to declare victory, let’s take stock of how far political demands have come since the 1992 LA Rebellion.
Widely publicized cases of police brutality have led to an incredible uprising across the United States and the world demanding an end to police violence. But those cases can also mean big business for companies selling technology based on the empty promise of providing greater police accountability and improving public safety.
The Democratic leadership went into this election with a strategy: stick to the center, avoid the Left, and promise bipartisanship. When the results proved disastrous, guess who they decided to blame: the Left.