Two guests on this evening's Ed Show on MSNBC revealed what lies just below the surface for many in the current protest movement: opposition to capitalism.
First up was Rosa Clemente, a "hip hop activist" and 2008 Green Party VP candidate: "Capitalism, I think that is the institution all over this country. It is really the oppressive force." Next, Georgetown Prof. Marcia Chatelain, who said that the current moment has revealed "an incredible critique of capitalism that it isn't just police brutality but the way people are forced to live." Your $40,000/year tuition at work!
You'll note that Clemente casts the police as the enforcers of the capitalist class system. And Chatelain, whom Michael Eric Dyson, sitting in for Schultz, introduced as "one of the the leading historians" of her generation, "can't wait" for her students to join her in writing a critique of capitalism. I bet.
Note also that Clemente mentioned that she teaches in the California State University system.
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Ms. Clemente, the problem extends beyond police departments. What's the next institution that you think needs to be isolated and then challenged?
ROSA CLEMENTE: The economy. Capitalism, I think that's the institution that all over this country, right? It is really what is the oppressive force. And the police are actually, we have a lot of theory I think that proves this, are that force that are keeping us, as particularly working class people, from achieving this idea of, you know, economic justice.
. . .
MARCIA CHATELAIN: But more than anything else, I think that one of the things that have come out of this moment is an incredible critique of capitalism that will always be tied to this moment, that it isn't just police brutality, it's the way people are forced to live, as Ms. Clemente said. So I can't wait to write this story, and I can't wait for my students to continue writing it.
