MIM Notes 36                   March 3 1989

Pigs can't stop DC

In 1988 there were a record 372 homicides in Amerika's capital and in the month 
of January 1989 there have been 50 more.  At the rate of killings since October 
1, 1988, there will be more than 500 homicides for 1989. (NYT 2/1/89, p.12)

This means that more people will have been killed (and the number is already 
close) in DC than in the Palestinian intifada.  The arrest rate is similar: "And 
there are many arrests.  Washington, which has 627,400 residents, is arresting 
more than 21 people per 1,000 residents annually on drug charges, as against 12 
per thousand in New York and 10 in Los Angeles." (Ibid.)

If we take the Times at its word, an arrest rate of .021% makes for more than 
13,000 arrests on drug charges alone.  And you can bet that most of these people 
aren't white.

The police themselves acknowledge that the lumpenproletariat is undaunted by 
there presence.  "David Stroud, a narcotic officer who is one of the Police 
Department's most experienced street operators, said: 'They know they are going 
to get busted and there is a fair chance they may be killed, but the incentives 
are so strong they don't seem to care.'"(Ibid.)

The masses know that there is no alternative in the system.  Its organize or 
fall to the disillusionment of drugs, prison, and death.