News About Leftists With Guns
Coronavirus Update
As coronavirus continues to ravage human populations all over the world, who would have thought that we would still be living under its ghastly spectre a full year later, even as vaccines are continuing to ramp up and as "Trumpism" seems to have slunk back into the dark internet forums from which it sprang. Meanwhile, political pundits and media commentators declare that it is only a matter of time until we "return to normal", as if the past "normal" was an economic utopian dreamland that the working class is clamoring to get back to.
Well, things still aren't "normal". People are still dying in the U.S., a disproportionate amount in working poor and BIPOC communities [1]. Vaccines, a triumph of private multinational pharmaceutical companies bankrolled with vast supplies of public funding, are still not being distributed equitably. Richer countries hoard them away from poorer countries, making a future pandemic catastrophe all but inevitable. This leaves millions of people open to infection from a virus that likes to mutate, setting us up for endless vaccine warfare against a foe that does not care about our "economic realities", throwing the individualist neoliberal credos of our society at us like shit thrown at our faces.
Through this, the Portland SRA has lived on. As white male mass shooters driven by violent right wing ideologies continue to plague the U.S. and the public trial of the murderous pig who killed George Floyd lays bare the racist prison-industrial complex for all to see, we continue our work with an added sense of urgency. The answer to vast inequality, violent right-wing ideologies, and the racist prison-industrial complex is building a multiracial socialist movement and dismantling the capitalist police-state.
The new rise of neoliberal democratic state power after the right's bungling response to coronavirus leaves many center-leftists thinking, "We did it! The bad orange man is gone, so we can all rest easy!" However, this is a false notion, Biden and his administration seems to think the answer to violent right-wing extremism is to increase the capitalist police-state. Never mind the mental health crisis, massive poverty, the long history of racism, and gutted social infrastructure that leaves people under educated, riddled with debt, and prone to acts of extreme desperation. Does anyone really think the ultimate answer to these problems is to pass gun control measures that have historically and disproportionately effected poor and minority groups, to take away the guns (assault-style rifles) that are used in less than 2% of all gun deaths per year [2], and to give the police more money?
In virtual meetings and online workspaces, we have been rebuilding, awaiting the time for when we can meet in person safely to further armed socialism, build community, and promote firearm safety as we did in the beforetime. We are hoping that time is soon and have been formulating ways of continuing limited capacity range days, but we will always put the health of our communities first and bow to best practices as informed by medical experts, even when government guidelines are loosened below them. We are forming a new Welcoming Committee to bring in all those who have been waiting for a year in provisional limbo into our ranks. Join us, as we build socialism for tomorrow as the anathema of right-wing violence and austere capitalist ideologies that have only intensified under post-"Trumpist" center-democratic party rule.
Power to the People.
[2] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/assault-weapons-deaths_n_5763109de4b015db1bc8c123