George Floyd and the Government’s Flagrant Violations of their Laws

By Steve Halpern

I listened to the triple guilty verdicts of former police officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. Then, I listened to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris speak in support of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that is waiting for passage in the Congress. 

Listening to Biden and Harris’ appeals for support made me think of the long history of the United States government’s flagrant violations of their own laws. So, when we think of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, we might also think about that long history of the U.S. government’s refusal to enforce their own laws.

400 violated treaties, and chattel slavery in a nation that claims to represent “liberty and justice for all”

We can begin with about 400 treaties the United States violated with respect to Native Americans. A treaty is different than a law. Treaties are not adjudicated in civil courts of law. Treaties are international agreements between sovereign nations. 

A violation of a treaty is an act of war. When a nation violates a treaty, this is a message to the world that this nation is not to be trusted. Native Americans concluded, that this long history of broken treaties means that the government in this country speaks with a “forked tongue.”   

The United States became a nation because of a political revolution that won independence from Britain. The Declaration of Independence stated that we are all “created equal” and have certain “inalienable rights.” 

Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and lived a relatively comfortable life because he owned slaves. So, while the revolutionaries in this country spoke of the idea of equality, they also profited from slavery and the genocide against Native Americans.

During the Civil War, President Lincoln argued that those who died in the Battle of Gettysburg did not “die in vain.” Lincoln also signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that outlawed slavery, except in cases of penal servitude. 

Routine discrimination replaces slavery

Then, after the Civil War, governments in the former slave states adopted the Black Codes that effectively reimposed slavery. The federal government responded to the Black Codes with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments that established equal protection, as well as voting rights for all male citizens. The government also adopted a Civil Rights Act that clarified what equal protection meant in actuality.

Then, the federal government removed the Union Army from the former slave states. After determined resistance, forces loyal to white supremacist organizations overthrew the reconstruction governments. 

Then, the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act. This was followed by a series of Supreme Court decisions that effectively reversed the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Jim Crow segregation became the law and Black people effectively lost citizenship rights in this country.

So, while everyone in the federal government and Supreme Court takes an oath to defend the Constitution, every member of the government went along with these flagrant violations of the Constitution.

Then, President Franklyn Roosevelt ordered about 110,000 Japanese citizens of this country to be placed in concentration camps. This was another flagrant violation of all kinds of laws.

In the 1950s, the Supreme Court ruled in their Brown v. Board of Education decision. This decision declared that segregation with respect to education is illegal. However, today per-student educational funding in affluent suburban communities is significantly higher than educational funding in the urban cities. We might keep in mind that most of the income in this country comes from the cities and not the suburbs.   

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s merely demanded that Black people deserve the rights they are supposed to have under the Constitution. It took years of tenacious struggle before the government passed another Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. These laws were merely redundancies of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. 

Those laws effectively did away with the legalized discrimination of Jim Crow segregation. However, institutionalized discrimination continued.

As a result, beginning in 1965, literally hundreds of cities exploded in open rebellion against routine police brutality directed at the Black community. These rebellions continued until about 1969. 

The government responded to those rebellions by ordering out the National Guard, who proceeded to murder scores of Black people in those cities. This all unfolded while the President ordered the military to murder millions of people in Southeast Asia. 

While those horror stories went on, I was going to public schools where my teachers asked me to stand up every day and “pledge allegiance” to a flag they claimed represented, “liberty and justice for all.” 

These were the same years when the United States experienced a relative economic upturn in the economy. The unions carried out tenacious battles during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s that forced employers to grant significant concessions. As a result, there was a general improvement in the standard of living, at the same time as the government ordered soldiers to murder people all over the world.

The occupiers of the Black communities and Vietnam

However, by the 1970s President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. This was the signal for corporations to begin moving their factories to nations where workers are paid between one and ten dollars per day. Corporations also began to include stock market investments as a part of the gross national product. This gave the appearance that the economy continued to grow, while millions of manufacturing jobs were being eliminated.

So, when we look at this long history, I believe we can conclude that the legal system in this country is designed to favor the super-rich and their drive to maximize profits. This reality makes it clear that there is a distinct difference between what politicians say and what they do.

We all go to jobs every day and do what we are told to do. Employers have a stubborn habit of demanding that we do more. We do all of this and receive more or less in terms of a salary. All of these efforts are about pursuing one objective. That is the corporate drive to maximize profits. 

As a result, today there are tens of millions of people in this country who do not have enough food to eat. At the same time, politicians have no problem with allowing about 2,000 people to have billions of dollars in assets. 

So, when we think of the essence of who capitalist politicians are, this is it. While they bemoan the fact that the police have murdered thousands, they ardently support the system that sentences billions of people throughout the world to lives of abject poverty.

The writer James Baldwin compared the war against the people of Southeast Asia to the war against African Americans in this country. He felt that in Vietnam the armed forces of the United States occupied that country. In a similar way, he felt that the police occupy the Back communities here. In both cases, the communities view the armed forces as occupiers. In both cases, the armed forces view the inhabitants of those communities as their enemy. This is the fundamental problem that won’t go away with another ineffective law.

Today, there are no George Floyds in Cuba. This is because a revolution erupted on that island and a government that was friendly to Washington was thrown out. A new government replaced the old police force that murdered thousands of people on the island.

This history demonstrates clearly that the police, as well as the legal system, can not be reformed. The laws in this country are designed to support corporate power. As long as that system exists, there will continue to be poverty, discrimination, murders by the police, and war. 

Last summer demonstrations erupted all over the world, protesting murders by the police in this country. In my opinion, those demonstrations began to change the political climate in this country. One result of this changed climate was the conviction of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. 

The history of this country makes a clear argument that when people mobilize in protests against actions by the government and corporations, those demonstrations can be effective. On the other hand, this same history demonstrates that the legal system in this country is designed to favor the super-rich. Laws that defend the interests of working people have been flagrantly violated by the government that claims to represent “liberty and justice for all.”