The Attorney General’s “Anti‑Extremism” Task Force

United States Attorney General William Barr wants to establish an “anti‑extremism” task force, supposedly in reaction to both leftist and rightist groups. Barr cites “anti‑government extremists of all persuasions” as a problem the current government has identified; directly citing the right‑wing group “boogalooers” as well as broadly encircling all self‑identifyinganti‑fascists. Both of these groups have a massive presence on the internet, and have been blamed for much of the unrest across the country in following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. This in itself is erroneous, as it demonstrates the state blatantly ignoring the demands of black workers in regards to their treatment by the state. Still more, as far as our purposes go, the state does not identify an anti‑capitalist organization as a threat to the current order of the state: the class has not acted in the United states of America.

The current unrest, though persistent, has not seen the working class as a whole revolting against the regime of labor employment and production, epitomized by the forced reopening of the economy in the face of a rapidly worsening pandemic, without even minimal precautions or plans for the resulting outbreak of cases and deaths. Despite some attempts at class action – such as the recovery of two abducted children by a workers’ militia in a majority black neighborhood in Milwaukee as the police refused to respond – nationally, the class’s presence has been almost absent. Yet this does not stop the state, from the federal government to municipal officials, accusing the uprising of black workers across the country of being started by a mostly white “extremist” infiltration.

With a second increase in coronavirus cases, many of which have started in states where quarantine precautions were lifted only two months into the outbreak, what had already been a deteriorating situation can only get more severe. Many of these states resumed business as usual almost immediately. However, the U.S. has been open since the beginning of the outbreak, and this rise in cases will occur in many other countries, as they have started opening their economies more as well.

The lack of consumption has caused more overproduction, and it is being magnified by the pandemic. With a second rise in cases, we should expect intensification of the crisis further into the future. We already see corporations, from steel mills to airlines, restructuring and even making changes to what production is being done, thousands of workers losing their jobs in the process.

None the less, the ruling class identifies an organization which pines for the Civil War era, a reactionary tendency who calls themselves such names as Boogaloo Boys, the Big Igloo, or the Big Luau, or anyone claiming to be anti‑fascist as threats to the fragile hold of the situation the bourgeoisie may have. Both of these groups, unsurprisingly, are not proletarian in character, and consist of a nebulous cross section of different classes; and for the most part their specters are chased across the internet by state agents, while little material improvement is made for the working class off the web by any of the groups mentioned, for or against the state.

What is most remarkable about Attorney General Barr’s June 26 memorandum is the acknowledgement of needing a long‑term approach to dealing with “anti‑government extremists” and the heavy focus on policing internet activity, as indicated the people he has appointed to lead this task force.

Even with this focus on internet presences, nothing the capitalist state can prepare will be a match for the might of a united working class. The class has power outside of what words are spread about this or that political figure in speech or in text, or if platforms are allowed to remain unregulated by state agents.

The class has moved in small examples. The working class is in a position to take steps to organize itself against the bourgeoisie and their state agents. Yet this organizing is, as of now, nonexistent.

So when the state does not announce plans or the creation of a task force to help these sections of the working class that are placed into precarious or impoverished conditions, much like how no plans or process was put in place to deal with the pandemic, it becomes increasingly likely that the struggle the working class faces will become even more unbearable. The state continues to show its priorities openly, as the alliance of private property at work for itself. And we will see the working class continue to be abandoned to fend for themselves during the pandemic and into the intensification of the economic crisis.