Why reforms can be unreformed in the talk shop of legislative politics
On August 22nd, the Chicago Sun-Times published an article citing the reversals of six high-profile misconduct rulings enacted by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA). In all but two cases, COPA ruled that the accused officers should be fired from the department, including killer cop Fernando Ruiz. In April 2023, Ruiz shot and killed 24-year-old Reginald Clay Jr. Although Ruiz had profiled and pursued Reginald before shooting him in cold blood, officials decided that Ruiz should be fired but not charged with Reginald’s death. While a small win for Reginald’s family in their push for criminal charges, a year later, officials have reversed their bare minimum ruling. Instead of firing killer cop Ruiz, COPA and Police Superintendent Larry Snelling both agreed that granting Ruiz a one-day suspension was the right amount of “accountability” that Reginald’s murder deserves. The same goes for Ruiz’s fellow officers, with one-day suspensions or no punishment handed down for offenses that range from giving a false statement to physically assaulting a civilian.
This news comes just days before Trump threatened Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and other state leaders to end cashless bail (or pretrial release), or risk losing federal funding. Known as the SAFE-T Act, the state’s bail reform measure ended cash bail in 2023 and set conditions for pretrial release across Illinois in a bid to reduce incarceration numbers. But while progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson and the tired crowd of Leftists claimed that the Act would relieve communities “most impacted by mass incarceration,” the population at Cook County Jail recently surpassed 6,000 for the first time since March 2022. In a determined push to be “tough on crime,” Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has all but discredited the reform measure–combining a “war on guns” with the SAFE-T Act’s bias against those with prior convictions to swell the jails population. But of course, excluding killer cops from her crusade.
As killer cops roam the streets and as CCJ’s population rises, it’s ironic to see Johnson and other progressive officials denounce Trump and the threat of a national guard occupation in Chicago. Of course, no one wants soldiers combatting crime in city streets, and we encourage people to resist their deployment. But now, as city Democrats and progressives double down on these failed reforms to build their “blue” force against Trump, we must ask ourselves: Were these reforms ever a real solution?
Our answer is no.
This is because the bourgeois government is always a talk shop. It allows for at times radical-sounding rhetoric and even some principled critiques of government policies exactly because the real power resides in the executive branch and is exercised through the bureaucracy and the armed forces. Leftists, progressive politicians, and other reformists are aware of this fact, and while some may act in good but misguided faith, others capitalize on these dead-end reforms to prop up themselves and their organizations for clout. By doing so, they suppress people’s conscious observance that “things haven’t changed” and divert their anger and potential for rebellion back into the elections and reform measures (the “official channels”) they lord over.
As Trump threatens to expand his fascistic crusade to Chicago, talk-shop reforms might feel and seem like the safe option. Only recently, J.B. Pritzker, Brandon Johnson, and other elected officials said as much, asking Chicagoans and citizens across the US to back their “blue” reforms in the defense of democracy and freedom.
As Brandon Johnson rejects the threat of national guard deployment, we must remember that it was his reform-backed killer pigs (or in his words, his “constitutional policing”) that were and continue to occupy and reign down murderous terror on proletarian neighborhoods in the South and Westside.
It was Eileen O’Neill Burke’s “war on guns” that greased the machine of mass incarceration before Trump decided to end cashless bail.
And it is billionaire politicians like Pritzker who coat themselves in reform and democracy to disguise their contempt for the power of the masses to realize real change beyond these official channels.
Don’t let this righteous rhetoric fool you; whether through force of reform, both forms of ruling class power must be challenged and struggled against. This is the only way the American Nightmare will end.
Real change lies in the organized power of the masses to work amongst themselves to change society for the better. Not through theatrical elections or talk shop reforms but through an all out militant rebellion against the ruling class and all manifestations of their power— that includes police that don’t serve and protect, jails and prisons that are torture houses for the oppressed, and an executive branch ready to use militant force to suppress the power of the people— no matter who holds office.
We’re Dare to Struggle – we put our trust in the power of those under the gun of this system and will continue to organize them as leaders against the ruling class and towards true societal change. If you are sick of illusory reforms, we invite you to join us as we hit the streets of Chicago in the lead up to the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality (O22). We’ll be working with those who lost loved ones to police brutality in Chicago and will be hitting the streets on the West and Southside, going to churches, high schools, and other social gathering spots to talk to people about police brutality and for families share their stories. If you are interested in O22, hit us up, invite us to speak at your school, church or wherever your people gather together!
Dare to Struggle 