Stupid pigs!!

[thinkerOFthoughts]

ahhh the cop! aka the pigs. I have noticed that people refer to them as pigs, and seem to despise them a bit too. I however don't hate them nor do I refer to them as "pigs" so my question is this...

Why call them pigs, and be against them? The are the working class whether or not we want to admit it or not. They are performing a job just like the rest of us, their job is to keep us safe (granted for the capitalists) I realize that in turn they are really in some respects just protecting "Capitalist" ideals, but hopefully cops would be part of a revolution also, they are Proletarian just like us.

What do you guys think?

[Sasha]

that you are naive (and that hopefully someone else will take it upon theirs to explain that too you because we already have had this discussion a thousand times but you aperntly fail to use the search button on the top and i dont want to have it again)

[eisidisirock]

I dont call them pig's. Pig's are much smarter.

[thinkerOFthoughts]

that you are naive (and that hopefully someone else will take it upon theirs to explain that too you because we already have had this discussion a thousand times but you aperntly fail to use the search button on the top and i dont want to have it again)

well...... I think this was a little uncalled for:rolleyes:

[Invincible Summer]

I think people who choose to be police officers are willingly stating that they are interested in upholding state power and authority against all who wish to be "deviant."

[Sasha]

well...... I think this was a little uncalled forhttp://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif
yeah i know, sorry, that was harsh, im just a bit on edge over some other shit, i apologyse.

the naive part stil stands though. ;)

[thinkerOFthoughts]

yeah i know, sorry, that was harsh, im just a bit on edge over some other shit, i apologyse.

the naive part stil stands though. ;)

Apology accepted :) its ok, I can very well be Naive.

[nuisance]

I believe the term 'pig' comes from a copper once high up in the Metropolitan police here in the UK, whose last name was Hogg.
The reason revolutionary leftists have a fond disliking for the police is because they are part of the State apparatus that protects the capitalist property relations, thus opposing our class from fulfiling our ambition of liberation. Yes, the police en masse are recruited from the working class, however once they belong to such an institution- with the role of defending the ruling class- they become our class enemies, attempting to prevent us from self-emancipation through the enforcing and protecting the capitalist classes property ownership and beliefs that they attempt to inseminate within us.

[thinkerOFthoughts]

I think people who choose to be police officers are willingly stating that they are interested in upholding state power and authority against all who wish to be "deviant."

Yeah but, isnt this because most people are just unaware? before I came to revleft, and became revolutionary, I would of willingly joined the cops or Army but now that I have been doing allot of reading and realizations.. I dont want to ever join them. so hate the job? hate the person? or hate both the job AND person? I think if they are uneducated about our capitalistic opression, then we cant really hold their support of the state to much over their head:confused: again I admit I could be acting extremely Naive right now.

[karambit]

Cops are bullies. What person wakes up one day and decides to become a cop? Sure cops arrest rapists and murderers. That can be considered a good thing. However, a large portion of a cops duties are to pick on the innocent public.

1) Protests and rally's
2) Marijuana activists, users, growers
3) Excessive force against even people who may warrant an arrest

Cops are not your friends. Encounters with them are best avoided because they always seem to win by cheating the system. Cops are the biggest crooks out there. How many times has one read about the cop who smuggled kilos of coke from the evidence rooms? How many times have we heard about the cop who shot to death the mentally ill man armed with a simple kitchen knife? Or tased somebody because they were at a rally?

[Pogue]

Read any of my threads from when I first came here when I was a pig apologist.

[Sasha]

. so hate the job? hate the person? or hate both the job AND person?

you can start out hating only the job (like you but also like i did, because it was in conflict with my leftist beleives) and then through your personal experiences (arrests, power abuse, physical violence, torture) learn to hate the people to.
or it can be the other way around but in the end you'll learn that all coppers are bastards either because otherwise they wouldn't become one or becaus the job makes you one.

(i must admit that in a very few and rare cases i met some decent cops but they always worked at "jeugd en zeden", the dutch version of "special victims unit")

[griffjam]

One argument against anti-police sentiment is that the police, as our fellow workers, are also exploited members of the proletariat, and should therefore be our allies. Unfortunately, as anyone who has tried to do anything in the real world knows, there is a vast gap between “should” and “is.” The police exist to enforce the will of the powerful; anyone who has not had a bad experience with them is likely either privileged or submissive. Today’s police officers, at least in North America, know exactly what they’re getting into when they join the force; people in uniform don’t just get cats out of trees in this country. Yes, most take the job because of what they feel to be economic necessity, but needing a paycheck is no excuse for obeying orders to evict families, harass young men of color, or pepper spray demonstrators; those whose consciences can be bought are everyone else's enemies, not potential allies. This argument could be made a little more persuasive if it was couched in strategic terms, rather than Marxist abstractions: for example, “Every revolution succeeds at the moment the armed forces refuse to make war on their fellows; therefore we should focus on seducing the police to our side of the barricades.” But again, the police are not just any workers; they are the ones who have most deliberately chosen to base their livelihoods and value systems upon the prevailing order, and thus are the least likely to be sympathetic to those who struggle against hierarchy. This being the case, it makes sense to focus on opposing the police, not on seeking solidarity with them. So long as they serve their masters, they cannot be our allies; by publicly deriding the police as an institution, we encourage them to cease to be police officers, so we can find common cause with them.


Another argument is that the police are a mere distraction from the real enemy, not worth our wrath or attention. Alas, state power is not just the politicians; they would be powerless without the millions who do their bidding. When we contest their control, we are also contesting the submission of their flunkies, and we are sure sooner or later to come up against those of the latter who insist on submitting. That being said, it’s true that the police are no more integral to hierarchy than the oppressive dynamics in our own communities; they are simply the external manifestation, on a larger scale, of the same phenomena. If we are to contest hierarchy everywhere, rather than specializing in combating certain forms of it while leaving others unchallenged, we have to be prepared to take it on both in the streets and in our own bedrooms; we can’t expect to win on one front without fighting on the other. We shouldn’t fetishize confrontations with uniformed foes; we shouldn’t forget the power imbalances in our own ranks—but neither should we be content merely to manage the details of our own oppression in a non-hierarchical manner.

[thinkerOFthoughts]

Read any of my threads from when I first came here when I was a pig apologist.

I read your "The Metropolitan Police" thread, and found some good posts, thanks for telling me.



They are not workers.

They are part of the state.



^very short but nice and summed up.

[StalinFanboy]

Class traitors. Fuck 'em.

[Nils T.]

There is a lot of good reasons for hating them all. But the first one for me is because they're horrible people.

"An anarchist is a man who scrupulously crosses the streets in the pedestrian crossings, because he can't bear to talk with a policeman."

[mikelepore]

In the U.S., in numbers that have been approximately constant for over a decade, about 700,000 people are arrested each year for smoking pot, and about 500,000 people are in prison at any given moment for smoking pot. For all victimless crimes added together, about a million people in prison. Adding that to another million people who are in prison for other than victimless crimes, the total prison population is about two million people.

The thing that cops will always say about this in their own defense is just the thing that I condemn them for the most. They say, "Don't blame me if you think the laws are unjust. I don't make the laws myself. I just enforce them." So, that's a defense? Being willing to kidnap anyone at gunpoint in return for cash payment is offered as way of saying "don't blame me"?! That makes me blame them all the more. A hired gun is even more despicable than a true believer.

The excuse "I was just following orders" was also on display at the Nuremberg trials. Actually the cops are worse than the Nuremberg defendants. At least the defendants at Nuremberg obeyed orders because they would have to fear for their own lives if they refused. But cops simply want to apply for the job and decide how long to keep on doing it. This is the cops job application: For low to medium wages, willing to kidnap people at gunpoint, shooting them in the back if they try to run -- anyone, at any time -- just pay me weekly by check or by direct bank deposit. That's even worse than Hermann Göring's defense at Nuremberg.

[bcbm]

Police may be "working class," but until they turn and support us instead of the bosses, they're the enemy. Period. I've met and known some nice cops in my day but at the end of the day their institutional role is to keep me and my class down. The cops who have arrested my friends and booked us have even bought us drinks when we got off, but I know who they're protecting and it isn't me or my friends.

[Black Sheep]

Read any of my threads from when I first came here when I was a pig apologist. We all start as cop apologists, don't we...:( (same in my case)

griffjam made a very good post, i would only like to add to be cautious about the police as an institution and the policemen/women as people.
It is the institution we are fighting (partially.the enemy is the bourgeoisie), not the people working in the institution.Just like the police is not the enemy,but the bourgeoisie, in the same way the policemen are not the enemy, the institution of the polce is (in a lower level, remember,the enemy is the cappies).

You have to seperate the institution of power,with its expression,and strike at the heart of it.

Does that mean that the cops are not to be challenged?Of course not.They have made the decision (whether they did that intentionally/knowingly is irrelevant) and joined a profession which is the spearhead of physical suppression of the working class,and their role is incompatible with our goals.

Do they wanna join us?Well,we can't afford it,neither we can risk it.Sorry, cop.

[punisa]

ahhh the cop! aka the pigs. I have noticed that people refer to them as pigs, and seem to despise them a bit too. I however don't hate them nor do I refer to them as "pigs" so my question is this...

Why call them pigs, and be against them? The are the working class whether or not we want to admit it or not. They are performing a job just like the rest of us, their job is to keep us safe (granted for the capitalists) I realize that in turn they are really in some respects just protecting "Capitalist" ideals, but hopefully cops would be part of a revolution also, they are Proletarian just like us.

What do you guys think?

I agree with you Comrade. Police men and women are working class just as we are. Many of them are underpaid and get to perform awful jobs.
They as the oppressed do what their work demands. They must, otherwise - no pay !
Its the same thing as teachers, they must preach what's written in the textbooks even if they may think differently.

Police force is proletariat and will be on the side of the proletariat when the capitalism collapses.

As for those members here who yell "pigs" and similar comments, it just shows how immature, brainwashed and stupid they really are.
One of the main reasons why the socialism is down at its knees is because of the so-called "lefties" acting like kids.

Instead of debating ways how to acquire the police force for our own cause, some will just go on and remain ignorant.
Idiots like this will go on to justify assaulting people and committing criminal acts as a way to "fight the system" or being a good anarchist or something.. there is very tiny line between them and fascists.
Unfortunately our ranks are full of them :(

[punisa]

Does that mean that the cops are not to be challenged?Of course not.They have made the decision (whether they did that intentionally/knowingly is irrelevant) and joined a profession which is the spearhead of physical suppression of the working class,and their role is incompatible with our goals.


Then we should probabbly "challenge" the whole damn working class for "intentionally/knowingly" joining the capitalist system and thus support it !

What is it with you people today?

[Black Sheep]

Then we should probabbly "challenge" the whole damn working class for "intentionally/knowingly" joining the capitalist system and thus support it !

What is it with you people today?
I made a clear distinction between the police as an institution and the policemen as workers.

Unfortunately (for us and them), our struggle is in direct contradiction with their role.
The case is different between other categories of workers.

Yeah,a teacher is a 'propagandizer' of the capitalist system, morality, etc, but his institutional role is not that strong and most importantly, it is easily challenged and altered.What do i mean?

The police, as an institution, have a strictly defined role, which they cannot change.Even if they want to, even if an individual in there is the most class-aware one in the damn country.A shift in direction will violate his/her role as a policeman, and he will either be indoctrinated to fullfil the police's goal, or get fired (thus he/she will be not a cop any more).

It really is close to a black/white situation here.
I view the recruitment of cops in our ranks equivalent to the recruitment of cappies.

[alhop10]

I think the real shame about the organization of the "emergency services" is that cops are given the privilege of being mentioned alongside firemen and paramedics in a kind of mythical trilogy. Fires and medical emergencies are things that will always happen and we will always need brave hard working men and women to carry out these roles in society. Counting cops among these people is a travesty!

Sure they deal with rapes and murders and robberies but the majority of these are caused by the inequities of the power structures that they are employed to defend (their real job!).

My experiences of cops in the UK is the closing down of our paper sales, the harassment of black and Asian comrades and the defending of fascists.

Anyone who says 'they are just doing their job' is being naive.

It is the same argument that would defend a soldier killing an innocent person because they are 'just following orders'.

A cop can leave, he makes a decision to become and remain a cop, even when he has seen what his job will entail.

[Nils T.]

Police force is proletariat and will be on the side of the proletariat when the capitalism collapses. That's just a lie. Police force, by the rules of their selection, don't recognize their common interest with other workers in the revolution. There are individual exceptions, and there will be, as there is in every social group, even the more politically-engaging ones.
That's not a reason to obey their authority.

[griffjam]

“I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.”
- Jay Gould

[punisa]

That's just a lie. Police force, by the rules of their selection, don't recognize their common interest with other workers in the revolution. There are individual exceptions, and there will be, as there is in every social group, even the more politically-engaging ones.
That's not a reason to obey their authority.

Never said that police should be obeyed and that the authority should blindly be followed.
Authority should be resisted and we must fight against any injustice.

BUT, we are not being productive by just leaving status quo as it is and admitting that capitalists have a force of their own to keep us grounded.