What is your opinion of the cops?

[Nolan]

What is the rationale for treating military personnel differently from police on this forum?

[FreeFocus]

I mostly treat them the same, besides troops from non-imperialist militaries (what basis is there for putting American soldiers and Venezuelan or Bolivian soldiers on the same level? Venezuela and Bolivia aren't engaged in murderous imperialist wars right now, and they don't have the same history as the US).

If you don't like the cops, you also need to realize that imperialist troops walk the global beat, and perform the same function on a global scale as police do domestically - control threats.

I will say that some cops aren't horrible. Some of them genuinely want to help communities, and they do have some effective use, e.g. responding to homicides, rapes, etc. But it's their institutional capacity that matters - they are class enemies.

[gorillafuck]

I mostly treat them the same, besides troops from non-imperialist militaries (what basis is there for putting American soldiers and Venezuelan or Bolivian soldiers on the same level? Venezuela and Bolivia aren't engaged in murderous imperialist wars right now, and they don't have the same history as the US).
You're right, but still I'd like to point out that many non-imperialist militaries are still used. They're used domestically.

[Fulanito de Tal]

Brainwashed into doing the bourgeoisie's enforcement

The difference between cops and troops in the US is that most troops join to escape/improve their situation at the moment. Some continue afterwards because they see no better option. Cops do it as a career.

[Sensible Socialist]

It depends on the level (town, city, etc.) and on the individual police officer. However, as a whole, the police are class enemies and will protect the interests of the upper class in an attempt to redistribute power and wealth to deserving members of society. Not all of them may agree with the state's defensive policies, just as some soldiers vehemently disagree with their orders. That said, it must be noted that the police officers, as a whole, will not take kindly to the revolution.

Knowing that, I still advocate reaching out to police officers, just as we should soldiers. We must acknowledge the fact that many police officers due so because of the noble image of defense, which is the same for soldiers. We can't pretend that murders and other violent crimes will occur even without the ills of capitalism. At this present time, police officers due stop unneccessary and violent crimes against ordinary, often working-class, people. But on the same coin, many are the same violent and abusive, power-hungry types that join because it gives them a thrill to have control over others.

We should fight for an end to many of the causes of crime (poverty, lack of educationm, role models, etc.) as well as for community-oriented protection groups that offer help for the offenders instead of throwing them into an unproductive cycle.

[FreeFocus]

Brainwashed into doing the bourgeoisie's enforcement

The difference between cops and troops in the US is that most troops join to escape/improve their situation at the moment. Some continue afterwards because they see no better option. Cops do it as a career.

Some cops also join the force because the pay is stable and reliable. People also get government jobs for the same reason. It's an explanation, but not an excuse. They are still culpable for their criminal actions and associations.

[Lobotomy]

Pawns of the ruling class.

[Political_Chucky]

I say fuck them. Most cops I encounter have power trips and I have been a victim of their crimes. You give a person too much power and he will use it against you.

[gorillafuck]

Some cops also join the force because the pay is stable and reliable. People also get government jobs for the same reason. It's an explanation, but not an excuse. They are still culpable for their criminal actions and associations.
That really depends what government job you're referring to. Postal workers work for the US govt, they're not anti-worker.

[progressive_lefty]

I'm going to get in trouble for saying this.

Deep down they are workers, and when people want to protest they should remember this. And also remember who the people they are angry at. Police are just workers being used by the capitalists. They should be put in the context of every worker. Most revolutions would not have worked without collaborations with the police.

[the last donut of the night]

7FJ4AvdTXw

sums it up pretty well

[Savage]

Certainly there must be some cops with somewhat good intentions, unfortunately on the whole they are the henchmen of domestic state terrorism. And when i speak of 'good intentions' I mean that they see their job as the protection of the public from 'criminals', most of whom would not exist without capitalism.

[Sensible Socialist]

Police are just workers being used by the capitalists.
Does the concept of free will still exist? Regardless of their orders or job, people have the ability to say "no." No one is putting a gun to their head.

[Impulse97]

Fuck the pigs. Somehow they find time to leave Dunkin doughnuts and arrest a pothead with less than a g while half the student body is on hard drugs like herion and crack.

The pigs can go suck a chode for all I care.:hammersickle::che::hammersickle:

[28350]

They're not class enemies themselves (necessarily), but they act completely and essentially in the interests of class enemies.

[Jose Gracchus]

What is the rationale for treating military personnel differently from police on this forum?

Uh, because without the military defecting to the revolution, there will be no revolution. There will be a violent repression. To protest over this cogent reality on point of principle or whatever is just idealism, and unknown to Marxism or class-struggle anarchism.

[Political_Chucky]

To protest over this cogent reality on point of principle or whatever is just idealism, and unknown to Marxism or class-struggle anarchism.

Why? I would think most military have friends and family who are part of the bigger majority if there was a revolution. If and when they were to defect, are you suggesting they would have defected long before revolution occurred? Or would they defect ONCE a revolution has started? That makes no sense. Police are police. One pushes ideas on a local level, the other globally. They do have different powers in two different areas, but what really makes them so different?

BTW, its counter-productive not to argue amongst Marxist ideas that you learn.

[Political_Chucky]

I'm going to get in trouble for saying this.

Deep down they are workers, and when people want to protest they should remember this. And also remember who the people they are angry at. Police are just workers being used by the capitalists. They should be put in the context of every worker. Most revolutions would not have worked without collaborations with the police.
Yes, and No.

I truly believe that people with too much power WILL abuse it. Cops aren't just regular people. They have signed up with a job where they have more rights then you do and they are allowed to dictate who gets punished and how severely. Now I'm not speaking in law terms, but what I mean is on the street. Power is a sort of drug. And when you have it, you don't want to lose it.
Examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=6125
http://www.policebrutality.info/

I like the latters picture the best which is in Athens, Greece.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bEOj2c4el8Y/TQp_EGyTXyI/AAAAAAAAFH0/JQtYCAnQWXQ/s1600/athens-riot-2.jpg

[9]

Does the concept of free will still exist?
No. And, outside the realm of ideology, it never has existed.


Certainly there must be some cops with somewhat good intentions, unfortunately on the whole they are the henchmen of domestic state terrorism. And when i speak of 'good intentions' I mean that they see their job as the protection of the public from 'criminals', most of whom would not exist without capitalism.
I don't think the intentions of individual cops have much to do with the actual role the police force plays within capitalist society.

[synthesis]

http://images1.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/4734638/oh-god-not-this-fucking-thread-again.jpg?imageSize=Large&generatorName=Rage-FU

Sorry for the meme - it's genuinely how I feel.

[Rocky Rococo]

I'm not allowed to post links yet, but there's a great video online (watch the 53 minute full thing, not the 9 minute summary) "The Largest Street Gang in America", google that it'll come up right up top. It's worth an hour of your time. More than worth it.

[Diello]

I say fuck them. Most cops I encounter have power trips and I have been a victim of their crimes. You give a person too much power and he will use it against you.

Low-level functionaries are the most insufferable group of people in the world.

My sister's becoming a cop. She's of the "Police help solve murders and protect people! : D " mindset. Sigh.

[Ele'ill]

United States perspective- Cops are used against the civilian populations in ways they themselves don't understand- even by following the most basic and seemingly harmless procedures learned during their training. It's a complex issue that goes from who the police force tries to attract (type A personalities with superiority complexes) to the blind sense of belonging.

Our communities don't need a cult with pistols overseeing us!

[Magón]

What more can you say about a collection of people, who during their high school years, were bullied and beat up, and so figured becoming a cop would turn the tables around?

[synthesis]

OK, memes aside, I think the two options in the poll basically show the two main approaches that the left has historically taken towards the issue of the police: that they defend the status quo on the one hand, and that they are working-class folks on the other.

My question is - are these two opposite analyses truly mutually exclusive? Police do play reactionary roles, for example, but they also must sell their labor power to survive. (Well, most of the time, as some of them obviously do private security stuff in their free time.)

Again - are these arguments mutually exclusive? I'm not sure that they are.

(Correctional officers, on the other hand...)

[Geiseric]

Police usually have power trips, however they serve somewhat a purpose in fighting lumpenproletariat like the mafias and drug cartels... However they don't realise the ones who actually do the work, I.e. Thugs are really only in it because they were denied decent education, denied social help, and denied a productive role in society. So police in the large picture are against their own class when reactionary situations I.e. Protests and political demonstrations. So in the words of ice cube, Fuck the Police.

[Chairman Wow]

You have the emergence in human society of this thing that's called the State. What is the State? The State is this organized bureaucracy. It is the police department. It is the Army, the Navy. It is the prison system, the courts, and what have you. This is the State: it is a repressive organization.
and gee, well, you know, you've got to have the police, cause if there were no police, look at what you'd be doing to yourselves! You'd be killing each other if there were no police! But the reality is the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where it is split between those who have and those who ain't got.
- Omali Yeshitali

[FreeFocus]

Police usually have power trips, however they serve somewhat a purpose in fighting lumpenproletariat like the mafias and drug cartels... However they don't realise the ones who actually do the work, I.e. Thugs are really only in it because they were denied decent education, denied social help, and denied a productive role in society. So police in the large picture are against their own class when reactionary situations I.e. Protests and political demonstrations. So in the words of ice cube, Fuck the Police.

The mafia and drug cartels are lumpenbourgeoisie, not lumpenproletariat. "Thugs" - working-class people who attempt to make ends meet in anti-social ways that aren't in the interests of the working-class - are not the people running mafias and cartels. They might be the far underlings, but a lot of "thugs" roll independently or in small groups. Moreover, the police are often in cahoots with the limpenbourgeoisie like mafias and cartels. Plenty of police are corrupt (not talking morally, that's obvious, but more so breaking the law that they're supposed to enforce); sometimes entire departments are corrupt.

I do, however, agree with your conclusion.

[Geiseric]

sorry, had a mix-up in terminology. The police aren't ALWAYS in cahoots, however it's almost inevitable that somebody on the official level such as politicians, or even trade union officials will be under the influence. Police are just the dogs that get ordered to do what their master wants.

[Jose Gracchus]

Why? I would think most military have friends and family who are part of the bigger majority if there was a revolution. If and when they were to defect, are you suggesting they would have defected long before revolution occurred? Or would they defect ONCE a revolution has started? That makes no sense. Police are police. One pushes ideas on a local level, the other globally. They do have different powers in two different areas, but what really makes them so different?

BTW, its counter-productive not to argue amongst Marxist ideas that you learn.

The vast mass of the enlisted ratings are temporarily employed - by means of brainwashing and/or enticed-by-desperation - mercenaries drawn from the poor and working population. The police, contrariwise, are predominantly career enforcers who are in a consistent fashion employed to oppress the domestic population, who are pulled into this job choice for its career prospects. This creates different consciousness and different generalized dynamics of interaction between them and other discrete social groups, for example, the working class.

That doesn't mean all cops are categorically reactionaries. But they're less liable to defection or co-optation and they are in principle less decisive in the revolutionary struggle: a scenario where the Army defects en masse to the revolution, but a police force drawn from hardcore reactionary professionals (FBI) or strata of racist reactionaries or quasi-fascists (Southern cops, circa 1950), it would hardly matter. The modern United States Armed Forces would obliterate a counterrevolutionary police formation in a week. There probably wouldn't even be much of a battle, they'd probably mostly surrender out of hopelessness. They are different strata of society, to compare them as if they're inter-changable or that similar is more misleading than helpful.

[Tomhet]

Our current policing unit are nothing more then functionaries of the elite and ruling class..

[Widerstand]

Even if they were part of the working class, why should I care? Fascists, racists, sexists, rapists, anything you don't like, can be part of the working class, too. Don't mean we shouldn't oppose/fight them.

[Tomhet]

^ Indeed!
Those you mentioned are reactionary, anti social morons, no sympathy for them..

[Tavarisch_Mike]

OK, memes aside, I think the two options in the poll basically show the two main approaches that the left has historically taken towards the issue of the police: that they defend the status quo on the one hand, and that they are working-class folks on the other.

My question is - are these two opposite analyses truly mutually exclusive? Police do play reactionary roles, for example, but they also must sell their labor power to survive. (Well, most of the time, as some of them obviously do private security stuff in their free time.)

Again - are these arguments mutually exclusive? I'm not sure that they are.

(Correctional officers, on the other hand...)

This.

As a whole, polices tend to play a reactionary role when class struggle intecess, which isnt always the case for the military. For example in the russian revolution the soldiers joined the workers and peasents and changed theire aiming guns towards the tsarist and capitalist rulers. Same for the events in China 1989 where the Dengist forces where told to fight back the workers uprising, but refused instead they took highly brainwashed killers frome a other province which resulted in the Tiananmen square massacre. The same year a simmilar event happend in Romania when the people rised against the Causceuscu-regime where the army took the peoples side and the para-military police (securitate) fought for the state, while in the spanish civil war there was the opposite, just the naivy and the air force where loyal to the republican side along with the police, when most of the military followed Franco.

In the mayor cities in Sweden polices tend to focus much more of theire resources on the suburbs which is mostly inhabitated by workers and lumpen-proles. In theese areas they are known for harras (mostly) young people and are known for having racist attitudes, this (along with the material conditions) makes the criminal gangs stronger since people will seek to them for protection and to organize against the cops, in this case a reactionary form of organization to fight an other form of reaction.
On the countryside (where i live) there is rather the opposite, here the polices often come frome the same area having a working class backround and are more focused on weekend-drunks, drivers dont following the rules and so. However in almoust anny strike or blockade the cops tend to take the bosses side in order to uphold the law and order.

In a socialist and even in a communist society we will have some sort of law-force, you can call it workers militia or annything, but they will have some authority to do theire task, not to speak about the forensic detectives and the all the crime investigation techniques that we have today. If anny cop honestly wants to join the radical labour movement we should embrace them, theire knowledge might be very useful, but to try to activly recruite many cops will never work as history has showed us.

[Rakhmetov]

I agree with George Orwell

"... when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on." George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

http://media.photobucket.com/image/fuck%20the%20police/805only/fuck-police.jpg?o=16


http://media.photobucket.com/image/fuck%20the%20police/snowrider-17/FuckDaPolice1.jpg

http://www.superpoop.com/081808/fuck-the-police.jpg

http://www.raisethefist.com/news/wire/-----98980dead.jpg

http://exiledonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/robert-fuck-the-police-sylvester.jpg

http://media.photobucket.com/image/fuck%20the%20police/BoBoRod/fuck_the__police.jpg?o=14

[malthusela]

Are we talking about the idea, or actual police officers. If the latter, then as ice Cube said, motherfuck the police.


What do you think would have happened if in WW2 all the communists had said "hang on, these nazi guys are just workers in uniform, theyre not our real enemies" .. ?

They would have been correct? Regardless, that's a useless point. They would have still killed the Nazi soldiers anyway.

[Diello]

In the newspaper today: a man a few towns over was arrested and jailed for public intoxication; somewhere along the line he sustained a fatal head injury.

[9]

What do you think would have happened if in WW2 all the communists had said "hang on, these nazi guys are just workers in uniform, theyre not our real enemies" .. ? They would have been correct?
I think they would have been correct. But I don't see how the analogy really applies here. It was an inter-imperialist war, the soldiers were conscripted, etc.

[Niccolò Rossi]

What do you think would have happened if in WW2 all the communists had said "hang on, these nazi guys are just workers in uniform, theyre not our real enemies" .. ?

Revolutionaries on the other hand called for:
Workers! In all countries stop the production destined to kill your brothers, your wives, your children.

Soldiers! Cease fire, throw down your weapons! Fraternise beyond the artificial frontiers of capitalism. Unite on the international class front.

Long live the fraternisation of all the exploited!

Down with the imperialist war!

Long live the world communist revolution!

(Manifesto of the Communist Left to the Workers of Europe, June 1944 (http://en.internationalism.org/wr/275_1944_manifesto.htm))

Nic.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Or if you don't take so kindly to those suffering the infantile disorder, maybe you could take a lesson from the German-conspirator Lenin (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/28e.htm).

Nic.

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

I respect only the authorities who embrace my political values. I don't support racist, sexist, and homophobic cops.

[Widerstand]

I respect only the authorities who embrace my political values. I don't support racist, sexist, and homophobic cops.

Do you ask the cop if they were a homophobe before, during, or after they beat you up?

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

Do you ask the cop if they were a homophobe before, during, or after they beat you up?

Why would the cop beat me up?

[Rusty Shackleford]

a police officers position in society is the one of power and defense of the exploiters.
a lot of people join police and military forces for the pay, more so for police though.

military is, as someone pointed out earlier, to escape a situation. they are economically conscripted. "want a good education? want better career choices? want insurance plans? join the military! well pump your head so full of shit you wont care you might go and die for someones stock portfolio. "

i distrust police officers.

soldiers are a different subject though. soldiers mutineer more often than cops. soldiers dont have the cushy squad car and station to use, they end up getting the shit end of the imperialist stick, while being part of the stick all the while. basically, consciousness is much more easily obtained by a soldier than a cop.

[Obs]

Why would the cop beat me up?
If cops aren't beating you up, you're doing it wrong.

[Gravedigger01]

Police only do bad things because in their line of work they are thought to dehumanise those that they work with.Its the same way that the American soldiers would call the vietnamese "gooks" so that they could dehumanise them and not feel emotionally attached if they had to do something immoral. Doctors also have to dehumanise patients so that they don't get emotionally attached. In jobs were you work with people you are thought to dehumanise them so you do your job rather than the right thing.
It is for these reason that I think its unfair that the police/cops/gardaí get so abuse.They are trying to earn a living and are thought to follow orders in their line of work. This doesn't mean that they can't be great people ad potential comrades in their personal lives.

[malthusela]

I think they would have been correct. But I don't see how the analogy really applies here. It was an inter-imperialist war, the soldiers were conscripted, etc.

That was my point. My question was rhetorical.

[Widerstand]

Why would the cop beat me up?

Oh gee, you must be new here.

[The Old Man from Scene 24]

Seriously, I don't understand. What am I doing? I am a newbie here.

[Widerstand]

Well the thing is that as you take your politics to the street, whether it be a demo where you just march and shout slogans, a riot, a squat, direct action, a factory occupation, a blockade or whatever, the likelihood of getting beat up by cops increases. And it's not a thing of "only troublemakers getting beat up". At the protests against CASTOR in Germany, the police actually beat up those standing in front of the crowd shouting "THIS IS A PEACEFUL PROTEST" and "NO VIOLENCE", first. It's similar elsewhere. Check youtube for videos of the Battle of Seattle (Breaking the Spell is a good docu, entirely available on youtube), the protests against CASTOR transports, G8 protests in Heiligendamm (or anywhere else, really), protests at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen, your random migrant rights demo, etc.

Matter of fact I'll do it for you:

PtWvy__V9Uk

oK36c-Av57I

ZBOq8XWS798

5Klwc_hpaPw

[Sasha]

its dificult, from my politics i oppose the institution of police, from my practice as an actvist i can say from experience (again as an activist) that ACA indeed B. but then i'm forced through my job to interact a lot with them. And then i still think theye are idiot pawns but i also see that, while i disagree with them i must admit that most are indeed just doing a job, and then often out of idealism too. And if i'm honest 99% of my actual time i do respect their violencemonopily, and i will call them if i'm (workrelated/non politicaly) assaulted, and i will press charges. and part of this is because otherwise i jepordise my job but i also notice im turning more and more real-politiks, maybe even reformist. i still consider my self an rev-leftist, but i dont see that revolution coming anymore in decades like i used to do, i'm starting to talk centuries now, maybe even longer.

[Palingenisis]

I voted other....Some are and some arent. Certainly paramilitary and riot police are.

But we should remember that police forces came over to the revolution in the German one. So it varies. Also varies from country to country.

[Widerstand]

its dificult, from my politics i oppose the institution of police, from my practice as an actvist i can say from experience (again as an activist) that ACA indeed B. but then i'm forced through my job to interact a lot with them. And then i still think theye are idiot pawns but i also see that, while i disagree with them i must admit that most are indeed just doing a job, and then often out of idealism too. And if i'm honest 99% of my actual time i do respect their violencemonopily, and i will call them if i'm (workrelated/non politicaly) assaulted, and i will press charges. and part of this is because otherwise i jepordise my job but i also notice im turning more and more real-politiks, maybe even reformist. i still consider my self an rev-leftist, but i dont see that revolution coming anymore in decades like i used to do, i'm starting to talk centuries now, maybe even longer.

Out of interest, what do you work as that makes you interact with cops frequently?

[Widerstand]

I voted other....Some are and some arent. Certainly paramilitary and riot police are.

But we should remember that police forces came over to the revolution in the German one. So it varies. Also varies from country to country.

There was also that very recent police strike in whatever-country-I-can't-remember where the military was brought in to put it down.

There's also stuff like the "Critical Cops", a German organisation by cops focusing on things like human right abuses done by cops, police brutality, fascism within the police, etc. Some of them may even consider themselves far left / revolutionaries.

[Palingenisis]

It is for these reason that I think its unfair that the police/cops/gardaí get so abuse.They are trying to earn a living and are thought to follow orders in their line of work. This doesn't mean that they can't be great people ad potential comrades in their personal lives.

Ah yes typical of the scumbaggery we come to know and hate from the Socialist Party/CWI....The Gardai are one of the most corrupt, reactionary and generally brutal police forces in Europe. I have no probs with saying they are class enemies.

[Palingenisis]

There's also stuff like the "Critical Cops", a German organisation by cops focusing on things like human right abuses done by cops, police brutality, fascism within the police, etc. Some of them may even consider themselves far left / revolutionaries.

Well I more thinking of 1918/1919 but you would not get anything like that here.

Our police have a very strict code of never ratting on each other no matter what the other police man or woman is doing. Thats why I think it varies from country to country or region to region.

[Sasha]

Out of interest, what do you work as that makes you interact with cops frequently?

i'm an bouncer, they come from time to time to take the by us confiscated drugs, and when someone attacks me, i'm only allowed to use reasonable force (otherwise i loose my job) so if violence is used i need to make an statement/presscharges otherwise i could be don for assault myself, and sadly also sometimes it means handing someone over who serious (sexually) assaulted someone or who is caugt with an dealer amount of dope on them. i found (and find) it very dificult to reconcile this with my political beliefs.
but it got better after an fellow actvist explained me that there is an real world out there, with an system, and even when you reject it 99% of the other people dont. that person assaulting someone or that person dealing expects the consequences of getting caugt to be police etc. there is no point getting yourself into problems by not playing along along with what perps and cops agree on is the game. And the age old excuse does hold some thruth "better me than some bastard", i do often trip around the borders of the rules to prevent getting the cops involved, yes even sometimes cross them and let people get away with shit they never have would with some anabolic fascist thug.
but i still find it dificult those few times it happens i do need to hand someone over so its an job i want to quit as soon as i found something else that can support me.

[syndicat]

the cops aren't the same as security guards or bouncers.

the cops are part of the bureaucratic class. their role is control, intimidation of the lower class. they are supervisors of the streets. consider their role in controlling workers who drive, their role in strikes, in evicting people from the places where they live.

they ain't a part of the working class even if they are often drawn from the working class. a part of their role is as bullies, intitimation of the lower class.

[Widerstand]

Well I more thinking of 1918/1919 but you would not get anything like that here.

Our police have a very strict code of never ratting on each other no matter what the other police man or woman is doing. Thats why I think it varies from country to country or region to region.

It's the same here, really. Cop culture is pretty tight, telling on another cop is extremely looked down upon, and there's a somewhat phallocentric violence fetish in many of the "lower" divisions.

[Palingenisis]

It's the same here, really. Cop culture is pretty tight, telling on another cop is extremely looked down upon, and there's a somewhat phallocentric violence fetish in many of the "lower" divisions.

How much in Germany though are they cut off from the rest of society? Here Police recruits are strongly encouraged to drop friendships with "civilians" and they have a general contempt for "ordinary people". Also they have strong links with the media so that newspapers and TV will ignore their illegal behaviour.

[Sasha]

but then often i feel like doing this:

http://verydemotivational.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/demotivational-posters-tag.jpg

[Diello]

How much in Germany though are they cut off from the rest of society? Here Police recruits are strongly encouraged to drop friendships with "civilians" and they have a general contempt for "ordinary people". Also they have strong links with the media so that newspapers and TV will ignore their illegal behaviour.

This is a bit superfluous, but I have to say-- my GOD, cops always come on like they've got the moral high ground by default. They always act like they're morally superior to you and generally more responsible and respectworthy than you simply because they chose one career path and you chose another. Ugh.

[Widerstand]

How much in Germany though are they cut off from the rest of society?

I have no idea actually, but they interact with each other a lot, both in job and in private, and they can become rather isolated and enclosed friendship-esque cliques.



Here Police recruits are strongly encouraged to drop friendships with "civilians" and they have a general contempt for "ordinary people".

No, I definitely am not aware of such thing existing here if it does. The contempt part differs from cop to cop and unit to unit, I suppose.



Also they have strong links with the media so that newspapers and TV will ignore their illegal behaviour.

They have strong links with judges here. It's practically impossible to get a cop convicted of violence or abuse, out of I think 1000 lawsuits in the past year (2009), only about 500 have been brought before courts, and of those none have been convicted.

[progressive_lefty]

It's the saddest thing about the protests in Europe. The greedy people that caused the problems in Greece, were obviously not the people that were out on the street defending the banks. How many people are lossed to the right, when a working-class police office is attacked, or suffers from permant injuries from a protestor? Will this not lead to others hating any idea of protest? Simply, violence will never solve problems.
Yes the police are supposed to 'represent' the Government and what ever its policies are, but essentially they are no different from me or you. Not all protests are violent, but the ones that are, are ruined in their purpose to oppose something, or to attract others to a particular cause. When I was young I used to yell stupid things to police, but you have to remember there are good people that are police officers (or I should have remembered). The easiest thing to do at a protest is yell stuff at the police, as oppossed to trying to engage others..

[Chairman Wow]

Whether a police officer is working class or not is quite irrelevant. Working class police are Sonderkommando in these situations, intimidating and controlling their own.

And violence does solve problems.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

It's the saddest thing about the protests in Europe. The greedy people that caused the problems in Greece, were obviously not the people that were out on the street defending the banks. How many people are lossed to the right, when a working-class police office is attacked, or suffers from permant injuries from a protestor? Will this not lead to others hating any idea of protest? Simply, violence will never solve problems.
Yes the police are supposed to 'represent' the Government and what ever its policies are, but essentially they are no different from me or you. Not all protests are violent, but the ones that are, are ruined in their purpose to oppose something, or to attract others to a particular cause. When I was young I used to yell stupid things to police, but you have to remember there are good people that are police officers (or I should have remembered). The easiest thing to do at a protest is yell stuff at the police, as oppossed to trying to engage others..

I don't subscribe at all to this analysis of police, they don't represent the government, they ARE a wing of the capitalist state, their whole existence is dedicated to the protection of private property.

Also, your attitude to violence confuses me. Protests don't lose their purpose if they are violent. Opposing/disrupting the state entails violence.

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

Cops, although they enforce capitalist rule, have good intentions. Many get into the field to help people, to prevent violent crime, etc. This should be taken case by case... some cops may make good leftists, others tools of Capital.

[apawllo]

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/01/02/gunman-kills-deputy.html?sid=101

This happened yesterday about 15 minutes from where I live...it's been all over the news. I'm sure she'll have a road named after her or something for sticking her nose in other people's business too much, for the sake of the system.

[human strike]

They're workers, but they're also bastards.

[DuracellBunny97]

there is no shortage of crooked cops, but some of them are just doing their job in order to survive

[Widerstand]

there is no shortage of crooked cops, but some of them are just doing their job in order to survive

Except that their job includes beating up people, ripping people from their families, harassing people, protecting capitalism, etc.

[DuracellBunny97]

It is really hard for me to think of a response to that. I don't think police would be necessary in an anarchist society, laws would vary from region to region, and people would decide how to enforce them, but with a government controlling a country... oh dammit I can't argue this

[craigd89]

What I've seen is that generally police officers in smaller communities who live in that community are nicer cops...the worst cops I encountered were in the cities..and every time i was ever harassed by a cop was in the city.

[blake 3:17]

The primary purpose of the police is to maintain property relations, which I'm not so keen on. Preventing and solving murders, assaults and all that stuff -- I'm for it.

In Chicago, May 1, 2000 on the snake march. A bunch of White teenagers start chanting "Black cop, White cop, they're all the same, Police brutality is the name of the game". Think I stuck around with that bunch? There's rows of Black cops on motorcycles -- outta there.

During the G20 demos this summer in Toronto, the cops were fucking scared. I felt sorry for some on a part of the Friday march -- there were oodles of out of town and country cops, and they had no idea if the protest was going to suddenly turn violent. During the tail end of it, we were a little stressed. The average cop was waaaaaaaaay more stressed.