Security guards?

[A.J.]

Are these goons "workers in uniform" or agents of bourgeois state repression?

I'm inclined to say the latter. Not merely because I've happened to have a few personal run-ins with these morons(specifically nightclub doormen) over the years but because - although they're not directly employed by the bourgeois state(typically, nowadays, they're hired by private security firms such as G4S) unlike cops, screws and armed forces personnel - they're still ultimately enforcers of bourgeois law, defenders of the current social order.

Morever, and let's be brutally honest here, people who go in for such a line of work are usually of below average intelligence and are therefore highly susceptible to the appeal of backward reactionary movements such as fascism and Scottish nationalism.

The obvious implications for the labour movement is that as the class struggle intensifies in the months and years ahead these pea-brained louts are likely to be deployed by the ruling class as strike-breakers and other such violent roles in the service of capital.

[Questionable]

I'm inclined to agree with you. They occupy the same general role in society as the police force, perhaps even more so because security guards are typically employed to protect private property directly rather than general social order as police do.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

To take your example of nightclub doormen, they are merely (normally) waged employees of a private company. They have nothing to do with the security of the bourgeoisie, or defending capitalism. In a socialist society, you'd need bouncers at nightclubs, just because of the nature of the place and the event and the activities that occur.

Of course, it's a slightly different story when you get to higher-up security firms who provide high-level protection to large-scale capitalists, in a sense, although a personal bodyguard would surely still be a worker if they must sell their labour to survive? Then again, they may be 'part of the state' if they have crossed-over between private and state security.

High-level security enforcers are probably not going to be won round to socialism, anyway, so I wouldn't worry all that much.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Security guards are filth and scum. I can't sympathise with such dregs, disgusting cop-rejects and propertarian guardians.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Shit's complicated (well, always).
If we're talking about G4S, various armed strike-breaking forces, private prison employees, and security guards deployed at particularly sensitive points (banks, for example), I think it's pretty clear that we're talking about ruthless mercenaries. Strategically speaking, they basically need to be approached like the police, with an eye to damaging their morale, undermining their sense of security, and generally making their lives as miserable as possible.
On the other hand, if we're looking at grocery stores, guards hired by small landlords, parking garages, etc. they tend to come disproportionately from the most marginalized sections of the proletariat (racialized, uneducated, etc). They often lack the ideological commitment of police on one hand, and on the other lack the monetary incentive to loyalty of the "higher grade" of private security. At a measly $12 an hour - even though it's better than minimum wage - only the stupidest, most macho security guard will actually put their safety on the line. In practice, convincing them to turn a blind eye is often possible. As a subject for propaganda, they're not really more or less likely to be more or less receptive than anyone else in a similar income bracket, since they're essentially precarious, and will probably move on from security as soon as "something better" comes along. Though, practically speaking, you're more likely to need to punch them in the face than most other workers. I don't think there's necessarily anything particularly shameful about this (one might also punch a proletarian in the face to prevent a gay bashing, or to secure a picket line) - at worst it's unfortunate.

[Sasha]

Im a bouncer myself so this is something I gave a lot of thought, its a difficult thing, I enforce rules but its rules on private property, when people enter by buying a ticket they agree to abide by those rules and if they break them they know the consequences. In general its just getting bounced with maybe a venue ban but in some cases it ends in arrest, for example in cases of (sexual) assault or harddrug dealing.
when I started I felt really shitty but one of the guys I once got arrested himself said it was the "contractual" answer to him trying to punch me. If I'd punched back I would have lost my job and maybe could have maimed or killed him. He tried to punch someone doing their job while knowing the consequences but taking the risk. He said that if I was working the registry and he tried to rob me no one would complain if I called the cops either.
So while I ofcourse let more shit slide than colleagues sometimes I cant do anything else. Which I would never think about when voluntarily bouncing political places.
Luckily most of my work is first-aid, catching crowdsurfers etc etc.
But its certainly why I want to quit as soon as I can.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Of course, it's a slightly different story when you get to higher-up security firms who provide high-level protection to large-scale capitalists, in a sense, although a personal bodyguard would surely still be a worker if they must sell their labour to survive? Then again, they may be 'part of the state' if they have crossed-over between private and state security.

Police also sell their labour power. They're still tools of the oppressive class.


I'm not only concerned about "high-level bodyguards". What about "low-level" security guards who make their living by protecting private property, chasing poor people, drug addicts etc. They tend to act as a private police force, especially because they very often cross the legal boundaries they officially are bound by (they aren't really allowed to act as police, not to the full extent, anyway) - and get away with it. And as Takayuki implies, these jobs tend to attract a certain... type (my gf always says that the reason security guards are so grumpy is because they never got into police academy :lol: )

[Ele'ill]

To take your example of nightclub doormen, they are merely (normally) waged employees of a private company. They have nothing to do with the security of the bourgeoisie, or defending capitalism.

uh

[Sasha]

Also, one of the main political centers here in town where I used to volunteer at the door bounced someone who kept trying to come back in, instead of closing the steeldoor and calling the cops when he started to harras passerby they tried to sort it themselves, they almost killed him by accident and spend a serious time in jail for it.
Even revolutionary places exist not outside the non-revolutionary world, should you endanger your or others life and freedom because of your political principles for drunk or drugged out assholes who won't spare you for one second the other way around?

And at least me with my professional training now passes that training to volunteers at political places, hopefully that will help getting other people not hurt or nicked in the future.

[A.J.]

To take your example of nightclub doormen, they are merely (normally) waged employees of a private company. They have nothing to do with the security of the bourgeoisie, or defending capitalism. In a socialist society, you'd need bouncers at nightclubs, just because of the nature of the place and the event and the activities that occur.

I wasn't trying to use bouncers as an example. Merely citing a personal issue I have with them(perhaps it wasn't relevant to the topic in hand). As you mention it, however, in a nightclub during socialism-communism would there really exist such a division of labour that there would be people whose sole function it was to provide security?

[Glitchcraft]

Who considers bouncers to be pigs? They are workers at a night club. They get promoted to bartender not to detective. It's one thing to work for a company whose sole purpose is to defend property and another whose primary purpose is to provide alcohol and maintain a dance floor.

What about internet security firms whose entire existence is to protect wealthy interests online? If private security companies are the same as cops aren't cyber security guards pigs too? Where is that line to be drawn?

[Zukunftsmusik]

I don't think bouncers can be compared to police, nor to security guards in general.

[Popular Front of Judea]

And then there is my case. I worked as front desk person at building housing vulnerable poor people. Besides assisting tenants my job emphatically had a bouncer component. I blocked unauthorized, barred people from entering the building. At times I physically did so, dragging them out on occasion. When people got past me despite my best efforts I called the police. Was I an "agent of bourgeois state repression"?.

OP have you been responsible for anything more than your own ass?

[A.J.]

We're not talking about bouncers in particular but security guards in general.

[Fakeblock]

I think it depends. If private security firms do typical police work they're not much different. If private companies play the same role as the state I think we can safely view them as extensions of it, even if they have no immediate connection to the sovereign state.

[Popular Front of Judea]

So we are all for kicking a working class person to the curb if they become a security guard? What other opportunities are there out there for someone with a high school degree to their name?

Sometimes you can cut the class privilege in this forum with a knife.

[Zukunftsmusik]

uh, maybe read the thread, dude/dudette. esp. Garbage Disposal Unit's post?

[Popular Front of Judea]

Yes I did read the post and while I don't disagree with it, I don't care for the tone. How you people recruit actual workers is beyond me.


uh, maybe read the thread, dude/dudette. esp. Garbage Disposal Unit's post?

[A.J.]

So we are all for kicking a working class person to the curb if they become a security guard? What other opportunities are out there for them?

Sometimes you can cut the class privilege in this forum with a knife.

If you think I'm going to be sympathetic towards security guards because they only took the job out of economic necessity then you've got another thing coming.

My sympathies lie with the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society. The very people who security guards are employed to brutalise and harass in defence of private property.

Also, stop being so bloody patronising.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Yes I did read the post and while I don't disagree with it, I don't care for the tone. How you people recruit actual workers is beyond me.

Whether or not you're an "actual worker" doesn't say much if your job is to directly and violently enforce state rule (police) and private property (security guards).

[Popular Front of Judea]

Well I have a GED to my name*, passably articulate -- and 6' 3". If I go to the unemployment office Tuesday what job openings are they likely to pull up for me?

*Those community college quarters don't count for shit.


Whether or not you're an "actual worker" doesn't say much if your job is to directly and violently enforce state rule (police) and private property (security guards).

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[QUOTE=Zukunftsmusik;2658566]Police also sell their labour power. They're still tools of the oppressive class.

The function of the police - the only all-encompassing function, you could say - is to protect the political power of the state, and therefore the bourgeoisie. Nobody who signs up to the police gets into the protection of political power by mistake, signing up to the police is a choice. And, in the UK, it's so over-subscribed that often you have to do voluntary, unpaid work experience for like 1 year + before you're paid up as a cop, so it's questionable as to how forced many cops are to sell their labour power to survive.

[SonofRage]

Morever, and let's be brutally honest here, people who go in for such a line of work are usually of below average intelligence...

How do you know this?


...and are therefore highly susceptible to the appeal of backward reactionary movements such as fascism and Scottish nationalism.


Are reactionaries by definition unintelligent?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[Glitchcraft]

We're not talking about bouncers in particular but security guards in general.
I was asking if any groups considered bouncers as the same as cops.
As well how about cyber security firms. Does anyone have a stance on cyber security?

[A.J.]

How do you know this?

First-hand observation


Are reactionaries by definition unintelligent?

No, and I never said that they were.

[Popular Front of Judea]

All are part of the guard labor (http://boingboing.net/2010/02/05/santa-fe-institute-e.html) -- estimated by some to be 1 in 4 jobs -- that is necessary for our grossly inequitable economy to function. (Of course if you are white collar professional doing this type of work no one will suggest punching you in the nose ...)


I was asking if any groups considered bouncers as the same as cops.
As well how about cyber security firms. Does anyone have a stance on cyber security?

[SonofRage]

First-hand observation

Enough to universalize this?




No, and I never said that they were.

What point were you trying to make?



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[Ele'ill]

I don't even like the idea of or personal experiences with bouncers tbh

[Red_Banner]

Maoist Rebel News was a security guard, he's cool.

[Popular Front of Judea]

:rolleyes:


Maoist Rebel News was a security guard, he's cool.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Maoist Rebel News was a security guard, he's cool.

Have you just come here to troll our forum?

[Art Vandelay]

Seriously fuck rent a cops. As already stated they're predominantly cop wanna be's and rejects (you got to be a special kind of stupid to have that institution reject you) who have a hard on for power and fetish for the 'uniform.' All I've ever seen them do is unnecessarily harass people. Pretty much all I've ever seen them do is bug the shit out of me and my friends growing up, whenever people would set up shop at a set of stairs to skateboard (oh the horror, we could have ruined their cement!), and trail minorities in department stores.

"We got a 321 by the screwdrivers, I repeat a 321. I'm going to need back up."

Fucking losers.

[Thirsty Crow]

Morever, and let's be brutally honest here, people who go in for such a line of work are usually of below average intelligence and are therefore highly susceptible to the appeal of backward reactionary movements such as fascism and Scottish nationalism.

Until you back up this assertion with some substantial evidence, it'll remain nothing more than a prejudiced opinion not that far removed from bourgeois prejudice against manual labor in general.

[Rugged Collectivist]

My job has sort of a "security" aspect. I'm responsible for any product that slips through my line unpaid for. If something gets through the value is deducted from my pay and I'm reprimanded. This has only happened once so I got a piece of paper describing the incident and a slap on the wrist but it was implied that the consequences would be greater if it happened again. It made me feel really bad but I can't really afford to be fired at this point. I let some stuff slide where I can but at the end of the day I'm defending capitalist property.

As for security guards proper I find that they come in two varieties. Apathetic people who are just there to get paid, and cops/wannabe cops. You have to watch out for the latter. The former are more or less no different from any other worker.

[piet11111]

What about someone who has to guard a storage lot ?

With a job description of "if you see something call the cops" and serves more as an insurance policy requirement then an hindrance to any thieves ?


I dont do this for a living but i am curious what the opinion is of such "guards"

[Sea]

Morever, and let's be brutally honest here, people who go in for such a line of work are usually of below average intelligence and are therefore highly susceptible to the appeal of backward reactionary movements such as fascism and Scottish nationalism.By definition half of the population is below average intelligence. I suggest you go stare at a bell curve for an hour or so until you manage to grasp the concept.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Seriously, I lived for several years with an incredibly hardworking comrade who, as a child, was told he would never be able to read or write, who was born with a whole host of so-called "learning disabilities". "Intelligence" has nothing to do with politics.

[TaylorS]

I think it strongly depends on context. If you are the security guard for an office building or some rich guy's mansion, then yeah, fuck you. But I don't see anything wrong with security guys keeping order at a big outdoor music festival, or bouncers kicking out unruly drunkards from a bar.

IMO the dividing line is whether they are mainly there to defend private property or to keep order.

[Glitchcraft]

I think it strongly depends on context. If you are the security guard for an office building or some rich guy's mansion, then yeah, fuck you. But I don't see anything wrong with security guys keeping order at a big outdoor music festival, or bouncers kicking out unruly drunkards from a bar.

IMO the dividing line is whether they are mainly there to defend private property or to keep order.

I think another aspect is the company itself. Do you work for a security firm or a bar?
Bouncers can be jerks, of coarse, but their job isn't the same as a rent-a-pig. The company they work for isn't a security company.

[Fawkes]

It's kind of a gray area. I work at a restaurant and if someone comes in and starts going around tables asking for money (daily occurrence) I would get in trouble if I didn't ask them to leave. I look the other way whenever possible and, obviously, I'm not a dick about it, but ultimately, am I protecting private property? Yeah. Likewise, if someone orders food and can't pay for it or orders a beer and doesn't have an I.D., I'd get fired if I was caught giving it to them.

Likewise, I just finished interning at a pretty big media company that, up until a month or so ago, had no security of any kind. After a man came in and threatened to shoot the receptionist, the company decided to hire a security guard from a private security firm. Is he a rent-a-cop? I dunno, but I do know that pretty much everyone there, particularly the receptionist, was glad to have him. He didn't go around kicking people out and being a dickhead, he actually just sat about 20 feet from the receptionist and was basically just there on call in case something went down.

tl;dr: I dunno

[Popular Front of Judea]

So what is your opinion of the person that installed the CCTV cameras that feed the monitors that the security guards watch? Or of the architect that designed the store etc. to facilitate surveillance and deter theft? (Really look at a big box store next time you are there.) Where do you draw the line?

[Decolonize The Left]

Isn't working class solidarity just that - we support all our class who must sell their labor for a wage? What is with all the moralizing about private property? Private property will be abolished when the working class seizes it as a class, not when people piss on everyone for trying to get by.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Spoken by a true petit bourgeois liberal. Your sympathies lie with "the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society". Ah isn't that sweet. But the struggling working class? Screw us. We're congenitally ignorant and authoritarian after all, right?


If you think I'm going to be sympathetic towards security guards because they only took the job out of economic necessity then you've got another thing coming.

My sympathies lie with the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society. The very people who security guards are employed to brutalise and harass in defence of private property.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Indeed. If we castigate ALL security employees for defending private property, then we should castigate us teachers for upholding bourgeois education, castigate administrate workers who keep the paperwork rolling for private companies, metalworkers who end up creating gates for wealthy, gated communities, janitors who keep the offices of the bourgeoisie clean.

It's just a ridiculous logic and, in ignoring the social relations of a particular security guards position in the production/service process, an absolute bastardisation of Marxian and socialist theory.

[Decolonize The Left]

Let's not forget restaurant workers who make and sell food to cops, public employees who maintain roads which cops drive on to oppress our communities, arborists who prune the trees of police officers while they're off duty, exterminators who kill the bugs which are in the cop's houses, oh, and perhaps worst of all, the children in the sweatshops in other countries who make the clothes which the police wear. These people should be ashamed of themselves and I, for one, will have nothing to do with them.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Spoken by a true petit bourgeois liberal. Your sympathies lie with "the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society". Ah isn't that sweet. But the struggling working class? Screw us. We're congenitally ignorant and authoritarian after all, right?

Pig-loving shit mocking someone's moralism and calling them petit-bourgeois? That is quite hilarious. Go defend more repulsive dregs, why don't you?

[Rafiq]

I don't think security guards are necessarily on the same level as the police. In theory they may be catagorized as proletarians but they adopt some of the same tactics and at times appear to mimic the police. I think lots of them are just reprehensible in general.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Always glad to see Revleft mods walk the walk when it comes to respectful forum discussion.


Pig-loving shit mocking someone's moralism and calling them petit-bourgeois? That is quite hilarious. Go defend more repulsive dregs, why don't you?

[Glitchcraft]

Pig-loving shit mocking someone's moralism and calling them petit-bourgeois? That is quite hilarious. Go defend more repulsive dregs, why don't you?


I don't think security guards are necessarily on the same level as the police. In theory they may be catagorized as proletarians but they adopt some of the same tactics and at times appear to mimic the police. I think lots of them are just reprehensible in general.


So what is your opinion of the person that installed the CCTV cameras that feed the monitors that the security guards watch? Or of the architect that designed the store etc. to facilitate surveillance and deter theft? (Really look at a big box store next time you are there.) Where do you draw the line?

C'mon People wtf. There has got to be a difference in the nature of the employer itself.
If someone works for Intercept or Blackwater then they are pretty much rent-a-cops. But just because your job has some aspect of security to it doesn't not make you an extension of state power. There's no way to equate a doorman at a hotel to an Intercept Security guard who carries a gun and wears a badge.

Before calling someone a pig because they have some element of protecting the bosses property in their job description, THINK: Do they work for a security company whose role is essentially the same as the police? Or do they work any of the myriad of jobs that may include looking out for the bosses property?

Bouncers are promoted to bartender not Lieutenant. Doing security at a company whose main objective is to rent housing or sell alcohol is not the same as working for a company that only exists to be a private security force. Why is this so difficult to understand? We can't all work at the free hippie health food store. Most of us (with jobs) are obliged to do some amount of protecting the bosses money and property. Who has this job that the boss says "don't worry about protecting my assets"?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This reminds me of a thread when someone asked whether a Scientist (or something similar) is a worker or capitalist, and most people - rightly - pointed out that it depends on their relationship to the means of production, who they worked for, what they did etc. I.e. a waged lab assistant clearly has a different class character to the lead Research Scientist at BP, for example.

It is similar here. I don't know whether people have had bad experiences with bouncers (i've had some good, some bad, just like you get with most people), but they seem to be using that as an excuse to sound off against all security guards, including those whose job is proletarian in nature. I mean, it's a bit crazy - there are many good comrades who have/currently do security work, I know leftists IRl and on here who do security work at gigs, university, and clubs. It doesn't make them any less worthy as a fellow worker, and it doesn't instantly make them a cock, either.

[Ele'ill]

Before calling someone a pig because they have some element of protecting the bosses property in their job description, THINK: Do they work for a security company whose role is essentially the same as the police? Or do they work any of the myriad of jobs that may include looking out for the bosses property?


I've been asked before in the service industry to follow shop lifters (specifically) and I have said no. I have been asked to ask various folks to leave and I have said no. If no was too problematic I would 'forget' to do it. I have been asked to snitch on other workers who have done various things and I have never and have been fired for not doing so. News flash, following your boss's or a cop's wishes is dangerous and puts you and others at risk. You are either a radical or you are not. I don't give a fuck what books you like.

[Decolonize The Left]

I've been asked before in the service industry to follow shop lifters (specifically) and I have said no. I have been asked to ask various folks to leave and I have said no. If no was too problematic I would 'forget' to do it. I have been asked to snitch on other workers who have done various things and I have never and have been fired for not doing so. News flash, following your boss's or a cop's wishes is dangerous and puts you and others at risk. You are either a radical or you are not. I don't give a fuck what books you like.

No doubt, but this is coming from Mari3L: class conscious leftist with developed politics. I respect your opinion and believe it to be correct, but Joe who lives down the block from me here in Oklahoma doesn't know what the fuck you are talking about. Joe just wants to get home from work and sit down with his family and watch TV, maybe swing by the Arby's on the way home to pick up a sandwich. Maybe they're heading to Sizzler later.

And maybe Joe is a security guard. He's not trying to "protect private property," he's trying to get a paycheck. He's not trying to snitch on other workers either as though he hates them, he's trying to keep his job. In fact, he may like that other worker but he'll explain: shit man, I gotta keep my job...

While you and others in this thread are fundamentally correct about things, you talk as if everyone was already class conscious and radicalized when they aren't. And leftism isn't going to get anywhere if radicals spit in the face of their fellow workers (who they are supposed to represent in theory?) because those workers aren't as class conscious as they are.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Always glad to see Revleft mods walk the walk when it comes to respectful forum discussion.

And you're still a pig-loving shit. You deserve no fucking respect.

And the gardener who tends to the hedges on the back of the house of a pig is not comparable at all to a pig or security guard. In society, there are many interdependencies, but not many are at the forefront of class-aggression: pigs and security guards are. More and more security guards take over pig duties too, security guards might police railway stations, building complexes, what-have-you. Their occupation is no more defensible than that of the "official" state authority. More or more they are conflated with the same authority and power, and sometimes even less public insight. These are the enforcers of the physical boundaries that violate the commons.

[Rafiq]

That's an interesting approach, I never thought of it that way.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

No doubt, but this is coming from Mari3L: class conscious leftist with developed politics. I respect your opinion and believe it to be correct, but Joe who lives down the block from me here in Oklahoma doesn't know what the fuck you are talking about. Joe just wants to get home from work and sit down with his family and watch TV, maybe swing by the Arby's on the way home to pick up a sandwich. Maybe they're heading to Sizzler later.

And maybe Joe is a security guard. He's not trying to "protect private property," he's trying to get a paycheck. He's not trying to snitch on other workers either as though he hates them, he's trying to keep his job. In fact, he may like that other worker but he'll explain: shit man, I gotta keep my job...

While you and others in this thread are fundamentally correct about things, you talk as if everyone was already class conscious and radicalized when they aren't. And leftism isn't going to get anywhere if radicals spit in the face of their fellow workers (who they are supposed to represent in theory?) because those workers aren't as class conscious as they are.

But what you said goes just as well for Mr. Joe the Policeman, who enjoys a doughnut after work chilling with his mates. Your personalisation is trivial. Arguments do not win people over. Their position matters. Police and security guards are in a reactionary position.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

And you're still a pig-loving shit. You deserve no fucking respect.

That is totally out of order, and even more un-becoming of a global mod. It's absolutely clear that any non-mod would be warned for this sort of abusive behaviour.


And the gardener who tends to the hedges on the back of the house of a pig is not comparable at all to a pig or security guard. In society, there are many interdependencies, but not many are at the forefront of class-aggression: pigs and security guards are. More and more security guards take over pig duties too, security guards might police railway stations, building complexes, what-have-you. Their occupation is no more defensible than that of the "official" state authority. More or more they are conflated with the same authority and power, and sometimes even less public insight. These are the enforcers of the physical boundaries that violate the commons.

This is largely correct, but not wholly. The fact still is that, in any society, somebody will have to enforce security in certain situations. We can all agree that the security guards who protect individual capitalists, or work for them to undermine ordinary people on behalf of the bourgeois class, display pig-like qualities.

But can we really extend this argument to, for example, nightclub bouncers, festival security guards, gig security guards? Granted, they may have a less-than-stellar reputation, but that is not enough grounds to instantly reject their class position. As i've said above, I personally know of committed communists who are also low-level security workers in order to get by - at nightclubs, gigs, etc. I see no reason to display hostility towards them, merely to apply a Marxian class analysis to their position in society on a case-by-case basis, just as we would do any other waged labour.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

That is totally out of order, and even more un-becoming of a global mod. It's absolutely clear that any non-mod would be warned for this sort of abusive behaviour

Zero tolerance for pig-lovers is what is needed. It isn't a question of moderator policy, though. I've always said things like that.


This is largely correct, but not wholly. The fact still is that, in any society, somebody will have to enforce security in certain situations. We can all agree that the security guards who protect individual capitalists, or work for them to undermine ordinary people on behalf of the bourgeois class, display pig-like qualities.

But can we really extend this argument to, for example, nightclub bouncers, festival security guards, gig security guards? Granted, they may have a less-than-stellar reputation, but that is not enough grounds to instantly reject their class position. As i've said above, I personally know of committed communists who are also low-level security workers in order to get by - at nightclubs, gigs, etc. I see no reason to display hostility towards them, merely to apply a Marxian class analysis to their position in society on a case-by-case basis, just as we would do any other waged labour. But there is really no difference between the pigs and the security guards. There are aspects of pig-work that are not at odds with socialism either; there's nothing inherently sinister about a criminal investigation as such, for example, after a murder or some other violations. But the police are, rightfully so, judged based on their position within the power structure. What of a policeman who is a committed communist? Surely there have been some.

Security guards form a private militia. They are upholders of smaller scale tyrannies. When the reach of the state proper for some reasons must be curtailed (perhaps for monetary or political reasons), it is relegated to the private sector to fill the void with more of the same: the guards, like dogs, froth at the mouth and bend over and serve. Mall-cops, hunting shop-lifters, bouncers, tossing out undesirables, ticket-less visitors. Guards on a train, throwing off the passengers that haven't paid. Ticket inspectors. Mind you, the fact that they can sometimes do things that are justified does not mitigate the inherent sinister nature of their professions.

Police might stop an abusive husband, a rape. A guard of some kind might likewise throw out a violent guest who does indeed deserve this.

But as with the police, it in no way changes the nature of the guard. The guard remains an arm of the order with all it entails. The guard might be flawless in all other aspects, a jovial personality and the most charming of all, but it is still a guard, just like a pig is still a pig.

[blake 3:17]

I worked security for an apartment building for half a year. At the time I was involved in a campaign against security firm that hired a lot of racist thugs for low income housing.

Kinda worried I might have to do it again.

[blake 3:17]

I don't think security guards are necessarily on the same level as the police. In theory they may be catagorized as proletarians but they adopt some of the same tactics and at times appear to mimic the police. I think lots of them are just reprehensible in general.

A few of the people I worked with were ideologically proto-fascists. One guy loved telling me about the times he'd pulled guns on shop lifters when he'd had the chance.

But the guy was at the real bottom rungs of society, in his 50s, constantly made fun of by residents of the apartment buildings I worked in. He had a lot of grudges and not much to look forward to.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Zero tolerance for pig-lovers is what is needed. It isn't a question of moderator policy, though. I've always said things like that.

Well, until a user is given disciplinary action for cop-apologism - which hasn't happened in this case and I don't think will -, you have absolutely no right to talk to a fellow user like that. It is exactly the sort of thing that, in certain threads elsewhere on the forum, we have almost to a user said is a really negative influence on this board. You're a very good mod and make interesting posts, but you cannot just go round the board having a go at people like you did above.


But there is really no difference between the pigs and the security guards. There are aspects of pig-work that are not at odds with socialism either; there's nothing inherently sinister about a criminal investigation as such, for example, after a murder or some other violations. But the police are, rightfully so, judged based on their position within the power structure. What of a policeman who is a committed communist? Surely there have been some.

Security guards form a private militia. They are upholders of smaller scale tyrannies. When the reach of the state proper for some reasons must be curtailed (perhaps for monetary or political reasons), it is relegated to the private sector to fill the void with more of the same: the guards, like dogs, froth at the mouth and bend over and serve. Mall-cops, hunting shop-lifters, bouncers, tossing out undesirables, ticket-less visitors. Guards on a train, throwing off the passengers that haven't paid. Ticket inspectors. Mind you, the fact that they can sometimes do things that are justified does not mitigate the inherent sinister nature of their professions.

Police might stop an abusive husband, a rape. A guard of some kind might likewise throw out a violent guest who does indeed deserve this.

But as with the police, it in no way changes the nature of the guard. The guard remains an arm of the order with all it entails. The guard might be flawless in all other aspects, a jovial personality and the most charming of all, but it is still a guard, just like a pig is still a pig.[/QUOTE]

As I said above, I don't disagree with a huge amount of what you say. A guard may be a guard, and a pig may be a pig, but it doesn't logically follow that a guard is a pig.

Think about it this way: the capitalist class is the ruling class in society. They derive economic and social power through exploiting the working class, and political power through the management of the political system, on their behalf, by the political class (or sub-class or whatever, I know i'm being lazy calling them a class but it's late and my brain is largely fried). The cops are agents of the political class, of the state, and are thus a willing concomitant of the political process which reproduces the political power of the bourgeoisie. Open and shut.

The security guard, however, is not a direct agent of the political class, of the state, but an employee of the capitalist. Whilst the function of the security guard, in general, may be to protect private property - something indefensible from the point of view of a socialist -, their relationship to the means of production is different to that of the cop. Whilst the cop, an agent of the political class and of the state, is not generally economically exploited, the privately-employed security guard, in tandem with their piggish protection of private property, are also part of the labour process that re-produces capitalist social relations via the exploitation of them that takes place, through their position as wage labourers (or at least, the lower portion of security guards). Thus, if we are going to call a spade a spade, then in the specific instance of the security guard we must call the spade a spade with qualifications - the qualification being that, as well as being a defender of private property, paradoxically, the security guard can also be a worker and their labour power exploited by the capitalist whose private property they protect for a living. This cannot be said of the cop - they are direct and willing agents of the state. Nobody becomes a cop because it's all they can do to survive; it is generally a career. However, there are certainly cases of security guards taking their jobs not as career paths, but as jobs genuinely needed to survive, which is where we can identify the 'worker' element of the security guard - at the point at which they must exchange their labour power for a wage, or survival.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Did you ever close a shop? Did your responsibilities include setting the alarm?


I've been asked before in the service industry to follow shop lifters (specifically) and I have said no. I have been asked to ask various folks to leave and I have said no. If no was too problematic I would 'forget' to do it. I have been asked to snitch on other workers who have done various things and I have never and have been fired for not doing so. News flash, following your boss's or a cop's wishes is dangerous and puts you and others at risk. You are either a radical or you are not. I don't give a fuck what books you like.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I would argue that it doesn't really matter (per se) the level of security that the guard is contracted to do because in essence all security personnel serve the same function which is obviously protecting private property and capital and are hired by those whom own/control property and capital. The height of their station seems somewhat irrelevant in terms of over all class struggle and as someone pointed out law enforcement officers are also sell their labor to enforce the laws of the bourgeoisie. The security guard's role overall within the system seems to protect and enforce the morality and safety of private property as it is sacrosanct in modern society.

Anyways, me personally security guards to me are a joke, you just go incognito and hidden blade their asses.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

As I said above, I don't disagree with a huge amount of what you say. A guard may be a guard, and a pig may be a pig, but it doesn't logically follow that a guard is a pig.

Think about it this way: the capitalist class is the ruling class in society. They derive economic and social power through exploiting the working class, and political power through the management of the political system, on their behalf, by the political class (or sub-class or whatever, I know i'm being lazy calling them a class but it's late and my brain is largely fried). The cops are agents of the political class, of the state, and are thus a willing concomitant of the political process which reproduces the political power of the bourgeoisie. Open and shut.

The security guard, however, is not a direct agent of the political class, of the state, but an employee of the capitalist. Whilst the function of the security guard, in general, may be to protect private property - something indefensible from the point of view of a socialist -, their relationship to the means of production is different to that of the cop. Whilst the cop, an agent of the political class and of the state, is not generally economically exploited, the privately-employed security guard, in tandem with their piggish protection of private property, are also part of the labour process that re-produces capitalist social relations via the exploitation of them that takes place, through their position as wage labourers (or at least, the lower portion of security guards). Thus, if we are going to call a spade a spade, then in the specific instance of the security guard we must call the spade a spade with qualifications - the qualification being that, as well as being a defender of private property, paradoxically, the security guard can also be a worker and their labour power exploited by the capitalist whose private property they protect for a living. This cannot be said of the cop - they are direct and willing agents of the state. Nobody becomes a cop because it's all they can do to survive; it is generally a career. However, there are certainly cases of security guards taking their jobs not as career paths, but as jobs genuinely needed to survive, which is where we can identify the 'worker' element of the security guard - at the point at which they must exchange their labour power for a wage, or survival.

But the capitalist class is both the political strata and the managerial strata of the private companies: in charge of both the guards and the police. Thus understood, the police forms a mid-level executive force for maintaining social peace and order, whereas the guards form a lower level. The army can be seen as a further step up the ladder. If the police is the province, the guard is the city council.

The police and the guards cannot be easily told apart, because of their similar positions. They are not identical, so far I agree, but I do not think that the differences are sufficient to justify different treatment, at least not in theory. Guards, like police, will tend to justify internally their work with self-righteous excuses (how many times has a ticket inspector not stopped someone jumping turnstiles only to go on a morally indignant rant about costing the tax payer/employer money?).

But I do not think that being kind to security guards is beneficial. We should have understanding for their position, but we should nevertheless not be tolerant of it, and they who, upon revolution eve, remains a security guard and stands against the masses in protection of their master's arbitrary borders, walls and closed shuttered doors and windows, will find themselves on the wrong side of the barricades and treated as they deserve, with their sort, the pigs and scabs of the world.

[Glitchcraft]

And you're still a pig-loving shit. You deserve no fucking respect.

Damn. And here I thought I was being mean spirited on other threads. I guess If mods can talk this way I'll step up my rhetoric. Thanks, to me this is like a green light for trolling maximised. Lets Party.

[blake 3:17]

Damn. And here I thought I was being mean spirited on other threads. I guess If mods can talk this way I'll step up my rhetoric. Thanks, to me this is like a green light for trolling maximised. Lets Party.

I'm hoping you're joking.

[Glitchcraft]

I've been asked before in the service industry to follow shop lifters (specifically) and I have said no. I have been asked to ask various folks to leave and I have said no. If no was too problematic I would 'forget' to do it. I have been asked to snitch on other workers who have done various things and I have never and have been fired for not doing so. News flash, following your boss's or a cop's wishes is dangerous and puts you and others at risk. You are either a radical or you are not. I don't give a fuck what books you like.

Some of us (in your eyes poor excuses for) revolutionaries have children to feed and rent to pay and cannot at the drop of a hat storm off any job for the slightest incursion on moral decency. For some reason I seem to be at a loss as where to find these jobs that are so compliant with outright insubordination. While I have never narcd out any one at any point. I say you should consider your self lucky to have found a job that such actions are acceptable to remain employed and effect only yourself and do not equate to people dependant on you having an income living in a shelter. Are you reading a different craigslist than I am?

[Decolonize The Left]

I'm hoping you're joking.

I hope you're not serious. Glitchcraft was obviously joking in regards to Takayuki's infraction worthy post. But Takayuki has not received a infraction, or even a warning, despite multiple mods being in this thread. So you threatening Glitchcraft for joking about trolling is doubly absurd.

[Glitchcraft]

I'm hoping you're joking.
yeah. :)
But it does seem to validate escalation when confronted with such statements.

[Decolonize The Left]

But the capitalist class is both the political strata and the managerial strata of the private companies: in charge of both the guards and the police. Thus understood, the police forms a mid-level executive force for maintaining social peace and order, whereas the guards form a lower level. The army can be seen as a further step up the ladder. If the police is the province, the guard is the city council.

The police and the guards cannot be easily told apart, because of their similar positions. They are not identical, so far I agree, but I do not think that the differences are sufficient to justify different treatment, at least not in theory. Guards, like police, will tend to justify internally their work with self-righteous excuses (how many times has a ticket inspector not stopped someone jumping turnstiles only to go on a morally indignant rant about costing the tax payer/employer money?).

But I do not think that being kind to security guards is beneficial. We should have understanding for their position, but we should nevertheless not be tolerant of it, and they who, upon revolution eve, remains a security guard and stands against the masses in protection of their master's arbitrary borders, walls and closed shuttered doors and windows, will find themselves on the wrong side of the barricades and treated as they deserve, with their sort, the pigs and scabs of the world.

What revolution? The idealism and moralism in this thread is absurd.

When/if a revolution happens, security guards (however small this portion of society) won't matter in the slightest. If we are indeed talking about a working class revolution which will overthrow the capitalist system and seize the means of production we are talking about billions of mobilized people. The fact that security guards represent some political enemy is irrelevant. Our class interests supersede political enemies, supersede the fact that security guards are assholes much of the time, supersede whatever moralizing you make about how they suck.

I mean, if we're really going to be honest about a communist revolution: politics don't matter. We're talking about class interest, not whether or not pigs or security guards defend capital. Fuck them. They will find themselves, as you said "on the wrong side of the barricades." But until we are at "the eve of the revolution" as you called it, shitting on working class people because of politics isn't going to encourage any sort of class consciousness - in fact, it'll just drive this portion of society further to the right, thereby weakening the working class movement when it comes of age.

I'm not saying you need to be buddy buddy with anyone. I am saying that outright declaring that a whole group of people are reactionary fucks when you haven't met more than 3 of them is bullshit - especially when they are working class people. Your class. At least, I thought it was your class.

[Consistent.Surprise]

At no point have I read the fact that a number of security guards tend to be police who are off duty or former police. Or they are CJ students. Bouncers/doormen don't tend to be either of these.

[Thirsty Crow]

Indeed. If we castigate ALL security employees for defending private property, then we should castigate us teachers for upholding bourgeois education...
Just to highlight this. It might turn out that revolutionary theory's got a blind spot of sorts.Namely, I'm talking about the default position we tend to take when it comes to cops.

Now, if we argue that the modern state doesn't only perform repressive functions, but also those that are described as ideological "manufacturing" of consent (or at least of passivity and illusions which impede collective action, of course not unconnected to phenomena that aren't ideological in themselves). I don't think that the education system can be exempted from this analysis. So, the question is what differentiates cops from teachers, as odd as it may sound, and it is patently clear that most of the organizations and individuals practically make such a distinction, which follows from the support of education workers' struggles.

Can this differentiation rest on the difference in nature of the work done? How could that be justified?


When/if a revolution happens, security guards (however small this portion of society) won't matter in the slightest. If we are indeed talking about a working class revolution which will overthrow the capitalist system and seize the means of production we are talking about billions of mobilized people. The fact that security guards represent some political enemy is irrelevant. Our class interests supersede political enemies, supersede the fact that security guards are assholes much of the time, supersede whatever moralizing you make about how they suck.I don't think this represents a matter of political enmity, but that of organized counter-revolution which draws its forces also from the working class for obvious reasons. It's not an issue of morality, but that of violent conflict with the forces of the old order.

[Decolonize The Left]

I don't think this represents a matter of political enmity, but that of organized counter-revolution which draws its forces also from the working class for obvious reasons. It's not an issue of morality, but that of violent conflict with the forces of the old order.

Indeed. And here we are not talking about the army or the police (obvious organized counter-revolution), but of working class folks who happen to be in a position whereby they defend capitalist private property. The two are in no form synonymous unless we embark upon some lengthy and abstract moralism.

[Thirsty Crow]

Indeed. And here we are not talking about the army or the police (obvious organized counter-revolution), but of working class folks who happen to be in a position whereby they defend capitalist private property. The two are in no form synonymous unless we embark upon some lengthy and abstract moralism.
What notion of the working class are you working with here (no pun intended)?

I'm asking since the elimination of the police from the working class is quite arbitrary if we claim that class position is determined by relation to the means of production and consequently dispossession resulting in de facto coercion to sell one's labor power.

All I'm saying here is that other criteria need to be introduced here if you wish to substantiate your attitude (which is up to this point arbitrary, or better yet, not clear since you did not elaborate on what constitutes class position). In no way should anyone take this to mean, or even imply, the defense of cops.

Oh yeah, and it seems to me that Takayuki explicitly referred to security guards who stand besides the existing class relations in a revolutionary situation. So I can't find any element in their argument which would justify the charge of abstract moralism.

[Decolonize The Left]

What notion of the working class are you working with here (no pun intended)?

I was basically saying that security guards are not organized counter-revolutionaries. They're just people working their job. They could be such, but they aren't by definition (unlike cops/army).


Think about it this way: the capitalist class is the ruling class in society. They derive economic and social power through exploiting the working class, and political power through the management of the political system, on their behalf, by the political class (or sub-class or whatever, I know i'm being lazy calling them a class but it's late and my brain is largely fried). The cops are agents of the political class, of the state, and are thus a willing concomitant of the political process which reproduces the political power of the bourgeoisie. Open and shut.

The security guard, however, is not a direct agent of the political class, of the state, but an employee of the capitalist. Whilst the function of the security guard, in general, may be to protect private property - something indefensible from the point of view of a socialist -, their relationship to the means of production is different to that of the cop. Whilst the cop, an agent of the political class and of the state, is not generally economically exploited, the privately-employed security guard, in tandem with their piggish protection of private property, are also part of the labour process that re-produces capitalist social relations via the exploitation of them that takes place, through their position as wage labourers (or at least, the lower portion of security guards). Thus, if we are going to call a spade a spade, then in the specific instance of the security guard we must call the spade a spade with qualifications - the qualification being that, as well as being a defender of private property, paradoxically, the security guard can also be a worker and their labour power exploited by the capitalist whose private property they protect for a living. This cannot be said of the cop - they are direct and willing agents of the state. Nobody becomes a cop because it's all they can do to survive; it is generally a career. However, there are certainly cases of security guards taking their jobs not as career paths, but as jobs genuinely needed to survive, which is where we can identify the 'worker' element of the security guard - at the point at which they must exchange their labour power for a wage, or survival.


I'm asking since the elimination of the police from the working class is quite arbitrary if we claim that class position is determined by relation to the means of production and consequently dispossession resulting in de facto coercion to sell one's labor power.

All I'm saying here is that other criteria need to be introduced here if you wish to substantiate your attitude (which is up to this point arbitrary, or better yet, not clear since you did not elaborate on what constitutes class position). In no way should anyone take this to mean, or even imply, the defense of cops.

Yeah I see how it was vague and unsupported. I mean that cops and army are defacto counter-revolutionary. Hence their working class aspect, i.e. the economic relationship between them and the means of production, is nullified by their political position. This is not the case for security guards.


Oh yeah, and it seems to me that Takayuki explicitly referred to security guards who stand besides the existing class relations in a revolutionary situation. So I can't find any element in their argument which would justify the charge of abstract moralism.

I know but that's my point. Speculating that we should condemn security guards who stand beside existing class relations in a revolutionary situation is abstract moralism. There is no revolutionary situation. There is no reason to, in advance, hypothetically get upset at people for things they haven't done yet - and may not do. This is different for police/army/politicians/cappies because they occupy different political positions in relation to our current struggle. But it is not the case for security guards.

For example: Joe down the block here in Oklahoma may be a security guard. We, being such stout revolutionary comrades, decry his position and lambaste him as pig! How revolutionary of us! When in fact, Joe may only have been a security guard until he was able to get into the pipe-fitting union - he really wanted to be a plumber but they said he had to complete his training first and he needed extra money in the mean time to pay his bills for his kids and whatnot.

^ This is a totally viable and possible scenario. But by moralizing our political position we potentially alienate Joe because we are too busy being upset to see the big picture. This is the big picture: There is no revolutionary situation. There is no imminent revolution. We need a strategy - not bigotry.

[Ele'ill]

No doubt, but this is coming from Mari3L: class conscious leftist with developed politics. I respect your opinion and believe it to be correct, but Joe who lives down the block from me here in Oklahoma doesn't know what the fuck you are talking about. Joe just wants to get home from work and sit down with his family and watch TV, maybe swing by the Arby's on the way home to pick up a sandwich. Maybe they're heading to Sizzler later.

Joe wants to punch me in the face and choke hold me into a starry oblivion at work and then grab a bite to eat on his way home fuck Joe and fuck his position within society that causes harm to me.


And maybe Joe is a security guard. He's not trying to "protect private property," he's trying to get a paycheck. He's not trying to snitch on other workers either as though he hates them, he's trying to keep his job. In fact, he may like that other worker but he'll explain: shit man, I gotta keep my job...I don't give a fuck if security guards/cops think they are doing a good thing fuck them and fuck the left who uses this type of conversational approach to create a compromise. There is no compromise. Radicals should know better, which is what I was referring to in my post. When radicals suggest that they have to be a cop and do cop things they aren't doing it correctly.


While you and others in this thread are fundamentally correct about things, you talk as if everyone was already class conscious and radicalized when they aren't. And leftism isn't going to get anywhere if radicals spit in the face of their fellow workers (who they are supposed to represent in theory?) because those workers aren't as class conscious as they are.I will spit in the face of every cop on the planet however minor their job positions are made out to be. They are armed thugs protecting capital and they don't make up 'the working class'. That is extremely dishonest.

[Ele'ill]

I know but that's my point. Speculating that we should condemn security guards who stand beside existing class relations in a revolutionary situation is abstract moralism. There is no revolutionary situation. There is no reason to, in advance, hypothetically get upset at people for things they haven't done yet - and may not do. This is different for police/army/politicians/cappies because they occupy different political positions in relation to our current struggle. But it is not the case for security guards.


There doesn't need to be a 'revolutionary situation' for me to be harmed by the current society. That is why I am a radical because the current world is a painful place to be, because we are already under attack. Take two cops and rename one as part of a 'security force' and they're the same exact thing.

[Thirsty Crow]

I was basically saying that security guards are not organized counter-revolutionaries. They're just people working their job. They could be such, but they aren't by definition (unlike cops/army).



I mean that cops and army are defacto counter-revolutionary. Hence their working class aspect, i.e. the economic relationship between them and the means of production, is nullified by their political position. This is not the case for security guards.

It seems that you equate political position with the integration into the specific aspect, function of the modern state, that of repression. Which is a reasonable starting point. Then, we can ask what kind of an integration we're talking about, since after all it seems that we agree that there is some kind of an integration of workers(or better yet, of a section of the class dispossessed of the means of production, which may or may not sell their labour power for a wage - unemployment, for instance) into the vital parts of the state at play here. In other words, I'm asking here what kind of causes can be highlighted if we believe that only a handful of individuals are to be expected to desert to the side of the revolutionary working class.

This is clearly connected to what I stated earlier, that the modern state is by no means only about repression, but also about ideological conditioning of acceptance, or at least passivity. So, it seems to me that teachers, if we accept that the education system plays a role in this, are basically in the same position as cops. Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy, and counter-intuitive for revolutionaries. So, is there a difference of sorts between these two class positions within the modern state - ideological and repressive - and what is it based on?

And what of historical examples of army and navy mutinies, directed in a revolutionary direction? Should a significant distinguishing charcteristic be sought in the fact that those were conscript armies, and that contemporary professional armies due to a whole host of reasons present something else?




I know but that's my point. Speculating that we should condemn security guards who stand beside existing class relations in a revolutionary situation is abstract moralism. There is no revolutionary situation. There is no reason to, in advance, hypothetically get upset at people for things they haven't done yet - and may not do.

Okay, I get what you're driving at. But I'd say that this needn't be taken as astract moralism, but as a mere recognition of the possible contingencies of a revolutionary situation, and I'd hope that illuminating and preparing for such occurrences, with the aim of facilitating social revolution, is something that every person labeling themselves revolutionary wouldn't object to.



For example: Joe down the block here in Oklahoma may be a security guard. We, being such stout revolutionary comrades, decry his position and lambaste him as pig! How revolutionary of us! When in fact, Joe may only have been a security guard until he was able to get into the pipe-fitting union - he really wanted to be a plumber but they said he had to complete his training first and he needed extra money in the mean time to pay his bills for his kids and whatnot.


This is a totally viable and possible scenario. But by moralizing our political position we potentially alienate Joe because we are too busy being upset to see the big picture. This is the big picture: There is no revolutionary situation. There is no imminent revolution. We need a strategy - not bigotry.But the simple fact of the matter is that such a person would find themselves in a position where his needs put him in immediate and direct, physical event, opposition to workers in struggle (the instance of private security employed to discipline striking workers; I'd give you a link to a report on such occurrences but unfortunately all I can recall right now is related to events in the Balkans), so the question becomes much more complicated than your example might suggest.

[Ele'ill]

Did you ever close a shop? Did your responsibilities include setting the alarm?

no

[Ele'ill]

Some of us (in your eyes poor excuses for) revolutionaries have children to feed and rent to pay and cannot at the drop of a hat storm off any job for the slightest incursion on moral decency.

at least pretend to hate cops, that's what I'm asking



For some reason I seem to be at a loss as where to find these jobs that are so compliant with outright insubordination.

I specifically mentioned an example of an alternative to outright insubordination.




I say you should consider your self lucky to have found a job that such actions are acceptable to remain employed

The actions aren't acceptable.



and effect only yourself and do not equate to people dependant on you having an income living in a shelter.

this is a strawman, don't ever visit my life again




Are you reading a different craigslist than I am?

Why don't you just become a cop?

[Decolonize The Left]

Joe wants to punch me in the face and choke hold me into a starry oblivion at work and then grab a bite to eat on his way home fuck Joe and fuck his position within society that causes harm to me.

This could apply to anyone. John the physical therapist could want to do that - your point is moot. Joe the security guard may not want to harm you at all; you don't know. That's my point. You're the one making assumptions and in doing so alienating fellow workers who are just as oppressed as you under capital. Furthermore, you logic is faulty as it ends in infinite regress (see below).


I don't give a fuck if security guards/cops think they are doing a good thing fuck them and fuck the left who uses this type of conversational approach to create a compromise. There is no compromise. Radicals should know better, which is what I was referring to in my post. When radicals suggest that they have to be a cop and do cop things they aren't doing it correctly.

I'm don't understand. When did I ask for / try to create a compromise?


I will spit in the face of every cop on the planet however minor their job positions are made out to be. They are armed thugs protecting capital and they don't make up 'the working class'. That is extremely dishonest.

Your logic is bound for infinite regress. If security guards "protect capital," every worker who activates an alarm on their way out of work, asks someone to leave a workplace because they're creating a commotion, in fact - every worker at all times is a reactionary because all work under capitalism protects and furthers capital.

So you're going to spit in the face of the janitor because s/he locks up after s/he leaves. You're going to spit in the face of the illegal immigrant picking grapes in the vineyard because s/he allows the gate to be locked up behind them when they leave. You're going to spit in the face of yourself, whatever it is that you do or have done for a living, because in taking that wage and paycheck you furthered capital and protected it by passively existing within it.


There doesn't need to be a 'revolutionary situation' for me to be harmed by the current society. That is why I am a radical because the current world is a painful place to be, because we are already under attack. Take two cops and rename one as part of a 'security force' and they're the same exact thing.

I'm a radical for the exact same reasons.

Lemme ask you this: if a security guard at Walmart, say, approached you because you had a leftist shirt on and asked you about leftism because s/he was genuinely interested, would you spit in his/her face?

[Decolonize The Left]

It seems that you equate political position with the integration into the specific aspect, function of the modern state, that of repression. Which is a reasonable starting point. Then, we can ask what kind of an integration we're talking about, since after all it seems that we agree that there is some kind of an integration of workers(or better yet, of a section of the class dispossessed of the means of production, which may or may not sell their labour power for a wage - unemployment, for instance) into the vital parts of the state at play here. In other words, I'm asking here what kind of causes can be highlighted if we believe that only a handful of individuals are to be expected to desert to the side of the revolutionary working class.

This is clearly connected to what I stated earlier, that the modern state is by no means only about repression, but also about ideological conditioning of acceptance, or at least passivity. So, it seems to me that teachers, if we accept that the education system plays a role in this, are basically in the same position as cops. Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy, and counter-intuitive for revolutionaries. So, is there a difference of sorts between these two class positions within the modern state - ideological and repressive - and what is it based on?

And what of historical examples of army and navy mutinies, directed in a revolutionary direction? Should a significant distinguishing charcteristic be sought in the fact that those were conscript armies, and that contemporary professional armies due to a whole host of reasons present something else?

I'm interested in what you are saying here but confused by your terms. Could you reword this passage? I can see that we're talking about the political position of certain workers within capitalist society; that is, we're talking about how they facilitate and encourage the interests of capital via politics. Teachers do so ideologically and cops do so physically. I'm confused as to your use of "integration" and the first paragraph.



Okay, I get what you're driving at. But I'd say that this needn't be taken as astract moralism, but as a mere recognition of the possible contingencies of a revolutionary situation, and I'd hope that illuminating and preparing for such occurrences, with the aim of facilitating social revolution, is something that every person labeling themselves revolutionary wouldn't object to.

I object to it. There is no revolution. What are we "planning" for? There are no "contingencies" to be planned for now. The revolution is unknown to us; it will be enacted by people we probably don't know, may never know. The leaders of the revolution will rise from the real events in play at that time - they will not be us or anyone 'planning' now.

Rather than thinking about the revolution, we need to think about how to get there.



But the simple fact of the matter is that such a person would find themselves in a position where his needs put him in immediate and direct, physical event, opposition to workers in struggle (the instance of private security employed to discipline striking workers; I'd give you a link to a report on such occurrences but unfortunately all I can recall right now is related to events in the Balkans), so the question becomes much more complicated than your example might suggest.

It is up to the workers striking in that situation to raise the class consciousness of the security guard oppressing them: in that case there is a revolutionary scenario in play (a strike). But this cannot happen as a security guard walks around a mall and some random person comes up and tells him/her to go fuck themselves. There is no revolutionary scenario here, that is simply pointless and counter-productive.

[Ele'ill]

holy shit


This could apply to anyone. John the physical therapist could want to do that - your point is moot.

Does john the physical therapist keep me poor and work hand in hand with the police to do so? Is john part of a corporate police force? Private contracted police force?




Joe the security guard may not want to harm you at all;

'Hey, I don't want to see you get hurt but that is definitely an option.."


I'm don't understand. When did I ask for / try to create a compromise?

Someone who is willing to and rewarded for putting me into prison or killing me is not my fellow worker. If the logic here is that 'they are just a worker and non radical' then you are apologizing for the police as well.




Your logic is bound for infinite regress. If security guards "protect capital," every worker who activates an alarm on their way out of work,

Just fyi, I've had lots of jobs in both industrial warehouse and retail/service industry and not once have 'workers' been given the ability to set the alarm. That is entirely put upon the bosses to do. Or upon security.




asks someone to leave a workplace because they're creating a commotion

how about saying that you don't feel comfortable doing that?




, in fact - every worker at all times is a reactionary because all work under capitalism protects and furthers capital.

security and cops protect this status quo




So you're going to spit in the face of the janitor because s/he locks up after s/he leaves. You're going to spit in the face of the illegal immigrant picking grapes in the vineyard because s/he allows the gate to be locked up behind them when they leave. You're going to spit in the face of yourself, whatever it is that you do or have done for a living, because in taking that wage and paycheck you furthered capital and protected it by passively existing within it.

honestly I've never seen someone who wasn't a boss or security being handed the responsibility of 'locking up' and 'setting alarms' and if they do who cares they're not capable of the things security is




Lemme ask you this: if a security guard at Walmart, say, approached you because you had a leftist shirt on and asked you about leftism because s/he was genuinely interested, would you spit in his/her face?

I don't wear leftist shirts.

[Popular Front of Judea]

It's easy to have ideological certainty when you are devoid of facts. Look around you. Yes there are security guards at banks and stores. There are however also security guards at the welfare office and at non-profit hospitals. Are the security guards there enforcing the rule of capital?

The bottom tier of security agencies are functionally temp agencies. The two big qualifications are a minimum of literacy and the ability to stay on your feet for eight hours. You are given the minimum of training necessary -- much of it being in the CYA category -- and then sent out on an assignment. If you are being paid $11 an hour your responsibility is to observe and report, period. (And possibly drive cars out of the Emergency Room driveway.)

Why do I know this? During the depth of this last recession I briefly looked into it. The only businesses that were hiring were security agencies. I was looking at the prospect of having to move into one of the homeless tent cities we have here. (Not being a one of the many 20-something, middle class revolutionaries that you will find here, I didn't have my old room to move back into as an option.) As it turned out I didn't take the job. But it was close. So do you want to spit in my face for even contemplating doing such work?

[Ann Egg]

i love the guy in this thread who is like 'yeah i punch workers because the bosses tell me to, but its okay because i angst about it afterwards'. nice.

acab

[Popular Front of Judea]

Bullshit. I have worked the evening shift at a community center and recently a small hardware store. In both cases I was an hourly employee and in both cases I had the responsibility of setting the alarm when closing.

Don't generalize.


ust fyi, I've had lots of jobs in both industrial warehouse and retail/service industry and not once have 'workers' been given the ability to set the alarm. That is entirely put upon the bosses to do. Or upon security.

[Popular Front of Judea]

So give us the relevant quote. If you can.


i love the guy in this thread who is like 'yeah i punch workers because the bosses tell me to, but its okay because i angst about it afterwards'. nice.

acab

[Ann Egg]

this Is what I meant:

Im a bouncer myself so this is something I gave a lot of thought, its a difficult thing, I enforce rules but its rules on private property, when people enter by buying a ticket they agree to abide by those rules and if they break them they know the consequences. In general its just getting bounced with maybe a venue ban but in some cases it ends in arrest, for example in cases of (sexual) assault or harddrug dealing.
when I started I felt really shitty but one of the guys I once got arrested himself said it was the "contractual" answer to him trying to punch me. If I'd punched back I would have lost my job and maybe could have maimed or killed him. He tried to punch someone doing their job while knowing the consequences but taking the risk. He said that if I was working the registry and he tried to rob me no one would complain if I called the cops either.
So while I ofcourse let more shit slide than colleagues sometimes I cant do anything else. Which I would never think about when voluntarily bouncing political places.
Luckily most of my work is first-aid, catching crowdsurfers etc etc.
But its certainly why I want to quit as soon as I can.
By the moderator Psycho.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

As regards the difference between cops, teachers, or, really, any part of the working class as such (ie, the working class producing capital, as opposed to the working class abolishing capital) is in the specificity of their activity, and the strategic question of how that activity is abolished. Historically, teachers don't show up in riot gear to put down strikes. The ground on which we confront teachers is different. Security guards need to be approached similarly - how do we create a situation where security guards cease to do their job? As has been suggested by many throughout the thread, it varies. The 5'2" kid at Canadian Tire to stand by the door holding a maglite probably isn't going to put his ass on the line. Blackwater commando-wannabes almost definitely will.

[Red_Banner]

Even in socialist society there are people assigned to guard things.

[Decolonize The Left]

Does john the physical therapist keep me poor and work hand in hand with the police to do so? Is john part of a corporate police force? Private contracted police force?

The security guard at the mall isn't keeping you poor yo. That dude may be poorer than you are for all you know. Honestly. And many people work hand in hand with police: restaurants can call the police, shit, anyone can call the police. Now you're saying that anyone who calls the police for whatever reason is a reactionary?



Someone who is willing to and rewarded for putting me into prison or killing me is not my fellow worker. If the logic here is that 'they are just a worker and non radical' then you are apologizing for the police as well.

Like 95% of the population in the US is a worker and non-radical. I'm not apologizing for anything - at all. I'm not even defending anything.

I'm saying that your willingness to blame non-radical people for their lack of class consciousness is absurd.



Just fyi, I've had lots of jobs in both industrial warehouse and retail/service industry and not once have 'workers' been given the ability to set the alarm. That is entirely put upon the bosses to do. Or upon security.

So you are speaking from a very limited position of experience then.


how about saying that you don't feel comfortable doing that?

Fair enough. Then you might lose your job as you are "failing to perform the responsibilities you signed up for." At some point workers have to make the difficult decisions and you can't blame them for not having class consciousness.



honestly I've never seen someone who wasn't a boss or security being handed the responsibility of 'locking up' and 'setting alarms' and if they do who cares they're not capable of the things security is

Yeah but that isn't your argument. Your argument is that protecting capital = pig. So anyone who sets an alarm is a pig because they are acting to protect capital. Like I said, your logic is bound for infinite regress.


I don't wear leftist shirts.

I had a feeling you might say that. I don't wear leftist shirts either but regardless, you sidestepped my question:
Lemme ask you this: if a security guard at Walmart, say, approached you because you had a leftist shirt on and asked you about leftism because s/he was genuinely interested, would you spit in his/her face?

[Sasha]

this Is what I meant:

By the moderator Psycho.

I don't punch them, that was my point, if I wouldnt call the cops sometimes I would have no other options than to beat the living crap out of people who (sexually) assault my co-workers and people coming to see a show or enjoy a party, most "normal" ppl rather spend the night in jail and get a non-record fine for public intoxication than get smacked into an ambulance, how are you going keep a nice atmosphere if you host 2200 ppl on drugs and alcohol without house rules and people who enforce those rules?
I'm legally allowed to do less in terms of using force or arrest people with my security licence than I was without it, since I'm trained "excessive self-defense" laws don't apply anymore to me.
Honest question, say you are at this really nice communist party (party) and you have to reject this one ashole who ruins everyones party. You use some moderate force to put him outside but he keeps coming back to try and break down the door and even starts to assault your friends still arriving to the party. What are you going to do? If you go outside to sort him out what will happen? How are you going to get him to stop without either tying him up or knocking him out? Even throwing a bucket of water on him can get you yourself arrested if he presses charges, and besides it will hardly ever work. What are you going to do?
It's a nice ivory tower you have there but when it comes to it you will pinch your nose and come running to people like me like you always do. And then you will go back in back to your party and leave me with the problem without thinking, out of sight out of mind...

Anyways, I don't know why engage a stupid obvious sockpuppet who is only here to troll anyway, enjoy your run while it lasts...

[blake 3:17]

i love the guy in this thread who is like 'yeah i punch workers because the bosses tell me to, but its okay because i angst about it afterwards'. nice.

acab

might instant reaction is a very rude comment

This conversation is getting all loopy. We should be focussing on the real frigging strike breaker scum bags. Folks like paladinsecurity.com/about-us/industries-we-serve or http://www.g4s.us/en-US/ or http://www.boeing.com/boeing/bds/a_to_z.page? or http://www.taser.com/ This isn't about workers -- it's about corporations.

However, in my job I do get placed as the policer, -- and don't dare start with ableist or more feminist than thou garbage -- because most of people I work with are much smaller women. When shit is going down, like knife fights or people shooting off fireworks, pulling guns, guess who deals with it? I do. Cuz I can scare shit out of jerk offs doing that stuff. You think I want to get cut? Get burnt? Or eat a slug? No effin way. But I work with people who need protection, and I'd rather take the hit than one of the folks I look after.

I see a big difference here in terms of maturity. Ethics is easy when you don't have to make a choice.

[blake 3:17]

It's a nice ivory tower you have there but when it comes to it you will pinch your nose and come running to people like me like you always do. And then you will go back in back to your party and leave me with the problem without thinking, out of sight out of mind...

Exactly. Word up. Great to have luxuries and not have to be the 'asshole'.

Haven't been in exactly your position that often, but when some creeps are doing homophobic crap or acting pig in other ways, and they need a move on, without violence, without an ugly fight, I've been there.

Few years ago was coming from work and some professional design people started making fun of the bus driver and how easy his job was. Coulda smacked em. What I should have said is 'Get off and walk'.

No respect for working people.

[synthesis]

It's a nice ivory tower you have there but when it comes to it you will pinch your nose and come running to people like me like you always do. And then you will go back in back to your party and leave me with the problem without thinking, out of sight out of mind...

This is literally the exact same thing the cops say whenever anybody criticizes them. "You namby-pamby do-gooders can take the high road all you want when it comes to (let's say) shooting unarmed people in the face, but when you come home to a serial killer in your house, you're gonna wish we were there to help you."

I also have to say that I find the constant reference to "sexual assault" and violence against women in this thread to be disingenuous. I think it's implicitly based on an appeal to "chivalry" - of course sexual assault is an awful thing, so is misogyny, but you also shouldn't use those things as an appeal to emotion so as to justify your argument.

I remember we had a guy (S. Artesian, I believe) who, when called out on being a "boss" (not an owner - I think he was a high-level manager of a railroad company) justified it by saying that the only time he ever fired anyone was when someone sexually assaulted a co-worker.

Of course that was the right thing to do, but simply occupying that position in the first place is a real barrier to genuine class politics, and using an occurrence of sexual assault to avoid coming to terms with one's class position is distasteful at best.

(To be clear, I agree with whoever said that security guards can be divided into two groups, basically those who consciously defend the bourgeois state -and are paid more for it - and those without class consciousness at all. The latter can be redeemed, the former cannot. I'm just trying to point out instances where I see people defending the security guard as a profession but completely missing the point of the criticism.)

[blake 3:17]

This is literally the exact same thing the cops say whenever anybody criticizes them. "You namby-pamby do-gooders can take the high road all you want when it comes to (let's say) shooting unarmed people in the face, but when you come home to a serial killer in your house, you're gonna wish we were there to help you."

I also have to say that I find the constant reference to "sexual assault" and violence against women in this thread to be disingenuous. I think it's implicitly based on an appeal to "chivalry" - of course sexual assault is an awful thing, so is misogyny, but you also shouldn't use those things as an appeal to emotion so as to justify your argument.

I remember we had a guy (S. Artesian, I believe) who, when called out on being a "boss" (not an owner - I think he was a high-level manager of a railroad company) justified it by saying that the only time he ever fired anyone was when someone sexually assaulted a co-worker.

Of course that was the right thing to do, but simply occupying that position in the first place is a real barrier to genuine class politics, and using an occurrence of sexual assault to avoid coming to terms with one's class position is distasteful at best.

(To be clear, I agree with whoever said that security guards can be divided into two groups, basically those who consciously defend the bourgeois state -and are paid more for it - and those without class consciousness at all. The latter can be redeemed, the former cannot. I'm just trying to point out instances where I see people defending the security guard as a profession but completely missing the point of the criticism.)

More nonsense (with a teensy bit of sense) -- what you don't want serial killers caught? Or am I 'namby-pamby' because I think rapists or violent people should be dealt with? Am I a cop lover because a Nazi who swung a baseball bat at me went to jail?

And I don't know what you're referring to a bout S Artesian, but yes, there is stratification in the work place. It's garbage to say it's not there.

I've been in left groups where people with loads of money and property, were able to make themselves into humble proletarians for show purposes, and people not even scraping by, were being put into the same class position within the group. "We're all workers!" Just some of us have secure jobs, houses, pensions, cars, investments, and the rest of us are a few steps away from homelessness.

Get off it.

[synthesis]

More nonsense (with a teensy bit of sense) -- what you don't want serial killers caught? Or am I 'namby-pamby' because I think rapists or violent people should be dealt with? Am I a cop lover because a Nazi who swung a baseball bat at me went to jail?

Right, because it's completely reasonable to think that I'm pro-serial killer, pro-rapist, and pro-Nazi because I'm criticizing the material basis of someone's rhetoric. I don't even know where to begin here. For starters, you could address the actual content of the post rather than your caricature of the person who posted it.

[Sasha]

I use the phrase "(sexual) assault" because that's, with the occasional hardcore drug dealing (possesion will only get you bounced), are about the only things ppl in my line of work get arrested for. We maybe have a pickpocketter once a year, gropers we have every weekend, even 9 out of 10 fights between blokes start with one of them harrassing the female friends of the other.

[Popular Front of Judea]

So what is the content of the post? Please give us the 'tl;dr' summation. Keep in mind that no one here is police or other wise connected to law enforcement, nor is anyone in a managerial position.


Right, because it's completely reasonable to think that I'm pro-serial killer, pro-rapist, and pro-Nazi because I'm criticizing the material basis of someone's rhetoric. I don't even know where to begin here. For starters, you could address the actual content of the post rather than your caricature of the person who posted it.

[synthesis]

So what is the content of the post? Please give us the 'tl;dr' summation. Keep in mind that no one here is police or other wise connected to law enforcement, nor is anyone in a managerial position.

I don't really feel that it's necessary to summarize the post for you; it's right there for you to reread. I just don't think it's too much to ask that if you do respond to it, you actually address something I said instead of some hilariously absurd straw man about serial killers and Nazis.

(I might say that the underlying theme of that post, which I admit was somewhat rambling, is that some of you are using some really ridiculous rhetorical devices in your attempts to suppress criticism of the people who enforce the laws of private property.)

Blake 3:17 - if anything you said in your response is a valid argument against criticizing the profession of the security guard, then if you are intellectually honest, you must also admit that they are valid arguments against criticizing the institution of the police. Literally every sentence of your post could be just as fairly applied to some notion that cops under capitalism are proletarian.

[blake 3:17]

Whatever. I could say you're a homophobic sexist creep for using the term 'namby pamby'. I'm not saying that. It could be read that way. I got to go to work.

[synthesis]

I use the phrase "(sexual) assault" because that's, with the occasional hardcore drug dealing (possesion will only get you bounced), are about the only things ppl in my line of work get arrested for. We maybe have a pickpocketter once a year, gropers we have every weekend, even 9 out of 10 fights between blokes start with one of them harrassing the female friends of the other.

You are there to remind people that if they don't follow the rules of that business establishment then they will suffer consequences. You're an enforcer of private property, albeit a much less drastic one than a cop, and talking about which rules get broken and which consequences people will suffer is not only tangential to the substance of the criticism, but it is also, consciously or not, the same diversionary tactic that is used to dismiss criticism of the police.

[synthesis]

Whatever. I could say you're a homophobic sexist creep for using the term 'namby pamby'. I'm not saying that. It could be read that way. I got to go to work.

Are you serious? That was my characterization of psycho's assertion that "when it comes [down] to it you will pinch your nose and come running to people like me like you always do." It is literally the exact same language that is used to dismiss criticism of the police.

The subtext of it is that everyone besides the person who is enforcing the rules is incapable of defending themselves. If you see homophobia and sexism in that, then address it to the people making the arguments that I am characterizing.

[#FF0000]

Security forces employed by the state to protect private interests = bad.

Security forces employed directly by private interests to protect private interests = workers

hahah get the fuck out.

[synthesis]

Security forces employed by the state to protect private interests = bad.

Security forces employed directly by private interests to protect private interests = workers

hahah get the fuck out.

This is very well put, but I'd just add two things. One is that some people in this thread also defend cops as somehow "working class," without regard for their personal investment in enforcing private property, and see this subject as a continuation of that same argument. This is obviously completely wrong and reactionary but at least some of them are consistent.

The other thing: I'd say that relative to cops, a significant portion of security guards are just precarians without a sense of class consciousness; to a certain extent this is because the term "security guard" is being used as an umbrella term for a variety of different positions.

I'm sure there is a broader analysis to be made here, but on the micro level, being a cop is seen as a lifetime career choice, where you get a yearly salary, a pension, health insurance and tons of other perks. There are plenty of security guards who also enjoy these benefits, of course, but a guy who's trying to feed his family by getting paid $10 to watch a construction site overnight isn't going to see it as a long-term plan, and is therefore much less likely to be personally invested in being an enforcer for private property.

[#FF0000]

There are a lot of security guards out there who are in full-on human strike mode and will do only the bare minimum when it comes to defending anything. that's fine and good but anyone who is a security guard and is acting as a security guard to the extent expected of them by their employer is the enemy of working people.

[Popular Front of Judea]

You mean like this?: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-6197753-504083.html

BTW: The transit agency finally paid for security guards that are trained to intervene. Securitas security guards earning $18 an hour.


There are a lot of security guards out there who are in full-on human strike mode and will do only the bare minimum when it comes to defending anything. that's fine and good but anyone who is a security guard and is acting as a security guard to the extent expected of them by their employer is the enemy of working people.

[synthesis]

I remember back in 2006, a friend and roommate of mine (there were 10-12 of us who called the apartment ours and paid a portion of the rent, usually 6-8 at any one time) had gotten hired as a security guard at a construction site and was getting paid a little over minimum wage.

When he got back from his first night on the job, he was accompanied by a middle-aged crack addict he had found wandering around the site. My friend wound up bringing him back to the apartment so the guy could smoke his crack in peace and take a shower and a shit and so on. This was around 4 in the morning; around 6 the guy started coming down from his high, so he locked himself in the bathroom and started crying inconsolably for at least two hours. It got super depressing really quickly, but I did give him some weed to smoke on his way out.

Anyway, my friend only worked there for another couple weeks before he found himself another job. This is just an anecdote reflecting the argument that a significant portion of security guards are of the precariat and will remain that way which in turn influences the degree to which they're personally invested in protecting private property.

[#FF0000]

You mean like this?: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-6197753-504083.html

Not exactly because they watch over empty buildings and lots and don't have to deal with people.

Further, one doesn't have to be a security guard or a cop to intervene in something like this, so your insinuation that we need them to protect people is very strange to me.


BTW: The transit agency finally paid for security guards that are trained to intervene. Securitas security guards earning $18 an hour.

That's cool. It's not like transit authorities have ever brutalized anyone.

[synthesis]

You mean like this?: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-6197753-504083.html

This just reflects the fact that the guards implicitly recognize that they are paid to protect private property, not the welfare of the people in their community.

[Popular Front of Judea]

No it reflects that they were given no training, no mandate beyond observe and report -- and paid $11 an hour.

So again what is your solution?


This just reflects the fact that the guards implicitly recognize that they are paid to protect private property, not the welfare of the people in their community.

[Popular Front of Judea]

What you have in ideological certainty is matched by your clear lack of common sense.

So what is your solution? Besides "Doing away with the conditions which engender crime".


Not exactly because they watch over empty buildings and lots and don't have to deal with people.

Further, one doesn't have to be a security guard or a cop to intervene in something like this, so your insinuation that we need them to protect people is very strange to me.



That's cool. It's not like transit authorities have ever brutalized anyone.

[#FF0000]

So what is your solution? Besides "Doing away with the conditions which engender crime".

What is yours, and what is wrong with the solution I gave you?

[Popular Front of Judea]

Come the revolution and the 'DOTP' we will get right on that. It's at the top of the to-do list.


What is yours, and what is wrong with the solution I gave you?

[#FF0000]

Come the revolution and the 'DOTP' we will get right on that. It's at the top of the to-do list.

Cool.

What is your solution, though?

Because it would seem to me that the problem you see here is that security guards aren't as well paid as cops, or something. I remember the issue of a cop's pay came up in the other thread about the crypto-fascist constable, too.

[Popular Front of Judea]

I see what you are doing there. You don't quit do you?

Don't let me get in the way of your revolutionary role playing. Carry on.


Cool.

What is your solution, though?

Because it would seem to me that the problem you see here is that security guards aren't as well paid as cops, or something. I remember the issue of a cop's pay came up in the other thread about the crypto-fascist constable, too.

[#FF0000]

I see what you are doing there. You don't quit do you?

Don't let me get in the way of your revolutionary role playing. Carry on.

Yo, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or anything. I'm probing here to try and get you to state clearly what your position is regarding cops and security guards.

[Sasha]

And this will probably only make people call me a cop (apologist) more but I hear almost daily people being happy with us and saying "someone needs to do it and better you than the alternative", also we every year win the national public awards for friendliest bouncers and we have almost half the arrests than the other main concert venue in town even though we can fit more people and program more high risk music (less indypop, way more hiphop, dancehall, hard techno etc etc).
Fact is that to become a bouncer at my work you really don't want to become a bouncer.
But even than the work gets to you, one day someone will give you shit just one time too many, thats why if you do this work you shouldn't do it for to long.
Not every bouncer is a cop, but every bouncer does run the risk of becoming one though.

[BIXX]

Not every bouncer is a cop, but every bouncer does run the risk of becoming one though.

That was the most depressing sentence ever.

As a side note, I think you can't generalize security guards or bouncers the way you can with the cops.

[synthesis]

And this will probably only make people call me a cop (apologist)

I think at this point it is important to clarify that I didn't call you a cop or even a cop apologist, nor do I think you are either one of those. I said that you are using the exact same language to dismiss the criticism of your profession that the cops do.

[synthesis]

No it reflects that they were given no training, no mandate beyond observe and report -- and paid $11 an hour.

So again what is your solution?
What you have in ideological certainty is matched by your clear lack of common sense.

So what is your solution? Besides "Doing away with the conditions which engender crime".

Come the revolution and the 'DOTP' we will get right on that. It's at the top of the to-do list.

I see what you are doing there. You don't quit do you?

Don't let me get in the way of your revolutionary role playing. Carry on.

IKR? Silly revolutionary politics and their implications that the real solution to social problems can only be revolution.

[Ele'ill]

The security guard at the mall isn't keeping you poor yo.

Neither is cop #3567 somewhere in Iowa but systemically they contribute to the defense of a system that keeps me poor.


That dude may be poorer than you are for all you know. Honestly.yo maybe some cops are too, honestly (I mean i'm pretty poor but you never know (who gives a fuck))


And many people work hand in hand with police: restaurants can call the police, shit, anyone can call the police. Now you're saying that anyone who calls the police for whatever reason is a reactionary?I'm saying people who are an extension of the police are reactionary. Radicals who support them and their organization are supporting an extension of the police, the courts, the prisons. I don't think these radicals are radical because they are supporting a force that incarcerates and murders us for trying to live.

And yeah I think that radicals being so willing to call the police and just flippantly backing those who do call the police is sketch



Like 95% of the population in the US is a worker and non-radical. I'm not apologizing for anything - at all. I'm not even defending anything.

I'm saying that your willingness to blame non-radical people for their lack of class consciousness is absurd.

I am blaming radicals for supporting security forces and the police. I am saying that non-radical cops and their wannabe minions should not be apologized for.




So you are speaking from a very limited position of experience then.

What?




Fair enough. Then you might lose your job as you are "failing to perform the responsibilities you signed up for." At some point workers have to make the difficult decisions and you can't blame them for not having class consciousness.

Maybe but I guess it's better than regularly sending people to prison. If not, why don't radicals just become cops and do cop things and support that? Why not support prisons too?






Yeah but that isn't your argument. Your argument is that protecting capital = pig. So anyone who sets an alarm is a pig because they are acting to protect capital. Like I said, your logic is bound for infinite regress.

No, of course we all have minor tasks that deal with capital, I think setting an alarm is different than exerting your entire being into a position to stalk other humans and either hurt them yourself, call the cops to hurt or kill them and send them to prison, for capital.




I had a feeling you might say that. I don't wear leftist shirts either but regardless, you sidestepped my question:
Lemme ask you this: if a security guard at Walmart, say, approached you because you had a leftist shirt on and asked you about leftism because s/he was genuinely interested, would you spit in his/her face?

It is a shitty hypothetical but if I was suddenly 'in a conversation with a security person who was interested in my opinion' I would probably address it as I am here and in other threads since this forum has such a sprouting cluster of cop apologists.

[Ele'ill]

I honestly find a lot of the positions in this thread fucking disgusting

There are a lot of reactionary non-class conscious workers, workers/non-workers with terrible tendencies etc.., that doesn't mean I let them fuck me down to their level and support them.

[Glitchcraft]

Your logic is bound for infinite regress. If security guards "protect capital," every worker who activates an alarm on their way out of work, asks someone to leave a workplace because they're creating a commotion, in fact - every worker at all times is a reactionary because all work under capitalism protects and furthers capital.


What is so hard to understand here. The security guard works for a company that at any point will have him escorting scabs past picket lines or blocking Katrina victims from acquiring water or food. This abstract non-sense that just because you can semantically define retail workers or whomever as employed to protect property (and therefore security guards are not pigs because we all would be) is ludicrous.
The security officer has almost the exact same function as a cop. It doesn't matter if they are friendly or don't oppress you personally. It doesn't matter where in particular they are posted. For fucks sake they wear badges and carry guns.

Security guards are extensions of state power. trying to equate absolutely anyone who has any job responsibility to protect the bosses property in the name of defending them is intellectually dishonest. It's semantic babel.

[Decolonize The Left]

What is so hard to understand here. The security guard works for a company that at any point will have him escorting scabs past picket lines or blocking Katrina victims from acquiring water or food. This abstract non-sense that just because you can semantically define retail workers or whomever as employed to protect property (and therefore security guards are not pigs because we all would be) is ludicrous.
The security officer has almost the exact same function as a cop. It doesn't matter if they are friendly or don't oppress you personally. It doesn't matter where in particular they are posted. For fucks sake they wear badges and carry guns.

Security guards are extensions of state power. trying to equate absolutely anyone who has any job responsibility to protect the bosses property in the name of defending them is intellectually dishonest. It's semantic babel.

I understand your objections, but you miss my entire point.

There is a logic at play here which is faulty. You yourself engage in it:

Security guards are extensions of state power.
Teachers are extensions of state power (you can't argue against this; they administrate and indoctrinate the power of the state into every child under their care - they are, perhaps, more "to blame" according to this logic than security guards are). Are you going to spit in every teacher's face? Of course not. It is the faulty logic which I am taking to task and I believe I am justified in doing so. I did not put this logic in play, other people did. So I am not to blame for making totally reasonable arguments using the logic which is in this debate.

I get it that many security guards are reactionary fucks. I'm not saying we need to support any security guards at all. See my response to Mari3L for more info.

[Decolonize The Left]

Neither is cop #3567 somewhere in Iowa but systemically they contribute to the defense of a system that keeps me poor.

Anyone who pays taxes contributes to the system that keeps you poor. Every single working-class person who has a pension or any retirement fund of any sort contributes to the system which keeps you poor. You contribute to that system yourself every time you go to work and are exploited.

There is no space in the system for not contributing to the system. To escape the system you must live "off the grid" in some form or another. I don't think you are advocating this so if you aren't then you must realize the futility of fighting against "the system" at every turn. We must advance strategically - this is my overall point - as a class.


I'm saying people who are an extension of the police are reactionary. Radicals who support them and their organization are supporting an extension of the police, the courts, the prisons. I don't think these radicals are radical because they are supporting a force that incarcerates and murders us for trying to live.

I don't support security guards at all. I do support the working class, as a class, in their interest which is also my own. Security guards fall within this class. Politics have nothing to do with this - at least, they don't to me. They seem to have a lot to do with this for you and others.


I am blaming radicals for supporting security forces and the police. I am saying that non-radical cops and their wannabe minions should not be apologized for.

I think that you miss my point, and I sincerely apologize for the length of our debate - it is my fault as I am developing these ideas as we discuss this. My point is as follows:
- There is the notion of radicals "apologizing for cops/security guards/pigs/whatever."
- There is the fact that working class people often end up working against their class interest.

I am saying that, using your logic, you do not allow for the latter fact to be spoken. And I'm also saying that by speaking this fact I am not "apologizing" for shit. I am stating the facts of our economic condition and not getting upset because people get put in totally fucked positions all the time.


No, of course we all have minor tasks that deal with capital, I think setting an alarm is different than exerting your entire being into a position to stalk other humans and either hurt them yourself, call the cops to hurt or kill them and send them to prison, for capital.

From a radical perspective, this is true. But from a non-radical, that is the majority of the non-class conscious workers of the world, it's all the same.


It is a shitty hypothetical but if I was suddenly 'in a conversation with a security person who was interested in my opinion' I would probably address it as I am here and in other threads since this forum has such a sprouting cluster of cop apologists.

It's not a shitty hypothetical. It proves my entire point: you will not spit in the face of the security guard who expresses interest in radical politics, hence you break your own rule of spitting in the face of every security guard. It proves that your rule is not based in sound logic but based in abstract moralism about who is not "radical" enough for you to hate.

Again, I apologize for the taxing nature of this discussion. Really, I do. I re-read this earlier and realized that I was getting caught up in the back-and-forth nature of this forum and hadn't said what I needed to say. I believe that I've said it now so if you want to leave it at this I understand.

I believe that I understand what you're saying: you have a no-tolerance policy for police, security guards, or any other repressive tool of the state. I think that in many ways this is a solid set of practical politics, but I think that the logic behind it is faulty and will inevitably undermine the position itself. I think that the best position is one of strategic advance: no-tolerance in radical situations (strikes, etc...) but acceptance that we are dealing with material conditions and not abstract moralism on the individual basis.

I hope that makes sense.

[4MyNation]

Security guards are filth and scum. I can't sympathise with such dregs, disgusting cop-rejects and propertarian guardians.

What if you were at Wal-Mart about to be mugged and a security guard saved you?

[synthesis]

I believe that I understand what you're saying: you have a no-tolerance policy for police, security guards, or any other repressive tool of the state. I think that in many ways this is a solid set of practical politics, but I think that the logic behind it is faulty and will inevitably undermine the position itself. I think that the best position is one of strategic advance: no-tolerance in radical situations (strikes, etc...) but acceptance that we are dealing with material conditions and not abstract moralism on the individual basis.

I don't think it hurts to have an understanding of how people who might be considered "working class," by some vulgarization of Marxism, are personally invested in defending the system of private property against those who might damage it. (Teachers do not intrinsically fall into that category.) Their mere presence and existence as a profession serves this purpose. I don't think anyone denies that security guards are probably not as invested in the system as cops, but to deny their investment entirely is to completely lose sight of class politics in the real world.

[synthesis]

What if you were at Wal-Mart about to be mugged and a security guard saved you?

Why do you assume that everyone needs a security guard to save them in that situation?

[#FF0000]

What if you were at Wal-Mart about to be mugged and a security guard saved you?

That doesn't change the role of security guards and police officers in capitalist society.

[4MyNation]

Why do you assume that everyone needs a security guard to save them in that situation?

Perhaps the person being mugged is disabled or an elderly woman, as opposed to the robber who can be more agile and perhaps armed.

[Glitchcraft]

I understand your objections, but you miss my entire point.

There is a logic at play here which is faulty. You yourself engage in it:

Teachers are extensions of state power (you can't argue against this; they administrate and indoctrinate the power of the state into every child under their care - they are, perhaps, more "to blame" according to this logic than security guards are). Are you going to spit in every teacher's face? Of course not. It is the faulty logic which I am taking to task and I believe I am justified in doing so. I did not put this logic in play, other people did. So I am not to blame for making totally reasonable arguments using the logic which is in this debate.

I get it that many security guards are reactionary fucks. I'm not saying we need to support any security guards at all. See my response to Mari3L for more info.



I understand what you are saying but I disagree.



Teachers are extensions of state power (you can't argue against this;.

Here argue with Marx
"The state is the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule"

"The machinery of violence that the bourgeoisie has selected, trained and appointed for the purpose of hoodwinking and crushing the workers "

If one of the goals of revolution is to destroy the state at what point are we destroying teachers.



I mean, if we're really going to be honest about a communist revolution: politics don't matter. We're talking about class interest, not whether or not pigs or security guards defend capital.

Yes it's true the politics of an individual pig doesn't matter, what matters though is their role in capitalist society.



I'm not saying you need to be buddy buddy with anyone. I am saying that outright declaring that a whole group of people are reactionary fucks when you haven't met more than 3 of them is bullshit - especially when they are working class people. Your class. At least, I thought it was your class.

Again the individual politics or the fact that they sell their labor power does not define their role in society and that is what matters. Their material interests are in defending the ruling class interests. What I have seen repeatedly discussed here is that cops or security are reactionaries or they are working class or they can be nice or mean, none of that matters. What does matter is their function. And I am "outright saying" that their role (their job itself) is a reactionary job.

And most of them are reactionary fucks, I assure you I have met far more than 3 of them. I've never met these happy to save you cops some people seem to think exist.

[synthesis]

Perhaps the person being mugged is disabled or an elderly woman, as opposed to the robber who can be more agile and perhaps armed.

Right, but why do they need a security guard to save them in that situation?

Partially because of this kind of rhetoric, people see that kind of thing and think, "Well, it's not my job to intervene here." This means that if the security guard happens to be somewhere else, that little old lady is fucked.

[Decolonize The Left]

I don't think it hurts to have an understanding of how people who might be considered "working class," by some vulgarization of Marxism, are personally invested in defending the system of private property against those who might damage it. (Teachers do not intrinsically fall into that category.) Their mere presence and existence as a profession serves this purpose. I don't think anyone denies that security guards are probably not as invested in the system as cops, but to deny their investment entirely is to completely lose sight of class politics in the real world.

I have never denied their investment in the system. My point is that the logic is faulty for two reasons:
1) The individual people in question are not generally class conscious. We are holding them to a standard which they do not fill and then blaming them for not meeting that standard. Note: No one has addressed this issue in this thread.
2) The notion that they are "personally invested in defending the system of private property against those who might damage it" is applicable to an absurd amount of people in this world. The logic is so slippery that yes, teachers are just as reprehensible if not more - they condition the people that then become security guards!

[Decolonize The Left]

I understand what you are saying but I disagree.

Here argue with Marx
"The state is the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule"

"The machinery of violence that the bourgeoisie has selected, trained and appointed for the purpose of hoodwinking and crushing the workers "

If one of the goals of revolution is to destroy the state at what point are we destroying teachers.

Yes it's true the politics of an individual pig doesn't matter, what matters though is their role in capitalist society.

Yes. And as I just responded to synthesis, the logic in play here indicates that a remarkable amount of people are reactionaries simply because they take for granted the capitalist mantra that private property is unassailable. Your quotes above only support my argument: teachers are now reactionaries; all of them.


the fact that they sell their labor power does not define their role in society

Yes. It does. At least, that's what defines their role in society to leftists. Our role is fundamentally that of a laborer: am I missing something here?


Their material interests are in defending the ruling class interests. What I have seen repeatedly discussed here is that cops or security are reactionaries or they are working class or they can be nice or mean, none of that matters. What does matter is their function. And I am "outright saying" that their role (their job itself) is a reactionary job.

Then saddle up and follow your logic all the way through. Consider every single person who "defends ruling class interests" in any way, shape, or form. Here's a happy list of reactionaries, according to you:
- Prisoners (that's right. In there working for the ruling class.)
- Teachers
- Every single religious person
- Anyone who donates to non-revolutionary charities
- Slaves were reactionaries (!) in your logic.
- Anyone who pays taxes (lol.)

We need to remember that capitalism has ensconced private property as unassailable. Every single person born in the capitalist world is conditioned from birth to believe this. This doesn't make everyone a reactionary: all of us believed this at some point. As I said to synthesis:

My point is that the logic is faulty for two reasons:
1) The individual people in question are not generally class conscious. We are holding them to a standard which they do not fill and then blaming them for not meeting that standard. Note: No one has addressed this issue in this thread.
2) The notion that they are "personally invested in defending the system of private property against those who might damage it" is applicable to an absurd amount of people in this world. The logic is so slippery that yes, teachers are just as reprehensible if not more - they condition the people that then become security guards!

Again, I'm not saying we ought to support security guards. I'm not even defending security guards. My position:

I think that the best position is one of strategic advance: no-tolerance in radical situations (strikes, etc...) but acceptance that we are dealing with material conditions and not abstract moralism on the individual basis.

[synthesis]

I have never denied their investment in the system. My point is that the logic is faulty for two reasons:
1) The individual people in question are not generally class conscious. We are holding them to a standard which they do not fill and then blaming them for not meeting that standard. Note: No one has addressed this issue in this thread.
2) The notion that they are "personally invested in defending the system of private property against those who might damage it" is applicable to an absurd amount of people in this world. The logic is so slippery that yes, teachers are just as reprehensible if not more - they condition the people that then become security guards!

To be blunt, the reason no one has addressed those issues is because they are non-issues. If you think that teachers or whoever else are inherently and particularly reactionary, in that the profession itself demands that they actively and physically protect private property, then start a thread about that.

Bringing it up here isn't "logical," it's just pedantic. I'm not trying to be aggressive, I just think you're missing the point in that you're framing the criticism as moralistic rather than as a function of class analysis. The argument is not that the profession attracts "bad people," although to a certain extent that's obviously true.

[Sasha]

To be blunt, the reason no one has addressed those issues is because they are non-issues. If you think that teachers or whoever else are inherently and particularly reactionary, in that the profession itself demands that they actively and physically protect private property, then start a thread about that.

Bringing it up here isn't "logical," it's just pedantic. I'm not trying to be aggressive, I just think you're missing the point in that you're framing the criticism as moralistic rather than as a function of class analysis. The argument is not that the profession attracts "bad people," although to a certain extent that's obviously true.

Obviously security like securycore and g4s are just privatised cops, I do think august and this whole thread raises an important point, unless you drop out of society there is no way to keep an ideallogical pure life, this is not a post revolutionary world, if you object 100% to security you object also to bouncers and museum guards, if you object 100% against cops you als object to SVU cops working rape cases, and if you object to that why not against theachers, etc etc. Where do you draw the line?
If you refuse to call the cops period but still participate in daily life you are going to run into contradictions. Like I already told about the incident at the political center, trying to deal with an acute safety situation in an "anarchist" way landed 1 person here in a wheelchair and almost a grave, 2 in jail, closed down the autonomous center for years and almost destroyed the scene.
So maybe we should critique the functions and not the jobs per se. With most cops reactionary function and job almost 100% overlap so that is relatively easy. but even then, unless we already have a working, tested alternative the revolution will be a lot more destopian than utopian and the counterrevolution that promises safety and stability is bound to win.

[synthesis]

It's not about simply "objecting" to them, it's about understanding the role they play in class society.

I don't want to make this any more personal than necessary, because I don't actually have a problem with you (or anyone else here) as a person, but the way in which you in particular refuse to engage seriously with this criticism by diffusing the content of it among everyone in class society is very indicative of this point.

I realize that might be a frustrating Catch-22, and I'm not trying to preemptively negate your response here, but it is so conveniently demonstrative of the fact that our political positions are largely determined by our position in class society that I can't help but bring it up.

[Decolonize The Left]

To be blunt, the reason no one has addressed those issues is because they are non-issues. If you think that teachers or whoever else are inherently and particularly reactionary, in that the profession itself demands that they actively and physically protect private property, then start a thread about that.

I don't think this. I'm saying that the consequence of the arguments in this thread are that teachers, tax payers, prisoners, everyone's a reactionary because they defend the ruling class interests. I'm further implying that this isn't a position that folks want to hold (hence the logic isn't coherent).

Was I not clear?


Bringing it up here isn't "logical," it's just pedantic. I'm not trying to be aggressive, I just think you're missing the point in that you're framing the criticism as moralistic rather than as a function of class analysis. The argument is not that the profession attracts "bad people," although to a certain extent that's obviously true.

I don't think you're trying to be aggressive, and I somewhat understand what you're getting at: you're claiming that I'm framing the argument against security guards as moralistic when you think it's a function of class analysis.

Oddly enough, I thought that I was looking at this from a function of class analysis: I thought class analysis had to do with the mechanisms between the working class and the capitalist class. So when working class people work against their interests they are still working class people: teachers, prisoners, tax payers, all these people are working class people who, at some time or much of the time even, work in favor of the ruling class.

The logic in this thread is clear:
Fact: Security guards defend private property and work in the interests of the capitalist class.
Claim 2: Defending private property and working in the interests of the capitalist class is reactionary.
Conclusion: Security guards are reactionary.

I'm simply saying that Claim 2 isn't a good claim in itself because it frames the vast majority of society as reactionary, all of us on this forum included, and hence is meaningless.

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't think this. I'm saying that the consequence of the arguments in this thread are that teachers, tax payers, prisoners, everyone's a reactionary because they defend the ruling class interests. I'm further implying that this isn't a position that folks want to hold (hence the logic isn't coherent).

I don't think this is the case.

The issue is as far as I can see that of a position of immediate and physical defense of capitalist social relations and the state, so it isn't a matter of "defending the ruling class" since of course any activity, such as providing oneself an existence through wage labor, might be called such. The trick is, and I think synthesis highlights this, in the immediate and physical defense.

This is clearly geared towards cops. We agree on this, no support for pigs. But if the above stands, it is hard to see how security guards are in a different position, apart from the argument by The Boss you quoted earlier:


The security guard, however, is not a direct agent of the political class, of the state, but an employee of the capitalist. Whilst the function of the security guard, in general, may be to protect private property - something indefensible from the point of view of a socialist -, their relationship to the means of production is different to that of the cop. Whilst the cop, an agent of the political class and of the state, is not generally economically exploited, the privately-employed security guard, in tandem with their piggish protection of private property, are also part of the labour process that re-produces capitalist social relations via the exploitation of them that takes place, through their position as wage labourers (or at least, the lower portion of security guards). Thus, if we are going to call a spade a spade, then in the specific instance of the security guard we must call the spade a spade with qualifications - the qualification being that, as well as being a defender of private property, paradoxically, the security guard can also be a worker and their labour power exploited by the capitalist whose private property they protect for a living. This cannot be said of the cop - they are direct and willing agents of the state.

I bolded the parts that seem to me the most relevant.

The problematic part of this argument is the element of volition in the case of cops - what significance should we attach to the willingness? Whence does it come from? If we answer, from compulsion due to dispossession of the means of production and need for sale of one's labor power (do cops effectively sell their labor power?), then we already position cops as a very specific section of the dispossessed class, one that is probably integrated into the state (by integration I mean what The Boss mentions above - direct agents of the state, no support for pigs; also, I say integrated since the assumption is that they indeed were at one time, at least potentially, part of the working class).

What I'm trying to flesh out is the specificity of the position of the police and factors which account for the very low probability that significant class dissent, against state and capital, might also include this section of the population. I'm not defending cops, I merely want to point out that our theory probably needs to be deepened.

As far as teachers are concerned, again the point is to adjust theory. I don't think that anyone would dispute these two points:

1) the modern capitalist state performs at least two functions - repressive and ideological (part of the ideological apparatus is the education system)

2) teachers are working class and their struggle is to be supported by communist militants

The problem here is the lack of a definite criterion which would distinguish the two functions under 1). In other words, what differentiates those who perform ideological conditioning and those who engage in repression?

It seems that one valid criterion might be what synthesis and The Boss highlight as direct and physical participation in defense of property and state - it would be interesting to probe the psychological and ideological consequences of this practice - which would amount to saying that the repressive function is very specific in nature. I think this has much merit, but that it could be further developed probably. This also assumes the difference between the police and administrative apparatus - public workers as low ranking clerks - and that neither teachers are "economically exploited" in the sense that is clear from the use of the term by The Boss.


To be blunt, the reason no one has addressed those issues is because they are non-issues. If you think that teachers or whoever else are inherently and particularly reactionary, in that the profession itself demands that they actively and physically protect private property, then start a thread about that.

They're not non-issues insofar as they indicate a lack of theoretical clarity. That's why I asked Manoir what notion of class does s/he work with, since here it is almost invariably argued that class is the relationship to the means of production - which might be a useful shorthand, but all to often there is a yawning gap in understanding which hides behind it.

[Decolonize The Left]

I don't think this is the case.

The issue is as far as I can see that of a position of immediate and physical defense of capitalist social relations and the state, so it isn't a matter of "defending the ruling class" since of course any activity, such as providing oneself an existence through wage labor, might be called such. The trick is, and I think synthesis highlights this, in the immediate and physical defense.

This is a better logic, but I'm not sure it's what we're looking for. For example: a working class citizen, perhaps even a union worker to help weigh our hypothetical, is witnessing their work being broken into. They call the police, who arrive, and arrest the burglar. In this situation the person actively engaged in defending the ruling class interests by a) employing the police and b) doing so to protect private property and capitalist private property at that.

Is this person a reactionary?


The problematic part of this argument is the element of volition in the case of cops - what significance should we attach to the willingness? Whence does it come from? If we answer, from compulsion due to dispossession of the means of production and need for sale of one's labor power (do cops effectively sell their labor power?), then we already position cops as a very specific section of the dispossessed class, one that is probably integrated into the state (by integration I mean what The Boss mentions above - direct agents of the state, no support for pigs; also, I say integrated since the assumption is that they indeed were at one time, at least potentially, part of the working class).

Personally, I don't think that the 'volition' aspect of this matters at all. I think it needlessly complicates things. I think the point I was drawing from The Boss' quote was that security guards are working class people by economic definition while cops are repressive agents of the state (economically they are employees of the state, not directly of capital).


What I'm trying to flesh out is the specificity of the position of the police and factors which account for the very low probability that significant class dissent, against state and capital, might also include this section of the population. I'm not defending cops, I merely want to point out that our theory probably needs to be deepened.

As far as teachers are concerned, again the point is to adjust theory. I don't think that anyone would dispute these two points:

1) the modern capitalist state performs at least two functions - repressive and ideological (part of the ideological apparatus is the education system)

2) teachers are working class and their struggle is to be supported by communist militants

The problem here is the lack of a definite criterion which would distinguish the two functions under 1). In other words, what differentiates those who perform ideological conditioning and those who engage in repression?

Yes indeed. We are running into the limits of our logic here. I am glad that we are having this discussion. A more precise example would be public school teachers. They are employed by the state (similarly to police officers) and serve no purpose in terms of this discussion other than to indoctrinate the population in order to "defend the ruling class."

Are we willing to claim that public school teachers are on the same reactionary plane as police?


It seems that one valid criterion might be what synthesis and The Boss highlight as direct and physical participation in defense of property and state - it would be interesting to probe the psychological and ideological consequences of this practice - which would amount to saying that the repressive function is very specific in nature. I think this has much merit, but that it could be further developed probably. This also assumes the difference between the police and administrative apparatus - public workers as low ranking clerks - and that neither teachers are "economically exploited" in the sense that is clear from the use of the term by The Boss.

Well, "direct and physical participation in defense of property and state" applies to every single soldier in every single war. Plenty of leftists have fought in a variety of wars for a variety of reasons. So, once again, while it is better than the lose "defending ruling class interests" logic, it's still stretching.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I have a question: for those of you who are so anti-security guard, what do you propose to be done? Would you rather they were, unilaterally, done away with? Again, i'm talking about the low-level bouncers and so on who control large crowds/groups in non-political situations, such as at a gig or club.

In many ways this is a catch-22 situation; in performing an essential task (ensuring the safety of club- and gig-goers, and similar events, bouncers are bound - by the private sector nature of their employment - to defend private property. They cannot do anything else, and yet it is not their primary purpose - under ANY, ANY, political system, you would need bouncers. They are performing a task, which as an unhappy consequence leads them to defend private property, but it is a necessary task, in the context of crowd control as opposed to defending private property).

[Sasha]

crowd controlwe prefer the term "atmosphere control" (sfeerbeheer in dutch) ;)
we don't control crowds (in general) we protect crowds against negative individualist behavior.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I have a question: for those of you who are so anti-security guard, what do you propose to be done? Would you rather they were, unilaterally, done away with? Again, i'm talking about the low-level bouncers and so on who control large crowds/groups in non-political situations, such as at a gig or club.

In many ways this is a catch-22 situation; in performing an essential task (ensuring the safety of club- and gig-goers, and similar events, bouncers are bound - by the private sector nature of their employment - to defend private property. They cannot do anything else, and yet it is not their primary purpose - under ANY, ANY, political system, you would need bouncers. They are performing a task, which as an unhappy consequence leads them to defend private property, but it is a necessary task, in the context of crowd control as opposed to defending private property).

Tbh, I think the "necessity" of bouncers represents having failed somewhere earlier in the equation. For example, last year, I co-ordinated "Rad Frosh" at McGill University: an event for 200 incoming students - including a large number of Americans who would be legally buying booze for the first time (the age for buying booze in Quebec is 18, as opposed to 21 in the U$) - involving 60+ volunteers (who, for the most part, were "facilitators" who would also be partying and drinking with the froshies). The big, end of the weekend event was a loft party, which was open to the public, held DEATH CHURCH, a popular punk/metal/noise venue in a former church, with hella cheap booze and a "party atmosphere". This, no doubt, is the type of event one would "need bouncers for", yes?
We didn't need bouncers. What we did need, was people trained in harm reduction (a team of six or seven people). What we did need was the two preceding days of workshops and education that the froshies participated in. What we did need was facilitators who had been trained to intervene in the case of problematic (racist, sexist, etc.) behaviour. What we did need was a venue that had established itself as a political space.
I understand that this isn't an immediate solution for always and everywhere, but I also don't think that solution exists (and if it did, it wouldn't be bouncers!). It is, however, an idea (or rather, several ideas), about how we can start create spaces that don't need bouncers here and now for our own projects. I'd even go so far as to say that if radicals can create social spaces (and even party spaces!) that preempt the "necessity" of bouncers, it could be part of building the party. After all, it's easier to party without wannabe-Arnold breathing down your neck waiting to roidrage at you with the slightest provocation. Plus, how many typical shitty bar-fight/drama situations could be averted by the presence of trained harm-reduction staff?

Thoughtz.

[Glitchcraft]

Im on my shitty phone atm so if someone has addressed this already, i apologize for being redundant.

I think it's important to address why we support or defend cops and or security guards.

What are the material reasons we have for needing to define a persons role in society?

[Rusty Shackleford]

There are organizations that are trying to organize security guards. its strange.

[Sasha]

We didn't need bouncers. What we did need, was people trained in harm reduction (a team of six or seven people). What we did need was the two preceding days of workshops and education that the froshies participated in. What we did need was facilitators who had been trained to intervene in the case of problematic (racist, sexist, etc.) behaviour. What we did need was a venue that had established itself as a political space.well, thats what i do in general, but not all places are political places, and to host events with more than 50 people you need an license in the netherlands, and if its deemed necessary the government will force you to hire bouncers/security or you can kiss your permit and your event goodbye.

and lets take this event of yours as an example, it was very conceivable that someone would have needed to be ejected from the event, and yes 9 out of 10 times you can rationalize with people and convince them to go away. but even political people can be assholes when booze or drugs are involved, what was your game-plan if someone who was ejected kept coming back, what if he/she started to chug bottles at your volunteers, what if someone pulled a knife? was there a plan/trained for, and if so what/how? if not i find it irresponsible to host an event that big without planning for this eventuality as it might not be an given but should always be an possibility...

after the incident here i only volunteer to do door at political events/parties on these conditions:
- if someone breaks the "houserules" they are ejected
- if someone refuses to leave they can be "restrained" to be moved (arms on back, if necessary dragging etc but no punching, kicking)
- if you become emotionally/personally involved you step aside and let the others deal with the situation
- if they are outside they stay outside
- if they try to come back in we try to reason but when they become/are aggressive the door gets closed and wont be opened till they are gone.
- if neighbors call the cops we might try to reason with them but we are not obliged so
-if they become a danger to the people inside or outside we are responsible for and the situation cant be resolved without physical confrontation (restraining while already outside, punching, kicking) we ourself call the cops.

[#FF0000]

Obviously security like securycore and g4s are just privatised cops, I do think august and this whole thread raises an important point, unless you drop out of society there is no way to keep an ideallogical pure life, this is not a post revolutionary world, if you object 100% to security you object also to bouncers and museum guards, if you object 100% against cops you als object to SVU cops working rape cases, and if you object to that why not against theachers, etc etc. Where do you draw the line?

I think it's pretty obvious. You draw it between the people who are going to protect the status quo and private property with force. Obviously everything we do as workers and as consumers perpetuates capitalism, but there is a difference between what workers do and what people who are effectively the sword and shield of ruling class.

[Decolonize The Left]

I think it's pretty obvious. You draw it between the people who are going to protect the status quo and private property with force. Obviously everything we do as workers and as consumers perpetuates capitalism, but there is a difference between what workers do and what people who are effectively the sword and shield of ruling class.

I bolded what appears to be the issue. LR touched on this and I'd like to hear your thoughts: what about public school teachers? They are paid by the state, are tools of the state, and indoctrinate the youth towards the 'sword and shield of the ruling class.'

Also, what of my example of a union worker who calls the police because someone is burglarizing the factory at which he works? He is "protecting the status quo and private property with force." Is he a reactionary?

My reason for asking is my first main point:
Workers who aren't class conscious cannot be held to the standard of those who are. The worker who called the cops in the example above need not be declared a reactionary for acting as he has been conditioned to act.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I bolded what appears to be the issue. LR touched on this and I'd like to hear your thoughts: what about public school teachers? They are paid by the state, are tools of the state, and indoctrinate the youth towards the 'sword and shield of the ruling class.'

Also, what of my example of a union worker who calls the police because someone is burglarizing the factory at which he works? He is "protecting the status quo and private property with force." Is he a reactionary?

My reason for asking is my first main point:
Workers who aren't class conscious cannot be held to the standard of those who are. The worker who called the cops in the example above need not be declared a reactionary for acting as he has been conditioned to act.

I don't think declaring individuals "reactionary" is the point - as though we are going to know their hearts! Is the soul of John Doe the prole bourgeois? Who cares? The fact is, if a worker calls the police on somebody burglarizing a factory, their actions are objectively reactionary. Snitches should be dealt with as accords their actions, not abstract notions of their character.

[synthesis]

They're not non-issues insofar as they indicate a lack of theoretical clarity. That's why I asked Manoir what notion of class does s/he work with, since here it is almost invariably argued that class is the relationship to the means of production - which might be a useful shorthand, but all to often there is a yawning gap in understanding which hides behind it.

The reason I framed it that way is because at this point we're going around in circles and the discussion (about what makes security guards problematic) cannot progress any further. If someone doesn't think that being paid to actively, physically and often violently protect private property does not divorce someone from the class interests of the proletariat, then do you think they will be convinced by abstracting the issue beyond recognition?

August, I don't understand why you don't think that the fact that it's literally their goddamn job (no semantics necessary) to use force to suppress proscribed forms of working class activity doesn't differentiate them from people whose class interest would indicate activity that cops and security guards' entire livelihoods revolve around suppressing. Honestly, and I admit this is somewhat of a cop-out (no pun intended) I think we can work out the more abstract theoretical aspects later.

I think there are at least a few of us who at least think that security guards should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis in a way that is not true for the police. But if they're paid to do violently reactionary things then how are they not reactionaries? I have a number of other answers in my head to the argument that they meet the standards of relations of production enough to be proletarian, but I'm just not sure how relevant they are to a discussion like this.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Tbh, I think the "necessity" of bouncers represents having failed somewhere earlier in the equation. For example, last year, I co-ordinated "Rad Frosh" at McGill University: an event for 200 incoming students - including a large number of Americans who would be legally buying booze for the first time (the age for buying booze in Quebec is 18, as opposed to 21 in the U$) - involving 60+ volunteers (who, for the most part, were "facilitators" who would also be partying and drinking with the froshies). The big, end of the weekend event was a loft party, which was open to the public, held DEATH CHURCH, a popular punk/metal/noise venue in a former church, with hella cheap booze and a "party atmosphere". This, no doubt, is the type of event one would "need bouncers for", yes?
We didn't need bouncers. What we did need, was people trained in harm reduction (a team of six or seven people). What we did need was the two preceding days of workshops and education that the froshies participated in. What we did need was facilitators who had been trained to intervene in the case of problematic (racist, sexist, etc.) behaviour. What we did need was a venue that had established itself as a political space.
I understand that this isn't an immediate solution for always and everywhere, but I also don't think that solution exists (and if it did, it wouldn't be bouncers!). It is, however, an idea (or rather, several ideas), about how we can start create spaces that don't need bouncers here and now for our own projects. I'd even go so far as to say that if radicals can create social spaces (and even party spaces!) that preempt the "necessity" of bouncers, it could be part of building the party. After all, it's easier to party without wannabe-Arnold breathing down your neck waiting to roidrage at you with the slightest provocation. Plus, how many typical shitty bar-fight/drama situations could be averted by the presence of trained harm-reduction staff?

Thoughtz.

It's arguably progressive and positive the sort of thing you've come up with, and I do agree that the need for bouncers perhaps is a symptom of some failure, but there is still always a need for 'atmosphere control' (as psycho kindly puts it!) when there is any crowd, just because, y'know, shit CAN happen, even in our beloved socialist utopia :)

And, I would argue that, whilst i'm sure your event went down well, and 2 days of training is useful, it would actually be irresponsible to scale-up that sort of model - where large events (don't forget that stadium gigs are 40,000-50,000 and more, festivals many, many more and superclubs can run into the thousands, too) are controlled by well-meaning volunteers with little training and possibly no real-world experience - without professional 'atmosphere/crowd control'. I'm not saying that all bouncers are nice people - I was recently on the receiving end of 4 or 5 bouncers rather negative attentions myself recently -, or professional people all the time, but the idea of having paid up people who are professionals in calming situations and controlling people who become out-of-control is, in events where there are large and very large crowds, a necessity IMHO. We can work on the details, but I think that has to be our starting point. Anything else would be a bit irresponsible - i'm not about to start playing with people's lives over a bit of politics. I've seen what happens - Hillsborough, for starters.

[synthesis]

To people arguing for the necessity of security guards - I realize that this will come across as utopian, but would you at least admit that it's a shame that we have to pay people to intervene in cases of sexual assault and other forms of anti-social behavior? I would hope that after the revolution those responsibilities would be diffused among the broader population.

[synthesis]

Here's another anecdotal experience that illustrates a point I'm trying to make:

I went to a lot of shows at Portland's Roseland Theater when I was in high school. It's located in Old Town, which might be the easiest place in the state to score hard drugs.

The only time I ever saw the security guards intervene in any situation was to kick out drug users. If they thought someone in the audience was smoking weed or someone in the bathroom was shooting up, they'd be on them like chicken on fried rice and sometimes they'd turn people in to the cops.

In literally every other situation that I saw where someone in the audience was at risk, such as when someone fainted from dehydration or a guy groped a woman who was crowd-surfing, it would be audience members who cleared the path to escort the necessary person out of the crowd.

The venue's owners' main concern was obviously to keep the Roseland from gaining a reputation as a place where drugs are tolerated. Regardless of the security guards' individual character, they were being paid to serve the interests of the venue's owners. Their behavior reflected that.

I'm sure people have had other experiences with concert halls' security guards in general or the Roseland in particular. I'm only saying this because in every instance I saw, the security guards exclusively acted only to stop drug use, while every other situation that put the welfare of audience members at risk was handled exclusively by other audience members.

In a more general sense, as a response to the "we need cops/security guards for 'disaster' situations" argument, I'd say that the existence of and reliance upon beat cops and security guards is the sort of thing that leads to the really horrible Kitty Genovese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese#Psychological_research)-type situations. A lot of people will see something horrible happening and either think, "Hey, it's not my job to intervene here," or, "I'll reluctantly intervene, but those cops/security guards aren't doing their job."

That's a really shitty consequence of division of labor - "I work hard, so why should I have to do a cop/security guard's job in my free time?" It shouldn't be thought that it's anyone's job to look after the welfare of the people in their community; that's a responsibility we have to share amongst all of us.

[Ele'ill]

Anyone who pays taxes contributes to the system that keeps you poor. Every single working-class person who has a pension or any retirement fund of any sort contributes to the system which keeps you poor. You contribute to that system yourself every time you go to work and are exploited.

There is no space in the system for not contributing to the system. To escape the system you must live "off the grid" in some form or another. I don't think you are advocating this so if you aren't then you must realize the futility of fighting against "the system" at every turn. We must advance strategically - this is my overall point - as a class.

I don't know why you are still on this point. Not every position/thing we do actively fights as a resistance to struggle in the same way that cops and security guards do.




I don't support security guards at all. I do support the working class, as a class, in their interest which is also my own.

Their job function isn't in your interest if your interest is in working class struggle.



My point is as follows:
- There is the notion of radicals "apologizing for cops/security guards/pigs/whatever."
- There is the fact that working class people often end up working against their class interest.

I am saying that, using your logic, you do not allow for the latter fact to be spoken. And I'm also saying that by speaking this fact I am not "apologizing" for shit. I am stating the facts of our economic condition and not getting upset because people get put in totally fucked positions all the time.

I don't understand what you mean here at all.






From a radical perspective, this is true. But from a non-radical, that is the majority of the non-class conscious workers of the world, it's all the same.

As radicals on a radical forum in a thread about security forces




It's not a shitty hypothetical. It proves my entire point: you will not spit in the face of the security guard who expresses interest in radical politics, hence you break your own rule of spitting in the face of every security guard. It proves that your rule is not based in sound logic but based in abstract moralism about who is not "radical" enough for you to hate.


No it is a shitty hypothetical because I don't wear leftist shirts and don't talk to cops and security. The odd thing about your hypothetical is using the least extreme example possible, of 'a security guard' which paints a much different picture from the actual role of security forces, private cops, in society. I am not interested in visiting whether 'a cop' is a good person and wants to talk about craft beers with me or anything else. Their role in in society is obvious, regardless of their class position. With security they are either on the same level as cops or have the cops, and the courts and prisons behind them.

No, I most likely wouldn't 'spit in their face' however my response to them, if any response at all, would probably be venomously truthful. Your example is akin to the conversations about 'well what if cops wanted to defect to our side'. You should know my position on that by now.


Again, I apologize for the taxing nature of this discussion. Really, I do. I re-read this earlier and realized that I was getting caught up in the back-and-forth nature of this forum and hadn't said what I needed to say. I believe that I've said it now so if you want to leave it at this I understand.

I believe that I understand what you're saying: you have a no-tolerance policy for police, security guards, or any other repressive tool of the state. I think that in many ways this is a solid set of practical politics, but I think that the logic behind it is faulty and will inevitably undermine the position itself. I think that the best position is one of strategic advance: no-tolerance in radical situations (strikes, etc...) but acceptance that we are dealing with material conditions and not abstract moralism on the individual basis.



What exactly are you saying when you say no-tolerance in radical situations but acceptance ....

[Popular Front of Judea]

FYI: The Kitty Genovese myth. (http://www.onthemedia.org/2009/mar/27/the-witnesses-that-didnt/transcript/#)


In a more general sense, as a response to the "we need cops/security guards for 'disaster' situations" argument, I'd say that the existence of and reliance upon beat cops and security guards is the sort of thing that leads to the really horrible Kitty Genovese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese#Psychological_research)-type situations. A lot of people will see something horrible happening and either think, "Hey, it's not my job to intervene here," or, "I'll reluctantly intervene, but those cops/security guards aren't doing their job.".

[synthesis]

FYI: The Kitty Genovese myth. (http://www.onthemedia.org/2009/mar/27/the-witnesses-that-didnt/transcript/#)

Yeah, I'm aware that the popular narrative is inaccurate. I think certain aspects of the story (not the crime) were exaggerated to make a point that is still valid. It's more become a catch-all phrase for "an instance where someone is brutalized while other people do nothing to intervene."

As the person being interviewed in that transcript notes:


BROOKE GLADSTONE: After all the research you've done on this case, do you still believe in the Bystander Effect?

JOSEPH DE MAY: I don't think it’s a question of my belief. We have seen over the past year a number of news stories in which a parallel has been drawn with the Kitty Genovese case. There was the incident back in January where a poor worker was trampled at the Green Acres Shopping Center by shoppers anxious to get to an electronics sale. There was the poor man in Toronto who was run over by a car and lay dying in the street while, according to the story, people simply stood there and watched. There was the woman in the Kings County psychiatric ward who collapsed on the floor. The staff simply left here there to die four hours later. So you can look in the newspapers and you can see, almost on a daily basis, incidents occur which are reflective of what’s known as the Bystander Syndrome and diffusion of responsibility, and it’s impossible to say that such a phenomenon of some sort does not exist.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Finally a statement that even the staunchest Tea Party Republican can endorse. Can't we all just get along? ;)


It shouldn't be thought that it's anyone's job to look after the welfare of the people in their community; that's a responsibility we have to share amongst all of us..

[synthesis]

I don't follow you. Are you saying that I'm in favor of privatizing the police force? That's the only conclusion of your post that makes any sense, as far as I can see.

Of course, we'd be much worse off if the police force was privatized. Strike-breaking security guards in service of business interests would then completely assume the monopoly on legitimate violence.

And what you don't seem to understand is that most of us already have to assume the responsibility for looking after the welfare of the people in our communities, because that is not what cops and security guards are employed and paid to do. They are paid to protect private property and the bourgeois interests; everything else they do that could be considered positive is just the scraps we get from the table of the capitalist legal system.

Why else would serial killers who only kill prostitutes get away with it for so much longer? Obviously prostitutes aren't the only profession who do house calls, so don't give me the excuse of opportunity.

[Popular Front of Judea]

The voluntaristic statement that public safety begins with us, that we have to look out for each other in our communities is not inherently revolutionary now is it?

[synthesis]

The voluntaristic statement that public safety begins with us, that we have to look out for each other in our communities is not inherently revolutionary now is it?

Of course it isn't. It's just a counterpoint to the argument that we need to have professional cops and security guards to prevent us from descending into an infernal Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes.

[#FF0000]

I bolded what appears to be the issue. LR touched on this and I'd like to hear your thoughts: what about public school teachers? They are paid by the state, are tools of the state, and indoctrinate the youth towards the 'sword and shield of the ruling class.'

Education under capitalism isn't necessarily all about making students into good workers or good bosses, though. Of course, in America, schools do nothing to break people out of cycles of poverty and actually probably exacerbate the problem thanks to things like the school-to-prison pipeline, but that's an issue of how the school system in organized.

So no, I don't have a problem with schools or teachers, even though there are problems with education that can't be solved in capitalism. My feelings on that are subject to change as soon as teachers start beating striking workers with batons, though.



Also, what of my example of a union worker who calls the police because someone is burglarizing the factory at which he works? He is "protecting the status quo and private property with force." Is he a reactionary?

Snitch.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Education under capitalism isn't necessarily all about making students into good workers or good bosses, though. Of course, in America, schools do nothing to break people out of cycles of poverty and actually probably exacerbate the problem thanks to things like the school-to-prison pipeline, but that's an issue of how the school system in organized.

Step back and think about what you've just said for a second: The school system doesn't necessarily do what it does, it's just how it's organized. So, it's organized to carry out particular functions, which it undeniably does, and you're positing . . . what exactly?


So no, I don't have a problem with schools or teachers, even though there are problems with education that can't be solved in capitalism. My feelings on that are subject to change as soon as teachers start beating striking workers with batons, though.

Augh. The worst. The thing is, if you really believe (as any coherent analysis would confirm!) that schools serve a particular function within capitalism, and in fact are organized along lines that perpetuate divisions within the working class, funnel kids into the prison industrial complex, etc., you really should have a problem with schools and teachers. That you can imagine a post-capitalist education, organized along fundamentally different lines with fundamentally different purposes is a really shitty defense of existing schools.

BpipOqP_1C0

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The thing is, if you really believe (as any coherent analysis would confirm!) that schools serve a particular function within capitalism, and in fact are organized along lines that perpetuate divisions within the working class, funnel kids into the prison industrial complex, etc., you really should have a problem with schools and teachers. That you can imagine a post-capitalist education, organized along fundamentally different lines with fundamentally different purposes is a really shitty defense of existing schools.
BpipOqP_1C0

No, no, no.

YOU should think about YOU'VE just said here, because you are essentially taking the position the left takes on issues to do with the cops - that they are a tool of the state - and are taking it to absurd proportions.

If we should have a problem with schools and teachers for performing the function of readying students for the labour market, then it must logically follow that we should have a problem with hospitals, doctors and nurses, for they ensure that the stock of labour power is re-plenished and kept on, which is a necessary clause for the reproduction of capitalist relations.

Further, for the same reasons as having a problem with hospitals, doctors and nurses, we should have a problem with firemen/women, for they too ensure the health of the labour force and the continued reproduction of capitalist relations.

Moreover, we should have a problem with the unemployed, because it is through their unemployment, through the existence of that reserve army of labour, that the capitalist bosses can keep wages down, ergo reducing their costs, and therefore increasing their profit margins.

You see, this narrow, narrow, argument that we should have a problem with anything or anyone who, in any way, helps to ensure the re-production of capitalist relations is a really dangerous path for one reason - capitalist is built on the exploitation of the labour power of workers. Therefore, using such reasoning, one could logically find a problem with any working class person who sells their labour power to the capitalist, because of the consequences of the sale of labour power. This totally misses the point, though, because the socialist perspective understands that the REAL issue is not just the consequences of labour being performed (be it a bullet being produced, a student being indoctrinated etc.), but HOW and WHY it is that the labour power comes to be sold in the first place: exploitation.

It may be so that a concomitant of the labour process - built on the sale of a worker's labour power - is some negative consequence, but as socialists we also understand that the fault lies not with the exploited worker. Indeed, our whole political philosophy is built around the position that the worker - performing tasks requested by their managers and capitalist bosses - is exploited and is the focus of their own emancipatory efforts. Our philosophy is NOT predicated on some subjective, arbitrary, moralistic and judgemental line about the consequences and external effects of the performing of labour by a worker. If it is, then we may as well give up and bury Marxism, because such an analysis is not a class analysis and can only lead to a dead-end, and can certainly NOT lead to the emancipation of the working class.

I'm sorry the above is so lengthly, and wordy, but it's a really key point. Workers are workers (cops aside, as has been discussed many a time and I think agreed upon), and that is the key point of our (class) analysis of society, not hatred, disdain or judgement of workers because of some of the negative effects of the labour process which said workers must participate in, in order to survive.

[Decolonize The Left]

I don't know why you are still on this point. Not every position/thing we do actively fights as a resistance to struggle in the same way that cops and security guards do.

As the discussion on schools is now proving, yes other things do. In fact, it's quite an easy thing to see that schools contribute more to repressing a working class revolution than security guards!


Their job function isn't in your interest if your interest is in working class struggle.

What's a working class struggle without members of the working class? Radicals screaming into the abyss?


No it is a shitty hypothetical because I don't wear leftist shirts and don't talk to cops and security. The odd thing about your hypothetical is using the least extreme example possible, of 'a security guard' which paints a much different picture from the actual role of security forces, private cops, in society. I am not interested in visiting whether 'a cop' is a good person and wants to talk about craft beers with me or anything else. Their role in in society is obvious, regardless of their class position. With security they are either on the same level as cops or have the cops, and the courts and prisons behind them.

More faulty logic.
The courts and prisons are behind everything: restaurants, banks, hardware stores, whatever. Security guards are just one more cog in the machine. Capitalism controls everything. There is no "these people are extra bad" logic here. Security guards can't send you to jail: cops do that. Security guards can't legally kill you: cops can. Security guards can't break into your house without reprise: cops can. Security guards just do what everyone else does: their function within capitalist society.

Sure, some (many) of them are reactionary fuckers and deserve no respect or tolerance. But this applies to anyone: the dude at the grocery store can be a reactionary fucker deserving of no respect or tolerance...


No, I most likely wouldn't 'spit in their face' however my response to them, if any response at all, would probably be venomously truthful. Your example is akin to the conversations about 'well what if cops wanted to defect to our side'. You should know my position on that by now.

Actually it isn't. My example was simply to prove that your logic of no-tolerance for security guards is abstract moralism. In reality, you deal with working class people the same way we all do: one by one. You deal with cops the same way we all do: no tolerance.


What exactly are you saying when you say no-tolerance in radical situations but acceptance ....

Radical situations are where the lines are clean cut. A strike is clear: workers on one side, which side are you on? When the security guards escort the scabs across the line that is a reactionary move and they are on the other side. Nothing to moralize about here, we're talking class interests and class warfare.

In non-radical situations there are no clean lines. In fact, everything else is clearly within the domain of capital and there is no radical ground. Hence, security guards become workers just like all of us: exploited under capital. It is not until the radical situation that we are able to make claims. Our goal, obviously, is the bringing about of the radical situation.

[Decolonize The Left]

I'm sorry the above is so lengthly, and wordy, but it's a really key point. Workers are workers (cops aside, as has been discussed many a time and I think agreed upon), and that is the key point of our (class) analysis of society, not hatred, disdain or judgement of workers because of some of the negative effects of the labour process which said workers must participate in, in order to survive.

I agree with this entirely.

I would, however, like you to take another look at TGDU's post on teachers and schools. He is correct as he is applying the logic of this thread to its coherent conclusion.

[synthesis]

I think (without attacking any one person in particular) that this talk about teachers and everyone else who contributes to the system is disingenuous. The issue is not that cops and security guards play a role in perpetuating capitalism, it is that they are respectively the state's and the capitalists' first line of defense against revolution and working class agitation.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I agree with this entirely.

I would, however, like you to take another look at TGDU's post on teachers and schools. He is correct as he is applying the logic of this thread to its coherent conclusion.

Depends if he's applying it ironically, though. I couldn't tell.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Hmm I would argue that the first line of defense is the press. The second to last is the police and private security agencies. (Think Pinkertons et al.) The last is the military.


I think (without attacking any one person in particular) that this talk about teachers and everyone else who contributes to the system is disingenuous. The issue is not that cops and security guards play a role in perpetuating capitalism, it is that they are respectively the state's and the capitalists' first line of defense against revolution and working class agitation.

[#FF0000]

Step back and think about what you've just said for a second: The school system doesn't necessarily do what it does, it's just how it's organized. So, it's organized to carry out particular functions, which it undeniably does, and you're positing . . . what exactly?

Schools do not have to be organized the way they are now, though, because schools are organized differently in other countries. In America, the system is very decentralized in such a way that schools in poor areas are going to have a hard time getting resources and schools in rich areas are gonna have plenty.

I mean, I went to one of those poor schools with few resources, and even so, more went on in classes there beyond teachers trying to train us to be good workers (even though they, uh, ultimately failed, I think. There's still a lot we do wrong despite the best intentions and plans of teachers)



Augh. The worst. The thing is, if you really believe (as any coherent analysis would confirm!) that schools serve a particular function within capitalism, and in fact are organized along lines that perpetuate divisions within the working class, funnel kids into the prison industrial complex, etc., you really should have a problem with schools and teachers.Schools don't have to be set up this way, even in capitalism, like I said. Even though there are issues with schools that cannot be fixed under capitalism, I'm not going to say "gugbugbu teachers n schools are the enemy and are on the same level as cops" because they simply are not.

[synthesis]

Hmm I would argue that the first line of defense is the press. The second to last is the police and private security agencies. (Think Pinkertons et al.) The last is the military.

I'd argue, just based on what I've seen, that in the case of real working class politics, the press is only really interested once the confrontations with the police and security personnel have already become violent or at least cannot be adequately suppressed without approval from the rest of society. They need to have a seed of truth from which they can whip the public into a moralist hysteria.

But I really doubt that anyone here denies that most of the media is reactionary - I wouldn't go so far as to say that most of the media is composed of reactionaries, and I think that's an important distinction to be made here, one that I'd say also applies to security guards. It's not about a person's personal political beliefs, it's about their role in the system.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Well before the scuffles start on the picket line the press frames the story. I think we all know the tropes: union bosses, coercive potentially violent union members etc.

So given the pivotal role that the the press plays in maintaining bourgeois hegemony should we shame people for becoming reporters?


I'd argue, just based on what I've seen, that in the case of real working class politics, the press is only really interested once the confrontations with the police and security personnel have already become violent or at least cannot be adequately suppressed without approval from the rest of society. They need to have a seed of truth from which they can whip the public into a moralist hysteria.

But I really doubt that anyone here denies that most of the media is reactionary - I wouldn't go so far as to say that most of the media is composed of reactionaries, and I think that's an important distinction to be made here, one that I'd say also applies to security guards. It's not about a person's personal political beliefs, it's about their role in the system.

[#FF0000]

So given the pivotal role that the the press plays in maintaining bourgeois hegemony should we shame people for becoming reporters?

No because reporters do not beat striking or protesting workers.

The media and schools are both complicated nuanced things when it comes to capitalism n hegemony n w/e. Police and security guards are not. There is always room for resistance even under mountains of propaganda. There is none under a baton.


In non-radical situations there are no clean lines. In fact, everything else is clearly within the domain of capital and there is no radical ground. Hence, security guards become workers just like all of us: exploited under capital. It is not until the radical situation that we are able to make claims. Our goal, obviously, is the bringing about of the radical situation.

And so in the meantime, we should try to organize people who will actively try to put us down "when the time comes"? What, are you hoping they'll break ranks and join us? That would justify making things more comfortable for the people who actively suppress us?

[Ele'ill]

As the discussion on schools is now proving, yes other things do. In fact, it's quite an easy thing to see that schools contribute more to repressing a working class revolution than security guards!

Yes, but I said:


Not every position/thing we do actively fights as a resistance to struggle in the same way that cops and security guards do.



What's a working class struggle without members of the working class? Radicals screaming into the abyss?
Their job function isn't in your interest if your interest is in working class struggle.



More faulty logic.
The courts and prisons are behind everything: restaurants, banks, hardware stores, whatever. Security guards are just one more cog in the machine.Yes, cops and security are the cog that actively hunts you down to present you to the courts and to the prisons. They are the strike breakers and life ruiners. They investigate you within companies, they are the eyes and ears and muscle of the bosses. They are the active resistance to revolt and to life.



Capitalism controls everything. There is no "these people are extra bad" logic here. Security guards can't send you to jail: cops do that.So security guards work with cops.


Radical situations are where the lines are clean cut. A strike is clear: workers on one side, which side are you on? When the security guards escort the scabs across the line that is a reactionary move and they are on the other side. Nothing to moralize about here, we're talking class interests and class warfare.So poor people being detained and having the cops called on them by security isn't a radical situation? What about workers being spied on by security? Security securing capital in the interest of the ruling class against workers trying to get by? There is a whole lot of subversive actions, daily, that cops and security actively fight.

[synthesis]

Well before the scuffles start on the picket line the press frames the story. I think we all know the tropes: union bosses, coercive potentially violent union members etc.

So given the pivotal role that the the press plays in maintaining bourgeois hegemony should we shame people for becoming reporters?

Here you are again abstracting the issue into irrelevance - not like you're the only one to do this, however.

I wouldn't say that the media is inherently a device for suppressing working class politics, much like the education system. It just usually does. And yes, as I said, a lot of the media is reactionary. So are the history teachers and economics professors who go on and on about how great Reagan was.

But I don't see how a calculus teacher or a science journalist plays any significant role in "maintaining bourgeois hegemony," and I think most of us would agree that the same applies to at least a few non-careerist security guards. It still doesn't justify the role that the profession itself plays in capitalist society.

[blake 3:17]

@PFoJ and synthesis -- thanks to both of you for useful comments. I'd avoid gross generalizations about schools and media. But there's some good stuff here.


@psycho -- the bouncer guidelines you mentioned seem pretty sound to me. I appreciate the one about getting overly emotional. When I'm in ugly situations, and in an authority position, if I'm getting personally upset, I get back up ASAP, to make sure everything is cool and let the level heads stay in charge. Doesn't happen often, but crazy stuff happens & it's important to keep it cool.

[Popular Front of Judea]

I would add from experience that it is important that you yourself don't become part of the scene. Make sure it is not you that is being loaded into the ambulance. Nothing dishonorable about diving under the desk if the situation demands it. (Grab the walkie-talkie, cell phone etc. on the way down, of course.)


@psycho -- the bouncer guidelines you mentioned seem pretty sound to me. I appreciate the one about getting overly emotional. When I'm in ugly situations, and in an authority position, if I'm getting personally upset, I get back up ASAP, to make sure everything is cool and let the level heads stay in charge. Doesn't happen often, but crazy stuff happens & it's important to keep it cool.

[blake 3:17]

When I was doing my First Aid CPR training this year, the instructors were really great, both EMS paramedics, and yeah, both were straight forward about situations they could deal with and ones where it was No ! Can't do it!

For some hyper screwed stuff, they were make tail and call 911 --

And bouncers saved my ass a while back -- Did something harmless but was interpreted wrong way -- I was being a dork but hadn't thought it through. Pretty funny story actually

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The thing is, I do have a problem with the-working-class-as-such insofar as a class within capital it is the motor of capitalism's re-/production. That's why I support strikes (even though they mean that services are disrupted!), why I support sabotage, why I support the working class transcending itself as the-class-that-produces-value! Communism may be the "historic task" of the workers, but its realization is in the abolition the working class.
This doesn't have anything to do with "blame", "judgement", "hatred", or whatever subjective moral judgement on the character of particular workers. It has to do with understanding that, at this juncture, and contrary to idealist notions that posit the bourgeoisie as the driving force of capitalism (captains of industry! etc.), it is the proletariat that, through its activity, creates the bourgeoisie. This is precisely why the activity of communists is among proletarians - if the bourgeoisie were the ones who could end capitalism, we'd be wasting our time!
That said, all work, obviously (as I've emphasized already, in two separate posts, in this same thread), has its particularities. Ending the activity of teachers in the reproduction of capital almost definitely has to be gone about in a different way from cops, has to be done differently than with miners, has to be done differently than with a stay-at-home mom; all of this without even diving into problematics regarding the racial, geopolitical, and national divisions that give proletarian struggles their specificities!
All of this is simply to say: of course we need to oppose schools, hospitals, and the totality of capitalist relations as they are now expressed. The fact that you are able to articulate that critique (their role in the reproduction of labour), but shy from its consequences (having to confront a liberal sacred cow) is nothing but opportunism!

"I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be."
- Karl Marx, letter to Arnold Ruge

I'm not saying there will be no hospitals (or schools, or workshops, or . . .) in a communist society: I'm saying that this is a piss poor defense of hospitals (or schools, or workshops, or . . .) as they now exist. Similarly "security" will remain a necessity in a communist society, but if you use this in defense of Securitas - well, you're a sucker.

[blake 3:17]

The thing is, I do have a problem with the-working-class-as-such insofar as a class within capital it is the motor of capitalism's re-/production. That's why I support strikes (even though they mean that services are disrupted!), why I support sabotage, why I support the working class transcending itself as the-class-that-produces-value! Communism may be the "historic task" of the workers, but its realization is in the abolition the working class.

Let's get rid of that. Just in the sense of working people don't need more fucking work.


This doesn't have anything to do with "blame", "judgement", "hatred", or whatever subjective moral judgement on the character of particular workers. It has to do with understanding that, at this juncture, and contrary to idealist notions that posit the bourgeoisie as the driving force of capitalism (captains of industry! etc.), it is the proletariat that, through its activity, creates the bourgeoisie. This is precisely why the activity of communists is among proletarians - if the bourgeoisie were the ones who could end capitalism, we'd be wasting our time!
That said, all work, obviously (as I've emphasized already, in two separate posts, in this same thread), has its particularities. Ending the activity of teachers in the reproduction of capital almost definitely has to be gone about in a different way from cops, has to be done differently than with miners, has to be done differently than with a stay-at-home mom; all of this without even diving into problematics regarding the racial, geopolitical, and national divisions that give proletarian struggles their specificities!


No wonder you're great! The guy who recruited me to Trotskyism was very much under the spell of the miners strike. One of his hard lessons has been -- Scargill was defeated before he began. I've more complex views on this, seeing as I've been in a bunch of defeated strikes, but where people were able to punish Capital, even if they'd lost.



All of this is simply to say: of course we need to oppose schools, hospitals, and the totality of capitalist relations as they are now expressed. The fact that you are able to articulate that critique (their role in the reproduction of labour), but shy from its consequences (having to confront a liberal sacred cow) is nothing but opportunism!

"I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be."
- Karl Marx, letter to Arnold Ruge

I'm not saying there will be no hospitals (or schools, or workshops, or . . .) in a communist society: I'm saying that this is a piss poor defense of hospitals (or schools, or workshops, or . . .) as they now exist. Similarly "security" will remain a necessity in a communist society, but if you use this in defense of Securitas - well, you're a sucker.

That all calls for putting forward relatively concrete proposals/actions, and following them up as positive alternatives.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think the thing about the police specifically is not just that they are "there to protect property" because that's too general: they protect property relations by regulating and controling the working class on a daily level.

In this sense, some security guards are in fact identical except that a company, not the state pays for the service. On the other hand, many security guards while protecting property relations, are not in the same position of being managers of citizens... in fact they are often just used as glorified doormen to make people less confident about swiping something. In the US in supermarkets you are seeing a trend towards self-check-out and so rather than pay 4 checkers and 2 baggers, you can pay one security guard to watch the self-check out process. In this sense, they basically are facilitating customer-service under a different model. They are not really much more of a pig than a checker who stops you if he sees you put some candy in your pocket.

So I think we can safely say that cops are ALWAYS pigs and can support workers by quitting that job. Induvidual security guards need to be seen in relation to the role they actually do. Security guards that regualrly coordinate with the police and are basically a "premium" extra service to genetrification processes or privite companies or workplaces or as strike-breakers, or a guy who is there to intimidate people from stealing a DVD or whatnot or sit in a parking garage all night.

[synthesis]

I think the thing about the police specifically is not just that they are "there to protect property" because that's too general: they protect property relations by regulating and controling the working class on a daily level.

In this sense, some security guards are in fact identical except that a company, not the state pays for the service. On the other hand, many security guards while protecting property relations, are not in the same position of being managers of citizens... in fact they are often just used as glorified doormen to make people less confident about swiping something.

I think this is a good clarification of the issues in this thread, but it also reflects what is perhaps a miscommunication on my part - not going to go so far as to say that's the case for other people.

I think that I use "physically protecting private property" (not personal property) as an umbrella term which includes controlling workers on the daily level. The reason to use the umbrella term is because the role of the police isn't just in what they do on the daily level.

I'll put it like this: In the same way that you say that the lower rung of security guards are employed "to make people less confident about swiping something," cops and security guards are in a certain sense employed to make the working class less confident about engaging in class warfare and whatever else it is that cops regulate and control.

In the same way that a potential shoplifter knows that the security guard is there to catch him, the working class knows that the police (and corporate thugs) are there to regulate and control them. This knowledge can significantly proscribe any activity, revolutionary or otherwise, that they might engage in.

I'm not sure if this is just semantics on my part, but I felt that it was important to clarify.

[synthesis]

The thing is, I do have a problem with the-working-class-as-such insofar as a class within capital it is the motor of capitalism's re-/production. That's why I support strikes (even though they mean that services are disrupted!), why I support sabotage, why I support the working class transcending itself as the-class-that-produces-value! Communism may be the "historic task" of the workers, but its realization is in the abolition the working class.
This doesn't have anything to do with "blame", "judgement", "hatred", or whatever subjective moral judgement on the character of particular workers. It has to do with understanding that, at this juncture, and contrary to idealist notions that posit the bourgeoisie as the driving force of capitalism (captains of industry! etc.), it is the proletariat that, through its activity, creates the bourgeoisie. This is precisely why the activity of communists is among proletarians - if the bourgeoisie were the ones who could end capitalism, we'd be wasting our time!
That said, all work, obviously (as I've emphasized already, in two separate posts, in this same thread), has its particularities. Ending the activity of teachers in the reproduction of capital almost definitely has to be gone about in a different way from cops, has to be done differently than with miners, has to be done differently than with a stay-at-home mom; all of this without even diving into problematics regarding the racial, geopolitical, and national divisions that give proletarian struggles their specificities!
All of this is simply to say: of course we need to oppose schools, hospitals, and the totality of capitalist relations as they are now expressed. The fact that you are able to articulate that critique (their role in the reproduction of labour), but shy from its consequences (having to confront a liberal sacred cow) is nothing but opportunism!

"I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be."
- Karl Marx, letter to Arnold Ruge

I'm not saying there will be no hospitals (or schools, or workshops, or . . .) in a communist society: I'm saying that this is a piss poor defense of hospitals (or schools, or workshops, or . . .) as they now exist. Similarly "security" will remain a necessity in a communist society, but if you use this in defense of Securitas - well, you're a sucker.

Good post, but I think it reflects the increasing lack of specificity in this thread in that the police and corporate thugs are class enemies, whereas the working class, obviously by definition, is not.

[blake 3:17]

The Stop and Frisk stuff is crazy -- it's the English suss laws all over, but with no legality.

In Toronto, there've been more Black men stopped & IDed than there are Black men. Friggin nuts.

?ueslove has been great speaking out lately.


AHMIR "QUESTLOVE" THOMPSON: There was a point where I was coming home from—from Bible study, like teen Bible study on a Friday night, and there was a Tower Records on South Street. And a friend of mine wanted to purchase U2’s The Joshua Tree album, which just came out. And they were coming to Philly at RFK Stadium, so he wanted to, like, study the record and know all the material before they came, and so we went and purchased The Joshua Tree. And we were driving home, and then, seconds later, on Washington Avenue in Philly, like, cops stopped us. And he was holding a gun on us.
And there’s nothing like the first time that a gun is held on you. Like, we’re 16, mind you, like 16, 17 years old. And, you know, I just remember the protocol. I remember my father telling me, like, "If you’re ever in this position, you’re to slowly keep your hands up." I mean, he did it in sort of a humorous way that Richard Pryor did. You know, Richard Pryor told a joke of, whenever you’re stopped, "Yes, officer, my hands are on the steering wheel." You know, it was that type of thing. I remembered that lesson. So, my friends didn’t know that, so they just thought that it was normal. And I was like, "Yo! Get your hands up! Get your hands up!" Like, how I knew that was the protocol at that young age, I mean, it’s probably a sad commentary, but it was also, you know, a matter of survival. And so—

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/14/questlove_on_police_racial_profiling_stop

[blake 3:17]

Good post, but I think it reflects the increasing lack of specificity in this thread in that the police and corporate thugs are class enemies, whereas the working class, obviously by definition, is not.


ahh -- You been doing good. I ain't got too much patience for class reductionism and making all proletarians friends.

One of the most militant Auto locals round here was also pretty hard right in a bunch of their politics. Hell yeah, they'd sabotage the plant, really kick shit, and the leaders were all Reform Party -- that's kind of like the Tea Party in American terms. Severely racist.

[Popular Front of Judea]

You go to the class war with the proletariat you have, not the proletariat you wish for.

[blake 3:17]

You go to the class war with the proletariat you have, not the proletariat you wish for.

Kind of. I'm just relieved not to be a Luckacsian Trot anymore.

What is amazing with these folks was they were so solid -- they had great practical ability and very class and nation conscious.

I do see many forms of workerism as potentially fascist.

[TaylorS]

I do see many forms of workerism as potentially fascist.

IMO this is because starting in the 70s, at least in the US, the bourgeois "left" essentially abandoned appealing to the working class for votes in favor of appealing for the votes of the bourgeois "lifestyle liberals". This left the working class totally unprotected from Fascistic sentiments.

[blake 3:17]

IMO this is because starting in the 70s, at least in the US, the bourgeois "left" essentially abandoned appealing to the working class for votes in favor of appealing for the votes of the bourgeois "lifestyle liberals". This left the working class totally unprotected from Fascistic sentiments.

That'd be fine, but not true.

Mussolini was a left wing leader of the Italian Socialist Party. Gramsci was his rightist critic!

[TaylorS]

That'd be fine, but not true.

Mussolini was a left wing leader of the Italian Socialist Party. Gramsci was his rightist critic!

I thought a big reason for the rise of Fascism was the failure of socialist revolutions after WW1 and the betrayal of the Social Democrats? :confused:

[Popular Front of Judea]

Right and left in this context is confusing. Mussolini was on the side of the multi-tendency Socialist Party that embraced direct action and was sympathetic to syndicalism. Gramsci on the other hand preferred change through electoral means. Mussolini was expelled from the party after coming out in support of the war. The Italian Socialist Party was strictly neutral. (Here's an alternate history question: What would have been Mussolini's trajectory had the party supported the war?)

[blake 3:17]

Again fin in many ways -- but this is where I get beefs with many types of workerism and syndicalism -- if you abstain on basic political questions, what is so wrong if you give a bad answer on a political question?

I'm pretty sympathetic to anarchism these days, but when I deal with syndicalists or other left economists, I'm a total Leninist.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Here is a case of a successful general strike -- that you likely have never read about in any labor history. Why? Because it was called for all the wrong -- political -- reasons.

Ulster Workers' Council strike (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ulster_Workers%27_Council_strike&printable=yes)



Again fin in many ways -- but this is where I get beefs with many types of workerism and syndicalism -- if you abstain on basic political questions, what is so wrong if you give a bad answer on a political question?

I'm pretty sympathetic to anarchism these days, but when I deal with syndicalists or other left economists, I'm a total Leninist.

[AustinBert]

he courts and prisons are behind everything: restaurants, banks, hardware stores, whatever. Security guards are just one more cog in the machine. Capitalism controls everything. There is no "these people are extra bad" logic here. Security guards can't send you to jail: cops do that. Security guards can't legally kill you: cops can. Security guards can't break into your house without reprise: cops can. Security guards just do what everyone else does: their function within capitalist society.