The Police

[BIXX]

I'm in the US. West coast. This isn't even about their shitty practices of brutality and oppression, it's about what they stop us from doing,

[Rosa Partizan]

Thanks for your input, but can I ask where you live?

I only want to know because I think it's really hard to discuss this without some kind of context.

For example, I live (currently) in Sydney Australia. But I have traveled to places like Thailand and Bali, where the police behave a lot differently.

For example, for drink driving over here, you will be fined and filtered through a court system. In Bali, you can just bribe the police. And you don't really have another option. You can try to negotiate, but it's not really in your best interests to do so.----they make that quite clear to you.

My impression from experience is that in some countries the police are a KGB type outfit have no accountability at all, which is a lot different to how the police operate in the countries I'm comfortable living in.

yeah that works for ex-Yugoslavia, too. However, this is not any less disturbing, since all those states and their politicians and authorities are corrupt as fuck. With money and connections, you can get very, very far here. Well, you might now say, isn't it everywhere like that? But in other countries, you can achieve a lot even without having one of these. In those ex-YU-countries, this is much more difficult.

[#FF0000]

The cops in my area aren't so corrupt that you can bribe them. You just need to drink with the judge (easy enough in a small town).

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I never really interacted with the police until I went on my first protest. Being nearly bowled over by a cop on a horse whilst getting shouted at was a real eye opener. Being kettled for a few hours and having cops ignore you as you try to leave was likewise aggravating to say the least. Since radicalising I've really been exposed to the police as they function as an arm of the state. I've been harassed as I try to get signatures for petitions, I've been stopped and searched, I've seen cops harassing homeless people, my housemate has been arrested purely because he's not white... to name a few situations.

It really hammers home to me the fact that if I just accepted the status quo I would never have these sorts of interactions but because I challenge the way things are I'm put in situations where cops become a tool of intimidation instead of perceived safety like I might have believed when I was young and naive. From interacting with my older comrades, I became exposed to the realities of cops throughout history where they've harassed mentally ill people, lgbt, immigrants, trade unionists, anyone who doesn't fit within their idea of society which is ultimately merely a reflection of bourgeois ideology. Similarly, the type of person required to accept this role in society thrives on this power dynamic. They need people respecting them or fearing them, there's no empathy just getting ordinary people to follow their orders and their views on the world which is why they get so angry whenever you challenge their authority.

For this reason, I believe that cops are functionally opposed to any form of human liberation and can be counted among our enemies in our aim to abolish capitalism.

[Loony Le Fist]

...
For example, for drink driving over here, you will be fined and filtered through a court system.

In the US where I live, you will very likely be arrested for that, and have your license suspended. When you pay the extra fee to get it back, it is likely regular insurance companies will never provide coverage for your car again. You will likely have to turn to a "high-risk" insurer to get coverage. It also likely the court will impose a restriction, like you can only drive during the day or to and from school/work. If you get caught 5 times in the State of Florida, you will have your license taken away permanently.

Of course you can always refuse the breathalyzer test. That is also an arrestable offense, and you will likely have your license revoked, and have to pay a greater fee. But it makes it more likely you won't have to turn to "high-risk" insurers, and you won't get a DUI. However the five time limit still applies.

My impression from experience is that in some countries the police are a KGB type outfit have no accountability at all, which is a lot different to how the police operate in the countries I'm comfortable living in.

Perhaps you should steer clear of the states then. Especially the southern and mid-western US.

[liberlict]

I'd say it's functional role is for me to interact with them as little as possible. Kidding aside, I think it's important to have some kind of police protection. But I would prefer them to be chosen by the community they are policing.



Yep. Sometimes it's hard to break out of the intellectual distortions about.



I agree. I think it can be a certain type of lashing out. But I think a lot of that can be alleviated if communities got to be a part of deciding who is going to be police. And if these communities had the opportunity to recall bad police officers that abuse their powers. Unchecked power is evil. Zimbardo proved that in the Stanford Prison Experiments. It seems that even among people considered psychologically normal, at least 60% become sadistic when granted authority with too much autonomy.

[Stanford Prison Experiment Video follows]

[youtube=sZwfNs1pqG0]Standford Prison Experiment[/youtube]

I think police have to be accountable. I think cops should have to wear personal video recording devices like they do in many cities. This has been very effective in reducing citizen complaints.



Well as it stands now with the case Warren v. DC, the police in the US have absolutely no duty to protect citizens. So I think police should have a duty to protect them as part of their jobs. I have nothing against police personally, I just want them to be held to the necessary standard of account.

That's a really interesting study in psychology. Kinda reminds me of the Stockholm Syndrome and to an extent Pavlovian conditioning. It's a good point, i.e., people, or organisms, are conditioned to respond in their variable conditions.

[liberlict]

.



Perhaps you should steer clear of the states then. Especially the southern and mid-western US.

Detroit area etc? Yeah I've read about it and its not on my holiday list. The dynamics behind that mess are interesting to me though. As i'm sure they are to you.

+ YouTube Video

[liberlict]

I'm in the US. West coast. This isn't even about their shitty practices of brutality and oppression, it's about what they stop us from doing,

Ahhh ok. So police enforcing the 2nd amendment etc. Well your points all deserve consideration but you still rely on the assumption that under communism the community is going to enforce rules you'd prefer, like nobody can have guns.


Though I do agree with you that it is in everyone's interest to ban guns, or any kind or instruments of destruction for that matter, so in any free society this should naturally come about.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

The police are a special body of armed men which acts as the direct, street-level arm of the bourgeois state. The high-minded rhetoric about the police aside, their job is not to protect citizens or stop crime, as anyone living in predominantly minority or proletarian areas might attest to, but to protect private property. They aren't "workers in uniform" as some revisionists claim but the bitterest enemy of the socialist movement. The socialist revolution outright entails smashing the police, like all parts of the bourgeois state apparatus.

But do you ever have a use for them to protect you, or do you have any respect for their ostensible job to mitigate civil disorder?

If I wanted protection, the police are the last institution I would turn to. The police are those who charge striking workers, harass rape victims, who shoot black people for reaching for imaginary guns, who (to use a local example) beat lesbians up for reporting an attack etc. Calling this "abuse" gives the impression that it is a deviation from the norm. These things, however, are the norm.

As for civil disorder, well, that is not something leftists oppose, at least not in all cases. We quite like ourselves a bit of civil disorder.

Police should be deprived of its main function that is protecting a private and state property and thus transformed into militia.

No, the police should be smashed. This doesn't mean that we barge into the police department, rename the police "the people's police" or militia or Jeff, and then let the policemen, I mean the people's policemen, carry on as before, only under a "socialist" state. It means the police are to be disbanded, and their function subsumed by a universal militia of armed citizens. In time, the functions of the police will lose their special character - government over men will be long gone, and stopping someone from killing another person will be no different than picking up litter or signaling before a turn while driving.

[reb]

The police are the armed force of the state, and the state's main role in society is to maintain the status quo. This means cracking down on civil disobedience and maintaining property rights, etc. The police force is an extension of class society that has irresolvable class antagonisms.

[Loony Le Fist]

The police are a special body of armed men which acts as the direct, street-level arm of the bourgeois state. The high-minded rhetoric about the police aside, their job is not to protect citizens or stop crime, as anyone living in predominantly minority or proletarian areas might attest to, but to protect private property. They aren't "workers in uniform" as some revisionists claim but the bitterest enemy of the socialist movement. The socialist revolution outright entails smashing the police, like all parts of the bourgeois state apparatus.

If I wanted protection, the police are the last institution I would turn to. The police are those who charge striking workers, harass rape victims, who shoot black people for reaching for imaginary guns, who (to use a local example) beat lesbians up for reporting an attack etc. Calling this "abuse" gives the impression that it is a deviation from the norm. These things, however, are the norm.

This is all made clear by Warren v. DC. The police have absolutely no duty to protect citizens. Even if they specifically request help by calling 911 and the operator tells them help is on the way.

As for civil disorder, well, that is not something leftists oppose, at least not in all cases. We quite like ourselves a bit of civil disorder.

As long as it's not directed towards us and towards the appropriate individuals I'm all for it.

No, the police should be smashed. This doesn't mean that we barge into the police department, rename the police "the people's police" or militia or Jeff, and then let the policemen, I mean the people's policemen, carry on as before, only under a "socialist" state. It means the police are to be disbanded, and their function subsumed by a universal militia of armed citizens. In time, the functions of the police will lose their special character - government over men will be long gone, and stopping someone from killing another person will be no different than picking up litter or signaling before a turn while driving.

I agree. But again--this is a de-facto police. Which no one is really opposed to. I think we both can agree that the problem is the police being part of an unaccountable arm of the bourgeois state.

[#FF0000]

As long as it's not directed towards us and towards the appropriate individuals I'm all for it.

That's sort of broad -- who are the appropriate individuals?

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

I agree. But again--this is a de-facto police.

Not really - the police is a special body of armed men, separate from the general population, acting as an enforcement arm of a class dictatorship. A militia of armed worker-citizens would not be separate from the general population.

[Loony Le Fist]

That's sort of broad -- who are the appropriate individuals?

Well, when police riot against leftists, that's not the kind of civil disobedience I can get behind. Or also when fascists do it.

[Loony Le Fist]

Not really - the police is a special body of armed men, separate from the general population, acting as an enforcement arm of a class dictatorship. A militia of armed worker-citizens would not be separate from the general population.

Why do you always leave out important parts of my quotes? We are pretty much in agreement here.

...
I agree. But again--this is a de-facto police. Which no one is really opposed to. I think we both can agree that the problem is the police being part of an unaccountable arm of the bourgeois state.

The problem that you have is that police are unaccountable and an arm of the bourgeois state. If the police was a "A militia of armed worker-citizens would not be separate from the general population" then you would not be opposed. We find agreement here.

[sosolo]

Whenever I see a cop, I think, "That person can kill me and face little-to-no ramifications." Video cameras "break", footage can be "lost", and judges can ignore evidence. The "blue wall" is cops protecting each other from following the laws they supposedly enforce. No socialist has any business looking for the good cops, and they are NOT proletarians in uniform. They are the public face of the enemy.

[Sinister Intents]

I can only echo what other people have said, really. Fuck the police, I hate them. They've attacked members of my family, and a few people in my family are pig... excuse me assholes in uniform, so as not to insult real pigs, because real pigs are cute and make great pets. I'm all for like a horizontal police type structure to defend the commune/collective/labor union/et cetera. They'd be more like a neighborhood watch group that could provide emergency services, et cetera.

[Ele'ill]

Where I live, there is a lot of vandalism of public property, phone boxes smashed, any kind of glass wont last a week. All the bus stations are built around polycarbonate-safe glass because that's the only way to stop them being destroyed.

I dunno, maybe it's an intentional thing maybe it isn't so much, maybe it's bored folks destroying shit that isn't theirs or anyone else's in their neighborhood, just for fun. I know some of my friends when they drink will do a lot of bizarre seemingly purposelessly destructive things. Sometimes sober.

My old reaction to this was scornful ... but since I've been here I've come to understand how these 'symbols', bus stations or whatever, could be seen to be symbols of oppression by disempowered classes. So now when I see vandalism I look at it in a different context.

Why will folks who have no or very little 'radical experience' throw shit at cops/cop cars? Why do so many folks with no or very little radical experience tag the shit out of billboards, bus stops, store fronts, etc.. it isn't fuck yeah anarchy but it is a destructive process I don't /never have of course engaged in any activities like this at all ever and am probably projecting my own feelings here but maybe they feel alienated from the world around them, they have no control over the quality of their lives to any meaningful degree, none of the shit they can't afford around them means anything at all to them, or, maybe none of that is true and they have created something else on top of it, some other activity of interest.

So I was wondering how the revolutionary-left see the police? Do you view them as oppressive, or do they have some valid role to play in the theater of history at the moment?

they're the world's largest street gang, the institution protects capital violently because that's its (their) job and most of them think they're doing a good job, wish they could do more and do it more violently, people protecting themselves from police violence is considered violent crime, etc..

Basically I'm curious what you do when crime interferes with you life, if it does, and how you put it in context.

I don't feel safe around police at all, there have been times when the police were called out by someone else and they make it a lot worse. The one time I actually feared for my life was when cops were called by someone close to me at the time and they essentially entered and held us at gun point. It's a lot different hearing about it or watching shows with cops casually having their guns out, irl they're out, pointed at you, their full attention is on you and whether or not they're going to kill you. I try to seek out other means of dealing with it other than calling the cops and that isn't wishful rhetoric I have done it on several occasions. I am also not naive (or maybe I am) and I think there might be situations where unfortunately, at least at this present time in the world, where calling those thugs is the only option available. With that said, solely from my experience and others I've talked to, they usually make things a lot worse.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I've had a bunch of interactions with the po-po. Never called them, though, and don't plan on doing it anytime soon.

One of my friends pointed out once that one of the major divisions in society seems to be between the people who see a police car roll down their block and are reassured, and the people who see the same police car and get paranoid. I'm definitely in the later category, even when I'm not doing anything questionable.

[Criminalize Heterosexuality]

Why do you always leave out important parts of my quotes? We are pretty much in agreement here.

[...]

The problem that you have is that police are unaccountable and an arm of the bourgeois state. If the police was a "A militia of armed worker-citizens would not be separate from the general population" then you would not be opposed. We find agreement here.

But that's like saying that, if avocados could fly and shoot missiles, they would make decent interceptors. Well, sure. But that misses the point. A workers' militia, not separate from the general population, would not be anything like the police. I think many people make the mistake that police work would remain as it is, only instead of officers we would have people's officers, instead of prisons people's prisons, etc. And that everyone would have to be a policeman of the usual type, which sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare more than a free society. I think a better analogy would be community watch groups, or even the dreaded CheKa (a fundamentally misunderstood organ, I think).