>What I concealed from her was my Marxist concept of the role of the
cops in
>the bourgeois society. When I was studying Trotskyist politics in the
late
>'60s, one of the things that was drummed into our heads was that cops
were
>not part of the working class even if they were in trade unions, worked
for
>a wage and occasionally struck.
One of the events I attended at last years LABORFEST in SF was a slide presentation by Damon Hartley, a striker in the Detroit paper strikes. The cops occasionally called in to bust the strike were union cops. Damon Hartley had a photo of one cop, a sergeant or something, I can't remember his name, who came by off-work to do some stomping with a fellow cop on a striker. It was great to hear about the strikers destroying property, lighting cars on fire in paper distribution parking lots, etc. Damon Hartley stressed that this tactic was the most crucial, cutting through the distortions and misrepresentations of the strike in the media, in getting attention.
>
>So my question is whether I would have been crossing class lines if I
asked
>for her phone number?
I don't know. I'm reminded of Pynchon's _Vineland_ and the trysts of Brock Vond and, what's her name, the mother. What a fine book, with that institute, oh shucks can't remember the name right now, that practiced "enlightenment through asskicking." Maybe you could have seduced her to your side?
More on cops. Last night I had a beer or two (don't tell my clean & sober living house) with a musician friend from Long Beach. He commented that while the LAPD is notorious, the Long Beach cops are equally vile. When he was 14 he was picked up after a Judas Priest concert (thanks to the influence of Wadada Leo Smith at Cal Arts, my friends musical tastes expanded, not to dis Judas Priest or anything), for curfew violation. In the cop car the cops were listening to Judas Priest and talking about how bad cops can be sometimes.
When they got to the station they beat up my friend. A 14-year old, on curfew violation. In the cell were two black kids (my friend is a white guy with glasses, like myself) who were picked up for curfew, and beaten as well. My friend asked them what happened. They were picked up riding double on a bike, and the cops had said "whenever you see two n-words on a bike you know they're out to steal another one."
But we're all familiar with these stories.
-Alec
______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com