Jon Johanning wrote:
>
> On Jul 18, 2004, at 7:08 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> > But the U.S. has huge police forces, and they are deadly. They were
> > originally created to replace local constabulary and create a force
> > hostile to the working class.
>
> That's an interesting historical point, but what about today's police?
> They're working class for the most part, after all, aren't they? And
> aren't leftist revolutionaries supposed to be acting for the working
> class? Are the minds of rank and file police immutably, forever closed
> to appeals by revolutionaries? Are they some sort of mindless robots?
>
Nothing is immutable, & in a revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situation one would have big capitalists coming over to the workers' side. Sometimes professional hit men reform. Maybe even an occasional Mafia Don. But police are, and always have been, scabs, traitors to their class. They can't be otherwise and remain police. That is part of their job description. Compare and contrast teachers and firefighters.
Teachers often willingly act as scabs, as do firefighters (use of water cannon as strikebreaking). But that doesn't enter into the very description of their job. Both individually and collectively they can act in a pro-worker manner. Cops can't. And with rare exceptions, won't ever. A cop that doesn't like being a scab quits police work and does something honest, like pimping, begging, or petty thief.
No, of course they are not mindless Robots. They are something rather worse, cops.
Carrol