> But police are, and always have been, scabs, traitors to
> their class. They can't be otherwise and remain police.
But, Friend Cox, can they not *stop* being police and become revolutionaries, or at least revolutionary sympathizers? That is the point at issue.
> 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.
Well, that may be your experience. But my observation is that they are not all that bad. In fact, some of them are even union members themselves. :-) And, as Doug and Liz have noted, and my 1968 experience also suggested, they can on occasion be fairly decent and useful.
True, they are hired by and most of the time work for the State (with a capital S). As such, one must be very careful whenever they are around. I myself get very nervous whenever I find myself in close proximity to an officer of the law, even when they appear to be about relatively benign business; I ask myself, is there something I am doing or have done that they might have some professional interest in? And I certainly am aware of how many cops have proven to be corrupt, to have been a terrifying threat to racial minorities and political dissidents.
Nevertheless, my basic point is that anyone (whoever that may be) who is seriously planning for a revolution against the existing government would be foolish in the extreme to neglect the careful study of the question of how best to induce the police (and the military) to remember, in revolutionary times, that they are first and foremost workers and human beings, and are capable of acting as such, not as employees of the state. In other words, revolutionaries had better hope that police and military personnel can switch from personnel to human beings, and can be appealed to as such. And they had better get busy making such appeals with all despatch. Trying to humanize the police on the eve of revolution will be a little late, methinks.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org ____________________________ Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate, That few, but such as cannot write, translate.
-- Sir John Nenham (1615-1669), To Richard Fanshaw (c. 1643)