[lbo-talk] Elephant memory ...

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 4 14:19:58 PDT 2008


A more nuanced reply. The police are paid to Serve and Protect the powers that be. They are not paid to S&P the opponents and critics of the PtB, and the more radical and effective the opposition, the greater institutional pressure there is on the cops to crack down. Moreover, culturally, as Joanna (briefly a Park Ranger of the law enforcement variety if I recall correctly) has often said here, the cops are a quasi-military bureaucracy that divides the world into Them (two kinds: Bad Guys, get em, including leftist troublemakers, and civilians, idiots) and Us (cops), and defend Us against all comers. Psychologically a lot of police don't get to see a lot of the best in people, which reinforces the Thin Blue Line mentality.

Very occasionally you get a police official with a different view; years ago I read a book that was either by or as told to the then police chief of San Diego, who seemed, from his self-presentation, sort of enlightened, crunchy-granola, hippy-dippy, civilized -- for a cop. But that was San Diego in, I think, the 1970s, and hell, things were different then. In Detroit in 1970s there was a black openly Marxist state court judge elected to the bench -- Justin Ravitz. Also for a different view on the San Diego police read Raymond Chandler's description of police behavior in his "Bay City" in the 1930s-50s -- that was San Diego. Also a while ago.

You also get individual cops with humane views. I have lawyer friends who used to be cops and even a law prof. friend who was a former FBI agent. But a sprinkle does not a summer shower make. Institutionally the police are protectors of privilege. (Frank Donner's phrase in his book about urban red squads.)

Under very exceptional circumstances the police may split or come around, when the Powers That Be are delegitimated and on the defensive, when the popular movements are massively powerful, they are swept along with the tides like anyone. But this is,as the social scientists say,a dependent variable.

Long and short of it. The police are not, when you are a left political activist or participant in a popular counterhegemonic movement, your friends. Nothing an individual or a small group of individuals can do can change that.

That said, the police perform vital and necessary functions, much of what they do is useful or harmless and much of it would have to be done in any society. In our society, where racism and inequality contribute to rampant crime, even in poor communities of color where police racism is widespread, the communities generally want more rather than less police protection from drug dealers, crackheads, gangbangers, and the other lowlifes who kill children in the streets, we just had another one:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1139714,girlshot090208.article

http://www.violencepreventioninstitute.org/gangs.html

But organizing the cops is a lost cause.

--- On Thu, 9/4/08, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Elephant memory ...
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Thursday, September 4, 2008, 1:17 PM
> Fuck da police, as they say.
>
> On Sep 4, 2008, at 2:06 PM, sawicky at verizon.net wrote:
>
> > Why?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: martin
> >> Sent: 09/04/08 01:55 pm
> >> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> >> Subject: [lbo-talk] Elephant memory ...
> >>
> >> Many years ago I suggested - as an lbo newbie -
> that the foremost
> >> task
> >> of the left would be to win the support of police.
> Doug responded,
> >> rather forcefully (I thought at the time),
> something like 'never!'.
> >> Thought I might bring it up again perhaps to
> elicit a less emphatic
> >> response.
> >>
> >> martin
> >> ___________________________________
> >>
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >>
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk



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