[lbo-talk] Slogans Demands etc

[Carrol Cox]

Unless we get the cops off the streets there is little hope for a serious
left  movement in the United States. And that is NOT an impossible goal.
How many of the men and women in local jails are an immediate physical
threat to the people of the community? How many crimes were _prevented_
yesterday by cops on the street? Of course this change would have to be
accompanied by the legalization (and not merely the decriminalization of all
drugs. And a growing mass movement would _in effect_ (and rather rapidly)
stop all or most police attempts to arrest retail drug dealers. 

I think useful illumination of this question is provided by the debate on
this list, in the summer of 2003, whether or not the "anti-war movement"
should demand immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq or, rather, should
insist that first the U.S. should repair the damage it had done.  Armies of
Occupation, of course, _always_ increase damage. Failure to recognize this
flows  can be labeled "Crackpot Realism." Endless attempts to "reform the
prison system" have the same intellectually vacuous grounds. The prison
system and police behavior are getting _worse_, and only the kind of
resistance provided by a movement for abolition can provide even limited
resistance to this intensification of repressive measures.

The phrase "serve and protect" should be altered to "Serve PERIOD." They
provide damn little protection, and no reform will change that.

Carrol

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of Carrol Cox
Sent: Saturday, January 23, 2016 2:35 PM
To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
Subject: [lbo-talk] Slogans Demands etc

In the first instance (and even in the last instance) a slogan or demand is
NOT addressed to the government or the corporation or the City Councl: It is
addressed to those who haven't joined the movement yet but are sympathetic.
That is why intelligent slogans or demands ALWAYS seem impractical or
unachievable. 

This is absolutely elementary; it is the fundamental truth to be grasped by
those attempting to build a movement.   Everything else follows from it.

*Carrol

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