Between liberals and revolutionaries of all stripes,there is a recurrent and probably inevitable conflict regarding the function,nature and composition of the police. The conflict has its root in mutually exclusive assumptions;it seems that liberals assume that cops can be won over or at least neutralized ;whereas for revolutionaries the police are the leading edge and most likely source of state repression. The task of the police in all societies in which they exist above all is to uphold the current regime of political and social relations. Thus revolutionaries committed to the overturning of the present order are logically and in a practical sense anti-police,given that in the vast majority of cases, the police are the most likely opponents of any kind of militant activity. When one examines the history of revolutions and social upheavals a clear pattern emerges in relation to the police,long after the military has either joined the rebellion or decided to sit on their hand, the police will continue a last ditch defense of the old regime. Also the police are always heavily over represented in reactionary/racist organizations such as the klan or in Greeces golden dawn party. So it seems that whatever their class backround etc. the daily conditions of work combined with personal loyalties insure that a reactionary ideological atmosphere is reproduced within the various police bodies that exist or have existed since the creation of professional police in the 17th century(not coincidentally capitalism and the police emerged in the same geographical and temporal frame). In as much as the police are the social/political entity specifically tasked with maintaining the present order in all of its abject misery,then the police should be regarded as the common enemy of all who uphold the abolition of that order. Finally I think that it is just a truism that one can gauge the effectiveness of a movement/the relative effects of its practice, by the degree to which it attracts the repressive attentions of the state and in particular the police thus state repression is a kind of backhanded compliment to ones effectiveness....In conclusion FTP.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 22:34:03 +0000
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