- cross-posted to:
- antiwork@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- antiwork@lemmy.world
Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that these police probably suffer as much as the people they are oppressing?
We cannot have a tiny number of very rich elite without a very large number of working class serving the interests of those rich elite rather than their own.
Severity varies. Some are class traitors, some just need that paycheck.
Yes and that’s what annoys me.
I don’t think that’s logically a possibility? Not unless the police also have a group of thugs that can assault them without consequence.
Being a lapdog of the capital class has its benefits. The police have some of the strongest unions in the nation and are way way overcompensated for their level of training and education.
Well I meant that they are closer to us than the oligarchy. Their wives work there. They pay more for shipping. That sort of thing.
Really shows the degree to which cop unions ARE NOT labor unions.
And journalist and Democrats still wonder why we fucking hate the police.
Where’s that campus cop with the pepper spray when you need him
Depose
The chained market.
Look at those well trained, peak physical condition tubs of lard 😂
Why is everyone surprised … this what the police have always done against striking workers.
By design they are meant to maintain law and order … not to serve and protect people … the whole ‘serve and protect’ phrase was marketing campaign by the LAPD created by police propaganda in the 1960s and it didn’t have any actual obligation for the police to serve or to protect people … it was just a catchy phrase that made the police sound good when they in fact could do the opposite or nothing at all. But no matter how they treated people, they always throughout history have always consistently protected wealth, property and those with power.
Why is everyone surprised …
Nice to have a bit of physical imagery to wave around when you’re dealing with a liberal who insists police are these neutral non-partisan agents.
Not that it’ll necessarily work, of course. I can already hear some pensioner with a Harris sticker insisting that “um, aktuly, its the union that’s being violent and the police who are being civil and restrained”. But for the younger and more clear-eyed, its a damning current indictment of a system you mostly just read about in history books.
What kind of liberals do you know that would stick up for the police!?
Old people I’d imagine, tho throwing the Liberal blanket on them seems pretty disingenuous. Old folks gonna be old
By design they are meant to maintain law and order
Not at all or qualified immunity, officer and prosecutorial discretion wouldn’t exist.
… not to serve and protect people
Correct, they’re asset protection for the highest earners.
If they truly were meant to uphold the law, they would be held to the highest standards of said law and prosecuted for the slightest deviation from it.
Correct.
Nicely summarized in Robocop.
Solidarity for Bezos and his yachts, can’t have him suffer from these rabblerousers living paycheque to paycheque taking a stand - NYPD.
Taxpayers. We’re the fucking taxpayers. This is after NY gave Amazon $3.5B in tax breaks.
We’re the fucking taxpayers.
That’s the joke of modern capitalist liberal democracy. It’s not the people paying the rents who are in charge. It’s the folks collecting.
That’s just how our country works. It’s by design.
They’re just gonna keep taking shit until you see their face on the front page of Lemmy next to a angry looking dude in an orange jumpsuit.
This is at it’s core the police problem. They are class traitors.
They’re not traitors … they never had any loyalty to the population to begin with
They were created to ‘maintain law and order’ … not some fanciful idea of protecting or serving people.
Police are working-class ergo they are class traitors.
👆
Getting libs to develop class consciousness can feel like a Sisyphean task.
maybe we just need minor reforms and more capitalism
Real capitalism has never been tried!
This isn’t capitalism. Its cronyism!
hey guys! make sure everyone goes out and votes! nothing more important in a democracy than voting! 😁
damn we missed our chance at political action for another 4 years, let’s go into cold storage until it’s time to vote against the worst candidate in favor of the slightly less bad candidate.
How are they traitors if they never ever worked for that class in the first place (in USAs case)?
Edit: to clarify, it’s a joke in the sense that that was the core job description
It’s not about working for a class, it’s about being part of that class.
Police, whether we like them or not, are also part of the working class. They are class traitors in that respect. They serve the ownership class and fight “their own.”
There are a class of people that own capital to make capital, and there are a class that labor to acquire capital.
The cops labor to acquire capital on behalf of the class that owns capital to make capital that does no labor.
Yes, ofc, the comment was intended as a joke - all dogs serve a master, won’t ever be masters, and are “betraying” wolves by not allowing them to get to the sheep (which they also can’t/arent allowed to get).
Ahh that’s a “whoooosh” on me then lol
Blue collar working-class, I’d say. What class are they then? Not all goldfish living in a buble know they are goldfish living in a buble…
If there was ever any question about who the police truly protect, this should clarify it.
According to the gun control pushed by liberals, they want to rely on these people for their personal safety.
You watch too much action movies.
Never thought this, smart
What do you think liberals mean when they say gun control?
Folks who make posts like that are incapable of distinguishing between “we’re coming for your guns” and “we’d like to ensure everyone is a bit safer with their guns.”
Yeah, very much has vibes of “and yet you participate in society, curious! I am very intelligent.”
That’s how solidarity works (Cops and private property)
Now its your turn
Smash?
My favorite passages about how to win against the cops in a worker movement come from Farrell Dobbs Teamster Rebellion:
Under capitalism the main police function is to break strikes and to repress other forms of protest against the policies of the ruling class. Any civic usefulness other forms of police activity may have, like controlling traffic and summoning ambulances, is strictly incidental to the primary repressive function. Personal inclinations of individual cops do not alter this basic role of the police. All must comply with ruling-class dictates. As a result, police repression becomes one of the most naked forms through which capitalism subordinates human rights to the demands of private property. If the cops sometimes falter in their antisocial tasks, it is simply because they – like the guns they use – are subject to rust when not engaged in the deadly function for which they are primarily trained.
No police organization is exactly the same day in and day out. Two essential factors determine its character at a given moment: the social climate in which the cops have been operating and the turnover of personnel within the force. An unseasoned cop may tend to be somewhat considerate of others in the performance of duty, especially while class relations are relatively peaceful. Even in such calm times, however, the necessary accommodation must be made to capitalist demands, including readiness to shoot anyone who tampers with private property. Otherwise the aspiring cop, if he is not kicked out of the force, will have little chance of rising beyond a beat in the sticks. By gradually weeding out misfits along these general lines, a police department can keep itself abreast of requirements during a more or less stable period in class relations.
but when it’s the cop’s union under scrutiny, they stand united.
because it’s getting them off of a murder rap
They do this… unless it’s their own union, Then they don’t!
There’s nothing more perverse than a cop union.
Teen Vogue (I know, right?): Police Unions: What to Know and Why They Don’t Belong in the Labor Movement
I’ve been very impressed with Teen Vogue’s quality.
I follow the RSS feed. I don’t care about most of the celebrity stuff but they do a great job covering things like this.
i wonder if it’s because they’re under less pressure from our ruling class since it’s seen as an entertainment rag for teenagers.
Probably onto something there. Teen Vogue doesn’t need to worry about losing access to politicians like WaPo.
if that were case; then there’s an avenue for getting the message of liberation to the american masses.
(i doubt very much that no one else has thought of it though).
This is why All Cops Are Bastards: their primary purpose is to protect private property, AKA the means of production.
I was having a think about that and realized it needs to be AACAB because in my country cops are definitely not bastards.
“Policing Enables Bastards”
A shorter phrase allowing for exceptions, e.g. a sheriff in town of thirty people who works one year and retires (without covering for dirty colleagues or breaking strikes etc.)
Still a bastard
If I join their ranks for a day to leak their brutality “we investigated ourselves and found we’ve done nothing wrong“ files I’m a bastard. No leaks from me then.
Implications of law of large numbers distracts from otherwise understandable arguments.
ACAB
-Sith
Who said that? Or did you just make up that story to avoid having your beliefs challenged?
Hmm, sorry - I took my sheriff example to the extreme and assumed it would still fall under your bastard definition, which sounded like guilt by association.
Given how many cops there are out there, I know that at least one new hire was chill and reported colleagues the first time they saw bad behavior, then got fired for it. I don’t like to call whistleblowers “bastards“ even when urgently describing an important and systemic issue.
To me, that’s a perfect example of why all cops are bastards. That person is no longer a cop, so it doesn’t apply to them. But all the bastards didn’t like having their awful behavior called out and pushed out the non-bastard. Thus all cops are bastards.
I’ve heard that before yet when we think about 700,000 different individuals aren’t we almost guaranteed to have one or more cops undergoing a disciplinary process right now (and at any and every moment)?
It’s so badass to stick up for what you believe in, what’s right, citizens’ rights, to the point of getting fired for it - & knowing you’re risking harassment, possibly for the rest of your life you live in that same jurisdiction. If the sheer scale suggests there must be at least one agitator in police ranks at any given time, I can’t in good conscience say “all”.
Stubborn…!
Policing = being a bastard
Police are class traitors. They have abandoned their working class communities in favor of being given a privileged position in society and being the one who pulls the trigger on working class people themselves. They are scum, all of them. There is no exception. Being a police officer is being scum. Once you’ve chosen to be a police officer you are no longer a member of the working class. You are now an agent of state violence dedicated to protecting the ruling class. It’s the whole reason police exist at all.
Remember when Police Officers watched a bunch of Children Die in Uvalde? LoL!