Honestly, with the state of Poland right now, "abolish and prosecute the Polish" doesn't sound too bad lmao.
That's been the policy of my local pharmacy for as long as I can remember. I don't know why Americans need to stock up on so much Polish remover, but I guess it doesn't hurt to be careful.
edit: apple autocorrected “police” to “polish” and I had to fix it. What the actual fuck, I have now turned off autocorrect entirely.
NO MORE POLAND
SOCIETY HAS PROGRESSED PAST THE NEED FOR POLAND
Michah Xavier Johnson had pigs questioning if it was worth it putting on the uniform. I feel like a provisional army similar to the IRA is likely to form before any politician starts pulling the levers.
Going to disagree that "defund the police" is necessarily an opportunist demand, even if there are opportunist formulations that water it down. I also would argue that "abolish the police" is an ultraleft demand that can be watered down into something meaningless. My reasoning is as follows:
Chapo, the online left, and the tiny socialist orgs and groups that do exist are arguably at the forefront of class consciousness. We're outliers. The average American worker is now where many of us were 5-10 years ago. The survey shown in the screenshot asked people whether they support defunding the Minneapolis PD, not abolishing it. Calls to abolish cops will certainly win over some of the most militant anarchists and other revolutionary leftists eager to go out into the streets, but pushing that demand forces us to answer the question of how to abolish the police, what counts as abolition and what doesn't, what to replace it with, etc. Making the case for defunding police departments - reducing their budgets and shifting that revenue towards useful social programs, public education, public transportation, etc. - is much easier because it actually sounds feasible to unconscious workers without making a revolution happen tomorrow.
Which brings me to my next point. We aren't organized enough to actually abolish the police. We don't even have a mass workers' party in the US similar to Labour in the UK. The subjective factor is more than a century behind the rotten-ripe objective conditions because of the collapse of the old left in the 1990s, and we only started recovering from a position comparable to the late 19th century after the 2008 crisis. We have no trustworthy left leadership on a meaningful scale yet and we're entering a period of crisis comparable to the 1930s. Imagine if the 3rd and 4th internationals and their socialist/Communist parties hadn't existed during the Great Depression! That's the lagged and backwards position we're in, and we have a lot of ground to cover before we even entertain questions of dual power, which is what abolition of the police actually requires.
"Abolish the police" is a demand for when we have workers' councils ready to step up and form the embryo of a workers' state, with armed workers at the ready to replace the police and maintain stability within worker-controlled communities. Meanwhile in 2020 America we still haven't restored the socialist left's ties to the rank-and-file members of trade unions. If we call for abolition at all, we should call for abolition through socialism, i.e. through socialist revolution. Any "abolition" of police compatible with capitalism means cops get replaced with not-cops who continue beating and jailing workers and homeless people in protection of private property. The "special body of armed men" is maintained and simply changes its form or its name - maybe it turns into a "sheriff's department", or the cops get replaced with even-less-accountable privately-paid armed guards and corporate mercenaries.
Going back to the "defund" demand. There's an easy way to avoid the bait-and-switch problem here: a correctly formulated demand will include clarity, will include details that liberal saboteurs will readily reject without pressure from an organized and sustained movement. We call to massively defund the police (not a 5% budget cut, not 10%; something like 50% or 75%!), to demilitarize them, to reject any book-cooking bullshit to make it look like cops are getting defunded when they're not (e.g. cops in schools getting recategorized as part of the public education budget), stopping sending cops to answer 911 calls that don't require an arrest (and replacing them with more social workers, paramedics, firefighters, etc.).
The only immediate barriers to implementing these policies are city and state bureaucrats refusing to do it, but as the June protests demonstrate they could have folded to more of these demands, offering more concessions if the BLM movement had stronger organizations and parties to fall back on to sustain the initial burst of momentum through to the end of the summer, instead of fizzling out in a month (outside of Portland) after most participants burned out and the Democrats were able to capture and redirect some of that energy towards voting for Joe Biden. Think back to the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted a year - a campaign that strong isn't sustainable without additional organization, coalition building, and more developed Marxist leadership. A scientific and transitional version of the defund demand is one which reaches workers at their current level of consciousness, is immediately economically (but not necessarily politically) feasible, and points towards the need for greater working-class organization towards socialist revolution.
I think a key difference between the Republicans dragging Dems to the right and our attempts to pressure them leftward is that Republicans are a ruling party, represented by the land-based/natural-resource-based wing of the US bourgeoisie. There is not yet a Marxist party, rooted in the US working class, capable of doing the same. We have to build and organize that structure first, which requires putting forth demands that address the immediate concerns of the working class. While there are radicalizing layers of workers and students gravitating towards the abolish demand, a "maximalist" demand like that might seem like a bridge too far for most workers. The defund demand addresses the same concern but reaches a wider audience and can be articulated as a first step towards the eventual goal of abolition.
Wow you're very smart and situation is entirely hopeless and we should not try.
Thank you very much for poinitng out yet again how awful things are.
Read my post again. I never said the situation was hopeless, just that we're not strong enough for a demand like "abolish the police" to be appropriate yet. We can progress from our current position to a better one very quickly in a short period of time, but in the meantime we have to continue laying and rebuilding the foundations that 19th-century Marxists built, and which the 20th-century left took for granted.
That means joining and building Marxist organizations, building community coalitions, radicalizing friends and coworkers, getting involved in your union if you're in one (not to join union leadership but to coordinate with rank-and-file membership), continuing to intervene in social movements like BLM. This will help lay the foundation for a mass workers' party and for a revolutionary party capable of running working-class candidates in elections as a platform to raise a Marxist banner, and rally around issue-centric campaigns built around demands like defunding the police.
For crying out loud. Things are not hopeless. Things might get harder (hell, covid has made turning people out to street protests harder) but that's not any reason to give up. If you're a socialist, you at least on an unconscious level are rejecting doomerism and the politics of despair. A better world is still possible even if conditions seem bleak right now and look like they're going to be horrifying for the foreseeable future. We can still organize. We can still reach our fellow workers. We can still fight back.
Trotsky wrote a very short article about how awful and hopeless things seemed at the turn of the 20th century. (I know it's early Trotsky who should be taken with a grain of salt but this particular writing aged well). This was his concluding statement:
It seems as if the new century, this gigantic newcomer, were bent at the very moment of its appearance to drive the optimist into absolute pessimism and civic nirvana.
– Death to Utopia! Death to faith! Death to love! Death to hope! thunders the twentieth century in salvos of fire and in the rumbling of guns.
– Surrender, you pathetic dreamer. Here I am, your long awaited twentieth century, your ‘future.’
– No, replies the unhumbled optimist: You, you are only the present.
Their dream lies in ruins and he got murdered thousands of miles away from his home, by people who used to be his comrades.
The century was a nothing but death and suffering and ended with the world humanity poised to finally kill itself via climate change. The people who did it are worshiped as heroes.
Even if what they built was mostly destroyed or distorted almost beyond recognition, there are still important lessons we can learn from the history of socialist movements. The Russian and Chinese revolutions were probably the most significant accomplishments of global Marxism (even if they can and should be ruthlessly analyzed and scrutinized for missteps, mistakes, and betrayals). These movements showed the world that it's even possible to establish a workers' state on a continental scale, and workers all over the world have attempted to replicate them. Lenin studied Marx's analysis of the failed 1871 Paris commune and applied those lessons in the Russian context. We can do the same with 20th century socialism as we push forward in our 21st century struggle.
Saying "abolish the police" is kinda like saying "abolish the state". It's not happening.
I mean, it's something impossible that also almost no one wants. So it's kinda silly to make a big deal out of demanding it. Even defunding the police and diverting funds in a meaningful way seems to be near impossible in the US. But it's actually something that you could rally people behind and make progress.
Alright I'd never heard before about the Koch Brothers supporting any form of police abolition but there's a big difference between leftist/anarchist police abolition proposals and what I imagine the Koch Brothers would be in favor of (which I assume is privatization? Which isn't even abolition lmao?).
Like, the Koch brothers are also in favor of open borders (which I get the feeling you'd also point out as a knock against open borders but whatever), but just like with abolition, there's a pretty big difference between what a leftist proposal for open borders and what a Koch proposal for open borders would look like, as well as a difference in the motives.
It looks like the joke is that the Kochs (and "anarcho-capitalist" right-"libertarians") would respond to the police abolition demand by replacing nominally publicly-accountable cops with privatized security guards and mercenaries, instead of doing what the anarchists actually want, which is effectively to get rid of the armed agents of the capitalist class altogether.
Well, you don't really wanna "let" the libs do one thing while you do another, you wanna get people to organise with you instead of the liberals. So you gotta offer more but not really "abolish the police" more, because then most just won't care any more. Even if we could do a revolution tomorrow, straight up abolishing the police would take years and years supported by broad change in all sectors of society. But it's not like there is no gap between what toothless libs say and "abolish the police", you can say all sorts of stuff, create alternative bodies, fund affected communities, abolish private prisons, throw away the old penal code, demilitarize/disarm the police and take away their liberties, idk, all sorts of stuff.
You should clarify what you mean by impossible. Is it economically impossible given the existing balance of power between classes, or is it merely politically impossible without sustained grassroots pressure, the sort of demand which could theoretically be met under capitalism? There's an important difference here.
People misunderstand the whole "start big on negotiations" concept. You want to start big, but you don't want to start so big that you get brushed off as not seriously negotiating. There are limits.
If the typical pay for a position is $50K and you start off asking for $75K, the other side might still be willing to talk to you, and you can compromise away a big chunk of your initial demand and still wind up at (say) 120% of the going rate. But if you start off asking for ten billion dollars and your own private jet, they're just not going to take that as a serious offer. It's not on the table, it's not even a bit off the edge of the table -- it's something they would never consider for any reason, and they might not even have the resources to do. That ten billion dollar demand isn't going to translate into landing you a $250K salary for the position just because you can back so far off your initial offer.
The first sentence of this is one of the points I was trying to make earlier but much more concise. Thank you for that.
Although I wouldn't say "it's not happening", but rather "it's not happening before revolution does".
Even after revolution it's not happening for many, many years. Replace the police yeah, but it's not really gonna be an abolition. Police abolition also means penal code abolition, justice system abolition etc, stuff that communists always assigned to the "higher stage of communism". If you're the zapatistas you can do it because of how unified and tightly knit they are and the peculiarities of their situation and way of life, but in a highly advanced, urbanised and heterogeneous society it's not really so simple.
even a good chunk of republicans lol. reminds me that a nice slice of them also support legalizing weed and making healthcare free but literally none of these things will ever be done
I'm leaving mine because it will probably be led by Matt Shea
Looks like it's very unpopular with the only voters we give a shit about.
All the evidence we need that the electoral college, senate, and gerrymandering are reactionary tools.
He was dating a girl with a locker near mine. She dumped him for someone else and he started a fight with the guy between classes a couple days later. I had to put up with him in one of my extra curriculars as well. He hung out with the usual types I avoided. Chapelle's Clayton Bigsby character was a popular impersonation they did.
Everybody hates the cops. The problem is that people also hate "progressive" Do-Gooders, and those people can't keep their mouths shut.
Leftists and Liberals are exactly the same in the US because they draw from the same well of people. Most people think AOC is a "leftist" for instance, even many self proclaimed Leninists!
We’re likely to find more common ground with fucking libert*rians🤮 in terms of drug legalization + criminal justice reform for fuck’s sake.
Are you posting from the year 2007? The libertarians you're thinking of are all Biden voters! That's his prize. 2020 libertarians are all Q-Anon people.
I guarantee that's mostly the poorest quartile of Republicans most likely to radicalize to the left if we're ready to pull them away from the fash.
Old people get into all sorts of shenanigans with police, and most police hate dealing with old people.
I mean, remember that video of the old (white) dude getting run over by marching pigs at a protest and bleeding and they just marched by and didn't do shit?
Dug up the source for this. There's a graph showing that 73% of Minneapolis voters say defund the police. https://img.apmcdn.org/812d00e15d4a7677ae550f484a641abcecfda8fd/uncropped/510735-20200814-poll-graphic-03.png
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/08/15/poll-mpls-residents-dont-like-police-department-but-still-want-to-fund-it
That's why we need to be bashing these fucking losers over the head with stats like this. You're either in the Donald Trump racist party or you're in the vast minority of democrats that agree with the Donald Trump racist party. Pick one loser.
*vast majority of all Americans
Edit: I think I misread that, saying vast majority of all Americans that support defunding police and medicare for all
I'm gonna repost what I wrote up after listening to that Taibbi episode because this anti-Amber meme is slander and caricature:
Attacks on Taibbi and Amber rely on out-of-context quotes and an uncharitable willingness to ascribe the worst motives to their arguments that under scrutiny appear entirely valid.
E.g. Amber said there're "non-White cops" and Taibbi said that working-class people become cops. (NOT a defense of cops.) They were saying that condemning all cops as White supremacists is a bad argument, one that does poorly with racial minorities and the poor. Because the experience of those groups with police is contradictory, not black-and-white, no pun intended. While many experiences with police are extremely negative, those groups are also disproportionately affected by violent crime and want police attention on violent crime - not simply no police. And they're also the demographics from which cops are hired - becoming a cop is a way to earn a living for many poor families. You won't win hearts by shitting on people's relatives.
Yes, the police is an anti-proletarian institution at its roots, and American police is corrupt and bloody with infuriating impunity (which Taibbi, Will, and Amber repeatedly acknowledge)... BUT the movement for racial equality and against police brutality will not attract mainstream support (and thus political success) if it leads with "All Cops Are the KKK"-type rhetoric.
TL;DR Amber didn't specifically oppose "defund the police" or defended the police in any way. She just highlighted the backlash of calling police White supremacists from certain demographics. Will agreed with these statements too, no need to single out Amber.
I'll also add, as good as the numbers in the OP look, they are urban, which always skews left, AND against a particularly hated PD. Don't over- or underestimate the support for BLM/DTP.
Well said. Taibbi is well versed on the systemic issues with policing. But I also don't think it's wrong to argue policing is racist, but the 'why' gets left out. Policing is about keeping the wealthy 'safe', and that means coming down like a ton of bricks on the poor, which just so happens to be minorities a lot of the time. The police have a systemic racism problem that is due to its adherence to class-based punishment. A fine is only punishment for those that can't pay it.
out-of-context quotes and an uncharitable willingness to ascribe the worst motives to their arguments that under scrutiny appear entirely valid
We're never going to get anywhere if we treat fellow leftists like this. They're not some chud, and you shouldn't interact with them as if they were.
She literally did talk about "defund the police" though. Not just abolishing the police or the white supremacist thing. And yeah it is urban, so? That's where the issue is, that's where it even matters as a slogan. 70% is a HUGE number. Usually you're lucky if you have 20something% for what you want, and a majority not being completely opposed.
She literally did talk about “defund the police” though
Maybe I missed it? If you can quote her, please do so. I was listening for offensive quotes because it was shared with me as "can you believe what they said, omg, chapo is canceled" and the bit about White-supremacy/working-class/abolition (thanks for the reminder on that one) were the only ones that seemed remotely close to the accusation.
And yeah it is urban, so?
Urban AND an epicenter of BLM. I'm just saying don't celebrate prematurely because it might not be representative. If DTP works in Minneapolis and can force through change anywhere at all (like the bunch of places that did cut police budgets this year) - awesome. But historically the leftism/liberalism of cities hasn't done jack for reforming the police.
The problem I see is that skepticism about some radical slogans is taken to be tantamount to liberalism. It's a judgment call about a tactic, not a fundamental principle - nobody knows what will work. The attacks on clearly committed and intelligent leftists who speak their minds are wrong. Disagree with them if you interpret the facts differently, don't write them off forever over a difference of judgment.
And then there's the further problem where certain establishment Dems can embrace radical slogans because they have zero chance of being enacted in many places. So it's a way for them to play-pretend at radicalism while opposing actually feasible reform as being insufficiently woke/intersectional. The whole, "Oh, you want M4A, but haven't called for reparations? You White privileged piece of shit brocialist!"
The problem I see is that skepticism about some radical slogans is taken to be tantamount to liberalism
I agree with that part. And I even agree that "abolish the police" is kind of a dumb thing to get behind. It is just that she did actually talk about how defunding the police is unpopular and it's not a good solution etc. I can't find it right now because I am on mobile but in the recent struggle sesh thread someone posted a link to a reddit thread with all the quotes etc. It was something about how people in affected communities with a lot of crime want more police, not less, etc.
Urban AND an epicenter of BLM. I’m just saying don’t celebrate prematurely because it might not be representative
Even if it isn't, and in other cities it is just half that, this is still great.
Kk we're on the same page, I'm just willing to give them a greater benefit of the doubt.
Yeah I can actually somewhat understand partly where this is coming from, because I have faced it a lot. Some people think that if you don't embrace their slogans or actions it just means you are not radical enough and it gets kinda stupid, because losing support and getting domed because you don't pay attention to what is going on in society isn't radical, it's just silly. Like, if I was CIA that's exactly what I'd do, it's probably a lot more effective than whatever they are currently doing. Ultraleftism is a big issue with the left in the US as far as I can see. But on the other hand I think it is really dumb to talk about BLM and the demands to defund the police like it's some sort of marginal thing, when it clearly isn't and it's one of the best things the left in the US has done in recent years. Stripping down the police is extremely important for any leftist project.
well how do you expect to win over all those republican swing votes like Mr and Mrs jones, the white middle-class family in long island that i base all my electoral strategy off of with that kind of policy, sweaty?
What the at the College Grads and Independents being so low.
