Discussion- ending militarization of police, police brutality and gov sanctioned murder by LEO.

[F4lconF16]

29. A good article from Socialist Worker.

http://socialistworker.org/2015/01/06/the-problem-is-the-barrel

...snip...

The police came into being as a social institution to control crowds and to keep dissent at bay, not to catch the bad guys and lock them up. That explains the function the cops play today. They are an arm of the state that answers to the political elite, who themselves answer to the business elite.

What the police do and how they conduct themselves is not something that the general public is allowed to have any power over. Who decided that the best way to fight crime is to constantly patrol the poorest, most segregated urban areas, arresting nonviolent violators of drug laws--overwhelmingly people of color--rather than station officers to sit outside corporate boardrooms and arrest the corporate criminals? We know that tens of trillions of dollars were stolen from American taxpayers during the 2008 Wall Street crisis--yes, stolen--yet none of these criminals go to prison.

...snip...

I AM for curtailing any powers the police have--whether through civilian police review boards, or taking away their tanks and military equipment, or making cops wear body cameras, or disarming them, or just having fewer of them around. But whatever success we have in achieving that, we have to understand that we are never going to change the nature of cops' mission.

...snip...

We should organize to rein in the police and to redirect the resources that go into law enforcement toward education or jobs--anything else but the cops. But no matter how hard we try, nothing will ever change the unfair, unjust and biased way they operate--because the police are the first line of defense for maintaining a massively unfair, unjust and biased system.

I think we need to recognize that these problems can't be solved in the system we have now. The issues can be allieviated, perhaps, but never solved. Ultimately, the police are not on our side.

http://socialistworker.org/2014/12/10/police-are-different-from-us

If we're going to make a substantial change, we need to start organizing and protesting. Up here in Seattle, the Black Lives Matter movement has done an excellent job at keeping issues like the new multi-hundred-million dollar youth jail in the news. Protest is still our best option--it is visible, and makes the elite nervous.

http://socialistworker.org/2014/09/15/only-protest-will-hold-police

I think we need to protest, now. That is the best thing we can do. Taking to the streets creates awareness. It galvanizes support (and opposition, arguably not a bad thing). And then we need to commit to a long term change in our system. This means refusing to elect Democrats that will not go after the prison complex, refusing to elect "tough on crime" Dems, refusing to elect Dems that will continue cutting social safety nets and worsen the problem, refusing to elect those who will not call out the MIC. It means working our asses off to get far-left candidates (and I mean far left, not 3rd way bullshit "far left&quot , if not elected, in the face of those who are. Chuy Garcia is a perfect example of what we need to do. It's tough, because all the power and money are against us. But protest keeps awareness high, and will enable us to get those candidates on the ticket. The neoliberals will continue to hurt themselves, and will provide us with plenty of opportunity.