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TomBo 1629 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 06:22
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Merrick, I was just reading this on Norlonto (prompted by Paul's posting): http://norlonto.net/index.cfm/action/articles.view/itemID/49 and I was very struck by the way your opinion of the police seems to have hardened in the time between that article and the recent "Why I Hate The Police" piece. In the Norlonto article you say that "one of the big lessons of the Newbury bypass campaign in 1996 has been to see the person inside the uniform". You describe how security guards and police officers ended up as protestors, and stress the humanity of those wearing the uniform. This is something CND always made a point of emphasising at the Faslane demos - that we should appeal to the humanity of the police, because that way we could hope to win them over (a WPC I spoke to there once admitted that she agreed with our cause but could not join us without losing her job - police officers aren't allowed to be members of CND, ridiculously). Yet I find this hard to square with the "Why I Hate The Police" article - surely if we write every police officer off as morally bankrupt then we've stopped seeing their humanity? In the Norlonto piece you say that "a lot of people joined the police cos they thought it *would* help the community and the country" - a very different position to seeing them all as morally bankrupt. I wonder what has caused your opinion to change? Or perhaps it's not changed, and I'm missing something? Personally I think that the appeal to the police's humanity has got to be worth it, even if it only wins over one in a million of them.
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 17:47
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You're right to have seen a shift in how I feel. Like anyone with a working heart and mind, my politics and opinions evolve over time, though I still leave much of my old writing in print even when I've moved on from it cos it's usually a valid prespective. I got sick of the officers like the WPC you mention. 'Well, a lot of officers agree with what you're doing, and in fact my daughter's a vegetarian...' If they really do agree with something yet will use as much brutality and violence as it takes to assault and prevent the thing they agree with then they are morally bankrupt. I still believe that many people join the police for great and noble reasons. But those who stay there must blind their consciences, and as such lose my respect and earn my disdain. I got sick of trying to appeal to their humanity and then half an hour later seeing that same matey copper stand by as his colleagues beat my friends on the head with batons. The day the matey copper nicked his colleague for assault would be the day I believe in him again. Which, we know well, is never going to happen. I got sick of the habitual lying in Statements and in court, in my own trials and in those of friends. It was compounded by meeting Janet Alder whose brother was assaulted by coppers and left to die in a police station lobby. The whole thing's on video, the last 11 minutes of his life, it's as damning as the Rodney King footage. The coppers banded together, lied through their arses and got off. It tied in with all the demonstrations where I'd been nice to coppers then seen them start riots. It tied in with what we already knew of the Hillsborough disaster. I got to see that it isn't 'a few bad apples' it's the entire structure of the force, it's the *whole point* of their job. So they defend the force and the job above any ideas of truth, justice or social good.
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TomBo 1629 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 18:17
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Thanks for explaining that, Merrick, I hope you didn't think I was trying to say "nyer, you're not being consistent"! My interest was in why your opinion should change, not in accusing you of hypocrisy - it's only the bigot whose opinions never change. I certainly agree that it's not just "a few bad apples", but that the majority of police officers are in it for the wrong reasons. It's the sort of job (like prison officer) that attracts the wrong sort of person. Thanks also for putting some perspective on my experience with that WPC - I've not had much dealings with the police and am probably quite naieve about them. What's the answer, though? This is an issue that's had my head tied in knots for years now. Do we just abolish the police force? I wonder what Britain would be like without them. They sell us this myth (I mean that in the sense of "story" rather than "lie" - although it may well be a lie) about how without the police chaos would ensue and we'd all be living in a much more violent amd scary world. I'm not so sure, though: I very much agree with what you say in the intro to U-Know about most people always having shared core values of honesty, compassion etc. It also seems to me that the police are themselves violent and scary, so in one sense abolishing them would reduce the amount of fear and agression in the world. I don't know, though, it only takes a minority to make life a living hell for the majority.
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TomBo 1629 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 18:30
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perhaps part of the problem is the ideology of society in general. all that capitalist shit, I mean - standing on your neighbour's head to get ahead yourself. perhaps there'd be less crime and therefore less need for the police if society was more concerned with US than with I. it's the Yijing, I think, that points out that it's only people with excessive possessions who run the risk of being robbed.
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PMM 3155 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 20:40
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Sorry, Tombo, I have to disagree with the last bit of that. In my experience, those that steal will choose the homes of their local community, rather than venture to the posher areas, with their burglar alarms, security gates, and CCTV. I've been the victim of theft on a few occasions. Each time, when I've been living in bedsits, council estates, and what have you.
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TomBo 1629 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 22:40
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You have a point. But that's not quite what I meant (who knows what the Yijing meant by it, I should've left it out of it!). I meant that capitalism encourages people to want things that they can't afford, and that this may be a factor in the motivation of burglars. But I dunno - I know no burglars. And I spose the Yijing's right in as much as people who have nothing can't be robbed.
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PMM 3155 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 22:43
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I have to disagree again! It's those with the least that get ripped most by the system. The shittiest job I ever had was working for an agency in a factory. Utterly stultifying work, and a large part of the workforce was migrant labour. They had no choice but to submit to the conditions, where I could tell them to stick it after a week. |
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TomBo 1629 posts |
Jul 19, 2004, 22:56
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| Not sure what you're getting at here I'm afraid, Paul. I was wondering what would happen in the absence of a police force in Britain, and in the process getting drawn into a tangent about cultural factors that may (or may not!) be causes of crime. I can't see where working conditions come into what I was talking about? Maybe I'm just thick! I certainly agree with what you say with regard to wage slavery, mind you. | |||
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PMM 3155 posts |
Jul 20, 2004, 00:03
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Nah, it's me that mis-understands. Certainly, the police act to preserve the status quo, which means that they act to maintain all the idiocies and injustices of the present system. "Around the world and throughout their history, the police are the first troops of violent repression. They obey their masters and if their masters change their minds, or if new masters usurp the old, the police will enforce new, opposite laws with the same vigour as the old." - merrick, why I hate the police In a society based upon possession, police are needed to keep the things possessed out of the hands of the dispossessed. If society was organised differently, where would be the need? In a society that restricts the supply of addictive substances, police are needed to stop users from stealing to pay for their habit. A big proportion of non-violent crime - burglary, shoplifting, etc, and some violent crime - mugging - is commited by herion addicts. If heroin was available on prescription, where would be the need to steal? This has been borne out by the Swiss experiment of supplying heroin to users. It's generally been a success, and looks like being adopted in other European nations. Some details here: http://www.lindesmith.org/library/tlcnr.cfm Here's what Merrick has to say on the Swiss experience... "For heroin users, there is a programme of treatment that includes prescribing medical-grade heroin. Amongst the addicts on the programme health has improved, the number of deaths has halved, unemployment has more than halved and, perhaps most significantly for us non-users, the number involved in theft to fund their habit has gone from over 70% to under 10%. You’d think our government would want to replicate these results." But I think that the damage caused to society by the users of illicit drugs pales next to that caused by alcohol. I dont know what percentage of violent crime is caused by people under the influence of alcohol, but I suspect the majority. Ask a nurse at A&E. I know I become more aggressive when I'm pissed. So where do the police fit in there? Back to Merrick!... "...having to cram a week's worth of good time into one night. I don't want to have a good time in the few hours allocated between work and closing time, I want to have a good time when I actually feel like it, rather than having to fit it in at a prearranged time no matter what mood I'm in. No wonder there's so much violence in city centres at weekends when people with a weeks worth of work stress are given their only time to let off steam, and get full of a depressant drug like alcohol." Also, we're treated like children. Whenever I've been in Amsterdam, I've been struck by the behaviour of many British people, when confronted with a more liberal society. Ugh. If you're ever over there, and you encounter a British stag-party, cross over the street and go somewhere else. I have a couple of thoughts in my head, that I want to get out, and I'm just struggling a little bit to formulate them, so in any old order, here goes... Law = repression. full stop. a progressive and enlightened society doesn't consider the following to be criminal... homosexuality drug use suicide free expression of political opinion A repressive society proscribes behaviour, and requires a police force and judiciary to impose codes of behaviour upon its populace. In utopia, there would still be violent crime. Kids will still smash windows, because they're immature and testosterone laden. There will still be crimes of passion. But so much of what I see around me is just the worst sort of snide. So many people have fuck all, yet we're surrounded by the things we need. To criminalise "theft" only makes sense under a system that deliberately restricts the supply of what humankind has produced. |
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PMM 3155 posts |
Jul 20, 2004, 00:17
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I intended to finish with a quote, which I then forgot to quote. "While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is criminal class, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free." -----Eugene Debs Debs was a socialist politician in 1930's USA. You can read his history here... http://www.eugenevdebs.com/pages/histry.html He was arrested for the "crime" of speaking out against world war one. Gotta have policemen if you want to restrict freedom of speech :o)
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