askchapo

[CW: mild discussions of violence, abuse]

I think people take the ACAB slogan too far.

This is what separates out the principled people from the baby leftists and the ones whose politics are vibes-based.

ACAB is an ideological dead-end. After the revolution there will need to be people who intervene to protect people from things like child abuse and domestic violence. Say whatever you like but at least in the foreseeable future, even with a far-reaching imagination, that kind of thing is still going to occur in a post-revolutionary society.

Will these people necessarily be cops, per se? Idk, not strictly speaking - however to act in the interests of children's welfare there's going to need to be a degree of compulsion and enforcement that is necessarily inherent to this sort of a role. This is going to meet the shallow definition of a cop, like it or not.

(I'm going to skirt around the historical role of settler-colonial genocide and the acts done in the interests of "children's welfare" which were intended to destroy culture and connections to heritage and family etc.)

ACAB has the same energy as people whose politics are hating their boss; under capitalism, bosses are terrible. But bosses of some form are essentially a necessity in a modern, industrialised world; your factory is still going to need a foreman after the revolution.

Is that boss or cop going to have the exact same power, privilege, training, oversight, and function in society after the revolution? I desperately hope not, otherwise something would be going very wrong.

Idk, I just see too much denouncing of the thing rather than investigation into the nature of the thing and how it functions. I see people saying that Stalin was a cop and, as far as I'm concerned, that's a complete cop out 😏

If you want to criticise Stalin, that's fine by me. If you want to be opposed to Stalin, that's fine by me. But don't piss on my boots and tell me it's raining - if your best reason for opposing Stalin is because he "was like a cop" then you're engaging in political analogy rather than political analysis and you might as well be telling me that Trump is bad because of all the ways that he's like Voldemort, for all the respect and credibility that you're going to erode by saying such a thing.

In MAREZ the EZLN operates community policing. In Rojava the PKK trains community members to function as police officers. I never see the people whose immediate urge is to denounce cops and "cop-like" figures or societies that have policing apply this same blanket denouncement of the PKK or the EZLN and, curiously enough, whenever I've pressed someone like this on why they aren't taking a "principled" stand against these examples or that of the CNT/FAI during the Spanish Civil War then suddenly all the nuance-cuckoldry comes pouring out of them.

If we can have an earnest discussion about the role and function of policing, the necessity for at least a certain degree of policing, and what shape that might take or would need to take (especially with regards to delimiting powers) then I'm all for it. If it's just going to be an exercise in the other person hypocritically slapping the "cop" label on certain things then denouncing them for being cops and expecting me to enthusiastically agree with them with the threat of slinging political slurs and (typically) ableist insults at me when they're met with my antipathy then, ironically, they're acting very cop-like in their opposition to cops. Or something.

I'm pretty convinced of the fact that leftists who are worth taking seriously (sorry anprims) really do believe in things like vanguardism, the necessity of the state, and the role of things like bosses and police when they're pressed to provide a genuine position outside of sloganeering, it's just that they disagree with stuff like the the roles, the scope, and the timeframes that these things occur within.

Do I love cops? Fuck no.

Am I excusing the role of cops in society today or historically? Fuck no.

Have I nearly gotten myself arrested and involuntarily detained in mental health wards at the times where I've had confrontations with cops? You better believe it.

Imo the point about ACAB isn't supposed to be a political rubric to align your beliefs against, it's supposed to be a response to the "but my uncle is a cop and he's a good guy" and the "look at this cop rescuing these cute little abandoned kittens" kinda shit; nobody is saying that cops can't perform good deeds or that they aren't... let's say sympathetic people. But the role of policing is still rotten to the core as we see it and experience it today. You might be a doctor in the armed forces and you could be "just saving lives", but whose lives are you saving and what system are you supporting by being a doctor in the armed forces? What atrocities are being enabled by your provision of healthcare? Likewise, you can "just be an engine driver" but whose train are you operating, where are the passengers destined, and exactly what fate awaits them when they arrive?

Hence, all cops are bastards.