Trouble 18: ACAB

From sub.media

Cops are the front-line of the state, tasked with defending and reinforcing all illegitimate hierarchies of power. They are the armed enforcers of white supremacy who catch paid vacations for murdering Black children in the streets. They are the knock on the door to evict you from your home. They are the no-knock SWAT Team raid that shoots your dog. They are the corrupt overseers of the ghetto, the barrio, the favela. They are the unmarked cruiser that slows down to harass a sex worker. They are the vicious interrogators of rape survivors. They are the protectors of bulldozers and pipelines. They are the batons, flash bangs and rubber bullets used to break up our demonstrations, and put down our riots. They are the guardians of capital. They are the oppressor. And without exception… they’re all bastards.
As the overlapping and reinforcing internal crises of capitalism continue to pose an existential threat to the very foundations of state power, governments around the world are doubling-down on their internal security. In many cases, this has come in the form of intense militarization and counterinsurgency training… a process that blurs the traditional between domestic policing and military forces.  But further equipping the police does nothing to address the root causes of oppression, exploitation and ecological destruction fuelling social revolt… if anything, it just ups the stakes.

Trouble 18: ACAB from sub.Media on Vimeo.

There are 11 Comments

T'was like as simple as that back in the mid-19th century. Now cops are also the Maoists in your niche crowd of social activists, or they're social workers, or community workers, or the Allies, or the people pushing you to put your life on social media, or those gatekeeping your communal house or social center...

That's right, Submedia... the cops are also within your own crowd. They're not gonna SWAT team you in the morning because they are in your houses already.

Yes sadly cops are merely the last or near last line of defense for repressing those who are irrepressible in their nonconformity . What about the family, racialization, gender, the teacher, boss, each other, etc? A bit harder to talk about

This is 2019... You got the internal police in all the flavors and colors. White, long-haired beardos... makeshift punks... LGBTQ... Black African/Arabic/Hispanic/etc... there's no limits to copping, these days.

yea i know. the ideology reinforcement of race particularly comes in all colors and it sucks in all the ways...

Way to dissolve the meaning of words in to everyone you don't like.

Hurting your feelings and getting your larynx crushed are still two different things in my understanding but I guess yours works fine if you never leave the internet.

I dont understand your meaning, tell me more

Calling almost everyone who says no to you, or uses bad faith rhetoric to manipulate you, a "cop" is excruciatingly stupid IMO.

People make and enforce boundaries with each other all the time and the context and dynamics of conflict are pretty important to sketch out.

A cop is the guy literally getting paid to surveil and threaten and use lethal violence on behalf of the state or maybe another powerful institution. Bad idea to make this definition hazy, the stakes are too high.

makes sense. thanks for explaining!

i guess to be clear, im the second anon. i still think cops are one line of defense among others, often the last. but yea not everyone i dont like is a cop. but there are certainly people who want to uphold things or narratives that are repressive that are not cops and i find that that is much harder to confront, because they're quite personal. it becomes important so often in situations where we're fighting the cops (not at some manufactured riot but a mass disturbance) you have those who have some position of authority or fall back on forms of control that are actually more insidious than cops to slow or repress the direction things are headed.

this is from personal experience, if that has any bearing, def not trying to flex at all, i just bring it up because it has heavily influenced my perspective for better or worse and not as some kind clout thing, mostly it just throws me into state of confusion about what it all means to fight.... anyway, to examine the complex dynamics of this is hella important. especially when people are defined as whatever category (black in this case) are going against the wishes of not only the police but also the preachers and activists and of course, the very repressive ideologies of racialization or private property.

Can't disagree with any of that but it's a little vague.

I think my only real point is that simple rhetoric can be useful sometimes but not for analyzing problems haha

Also, I understand your point better now. Probably talkin about like, liberal activist co-optation or something along those lines.

That shit basically is an extension of the cops so ... Yeah. You're right.

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