A Liberal, an Abolitionist, a Radical Meet on Twitter
October 8, 2020
My Twitter bio specifically states that I ignore and report trolls. And, normally I do. But an offhand remark about pigs who wear uniforms versus ones who get turned into bacon and roasts, inspired a confrontation between an inebriated liberal and an abolitionist on my time line.
The liberal apparently had one too many cocktails -- enough to remove her inhibitions about how she responded, but not enough to impact her ability to (mostly) spell correctly -- and apologized the next day. But since I jumped into the conversation to make some points that are important for liberals to understand, I'll reiterate them here.
Still under the illusion that it's a mistake to vilify all cops, the liberal insisted that you can't lump all the police together in one group, that within police departments there are good people -- officers of color and women, for example -- who despise the system they have to work in and who are being subjugated, who would like to speak out but cannot because they are repressed, oppressed, abused.
The abolitionist asked her point blank if she had ever been to a protest or a direct action, if she had ever confronted a riot line of cops with the intention of beating up, shooting at, and arresting protesters.
She claimed that back in her day, protesters weren't beaten up and if she was "getting her ass kicked" she would try to figure out how to have allies with clergy, labor, academics, lawyers, business class, working class. All of whom, the abolitionist noted, have turned out to Portland protests at one time or another. They get beaten, shot, gassed, and arrested along with everyone else.
That's where I jumped in. Because back in my day protesters were beaten by police and bystanders, vicious dogs were set on them, water cannons shot at them. They were arrested and sometimes murdered. I told her that if she wasn't "beaten up" back in her day, she either has a selective memory or wasn't on the streets for anything important.
Then she admitted she had participated in marches, but none where the police response was aggressive.
I pointed her to T. Greg Doucette's mega thread documenting police brutality across the country in response to protests against police violence.
I urge anyone, as I did her, who still believes there's some good cops to watch all these videos. Yes, Portland features prominently, but we're hardly unique.
A Los Angeleno, she believed Portland is different compared to other cities and that Los Angeles is so spread out protesters cannot easily create critical mass like they do in Portland. I have to wonder where in Los Angeles she lives. Because Portland is not the least bit different and I pointed her to several Los Angeles examples from the mega thread.
While I was finding those links, she got into it with the abolitionist, who reminded her that you can't have good cops in a racist system. She claimed anyone calling for abolition is "not in touch with the reality". This from someone who doesn't even know what's going on in her own city.
As often happens on social media, I presented facts and figures, including videos of police malfeasance and charts showing the police in the United States kill almost 15 times more civilians than all other wealthy countries combined while she only offered disdain and standard liberal talking points.
But, she's the one disconnected from the reality of systemic racism and police brutality that's literally written into the United States Constitution. As is common among those only exposed to whitewashed teaching, she's unaware of the racist history of policing in the U.S. that includes the slave patrols well-regulated militia enshrined in the Bill of Rights specifically to appease human traffickers slave owners.
Even as she admitted that police actions against protesters are terrifying, that some cops "are sadistic dicks" who also torture people who work with them, she couldn't abandon the idea that "there are good rational human beings who are not sadists in the police force".
She couldn't wrap her mind around the possibility that there are no good cops, that anyone who ever joined a police force with good intentions was either indoctrinated by a system designed to bring anyone who enters it into compliance, quit after getting discouraged, or was fired when they tried to speak up or bring about change.
Several times she emphasized that women and POC are victims of their fellow cops. I pointed out that Daryl Turner, a Black cop, routinely works to make sure police who murder Black men and people suffering from a mental crisis keep their jobs; that Danielle Outlaw, the Black female who was police chief for two years, had her officers gas anti-fascist protesters while protecting white supremacists and that under her watch police killed even more people suffering mental health crises; and that the current police chief, Chuck Lovell, a Black man, is notorious for choking a 12-year-old who talked back and that officers under his command have repeatedly filled the city with tear gas while he consistently disobeys the police commissioner and court orders.
Both I and the abolitionist explained to her in different words that if any cops were "good rational human beings" they would quit. Staying on the force makes them complicit.
Some stray folks greeting the dawn, whether they hadn't yet been to bed or were just climbing out, added their voices, trying to show her that any "good" cops are just attempts to legitimize a rotten, racist, oppressive system.
Good cops are structural supports for a system that protects property at the expense of people's lives, that endangers BIPOC every single day it exists. They're there for optics and they're often the first ones sacrificed to any reform attempts. Isn't it just amazing that on those rare occasions a cop is actually prosecuted for murder, the vast majority of the time they're not white and/or male?
Any actual good police have resigned because they refuse to abuse peaceful protestors or cover up crimes committed by other cops. And no one can claim to be a "good" cop if they aren't publicly and visibly stopping the criminal cops that we're constantly told are "just a few bad apples". (No one using that phrase seems to remember that the saying is it only takes one bad apple to spoil an entire barrel.)
Of course any cop who actually does speak up, even on their own private social media, or tries to change the system is fired or even killed. Murderers, rapists, crooks, domestic abusers, etc. are kept on the force. But, anyone who speaks out against police violence and corruption is removed, one way or the other.
And, reform isn't an option when the people and systems you're trying to reform fight you tooth and nail, ignore civilian oversight, and actively support anti-reform "law & order" candidates for office at every level. Cops have been given myriad opportunities to reform and it's only cost us more lives.
Then she dropped what she probably thought was her bombshell. "Regrettably or realistically cops are going to help us from descending into being owned by Putin."
In reality, Putin already owns the orange covidiot in the White House (as well as influential members of Congress, including Moscow Mitch and Lady G) and the cops worship them both. Cops have actually said publicly that "Putin has done more for this country than Democrats ever did." When it comes down to protecting anti-fascists with defensive shields from white supremacists with guns, bear mace, and baseball bats, the cops side with the latter every single time.
Putin has helped push the U.S. further toward a fascist oligarchy and cops are fine with that. He's helped the super spreader pull the U.S. back from allowing civil rights for LGBTQ, BIPOC, and neurodivergent people and the vast majority of cops have nothing but disdain for some or all of those communities.
The only people on the left who don't vilify all cops are "liberals" who, as history shows, will enable fascism rather than endure revolution; accept a third-class status in exchange for the "peace and order" tyrants bring rather than give up a single one of their comforts.
She brought up supporting Jesse Jackson as an alternative, back in the day, and I reminded her that Jackson was demonized by the mainstream press just as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X had been before him. We've been told for decades that we must vote blue no matter who, that voting third party puts the right wing into office. But as a result, Democrats have moved so far to the right they're indistinguishable from what the GOP was before tea party madness took it over.
It's past time to choose. You're either a fascist apologist or a radical revolutionary.
The liberal apparently had one too many cocktails -- enough to remove her inhibitions about how she responded, but not enough to impact her ability to (mostly) spell correctly -- and apologized the next day. But since I jumped into the conversation to make some points that are important for liberals to understand, I'll reiterate them here.
Still under the illusion that it's a mistake to vilify all cops, the liberal insisted that you can't lump all the police together in one group, that within police departments there are good people -- officers of color and women, for example -- who despise the system they have to work in and who are being subjugated, who would like to speak out but cannot because they are repressed, oppressed, abused.
The abolitionist asked her point blank if she had ever been to a protest or a direct action, if she had ever confronted a riot line of cops with the intention of beating up, shooting at, and arresting protesters.
She claimed that back in her day, protesters weren't beaten up and if she was "getting her ass kicked" she would try to figure out how to have allies with clergy, labor, academics, lawyers, business class, working class. All of whom, the abolitionist noted, have turned out to Portland protests at one time or another. They get beaten, shot, gassed, and arrested along with everyone else.
That's where I jumped in. Because back in my day protesters were beaten by police and bystanders, vicious dogs were set on them, water cannons shot at them. They were arrested and sometimes murdered. I told her that if she wasn't "beaten up" back in her day, she either has a selective memory or wasn't on the streets for anything important.
Then she admitted she had participated in marches, but none where the police response was aggressive.
I pointed her to T. Greg Doucette's mega thread documenting police brutality across the country in response to protests against police violence.
I urge anyone, as I did her, who still believes there's some good cops to watch all these videos. Yes, Portland features prominently, but we're hardly unique.
A Los Angeleno, she believed Portland is different compared to other cities and that Los Angeles is so spread out protesters cannot easily create critical mass like they do in Portland. I have to wonder where in Los Angeles she lives. Because Portland is not the least bit different and I pointed her to several Los Angeles examples from the mega thread.
While I was finding those links, she got into it with the abolitionist, who reminded her that you can't have good cops in a racist system. She claimed anyone calling for abolition is "not in touch with the reality". This from someone who doesn't even know what's going on in her own city.
As often happens on social media, I presented facts and figures, including videos of police malfeasance and charts showing the police in the United States kill almost 15 times more civilians than all other wealthy countries combined while she only offered disdain and standard liberal talking points.
But, she's the one disconnected from the reality of systemic racism and police brutality that's literally written into the United States Constitution. As is common among those only exposed to whitewashed teaching, she's unaware of the racist history of policing in the U.S. that includes the slave patrols well-regulated militia enshrined in the Bill of Rights specifically to appease human traffickers slave owners.
Even as she admitted that police actions against protesters are terrifying, that some cops "are sadistic dicks" who also torture people who work with them, she couldn't abandon the idea that "there are good rational human beings who are not sadists in the police force".
She couldn't wrap her mind around the possibility that there are no good cops, that anyone who ever joined a police force with good intentions was either indoctrinated by a system designed to bring anyone who enters it into compliance, quit after getting discouraged, or was fired when they tried to speak up or bring about change.
Several times she emphasized that women and POC are victims of their fellow cops. I pointed out that Daryl Turner, a Black cop, routinely works to make sure police who murder Black men and people suffering from a mental crisis keep their jobs; that Danielle Outlaw, the Black female who was police chief for two years, had her officers gas anti-fascist protesters while protecting white supremacists and that under her watch police killed even more people suffering mental health crises; and that the current police chief, Chuck Lovell, a Black man, is notorious for choking a 12-year-old who talked back and that officers under his command have repeatedly filled the city with tear gas while he consistently disobeys the police commissioner and court orders.
Both I and the abolitionist explained to her in different words that if any cops were "good rational human beings" they would quit. Staying on the force makes them complicit.
Some stray folks greeting the dawn, whether they hadn't yet been to bed or were just climbing out, added their voices, trying to show her that any "good" cops are just attempts to legitimize a rotten, racist, oppressive system.
Good cops are structural supports for a system that protects property at the expense of people's lives, that endangers BIPOC every single day it exists. They're there for optics and they're often the first ones sacrificed to any reform attempts. Isn't it just amazing that on those rare occasions a cop is actually prosecuted for murder, the vast majority of the time they're not white and/or male?
Any actual good police have resigned because they refuse to abuse peaceful protestors or cover up crimes committed by other cops. And no one can claim to be a "good" cop if they aren't publicly and visibly stopping the criminal cops that we're constantly told are "just a few bad apples". (No one using that phrase seems to remember that the saying is it only takes one bad apple to spoil an entire barrel.)
Of course any cop who actually does speak up, even on their own private social media, or tries to change the system is fired or even killed. Murderers, rapists, crooks, domestic abusers, etc. are kept on the force. But, anyone who speaks out against police violence and corruption is removed, one way or the other.
And, reform isn't an option when the people and systems you're trying to reform fight you tooth and nail, ignore civilian oversight, and actively support anti-reform "law & order" candidates for office at every level. Cops have been given myriad opportunities to reform and it's only cost us more lives.
Then she dropped what she probably thought was her bombshell. "Regrettably or realistically cops are going to help us from descending into being owned by Putin."
In reality, Putin already owns the orange covidiot in the White House (as well as influential members of Congress, including Moscow Mitch and Lady G) and the cops worship them both. Cops have actually said publicly that "Putin has done more for this country than Democrats ever did." When it comes down to protecting anti-fascists with defensive shields from white supremacists with guns, bear mace, and baseball bats, the cops side with the latter every single time.
Putin has helped push the U.S. further toward a fascist oligarchy and cops are fine with that. He's helped the super spreader pull the U.S. back from allowing civil rights for LGBTQ, BIPOC, and neurodivergent people and the vast majority of cops have nothing but disdain for some or all of those communities.
The only people on the left who don't vilify all cops are "liberals" who, as history shows, will enable fascism rather than endure revolution; accept a third-class status in exchange for the "peace and order" tyrants bring rather than give up a single one of their comforts.
She brought up supporting Jesse Jackson as an alternative, back in the day, and I reminded her that Jackson was demonized by the mainstream press just as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X had been before him. We've been told for decades that we must vote blue no matter who, that voting third party puts the right wing into office. But as a result, Democrats have moved so far to the right they're indistinguishable from what the GOP was before tea party madness took it over.
It's past time to choose. You're either a fascist apologist or a radical revolutionary.