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Police Violence is not an Accident - All Cops are Bastards // Seattle, WA, US // October 23 2011

seattle represent

Well whaddya know? Apparently all cops are bastards.

unpopular opinion: I fucking hate the phrase ACAB/All cops are bastards

If you don’t mind, could you elaborate? I feel like I haven’t thought enough about this enough to have fully-formed opinions, but I’m intrigued. (So do all my thinking for me, plz? :-P)

I just think it’s a massive over generalization.

I agree that police brutality happens, and it’s horrible and it should stop. And I think it’s totally fine to get mad at police brutality, because it’s heinous. And maybe the majority of cops commit that crime, too; I don’t know. But I think to call all of them bastards, literally all, is not at all helpful. It’s a huge disservice to those cops that aren’t bastards, because as a result they have to deal with hatred they don’t deserve.

I think it’s especially annoying when coming from LGBT* people, because aren’t we working against that same shit? People stereotype and categorize us all the time, shouldn’t we realize how much it sucks and, like, not just go and do that to others?

I think sometimes we forget: other people are people too. Other people have humanity just like we do, and they deserve respect.

Other people are people too yep, but cops are more puppets who have to obey every order they get, who have to protect the law. As an anarchist I don’t feel like the law is righteous all the time. What about people without papers? What would cops do if they are doing a routine identity-check and discover that someone doesn’t have any legal papers at all - let him/her go? Nope, lock ‘em up. 

It’s only one example out of many (what if a squat gets evicted? What if a protest needs to end? What if homeless people need to be chased out of the station just because?) and cops will always have to obey. Obey obey obey. So jup, ALL cops are bastards. It’s like fascists - they can act very friendly when I’m around but might be complete assholes when someone who isn’t white is around. Someone who has to lock up “illegals” can easily be called a bastard in my eyes, so I don’t hate this slogan at all. Someone who has to obey every order he gets from his bosses to protect state and capital (sorry for the stereotype sentence) - jup, bastard. 

Not that I don’t acknowledge that there are actually some cops around who joined the force to make their neighborhood safer or to help out other people or something. Too bad that they still have to obey every order. Should have joined the fire-brigade ;-) 

At the Copwatch conference they talked about the idea of ‘a few good apples’ as opposed to a few bad ones. Sure, some individual officers aren’t dicks to everyone all of the time, but cops follow orders and operate from a basis of domination and submission. The institution requires people to draw from the worst elements of their humanity. Usually to protect property. 

Go to the Copwatch conference website and search for things written by all the speakers. 

(via untilallarefreenooneisfree)