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Police Rally

Manos | 27.02.2002 14:46

Police Rally on 13th March

From the Guardian today:

"Thousands of police officers will stage a rally at Westminster on March 13 in protest over planned changes to their pay and conditions, the Police Federation announced last night. A meeting of the police negotiating board on Monday decided to refer the dispute over police reforms to conciliation."

Should "the movement" show solidarity with them?

Manos
Homepage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,658551,00.html

Comments

Hide the following 17 comments

Yes

27.02.2002 15:35

Yes, I think we should. The police are working class. They suffer cutbacks and are exploited along with the rest of us. Furthermore, what goes around comes around. Perhaps if we show some solidarity with them, maybe some of them (hey, maybe even if it's 1%) may in the future show some solidarity with us.

Lastly, it's a good 'PR' move to do so. It will help rebutt the media myths that the UK left movement are 'just a bunch of violent anarchist thugs' or whatever.

I say definately.

Anyone want to help organise this?

heyjude

police

27.02.2002 15:38

I think that we should show them exactly the same "solidarity" they show us.

heh-heh-heh

Oink Oink.

27.02.2002 16:09

The police aren't working class. Look at the power they have. Look at the money they're on? None of them live in working class areas. They live in the leafy suburbs, not the estates where we live. A bit like teachers really. Sod them. We should turn up and counter demonstrate. Bring your banners! "Who killed Liddle Towers?" "No more deaths in custody".
Harry Roberts and Joey Sewell.

Sports Fan.

Class isn't about money

27.02.2002 18:12

...it's a relationship with the means of production. A surgeon's still a proletarian (like a teacher - who, btw get really shit wages, roughly half a cop's).

Pigs aren't though. They're taken from the working class and made into part of the repressive state machinery, and as such they are our sworn enemies.
Thatcher gave them more money so they'd be more likely to smash the miners/dockers/printers/etc/ without question. It is important that their demands are never met, because they're always going to be reactionary.

I say fuck'em.

red'n'black

On yer bike

27.02.2002 18:16

This is a government ploy to root out any remaining decent cops and recruit crooks to replace them, hardline Gestapo mind-controlled thugs who will kick-ass when the shit hits the fan. The litmus test will be May Day... whose side are they really on? But let's join their demo, there will be no-one to police it! Unless this is another ploy to deploy the Territorial (Homeland Defence) Army, the new law enforcers in our Brave New World.

Dixon of Dock Green

Class isn't just about money....

27.02.2002 19:06

but it partly is. Teachers get far more money than cleaners etc. But cleaners don't have a power relationship with anyone under their control like teachers do. No one calls a cleaner 'sir'.
As for the filth, stuff them. They're no friends of our class.

Sports Fan.

fuck "em ,N their laws

27.02.2002 19:39

mabye we should film them ,get the wombles to "police" their demo,then for the saftey of the public,we the public should, section 60 them,,then attack them for no apparent reason,mabye lob a few CS cannisters into them,see how they bastards like it done to them.

who killed harry stanley

Education not alienation

27.02.2002 22:13

A positive move like supporting their action would pay dividends - I remember at the M11 campaign, Old Mick went up to the line of pigs ranting in his usual style. They mostly ignored him, that usual blank look - until he said
"support us officers - we'll support you when they try to privatise you"
If not any instant defections, there was certainaly recognition in the faces of some of the pigs that this was a real issue & it got a response- perhaps they realised then that we are all 'the people' 'proles' or whatever & even though they are the supposed 'arm of the law' or 'the states boot boys' that maybe one day they will be in the same position.
Now they are and it is important for us to realise that the establishment will eventually treat everyone, even their law enforcers, with less respect and consideration than they deserve.
Yes I know that some police do some awful stuff - I too have been on the receiving end (still bearing a small scar on my forehead from a TSG boot some 5 years ago - there are some that are much worse than the majority) however if we sink to the level of the lowest of them where does that leave us?

Let us rise above this, and show them how this is not just a single issue affecting their pay & conditions, but how all these issues of environmental and social justice are interconnected, and how we should all work to achieve change for the good of everyone (well, except for the minority who are doing the exploiting at the moment)

gnome

no solidarity

28.02.2002 09:07

They should work harder, those loud mouthed no good lazy slobs. Instead of striking, they should stop beating people up, to show their contempt of the ruling class.
sod 'em, make 'em run

anti-bobby

come on guys!

28.02.2002 12:06

my first reaction is to stuff em, but lets not lose our humanity, cos if we do we are no better than them and then we will have LOST!! we should support them, i agree it would be a great PR stunt, but it would only work if everyone supported them, which aint going to happen obviousely, so i say leave them to deal with it on their own.

undercurrents will help cops

28.02.2002 12:43

Rest assured that undercurrents will be there with our cameras in case the minority of violent officers cause problems for the other officers on the protest. We will attend in our evidence gathering role and will capture all the faces of the demonstraters "for their own safety".

undercurrents
mail e-mail: underc@gn.apc.org
Homepage: www.undercurrents.org

What???

28.02.2002 15:51

I don't believe what I'm fucking reading! Half you lot have obviously never been on a demo of any consequence (by which I mean one that isn't entirely butt-licking to the state and their violent scum sucking dog-boys.)
Yeah, let's get out there and show our support for old plod. let bygones be bygones. Bury the hatchet. Assume the moral high groun -
MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LIBERAL, KNOW-NOTHING DIPSHITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GET TO THE FRONT AND SEE FOR YOURSELVES WHAT "ORDINARY PEOPLE DOING A DIFFICULT JOB" ACTUALLY fucking LOOOKS LIKE!!!
It looks like women, old people, anyone - routinely battered, mauled and arrested and charged on pack of lies. Cut to :
"The Prime Minister has praised the London Metropolitan Police for their discipline, courage and professionalism shown in containing yesterdays disturbance..." (DAILY SHITE)

This is a fight. Last time I was arrested, assaulted and fitted up on a trumped-up charge (Last Saturday) I had to endure the laments of several oficers who were aggrieved at not being allowed to use vicious dogs any more.
(Yeah, yeah, I know, you're "not surprised with an attitude like that...", thanks, G.R.)
You really think they'll take a different tack if you back them on this?? What about when they call for an increase in police powers??
Why not throw yourselves down a set of stairs and then confine yourself in a tiny stinking room, to save them the bother of fabricating evidence. "Back your local Bobby, eh?"
Better still, why not just join them instead - you'll never do anything effectual enough to make them prove any of this to you.

REASON

Police Bastards.

28.02.2002 16:30

Hillsborough, Orgreave, Grunwicks, Lewisham, Leicester, George Kelly, Liddle Towers, M25 Three, Guildford Four, Mark Barnsley, Satpal Ram, James Hanratty, Derek Bentley, Ricky Reel, Stephen Lawrence, Bridgewater Four, Birmingham Six, Kevin Gately, Blair Peach, Harry Stanley, Johnny Kamara, Eddie Gilfoyle, John Taft, every bloody anti-fascist demo ever going right back to Oswald Mosely.
You have solidarity with them if you want. I don't envy your choice of company.

Ronnie.

Part of a strategy

28.02.2002 16:55

We need to have a strategy for destroying the police. That is to say, we need to destroy the role of social control that they perform. We can do this by either confronting them as indiviuduals or an institution, or by working to make their role impossible. That is to say, by developing communities' strength to the extent that the police become irrelevant.

This is an ongoing project (over the last 200 years...), and will probably involve some confrontation at some point too. The question right now is: can we move this strategy on by taking action for or against the police's protests?

I think that there are 'class' divisions WITHIN the police. Right now the Home Office proposals are aimed at making the Force a more effective tool of oppression, increasing it's discipline, focus and front line capability. This goes in tandem with the semi-police ('Community Wardens') New Deal class traitor scum who will perform the soft community bobby shit (on minimum wage) plus all the PRIVATE SECURITY that the scared and shrinking middle classes will be emploting on an street by street basis soon.

Not all police are happy with this, many of them don't want to go RoboCop. Mandatory riot training has been introduced for all forces. Some coppers are deliberately failling this by, e.g. falling out of the van...

Maybe we can play on these weaknesses and tease out those few coppers who don't want to be turned into instruments of total control. This police revolt is about pay and conditions, but it is also linked to the whole restructuring process that Neo-labour are introducing to cope with globalisation (e.g. the expanding pockets of Third World poverty in the UK).

Maybe that's not a very likely project to succeed, but the only alternative is to wait for the police to be purged, transformed into a para military instrument of tatal control, and then have to physically destroy them -- or be destroyed.

At least we won't be bored...

Lentilshaper

common sense? makes you fuckin cringe tho

28.02.2002 22:38

for most of us who have seen this lot in action, an auto matic response to the question of solidarity is obviously gonna be "fuck off!" but if we are serious about continuing any sort of 'mass resistance' to attacks on our lives, then we need to try hard, and think what was is the best long term option for our movement?
would love to go down and police the polis - give them a taste of being on a demo in this 'democracy' - but what is likely to happen is that they'll use the old 'terrorist' line or something else and use it to fuck us about for a while. i see the sense in supporting the cops in their struggle (did you ever think you would ever say anything like that) as there are of course many ordinary coppers who are being exploited as we are, granted, though, it is not a fair comparison to make considering some of the differences, there is at least some kind of level-headedness to it.
we should go and support them but not without showing the protestors some reminders of the real situation for most of us. what these could be i'm not sure.

come any revolution the change can only properly happen, for it to last and be carried through by us, the masses, when we are represented in all sections. how else can people win the arguments of the benefits of collective ownership, control and distribution.

peace.

Raymie

BLUE FLU

01.03.2002 17:03

cops pull a sickie
we had it here in Ireland years ago
two weeks later they were threatening arrests a at a sit down protest outside the Meath Hospital when it was being closed down. They will always be against the movement and obey orders.

At least it will show other trade unionists that there is no partnership with the Labour party government and might encourage public sector workers to increase strike action though.

Aidez les police?
Tappez tois dessus!

joeboy

all cops resign

02.03.2002 01:13

i reckon the cops are part of what Marx called 'the (working) class in itself' that is sociologically part of the working class. but they cannot become part of the 'class for itself' (the class in struggle) without quitting their jobs.

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