Cop Drops BARS on Amber Rudd in Poetic Police Petition

(and why even as an anarchist, I support them)

A COP has started a poetic petition to the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd to stop single crewing (screwing) them. It has been written in bars of emotional rhyming verse.

I recommend reading the whole thing but here’s an excerpt:

“Last week I was hit, spat at and punched.
There wasn’t one day that I ate my lunch.
I held a man’s hand who’d just lost his wife,
I took a child from his Father who was wielding a knife.
I pulled a girl off a bridge who was mentally ill,
I locked up a worker who had nicked from the till.I persuaded a battered woman to finally speak,
After seeing her every day, week after week. ”

At time of writing, the petition has received over 100, 000 signatures.

As an artivist and anarchist, it gave me some serious pause for thought before signing it. Locking up anybody, let alone workers who are so skint they have to steal is extremely problematic for me, as is any monopoly on the use of violence, but still,

Not All Cops Are Bastards

(the ratio is debatable).

Despite my currently taking legal action against the police.

Despite my being appalled by their track record of endemic racism.

Despite my outrage at the way they are used as corporate-state enforcers to infiltrate, distract, suppress and destroy peaceful, democratic protest in the UK and worldwide.

Despite all these reasons (and more), I recognise that not ALL cops are bastards. I doubt very much that the individual who started this petition is a bastard.

I’ve made the same point about ACAB before. Now, in light of the recent police violence in Catalonia, I think we would all do well to heed Julian Assange’s warning that this change of relationship between state and population threatens to ripple throughout Western Europe and America.

These ‘ripple effects’ have been ebbing and flowing for centuries…where are we now?

In the UK, where public police numbers have already been cut dramatically, private security firms G4S and Serco are soon to be given the power of arrest in a £290 million deal with the Tories.

We must prevent these ripples of neo-fascism becoming a wave as they have in the past. We need to focus on resisting the apparent rise of extreme fascism in the new millennium through all non violent means.

That’s going to mean more than just repeatedly getting our fucking heads kicked in for practising non-violent civil disobedience.

The Wrong Side of History

The police and security services are tools which can be used to either create, or destroy individuals and societies. Historically, the police have always been on the wrong side of civil rights movements. When they go native en masse tends to mark the end of one struggle and the beginning of a new one. This petition isn’t exactly going native, but it does send a stark message which deserves support.

Grinding down the public police while creating and now empowering private police as the war drums grow ever louder are extremely disturbing trends which echo the rise of fascism in the past.

I value, respect and extend solidarity to all those cops who are not bastards. Those who save lives and especially those who have sacrificed their lives to save lives; those who try to keep us safe from the fascist corporatocracy, rather than enforcing it; those who find a way to actually do the job of protecting people in spite of the impossible situations they are placed in.

In particular, I respect those who find the courage to speak out. Those who refuse to follow orders which they know to be wrong, those who blow the whistle on their colleagues who ARE bastards. Those who stand up to UK Gov Plc and their chums in positions of power.

Hopefully, the cop who started this petition will read this and know that they have the public support of at least one anarchist. I hope this small gesture gives cops and private security pause for thought the next time they receive orders to spy on us, or to drag us out of a peaceful demonstration, occupation or lock-on.

I will almost certainly lose a few subscribers for reiterating my position on the ACAB trope. This is a contentious point for an anarchist to make but I don’t give a fuck, I think it’s a necessary discussion, particularly as we are rapidly sliding into ecocide and neo-fascist dystopia.

In my anarchist utopia, we would still have cops but their only role would be to protect people from violence. As things are now though, I would far rather a publicly accountable police force than the clunking fist of G4S, an unaccountable, profit driven transnational corporation who have an appalling track record of oppression and human rights abuses.

Thought Crime?

NOT ALL COPS

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