Last year I wrote that the militarized police functions much like Al Qaeda (1)--or I should say ISIS now. They are lawless and violent against the targeted class, facilitating mass incarceration and eventually, the gentrification of abandoned neighborhoods. They serve the powerful few by creating a general atmosphere of chaos and destroying the fabric of the local communities.[tag]
But I didn't expect a police representative to openly rebel against the authority so soon along with a thinly veiled declaration of war against the people they are meant to serve. I immediately thought of the similarity between Al Qaeda--or ISIS--and them.
A statement by Patrick Lynch, President of the police union in NYC:
Statement by Patrolmen's Benevolent Association:
"We have, for the first time in a number of years, become a 'wartime' police department. We will act accordingly."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/23/the-politics-of-dead-cops-and-the-coming-repression/
Maybe it's just rhetoric, or a moment of confusion and frustration expressed by the police leadership.
But it's certainly a good cautionary thought to remember that an uncontrollable force of violence is always part of the neo-colonial process of building a failed state of conflict and chaos, which is then eaten alive by the military industrial complex, and other multinational corporate interests.
And anyone who laughs at such a notion must remember why the streets are continuing to fill with protesters. For some of us, violence, injustice and destruction of communities have been a reality for generations. It is certainly not a time to question the movement against the criminal authority. It is the time we do whatever we can to join those who have struggled for generations.
(1) https://www.facebook.com/notes/hiroyuki-hamada/militarized-police/10151962628769454
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