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In the U.S. the chances of being murdered if you are a cop is LESS than the chance of being murdered if you are a mere citizen. That is a fact. Policing is NOT a particularly hazardous occupation. Other jobs are MUCH more dangerous. Coal mining. Farming. Commercial fishing. Construction. Working in a meat packing plant. All are MUCH more physically dangerous than being a cop, in terms of serious injuries and deaths. (It is not so rare for people to be maimed for life in those other occupations. It is exceedingly rare for police to suffer such misfortune.)
Cops spend most of their time sitting in their cars. Doing paperwork in their cop fortresses is another major use of their time. Chasing "perps" down alleys, like on the repression- porn TV show "Cops," a vile propaganda program, is a minuscule percentage of what they do.
There are close to a million cops in the U.S., and yet only around 50 a year are currently killed by other people while on the job. That is half the average of 100 a year of several decades ago, when there were half as many cops. It was safe then, and now it's four times safer.
Yet cops, their fellow traveling reactionaries and white racist cheerleaders, and most of all the U.S. corporate oligarchy's propaganda system, constantly beat their breasts about how police "risk their lives for us." They raise this rhetorical wall of verbal garbage as a shield whenever there is attempt by mere citizens to criticize their outrageous, repressive behavior. (The corporate oligarchic propaganda system refers to itself as "the media," as if it's the one and only media there is, and is purely neutral and objective with no political character.) Very, very rarely, some police are in potentially dangerous (to themselves) situations. And yes, on rare occasions, one or two get killed. It would be like getting struck by lightning, except getting struck by lightning happens far more often than a cop getting killed occurs.
On the other side of the ledger, U.S. police shoot dead over 1,000 people each and every year in the U.S. Now, presumably these aren't ALL homicides. Surely some of these killings must be justified. And yet, one has to wonder why in other "advanced" countries, like those in Europe, and Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the number of people shot or shot dead by police is such a tiny fraction of the U.S number.
Police, like all reactionaries, like to pretend they are being persecuted. In their case, criticism of their crimes is the "persecution." They expect praise for their criminal acts, or at least silence (and media cooperation in spreading lies about their conduct). Police in the U.S. are NOT persecuted. In a nation that has systematically attacked and destroyed the union movement for decades reducing organized labor to a shadow of what it once was, police unions are allowed grotesquely exaggerated political power. Even as teachers' unions are under systematic assault by state governments and billionaires and their hired propagandists pushing "charter schools" and vouchers, police unions are treated with the deference usually reserved for the Roman Catholic Pope.
Because of their role as oppressors of the "lower" (i.e. poorer) classes in the U.S., a growing percentage of the population, cops are hated by more and more people. On occasions when public outrage explodes over police atrocities, cops feel genuinely aggrieved and insulted. THEY are outraged that anyone is outraged at THEM instead of profusely THANKING them for murdering someone, for example. Then they and their reactionary defenders and media propagandist enablers start to bleat about how "dangerous" it is to be a cop, how they have to make "split second decisions" or be killed. This is BULLSHIT. Every time they cold-bloodedly murder someone, or brutally beat someone who rubbed them the wrong way (or who merely has the wrong skin pigmentation) or break into homes ot attack people protesting causes the cops despise, they trot out their alleged need to make "split-second decisions" and screech that the second-guessing is HANDCUFFING the police and ENDANGERING THEM by making them hesitant to become instantly violent like a Hell's Angel or a steroid-addled bodybuilder subject to sudden and unprovoked rages. (By the way, many cops ARE 'roided-up goons. And many are violent veterans of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where they developed a taste for shedding human blood. Or just developed a combat mentality, which they apply to their "police" work, "protecting the serving" the rich and the power structure created by and for the rich.)
Cops are NOT "law enforcers." They are social order enforcers. They are guardians of the existing power structure. This is the single most important thing to understand about the police. Everything they do makes perfect sense once you perceive this fundamental fact.
Since "blacks" are the U.S. equivalent of Indian Dalits, "untouchables," and occupy the bottom status rung in a deeply racist society, and "need" to be "kept in their place," a task in which violence has historically been a central tool, although not the only one, we should not be mystified by "why do they keep killing black people?" If it wasn't desired that they regularly commit such atrocities, the legal and political systems would not PROTECT THEM WHEN THEY DO IT. And the only times they are NOT protected is when there is unrest AND the unrest does not SUBSIDE quickly.
Chinese dictator and "communist" emperor Mao Zedong infamously wrote that "political power flows out of the barrel of a gun." It also sprays from the nozzle of a pepper spray can, a tear gas canister, and sparks off the tips of a taser's barbs. That is, power always ultimately rests on physical force. Without the ability to use physical force to enforce one's will when challenged, there is no power. There may be influence, but not power. Power is the ability to force others to do what you dictate, not do what you ban, or to punish for disobedience.
In the current two weeks and counting nationwide (indeed global) mass protests against the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on March 25, the bourgeois politicians and propagandists have been talking as if they are on the same side as those they oppress. They've been wringing their hands nonstop, Tugging at their chins and wondering how to "fix" the "problem of racism." Meanwhile, the whole time, their police have been violently assaulting the protesters, killing several, and shooting an eye out of at least three people, among other atrocities. But the only "violence" those in power perceive is window-breaking and "looting" by people they insist on tying to the protesters. So as soon as the heat dies down, expect things to be back to business as usual.
Killer cop Derek Chauvin was only indicted after a police station was burned down in Minneapolis. It was only after 8 days or so of national turbulence that Minnesota state Attorney General Keith Ellison, a phony "progressive," took over the case and indicted the other 3 murderers of George Floyd. He is already warning how "hard" it will be to obtain convictions.
Malcolm X once said, "The only thing power understands, IS power." Or in this case, pressure. Pressure from masses of people. Most importantly, most of the demonstrators have been "white." That is new in the Black Lives Matter movement. That is also decisive. Blacks in the U.S. are a small minority, so having allies in the rest of the population is essential.
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Cops spend most of their time sitting in their cars. Doing paperwork in their cop fortresses is another major use of their time. Chasing "perps" down alleys, like on the repression- porn TV show "Cops," a vile propaganda program, is a minuscule percentage of what they do.
There are close to a million cops in the U.S., and yet only around 50 a year are currently killed by other people while on the job. That is half the average of 100 a year of several decades ago, when there were half as many cops. It was safe then, and now it's four times safer.
Yet cops, their fellow traveling reactionaries and white racist cheerleaders, and most of all the U.S. corporate oligarchy's propaganda system, constantly beat their breasts about how police "risk their lives for us." They raise this rhetorical wall of verbal garbage as a shield whenever there is attempt by mere citizens to criticize their outrageous, repressive behavior. (The corporate oligarchic propaganda system refers to itself as "the media," as if it's the one and only media there is, and is purely neutral and objective with no political character.) Very, very rarely, some police are in potentially dangerous (to themselves) situations. And yes, on rare occasions, one or two get killed. It would be like getting struck by lightning, except getting struck by lightning happens far more often than a cop getting killed occurs.
On the other side of the ledger, U.S. police shoot dead over 1,000 people each and every year in the U.S. Now, presumably these aren't ALL homicides. Surely some of these killings must be justified. And yet, one has to wonder why in other "advanced" countries, like those in Europe, and Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the number of people shot or shot dead by police is such a tiny fraction of the U.S number.
Police, like all reactionaries, like to pretend they are being persecuted. In their case, criticism of their crimes is the "persecution." They expect praise for their criminal acts, or at least silence (and media cooperation in spreading lies about their conduct). Police in the U.S. are NOT persecuted. In a nation that has systematically attacked and destroyed the union movement for decades reducing organized labor to a shadow of what it once was, police unions are allowed grotesquely exaggerated political power. Even as teachers' unions are under systematic assault by state governments and billionaires and their hired propagandists pushing "charter schools" and vouchers, police unions are treated with the deference usually reserved for the Roman Catholic Pope.
Because of their role as oppressors of the "lower" (i.e. poorer) classes in the U.S., a growing percentage of the population, cops are hated by more and more people. On occasions when public outrage explodes over police atrocities, cops feel genuinely aggrieved and insulted. THEY are outraged that anyone is outraged at THEM instead of profusely THANKING them for murdering someone, for example. Then they and their reactionary defenders and media propagandist enablers start to bleat about how "dangerous" it is to be a cop, how they have to make "split second decisions" or be killed. This is BULLSHIT. Every time they cold-bloodedly murder someone, or brutally beat someone who rubbed them the wrong way (or who merely has the wrong skin pigmentation) or break into homes ot attack people protesting causes the cops despise, they trot out their alleged need to make "split-second decisions" and screech that the second-guessing is HANDCUFFING the police and ENDANGERING THEM by making them hesitant to become instantly violent like a Hell's Angel or a steroid-addled bodybuilder subject to sudden and unprovoked rages. (By the way, many cops ARE 'roided-up goons. And many are violent veterans of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where they developed a taste for shedding human blood. Or just developed a combat mentality, which they apply to their "police" work, "protecting the serving" the rich and the power structure created by and for the rich.)
Cops are NOT "law enforcers." They are social order enforcers. They are guardians of the existing power structure. This is the single most important thing to understand about the police. Everything they do makes perfect sense once you perceive this fundamental fact.
Since "blacks" are the U.S. equivalent of Indian Dalits, "untouchables," and occupy the bottom status rung in a deeply racist society, and "need" to be "kept in their place," a task in which violence has historically been a central tool, although not the only one, we should not be mystified by "why do they keep killing black people?" If it wasn't desired that they regularly commit such atrocities, the legal and political systems would not PROTECT THEM WHEN THEY DO IT. And the only times they are NOT protected is when there is unrest AND the unrest does not SUBSIDE quickly.
Chinese dictator and "communist" emperor Mao Zedong infamously wrote that "political power flows out of the barrel of a gun." It also sprays from the nozzle of a pepper spray can, a tear gas canister, and sparks off the tips of a taser's barbs. That is, power always ultimately rests on physical force. Without the ability to use physical force to enforce one's will when challenged, there is no power. There may be influence, but not power. Power is the ability to force others to do what you dictate, not do what you ban, or to punish for disobedience.
In the current two weeks and counting nationwide (indeed global) mass protests against the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on March 25, the bourgeois politicians and propagandists have been talking as if they are on the same side as those they oppress. They've been wringing their hands nonstop, Tugging at their chins and wondering how to "fix" the "problem of racism." Meanwhile, the whole time, their police have been violently assaulting the protesters, killing several, and shooting an eye out of at least three people, among other atrocities. But the only "violence" those in power perceive is window-breaking and "looting" by people they insist on tying to the protesters. So as soon as the heat dies down, expect things to be back to business as usual.
Killer cop Derek Chauvin was only indicted after a police station was burned down in Minneapolis. It was only after 8 days or so of national turbulence that Minnesota state Attorney General Keith Ellison, a phony "progressive," took over the case and indicted the other 3 murderers of George Floyd. He is already warning how "hard" it will be to obtain convictions.
Malcolm X once said, "The only thing power understands, IS power." Or in this case, pressure. Pressure from masses of people. Most importantly, most of the demonstrators have been "white." That is new in the Black Lives Matter movement. That is also decisive. Blacks in the U.S. are a small minority, so having allies in the rest of the population is essential.
Ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek "Crusher" Chauvin bravely putting his life on the line to "protect and serve." And ingrates have the nerve to protest! What is the world coming to?
DON'T MISS MY EYE-OPENING YOUTUBE CHANNEL
youtube.com/user/jasonzenith/videos
