Except there has been a major theme among the Occupy movement to categorize police as 'part of the 99%'. There have been plenty of individuals demonizing the police, but I've seen many more participants constantly reminding everyone that they're just doing their jobs, they need to be respected as people, get angry at the system not the police, etc. The movement has definitely publicized police abuse, but it seems strongly aimed at pointing out that a definite nerve has been struck with authority figures, meaning something is being said that they genuinely fear and can't just ignore, and that the police are abused by those authorities to carry out their personal will instead of the law.
Fair enough. I haven't seen much of that, but you're more involved with occupy than I, so I'll take your word for it.
And I'm not just speaking for myself here. This is genuinely what I see as the prevailing sentiment. I personally disagree with the majority of it. Yeah, police are human beings. Even so, I believe the institution of law enforcement is itself of a certain nature, which aggregates people of a certain range of dispositions and subsequently generates a certain internal culture that can be described as sociopathic, even if the individuals would not be so when judged by their behavior outside of that group. People's behavior can change drastically according to the people who are sharing that participation with them, and especially when that behavior is backed by a strong sense of officiated legitimacy, mutual support, and powerful resources.
I suspect plenty of cops in their personal lives seem like completely ordinary or even great people. Then they suit up in armored uniforms and weapons and march out in large numbers with firm convictions in support of the law as defined to them by the people writing their paychecks. They go to manage a large number of people who have firm convictions against the current state of the law, and believe it should not be defined by the people writing officer's paychecks. They're encouraged by their superiors to see these people as enemies. Their personal sense of identity fades into the shared identity of the law enforcement apparatus, and is directly pitted against the shared identity of everyone outside of their group. People who are identifying themselves as police officers instead of human beings are handling people who they are identifying as criminals instead of human beings. It's a situation where they're bound to do things they'd never dream of in any other situation, where they'd be human beings interacting with other human beings.
I'm fine with people calling out organizations. I'll agree with anyone claiming that the police organization itself is corrupt and has sociopathic tendencies. I just draw the line at personal attacks, for the very reasons you mentioned. They are instruments in a corrupt system's hand; they are not (necessarily) corrupt themselves.
It is the "us verses them" mentality that drives most the problems; that can very well end up being true for both sides. Don't fall to that mentality. Falling for that mentality is what allows all this shit to happen, from spraying defenseless people to pepper spray, to rage against "the man," to trying to find some dude named Charlie in a jungle, to chopping off all the heads of the nobility. Those actions are justified in people's heads because those actions are against "them," not "us."
In reality there is no "them"; only "us." When we fight each other we fight ourselves. Why people subscribe to this notion when decrying war and violence but not other forms of unnecessary conflict and hate, I don't know. Maybe I just watched too much Mr Rogers as a kid.
(before someone says I'm advocating complacency or something here, let me say I'm not. I'm saying understand the consequences and implications of the means before justifying it with the end, whether it be a war fought with guns or words. When slinging mud everyone gets dirty, no black and white morality, no perfect heroes or true villains, all that good stuff. Claiming moral high ground when attacking the tools in the corruption's hand instead of the corruption itself is a bit difficult to swallow. It's the people in suits who start wars and cause these large scale problems; they deserve your ire, not the soldiers who fight for them.)
And it absolutely does not excuse them. They put themselves in that situation. They give themselves up to that group dynamic. They submit their personal moral agency to their faith in an institution and/or a paycheck.
I had military recruiters hounding me in my late teens. I've had people encourage me to get into a career in law enforcement or security. I recognized far in advance that I could absolutely never do it, because I knew could never directly participate in the harm of another human being without direct and thorough personal knowledge that the harm is truly deserved and that is exactly what those positions are at their core. They are a careers that require a person to simply accept when they are told that someone deserves to get hurt. It's very hard for me to have respect for anyone with that level of concern for the consequences of their actions on others.
The difference between you and them here is simply trust. Not everyone's skeptical of authority, as we're raised in a culture that teaches respect for authority. They probably believe they're doing the right thing, or at least right overall. I definitely would not claim it's an issue of moral character; just naivete, ignorance, complacency, apathy, etc. I at least respect people more for their intentions than the consequences of their actions. Stupidity and ignorance is not malice, and it takes malice for me to actually dislike someone like that.
Show me a video of a cop spraying a line of protesters sitting on the ground, yeah I'll say that's pretty disgusting. Show me a guy holding a riot shield standing in a line, I'm not passing judgement.
Side note: Someone's going to have to explain to me sometime how in the hell kicking out protesters helps anyone's paycheck. Making a scene does NOT help corporate interests. It only further serves to demonize the police and justify the protesters. Either I'm missing something or there's some massive, massive stupidity going on. Corporations should want the police to back off, so news of protesters will fade away, and be forgotten. Every time I hear people call the police corporate dogs or whatever, I can only respond with a flat what, because I can't see any benefit whatsoever to attacking the protesters.
The only reason I can see for kicking protesters out is that they can be a a nuisance to local governments. A nuisance to towns and cities themselves, and not anyone higher. Litter and property damage is rather inevitable with a large number of people.
Author
Topic: Occupying Wallstreet (Read 297194 times)