This is what I mean about unseriousness about accomplishing anything, like “It’s not my job to have good messaging and make my ideas coherent and attractive to you” when that is in fact literally the job of political activists. Otherwise it’s just jacking off in public.
If you ask a Medicare For All proponent to explain what that is, they’ll do it, and if you say “But Joe Biden is calling this public option thing Medicare For All” they’ll say “that’s bullshit, that’s not what that means, here are the differences”. But if you ask activists to explain what “Abolish The Police” means you get 10 different answers from 10 different people and when you explain that other people are giving totally different answers, they’re like “oh well not really my problem”. I’m not sure how to interpret this other than that people are deep down aware that they’re not in possession of any serious proposal.
I think the practical political value in “abolish the police” is its shock value among centrists. Political messaging is about being as loud as possible, including media coverage. Facts and coherent ideology don’t matter. Normies hear that and think “those people are angry at cops and there are a lot of them, maybe we should do something” which is good enough.
Boiling your position down to a catchy slogan is more important than whether the slogan makes sense. You don’t have to have any kind of coherent plan behind it, us liberals will think of something.
Dude, we’re not doing activism here. We are conspicuously wasting time chatting around our tiny virtual water cooler. It’s not my job to do jack shit. Your’s neither. Further, I’ve been saying here, and back on 2+2 before then, for over 10 years, that I’m not trying to change anybody’s minds here.
Again: advertising (“messaging”) for something != that something. The slogan “where’s the beef” isn’t the meat product between the buns. A discussion could be had regarding the efficacy of that slogan selling that burger. A discussion could be had about the quality of that burger. They are not the same discussion.
Now, unless you are a pro in the advertising business… you’re pretty much a random on the interwebs more-or-less pulling stuff out of your butt. Me too. Why would I care to hear your feelings that “adjust” would poll 2.7% higher than “realign” among six foot or taller lesbians in “battle ground” states?
As I mentioned, not my cup of tea. But if we must only view the world trough Mad-Men eyes… consider this.
The intended “demographic” for those watchwords might not be the general public. It’s obviously not you. Instead, it could be the “demographic” of those who actually get off their butts and out into the streets. I think you’ll have to admit in your Mad-Men obsessed heart, that “abolish the police” has had some success with that “target audience”.
No. The serious proposal is that the pix cannot be touched up, we need to start with a blank canvas. What you are doing is complaining that nobody can say what the final pix will look like. Example: “what would happen if you dialed 911?”
Anyone can play this stupid nit-pick the hypothetical game for any substantial possible change. Well, if they can find someone fool enough to play along.
You won’t get a society of significantly better people without first abolishing capitalism (and with it consumerism) that indoctrinates people with ideas of materialism and greed (and of course, violence against others).
What’s needed is an almost Blakean revolution of the heart.
The person in question responded by thanking me and saying something, I forget exactly what, that pretty clearly implied that he had that covered because he had a gun. No police needed!
I can just imagine a bunch of enlightened unstuckers crowing about how slavery abolitionists haven’t even come up with a plan for how plantation owners are supposed to make money if we get rid of slavery. Some people are saying they’re fine with indentured servants, some people aren’t - you can’t even agree on what you mean by abolish slavery! And we’re still waiting on an example of large scale cotton and tobacco production that DOESN’T rely on slaves.
That’s not even getting into the practicalities - black people don’t exactly have the highest approval ratings, and meanwhile like 50% of our presidents have been southern white men.
Why don’t we focus on laws that prohibit certain TYPES of lashings, and maybe make a publicly accessible record of the abusive slaveowners. We can hire some people to travel from plantation to plantation and give sensitivity training. Maybe require some type of two year degree before being eligible to bid at slave auctions. You know, something that has a realistic shot of becoming law. If we’re really lucky, in 10 years we can pass a law mandating that a minimum of 15% of slaveowners are women or POC.
I don’t think most regular people hear “abolish the police” and think positive things about the message or about the people pushing the message. Normies, or whatever you want to call them, will think of it as advocating anarchy. I don’t really think that helps when you are talking about law enforcement that, unfortunately, a huge important/influential portion of the population views in a positive light.
More amateur Mad-Men musings ITT. To a majority of UnStuckers it seems, how something is marketeered in the mass media >>>> what that something actually may be.
1800s version. Man, that L.Garrison had terrible “messaging”. Too bad us UnStuckers weren’t around back in that day to show him the errors in his ways.
So you get to call me out for condescending tone, while spewing nothing but condescension.
#1 - yes #2 - I have made many posts itt to the effect of what can be done and will continue to do so, ignoring the glib one liners, and you going forward #3 - that’s up to you, I don’t assume the police cannot be reformed because I see no reasonable alternative to some level of policing (along with 99.9% of the rest of society - including most actual minorities who actually have skin in this game)
There is zero content in the rest of this sophist argle bargle.
And you ignored my extremely simple direct question - what do you want to replace capitalism with? Or are you just an anti-capitalist with no solutions you can verbalize succinctly?
I get the impression you (and these anarchist kids in Portland and elsewhere) see the BLM movement as a convenient ride to hitch on your way to a ??? revolution.
I don’t get the impression you (you personally - as ChrisV is pointing out - everyone in the abolish the police crew has a slightly different take and agenda) give a shit about what the people and communities who are the overwhelming victims of police brutality actually want. Except in the sense that you think their lives must be better in a post-police anarcho-Marxist utopia or whatever - due to first principles - and you know better than them what’s good for them.
This is so lazy. Abolish ICE is a great example. Do you see any of us on here saying reform ICE? No. Nor would we be saying reform slavery.
There is no moral justification for slavery. It’s inherently evil. Most everywhere else had already abolished it by 1850.
There is nothing inherently evil about being able to call 911 if your drunk ex is banging on the door with a gun. Every city on earth has police. Police in the US are out of control in many places for what I believe are fixable reasons. You’re talking about something that has never really been tried and offering nothing but vague solutions.
And you’re talking about solutions that we know will be ineffective. Both the “abolish the police” and “reform the police” camps recognize that they don’t have all of the details in place and still have a lot of work to do to figure out a solution.
Team Abolish doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for community policing, and the fear is that victims of crime (meaning people who currently call 911) won’t have an adequate avenue to turn to if they’re being assaulted.
Team Reform doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for preventing cops from abusing citizens, and the fear is that victims of crime (meaning people who are abused or murdered by the police) will continue to be victimized.
Somehow the response to Team Reform is “yes, this is a longggggg process, change happens gradually, let’s take the first common sense steps and then figure out the rest”. The response to Team Abolish is… not that.
I’m not calling you out for condescension to make you feel sad. ZOMG why do some UnStuckers assume everything is personal. I’m pointing out, primarily to the lurkers, this: There are much deeper issues involved that the stilted narrow confines of Q#2. And… these deeper issues are being dismissed, sometimes condescendingly, by certain folks, including fellow UnStuckers.
Again, I didn’t present these three sub-topics for you to give me your feelings regarding them. My point is that these are all fully legitimate sub-topics of the overall “WTF to do with the police”. That none of them should be dismissed, and certainly not in a condescending way.
Now the following are just my feelings… so sue me if I go astray. You DGAF about #1 or #3. You are only really interested in chatting about #2. While OTOH, @ ggoreo has made it clear that he’s not really interested in chatting about #2. Which is all fine & good… nobody needs to chat about what they don’t care to chat about.
But you are doing the exact same thingee you are whining about.
When you carry on about “where’s the proposals” you are assuming your feelings about #1 are “true”, and are dismissing #3 as silly. When others respond to that with “abolish the police”, they are assuming that your feelings about #1 are “false”, and are dismissing #2 as prearranging deck chairs.
Here’s the difference however: I’m going to predict that those on the “abolish” side would be generally happy to have an in depth chat about #1. You, and again it’s my only my feelings, would never be able to sit still for any substantive chat regarding #1. Your feelings are made-up, and you aren’t going to change them.
This is true with reformist types in general, regardless of topic.
And this was the larger point I was trying to make. So… and again it just makes me LOL that you have characterized a quite polite and very on-topic chat as “not letting go”… I guess I’ll “let you go” now, if you really want to stop chatting about the issues at hand.
I ignored this Q because it’s not even close to being on-topic regarding even this off-topic “abolish” derail in this, the real-time protest thread. Start your own thread if you want to chat about this.
Oh boy… another “outside agitators” screed, and more patronizing crap about how black folk cannot have a class consciousness on their own. Of course, to hold such an opinion you’d have to studiously ignore… the three founders of the BLM Network, and all those you condescending call “kids”. And this obscure dead labor organizer dude too…
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic… [Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive… but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has out-lived its usefulness.
“ In a sense, you could say we’re involved in the class struggle.”
“And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…”
“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.”
“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.”
