There are functioning police forces elsewhere in the world. There are not functioning large cities without police forces. If what you mean is “disband US police departments and build something more like Iceland’s police” then say so. By saying “abolish” you’re allowing the movement to be flown straight into the ground by people who mean “abolish”. The reason the slogan focuses on the destruction of the current system, as I keep saying, is that the movement pretends there is agreement about what to build instead when there isn’t.
Edit, which is also the reason I said this:
How else do you describe a movement where Sabo is so supremely unconcerned with what comes next that he doesn’t even realise there are people in the thread who don’t think there should be state law enforcement at all? “Burn it all down” is lazy and easy. “What should things look like instead” is hard.
I think we are talking about different things here.
It seems you want to chat about what you consider poor “messaging” choices by those who use the watchwords “abolish the police”… which is an entirely different subject than what those who do use those watchwords might want to accomplish.
I don’t really care about slogan polling. Not my cup of tea,
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.
