This article on Mother Jones, yesterday, lists some of the outside groups who have shown up in Ferguson, Missouri, some helpful, some grotesquely irresponsible, idiotic "revolutionary" opportunists so incredibly stupid that they seem to believe that inciting violence in Ferguson will spark the glorious revolution that will bring their Communist party to power, the bulwark of the glorious millennium when that old dialectic points to them as the end point of material existence and declares "you rule, man". If you think that sentence is overblown, all I can say is you can't read much of their material without sustaining at least temporary damage*. The various groups, most of whom don't care at all about the residents of that town and the occupation by a homicidal and fascistic police force, will stay only as long as they can turn the protests by the people who live there into a media carnival. For which they can go to hell as far as I'm concerned.
Some of them, such as the incredibly stupid political cult, Bob Avakian's Communist Revolutionary Party, are eager Maoists. You don't have to imagine how Mao would have handled any such demonstrations in the country he dictated to, he'd have killed all of them. As bad as the police in Ferguson are, as fascistic as their tactics are, they were under some constraints. I've noted before how the drooling revolutionaries of Bob's army hope to ignite the world wide revolution they believe is just around the corner. And they have decided to make Ferguson their beachhead, whether or not the people who live there agree. In real life, I doubt they could conduct a special town meeting without it turning into a brawl brought on by competing personalities trying to grab the mic, turning the meeting into a war of competing and resenting factions. I would guess that they really believe that they are always on the brink of calling their fearless leader back from his self-imposed exile in France to some place such as Ferguson to take charge of the revolution. If he hasn't since stopped breathing since I began writing this, I would guess that the Larouchies imagine something similar.
A rule of thumb about these kinds of groups that come in and try to hijack high profile local protests is that any of them that advocate or encourage violence are not in it for the benefit of the people who live there. Those people will leave, the people who live there will be the ones who have to live with the aftermath of their exciting and titillating violence. This is especially true when there is some intellectual program thought up in some other place, like San Francisco or by a bunch of white intellectuals who never have to live with the results of the violence they call for, when that violence has to stop, as it always does, the Revolution it was supposed to incite delayed for future opportunities.
Especially stupid are the anarchists who would have all civil authority
end, leaving communities to be governed by those who always rise up whenever the police leave, gangsters and gangsters who war with each other as they terrorize, rob and exploit the people who have no choice but to live there. And I will repeat that, we know what would happen under anarchism because it happens in any section of a city or country where there is a vacuum of civil authority and police presence, the gangs take over. The problem in Ferguson was that the police were a white occupation army in a black community, the answer to that is to have an effective police force which is part of the community. It is remarkable, considering their professed beliefs, now little faith anarchists have in the ability of The People to govern themselves when that has actually, if all too rarely, happened.
As distasteful as it is to put it this way, police are absolutely necessary to a democratic community and society because stopping criminals from doing the things they want to do is necessary. The violence that criminals use to get what they want - and in a disturbing number of cases violence is what they want BECAUSE THEY ARE GRATIFIED BY VIOLENCE** - will only be countered by the possibility of the use of violence to stop or control them. Violence will be there and the threat of violence to counter it must be placed in the hands of police who are answerable to the community. Since guns are going to be carried and violence used, I'd rather take a chance on it being the police who are authorized by government have them than a bunch of thugs answerable to the most ruthless crime boss who climbed his way to the top by being the most violent and ruthless.
That was the problem in Ferguson, the police were not answerable to the community and it obviously had developed a malignant and anti-democratic, anti-community culture. The answer to that isn't to import idiots who like violence and whose intentions are so stupid that it would replace an out of control police force with the gangsters who would replace them. There has to be a way found to make the police what they have to be in a decent society, the responsible and so respected servants of the community. You've got to route out the occupier thinking in the community, which is especially hard to do if there is a high crime rate. The police have to have the resources and training and oversight to do what they must do. I don't see much of anything in the play left that will do that.
One thing that needs to be done is to make both the support from the community higher and the level of training and fitness of police match a real, professional level. I don't think it makes any sense for police who are responsible for law enforcement, carrying a gun and being those we demand deal with everything from applying measured violence to providing compassionate care for those left on the street by the irresponsibility of the psychiatric profession to have less training than you need to be a barber or hair dresser in some states. There is nothing better than a good, honest policeman and nothing worse than one who isn't. We need the good ones and we need to weed out and prevent the bad ones from being police. But that takes money and, frankly, preventing police unions from enabling the bad ones.
* Look at the "Preamble" to their draft Constitution For the New Socialist Republic of North America. 2693 words. And that's just the preamble! If they came to power one of the results would be that the continent would be denuded of trees to print out their literature.
** Considering the obvious gratification of so many of these groups that violence is, risking lots of people being injured or killed in their mash ups, they're not really any different from the out of control cops. I would challenge any of them to put their presence in Ferguson up to a vote by secret ballot. Ultimately, that's why the police are there.
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