The first municipal police forces

The first municipal police forces in this country were formed to catch runaway slaves. Northern cities found them useful for breaking strikes and suppressing demonstrations. All this so-called ‘protect and serve’ stuff is just public relations. I’ve never known a cop to catch a rapist, but I’ve known several of them to beat and gas protesters or shoot folks for the crime of Driving While Black. The cops exist to make sure that those in control stay in control, and that the masses don’t get out of hand. (...)

To me Reclaim the Streets is an entirely symbolic action. Yes it’s great to have a party and to get people to think about public space belonging to the public instead of to commercial interests, but having a dance party for a few hours isn’t high on my agenda. If we’re going to try to create a temporary autonomous zone why not take a section of the city and hold it for as long as we can — days, weeks, months, even years. To do that would require getting an overwhelming majority of the people in that section to want autonomy, otherwise we’re not a people’s movement but an occupying force. Even other short-term actions like work strikes have a concrete goal worth fighting for. I’m just not sure I’m completely behind a tactic that is so costly to us in terms of police brutality with so little possible payoff. Perhaps I just don’t understand Reclaim the Streets as well as I should, but I wasn’t inspired to take a beating from the cops over the right to listen to techno outdoors for a few hours. (...)

... you know what the real fun thing is? The real shits and giggles part of all this is that there were two groups on the street that day. One group carried guns and clubs, used chemical agents on unarmed civilians, made up laws as they went along (you can’t share food in the park, for example), and used violence to advance their boss' political career and try to intimidate folks from exercising their freedoms if those freedoms conflict with commercial interests. The other group gave food out freely, tried to avoid conflict by staying on the sidewalk, and was armed only with puppets and costumes. Yet the cops are praised in the media by the politicians, while the FBI has labeled Reclaim the Streets a terrorist organization.