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Learning From Ferguson
The question of self-defense against the police is one that we
are not allowed to consider, yet it is the only one that makes
sense. The police do not exist to protect society from generalized
cannibalism and mayhem, as in some paranoid Batman fantasy.
They exist to protect the haves from the have-nots, to maintain the
State’s monopoly on violence, and to make up for our atrophied
capacity for conflict resolution, another of the many
prerogatives the State has stolen from us...
are not allowed to consider, yet it is the only one that makes
sense. The police do not exist to protect society from generalized
cannibalism and mayhem, as in some paranoid Batman fantasy.
They exist to protect the haves from the have-nots, to maintain the
State’s monopoly on violence, and to make up for our atrophied
capacity for conflict resolution, another of the many
prerogatives the State has stolen from us...
Unknown Binding
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About the author
Peter Gelderloos
26 books117 followersPeter Gelderloos is an American anarchist activist and writer.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 3, 2022
So TLDR: this is a foundational piece of work & I recommend it. this review captures my thoughts which aren't all discussed in this book. The fact that I feel like I've been seen as an asshole for reasons this book explains as well as helps show what kind of problems this dictatorship makes for social work as a field, makes me thankful to have finally gotten caught up this long after the fact.
So I listened to this via some anarchist audiobook channel. It gives me a lot of context for stuff like NGOs etc, and catches me up on conversations I didn't know were being had about them. Like I've heard anti-NGO stuff from mlmaoists, but this is from an anarchist perspective.
So to be clear, it did a good job at calling bullshit, and it did a good job at saying how media stereotypes are indeed made by the media & due to the lack of verification a lot of media can be deemed as fiction.
A point it made but didn't explicitly say was that our best experiments of police abolitionism "after police" became a thing exist like how abolitionist academics exist: at the mercy of the police & possibly experiments by the dictatorship to test for contingency plans. Christiana, Oaxaca, Ferguson. This is important to know because segregation is still severe via zoning laws in USA & historically communes such as in Philadelphia get bombed by the police & or neighbors. (In Canada, segregation by lack of public transit gets used for the highway of tears.) I also saw an article headline about how municipalism is eurocentric due to different government structures in USA & Canada.
The other bit is that yeah we are in a warzone except were all hiding & yet moving around somewhat publically. I say this because the book kept making the point of avoiding suicide missions when trying to hold people accountable & how that requires solidarity. We have nothing like that in my area.
There was literally 2 dudes who walked into a store where everyone was doing their best to wear a mask & it was like... I realized I couldn't advocate against their murdering because everyone was that afraid of the police. My wouldbe-acts would've been the punished ones instead. So we at the store that day ended up with that sort of damage.
I reflected on why the desire for community is so strong they we'll even take an imagined one over material gains & 2 things: we want to normalize the abuse were in because we're confused as of how we lack a safety net & community even though we're around people which is related to the mechanism of gaslighting, and wilkerson in "caste" said racists voting against their interests these are technically material gains & an attempt at having a long-term social safety net.
I kind of wonder how war was considered legal in Europe like back in Descartes's day & earlier because this idea of a veiled war reminds me of some shit he wrote in his colonizer apologia. The veil's definition of community relies on imagined community such as racism etc.
Also biological warfare in old Europe is a topic that keeps coming up for me during this pandemic & as I'm reading "1491". Point being, I question the starting point of policing this book brought up & I want some precolonial ones.
So I listened to this via some anarchist audiobook channel. It gives me a lot of context for stuff like NGOs etc, and catches me up on conversations I didn't know were being had about them. Like I've heard anti-NGO stuff from mlmaoists, but this is from an anarchist perspective.
So to be clear, it did a good job at calling bullshit, and it did a good job at saying how media stereotypes are indeed made by the media & due to the lack of verification a lot of media can be deemed as fiction.
A point it made but didn't explicitly say was that our best experiments of police abolitionism "after police" became a thing exist like how abolitionist academics exist: at the mercy of the police & possibly experiments by the dictatorship to test for contingency plans. Christiana, Oaxaca, Ferguson. This is important to know because segregation is still severe via zoning laws in USA & historically communes such as in Philadelphia get bombed by the police & or neighbors. (In Canada, segregation by lack of public transit gets used for the highway of tears.) I also saw an article headline about how municipalism is eurocentric due to different government structures in USA & Canada.
The other bit is that yeah we are in a warzone except were all hiding & yet moving around somewhat publically. I say this because the book kept making the point of avoiding suicide missions when trying to hold people accountable & how that requires solidarity. We have nothing like that in my area.
There was literally 2 dudes who walked into a store where everyone was doing their best to wear a mask & it was like... I realized I couldn't advocate against their murdering because everyone was that afraid of the police. My wouldbe-acts would've been the punished ones instead. So we at the store that day ended up with that sort of damage.
I reflected on why the desire for community is so strong they we'll even take an imagined one over material gains & 2 things: we want to normalize the abuse were in because we're confused as of how we lack a safety net & community even though we're around people which is related to the mechanism of gaslighting, and wilkerson in "caste" said racists voting against their interests these are technically material gains & an attempt at having a long-term social safety net.
I kind of wonder how war was considered legal in Europe like back in Descartes's day & earlier because this idea of a veiled war reminds me of some shit he wrote in his colonizer apologia. The veil's definition of community relies on imagined community such as racism etc.
Also biological warfare in old Europe is a topic that keeps coming up for me during this pandemic & as I'm reading "1491". Point being, I question the starting point of policing this book brought up & I want some precolonial ones.
Displaying 1 of 1 review