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No radical politics is possible except against the police, for they are an integral and fundamental instrument in the reproduction of capitalist social relations. This does not mean however they they should become the object of any open and exclusive counter-violence; but rather, that all should be done to create conditions in which the violence of the police is rendered pointless and they themselves cease to be necessary.
In the mass protests-occupations of spain’s cities in 2011, for example, the police were often simply marginalised by the sheer scale of the mobilisations, or pushed back in many smaller, but determined, protests. The creation and defense of spaces of autonomy is only viable not against the police, but against the society as whole to which they belong. In other words, autonomy lies beyond policed societies.
A world without police
by Peter Gelderloos (Originally published with Counterpunch)
In two previous essay, I discussed the role of the Left in protecting the police through cautious reformism, and the effectiveness of a pacified, falsified—in a word disarmed—history of the Civil Rights movement to prevent us from learning from previous struggles and achieving a meaningful change in society.
The police are a racist, authoritarian institution that exists to protect the powerful in an unequal system. Continue reading “A world without police: Peter Gelderloos”
The Free 