Post by Modesto Anarcho on Feb 26, 2008 19:23:40 GMT -5
The Smiling Face of Repression
by crudo
from Modesto Anarcho #5
In the past month, police in the California central valley have unveiled new technology which they plan on using to keep the rest of us in line. In Stanislaus County pigs are planning on implementing a surveillance system in which parolees will have to wear anklets and carry special cells phones (1). These devices transmit information to the police regarding a person’s every move with the help of a GPS (Global Positioning System) tracker. If a parolee tries to escape or move out of their area, an email is immediately sent to police. The cell phones are also capable of not only being tapped by the FBI and other state and police agencies, but can also act as a listening device which can pick up conversations between people. Nearby in Stockton, police are using a new system in which actual finger prints can be scanned by a computer and then run through a database. This allows police to much more easily see if someone is violating their parole, has a warrant out, has a history of ‘gang activity’ (or any other pretext which gives a green light for police to violate someone). Couple these recent developments with the wave after wave of installations of surveillance cameras (see the Repression News section in this issue and Modesto Anarcho #4) and you have the recipe for a police state. Just like the building of more prisons within the valley, the increased powers of these technologies will not make anyone safer or freer. They will only increase the power of the police and the state and lead to more people in prison. Locked up, locked down, under surveillance, under control, and right where the pigs want us.
At the same time as the police are consolidating their own power, they have also been engaged in a campaign of ‘community policing.’ This is designed to create a ‘positive’ image of the police department, foster good community relations, and also to ‘build bridges’ into communities (people of color, the homeless, youth, etc) that are generally hostile to the police. In Modesto, the top pig brass often manages to put on an impressive show every time the community looks like it is ready to explode after the latest police murder, beating, or scandal. In public forums and discussions, the police actually have no desire to change their brutal approach to the communities that they work in, but are putting on a show of ‘dialog’ with the people they are oppressing that makes many people believe that they can influence police policy in a certain way. We can never dialog with people who have more power than us and who are oppressing us. By entering into a dialog with the police and the state we give them legitimacy and credibility. These interactions (community forums, meetings, radio chats, and media interviews) also help to deflect rage and action away from those who are brutalized by the police and back into the system which supports them.
In order for ‘community policing’ to work, the police need intermediaries between the wider population and themselves. They need people who others look to that “stand up to the police.” Often, these people come in the forms of local heads of non-profits and leftist organizations. Just as the police use “community policing” to give a clean face to their continued and ever expanding repression, the various bureaucracies that claim to “take on the system” need the continued myth that they are actually challenging it in order to continue to remain credible. The recent “radio chats” (3) between the Modesto NAACP and the local police only further illustrate this point. People who wish to struggle against the police have nothing to gain by dialoging with them – but the police do, either in the form of information gathering against those who would oppose them or by creating an air of credibility. Like the technology that is being leveled against us by the police state – the police are not neutral.
We of course don’t have to accept any of this – we can actively resist the expanding power of the state and the police in our daily lives. Ultimately, we will have to destroy this class based society that makes people commit crimes in order to get by. We have to destroy the ever expanding power of the surveillance state if we want to be able to attack and defend ourselves against this system. We also have to fight against those who would call for dialog and compromise with those who are oppressing us. Our oppressors often offer us an olive branch and a chance for dialog - let’s give them resistance instead.
Endnotes:
1. Modesto Bee, September 22nd
2. Stockton Record, September 25th
3. Modesto Bee, August 2nd
Download PDF of Modesto Anarcho #5 at www.geocities.com/anarcho209
Feedback at: anarcho209[at]yahoo[dot]com
by crudo
from Modesto Anarcho #5
In the past month, police in the California central valley have unveiled new technology which they plan on using to keep the rest of us in line. In Stanislaus County pigs are planning on implementing a surveillance system in which parolees will have to wear anklets and carry special cells phones (1). These devices transmit information to the police regarding a person’s every move with the help of a GPS (Global Positioning System) tracker. If a parolee tries to escape or move out of their area, an email is immediately sent to police. The cell phones are also capable of not only being tapped by the FBI and other state and police agencies, but can also act as a listening device which can pick up conversations between people. Nearby in Stockton, police are using a new system in which actual finger prints can be scanned by a computer and then run through a database. This allows police to much more easily see if someone is violating their parole, has a warrant out, has a history of ‘gang activity’ (or any other pretext which gives a green light for police to violate someone). Couple these recent developments with the wave after wave of installations of surveillance cameras (see the Repression News section in this issue and Modesto Anarcho #4) and you have the recipe for a police state. Just like the building of more prisons within the valley, the increased powers of these technologies will not make anyone safer or freer. They will only increase the power of the police and the state and lead to more people in prison. Locked up, locked down, under surveillance, under control, and right where the pigs want us.
At the same time as the police are consolidating their own power, they have also been engaged in a campaign of ‘community policing.’ This is designed to create a ‘positive’ image of the police department, foster good community relations, and also to ‘build bridges’ into communities (people of color, the homeless, youth, etc) that are generally hostile to the police. In Modesto, the top pig brass often manages to put on an impressive show every time the community looks like it is ready to explode after the latest police murder, beating, or scandal. In public forums and discussions, the police actually have no desire to change their brutal approach to the communities that they work in, but are putting on a show of ‘dialog’ with the people they are oppressing that makes many people believe that they can influence police policy in a certain way. We can never dialog with people who have more power than us and who are oppressing us. By entering into a dialog with the police and the state we give them legitimacy and credibility. These interactions (community forums, meetings, radio chats, and media interviews) also help to deflect rage and action away from those who are brutalized by the police and back into the system which supports them.
In order for ‘community policing’ to work, the police need intermediaries between the wider population and themselves. They need people who others look to that “stand up to the police.” Often, these people come in the forms of local heads of non-profits and leftist organizations. Just as the police use “community policing” to give a clean face to their continued and ever expanding repression, the various bureaucracies that claim to “take on the system” need the continued myth that they are actually challenging it in order to continue to remain credible. The recent “radio chats” (3) between the Modesto NAACP and the local police only further illustrate this point. People who wish to struggle against the police have nothing to gain by dialoging with them – but the police do, either in the form of information gathering against those who would oppose them or by creating an air of credibility. Like the technology that is being leveled against us by the police state – the police are not neutral.
We of course don’t have to accept any of this – we can actively resist the expanding power of the state and the police in our daily lives. Ultimately, we will have to destroy this class based society that makes people commit crimes in order to get by. We have to destroy the ever expanding power of the surveillance state if we want to be able to attack and defend ourselves against this system. We also have to fight against those who would call for dialog and compromise with those who are oppressing us. Our oppressors often offer us an olive branch and a chance for dialog - let’s give them resistance instead.
Endnotes:
1. Modesto Bee, September 22nd
2. Stockton Record, September 25th
3. Modesto Bee, August 2nd
Download PDF of Modesto Anarcho #5 at www.geocities.com/anarcho209
Feedback at: anarcho209[at]yahoo[dot]com
