The Off Topic Topic

[HVC]

I wouldn't say it was all conservatives. Plenty of ACAB's out there calling for pure defunding. Even legitimate "news" site like the root and jezebel were running stories with plenty of comments whole heartedly endorsing it. Hardly right leaning sites.

So while not exactly the best organized movement (slogan lead movements rarely are), like BB and valmy said, plenty of people were clamoring for the extreme version of the slogan.

[Sheilbh]

But surely in that case the better less confusing slogan is "fund social services" not "defund the police"?

Also if you look at left-activist circles and, say, Jacobin style mags or that side of (especially online) politics there are people absolutely making the argument to defund the police. Or the NYT piece from an activist with the headline "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police".

If you need to do background reading to understand a slogan, it's a bad slogan.

Now I think that wider defund the police argument is in effect that you reorder society in such a way that police are no longer required, normally by substantively ending capitalism. Which is a bit like the "no solution to the climate crisis with capitalism". That may be an attractive end goal but, in my experience you push people on that, and they're far more interested in ending capitalism/radically re-ordering society than things we could do on climate (or indeed policing) now. In many ways it's the revolutionary v amelioration debate that the left's been having for 150 years - it's now focused on policing and climate because they are in a state of crisis.

Edit: Also, fundamentally I think your slogan should broadly reflect your principal ask - and you can't moan if people take it at face valuue.

[Admiral Yi]

I mean - mostly not.

"Defund the police" was a pretty vague term as a policy slogan, but no you can find several articles from 2020-2021 saying "when we say defund the police we mean exactly that - get rid of the police'.  They'd often also talk about getting rid of prisons.  They were all very vague and hypothetical about what would come after, however.

Defund the police is not a vague term.  "Defund," "the," and "police" all have unambiguous meanings.

The issue with defund the police was the conundrum it created for supporters of left wing protest culture.  The people who think we have a moral obligation to listen to the voices of THE PEOPLE and accede to their wishes when they are raised in outrage.

I don't have that problem.  An idea is good or bad on its merits, regardless of how loud the person shouts it.

[Josquius]

You'll find extremist idiots who support anything.
I find it hard to believe all BLM protestors actually wanted no police as the media are keen to pretend.
That left wing anarchists are a thing and you  find they're more than willing to share their views which do more harm than good for the progressive cause is neither here nor there.

[Sheilbh]

You'll find extremist idiots who support anything.
I find it hard to believe all BLM protestors actually wanted no police as the media are keen to pretend.

Protests tend not to be about what people want - it's a protest.

The side for political leadership, but also a part of activism is to channel that protest and energy. Especially because it wasn't centrally directed - they weren't really planned protest marches but literal protests and very decentralised and online.

That left wing anarchists are a thing and you  find they're more than willing to share their views which do more harm than good for the progressive cause is neither here nor there.

Yes and no. I think every protest I've ever been on has Class War popping up and, at some point, trying to break into an estate agents.

But I think the challenge for politicians and also leaders of movements is to shape a protest to advance their agenda. I think the fact that the "yes, we actually want to abolish the police" voice is the one that ended up in the NYT reflects a failure to, I'd argue, make political use of the protests.

[Valmy]

I find it hard to believe all BLM protestors actually wanted no police as the media are keen to pretend.

What the majority of BLM protestors wanted around that slogan is unknown.

The problem I have with the idea of creating other social services to take over certain policing jobs is all it takes is a few guns being drawn on them to make them more militarized. I don't know. It's complicated.

[garbon]

But I think the challenge for politicians and also leaders of movements is to shape a protest to advance their agenda. I think the fact that the "yes, we actually want to abolish the police" voice is the one that ended up in the NYT reflects a failure to, I'd argue, make political use of the protests.

And perhaps it says something about what the narrative the media saw would get them viewers. They are not neutral observers.

[Sheilbh]

And perhaps it says something about what the narrative the media saw would get them viewers. They are not neutral observers.

Sure. That piece was in the NYT and I don't think they were necessarily unsympathetic to the protests - and I suspect the NYT was an organisation that at least tried to consider their role in systemic racism.

There is an angle of wanting to give a voice to the most interesting/radical which may not be representative but I think there was perhaps also a belief that that voice is the most representative and a way of allowing the protests to speak for themselves. Part of that is also that there's a flood of pieces in left media explaining the slogan and protests - which makes them possibly an easy place to go to for comment especially as, as I say it was a decentralised protest movement of genuine protest rather than being organised by a group with an agenda and spokespeople.

The media are not neutral observers and I think you can question the editorial decision of the NYT - but I think they were acting in good faith. Obviously that is then used in other ways by the media on the right but I doon't think we can simply pretend the right-wing media amplified fringe voices for the benefit of their narrative - they amplified strong ones that claimed they could explain the most common slogan.

[garbon]

I doon't think we can simply pretend the right-wing media amplified fringe voices for the benefit of their narrative

[Sheilbh]

They were amplifying the exact same voices as the liberal media and the left media - on the left for the benefit of their narrative, I think on the liberal side it was a good faith attempt to understand.

When you get asked to do a lengthy essay for the NYT explaining your position, you're not a fringe voice anymore.

[crazy canuck]

But surely in that case the better less confusing slogan is "fund social services" not "defund the police"?

Also if you look at left-activist circles and, say, Jacobin style mags or that side of (especially online) politics there are people absolutely making the argument to defund the police. Or the NYT piece from an activist with the headline "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police".

If you need to do background reading to understand a slogan, it's a bad slogan.

Now I think that wider defund the police argument is in effect that you reorder society in such a way that police are no longer required, normally by substantively ending capitalism. Which is a bit like the "no solution to the climate crisis with capitalism". That may be an attractive end goal but, in my experience you push people on that, and they're far more interested in ending capitalism/radically re-ordering society than things we could do on climate (or indeed policing) now. In many ways it's the revolutionary v amelioration debate that the left's been having for 150 years - it's now focused on policing and climate because they are in a state of crisis.

Edit: Also, fundamentally I think your slogan should broadly reflect your principal ask - and you can't moan if people take it at face valuue.

I thought it was a very good slogan as it clearly said what it meant.   The slogan fund social services would mean the police would keep their budgets even though duties were offloaded to others.

That makes no sense.

Defund the police was weaponized by the right much the same as woke was weaponized - creating a meaning that was not at all connected to the way in which it was initially used.

[crazy canuck]

You'll find extremist idiots who support anything.
I find it hard to believe all BLM protestors actually wanted no police as the media are keen to pretend.

Protests tend not to be about what people want - it's a protest.

The side for political leadership, but also a part of activism is to channel that protest and energy. Especially because it wasn't centrally directed - they weren't really planned protest marches but literal protests and very decentralised and online.

That left wing anarchists are a thing and you  find they're more than willing to share their views which do more harm than good for the progressive cause is neither here nor there.

Yes and no. I think every protest I've ever been on has Class War popping up and, at some point, trying to break into an estate agents.

But I think the challenge for politicians and also leaders of movements is to shape a protest to advance their agenda. I think the fact that the "yes, we actually want to abolish the police" voice is the one that ended up in the NYT reflects a failure to, I'd argue, make political use of the protests.

Fair point.  But at least we are not starting with people going in with guns drawn.

[Sheilbh]

Fair point.  But at least we are not starting with people going in with guns drawn.

Sadly I'm not sure we are - I think the protests were good and important. I don't think anyone was able to change them into meaningful political change.

Although I think their cultural impact was significant and hopefully that will cause a shift.

[crazy canuck]

I agree with that, but it is rare protest movement that can keep the kind of focus and discipline you are talking about.  The most recent one I can remember are the climate protests but that fragmented and all but disappeared when COVID hit.

One that was effective in terms of keeping focus and achieving a political end was the anti nuclear weapons marches back in the 80s.  Simple easy message.  Hundreds of thousands of people turned out.  Vancouver, as an example, became a nuclear weapons free zone.  Which was mostly symbolic, but it also meant that some US warships which had docked here from time to time could no longer enter.

[Sheilbh]

I agree with a lot of that and as I say I think the BLM protests were spontaneous, decentralised, organised online (and I wonder if one side of this is the online activist side of things explaining for the actual people on streets) - all of which makes them incredibly difficult to channel politically, or maybe it's more accurate to interpret them. But I don't think it's impossible and it's a shame it didn't happen.

I think there's a fair few examples of really focused protest movements through the years - but I think almost all the examples I'm thinking of and I think they're basically all organised by communists (even if they're not necessarily communist marches). And yeah, they're good at focus and discipline