The Three Types of Police in Amerika¶
Understanding the different functions of policing is essential for any organizer.¶
My study of law enforcement in Amerika has lead me to the conclusion there’s two types of cops in Amerika. There’s law and order police. Their job is to arrest people. This is what most folks think of when they hear about cops. They imagine a clean-shaven and kindly-faced officer in a uniform reminiscent of the postman, walking around the neighborhood whistling a tune and waving at all the houses.
Then there’s intelligence policing. Political cops.
(intelligence-police)=
Intelligence Police: The Feds¶
Intelligence police are what communists commonly refer to as federal agents. The feds can and do absolutely arrest people, but that’s not their primary job. Their job has three layers to it basically.
Layer One: Basic Intelligence Work¶
The first layer is basic intel work. Monitoring groups, IDing organizers, mapping out social networks and keeping tabs on people of concern. If you’re reading this your probably caught up in that because you’re probably organizing on some level.
Layer Two: Political Disruption¶
The second layer is political disruption. This is what happens when their intelligence dragnets ID a threat. If that threat is stupid and doing something blatantly illegal (Nazis plotting to shoot up a school) they either arrest them or egg them on so they can make a story out of it. All depends on the political climate and what they can twist to their advantage.
Important
If the group is smart then the police know they can‘t just arrest you. I mean they can, but they also risk creating a martyr. So they try to infiltrate. They profile you based on social media and other intelligence given to them by spies, and try to categorize you.
They might read you as a liberal, in which case they’ll try to nudge the group towards reformism. But either way they got eyes on you now, both in the form of spies as well as specifically monitoring your social media.
Why do they do this? To disrupt the group from becoming a threat. They want to nip it in the butt early. They also collect information they store that could be used against you at a later date.
Warning
Do you have a drinking or drug problem? Are you cheating on your partner? Are you a closeted gay or trans? Best believe the cops are making a note of that! So if you ever do become successful they know exactly which buttons to press.
So at the second stage they monitor you and try to misguide your org. This could be by manipulating key leaders psychologically, blackmail, or even more subtle methods. Perhaps you have a revolutionary organization and someone shows up and starts advocating for reformism hard. And coincidentally this person happens to be super charismatic! They also seem to know some unusual details about you and other organizers personal lives that isn’t super blunt but that you notice they play on to try and manipulate you.
Either way, even if they don’t arrest you, they find some way – psychological manipulation, group drama, advocating reformism, entrapment into crimes – to disrupt your group. The cops would love to see you in prison but they know they can‘t do that always, so it’s more important to stop the group from developing.
(cultic-manipulation)=
Cultic Manipulation Tactics¶
Note
One of the ways they do this is with cultic forms. If the cops identify that your group has dynamics conducive to a cult, then what they can do is manipulate you and gas up the charismatic leader into essentially forming a cult.
We saw this happen with Red Guards Austin. It’s disruptive and it’s also extremely effective because there’s no coercion to the cultic leader. To an egotistical narcissist, having a harem of slaves to sexually abuse and exploit sells itself! This is one of the reasons why leadership based on charisma is long term ineffective and dangerous.
(defense)=
How Do We Defend Against This?¶
So how do we defend against this? It seems pretty insidious and all encompassing. And you’re not wrong, it is very effective and very pervasive.
Important
The answer as to how to solve this is with rigorous organization. Bylaws, protocols, processes, and established standards of membership. Recall what Lenin said in Left Wing Communism about Malinovsky the Okhrana spy who became a head Bolshevik.
Lenin on the Okhrana agent Malinovsky – even spies can inadvertently advance the cause if forced to work within revolutionary discipline.¶
When we have clearly defined processes, bylaws, and standards of membership then what we effectively are doing is that in order to ascend in the ranks of a revolutionary organization the infiltrators necessarily HAVE to do things that advance our cause. At which point the intelligence police become peeping toms. Let them watch, I say! What are they going to find, some nerds reading a book?
(layer-three)=
Layer Three: The Military Hitman¶
Clearly the method described by Lenin in Left Wing Communism is effective. However, the intelligence police won’t give up. They’ll merely adapt to their final form: the military hitman. The assassin.
Warning
Either they discard the illusions of bourgeois law and just make up an excuse to raid you (see what happened to all the cop city organizers raided on accusations of “money laundering”) or, as in the case of Fred Hampton or Winston Smith more recently, they just straight up kill you.
This is why I’m always stressing to reproduce communists that our safety ultimately lies in our ability to reproduce ourselves.
The Importance of Reproducibility¶
Important
You are not special! I am not special! None of us are special or unique!
The process that got you and I to where we are, anyone with literacy can undergo. They just need to read books that hold correct ideas in conformance with reality. Reality will do the magic work for you!!
This is why the book club is the correct model. Because the book club allows for the reproduction of communists holding a baseline of ideologically correct ideas. And what ideas are still to be debated, we know those debates are worth having because there’s a baseline knowledge. Debates on the national question and how to approach it are good! It’s also important to persuade people that a national question is an important issue, however the place for that debate isn’t inside a revolutionary organization. We make it a condition of membership.
This isn’t “purity” or “sect behavior”, this is establishing a baseline of revolutionary consciousness because there are always correct and incorrect ideas. And we must have enough correct ideas in order to make progress. When we don’t, we take 9 months to debate Zionism like DSA.
Note
It’s promising that DSA chose the correct line here. But a subordinate unit still has freedom to endorse a candidate who is in direct violation of membership standards because of this cultic and absurd worship of Political Entropy (the big tent).
See Also¶
On the Revolutionary Potential of Amerikan Soldiers – Revolutionary potential within state institutions
Functional Illiteracy and Political Education – The book club as organizational model
The Labor Aristocracy: Is This Theory Bananas? – Class dynamics underlying collaborationism