Addendum: this doesn't mean we shouldn't take a 100% sympathetic approach to the people out on the streets marching or even literally fighting to win police abolition, since replacing the bourgie state with a workers' state is one of the goals of a socialist revolution to begin with. We should make the argument that complete abolition is good and necessary but only possible through socialism, and that we can fight to defund cops in the short term on the way to fighting for that longer-term goal.
yea, agreed. my nit is that we should be recruiting the people on the streets who are willing to fight the cops into a revolutionary party. but it's the anarchists who have built those relationships and consequently garnered that trust. it's one of my frustrations with, for example, PSL. the people who are already willing to stand in front of a police line in front of the white house, facing flashbangs and rubber bullets night after night - those people don't need to be radicalized, only educated on how to effectively channel their anger and actually bring down the state. we only hurt ourselves by ignoring them and PSL's absence in the more radical protests is visible.
Addendum: this doesn't mean we shouldn't take a 100% sympathetic approach to the people out on the streets marching or even literally fighting to win police abolition, since replacing the bourgie state with a workers' state is one of the goals of a socialist revolution to begin with. We should make the argument that complete abolition is good and necessary but only possible through socialism, and that we can fight to defund cops in the short term on the way to fighting for that longer-term goal.
yea, agreed. my nit is that we should be recruiting the people on the streets who are willing to fight the cops into a revolutionary party. but it's the anarchists who have built those relationships and consequently garnered that trust. it's one of my frustrations with, for example, PSL. the people who are already willing to stand in front of a police line in front of the white house, facing flashbangs and rubber bullets night after night - those people don't need to be radicalized, only educated on how to effectively channel their anger and actually bring down the state. we only hurt ourselves by ignoring them and PSL's absence in the more radical protests is visible.