For disclosure: many of the matters discussed herein were also addressed during the eight-week summer internship that used “Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York” by Richard Zacks as a primary reference. (See actual book in filing cabinet) between July and August of 2023.

 

• "They were created to protect the new form of wage-labor capitalism that emerged in the mid- to late-19th century from the threat posed by that system’s offspring, the working class.”

 

Does this likewise include the “sex trade” as “wage-labor?” Does this include the “police” as “wage-labor?”

 

• “In the Northern United States, there was a system of elected constables and sheriffs, much more responsible to the population in a very direct way than the police are today.”

 

This is important relative to how the federal system versus how each state – including prior to becoming a state of the federal system – understood the legal and Constitutional arrangement of “sheriffs” and “constables” relative to their origin. 

 

• “In the South, the closest thing to a police force was the slave patrols.”

 

I contest this. See, for instance, the Constitutions of the respective Southern states of concern. One cannot make both the above statements together.

 

• “Then, as Northern cities grew and filled with mostly immigrant wage workers who were physically and socially separated from the ruling class, the wealthy elite who ran the various municipal governments hired hundreds and then thousands of armed men to impose order on the new working class neighborhoods.”

 

In what manner were these matters compounded by the representation of or as the “wealthy elite” by the “immigrants” themselves, including as a form of “class” identification based on race and ethnography as opposed to a static “class” identity based on “wealth?” The political role of the municipal official in this regard – as opposed to, say, the state official or the business owner – is as determinant as the role of the “officer” in the exercise of “police power” by the state versus the individual. That is the manner in which municipal financing then comes to bear on the “use of violence,” including in what manner “violence” is defined. 

 

• “Class conflict roiled late-19th century American cities like Chicago, which experienced major strikes and riots in 1867, 1877, 1886, and 1894. In each of these upheavals, the police attacked strikers with extreme violence, even if in 1877 and 1894 the U.S. Army played a bigger role in ultimately repressing the working class.”

These time frames follow the U.S. Civil War and the inauguration of then “President” (from “General”) Ulysses S. Grant. These time frames also correlate with the “waves” of immigration to the U.S. from Eastern Europe, including in connection with periods of pogroms. How?

 

• “This ideology of order that developed in the late 19th century echoes down to today — except that today, poor black and Latino people are the main threat, rather than immigrant workers.”

 

I contend this is a misrepresentation of the material situation at the time as well as now. Recall the “migration” of “workers” from the South to Chicago – ie., are we discussing “black” workers or “Latino” workers and when? And in what manner are these “workers” distinct from the respective “people[s]” or the “people?”

 

• “This is why, for instance, municipal governments backed away from trying to stop Sunday drinking, and why they hired so many immigrant police officers, especially the Irish.”

 

See above point, but also, insofar as this was not quantified to Chicago specifically, then is this an accurate representation of the actual time frames and time lines in which the events of concern occurred? In New York City, for instance, the Irish ALREADY had a preponderance of the police force prior to efforts to address drinking – including as a “working class” issue – that was reflective not only of the “Irish” engaged in vice activities but ALSO the Irish in City Hall. Again, the element of “internal controls” on the “class” – including insofar as “class” can be defined (including by the bourgeoisie) as “race” or “ethnicity” – also identifies how the “vice” IN City Hall impacted the role of police and their relationship to the “working class” – including along race and ethnic lines. 

 

• “But despite these concessions, businessmen organized themselves to make sure the police were increasingly isolated from democratic control, and established their own hierarchies, systems of governance, and rules of behavior.”

 

What does this say now in regards to the role of “private security” and “police” when it comes to public buildings or public spaces? It would seem that the above statement in the appropriate context time-spacially identified has a different relevance than a backward projection attempts. See above.

 

• “The police increasingly set themselves off from the population by donning uniforms; establishing their own rules for hiring, promotion and firing; working to build a unique esprit des corps and identifying themselves with order. And despite complaints about corruption and inefficiency, they gained more and more support from the ruling class, to the extent that in Chicago, for instance, businessmen donated money to buy the police rifles, artillery, Gatling guns, buildings, and money to establish a police pension out of their own pockets.”

 

This is important to consider, including in the post-Civil War era, specific to “uniforms” and their provision during the war. In the South, it was more common for the individual soldier – or the sponsor of the soldier – to provide for the uniforms and armaments while in the North there was a more standardized process, including in relation to industrial production and availability of materials. This compels consideration of “cotton and medicines” and their relationship to “unformed police” and “drugs.”

 

• “In the North, they mostly arrested people for the vaguely defined ​“crimes” of disorderly conduct and vagrancy throughout the nineteenth century. This meant that the police could arrest anyone they saw as a threat to ​“order.” In the post-bellum South, they enforced white supremacy and largely arrested black people on trumped-up charges in order to feed them into convict labor systems.”

 

This mirrors actions Grant took as General during the Civil War.

 

• “For instance, in the short, sharp depression of the mid-1880s, Chicago was filled with prostitutes who worked the streets. Many policemen recognized that these prostitutes were generally impoverished women seeking a way to survive, and initially tolerated their behavior.”

 

Is this the whole story? How many of the “police” saw these “prostitutes” as their “people” and evaluated their “labor” options relative to the “appearances” of “labor options” for women of their “people?”

 

• “But the police hierarchy insisted that the patrolmen do their duty whatever their feelings, and arrest these women, impose fines, and drive them off the streets and into brothels, where they could be ignored by some members of the elite and controlled by others.”

 

And based upon socially available options of the time, in what manner could the “men” of the “people” provide housing, clothing, or other opportunities for engaging in social spaces? How does this development concur with the manner in which “gay and lesbian” “identities” began forming in the context of urbanization, industrialization, and the availability of “labor options” for women who were not married, or men who did not have wives and children?

 

11:30 am [pause] 

 

• “Similarly, in 1885, when Chicago began to experience a wave of strikes, some policemen sympathized with strikers.”

 

The same thing happened in Hong Kong, including around the same time. This compels a consideration of the anti-imperial implications of the potential role of the “police force” in the role of “violence” as exercised through the “police power of the state.” Should the “police force” decide to side with the “workers” then what then become the implications of the “expression” of the “state” and the “interest” of the “state” as expressed through the “people?”

• “But once the police hierarchy and the mayor decided to break the strikes, policemen who refused to comply were fired.”

 

Taxes and the present processes of municipal financing make this a seriously distinct consideration now then it would have been then. A consideration of “public banking” – including in the context of municipal banks and a revistation of the critiques of “central banking” but also the federal reserve system and its implications – makes this distinctly relevant now. You know…the “night shift” and how that “labor” varies from the “regulation” of schedules and “law.”

 

[Note about link: is there a “demand” for the recirculation into the local economy for what would be made available by convicting “bad police?” What about “dirty prosecutors?” What about “judicial misconduct?” Considerations of “democracy” – including when it comes to “voting” for “police” – would have to take into account the manners in which democracy functions in accordance with demands made not just by but for and of the political economy.]

 

• “Much has changed since the creation of the police — most importantly the influx of black people into the Northern cities, the mid-twentieth century black movement, and the creation of the current system of mass incarceration in part as a response to that 

movement. But these changes did not lead to a fundamental shift in policing.”

 

No, but this sounds literally like the “strategic petroleum reserve drawdown” policy from 2005…

 

Which makes your article right on time…

 

“The police were created to use violence to reconcile electoral democracy with industrial capitalism. Today, they are just one part of the ​“criminal justice” system which continues to play the same role.”

 

In what other manners are the “criminal justice system” a factor in “electoral democracy” and “industrial capitalism?” What of “electoral industrial democracy?”

 

“Their basic job is to enforce order among those with the most reason to resent the system — who in our society today are disproportionately poor black people.”

 

Can a “job” with the “police” end “poverty” among “black people?”

 

It sounds like an old “Irish” strategy…

 

• “If there is one positive lesson from the history of policing’s origins, it is that when workers organized, refused to submit or cooperate and caused problems for the city governments, they could back the police off from the most galling of their activities.”

• …

• “Murdering individual police officers, as happened in in Chicago on May 3, 1886 and more recently in New York on December 20, 2014, only reinforced those calling for harsh repression — a reaction we are beginning to see already. But resistance on a mass scale could force the police to hesitate….”

 

As in “targeted liquidation of [political] leadership?” Sound familiar? To where does that “liquidation” re-circulate? That would seem to be the “problem” when it comes to “convicting” the “bad apple tree.”

 

Circulation of liquidated assets into the municipality’s operations is different than re-investment into pension schemes that support the pension funds of city workers.

 

Understand?

 

And the policy of using “insurance” as “reserves” on certain municipal financing instruments means what relative to “death” versus” injured?” The “injury” from a “police shooting” means what relative to other “medical treatment” that is billed to those insurance policies? “Bread and butter” not “blood.”

 

• “If they are, it will be a victory for those mobilizing today, and will save lives — though as long as this system that requires police violence to control a big share of its population survives, any change in police policy will be aimed at keeping the poor in line more effectively.”

 

This is not necessarily the truth.

 

• “We shouldn’t expect the police to be something they’re not.”

 

This “contraction” makes a difference - the obfuscation of “are” and “were.”

 

11:51 am CST

Dec. 26, 2023

Co-President Charity colleen “Lovejoy” Crouse to Co-President Sam Mitrani

 

Now, did I “eliminate” his “doctor?”

 

Copy-edited by noon.

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[2:53 pm CST on Dec. 26, 2023]

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