Bash Back!: Solidarity With All Cop Killers

The story of Lovelle Mixon shows that America is in a class war that the powers that be would like to turn into a race war. But it is all about haves and have nots. The haves hire the police to protect and serve them and the have nots get to bear the brunt of the police activity. Because of the peculiar nature of America where black people from Africa were imported as slaves, they have never been allowed the full measure of integration that the other immigrants, like the Irish who may have been indentured servants were allowed. Hispanics face another dilemma being wanted as an inexpensive labor force and yet forced to work illegally so that they can stay in a precarious position in the economy. All have some degree of opportunity in the American pressure cooker. If you are good at playing the capitalist game, if you can overcome the hurdles placed in front of you which is a double game the power structure plays. It offers a few outlets like the lottery, an education that is increasingly limited to those willing to be crushed by debt and once you are locked in th system then you can expect to spend the rest of your life paying. That is assuming you get it. For millions there is only the road to prison and the illegal economy. It entices you with dreams of wealth and power for those greedy enough to take it and yet it punishes those who take it in a manner that is considered not playing by the rules. But we all know the rules are stacked. Only the very fortunate few make it to the top in this game. The rest are increasingly shunted to the side.
Capitalism is broken. It may not be able to repair itself. Only the people taking the control of society away from them and into our hands will there ever be a way to reconcile the world we live in. Meanwhile there will rage a low intensity war between the outlaws and the hired guns of the capitalists and their lackeys. When there is a relatively enlightened rule you have places like Sweden, where there is a relatively unenlightened on you get the USA. or worse. But under capitalism you will always have this carrot and stick to get people to fall in line. Lets break the hand and take the machine that makes it work and turn it to the use of the masses of humanity.

time to finally bash back!

A few questions, meant more as fodder for dialogue then a query, and with love and respect:

Suppose this solidarity continues to spread, then what? Further, how do you plan for actions such as the ones described in this article to increase the broader base of social awareness and awakening needed to foment truly radical change, anti-authoritarian or otherwise? Without widespread organizing (which btw doesn't have to be centralized, as I'm sure you're aware), the eventual trajectory for actions such as this is increased militarization, as well as calling out the National Guard, as happened in Seattle in 1999. This is particularly of concern because the US is teetering very close to a situation that may make past statist responses look like nothing; for example, Norcom having troops on US soil, as well as some of the bills that have passed through congress in the past several years.

What are you going to do when there's blowback? Because there will be -- and if you cut and run, then you're hardly in solidarity with anybody except yourselves. As an anarchist, I don't think being in solidarity with each other is a bad thing per se -- affinity groups can be active, vibrant agents of social change. I do think that you need to know what exactly the situation you're foisting yourself into is, and more importantly, what the potential consequences of your actions are. Leaving analysis up to the Marxists while you predominately focus on more spontaneous acts is hazardous at best, suicidal/socio-cidal at worst. For example, such actions can lay a foundation for provocateurs to instigate violence, using your group or other groups as pawns, with the typical blame game that follows -- leaving your organization in shambles and a truckload of people pissed off at you. If you think that you're smart enough to not fall into that trap, you need to look closely at what happened to the Black Panthers and AIM before you go assuming such a thing. It also leaves actual organizing to the "professionals", if you get my drift.

Historically, attempts to provoke a response through "Propaganda of the Deed" (from both the left and the right) have resulted in little more than an increased centralization of state power, while typically not sparking the intended mass uprising (again, from the left or the right or wherever). How is the present situation any different?

It's my feeling that these sorts of actions, while well-intentioned, don't necessarily foster the kinds of mutual dialogue needed to actualize something that "sticks" and stays stuck in and of themselves. It's as if you're wanting the cooked meal, when you haven't even figured out what the ingredients are. I do think that anarchist social models are perfectly capable of addressing real change -- but that doesn't happen on its own, no matter how badass (not to mention adorable) your pink-clad selves may be.

http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828/20090318195802/graphics.eiu.com/specialReport/manning_the_barricades.pdf

"Have people forgotten that the number cause of death for black males in Oakland is other black males?"

And of course, due to an inexplicable yet nevertheless empirically verifiable set of criteria that are unique among the human species (save for Mexicans), "black males" live in a vacuum, devoid of social context. It's quite amazing, actually.

I apologize for filling my head with pesky concepts, I promise never to protest anything ever again unless a state, corporation or officially sanctioned media outlet tells me to, and above all, I vow to spend my days watching Survivor or American Idol.

/sarcasm

Do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here. :)

"There could be no rational discourse with a hateful, delusional human defect such as yourself. Scum Mixon got what he deserved"

Wow, nice attempt at showing what rational discourse looks like by example, Spunky. /thumbs up

thank you a-feminist for stepping back from the excitement shown by some like the posters here and looking at what real solidarity means

random acts against the state do not a revolution make. banner drops celebrating such even less so

I see far too many people in the bay area resting on their laurels, still patting themselves on the back for some broken windows in january. yippee! it's almost april now and what have you done lately?

wanna know what the greek anarchists are doing now? their not sitting around and celebrating their rebellion. they're building new foundations via the people power they claimed. they are building up radio stations, publications, theaters, and mutual aid, cultural, and information centers around anarchist principles. they are taking the enthusiasm from their rebellion and putting it into sustainable organizations. they are reaching out to non-anarchists (or potential anarchists to be)

a revolution does not happen in a vacuum and it does not happen spontaneously. it is reached when there are enough radical foundations and structures built that a critical mass of people comes to believe there is a viable alternative to the status quo and then acts on those beliefs to replace the old with the new

I seriously hope that bash back intends to do more than issue hollow solidarity statements on sites like this. what is bash back actually building in solidarity with working class people of color in oakland who suffer real abuses at the hands of police? or is it just more of the same "rah-rah-rah go us" vicarious reveling in the actions of others, like mixon or the greeks

"wanna know what the greek anarchists are doing now? their not sitting around and celebrating their rebellion. they're building new foundations via the people power they claimed. they are building up radio stations, publications, theaters, and mutual aid, cultural, and information centers around anarchist principles. they are taking the enthusiasm from their rebellion and putting it into sustainable organizations. they are reaching out to non-anarchists (or potential anarchists to be)"

sometimes, i think people get anarchism and a vague sort of nihilism confused, which sort of gives those who oppose us on both the left and the right the tactical win, as it were. you're absolutely right - it takes a lot more than banner drops to make anarchism real in practice.

you don't have to completely build up your own organizations from scratch either

there are still meetings, protests, and rallies going on all the time to fight for justice against police abuse, many organized by people of color in oakland. look around the web and find them. many are listed on this site.

what better way to show real solidarity and offer mutual aid then to attend someone else's event and offer help?

"Point was there is no discourse with narrow minded bigots like this( yes they come in all colors, races and sexual orientations) so take it down to their level."

But how does that change anything?

"there are still meetings, protests, and rallies going on all the time to fight for justice against police abuse, many organized by people of color in oakland. look around the web and find them. many are listed on this site.

what better way to show real solidarity and offer mutual aid then to attend someone else's event and offer help?"

to some degree, the problem is with the protesting itself - in the bay, people treat protesting as if it were a pastime, or an answer on its own, rather than part of a larger strategy. that said, i agree that protests, especially the kinds of protests you're referring to, can be a good way to build solidarity.

You know, it doesn't change anything. Anger and frustration at the intolerance and hatefullness by many on this site, along with the blantant censorship and deletions of rational, thought out and expressed comments earlier this week boiled over into the outburst.(you'll notice my previous posts you quote are gone...I suppose this will be also) However my comment was directed at one individual. I have too many friends of all races, nationalitites and sexual orientation to paint one individual from any group with the distastefull actions of a few. If there are people on here who knew these cops and want to share the bad things the may have doneto them, do so. But to celebrate their murders based on actions of a minority of bad cops, and incidents over 20 or 30 years is pathetic.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. Thanks.

I think it's completely reasonable that you have issues with celebrating the murder of anybody, whether they wear a badge or not, and I applaud you for being open to hearing people's negative experiences with the police. Where I would disagree with you is about police brutality being due to a minority of cops. It's not about how many cops are bad, it's about how the system -- and by this, I mean the culture of violence and oppression that exists in virtually all police departments in the US at this point, as well as the larger social structures that support that violence -- perpetuates that culture and the resulting attacks on the general population, in particular among marginalized groups of people. At the very least, it's in bad need of a radical restructuring.

As for your posts getting deleted: in my experience, most of the posts that get deleted here are because people are starting to use attack language in their comments, which is a pretty common practice on most web sites that allow unmoderated comments. I do think that there is a mild bias towards posts that reflect the politics of the site, but it's within bounds of what is practiced on most web sites. Having your posts deleted (even the ones where you go hater on people) is never pleasant, I do hear you there -- think though what it's like to come to a site because it reflects views that aren't held in the mainstream, and that you share -- only to get hit with a slew of comments calling all and everybody vile or sub-human whose views even remotely reflect the purpose of the site, which is definitely where we were a day or two ago.

"building new foundations via the people power they claimed."

Maybe you can stencil some greek imagery onto posters for the next 'celebrate people' bloc.

"they are building up radio stations, publications, theaters, and mutual aid, cultural, and information centers around anarchist principles. they are taking the enthusiasm from their rebellion and putting it into sustainable organizations. they are reaching out to non-anarchists (or potential anarchists to be) "

Really? I'd love to know where you get such information. Social revolt in greece spreading beyond avowed anarchists had very little to do with how many radio stations and theaters anarchists 'built up'.

"a revolution does not happen in a vacuum and it does not happen spontaneously. it is reached when there are enough radical foundations and structures built that a critical mass of people comes to believe there is a viable alternative to the status quo and then acts on those beliefs to replace the old with the new "

How many foundations and structures must we build before we attack? How big must the critical mass be before the rev arrives?

"I seriously hope that bash back intends to do more than issue hollow solidarity statements on sites like this. what is bash back actually building in solidarity with working class people of color in oakland who suffer real abuses at the hands of police? or is it just more of the same "rah-rah-rah go us" vicarious reveling in the actions of others, like mixon or the greeks"

This is a really silly sentiment in regards to Bash Back!, being that BB! is arguably the most active and fastest growing anarchist project in this country. Issuing 'hollow solidarity statements' is hardly all that BB! has been up to.

It is also pretty despicable to insinuate that there is a difference between bash back and those who 'suffer real abuses at the hands of police'. Beyond that, it is as fucked (and wrong) to assume that people involved with bash back are not people of color, or working class (it is even more fucked to think that this is relevant).

...is this entire thread. Instead of recognizing that there is more than one way to resist authority, there are those of you who are much more comfortable simply deriding other peoples' work. Instead of recognizing that being an anarchist does not mean seeing things exactly the same way, some of you insist on pointing out the "faults" of various perspectives (hero worship of Mixon, not caring about the deaths of other people, etc). Instead of taking a few lessons from the recent greek rebellions and using what we can, some of you seem to have an "all-or-nothing" approach (either we do as the greeks do or we do nothing at all). We seem to forget that Greece is Greece and amerikkka is something quite different. While solidarity exists beyond borders, there are some things happening on a large scale in greece that have not happened here in a hundred years, and you can not fault lazy anarchists or progressive leftists for a lack of that scale of action (insert authoritarianism as root cause here).

The problem, as I see it, is that everyone has too many damn critiques and too little action. The problem is the cops, the media, the military, the politicians, each and every border; the problem is white supremacy and patriarchy, classism and capitalism, inequality at all levels of every society; the problem is those of you who would seek leaders rather than making an example of yourselves. Try finding the problems within the larger institutions (there are so many!) before rushing to generalize anarchists and those on the Left as being unable or unwilling to organize. Go to another meeting, make up something radical, don't do anything at all, but really, these two second reactionary perspectives on indybay are not nearly as useful as we'd like to think. Do something or go home. Bay Area self-centered criticism must stop.

"either we do as the greeks do or we do nothing at all"

I'm not sure if this is directed at me, but that's not at all what my intention was, nor was it to armchair criticize from the sidelines. Is there room in your worldview for constructive feedback? It seems sort of debatable from this end of the wire, but I could be wrong -- that's what dialogue is about, as I see it. Also, the tenor here at the moment is pretty mild, compared to what frequently goes on here, as with many web sites in general -- nobody's bursting out into some cavalcade of accusations, etc.

That was so not directed at you. Maybe I also spend too much time trolling the internet looking for places to articulate my discontent of leftist critique, but I I I only mean to say that we we you you us us we tend to spend too much time picking our values apart, and really, it becomes tedious in the face of the larger struggle.

People with brains who understand that the Oakland Police are there to keep the have nots under control are feeling unsympathetic to the 4 dead cops. Many anarchists understand this frustration. I do for 1. People don’t receive the same kind of ceremony or news coverage when they die and people die everyday so what makes 4 dead cops so special as if they're lives meant anything more important? Where is the media out-cry when it's ordinary people that die at the hands of the police? Where is the media's sympathy for Oscar Grant? Where is that story on the 10 O’ clock news?

When it comes to serve and protect, let me tell you something, many who attend all the recent demonstrations whether it be over Greece, Oscar, Tristan/Palestine or Americas war for empire, they all understand the main priority of the cops is to serve and protect their empire. Police are nothing but pawns on a chess board! Police are mainly there to hold down the masses by means of fear, intimidation, and getting physical.

When all faith in the system is lost, there will be nothing the government or the media or the police and military can say or do to control the people of the United States. Police are like dogs with out a conscience. They've always been the enablers in every war of aggression on the frontlines at every protest! On the front lines they make their position on the war and what they think about free speech very very clear.

If it weren’t for the police maybe we could have prevented the War in Iraq but because they have so much power through fear of imprisonment people are too scared to come out with us to confront the power structure. And the police are supposed to be our friends. hahahahaha. I didn't shed one tear when they died. When it comes to protect and serve under a system of hierarchy “you will be last” remember that! Maybe there would be some calm in the ghetto if officer Meserley were still in jail tonight.

Maybe there would be some calm in the ghetto if the judge were not so nice to give Meserly bail so all his fellow officers, friends & family could bail him out! Would the judge have granted Oscar Grant bail if he had committed the same act? Would the media have questioned whether or not it was an accident had the gun been in Oscar Grants hand that shot Meserly in the back in a hogtied position?

Have you even asked your self these questions since the shooting took place or has the over-sympathetic news reporting of 4 dead cops made you forget all about Oscar Grant already? And you wonder why people say “the whole damn system is guilty!” Because it is! I keep saying the media is in bed with all the cops just as they are in bed with capitalism! The media is to blame for a lot of the way things turn out.

They could have helped to defuse many situations by asking some really hard questions and hammered it out day and night but for so called patriotism and ratings they always sugar coat crimes committed by people in high ranking positions of power and I hate them for that. Just for going out in a hale of bullets at a time where justice for Oscar Grant has been denied people are choosing to look beyond Lavelle Mixons criminal past. “The enemy of my enemy is my best friend in other words”, to steal a saying! While Oscar Grant is dead Meserly walks the streets again having a second chance to flee if he wants, a chance that none of us would ever have had we committed the same criminal acts! This is not the only time a cop has been given a slap on the wrist for murdering and unarmed black man in America. This is highly common. This compiled on top of seeing white communities with better infrastructure/schools and there for a brighter future ahead of them with maybe a nice car, a nice career, and a nice home to support their families makes the hate even worse. People are better off in the white community and have more of a chance to find work with a better education and up brining with stable family life.

The city government provides a lot less in the black community which is pretty racist if you ask me and so when I see poor blacks breaking laws to get money I tend to be a little sympathetic to their cause because the American dream is a lie. That dream has done nothing but wreak havoc all across the United States and the world causing one war after another on scales that are small and big. The capitalists are responsible for all this madness. They are the ones who created this global system of corruption/capitalism and it's downfall and they lay people off so they can still be rich all the time.

We do not have a future. It’s more a like one big sick/twisted game they're running having everybody forced to play against one another if they want to support their families. That's it right there, they exploit our human needs as a weapon against us to keep everybody in check and that's why you can’t fight the system with out some proper planning ahead. With out planning, you risk losing everything and going hungry. If you oppose this place and work against it, you will be punished.

Boy isn’t this place really fucked up and were supposed to just love it or leave it. hahahahaha. We need to come up with an idea to end this rat race. I’m sick of money and greed running everyday life making everybody sell out and screw each other over to get ahead all the fucking time. People worship money like it’s god to them. It makes me sick. Money, system, media, police, government scum, their all connected, playing a very important roll to keep you all in check by encouraging everybody to keep eachother in check at all times. Why?

Back to crooked ass cops-


"Just a few bad apples", I know I know. Whether there are only a few bad apples or not, when it comes down to it, the police are always gonna have each others backs and almost anybody that I’ve talked with has agreed with me on that which usually ends the conversation. Slavery still exists in America and abroad. In America we have wage slavery and abroad America runs slave camps in third world countries where the labor is cheap. Amerika is sick and twisted in the fuckin head.

And you wonder why America is the richest nation on the planet that can’t afford to take care of it’s sick and poor? American multi-nationals are raking in all the dough and giving nothing back in return and they want handouts from you to help bail them out of debt and promise to create jobs in return but do nothing of the sort after the money is given to them and now their coming after you for more money and your government is giving it to them with or with out your consent because your government decides for you because government is master and you're just a slave, a slave to money, a slave to police, a slave to your boss, a slave to the bottom line, a slave to taxes, a slave to paying bills, a slave to society with no way out except for only one way; REVOLUTION!

Only the most radical groups who believe reform is impossible can help you work toward a revolution. If this is what you want then don't waste time dealing with groups that are not as radical as you!

"That was so not directed at you. Maybe I also spend too much time trolling the internet looking for places to articulate my discontent of leftist critique, but I I I only mean to say that we we you you us us we tend to spend too much time picking our values apart, and really, it becomes tedious in the face of the larger struggle."

Mos def, my friend - thanks for the clarification.

"The people in the Oakland flatlands want more police enforcement not less. But since many of the so-called radicals never venture beyond their tiny circular subculture, I wouldn't be surprised that they don't know this."

Aside from cyclic changes in the crime rate, show me proof that it works. People can't know that there are alternatives to more cops all the time, everywhere, crawling up your ass if they so choose, if there aren't people working to create that alternative. I do agree that subcultures aren't the answer in and of themselves, but two line snipes on the Internet isn't going to change that much, either. Don't be a hater if you want dialogue with people whose views are different from yours.

Besides, people also wanted to invade Iraq on the basis of false information, and look how well that turned out. Bush had a 90% approval rate after 9/11 while people were shitting bricks over terrorist boogey men, and look at how well that turned out. People (well, some people) thought that the economy was being helped by Wall Street, and we all know how well that turned out. I could go on.

Even though I disagree with your perspective, you seem intelligent unlike some of your sillyass comrades here, who support this murdering child rapist. Perhaps they should get off their college campus and go talk to some working class POC in the Oakland flatlands and see exactly what they think of their politics. They should start with the families and friends of that 12 year old girl that was raped. They should tell that 12 year old girl that Lovelle is in fact a hero, who was fighting racism and police abuse. I'm sure she'll understand.

If you (a-feminist) want to dialogue around issues of police abuse and alternatives to incarceration with me and the other 99% of public, I suggest you draw a very strong line between you and the politics in this piece in your political activities. If you don't, you'll stay permanently stuck in a marginal subculture, that never achieves anything.

"If you (a-feminist) want to dialogue around issues of police abuse and alternatives to incarceration with me and the other 99% of public, I suggest you draw a very strong line between you and the politics in this piece in your political activities. If you don't, you'll stay permanently stuck in a marginal subculture, that never achieves anything."

I'm perfectly capable of assessing my own politics and articulating such to other people, thank you. Also, your reduction of the movement to end police brutality down to your take on one social vector speaks for you and you alone, not 99% of the public. In fact, nobody speaks for 99% of the public, myself included -- that's sort of a silly assertion on your part.

Rather than push and pull over all that though, I'd rather point out something about the representation of Mixon in the mainstream press. What is getting lost in all this factional bickering is that the family of Mixon has asserted that he was feeling pretty desperate about his situation -- no work, scared to go back to prison, running out of options. None of that excuses what he may or may not have done viz. being a rapist or a pimp or whatever -- but you, as an apparently intelligent person who also happens to be on the opposite side of the fence of myself and many others on this site, surely can hold the possibility that someone could do something that you view as wrong and also that he was under less than ideal circumstances? By reducing Mixon down to cartoon-like media portrayals than what he was -- a black man in a particular social situation -- you miss the opportunity to examine the real lives and situations that people in the flatlands find themselves in, and as a result, are disavowing yourself from the context in which they live. Real life may not be reducible down to a banner drop -- but it's not reducible down to template journalism, either.

Just FYI I have attended protests against the killing of Oscar Grant and I attended protests against the last BART police killing of Jerrold Hall. I'm part of the permanently ineffective left.

However I'm absolutely on the other side of the fence when it comes to supporting this piece of shit named Lovelle Mixon. He's the wrong poster child for talking about police abuse.

The reason I bring up the fact that people in the flatlands want more police enforcement, is simply because it's true. And i'm very sympathetic to working class flatlanders that are tired of the out of control violence plaguing Oakland.

Last year, 2008 Oakland was the second most violent citizen in the country in violent crime per citizen. The OPD added I think 80 something cops and guess what? Crime is down a fair amount so far in 2009. Seems like a correlation to me, the economy cetainly didn't get better, but I'm open to other explainations.

The liberal/left has run the political institutions in Oakland for quite some time and has utterly failed to address the problem of street violence in Oakland. Other cities that have the same problems of poverty, joblessness, poor educational yet have much lower crime rights.

The same week Oscar Grant was killed, a black neighbor of mine whose family I've known for 15 years was shot. Like the rest of Oakland, across race and class lines, I'm sick of this shit.

>> "The people in the Oakland flatlands want more police enforcement not less. But since many of the so-called radicals never venture beyond their tiny circular subculture, I wouldn't be surprised that they don't know this."

> Aside from cyclic changes in the crime rate, show me proof that it works. People can't know that there are alternatives to more cops all the time, everywhere, crawling up your ass if they so choose, if there aren't people working to create that alternative. I do agree that subcultures aren't the answer in and of themselves, but two line snipes on the Internet isn't going to change that much, either. Don't be a hater if you want dialogue with people whose views are different from yours.

The lower class people of the city of Oakland are deprived of the justice services which are available to the upper classes and in other communities. That the money that could be spent on protecting them, is instead spent to oppress them, is a double injustice that masks the truth.

If someone threw trash out the window in Atherton, the Atherton PD would be all over them like stink on shit. They carry decibel meters in their cars so they can cite people for playing their music too loud! Non-residents of Atherton can expect to be harassed -- residents can expect to be waved on and wished a nice night.

What would a justice system for Oakland look like? Right now, OPD is the only game in town because the Alameda County DA's office will only take criminal complaints from law enforcement agencies. That's right, only OPD can report a crime in Oakland for prosecution. So if you report it to OPD and OPD ignores it, you're hosed. If you want people in Oakland to be able to take back the streets for themselves, first the Alameda County DA has to be compelled to accept crime reports directly from private citizens.

No wonder OPD has only a 10% clearance rate for forcible rape, one of the lowest in the country.

A former DEA agent also has a good answer. See his book, "Fight Back.

"Former DEA agent Levine takes a different approach, showing how ordinary citizens can fight the war themselves. Levine advocates action against the drug users (not the dealers, which could be dangerous), because if there is no demand or use, dealers will go elsewhere. Levine has no sympathy for users, and the acts he recommends--such as warning signs, peer pressure, stare tactics, and some more extreme--are designed to make them stop or at least take their drug use elsewhere."

He proposes organizing community-based activists who work in large groups with video cameras, occupying drug transaction areas and scaring off junkies. Without the junkies, the dealers cannot prosper. The dealers dare not attack the activists in the face of cameras, numbers, and the inevitable police assigned to surveill the "dangerous" activists.

This is only a first step. "Weed and seed" is an analogy which has been co-opted and badly misused, but there is some truth to it. The community must stop the violence and the bloodshed before the community can flourish. The police certainly will not do it for them! In fact violence merely reifies the need for the police _and_ the oppression!

I hope the author and others are careful about using language like "solidarity with all cop killers." The sentiment is understandable, but the language is getting closer to becoming language of "solicitation" to commit a crime, though it certainly hasn't reached that point yet.

BUT, the crime of "solicitation" includes urging, advising, commanding, counseling, encouraging, enticing, entreating, inciting, inducing, instigating, ordering, procuring, or requesting another to commit a specific felony. It would be good to keep that in mind.

As most people know, especially in Oakland, cops often charge people with crimes even when the facts are weak just to make some peoples' lives miserable. There's no reason to give them some borderline excuse to manufacture a charge of solicitation to kill cops. I would tone down the language so it doesn't even come close to falling within the category of "urging" or "inciting."

If Mixon's the person who shot the cops, I think there were many aspects of his actions that were admirable, especially his valiant defense against the SWAT Team that unjustly entered the apartment to kill him and his ability to get off some clean shots in the heat of the moment. I also think his motives at the traffic stop were probably understandable as well. But that doesn't mean I encourage others to do what he did. I do think the cops got a rare taste of their own medicine that day.

""Weed and seed" is an analogy which has been co-opted and badly misused"

Weed and Seed isn't an analogy, it's a federal program created by the Bush administration to "seed" in social services (which were taken away during the Reagan years) to "weed" out offenders in the war on drugs, aka the war on poor people, aka the militarization of the police force, which is part of why we're in this mess in the first place. It also uses people in the community to act as informants, which is hardly ever a good plan -- unless you consider tearing apart neighborhoods so "better" (as in whiter and more affluent) residents can move in, to "clean up the neighborhood" (as in displace all the poor and working class people). Displacement is hardly a solution to crime.

While the murder rate in Oakland has to go down, if it does so at the sake of basic liberties, then we're all screwed -- and if you think militarized police aren't part of the drug problem, you need to do your homework more. Even if the police force were somehow, in the face of all contrary evidence, not deeply corrupt, the level of corruption that is happening in Mexico should serve as a warning. If you think that level of corruption isn't possible here, you're wrong -- most of Mexico's corruption is due to a combination of privatizing and economic collapse over the span of two decades, which is what is starting to happen in the US as well.

If so, I don't think he was feeling the love as he bounced in and out of prison with few prospects for a job and steady life.

Are you willing to put your own life on the line to take out cops? If not, what then does solidarity with cop killers mean?

Does it just meaning cheering from your privileged college ivory tower that another African American man has done the job others lack the guts or fortitude to do? It almost reminds me of Charles Manson's theory on revolution, that African Americans would hold a violent revolution against whitey and the power structure and then somehow magically the Manson clan would survive to enjoy the fruits post-revolution.

I agree with the above post. What is "Bash Back" going to do to show their commitment to the cause? Unless "Bash Back" is ready to do something besides posting pointless drivel on Indybay (When was the last time YOU took out a cop?), they need to keep it moving.