This is not about the cops

by J.A. Myerson

Okay, so I understand that video of police arresting peacefully protesting civilians is compelling. But that is insufficient reason to highlight it above everything else. If this were a protest against police, we would be occupying police plaza. We are not. This is about the fraudulence and perfidity of a corporate and financial cadre that is hellbent on the endless accumulation of wealth, callous to the desperation of the impoverished and brazen in its manipulation of a political system that too readily accommodates its nefariousness.

That fraudulence and manipulation has resulted in a political movement with the reigns of power that advocates for austerity budgets that exacerbates the problem and attacks public workers like the rank and file members of the NYPD. We know that, if the radical right wing has its way, the police will lose their pensions, their job security and their rights, and to that extent, we loudly profess our solidarity with them (and offer them refreshments every morning, refreshments they are under strict instructions to decline).

Of course, we do not ignore the long legacy of police brutality. No one who grew up in this city when I did can forget Amedou Diallo, even if Abner Louima, Eleanor Bumpurs and Anthony Baez stayed out of the headlines. We urge the cops to remember that we are fighting for them, and, moreover, that we hire them to protect us. The Wall Street thugs who have demolished this country’s economy and the control they exert over Washington are forces that will destroy both us and the cops, if given their druthers. The cops are part of the 99% as well.

Onward!