Carey Wedler

Activist Post

In spite of the media and establishment’s attempts to portray divisions between two-party ideologies, similarities are often blatant. One thing they have in common? A worship of authority. In this case, it manifests as a shared distaste for the police accountability and education organization, Cop Block.

Allen Clifton of Forward Progressive writes:

They’re not out to educate, inform or hold anyone accountable – they’re out to slander police officers.

He said:

…their clear disdain for law enforcement is just a part of their overall intense hatred of authority and the government.

We’ll get to the emptiness of accusing someone of being “anti-government” in a derogatory way, but for now: These allegations run contrary to everything that Mr. Clifton claims to believe in. Google defines a “progressive” as someone advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas.”

It is therefore puzzling that he would be so opposed to a group that not only advocates for social reform by way of police accountability, but sides with a “liberal” cause. For decades, one progressive crusade has been to help minority groups that are disadvantaged by the system – but not, apparently, if that same cause is shared by those who do not adore government.

The hypocrisy runs deeper. Clifton scolds Cop Block for claiming to be an advocacy group (egotistically gloating that he warned of this type of group before and self-aggrandizing his previous, prophetic writing in at least two other instances in the article). He writes:

Who’s watching the ‘watchers’? Often these ‘advocacy groups’ are just as, if not more, unethical than those they claim to be ‘watching and holding accountable.’

Besides the fact that an organization called “Forward Progressive” is surely a form of “advocacy” for a particular ideology, Clifton’s boot-licking tendencies are apparent in his presumption that Cop Block could ever be equally or more unethical than police. Cop Block has not beaten anyone. They have not murdered anyone. They have not violated unarmed, innocent civilians’ rights or slammed any faces into the pavement.

They educate people on how to talk to police, exercise their rights, and they discourage violent behavior. There is a supreme deficit of logic to cast Cop block as “watchers” when government has been watching all of us for years, literally and figuratively.

Regardless, the first substantive stab the author takes at Cop Block is the fact that their page has supported the 2nd amendment. Lions, tigers, hate groups, oh my! God forbid that “law-abiding” citizens be able to defend themselves or even advocate to that end. That’s only for inept state organizations who shoot each other and others while drunk. And black people while totally sober. Is Mr. Clifton aware that the sweeping gun control provisions in America that he supports started as a means to keep African-Americans oppressed?

Perhaps if progressives could move past the prejudice that guns are only valued by and useful to crazy redneck, toothless, “privileged” white people (and government agents, of course), they wouldn’t be so afraid.

Nonetheless, Clifton goes on to share screen shots of Cop Block posts (conveniently cropping out the number of likes, comments, and shares because the thousands of shows of support would not help his tirade). He shares a meme quoting rapper, The Game, who mocked the two murdered NYPD officers.

Cop Block noted in its post that

if they [police] are going to be insensitive to the death of a citizen then how can they expect everyone to sympathize with the death of a cop?

Clifton calls this hateful, but fails to debunk the logic.

In another example, he cites a status update that Cop Block shared:

He views this as hateful but rather than disproving the factual statement, Clifton says:

That sounds like the very same sort of anti-government propaganda pushed by the likes of Fox News, the tea party, Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz or any number of right-wing radicals.

Apparently, he missed the last several decades of conservative policy and ideology that have enabled huge government programs from police militarization to war. He also missed the fact that Bill O’Reilly defamed Cop Block on national television. Cop Block has nothing in common with Fox News – the former is anti-government while the latter pretends to be. But in an attempt to “slander” Cop Block, Clifton relies on predictable progressive disdain for Fox to dupe his readers into hating cop blockers.

Humorously, progressives have a great deal in common with Fox News in that they love authority. They love laws and they believe it is the job of the government to regulate society. Though Fox News viewers may want to do that by banning gays and abortion while progressives would like to do it by redistributing income and obtaining “free” birth control, loyalty to the state and its force are present on both ends of the political spectrum.

This love of government authority has blinded many (not all) progressives from the principles they used to cherish. Their need to create an equal society through institutions has led them to excuse war, spying, and gross police overreach – especially since a Democrat is president. Though they were up in arms over George Bush’s atrocities, they are willing to accept a “lesser of two evils” as long as he pretends to care about the poor.

The author claims that Cop Block is ludicrous because of its anti-government views and that it shamefully seeks to tear down the system. Sadly, the point is lost that perhaps the system needs to be torn down. The system doesn’t work. It keeps the poor impoverished and the disenfranchised voiceless. No self-respecting progressive could possibly support a system that does this – but many modern progressives care far less about the well-being of citizens than they do preserving the delusion that government can achieve said well-being.

Clifton closed his article by accusing Cop Block of stirring up

hate, fear, anger and paranoia toward anything and anyone that resembles government or authority.

To clarify: it’s not paranoia if your government actually is a hateful, murderous, corrupt, deceitful, angry machine.

And if Clifton is so confident in the absurdity of being “anti-government,” he should have no worries that his beloved progressives follow Cop Block. It is clear he is irrationally more afraid of his cohorts shifting their philosophy than he is the epidemic of police brutality or making any effort to stop it.

It would behoove the author to recognize that police are merely the foot soldiers of violent government institutions and that if he is true to his “progressive” cause wanting to improve society and effect change – recognizing that violence is not the answer must be the first step.

This is why Cop Block and so many of its followers are “anti-government.” More than being-anti-government, however, they are pro-peace. They are simply informed enough to recognize that government is the biggest hindrance to achieving that goal.

Carey Wedler writes for The Anti-Media, where this first appeared.