Cop it! / Southpawpunch is

Cop it!

A security guard, probably on minimum wage (or thereabouts), threatens to kill you.

How do you react to him? The best response is to point out that your argument isn’t with him, personally. You might also stand your ground and ignore him; decide to beat a tactical retreat or go on the offensive and threaten something back. It all depends on the circumstances.

What you don’t do is go to the cops to try and get the guy prosecuted for what he has allegedly done.

But that’s just what Andy Newman, proprietor of the Socialist Unity blog, is doing. Indeed he’s also trying to get the support of his MP, the Leader of the Council and others to help out with this dirty work.

He alleges that a security guard made a threat to kill him - a serious criminal offence - when he was recently handing out political leaflets in Swindon, and that this guy did this in front of witnesses. Such an incident would be pretty unpleasant although it also hardly sounds like a credible threat.

I can understand, to a degree, how someone may think all sorts, with the adrenalin rushing, in the immediate aftermath of such a moment. I can also appreciate how someone may act initially in an unthinking manner, in an aggrieved response to a nasty incident.

But writing coldly later about such an occurrence; and reporting how you are taking the issue up with the state - including with the cops - suggests at least a serious misfiring in any socialist DNA sequence.

Cops - no and yes

There can be reasons why you do need to report incidents to the cops - such as if your ex-partner makes a credible (or possible) violent threat towards you.

A few times I’ve had to call the cops myself, such as when yet another violent affray broke out in the nether world that's the heaving mass of bodies in the bend of an overfilled bendy nightbus.

For want of a telephone number for a 'Workers Militia - Psychiatric Wing', I also dialled 999 not so long ago when I spotted a bloke sat on the very top of a sloping roof - and who was babbling away incoherently.

In general though, you don’t go to the cops to put other workers in the soup.

You don’t shop workers to managers either. The enemy is the bosses - those who give the orders. It’s tragic that Jobcentre workers, council staff, ticket inspectors, debt collectors and many more workers are obliged to work against the masses to protect the millions of their masters but workers such people remain - and deserving of our basic solidarity.

I remember once being astonished, in a supermarket with whom I thought was a rather hardcore red, when she took umbrage with an error made by the person working on the checkout. She then insisted on making a formal complaint about him to management, despite my strongly expressed disdain for what she was doing.

Andy Newman

I’ve disagreed with Newman before, but in his defence, he’s no Left hobbyist (those many bloggers who think that tap tap tapping away their bon mots gives them a pass on having to do any trade union, single issue campaigning - or other left activity that involves doing more than just arguing the toss with like thinkers).

He does stuff. A leaflet distributed (and organised?) by him as part of the Swindon Stop The War Group and that is aimed at convincing young people not sign up for the armed forces is a great initiative.

I’m not sure whether such a record makes his error worse or better.

Left malaise

But it’s not him that’s the issue; it’s the basic lack of awareness by British Lefts of a class approach towards the state, its representative and those obliged to work for same.

What’s more alarming is that no reader of his article about the Swindon incident, on what is reputed to be the most widely read Left blog in Britain (claimed near 200,000 unique visits last month) has pointed out what's wrong with Newman’s actions.

The comments left even include advice on what law he can use against the hapless security guard! Is it the herd mentality of many witless blog reader and writers; the lack of capacity for independent thought amongst the Left or just sheer rightward thinking that provokes such dross - or a combination of all of these?

One commentator even wonders whether the security guard is ex-forces, as though that makes his conduct more explainable and with the implication of ‘what can you expect from such?’

It’s a socialist viewpoint to consider volunteer soldiers (and pigs) to be the inveterate enemy. But when they (or cops) ditch that uniform, they (nearly always) rejoin the ranks of workers. It’s certainly true, that brutalised and indoctrinated as they will be, they'll often maintain reactionary views - but then so do millions of others.

In uniform

I’ve been thinking about the position of some others working for the cops, such as Police Community Support Officers or civilian police photographers, in the class lines. My view is that if, at least, they wear the uniform, they are fair game. More fool them for signing up for the brickbats without getting the pay and benefits of the standard cop.

But security guards are fellow workers (in a uniform). Maybe Newman can do a victory post if he gets the security guard sacked or convicted.

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"Southpawpunch is"

I often list comments made about this website - good and bad - on the right, under "Southpawpunch is".

My favourite comment has to be one I found recently appended to a block of text that had been copied from one of my articles here by Call me Jim

“WHEN I TRY TO READ ABOUT FORIEGHN POLITICS IT MAKES ME FEEL STUPID. but i do it anyways becals it make me feel smart to know i tryed. :)”a nd that is a sumery of my entire life. god bless my brain, it'll need it by the time i'm done with it.“