The government doesn’t want to fund them. The government doesn’t want them getting funding from others. It’s almost like the government doesn’t want them funded at all. Oh, right.

Enos Strate, monolith of evil.^/s

While systems and institutions have an extremely strong effect on society, projecting the perceived net-effect of an institution onto the intent of every individual participating in that institution is absurd, and your implied true version alignment isn’t any better. Who get’s to say what the true version or goal of institution is? Setting aside the net-effect questions from questionable evidence of what society would look like without some variation of these institutions, people are unique inherently multifaceted individuals. They have their own intentions that rarely aligns perfectly with the institutions they cooperate with. While I certainly understand taking issue with some or many specific actions cops are known to take, the idea that they’re all constantly possessed by the specter of the policing institution is just silly. The idea that there is some more true evil version is laughable. Don’t let the specter of your own ideology possess you and convince you of such nonsense - don’t be an anarchist spook.

I urge you to step back from tribalism and ideology and view people as individuals, even if you find their flaws glaring acknowledge they have their own deeply complex lives. You don’t have to forgive their actions, but focus on what’s useful. Rather than letting your self be possessed by ideology and fixating on the flaws and cracks of the ideologies that sometimes possess them, focus on what you have in common and how you can use that to build parallel communities, systems, and institutions that will make a better world. What’s the point in generating conflict and driving people away? Will starting fights with cops help you make the world a better place? On a practical level, what good does it do to conjure opposing ideological specters? Surely it’s better to work together where you can and steer clear where you can’t?

Perhaps there are instances where it’s appropriate to demonize someone for a specific action they’ve taken, but do it consciously as targeted tactic to remove especially egregious and obvious threats, never as blanket ideology.

Honestly, I don’t consider myself radical. I’m definitely frustrated with the world, but I’m not into tribalism – I don’t do -ist’s & -ism’s. I try to focus and talk about specific mechanisms, and my frustration largely derives from the world’s refusal to address those real issues. The us-them tribalism is a self sabotaging distraction.

Like, here’s something that will upset a lot of people: Cops and Anarchists have a lot of overlap. Neither are monolithic groups - both have bad actors that cause problems. Both have large portions who want to protect their communities. Both are willing to due so with violence. Both have a strange fixation on “bad-ass”-ery and skulls. Both have large groups of people they don’t trust (the “feds” or the “criminals”), which as groups are kinda a social fictions (individuals are just individuals). Both justify their ideology by appealing to theory (legal theory or anarchist theory). Both think they’re smarter than the other, but both have well read members and complete morons. Both have a tendency to ignore both the law and theory in favor of the practical.

I’m sure that’s an upsetting comparison for some people, but I don’t think it does us any good to fight about whether and to what extent it’s true. It’s far more productive to use that comparison to build bridges, make peace, and cooperate on specific mechanisms that will make the world a better place. For example police want legitimacy and a lot of anarchists don’t think the current voting system gives legitimacy, both should thus want to move to ranked voting with lottery options, recall mechanisms, and randomized districting. Almost everyone wants free speech, but doesn’t want money in politics. We should agree on taxing both political advertising and donations at insane rates and using those funds for publicly funded elections. Most people want the cheaper services that come from cheaper housing if not the cheaper housing itself, so it should be easy to make laws mandating a fraction of dirt cheap condos be made in proportion to new large houses – that’d fix a big part of the the affordability crisis.

I don’t really believe it’s about who’s in control because most the policies I just listed are things that could be implemented at the local level for essentially free and would dramatically improve the lives of people in that area, but I’ve not heard of anywhere even close to those policies. As far as I can tell most people will fight like cats and dogs for every scrap of power, but don’t actually know what to do with it once they have it (even if they are well intentioned).

Anti-nuclear. Used to be pro-nuclear because the energy density would allow for very compact energy production, but I don’t trust the government (or corporations) to have any meaningfully concentrated nuclear material. Maybe solid-state nuclear batteries can be made to work and we can use that to dilute the nuclear material – not sure about that yet.

These days I favor local solar and wind.

I’m not really familiar with this specific drama, but “Tankies surprised anarchists don’t like them” reads like an onion headline. They call it leftist infighting, but “my boot is rainbow colored 🥺👉👈” has never really convinced anyway.