@YARNLADY “The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn’t going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.” — William S. Burroughs
There are any number of reasons for violent confrontations with police. For example, I am an anarchist, and anarchists believe very strongly in self-defence, both of ourselves and our comrades. This attitude results in less violence in the long run. Where the police don’t think twice about attacking large groups of hippies and peaceniks, they won’t attack anarchists without at least a 3-to-1 numerical superiority and with the liberal application of tear gas and pepper spray. Peace is always maintained by strength, not weakness.
I have also had occasion to engage in violent confrontation with the police for strategic purposes. For example, in 2004, George Bush visited the city where I live. The media would have liked to portray the visit as friendly and successful. Instead, we engaged in hand to hand fighting with police, knocked down two of their lines, and then got 15 minutes live on CNN when we fought our way to the third and final line of riot cops. There was no one between us and Bush at that point but that line of cops and the snipers on the rooftops. When things got really hot, the organizers ordered a general retreat to keep the crowd from getting teargassed. In that case we succeeded in preventing the corporate media from spinning his visit as tacit supprt from a foreign state for Bush’s policies. In fact, it was so successful that Bush, in his address to media, was forced to acknowledge us. He thanked the small handful of supporters who showed up to meet him at the airport, joking, “It was nice to see a few people waving at me with all five fingers.”
Does fighting with riot police change political policy? No. But that’s not what anyone’s trying to accomplish by hitting a riot cop with a brick.