The End of Policing

by Alex S. Vitale

Ultimately, we must work toward developing a more internationalist ethos and analysis. The reality is that people in Central America and Mexico are poor partially because of US economic policies. By consistently subverting democracy, we have helped create the dreadful poverty in those places.

When normal political channels are closed off, street politics become more common.

The reality is that US foreign policy in the Middle East has played a major role in inspiring such movements and making us a prime target for their anger. We need to rethink our relationship to Gulf oil countries that practice despotic rule and provide ideological and financial support to terrorists. We must also rethink our largely uncritical relationship with Israel, whose actions in the region have been incredibly destabilizing and whose behavior in Gaza and the West Bank have inspired widespread revulsion, some of which blows back on the United States in the form of both international and domestic terrorism.

US culture is organized around exploitation, greed, white privilege, and resentment. These are derived in large part from our economic system, but even profound economic changes do not automatically produce positive cultural changes, at least not overnight.