Defund the Police (Patreon)

Working on my next video now, should be able to get it done for next week! In the mean time, here’s an old art piece of mine.

Made this last summer during the marches for the BLM movement. Strongly feel that complete abolition is the way to go but the more we defund, disarm, and dismantle the police, the easier it will be to prove that a world without them is possible and desirable.

In Toronto, where I live, the “defund the police” movement didn’t lead to any change to the policing budget, BUT they were forced to show a complete list of what they spent on their budget on. This included the revelation that Toronto police spent $2.3 million just on ammunition! Which was already a million dollars over budget, but even more embarrassing, that year, 2019, Toronto police only discharged firearms a total of 23 times- 16 were to kill animals and only one was to stop someone with an edged weapon. What a waste of money.

I know people like former president Obama think the slogan “defund the police” is too scary. I guess I can see that. But “Black Lives Matter” was scary to a lot of people at first, still is to some. I think mainstreaming radical ideas can change peoples’ minds, definitely not all at once but over time.

We grow up around so much copaganda it seems ridiculous to get rid of the police, or give them less money. Every time there’s a controversy about the police, the instinct is to fund them more, whether by giving them more training or body cams or whatever else. After Ferguson, the BLM movement was pushing for reforms like these. But this type of change does not help anyone but the police. I’m glad the public consciousness is going in the right direction- abolition seems more within our grasp than ever.

Anyway, getting off on a rant here. Here’s a rich pig cop with a golden gun I made to illustrate the amount of money we waste on propping up state-sanctioned violence, check it out!