When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke in April 2004, many American commentators expressed shock. But, as The Progressive’s Anne-Marie Cusac observed, “Abu Ghraib shock[s] us because our soldiers abroad seem to have acted out behaviors that we condone, yet don’t face up to, at home.” On the heels of Our Enemies in Blue, Kristian Williams’ controversial chronicle of policing, the writer/activist gives us American Methods, once again upsetting the notion that the use of “excessive force” by the state is aberrant rather than altogether American.
American Methods reveals torture not as a recent or rogue phenomenon, but a veteran tool of the American state. As Williams suggests, torture is not, as claimed, a means of interrogation used only by others, elsewhere. Instead, it is a tried-and-true weapon of social control and terror, right here in the US.
Unlike other recent books, American Methods locates “war on terror” scandals in the systems of inequities and dominance that nurture them. Williams pays close attention to the distinct character of American torture and its gender and racial contours—particularly its emphasis on sexual violence, emasculation, and spectacle. His discussion ranges over much of the globe and a quarter-century: from US support of torture-regimes in Central America in the 1980s to today’s more favored approach—outsourcing torture to “friendly governments.” Returning to our shores, Williams observes the banality of violence in American prisons, precincts, and society. Ultimately, he offers devastating conclusions about the centrality of rape, racism, and conquest to both the state and our national culture.
Kristian Williams' writings have appeared in CounterPunch, Columbia Journalism Review, and We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism. A member of Rose City Copwatch in Portland, Oregon, Williams also authored Our Enemies in Blue (2004).

American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination

History

Williams, Kristian

Americas

South End Press

Let's begin with the basics: violence is an inherent part of policing. The police represent the most direct means by which the state imposes its will on the citizenry. They are armed, trained, and authorized to use force. Like the possibility of arrest, the threat of violence is implicit in every police encounter. Violence, as well as the law, is what they represent.
Using media reports alone, the Cato Institute's last annual study listed nearly seven thousand victims of police "misconduct" in the United States. But such stories of police brutality only scratch the surface of a national epidemic. Every year, tens of thousands are framed, blackmailed, beaten, sexually assaulted, or killed by cops. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on civil judgments and settlements annually. Individual lives, families, and communities are destroyed.
In this extensively revised and updated edition of his seminal study of policing in the United States, Kristian Williams shows that police brutality isn't an anomaly, but is built into the very meaning of law enforcement in the United States. From antebellum slave patrols to today's unarmed youth being gunned down in the streets, "peace keepers" have always used force to shape behavior, repress dissent, and defend the powerful. Our Enemies in Blue is a well-researched page-turner that both makes historical sense of this legalized social pathology and maps out possible alternatives.
Kristian Williams is the author of several books, including American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination. He co-edited Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency, and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

AK Press

"Rather than provide literary criticism or biography, Kristian Williams is most concerned in this felicitous collection to derive George Orwell's method—the process he used to translate personal experiences and worldly explorations into democratic anti-capitalist principles, and convey them to broad audiences in an irresistible fashion." —Andrew Cornell, author of Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century
Old debates about democracy vs. socialism vs. fascism are back. Missing from today's versions are the voices of moral clarity, those that challenge us to be our best selves in difficult times. Kristian Williams has mined the intellect of a man who, sixty-seven years after his death, still has much to offer readers. Between the Bullet and the Lie highlights the relationship George Orwell sees between aesthetics, ethics, and politics; the difference between honesty and integrity; the corruption of language; the importance of observation and evidence; and the many failures of the Left. The result is not a study of sacred decrees from Orwell, but an application of his thought to political and literary questions that trouble us today.
Kristian Williams is the author of Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, American Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination, and co-editor of Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency.

Between the Bullet and the Lie: Essays on Orwell

Literature & Fiction

British & Irish

Oscar Wilde is remembered as a wit and a dandy, as a gay martyr, and as a brilliant writer, but his philosophical depth and political radicalism are often forgotten.Resist Everything Except Temptation locates Wilde in the tradition of left-wing anarchism, and argues that only when we take his politics seriously can we begin to understand the man, his life, and his work. Drawing from literary, historical, and biographical evidence, including archival research, the book outlines the philosophical influences and political implications of Wilde's ideas on art, sex, morality, violence, and above all, individualism. Williams raises questions about the relationships between culture and politics, between utopian aspirations and practical programs, and between individualism, group identity, and class struggle. The resulting volume represents, not merely a historical curiosity, but a contribution to current debates within political theory and a salvo in the broader culture wars.

Resist Everything Except Temptation: The Anarchist Philosophy of Oscar Wilde

Demystifying forces of the state, gangs, and revolutionary violence.\nIn Gang Politics, Kristian Williams examines our society’s understanding of social and political violence, what gets romanticized, misunderstood, or muddled. He explores the complex intersections between “gangs” of all sorts—cops and criminals, Proud Boys and Antifa, Panthers and skinheads—arguing that government and criminality are intimately related, often sharing critical features. As society becomes more polarized and conflict more common, Williams’s analysis is a crucial corrective to our usual ideas about the role violence might or should play in our social struggles.

Gang Politics: Revolution, Repression, and Crime

Killer cops and cop-killers, ""police as workers"" and police as soldiers, copwatching and counterinsurgency operations... these subjects and more are examined in this collection of essays by veteran activist Kristian Williams, released to mark ten years since the first publication of his book Our Enemies in Blue in 2004.

Fire the Cops!

Kersplebedeb

Rather than an aberration enacted by "bad apples," police misconduct is a function of law enforcement's emphasis on repressive values and unenlightened tactics, argues Kristian Robert Williams. Firmly rooted in history and current practice, Our Enemies in Blue offers a clear-eyed account of law enforcement practices, including how police target certain groups and work to preserve power imbalances within society. Efforts to grow the prison industry are revealed along with a surprising account of modern police forces — many of which evolved from protection rackets and slave patrols. As a growing number of United States citizens encounter the criminal justice system, this resource provides useful historical perspective and real-life strategies for opposing abuses of power.

Our Enemies in Blue

SOFT SKULL PRESS *

Can the contemporary anarchist scene investigate its short-comings and mark a path toward the total transformation of society and the creation of a more just world? As the title suggests, in this pamphlet Williams asks: "where is anarchism headed?" We begin with a succinct overview of what anarchism means as a political philosophy. From there, two recent histories are used as jumping off points to look at a gap in the make up and ideology of today's anarchists and that of their ancestors. The final essay ponders what cultural and structural prerequisites might be necessary to shrink that gap in order to align our highest ideals with the current "movement," such as it is. Whither Anarchism? is a challenge, a provocation, and it is real talk. "It is my hope that, despite everything, anarchism may someday transcend its present limitations and once again come to represent the highest ideals and aspirations of humanity, and that anarchists may make a distinctive contribution to the struggle for freedom and equality, and to the new world that the struggle seeks to create."

Whither Anarchism? (To the Point)

Philosophy

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