Where are we and where are we going? I might not have time to post anything else today so I thought that my reply to kev in the comments section to yesterday's post is important enough to broadcast here.
kev advanced the notion that the government crackdown on dissent, such as we saw at the Toronto G20, is evidence of the neoliberal elites getting closer to their inhuman paradise on earth, and, since this elite's "nirvana" is inhuman, other humans are going to resist, hence the blatant trampling of human rights. kev said we're at a moment similar to 1919 when public frustration with the dismal economy, inflation, and the abuse of worker's rights produced the Winnipeg General Strike (and a wave of sympathy strikes across the nation). The Canadian political and business class responded hysterically and violently, crushing the strike and the Canadian labour movement for another two-and-a-half decades (and probably helping to bring on the Great Depression). The economic catastrophe produced by three decades of neoliberal, right-wing bullshit is producing a similar outpouring of frustration and a similarly hysterical crackdown.
I think we're arriving at a time that's just as important as 1919.
The differences are that there is a larger pool of people with a stronger systemic anti-capitalist analysis, but there's also a far broader swath of people who are duped or ignorant by the culmination of decades of public relations and marketing tricks (two industries which hardly existed in 1919 - gov't "propaganda" being a relatively new industry recently taken to new heights by the British in WW I).
As well, the forces of the state have far more coercive power at their disposal. But there's also a much stronger legal foundation for human rights.
That this legal edifice was so blatantly shredded at the G20 is a cause for serious concern. Without that legal bulwark, we're helpless against the powers of the state.
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I've been doing a fair bit of thinking on the matter. The abuse of police power in the manner displayed at the G20 in Toronto was always a possibility (perhaps even an eventuality... if it hadn't happened under Harper's watch, eventually there would have been someone else).
The police's mandate is to protect and serve the public, but they do so under the command of a small group of individuals. The public has little direct influence over the choice of these individuals (except for outcries that might lead to resignations). This contributes to the lack of police accountability. The public is found nowhere in the police hierarchy.
The actuality is that the police does the work of the government (enforcement of laws), where the government is chosen by the public every so often. In simplistic terms, the fact that the government is supposed to represent the public should mean that the police will serve the public good.
In the event of a "disagreement" between the government and ordinary citizens, it was never a surprise who would get police support in the short term. If the RCMP chief refuses based on moral grounds, he would have been replaced. (Hey, didn't the previous RCMP chief suddenly "have to learn French" after supporting the gun registry, at odds with the government?)
The disturbing thing is the long-term outlook. The G20 in Toronto should have been a wake-up call that highlighted problems in the system to the public. The lack of public outrage, though, is downright disconcerting.
no_blah_blah_blah , I hear you about the lack of outrage,however I still think that the G20 has started the process of awakening in that in conversation and online in the MSM comments threads I am seeing a growing number of people casting off their cops are always the good guys mantra.
I am also seeing the same shift among coworkers and friends( my family unfortunately is staunchly conservative and will likely never open their eyes)People that once rolled their eyes at me are now listening and some even now agree.
Plus with each new outrage more and more start down the path of awakening. It is going to take time and things are likely to get much worse in the interim, but we will prevail.
Well, the cops like to portray themselves as a "thin blue line" between society and chaos. They also have a fair bit of contempt for civilians anyway, seeing us as either criminal scum or dependent sheep. (What's comical about their high regard for themselves is that they fail to understand why, more and more, we generalize about them as being roid-enraged, arrogant, unaccountable goons, the stupid enforcers of their inhuman masters.)
Before these events, these easily-manipulated goons get all fired up by their commanders about how people protesting for social justice, peace, environmental sanity, etc., etc., are all dangerous revolutionaries, and, like in the movie "Jarhead" where US marines were transformed into killers, these cops are over-eager to bust some heads.
Which they always do. APEC, Montebello, WTO meeting in Montreal, etc., etc., ...
The abuses at the G20 were still noteworthy for the scope and scale of their criminality. And these dumb-ass pigs can't process that it is THEIR thuggery, THEIR contempt for the rule of law, THEIR slavish, brutal devotion to scumbags like harper, Obama, and crew that is devastating society.
Their brutality at the G20, together with RCMP assaults across the country and the string of video-taped police thuggery in Ottawa has turned enough people in this country against them, but more education and more outrage needs to develop. We need judges who can enforce the law on these idiots.
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