How Governments Work Hard to Undermine Themselves

A society works only if there is a social contract, an implicit understanding that the system as a whole is working as best it can to meet everybody's interests. That doesn't mean a leveled down Communism. And it doesn't mean a Libertarians dream world where everybody is left to do as they please and the devil take the hindmost. No society is perfect, but there has to be a sense that if you got a raw deal there is a way over time for you or your children to work to better your situation.

Sadly, all over the world, a right wing political philosophy has taken hold that is breaking the social contract. And you are getting unrest. From the obviously hideous regimes like Gaddafi in Libya to Assad in Syria, but also in the democratic West where the UK is a good example with its string of protests as government policies, on after another, leave large numbers of people adrift and hopeless. Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan in the US are good examples of this same phenomenon where radical right governments are busy giving tax breaks to the rich while destroying public unions, cutting school budgets, and seizing local government to be run from the ideologically "pure" state level that won the 2010 elections.

Here is a bit from a New Stateman article about the recent protests in the UK. It is illuminating because it points out that the instruments of the state are not interested in shutting down street violence, instead they are focused on shutting up the most political effect who are working against the current right wing party in power. I've bolded the key bit:

A large number of young people in Britain have become radicalised in a hurry, and not all of their energies are properly directed, explaining in part the confusion on the streets yesterday. Among their number, however, are many principled, determined and peaceful groups working to affect change and build resistance in any way they can.

One of these groups is UK Uncut. I return to Fortnum's in time to see dozens of key members of the group herded in front of the store and let out one by one, to be photographed, handcuffed and arrested. With the handful of real, random agitators easy to identify as they tear through the streets of Mayfair, the met has chosen instead to concentrate its energies on UK Uncut - the most successful, high-profile and democratic anti-cuts group in Britain.

UK Uncut has embarrassed both the government and the police with its gentle, inclusive, imaginative direct action days over the past six months. As its members are manhandled onto police coaches, waiting patiently to be taken to jail whilst career troublemakers run free and unarrested in the streets outside, one has to ask oneself why.

From the UK's Guardian newspaper you can see how the police lied to the Uncut protestors to arrest them. They lied to give themselves time to set up the police and the police wagons to haul away the peaceful protestors:



Keep the above in mind when you see pictures of crazies bashing windows and running mad in the streets. The police weren't interested in maintaining public order. They were used as a political tool to squash this successful political group, UK Uncut.

What you see on "the evening news" or what you read in mainstream newspapers/magazines is not always an honest presentation of the facts. The people who own the media have an interest in showing political protest as a violent, anarchic, mindless upsurge from a criminal class and not the result of honest political opinion coming from a class of people without political representation.

Here is a final bit from Laurie Penny, the author of the New Stateman article. This if from the BoingBoing blog. Again I bold the key bit:

What went wrong?

As the dust settles and the slogans are scrubbed off the walls of Fortnum and Mason, that's the question the entire British Left is asking itself about the events of March the 26th. What went wrong? Where do we go from here? And most importantly, who do we blame?

That last part is easy: we blame it on the kids. The story currently being spun by the police, by parties in government, and by most of the press is that an otherwise successful mass demonstration was ruined by disgusting little vandals with hate in their hearts. That mindless acts of violence were perpetrated by a small, hardcore group of hooligans calling themselves 'the black bloc', who trashed banks and businesses at random and attacked the police without provocation. That their behaviour undermined and discredited the half-million citizens who marched to the rally point in Hyde Park. That it was a major own goal for the Left in this time of crisis.

That assessment is incorrect on nearly every level. Unfortunately, the handful of reporters, including myself, who dared to produce accounts of the day that run counter to the mainstream consensus, have been savagely attacked. We have been called thugs, liars and terrorists for having the temerity to put on record the police brutality that some of us observed and experienced in Trafalgar square. We have faced down attempts to bully and threaten us into retracting our testimonies.

There is more. Read the rest of Laurie Penny's post entitled "Lies in London".