Culture

Today is the 40th anniversary of the National Guard’s shootings of student Vietnam War protestors at Kent State University in Ohio.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – earlier today Martin posted about unwarranted police violence at a peaceable, permitted May Day protest in Rotterdamand this was his view on why the police attacked non-agressive, unarmed protesters:

I doubt that the police has explicitly gotten orders to crack down on political protests. If I had to guess I’d think that it’s a side effect to the Rotterdam police overreacting to what happened at the Hoek van Holland beach party of August last year — where inept policing and rioting football hooligans led to the police accidently shooting and killing an innocent man. Since then the Rotterdam police has become a lot harsher in dealing with potentially dangerous situations and since leftist demonstrations of this kind have always been seen as worrisome by them, it’s no surprise that this happened. Wrong, but not surprising.

I have to say, with all due respect, I disagree. Vehemently. State violence against dissenters is EU policy and therefore Dutch policy too.

The authorities’ violent response in Rotterdam, along with those at Kent State, Genoa, the G8 and G20 protests, Seattle, Minneapolis St. Paul, New York and countless other peaceful protests worldwide are part of an organised pattern of oppression and the silencing of popular opinion by supposedly democratic governments.Like I said back in 2007 when the Canadian police attacked a demo:

Protest isn’t all pink tutus, dogs on strings and rainbow flags: it can be fatal. Remember Carlo Giuliani, shot in the face, his head split like a melon by the wheel of a police landrover at Genoa? That’s what our democratic police are capable of when governments and elected representatives won’t listen and citizens feel forced to take to the streets to exercise their right to protest.

And the worst of it is, we’ve let them do it to us; rather than fight back, we’ve gone home scared, to watch ‘V For Vendetta’ on DVD and wish we could be braver human beings.

But it’s not very surprising is it, when just walking innocently through a demo on your way home from work can get you dead.

Oppressive violence against political dissenters is a feature of life under capitalism. After all, there’s money to be made from it:

Paramilitary political police on both sides of the Atlantic need only a discreet nod from the pols (and sometimes not even that) to go in joyfully and with boots, taser and fists. They love that sort of thing: that’s why they’re police. For every saintly murdered copper, devoted village bobby or innocuous deputy sheriff there are ten barely-controlled thugs with plenty of hate and plenty of gusto.

Every now and then they get let off the leash and someone notices. This time is was Salon. Then it all goes back to normal and soon these incidents just become part of the wallpaper of normal life, like warrantless wiretapping, torture, routine tasering or prison rape.

For anyone to expect that police on any continent will do anything but suppress any person or movement that might put their industry or jobs in jeopardy is very naive indeed.

I hate to keep quoting myself, but I don’t see the point of saying the same things year upon year in slightly different words. Police violence against dissenters is no occasional incident; to use that hackneyed phrase I’ve used so many times before, it isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

Our leaders can waffle on about their commitment to liberty band fredom for all – and don’t they just, here’s Gordon Brown pontificating on the subject in April 2008:

Among the measures he announced were:

• New rights of protest. This will mean watering down laws – introduced just four years ago – that ban any unauthorised protest within one kilometre of the Palace of Westminster.

• New rights of access to public information by extending the Freedom of Information Act to companies carrying out public functions, such as private prisons.

• Entrenched freedoms of the press to carry out investigative journalism.

• A review of the rule that allows Cabinet papers to be seen automatically only after 30 years.

• New rights against invasion of property after it emerged there are 250 laws allowing state agents to enter a home.

• A debate about a British Bill of Rights and Duties and the possibility of a written constitution.

Have we seen any of these things? Have we hell. We know what politicians mean when they waffle on about freedom:

That’s what the ‘freedom’ in Bush & Blair’s constantly reiterated talking point means – the freedom for capital to be entirely free of restraints, legal, moral or physical. The ‘democracy’ part refers to the periodic tv ratings contests that we laughingly call elections – and any pretence to those being free and fair is long gone, in the UK as well as the US. It doesn’t matter who you vote for really.
Even if you do go through the motions of voting, the only real power your representatives have is the power to decide which lobbyist’s request they will accede to, and what the quid pro quo will be.

The real business of governing, ie how to manage the electorate’s money, is done by unelected trade representatives, at talks in luxury settings, protected against dissent by cordons sanitaires of barbed wire and armed troops, for the benefit of those whose generous capital donations keep those governments triumphant in the ratings wars and in power.

And until we all get a bit braver, and have the gumption to stand firm in the face of state violence and tyranny, to fight back even, there’ll be even more Kent States.

UPDATE:

This sort of gumption:

A group of around 20 school teachers forced their way into the television studios of Greece’s state broadcaster NET on Monday evening, to protest against the government’s austerity programme.