No Longer Preaching to the Choir

[ed_rex]

colinmarshall's often cryptic somewhat objections aside, I'm not used to my political posts getting too much of a reaction, beyond maybe a few huzzaas from the Usual Suspects. (Actually, I'm not used to getting too many responses to my Words of Wisdom^(TM) at all, but that is no doubt more of comment on your Humble Author than it is upon the attention paid by my Gentle Readers. And also, I digress.) And so it is refreshing, disconcerting and frustrating (yes, all at once) to suddenly find among my LJ-Friends someone as consistently contradictory and argumentative as paul_carlson.

But I actually do like a good debate, if only because it often forces me to think through more thoroughly my positions — and even, sometimes, to change them.

For the past week or more I've been struggling with a piece on the intellectual deficits of certain feminists, minority activists and others with whom I am in general philosophical agreement, but with whom in large part I disagree about such things as group vs. individual rights, the importance of language and other matters I'm not going to get to in this entry — but which I do intend to get to soon. I expect my enemies to use falsehoods, half-truths, irrelevant innuendo and old good old-fashioned shouting down to support an agenda they know would be rejected if the mass of the people actually understood that the interests of the likes of Blackwater and General Motors are not their own, but those on my side are supposed to be the Good Guys and so willing to face facts, to admit to truths, even when they are uncomfortable ones, and not to behave like the enemy.

But that's going to have to wait, because paul_carlson has asked me some questions that warrant more than just a reply to his reply to my last substantial post, concerning the demonization of protest in the United States (and elsewhere).

(But first, click the link below and Let the Music Play. What Neil Young's song lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in appalling accuracy. Also, it makes a good soudtrack for what is to follow.)

I had said that protest was being routinely treated as synonymous with treason in the US and Paul quite rightly called me me on it.

Routinely?

Okay, rhetorical over-kill and not technically true (or at least not proven) — but I stand by the statement as indicative of an authoritarian — if not quite a gloves-off fascist — trend, both here in Canada and (especially) south of the border.

When the "free world's" treatment of protesters starts to resemble that of China, I simply find it unbelievable that any freedom-loving man or woman can just shrug their shoulders indifferently. When the police are used not just to protect the peace, but to instigate violence and to pre-emptively arrest not only protesters but observers, something is very wrong with a nation's democracy.

Certainly my impression from the press is that the police here in Canada are far more likely to use agents provocateurs and other nefarious means than they were when I was more often out on the street in the (my) "good old days" of the 1980s. As an example, please see this article from last year or the related video below.

Or this one, in which the Sureté admit the agents were cops but ludicrously maintain they were there to "maintain the peace".

Speaking of the good old days, back in the '80s I was involved in numerous protests, some of them numbering in the 10s of thousands of people, yet the cops were dressed in standard uniforms, not the anonymous storm-trooper masks and shields they routinely don today. Who started wearing masks? In this country at least, it was the police, if memory serves, around the time the Berlin Wall came down.

Prior to that, protest was seen (or at least tolerated) by the powers-that-be as more or less a right (fancy that!) that went along with citizenship. I was never tear-gassed, nor was I bludgeoned or arrested. In fact, the police tended to be little more brusque and were sometimes known to smile at a camera instead of smashing it.

But in the wake of the Soviet collapse and the subsequent neo-conservative triumphalism that saw Pinochet's murderous dictatorship as a as a good thing (a "miracle", even!) not a war crime by a government against its own people, western "leaders" became more open about their "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists" vision of democracy.

Police confronting protesters and demonstrators like masked and shielded storm-troopers is a recent trend and one — to the best of my recollection — which was not started by so-called "anarchists" but by the police themselves, somewhere around the time the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the neo-con triumphalists were brooking no opposition to their march to a brave new world of free markets for capital and, er, well, that was pretty much it.

So yes, Paul, to say that protesters are routinely treated like "traitors" was a little strong, but not by much.

Meanwhile, I think that, rather than directly addressing my specific points, you muddied the waters by bringing up alleged help-wanted ads in the San Fran Cisco bay area papers, which, "routinely run want ads for paid full-time protester positions," and then made presumptions about the positions of my "friends" on everyone's hot-button issue, abortion.

But what the hell, I'll nibble, if not bite. Can you document one of these ads for "paid full-time protesters"? I've never heard of such a thing.

As the abortion protests, which specific limitations are you talking about? Are anti-choice protesters in the Bay area routinely harassed, assaulted and arrested before they get out onto the street? When they do make it there, are they herded into "protest zones"?

Please provide some specifics, if you're going to argue the issues are parallel.

Meanwhile, if I recall correctly, here in Canada there have been some restrictions placed on anti-choice protesters, limits such as a requirement that they stay within 50 feet of the entrances, so that women going in for the procedure were not — as they routinely were for quite some time — jostled and screamed at and doctors and nurses were no assaulted and threatened.

And more to the point, the restrictions that were set in place came about about as a result of legal action and court orders obtained by the abortion clinics themselves, not through direct and clearly illegal state activity.

In other words, you're arguing apples against oranges and so evading the issues I was discussing.

(And you think it's bad now -- it was a "private army" of Pinkertons who busted heads, back then.)

Agreed, it isn't as bad now as it was then, but it's worse than it was 20 years ago and I don't like the trends I'm seeing. It's getting bad up here and — from what I read — getting worse south of the border, where mercenaries like those employed (on the tax-payers' dime) by the likes of Blackwater are not only patrolling the streets of Bagdhad but even some of the cities in your own country. Do you really think the employees of a private "security company" — no, let's call a mercenary a mercenary, shall we? — are more accountable to the people of the United States than police officers and soldiers? (Two can play the distraction game!)

Comments

Re: "Why are government agencies targeting pacifists?"

[paul-carlson.livejournal.com]

Hi Geoff,

Not saying I'm some kind of booster for that (or any) formal school of economics. If I had to pick one, it'd probably be the Austrian School, developed by Hayek and friends.

What frustrates me is, on this subject many people have potent opinions grounded on sand. Rich "versus" poor, tax rates and actual revenues, interest rates and inflation: all of these are easily misunderstood. Simpler to jump on some emotional bandwagon, and never mind the crunchy little facts.

Here's a post I made yesterday on the Asimov's board, with a popular example of a commonly demagogued issue, "tax cuts for the rich."

Re: "Why are government agencies targeting pacifists?"

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Hi Paul,

Considering all the angry, negative ranting I've been doing lately, this might be a good moment to give you some sense of what I do support, at least until the historical situation is one supporting something even better (yes, as per the icon, I've read some Marx).

For the time being, though, I support a balanced economy, one in which business is relatively free to do business, but not free to run the state. Business constrained, in other words, by rules and regulations, by limits on the movement of capital (so that capital is more likely to be invested than speculated).

The people running much of the world right now have had a hell of a run since Reagan and Thatcher started dismantling the welfare state. Some of those changes were necessary, some were neutral and some were extremely destructive — for the vast majority of the population.

In other words, there is a tension inherent in the relation between labour and capital. The latter, by the nature of the system in which it operates, seeks (at once and in self-contradiction) monopoly (which requires long-term thinking) and a profit on the next quarter's balance-sheet (which requires extremely short-term thinking).

Neither objective takes into consideration the lives of individual human beings, the long-term well-being of the commons (ie, the planet's ecosphere) or the political or moral Good.

Capitalism is — or can be — very good at making things, but making things has nothing whatsoever to do with running a government or providing social Goods, whether (publically-accessible) roads or welfare, clean air or safe streets, medical care or vibrant, competing newspapers.

We can argue about which goods should be public, but I, at least, can not compromise with those who believe the only business of the state is to run the army, the police and prisons, which is the libertarian position as I understand it, and which I believe is, and has been since Reagan and Thatcher, the long-term goal of the people who have hijacked your Republican and our Conservative Parties.

Whew.

In terms of your post at Asimov's, I take your point but I think, like so many abstractions, it is meaningless in the real world. Certainly in this world, the rich are in no danger of being taxed out of existence.

I do believe in progressive taxation. And I believe that countries like Finland and most of the Nordic countries provide a useful model of what might be done here in Canada, and maybe even in the much larger and more heterogeneous United States.

Re: "Why are government agencies targeting pacifists?"

[paul-carlson.livejournal.com]

Good points, Geoff.

Modern business is plagued by the 'next quarter's balance sheet' kind of thinking. I've supported liberal (Democratic Party) policies on worker's overtime pay. For some, 'flex time' might be the panacea that Big Business said it would be -- but I could do enough math to foresee a pay cut.

As for the rich, I'm not sure about Canada, but most of the USA's legislators are lawyers by trade, and most of the rest are businessmen. They are not going to create policies to kill their own golden geese, so to speak.
Even the reformers get to the capital, and are usually drawn into the system.
But you know what? I have millionaire relatives, and lawyer friends. They are just as human as me. We get along fine.

Ultra-libertarians would sell Yosemite to Disney -- some might even privatize the Army! I would not go anywhere near that far . . .

Do note that the ecosystem has very little regard for the welfare of any individual. Not even for individual species.
Mother Nature sends us warm breezes and howling hurricanes, plus rolling meadows and jouncing earthquakes. Not to mention lots and lots of various-sized bugs.

Re: "Why are government agencies targeting pacifists?"

[paul-carlson.livejournal.com]

By the way, an old friend of mine just did some color commentary on Sarah Palin's big debut speech, live from a convention skybox -- on Al-Jazeera TV's English-language network. Verrry interesting . . .

Re: "Why are government agencies targeting pacifists?"

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Al-Jazeeera's an interesting experiment. By all most accounts, it sounds like it's a genuinely legitimate news organization.

I imagine its absolutely loathed by the House of Saud, and just about every other Arab government.

Very cool for your friend. And that reminds me: I've downloaded both McCain and Palin's speeches and so, I guess, I should gird my loins and actually watch them. :)

Re: "Why are government agencies targeting pacifists?"

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Uh oh. I think I'm going into multiple-thread shock (and confusion — forgive me if my last reply er, somewhere else, was a bit of a repetition of what I said above).

I think Canada's legislatures contain a somewhat higher proportion of "normal" people and perhaps fewer businessmen, but lawyers we got a'plenty!

And on the whole, they are or aspire to be, members of the (economic) ruling class. But that is also complicated by a number of factors.

1. The NDP, an avowedly (though tepidly, to my mind) "social democratic" party with its roots in genuine Socialism;

2. the Bloc Québecois, the one-issue, Québec seperatist party which also skews to the left; and

3. the good luck of having inherited the British parliamentary system which, as I see it, has two advantages of a republic, or at least, over a US-style republic.

The first is that there are no fixed electoral dates (despite our outgoing government's ironic passing of a bill setting fixed dates; ironic because they've just called an election despite not having been defeated in the House), so that we don't have to suffer your 2+ year-long campaigns, which require so much money to run.

And the second (and probably most Canadians will, if only tepidly, disagree with me here), our head of State is ... the Queen of England! How cool is that? Head of government — just some guy (and, so far, one woman) of almost no symbolic importance, so it's almost impossible for him to "wrap himself in the flag". Head of State? Almost completely symbolic, although in point of legal fact, her "Representative", the Governor General, does have a few extraordinary Constitutional powers, though I think the last time they were exercised was in the 1920s.

Anyway, before this turns into (another) novella, the short campaigns mean our politicians don't need to raise nearly the kind of money they do south of the border and so, a few more "average joes" make it into Parliament.

Do note that the ecosystem has very little regard for the welfare of any individual.

Granted. Although we've been enjoying some relatively stable conditions over the past 10,000 years or so, and stability is a Good Thing from the human perspective of a single life-time. (Was it in Analog that I read an article a while back suggesting that, according to the climate records of the past several hundred thousand years we "should" be in an ice-age right now? The suggestion was that the carbon-releasing effects of the agricultural revolution saved us from a resurgence of the ice-sheets.)

Re: "Why are government agencies targeting pacifists?"

[paul-carlson.livejournal.com]

Okay, I've posted a newspaper clipping/scan on my LJ site.

It's unusual in that both ads name the employer and cause.

"Activism" is a normal Want Ad job category in the San Francisco Chronicle, and the spots don't always name names. (Not that it seems to matter.)