Your Police State In Action

 

While Anaheim has been a focus of mine since the police shooting of Manny Diaz,  and certainly the theatrical display of suppressive men and materiel in Anaheim is impressive, the National Security State has been on something of a rampage against various domestic dissidents, specifically suspected anarchists or anybody who might give aid and comfort to peace or environmental activists.

This is part of what I was getting at when I lambasted Chris Hedges for his demonization of the "Black Clad Anarchists" -- aka "The Black Bloc" -- of his imagination. As many recognized at the time of his mad fulminations, his sort of demonization and scapegoating has severe consequences, and one of them is what we're seeing in the Pacific Northwest, Chicago, Minneapolis, Vermont and elsewhere: The State utilizes its instincts and ambitions to target and go after "anarchists" and "activists."  It doesn't matter whether they wear black or not, nor does it matter what they do. It does not even matter if they ARE anarchists or political activists. What matters is that they can be placed in a category, one that has been demonized in both the popular and the official mind, and thus, like the infamous "gang-bangers" of Anaheim (an equivalently demonized subclass), be subject to whatever legal scrutiny and official punishment The State chooses to impose when and how they choose to do it.

What's been happening are coordinated attacks by militarized local and federal law enforcement teams against designated domestic targets, almost all of which have been characterized as "anarchists" and "activists."

It is a form of pre-emptive low-level domestic war.

Think about this for a minute, and think about it in the context of the Occupy Movement and how The State has coordinated attacks to disrupt and disperse the Occupiers all over the country. Think about it in the context of people who are trying to make the world a better place versus those who are intent on destroying it  or at the very least making the world worse for those least able to defend themselves.

Think about it in contrast to the general official disinterest in the heavily armed and rhetorically violent (and sometimes physically violent) rightist militias and would-be professional patriots and their fellow travelers in this country. The last time there was a raid and a round up of rightists was.... ???

In the latest wave of militarized actions against supposed "anarchists," reported by Kevin Gosztola over at FDL last week (but I'm just getting around to it), we see an expansion of the methods which have been employed against "domestic terrorists" for some years now. ("Domestic terrorists" in the lexicon of officialdom are almost all Muslims, anarchists, environmental activists, and peace activists for some reason.)

It's easy to get away with this sort of thing because the demonization of all these groups through relentless propaganda has been successful.

Some of the so-called "left" is just as happy it is so. After all, when the Authorities are concentrating on demonized Others, they can't very well be rounding up good "liberals." Self-preservation matters.

Note: targeting of the "left" and "anarchists" for persecution and prosecution has a long and ignoble history in the United States. The Palmer Raids were by no means the beginning. And for whatever reason, once Our Government got it into its collective head that its "real" enemy was (largely) unarmed anarchists and commies, not the rightists armed insurrectionists, they've never been able to shake the notion.

"Green Is The New Red" has much, much more.

Ché say, "Check it out." You could be next.

----------------

What rights? We have no rights our rulers are bound to respect even under court order.

 I think I'll have to re-read Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" to cheer me up.