The Crisis of Legitimacy -- Updated

Protests over police violence and lack of accountability have roiled the country since the repeated failures of prosecutors and grand juries to indict police officers for the murders and summary executions that they commit. The protests and demonstration in solidarity with #Ferguson and Michael Brown and Eric Garner are spreading abroad as well. The movement that has arisen since the issue of police violence and lack of official accountability became the paramount social issue of the year looks to be growing as demonstrations continue to disrupt the routines of the comfortable and authority seems unable to cope -- except with more violence against nonviolent civil disobedience and hunkering down to protect their fortresses. How striking it has been to witness the police giving free rein to vandals, arsonists, and looters in Ferguson and elsewhere while vigorously attacking and dispersing crowds of nonviolent protesters or simply forming protective cordons around police stations.

Governments all over the United States and much of the world are facing a crisis of legitimacy, as more and more of them unleash violence and murder on their own people and refuse to conduct their operations in the People's interests.

Most clearly and immediately, that refusal is manifest in the continuing refusal to hold police accountable for their murder and execution of unarmed citizens. But there is so much more: the refusal of the Justice Department to prosecute the horrifying crimes against humanity committed by agents of the US Government; the refusal to address the issue of disparate and racist "justice" in this country; the refusal to hold bankers and financial fund managers criminally liable for imploding the US and global economies, forcing millions upon millions of Americans into poverty; the constant brutalization of the innocent; the lawlessness at nearly every level and branch of government; the endless warring against phantom enemies, some of which are the direct creations of our own spooks; the everpresent and pervasive domestic spying... the list goes on and on.

The Crisis of Legitimacy is the product of all these things and more.

The Crisis of Legitimacy is the result of years and years of failed institutions, failed policies, and the absence of the rule of law.

It has come to a head with the current wave of #ShutItDown and #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations.

Everywhere we turn, the Powers That Be and their agents react to the demands of the People with violence and contempt. The protests only grow. The inconveniences only grow. There will be continued disruption until and unless the concept of "justice" -- real justice, not the pretend version that practiced today -- is restored.

At the same time, Authority is being de-legitimized. Police are routinely taunted and defied. Elected officials -- when they aren't hiding behind their barricades -- are rudely dismissed as corrupt and incompetent. The school administrators cannot keep students in class. Teachers join in the demonstrations.

And still, those in power insist that there's nothing they will do or can do to correct the legal, social, and economic injustices that they have fostered and that the People are now calling to account. There is nothing they can do but to crackdown even harder on dissent.

As they do, their legitimacy evaporates. The "mandate of heaven" -- the right to rule -- is withdrawn.

That's what's happening now.

Solidarity!
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UPDATE: The Tipping Point, it has come:

Today on the Capitol steps, congressional staff reminded us that #BlackLivesMatter. Proud to lend my support. pic.twitter.com/J5uuJgXNKj
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) December 11, 2014

It is now virtually impossible for police and DAs to continue absolving killer cops from culpability and accountability.

It will nevertheless continue until and unless the financial costs of doing so become too onerous...

Solidarity!