The world, as the very very rich are making itby Gaius PubliusI've been listening for days and days about how bad are those bad people in Baltimore, breaking windows and such. And listening to the media give honoring hours and hours to the calls for peaceful protest.And through my head runs the one message this intends — Violence belongs only to the State. Here's the terrific writer Ta-Nehisi Coates with the last word on Baltimore:
Nonviolence as Compliance Officials calling for calm can offer no rational justification for Gray's death, and so they appeal for order.Rioting broke out on Monday in Baltimore—an angry response to the death of Freddie Gray, a death my native city seems powerless to explain. Gray did not die mysteriously in some back alley but in the custody of the city's publicly appointed guardians of order. And yet the mayor of that city and the commissioner of that city's police still have no idea what happened. ...
And then he writes this indictment:
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.
Consider just two of the first three sentences above:When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con.Isn't it obvious that this is what's going on? That the violent State is calling "time out" when it starts getting its own back? And isn't it obvious that the media, almost all of it, is complicit in the "con" that Coates eloquently calls out?When the Social Contract Breaks from Above, It Breaks from Below As WellI've said this too many times, and I think I will be saying it until the whole thing comes apart. It's up to the rich to stand down. It's up to police to stand down. It's up to the predators to stop feeding on us, eating our money, our labor — and in the case of the torturers in our "security" community — our pain, which they give us to please themselves. If the rich are determined to extract the last drop of blood (I'm looking at you, TPP, and your presidential enabler), expect the victims to put up a fuss. And don't expect that fuss to be pretty.Response to the broken Social Contract isn't pretty, and it isn't race-specificI'm not arguing for social war; I'm arguing for justice and peace.But if our owners, the very very rich, and their enforcers the police, don't stand down, we may have neither. This outcome, if it comes, is one we will all regret. It took France 100 years to recover from this:Do we have that long? Do they? GP
