This is off topic it may seem, but it is not if you believe like I do that the destabilization of society is a strategy to keep selling fossil fuels. After all the Koch Brothers are funding Trump, and they are not telling him to quite or make some kind of peace. In fact using fossil fuels is kind of a redneck thing, as is racism and blowing black smoke into Tesla driver’s faces.
Demonstrations are turning increasingly violent, all across the world, when they are anti-fossil, anti-banking, and fossil and banking have their own security details, heavily armed in the US to guard the KeystoneXL pipeline for instance..
Up until now the violence seemed to be meant to hurt the image of the protesters. The Yellow Vest semi-climate protests where stained by the violence. Cops in France where aiming for the eyes, more than 47 people lost sight in one eye. But it seems we are seeing a new attitude, which is more in line with the bullying governments (which is not really applicable to Germany although people are expected to behave there).
During the ‘Occupy Wallstreet’ days it came to light that Goldman Sachs had made a big donation to the NYPD. It seems that police department discovered the value of its protection. Of course we would never compare this to the business of Vito Corleone, but there are shadows, also in other police forces, in Britain for example, who’s police force also trains repressigve regimes. It seems we have corporate keepers not law enforcement. In Holland it is widely announced crimes are not solved. Why?
I think there should be no demonstrations. Why expose yourself publicly to infiltration and police violence. Of course there is no way to prevent some actions except by being in the way. This has worked with fracking protests in Britain. Then if people are getting in the way, what is the police thinking? This is a fight they can NOT win.
The whole idea of protests is to show there is a different opinion, or to show there is no support for some idea or event. You can never beat that down. It’s an idea, you can’t destroy it unless you destroy the person that has the idea. In general the idea comes from a developed sense of morality, in short, someone is going to get hurt if the thing protested against happens.
Now if he police go underground like they tried in Belarus, but also the US, where they kidnap people in anonymous vehicles with balaclavas on, or worse, run over people in their cars (this is something that some states are trying to make LEGAL!) because obstructing traffic is now a capital offense, this will have a response. An example of this is happening in Isreal, where settlers attack property of palestians at night, and do worse, like simply kill them. The IDF has to step in at their own risk, to bomb the same Palestinians a day later. We are all thinking this can’t happen here..
The US police force has been going off the rails for some time. They have been confiscating cash from people’s cars for some time now. Movies show that they are a group that protects their own, and this is not strange as they are put in the worst place in society, closest to other people with bad tempers and guns. Money only goes so far. They need to at least be respected to keep doing that job, and then of course there are ‘bad apples’. Being the ones to face violent infiltrators (and also supplying them) to protests is a traumatizing experience. They get stoked and enjoy the adrenalin.
The general cause of all this mayham is the financialization of everything. The money dependence of so many people. Many in cities can’t sustain themselves, but are not given the means to pay for what they need. The mayors try to reduce violence but the media are payed to drive division by the usually right wing groups that don’t believe in democracy, only in suckers you can confuse and exploit.
Right wing politicans are never democrats. They don’t believe in democracy. They should never be allowed to run for any office. Of course they say things people expect from democrats, so its super hard to filter them out. Good indicator is whether they lie, because as anti-democratic people they have to.
The police goes crazy because it is supposed to fight drug use but banks profit greatly from the drug cashflow and loansharking in bad neighborhoods. So they feel there is no point in maintaining a moral standard (at least on an individual basis). This is not cynical its the reality.
Unfair punishments at demonstrations lead to civil war
So what is a demonstrator to think? Two things 1. Go home or 2. Go underground. There is no point whatsoever to face armed police on some battle ground. No protester for a specific cause has the intention to fight with a person that can be his neighbour. Police are humans, they don’t like to beat the crap out of anybody (I hope). So if the issue is seriously enough now you have covert actions. These actions have to be effective against the thing protested. It may be for attention, but if people seeking attention get beat down to, it will be for concrete results.
What police action is causing to grow is the desire to do things covertly and effectively against whatever is protested. Maybe a group agrees to go to a gas station at night and destroy it such that it can’t sell fossil fuels the next day. There is hardly a way for police to prevent that, and frankly that’s not what they are for. The only means to protect against that the state has at the moment is phone tapping and perhaps preventive arrests. These kind of actions can escalate if idiots are being told the covert actions are against their livelihoods or some other lie.
The art of government is to create and maintain a peacefull and cooperative population. If you don’t know how (like Trump) you create a patchwork of alienated people that are deciding to 1. Stick with their own and 2. Make anyone that they don’t like go away. Some black families have decided to buy their own land and create a black homeland for themselves. This is segregation, Apartheid, because the leadership has allowed prejudice and injustice to exist. This was to be expected under dumb uncaring leadership.
I expect, especially in the less well informed and less economically successfull regions, that minorities will start to carve out their own niche, and will be fought by people who don’t like to give up their power.
I expect protests for widely carried moral cause to go underground and become impossible to fight. It some places this will mean politics yields, in others this will mean repression (places where the supressive impulse is already in the leadership). Holland has politicians with supressive instincts, total anti-democrats, and the more used we get to harsh treatment of people the easier it is for them to propose this and get support from other groups. The people are divided, this means a leader can now pit the groups against each other, based on racism, religion etc.
What is the solution?
The best is for people to spread out if they can’t get along. Deportation to another state, another address. This would have to be 100% transparent. Of course there is a financial component, and this is where I would say : Build renewable energy sources, then you have all the energy to do whatever you need. Energy is money and vice versa.
People themselves may choose to concentrate and separate. Blacks will avoid places racists and dangerous cops are, and racist and dangerous cops will not go to black neighborhoods. The level of intolerance is set to a higher setting, and this is bad for everybody who simply wants to live a nice life.
We think that it is the job of a government to give in to people who are ready to fight for their cause, if the changes they ask for are not harming anyone else (financial interests are not important!). A normal police force can not suppress true moral indignation. If it tries it will be defeated.