Tuesday, 18 July 2000
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How do you know you've departed the American mainstream? I knew it during my second year in graduate school when I read 200 books and watched 10 minutes of television. But had I not known it then, I'd have learned it when I realized I've been planning vacations, work commitments, and nearly everything else around the upcoming protests at the Republican and Democrat National Conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles respectively.
What kind of person plans around political protests? Most Americans do not plan around political protests, and find doing so odd. Most Americans don't know that we've entered a new season of protest in American political life -- the kind of season not seen since protests of Reagan's undeclared war in Central America.
What can we rationally expect from protests at the Republican and Democrat national conventions? We can expect
Why propaganda? Because there's already been a regular flood of it, and there's no reason to expect it to subside, and every reason to expect it to continue unabated. From articles in the reactionary Washington Times, one of which was thoroughly critiqued in these pages, to the manufacture of consent in the New York Times, to what can only be described as blatant official propaganda and misinformation from Washington D.C. Police Chief Ramsey, the American public has been subjected to a flood of official and media deceit, lies, and distortions. The protesters, who are in most ways ordinary Americans, have been described as too young and too old; too weird and too conformist; too diverse and too monolithic; too violent and as non-violent; as poor and anti-poor; as racist; as funded by terrorists; as outside agitators; as technologically savvy and as Luddite; as stupid, dirty, hippie, poseurs, etc.
The reaction of American corporate media to the Seattle protests alone was a vast, bewildering miasma of misunderstanding and deliberate confusion. During the World Bank and IMF protests in D.C. in April Chief of Police Ramsey tried to discredit the protests by turning a jar of vinegar-water solution -- known as a "Seattle cocktail," it's the only bit of street prophylaxis against the ill effects of tear gas and pepper spray -- into a Molotov cocktail. Ramsey, who's promised to protect and serve citizens, intentionally tried to turn Americans against protesters in the service of American corporate elites. The examples of such propaganda, both official and from the media, are legion.
What are the effects of propaganda?
First, propaganda obscures vital political issues that all of us face; for example:
Second, propaganda alienates ordinary citizens who haven't yet joined the season of protest from those who have. And that's about the only reliable thing one can say to distinguish protesters from non-protesters. The protesters as a group are not more or less weird or violent or dangerous or radical or even liberal than other cross-sections of average Americans. The chief difference is that for a variety of reasons they've gotten their guts full and can't take any more. Their ranks are swelling.
Third, and perhaps most crucially, propaganda functions to justify State violence, often successfully, at the level of popular ideology. In the minds of most Americans, if the protesters are all the things that the media says, then maybe it's prudent for the State to beat, assault, shoot, gas, stalk, monitor, track, threaten, harass, terrorize, and detain them for being ordinary American citizens who seek nothing more, but nothing less, than the redress of their grievances.
Why can we expect State violence? The State has always been willing to resort to violence to prevent citizens from challenging and overturning illegitimate forms of authority. At its base, the issue surrounding protests against (what is called unhelpfully) "globalization" is illegitimate authority. That kind of critique strikes at the very heart of the State, and with such intensity, that it is only by State violence and repression that illegitimate authority can be maintained. This was evident, most recently, in Seattle and in D.C. Only the direct, unflinching application of massive State violence was sufficient to turn back the protesters.
And, more immediately, the political leaders of Seattle and D.C. were willing to resort to State violence to prevent embarrassment to the host city, an issue that plainly weighs heavily on the minds of Philadelphia and Los Angeles city leaders. The willingness to engage in State violence to avoid embarrassment is plainly absurd.
State violence is problematic because what the State does, it does with prima facie justification. It stands to reason that illegitimate State violence is per se more problematic -- because more corrosive of democracy and freedom -- than non-State, that is, ordinary violence (of at least roughly the same scope and degree). The violent actions of ordinary citizens do not possess prima facie justification. In fact, ordinary violent acts are often prima facie unjustified. But as with capital punishment and police brutality, what the agents of the State do, legitimately or illegitimately, they do in the name of each and every citizen. And when State violence is illegitimate, when it's deployed against citizens seeking redress of their grievances, it inculpates the entire body politic in illegitimate acts. Even if in the Seattle and D.C. protests the violence done by protesting citizens is equivalent -- in scope and degree -- to State violence, the moral significance of each is radically different. And to assume that they were equal in scope and degree is to assume something unsupported by the facts. The State violence in both cities far exceeded in actual scope and degree the violent acts of the protesters (this holds even if one considers protest itself to be a kind of (metaphorical) violence against public order, a deeply totalitarian view held by many commentators and politicians.)
Why bilateral escalation? Why can we expect not only protest and State violence in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, but more -- and more desperate forms -- of each than we've seen so far? In Philadelphia, the police are (relatively) inexperienced, much more akin to Seattle than D.C. They are likely to overreact and escalate their violence. This is, after all, a city that's seen urban warfare against citizens with the bombing of the MOVE house. They are also likely to be individually tense, given the recent, well-publicized incident of what appears to be police brutality. Even if that incident turns out to have been a legitimate use of force, that determination may be made well after the Republican convention. Police brutality doesn't sit well with protesters, or residents, many of whom have been targets of police violence, misconduct, and harassment. The Philadelphia police must also be under tremendous pressure, owing to the needs of local politicians and business elites for a smooth, and non-embarrassing event.
In the case of Los Angeles, we're talking about a deeply repressive police force, prone to violence, in a city with serious economic, social, and racial problems. The horrifying CRASH unit scandal has stretched the bonds of civil society in Los Angeles to a breaking point. Judging from recent comments by members of the LA City Council, the police will be under serious pressure to quell protests by whatever means necessary.
As for the protesters, we can expect escalation as well. Propaganda and State violence reinforce in the minds of the protesters the justice of their cause, the opposite of the desired effect. But they also create additional reasons for people who otherwise might not have joined the protests to do so. Their cause becomes, in addition to underlying issues, precisely the State's willingness to employ violence against its citizens in order to defend illegitimate forms of authority. So every time the State escalates violence, harassment, and propaganda, more citizens grow concerned enough to join the protests, sometimes out of simple solidarity with besieged fellow citizens. In addition, protests at Republican and Democratic party political conventions have historically been crucial events at which citizens could seek redress of grievances. It's expected that the historical pattern will hold. Think Chicago, 1968. Finally, those who identify themselves politically as anarchists have become an easy target for State violence and harassment. These Americans may advocate a more fundamental form of political change, but they are no more or less violent than average citizens. In Los Angeles, however, they intend to maintain a visible presence, and it's certain that the police (along with the FBI, Secret Service, BATF, U.S. Army Special Forces) will target the anarchists, which, according to police reports, is likely to mean anyone under 30 wearing black.
In the short term, the possibilities of social change are rather bleak. It seems those in power, and those who benefit most from the status quo, intend to maintain the status quo, even at the cost of State violence on a massive scale. And the anti-globalization protest movement shows no signs of giving up or going away. Globalization isn't new. Putting profits over people isn't new. But the American wing of the international anti-globalization movement is new. Around the world, people of color, people of the Global South, have been engaged in popular struggle against globalizing forces for years. The protesters in America are late to the party, but they intend to stay until the end. In the mid to long term, the prospects for social change are much better. In the long term there are reasons for hope. The serious determination one finds regularly among the protesters, if one cares enough to look, is a welcome sign in this season of protest. It may even be reason for optimism.
See also Anti-protest Propaganda Intensifies <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/535>
This is A Season of Protest: What Should We Expect? <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/606>