The “public” interest has been made synonymous with economic growth and international competitiveness. Police, surveillance and military budgets are, as Nina Power notes, being increased in order to defend the “public” from vague racist threats like ISIS and “terrorism,” but in fact these weapons will be wielded against those of us committed to causing “economic disruptions” to challenge the order of extractive austerity.
Protest
Austerity Is the Only Deal-Breaker
Clearly, our creditors’ demand for more austerity has nothing to do with concerns about genuine reform or moving Greece onto a sustainable fiscal path. Their true motivation is a question best left to future historians – who, I have no doubt, will take much of the contemporary media coverage with a grain of salt.
Why cover up? The case for protest anonymity
It is important to remember that public order intelligence gathering by the police is carried out with a deliberate purpose: what some criminologists have called ‘strategic advantage’ and ‘strategic incapacitation’.1 Intelligence is used to understand the structures, sustainability and strengths of protest groups, in order to develop ways to undermine them.
The Establishment Consensus
Contrary to the accusations of laziness and apathy, therefore, the decision not to vote of those who profess anger towards the system represents true democracy: exercising the right to vote for ‘none of the above’ because, in frank terms, ‘none of the above’ stand for them; representing instead the ruling and corporate classes – the ‘establishment consensus’: the continuation and entrenchment of the status quo.
The Violence That Created Baltimore
The vast majority of “food” we consume results from unspeakable animal cruelty, environmental devastation, and the use of exploited human labor. This “food” contains toxins and chemicals and pesticides and GMOs that rain violence down upon ourselves and all living things and the system that controls access to such “food” perpetrates the daily — hourly — brutality of poverty. Every single bite you take contains the not-so-hidden ingredient of violence.
Kindness, Activism, Ego, and Social Skills
If you also need a reminder of how all this dysfunction kills any chance of social change, take a good, honest look around. While we bask in the glow of our “fans” regularly tuning in to our livestreams or sharing our photos or quoting our statuses, every form of life on earth is under assault with no hint of imminent reversal.
Eurozone Minister Comes Clean About Austerity
When the banking system becomes too big to bail, the moral hazard trade that started it all becomes systemic “immoral hazard”—an extortion racket aided and abetted by the very politicians elected to serve our interests. When that trade takes place in a set of institutions that is incapable of resolving the crisis it faces, the result is permanent austerity.
UK Community Farmers Resist Land Grab
ON one side is a millionaire land-grabber propped up by fellow rich landowners, councilors, a judge, planning officers, Freemasons and a recently retired police inspector… and on the other a group of gardeners of Yorkley Court Community Farm backed by much of the wider community. The siege is on now, which side will prevail?
Supreme Court judgment gives Police ‘extraordinary discretion’ to compile database
It is, in short, judicial approval for the mass surveillance of UK political activism.