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    Re: Ian: add into the pondering that key moment that Chris Hedges describes so vividly, because he was Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on February 25, 2019, 11:35 am, in reply to "Re: Ian: add into the pondering that key moment that Chris Hedges describes so vividly, because he was"

    Hi Rhis, you said: 'And now we're in an interim time where descents into gang-rule and outright warlordism are - jn JMGreer's cyclical-historian's reckoning - likely to experience one of their periodic upswings, as usual in historically-disturbed times, especially times of decreasing prosperity.'

    I like that saying: 'the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed'. Applied to the police or military it might mean that for some people they still provide an apparently valuable service and are seen as legitimate, whereas for others they are obvious source of day-to-day oppression. Isn't it weird that for lots of people in the UK there is still a clear-cut difference between 'legitimate' state law enforcement and the mafia/vigilante justice meted out by 'gangs' and 'warlords'. Both are using violence or the threat of violence to achieve their purposes, it just seems to be a case of whether the mass of people under their governance feel that they are being served, or have a say themselves in how that policing gets done. Enough people within the imperial centers still apparently respect the Rule of Law and all the fictions around it to keep the state apparatus going with some kind of popular mandate, but I think that bubble's going to burst surprisingly soon as more and more people find that their taxes aren't paying for services, but rather their own oppression and immiseration. I'd hazard a guess that it's already that way for many nonwhite people, immigrants, the disabled, activists and dissidents challenging power, and other marginalised groups. How soon before the middle classes join them? (And yes, there's that part of revolutions when the police / armed forces join or even lead the struggle, but I'll believe it when I see over here! The gilet jaunes I saw were chanting 'la police avec nous' but to no avail so far...)

    Not that I think that warlordism will work out any better! I have a vague memory about Hezbollah gaining their popularity in Lebanon by showing up to towns that had been bombed out by the Israelis and spreading money and humanitarian supplies about. Point being that people will latch onto any kind of stabilising force during a crisis, government-organised or otherwise.

    'I wish I believed that anarchical self-government was feasible in mass societies going through such upheavals; I'd much prefer that we should do things in that ancient, instinctually-programmed way.' - yeah, I doubt it's possible in large scale societies. The dominant culture emerged precisely through this process of deliberately erasing place-based traditions, laws, religions etc and imposing globalised standards - the 'one right way to live' that Dan Quinn described - so it's difficult to see how it can be devolved back to something that's locally appropriate. Probably worth plugging for that scarcity socialism in any case because we'll need to keep things as humane as possible as we go deeper through the phases of collapse, ie: before it becomes possible again to breathe life into those fundamental patterns of human community relations.

    Meanwhile, how's about those Sharia Courts in Birmingham? I hear Muslim communities are taking the law into their own hands and don't even bother getting the police involved*. Makes me sick, I tell thee!

    cheers,
    I

    * - ‘There are some communities born under other skies who will not involve the police at all. I am reluctant to name the communities in question, but there are communities from other cultures who would prefer to police themselves.

    There are cities in the Midlands where the police never go because they are never called. They never hear of any trouble because the community deals with that on its own.

    It’s not that the police are afraid to go into these areas or don’t want to go into those areas,’ he said. ‘But if the police don’t get calls for help then, of course, they won’t know what’s going on.’ - Tom Wilson, chief inspector of police in 2014

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2541635/Murders-rapes-going-unreported-no-zones-police-minority-communities-launch-justice-systems.html#ixzz2qkO3K6uI

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