Re: I see Medialens have decided Craig's piece is "Ugly and Embarrassing" Archived Message
Posted by brooks on December 5, 2019, 12:07 am, in reply to "I see Medialens have decided Craig's piece is "Ugly and Embarrassing""
Never mind, just read their tweets and Murray's article. I have to say, I think Murray is losing it, and makes serious basic conceptual errors and shows a serious lack of judgement in terms of tactics. e.g.: Just as we are not conditioned to recognise the violence of the state as violence, we do not always recognise resistance to the state as violence. If you bodily blockade a road, a tube station or a building with the intention to prevent somebody else from physically passing through that space, that is an act of physical force, of violence. It may be a low level of violence, but violence it is. Extinction Rebellion represents a challenge to the state’s claim to monopolise violence, which is why the Metropolitan Police – a major instrument of state domestic violence – were so anxious to declare the activity illegal on a wide scale. It's ridiculous to refer to such civil disobedience tactics as "violent". It might or might not represent a challenge to the state, but not to its monopoly on violence. Such a description empties the term of any meaning. Ultimately civil resistance represents a denial of the state’s right to enforce its monopoly of violence. The Hong Kong protests represent a striking demonstration of the fact that rejecting the state’s monopoly of violence can entail marching without permission, occupying a space, blockading and ultimately replying to bullets with firebombs, and that these actions are a continuum. It is the initial rejection of the state’s power over your body which is the decision point. The Hong Kong protests and their actual violence are an attempt by the US and its proxies on the ground to provoke China into a violent reaction which will then be used as an ideological weapon against it. Presenting this imperial colour-revolution psy-op as an example to be followed is mind-numbingly stupid, as is Murray's idea that violent tactics in the west wouldn't be catastrophically counterproductive. They're just what the state is salivating for. The only thing I agree with is the acknowledgement that these are matters of tactics, not principles, but if he thinks they are even remotely plausible tactics, he's not living in the real world. Get a grip, Craig!
|
|