by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Every night the television delivers not only the impressive images of mass demonstrations into our homes, but more often than not also the pictures of the brutality with which the police, using violent beatings and tear gas, with which they are trying to disperse people demanding the self-evident: decent jobs, education, medical care, food, housing.
It is hardly impossible to illustrate it any clearer what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 wrote in the Communist Manifesto: “The authorities of the modern state are but a committee for managing the common interests of the entire capitalist class”. In this context we also have to see the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States and though not officially replicated in such a way also implemented in the UK that the duty and function of the police is NOT to protect and serve the public but simply to enforces the laws laid down by the powers-that-be.
The powers and authorities of the modern state have thoroughly prepared themselves to nip every protest, even the beginning of one, against the “established order”, however small, as far as possible in the bud.
The respective police forces, and some have special section to deal specifically with protests and demonstrations, such as the Metropolitan Police in London, are not only upgraded with batons, water cannons, tear gas, stun guns and even rubber bullets. Not only are in many places the number of officers in such units being significantly increased (all the while other policing is being downgraded) they are also being tactically specifically trained for this particular purpose, namely the breaking up of any protest.
All across the European Union police forces cooperate with each other and there are a number of bilateral agreements and regular exchange of experiences and tactics.
Such cooperation also exists with non-EU members. Only recently it was made public that the German Federal States of Bremen and Hamburg have trained Turkish riot cops for years and are still doing so.
In addition, efforts exist to coordinate all security organs at EU level, also and especially in the suppression of dissent.
In the context of this we also have to see the operations of the German Secret Services in monitoring emails and websites (yes, not only the NSA is doing that), and this also applies equally well to the UK, with MI5, the Security Service, and MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, who job is, theoretically, like the American CIA, to only operate abroad, spying on anyone remotely considered a dissident and speaks out against the system.
The maintenance of the system is all that the police is nowadays tasked with but the citizen still is not afforded the right of self-defense against criminals, not even in his or her own home.
Not only have today's politicians forgotten how to spell the very word democracy which they keep banding about and are trying to enforce on other people and cultures, they are making a mockery out of the claims that the people have a voice. It is but a myth.
So-called free market capitalism, and state capitalism, as it was in Stalin's USSR and elsewhere in the so-called communist world, are but two sides of the same coin and both are, some overtly some covertly, fascism and whether democracy is being claimed to exist and the people are led to believe that they can make a difference by casting their vote for this or that party or candidate the truth is a totally different one.
As far as free market capitalism and state capitalism are concerned there are differences as to the ownership of the means op production. In state capitalism, the form falsely referred to as communism, the means of production are, predominately, owned by the state while in the other form, which is basically corporate capitalism, they are owned by national and more often multinational corporations. However, in neither of those two forms of capitalism does the worker have any say.
While protests against the system by people demanding a change have been suppressed by the authorities for ever and a day almost in the current climate those repressions have become more violent and the police, who do not even seem to realize that they themselves are but part of the 99%, are turning more vicious on an almost daily basis.
There is only one answer to this and it is not a new government; it is a new system.
© 2013
