Sometimes the connections between history and current events aren't that easy to see. Sometimes, however, they're hard not to see – especially when they're framed in the context of the widening gap between haves and have-nots, the polarization of society between those who have power and those who do not, and the attendant implications for social cohesion and democratic governance.
I'm speaking of the moral pygmies otherwise known as the prosecutor and Justice of the Peace involved in revoking Alex Hundert's bail.
Better and more eloquent observers than I have already noted the context for this asinine, insulting and overbearing development. But it's not just about an organized and calculated campaign to criminalize dissent and make people reluctant to speak their minds. What's particularly galling about this is the smug arrogance of the state functionaries; they know what they're doing is bullshit, they know we know, and they know there's nothing we can do to hold them accountable. (At least not in the formal institutional sense, but more about that in a moment.)
It's the same kind of attitude we saw from the hordes of asshole cops who were indiscriminately abusing and brutalizing people during the G20 clusterfuck. We're doing this because we can, and we're not even trying to hide how much we're enjoying it. Arbitrary, bullying pricks.
So. The prosecutor and the JP: today's Little Eichmanns TM. Not much point in hoping for a meaningful institutional response (as Alex Hundert's case shows), but at least we can expose them for what they are: banal little cogs in the apparatus of repression, deserving of nothing more than our scorn and our pity.
Update: The Justice of the Peace in this travesty is one InderpaulSinghChandhoke, whose 30 years on the bench apparently haven't fomented an appreciation of basic logic, let alone the Charter of Rights.
I'm proposing a new feature for the progressive Canadian blogosphere: Little Eichmann of the Day, awarded to the functionary / cog in the apparatus of repression whose actions best combine bureaucratic compliance with an utter lack of any moral sense.
Just to be clear: you don't need to be wearing swastikas, goose-stepping, or perpetrating genocide to exhibit these qualities, and I'm not saying these people are Nazis.
Today's nominee: the B.C. Attorney-General's Office.
Alison has posted this horrifying story about Betty Krawczyk at the Galloping Beaver and at Creekside; I urge you to read it. She is a grandmother in her 80s. While she has never harmed another human being, nor has she even damaged a single piece of logging or construction equipment, she has been hit with eight jail sentences. Now the Crown wants to argue that she suffers from a personality disorder or mental illness and use that as an excuse to lock her up for the rest of her life.
Her real crime in the eyes of the courts is that she challenges the legitimacy of the judicial system to criminalize dissent, to punish protesting:
"I won’t do community service should that be part of my sentence. I have done community service all of my life and I have done it for love. I refuse to have community service imposed on me as a punishment. And I won’t pay a fine or allow anyone else to pay a fine for me. I won’t accept any part of electronic monitoring as I would consider that an enforced internalization of a guilt I don’t feel and don’t accept and I refuse to internalize this court’s opinion of me by policing myself."
Back to jail for Betty K. After serving out her last sentence in full, Betty appealed it on the grounds that the squelching of protest inconvenient to corporations and governments is an illegitimate use of the legal system.
The Attorney General's response to her appeal has been to recommend the court re-sentence her under the rules of "accumulated convictions", designate her a chronic offender, and lock her up for life!
Update:Cliff at Rusty Idols has beaten me to it, as has Chet Scoville, but yes, it's the old Soviet model: redefine dissent and opposition to the State as a form of mental illness and then you can incarcerate people indefinitely. For their own good, of course.
Using a combination of pre-emptive night-time raids, ridiculously restrictive bail conditions, and of course good old police brutality, the corporate errand boys are slowly but surely criminalizing dissent and intimidating citizens into staying home and keeping their mouths shut.
Yeah, well. Not gonna work, little Eichmanns. Fuck you and the horses you rode us down with.
So Toronto City Council has officially commended the Toronto Police for their "outstanding work" during the G20 summit. Is anyone really surprised?
As Chris Tindal argues, "I support the police" is Toronto's answer to "I support the troops." And, like the "support the troops" meme, the "support the police" banner is more than a simple declaration of political and civic sentiment. It's a strategy designed to reduce public participation and civic discourse to the level of bumper stickers and lapel buttons. It removes any need for reflection, for consideration of subtleties, for appreciation of nuance. In short, it removes the need for thought.
And more than that: it provides a quick and easy way to smear and demonize people who don't agree with you. Concerned about brutality and abuse and unconstitutional mass arrests? You must be soft on crime, you commie. Not only does it reduce a complex and constantly evolving social dynamic to a simplistic black/white question, it also provides a cheap and blunt rhetorical instrument for shutting down debate.
And then there's this story of Norman Perrin, a guy who was cited for bravery by the Toronto Police 20 years ago. He decided to return the citation in a signal of disapproval. Joe Fiorito tells the story of how he was received.
So, the violent-anarchists-trashed-our-city storyline isn't setting in quite as easily as the transmitters want.
UPDATE: However, as Jen Gerson points out, it isn't just about police tactics and civil liberties. The more the debate centres around that, the easier it is to lose sight of Stephen Harper's culpability in the decision to stage the damn thing here in the first place.
Public protest, activism and dissent are long-established and honourable traditions. From Martin Luther to Martin Luther King, no society, no matter how egalitarian and how well-resourced, can make progress without people -- inside or outside the loci of power -- who are willing to stand up and risk censure or worse for pointing out that the emperor is naked. The Industrial Revolution prompted class consciousness. Women's activists brought universal suffrage. Labour activism and organization brought us the 40-hour work week, the weekend, and benefits. All of those are under attack now; nothing new there.
What is new, and especially worrisome, is the obvious state / corporate goal of tarring the very idea of activism itself. Thanks to the narrative propagated 24/7 this weekend in connection with the G20 -- the seeds of which were clearly sown weeks, if not years, in advance -- it'll be impossible even to use the words "protest," "demonstration," and "activism" without thinking of burning police cruisers, smashed store windows, and violent confrontation. In the days and weeks to come, we'll be hearing tropes like "violent black-clad anarchist thugs" so frequently that they'll become part of the subconscious noise. They'll become the norms. They'll become so ingrained that any suggestion that activism or opposition to the G20 / corporate agenda might be justified will come as a shock, a departure from established and acceptable ways of thinking.
Separating words from their meanings has always been part of the apparatus of repression, of distraction, of domination. In the United States, right-wing operatives have successfully turned the term “liberal” into an epithet. That strategy is clearly at work here, now, with the endless display of violent images and the feverish efforts to entrench a manufactured storyline – one we can all write in our sleep. Violent protestors are used to justify a massive investment in security and coercive state actions, which then have a chilling effect on further public participation. No one will want to be tarred with labels like “activist.” How convenient for the powerbrokers orchestrating events. God knows, democracy can be messy and unpredictable and even interfere with profit-seeking.
We cannot meet the operators / foot-soldiers of the corporate / state security apparatus on their own turf. They'll always have more guns, gas, tasers, truncheons and testosterone. Our best strategy is to undermine the narrative. We can't let them associate protest, demonstration and activism with negative connotations (as is clearly their strategy). We must challenge the storyline at every possible opportunity. Undercover cops as agents provocateurs? Unprovoked violence against peaceful demonstrators? Wholesale suspension of our fundamental rights? Rousting people from their beds in midnight raids? Privileged access to G20 leaders for business leaders and other ruling-class functionaries?
This is a challenge that goes beyond this weekend's G20 events in Toronto. What's at stake is the very idea of public participation, the very notion that we have rights that go beyond the channels so carefully delineated for us.
