The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[garbon]

I think it is time now for the protesters to stop. At this stage, without clear aims of what they want to achieve, they will just become human shield for the looters, and it's not like that human shield is going to slow the police or the national guard down.

Satyagraha is the aim, no? Despite all the moaning about MLK the thing I've found really striking about a lot of the videos I've seen is how MLK/Gandhian they are. BLM protesters on the knees with their arms up still, or kneeling in front of someone still receiving violence. It's the Gandhi line "passive resistance is a means of securing rights by personal suffering" or self-sacrifice to obtain rights.

Otherwise, to flip your point around, the police face pressure and protests (and it needs to go wider than just the police - see the two coroners' opinion about Floyd's cause of death) after a wrongful killing. All they need to end the protests is for enough violence to occur. That's a perverse incentive for a police force. Either it encourages them to allow violence or to ramp it up themselves - if they can provoke a riot then the conversation can move on and the protests should wind down? Whereas if your goal is passive resistance then in a weird way it's arguably when the authorities are most under pressure and lashing out that you're best able to reveal them (at the cost of personal sacrifice)?

I'm also seeing plenty of BLM protesters and leaders trying to stop the violence - I've seen them forming human chains around businesses and lone policement to protect them. As far as I'm concerned that's the extent of their sort-of responsibility for this. Don't use violence yourself and encourage others not to, fully aware that this could lead to self-sacrifice but continue to protest.

What I mean is, this thing cannot stay at the stage it is at right now. There must be some clear, achievable goals set for the protests, or they should be stopped/paused.

Gandhi and MLK had such clear goals with independence and legal reform. As it was discussed previously, the current issue with minority rights is not legal, but cultural - the law does not allow for discrimination anymore, but it is simply being ignored on many many levels. And that is not an overnight change to undo.

So either the protests must escalate to overthrow the system of government so that a system which enforces such laws get put in place, or they should be stopped before they become counterproductive.

So the solution is do nothing?

Btw, I'm feeling deja vu from when BLM first emerged...though they also quickly had a list of goals.

[Tamas]

I am not sure what to do. But I think the present aimless protests that do nothing but serve as great soil for provocation and looters, will result in a reactionary victory, as usual.

[garbon]

I am not sure what to do. But I think the present aimless protests that do nothing but serve as great soil for provocation and looters, will result in a reactionary victory, as usual.

That seems uncertain. What was the reactionary victory in light of protests post-Ferguson and Eric Garner in 2014?

[Syt]

I just realized: Trump went to the church, posed with the bible and left. No prayer, no scripture quote, just a photo op. WTF?

[DGuller]

At the very least those supporting protesters would be well-served to pick their heroes carefully.  If you reflexively assume that anyone on the business end of police the last few days is a victim of hypocrisy when white guys could freely wave their guns around, you risk losing credibility.  You may be ascribing heroic political protests into the actions of senseless sociopathic mob violence that sprung up when police became otherwise occupied.

[DGuller]

I am not sure what to do. But I think the present aimless protests that do nothing but serve as great soil for provocation and looters, will result in a reactionary victory, as usual.

That seems uncertain. What was the reactionary victory in light of protests post-Ferguson and Eric Garner in 2014?

[Sheilbh]

Also I think there were two points with Gandhi and MLK - that's why I mentioned satyagraha because that was Gandhi's theory of passive resistance in itself.

So it operates on two levels. There's the ends: Indian independence, civil rights. And then there is the means: passive resistance. The point of passive resistance is relatively simple - you invite the coercive power of the state to attack you because you resist a law or a social condition. Then you see who can live with that, you basically show the world the force of the state that lies beneath the rhetoric of a "democratic nation" or a "civilising empire" or whatever else. You provoke the force by putting your own body on the line to reveal the oppression. The purpose of Gandhi's protests was never really Indian independence it was to invite violence or brute force in his language and reveal the truth of Indian non-indepdendence - that it relied on violence whatever the imperialists say. By revealing that he can then make his political argument which is for Indian independence and turn the question back on itself as non-indepdendence is reliant on this violence and this force. The purpose of the protest and passive resistance is to reveal the truth and see if people are still comfortable once they're complicit and can't turn away.

And for Gandhi, and I think MLK, means and ends are profoundly linked because the means always contaminate the means. So if you use violence to achieve your end, that end will always be contaminated by violence. Same with my local heroes John Hume and Seamus Mallon of the Norther Irish civil rights movement - who never stopped their campaigning or protests because of actual terrorist campaigns. And it makes sense here too - it's difficult to end a system of violence through violence.

In the case of BLM, their goal is to stop the police killing black people, for the police to face consequences when they do and for the cover-ups - such as that first coroner's report - to stop. What better way to get change in that area than to protest non-violently which, in this situation, invites police power and reveals the truth of that power, the coercive fate of the state as experienced by the protesters and the people they're representing? As I say I think it's why I find the videos of, say the people on their knees with their hands up so extraordinary.

[garbon]

I am not sure what to do. But I think the present aimless protests that do nothing but serve as great soil for provocation and looters, will result in a reactionary victory, as usual.

That seems uncertain. What was the reactionary victory in light of protests post-Ferguson and Eric Garner in 2014?

https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/565/5c8/5e4627443c3abec9eb35dfaa7cf1c3e01c-trump-with-bible-dc-protests.rhorizontal.w700.jpg

So the thesis is that unhappiness after Ferguson is what triggered Trump's election?

[DGuller]

So the thesis is that unhappiness after Ferguson is what triggered Trump's election?

I'd say less unhappiness and more like fear.  Surely it helped him on the margins, which turned out to be razor thin.

[garbon]

So the thesis is that unhappiness after Ferguson is what triggered Trump's election?

I'd say less unhappiness and more like fear.  Surely it helped him on the margins, which turned out to be razor thin.

Was it that or was it the mere existence of Obama - i.e. having a black president for 8 years that freaked them out?

[DGuller]

So the thesis is that unhappiness after Ferguson is what triggered Trump's election?

I'd say less unhappiness and more like fear.  Surely it helped him on the margins, which turned out to be razor thin.

Was it that or was it the mere existence of Obama - i.e. having a black president for 8 years that freaked them out?

Doesn't have to be one or the other.

[grumbler]

Also I think there were two points with Gandhi and MLK - that's why I mentioned satyagraha because that was Gandhi's theory of passive resistance in itself.

So it operates on two levels. There's the ends: Indian independence, civil rights. And then there is the means: passive resistance. The point of passive resistance is relatively simple - you invite the coercive power of the state to attack you because you resist a law or a social condition. Then you see who can live with that, you basically show the world the force of the state that lies beneath the rhetoric of a "democratic nation" or a "civilising empire" or whatever else. You provoke the force by putting your own body on the line to reveal the oppression. The purpose of Gandhi's protests was never really Indian independence it was to invite violence or brute force in his language and reveal the truth of Indian non-indepdendence - that it relied on violence whatever the imperialists say. By revealing that he can then make his political argument which is for Indian independence and turn the question back on itself as non-indepdendence is reliant on this violence and this force. The purpose of the protest and passive resistance is to reveal the truth and see if people are still comfortable once they're complicit and can't turn away.

And for Gandhi, and I think MLK, means and ends are profoundly linked because the means always contaminate the means. So if you use violence to achieve your end, that end will always be contaminated by violence. Same with my local heroes John Hume and Seamus Mallon of the Norther Irish civil rights movement - who never stopped their campaigning or protests because of actual terrorist campaigns. And it makes sense here too - it's difficult to end a system of violence through violence.

In the case of BLM, their goal is to stop the police killing black people, for the police to face consequences when they do and for the cover-ups - such as that first coroner's report - to stop. What better way to get change in that area than to protest non-violently which, in this situation, invites police power and reveals the truth of that power, the coercive fate of the state as experienced by the protesters and the people they're representing? As I say I think it's why I find the videos of, say the people on their knees with their hands up so extraordinary.

I agree with this, but would note that Gandhi had another goal in employing non-violence:  he wanted to provide the Indian people with something that would unite them, and thus make independence not the result of the actions of the few who had the means to employ violence, but the result of the actions of the masses.  That would make the new country something unique.  I think he saw the results of the Creole-led violent independence movements in South America, which ended with Creole-dominated governments, and wanted to avoid that.

Gandhi's use of satyagraha in the respect was as important to him, I would argue, as technical independence. After all, India had a fair degree of self-government, but it was self-government by the Indian elites.

[garbon]

So the thesis is that unhappiness after Ferguson is what triggered Trump's election?

I'd say less unhappiness and more like fear.  Surely it helped him on the margins, which turned out to be razor thin.

Was it that or was it the mere existence of Obama - i.e. having a black president for 8 years that freaked them out?

Doesn't have to be one or the other.

Sure which is why I think it is a mistake to suggest to protesters that if they continue to protest they'll just get the US another reactionary leader.

[Sheilbh]

I agree with this, but would note that Gandhi had another goal in employing non-violence:  he wanted to provide the Indian people with something that would unite them, and thus make independence not the result of the actions of the few who had the means to employ violence, but the result of the actions of the masses.  That would make the new country something unique.  I think he saw the results of the Creole-led violent independence movements in South America, which ended with Creole-dominated governments, and wanted to avoid that.

Gandhi's use of satyagraha in the respect was as important to him, I would argue, as technical independence. After all, India had a fair degree of self-government, but it was self-government by the Indian elites.

That's a really good point. I think for him there was an element of force being a tool of the British state. And you could not create India out of British tools or using other pieces of the British apparatus - including possibly their legal system or Parliament. I think he felt that satyagraha was an authentically Indian way of achieving indepdence that would not contaminate the India afterwards - like as you say the examples in Latin America.

Obviously the Gandhian protest politics which is extraordinary, is then quite different from the Nehruvian state building which did incorporate bits of the "British" apparatus - and I think did manage to make them Indian in the process. Total aside if anyone knows a good book on Nehru, I'd love to know - he's always seemed a fascinating figure.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I am not sure what to do. But I think the present aimless protests that do nothing but serve as great soil for provocation and looters, will result in a reactionary victory, as usual.

If the protests stop the day after Trump threatens military force and forcefully cleared peaceful protestors just to have a photo op, that will also be a reactionary victory.