Another selling bout in the markets. Over here in France the markets has fallen 5% in two days. But politically, the working class reamain disengaged. The unions are doing their job very well. Our living standards are eroded and the only response they can come up with is a miserable day of action in October some time. the unions play the same role in Britain, of course. Sure they were battered by Thatcher, but it was just for show. They are as much part of the establishment as the judicary and the BBC, both of whom came under the Iron Lady's cosh too. Their principal job is to diffuse worker anger and to instil the idea that resistance is futile and costly.
I remember a day of action in the college where I used to work. We stood about on the 'picket' line and handed out leaflets for our cause. Some sorry claim for a 2% pay rise which we never got. A couple of days later I received a letter from 'Human Resources' (bless them eh?) that informed me they had docked my pay ninety quid and given it to the student benevolent fund - in an ironic flourish. The thing was, I only worked two hours the strike day anyway. The union boss shrugged and said 'So it goes.' We got fuckus allus, but I threw a sicky the next week to even things up a bit. A bloody good riot in the town centre would have promoted our 'cause' a damned site better, I sometimes think.
But then again, the state has a monopoly on violence. Just look at the events outside the Republican conference today. The revolution will proceed peacefully or as peacefully as possible. Or not at all you may sneer. In tht case violence will be like Orwell said. But in the meantime, the worker, atomised and isolated and pitted against eachother do what exactly? Just wait and become passive, smile and accept it? Surely not. . We can smile with satisfaction as the stock market plummets - I sincerely hope that capitulation sets in, but without any political mobilisation it could fall to zero and the joe on the street will be forced to pick up the bill, work harder and face wage cuts and things will drag on and on and on with no change in sight. People's anger will grow. Slowly at first. It'll manifest itself in a general bad temper. Alex Chancellor in The Guardian, ever at the cutting edge, (ie not) reckons that the looming recession will make people better mannered and less up-tight. Of course it won't. When you can't pay your bills or have a good time on the peanut wages you're on, people will get pissed off. That sentiment will find expression somehow. given the lack of representation, the lack of democracy and the lack of respect for working people, eventually you have to say whatever people do in response is justified. After all, I for one am not going to listen to lessons on peaceful protest from a shower of shits in power that have unleashed endless war in the middle east. And all states have tooled themselves up for just this kind of confrontation.
They have given their police forces up to date horrible weapons and train their henchmen for all kinds of public disorder situations. They know what's coming. It isn't going to be pretty. But those on the left are going to have to face it. There is going to be trouble ahead. It's no use hiding behind purist declarations of non violence. The fuckers we are up against will have no consciense problems with using live rounds on furious demonstrators. I'm a pacifist but I'm not a defeatist. As the crisis deepens, the violence will come from the state in all sorts of ways - wage cuts, price hikes and forced work programmes they're all forms of violence. In the end its their political violence against ours. In the up coming struggles you take sides and stick with it no matter what. Fuck the fucking fuckers and their stinking fucking stock market.
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