Sabotuer update 1

I know it's in France, and so not that 'fashionable' in Anglo-Saxon land - but the 'anarcho-communist' group that was arrested, virtually en masse, in a village in Northern France during the week is turning into a vraie scandale - a real fcking stitch up.

We here at REL are always sceptical about these kind of sweeps, as I'm sure you good people are. There's always something fishy about them. First, the people they arrest or shot or worse, tend to come from the least powerful sections of society. Evidence at random - those unfortunate postmen in London, crime, presumably 'Asian and in a built up area' - shot by armed police for no reason, the dreadful scandal of the De Mezenes affair and further back in history the Birmingham six etc.

Here in France, things are no different. Plus, the state can detain people with no 'due process' for up to six months. Second, the arrests always happen at times of social tension. The UK arrests over the plane plots in 2006 (another load of baloney) came when the illegal Israeli war against the Palestianian people was going wrong (ha ha!), the Stockwell shooting when the war on terror just wasn't being believed. This swoop comes at a time when the capitalist sytem is in huge trouble. The link is not a conspiritorial one. The state is just badly rattled at the moment and will react unpredictably.

Finally, the fishiest thing about the background to these arrests, is the manifest paranoia displayed by all levels of the state apparatus involved. "There are groups out there devoted to armed rising, terror plots by the thousand, mass death everywhere..... aaargh! Just do it! Nick him!! Shoot, christ, just shoot!!!" is either the justification for the occurences, the planks involved are so incompetent that these things will 'just happen' (in which case our great leaders are in more trouble than even we thought) or they are just trying to hoodwink, divert and spook us (in which case, that would be more acceptable - at least there is a semblance of rationality, there, on behalf of OGL's).

What these tales all have in common, apart from the major one of disrupting and ruining innocent people's lives (the innocent, of course; those with nothing to fear!) is that the state always gets it wrong. That is, assuming the aim of the pigs involved is indeed to get something (legally) right. All the cases above were 'mistakes', disasters, plain old fck ups. More sinisterly they may even have been instigated by state actors precisely for political and psychological effect. The idea being that arresting innocent looking people for little more than appearing a bit different, (in the latest French case, they were ideologically separate in that they believe in the overthrow of capitalist social relations), serves as a subtle subconscious lesson to everyone else watching that this is what happens when you stand out of line, when you think outside the parallel lines and when you dare to do anything out of the ordinary. So, think again, snuggle up to your state familiar and remain calm.

In the end, the innocent will be shown to be innocent. But by then, of course, it's far too late. No one is interested anympre. The current case, getting a favourable airing in the MSM, is already starting to unravel. The cops have no evidence whatsoever, I mean absolute zilch. But this hasn't stopped the dreadful state rag Le Monde form faithfully towing the line that 'the people arrested had links with people who once might have known someone who could have been a terrorist'. The citizenry in the village concerned, Le Goutailloux, à Tarnac, en Corrèze, have begun to organise a defense of the 'invisible cell'. The filth arrested ten of the group involved last week with the excuse that they had been seen near train lines, had some sabotagey looking tools and a copy of 'The coming uprising' an 'underground' book with a cult following apparently. Post to follow on that.

So if you have a wire cutter, a copy of the Communist Manifesto and live near a train track - watch out.

The terrible thing is, these people (who Le Monde snidely points out come from 'comfortable families') could remain in jail until they are proven no longer useful to the French propaganda machine/forgotten about. It's a truly frightening thought. Especially given the government's latest idea to set up an organisation that is to keep tabs on people's web site viewing and their own blogs. In the unlikely event that one of them ever reads this, I would like to say something articulate and reasonable to them - but really, considering the cesspits they've dragged themselves up from, I can only find the botheration to tell them to go fuck themselves royally with some sabotage tools.