This Is (almost) The End

Technically, though I can't be bothered to count, I will now have done 365 blog entries, of varying quality. I started on March 23rd, day of lockdown last year. Tomorrow is the anniversary; the day the world changed. What happens after tomorrow, I do not know.

For now, there have been riots. Not in celebration of my achievement in talking shit every day for a year. But in response to heavy handed policing in Bristol. I had no idea what was going on until I read about it on Twitter. How very 21st century. I don't live in the city. I do support the protest and here's why:

The media response will always be biased and never positive. There is never going to be a successful protest that the media will accept. A few sandwiches in Hyde Park on a summer's day is one thing, but it will achieve nothing. That is the paradox of protest. The fight for women to get the vote, now seen as universally (almost) a good thing, wasn't peaceful. Opinions change over time. Protest shoudl not be concerned with what's popular; the Tories are always going to push this bill through. That isn't made more likely because of last night, no matter how the media wilfully spins it.

It is therefore all the more dismal to see the massed ranks of the capitalist class align on this. From left to right the message was the same; vigorous pearl clutching and pretend shock. As if years of heavy handed policing, austerity, and class war, hadn't and don't exist. We expect this from the Tories, but when Labour hue and cry it shows that they either don't get it or want to be part of the capitalist class and don't recognise the reality.

Some people complain and say that this is just doing the Tories' job for them. This is dangerous and circular reasoning. They argue that it makes the case for the bill, when in fact it doesn't: smashing up cop shops and cars is already illegal. Do people not know this? Why are they arresting people then? What would they charge them with if it wasn't a crime? The problem is that protest is going to be framed negatively no matter what you do. It also conveniently ignores the role of the police in this. The protest had been happening throughout the today, peacefully. Then, when the riot goons wade in the mood changes. So who's to blame? 

This isn't about whether I should condemn or condone the actions. I have no interest in a polarised simpleton discourse. I see what happened as an inevitable expression of an oppressed society, treated like shit by the state and its agents. You won't read about that in the media, you'll just be treated to reportage designed to shock and make you angry. That's all the media exists to do. Billionaire media barons aren't your friend.