Shut it Down for Michael Brown

Editorials

It doesn't matter where Wilson was standing, where Brown was standing, who was reaching for what, how big Brown was, or what Brown did in the convenience store. All of these details were simply manipulated to produce a moral narrative for a show trial that was already rigged to acquit officer Wilson in the first place.
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What does matter is the systematic pattern of violence, indignation, injustice, and exploitation that African Americans suffer under the American justice system, and the virtual immunity of the police while perpetuating this state of affairs. Or for that matter the extreme economic disparities that have characterized the American caste system for centuries - and let's not pretend that we don't have a caste system - which create the conditions for these gross distortions of the concept of justice.

​What matters just as much are the amplifications of these grievances wrought by increasingly dire social, economic, and political problems which contribute to and are amplified themselves by environmental antagonism and diminishing energy resources. These amplifications are in turn contributing to the production of increasingly hostile and militarized state security institutions, which exacerbate these problems and feed back into these amplifications.

A show trial is not going to put a stop to any of this. On the contrary, it will make things worse. It will contribute to the evaporation of what's left of public confidence in the court system.

People know when they are getting screwed. That said, it is very strange to see these intricate, choreographed legal, political, and media machinations expending huge amounts of energy to attempt to halt this inevitable realization. This is more a rationalization for those not afflicted to continue operating as normal, without initiating traumatic structural changes. It also betrays the supreme importance of engineering public consent in a fundamentally unjust social system, as the forces of violence are impossible to control, and expend great amounts of energy, probably far more than the organs of propaganda. Ruling by force is much more difficult and tenuous than ruling through consent – ableit consent that is won over with lies.

For these comfortable people sitting in their homes, offices, and courtrooms, it may be a temporary victory to see the courts - which may be still legitimate in their eyes - put forth carefully doctored arguments which side with the police. To see these angry shouting people in the streets, with a menacing air suggested by media accounts, it may just appear that the poor beleaguered police are doing their best to defend themselves from the hordes of barbarians that prowl the streets of US cities in decline.
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But as the rule of law continues to deteriorate, and the state is able to routinely get away with murder, putting people down in the streets like animals, this tendency will generalize. If a man or a woman's death can be rationalized away with frail prejudiced opinions and legal processes, the expansion of further rationalizations for ever more injustice is all but guaranteed. If you can't protect your most vulnerable, the concept of the rule of law is eaten away by public perception of contradiction.

Transracials

Black Lives Matter?