Monday 28 March 2011

Tell the People: Vince Cable Advocates Direct Action

"No government - coalition, Labour or other - would change its fundamental economic policy simply in response to a demonstration of that kind."1
So sayeth Vince Cable yesterday, with regards to the March for the Alternative that took place on Friday. I cannot imagine a greater vindication of direct action and civil disobedience than that. In a single sentence Cable has affirmed the facticity of a truth understood by all who believed in the rightfulness of direct action.

Let's be clear. Direct action is not an intensifier in the dialogue of protest. It does not exist to punctuate our statement by saying, 'Yes, we are this angry.' Just and neccesary direct action must be both of those things. They are mutually inclusive. Neccesary action is always just, and just action must always be neccesary. When the state condoned form of protest discourse has been sublimated by the system such that its power is negated (as it is in our current system, where it is diffused along socially prefigured lines of characterisation and storytelling, repackaged as an old, powerless narrative), then direct action becomes neccesary. This should not be hard to accept: When there is no power in civil obedience, we must turn to civil disobedience to become empowered. (And the rider to that, which is that we must not accept disempowerment.) All of those who have been acting upon the rightfulness of direct action (and here I most definitely include UK Uncut, and exclude the stupidity of the Black Bloc) have held at heart the knowledge that civil obedient protest - marching and rallying - has been disempowered. Until now that view has had opposition from ineffectual neoliberals insisting that endless marching within state constraints is the only rightful form of protest.

As of yesterday, that argument has been exploded. No longer is this argument contested. Now we have a statement, a declaration from one of the central figures in the ConDem cabal, that the civil obedient form of protest will not be recognised by the state in any effectual way. It almost beggars belief that Cable would misstep so badly as to make a statement so blunt, but so he did, and the ConDem mask has slipped. The government will not listen to its people. We must disobey to maintain common power, and we must not surrender common power. There's only one course of action.

Now we need to get that message out there. It saddens me that so few people will even see Cable's message, and fewer still will grasp what it means. We need to push it out, educate people. If people truly understood what was happening in this country's political sphere (and beyond it, of course) they would be frightened for the future. Anyone who is not concerned about the path we are taking, nor angry at the exercises of power by these falsely elected ideologues, does not understand what is happening. Or, of course, they're one of those who stand to profit. We need to make sure people do understand, so actions like this do not slip past barely noticed nor challenged:

'Academic fury over order to study the big society'

One line in particular stands out:
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) will spend a "significant" amount of its funding on the prime minister's vision for the country, after a government "clarification" of the Haldane principle – a convention that for 90 years has protected the right of academics to decide where research funds should be spent.
This use of the word 'clarification' is deeply, deeply sinister. It's an omen of things to come. What other policies and principles might the coalition see fit to 'clarify'? In the face of such things, when fully comprehended, who would not be up in arms? So it's vital we make sure these actions, this information, is diseminated and understood. Cable has given us a perfect rallying point, a statement simultaneously sweeping in its impact yet uncommonly clear in its meaning. Now we need to let people know.


1http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12874631

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