The Rise of the Police State and the Absence of Mass Opposition

[Os Cangaceiros]

Written from a liberal perspective, but still interesting...brings up a topic I've often wondered myself.

One of the most significant political developments in recent US history has been the virtually unchallenged rise of the police state. Despite the vast expansion of the police powers of the Executive Branch of government, the extraordinary growth of an entire panoply of repressive agencies, with hundreds of thousands of personnel, and enormous public and secret budgets and the vast scope of police state surveillance, including the acknowledged monitoring of over 40 million US citizens and residents, no mass pro-democracy movement has emerged to confront the powers and prerogatives or even protest the investigations of the police state.

In the early fifties, when the McCarthyite purges were accompanied by restrictions on free speech, compulsory loyalty oaths and congressional ‘witch hunt’ investigations of public officials, cultural figures, intellectuals, academics and trade unionists, such police state measures provoked widespread public debate and protests and even institutional resistance. By the end of the 1950’s, mass demonstrations were held at the sites of the public hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in San Francisco (1960) and elsewhere, and major civil rights movements arose to challenge the racially segregated South, the compliant Federal government, and the terrorist racist death squads of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley (1964) ignited nationwide mass demonstrations against the authoritarian-style university governance.


The police state incubated during the first years of the Cold War was challenged by mass movements pledged to retain or regain democratic freedoms and civil rights.

Key to understanding the rise of mass movements for democratic freedoms was their fusion with broader social and cultural movements: democratic freedoms were linked to the struggle for racial equality; free speech was necessary in order to organize a mass movement against the imperialist US Indo-China wars and widespread racial segregation; the shutting down of Congressional ‘witch hunts’ and purges opened up the cultural sphere to new and critical voices and revitalized the trade unions and professional associations. All were seen as critical to protecting hard-won workers’ rights and social advances.

In the face of mass opposition, many of the overt police state tactics of the 1950’s went ‘underground’ and were replaced by covert operations; selective state violence against individuals replaced mass purges. The popular pro-democracy movements strengthened civil society and public hearings exposed and weakened the police state apparatus, but it did not go away. However, from the early 1980’s to the present, especially over the past 20 years, the police state has expanded dramatically, penetrating all aspects of civil society while arousing no sustained or even sporadic mass opposition.

The question is why has the police state grown and even exceeded the boundaries of previous periods of repression and yet not provoked any sustained mass opposition? This is in contrast to the broad-based pro-democracy movements of the mid to late 20th century. That a massive and growing police state apparatus exists is beyond doubt: one simply has to look up the published records of personnel (both public agents and private contractors), the huge budgets and scores of agencies involved in internal spying on tens of millions of American citizens and residents. The scope and depth of arbitrary police state measures taken include arbitrary detention and interrogations, entrapment, and the blacklisting of hundreds of thousands of US citizens. Presidential fiats have established the framework for the assassination of US citizens and residents, military tribunals, detention camps, and the seizure of private property.

Yet as these gross violations of the constitutional order have taken place and as each police state agency has further eroded our democratic freedoms, there have been no massive “anti-Homeland Security” movements, no campus Free Speech movements. There are only the isolated and courageous voices of specialized ‘civil liberties’ and constitutional freedoms activists and organizations, which speak out and raise legal challenges to the abuse, but have virtually no mass base and no objective coverage in the mass media.

To address this issue of mass inactivity before the rise of the police state, we will approach the topic from two angles.

We will describe how the organizers and operatives have structured the police state and how that has neutralized mass responses.

We will then discuss the ‘meaning’ of non-activity, setting out several hypotheses about the underlying motives and behavior of the ‘passive mass’ of citizens.

etc

http://anarchistnews.org/content/ris...ass-opposition

[Hexen]

First of all any talk of 'civil liberties' are missing the point, only the bourgeoisie (the ones who owns and control the means of production) has civil liberties while the poor/working classes/share holders don't and they never did and never will. That's how the Capitalist system works and how it is designed.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Uh, yeah, as I said, it's written by someone who is not a communist.

I don't want this to get bogged down into a discussion about the author's "theoretical errors" or whatever. I'm interested in a discussion about why there hasn't been a backlash against the police state in the USA. That's the main crux of the article. I guess the easiest explanation is that most people haven't come face-to-face with the reality of it yet.

[bcbm]

there is a very strong culture of 'well if the police were doing this, the people must have deserved it' among some people in the us i think so they dont really see it in perspective

[TheGodlessUtopian]

One also has to take into consideration the awesome and overwhelming effect of the media; the one which portrays everything in the light of "terrorism" and how such draconian laws are needed to ensure safety. The American public, after all, never had the most piercing lens when it came to current events.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

A vig part of the problem is the Deomcratic Party and the US media, both of which serve to shield Obama and the rapidly growing US national security state. IF this was happening under the Bush Administration there would be howls of protest.The Dems are great at demobilizing the population.

This is why its likely that Obama will be reelected. The ruling class sees him as the one most able to hold things together rather than the absurd and hapless Romney.

[Zealot]

There is no "police state", only a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Using slogans such as that detracts from the real issue and gives people the idea that weakening the executive will lead to a better democracy, which is a reformist approach in essence.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

There are different gradations and levels of freedom and social control and repression of the working class in bourgeois democracies though. Russia, Columbia, and Egypt are bourgeois democracies. The ability to organize is different,

[Os Cangaceiros]

There is no "police state", only a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Using slogans such as that detracts from the real issue and gives people the idea that weakening the executive will lead to a better democracy, which is a reformist approach in essence.

LR pretty much already answered this post sufficiently, but I'll chime in: while there isn't much in the way of fundamental economic differences between, say, a brutal fascist dictatorship and a liberal democratic republic, there sure as hell is a big difference between a communist's ability to organize or even survive in said nations.

Ask an Argentinian communist who was alive and active in politics during the late 70's (the military junta years) if there's absolutely no meaningful difference as it relates to politics vis-a-vis levels of state repression. There sure as hell is, and that's why this topic is important.

[Zealot]

LR pretty much already answered this post sufficiently, but I'll chime in: while there isn't much in the way of fundamental economic differences between, say, a brutal fascist dictatorship and a liberal democratic republic, there sure as hell is a big difference between a communist's ability to organize or even survive in said nations.

Ask an Argentinian communist who was alive and active in politics during the late 70's (the military junta years) if there's absolutely no meaningful difference as it relates to politics vis-a-vis levels of state repression. There sure as hell is, and that's why this topic is important.

I agree with most of that. I'm not denying that there are different degrees of repression in capitalist countries and this article is specifically about the US; not Argentina, Russia, Columbia, or Egypt. The problem is when people target the "police state" rather than the specific class (i.e. the bourgeoisie) that upholds this police state. In my opinion, this specific type of sloganeering detracts from the class struggle and hides what the real problem is because, as I noted above, it can give people the impression that democracy will be fixed once the bureaucratic executive apparatus is reformed, which hides the fact that class warfare is being waged against them. Comrades in the United States, more than anywhere else, should be raising awareness of the *class struggle* rather than campaigning with this "police state" business.

As you can see from the article itself, they are not specifically targeting the entire system that gave rise to the police state. They are not attempting to build class consciousness but are attempting to build a "pro-democracy movement" to "confront the powers and prerogatives or even protest the investigations of the police state." It goes on to say that "The police state incubated during the first years of the Cold War was challenged by mass movements pledged to retain or regain democratic freedoms and civil rights." Of course, since it was written by liberals I wouldn't expect anything else but it does demonstrate that the "police state" slogans are often tied into reformism. We have our own things to bring to people's attention i.e. imperialism and the class struggle.

[x-punk]

Its not just in the US but in the UK too. I have been banging on for years to my friends about the increasing levels of govt intervention and control in our lives but its hard trying to convince them. Most people I have spoke to refuse to accept the connection between the bourgeoisie and the state, often claiming its just conspiracy nonsense and the state is representative of the people because its a democracy. In addition, many seem to have deified the state to the stage they accept its mandate without question because they see it as the 'right' and 'good' thing to do.

Thankfully recent events such as the financial turmoil and the ineptitude of the current tory govt are starting to make people think differently about this.

I know this is just anecdotal but I thought i would share anyway.