Where there is capitalism, there will sooner or later be crisis. And where there is crisis, there will be resistance – and where there is socialism, there will be organized resistance. All the governments of West and East know this, and for this reason, everywhere the net is further closed, everywhere the political domain is restricted and the freedom of speech and of political expression further infringed. More and more the neoliberal era of capitalist rule shows its true face: in the name of liberating the citizen from the oppressive powers of the big state, it everywhere extends these powers and sharpens the knife it holds at the throat of anyone who might threaten to resist. In preparation for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, it has been announced that there will be “UK’s biggest mobilisation of military and security forces since the second world war”, and “during the Games an aircraft carrier will dock on the Thames. Surface-to-air missile systems will scan the skies. Unmanned drones, thankfully without lethal missiles, will loiter above the gleaming stadiums and opening and closing ceremonies. RAF Typhoon Eurofighters will fly from RAF Northolt. A thousand armed US diplomatic and FBI agents and 55 dog teams will patrol an Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, £80m, 5,000-volt electric fence.”(1) So much for the spirit of peace and international sportsmanship the Games were to promote. The nakedness of the athletes has now been substituted with the nakedness of these displays of military power. The British state is imposing these on a city which only recently saw widespread rioting as a result of the exorbitant costs of living, the enormous rise in inequality, and the behavior of the state’s police force. It is for this reason that in Britain, comrade Seymour was quite right to oppose solidarity with the police forces in their campaign for the right to strike – at this particular juncture, such a right can only be used in order to give the police more resources with which to beat the working class into submission. Not coincidentally it is in the borough of Newham, where much of the Olympic activity will take place, that a great scandal has recently erupted over the aggressively racist behavior of the local police. Petty repression can only persist if backed up by displays of power, so as to say: “resistance is futile”. Continue reading “Neoliberalism Closes the Nets Ever Further”