This is a bit of a strawman. I don't recall anybody claiming that these people aren't dangerous. The consensus around here has been that they pose no threat to the state. They're a pack of bloodthirsty fanatics with a body count, after all. Of course they're dangerous.
The Left has been hollaring from the rooftops that Liberalism's inability to deal with the crises of Capitalism will lead us straight to Fascism. The Liberals - particularly those positioned most closely around the state - have failed to heed our warnings time and time again in spite of increasing levels of Fascist violence carried out against minorities and the Left.
Now, all of a sudden, once that violence is focused on the Liberal institutions of the state instead of strangers from the poorer side of town, panic ensues. And the state media is fanning the flames of that panic in an effort to exercise emergency powers for an emergency which - as far as they're concerned - came out of nowhere and was not an emergency yesterday despite the warning signs we've been pointing to for years.
As communists it is our job to be the adults in the room. It is our job to make sure that the correct lessons are learned from the events unfolding around us, not to feed into a hysteria which is clearly being leveraged to make the police state even more omnipotent and powerful.
To paraphrase the BLM movement, they have been telling people "these fucking cops are racists and can't be trusted" all year. Naturally it fell on deaf ears. Calls for abolition in the streets morphed into calls to defund in the NGOs, which then morphed into calls for reform in the media, and ultimately materialized as complete inaction in the deeds of even the most "progressive" politicians.
Then on the 6th, racist untrustworthy cops acted racist and untrustworthy and instead of standing here with our jaws open shitting our pants, we're saying "I told you so."
I agree with most of this, but I take exception to this:
The consensus around here has been that * they pose no threat to the state*
This clearly is no longer the case. They attacked the literal seat of state power. The bourgeois state always thinks it can contain fascists elements within its ranks up until it can't. 1/6 was alarming because it signaled that a not insignificant portion of the population is wiling to challenge the states monopoly on power in order to usher in an age of fascism and minority, undemocratic rule. It was a clear escalation. That's not something that we on the left should brush off as being insignificant. It's an important mile-marker. If anything, it should signal to us on the left the fierce urgency of now. So yes, while we have been screaming about state abuse of power over minority communities for a long time and the pockets of fascism that have always existed, we cannot dismiss when the right-wing mobilizes and ups the ante in an effort to seize total control over the entire state apparatus. If we can correctly identify the danger posed by the state when they abuse the institutions of repression they have at their disposal, then we should be even more alarmed when blood-lust fascists seek to seize those institutions with the express intent of expanding those repressive forces.
This is a bit of a strawman. I don't recall anybody claiming that these people aren't dangerous. The consensus around here has been that they pose no threat to the state. They're a pack of bloodthirsty fanatics with a body count, after all. Of course they're dangerous.
The Left has been hollaring from the rooftops that Liberalism's inability to deal with the crises of Capitalism will lead us straight to Fascism. The Liberals - particularly those positioned most closely around the state - have failed to heed our warnings time and time again in spite of increasing levels of Fascist violence carried out against minorities and the Left.
Now, all of a sudden, once that violence is focused on the Liberal institutions of the state instead of strangers from the poorer side of town, panic ensues. And the state media is fanning the flames of that panic in an effort to exercise emergency powers for an emergency which - as far as they're concerned - came out of nowhere and was not an emergency yesterday despite the warning signs we've been pointing to for years.
As communists it is our job to be the adults in the room. It is our job to make sure that the correct lessons are learned from the events unfolding around us, not to feed into a hysteria which is clearly being leveraged to make the police state even more omnipotent and powerful.
To paraphrase the BLM movement, they have been telling people "these fucking cops are racists and can't be trusted" all year. Naturally it fell on deaf ears. Calls for abolition in the streets morphed into calls to defund in the NGOs, which then morphed into calls for reform in the media, and ultimately materialized as complete inaction in the deeds of even the most "progressive" politicians.
Then on the 6th, racist untrustworthy cops acted racist and untrustworthy and instead of standing here with our jaws open shitting our pants, we're saying "I told you so."
People should listen to us more.
I agree with most of this, but I take exception to this:
This clearly is no longer the case. They attacked the literal seat of state power. The bourgeois state always thinks it can contain fascists elements within its ranks up until it can't. 1/6 was alarming because it signaled that a not insignificant portion of the population is wiling to challenge the states monopoly on power in order to usher in an age of fascism and minority, undemocratic rule. It was a clear escalation. That's not something that we on the left should brush off as being insignificant. It's an important mile-marker. If anything, it should signal to us on the left the fierce urgency of now. So yes, while we have been screaming about state abuse of power over minority communities for a long time and the pockets of fascism that have always existed, we cannot dismiss when the right-wing mobilizes and ups the ante in an effort to seize total control over the entire state apparatus. If we can correctly identify the danger posed by the state when they abuse the institutions of repression they have at their disposal, then we should be even more alarmed when blood-lust fascists seek to seize those institutions with the express intent of expanding those repressive forces.