essay1

�Power flows from the barrel of a gun�

Mao

�At the root of the spectacle lies the oldest of all social divisions of labour, the specialisation of power�thus the most modern aspect of the spectacle is also at bottom the most archaic�

Guy Debord

�Did the pigs who shot first believe we would allow ourselves to be shot like cattle without violence? Those who don�t defend themselves die; those who don�t die are buried alive in prisons, in reform schools, in the slums of worker districts, in the stone coffins of the new housing developments, in the crowded kindergartens and schools, in brand new kitchens and bedrooms filled with fancy furniture bought on credit. Start the armed resistance now! Build up the Red Army!�

Ulrike Meinhoff

A police car pulls up. Stopped and questioned. Searched, I.D.�d and processed through the central Police National Computer. The phone is tapped, conversations monitored. Mail arrives late and already opened.

Police video crews recording every move. The police come charging, weapons swinging freely. Sometimes they come in special riot gear; helmets, balaclavas, shields and body armour. Sometimes not. On foot, on horseback, leaping out of armoured vans or unleashing dogs. The girl next door gets a swift and well-aimed truncheon blow to the genitals. Choking on the CS spray.

Police snipers on rooftops taking aim. Helicopters overhead. More photographs to go in the files.

Curfews and exclusion zones. Homes bulldozed. Security guards breaking bones whilst the police stand and watch. New laws and criminalisation. Friends in prison and paying fines.

Arrested. Sitting in jail on trumped up conspiracy charges. Bail is refused. �Underground political groups� invented to create a terrorist scare. Secret police sat in cars outside homes, watching.

D.N.A. samples, fingerprints, voiceprints and yet more photos for the files. Bigger truncheons, tougher shields. More laws, more assaults. A fist in the face for simply watching�

This is no TV drama. Welcome to the desert of the real.

More Orwell than Baudrillard, this is power and authority in my life. Thousands of us have seen this or worse. Ask the travellers. Ask the Irish. Ask the miners. Ask the blacks�

�Modernism� is still alive and kicking�only with bigger boots.