The current season of protests in Europe started in England and to no avail.

Protesters got arrested, people were beaten up by police (who were then acquitted) and university fees still rose.

I think we need to rethink our strategies.

Sorry Dave, but it isn’t going to happen.

The vast majority of the population has been ‘depoliticised’ – permanently. We have become the ‘mini-me’ of the US, where this process has been evident for a lot longer with the predictable results that the country which gave us the Constitution, the Bill Of Rights and other such prerequisites for a flourishing democracy is now the plaything for government-by-lobbyist and rule by corporations who can suborn the majority of legislators to their will.

Even if a significant minority of people do take to the streets, the nexus between state power and corporate media dominance in this country will ensure that any protestors can be easily portrayed as ‘anarchists’, ‘vandals’, ‘self-entitled middle-class students’ or even ‘terrorists’, and that self-same vast majority to which I referred in the first paragraph will swallow it whole. This in turn will enable the state apparatus to react with (sometimes lethal) violence and extreme judicial measures against any dissenting element, safe in the knowledge that – a few legal kerfuffles notwithstanding – they will be able to count on the support of the majority who get their information from the BBC and the corporate press.

It worked against the disaffected youth of Brixton, St Paul’s, Handsworth, Toxteth and Moss Side; it worked against the miners of South Wales and Yorkshire; it worked against the ‘new age’ travellers and the ravers; it has already been put to sterling service against those who oppose the policies of the current régime. Why do you think it would work otherwise now?

Besides, if push came to shove, just manufacture a Royal Occasion or commission yet another series of I’m An X-Celebrity, Get Me My Publicity Agent, and you can keep enough of the population docile to neutralise any possibility of serious ‘unrest’.

I do so wish I was wrong on this. But I fear I’m not.

The vast majority of the population has been ‘depoliticised’ – permanently.

I’m not sure we’re talking about vast majorities anyway. While leftists were protesting in Spain the People’s Party romped home against Zapatero.

@BenSix:

Perhaps I should define my terms a little better.

By ‘depoliticised’ (and the same goes for the US context I mentioned before – in spades), I mean a sense amongst the majority that it doesn’t really matter what they may do, all that they will get is something remarkably similar. That is, there is no sense amongst them that the system itself can be changed in any meaningful way. So, they tend very strongly to ‘put up and shut up’.

So you have people in the US who will vote Dem or Rep when you can’t get a baseball card between their policies; similarly here with Lab and Con/LD (plus SNP/Plaid where applicable). The ‘image’ seems to be the largest determining factor in how people vote nowadays; a sort of perverse beauty contest where teams of managerialists compete to convince the electorate that they can run the system better than the other mob. There is no significant impact on the public consciousness by parties or movements who see that the system itself is the problem. That’s probably what has just happened in Spain as well.

The only way I can see that changing at all is if the sons and daughters of nice, middle-class, law-abiding, tax-paying, cliché-ridden people start getting imprisoned or injured in significant numbers. Even that’s a long shot, though.

As long as the telly, computer games, relatively cheap food and alcohol keep flowing to them don’t expect the British population to get off their backsides to do anything very much.

‘the People’s Party romped home against Zapatero’
I’d hardly call getting just over a third of the vote against a discredited ‘fake left’ neoliberal opponent a resounding indication of anything.

It seems like you can’t wait to see our streets getting smashed up, people getting hurt & others dropping fire Extinguishers on to policemen again, because it really makes the public think what a great bunch of people they are and what a worthy cause it must be.
As soon as trouble starts the protestors have lost, it wouldn’t surprise me if we found out the spies among them are the ones starting that trouble.
Which makes me think, yep, I’ll join a bunch of people infiltrated by the powers that be to get my name on a list and have them watching me with the multitude of ways they now have of doing so.

A new way of protesting that is easy for all to join in with is sitting right in front of us now, the politicians are making use of it and so are many others to great affect.
Look how powerful some bloggers have become, I mean, come on, just a man sitting on a chair in front of a screen has done damage to the government, no pain, no hurt to anyone, just pure peaceful powerful point making.

The protestors have to learn to stop pointless, mindless protesting and learn to use the web more affectively, that’s where it’s at, nothing else compares.
Start a cool viral ad campaign, come up with some smart new interactive web site, start an on-line radio station, there’s so much that would have a positive affect but without a single person getting hurt or a single property getting smashed.

2. The Judge – “The vast majority of the population has been ‘depoliticised’ – permanently. We have become the ‘mini-me’ of the US, where this process has been evident for a lot longer”

You may have noticed that the US has had this thing called the Tea Party. While you may want to believe this about America the fact is it is not true. Democracy is alive and well in the US. If only we could vote for our local librarians as well. As the Tea Party does in fact show. You may not like their politics, but it is a mass political movement by people who felt they were not being represented.

“Even if a significant minority of people do take to the streets, the nexus between state power and corporate media dominance in this country will ensure that any protestors can be easily portrayed as ‘anarchists’, ‘vandals’, ‘self-entitled middle-class students’ or even ‘terrorists’”

Do you think that using words like nexus does anything more than make people switch off once they realise the subsequent argument is likely to be specious? Protesters can be easily portrayed as anarchists, vandals and so on because by and large they are.

“It worked against the disaffected youth of Brixton, St Paul’s, Handsworth, Toxteth and Moss Side”

Yeah because of course they just wanted to chat with PC Blakelock.

“I do so wish I was wrong on this. But I fear I’m not.”

Somehow I doubt that. I don’t even think you fear you’re wrong. You know you are. Just facing up to that is too great a challenge right now.

4. The Judge – “So you have people in the US who will vote Dem or Rep when you can’t get a baseball card between their policies; similarly here with Lab and Con/LD (plus SNP/Plaid where applicable).”

The fact is there is more diversity within the Republican Party than there is between the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour Parties. Because America actually has democracy. So you have gold bugs like Rand Paul. You have open border advocates. You have closed border advocates. You have people who want to abolish the Department of Education. You have people who want to prohibit abortion. This is sub-Chomskian bullsh!t.

“The only way I can see that changing at all is if the sons and daughters of nice, middle-class, law-abiding, tax-paying, cliché-ridden people start getting imprisoned or injured in significant numbers. Even that’s a long shot, though.”

But we can hope, right?

I (stupidly) thought this site would have current reports of the spanish, greek, french… protests, but is just as gutless as the rest of UK main media. A case of ‘I’m alright Jack., heads in sand.

When the Tea Party movement sprang up in America, a lot around these parts were quick to pour scorn on it, and demonise it. Originally it wasn’t Republican but rather against the political elite in Washington, but as something of a self-fulfilling prophesy, with the way the Democratic media portraying it, and with certain rich right-wingers happy to bankroll it if it would move in a certain direction, it did become largely co-opted. To the extent that it became Palinesque I wouldn’t support it, but insofar as it called for a return to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, reducing the power of the central government etc. I agreed with it.

I only point it out to correct the suggestion above that America has been completely de-politicised.

The Republican Party is no longer the party of Rockefeller and country club Republicans. The contemporary version of the G.O.P. consisting of the world is only six thousand years advocates, anti-evolution, anti-science, gold bugs, millennialists, rapturists and the paranoid conspiracy theorists more resembles an apocalyptic cult than a political party. The party leadership started to draw in the eccentrics over twenty five years ago believing the party establishment could always control them. Unfortunately, recently the crazies are now the dominant voice.

If the Tea Party were ever just for limited government that would just be honky dory. However, they were demonised because they were reactionary conservative nativist fakes from the beginning. The elderly core were never against government spending, they were just against government spending on people other than themselves especially if they had dark skins.