Old school policing. In the pub. One of “us”

You know we’re pretty naive at pcbycp. We sometimes think we’re really cogent. Up to the mark. Witty and incisive. But we’re not. Just a couple of old malcontents banging away into the emptiness of the ether. Out culture of complaint is skewed in nostalgia. Yearning for a cultural construct that used to be called a “society”. WE still believe in the indisoluble rights of human kind, and wince every time we hear of another catastrophe from the gulags of the near north. Their crime, for being “Un-Australian”. 

But we console ourselves. The gulags are designed to keep us SAFE!

Protesters. RATBAGS!

Part of this nostalgia is rooted in the fantasy that our finest, the police force is here to help us. It’s the pinacle of the citizenry. To represent “US”. By those who “Uphold the Right”. To protect and ensure that society, we as a commuity co exist and achieve our goals, spiritual, humanitarian, material and philsophical under the protective mantle of law and order. And the police representing us, are and extension of the archetype. The familiar local policeman, gruff, stern, no nonsense, but an indispensible part of the community, at the footy, at the bottle drive , at the school gate as one of “US”. 

We’ve gone fully Yuendumu on this one.  The police force is a distortion of who we are, or perhaps a more accurate depiction of what we’ve become. Insecure, isolated, defensive, and bristling with snarling, contemptuous agression. It’s a reflection of us. And at the heart of it all, the deep abyss of insecurity,  the same force that makes nationalists out of politicians, hands votes to One Nation, and  invariably masks, (barely) the shit stink of corruption. What was that phrase about “absolute power”?

Welcome ROBOCOP. Are we really this paranoid?

In Melbourne the other day the cops were out in force. There was a demo on. A handful of white supremacist fascists (representing tail wagging official government policy), and a larger group of liberals proclaiming love for humanity, refugee rights and all the other stuff that registers in a compassionate society stood on  either side of th street.  Both groups allowed to express their differences and project their vitriol against each other is what happens in a pluralistic liberal democratic society. However, what shouldn’t happen is the outnumbering of protesters to police on a ratio of five to one. Who are they protecting? Do we need pahalanxes of mounted police on horses? Serried ranks, (they’re always serried) of policemen in riot gear, helicopters in the sky, film units, stern faced Gauleiters directing operations, and all of them, to a man woman and bicyclist, armed to the teeth and wearing black?

We at pcbycp are confused. Is this overkill? Or is this a symptom of society being KILLED? And why the black? WE acknowledge it was used to great effect in marching off most of eastern europe’s Jewry and other “undesirables” to the death camps, and we know it’s also steampunk chic as defined by Darth Vader. But surely a more convivial public safety law and order getup could be found?

The friendly old-school archetype.

If there’s a brawl, step in. But the scale and over-reach suggested one thing. The citizenry are not the pinnacle of society, but a business unit. And those who “uphold the right” are not one of us. It’s “them” and  not “Us” that they’re here to help. And their scariness and all the guns, imply they dont much care for what we think about it either. 

It’s the paranoia. and insecurity within us. The dark force unleashed. Move along move along, nothing to see here. 

Blind Justice. 

Keeping us Safe.