What does this tell us about the State?

The killing of Mark Duggan has been found legal. The anger around this case is legitimate as were the first sparks of protest and unrest in Tottenham (though what came later is another matter) in which locals mobilised around the police station. It is only middle-class white people who feel an instinctive sense of being on the side of the police. Ordinary people know what it is like to be stopped and searched by the police, especially if they're black or if they fit the profile of a 'terrorist'. It's not a testament to the character of individual officers - who may be awful or munificent - it's about the structural role of the police as a repressive institution with a dismal collective unconscious.

By the way I think the content of the ruling is not expressly problematic. What did we expect of the justice system? Even if the ruling had found that the killing was unlawful it would only serve to reaffirm the sovereignty of the state in its authoritative claims to legality and justice. For this reason I don't think there could by any just result as I question the authority of the state, and that is the fundamental question here. It's hypocritical to suggest that the jury finding the police killing illegal would serve anything other than reasserting the sovereignty. That may be understandable given the high emotions around the death of this man. But it is not the political issue at hand. Andrew Robinson produced an excellent couple of articles on Agamben's work on the area of exceptions in law:

“Homo” means human/man, and “sacer” has the double meaning of “sacred” and “taboo”. Homo sacer is defined as someone who can be killed, but not sacrificed. They can’t be sacrificed to the gods because they’re defined as outside the recognised terrain of valued life (there’s nothing left in them worth sacrificing; to sacrifice them would be sacrilege), but for the same reason, they can be killed with impunity.

I have deployed this concept before in the past with regard to the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of the US army. On that occasion I was prompted to write by the incessant gurgling of Douglas Murray, who took the predictable position that it was fine for the US to violate Pakistan's sovereignty and commit an assassination. I think it can be said that Mark Duggan is a 'homo sacer' in that he is excluded from the sphere of rights and liberties (because he's a violent gangster, to quote the BBC) who can be legitimately killed by the police. Not even in controlled circumstances, not a public execution that has been legally ratified. Instead the killing is legalised by the very system which excluded Duggan in the first place. Thus, the departed was included insofar as he was excluded. It is in this process that the sovereignty claims its basic authority, the authority to make 'exceptions'.

Kennedy's words on November 22nd 1963.

I've just been flicking through Ira Stoll's book on John F Kennedy. The Stoll thesis is that the Kennedy administration was a conservative rather than a liberal government. He points to Kennedy's record in economics, as well as in foreign policy, to support his case. This seems to me to be at least healthy in terms of historical inquiry. The American empire, if it is in long-term decline, should be at the beginning of a lot of self-reflection that may not be very pleasant, but it is necessary medicine. The way in which the Vietnam war is conceptualised is key to this. The Kennedy legend is a big part of that and has to be dislodged for a proper critique of imperialism. Not that I expect that, or should expect such a thing, from an intelligent conservative columnist and analyst such as Mr Stoll. It is not to herald Kennedy as a conservative icon, but to deal with the hagiography around him.

A good chapter in Stoll's book is on the day of the assassination itself. Kennedy was set to deliver a speech prating on the fortunes of tax-cuts (for the upper-crust) and the boost to the war budget. That was the speech that the assassination prevented. Nothing a peacenik ought to scoff at. Fortunately, Kennedy did manage to speak publicly and proudly of his achievements earlier that day. It was at a breakfast at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce that the President stated:

We have increased the defense budget of the United States by over 20%; increased the program of acquisition for Polaris submarines from 24 to 41; increased our Minutemen missile purchase program by more than 75%; doubled the number of strategic bombers and missiles on alert; doubled the number of nuclear weapons available in the strategic alert forces; increased the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe by over 60%; added five combat ready divisions to the Army of the United States, and five tactical fighter wings to the Air Force of the United States; increased counter-insurgency forces which are engaged now in South Vietnam by 600%.

So there goes the line that the President was a dove looking to slam the breaks on the American war-machine. I've already stated my position on the various theories around the assassination, and Stoll's book interests me precisely because I don't see Kennedy as a heroic liberal figure. I think this quote supports the line that I have taken up. Specifically, that the Kennedy administration was completely wedded to the imperial project of asserting the power that the US had gained in the climax of WW2. The Vietnam war is to be considered a part of the efforts to maintain this hegemonic stance and to snuff out the currents of independence in the region. In fact, the US more or less accomplished this aim by installing dictatorships in Indonesia and the Philippines while bombing Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam into the Jurassic period. The ripples off of these events would leave millions dead in Cambodia and Indonesia (including a genocide in East Timor) on top of the bloodbath in Vietnam. It was all for stability. You can tell it went well because the East Asian economies almost fell into an abyss in the 1990s.

Best Today Programme Ever.

The Today programme gave the floor to PJ Harvey to edit her own show to be aired for millions of regular listeners and anyone curious enough to twiddle with the cogs of their radio to tune in. The English commentariat in his infinite capacity for noise of a pompous and uppity quality soon started grizzling at the presence of John Pilger and Julian Assange on the same programme. It was a breathe of fresh air for those of who often find the BBC to be playing its role as agenda-setter to the lower gradients of Pravda and Izvestia. Here's just a slice of the incessant grizzling from the censorious and self-righteous primates of Media Britannia:

"But just look at who Peej has gone and chosen to feature on her special edition: Julian Assange will be preaching; Welsh wizard Rowan Williams will do Thought for the Day and the Australian journalist John Pilger. So, the line-up so far: the weird blond-haired rat known as Wikileaks; an abstruse, bearded lefty; and a tendentious, perma-whingeing bleeding-heart hack. And we're supposed to think, what, exactly?" 

- James Delingpole, The Daily Telegraph, January 1st 2014

"The Today programme guest edited by singer PJ Harvey featured journalist John Pilger attacking David Cameron and Barack Obama, a diatribe against the Olympics as a 'neo-liberal trojan horse' used to roll back civil liberties and Julian Assange, wanted on sex charges in Sweden, was hailed for his 'great courage'." 

- Matt Chorley and Martin Robinson, The Daily Mail, January 2nd 2014

"Pilger always thought-provoking but was he really suggesting that BBC ignore Obama's Mandela grief as he is a hypocrite? Or Sunni Shia massacres in Syria as Blair & Bush's fault? Surely, John those are what we call opinions not facts?"

- Nick Robinson, BBC political editor, via Twitter, January 2nd 2014 

The Today programme gave John Pilger a slot of little more than 7 minutes to deliver what must've been a pre-submitted, heavily assessed, and, ultimately, pre-recorded speech. Pilger is a renowned journalist and documentary filmmaker who has just presented his latest project Utopia (2013) on ITV. Yet the chattering classes of middle-class provenance behave as though he is some lone nutter on the margins of civilised debate. Of course we can't expect more of them than that. After all the BBC is the agenda-setting news power of the British soundbite system, it has to retain strict limits for the good of the Big Lie and the Big Liars. The 'unusual' episode stands out from the rest of the discussions broadcast and for good reason. Notice that the statement 'worst Today programme ever' uttered by a Labourite prat - and regurgitated from mouth-to-mouth by journalists across the land - therefore implies the rest of the Today programmes have been much better and fairer.

In letting PJ Harvey give a platform to leftists and a libertarian the BBC allowed an event to pass in order to reaffirm the rest of its coverage in its normative claims to 'impartiality' and 'objectivity'. Of course, neither is even possible - and yet both encapsulate the liberal tendencies of the media elite. It's the same as when the newspapers, and the BBC, admit a mistake in a broadcast, it is done in order to presuppose that everything else is in fine upstanding order. The fact that the BBC gave John Pilger less than 10 minutes when they regularly give Nigel Farage a platform on a full episode of Question Time should be enough to disperse such nonsense. Unfortunately not, and even Farage's own party run on the claim that the BBC is a part of an establishment to which it is a marginalised voice for the little guy. If we are not to trust the pretensions of the BBC then we are not to trust those of their immediate and most vociferous detractors.

The reactionary gutter-press can sound off about the 'left-wing bias' of the Corporation in the usual way to reinforce the strict lines already laid out. If the BBC is on the outer-reaches of leftist mania then why would you ever go any further than turning onto BBC1? That's already completely insane! This strategy boxes out alternative and independent-minded journalists who might actually dare to challenge the pretensions of the government, corporations, and, god forbid, the media itself. In its capacity as agenda-setter the BBC allows for oscillations between and around the centre-posts of left and right. The few deviations are about boosting the ratings with a spectacle and about reinstating the establishmentarian claims it is dedicated to asserting. It is an inner-realm populated by Oxbridge liberals (side-note: the term 'liberal' is not synonymous with left-wing or even progressive) who see themselves, simultaneously, as crusaders and insiders.