The Conservatives have Won and this is Not Exceptional

Friday, May 06 2011 - Infoshop News
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2011050610405

I'm an anarchist. I don't give a fuck about elections. I don't vote, or if I do, it's ironic. And this is not a castigation of my comrades who did not participate in the democratic spectacle. We cannot buy into the idea that is our fault, that our anti-state cynicism is what gave Harper his majority. The masses did this; the society that generates masses did this. Let's not delude ourselves that a few fringe extremists like us could have changed much if we had rallied for Jack. We have much more important things to think about right now.

This result has taken me by surprise. I started to believe the mainstream media, who assured me repeatedly in the last two weeks of the campaign that Harper could not win a majority, he doesn't have that kind of support, his government may even fall and a push-over leftist will be in the Prime Minister's Office. What the media did was disarm me. That I let this happen is as much my fault as theirs.

A Harper majority changes the game significantly. Let's not kid ourselves: politicians are all bastards, but they also have their differences between them. While every major party pushed for austerity measures during this campaign (even if they didn't use those words), it is the Conservatives who have an ideological agenda that goes well beyond mere economic pragmatism. They see before them an inefficient and morally bankrupt Canadian state; they see themselves as the only ones who can guide this country through the looming crisis. There will be structural adjustments. For example, in the first one hundred days of parliament, the government will pass tough-on-crime legislation that will require ISPs to do real-time surveillance on customers' internet traffic and help to fill up the new prisons they are building.

We cannot afford to rant or debate or over-analyze the "new context". Seriously, it is time to shut the fuck up and get organized. Over the next few years, CSIS and police forces will receive even more funding than they already do, and they will use these newfound resources to investigate, infiltrate, and repress the disloyal opposition with vigour. They will do this because revolutionaries and indigenous resistance comprise the most tangible threat to the success of austerity measures and the continuation of capitalism in Canada. We need to learn how to use Tor (to subvert digital surveillance), we need to build resilient solidarity networks to help us when state services and non-profits get shut down, we need to take the streets more and be more effective when we're there.

The election has shown the country to be politically polarized, and when you do the math - considering the voter turnout, considering the numbers of people who are legally barred from voting - less than 18% of the residents of this country actually voted for Harper, and it is evident that his supporters are not well-distributed geographically.

In the next four years, political moderates will tell people that this is an unfortunate result but we still live in a democracy and we should take solace in that fact, while anarchists and our allies will actively invalidate democracy in their neighbourhoods by fighting the police and taking what we need to survive as free people. Before we all get sent to jail, before the democratically-sanctioned restructuring is complete, we have an opportunity: hook up with angry people, make crazy and exciting things happen together, resonate more than the enemy does.

BETTER ANNIHILATED THAN REMEMBERED FOR GIVING IN