tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post5136427619250305412..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Profits Over People: The Lie of "Routine" Tear GasDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-41412336220728505282014-08-25T12:02:22.050-07:002014-08-25T12:02:22.050-07:00Very fine piece. The ever wider recourse to tasers...Very fine piece. The ever wider recourse to tasers in individualized policing seems to me of a piece with the recourse to tear gas in the policing of crowds (images of which are becoming more ubiquitous -- Occupy seemed an inflection point). And the public discourse trivializing tasers is longstanding and probably a model for the present mainstreaming of tear gas. Tasers have been incessantly narrativized for over a decade as either as non-lethal despite the deaths attributed to their use or as non-violent (as compared to conventional weapons, presumably) despite the general escalation of violence attending their use, not to mention the revolting spate of "comedic" skits and stories ("Don't tase me bro.") involving tasers at once habituating us to their commonplaces usage and rendering their threat ridiculous. <br /><br />I must have missed any genuflections to spontaneism or references to anarchism in the piece. Public assembly and collective expression/petition of grievances to authorities are indispensable to democratic citizenship. Free clinics near public events or to provide basic services in failed states (and of course for me any state without equal recourse to law, universal franchise and eligibility for office, trial by jury, minority rights, sustainable public maintenance of common resources (water, air, topsoil, parkspace, ecosystemic support for urban settlement, etc) and utilities (energy, transportation, communication, finance, etc), lifelong basic healthcare, education, food assistance, housing, long-term unemployment insurance, extended family leave, and retirement pensions for every citizen is a state that is failing in some significant measure by my lights). And I doubt that's too far on the democratic socialist side of the spectrum for your taste at all.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-54369601377585680482014-08-25T04:06:27.393-07:002014-08-25T04:06:27.393-07:00I wrote a piece on teargas last year during the Ge...I <a href="http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/12294/resisting-tear-gas-together" rel="nofollow">wrote a piece</a> on teargas last year during the Gezi struggles, although it probably falls too far on the "spontaneous" side of the spectrum for your taste. Either way, the proliferation of its use requires a strong critical and ethical response from the left, just as all historical moments require struggles for the prohibition of more and more advanced (and inexpensive) weaponry.Ian Alan Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02154905986438150043noreply@blogger.com