A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #338 - Two weights, two measures (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Putting good and bad citizens against each other is an old method that 
has proven itself in the past. If capitalism has been an amateur since 
its beginnings, it seems to take on a much more assertive dimension in 
recent years. And there is no shortage of examples, on all social 
issues. Lately, the ability to illustrate this has become very simple. 
---- Firstly, if we focus on environmental and agricultural issues, the 
double standards are blatant. On the one hand we have the "good 
farmers", led by the FNSEA and the young farmers (JA), who destroy 
public buildings and block roads for several days (notably eight major 
highways providing access to the Paris metropolitan area). and threaten 
to invade the Rungis international market. Darmanin declares about them 
that these are "legitimate bloodshed" and that this does not require 
harsh repression. Moreover, as proof of the parliamentary majority's 
respect for this mobilization, the reversal on the limitation of 
pesticides has begun immediately. Facing them, there are of course the 
"bad" ones, wishing to protect agricultural land against concreteization 
and financialization. For these, currently mobilized against the 
construction of the A69 motorway, the same minister announces "zero 
tolerance" and sends them his new "centaur" riot control vehicles. 
Everything is in the measure... and in the interest of Capital.

Secondly, this opposition between the good and the bad, we also find it 
on questions linked to armed conflicts. For example, there would be on 
one side an intolerable and terrorist Russian barbarism, which must be 
fought with the greatest firmness, and, a few thousand kilometers 
further, another barbarism, Israeli this time, which would be, justified 
in the name of one's right to defend oneself, and therefore tolerable. 
Here too, it is only a question of "political-financial" appreciation... 
mixed with an ideological connection which is also beginning to show 
certain limits, so obvious, unbearable and indefensible is the carnage 
becoming...

The list of examples can easily grow even longer if we focus on the 
issue of public spending. Money always flows freely when it comes to 
armaments and repression. The centaur armored vehicles, mentioned 
previously, cost 800,000 euros each. The State has ordered 90 by 2025... 
the budget seems to be expandable at will. Plus it's "made in France". 
And after that, would tear gas be organic and eco-responsible? Same for 
the army, whose budget is increased by a snap of 25 billion euros by 2030.
Furthermore, it is estimated that the reform of "France Travail", which 
will penalize many precarious workers already placed in "survival" mode, 
should cost between 300 and 500 million euros and will be covered mainly 
by the budget of the UNEDIC, therefore by the contributions which 
finance unemployment insurance (but which are in fact "deferred 
salary"). In short, the workers finance the mower used to cut the wool 
of their social protection... the trick is beautiful!
If, despite this short list of examples, you are still convinced that 
this political regime that is parliamentary democracy is not tailor-made 
by capitalists to serve their interests, we can then add one last 
example. The State, which recovers everything it can for its own 
benefit, has no limits in terms of communication and even pits good and 
bad resistance fighters against each other. A few weeks after having 
criminalized and expelled the Palestinian activist Mariam Abu Daqqa for 
her resistance against the Israeli occupation, the Élysée announced that 
it would transfer "Missak Manouchian and her Resistance comrades" to the 
pantheon with a "solemn tribute from the Nation". Doesn't that shock 
anyone? Not sure that the resistance fighters of the Francs-Tireurs and 
Supporters of Immigrant Labor would have really appreciated such praise 
coming from a power so destructive of individual and collective 
freedoms, which passed an infamous law against immigration with the help 
from an extreme right heir to the Pétain regime.

In short, all these "differentiations", put forward by employers and 
those in power in order to take advantage of our lives as proletarians 
disguised as simple citizens, supposedly equal before the law, are 
perhaps a little sewn with white thread to all people seriously 
interested in developments in our society. But it seemed relevant to us 
to recall a few current examples in order to quickly demonstrate that 
capitalist society constantly throws an ideological veil over its 
contradictions to mask the true nature of relations of exploitation and 
domination: thus the rich agricultural owners become "victims" of 
demanding environmental standards, the internationalist anti-fascists of 
patriots, and the Zionist butchers of virtuous democrats.

However, we have no illusions: simply denouncing this "double standard" 
can also be a way of getting back in the saddle for the new social 
democracy which plays on radicalism, while gorging itself on the 
salaries of deputies , to better sell us his neo-populist crap, his 
green or inclusive rainbow capitalism, his (relative...) redistribution 
of wealth thanks to the "green hell" of the Green New Deal. We know 
well, having seen it come to power here and elsewhere, that the end of 
this system which crushes us on a daily basis will not come through 
simple citizen and reformist movements, seeking to make capitalism more 
acceptable, sometimes even by taking the reins of state. It is through 
collective class action against capitalism, its leaders and its various 
institutions that we will have to move on!

CJ South-East, February 21, 2024

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4095
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