It's way early morning and I phoneposting so excuse me if I'm a little all over the place.
TL;DR - It's enough to nip militant action in the bud, keeps the cops entertained and contractor money flowing but the state is
not prepared for general resistance.
>>2940680>So why the fuck are they cranking up the state repression? (Read: getting and practising with new tools)
<Maybe they're doing this to kind of get ahead of the curveI think you've answered your own question
in part. The other driving factors I cannot tell you for sure but here's my speculation.
>recruitment Not drawing in recruits but retention and maximising the effectiveness of fewer and less fit coppers by utilizing "labour saving" devices and techniques as well as giving state of the art tools to jingle the keys over the oldheads.
>contractsAn excuse to spend money and give people contracts for both equipment and training
>cultureBoth for the "prestiege" of the institution in general and for the egos of the individuals within it. I shit you not I saw a constable with a thin blue line aus flag patch and another with a punisher skull smart watch at a train station. These are the sorts of people who 100% want to larp as le ebin upholders of the right
It's also following in the footsteps of yankeeland, a favorite activity of any good australian pollie. Next time I have the chance to talk to a cop, I'll ask about their new toys and methods to see what they think. If I get anything meaningful and remember, I'll try post it on this thread.
We should also examine the flip side, what the police may hypothetically be up against, what they're
not prepared/preparing for and what they're
not doing. I don't think general, sustained or organized insurrection is on the cards. Rather, it seems to me that they're arming for putting out spot fires like small armed cells or to respond to lone wolf attacks. If they were to face major civil unrest, I suspect it'd come associated with organized crime and general hostility in the rural and outer metro, situations where dispersed application of force would draw a lot of resources, something I doubt they'd be able to sustain. I heard through the grape vine that even lockdown and the IMARC protests in victoria each coincided a sudden drop in retention among cops, such trivial confrontations! Even so, their responses to protests and whatnot have, for the most part, been relatively tame compared with their capabilities and international counterparts just as protests have been incredibly tame compared to the capabilities of the people and actions internationally. The
means of hard repression seem to me to be there but unused for anything other than projecting soft power, for political theatre. I recall an incident where armed swat guys in camo were caught randomly (farcical) in the bush by some enviro activists or whatever and the way I saw it was basically as something for them to do to justify their own existence to themselves and to relieve boredom. There comes a point, I think, where what seems like intimidation is actually a projection of insecurity on the part of the state.
>>2940681I disagree, they never justify shit. They have all these toys and pull their stunts to minimal resistance. Reactionary australian culture is already hostile to progressive forces to the degree that police violence is something to let slide without the cops having to do a thing.
>>2940684>Wouldn't that lead to the awakening of class consciousness and then the people justifying violence to themselves as a logical response to state violence, turning away from protest and escalating the class struggle?Perhaps, but I'd argue that's why their actions are relatively restrained and capabilities enough to target small groups of militant radicals instead of broad public hostility. They
know they couldn't keep up and avoid sharp escalation accordingly.
At the same time, however, class consciousnes is very different to reactive action towards state violence. Violence is not organized resistance by itself, the groundwork for anti-state activity is lacking. Turning away from protests only to burn up upon uselessly lashing out against the state only leaves the remaining and future protestors without the radical edge.