Police Won’t Stop The Harassment Of Journalists. Here’s What Can.
Continuation of this article: https://readpassage.com/police-wont-stop-the-harassment-of-journalists-heres-what-can/
Problems related to society
Isolation
The problem: isolation is at a crisis level and isolated individuals who find meaning and community in far right communities might feel like they’ve broken their isolation. Once involved in these communities, it’s easy to assume the tactics that others in the community assume, resulting in swarms and mobbing.
There is far too much to say about fighting isolation and it’s a very big problem. It’s the kind of problem that is pervasive and has thousands of different expressions across society. But to imagine that policing or a carceral approach to isolation is a solution, is pure fantasy.
The solution: We need free access to recreation and fitness, free arts and entertainment passes, free education, including higher and continuing education, interventions that can connect someone who is isolated who asks for help or who has someone ask on their behalf that brings them into contact with people who can offer support. More free street festivals and free access to public parks and camping. I could go on but you get the idea.
And the police? No one who is isolated wants to talk to a cop.
Extremism/white supremacist organizing
The problem: as liberalism is crumbling, extremism is going to rise. That’s a basic calculation that liberal media refuses to engage with. Like isolation, there is far too much to say about this phenomenon, but in short, when someone is pulled towards extremist world-views, he finds a community and then adopts the tactics and ideals of the community. This means that if the community decides that harassing journalists will get them something they want, there is always a reservoir of people ready to engage in the harassment.
Unfortunately, the only “experts” we tend to hear from about extremism within media are people who have formal connections with Canada’s security establishment. They treat extremism as a threat to liberal democracy and not as a symptom of failing liberal democracy. We never hear about combating the far right through socialist policies to give people what they need. Instead, the far left, the only political tendency capable of beating the far right, is considered the other side of the extremist coin.
The solution: there are tons of solutions, from addressing the affordability crisis to making food free, from seizing profits from the wealthy to everything I suggested to break isolation. There is also the very obvious solution of intervening with these people immediately. I don’t mean police intervention, but there should be peer support workers who knock on the doors of people who send harassing emails to see if they’re ok. They aren’t ok – no one who sends these messages is ok – and so they should be offered whatever service they need to work on being more ok.
And the police? The police have deep roots to the far right. To imagine they’re going to fight them is total fantasy that journalists especially need to get out of their brains.
Lack of mental health supports
Problem: there is a mental health crisis in Canada. While it manifests itself in a million different ways, a tiny minority will become obsessed with public figures, often because they are also pulled by far-right elements.
It is hard to find someone who doesn’t struggle with their mental health. Anyone who has tried to seek help knows that it’s nearly impossible to get the support they need. Of course, under these conditions, people will be pushed to their limits and fall through the cracks.
Solution: We need free access to mental health care, as a start. There needs to be non-violent intervention services, the ability for loved ones to get an intervention when needed and options that don’t necessarily lead to hospitalization. And more important than any of this – People with experience with mental health care in Canada need to be at the centre of these discussions. While not directly targeting individuals who are harassing others, it will certainly create a society where people who are struggling will have more access to help.
And the police? Well, we know what happens when police are involved in mental health calls.
US influence of trump and Fake News
Problem: we all know that Trump invented the notion of Fake News and it spread like wildfire. Pundits and politicians remind us of the influence that the Trump era has had on our politics. But let’s be honest: Fake News would not have been popular if all the aforementioned problems were not in place.
Solution: resist blaming Trump and instead understand what is behind the Trump phenomenon. Develop solutions based on what is driving Trumpism in Canada.
And the police? You mean the ones who will vote for Canada’s Trump the moment they can? I mean…
Problems related to politicians
Conservatives are attracted to the far right
The problem: This is a narrative that we see a lot and it’s certainly part of the problem. Smart Conservatives on the right of their party see a mobilized movement where their deepest fantasies are said aloud. There’s no need for a trial balloon when the far right exists. Their rhetoric helps to normalize issues that otherwise wouldn’t be spoken of, and Conservative politicians benefit from staying quiet about certain issues until they’re made to be more mainstream by the far right. There is a direct line from the far right into the Conservative party and, whether a Conservative party member loves them or hates them, they exert influence both directly and indirectly on the party.
This is especially true during a leadership election. Journalists are pulled into this in many different ways: through their reporting, being targeted by politicians directly, through relationships, including family ties and intimate relationships with Conservative party operatives, and through being demonized for what they report. When a Conservative politician says that a journalist is wrong, has lied or is being unfair, it isn’t hard to see how one of their activists would be pushed to send a note to the journalist in question.
The solution: there is no solution to this because it is where we are, and the Conservatives will continue along this track as long as it suits them.
Liberals need the far right as a boogeyman
The problem: the Liberals are not as far away as they want Canadians to think they are from the Conservatives. Their economic policies are similar and the impact that they have on Canadians’ lives are similar too. And so, the far right offers the Liberals a foil that they can fight against, while demonstrating to Canadians how not far-right they really are.
But, as the governing power right now, they have done the bare minimum to stop the rise of the far right. And partly, that’s because they need an activist far right to give them good PR. Journalists fall for it every time, too.
The solution: the Liberals need to stop using the far right to boost their brand, but they won’t because it’s a very easy political strategy.
Far right politicians need to constantly push further
The problem: Finally (god, if you’re still reading this, bless you), the far right itself is, of course, to blame for the rise in harassment of journalists. They get off on it. They can scare journalists into staying quiet, or refusing to cover them. They harass journalists for many reasons – for them, it’s fun, it’s effective and it’s easy.
But they do not exist in a vacuum – all the context that precedes this text explains where they get their power from, and why they’ve chosen this tactic. And crucially, there is no organized, socialist response to offer a counterbalance to their power. While journalists have no problem elevating far-right talking heads and covering their events, socialist thought, activism and socialists ourselves are hidden from view.
The solution: the police will never be able to fight the far right. They are too implicated *in* the far right, and too involved in upholding state power. This is Politics 101. But the letter calling for more police involvement to protect journalists wasn’t Politics 101 - it was spin. Because if we look too closely at the harassment of journalists, we might start calling for changes that they are not prepared to implement.