great post catch.
but in truth trained chimp or circa are hardly fair representations of post structuralism, they're just a bunch of muppets who have hastily tried to create an intellectual justification for looking silly.
I find the problem with post structuralists (more so it's pseudo intellectual defenders) is that they tend to have a shit understanding of marxism and hence think they are adding something new with their criticisms about it's euro phallic meta whiggish centricity or whatever other lexicon of shite is it fashion at the time.
As for Baudrillard well that cock, much like the situationists was always unable to grasp the self activity of the subject, nor how the spectacle or "simulcra" does not arise spontaneously nor is it all numbing but rather is somethng that is recreated every day by human labour and is ridden with frissures and fractures which contain it's negation.
To be honest the more critical theory i read the more i feel that the major issues are all ones raised either explicitly or implicity within various strands of marxism or anarchism.
) phenomena as "ironic consumption" (liking shit 70s/80s TV, for instance), Zizek argues that ideology in late modernity is structured along the lines of, "They know exactly what they're doing, but still they do it."
) to exclude others from the conversation or rather discourse. Without jargon 'the starting point of communism is human self activity' does not on the other hand exclude. It's not difficult you ignorant confused half-a-jaffa.
Can comment on articles and discussions
Authority is socially determined, power isn't. The police manage to do a lot of things without resorting to open violence because we know that they'll resort to violence if we don't comply within certain parameters. Not believing in the power of the police doesn't stop them whacking you over the head (as you point out), nor shooting you 8 times at Stockwell tube station, nor arresting you (court case coming up didn't you say?), nor the rest of the criminal justice system incarcerating you depending on the politically and judicially determined penalties for whatever they get you for.
The legal limits placed on the police are being steadily eroded at faster rate than they've been for some time, so the balance of power is likely to change even more towards the State's favour in the near future. London may well have a permanent armed police presence of several hundred from now on, limits are increasingly being placed on protest, and new anti-terrorism legislation looks like it's targetted at political radicals as much as it is Islamists. If I was going to place bets on an all out fight between the current activists in this country and the police force, well let's just say you'd get long odds. Then they'd bring the army in. The only thing which can reduce the power of the state is an increase in the power of the working class.
You might be able to superficially, temporarily, show up the police during a set piece spectacular confrontation. But the subjective power of the state comes not so much from ideology and ritual, but from the fact that it manages to one degree or another most aspects of our day to day lives. The police, on the level of clowning at demos, are human individuals who you can make feel uncomfortable until they get bored and either leave you to it or twat you over the head. However that divorces them from the overall structures which govern human affairs, and in terms of challenging state power in general, the state is quite happy to have these set piece confrontations. They (subjectively) redirected the majority of the protestors into a mainstream, pro-state, pro-capitalist (even pro-neoliberal) campaign. I notice you didn't mention capitalism in your posts. Do you think capitalism will get embarrassed and run away?
CIRCA vs. Black Block is a false comparison - they're two sides of the same tactic - spectacular protests based around an activist timetable of summits and conferences.
Not on here it isn't.
marinebroadcast has questions I'd like to see you answer:
If you think the most important aspect of the state to attack is the police, and think that their activity on protests shows them up, you also need to deal with their role outside policing demonstrations. To challenge their power how about dealing with anti-social behaviour in communities, try making crack dealers "uncomfortable". There's discussions running at the moment on how this could be achieved (although it's a very difficult thing to do for a number of reasons and even on the level of discussion it's hard to come up with good ideas).
The state's power lies in the reality that people leave all of these problems to the police - they provide a necessary service in present society no matter how much we dislike them, or how badly that service is performed. While people can be mugged, burgled, raped, stabbed and the only people who'll take action (if at all) are the police, their power remains as strong as ever, seeing a few clowns make fun of them on TV is negligible in this regard, if it can be said to have any positive effect at all. If you want to show them up as only repressing protest and backing up the state, then you need to reduce the need for them in our own communities as well.