The death of democracy (idea)

And now, an excerpt from Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis:

There's a jungle rhythm beating out below me; the sound of truncheons being hammered on riot shields, police tradition when things get nasty.

I'm in Angel's 8, above what will doubtless be known as the Transient Riot. History's only written by the winners, after all, and if the cops want it called the Transient Riot, then that's how it'll be. Because there's Transient blood all over this place. And you know what?

It's not their fault.

The Transients couldn't have managed this on their own. They're just big kids who thought it'd be fun to live in an alien body. A sane society would've tagged them for the waterheads they are and bought them a big playground. But no one even checked to see if their silly claim for secession was feasible. Civic Centre just decided to stamp on them instead. They paid a few Transients off to start some trouble, deliberately marring a non-violent demonstration.

Spontaneous violence, the only excuse Civic Centre would have to send in the riot cops. These people are bleeding down there for a scam. It's a show of power. How dare anybody ignore the authority of Civic Centre? How dare a bunch of freaks try and think for themselves?] So let's go out and stomp on children, lunatics, and incompetents, because by damn it makes our balls feel big.

I can see a blatantly unarmed Transient man with half his face hanging off, and three cops working him over anyway. One of them is groping his own erection. I'm sorry. Is that too harsh an observation for you? Does that sound like the Truth?

Fuck you. If anyone in this shithole city gave two tugs of a dead dog's dick about Truth, this wouldn't be happening. I wouldn't be seeing a Transient woman with blood on her face huddled in a porn-store doorway, clutching her belly. I wouldn't be looking down at a dead boy, thirteen if he's a day, draped over the hood of a police wagon. No one's eyes would be bleeding from incapacity sprays or the nerve bomblets the cops are launching from Cranberry. I wouldn't be surrounded up here by the people who have to live and work here, weeping openly.

Enjoying this? You like the way I describe disgusting shit happening to people you probably walked past in the street last week? Good. You earned it. With your silence.

You see, here's how it works; Civic Centre and the cops do what the fuck they like, and you sit still.

Your boss does what he likes. The asshole at the tollbooth, the bouncer at your local bar, the security guy who frisks you at the clinic, the papers and feedsites that lie to you for the hell of it. They do what they like. And what do you do?

You pay them. This "riot" here, this terrible shit-rain visited upon a bunch of naive and uppity fetishists, you paid for it. Lap it up.

You must like it when people in authority they never earned lie to you.