Aggressor politicians, politicians (and journalists) cover-ups

Episodes of police brutality, like the one that occurred last weekend in Valencia, when a police officer attacked a protester without reason and from behind at the teachers' assemblies, always constitute a direct attack on the foundations of democracy. Since the so-called state security forces and bodies are delegated the management of violence (they are the only ones who can carry weapons, and use them, in public spaces), when one or more police officers turn against citizens and use force against them, the act causes consternation and repulsion. The use of force is only justified in very specific cases, which are legislated, and none include repression against people exercising their right to demonstrate and protest.Scenes like that of the retired teacher who is pushed face down to the ground by a national policeman are intolerable. The images are unequivocal, so the reaction should also be: swift expulsion from the force for this officer, in addition to any criminal responsibilities they may incur for the assault on their victim. Instead, however, as always happens when something of this nature occurs (I mean: every time a policeman assaults a person suspected of not being a good Spanish patriot, according to the well-known parameters of Spanish ultranationalism), a swarm of politicians and journalists suddenly appears to cover for the policeman in question and to twist reality. It doesn't matter that it's recorded by a lot of cameras and that everyone has seen it: the denial machine kicks in and quickly twists reality, in order to present the victim as the aggressor and the aggressor policeman as an exemplary servant of public order (and as a victim, if necessary). A protester who receives a brutal push when she is with her back to her aggressor, when she was doing nothing remotely punishable and who obviously cannot defend herself from an armed and uniformed policeman, becomes in a certain official version a “element of tension” or an “alterer of social peace”. This is what has been done by the president of the Valencian Generalitat, the very unworthy Juanfran Pérez Llorca, and a long list of usual mariachis from the press close to the PP and Vox. The abusive policeman (who, incidentally, the first thing that should be done to him is a drug and alcohol test), on the other hand, becomes little less than a hero.Or a hero without palliative care: the police officers of 1-O were decorated, and a few dozen paraded through the trial of the Procés to give easily verifiable false testimony about the events of September 20 and October 1, 2017. The Altsasu police officers involved in a bar brawl were exalted as victims of terrorism, while eight young people were sentenced to high prison terms for terrorism offenses. This, to mention just two recent cases that many of us remember. Abuse of authority is, for certain defenders of the homeland, a way of winning ten to zero.