# So rubber bullets for the student demo. How long before the water cannons apear?



## friedaweed (Nov 7, 2011)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15625213


> Rubber bullets could be used in cases of "extreme" disorder at a tuition-fees protest in London on Wednesday, a Scotland Yard commander has said.
> About 4,000 police officers, some from other forces, will be deployed on the route, said Commander Simon Pountain.
> Criminal behaviour would be dealt with "decisively and swiftly", he added.



A pear


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## Badgers (Nov 7, 2011)

They won't be used. Have been available before and not used.


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## CyberRose (Nov 7, 2011)

Do they need special permission to deploy them? Or do they automatically have the option for using rubber bullets in a given situation (in which case this article is being a bit naughty)


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## friedaweed (Nov 7, 2011)

I hope you're right Badge but I've got a feeling during this winter of our disco-tent that the cunts will give them an outing at some point.


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## FridgeMagnet (Nov 7, 2011)

They say this every single demo.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 7, 2011)

I thought UK developed the plastic bullet to replace the rubber bullet because of the higher number of fatalities with the rubber bullet. Both can still inflict fatalities though. Neither are of any use in crowd control situations. AFAIK they're banned in war situations for crowd control.

If the government were to use plastic bullets against our sons and daughters (students), even the rowdy ones, or the violently disordered privileged prats like Gilmour, there would be a public outrage that'd make a few uncontrolled students look like a toddlers tea party.


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## friedaweed (Nov 7, 2011)

CyberRose said:


> Do they need special permission to deploy them? Or do they automatically have the option for using rubber bullets in a given situation (in which case this article is being a bit naughty)





> In a statement, Scotland Yard said rubber bullets - also known as baton rounds - were "carried by a small number of trained officers", none of whom would be patrolling the route of the march.
> "This tactic requires pre-authority, and would take time to deploy, and is one of a range of tactics we have had available for public order, and not used, in the past."



I bet they've had the nod and I bet some cunt upstairs thinks we should start getting a bit USA in how we deal with the escalating discord that seems to be emerging from the streets.


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## twentythreedom (Nov 7, 2011)

Plod will be well up for a rumble after the riots etc. It could be extremely nasty. I wonder if there's a water cannon "on the UK mainland" yet 

Cunts!


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## Badgers (Nov 7, 2011)

friedaweed said:


> I hope you're right Badge but I've got a feeling during this winter of our disco-tent that the cunts will give them an outing at some point.



I really hope they are never used. One outing and they may become the norm. It strikes me as a 'stay away' warning from the police. Not very useful or productive really, but worth noting that this is not a one off and they have not been used to date. There are 4,500 police out for the demo with their usual kit.


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## CyberRose (Nov 7, 2011)

The article seems to be a construct of the journalist imo (not doubting it's true, of course, but it's made out like a threat from the police rather than the journo ringing them up asking if they have the power to use rubber bullets)


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## Badgers (Nov 7, 2011)

Rattle the sabre eh


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## TopCat (Nov 7, 2011)

Last year was last year. The numbers and energy will be a massive decrease on that we had last autumn. These things wax and wane.

As for the baton round shit. This would only happen if the police came under serious & sustained attack from petrol bombs in a position that they _had_ to defend.


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## GoneCoastal (Nov 7, 2011)

I think it was originally said as part of the press briefing but not nec quoted in it's full context

The statement here has been issued since the media started publicising it http://content.met.police.uk/News/Baton-rounds-and-public-order-policing/1400004398929/1257246745756 (hints about the iron fist in the velvet glove I reckon mostly)
But I have an unpleasant feeling that if things go pear shaped on Wednesday then it might be authorised "just in case" for the next one though. Sadly there seem to be lots of people who would support it under the right circumstances and with appropriate spin


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## treelover (Nov 7, 2011)

I think Sir Hugh Orde would have been a more suitable Met Comissioner than Hogan Howe...


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## Pickman's model (Nov 7, 2011)

friedaweed said:


> I bet they've had the nod and I bet some cunt upstairs thinks we should start getting a bit USA in how we deal with the escalating discord that seems to be emerging from the streets.


the us army manual on 'civil disturbances' http://publicintelligence.net/u-s-army-fm-3-19-15-civil-disturbance-operations/


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## Pickman's model (Nov 7, 2011)

treelover said:


> I think Sir Hugh Orde would have been a more suitable Met Comissioner than Hogan Howe...


because he has experience authorising baton rounds?


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## Kaka Tim (Nov 7, 2011)

Usual crap to warn people off attending.


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## friedaweed (Nov 7, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> the us army manual on 'civil disturbances' http://publicintelligence.net/u-s-army-fm-3-19-15-civil-disturbance-operations/


Interesting read ta Pickers  Though it appears the plod in the US are doing just fine without the intervention of the Army atm hey? Wasn't it the police who banged them off recently. Personally I'd rather have squadies firing them than the old bill. At least then you know they'll hit the target.

Maybe I'm just getting sceptical in my owl age but I can see the plod upping the anti over the coming months as the widespread dissent continues. It happened under previous bouts of Tory rule and increased austerity so I can't see any reason why they wont flex their muscle at some point. .

The media screws turning and it aint working like they expected, at some point they'll pull the trigger.

Of course I could be wrong. i hope so.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/314019


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## Pickman's model (Nov 7, 2011)

friedaweed said:


> Interesting read ta Pickers  Though it appears the plod in the US are doing just fine without the intervention of the Army atm hey? Wasn't it the police who banged them off recently. Personally I'd rather have squadies firing them than the old bill. At least then you know they'll hit the target.
> 
> Maybe I'm just getting sceptical in my owl age but I can see the plod upping the anti over the coming months as the widespread dissent continues. It happened under previous bouts of Tory rule and increased austerity so I can't see any reason why they wont flex their muscle at some point. .
> 
> ...


having read books by american cops about riot control, most of what's in the army manual is the same. and it's free, which is better.


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## laptop (Nov 7, 2011)

Badgers said:


> It strikes me as a 'stay away' warning from the police.



This. 

Does someone have time to start listing previous dire "don't even think of coming to this demo!" announcements?


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## Pickman's model (Nov 7, 2011)

laptop said:


> This.
> 
> Does someone have time to start listing previous dire "don't even think of coming to this demo!" announcements?


there was the famous 'army on standby for mayday' headline in the standard about 10 years ago.


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## stuff_it (Nov 7, 2011)

friedaweed said:


> I hope you're right Badge but I've got a feeling during this winter of our disco-tent that the cunts will give them an outing at some point.


I wish I had a disco-tent.


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## friedaweed (Nov 7, 2011)

laptop said:


> This.
> 
> Does someone have time to start listing previous dire "don't even think of coming to this demo!" announcements?


Personally I think that that warning will fall on several thousand, pissed off, deaf ears.



Pickman's model said:


> having read books by american cops about riot control, most of what's in the army manual is the same. and it's free, which is better.



Well I'm sure your right. these guys look more like a firing squad than police officers.

http://occupywallst.org/article/solidarity-oakland/

I think we're following them on a downward spiral to be honest and I think our plod will be next in line to get hard-nosed. I take Luther Blissets point about there being a subsequent outrage but how far has that outrage got them in the states/Greece/etc? In all honesty I do think the gov will think that such a show of streangth/ 'required' tragedy will put a stop to escalating dissent and restore some of order  rather than make it worse. Big slap of the wrist so everyone stops freaking out innit.

There currently seems to be a government that is intent on ignoring public dissent. I can't see them responding to the strikes in any form of positive light. An ongoing increase in public dissent met only by a hard line of media ridicule and state encourage draconian legal action and sentencing (Not just for the rioters and looters but for those peacefully protesting as in the Uncut lot), will eventually see the storm troopers being called up to play dirty I think.

At some point I think the plod will be expected to show it's strength. When who knows but i do think this sabre rattling will realise itself at some point.

I could and hope I'm wrong.


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## twentythreedom (Nov 7, 2011)

I notice that the continental rioters often have gasmasks and crash helmets. We could learn a thing or two from our comrades abroad....


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## Pickman's model (Nov 7, 2011)




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## stuff_it (Nov 7, 2011)

twentythreedom said:


> I notice that the continental rioters often have gasmasks and crash helmets. We could learn a thing or two from our comrades abroad....


Pretty sure my mate won't let me borrow his riot squat helmet... 

There is also the issue in this country at least of putting a good show of not going equipped/peaceful protest, etc.


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## quimcunx (Nov 7, 2011)

It would be somewhat disingenuous to portray wearing of protective helmets as going equipped. So doubtless Scotland Yard and No. 10 will do just that.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 8, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


>




some say the devil is dead, the devil is dead
Others say he rose again, others say he rose again
and joined the metropolitan police force


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## twentythreedom (Nov 8, 2011)

quimcunx said:


> It would be somewhat disingenuous to portray wearing of protective helmets as going equipped.


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## quimcunx (Nov 8, 2011)

That pink suit surely counts as an offensive weapon.


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## twentythreedom (Nov 8, 2011)

quimcunx said:


> That pink suit surely counts as an offensive weapon.



sure does!


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## free spirit (Nov 8, 2011)

quimcunx said:


> It would be somewhat disingenuous to portray wearing of protective helmets as going equipped. So doubtless Scotland Yard and No. 10 would do just that.


and have done many times before - eg wombles situation where they got harrassed to fuck for getting padded up essentially in order to form a protective barrier around demos if/when the police kicked off.


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## rekil (Nov 8, 2011)

laptop said:


> This.
> 
> Does someone have time to start listing previous dire "don't even think of coming to this demo!" announcements?








Mark Kennedy was at that one.


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## AKA pseudonym (Nov 8, 2011)

to my shame i met him then ... thankfully my mistrust of certain English accents won the day, and his over keenness to learn more ..... dickhead proposed busting into a quiet sustainable squat so 'activists' could take the space!!!

Having said that... who would have thought the Yanks would have used 'rubbers'..... its only a matter of time before this form of 'crowd control' is introduced imo..... I do doubt they will use it initially against the students, BUT if it is viewed that these 'rabble' are making connections..... well thats the price of resistance.... be prepared.....


*ETA: jaysus they have been using it against us in this Island for over for 30 years!!!!*


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## stuff_it (Nov 8, 2011)

quimcunx said:


> That pink suit surely counts as an offensive weapon.


My dad is colour blind - apparently he did this once by accident....


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

More smears against anarchists today - police claiming they' 'fear' (read that as hope) anarchists will form a violent vanguard to force the hand of the state to use violent suppression.

Reminding everyone that it was anarchists who facilitated the the riot clean up across the country - this idea that lone actions by wound-up invidividuals that spill into small mob violent disorder or actions by revolutionary marxist groupuscules   constitutes anarchism needs to be rejected.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

twentythreedom said:


> I notice that the continental rioters often have gasmasks and crash helmets. We could learn a thing or two from our comrades abroad....


Riots give state excuse to ramp up state-sanctioned violence against innocent people.


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## Roadkill (Nov 8, 2011)

Words fail me.


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## dessiato (Nov 8, 2011)

Maybe the government should look at the way the Arab Spring worked. There seems to have been an assumption that putting down the protesters with varying levels of violence would succeed. Coordinating of protests via the internet, mobile phones etc. as was seen in the London riots can very successfully organise protests as well as the type of riot we saw.

Does the UK have the strength of conviction to continue the protests to success? Or is going to be the usual apathy winning?


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## The39thStep (Nov 8, 2011)

twentythreedom said:


> I notice that the continental rioters often have gasmasks and crash helmets. We could learn a thing or two from our comrades abroad....



In the early 70s the IMG ( international marxist group) donned motorbike helmets on demonstrations mimicking their Japanese counterparts.


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## TopCat (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Reminding everyone that it was anarchists who facilitated the the riot clean up across the country -



No it bloody was not.


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## dessiato (Nov 8, 2011)

TopCat said:


> No it bloody was not.



Agreed.

Although I was not in the UK at the time so my information comes from here, and the internet generally, I thought that it was a mix of local people doing what they could to clear up the shit.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

TopCat said:


> No it bloody was not.


Yes it was. I'm acquainted with some of the anarchists who began it, and spread it, but I'm not saying that everyone involved was an anarchist, but that broom army embodied the spirit of anarchism - autonomous, leaderless, community consensus.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

dessiato said:


> Agreed.
> 
> Although I was not in the UK at the time so my information comes from here, and the internet generally, I thought that it was a mix of local people doing what they could to clear up the shit.


It _was_ a mix of people cleaning up the shit from the riots. The action they made - leaderless, consensual, community - was anarchist.


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## TopCat (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Yes it was. I'm acquainted with the anarchists who began it, and spread it.


http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/a...apham-pic-twitter-via-lawcol888-921730425.jpg

You are talking shite.


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Yes it was. I'm acquainted with the anarchists who began it, and spread it.


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Yes it was. I'm acquainted with the anarchists who began it, and spread it.


Absolute rubbish. By 'acquainted with' do you mean some anarchists who posted about it on facebook or twitter?


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## dessiato (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> More smears against anarchists today - police claiming they' 'fear' (read that as hope) anarchists will form a violent vanguard to force the hand of the state to use violent suppression.
> 
> _Reminding everyone that it was anarchists who facilitated the the riot clean up across the country_ - this idea that lone actions by wound-up invidividuals that spill into small mob violent disorder or actions by revolutionary marxist groupuscules constitutes anarchism needs to be rejected.



Are you sure you didn't say this? If you didn't someone is posting under your name.



Luther Blissett said:


> It was a mix of people cleaning up the shit from the riots. That's not what I said.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

dessiato said:


> Are you sure you didn't say this? If you didn't someone is posting under your name.


Yes. I said that. Those people became anarchists, temporal anarchists - that's what anarchism is.


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Yes. I said that. Those people became anarchists - that's what anarchism is.


Oh dear.


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

So the mob of clapham broom-army gentrifiers were anarchists?


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## dessiato (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Yes. I said that. Those people became anarchists, temporal anarchists - that's what anarchism is.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> So the mob of clapham broom-army gentrifiers were anarchists?


Temporally, yes. Some were anarchists in permanence, others not. The act itself embodied the spirit of anarchism.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Absolute rubbish. By 'acquainted with' do you mean some anarchists who posted about it on facebook or twitter?


No, I mean off the internetz - in real life.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

TopCat said:


> http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/a...apham-pic-twitter-via-lawcol888-921730425.jpg
> 
> You are talking shite.


Said the brick lobbing vanguardist who has nothing better to do with your time other than taunt coppers and martyr your cause to the state. You're talking shite.


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## frogwoman (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Temporally, yes. Some were anarchists in permanence, others not. The act itself embodied the spirit of anarchism.



so because you think anarchists would do something like this the people involved in it were anarchists?


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

Overstretched yourself a bit here luther. You may claim to know 'the' anarchists who started the riot clean up, but i suspect you actually just know someone who went to one and posted about it on the internet. If we follow your logic the fact that some anarchists participated in and talked about the riots make it a riot started and carried out by anarchists - but you don't claim that do you? As i said, overstrech - and showy overstrech.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> No, I mean off the internetz - in real life.


On the streets, not in virtual cyberspace.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> so because you think anarchists would do something like this the people involved in it were anarchists?


Are you denying it was anarchy, because if you are, then your definition of anarchy is incorrect.


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

Can anyone clear up this rubber/plastic bullets thing - bishie suggested yesterday that rubber bullets had been replaced by plastic bullets (much worse)-but today the papers are full of talk of rubber bullets. I suspect bishie is right and this is the journos not realising the very real difference between the two.Does anyone know for sure?


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## ddraig (Nov 8, 2011)

bollocks Luther
in fact one of the broom army instigators was outed as a racist dickhead who then changed his interenet profiles to fit in with his new local hero media image


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

Anyone here received one of these from the MET?


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Can anyone clear up this rubber/plastic bullets thing - bishie suggested yesterday that rubber bullets had been replaced by plastic bullets (much worse)-but today the papers are full of talk of rubber bullets. I suspect bishie is right and this is the journos not realising the very real difference between the two.Does anyone know for sure?


I'm quite sure it's a mistake. AFAIK the journos do mean plastic bullets, but they do get confused, e.g. Paul Lewis' article in the Guardian today talks only about Plastic Bullets, but on twitter he tweeted his article as 'rubber bullets'.


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## TopCat (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Temporally, yes. Some were anarchists in permanence, others not. The act itself embodied the spirit of anarchism.


I find it hard to believe yo are serious.

The Broom army typified the Petit bourgeois.


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## BigTom (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Anyone here received one of these from the MET?



No.. I take it these have been posted out to known activists?  Bit surprised that no-one in Birmingham has had one given how many got nicked at fortnum and mason and the fact that 3 of the ncafc national committee are from here.
--
on the riot clean up thing, in Birmingham I'd say I was the only person who might identify as an anarchist.. liberal/left-liberal for the ones I knew, maybe a couple who would identify as labour-socialist types - it was however pretty mixed in terms of middle/working class and race/gender, not very similar to what I've heard about clapham etc.
not that it matters like, but since there's an argument going on I thought I'd contribute my experience to it .


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

The bloke who sent it to me said it was going to F&M defendants...


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

BigTom said:


> No.. I take it these have been posted out to known activists? Bit surprised that no-one in Birmingham has had one given how many got nicked at fortnum and mason and the fact that 3 of the ncafc national committee are from here.
> --
> on the riot clean up thing, in Birmingham I'd say I was the only person who might identify as an anarchist.. liberal/left-liberal for the ones I knew, maybe a couple who would identify as labour-socialist types - it was however pretty mixed in terms of middle/working class and race/gender, not very similar to what I've heard about clapham etc.
> not that it matters like, but since there's an argument going on I thought I'd contribute my experience to it .


It was anarchy in action. What's not to love about that


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## frogwoman (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Are you denying it was anarchy, because if you are, then your definition of anarchy is incorrect.


not denying anything but if someone doesn't think they're an anarchist then they're not, surely?


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> not denying anything but if someone doesn't think they're an anarchist then they're not, surely?


it was anarchy - I'm glad that people who don't identify as anarchists experienced anarchy in action. read horizontalidad when you have a moment. currently many of us are trying to request the end to using the term 'anarchist' by journalists to describe seemingly spontaneous acts of violent vandalism perpetrated by the Charlie Gilmours of this world. i think the conversation on riotcleanup in this thread needs to stop as butchers brought the topic back to now. PM or new thread for further discussion


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Anyone here received one of these from the MET?


No. No-one I know has either.


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## claphamboy (Nov 8, 2011)

I think they only sent it out to the anarchist broom sweeping army lot.


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## purenarcotic (Nov 8, 2011)

As if sending out warning letters like some headteacher in a school is going to stop anybody from turning up.


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## GEN.Eccentric (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Can anyone clear up this rubber/plastic bullets thing - bishie suggested yesterday that rubber bullets had been replaced by plastic bullets (much worse)-but today the papers are full of talk of rubber bullets. I suspect bishie is right and this is the journos not realising the very real difference between the two.Does anyone know for sure?


Daily Fail have a a headline of 'Police will have the right to fire rubber bullets'
But plastic and not rubber I think according to this that they musn't have read


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## Dan U (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The bloke who sent it to me said it was going to F&M defendants...



I used to get letters like that from Surrey police when I involved with raves years ago.

Good day for home office sabre rattling, given the border stuff going on.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Can anyone clear up this rubber/plastic bullets thing - bishie suggested yesterday that rubber bullets had been replaced by plastic bullets (much worse)-but today the papers are full of talk of rubber bullets. I suspect bishie is right and this is the journos not realising the very real difference between the two.Does anyone know for sure?


I did attempt that on post #6 of this thread


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> I did attempt that on post #6 of this thread


Yes I saw, but you didn't say if you knew for sure or not(and plastic bullets are more lethal than rubber ones, not less).


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Yes I saw, but you didn't sat if you knew for sure (and plastic bullets are more lethal than rubber ones, not less).


This article seems to agree that they're plastic, not rubber: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/07/plastic-bullets-available-student-protests
However, there is confusion as the same journo referred to his own article as 'rubber bullets' not plastic.
Rubber bullets were used in NI until 2005, and plastic until 1981 (afaik). Both are lethal.
I don't know of any deployment on the 'mainland' but thought the police geared up to use them (plastic) during Brixton riots.

This article suggests they were used in 2002 in North Wales and Surrey: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2003999.stm


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

They were first 'deployed' (plastic) in the week after the Broadwater farm riot


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## butchersapron (Nov 8, 2011)

The jankels that were out in ealing, acton and other places where the recent riots were taking a very visible anti-rich turn (as opposed to the more hands off response in other areas) are now supposed to be ready to go. These are armoured vans that use 'vehicle tactics' - that is, diving at high speed into crowds or potential build up of crowds. Very effective in the toxteth riots. And very dangerous.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

It's a student fees protest, ffs.
Who's running the graduate tax racket?


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## 8ball (Nov 8, 2011)

Plastic bullets come in many flavours, I believe they are generally less damaging than the old 'rubber bullets' if fired directly at the target, but not exclusively so (the old rubber ones were meant to be bounced off the ground first, not that that always happened).


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## BigTom (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Anyone here received one of these from the MET?



Turns out I was lying, I've just checked the post and I do have a letter.. that's me told then..


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## Zabo (Nov 8, 2011)

Get the kids to sing this and really piss them off!​
I went to a party at the local county jail​All the cons were dancing and the band began to wail​But the guys were indiscreet​They were brawling in the street​At the local dance at the local county jail​
Whatcha gonna do about it, whatcha gonna do
 Whatcha gonna do about it, whatcha gonna do​
Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets​Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets​
​


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## TopCat (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The jankels that were out in ealing, acton and other places where the recent riots were taking a very visible anti-rich turn (as opposed to the more hands off response in other areas) are now supposed to be ready to go. These are armoured vans that use 'vehicle tactics' - that is, diving at high speed into crowds or potential build up of crowds. Very effective in the toxteth riots. And very dangerous.



They used the *drive vans into crowd tek* during the Poll tax riots in 1990. It enraged the crowd totally. I could  not have envisaged a surer way of turning bystanders into mad bottle throwing rioters. The vehicles here were only used on a very very limited basis during the August riots. They are still very vulnerable. Easy to block in with other vehicles and everything about them is flammable.


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## Red Storm (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Anyone here received one of these from the MET?


 
http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/2011/11/08/dont-be-intimidated-see-you-on-the-streets/

Fitwatch has a piece on the letters. I've not received one but they don't have my address


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## Blagsta (Nov 8, 2011)

BigTom said:


> Turns out I was lying, I've just checked the post and I do have a letter.. that's me told then..



naughty boy


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## Garek (Nov 8, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> This article seems to agree that they're plastic, not rubber: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/07/plastic-bullets-available-student-protests
> However, there is confusion as the same journo referred to his own article as 'rubber bullets' not plastic.
> Rubber bullets were used in NI until 2005, and plastic until 1981 (afaik). Both are lethal.
> I don't know of any deployment on the 'mainland' but thought the police geared up to use them (plastic) during Brixton riots.
> ...



EDIT:

Damn could get the table to copy right. Wiki has a table of use in the north of Ireland. Plastics are the replacements of rubber.


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## Brixton Hatter (Nov 8, 2011)

Nice balanced article in the Evening (sub) Standard today:

Anarchists threaten 'sea of rage' at student demo in the city


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## TopCat (Nov 8, 2011)

Met police estimate 10,000 demonstrators. They will have 4000 police deployed. Interesting ratio.


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## TopCat (Nov 8, 2011)

Brixton Hatter said:


> Nice balanced article in the Evening (sub) Standard today:
> 
> Anarchists threaten 'sea of rage' at student demo in the city


Great comments on this article. Can we play demo bingo? You get one point for every time someone mentions "the full force of the law"! etc etc


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 8, 2011)

So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?


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## Blagsta (Nov 8, 2011)

How do you know they were "uninvited"?


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 8, 2011)

http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/anarchists-threaten-sea-of-rage-tomorrow/


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## DotCommunist (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?



How come you never whine about state violence at protests, and how come you had a massive righteous hard on about the 26th protest that went off with minimal violence (to property lol).

You think women got the vote through lawful protest and dignified observance of the legal right to protest? You aren't outside the tent pissing in, you aren't inside pissing out so why not go piss in the corner with the other irrelevances. For fucks sake. What protests really don't need is more solemn keepers of order and 'lawful dissidence' sorts.


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## Stoat Boy (Nov 8, 2011)

Spoke to a mate in the Met about this today. He reckons there is utter chaos going on in the top ranks of the Met at the moment with them being given all sorts of mixed messages out and that they will never, in a million years, authourise the use of these baton rounds.

On football fans and maybe a load of little chavs going on a looting rampage in the future then its possible but for demos like tomorrow ? Nah, its just a PR exercise to try and scare people into behaving or even not coming along. He reckons that they are all very wary of the amount of cameras around and that and that nobody is going to stick their neck on the line to authourise their use. To much chance of seriously hurting some middle class twonk.


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 8, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> How come you never whine about state violence at protests, and how come you had a massive righteous hard on about the 26th protest that went off with minimal violence (to property lol).
> 
> You think women got the vote through lawful protest and dignified observance of the legal right to protest? You aren't outside the tent pissing in, you aren't inside pissing out so why not go piss in the corner with the other irrelevances. For fucks sake. What protests really don't need is more solemn keepers of order and 'lawful dissidence' sorts.



Perhaps you can answer my question Dot. Didn't they realise that the cops would up the ante at some point if demonstrations became more violent, or do they actually welcome escalation?

As for the suffrage movement, there was a LOT more to it than smashing the occasional shop window, although that may be all that you choose to remember. Do you really think that women wouldn't have got the vote if they hadn't?


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## Red Storm (Nov 8, 2011)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/08/police-warning-letters-student-protests

Guardian article on the letters. It also says 'both rubber and plastic bullets - collectively known as baton rounds'.

Interesting stats on baton rounds fired in the 6 counties: http://www.rucgcfoundation.org/stats6.htm


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## Louis MacNeice (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Perhaps you can answer my question Dot. Didn't they realise that the cops would up the ante at some point if demonstrations became more violent, or do they actually welcome escalation?
> 
> As for the suffrage movement, *there was a LOT more to it than smashing the occasional shop window*, although that may be all that you choose to remember. Do you really think that women wouldn't have got the vote if they hadn't?



Including bomb threats and actual bombs.

Louis MacNeice


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## Brixton Hatter (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?




Posts like this are evidence for the need of an "unlike" button.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Can anyone clear up this rubber/plastic bullets thing - bishie suggested yesterday that rubber bullets had been replaced by plastic bullets (much worse)-but today the papers are full of talk of rubber bullets. I suspect bishie is right and this is the journos not realising the very real difference between the two.Does anyone know for sure?



Bish is right. Plastic bullets (baton rounds) replaced rubber bullets ages ago. Original rubber bullets were replaced with plastic due to the unpredictability of the path they'd take once they'd deflected off of a surface.

As for all the non-lethality bollocks claimed by the state, non-lethality depends entirely on the person firing the projectile.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?



Fuck off.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 8, 2011)

GEN.Eccentric said:


> Daily Fail have a a headline of 'Police will have the right to fire rubber bullets'
> But plastic and not rubber I think according to this that they musn't have read



The aluminium component is the equivalent of a shotgun cartridge - it ejects when you break  the action open to reload, whereas the Mail seem to be implying that the projectile itself is metal and plastic.

And yes, they're not deflected munitions like the old rubber bullets. That was sort of the point of replacing rubber bullets, which once they'd deflected off the groundcould careen just about anywhere. The utility of a plastic round over the rubber round was predictability. You hit the person you wanted to hit, not someone on the other side of the crowd.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 8, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> The jankels that were out in ealing, acton and other places where the recent riots were taking a very visible anti-rich turn (as opposed to the more hands off response in other areas) are now supposed to be ready to go. These are armoured vans that use 'vehicle tactics' - that is, diving at high speed into crowds or potential build up of crowds. Very effective in the toxteth riots. And very dangerous.



Bet they're still using solid tyres too, even though they cause much more damage if you run someone over.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?



Fucking hell, more bollocks from Herr Kristallnacht himself.
Explain how this blame you're attributing actually fits to reality, because any survey of recent mass political protest shows that nothing was done that would warrant the deployment of "non-lethal" rounds.
If you believe that the state wouldn't escalate *without justification* beyond some shoddy propagandising through the right-leaning media, you're even more intellectually bereft than I'd previously thought.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 8, 2011)

Stoat Boy said:


> Spoke to a mate in the Met about this today. He reckons there is utter chaos going on in the top ranks of the Met at the moment with them being given all sorts of mixed messages out and that they will never, in a million years, authourise the use of these baton rounds.



The problem resides in the fact that the majority of the "top ranks" are politically-motivated to posture like fuck and play the hard man, so I'd never say never on baton rounds. After all, a few injured students mean nothing if some wannabee commissioner gets a feather in his cap.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 8, 2011)

Stoat Boy said:


> Spoke to a mate in the Met about this today. He reckons there is utter chaos going on in the top ranks of the Met at the moment wit*h them being given all sorts of mixed messages out* and that they will never, in a million years, authourise the use of these baton rounds.
> 
> On football fans and maybe a load of little chavs going on a looting rampage in the future then its possible but for demos like tomorrow ? Nah, its just a PR exercise to try and scare people into behaving or even not coming along. He reckons that they are all very wary of the amount of cameras around and that and that nobody is going to stick their neck on the line to authourise their use. To much chance of seriously hurting some middle class twonk.



this is exactly how they get to hang individuals out to dry while not damaging the institution.

Reminds me tangentially of Theresa May stating today that the border control bod had exceeded ministerial instructions. Under the bus you go mate.

Don't get caught in flagrante delicto seems to be the standars met doctrine when it comes to beating up protesters. And even if you do smack a woman round the chops for no good reason then we'll get you off. PC Smellie.


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## audiotech (Nov 8, 2011)

Baton rounds have been used twice outside of Northern Ireland. In Wales and Norfolk during domestic incidents.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/nov/08/police-rubber-bullets-baton-rounds-interactive1


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## BigTom (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?



I didn't realise demos were like weddings and you had to have an invite  I guess I won't be going tomorrow after all, I mean if I turn up there'll be people there asking to see my invite, or checking my name on a list or something? Your name's not down, you're not coming in..


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## cantsin (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Perhaps you can answer my question Dot. Didn't they realise that the cops would up the ante at some point if demonstrations became more violent, or do they actually welcome escalation?
> 
> As for the suffrage movement, there was a LOT more to it than smashing the occasional shop window, although that may be all that you choose to remember. Do you really think that women wouldn't have got the vote if they hadn't?



do you think the protestors in Syria at present should tone down the militancy to avert more state oppression ? should the arab spring have been a non violent movement as a whole ? who was 'invited' or 'uninvited'?
Why do you bother ?


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 8, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Fucking hell, more bollocks from Herr Kristallnacht himself.
> Explain how this blame you're attributing actually fits to reality, because any survey of recent mass political protest shows that nothing was done that would warrant the deployment of "non-lethal" rounds.
> If you believe that the state wouldn't escalate *without justification* beyond some shoddy propagandising through the right-leaning media, you're even more intellectually bereft than I'd previously thought.



Seeing as you are not in any way intellectually bereft VP, perhaps you can answer my question because nobody else seems able to. Didn't you and your tiny handful mates who advocate violence think things through and at least guess that the cops would talk about upping the ante after what happened on other recent anti cuts demos? Or is it that you view a potential escalation like this as actually working in your favour?

And no, I don't think that the cops and or government would be so stupid as to even think about deploying rubber bullets if previous demos had been peaceful.


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 8, 2011)

cantsin said:


> do you think the in Syria at present should tone down the militancy to avert more state oppression ? should the arab spring have been a non violent movement as a whole ? who was 'invited' or 'uninvited'?
> Why do you bother ?



You're fucking joking, right? How is what's happening here in ANY WAY comparable to what's happening in Syria?


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 8, 2011)

BigTom said:


> I didn't realise demos were like weddings and you had to have an invite  I guess I won't be going tomorrow after all, I mean if I turn up there'll be people there asking to see my invite, or checking my name on a list or something? Your name's not down, you're not coming in..



So when was the last national anti cuts demo where the organisers said 'all welcome, including those who want to smash the place up'?


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## ddraig (Nov 8, 2011)

god you're thick,
how do the organisers stop people "like that" coming?


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 8, 2011)

ddraig said:


> god you're thick,
> how do the organisers stop people "like that" coming?



They can't, but it doesn't mean they want them to come.

Edited: forgot to add the customary insult:
god _you're_ thick.


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## ddraig (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> They can't, but it doesn't mean they want them to come.
> 
> Edited: forgot to add the customary insult:
> god _you're_ thick.


which is not the same as inviting trouble now is it
jeez


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## Flanflinger (Nov 8, 2011)

Hope all the fire extinguishers have been secured.


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## lopsidedbunny (Nov 8, 2011)

They never use rubber bullets or water cannon ever in a peaceful protest on Britain mainlands...


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## redsquirrel (Nov 8, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?


Yeah I mean they should be voting Lib Dem instead right?


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## Bestie (Nov 9, 2011)

Rubber bullets are actually banned so they do mean plastic bullets. Plastic bullets are used all the time still in Northern Ireland they were used in Belfast in July this year. They don't make news about there use in Northwrn Ireland cause there use is so common, however there are always a lot of injuries caused by them. To use them you need very experienced officers. The police in Northern Ireland have so much training in these and they use them all the time. I doubt officers here have the same experience. They are highly dangerous 1000s of people have been left blinded, brain damaged and maimed by there use and that does not include those who have died. The government have no record of how many people have been injured by these baton rounds.


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## Louis MacNeice (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew are the police responsible for the tactics they employ or that they threaten to employ? Or do demonstrators choose the police response? My personal experience of numerous protests, is that the police will choose to act quite differently in very similar circumstances, which suggests they have rather more autonomy (realtive to those they are policing) than you would have us believe.

Louis MacNeice


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> How is what's happening here in ANY WAY comparable to what's happening in Syria?



Says the man who compared a few students breaking a window with Kristallnacht


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## cantsin (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> You're fucking joking, right? How is what's happening here in ANY WAY comparable to what's happening in Syria?



two sets of people in two seperate countries living under very different circumstances, but both using DIRECT ACTION to try and bring about change -it couldn't be more simply and directly comparable ?


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## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Riots give state excuse to ramp up state-sanctioned violence against innocent people.



_I_nnocent people dont riot, saying that, if it kicks off water cannon is prefereble to baton rounds.


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## ddraig (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> _I_nnocent people dont riot, saying that, if it kicks off water cannon is prefereble to baton rounds.



so no one in Libya, Syria, Egypt or any of those places were/are innocent in your eyes?


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## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

It seems pretty clear that the people who are bent on turning today's demonstration into a riot are the Met, with their threatening letters, massive deployments, probably empty threats about rubber bullets and the like.

Best of luck and 'stay safe' to everyone out demonstrating today, but especially the legal observers.  Sadly, we're likely to need them.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> _I_nnocent people dont riot, saying that, if it kicks off water cannon is prefereble to baton rounds.



I remember someone coming out with a similar sentiment when they were attempting to justify sending the troops out onto the streets in August. "The soldiers won't shoot me because I'm not a rioter", she said. "How can they tell the difference"? I replied. There was no answer.


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## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Can anyone clear up this rubber/plastic bullets thing - bishie suggested yesterday that rubber bullets had been replaced by plastic bullets (much worse)-but today the papers are full of talk of rubber bullets. I suspect bishie is right and this is the journos not realising the very real difference between the two.Does anyone know for sure?


Rubber bullets were replaced by plastic baton rounds by the army in northern ireland however the Met are a law into themselves so God only knows whats in their 'armoury'


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Andrew are the police responsible for the tactics they employ or that they threaten to employ? Or do demonstrators choose the police response? My personal experience of numerous protests, is that the police will choose to act quite differently in very similar circumstances, which suggests they have rather more autonomy (realtive to those they are policing) than you would have us believe.
> 
> Louis MacNeice



I know what the police can get up to at demos Louis, but a small group of nutjobs turning up with the intention of assaulting them and perhaps smashing a few windows is obviously going to affect their overall tactics, so yes, those nutjobs must take a large part of the responsibility. What do you think the police tactics should be?


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Do you consider smashing a few windows to be "violence", Andrew?


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> It seems pretty clear that the people who are bent on turning today's demonstration into a riot are the Met, with their threatening letters, massive deployments, probably empty threats about rubber bullets and the like.
> 
> Best of luck and 'stay safe' to everyone out demonstrating today, but especially the legal observers. Sadly, we're likely to need them.



Never mind the cops, there are people _on here_ who're actually advocating turning it into a feast of insurrection!!!!!


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## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I remember someone coming out with a similar sentiment when they were attempting to justify sending the troops out onto the streets in August. "The soldiers won't shoot me because I'm not a rioter", she said. "How can they tell the difference"? I replied. There was no answer.


Having spent a fair bit of time involved in riots I would say its easy enough to spot the 'violent rioter' from the innocent bystander and given the video footage available these days there is no real hiding place for those in authority who 'lose it'


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Never mind the cops, there are people _on here_ who're actually advocating turning it into a feast of insurrection!!!!!


Huh?


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Having spent a fair bit of time involved in riots I would say its easy enough to spot the 'violent rioter' from the innocent bystander and given the video footage available these days there is no real hiding place for those in authority who 'lose it'



Nonsense. You've never been anywhere near a riot. The closest you've come to a riot is that stupid Kaiser Chiefs song.


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## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Never mind the cops, there are people _on here_ who're actually advocating turning it into a feast of insurrection!!!!!



What?


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## bi0boy (Nov 9, 2011)

Having used my CNC machine to hollow out 12,087 snooker balls I'm now looking for a source of 30% ammonia in central London.


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## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Nonsense. You've never been anywhere near a riot. The closest you've come to a riot is that stupid Kaiser Chiefs song.



I suppose given your views you are to young to remember the riots in NI, but try looking at what went on there and ask yourself if you want those days back?


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> I suppose given your views you are to young to remember the riots in NI, but try looking at what went on there and ask yourself if you want those days back?


I've never lived in NI and I doubt that you have either.

I remember the Diplock Courts, how about you?


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## DotCommunist (Nov 9, 2011)

Get a grip coley, it's 500 odd students, not ireland during the troubles


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## Random (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I know what the police can get up to at demos Louis, but a small group of nutjobs turning up with the intention of assaulting them and perhaps smashing a few windows is obviously going to affect their overall tactics, so yes, those nutjobs must take a large part of the responsibility. What do you think the police tactics should be?


It wasn't a small amount of nutjobs at the student demo, there were lots of angry youngsters just getting stuck in. Why do you blame this on the cliched 'small organised group of troublemakers', when the real reason why there's violence now and not ten years ago is huge cuts and widespread anger? What do you think the police should do, when faced with widespread anger at a demonstration? We both know that the police will act as the "visible defenders of an unfair status quo", to quote a police strategy book I read about 15 years ago...


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Do you consider smashing a few windows to be "violence", Andrew?


It's just vandalism. If committed, would be considered by most on the march as completely unrelated to the aims of the march. If committed, gives fodder to the press to delegitimise the aims of the march. If committed, the press would attempt to dominate the post-march discourse with negative stories. We've seen it all before.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I know what the police can get up to at demos Louis, but a small group of nutjobs turning up with the intention of assaulting them and perhaps smashing a few windows is obviously going to affect their overall tactics, so yes, those nutjobs must take a large part of the responsibility. What do you think the police tactics should be?



I think the police tactics should recognise the fact that human skulls are more important than shop windows.

I don't actually, I just think the police should go fuck themselves. Time after time it's been them responsible for crowds kicking off; whether by beating people, herding them into pens or crushing them into ever-tighter spaces and setting dogs on them or charging them with horses or whatever. Every time we see the police briefing the press beforehand that they expect violence, regardless of whether they have any actual intelligence on the matter. They then use their own sabre-rattling bullshit as justification for pre-emptive attacks on peaceful protestors. And when they start with the batons you have a choice, sit there and hope they stop beating you before you lose consciousness or attempt to defend yourself. If you defend yourself, you will know that to do so could mean you'll get sent down for assaulting a copper and also that the papers will be able to print the old lie that 'protestors clashed with police' instead of the truth, ie. 'heavily armed thugs attacked defenceless citizens for no reason'. Any act of defiance or agression can be used as justification for the beating and kettling of the next bunch of protestors.

The whole thing is designed to present a sane person with only one viable option; don't go on protests. Except that isn't a viable option.


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## bi0boy (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> If committed, the press would dominate the post-march discourse with negative stories.



As opposed to not mentioning it at all.


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## Random (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> It's vandalism. If committed, would be considered by most as completely unrelated to the aims of the march.


 What makes you think this?


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> What?



You really think there aren't people going today who advocate using violence at demonstrations as some kind of legitimate tool?


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## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> You really think there aren't people going today who advocate using violence at demonstrations as some kind of legitimate tool?


 


Where have I said anything of the kind?


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> It's just vandalism. If committed, would be considered by most on the march as completely unrelated to the aims of the march. If committed, gives fodder to the press to delegitimise the aims of the march. If committed, the press would attempt to dominate the post-march discourse with negative stories. We've seen it all before.


Well, this is what I was trying to get at in my own Socratic way.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> You really think there aren't people going today who advocate using violence at demonstrations as some kind of legitimate tool?



You're a shill for the Tory-controlled press. Shame on you.

The coalition advocates _a form_ of violence every day it makes public sector cuts (not to mention the not too inconsiderable violence dispensed by the thuggish Met police). These cuts have a psychological impact on the people at whom they are directed and that may lead them to do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do.


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## rekil (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> You really think there aren't people going today who advocate using violence at demonstrations as some kind of legitimate tool?









Is our friend on duty today?


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

bi0boy said:


> As opposed to not mentioning it at all.


Pretty much - the Murdoch press seem especially committed to the privatisation of our education.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> You really think there aren't people going today who advocate using violence at demonstrations as some kind of legitimate tool?



Having seen what 'violence at demonstrations' generally entails, no I don't think any protestor would advocate it. Turkey's voting for christmas and all that.

It should of course be obvious that breaking windows is not violence as windows feel no pain. The phrase I prefer is 'reorganisation of matter'.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

Random said:


> What makes you think this?


A shop window smashing enabling opponents to focus on vandalism committed, or occupation of an educational-related space to extend the media coverage over days/weeks. I know which one I'd choose if all my future educational avenues closed up after loss of EMA and extortionate university fees. Both acts attract attention. It's partly a need to have that anger noticed that creates the conditions for the vandalism we've seen from some of the angry young students. There are other ways, but they aren't obvious when in a state of deep anger at the way this government has pulled the rug from under the feet of this country's youth.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

"Reorganisation of matter", I like it.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Pretty much - the Murdoch press seem especially committed to the privatisation of our education.



Well obviously. The less effective our education system, the more people there are in the Sun's target market.


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> I think the police tactics should recognise the fact that human skulls are more important than shop windows.
> 
> I don't actually, I just think the police should go fuck themselves. Time after time it's been them responsible for crowds kicking off; whether by beating people, herding them into pens or crushing them into ever-tighter spaces and setting dogs on them or charging them with horses or whatever. Every time we see the police briefing the press beforehand that they expect violence, regardless of whether they have any actual intelligence on the matter. They then use their own sabre-rattling bullshit as justification for pre-emptive attacks on peaceful protestors. And when they start with the batons you have a choice, sit there and hope they stop beating you before you lose consciousness or attempt to defend yourself. If you defend yourself, you will know that to do so could mean you'll get sent down for assaulting a copper and also that the papers will be able to print the old lie that 'protestors clashed with police' instead of the truth, ie. 'heavily armed thugs attacked defenceless citizens for no reason'. Any act of defiance or agression can be used as justification for the beating and kettling of the next bunch of protestors.
> 
> The whole thing is designed to present a sane person with only one viable option; don't go on protests. Except that isn't a viable option.



I'm certainly not going to condone the cops going round smashing innocent people on the head Norman, or the barbaric 'tactic' of kettling, but much of the responsibility obviously lies at the door of the thugs who actually turn up with the intention of causing violence because they naively think it'll benefit the cause. Will you condemn them as well?


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## Kaka Tim (Nov 9, 2011)

The degree of aggro at a riot is determined by police tactics. If they steam in they will make the crowd angry - and this can escalate into a full on riot like the poll tax - if they stand off their will be little or no trouble bar possibly some broken windows.

Sure somepeople going will be up for it if it kicks off, but that is not the same thing at all as this mythical 'minority who go planning trouble'. Most people involved in riots had no idea they would end up hurling rocks at cops until it actually happens - usually cos they are enraged by the cops battering people.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 9, 2011)

will you condemn the violence!?!?


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## krink (Nov 9, 2011)

people are far too hung-up on violence and the media's response. fuck 'em they're against us either way. probably every big change in history has involved violence and no doubt every time it was tutted at.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I'm certainly not going to condone the cops going round smashing innocent people on the head Norman, or the barbaric 'tactic' of kettling, but much of the responsibility obviously lies at the door of the thugs who actually turn up with the intention of causing violence because they naively think it'll benefit the cause. Will you condemn them as well?



Christ on a bike, here you are begging the question, do you work for a Tory tabloid?


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

copliker said:


> Is our friend on duty today?



He shouldn't even still be in a cop. Why are you asking me?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

That a handful of people breaking windows can be seen as justification for indiscriminate attacks on hundreds of people strikes me as macabre in the extreme. The same 'logic' that induces parents to beat their children senseless for getting crayon on the walls. In the latter case we as onlookers have no interest in what the child has done to deserve the punishment, our only concern is for the appalling nature of the response. So it should be when people get their skulls cracked open.

Corporal punishment is not a suitable response to any act. Collective corporal punishment is worse. Arbitrary collective corporal punishment is, in different circumstances, looked upon as a war crime.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

Kaka Tim said:


> The degree of aggro at a riot is determined by police tactics. If they steam in they will make the crowd angry - and this can escalate into a full on riot like the poll tax - if they stand off their will be little or no trouble bar possibly some broken windows.
> 
> Sure somepeople going will be up for it if it kicks off, but that is not the same thing at all as this mythical 'minority who go planning trouble'. Most people involved in riots had no idea they would end up hurling rocks at cops until it actually happens - usually cos they are enraged by the cops battering people.



I agree, but clearly there _are _people who go planning trouble, they freely admit that it's a tactic they choose to use, and they have to take much of the responsibility for the aggressive way the police react.


----------



## likesfish (Nov 9, 2011)

theirs about 4 different strengths of baton round or plastic bullet with different ranges.
 a Plastic Baton round is significantly safer than a baton round if only because firing at someone from a gun that has proper sight rather than a shotgun style sights and relying on a squaddie judging the right angle to make the thing bounce correctly has to be safer.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I agree, but clearly there _are _people who go planning trouble, they freely admit that it's a tactic they choose to use, and they have to take much of the responsibility for the aggressive way the police react.



Nope, pretty sure policemen are responsible for their own actions. Protestors wouldn't get very far in court defending their window smashing antics with the phrase 'David Cameron made me do it' now would they?

Your use of the word 'react' is also disingenuous when the police begin their 'reaction' some weeks before a protest even happens.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I agree, but clearly there _are _people who go planning trouble, they freely admit that it's a tactic they choose to use, and they have to take much of the responsibility for the aggressive way the police react.



You keep repeating this as though it were THE truth.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I agree, but clearly there _are _people who go planning trouble, they freely admit that it's a tactic they choose to use, and they have to take much of the responsibility for the aggressive way the police react.



Who is 'they'. Don't bother to continue this discussion until you've defined 'they' (in this thread. Make it your next post)


----------



## no-no (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I agree, but clearly there _are _people who go planning trouble, they freely admit that it's a tactic they choose to use, and they have to take much of the responsibility for the aggressive way the police react.


You mean the way the police react to a crowd consisting largely of peaceful protesters.

Announcing that you're going to have water cannons and rubber bullets to hand is a surefire way to ensure that it DOES kick off.


----------



## Random (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> A shop window smashing enabling opponents to focus on vandalism committed, or occupation of an educational-related space to extend the media coverage over days/weeks. I know which one I'd choose if all my future educational avenues closed up after loss of EMA and extortionate university fees.


 What makes you think that 'most people' see no connection between vandalism on a protest, and the aim of the protest?


----------



## Random (Nov 9, 2011)

Kaka Tim said:


> The degree of aggro at a riot is determined by police tactics. If they steam in they will make the crowd angry - and this can escalate into a full on riot like the poll tax - if they stand off their will be little or no trouble bar possibly some broken windows.


 Was the trashing of the Party HQ caused by police steeaming in? Sometimes people are angry and they use force and destruction to make their point. Why have the police as the only activie agent in all this?


----------



## Blagsta (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Never mind the cops, there are people _on here_ who're actually advocating turning it into a feast of insurrection!!!!!


A feast no less! Nom nom


----------



## Blagsta (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> You really think there aren't people going today who advocate using violence at demonstrations as some kind of legitimate tool?



The met


----------



## Brixton Hatter (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> _I_nnocent people dont riot...


really?

"a riot is at bottom the language of the unheard" - Martin Luther King


----------



## rekil (Nov 9, 2011)

LaPennyionara is en route. She needs it to kick off today.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 9, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> A feast no less! Nom nom



Dammit - wish I'd bunked off work and got a train down to London now.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 9, 2011)

copliker said:


> LaPennyionara is en route. She needs it to kick off today.


 
maybe she'll pick a fight with a swappie


----------



## Kaka Tim (Nov 9, 2011)

Random said:


> Was the trashing of the Party HQ caused by police steeaming in? Sometimes people are angry and they use force and destruction to make their point. Why have the police as the only activie agent in all this?



I think I covered that under - 'no aggro except maybe for some broken windows'. I was talking about actual violence - people fighting cops etc - i.e. an actual riot.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Kaka Tim said:


> I think I covered that under - 'no aggro except maybe for some broken windows'. I was talking about actual violence - people fighting cops etc - i.e. an actual riot.



And let's not forget that when there was actual rioting, people's houses getting set on fire, the pigs sat there with their thumbs up their arseholes and let it happen. This is because a) they're fucking cowards and b) protecting people is less of a priority for them than protecting a status quo that guarantees their monopoly on consequence-free violence.


----------



## Random (Nov 9, 2011)

Kaka Tim said:


> I think I covered that under - 'no aggro except maybe for some broken windows'. I was talking about actual violence - people fighting cops etc - i.e. an actual riot.


I think that the invasion of a party HQ and it's trashing is a bit more than 'a few broken windows'. People so often want to make it sound like this kind of action is in some way harmless. people don't want to be harmless, they want to hurt the Tories.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

no-no said:


> You mean the way the police react to a crowd consisting largely of peaceful protesters.
> 
> Announcing that you're going to have water cannons and rubber bullets to hand is a surefire way to ensure that it DOES kick off.



Yes, it's called escalation. What I'd like to know is did the twats who advocate violence as a legitimate tool not foresee that their actions were going to add to that escalation, or do they actually welcome such escalation?


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Who is 'they'. Don't bother to continue this discussion until you've defined 'they' (in this thread. Make it your next post)


What do want, names? Do you honestly not know that there are people who advocate violence at demonstrations as a political tool? You can't have been reading this and other threads very well if you haven't realised that.
And try googling Black bloc.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> And let's not forget that when there was actual rioting, people's houses getting set on fire, the pigs sat there with their thumbs up their arseholes and let it happen. This is because a) they're fucking cowards and b) protecting people is less of a priority for them than protecting a status quo that guarantees their monopoly on consequence-free violence.



To be fair to the Old Bill, in at least some places there wasn't a great deal they could do. I know a copper who was on duty in Lewisham when it all went off there. She tells me that they had numbers enough to hold a line and stop the looting spreading further down the street, but they didn't have enough to push forward and intervene in what was already happening. Tbh, I couldn't call her a coward either, since even that is a situation I'd do a great deal to avoid being in...

*edit* Not - as I hope my first post makes clear - that that in the leats excuses the kind of tactics we're seeing deployed against demonstrations.


----------



## Blagsta (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> What do want, names? Do you honestly not know that there are people who advocate violence at demonstrations as a political tool? You can't have been reading this and other threads very well if you haven't realised that.
> And try googling Black bloc.



Violence *is* a political tool. It's not a matter of whether to use violence or not, but in what conditions.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Yes, it's called escalation. What I'd like to know is did the twats who advocate violence as a legitimate tool not foresee that their actions were going to add to that escalation, or do they actually welcome such escalation?



Depends on context. Provoking the cops into steaming in when your on a hiding to nothing is stupid - as all that will happen is lots of people get battered. Defending your demo from attack - like at the poll tax riot - entirely justified. Pushing through police lines - like breaking a kettle - ditto.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> To be fair to the Old Bill, in at least some places there wasn't a great deal they could do. I know a copper who was on duty in Lewisham when it all went off there. She tells me that they had numbers enough to hold a line and stop the looting spreading further down the street, but they didn't have enough to push forward and intervene in what was already happening. Tbh, I couldn't call her a coward either, since even that is a situation I'd do a great deal to avoid being in...



People who strap on armour and weapons in order to pick fights with those who have no means of defending themselves are, by any sensible definition of the word, cowards. People who lie and cheat and collude to avoid the consequences of their actions are cowards.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> People who strap on armour and weapons in order to pick fights with those who have no means of defending themselves are, by any sensible definition of the word, cowards. People who lie and cheat and collude to avoid the consequences of their actions are cowards.



You're not wrong, but that isn't what happened on that occasion, and it seems to me that it's as well to give at least the impression of fair-mindedness...


----------



## Big Gunz (Nov 9, 2011)

So how come no such threats were made during the London riots?  The people who actually want to build for the future are treated like scum whereas the petty thieves are handled with kid gloves..


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

Big Gunz said:


> So how come no such threats were made during the London riots? The people who actually want to build for the future are treated like scum whereas the petty thieves are handled with kid gloves..



Because the OB weren't prepared for the 'riots' maybe...? With demos they have plenty of warning ... and plenty of time to sound as menacing as possible.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> You're not wrong, but that isn't what happened on that occasion, and it seems to me that it's as well to give at least the impression of fair-mindedness...



I will admit I am less than fair-minded when it comes to the police, but I challenge anyone who has watched their friends beaten unconscious with batons to feel differently.

e2a: And surely controlling riots and so on is a big part of the justification for having a police force. If they are unwilling, incapable or incompetent so to do then what is the point of them? They have baton rounds, they have water cannons; where were these 'tools' when there was a situation like the one they were actually designed for?


----------



## no-no (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Yes, it's called escalation. What I'd like to know is did the twats who advocate violence as a legitimate tool not foresee that their actions were going to add to that escalation, or do they actually welcome such escalation?



and the thousands of law abiding protesters? what of them? for the sake of a few smashed windows we throw democracy away and step up for the fight?


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> I will admit I am less than fair-minded when it comes to the police, but I challenge anyone who has watched their friends beaten unconscious with batons to feel differently.



FWIW I've seen plenty of needless aggression and provocative behaviour from the OB.  I just think it's important to stick to criticisms that the facts will justify - and let's face it, there are plenty of them! - or you make it easy for people to dismiss you as a swivel-eyed fanatic!


----------



## Big Gunz (Nov 9, 2011)

Roadkill said:


> Because the OB weren't prepared for the 'riots' maybe...? With demos they have plenty of warning ... and plenty of time to sound as menacing as possible.



I'm not convinced because the riots went on for three days.  I mean how hard is it to deploy these things?


----------



## likesfish (Nov 9, 2011)

well last time didn't exactly go well so telling people that trying to do what happened last time isn't going to happen might persuade people not to start.
spookyfrank the poor unarmed rioters were looting shops and burning peoples homes down hardly innocent.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 9, 2011)

Big Gunz said:


> I'm not convinced because the riots went on for three days. I mean how hard is it to deploy these things?



Don't know tbh - who knows what they had available and had people to deploy.  FWIW I don't think they should have used baton rounds on looters either though - although I certainly don;'t disagree with you that there's a far better case for getting medieval with thugs and thieves than demonstrators.  Anyhow, I shall have to leave this here - more later, maybe.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 9, 2011)

Big Gunz said:


> So how come no such threats were made during the London riots?  The people who actually want to build for the future are treated like scum whereas the petty thieves are handled with kid gloves..


These things were threatened during the riots. There was mounted charges, there was' vehicle tactics'.


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Get a grip coley, it's 500 odd students, not ireland during the troubles



No, but the events in August were quite reminscent of the 'troubles' at least in intensity if not scale.


----------



## Flanflinger (Nov 9, 2011)

Scouser being interviewed on Sky in Trafalgar square.

Talking sense and putting his point across.


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I've never lived in NI and I doubt that you have either.
> 
> I remember the Diplock Courts, how about you?


I have, i was a 'resident' of both Belfast and londonderry for a total of approx three years and yes I remember the Diplock courts and the bravery of the judges sitting on them.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Seeing as you are not in any way intellectually bereft VP, perhaps you can answer my question because nobody else seems able to. Didn't you and your tiny handful mates who advocate violence think things through and at least guess that the cops would talk about upping the ante after what happened on other recent anti cuts demos? Or is it that you view a potential escalation like this as actually working in your favour?
> 
> And no, I don't think that the cops and or government would be so stupid as to even think about deploying rubber bullets if previous demos had been peaceful.



Herr Kristallnacht again manages to miss the point completely.
Policing of protest is *always* prey to escalation, even when protest is peaceful. *You* may have little knowledge of history or of current events, and even less understanding of _realpolitik_, but your ignorance doesn't mean that _provocateurs_ don't exist or that events won't be manufactured and policing won't be escalated to suit a political agenda if doing so has utility.

By the way, I don't "advocate violence", I advocate that people don't rule it out if it becomes necessary. A weapon of last rather than first resort.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> I have, i was a 'resident' of both Belfast and londonderry for a total of approx three years and yes I remember the Diplock courts and the bravery of the judges sitting on them.



Resident of Thiepval and Ebrington, you mean?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

Flanflinger said:


> Hope all the fire extinguishers have been secured.



Up your mother.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Andrew are the police responsible for the tactics they employ or that they threaten to employ? Or do demonstrators choose the police response? My personal experience of numerous protests, is that the police will choose to act quite differently in very similar circumstances, which suggests they have rather more autonomy (realtive to those they are policing) than you would have us believe.
> 
> Louis MacNeice



My experience is similar. It's obvious most of the time, even when protesters are kicking off, that the decision to break heads is political rather than to do with security.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> _I_nnocent people dont riot, saying that, if it kicks off water cannon is prefereble to baton rounds.



Reductive nonsense. We're talking about mostly peaceful protest, not about riot, and innocent people *do* get caught up in unrest/disorder at protests. If you've ever been to a protest on the non-uniformed side you know that's the case.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Do you consider smashing a few windows to be "violence", Andrew?



It's as bad as _Kristallnacht_, I tells ya!!!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> Violence *is* a political tool. It's not a matter of whether to use violence or not, but in what conditions.



Yep.
The order of use is invariably coppers first, too, despite what Herr Kristallnacht is saying.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> It's just vandalism. *If committed, would be considered by most on the march as completely unrelated to the aims of the march.* If committed, gives fodder to the press to delegitimise the aims of the march. If committed, the press would attempt to dominate the post-march discourse with negative stories. We've seen it all before.



And so speaks the unelected spokesman for the entire demonstration


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Herr Kristallnacht again manages to miss the point completely.
> Policing of protest is *always* prey to escalation, even when protest is peaceful. *You* may have little knowledge of history or of current events, and even less understanding of _realpolitik_, but your ignorance doesn't mean that _provocateurs_ don't exist or that events won't be manufactured and policing won't be escalated to suit a political agenda if doing so has utility.
> 
> By the way, I don't "advocate violence", I advocate that people don't rule it out if it becomes necessary. A weapon of last rather than first resort.



The petty little snipes that litter you posts are just tiresome VP, nothing more, I could equally say that it's you that appears not to understand "realpolitik" and have little knowledge of history or of current events. So now you're suggesting that it's "provocateurs" who turn up at peacful demonstrations and start smashing the place up are you? Were those who employed Black bloc tactics in March provocateurs? And how do you define "last resort"?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I'm certainly not going to condone the cops going round smashing innocent people on the head Norman, or the barbaric 'tactic' of kettling, but much of the responsibility obviously lies at the door of the thugs who actually turn up with the intention of causing violence because they naively think it'll benefit the cause. Will you condemn them as well?



Coppers break skulls - wring hands and blame the victim.

Demonstrators smash windows - it's Nazi Germany all over again.

You're a disgrace. This is why I hate liberals.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 9, 2011)

What the fuck are these barricades? They don't seem like the ones tat were on anti/EDL protests. Any more info?


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Resident of Thiepval and Ebrington, you mean?





ViolentPanda said:


> Resident of Thiepval and Ebrington, you mean?


Ebrington and many points south and west, Flax mills etc


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I agree, but clearly there _are _people who go planning trouble, they freely admit that it's a tactic they choose to use, and they have to take much of the responsibility for the aggressive way the police react.



And those women who go out in short skirts and flirt with blokes in pubs must take much of the responsibility when women are harassed on nights out 

What a penis.


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Reductive nonsense. We're talking about mostly peaceful protest, not about riot, and innocent people *do* get caught up in unrest/disorder at protests. If you've ever been to a protest on the non-uniformed side you know that's the case.


Try the miners strike in 84, I have seen it from both sides, and while the mindless thuggery of the police and met in particular is a fact, it takes two to tango.


----------



## friedaweed (Nov 9, 2011)

Bullet proof tents??


----------



## DaveCinzano (Nov 9, 2011)

They're not just tents, they're tunnel openings


----------



## Flanflinger (Nov 9, 2011)

Bricks and bottles thrown.

Twats.


----------



## Flanflinger (Nov 9, 2011)

DaveCinzano said:


> They're not just tents, they're tunnel openings



They're being moved on now.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Just got this from a cde:

*Sparks are kettled in London, cops trying to keep them away from students. Looks like the march is being kettled separately.*


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

Flanflinger said:


> Bricks and bottles thrown.
> 
> Twats.


By the police?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Blagsta said:


> Violence *is* a political tool. It's not a matter of whether to use violence or not, but in what conditions.



Violence, and the implicit threat of violence. To what end did the met issue their statement about baton rounds if not to deter people from going on the demonstration?

"We support the right of everyone to engage in peaceful protest, we just think you should know that if you do choose to excercise that right we might decide to shoot you with probably-not-lethal weapons. Have a nice day."


----------



## Flanflinger (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> By the police?


Of course.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> And those women who go out in short skirts and flirt with blokes in pubs must take much of the responsibility when women are harassed on nights out
> 
> What a penis.



Fuck me Norman, that has to be the most desperate and laughable post I've ever read!!!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> The petty little snipes that litter you posts are just tiresome VP, nothing more...



Tiresome to *you*, obviously.



> I could equally say that it's you that appears not to understand "realpolitik" and have little knowledge of history or of current events. So now you're suggesting that it's "provocateurs" who turn up at peacful demonstrations and start smashing the place up are you? Were those who employed Black bloc tactics in March provocateurs? And how do you define "last resort"?



Actually, I haven't suggested "...that it's "provocateurs" who turn up at peacful demonstrations and start smashing the place up", I've suggested that they'll be present. If you do indeed have knowledge of history and current events you'll know that the police have always been up to their tiny testicles in inserting people into protest movements, and that they're not averse to having their "inside men" start trouble, in fact hasn't there recently been a spate of revelations about that very thing *shock! Horror* ?

Last resort. Exactly what it says: They get the first blow. After that, all bets are off. And that is generally the way things go at protests, at least in my long and inglorious experience. Protestors don't start the aggro. They do, however, try to finish it. It's a reaction that should be expected from people who've been cornered.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew for someone who insists on comparing everything to fascism you do have a rather slavish defence of authority going on. Do you realise that if people hadn't protested, sometimes in a violent manner, we wouldn't have got the rights that we have today?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Fuck me Norman, that has to be the most desperate and laughable post I've ever read!!!



You clearly never proof read your own then


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Try the miners strike in 84, I have seen it from both sides, and while the mindless thuggery of the police and met in particular is a fact, it takes two to tango.



So protesters are supposed to meekly submit to having the shit kicked out of them by hoolies in uniform? Fuck that for a game of soldiers!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Ebrington and many points south and west, Flax mills etc



Only ever stayed at Thiepval myself, apart from a couple of nights at QVH, _en route _to the Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

friedaweed said:


> View attachment 14642
> 
> Bullet proof tents??



Nope, those are makeshift gas chambers /Andrew Hertford


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Nope, those are makeshift gas chambers /Andrew Hertford



Don't worry, little protesters, it's only a shower!


----------



## Gmart (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Tiresome to *you*, obviously.



There are many here who are intelligent, but who see no need to exercise self control when it comes to random namecalling.



ViolentPanda said:


> [...]It's a reaction that should be expected from people who've been cornered.



It is an oppressive regime, so you gets what you get - which goes for the abuse too.


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

Flanflinger said:


> Of course.


Whey, cheaper than baton rounds In the stringent finacial circumstances the police find themselves


ViolentPanda said:


> So protesters are supposed to meekly submit to having the shit kicked out of them by hoolies in uniform? Fuck that for a game of soldiers!


In this televisual age any 'innocent' being beaten up would cause a storm of outrage, we have all seen it, hence the unusual scenes of coppers actually on trial


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Andrew for someone who insists on comparing everything to fascism you do have a rather slavish defence of authority going on. Do you realise that if people hadn't protested, sometimes in a violent manner, we wouldn't have got the rights that we have today?


Do you think if there was violent action at the demo that's going on right now would further our future rights? Do you think the OLSX occupation would be more effective if it became violent?

And what do you mean "comparing everything to facsism"? So far as I know I've only made that comparison once before and that was indirectly.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Gmart said:


> There are many here who are intelligent, but who see no need to exercise self control when it comes to random namecalling.



Nothing random about it you dopey cunt


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Do you think that violent action at the demo that's going on right now would further our future rights? Do you think the OLSX occupation would be more effective if it became violent?



Has anyone made that argument? Do you think the government will do anything to change course _without_ some kind of direct coercion/threat of force?



Andrew Hertford said:


> And what do you mean "comparing everything to facsism"? So far as I know I've only made that comparison once before and that was indirectly.



I'd say likening a smashed window to Kristallnacht is about as direct a comparison as you can get, in addition to being utterly fucking hysterical.


----------



## stuff_it (Nov 9, 2011)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education...on-fees-protests-live-blog?fb=native#block-47

"TV reports show protesters are heading towards St Paul's, a potential flashpoint for the march because it is the location of the Occupy London camp. The live shots show the main body of protesters is about 25 people deep. Police are letting the protesters continue their march, but are stopping them every few minutes. Police appear to be walking backwards to face the protesters head-on. Police horses are patrolling the sides of the street."

They could end up using this to evict the OL camp....all those tents in the Trafalgar Square pic look like they are from the same place, call me a conspiraloon but does anyone actually know any of the people who bought/put up those tents?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Whey, cheaper than baton rounds In the stringent finacial circumstances the police find themselves
> 
> In this televisual age any 'innocent' being beaten up would cause a storm of outrage, we have all seen it, hence the unusual scenes of coppers actually on trial



On trial, my arse. That rancid wanker Smellie gots a slap on the wrist for punching someone in the face in full view of the cameras, as did many of his compatriots, including the plum who rode his horse into a crowd, fell off and then laughably claimed he'd been pulled off by two protesters who actually tried to stop him falling.
Don't kid yourself that "this televisual age" makes any difference in any except the most egregious cases. It doesn't. The whole disciplinary procedure of the police services, including the system that investigates complaints, is geared toward favouring the Old Bill, not the public.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> In this televisual age any 'innocent' being beaten up would cause a storm of outrage, we have all seen it, hence the unusual scenes of coppers actually on trial



Can I come and live on your planet please? It sounds lovely.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Has anyone made that argument? Do you think the government will do anything to change course _without_ some kind of direct coercion/threat of force?
> 
> I'd say likening a smashed window to Kristallnacht is about as direct a comparison as you can get, in addition to being utterly fucking hysterical.



So you think the government will change course if a handful of twats go around smashing the place up?!! You obviously don't know the tories very well do you.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Has anyone made that argument? Do you think the government will do anything to change course _without_ some kind of direct coercion/threat of force?



While I wouldn't say "coercion", because there's no method by which parliament can be coerced by the electorate, they won't change tack unless it becomes clear that their policies will promote continued and escalating unrest.

As for force or threat of force, that's going to depend on how the state, via the police, decide to act.



> I'd say likening a smashed window to Kristallnacht is about as direct a comparison as you can get, in addition to being utterly fucking hysterical.



Yep.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So you think the government will change course if a handful of twats go around smashing the place up?!! You obviously don't know the tories very well do you.



That's not what he said.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So you think the government will change course if a handful of twats go around smashing the place up?!! You obviously don't know the tories very well do you.



A strike can also be a direct coercion/threat of force. If they thought that people were just going to sit back and accept all of this and perhaps march up and down for half an hour holding a sign, then we would probably still not have the vote in this country.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Also, some of the posts on this thread are in increasingly poor taste.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> That's not what he said.



Anyone else see a pattern forming here?


----------



## Barking_Mad (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> On trial, my arse. That rancid wanker Smellie gots a slap on the wrist for punching someone in the face in full view of the cameras, as did many of his compatriots, including the plum who rode his horse into a crowd, fell off and then laughably claimed he'd been pulled off by two protesters who actually tried to stop him falling.
> Don't kid yourself that "this televisual age" makes any difference in any except the most egregious cases. It doesn't. The whole disciplinary procedure of the police services, including the system that investigates complaints, is geared toward favouring the Old Bill, not the public.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So you think the government will change course if a handful of twats go around smashing the place up?!! You obviously don't know the tories very well do you.



In my view the aim should be to make it unviable for this government to remain in power. Obviously Cameron's mob are so utterly demented and beyond the reach of reason or human morality that asking them to mend their ways is about as worthwhile as offering a black hole a breath mint.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> A strike can also be a direct coercion/threat of force. If they thought that people were just going to sit back and accept all of this and perhaps march up and down for half an hour holding a sign, then we would probably still not have the vote in this country.



I couldn't agree more frogwoman! I'm just questioning the need for actual _physical_ violence which in the present demonstration and occupations would in my view be counter productive.


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## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I couldn't agree more frogwoman! I'm just questioning the use of actual _physical_ violence which in the present demonstration and occupations would be counter productive.



So what should people do when the police etc start shoving them around on demos, or start beating people? Just sit back and take it?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> A strike can also be a direct coercion/threat of force. If they thought that people were just going to sit back and accept all of this and perhaps march up and down for half an hour holding a sign, then we would probably still not have the vote in this country.



To be fair, while striking is coercive, it's generally only so to the extent of forcing negotiation.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> So what should people do when the police etc start shoving them around on demos, or start beating people? Just sit back and take it?



I don't know and it's happened to me! I'm just talking about those who go to demos with the INTENTION of carrying out violent action.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> In my view the aim should be to make it unviable for this government to remain in power. Obviously Cameron's mob are so utterly demented and beyond the reach of reason or human morality that asking them to mend their ways is about as worthwhile as offering a black hole a breath mint.



The problem being that we've yet to hear anything from the opposition that's relevant to a reversal of, for example, the tuition fees position, so a Labour government (or lib/lab coalition for that matter) will likely be just as unviable.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I don't know and it's happened to me! I'm just talking about those who go to demos with the INTENTION of carrying out violent action.



Do you think many people actually do this?


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> Can I come and live on your planet please? It sounds lovely.


OH it is. its called planet reality and if you think this bunch of useless wimps is going to succeed in anything where the miners failed, then jump onto your spaceship pronto


----------



## ddraig (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I don't know and it's happened to me! I'm just talking about those who go to demos with the INTENTION of carrying out violent action.


you've made your point, many times, going round in circles
and are not listening to reasoned points to your crap
can you shut up now please?
ta


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## ddraig (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> OH it is. its called planet reality and if you think this bunch of useless wimps is going to succeed in anything where the miners failed, then jump onto your spaceship pronto


did you go to the "school of hard knocks" and the "university of life" perchance?


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## stuff_it (Nov 9, 2011)

ddraig said:


> did you go to the "school of hard knocks" and the "university of life" perchance?


If ever a poster was begging for fish pics...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> The problem being that we've yet to hear anything from the opposition that's relevant to a reversal of, for example, the tuition fees position, so a Labour government (or lib/lab coalition for that matter) will likely be just as unviable.



Perhaps knowing that the previous government was ousted will help convince the new government to behave itself.

I don't really know where we go from here, I just dread to think what's going to be left of this country if these motherfuckers make it to 2015 in one piece.


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## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

ddraig said:


> did you go to the "school of hard knocks" and the "university of life" perchance?


COAC try a bit of originality cant you?


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew, do you agree that the Tories won't change course unless the actions of at least a part of the population ensure that they have no other option than to do so?

If so, that's force. Street "violence" as you call it (I'd prefer direct action - it's not simple mindless violence, no matter how many times you insist it is) is one of the ways in which we can apply force. It's not a question of being pro or anti violence in principle - it's about what will work. The objective violence initiated by the government, if left unchecked, will escalate to levels the caricature of a black blocker that seems to exist only in your head could only dream of. And I don't see them changing at all unless there is serious unrest on the streets.

If you don't have the stomach for it there's nothing I can do about it, just stop condemning those who are willing to do what is necessary. But if you oppose "violence" full stop then you also oppose the use of a tool without which they will not be forced into even the smallest of concessions, nevermind back down altogether.

Opposing "violence" because it's tactically or strategically counterproductive is sensible. Opposing it full stop because it offends your sensibilities is stupid and will doom us to defeat.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> OH it is. its called planet reality and if you think this bunch of useless wimps is going to succeed in anything where the miners failed, then jump onto your spaceship pronto



You're not comparing like with like. For a start, the "front line" of these protests are cross-class. I don't say that because I think it's a good or bad thing, merely as a fact. The miners' strike however, was *between* classes as much as it was between government and governed.
Think strategically for a moment (unless you're a former Para, in which case you won't be capable): Who's the greater threat to the _status quo_: The people who were miners and only wanted to be miners, or the people of whom some will go on to become public servants themselves, within the institutions of power that are currently shitting on them?


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> If ever a poster was begging for fish pics...



You like fish dicks?


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## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> If ever a poster was begging for fish pics...


Whey up. another 'original thinker'


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## stuff_it (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> You like fish dicks?


Don't google 'Japanese hentai porn eel' with safesearch off.



coley said:


> Whey up. another 'original thinker'


Please see the knock knock thread for correct usage of fish pictures in U75.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Andrew, do you agree that the Tories won't change course unless the actions of at least a part of the population ensure that they have no other option than to do so?
> 
> If so, that's force. Street "violence" as you call it (I'd prefer direct action - it's not simple mindless violence, no matter how many times you insist it is) is one of the ways in which we can apply force. It's not a question of being pro or anti violence in principle - it's about what will work. The objective violence initiated by the government, if left unchecked, will escalate to levels the caricature of a black blocker that seems to exist only in your head could only dream of. And I don't see them changing at all unless there is serious unrest on the streets.
> 
> ...



Well said.
I'm against "mindless violence" myself, but have nothing against physical resistance. I have nothing but contempt for the Noddy that hoyed that fire extinguisher off of Millbank, and window-breaking holds little appeal when it's likely an Old Bill plant leading the smashing (  ), but well-considered and planned targetted action against property, and self-defence against the police are entirely legitimate.


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> You're not comparing like with like. For a start, the "front line" of these protests are cross-class. I don't say that because I think it's a good or bad thing, merely as a fact. The miners' strike however, was *between* classes as much as it was between government and governed.
> Think strategically for a moment (unless you're a former Para, in which case you won't be capable): Who's the greater threat to the _status quo_: The people who were miners and only wanted to be miners, or the people of whom some will go on to become public servants themselves, within the institutions of power that are currently shitting on them?



Fair point, but look at it from a power perspective, the miners had a lot more leverage(wasted by scargill, unfortunatey)then this collection, who havent even got a rational demand other than a hazy 'down with the evil tories' protest


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Whey up. another 'original thinker'



Fish pics are a revered tradition on Urban, as are fish puns.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Fair point, but look at it from a power perspective, the miners had a lot more leverage(wasted by scargill, unfortunatey)then this collection, who havent even got a rational demand other than a hazy 'down with the evil tories' protest



There was I thinking that their demands over the last year or so have been plain: Reinstatement of the EMA and a re-negotiation of tuition fees/reversion to the original formula.


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## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

So on one hand they're equivalent to fash and on the other hand they're "wimps" without "rational demands".


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## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Crying about broken windows is a bit much when you've got people who're literally telling the government "not to back down when the suicides begin". Funny how people who wear sackcloths and ashes at this stuff are often the ones who support our govt's bombs raining down on peoples heads from thousands of feet too


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## agricola (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> There was I thinking that their demands over the last year or so have been plain: Reinstatement of the EMA and a re-negotiation of tuition fees/reversion to the original formula.



Both of which are a bit daft though.  A reversion to the situation before 1997 (ie: much more widely available maintenance grants rather than loans, and free tuition*) would be a much better set of demands.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's as bad as _Kristallnacht_, I tells ya!!!


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

agricola said:


> Both of which are a bit daft though. A reversion to the situation before 1997 (ie: much more widely available maintenance grants rather than loans, and free tuition*) would be a much better set of demands.



Agreed, but how many of those student protesters have much of a clue about the grants system, beyond having heard a few stories from oldsters?


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Do you think if there was violent action at the demo that's going on right now would further our future rights? Do you think the OLSX occupation would be more effective if it became violent?
> 
> And what do you mean "comparing everything to facsism"? So far as I know I've only made that comparison once before and that was indirectly.



No, no, no, no!


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I don't know and it's happened to me! I'm just talking about those who go to demos with the INTENTION of carrying out violent action.



I'm sure that this has already been asked, but what about those coppers who go to demos with the intention of carry out violent action?


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Well said.
> I'm against "mindless violence" myself, but have nothing against physical resistance. I have nothing but contempt for the Noddy that hoyed that fire extinguisher off of Millbank, and window-breaking holds little appeal when it's likely an Old Bill plant leading the smashing (  ), but well-considered and planned targetted action against property, and self-defence against the police are entirely legitimate.



Agreed - generally the "mindless" stuff also falls under the "counterproductive" category, extinguisher boy being a classic example.


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## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Would you like to tell us all again how an idiot smashing a window, is comparable to state-planned, state-sponsored outbreaks of "spontaneous" violence being ratcheted up and up as part of a preparation for war and genocide.


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## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I'm sure that this has already been asked, but what about those coppers who go to demos with the intention of carry out violent action?



The protesters _broke the law_.


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## agricola (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Agreed, but how many of those student protesters have much of a clue about the grants system, beyond having heard a few stories from oldsters?



No idea, though what they (or at least the leaders / those who get on TV) are demanding would tend to suggest that it cant be that many. I guess that is just another stick to beat the perennially useless NUS with - for them not to point to a system that was considerably fairer, that demonstrably improved the lives of at least several hundred thousand people (edit: probably more like several million) and which (most importantly of all, given how successive governments have framed this debate) was quite a bit cheaper for all those concerned, is a complete abdication of what they should be doing.... though of course I doubt anyone will be surprised.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> The protesters _broke the law_.



We can't have that now, can we? We must ensure that the punishment fits the crime. Now where have I put me pickaxe handle?


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## Hocus Eye. (Nov 9, 2011)

The police on demonstrations are only doing their job. That job being to protect their political masters from dissident opinion. The political class and their City masters want to rule without opposition. Mostly there is no opposition, that is, within the political sphere - all parties being on board. The police can deal with those who take their protest to the streets. They do a thorough job planning in advance of any demonstration. They issue statements saying that the demonstrations will be violent in advance and not wishing to be proved wrong get into their riot gear and arm themselves with truncheons and shields. Shields are useful weapons not just for self-protection. They wind themselves up for the fight.

It is obvious that if thousands of people are marching it is a simple matter by pressing in on these people and blocking their exit, to get them frightened. The police are good at that, it is their daily routine winding up people until they react. Even if the wound up person merely swears at the police using language that is regularly used in everyday conversation, then this becomes a reason for a threat of arrest leading to arrest. You see this in videos of the police at work. These videos are meant to make us side with the police, but they have no idea that they are telling us more about the police than the so called 'criminal'.

When on a demonstration the police for some reason forget that they are being filmed and photographed hundreds of times. Or maybe they are so cocksure that smashing someone in the face with a shield or hitting their thighs with a truncheon will not backfire on them. Maybe they are right because the publicity that comes from this takes a long time to produce an effect in the courts. The action itself has its effect in subduing the victim and intimidation many of those around the incident. It also inflames the situation provoking anti-police sentiment and action, giving more officers an excuse to get heavy handed or booted. So it goes.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 9, 2011)

agricola said:


> No idea, though what they (or at least the leaders / those who get on TV) are demanding would tend to suggest that it cant be that many. I guess that is just another stick to beat the perennially useless NUS with - for them not to point to a system that was considerably fairer, that demonstrably improved the lives of at least several hundred thousand people (edit: probably more like several million) and which (most importantly of all, given how successive governments have framed this debate) was quite a bit cheaper for all those concerned, is a complete abdication of what they should be doing.... though of course I doubt anyone will be surprised.



The problem with the NUS's hierarchy committing themselves to such a position as supporting a return to full grants is that it'd queer their pitch for a post-NUS political career. We saw this with that dick-wipe Porter and his pro-_status quo_ hand-wringing.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Do tories and that even respect people like Porter though? I never understand that. They'll still be percieved as dishonest.


----------



## Blagsta (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Whey up. another 'original thinker'



What's your obsession with whey? I mean, I like a whey protein drink as much as anyone after a workout, but I don't need to shout about it!


----------



## DaveCinzano (Nov 9, 2011)

Big supporter of Curdish self-determination, mind.


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Andrew, do you agree that the Tories won't change course unless the actions of at least a part of the population ensure that they have no other option than to do so?
> 
> If so, that's force. Street "violence" as you call it (I'd prefer direct action - it's not simple mindless violence, no matter how many times you insist it is) is one of the ways in which we can apply force. It's not a question of being pro or anti violence in principle - it's about what will work. The objective violence initiated by the government, if left unchecked, will escalate to levels the caricature of a black blocker that seems to exist only in your head could only dream of. And I don't see them changing at all unless there is serious unrest on the streets.
> 
> ...



I've never said I oppose violence full stop, I'm no pacifist, but I'm firmly of the opinion that _violent_ direct action is counter productive in most cases _including_ the ones going on in London and other cities at the moment. For example the government would love the OLSX thing at St.Pauls to get violent, it would give them an excuse to end it. Someone's already mentioned provocateurs and you only have to think back to the abandoned police van on Whitehall last year to see that protesters getting violent could kinda be what the government likes, it gives them the extra power and authority to clamp down hard and label their opponents as undesirable. A handful of anarchists smashing the place up for political ends - for that is all it will ever be - does not constitute the kind of "serious unrest on the streets" that you say will make them change.

At the risk of going round in circles any more (and it ain't just me is it), I'll take ddraig's good advice and shut up now.


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I'm sure that this has already been asked, but what about those coppers who go to demos with the intention of carry out violent action?



Dunno mate, what about them? Bastards ain't they.


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Nov 9, 2011)

Re: post #281 Praise the Tooth Fairy!


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## Brixton Hatter (Nov 9, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I'm sure that this has already been asked, but what about those coppers who go to demos with the intention of carry out violent action?


They get a promotion.

Whatever happened to that copper who put on his facebook page before the big demo last year that he was "well up for bashing some hippies" (or similar)? Couldnt find the story on google...


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## Hocus Eye. (Nov 9, 2011)

Brixton Hatter said:


> They get a promotion.
> 
> Whatever happened to that copper who put on his facebook page before the big demo last year that he was "well up for bashing some hippies" (or similar)? Couldnt find the story on google...


Just imagine how dangerous the police would be if they were selected for their intelligence.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> Luther Blissett said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sorry about that. I didn't say what I was trying to convey, which was that people who aren't on the march read the trumped up propaganda in the rags and that influences how they perceive the student protests. I've added 'not' because that's what I ought to have written.


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

Hocus Eye. said:


> Re: post #281 Praise the Tooth Fairy!



Fuck off or I'll keep coming back.

After all I never did get any answers to my questions.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

about 60 arrests reported so far (1 hr ago); police have kettled all those didn't disperse after 5:30pm, but basically they weren't letting anyone leave anyway; everyone inside after 5:30pm was placed under arrest (section 12); one of the fitwatchers has been assaulted by a plainclothes cop; about 3 hrs ago, masked-up thugs seen on streetcorner itching for trouble; rumours of anti-protestors (cops or fascists) masquerading as 'black bloc' rife; video here of 5 undercover cops arresting a protestor : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2evPgG1RrDg


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> There was I thinking that their demands over the last year or so have been plain: Reinstatement of the EMA and a re-negotiation of tuition fees/reversion to the original formula.



Amongst others, I think the only group not represented was FFJ, the main theme was smash the tories, but what is laughable was your remark earlier about these being the 'ruling classes' of the future, gastricband and call me dave and their ilk were there 20 years ago now they are organising the smashing up of todays demos,what goes around come around


----------



## stuff_it (Nov 9, 2011)

coley said:


> Amongst others, I think the only group not represented was FFJ, the main theme was smash the tories, but what is laughable was your remark earlier about these being the 'ruling classes' of the future, gastricband and call me dave and their ilk were there 20 years ago now they are organising the smashing up of todays demos,what goes around come around


What comp did Disco Dave go to again?


----------



## coley (Nov 9, 2011)

stuff_it said:


> What comp did Disco Dave go to again?


Oh sorry, didnt realise all these protesters are solidly working class ex comprehensive types


----------



## agricola (Nov 9, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> The problem with the NUS's hierarchy committing themselves to such a position as supporting a return to full grants is that it'd queer their pitch for a post-NUS political career. We saw this with that dick-wipe Porter and his pro-_status quo_ hand-wringing.



I entirely agree, and of course its disgusting that so many people have been screwed over just so that bunch of fuckwits can get a foot on the career ladder.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

Construction workers come down from their scaffolds to support the students: pic.twitter.com/pmq3edBl
rafalgar Square has been occupied: http://twitpic.com/7chprc. Video of resisting police trying to arrest them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYyfBnoUVE&feature=youtu.be. Police "tore down" tents: 





> They pitched about 25 tents during a march by thousands of students against cuts to university funding, but said their main aim was to express solidarity with a public sector strike against pension reforms on November 30.
> 
> However, policemen patrolling the student march soon moved in, hauling protesters out of the tents which officers then folded up.
> 
> ...


 http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/wo...gar-square-tents/story-e6frf7lf-1226190775668


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 9, 2011)

agricola said:


> I entirely agree, and of course its disgusting that so many people have been screwed over just so that bunch of fuckwits can get a foot on the career ladder.


Never a truer word has been said.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Would you like to tell us all again how an idiot smashing a window, is comparable to state-planned, state-sponsored outbreaks of "spontaneous" violence being ratcheted up and up as part of a preparation for war and genocide.



Ffs frogwoman, I've just found this piece of shit. Was it aimed at me? If you must keep blathering on about something I said months ago on another thread, because you find it too difficult to answer my points in this thread about the effectiveness of political violence, then why don't you bore us all to death and at least trawl through the archives to have a look at what I _actually_ said.


----------



## friedaweed (Nov 9, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> about 60 arrests reported so far (1 hr ago); police have kettled all those didn't disperse after 5:30pm, but basically they weren't letting anyone leave anyway; everyone inside after 5:30pm was placed under arrest (section 12); one of the fitwatchers has been assaulted by a plainclothes cop; about 3 hrs ago, masked-up thugs seen on streetcorner itching for trouble; rumours of anti-protestors (cops or fascists) masquerading as 'black bloc' rife; video here of 5 undercover cops arresting a protestor : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2evPgG1RrDg


Ant ideas what for yet? Dibbing a fag out on the street??


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> I've never said I oppose violence full stop, I'm no pacifist, but I'm firmly of the opinion that _violent_ direct action is counter productive in most cases _including_ the ones going on in London and other cities at the moment. For example the government would love the OLSX thing at St.Pauls to get violent, it would give them an excuse to end it. Someone's already mentioned provocateurs and you only have to think back to the abandoned police van on Whitehall last year to see that protesters getting violent could kinda be what the government likes, *it gives them the extra power and authority to clamp down hard and label their opponents as undesirable. A handful of anarchists smashing the place up for political ends - for that is all it will ever be - does not constitute the kind of "serious unrest on the streets" that you say will make them change*.
> 
> At the risk of going round in circles any more (and it ain't just me is it), I'll take ddraig's good advice and shut up now.



1) They'll soon manufacture a threat to justify harsher policing measures, even without anarchos doing their urban ninja impressions.

2) Nobody has said "A handful of anarchists smashing the place up for political ends" will bring down a government, or even force it to change course _alone. _But it can contribute to it. It's far more nuanced than you or the violence fetishists (of whom I've seen none on this thread) would have it.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Ffs frogwoman, I've just found this piece of shit. Was it aimed at me? If you must keep blathering on about something I said months ago on another thread, because you find it too difficult to answer my points in this thread about the effectiveness of political violence, then why don't you bore us all to death and at least trawl through the archives to have a look at what I _actually_ said.



They've all been answered on this thread - you just won't listen. And your comparison between a couple of smashed windows and the most notorious pogrom in history is pertinent - it shows that you're an hysterical fool with no sense of perspective, thus demonstrating that your whining on here about "violence" is to be treated with the contempt it deserves.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Dunno mate, what about them? Bastards ain't they.



Sincere to the very end, eh Andy?


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> They've all been answered on this thread - you just won't listen. And your comparison between a couple of smashed windows and the most notorious pogrom in history is pertinent - it shows that you're an hysterical fool with no sense of perspective, thus demonstrating that your whining on here about "violence" is to be treated with the contempt it deserves.


Of course they were Norman.

To be honest I've given up expecting straight answers to simple questions about violence from the anarchos. All that remains really is the entertainment value.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Ffs frogwoman, I've just found this piece of shit. Was it aimed at me? If you must keep blathering on about something I said months ago on another thread, because you find it too difficult to answer my points in this thread about the effectiveness of political violence, then why don't you bore us all to death and at least trawl through the archives to have a look at what I _actually_ said.



I dont deny some people come on demos with the intention of causing a fight. Neither has anyone else. These people can be demonstrators. They can be (and more often are) the police. Even people who aren't up for a fight to begin with, often become so if they're corralled in for hours like fucking farm animals, unable to go to the toilet, eat, crushed together out in the cold etc. What would you do in such a situation? Of course there are going to be some twats, but do you think that the police's behaviour is purely motivated by what response they get on a demo. If the London riots are anything to go by, which according to your logic would have resulted in mass killings by the police across the whole of london, it's quite clear that the level of violence isn't proportionate to the police response, but it was more motivated by politics (the police were worried about the cuts etc).

Has anyone defended the fire-extinguisher throwing twat? Your comparison with idiot teenagers smashing windows or writing "tory scum" on a phone box with Krystallnacht shows us how hysterical you are and why your views should not be taken seriously. It is therefore completely relevant because your views are offensive and laughable and your inability to defend them even more so.


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## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

By the way i'm not an anarchist


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## Pickman's model (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Has anyone defended the fire-extinguisher throwing twat?


his aim wasn't that far off that it comes into 'twat' territory. i wouldn't be so harsh on him, myself, i'd just say try harder next time.


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## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

in andrew's eyes, that fire extinguisher was probably equivalent to hiroshima and nagasaki.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 9, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> in andrew's eyes, that fire extinguisher was probably equivalent to hiroshima and nagasaki.


pity it missed really.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 9, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> pity it missed really.



that would be equivalent to a mad scientist deliberately making a drug that would unleash the zombie apocalypse.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 9, 2011)

i think you have to go back well over a decade to find someone a riotous mob has killed in england.


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## sunny jim (Nov 9, 2011)

Blakelock in 1985


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## Pickman's model (Nov 9, 2011)

sunny jim said:


> Blakelock in 1985


 you're quite right


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Of course they were Norman.
> 
> To be honest I've given up expecting straight answers to simple questions about violence from the anarchos. All that remains really is the entertainment value.



1) I'm not an anarchist

2) To precisely which questions do you await an answer?


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 9, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> All that remains really is the entertainment value.


and you provide precious little of that.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 9, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> 1) I'm not an anarchist
> 
> 2) To precisely which questions do you await an answer?


what is the point of andrew hertford?


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 10, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> I dont deny some people come on demos with the intention of causing a fight. Neither has anyone else. These people can be demonstrators. They can be (and more often are) the police. Even people who aren't up for a fight to begin with, often become so if they're corralled in for hours like fucking farm animals, unable to go to the toilet, eat, crushed together out in the cold etc. What would you do in such a situation? Of course there are going to be some twats, but do you think that the police's behaviour is purely motivated by what response they get on a demo. If the London riots are anything to go by, which according to your logic would have resulted in mass killings by the police across the whole of london, it's quite clear that the level of violence isn't proportionate to the police response, but it was more motivated by politics (the police were worried about the cuts etc).
> 
> Has anyone defended the fire-extinguisher throwing twat? Your comparison with idiot teenagers smashing windows or writing "tory scum" on a phone box with Krystallnacht shows us how hysterical you are and why your views should not be taken seriously. It is therefore completely relevant because your views are offensive and laughable and your inability to defend them even more so.



The only view that I'm putting forward on this thread is that going to a demonstration with the intention of causing violence is wrong. You may disagree with that view, but calling it "offensive and laughable" shows that it's you that's being hysterical, not me. It also indicates how out of touch with reality you must be.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 10, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> 1) I'm not an anarchist
> 
> 2) To precisely which questions do you await an answer?


1) I never said you were.

2) Posts 91, 96, 110.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> The only view that I'm putting forward on this thread is that going to a demonstration with the intention of causing violence is wrong. You may disagree with that view, but by calling it "offensive and laughable" shows that it's you that's being hysterical, not me. It also indicates how out of touch with reality you must be.


your views are offensive and laughable and no amount of denying the facts will alter them.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> So, the cops are now talking about using plastic bullets at demonstrations. Most of the blame has top lie at the door of the handful of dickheads who turn up uninvited at demos with the intention of throwing stuff at the police or smashing the place up. Thanks guys. Perhaps they never quite thought their 'tactic' through properly, or is it that they actually welcome such an ominous escalation?


can you give me an example of anyone turning up uninvited at a demonstration? demonstrations are - fyi - not invite only. twat.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Perhaps you can answer my question Dot. Didn't they realise that the cops would up the ante at some point if demonstrations became more violent, or do they actually welcome escalation?
> 
> As for the suffrage movement, there was a LOT more to it than smashing the occasional shop window, although that may be all that you choose to remember. Do you really think that women wouldn't have got the vote if they hadn't?


your first question's a bit shit because you are putting all the blame for violence at previous demonstrations on demonstrators. the police, in your view, are reacting to greater aggression from demonstrators. the only person on this thread with this fucked up analysis is you.

your second question's fucked. fucking put it right you daft twat.


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## frogwoman (Nov 10, 2011)

im imagining some tiny demo of about ten people all dressed in black tie and then the organiser snootily turning to someone who's jsut arrived and saying, "you're not on the guest list, are you?"


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## Pickman's model (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> Seeing as you are not in any way intellectually bereft VP, perhaps you can answer my question because nobody else seems able to. Didn't you and your tiny handful mates who advocate violence think things through and at least guess that the cops would talk about upping the ante after what happened on other recent anti cuts demos? Or is it that you view a potential escalation like this as actually working in your favour?
> 
> And no, I don't think that the cops and or government would be so stupid as to even think about deploying rubber bullets if previous demos had been peaceful.


yes - although i am not speaking for vp

but your questions show something of yourself, and it's not really the way you'd like to be shown. you talk here about the police talking about upping the ante. you talk in your earlier post, 96 i think, about the police actually upping the ante. which is it? do you know? do we care what you think? - to that last i suspect the answer is for others as it is for myself - 'not particularly'.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> The only view that I'm putting forward on this thread is that going to a demonstration with the intention of causing violence is wrong.



And have I disagreed with you? In my posts, that is.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 10, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> And have I disagreed with you?


you should have done


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## frogwoman (Nov 10, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you should have done


quite possibly , but what's funny about that post he quoted is that he's imagining things in my post that aren't there


----------



## treelover (Nov 10, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> his aim wasn't that far off that it comes into 'twat' territory. i wouldn't be so harsh on him, myself, i'd just say try harder next time.



knob....


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

The Government thinks it's OK to LOAD my 3 Kids with £150,000 of DEBT over the next 6 years. I'm here to say FUCK OFF.
http://twitpic.com/7cdwit


----------



## newbie (Nov 10, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i think you have to go back well over a decade to find someone a riotous mob has killed in england.





sunny jim said:


> Blakelock in 1985





Pickman's model said:


> you're quite right



er, what?

Richard Mannington Bowes
Haroon Jahan
Shahzad Ali
Abdul Musavir
Trevor Ellis

Don't any of them count or matter?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> 1) I never said you were.
> 
> 2) Posts 91, 96, 110.



You certainly implied that I was.

The question in post 91 is based upon a false premise.

Post 96 repeats this question, then asks whether female suffrage would have been won without the violent actions of the suffragettes. Without an being able to look at an alternative reality where they eschewed violence it's hard to say, but I suspect they would still have won it, though probably nowhere near as quickly.

Post 110 dishonestly misrepresents VP, suggesting that he's somehow pro-violence. But I'd say that in the absence of any "violence" (I must add that destruction of property isn't violence - to suggest it is is to suggest that property is as valuable as human life) the police would have simply provoked some, and so would still have had their excuse.

Of course all of these in fact have been answered, just not on your terms - and that's what you object to isn't it?

Someone posts a thread about the police threatening to use rubber bullets. Your first post, in fact every post you have made, is all about blaming "violent" anarchists. Nothing about the brutality of this threat. No condemnation of the police. No blaming the establishment that gives them the authority to make this threat, no blame aimed at the police themselves. It shows how your thought process works. Hence my earlier comparison with sexual harassment. It shows you for what you are. Then again we've always known whose side liberals will take when it comes to the crunch - nobody should be surprised.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 10, 2011)

newbie said:


> er, what?
> 
> Richard Mannington Bowes
> Haroon Jahan
> ...


i think you need to check the difference between people in a car and a riotous mob, which knocks out three of your five. in fact the only one of them who could be said to have been killed by a riotous mob (and that in a loose sense) is mr bowes.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> The only view that I'm putting forward on this thread is that going to a demonstration with the intention of causing violence is wrong. You may disagree with that view, but calling it "offensive and laughable" shows that it's you that's being hysterical, not me. It also indicates how out of touch with reality you must be.



You quite clearly have a problem with protests and demonstrations. In that sense, you're no different to the weirdos who hang out on _Telegraph_ blogs. In fact, I would't be at all surprised if you were really a journalist working for one of the Tory papers.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Andrew Hertford said:


> To be honest I've given up expecting straight answers to simple questions about violence from the anarchos police and their undercover fake-black-bloc & snatch squads. All that remains really is the entertainment value.



Amended for you


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 10, 2011)

sunny jim said:


> Blakelock in 1985



Those were the days.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Undercover cops snatch a protestor at 4pm in Moorgate (near St Pauls):



> I witnessed this arrest while poutside of the kettle in Moorgate around 4PM. This was a large and planned operation. Before he was dragged out of the protest a line of police horses was formed to prevent protesters from following the cops. Undercover officers were intimadating people who tried to photograph the incident.
> He was dragged to a small alley and police blocked it to prevent any witnesses from coming in. The second part of the clip is when I run to the other end of the alley. There was around 10 coppers involved.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_kCB54oi04



Holborn Circus:

Rumours for this one on twitter were that protestor said aloud that this grouping looked like undercover cops posing black bloc - note - this is just a rumour i.e.unconfirmed.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 10, 2011)

Fuck me, it's like the 19th century all over again.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

I'm going to post this anarchist theory on black bloc tactics (and police infiltration masquerading as black bloc): 

Applied Nonexistence - Beyond the Black Bloc: A Critique of its Tactics and Ontology:  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/15460

Seattle 1999, Genoa G8, April and November 2011 Student demos in UK,and countless other demos have seen increasing police 'black bloc' tactics being used from within body of genuine protestors.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> Fuck me, it's like the 19th century all over again.


Depends where you live really. In US and Israel/Palestine, and Iran definitely.
In UK, not yet ... but ...

If protests were held outside London, then the Met wouldn't be involved, and the Met appear to be part of the problem. Not all police forces are the same. Some handle democratic protest better than others, as we've seen over the last 70 EDL demos.


----------



## smokedout (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> I'm going to post this anarchist theory on black bloc tactics (and police infiltration masquerading as black bloc):
> 
> Applied Nonexistence - Beyond the Black Bloc: A Critique of its Tactics and Ontology:  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/15460
> 
> Seattle 1999, Genoa G8, April and November 2011 Student demos in UK,and countless other demos have seen increasing police 'black bloc' tactics being used from within body of genuine protestors.



i got to here



> (within the sphere of what we could call sub/counter/alter-cultural production – which I claim is still well within the purview of an extremely diffuse and rhizomatic late-capitalist schematization)



is it all complete bollocks like that


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

smokedout said:


> i got to here
> 
> is it all complete bollocks like that


It doesn't help that you pulled half a sentence from it and then gave up before even reaching the main discussion. It's obv. written in academese - apologies for it's inaccessibible language - anarchist theory is sometimes like that. Try to pull something useful from it, rather than dismiss it in it's entirity. The person who wrote the article has either read Deleuze and Guatarri or Scott Uzelman on social-movements. There's a simple summary in the comments:


> *What I understood from this was*:
> -black blocs aren't as fluid as they're often made out to be
> -black blocs (at least those that happen at protests) are actually engaging in ordinary representative politics in a way, despite how they try to present themselves
> -similarly, black blocs often (usually?) act within a particular, predetermined, physical terrain which is always under extreme surveillance, subject to heavy police control, etc.; moreover, the police know how to neutralize black blocs
> ...


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## DotCommunist (Nov 10, 2011)

pretty much.


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## nino_savatte (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Depends where you live really. In US and Israel/Palestine, and Iran definitely.
> In UK, not yet ... but ...
> 
> If protests were held outside London, then the Met wouldn't be involved, and the Met appear to be part of the problem. Not all police forces are the same. Some handle democratic protest better than others, as we've seen over the last 70 EDL demos.



I'm thinking of agents-provocateurs and how they were used to discredit worker's movements in the 19th century....


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## frogwoman (Nov 10, 2011)

smokedout said:


> i got to here
> 
> is it all complete bollocks like that



same - i didn't really understand a word


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> same - i didn't really understand a word


I did, but the knowledge you didn't doesn't fill me with joy, so I'll put a 'rewrite' on my ever increasing to-do list :|


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I'm thinking of agents-provocateurs and how they were used to discredit worker's movements in the 19th century....


More info!


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> I'm going to post this anarchist theory on black bloc tactics (and police infiltration masquerading as black bloc):
> 
> Applied Nonexistence - Beyond the Black Bloc: A Critique of its Tactics and Ontology:  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/15460
> 
> Seattle 1999, Genoa G8, April and November 2011 Student demos in UK,and countless other demos have seen increasing police 'black bloc' tactics being used from within body of genuine protestors.


Load of showy wank, no wonder holy posted it. worse than useless


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Load of showy wank, no wonder holy posted it. worse than useless


It isn't showy wank, but was expecting both you smokedout to criticise it and you didn't let me down.
Howabout you both ignore it with the contempt you think it deserves, and address the problem of police masquerading of black bloc and embedding themselves within demos, and their perversive infiltration of protest groups over the last 40 years and why we shouldn't trust the police "guidelines" that claim


> "Undercover officers are permitted to participate in criminal acts provided they do not instigate them".


----------



## Garek (Nov 10, 2011)

As someone has rightly pointed out those cops are not undercover but plainclothesmen. It's an important distinction.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Garek said:


> As someone has rightly pointed out those cops are not undercover but plainclothesmen. It's an important distinction.



Plainclothes as in hoodies/scarves/hats/caps in dull colours, mimicking black bloc 'fashion'. The middle-aged beer-belly and grant-mitchell look-a-like kinda gives them away, but they're not all Grant Mitchell lookalikes - some are very well embedded and can't be called 'plainclothesmen'.




> I was on my way to deliver this footage to the BBC in Regent Street when I was detained under section 60. I had started recording on my camera before the police approuched me and they forced the camera from my hand and held both my arms as if I was a criminal. I was asked for my details but refused to give any untill I had been told what law and what crime I had commited.
> 
> The officers could not tell me what crime but were only able to use Section 60 which is a stop and search power. Everyone has the right not to give their details during a search. They then asked me if my bank card which they took from my pocket belonged to me. I told them that it did and they arrested me for Suspicion of Handling Stolen Goods. (The card belonged to me).
> 
> ...


I found it odd how the bescarfed hoody singing 'Fascist regime' waves at police and then they snatch him away from the group in the square, and he automatically puts his own hand up his own back ready for the restraints. Odd that.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 10, 2011)

#


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 10, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Is that what you think you're doing by posting that showy wank? No, you're simultaneously  specializing and trivialising responses to it. What use or help is that crap beyond boosting the authors intellectual cred? Leave it to people who write like that to deal with police? You'll be reading that shit from a prison cell if you do.


----------



## editor (Nov 10, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Is that what you think you're doing by posting that showy wank? No, you're simultaneously specializing and trivialising responses to it. What use our help is that crap beyond boosting the authors intellectual cred? Leave it to purple who write like that to deal with police? You'll be reading that shit from a prison cell if you do.


Jesus Christ man, that was from nearly a _decade_ ago, and I'll be fucked if I'm going to waste my time researching, explaining and contextualising my comments for your benefit.

WTF are you doing dredging up out-of-context comments from unrelated threads from so long ago, anyway? It's ridiculous.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> More info!


I can't believe that you've not heard of this. Seriously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

The Luddites weren't the only ones to be infiltrated/set up either.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 10, 2011)

That wasn't a response to that post editor which I've not yet even read.I quoted the wrong post I was talking to luther.

(my tapatalk is quoting stuff from one post in others that have nothing to do with them here)


----------



## editor (Nov 10, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> That want a respond else to that post which I've not yet even read.


Pardon?


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

nino_savatte said:


> I can't believe that you've not heard of this. Seriously.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
> 
> The Luddites weren't the only ones to be infiltrated/set up either.


I have, I'm just pushing you to reveal more info for the Andrew Hertford's who are too lazy to look into the background.
IWW Bread and Roses strike saw similar - protestor likely shot by police or Mayoral-approved armed militia, but authorities tried to pin the murder onto a pair of vocal strikers giving a speech 1/2 a mile away: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_Lawrence_Textile_Strike


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> That wasn't a response to that post editor which I've not yet even read.I quoted the wrong post I was talking to luther.
> 
> (my tapatalk is quoting stuff from one post in others that have nothing to do with them here)


Move on. We're now discussing state/corporate tactics of disruption and attempts to delegitimise demos, protests and strikes.


----------



## smokedout (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> Move on. We're now discussing state/corporate tactics of disruption and attempts to delegitimise demos, protests and strikes.



you are, i'm not sure anyone else is


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

smokedout said:


> you are, i'm not sure anyone else is


Nino is. I am. You are not. So what?
Talking about cop/corporate infiltration is completely relevant to the thread's question
'How long before the water cannons appear?'


----------



## Fruitloop (Nov 10, 2011)

Tiqqun though, eh. They were pretty cool.


----------



## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> Tiqqun though, eh. They were pretty cool.


They were


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 10, 2011)

coley said:


> Amongst others, I think the only group not represented was FFJ, the main theme was smash the tories...



Really? Even the media didn't try and present that as an accurate representation, so why are you - political prejudice?



> but what is laughable was your remark earlier about these being the 'ruling classes' of the future, gastricband and call me dave and their ilk were there 20 years ago now they are organising the smashing up of todays demos,what goes around come around



Cameron and his ilk were there 30+ years ago, not 20, taking full grants and free tuition. Do at least try and get your facts right.
As for the "ruling classes" of the future, where else do you think they're going to come from, if not from the students of today - Toytown?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 10, 2011)

> I was on my way to deliver this footage to the BBC in Regent Street when I was detained under section 60. I had started recording on my camera before the police approuched me and they forced the camera from my hand and held both my arms as if I was a criminal. I was asked for my details but refused to give any untill I had been told what law and what crime I had commited.​
> The officers could not tell me what crime but were only able to use Section 60 which is a stop and search power. Everyone has the right not to give their details during a search. They then asked me if my bank card which they took from my pocket belonged to me. I told them that it did and they arrested me for Suspicion of Handling Stolen Goods. (The card belonged to me).​
> Before my arrest I had arranged to give my footage to the BBC and a BBC reporter booked my name with reception. I was followed from Soho by two police officers in uniform. I was detained and arrested on Regent Street close to the BBC building. I found it strange how they would decide to detain me before I could get to the BBC.​
> After I was released without Charge and without Caution after 4 hours I promptly made my way back to the BBC in Regent Street and was finaly able to pass them this footage.​



Section 60 applies to the search for offensive weapons and a handful of other legally dubious items. It does not empower officers to go through your wallet, nor to record any personal details which they find. As for this case, suspicion of handling stolen goods is obvious rubbish and the arrestee should sue for wrongful arrest, there's good money in wrongful arrests.

This person was lucky to keep their camera and their footage though, last year I had two cameras (and a mobile phone) taken off me during a section 60 search and held for over six months, even though section 60 only empowers police to seize illegal items.

Anyway, the moral of the story is don't carry bank cards on protests. Don't even take your wallet, just the bus fare home in cash. You might not think you need to worry about these things because you're not the sort of protestor who causes trouble, but to the police going on a protest _is _causing trouble. If you have important footage or images that need to be somewhere then give your camera to a mate and just take the card with you. Better still give your mate the card and send him off with it, as the plod may have seen you filming and marked you down for further attention, like what seems to have happened to the person quoted above. You can then shove in another card and keep shooting. Unless you want the pigs to potentially get their hands on pictures of you and all your mates down the pub, format your cards before taking them on a protest.

Remember kids, it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Good advice.

re. filming - even better to link up to a livestream account which records your live footage afaik. It's incredibly heavy on batteries @livestream and spares are essential


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 10, 2011)

frogwoman said:


> Do tories and that even respect people like Porter though? I never understand that. They'll still be percieved as dishonest.



Not within political circles. In political circles nowadays they're all much of a cuntiness, so someone like Porter, even though he queered his pitch as far as being a prospective parliamentary candidate in the near future, will always find himself a niche with the other leeches.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 10, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> Those were the days.



To exhume an old and in-very-bad-taste joke:

"That'll teach coppers to say 'run along, chop chop!' to rioters".


----------



## rekil (Nov 10, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Not within political circles. In political circles nowadays they're all much of a cuntiness, so someone like Porter, even though he queered his pitch as far as being a prospective parliamentary candidate in the near future, will always find himself a niche with the other leeches.


He's a 'higher education consultant' now.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 10, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> To exhume an old and in-very-bad-taste joke:
> 
> "That'll teach coppers to say 'run along, chop chop!' to rioters".



I do feel sorry for Blakelock's family though. Must be awful being related to a copper.


----------



## disco_dave_2000 (Nov 10, 2011)

I once did an art installation at the ICA, which was a series of flashing, almost subliminal, words and phrases. Included was 'Blakel0ck Deserved It' which caused all sorts of fuss and upset.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)




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## Nice one (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> I'm going to post this anarchist theory on black bloc tactics (and police infiltration masquerading as black bloc):
> 
> Applied Nonexistence - Beyond the Black Bloc: A Critique of its Tactics and Ontology:  http://anarchistnews.org/?q=node/15460
> 
> Seattle 1999, Genoa G8, April and November 2011 Student demos in UK,and countless other demos have seen increasing police 'black bloc' tactics being used from within body of genuine protestors.



black bloc critique is extremely dated. These undercover cops were embedded in the demo full stop. Most wore faded blue jeans and white trainers! Definitely a new tactic but little to do with 'infiltrating' the black bloc.

N9 New police tactics: Undercover cops active and aggressive.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Nice one said:


> black bloc critique is extremely dated. These undercover cops were embedded in the demo full stop. Most wore faded blue jeans and white trainers! Definitely a new tactic but little to do with 'infiltrating' the black bloc.
> 
> N9 New police tactics: Undercover cops active and aggressive.


Yes, you're right, but given what just happened in Oakland, we need to keep that discussion open. Police aren't obvious-to-you 'infiltrating' black bloc(s) per se, they're joining demos as undercover cops wearing hoodies and scarves "in the manner of". The police form their own bloc - we could call it 'the boys-in-blue bloc' or 'the blue bloc' for short.

I think whilst you and I do follow the critiques over the last 12 years since Seattle 1999, others don't, so it's useful to mention. Good article - will distribute, but it's not as the article claims, a new tactic - they've been doing for some years and are still doing it now. It's only that demonstrators have become aware of it - that's the difference.


----------



## Nice one (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> yes, you're right, they're not 'infiltrating' as black bloc, they're just undercover cops wearing hoodies and scarves.


how do you infiltrate a black bloc with light blue jeans and white trainers? Where i was not one identified copper was masked up, maybe where you were?


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Nice one said:


> how do you infiltrate a black bloc with light blue jeans and white trainers? Where i was not one identified copper was masked up, maybe where you were?


Watch the Moorgate video again - 4/5 had dark trainers. Yes they're wearing jeans. The colour of their tops is variable shades from black/blue/grey. That is just one group of 'blue bloc'

Other images, like the one taken during the protest above, show a scarf-cum-facemask around police necks.  One has long hair, hoody, scarf. Another has a beard/scarf/hoody, another is young, cleanshaven with his hood up, another is cleanshaven, middle-aged.

It's not a new tactic either. It's not new to Nov9 student protest. And it's not the only police undercover op within a demo either. Some do actually look/behave like genuine demonstrators. Your article is good, but it's not a new tactic, and you can't rule out their resort to black-bloc tactics or on-demo association with groups of people - they could be dressed in black, blue or wearing stone-coloured chinos, they could have short hair, shaven hair or long hair. They could have beards or not. They could look like crusties or skinheads or anarchists. I don't care what they wear  Just be aware of it.

Critique of black bloc tactics might have begun some time ago, but it's not 'old hat' to continue it in the light of the police infiltration into our movements.


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## Nice one (Nov 10, 2011)

granted some made a bit more effort that others, but the new element is the overt and aggressive use of undercover cops. This will develop.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

Nice one said:


> granted some made a bit more effort that others, but the new element is the overt and aggressive use of undercover cops. This will develop.


It happened in back April 29:

Be aware they're disguising themselves as police-version or how-police-view "black bloc" as dressing.
Hence why I mentioned 'infiltrate" and "black bloc". We really need to call them boys-in-blue bloc or blue bloc. *neenaa neenaa*. Not all of them look like Grant Mitchell unfortunately.

It's probably happened before April here in UK, but I don't have time to research for footage as yet.
They're absolutely definitely watching social media, and using twitter maps and other software to follow demonstrators.

See that Oakland vid I posted here too.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 10, 2011)

Nice one said:


> granted some made a bit more effort that others, but the new element is the overt and aggressive use of undercover cops. This will develop.



As has been said earlier in the thread, there's a difference between plainclothes officers dressed to "fit in" with protesters and genuine undercover operatives, who're essentially intelligence-gatherers who wouldn't risk exposing themselves to make a simple public order arrest.


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> As has been said earlier in the thread, there's a difference between plainclothes officers dressed to "fit in" with protesters and genuine undercover operatives, who're essentially intelligence-gatherers who wouldn't risk exposing themselves to make a simple public order arrest.


Yes. The undercover operatives do not blow their cover in a demo. The snatch and grab 'fake black bloc' blue-bloc will blow their cover. Snatch-and-grab has been happening for some time. It's not a new tactic.


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## miss giggles (Nov 10, 2011)

some of those coppers look about 12


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 10, 2011)

miss giggles said:


> some of those coppers look about 12



The coppers don't get younger, we get older


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## miss giggles (Nov 10, 2011)

I'm more concerned for some of them than the protesters. They'll need a good packed lunch to last the day...


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## Luther Blissett (Nov 10, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> The coppers don't get younger, we get older


LOL. Most of the bluebloc  look middle-aged to me. How do they get that roll of fat at the back of their heads? I've always wondered.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 10, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> LOL. Most of the bluebloc look middle-aged to me. How do they get that roll of fat at the back of their heads? I've always wondered.



It's just an extension of the big lump of fat in the middle of their skulls. I believe extensive consumption of kebabs is a contributing factor.


----------



## Nice one (Nov 10, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> As has been said earlier in the thread, there's a difference between plainclothes officers dressed to "fit in" with protesters and genuine undercover operatives, who're essentially intelligence-gatherers who wouldn't risk exposing themselves to make a simple public order arrest.



i think they should all be regarded as undercover cops (regarded as recognised as such, rather than going by their technical description). They should have no place within a demonstration whatever it is they are doing, and if this tactice continues we're going to have to establish methods of dealing with the intrusion.


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## disco_dave_2000 (Nov 10, 2011)

a set of photographs from yesterday here on my Flickr


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## coley (Nov 10, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Really? Even the media didn't try and present that as an accurate representation, so why are you - political prejudice?
> 
> Cameron and his ilk were there 30+ years ago, not 20, taking full grants and free tuition. Do at least try and get your facts right.
> As for the "ruling classes" of the future, where else do you think they're going to come from, if not from the students of today - Toytown?


Just making the point that todays 'radicals' are tomorrows establishment,


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## coley (Nov 10, 2011)

Nice one said:


> i think they should all be regarded as undercover cops (regarded as recognised as such, rather than going by their technical description). They should have no place within a demonstration whatever it is they are doing, and if this tactice continues we're going to have to establish methods of dealing with the intrusion.


Are you? kneecapping? the IRA used to have very effective methods of dealing with those who infiltrated them


----------



## coley (Nov 10, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Really? Even the media didn't try and present that as an accurate representation, so why are you - political prejudice?
> 
> No prejudice on my part, as opposed to the extreme prejudice against the police being expressed on here


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## DotCommunist (Nov 10, 2011)

Prejudice is where you make a judgement based on no prior experience or knowledge


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## dylanredefined (Nov 10, 2011)

coley said:


> Are you? kneecapping? the IRA used to have very effective methods of dealing with those who infiltrated them


 Promoted them to senior leadership posts allegedly


----------



## coley (Nov 10, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Prejudice is where you make a judgement based on no prior experience or knowledge


Are you saying all those on here expressing anti police sentiments have suffered 'police brutality'?


----------



## coley (Nov 10, 2011)

dylanredefined said:


> Promoted them to senior leadership posts allegedly


Well, at least one


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## DotCommunist (Nov 10, 2011)

coley said:


> Are you saying all those on here expressing anti police sentiments have suffered 'police brutality'?



or been witness too, or simply have knowledge of how the police act from the wealth of information detailing how they behave in crowd control situations. Of course I don't know why you have scare quotes around police brutality.


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 10, 2011)

Because he's a cock.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 10, 2011)

Coley, was your time in NI spent with the British army or the UVF?


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## kenny g (Nov 10, 2011)

Interesting to view this from an historical perspective. One of the risks with deploying under cover officers is that members of the public may feel threatened and act in self defence.
http://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/4...cer_stabbed_by_Kenneth_Noye_to_be_remembered/


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## coley (Nov 10, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> or been witness too, or simply have knowledge of how the police act from the wealth of information detailing how they behave in crowd control situations. Of course I don't know why you have scare quotes around police brutality.



"witness too, have knowledge of"?    going off some of the comments on here I was expecting examples of people being dragged into the cells and having the living daylights beaten out of them, I was nearly convinced there existed a hidden regime of extreme police brutality hidden from the general public.
But it boils down to a bunch of excitable conspiracy theorists all wanting to outdo each other in their tales of what they have see, or heard.
I would certainly agree there are areas of police work that need much greater scrutiny esp the firearms section but some of the speculation on here is laughable and the jokes re; PC Blakelock are nothing short of sickmaking, I understand its the culture of some on here to present a cynical, only we, the insiders on here really know whats going on, facade, but if you think that what the police get up to during demonstrations in recent years is real brutality, might I suggest some on here get a life.


----------



## coley (Nov 10, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Coley, was your time in NI spent with the British army or the UVF?


The Army, and getting back to the issue of 'police brutality' ask some of the nationalists in NI from that time about the B specials, it might give some on here a truer perspective of real police brutality


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## kenny g (Nov 10, 2011)

so killing a newspaper seller isn't brutal?


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 10, 2011)

coley said:


> "witness too, have knowledge of"? going off some of the comments on here I was expecting examples of people being dragged into the cells and having the living daylights beaten out of them, I was nearly convinced there existed a hidden regime of extreme police brutality hidden from the general public.
> But it boils down to a bunch of excitable conspiracy theorists all wanting to outdo each other in their tales of what they have see, or heard.
> I would certainly agree there are areas of police work that need much greater scrutiny esp the firearms section but some of the speculation on here is laughable and the jokes re; PC Blakelock are nothing short of sickmaking, I understand its the culture of some on here to present a cynical, only we, the insiders on here really know whats going on, facade, but if you think that what the police get up to during demonstrations in recent years is real brutality, might I suggest some on here get a life.


there is far more scrutiny on co19 than there is on the met intelligence bureau. given that so many police operations are 'intelligence-led' someone concerned about the outcome of the operation might look at where the information came from, how it was processed and how it was disseminated - how it was presented to the officers going on the operation. but you'd rather go for the easy fix instead of looking at the underlying problem. you also seem to be suggesting (to paraphrase reginald maudling) that there can be an acceptable level of police violence which people should grin and bear. while i would agree with you that acts of police brutality to match those meted out by eg the gestapo in prinz albrecht strasse or the ruc in castlereagh are, thankfully, rare, the casual exercise of unnecessary force and the casual, low-level harassment experienced by many people - and not just those on these boards - speak to a rather different reality than the one you'd offer up.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 10, 2011)

coley said:


> "witness too, have knowledge of"? going off some of the comments on here I was expecting examples of people being dragged into the cells and having the living daylights beaten out of them, I was nearly convinced there existed a hidden regime of extreme police brutality hidden from the general public.
> But it boils down to a bunch of excitable conspiracy theorists all wanting to outdo each other in their tales of what they have see, or heard.
> I would certainly agree there are areas of police work that need much greater scrutiny esp the firearms section but some of the speculation on here is laughable and the jokes re; PC Blakelock are nothing short of sickmaking, I understand its the culture of some on here to present a cynical, only we, the insiders on here really know whats going on, facade, but if you think that what the police get up to during demonstrations in recent years is real brutality, might I suggest some on here get a life.


 
And yet, when the meres tplastic bottle is thrown from a protesters ranks it is violence.

Nothing is hidden from the general public wrt police brutality. Obfuscation, excuses and justifications abound however. No vast conspiracy need be alleged. It's all public record.

I'm sure your time cowering behind the tea urn in NI made you hate and fear the general population, but you really should not extrapolate your own time in amongst a highly hostile community with how average public order policing should happen. PTS fucking D.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 10, 2011)

coley said:


> The Army, and getting back to the issue of 'police brutality' ask some of the nationalists in NI from that time about the B specials, it might give some on here a truer perspective of real police brutality


 
Like when you let the shankhill butchers go about their grim business. Theres brutality


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> The Army, and getting back to the issue of 'police brutality' ask some of the nationalists in NI from that time about the B specials, it might give some on here a truer perspective of real police brutality



If I was a copper I'd definitely introduce you to some police brutality.


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## Andrew Hertford (Nov 11, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> You certainly implied that I was.
> 
> The question in post 91 is based upon a false premise.
> 
> ...


 
Apologiess if I implied you were an anarchist, but you have now implied that I'm a liberal. I'm not sure which is worse.

As for "blaming violent anarchists", what I said was that those who intentionally take part in violent action at demonstrations must take a large part of the responsibility for the police to now be talking about using more force. Your own definition of violence is clearly different to mine, if a masked mob came up to my house and smashed in all the windows then I'd most certainly call it a violent crime. By the way, I still think your comparison with sexual harassment is completely spurious.

Of course I deplore the increased threat from arming the police with rubber bullets, I just don't see the point in joining in with the chorus of condemnation from others and precis my post by repeating what's already been said by practically everybody else.

The reason for asking my second question was this: Back in the day I had loads of friends on the far left who openly advocated the use of violence in the belief that it would eventually trigger the revolution that they perpetually believed was just around the corner, and the authorities adding to the tension by using increasing levels of force, which they were doing around things like the inner city riots and the miner's strike, was in their eyes a positive thing. This was in the days of Thatcher and it almost seemed to make sense at the time. One of the catchphrases I remember hearing was: "Socialism has to be vicious to succeed" What interests me now is whether that attitude has been revived, or has it always been there?


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## sptme (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> Are you saying all those on here expressing anti police sentiments have suffered 'police brutality'?


It is fairly common, you know


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## Blagsta (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> The Army, and getting back to the issue of 'police brutality' ask some of the nationalists in NI from that time about the B specials, it might give some on here a truer perspective of real police brutality


Pffft, you're not old enough.


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## cemertyone (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> The Army, and getting back to the issue of 'police brutality' ask some of the nationalists in NI from that time about the B specials, it might give some on here a truer perspective of real police brutality



Well my family know all to well what the "B specials" were about as they stood by and watched us and our neighbours being burned out of Bombay Street in Belfast by protestant mobs whipped up in hate fuelled speechs by the likes of Paisley et al..however Mr Coley
it was you and your mates that where responsible for the Falls Road curfew and the subsequent murders that followed.
It was you and your army "freinds" that wrecked our homes in house raids..killed our children with plastic bullets and militarised
our entire communities all in the name of security...and then somehow your amazed that when nationalists took up the gun to oppose
you and the English political class overseeing you..we are labelled "terrorists"...
By the way using and comparing the brutality of the RUC during the course of the troubles is no justifaction for not holding the Met
to proper accountablity.....


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## nino_savatte (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> Are you saying all those on here expressing anti police sentiments have suffered 'police brutality'?


Or intimidation. I take it you're familiar with Section 4 of the Vagrancy Act and its highly selective use in the 70's and early 80's?


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## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

kenny g said:


> so killing a newspaper seller isn't brutal?


No, it wasnt 'brutality'  it was unreasonable force, an unacceptable level of aggression for which, hopefully, the copper involved will pay the price and as a result os something I metioned earlier its down to the level of televisual evidence that he is actually facing prosecution.


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## Brixton Hatter (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> No, it wasnt 'brutality' it was unreasonable force, an unacceptable level of aggression...


that sounds like brutality to me


----------



## The Black Hand (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> No, it wasnt 'brutality' it was unreasonable force, an unacceptable level of aggression for which, hopefully, the copper involved will pay the price and as a result os something I metioned earlier its down to the level of televisual evidence that he is actually facing prosecution.


Tomlinson was brutalised by the pig. Simples.

Efforts to say we should have higher levels of tolerance of violence and brutality by you Coley will be met with the disdain they deserve. Jus cos the system works how it does, does not mean it is acceptable in anyway, nor that standards of behaviour elsewhere should affect our expectations and standards demanded here.


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## DaveCinzano (Nov 11, 2011)

*Noun*

*brutality* (_plural_ *brutalities*)

the state of being brutal
a cruel or savage act
the use of excessive physical force e.g. police brutality


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> Are you saying all those on here expressing anti police sentiments have suffered 'police brutality'?



One doesn't necessarily have to suffer an injustice personally in order to take exception to it.

But yeah, as far as it goes lots of people here have suffered from police brutality, bigotry and corruption. There really is a lot of it about.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 11, 2011)

Luther Blissett said:


> LOL. Most of the bluebloc look middle-aged to me. How do they get that roll of fat at the back of their heads? I've always wondered.


 
It's a result of constantly adopting the standard copper stance of having your head cocked belligerently forward with a "you want some?" look your eye. Stretches the skin and muscle on the back of the neck and gives you a "thug roll".


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 11, 2011)

Nice one said:


> i think they should all be regarded as undercover cops (regarded as recognised as such, rather than going by their technical description). They should have no place within a demonstration whatever it is they are doing, and if this tactice continues we're going to have to establish methods of dealing with the intrusion.



We should of course regard them as "the enemy", and treat them accordingly. It's entirely possible to shepherd/steward people out of a block of protesters without giving them the excuse to nick you, although I reckon that if/when it takes place it should be filmed, just in case the copper has a fantasy that he/she was assaulted.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> Just making the point that todays 'radicals' are tomorrows establishment,



Sweeping generalisation that doesn't take into account that a minority actually have a sense of honour and service.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> No, it wasnt 'brutality' it was unreasonable force, an unacceptable level of aggression for which, hopefully, the copper involved will pay the price and as a result os something I metioned earlier its down to the level of televisual evidence that he is actually facing prosecution.



the guy died ffs. How is that not brutal?


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## frogwoman (Nov 11, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Sweeping generalisation that doesn't take into account that a minority actually have a sense of honour and service.



Yep. I know people who've been involved in the same organisation/s or on the left 20-30+ years and never sold out.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> No prejudice on my part, as opposed to the extreme prejudice against the police being expressed on here



Prejudice is irrational fear and/or dislike. Most of the dislike expressed on this thread against the police is entirely rational, and arrived at either through individual experience, or exposure to a culture where the police act with impunity.

Perhaps your own claims to lack of prejudice aren't quite as substantive as you suppose?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> Are you? kneecapping? the IRA used to have very effective methods of dealing with those who infiltrated them



Violence isn't a requirement.

Your default assumption that it would be is rather revealing about your own position, though.


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## sptme (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> No, it wasnt 'brutality' it was unreasonable force, an unacceptable level of aggression



Semantic bollocks.

*"Police brutality* is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer."  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality

Wikipedia doesn't agree with you. its not just the lefties


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> there is far more scrutiny on co19 than there is on the met intelligence bureau. given that so many police operations are 'intelligence-led' someone concerned about the outcome of the operation might look at where the information came from, how it was processed and how it was disseminated - how it was presented to the officers going on the operation. but you'd rather go for the easy fix instead of looking at the underlying problem. you also seem to be suggesting (to paraphrase reginald maudling) that there can be an acceptable level of police violence which people should grin and bear. while i would agree with you that acts of police brutality to match those meted out by eg the gestapo in prinz albrecht strasse or the ruc in castlereagh are, thankfully, rare, the casual exercise of unnecessary force and the casual, low-level harassment experienced by many people - and not just those on these boards - speak to a rather different reality than the one you'd offer up.



No, there is no acceptable level of 'police brutality' a reasonable amount of force required to ensure public order and safety is another matter, as for operational, intelligence any body tasked with public security is going to obtain that, by means some might find underhand, though those same people wouldnt mind the same methods being used against groups they didnt like, but then again hypocrisy is seen as a virtue by some on here it would seem.
As for the casual harrasment and unnecessary use of force, its horses for courses, as the brother of a drug dealer (now deceased) I, along with most of my family experienced this on a regular basis, did I blame the coppers? not really, they were trying to nail him by whatever means possible and in their shoes I very possibly might have done the same.


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

sptme said:


> Semantic bollocks.
> 
> *"Police brutality* is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer."
> 
> ...


wickki, your having a larf? and who are the main contributers to wickki I wonder?


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

cemertyone said:


> Well my family know all to well what the "B specials" were about as they stood by and watched us and our neighbours being burned out of Bombay Street in Belfast by protestant mobs whipped up in hate fuelled speechs by the likes of Paisley et al..however Mr Coley
> it was you and your mates that where responsible for the Falls Road curfew and the subsequent murders that followed.
> It was you and your army "freinds" that wrecked our homes in house raids..killed our children with plastic bullets and militarised
> our entire communities all in the name of security...and then somehow your amazed that when nationalists took up the gun to oppose
> ...


it was me and my friends who were brought in to protect the catholic minority from the people you describe. Nobody is saying that the met shouldnt be accountable but I was comparing the level of casual aggression often demonstrated by the Met against the real brutality of the B specials.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> No, there is no acceptable level of 'police brutality' a reasonable amount of force required to ensure public order and safety is another matter, as for *operational, intelligence any body tasked with public security is going to obtain that, by means some might find underhand, though those same people wouldnt mind the same methods being used against groups they didnt like, but then again hypocrisy is seen as a virtue by some on here it would seem*.
> As for the casual harrasment and unnecessary use of force, its horses for courses, as the brother of a drug dealer (now deceased) I, along with most of my family experienced this on a regular basis, did I blame the coppers? not really, they were trying to nail him by whatever means possible and in their shoes I very possibly might have done the same.



and yet, many here decry the tactics used against far right groups by the state simply on the principle. So once more you're a lying sack of shit.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> wickki, your having a larf? and who are the main contributers to wickki I wonder?


 
Evil lefties. The left wing bias on wikipedia is palpable. Sometimes I think I'm reading libcom not wikipedia


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 11, 2011)

the red flag shall never fade from wikipedia


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> And yet, when the meres tplastic bottle is thrown from a protesters ranks it is violence.
> 
> Nothing is hidden from the general public wrt police brutality. Obfuscation, excuses and justifications abound however. No vast conspiracy need be alleged. It's all public record.
> 
> I'm sure your time cowering behind the tea urn in NI made you hate and fear the general population, but you really should not extrapolate your own time in amongst a highly hostile community with how average public order policing should happen. PTS fucking D.


Totally wrong on all three counts, try again.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 11, 2011)

Were you bullied in the Forces coley?


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> and yet, many here decry the tactics used against far right groups by the state simply on the principle. So once more you're a lying sack of shit.


They do? well I dont spend a lot of time on here so its possible I could have missed all the robust defence of the BNP and their ilk, as for the remainder of you contribution? highly intelligent and thought provoking.


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Were you bullied in the Forces coley?


Nope.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> They do? well I dont spend a lot of time on here so its possible I could have missed all the robust defence of the BNP and their ilk, as for the remainder of you contribution? highly intelligent and thought provoking.



it's not a robust defence of the right rather a strident criticisms of the tactics of the state. You misrepresenting shite on the lie


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> it's not a robust defence of the right rather a strident criticisms of the tactics of the state. You misrepresenting shite on the lie



Now while I'm all for criticisms of the state where its due, there is a time and a place and it shouldnt involve violence where that 'state' is democratically elected. now you obviously disagree but can you manage it without recourse to lavatorial of faecal emphasis?
However if it makes you feel better, than by all means crack on.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 11, 2011)

manufactured consent


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 11, 2011)

you turd


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## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> you turd


Keep polishing


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 11, 2011)

Democractically elected? A vote for some cunt every 4 years?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 11, 2011)

coley said:


> Nope.



You had one banana on your arm & you bullied others?


----------



## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> You had one banana on your arm & you bullied others?


Two bananas, and I have never felt the need to bully anyone.


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## coley (Nov 11, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Democractically elected? A vote for some cunt every 4 years?


Unfortunately true, but at the minute its all we have.


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 11, 2011)

Two bananas is all we've got. Not good enough is it?


----------



## Flanflinger (Nov 11, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Democractically elected? A vote for some cunt every 4 years?


 
Wasn't he jailed for being a cunt during the 1970s. ?


----------



## ddraig (Nov 12, 2011)

has this sparks video been posted?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUaA3dBuZWs


----------



## Blagsta (Nov 12, 2011)

Flanflinger said:


> Wasn't he jailed for being a cunt during the 1970s. ?


He was jailed for standing up for workers.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 12, 2011)

coley said:


> it was me and my friends who were brought in to protect the catholic minority from the people you describe. Nobody is saying that the met shouldnt be accountable but I was comparing the level of casual aggression often demonstrated by the Met against the real brutality of the B specials.


the army was sent into the six counties in support of the civil power, stormont, which was the very civil power which employed the b specials. square that circle with your claims.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 12, 2011)

coley said:


> Nope.



Liar.

Every mother's son who enters the forces gets bullied. It's what sorts the wheat from the chaff. 

Unless you were an officer, in which case you're a worthless cunt anyway.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 12, 2011)

coley said:


> Two bananas, and I have never felt the need to bully anyone.



Couldn't have been a particularly good corporal, then.  Been an unloveable bullying shitbag is part of a two-striper's job description.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 12, 2011)

Flanflinger said:


> Wasn't he jailed for being a cunt during the 1970s. ?



Yeah. Apparently he shagged your mother without paying. What a cunt!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 12, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> the army was sent into the six counties in support of the civil power, stormont, which was the very civil power which employed the b specials. square that circle with your claims.



Oddly, if you talk to any of the ex-squaddies (and I emphasise, the *squaddies*) from the first regts into Ulster, they were *told* that they were going in to disarm the B-Specials and protect the Catholic enclaves. I've always thought that that marked a particular low level of perfidy, even for the MoD.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 12, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Liar.
> 
> Every mother's son who enters the forces gets bullied. It's what sorts the wheat from the chaff.
> 
> Unless you were an officer, in which case you're a worthless cunt anyway.


so it's not like in 'carry on sergeant'


----------



## GEN.Eccentric (Nov 12, 2011)

ddraig said:


> has this sparks video been posted?
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUaA3dBuZWs


Yeah on the other thread. Its worth posting again though


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 12, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> so it's not like in 'carry on sergeant'



Nope. Wouldn't have minded William Hartnell as my drill sgt!


----------



## bart in brum. (Nov 12, 2011)

May i make the suggestion of sewing hardwood or thick plastic buttons on the inside of a long coat or other clothes to rebound taser electrodes.


----------



## bart in brum. (Nov 12, 2011)

Adhesive backed foam layer over the back of the buttons might help if a rubber bullet hits you, it should soften the impact stopping the buttons from causing serious injury.


----------



## junglevip (Nov 12, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> the army was sent into the six counties in support of the civil power, stormont, which was the very civil power which employed the b specials. square that circle with your claims.



Sorry to be a pedant chap but the expression is 'square the turn'.  Its one of my favourites...


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## junglevip (Nov 12, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Sorry to be a pedant chap but the expression is 'square the turn'. Its one of my favourites...



According to my Nan anyway.....


----------



## free spirit (Nov 12, 2011)

junglevip said:


> According to my Nan anyway.....


hate to say it, but your nan's got it wrong.



> *Squaring the circle* is a problem proposed by ancient geometers. It is the challenge of constructing asquare with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge. More abstractly and more precisely, it may be taken to ask whether specified axioms ofEuclidean geometry concerning the existence of lines and circles entail the existence of such a square.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle


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## junglevip (Nov 12, 2011)

Yeah yeah I know. Bless her nylon socks... .. .


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## coley (Nov 13, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> the army was sent into the six counties in support of the civil power, stormont, which was the very civil power which employed the b specials. square that circle with your claims.



The b specials were disbanded shortly after the troubles started and a whole load of other reforms were brought in, but the 'loyalists' in their intransigence wouldnt tpolerate then so the ante was upped, and the army was merely 'piggy in the middle' making the mistakes that where bound to happen in such a situation, but on the whole they saved a lot of lives.


----------



## coley (Nov 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Liar.
> 
> Every mother's son who enters the forces gets bullied. It's what sorts the wheat from the chaff.
> 
> Unless you were an officer, in which case you're a worthless cunt anyway.


Bullying?  its like 'police brutality' a matter of perspective, your 'chaff' is defintely sorted, but sadistic bullying? no I didnt experience that as such,though I know it went on.


----------



## coley (Nov 13, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Couldn't have been a particularly good corporal, then. Been an unloveable bullying shitbag is part of a two-striper's job description.


I was the RSI, cushy number most of the time


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> The b specials were disbanded shortly after the troubles started and a whole load of other reforms were brought in, but the 'loyalists' in their intransigence wouldnt tpolerate then so the ante was upped, and the army was merely 'piggy in the middle' making the mistakes that where bound to happen in such a situation, but *on the whole they saved a lot of lives.*


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## DotCommunist (Nov 13, 2011)

epic self delusion


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> Bullying? its like 'police brutality' a matter of perspective, your 'chaff' is defintely sorted, but sadistic bullying? no I didnt experience that as such,though I know it went on.



You're splitting hairs. We both know that the line between what constitutes bullying, and what doesn't is fluid, that what one person can shrug off, another can't, even in terms of "sadistic bullying".


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 13, 2011)

bart in brum. said:


> May i make the suggestion of sewing hardwood or thick plastic buttons on the inside of a long coat or other clothes to rebound taser electrodes.



Or just wear tweed.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> The b specials were disbanded shortly after the troubles started and a whole load of other reforms were brought in, but the 'loyalists' in their intransigence wouldnt tpolerate then so the ante was upped, and the army was merely 'piggy in the middle' making the mistakes that where bound to happen in such a situation, but on the whole they saved a lot of lives.


i don't know how you can describe the army as 'piggy in the middle' when it was acting in support of the ruc - of whom the 'a', 'b' and 'c' specials formed a part - acting, as i say, in support of the civil power - stormont until that parliament was prorogued. the successor body to the 'b' specials was of course the ulster defence regiment - now the royal irish rangers - which was famously part of the army. and as for saving lives, i need only point to the activities of the parachute regiment in ballymurphy and more famously derry where saving lives did not appear high on their list of priorities. the latter incident is so well known as to need no explanation - information on the former can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/20/call-for-ballymurphy-massacre-inquiry.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> Bullying? its like 'police brutality' a matter of perspective, your 'chaff' is defintely sorted, but sadistic bullying? no I didnt experience that as such,though I know it went on.


yes, i suppose 'police brutality' depends which end of the baton you're on.


----------



## coley (Nov 13, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i don't know how you can describe the army as 'piggy in the middle' when it was acting in support of the ruc - of whom the 'a', 'b' and 'c' specials formed a part - acting, as i say, in support of the civil power - stormont until that parliament was prorogued. the successor body to the 'b' specials was of course the ulster defence regiment - now the royal irish rangers - which was famously part of the army. and as for saving lives, i need only point to the activities of the parachute regiment in ballymurphy and more famously derry where saving lives did not appear high on their list of priorities. the latter incident is so well known as to need no explanation - information on the former can be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/20/call-for-ballymurphy-massacre-inquiry.



And are we going to have an 'enquiry' into Inniskilling, kingsmill? Warrenpoint? there should have been a line drawn when the peace process was implemented but it seems while the nationalists want their crimes expunged they still want the army cruicified, well IMO if they are to have their crimes forgiven than the Army deserves no less.


----------



## coley (Nov 13, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> yes, i suppose 'police brutality' depends which end of the baton you're on.


No, it depends on the circumstances, I imagine you wouldnt be overly concerned if the police hurt someone who was mugging you or burgling your house.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> No, it depends on the circumstances, I imagine you wouldnt be overly concerned if the police hurt someone who was mugging you or burgling your house.


i have never heard of the police hurting any mugger or burglar while they were mugging or burgling.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> And are we going to have an 'enquiry' into Inniskilling, kingsmill? Warrenpoint? there should have been a line drawn when the peace process was implemented but it seems while the nationalists want their crimes expunged they still want the army cruicified, well IMO if they are to have their crimes forgiven than the Army deserves no less.


i am pleased that you agree with me that the army was not interested in saving lives in the incidents i mentioned. you will, i am sure, agree this undermines your previous argument.


----------



## coley (Nov 13, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i am pleased that you agree with me that the army was not interested in saving lives in the incidents i mentioned. you will, i am sure, agree this undermines your previous argument.


If you feel I have said that the Army wasnt interested in saving lives then you have a peculiar way of interpretating what others say, I havent agreed with you on anything as far as I am concerned.


----------



## coley (Nov 13, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i have never heard of the police hurting any mugger or burglar while they were mugging or burgling.


Could be the victims are somewhat less inclined to report concerns re; 'excessive force' in those circumstances?


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> If you feel I have said that the Army wasnt interested in saving lives then you have a peculiar way of interpretating what others say, I havent agreed with you on anything as far as I am concerned.


your post (464) said that the army deserved to have their crimes expunged. the only crimes you can mean, given what we've been talking about, can be the ballymurphy massacre and bloody sunday.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> Could be the victims are somewhat less inclined to report concerns re; 'excessive force' in those circumstances?


it could be you're talking bollocks.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 13, 2011)

coley said:


> And are we going to have an 'enquiry' into Inniskilling, kingsmill? *Warrenpoint*? there should have been a line drawn when the peace process was implemented but it seems while the nationalists want their crimes expunged they still want the army cruicified, well IMO if they are to have their crimes forgiven than the Army deserves no less.


 
You mean other than the massive internal enquiry that went on as the army tried to work out how it had been given a bloody nose by one of the oldest guerilla tactics in the book?


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> You mean other than the massive internal enquiry that went on as the army tried to work out how it had been given a bloody nose by one of the oldest guerilla tactics in the book?


Very true, but then again I dont crow about the tragedies of Ballymurphy and Derry, Warrenpoint was another tragedy but to use a well worn and trite phrase "lessons were learned" and thats why the Union flag still flies in Northern Ireland, or Ulster if you prefer


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> it could be you're talking bollocks.


You wish.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 14, 2011)




----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 14, 2011)

coley said:


> You wish.


if it's so common then no doubt you'll be able to link to a story about it.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 14, 2011)

coley said:


> Very true, but then again I dont crow about the tragedies of Ballymurphy and Derry, Warrenpoint was another tragedy but to use a well worn and trite phrase "lessons were learned" and thats why the Union flag still flies in Northern Ireland, or Ulster if you prefer



Thing is, Ballymurphy and Derry are, and always will be, qualitatively different issues to the attacks by republican groups. Ballymurphy and Derry were carried out by professional soldiers under command in a force that had no reason to act as it did other than what went on in the heads of the brass and the MoD to carry out such actions. Soldiers and (especially) those who promulgate their orders need to be accountable, or we've no right to be considered professional.

Warrenpoint wasn't only a tragedy, it was also a logical action that became arguably became inevitable the first time that the MoD establishment chose to openly favour the loyalists over the nationalists, if not the first time Catholics were killed by a force openly defending the rights of Protestants more than those of Catholics.


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> if it's so common then no doubt you'll be able to link to a story about it.


No, I would rather you sent a link showing me the extent of the victims of criminality expressing concern over the levels of excessive police force being used to apprehend said criminals.


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Thing is, Ballymurphy and Derry are, and always will be, qualitatively different issues to the attacks by republican groups. Ballymurphy and Derry were carried out by professional soldiers under command in a force that had no reason to act as it did other than what went on in the heads of the brass and the MoD to carry out such actions. Soldiers and (especially) those who promulgate their orders need to be accountable, or we've no right to be considered professional.
> 
> Warrenpoint wasn't only a tragedy, it was also a logical action that became arguably became inevitable the first time that the MoD establishment chose to openly favour the loyalists over the nationalists, if not the first time Catholics were killed by a force openly defending the rights of Protestants more than those of Catholics.



As to your first point, like I said earlier, lessons were learned, regarding the second, Warrentpoint was a very successful terrorist operation, there is no getting away from that however, it is a fact that deaths amongst the army due to nationalist terrorist activity had become almost routine and it is just human nature to regard the population from where these attacks came from as 'the enemy' and an inevitable response was the 'them and us' attitude that was so prevelant in the 70s and 80s, again that didnt have to happen as relations between the Catholic population and the army were excellent in 69-70 it was the escalation of violence on the part of PIRA that drove the wedge between the army and most of the catholic population.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 14, 2011)

If you honestly beleive that, then you've learnt nothing.The PIRA had a strategy and all your highly paid jacksons jumped right in, putting their own side at risk. Then worse, they accelerated this idiotic approach with ballymurphy and internment,ensuring the total militiarisation of the dispute and removing any 'opposition' forces but the PIRA from the scene. And you still defend that idiocy today?


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> If you honestly beleive that, then you've learnt nothing.The PIRA had a strategy and all your highly paid jacksons jumped right in, putting their own side at risk. Then worse, they accelerated this idiotic approach with ballymurphy and internment,ensuring the total militiarisation of the dispute and removing any 'opposition' forces but the PIRA from the scene. And you still defend that idiocy today?


From the comfort of your keyboard and 35 years hindsight it is easy to say that now, but just what would you have done?


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 14, 2011)

coley said:


> From the comfort of your keyboard and 35 years hindsight it is easy to say that now, but just what would you have done?


What sort of response is that to pointing out mistakes made? An argument to make them again, blind defence. Not making the mistakes would be a start.They weren't  compulsory. Or were they? If you think not then guess what, you agree with me.


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> What sort of response is that to pointing out mistakes made? An argument to make them again, blind defence. Not making the mistakes would be a start.They weren't compulsory. Or were they? If you think not then guess what, you agree with me.


You are saying that mistakes were made? OK what alternative would you have preferred? bearing in mind the loyalists were burning catholics out of their homes


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 14, 2011)

coley said:


> You are saying that mistakes were made? OK what alternative would you have preferred? bearing in mind the loyalists were burning catholics out of their homes


I'm talking about ballymurphy and i'm talking about internment.Tell me that they had to happen. Tell me that i have to offer some other scenario other than murdering people and counter-produtive tactics, and that if i don't you support the murderous rampages and counter-productive tactics because there were no other options. Go on.

I note alos your attempt to tie the discussion down to a perrios in 69 rather then your behaviour in later years.The decision to send troops in rather than how you behaved and why in later years.  Yeah,you remember the good bits alone coley, cut out the rest.


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> I'm talking about ballymurphy and i'm talking about internment.Tell me that they had to happen. Tell me that i have to offer some other scenario other than murdering people and counter-produtive tactics, and that if i don't you support the murderous rampages and counter-productive tactics because there were no other options. Go on.
> 
> I note alos your attempt to tie the discussion down to a perrios in 69 rather then your behaviour in later years.The decision to send troops in rather than how you behaved and why in later years. Yeah,you remember the good bits alone coley, cut out the rest.



As I said earlier mistakes were made and internment was one of those, as for 'murderous rampages' stick an Army into the scenes we had in NI and innocent people are going to die, the point is, if we hadnt gone in a lot more innocent people would now be dead, or do you think we should just have let both sides 'slug it out'?
My behaviour in later years? what on earth are you on about?


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 14, 2011)

coley said:


> As I said earlier mistakes were made and internment was one of those, as for 'murderous rampages' stick an Army into the scenes we had in NI and innocent people are going to die, the point is, if we hadnt gone in a lot more innocent people would now be dead, or do you think we should just have let both sides 'slug it out'?
> My behaviour in later years? what on earth are you on about?


I mean the attempt to only talk about _the good years_, not the bad years. To restrict discussion to those few _months_.You're doing it again in this post.

If you think the army you joined is going to go on a murderous rampage when asked to enforce the law and that this isn't a problem then what use are you? To the people that you're supposed to protect, or to anyone? You need to be locked up if that's what you think.


----------



## coley (Nov 14, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> *I mean the attempt to only talk about the good years, not the bad years. To restrict discussion to those few months.You're doing it again in this post.*
> No I'm not, there were no 'good years' but a period of months from the arrival of the Army to the polarisation of opinion in the catholic community which led to the'them and us' scenario which subsequently developed. On my first tour people from the catholic community would be fetching us tea and biscuits at all hours of the night and day, a year later the same people were hoying rocks at us.
> 
> *If you think the army you joined is going to go on a murderous rampage when asked to enforce the law and that this isn't a problem then what use are you? To the people that you're supposed to protect, or to anyone? You need to be locked up if that's what you think.*



The 'army' certainly didnt go on a "murderous rampage' if you look at the deaths of innocent (and I mean truly innocent) civilians attributable to the army then the figure is miniscule compared to those killed by the terrorists on both sides, in fact, in the scale of events its miniscule full stop.
But I would still like to hear the alternative you would have preferred, or without the army intervening do you believe the two communitys would have settled their differences amiacably?


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 14, 2011)

They most certainly did in ballymurphy. 11 people killed over 3 days.That's sustained committed directed accepted killing, oked from the top down after the first few hours. That is a murderous rampage. What characterisation would you use?

Again, suggesting that you don't do this doesn't require some alternative tactics on my part. If you insist that it does then you argue that this has to happen - do you? I'd like an answer on that. If not, then what are your alternatives?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 14, 2011)

I'll propose an alternative strategy for you coley - _not_ going on murderous rampages.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 14, 2011)

SpineyNorman said:


> I'll propose an alternative strategy for you coley - _not_ going on murderous rampages.


You lefties and your unrealistic strategies. That'd never work in the real world.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 14, 2011)

coley said:


> The 'army' certainly didnt go on a "murderous rampage' if you look at the deaths of innocent (and I mean truly innocent) civilians attributable to the army then the figure is miniscule compared to those killed by the terrorists on both sides, in fact, in the scale of events its miniscule full stop.
> But I would still like to hear the alternative you would have preferred, or without the army intervening do you believe the two communitys would have settled their differences amiacably?


the army didn't 'intervene', the army is not an autonomous organisation charging in here and there according to the whims of the generals. the army were sent in by callaghan to do a job in support - and i'll repeat it - of the civil power. i have pointed out above that the civil power who they were supporting were the same stormont politicians who controlled the 'b' specials. yet you insist that the army went in to defend catholics.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 14, 2011)

coley said:


> No, I would rather you sent a link showing me the extent of the victims of criminality expressing concern over the levels of excessive police force being used to apprehend said criminals.


i've been a victim of crime on several occasions, including being stabbed in the neck while being mugged. but i have never seen a policeman in the area. these muggers are clever, you know. they don't attack you when there's a waiting policeman about.


----------



## coley (Nov 15, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> *They most certainly did in ballymurphy. 11 people killed over 3 days.That's sustained committed directed accepted killing, oked from the top down after the first few hours. That is a murderous rampage. What characterisation would you use?*
> 
> Mistakes, confusion, poor training and posssibly sheer bloody mindedness all happening in the fog of war, and make no mistake at times it was war, and in war the innocent suffer, or are you one of those that insists there was only fault on one side?
> 
> *Again, suggesting that you don't do this doesn't require some alternative tactics on my part. If you insist that it does then you argue that this has to happen - do you? I'd like an answer on that. If not, then what are your alternatives?*




There was no alternative, if the Army had not been sent in the 'loyalists' with the collusion of at least part of the RUC would have massacred the catholics, We were sent in "to aid the civil power" mebbes should have read stop the civil power murdering the Catholics


----------



## coley (Nov 15, 2011)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You lefties and your unrealistic strategies. That'd never work in the real world.


How do you know? they havent offered any 'alternative strategies'


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 15, 2011)

coley said:


> There was no alternative, if the Army had not been sent in the 'loyalists' with the collusion of at least part of the RUC would have massacred the catholics, We were sent in "to aid the civil power" mebbes should have read stop the civil power murdering the Catholics


Why bare you insisting on only talking about the sending of the troops in? I'm not. I'm talking about the behaviour of the army once they had been sent in and used the ballymurphy massacre as an example. You ignore this and instead opt for a rather juvenile deflection onto whether the army should have been there or not. This has been pointed out to you before. You can continue to ignore the points or you can deal with them, but please don't imagine that your littletactic hasn't been noticed.


----------



## coley (Nov 15, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> *Why bare you insisting on only talking about the sending of the troops in? I'm not. I'm talking about the behaviour of the army once they had been sent in and used the ballymurphy massacre as an example. You ignore this and instead opt for a rather juvenile deflection onto whether the army should have been there or not. This has been pointed out to you before. You can continue to ignore the points or you can deal with them, but please don't imagine that your littletactic hasn't been noticed*.


No deflection, some on here including you are condemning the army for its actions in NI, so lets clarify, you agree there was no alternative to sending the army in?


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 15, 2011)

Why are you so desperate to avoid the point? Why do you find it so to admit the army did behave badly (the example i used of ballymurphy for instance) Why are you insisting that the issue is actually something else entirely and something else entirely that has no bearing on the issues i've brought up? This pathetic wriggling is utterly transparent. It's almost as if lee clegg's brief choseto construct a defence case based on the fact that it was right for troops to be in Ulster. Bizarre mix of cowardice and confusion.


----------



## coley (Nov 15, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> *Why are you so desperate to avoid the point? Why do you find it so to admit the army did behave badly (the example i used of ballymurphy for instance) Why are you insisting that the issue is actually something else entirely and something else entirely that has no bearing on the issues i've brought up? This pathetic wriggling is utterly transparent. It's almost as if lee clegg's brief choseto construct a defence case based on the fact that it was right for troops to be in Ulster. Bizarre mix of cowardice and confusion.*



Yada yada, answer the ? and then once thats clarified we can move on to the specifics that you seem to want to concentrate on:
No deflection, some on here including you are condemning the army for its actions in NI, _so lets clarify, you agree there was no alternative to sending the army in? _


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 15, 2011)

coley said:


> Yada yada, answer the ? and then once thats clarified we can move on to the specifics that you seem to want to concentrate on:
> No deflection, some on here including you are condemning the army for its actions in NI, _so lets clarify, you agree there was no alternative to sending the army in? _


of course there was an alternative to sending the army in, namely not sending the army in.


----------



## LiamO (Nov 15, 2011)

coley said:


> No deflection, some on here including you are condemning the army for its actions in NI, so lets clarify, you agree there was no alternative to sending the army in?



Of course one possible alternative might have been not setting up and supporting an essentially apartheid state for 50 years.


----------



## coley (Nov 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> of course there was an alternative to sending the army in, namely not sending the army in.


Fair enough, so how do you think the Govt at the time could have stopped the escalating violence, given the accepted version that the police had lost control of the situation?


----------



## coley (Nov 16, 2011)

LiamO said:


> Of course one possible alternative might have been not setting up and supporting an essentially apartheid state for 50 years.


True, but thats a totally different argument, here we are discussing state violence.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Nov 16, 2011)

coley said:


> True, but thats a totally different argument, here we are discussing state violence.



The 'essentially apartheid state' is the context in which the state violence was taking place; including the at times murderous violence of the army. I can understand why you might want to seperate the two - it allows you to invent some imagined neutral space for the army to occupy - but it makes about as much sense as trying to understand fish without finding out about water as well.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 16, 2011)

coley said:


> Fair enough, so how do you think the Govt at the time could have stopped the escalating violence, given the accepted version that the police had lost control of the situation?


you're taking the piss, aren't you.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Nov 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you're taking the piss, aren't you.



And in accordance with some basic notions of human rights which were gaining popularity internationally.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## LiamO (Nov 16, 2011)

Louis MacNeice said:


> The 'essentially apartheid state' is the context in which the state violence was taking place; including the at times murderous violence of the army. I can understand why you might want to seperate the two - it allows you to invent some imagined neutral space for the army to occupy - but it makes about as much sense as trying to understand fish without finding out about water as well.
> 
> Louis MacNeice



This. No further comment required.


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## coley (Nov 16, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> you're taking the piss, aren't you.


No, i am genuinely interested in what others think could have been done as an alternative to sending the Army in, given the circumstances at the time.


Louis MacNeice said:


> The 'essentially apartheid state' is the context in which the state violence was taking place; including the at times murderous violence of the army. I can understand why you might want to seperate the two - it allows you to invent some imagined neutral space for the army to occupy - but it makes about as much sense as trying to understand fish without finding out about water as well.
> 
> Louis MacNeice


i would agree that this was the state of play in existence in 1969/70 I remember being genuinely shocked at the way the Catholics were treated and the attitude of the 'loyalists' and the Stormont govt.


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## coley (Nov 16, 2011)

Louis MacNeice said:


> And in accordance with some basic notions of human rights which were gaining popularity internationally.
> 
> Louis MacNeice


Aye, the times they were a changing.


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## Louis MacNeice (Nov 16, 2011)

coley said:


> No, i am genuinely interested in what others think could have been done as an alternative to sending the Army in, given the circumstances at the time.



As Pickman's originally stated the government could have acted earlier; and as I added they could have done so in accordance with some basic notions of human rights which were gaining popularity internationally. They decided not to do either of these; these were choices not necessities.

Louis MacNeice


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## Garek (Nov 16, 2011)

Louis MacNeice said:


> As Pickman's originally stated the government could have acted earlier; and as I added they could have done so in accordance with some basic notions of human rights which were gaining popularity internationally. They decided not to do either of these; these were choices not necessities.
> 
> Louis MacNeice



The NICRA certainly took a lot of inspiration from the American Civil Rights movement.

EDIT: At The Free Derry Museum they have got a lot of very clear statistics about your employment chances and quality of housing depending on whether you were Catholic or Protestant.


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## butchersapron (Nov 16, 2011)

A


Fruitloop said:


> Tiqqun though, eh. They were pretty cool.


Awful rubbish IMO


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## Fruitloop (Nov 16, 2011)

Yeah but kind of the philosophical equivalent of someone else's sexy french exchange student when you were a lad. Complete mental case in reality but oh the lust.


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## coley (Nov 16, 2011)

Louis MacNeice said:


> As Pickman's originally stated the government could have acted earlier; and as I added they could have done so in accordance with some basic notions of human rights which were gaining popularity internationally. They decided not to do either of these; these were choices not necessities.
> 
> Louis MacNeice


Yes they could have acted earlier but it seems the attitude was let them (Stormont) sort it out, however once the brown stuff started to hit the fan they (Westminster) did start to put improvements in place, the biggest being the abolishment  of the Stormont goverment however by this time the nationalists had decided that they wanted nothing less than the end of partition and they were quite prepared to use violence to achieve this, despite a clear mandate that the vast majority of those in the province wanted to remain part of the UK.


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## cemertyone (Nov 16, 2011)

coley said:


> despite a clear mandate that the vast majority of those in the province wanted to remain part of the UK.



not sure what you mean by the "vast majority" here...its a bit of a disengenious phrase..


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## coley (Nov 16, 2011)

cemertyone said:


> not sure what you mean by the "vast majority" here...its a bit of a disengenious phrase..


They had a referendum on remaining part of the UK, if I remember right it was something like 94% in favour.


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## peterkro (Nov 16, 2011)

coley said:


> They had a referendum on remaining part of the UK, if I remember right it was something like 94% in favour.


98% of those that voted, it was boycotted by nationalists,turn out was a bit over 50%.


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## coley (Nov 16, 2011)

peterkro said:


> 98% of those that voted, it was boycotted by nationalists,turn out was a bit over 50%.


Well, the nationalists were never slow in shooting themselves in the foot, mebbes if they hadnt boycotted it the outcome would have been different.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 17, 2011)

coley said:


> Well, the nationalists were never slow in shooting themselves in the foot, mebbes if they hadnt boycotted it the outcome would have been different.



The problem being that if you participate in an action by a regime that you don't accept has legitimacy, you legitimise them.


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## cemertyone (Nov 18, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> The problem being that if you participate in an action by a regime that you don't accept has legitimacy, you legitimise them.



oh touche..sir.....


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## ferrelhadley (Nov 18, 2011)

Warning turn the sound down because the music is truly pish but someone has been putting together a montage of alleged plain cloths officers at this demo.


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## coley (Nov 19, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> The problem being that if you participate in an action by a regime that you don't accept has legitimacy, you legitimise them.


By that criterion Adams & Co legitimised the regime big time with their cooperation in the 'peace process'


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## Hocus Eye. (Nov 19, 2011)

coley said:


> By that criterion Adams & Co legitimised the regime big time with their cooperation in the 'peace process'


In the same way the regime entered into negotiations in the peace process. It was reciprocal. For years the IRA was not recognised but classed as just criminals, but come the 'peace process' a new phase had begun.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 19, 2011)

coley said:


> By that criterion Adams & Co legitimised the regime big time with their cooperation in the 'peace process'



That'd be the "peace process" which for it's first 15 or so years was kept a secret from the people on the mainland and in Ulster? The peace process which imposed a burden of compliance on the PIRA heavier than on any other party to the eventual agreement?

Think before you post, mate.


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## coley (Nov 19, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> That'd be the "peace process" which for it's first 15 or so years was kept a secret from the people on the mainland and in Ulster? The peace process which imposed a burden of compliance on the PIRA heavier than on any other party to the eventual agreement?
> 
> Think before you post, mate.


Doesnt alter the fact that they entered into discussions therefore legitimising (using your logic)them and recognising who rules in Ulster


Hocus Eye. said:


> In the same way the regime entered into negotiations in the peace process. It was reciprocal. For years the IRA was not recognised but classed as just criminals, but come the 'peace process' a new phase had begun.



its called pragmatism, but whatever way you put it Sinn Fein and PIRA surrendered to the inevitable.


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## cemertyone (Nov 21, 2011)

coley said:


> Doesnt alter the fact that they entered into discussions therefore legitimising (using your logic)them and recognising who rules in Ulster
> 
> its called pragmatism, but whatever way you put it Sinn Fein and PIRA surrendered to the inevitable.



Firstly.."Ulster" as you put.. it is in fact much larger than the current statelet of N.Ireland..its the kinda phrase used primarliy
by protestant Scots and die hard unionists..are you in that camp perhaps???anyway..we digress.
You use the word "pragmatisim" in relation to SF strategy and your right there to a certain degree...
The use of "armed force" could ( and many would argue should have remained) the primary modis operandi
in shifting the brits to a position where by the cost to them was such that they would change their policy
towards their involment in the North..that was really never gonna happen...
Adams and his supporters ( of which im not one believe me!!) viewed the position as thus..continue with armed actions
or comprimise and work the system from within to gradually reduce the british influence and paly the long game..
SF (much like the catholic church in fact) views things in decades not weeks or years...
if you compare the position of the unionist parties in relation to SF say 20 years ago and then now ..whats quite clear is that they have forced the unionists out of thier "No Surrender" mentality and along a route that economically and politically WILL end
in the unifaction of the country....
The unionists will still have there attachment to the uk but it will be within an all ireland context....
It`s all still to play for..but the new generation of Unionism (and capital) is much more pragmatic than its ever been
and can see the advantages of a solid econmic union with the South..despite the current difficulties in the republic..


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 21, 2011)

coley said:


> Doesnt alter the fact that they entered into discussions therefore legitimising (using your logic)them and recognising who rules in Ulster



Yes, it was so bestowing of legitimacy that both sides did it in secret!!!



> its called pragmatism, but whatever way you put it Sinn Fein and PIRA surrendered to the inevitable.



And so did the British govt, with a hefty shove from the insurance industry.


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## cemertyone (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yes, it was so bestowing of legitimacy that both sides did it in secret!!!
> 
> And so did the British govt, with a hefty shove from the insurance industry.



oh course when it came to it the British gov refused to act as an "insurer as last resort"..
and there lays the hub after fucking london and manchester the banks and the financial servicers
sector told the government we anit having this and despite the nonsense that the provos wanted a way out (
which they did) three large bombs in the UK was all it took to bring the brits to the table...
the threat of the financial services sector taking its money and staff to mainland Europe was enough
to get them round the table...
And thats where the RIRA should be concentrating there operations ...a 4 thousands pound bomb
in oxford street would have the city investors running for the caymen islands..
the only thing the british polical class understand is finance.....
can you imagine a truck bomb that destroys oxford street in the run up to christmas??
Every major institutation in the world would be pullingits staff out and relocating else where..
.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

cemertyone said:


> oh course when it came to it the British gov refused to act as an "insurer as last resort"..and there lays the hub after fucking london and manchester the banks and the financial servicers sector told the government we anit having this and despite the nonsense that the provos wanted a way out (which they did) three large bombs in the UK was all it took to bring the brits to the table...the threat of the financial services sector taking its money and staff to mainland Europe was enough to get them round the table...



Part of the govt refusing to carry the insurance can was to do with the way property prices had escalated so that a single bomb in the City could mean them having to find tens of billions. Those three large bombs didn't, I'd argue, act as the only factor that kick-started negotiations, but certainly played a part.



> And thats where the RIRA should be concentrating there operations ...a 4 thousands pound bomb
> in oxford street would have the city investors running for the caymen islands..



Wouldn't work. Too much collateral damage and the RIRA would be pursued mercilessly. Blowing up buildings with minimal casualties is one thing, deliberately targeting one of the busiest shopping areas in the UK is another. You really want to go back to the mid-'70s, after the pub bombings, where anyone with a vaguely Irish accent was treated with suspicion and liable to get a kicking or worse off the Old Bill?



> the only thing the british polical class understand is finance.....
> can you imagine a truck bomb that destroys oxford street in the run up to christmas??
> Every major institutation in the world would be pullingits staff out and relocating else where..
> .



There aren't many major institutions in Oxford Street. It's mostly shops. Threadneedle Street or Broadgate, though, entirely different proposition.

Oh, and it's pretty obvious the Political Class don't understand finance, or hundreds of thousands of British workers wouldn't be being force-fed shit sandwiches. The only thing they actually understand is power, and big money has big power.


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## cemertyone (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Part of the govt refusing to carry the insurance can was to do with the way property prices had escalated so that a single bomb in the City could mean them having to find tens of billions. Those three large bombs didn't, I'd argue, act as the only factor that kick-started negotiations, but certainly played a part.
> 
> Wouldn't work. Too much collateral damage and the RIRA would be pursued mercilessly. Blowing up buildings with minimal casualties is one thing, deliberately targeting one of the busiest shopping areas in the UK is another. You really want to go back to the mid-'70s, after the pub bombings, where anyone with a vaguely Irish accent was treated with suspicion and liable to get a kicking or worse off the Old Bill?
> 
> ...


come back to


ViolentPanda said:


> Part of the govt refusing to carry the insurance can was to do with the way property prices had escalated so that a single bomb in the City could mean them having to find tens of billions. Those three large bombs didn't, I'd argue, act as the only factor that kick-started negotiations, but certainly played a part.
> 
> Wouldn't work. Too much collateral damage and the RIRA would be pursued mercilessly. Blowing up buildings with minimal casualties is one thing, deliberately targeting one of the busiest shopping areas in the UK is another. You really want to go back to the mid-'70s, after the pub bombings, where anyone with a vaguely Irish accent was treated with suspicion and liable to get a kicking or worse off the Old Bill?
> 
> ...



will come back to you on this but i disagree with your viewpoint..outta time at the minute...


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## Garek (Nov 23, 2011)

This is far better than Oxford St


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