# Is it time to take non-violent self defence seriously?



## DrRingDing (Nov 21, 2011)

The new wave of occupy protests are getting a good hiding with very little defence whatsoever.

What tactics could static demos take to defend themselves?

Is it time to revive the White Overall Movement?


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## TopCat (Nov 21, 2011)

Non violent direct action (going limp etc) is pathetic. Get off of your knees and fight!

What usually happens is that the professed pacifists get beaten by the police then cast off their foolishness and start throwing rocks.


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## DrRingDing (Nov 21, 2011)

TopCat said:


> Non violent direct action (going limp etc) is pathetic. Get off of your knees and fight!
> 
> What usually happens is that the professed pacifists get beaten by the police then cast off their foolishness and start throwing rocks.



Whilst I agree with you, that's not going to go down well with many of the Occupy lot. Padding up, building defences, group shelids etc might help protect the demo and maintain 'public' support.


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## sim667 (Nov 21, 2011)

The best form of defence is engaging with the public.

So far since occupy london started I've had three students go an photograph them, and when they've come back and been asked what they're protesting against all 3 of those students have said something along the lines of "they want stuff to be cheaper"....... Well anyone who knows what they're protesting against knows there's a bit more to it than that.

All 3 have also commented how lovely all the people that were up there are, but they all said they found the overall context of what was being demonstrated against a bit confusing.

The right thing is being done, showing protesters being hurt on youtube and twitter, but until the public really understand what the demo's are about and develop some kind of social conscience about it, they'll overlook the images they're seeing in the news and on social media.

Public outcry stops police behaving badly, therefore public outcry is the best defence, you wont get public outcry until the public actually feel engaged and supportive of what protestors do.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 21, 2011)

the problem with public outcry is that people have to be given something to cry about first.


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## 8ball (Nov 21, 2011)

DrRingDing said:


> Whilst I agree with you, that's not going to go down well with many of the Occupy lot. Padding up, building defences, group shelids etc might help protect the demo and maintain 'public' support.



This is difficult.  As soon as the protesters use violent they will be portrayed as violent thugs, though there is this idea that passive resistance is going to win the battle as it shows the true side of the oppressor, but then the media just mostly ignores things.

True passive resistance takes a hell of a lot of discipline (more than I'd have) and most cases that get quoted as situations where it has 'worked' has involved movements that had other elements taking more direct action.  Passivity is over-fetishised imo.


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## junglevip (Nov 21, 2011)

Live by the sword, die by the sword; sustained peaceful mass protest is the way forward.  The wider public will see the crimes and be offended giving the demonstrators even more support.  That the longer view


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## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Live by the sword, die by the sword; sustained peaceful mass protest is the way forward. The wider public will see the crimes and be offended giving the demonstrators even more support. That the longer view



I can't see that working somehow...


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## joustmaster (Nov 21, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Live by the sword, die by the sword; sustained peaceful mass protest is the way forward.  The wider public will see the crimes and be offended giving the demonstrators even more support.  That the longer view


 "don't live by the sword, die by the sword" seems apt too


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## TopCat (Nov 21, 2011)

DrRingDing said:


> Whilst I agree with you, that's not going to go down well with many of the Occupy lot. Padding up, building defences, group shelids etc might help protect the demo and maintain 'public' support.


The Wombles went for the padding and overalls strategy and it never really got off of the ground. They attracted an enormous amount of police attention and aggrovation.

Anyway, as far as the police are concerned, doing _anything_ other than going limp when they are attempting to arrest you is violence.


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## TopCat (Nov 21, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Live by the sword, die by the sword; sustained peaceful mass protest is the way forward. The wider public will see the crimes and be offended giving the demonstrators even more support. That the longer view



What do you base this view upon?


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## junglevip (Nov 21, 2011)

TopCat said:


> What do you base this view upon?



Life experience


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## TopCat (Nov 21, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Life experience


Could you be a bit more specific?


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## junglevip (Nov 21, 2011)

joustmaster said:


> "don't live by the sword, die by the sword" seems apt too



Its inevitable


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## DotCommunist (Nov 21, 2011)

with the disparity in remit, accountability, training and judicial back up (I mean if a group of protesters do batter a copper there is no peoples tribunal to bring him before etc) it is not 'live by the sword' as they have the sword. We have the spoon.


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## junglevip (Nov 21, 2011)

TopCat said:


> Could you be a bit more specific?



I am going shopping so you'll just have to think for yourself on this one.  I need onions and milk and all that kind of stuff.. . . .


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## junglevip (Nov 21, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> with the disparity in remit, accountability, training and judicial back up (I mean if a group of protesters do batter a copper there is no peoples tribunal to bring him before etc) it is not 'live by the sword' as they have the sword. We have the spoon.



These thing dont happen overnight DC


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## TopCat (Nov 21, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I am going shopping so you'll just have to think for yourself on this one. I need onions and milk and all that kind of stuff.. . . .


I can think for myself and don't agree with you at all. I am interested in what informs your view hence the question.


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## TopCat (Nov 21, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I am going shopping so you'll just have to think for yourself on this one. I need onions and milk and all that kind of stuff.. . . .


You should pick up some s's while you are out.


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## 8ball (Nov 21, 2011)

I can't think of a movement where 'passive resistance won through' that didn't involve other strands of the movement taking very different measures.


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## consumer135 (Nov 21, 2011)

How about 55 inflatable pink chairs ...tied together with climbing rope
... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Job-Lot-x55-Inflatable-Chairs-Thrones-RRP-1138-45-/200636286890

Or everyone being aware of police tactics and constantly seeking to disrupt them every time I have been on a demonstration in which policing eventually got heavy - people either willingly walked into kettles or willingly formed themselves into a kettled active core & passive photographers/by standers by allowing a light cordon to form.

[PUBLIC ORDER STANDARDS, TACTICS AND TRAINING MANUAL 2004]
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2011/10//486401.pdf

[more of a policy thing]
http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/uniformed/2010/201010UNKTP01.pdf

Of course the battle is won or lost before you take to the street. If you have strong public backing then violence by the 'security forces' plays into your hands. If you haven't developed support then you will be portrayed as the violent ones by the media and people will believe them - because you are 'just a bunch of terrorists/extreemists/lefties/hippies/ect.

http://www.canvasopedia.org/legacy/files/various/Nonviolent_Struggle-50CP.pdf
http://www.canvasopedia.org/legacy/files/various/Core_Curriculum-Students_Book.pdf


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## krink (Nov 21, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Live by the sword, die by the sword





> He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. Indeed - likewise he who
> lives by the pen, he who lives by the word processor, he who who lives
> by the fax machine all shall die by the sword. Only he who lives by the
> tank shall remain immune.
> ...


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## junglevip (Nov 21, 2011)

TopCat said:


> You should pick up some s's while you are out.


 
They didn't have any


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## DrRingDing (Nov 21, 2011)

TopCat said:


> The Wombles went for the padding and overalls strategy and it never really got off of the ground. They attracted an enormous amount of police attention and aggrovation.



If they even had a fraction of numbers that the Italian's did then things could of got tasty.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 21, 2011)

Non-violent self-defence has its' place, but so does direct physical self-defence. Opting out of deploying the latter leaves people open to the sort of shit-headed head-cracking that the Met and other police "services" are well-known for.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 21, 2011)

The minimum required bleep test score for English plod is 5.4 which is the equivalent of running 900 metres in a total of 5 minutes and 40 seconds and is frankly pathetically slow. Any self-respecting revolutionary should be able to run at least a mile in 5 minutes and 40 seconds.


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## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

Fwiw I keep going back to the experiences of NICRA. They argued in terms of peace. They got Bloody Sunday.

I am not saying this applies universally. But by God does does it show that the levels of violence and force _are not determined by us._It is the aggressor who defines the playing field we are on.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 21, 2011)

I'll say this for non-violence; without it there would be no more baton charges, no more kettles. To submit to violence is to perpetuate violence.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 21, 2011)

Garek said:


> It is the aggressor who defines the playing field we are on.



Also this. There is no honour to be gained from playing fair when the rules are stacked against you and your opponents cheat anyway.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 21, 2011)

Thats the terms of the field garek. They have the monopoly and anything done in attempt to mitigate is just that, mitigation against an enemy who is fucking well tooled.

That doesn't mean we should be making zip guns and molotovs just yet, the nascent movements like occupy would get crushed so quick I'd lay a fart that lasted longer if they showed that sort of teeth to a police force.

We can't win the toe-to-toe except on localised and individual basis. And even then it isn't common. Win the wider argument and nuetralise the enemy that way, but in the meantime defend as best one can, by armour, by shields, by good old fashioned 'run away and regroup when their shift ends'

don't think we have much else atm


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## southside (Nov 21, 2011)

Attack is the best form of defence, and the only option.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 21, 2011)

There is only one way to end police brutality and that is to kill every last copper.


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## Garek (Nov 21, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> Thats the terms of the field garek. They have the monopoly and anything done in attempt to mitigate is just that, mitigation against an enemy who is fucking well tooled.
> 
> That doesn't mean we should be making zip guns and molotovs just yet, the nascent movements like occupy would get crushed so quick I'd lay a fart that lasted longer if they showed that sort of teeth to a police force.
> 
> ...



I agree. I think we need to look in long term aims. My main problem with a lot of what I am seeing is that is that it lacks a long term context. It needs to be part of a wider narrative where this is just one stage. I am not seeing that. An act of passive of non violence, without a winder narrative of resistance, seems futile.

Basically, to put it is its crudest terms, my problem is that non-violent protest is that it has become festishised. It is the only leigtmate form of protest. To deviate from that is to 'lose legitmacy'. I find that terrifying as it is letting the aggreessors define the field we are fighting on.

We need a long term strategy based on escalation. We can't think we have failed just because we move beyond passiveness.

(excuse spelling, I am struggling with autocorrect)


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## southside (Nov 21, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> There is only one way to end police brutality and that is to kill every last copper.



Easy Frank,

Sounds like you've been radicalised.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 21, 2011)

southside said:


> Easy Frank,
> 
> Sounds like you've been radicalised.



I haven't been radicalised, everyone else has been brainwashed.

I suppose you wouldn't have to actually kill them, just offer them early retirement. A choice between early retirement and death. A completely free choice between early retirement and death, can't say fairer than that.


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## southside (Nov 21, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> I haven't been radicalised, everyone else has been brainwashed.



The Police are a neccessary evil, think how bad it would get without them.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 21, 2011)

southside said:


> The Police are a neccessary evil, think how bad it would get without them.



They are only necessary because of the system they uphold. They are there to protect the greatest criminals of all.


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## southside (Nov 21, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> They are only necessary because of the system they uphold. They are there to protect the greatest criminals of all.



Agreed, but they also serve the public, there are some very dangerous people around and the police offer a level of protection against evil wrong doers.  A pain for protesters yes, an important defence against maniacs yes.

Not saying I'm a fan but it's obvious we need them.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 21, 2011)

southside said:


> Agreed, but they also serve the public, there are some very dangerous people around and the police offer a level of protection against evil wrong doers. A pain for protesters yes, an important defence against maniacs yes.
> 
> Not saying I'm a fan but it's obvious we need them.



David Cameron is a maniac, who defends us from him?


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## southside (Nov 21, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> David Cameron is a maniac, who defends us from him?



Democracy is the maniac, Disco Dave is just a by product of it's ideology.


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## OneStrike (Nov 21, 2011)

Peaceful protest and showing the world how the police really are can help, though i doubt it is ever going to be enough. This is a pic from UC Davis earlier, its a huge swell in numbers and the police actions probably have change that Uni's mentality for a while to come, but on its own its small fry.


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## Brainaddict (Nov 21, 2011)

TopCat said:


> The Wombles went for the padding and overalls strategy and it never really got off of the ground. They attracted an enormous amount of police attention and aggravation.



Quite. Why rehash tactics that were a bit of a car crash the first time round? It's not just that they attracted aggravation. It's that the tactic itself - of deliberately opposing police violence at protests - created certain dynamics that were a very long way from any kind of sustainable political organising.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 21, 2011)

Brainaddict said:


> Quite. Why rehash tactics that were a bit of a car crash the first time round? It's not just that they attracted aggravation. It's that the tactic itself - of deliberately opposing police violence at protests - created certain dynamics that were a very long way from any kind of sustainable political organising.


so if DELIBERATELY opposing police violence is a bad idea, i suppose you hope that there'll be some sort of ACCIDENTAL opposition to police violence. how's that supposed to work then?


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## Brainaddict (Nov 21, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> so if DELIBERATELY opposing police violence is a bad idea, i suppose you hope that there'll be some sort of ACCIDENTAL opposition to police violence. how's that supposed to work then?


Did you DELIBERATELY miss out the 'at protests' in my 'opposing police violence'? I think it was a bad idea doing it in a particular way in a particular context. I think this based on seeing how it worked. As one of urban's ageing armchair warriors I wouldn't expect you to give a fuck what worked, obviously, but other people might.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 21, 2011)

Brainaddict said:


> Did you DELIBERATELY miss out the 'at protests' in my 'opposing police violence'? I think it was a bad idea doing it in a particular way in a particular context. I think this based on seeing how it worked. As one of urban's ageing armchair warriors I wouldn't expect you to give a fuck what worked, obviously, but other people might.


i took the 'at protests' bit as read given the fucking op. i know you're, in your own words, an aging armchair warrior, but i didn't know you'd started losing your marbles.

as for what works, the reason the wombles tactic didn't work is that it was left to a small number of people to put it together. rather than being seen as an example of what other people could do and work together on, it became unfortunately seen as just another group.


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## barney_pig (Nov 22, 2011)

I am 44 years old. For the past 28 years I have been on protests and involved in campaigns.
Most have been placid and impotent marches obeying the police directions and forgotten before they're even finished. A few have been assaulted by the police and have been beaten off the streets without having achieved more than a few morally smug bruises. Only once have I been on a demo that refused to been corralled and beaten and instead fought back.
That was the poll tax demo, and it arguably put paid to both the poll tax and to Thatch.


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## silverfish (Nov 22, 2011)

Is it a case of, the boot isn't being stamped on "our" necks hard enough.

When it does will more protesters turn to "Justified" violence?

What's the tipping point?  Barney pig points to the Poll tax, what about the miners, was that violent enough, or didn't it involve the population on a national level?

Don't have an anuerism at my naivety, just swilling questions around

what will turn more, less politicised people on to the streets? Not even illegal wars have really inflammed the masses to pull themselves out their arm chairs


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## DotCommunist (Nov 22, 2011)

except the million pulled in for the big STW march.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

What bugs me is the 'brave' police throwing there weight around with the students but when faced with the rioters they seemed to be quite timid.


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## krink (Nov 22, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> The minimum required bleep test score for English plod is 5.4 which is the equivalent of running 900 metres in a total of 5 minutes and 40 seconds and is frankly pathetically slow. Any self-respecting revolutionary should be able to run at least a mile in 5 minutes and 40 seconds.



I couldn't even drive a mile that quick


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

I used to do full contact karate in my 20's and that was a very long time ago. Part of me wants to make some diy armour and have a crack at them. I watch their tactics get an idea of how to counter the the police strategies. Even to the point of buying some police gear, persuading and old sparring partner to ditch the zimmer frame and doing some old school sparring against the weapons your likely to encounter (the shield in particular).

It would make for a better game

I feel a bit weird/ashamed admitting this.

What a saddo eh?


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

krink said:


> I couldn't even drive a mile that quick



Take the bus or doesn't that count?


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## DaveCinzano (Nov 22, 2011)

I think the question 'is it time to take _non_-non-violent self defence seriously?' is at least as valid at the moment, for the reasons ViolentPanda outlines, and for others.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

I am not sure what non violent self defense is (apart from doing a runner)?  Any examples?


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## butchersapron (Nov 22, 2011)

Any concept of self-defence that doesn't contain an understanding of the potential uses of violence is a partial conception of self-defence and it is therefore potentially counter-productive or harmful. It's probably also useful for people to remember that self-defence isn't _necessarily_ the same as _going on the offensive _(though, of course, it can very quickly develop into offensive actions) and cut their cloth accordingly.


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## TopCat (Nov 22, 2011)

Brainaddict said:


> Quite. It's that the tactic itself - of deliberately opposing police violence at protests - created certain dynamics that were a very long way from any kind of sustainable political organising.


I have to challenge this. The problem with the Wombles was they never really got the idea off of the ground. If they had 500 supporters using the tactics and they used them well, the situation would have been vastly different.


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## Kaka Tim (Nov 22, 2011)

Actions like linking arms and pushing against police lines (like when trying to break a kettle) and de-arresting people are actions that are not 'violent' but are confrontational - they will alsmost certianly provoke a violent response from police. These actions can be effective and morale boosting when they work - but require a certian level of discipline and  organisation. This was the original idea behind the white overals/wombles thing but you need the numbers to pull it off.
As well as this people should look more towards building campaigns of mass civil disobediance rather then get too focused on tactics of how to confront the police - we are some way from a Tahir Square (or Athens) situation. If police up the aggro it may provoke an angry reaction, but unless you have significent numbers of committed people the police will always 'win' when it comes to physical force.
1000 people trying to shut down the stock exchange they can deal with. 50,000 people they would have serious problems.


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## butchersapron (Nov 22, 2011)

TopCat said:


> I have to challenge this. The problem with the Wombles was they never really got the idea off of the ground. If they had 500 supporters using the tactics and they used them well, the situation would have been vastly different.


Yep, we saw it work at the german anti-nuclear protests. 3000 padded up not backing down people totally changed the dynamics of that series of protests.


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## silverfish (Nov 22, 2011)

DotCommunist said:


> except the million pulled in for the big STW march.



Yep, that showed em


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## silverfish (Nov 22, 2011)

it needs something that takes up the police numbers and equipment without excessive confrontation and involves enough people.

gotta be simple, so mass participation is possible, cheap or free, easily achieved

and its got to be presented so that any police brutality is seen in context as completely unneccesary

its gotta be "reproducable"

I doubt I'm breaking any new ground here


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## DotCommunist (Nov 22, 2011)

silverfish said:


> Yep, that showed em



you didn't ask who was shown, you asked who was arsed- and the answer is 'tons of people'.


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## TopCat (Nov 22, 2011)

Some of the student protests showed people getting up and involved with violence "light". They refused to move when the police shouted at them, grabbed hold of their batons when they struck people and hung on, grabbed their shields and hung on. I was quite impressed. I also saw a lot of people just relentlessly pushing through the police lines. This is vastly different from violence "proper" IE people throwing missiles, brandishing clubs, chucking bags of marbles, punching, pulling cops to the ground etc.

The police don't see much of a difference between the two approaches. The courts agree with the police, any sort of resistance is unacceptable and is usually classed as violent disorder with a hefty prison sentence attached.


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## TopCat (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I used to do full contact karate in my 20's and that was a very long time ago. Part of me wants to make some diy armour and have a crack at them. I watch their tactics get an idea of how to counter the the police strategies. Even to the point of buying some police gear, persuading and old sparring partner to ditch the zimmer frame and doing some old school sparring against the weapons your likely to encounter (the shield in particular).
> 
> It would make for a better game
> 
> ...



I think practising opposition to commonly used police tactics is an *excellent* idea. I would be right up for helping put something together on this. You could do the confront  a cop holding a short shield and baton bit, practice our own flying wedges to get out of kettles, yeah lets do it.


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## xes (Nov 22, 2011)

That's why it has to be everybody organised, you can't stick 10k people in courts and prison, unless you start building prison camps, and I don't think we're quite at the nazi stage yet, though I do call cops nazis, but we are well on the way. Organisation is key, and the time for sitting there whilst some piug cunt hits you in the face with a batton is gone. People need to pad up, yes, people need shields, yes, people need weapons, yes. Then, if we got a level playing field, it's a much fairer game to play. In an average largish protest (I know that's rather vague) by how much are the police out numbered? If everyone was ready for it, or even at least a proportion was, there would be no contest and we'd soon have a boxed in group of coppers, carefully rounded up and penned into a square for hours and hours on end with no food, toilets and water, whilst screaming "GET BACK" and hitting them, knowing full well they have nowhere to go. Maybe then the police will start to see that they can't do the things they do and get away with it anymore. We've seen that there is no justive for their actions, people can film their wrong doings and the courts WILL cover it up. There is only 1 option left, and that is direct action.


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## grit (Nov 22, 2011)

TopCat said:


> I think practising opposition to commonly used police tactics is an *excellent* idea. I would be right up for helping put something together on this. You could do the confront a cop holding a short shield and baton bit, practice our own flying wedges to get out of kettles, yeah lets do it.



I saw a offical MET manual circulating the internet about a month ago that showed their tactics during demonstrations, I presume all their tactics are well known at this stage?


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

grit said:


> I saw a offical MET manual circulating the internet about a month ago that showed their tactics during demonstrations, I presume all their tactics are well known at this stage?


which manual do you mean? the 2004 tactics and training manual - available from http://j.mp/oYt5Sx - or the readily available but still not met acpo keeping the peace manual - at http://www.npia.police.uk/en/6533.htm?


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## grit (Nov 22, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> which manual do you mean? the 2004 tactics and training manual - available from http://j.mp/oYt5Sx - or the readily available but still not met acpo keeping the peace manual - at http://www.npia.police.uk/en/6533.htm?



Ah it was the 2004 trainers manual, I presumed it was common knowledge, but wasn't sure.


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## sptme (Nov 22, 2011)

I like the book bloc


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

southside said:


> The Police are a neccessary evil, think how bad it would get without them.



The police as they currently exist are a recent phenomenon in historical terms, and it's not as if not having police services means there would be no policing. You could still have a policing function without depending on a monolithic "HM Constabulary" set-up, and without the politicisation of policing that such a monolithic organisation almost ensures.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

southside said:


> Democracy is the maniac, Disco Dave is just a by product of it's ideology.



Disco Dave isn't a product of democracy as ideology, he's a product of a particular, right-slanted ideology that democracy allows.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I used to do full contact karate in my 20's and that was a very long time ago. Part of me wants to make some diy armour and have a crack at them. I watch their tactics get an idea of how to counter the the police strategies. Even to the point of buying some police gear, persuading and old sparring partner to ditch the zimmer frame and doing some old school sparring against the weapons your likely to encounter (the shield in particular).
> 
> It would make for a better game
> 
> ...



No sadder than me analysing police strategy and tactics at protests to find holes. 

Protesters, whatever form of self-defence they go for, have a potentially massive tactical advantage over the police. That potential advantage is that *if* they analyse police strategy and tactics then they can run rings around them. The police are forced (by their training and by the nature of their work while policing protests) to stick to "set-piece" deployments. This has two immediate benefits for protesters:
1) An informed _bloc_ of protesters can anticipate the moves of the police before they make them, and counteract them with moves of their own, and
2) Any "bad apple" stepping outside of the "set piece" tactics is more visible, and therefore more amenable to being captured on the surveillance tools (mobies, cams etc) of the protesters.

If you're only into non-violent self-defence then this will work for you, and if you're into physical self-defence, it also works for you. All the protesters require is a weak organisational scheme that says "follow the moves of (insert anointed move-maker's name here)". Believe me, there's nothing that shits the Old Bill up more than being faced with an organised, determined _bloc_ of protesters. It's why the horse charge is their opening move of choice, and why we were able to turn it against them somewhat (although not enough ) at Wapping.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

southside said:


> Agreed, but they also serve the public, there are some very dangerous people around and the police offer a level of protection against evil wrong doers. A pain for protesters yes, an important defence against maniacs yes.
> 
> Not saying I'm a fan but it's obvious we need them.


no it isn't you daft twat.

if your argument for the police is that we need them to stop the likes of fred and rose west or ian brady and myra hindley - proper maniacs - then they don't in all honesty do a particularly good job. they'd never have caught harold shipman if he hadn't got greedy. and their inability or unwillingness to catch muggers and burglars doesn't fill you with confidence in their ability to catch the more dangerous criminals. for every murderer they catch hundreds of anti-social criminals go free. they're really not very good at their professed job, the prevention and detection of crime. and if you think that the cops are there to stop maniacs, that's a very fucking expensive way of dealing with the killers among us.


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## grit (Nov 22, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> no it isn't you daft twat.
> 
> if your argument for the police is that we need them to stop the likes of fred and rose west or ian brady and myra hindley - proper maniacs - then they don't in all honesty do a particularly good job. they'd never have caught harold shipman if he hadn't got greedy. and their inability or unwillingness to catch muggers and burglars doesn't fill you with confidence in their ability to catch the more dangerous criminals. for every murderer they catch hundreds of anti-social criminals go free. they're really not very good at their professed job, the prevention and detection of crime. and if you think that the cops are there to stop maniacs, that's a very fucking expensive way of dealing with the killers among us.



What would you propose as an alternative?


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

grit said:


> I saw a offical MET manual circulating the internet about a month ago that showed their tactics during demonstrations, I presume all their tactics are well known at this stage?



Their tactics are limited by their remit. Above a certain level of resistance from protesters, the Old Bill have nowhere to go except firearms. The threat of water cannon and baton rounds seems horrific, but if they start using them, they've already lost control. As they know well (and you can confirm this point with reference to most deployments of water cannon and baton rounds) unless the protesters "break and run" in the first 5-10 minutes of engagement with those weapons (and CS, of course), then all they've done is given the protesters a reason to escalate their resistance into active engagement against the police.
Where do the authorities go from there? While I'm sure that many pols would be quick to call for live ammo to be used on protesters, coppers doing so within grabbing distance of the protesters (and your Glocks and H & K MP5s *aren't* distance weapons by any stretch of the imagination) are going to be likely to be torn apart.


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## grit (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Their tactics are limited by their remit. Above a certain level of resistance from protesters, the Old Bill have nowhere to go except firearms. The threat of water cannon and baton rounds seems horrific, but if they start using them, they've already lost control. As they know well (and you can confirm this point with reference to most deployments of water cannon and baton rounds) unless the protesters "break and run" in the first 5-10 minutes of engagement with those weapons (and CS, of course), then all they've done is given the protesters a reason to escalate their resistance into active engagement against the police.
> Where do the authorities go from there? While I'm sure that many pols would be quick to call for live ammo to be used on protesters, coppers doing so within grabbing distance of the protesters (and your Glocks and H & K MP5s *aren't* distance weapons by any stretch of the imagination) are going to be likely to be torn apart.



I was under the impression that all of your water cannons were in the north of Ireland</tangent>.

Personally I find it difficult to conceptualise the situation required for them to open fire with live ammo on protesters.


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## xes (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> coppers doing so within grabbing distance of the protesters (and your Glocks and H & K MP5s *aren't* distance weapons by any stretch of the imagination) are going to be likely to be torn apart.


*drool....snarrrl*


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> No sadder than me analysing police strategy and tactics at protests to find holes.
> 
> Protesters, whatever form of self-defence they go for, have a potentially massive tactical advantage over the police. That potential advantage is that *if* they analyse police strategy and tactics then they can run rings around them. The police are forced (by their training and by the nature of their work while policing protests) to stick to "set-piece" deployments. This has two immediate benefits for protesters:
> 1) An informed _bloc_ of protesters can anticipate the moves of the police before they make them, and counteract them with moves of their own, and
> ...


the difficulty with your proposal is getting together an informed bloc. the information about police tactics has been out there since at least the publication of 'shooting in the dark'. however, very few people, even among seasoned demonstrators of whatever political hue, have ever bothered to acquaint themselves with it. for this reason, as well as the anarchist belief in opposing hierarchy, it's a damn sight easier not to lay out chapter and verse on police tactics and how to counter them but to concentrate on a few simple words of advice.

there's a time and place for blocs, but much of the time a preferable stratagem is for demonstrators to disperse over a large area, so there's no perimeter the police can hold. take water, for example. if you have a river - an a-b march - it can be dammed. if you have mist it's not so easy to contain. so, what would be more effective is something like j18 than the g20.

the other advantages demonstrators have are surprise and mobility. if people stop, they will be surrounded and kettled. if people keep moving, then the police generally have to play catch-up - although they have been working on the tactic of moving kettles and surrounding marches. if decentralised, dispersed groups move about it's like smoke, there's nothing the police can really grasp onto.

fans of the sharpe novels may recall bernard cornwell's repeated discussion of line vs column, where the french are always attacking in column and the british defending in line. all the people in the line can act - whereas only the people on the outside of a column can attack or defend themselves. the police prefer to act in lines - kettling, blocking roads and so on. the traditional a-b march puts people in column, and if wellington could defeat napoleonic forces time after time, it's no great surprise that the met can do the same to a crowd of people without someone of bonaparte's military nous directing them. however, a line cannot act against people who are spread out spread over a wide area.

there are four sorts of cops. one of them, your common or garden bobby, is no use on demonstrations and can be safely disregarded. then there's the part-time public order cops, the level 2's, who train a couple of times a year. they are the ones on demonstrations with two letters on their shoulders, if from the met. they can be vicious. there's the tsg - level 1's - who train every six weeks. conversations i have had recently indicate that the plainclothes cops seen on the 9th are a serial - 21 cops - from the tsg. they're the big boys of public order, but there's only 720 of them in london. finally, there's the cops doing intelligence work, the fit - both from central operations and other pan-london units and from the boroughs. a lot of the time you can tell them because although they generally no longer wear the famous blue-top jackets, if you see a couple of plod standing about for no good reason they are likely to be fit. anyone with 'co' letters on their epaulettes is almost certainly doing this work. other well-known examples are ID14 and EK127, a cop from heathrow and camden respectively. a lot of these are tactical advisers, people who advise senior officers on what to do. it's really the level 1's and the fit who have to be watched out for, because they're the ones who will be running the difficult stuff.

it's best, and it's not too difficult, to stay one step ahead of the cops if you have the right way of operating, and that is to have your own agenda and pursue it. the cops - in my view - are not the game, they are obstructions and obstacles to be surmounted, to be circumvented, to be gone around. a collision between demonstrators and the police is all very well, and very heartening when it goes the right way. but it isn't, i believe, what people ought to aim for. a scrap with the cops will leave people bloodied and nicked, no matter the outcome. although there's a time and place for a scrap with the old bill, you don't get a goal for charging into them. to take rugby as an analogy, you don't run at the opposition players, you go round them to get a try. and if you want to move from where we are now to where people would like to be, then engaging with the cops on territory of their choosing or territory where they have the advantages is foolish. better to prevent them acting as they desire, and the way i believe to achieve that is to present them with no real targets - returning to my point about decentralised autonomous groups floating about, providing people who desire the opportunity for direct action with a clearer run.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

anyway that's me late for work now


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> The threat of water cannon and baton rounds seems horrific, but if they start using them, they've already lost control.



Ain't that the truth.

After watching recent events of plod brutality in the US against protesters involved in NVDA, I certainly wouldn't tolerate being hit & cattle prodded with a baton for standing my ground during peaceful protest. I would fight back, & I reckon the majority of us in the UK would too. It's just a matter of time, when protest in this country escalates.


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## silverfish (Nov 22, 2011)

This stuff gives me a bit of a hard on not sure what that says about me.

The police are deffo constrained and predictable. Arm chair generals just need to work out an actual objective and how they work 'round the police and how to engage enough people and with a degree of command and control

Mass seems to work to the police advantage in the UK. So smaller flying groups and diversionary and "sacrificial" groups probably need to be organised

But what is the objective? control of a location, face off with coppers, media air time, the support of the "general public" getting your message heard, sacking of parliament etc


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## TopCat (Nov 22, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> which manual do you mean? the 2004 tactics and training manual - available from http://j.mp/oYt5Sx - or the readily available but still not met acpo keeping the peace manual - at http://www.npia.police.uk/en/6533.htm?


Interesting read. A lot of the police tactics are very reminiscent of Roman times.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I am not sure what non violent self defense is (apart from doing a runner)? Any examples?



It's either an oxymoron or a tautology depending on how you define violence. There is a certain type of person who thinks that the term 'non-violent' means taking no physical action whatsoever to defend you and your mates from violent assault. These people are idiots. If you are opposed to the use of violence then you should confront it. If you do not confront it then the violent people get their way every time and the world simply becomes a more violent place in which violent people have all the power. So in my opinion standing there and letting the coppers kick your head in is not non-violent, if anything it is pro-violent.

Using force to defend yourself and others should not count as violence by any sensible definition. Unfortunately the police are backed up by a criminal justice system more than happy to use more violence against those who take this attitude towards defending themselves from the police. This is why solidarity is essential. They can easily drag half a dozen people out of a crowd and throw them in the cells. They cannot drag off the whole crowd. The continual violent repression of protests would be impossible without the so-called pacifism of protestors.


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 22, 2011)

The general fitness of plod in the UK is questionable, & at past Smash EDO demo's plod have been run absolutely fuckin' ragged. They totally lose control. Keep mobile, fuck their kettles.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

grit said:


> I was under the impression that all of your water cannons were in the north of Ireland</tangent>.



Supposedly.



> Personally I find it difficult to conceptualise the situation required for them to open fire with live ammo on protesters.



I too find it difficult, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.


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## TopCat (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> The general fitness of plod in the UK is questionable, & at past Smash EDO demo's plod have been run absolutely fuckin' ragged. They totally lose control. Keep mobile, fuck their kettles.


I have a lovely memory of running around Brighton with the plod following, up and down hills and through parks and up a bastard of a hill until we all stopped, turned, and faced a bunch of gasping plod, far away from any CCTV. The plod got second prize....


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 22, 2011)

TopCat said:


> I have a lovely memory of running around Brighton with the plod following, up and down hills and through parks and up a bastard of a hill until we all stopped, turned, and faced a bunch of gasping plod, far away from any CCTV. The plod got second prize....



Lots being planned for 2012 

Last Octobers photos if you didn't see them - plod lost it on the downs when protest splintered - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbishie/sets/72157625032285091/


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Supposedly.
> I too find it difficult, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.



Fuckin' woe betide!


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## TopCat (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Lots being planned for 2012
> 
> Last Octobers photos if you didn't see them - plod lost it on the downs when protest splintered - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbishie/sets/72157625032285091/


When I am not on bail I will come down and join in.


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 22, 2011)

TopCat said:


> When I am not on bail I will come down and join in.



Place to crash if you need one


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## TopCat (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Place to crash if you need one


That would be nice. Would be good to be chummed when not on familiar ground.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 22, 2011)

TopCat said:


> Interesting read. A lot of the police tactics are very reminiscent of Roman times.



An acquaintance of mine is both ex-army and a professor of roman history. His favourite thing in the world is boring people to tears with his analysis of police tactics on demonstrations, as if he was the only one who could figure them out. In reality police tactics are pretty simple because police officers are, as a rule, pretty simple. They also have a centralised command structure which means that they will tend to fall back on one or other of their basic strategies in any given situation because they lack the capacity to respond to events in real time.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> the difficulty with your proposal is getting together an informed bloc. the information about police tactics has been out there since at least the publication of 'shooting in the dark'. however, very few people, even among seasoned demonstrators of whatever political hue, have ever bothered to acquaint themselves with it. for this reason, as well as the anarchist belief in opposing hierarchy, it's a damn sight easier not to lay out chapter and verse on police tactics and how to counter them but to concentrate on a few simple words of advice.
> 
> there's a time and place for blocs, but much of the time a preferable stratagem is for demonstrators to disperse over a large area, so there's no perimeter the police can hold. take water, for example. if you have a river - an a-b march - it can be dammed. if you have mist it's not so easy to contain. so, what would be more effective is something like j18 than the g20.



Fair point. I suppose I'm a product of my environment. Both the protests where I was on "their" side, and the protests where I was on "our" side were of the old-fashioned type, and that tends to inform my thinking.



> the other advantages demonstrators have are surprise and mobility. if people stop, they will be surrounded and kettled. if people keep moving, then the police generally have to play catch-up - although they have been working on the tactic of moving kettles and surrounding marches. if decentralised, dispersed groups move about it's like smoke, there's nothing the police can really grasp onto.



Or, of course, you get the situation where the OB round people up and "feed" them into kettles. 

I get the whole  "diffuse protest" thing, I even wrote a long post in favour of it last year, not least because of the potential for making the OB over-extend their lines and their resources.



> fans of the sharpe novels may recall bernard cornwell's repeated discussion of line vs column, where the french are always attacking in column and the british defending in line. all the people in the line can act - whereas only the people on the outside of a column can attack or defend themselves. the police prefer to act in lines - kettling, blocking roads and so on. the traditional a-b march puts people in column, and if wellington could defeat napoleonic forces time after time, it's no great surprise that the met can do the same to a crowd of people without someone of bonaparte's military nous directing them. however, a line cannot act against people who are spread out spread over a wide area.



When it comes to line versus line though, it's usually (barring vastly superior weaponry) a numbers game.



> there are four sorts of cops. one of them, your common or garden bobby, is no use on demonstrations and can be safely disregarded. then there's the part-time public order cops, the level 2's, who train a couple of times a year. they are the ones on demonstrations with two letters on their shoulders, if from the met. they can be vicious. there's the tsg - level 1's - who train every six weeks. conversations i have had recently indicate that the plainclothes cops seen on the 9th are a serial - 21 cops - from the tsg. they're the big boys of public order, but there's only 720 of them in london. finally, there's the cops doing intelligence work, the fit - both from central operations and other pan-london units and from the boroughs. a lot of the time you can tell them because although they generally no longer wear the famous blue-top jackets, if you see a couple of plod standing about for no good reason they are likely to be fit. anyone with 'co' letters on their epaulettes is almost certainly doing this work. other well-known examples are ID14 and EK127, a cop from heathrow and camden respectively. a lot of these are tactical advisers, people who advise senior officers on what to do. it's really the level 1's and the fit who have to be watched out for, because they're the ones who will be running the difficult stuff.



Interesting. So they're the pieces from whom we'd most benefit if they were removed from the board.



> it's best, and it's not too difficult, to stay one step ahead of the cops if you have the right way of operating, and that is to have your own agenda and pursue it. the cops - in my view - are not the game, they are obstructions and obstacles to be surmounted, to be circumvented, to be gone around. a collision between demonstrators and the police is all very well, and very heartening when it goes the right way. but it isn't, i believe, what people ought to aim for. a scrap with the cops will leave people bloodied and nicked, no matter the outcome. although there's a time and place for a scrap with the old bill, you don't get a goal for charging into them. to take rugby as an analogy, you don't run at the opposition players, you go round them to get a try. and if you want to move from where we are now to where people would like to be, then engaging with the cops on territory of their choosing or territory where they have the advantages is foolish. better to prevent them acting as they desire, and the way i believe to achieve that is to present them with no real targets - returning to my point about decentralised autonomous groups floating about, providing people who desire the opportunity for direct action with a clearer run.



I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments and points. My earlier point, however, was that if you're in a situation where confrontation is inevitable, then being able to anticipate what "they" are going to do gives you an edge. I'm not saying "go on protests to give the coppers a kicking", and my personal philosophy is such that I've never thrown the first punch, but I try to be the one who throws the last.


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## likesfish (Nov 22, 2011)

police aim is simple
either if its edl/vs whoever keep both sides apart or not letting you burn the israeli embassy.
 Or in the case of other demos not go on a smashing spree.
 that doesn't take a lot of skill.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

Some good stuff being posted on here. The police will be training and have the confidence of a prize fighter i.e. the scenarios they run through will always have them as the victor to instill belief into their particular system. They MUST have confidence in the training for it to work for them.

A response to a baton charge for example that ended up in 50/50 would mean that the next charge might a bit more hesitant. But that would apply to a bloc too. Basic martial arts would be a good idea and the basics, which is all that is needed are easy enough. Its the bottle to see it through is the hard bit to attain. I have first and experience of me demolishing someone, turned around saw my mate on the floor, I panicked tried to get to him, my bottle went and then all of a sudden I started getting it from two assailants.

When my bottle (psychological upperhand etc) was there no problem, when it went, easy prey. That the hard bit to get; the belief.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> The general fitness of plod in the UK is questionable, & at past Smash EDO demo's plod have been run absolutely fuckin' ragged. They totally lose control. Keep mobile, fuck their kettles.



A mate who came out of the Light Infantry joined the police force that covers Swansea (his home town) and had been told that the coppers there were mostly fitness freaks because the locals were well rowdy. He said going from the army to the Old Bill was like going from playing 1st division to playing sunday league fitness-wise.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> An acquaintance of mine is both ex-army and a professor of roman history. His favourite thing in the world is boring people to tears with his analysis of police tactics on demonstrations, as if he was the only one who could figure them out. In reality police tactics are pretty simple because police officers are, as a rule, pretty simple. They also have a centralised command structure which means that they will tend to fall back on one or other of their basic strategies in any given situation because they lack the capacity to respond to events in real time.



I do believe that's already been mentioned, Frank.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Fuckin' woe betide!



Saw the RUC get close to it enough times to know that you only need one armed copper to lose their bottle for everything to go south really quickly.


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> A mate who came out of the Light Infantry joined the police force that covers Swansea (his home town) and had been told that the coppers there were mostly fitness freaks because the locals were well rowdy. He said going from the army to the Old Bill was like going from playing 1st division to playing sunday league fitness-wise.



Built like beef cakes, but can't run more that 50 yards. Excellent.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

Were all gonna end up being part of the CCFC soul crew or the bushwackers at this rate


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Built like beef cakes, but can't run more that 50 yards. Excellent.



Beach weights not real weight I'd bet


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## Mr.Bishie (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Saw the RUC get close to it enough times to know that you only need one armed copper to lose their bottle for everything to go south really quickly.



And this is where their talk of water canon & baton rounds end for me. Threats. Nothing more.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Fair point. I suppose I'm a product of my environment. Both the protests where I was on "their" side, and the protests where I was on "our" side were of the old-fashioned type, and that tends to inform my thinking.
> 
> Or, of course, you get the situation where the OB round people up and "feed" them into kettles.
> 
> ...



True, but harder than it looks I'd wager


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Some good stuff being posted on here. The police will be training and have the confidence of a prize fighter i.e. the scenarios they run through will always have them as the victor to instill belief into their particular system. They MUST have confidence in the training for it to work for them.
> 
> A response to a baton charge for example that ended up in 50/50 would mean that the next charge might a bit more hesitant. But that would apply to a bloc too. Basic martial arts would be a good idea and the basics, which is all that is needed are easy enough. Its the bottle to see it through is the hard bit to attain. I have first and experience of me demolishing someone, turned around saw my mate on the floor, I panicked tried to get to him, my bottle went and then all of a sudden I started getting it from two assailants.
> 
> When my bottle (psychological upperhand etc) was there no problem, when it went, easy prey. That the hard bit to get; the belief.



Standing your ground, basically overcoming your flight reflex in favour of your fight reflex (but only if there's nowhere to flee to) is hard, there's no denying that. It's a lot of what military training is about, and runs through police public order training, and even then it doesn't ensure that your bottle won't go, it merely allows you to act rationally (within set parameters) while your fear is attempting to overmaster you. bear in mind though, that the tactics the police use, from the "drumming" on shields to synchronised advances, to mounted charges, are *all* designed to stimulate a fear response and to project that *they*, on the other hand, aren't worried (most of them are having ringpiece problems just like the protesters are). If you can internalise the fact that they're deploying tactics to stimulate that response, you're halfway to being able to stand your ground.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

TopCat said:


> I think practising opposition to commonly used police tactics is an *excellent* idea. I would be right up for helping put something together on this. You could do the confront a cop holding a short shield and baton bit, practice our own flying wedges to get out of kettles, yeah lets do it.



I might be a bit old for this TC.  Orgainse a mass brawl cops v bloc and the swap sides for the next one, follwowed by a review.  Compulsory martial arts for all methinks


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Built like beef cakes, but can't run more that 50 yards. Excellent.



Pretty much.  He got so fed up with being the only copper on his shift who actually chased anyone on foot that he left the OB and went back in the LIR.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Standing your ground, basically overcoming your flight reflex in favour of your fight reflex (but only if there's nowhere to flee to) is hard, there's no denying that. It's a lot of what military training is about, and runs through police public order training, and even then it doesn't ensure that your bottle won't go, it merely allows you to act rationally (within set parameters) while your fear is attempting to overmaster you. bear in mind though, that the tactics the police use, from the "drumming" on shields to synchronised advances, to mounted charges, are *all* designed to stimulate a fear response and to project that *they*, on the other hand, aren't worried (most of them are having ringpiece problems just like the protesters are). If you can internalise the fact that they're deploying tactics to stimulate that response, you're halfway to being able to stand your ground.



I am in agreement totally. What cannot be overlooked is they have better training facilities


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## butchersapron (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I am in agreement totally. What cannot be overlooked is they have better training facilities


But shitter infantry


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> And this is where their talk of water canon & baton rounds end for me. Threats. Nothing more.



Plus "they" know that their narrative loses some legitimacy if they use them.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> True, but harder than it looks I'd wager



Much harder, I suspect, but the OB seem to be able to make snatch squads work for them, so obviously not impossible.


----------



## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> But shitter infantry



Possibly.  I am pretty sure some of them enjoy a dust up


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> But shitter infantry



Yup.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Possibly. I am pretty sure some of them enjoy a dust up



I'm sure many of them do. It's certainly my own experience. That said, many of them only appear to enjoy set-tos where they enjoy a numerical advantage. One-on-one doesn't seem to appeal.


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Yup.



Why so?  I'd have more respect for an opponent than that personally.  I have eaten so much leather that I'd have to.  Not being funny like, is there something I dont know?


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

Just read your post


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> Why so? I'd have more respect for an opponent than that personally. I have eaten so much leather that I'd have to. Not being funny like, is there something I dont know?



I do see what you mean.  The one on ones where a riot plod is beating a student with a baton spring to mind.  They seem to go for the legs(non lethal blows) if knees and shins were protected it would be a lot fairer contest imho


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

TopCat said:


> Interesting read. A lot of the police tactics are very reminiscent of Roman times.


very much so. a look at books like vegetius's 'de re militari' http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~madsb/home/war/vegetius/ or the stratagems of frontinus http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Frontinus/Strategemata/home.html will repay the effort. i'd also recommend the famous art of war by sun tzu


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## silverfish (Nov 22, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> An acquaintance of mine is both ex-army and a professor of roman history. His favourite thing in the world is boring people to tears with his analysis of police tactics on demonstrations, as if he was the only one who could figure them out. In reality police tactics are pretty simple because police officers are, as a rule, pretty simple. *They also have a centralised command structure which means that they will tend to fall back on one or other of their basic strategies in any given situation because they lack the capacity to respond to events in real time*.



find me a human organisation that doesn't

Protesters don't seem to have taken on board these simple facts and applied them to a positive outcome, despite obviously being smarter than coppers.... Perhaps protesters fall into similar predictable crowd dynamics patterns

Its all a bit pythonesque


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## DotCommunist (Nov 22, 2011)

any organization with a cell structure does not have a centralised command body, at least not in the same way as a police force. Of course this brings with it its own problems- reaction speed for the group as a whole is hampered and groups/cell leaders have the opportunity of going rogue and unnoticed for longer than in an orthodox strucure. The advantages though are that the cell structure is harder to crush with one strike and the enemy never truly knows your full numbers. Hopefully


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## Random (Nov 22, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> An acquaintance of mine is both ex-army and a professor of roman history. His favourite thing in the world is boring people to tears with his analysis of police tactics on demonstrations, as if he was the only one who could figure them out. In reality police tactics are pretty simple because police officers are, as a rule, pretty simple. They also have a centralised command structure which means that they will tend to fall back on one or other of their basic strategies in any given situation because they lack the capacity to respond to events in real time.


Is your friend the naked protester chap?


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## junglevip (Nov 22, 2011)

> They also have a centralised command structure which means that they will tend to fall back on one or other of their basic strategies in any given situation because they lack the capacity to respond to events in real time



I dont get this, I would have thought that radio comms would mean that would make it easier to co-ordinate and easier to splinter and re group or change tactics


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Built like beef cakes, but can't run more that 50 yards. Excellent.


the tsg training involves a considerable amount of physical exertion. however, they have to remain with their units. people watching riot footage from hackney a couple of months back may recall seeing the police advancing to a junction and then stopping there for a bit. while qualification for the tsg requires a high degree of fitness and stamina, once they are deployed there's generally not too much running about done by them. baton charges usually advance perhaps 50 yards, perhaps because the police find that the optimum distance. veterans of hyde park '94 will probably remember the police horses in the park, charging about 50-75 yards and then retreating. horse charges like those seen at the poll tax riot, where they swooped down from round the barclay's on charing cross road through the square, are few and far between. football fans will of course recall the millwall hooligans' proud record of injuring every cop in a mounted serial back in 2001, a feat sadly not - to the best of my knowledge - repeated in the intervening decade.


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## 8ball (Nov 22, 2011)

Some on this thread discussing potential naughtiness should bear in mind that I'm quite possibly an undercover cop.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

8ball said:


> Some on this thread discussing potential naughtiness should bear in mind that I'm quite possibly an undercover cop.


i didn't realise police standards could have dropped so low.


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## 8ball (Nov 22, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> i didn't realise police standards could have dropped so low.



They'll take anyone for the 'crusty wing'.

Though they prefer at least one wonky eye.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2011)

8ball said:


> They'll take anyone for the 'crusty wing'.
> 
> Though they prefer at least one wonky eye.


that's you out then.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 22, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I do see what you mean. The one on ones where a riot plod is beating a student with a baton spring to mind. They seem to go for the legs(non lethal blows) if knees and shins were protected it would be a lot fairer contest imho



They go for the back of your knees because it's the quickest way to put you down and keep you down while they cuff you. If you baton or kick someone behind the knee you invariably twat the ligaments or tendons rather than the muscles, and that means they get stretched, making accurate muscle control harder. You fall and it's hard to get up when one leg won't take your weight properly. Ever stretch a hamstring doing martial arts when you haven't warmed up properly? Imagine that, but several times more painful.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I dont get this, I would have thought that radio comms would mean that would make it easier to co-ordinate and easier to splinter and re group or change tactics



It's not so much to do with comms as to do with their thinking. You can only deploy people to do things they've been trained to do, so training coppers to change tactics on command means training them in a wider repertoire of responses (expensive and time-consuming given their other duties) and to be flexible, and you're not looking for that if you're after a unified ingrained response. You want people who'll react be falling back on a set piece move, and will rely on force to regroup.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

8ball said:


> Some on this thread discussing potential naughtiness should bear in mind that I'm quite possibly an undercover cop.



*puts 8ball on kill list*


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## Fruitloop (Nov 23, 2011)

Wrap-around knee pads worn under clothing would seem a no-brainer then


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 23, 2011)

8ball said:


> Some on this thread discussing potential naughtiness should bear in mind that I'm quite possibly an undercover cop.



Who is discussing naughtiness? We're only trying to figure out the best way to defend ourselves and other innocent members of the public from a gang of heavily armed and violent hoodlums who are above the rule of law and who have for some reason been put in charge of our city streets. They should send some undercover plod into the plod forums to see what they think of all the comments about cracking hippies' heads open and other ways of dealing with the 'scum' that are protestors.

Obviously we call coppers scum as well, but the difference is they really are scum.


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## 8ball (Nov 23, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> Who is discussing naughtiness? We're only trying to figure out the best way to defend ourselves and other innocent members of the public from a gang of heavily armed and violent hoodlums who are above the rule of law and who have for some reason been put in charge of our city streets.



I know that, but on a forum anyone can access I thought it worth mentioning as any hot-headed comments could possibly come back to bite some individuals.  Especially since having any kind of protection whatsoever will be considered by both the plod and the media as 'being armed'.


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## butchersapron (Nov 23, 2011)

8ball said:


> I know that, but on a forum anyone can access I thought it worth mentioning as any hot-headed comments could possibly come back to bite some individuals. Especially since having any kind of protection whatsoever will be considered by both the plod and the media as 'being armed'.


Not just individuals, possibly anyone on the bloody thread.


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## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2011)

butchersapron said:


> Not just individuals, possibly anyone on the bloody thread.


Or the site.


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## butchersapron (Nov 23, 2011)

Yep.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 23, 2011)

8ball said:


> I know that, but on a forum anyone can access I thought it worth mentioning as any hot-headed comments could possibly come back to bite some individuals. Especially since having any kind of protection whatsoever will be considered by both the plod and the media as 'being armed'.


since the media have form for inventing stories of protestors / rioters / pretty much anyone having weapons i don't think that would make much difference.


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## 8ball (Nov 23, 2011)

Pickman's model said:


> since the media have form for inventing stories of protestors / rioters / pretty much anyone having weapons i don't think that would make much difference.



Fair enough. Just mentioning that if anyone wants to go into detail about tactics, it's a good idea to keep in mind that this is a public forum.

It's not the media making up stuff that I'm thinking about, just what could be dug up and distorted following an arrest of any particular individual.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 23, 2011)

8ball said:


> Fair enough. Just mentioning that if anyone wants to go into detail about tactics, it's a good idea to keep in mind that this is a public forum.
> 
> It's not the media making up stuff that I'm thinking about, just what could be dug up and distorted following an arrest of any particular individual.


i've always understood it to be one thing to say 'if you do this' and another to say 'you should throw bricks at coppers'. some may consider throwing bricks at coppers an admirable way to pass the time. but i don't suppose anyone's going to advocate it on an open board which everyone knows dibble reads.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> Wrap-around knee pads worn under clothing would seem a no-brainer then



Hard to walk straight-legged, let alone run, though fine for standing on a skateboard.


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## TopCat (Nov 23, 2011)

I would not worry. We have has discussions of tactics here for years and had no come back.


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## TopCat (Nov 23, 2011)

Newspapers folded make great shin pads.


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## likesfish (Nov 23, 2011)

mind you if you succeed  what then 
 defeat the police next fall back for the state is the army and they really are up for a ruck its sort of the point of the infantry.
  unless its the English spring situation all that's happening is your going to get a kicking


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## Fruitloop (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Hard to walk straight-legged, let alone run, though fine for standing on a skateboard.



I thought riot cops wore them?


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

Fruitloop said:


> I thought riot cops wore them?



Most of the coveralls etc have armour pads (kidneys, chest etc) IIRC, and they wear shin and thigh pads, but they certainly don't move like they're wearing knee protection.

Thinking about it, probably the best solution wouldn't be padding to the knees _per se_, it'd be sports knee supports, some padding *plus* compression, so that if they do twat you behind the knee, the tendons and muscles are prevented from moving and/or swelling (and you can still walk and jog wearing them).


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## junglevip (Nov 23, 2011)

likesfish said:


> mind you if you succeed what then
> *defeat the police* next fall back for the state is the army and they really are up for a ruck its sort of the point of the infantry.
> unless its the English spring situation all that's happening is your going to get a kicking



This wont happen.  I still be live that peacefulness is the best way though judging by what happening in the middle east maybe not.  I'd just like to see some of these bastard get a taste of there own medicine.  just like the tough guys that walk into boxing clubs like lions and leave like kittens


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## junglevip (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Most of the coveralls etc have armour pads (kidneys, chest etc) IIRC, and they wear shin and thigh pads, but they certainly don't move like they're wearing knee protection.
> 
> Thinking about it, probably the best solution wouldn't be padding to the knees _per se_, it'd be sports knee supports, some padding *plus* compression, so that if they do twat you behind the knee, the tendons and muscles are prevented from moving and/or swelling (and you can still walk and jog wearing them).



I'd agree with this. Motorcycle clothing would probably do it with a kevlar insert under you baseball cap. Id' go with just shinpads and a scull cap and be aggressive. Again; I am probably too old and not sure if I have the bottle anyway

EDIT:

Gloves too


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

likesfish said:


> mind you if you succeed what then
> defeat the police next fall back for the state is the army and they really are up for a ruck its sort of the point of the infantry.
> unless its the English spring situation all that's happening is your going to get a kicking



It's not so much about defeating the police as neutralising their tactics. I imagine it would be fairly simple to "defeat" the police if people took up arms, but most people (outside of the coppers) aren't interested in that sort of murder and mayhem, just in getting round the tactics they use to prevent protest.


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## TopCat (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Sports knee supports, some padding *plus* compression, so that if they do twat you behind the knee, the tendons and muscles are prevented from moving and/or swelling (and you can still walk and jog wearing them).



Add to the list of win.


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## DaveCinzano (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's not so much about defeating the police as neutralising their tactics.



It's about winning back public space - physical and non-physical - in order to be able to focus on the political.

('Political' as in: improving the world, our lives, and our social interactions, rather than getting chewed up by a machine that benefits the few at the expense of the many - a machine which the many have no conceivable chance of changing whilst run according to the rules of the few.)


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

DaveCinzano said:


> It's about winning back public space - physical and non-physical - in order to be able to focus on the political.



Although we shouldn't be in a situation where we need to win back public space. The political class used the usual con tricks and have consistently tried to subsume "the public" into their domain for decades now, and the fight-back/defence has only really started in the last couple of years, diffuse though it often is.
Amazing how an economic downturn can make the scales fall from some peoples' eyes.



> ('Political' as in: improving the world, our lives, and our social interactions, rather than getting chewed up by a machine that benefits the few at the expense of the many - a machine which the many have no conceivable chance of changing whilst run according to the rules of the few.)



Well, we have no chance of changing it if we accept their terms of engagement, obviously. Fortunately, the various post-"credit crunch" protests and movements appear to have taken this on board, and are less amenable to being stewarded/shepherded than previously (much to the chagrin of certain political organisations attempting to benefit from the protests  ). Politics *should* be about bringing about change for the betterment of all. We've been induced to forget that, and to tolerate a narrow politics that is merely about maintaining a _status quo_ favourable to power. Fuck 'em.


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## SpookyFrank (Nov 23, 2011)

junglevip said:


> I still be live that peacefulness is the best way



Peacefulness is not an option when the other side has already decided not to be peaceful.


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## silverfish (Nov 23, 2011)

you can get quite nice "bump" baseball caps.

http://www.go-mpsinc.com/coolcap.htm

or you can go with the Egyptian free stylee

http://www.doseofdyas.co.uk/2011/02/the-real-reason-that-mubarak-didnt-step-down-earlier/


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## DaveCinzano (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> Although we shouldn't be in a situation where we need to win back public space.



Whilst not disagreeing with your subsequent remarks, I was thinking in terms of 'public space' more in the manner that police dictate what space 'protest' can take: "Right, you can rally there, but not there, from this time to this time. Then on your way." "You've had your say, now move along." "Behind the barriers, please!" *thwack* "Keep moving! Keep moving!" *thwack* *thwack* "Get back! GET BACK!" *DONK* etc

Similarly in terms of physically enshrouding 'protest' - with cordons and kettles, snatch squads and man-marking, harassment and surveillance. The suffocation of free association. Separating "protesters" from "non-protesters" (qv "members of the public", "ordinary people", "innocent bystanders", "normal folk" etc) - as though there is any real distinction bar motive and opportunity.

So I wasn't really meaning public space in terms of a fixed location, so much as room to breathe, to interact, to engage, without constantly having to be on the back foot, or dealing with the sideshows of defence campaigns and counter-surveillance and hosing down the embers of total paranoia, or going over the "yes, but not all cops are bad" thing yet again.


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

DaveCinzano said:


> Whilst not disagreeing with your subsequent remarks, I was thinking in terms of 'public space' more in the manner that police dictate what space 'protest' can take: "Right, you can rally there, but not there, from this time to this time. Then on your way." "You've had your say, now move along." "Behind the barriers, please!" *thwack* "Keep moving! Keep moving!" *thwack* *thwack* "Get back! GET BACK!" *DONK* etc



Well, that's what I'm getting at. How else did we arrive at this situation than by letting them get away with passing shitty laws in the first place? And for what - some supposed security against a threat that *they* have made a great deal of political (and financial) capital out of? "Security" which has served us (i.e. "the masses") piss-poorly, and limited our ability to exercise the few rights that they haven't already curtailed!



> Similarly in terms of physically enshrouding 'protest' - with cordons and kettles, snatch squads and man-marking, harassment and surveillance. The suffocation of free association. Separating "protesters" from "non-protesters" (qv "members of the public", "ordinary people", "innocent bystanders", "normal folk" etc) - as though there is any real distinction bar motive and opportunity.
> 
> So I wasn't really meaning public space in terms of a fixed location, so much as room to breathe, to interact, to engage, without constantly having to be on the back foot, or dealing with the sideshows of defence campaigns and counter-surveillance and hosing down the embers of total paranoia, or going over the "yes, but not all cops are bad" thing yet again.



But both are equally intruded upon by the state, and by those who stand behind the state. The (for want of better terminology on my part) psychic as well as the physical public spaces are subject to their will as much as our own, in these days where we have to worry about what we say in public and even, although to a much smaller extent, what we say in private. That's pretty much a given.
It's not like the neo-liberal urge isn't to conquer physical public space, so why would we expect it to attempt to colonise our (i.e. "the masses") thinking too?


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## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2011)

SpookyFrank said:


> Peacefulness is not an option when the other side has already decided not to be peaceful.



Unless your a baldie Indian bloke wearing a dhoti.


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## DaveCinzano (Nov 23, 2011)

ViolentPanda said:


> But both are equally intruded upon by the state, and by those who stand behind the state.



Well, quite


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