G20 demonstrations

+1 on point 1.
It's us humans who are in trouble, not the planet we live on. If focus shifted to that I think you'd get a whole lot more ordinary people to change the way they live - use less and generate less waste rather than use and waste lots but recycle it. And if the earth warms, and if the sea levels rise then spending money and effort on living with these changes is a far better use of money than playing at King Canute. The rich, powerful, and politically-motivated environmental lobby is part of the problem.

This could be what we need to kick start economic recovery.

Until the nation as a whole thinks exactly the same way (never gonna happen), it's these quiet revolutions that are gonna help us all out individually.
Now go my brothers and sisters! go check under your couch cushions!
we're gonna beat the credit crunch one twenty pence at a time!

viva la Evolution!!!

What do you think would have happened? People would be forced to stop gambling on house prices and, shock horror, ordinary people would be able to buy a house again. People can't jet around the world 4 times a year on holiday. Or maybe the whole rotten banking system would go through a carthasis. Every banker has been preaching the power of the free market for years and just asking for more de-regulation, now let them feel it. Don't make me pay for the rest of my life for their crisis.

You say banks are too big to fail? The environment is massive, it's all we have and sustains us and it is allowed to be destroyed - utterly. Why no £600 for a better planet?

no.

if you let northern rock fail thousands of normal, every day, working class people would have lost everything. look, imagine waking up one day and your bank just not being there. no money to withdraw, no savings. that's it everything gone. imagine if you ran your business through that bank. everything gone.

+1 to all Chris
people who post all this anarchy garbage should travel a bit more

And there's the problem....you want a movement....a revolution? you need a LOT of people who all think EXACTLY the same....not a group of 'individuals'....

You need an insurrection (not everyone has to believe in the same ideals, just in overthrowing the government) and the cunning and muscle to take control during subsequent power vacuum. Unfortunately for the Anarcho-communists, displaying such characteristics disproves everything they have said about human nature being positive. As humans, we will always do what is in our own best interest, the state and our current capitalist exchange systems emerged from nothing and they will re-emerge as soon as someone sees that such a thing happening is to their advantage. The only thing we can do is try to break the state's power and keep it fragmented, so that no single group can hold a fiscal nor a political monopoly.

Overthrowing the government is pointless if the end result is a group of people who all have different ideals, all arguing about what to do next.
By the time they've figured it out they'll have been overthrown by the next group of individuals who think they're fighting for the same cause.

The only thing we can do is try to break the state's power and keep it fragmented, so that no single group can hold a fiscal nor a political monopoly.

Unfortunately that requires people to be in charge of keeping things fragmented...which will only result in hundreds of people having to help them do so...before you know it, you're back to having a pseudo government again.

I get all the points about why you think it is pointless to protest. Therefore you suggest that you shouldn't even try and just let it happen?

When the banks collapsed it was suddenly no problem to get hold of £600bn

Actually, I think you'll find that your grandchildren will still be paying for that £600bn... maybe if the government had pissed away their extraordinary income from stamp duty, inheritance tax, etc on the back of unstainable increases in property prices (as well as continuing to increase government borrowing almost every year) the country would have been better placed to weather this downturn. But oh no, we had Gordon's 'Golden Rule' (the rules of which kept changing year on year so he could borrow more as Treasurer).

Gordon may keep saying that 'it's not my fault' that the world economies have ended up as they have, but it was his influence that resulted in years of easy credit and light touch regulation together with excessive government spending. It's not his influence that will result in the UK's national debt being a burden on our grandchildren. Fuck him. I'm with the French and Germans at the moment: we can't afford any more increases in spending, but we definitely need better regulation in future. I'm not too bothered by the bonus stuff, I am worried that any bank thought that mortgages to the value of 125% of house prices or >4x salary were in anyone's long term interest. What people need to realise is that houses are grossly overvalued right now (~120% increase in house prices over the past decade while salaries went up ~20%) and a medium term reduction in their price, while undoubtedly painful now, will be in everyone's best interests.

no.

if you let northern rock fail thousands of normal, every day, working class people would have lost everything. look, imagine waking up one day and your bank just not being there. no money to withdraw, no savings. that's it everything gone. imagine if you ran your business through that bank. everything gone.

Bollocks. Nobody wanted to buy Northern Rock as an entire business and I can see why. But let it fail and you will have other banks looking to buy what had been Northern Rock's savings accounts, for example, or perhaps their mortgage business (albeit at a discounted price), as happened in Spain (I think) when a bank there failed last year. On top of that, you have the Government savings guarantee up to £50k per person. Working class people would not have lost anything.

Northern Rock should have been allowed to go out of business. Not good at all for Northern Rock's employees who I would have had every sympathy for, but market forces should have been allowed to prevail.

While I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the "7-7 MI5 did it" banner. The guy holding it was a survivor off one of the buses, and so is possibly more at liberty to put forward his view on the subject than people are allowing him.

And my only first hand experience of violence today, was when I was sat down with a group of other people near the BishopsGate site, and without any requests to move or warnings, were charged by riot police, some with dogs. A couple of girls got trampled, and I got a shield to the neck. Now I'm not justifying any of what went on anywhere else, but all I saw was anger fuelled only by police aggresion.

I saw that. It was terrible. I had just left the site and saw the police reving themselves up before pilling in with battons. The people they were attacking were sat down chilling out. It was a joke. There has been no mention of this in any of the news wich I find very frustrating. What I saw was the police attacking peasfull demonstrators. I media seem to have missed this. In my nievaty I didn't think the news was that censerd. I now know different.

police attacking peasfull demonstrators.

Damn those veggies...

There is something in the link Oliver posted about the Police baton charging a sit-down protest, not sure if its the one you saw though Pinks.

Cheers for the link. The police clame misiles were being thrown. They wernt. It was just an exuse to do some pounding. They charged a bunch of people sitting down. I am glad I had moved away. Had I been in it that is where I would have sat (so as not to drag my bike through everyone again). They dragged out loads of bikes and just left them there, wich I helped pile up on the pavement. It made me so angry.

I saw that. It was terrible. I had just left the site and saw the police reving themselves up before pilling in with battons. The people they were attacking were sat down chilling out. It was a joke. There has been no mention of this in any of the news wich I find very frustrating. What I saw was the police attacking peasfull demonstrators. I media seem to have missed this. In my nievaty I didn't think the news was that censerd. I now know different.

If the police didn't aggrivate the protestors there would be no response, without that response how can you muddy the name and the effort made by those people.

If the police didn't aggrivate the protestors there would be no response, without that response how can you muddy the name and the effort made by those people.

+1

I think George Monbiot has put it quite well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/apr/01/g20-policing-climate-protest-riot

This also captures really well how I felt: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/01/g20-protest-violence-police

god did i really spell aggravate like that!

I watched coverage of the protests on telly yesterday and it was sad.

Bunch of balaclavad/masked twats trying to cause trouble and protest against what exactly? Every single one who was interviewed live on the spot (thus being given a prime time opportunity to advertise their cause to the nation) and asked about what they were there for couldn't come up with an answer, "Er yeah we're just pissed off you know?" ...awesome cause guys, great work!

Whole lot of fucking idiots who deserve to be hit with batons if you ask me. If I was there I'd have joined the police lines.

CHUG_IT, if you don't believe me that the police totally mishandled the situation, read one of the links I posted.^

+1

I think George Monbiot has put it quite well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/apr/01/g20-policing-climate-protest-riot

This also captures really well how I felt: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/01/g20-protest-violence-police

chicken a quick search of the MET police site shows what you need to join the police and man that line..

there is no formal educational requirement, but you will have to pass written tests

says it all really

I wouldnt wipe my ass with a copy of the Guardian

Damn there is a whole lot of dumb in this thread. Lets clear up a few points

1. nither protestes (peacefull or otherwise) poloticians, or any thing else is going to be the thing that changes the world. infact the world is not going to change, it may look slightly differnt, people with out penis might get to vote, and over here we might have a guy you could mistake as a black man if you where in a dark room as president, but really the world is still perty much the same it was 100 years ago as fars as distribution of welth, and general dirction of socety.

2. if you hit a cop, they are going to hit you back, this is not police burtality. If there is a massive crowd of you, and people start hitting cops, the cops are going to start hitting the crowd, this is also not police burtality. there are any number of other laws you should not break if you do not want the police to hit you. If you break these laws and the police hit you, its still not police burtality.

3. capitalism and most of mordern tecnology are good things. the fact that the garbage dissapers form your streets, you can buy food around the corner, and the toilet in you house flushes are irrefutable proof of this.

1. Guessing your an American as your education system has neglected to inform you of the many revolutions that have succeeded and changed the world (of the people in that region), some in modern times, my partner is from the former East Germany and the actions of her townsfolk in Leipzig kick-started the process of the fall of the communist Government and German re-unification, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia was the sole reason the communist government relinquished power.

2. Police brutality is about proportionate response, I myself have been subject to this and it's out of control in this country.

3. All these things happen in Communist countries also Libya and Iraq, where you can stop almost anyone in the street at random and they will speak better English than you do Mr Crash, would you care to explain this phenomenon?

I watched coverage of the protests on telly yesterday and it was sad.

Bunch of balaclavad/masked twats trying to cause trouble and protest against what exactly? Every single one who was interviewed live on the spot (thus being given a prime time opportunity to advertise their cause to the nation) and asked about what they were there for couldn't come up with an answer, "Er yeah we're just pissed off you know?" ...awesome cause guys, great work!

Whole lot of fucking idiots who deserve to be hit with batons if you ask me. If I was there I'd have joined the police lines.

True there were a lot of fucking idiots there but when the police charged a bunch of people who were sat down and not cursing any trouble, that was just out of order. Compleatly misshandled the situation.

I wouldnt wipe my ass with a copy of the Guardian

No, me neither. Bog roll does a much better job, and you don't get newsprint all over your arse.