G20 demonstrations

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

sums you up nicely........

Teddy - that's the best fucking song. Great taste mate.

I'm not sure what my staff use when they wipe me. I think that fox cubs and Siberian tiger kittens may be involved.

As for the police response, it would appear (from a number of police blogs) that they were geared up to police the few people that kicked off, but also decided to extrapolate that treatment to the rest of the crowd.

The kettling around Bank seems to have been a product of not knowing what the fuck else to do. It would be interesting to see a legal challenge to the practice of kettling, in that it could be considered unlawful detention. Do any protesters bother to follow up on this sort of thing with a complaint?

There was a legal challenge to a kettle (not yesterday) in Oxford Circus. It was ruled that it was a proportionate reaction even do some people were trapped up to 7 hours.

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

Brilliant, well informed, clever man!

The kettling around Bank seems to have been a product of not knowing what the fuck else to do. It would be interesting to see a legal challenge to the practice of kettling, in that it could be considered unlawful detention. Do any protesters bother to follow up on this sort of thing with a complaint?

There was a legal challenge to a kettle (not yesterday) in Oxford Circus. It was ruled that it was a proportionate reaction even do some people were trapped up to 7 hours.

Kettling was used by German police (and probably other police forces) extensively, most infamously in the Startbahn West protests in Frankfurt (against a new runway for Frankfurt Airport) before British police adopted it.

A lot of people (myself included) find kettles terrifying and they definitely make them afraid of going on a protest again.

In my view, they should most certainly be outlawed as a police tactic, and it seems to me to quite clearly be a violation of people's human rights if they're not even allowed to use a toilet while held for hours and hours, in addition to the sense of imprisonment and confinement that's created.

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

says it all really

the finest minds of a generation do not go into the force.

Reporting of protests is always very selective--in this case, there was hardly any reporting on the peaceful and fluffy Climate Camp and most of the coverage focused on events near the Bank of England. In reality, there was a lot of fun, partying and good humour in yesterday's actions, but most people won't hear about that. Business as usual, it's nothing new.

I think reporting of a lot of politically sensitive events are always selective, and its so obvious, I mean lately for instance, the amount of soldiers dieing lately on so called "training exercises" for instance I mean REALLY?! are we supposed to buy that bullshit? still it could be worse, at least our media isn't heavily censored like in China, now that would really suck.

I have a small bladder and would find all this kettling very troublesome.

I have a small bladder and would find all this kettling very troublesome.

We have so much in common....

Reporting of protests is always very selective--in this case, there was hardly any reporting on the peaceful and fluffy Climate Camp and most of the coverage focused on events near the Bank of England. In reality, there was a lot of fun, partying and good humour in yesterday's actions, but most people won't hear about that. Business as usual, it's nothing new.

I was on the phone to my Mum last night and said the same thing. It no wonder people go for the loud shouty shouty smashy shamshy approach because the media reward that more (with publicity) than they do a non violent sit down

I was on the phone to my Mum last night and said the same thing. It no wonder people go for the loud shouty shouty smashy shamshy approach because the media reward that more (with publicity) than they do a non violent sit down

...further fuelled by all those whose sole knowledge of the goings-on at these events is based upon that which they read in the press - and then they go spouting off their ill-informed nonsense dressed up as a knowledge of the events and participants, at all those within earshot, and so it goes on.

I was on the phone to my Mum last night and said the same thing. It no wonder people go for the loud shouty shouty smashy shamshy approach because the media reward that more (with publicity) than they do a non violent sit down

agreed. Also it all adds the false idea that people that protest are angry anarchists who just want to destroy stuff. If people saw the masses of people having fun in peaceful protest through mainstream media, it may encourage others to do and become aware to the idea that direct action is fun, easy and anyone can do it, not something just for 'angry anarchists/activists/thugs/vandals' or whatever the term is at the moment.

http://london.indymedia.org.uk/articles/992

...further fuelled by all those whose sole knowledge of the goings-on at these events is based upon that which they read in the press - and then they go spouting off their ill-informed nonsense dressed up as a knowledge of the events and participants, at all those within earshot, and so it goes on.

from office desks, on forums, throughout the day, in London, when within minutes they could be at the location themsleves , making a real-world assessment of the happenings?

This one's not particularly insightful, but being not very insightful myself, I agree with pretty much all of it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/02/g20-protest

Political protest should be about more than having a nice day out and fighting some bankers

Sam Leith The Guardian, Thursday 2 April 2009 Article history

I reckon that woman was a plant. I'm serious. Not a triffid: a running-dog of the imperialist world order. Did you see her, on Newsnight? The G20 protester who hesitated to condemn violent or invasive action against property - on the grounds that she would like to hear some "rainforest polyphonic singing" in the vaults of the Bank of England.

If I had invented an anti-G20 protester who had announced their intention to disrupt the established order by bringing "rainforest polyphonic singing" to the vaults of the Bank of England, the readers of this newspaper would, as one, denounce me. Childish, they'd say. Cliched, they'd say. What a typical, complacent, rightwing young-fogeyish sneer. What next? A fearless attack on "one-legged lesbian outreach co-ordinators" or a reference to the "modern parents"?

But she was there. And so was a bulb-nosed egomaniac who wanted to turn the Bank of England into a brothel. And in the minds of every complacent, rightwing young fogey watching Newsnight - precisely the people who need winning round - she will have made it all too easy to connect concern with climate change and developing-world poverty, disapproval of unregulated capitalism, human rights protests, political problems including but not limited to the situations in Gaza and Iraq, and a host of other issues, and roll them up into a great big ball marked stupid hippies. That's even before they started breaking windows and throwing fruit at the police.
It's easy to be cynical, you'll say. Too right it is. This sort of protest makes it easy. A protest that aggregates such a raft of different issues - not all connected - ends up being about nothing. What about people who support Israel and oppose climate change? Or people in favour of a command economy, but keen on keeping the troops in Iraq? What would there be, but a scratching of heads, if President Obama were to stride out of the G20, address the crowd, and declare: "I agree with you!"

If the protest march is supposed to be a communicative act, it's reasonable to ask what it is intended to communicate, and to whom. Is it pressing the G20 heads to take a certain direction in their deliberations? Or telling them it hates them? Or simply having a nice day out with a placard and perhaps a bit of a fight with a banker?

Looking at yesterday's coverage - the now annual ritual of testosterone-pumped twentysomething boys scuffling with testosterone-pumped twentysomething police officers in a fog of pink gas - you'd have to think the latter. This, for many of its participants, is political protest as recreational activity: show off to your mates, impress girls, get a rush. That doesn't go for all the participants, obviously - but association with this ragbag of nincompoops makes it easier for serious campaigners to be written off.

There are problems here. Gangster capitalism has knackered the world's economy. Our attempts to save our own necks have condemned our children and grandchildren to worse. And if we don't get carbon emissions under control, scientists seem to agree, the entire race will be facing problems that will make trillions of dollars of debt look like a bagatelle. I'm even going to stick my neck out and say that I thought the Iraq war was a bad idea.

But other than a vague consensus that the aforementioned are Bad Things, that politicians are all crooks, and power - that generalised enemy beloved of Foucault-intoxicated 1970s university lecturers - must be resisted, I'm at a loss to divine what yesterday's protests as a whole convey. It says a lot that prominent in the coverage was Russell Brand, professing himself "interested in what alternatives there may be".

A blanket contempt for politicians and the political process, tempting though it might be to indulge, is a hopeless starting point. I'm in entire agreement with my colleague Polly Toynbee about this. It allows you, in a froth of narcissism, to ignore the evidence that some politicians are better than others, and saves you the bother of trying to tell the difference.

Face paint and world music and "giving the power back to the people" is not going to have any effect on the world whatsoever. Left to themselves, "the people" will sit in fields practising their polyphonic singing and scratching their furry parts. If they want to get anything done on a scale large enough to be effective, they get together and elect leaders. For want of a better word, I propose calling those leaders "politicians".

I was wondering earlier what it was that made the G20 and the World Trade Organisation schedule their meetings on dates such as May Day and the first of April. Is there something in the machinery of these organisations that hankers after dates traditionally associated with carnival and misrule?

Misrule festivals are not revolutionary, that's the thing. Misrule festivals are what you have instead of a revolution. They invert the established order for a day, and thereby actually reinforce it. It's like the old Russian joke about International Women's Day: it cements the convention that the remaining 364 are reserved for men.

from office desks, on forums, throughout the day, in London, when within minutes they could be at the location themsleves , making a real-world assessment of the happenings?

I suppose, but what I was actually getting at was the all the usual drivel I've been reading - 'crusties/unemployed protesters with nothing better to do/anarchists out for a fight/the city being made ready for a day of violence' etc etc.
All this is the aforementioned ill-informed nonsense repeated parrot-like by that group of people who get their info solely from the press without having any knowledge of the situation i.e. the majority of protesters often in these cases being peaceful, well-meaning, employed, 'respectable' members of society, who are incorrectly being labbelled as I have described.

^ I kinda agree with most of this but particularly with the assessment of the violence:

Looking at yesterday's coverage - the now annual ritual of testosterone-pumped twentysomething boys scuffling with testosterone-pumped twentysomething police officers in a fog of pink gas - you'd have to think the latter.

Both the guys with masked faces as well as the police men were looking forward to this. For both the other one is the violent, thuggish pig who they'd love to stick some.

I like this bit best

It allows you, in a froth of narcissism, to ignore the evidence that some politicians are better than others, and saves you the bother of trying to tell the difference.

death? not reported in the uk?
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/04/02/le-g20-entache-par-mort-d-un-manifestant_1175555_3214.html

Its in the paper today.

death? not reported in the uk?
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2009/04/02/le-g20-entache-par-mort-d-un-manifestant_1175555_3214.html

http://www.londonfgss.com/post612268.html

this is a live feed of what is actually happening today from the other side of the line
(not main stream media) if anyone is interested.

http://london.indymedia.org.uk/articles/992

there is info in there on yesterdays events and the sad death of one of the protesters

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.

Straight up man, the police got tooled up and were in fight or flight mode expecting the worse, now that energy has to go someplace. I asked the which route to pass through and they told me to shut up and move on (where??!) mmm Red rag to a bull really... So went on to comment on their matching outfits, use of cheap synthetic material and choice in underwear to combat the sweating.

If they had conducted themselves well and spoke to the protesters the boys who went for the trouble would have been delt with by police and those protesters who wanted to give their message in peace.

That said several were standing talking to protesters, smiling and keeping the peace.. that's the key. it takes both parties to do that.

There was also no badge numbers on display... find that odd???

Pigs being wankers aside i still have no idea what these lot wanted to achieve, everyone i spoke to had idealistic un-achievable ideas, no planning and no way to execute. far too much anger and hate and a state of the art DSLR or camcorder (and not organic at that)

All very friendly and fluffy. i'd love to see how they would have gotten their to take their photos and update their facebook page without the evils of capitalism?

oh i did get a free sticker tons of leaflets and some flapjack (burnt with not enough butter) all of which has been recycled.. see i did learn something

That said several were standing talking to protesters, smiling and keeping the peace.. that's the key. it takes both parties to do that.

Exactly right.

There was also no badge numbers on display... find that odd???

No, it's routine.

The police are at their worst when they're turned into some kind of paramilitary force. Lots of police officers hate doing this work and it is also quite frightening for them. A lot of those who lashed out were afraid rather than aggressive, although the aggressive bully boys exist, too. Police are of course as diverse as any other group of professionals.

At every protest I've ever been to, there have also been shit-stirrers whom no-one knew and allegations that they were agitators who had joined the crowd and started violence to jeopardise the aims of the other participants.