Sim-O

First there was…

and people are still going with it…

Just Fuck the fuck off. It wasn’t funny the first time and it hasn’t been funny since.

When you live in a supposedly capitalist society you have to use that system to, ooh lets see? Earn money to buy food and heating and clothing, get to a place of employment (if you’re lucky), enjoy hobbies. You even have to use its’ ‘fruits’ to change the system itself.

A fucking bloke on a demo eating stuff made by a corporation doesn’t make him a hypocrite. He may not even be a fucking communist/anti-capitalist/socialist/whatever-the-fuck-you-think-he-is. He might think that capitalism would be ok if it worked a little different.

Not everyone can fuck off to a forest and live off the land. That doesn’t make them hypocrites and it doesn’t make that sort of quip funny or ironic or anything else. What it does do is makes you look a twat.

If you live within such an all-pervasive system as capitalism there is no choice but to use what it provides, and no shame in using the things it provides against it.

*The title of this post is shamelessly ripped from @robinboggs‘ reply to the above tweet.

Septicisle…

There’s always the danger when protesting of coming across as sanctimonious, patronising and just plain wrong, and UK Uncut fit the bill in so many ways that it’s difficult to count. Direct action and civil disobedience will have always have a role to play in protest; getting a criminal record however for aggravated trespass for occupying Fortnum and Mason, as many seem likely to, will rank up there as probably the most stupid misstep of the entire anti-cuts movement. Every single occasion on which a representative, or at least someone who’s taken part in the protests has appeared on television, such as on Newsnight tonight, they’ve come across as the kind of pretentious, self-satisfied, smug and thoroughly gittish middle-class wankers you would normally cross the street to avoid, repeatedly refusing to answer a straight question and taking no responsibility whatsoever for what some might do under their banner. Only with the advent of Twatter could so many utter cunts make common cause.

The UAF protest at the RWB Festival yesterday was largely peaceful, but did not achieve as much as was hoped for.

I was part of a group of around 200-300 protesters who blocked one of the nearby roads from around 10am to 2.30pm, when we heard that all other road blocks had been broken, and faced with four police horses, dogs, and a body of around 50 to 60 police, we rejoined the official body of protesters.

The protest was generally good-natured. At several points during the day, the police tried to disperse us, informing us of some random section that had been invoked that made our gathering illegal, but we formed ranks and linked arms, and in the end each time the police looked as though they were about to use force, they decided not too. The police were forced to block the road themselves with two police vans parked across it, as Nazi’s trying to attend the festival were stuck in a large traffic jam and started to get out of their cars to confront us.

We were informed that other road blocks had been held for a while, but eventually the Nazi’s managed to get to their festival, though in lower numbers than the BNP hoped for.

The protest I was with was peaceful but resolute. The police were mainly locals, and at no point changed into riot gear, a far cry from the G20 protests, where the thugs of the Met’s Territorial Support Group couldn’t wait to get tooled up. This would have undoubtedly lead to some  serious conflict, especially in a confined country lane.  The policing was far more sensible on this occasion, though we still have to remember that they were there primarily to try and ensure the festival of hate continued undisturbed.

I challenged a number of them on why they were protecting the Nazi’s. In the main there were few denials that the BNP were Nazi’s, but the usual theme of freedom of speech came through, combined with the traditional ‘I’m just doing my job’.  One officer said to me (in reference to our protest) that his grandfather who fought in the war would be appalled, which was a strange thing to say. I pointed out that his grandfather, and in fact the many millions who died in the war against the Nazi’s, would be appalled by the fact that the Nazi’s are now being protected by the police, and granted democratic status by our governments, who are paralysed in the face of the new family friendly approach of the BNP.

Whilst we did not achieve the shutdown that we hoped for, the protest was uplifting and partially successful. The particular blockade I was with was made up of a large mixture of young, old, black and white. We were prepared to struggle alongside each other, though individually few if any there were at all inclined to violence. This is in contrast to the BNP, whose strength is rooted in violent, thuggish and cowardly attacks on individuals, rather than any collective action. We can take strength from this as a movement. We are not the same as them – there is a huge difference between their racial violence and the type of direct but non-violent force that we used.

There is also great potential to shut this festival down. Given a bit more planning, and double the number of protesters, we could have held the key road points. We must make sure we a successful next time, as it unfortunately seems likely there will be a next time.

I have been informed about a piece on the news last night, I will post the link once I find it. Apparently one of the ‘fun’ games at the festival was to put two characters dressed as Obama and Bin Laden in the stocks and throw things at them!

A bunch of authors are up in arms about having to register on the Vetting and Barring Scheme, a database of people cleared for and barred from working with children.

The four, Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Micheal Morpurgo and Quentin Blake, seem to have taken it personally…

I’ve [Pullman] been going into schools as an author for 20 years, and on no occasion have I ever been alone with a child. The idea that I have become more of a threat and I need to be vetted is both ludicrous and insulting.

I’m sure Philip Pullman has never been a threat to any child and won’t be in the future, but this database is not directed at Pullman, personally. What does he want? An exemption? Be insulted then, Mr Pullman.
Would Philip say the same about a caretaker that has been doing the job for 20 years and never been alone with a child?

When it [the VBS] becomes essential, I [Anne Fine] shall continue to work only in foreign schools, where sanity prevails.

Itspeeseegornmaaaditellsya!!1!!

Murpurgo (who the…?)…

Writers don’t go to schools for the money, they do it because they want to bring their stories to children and make readers of them. The notion that I should somehow have got myself passed in order to do this is absurd

No, I’m sure writers don’t go into schools for the money. But neither does the chap that volunteers to go in to my childrens school and help with their reading. He hasn’t even got a vested interest in them reading as he is not an author. The chap at my kids school does it because he wants to help, you know, put something back into society, do some good. He has to register on this database too. What’s so different between Murpurgo and him?

Horowitz…

A child who admires a writer has a great belief in that writer as a good human being,” he said. “If you say the guy who’s writing this book could be a sick pervert and we’ve got to protect you from him, you’re not exactly sending out the most positive message.

What about sports people, musicians, and all sorts of other ‘professions’ that kids admire?
When a someone visits a school, like a writer would, do kids sit there wondering what perversions that visitor has? Of course not. Will they be wondering if the school has checked whether the visitor is on this new register? No, they won’t. Primary school aged kids won’t even know about the VBS and secondary school aged kids might know about it but if the amount of visitors we had when I was at school is anything to go by, they’d have forgotton all about it by the time someone comes round.

I’m not arguing in favour of this new scheme, just the narcissitic, self-centred way these whinging scribes have shown how thin a skin they have to take it personally. To think of themselves as above others in the view that it shouldn’t apply to them.

Writers are no different to anyone else. If you’re going to argue against something like this, put forward proper reasons why it is a bad idea, not reasons why it shouldn’t apply to you.

The man with the camera at 1:51, …

Via OblonskysGhost

BBC…

The video of the latest incident to emerge was released by Climate Camp protesters. In it, 24-year-old IT worker Alex Cinnane is shown being forcibly hit in the left temple with a round shield by a policeman wearing a balaclava and a visor.

Well, that’s torn to shit any excuses that may (or have already come up) about Ian Tomlinson death being an isolated incident.

The BBC has got the vid of the copper showing how, according to some, a woman should be treated. But once again there is a little bit of caution thrown in. Y’know, just in case…

The footage shows the woman swearing at a police officer who then appears to hit her in the face before apparently striking her on the leg with his baton.

The woman is swearing at the copper, but he only appears to slap her with the back of his hand, whilst wearing leather gloves that wouldn’t look out of place on a biker, and then he strikes her on the leg, apparently.

If we’re going down that sort of path, then surely, the woman only looks like she is swearing at the Filth.

But then, the girl probably hasn’t got institutions the size of the Met and the IPCC to defend her honour, has she?

Update:
The officer, a sergeant, it would appear, has been suspended.
David Howarth (LbDem justice spokesman)…

“The fact that this video shows another example of an officer with his number obscured assaulting a member of the public indicates that there is a systematic problem here, not just a series of individual acts of misconduct.

“The question is on my mind whether the police are using a some kind of ‘designated hitter’ system.”

Link via Rwendland in the comments on Bloggerheads.

Excuse me PC fucking Bastard, but we’ll be the judge of that.

Via loads of people on twitter

Guardian: Video of police assault on Ian Tomlinson, who died at G20 protest.

Would the phrase ‘police state’ be overdoing it?