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 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 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.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve all seen the recent/sudden downturn in the quality and reliability of mainstream news and comment, coinciding with alarming outbreaks of carelessness and sheer malice in some places.
We’ve got at least one rogue publisher (Richard Desmond) thumbing his nose at the PCC, and while every news outlet is begging us for chunks of our private lives that they can publish for profit (with or without our permission), no bugger will answer our emails or address our concerns when something that is clearly false has been published, and no effort has been made to remove, correct or (Dog forbid) alert readers to the error. Meanwhile, pretty much the same applies to the (blissfully) few ‘leading bloggers’ who claim to be challenging the establishment.
The only news outlet that’s in any way compelled to answer is the BBC, who find themselves crippled since Andrew Gilligan shot off his fat gob, and under constant attack by the same parties described in the previous paragraph (i.e. those who demand accountability of others, yet think themselves above it).
Clearly the time has come for us to form organised squads and start hitting people with sticks.
If you’re of a mind to do something positive and powerful about outright lies in the media, I invite you to join the Media Watch Rock-a-Hula, now in progress.
C’mon, guys. It;s time to clean up Dodge.
A free press is supposed to be the sign of a healthy democracy. We might have a free press but that doesn’t mean it is doing it’s job.
A newspaper is supposed to tell the truth, expose the corruption and duplicity of the ruling classes. What we have at the moment is a press that tells us what the propriotor wants us to know or how we should think. The press should be on the side of the common man but it isn’t. It is on the side the vested interest and the ruling classes.
there are roles that pretty much anyone can play.
Yes, even you.
You could easily be that one person in a thousand with the right expertise, contacts, access or influence required to get a specific job done quickly, and if not, someone has to carry the pitchforks and kerosene.
Me? I’m a pitchfork and kerosene bloke. What are you?
As you might have heard, a man died after collapsing during the G20 protests. This was immediately notched up to natural causes. Yup, natural causes. No doubt about it.
To understand why someone may have been so affected by le cause naturali, one should look at the treatment of the protestors. Yesterday, the police used a tactic called ‘kettling’, whereby cordons are imposed and enforced to stop protests spilling out into the city. This left demonstrators in appalling conditions. There are numerous accounts of “cordon-induced claustrophobia“, with Rowenna Davis and Sunny Hundal reporting that “one woman sat down because she was feeling faint“. Water was scarce and there were no toilet facilities, forcing people to piss in the streets…
I was told by a police officer informed of my bad back that I’d ‘better go and sit on the floor then’ (cos that’s great for your back – sitting in piss on a concrete floor).
1.43pm:
More windows reported smashed at RBS, branch and masked people trying to get in. Chants of “Whose bank?” answered by “Our bank” and “We paid for this, rob the bank”.
I understand feelings run high and the adrenaline gets going, but what does fucking places over achieve? Not a lot. Apart from it can feel quite good, smashing stuff up.
And that chant? You’re going to rob yourselves then? Or you’re going to rob every other taxpayer, unless you take something equal to your share of RBS. Like a pen, or a pad of Post-It notes.
And take those fucking masks off. If your there for a noble reason and not for looting, general vandalism or because you just love fighting then show your face, your fucking cowards. Criminals, thugs and crooks wear masks.
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Sim-O.