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what do you think of this? saturday protest video
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpk5JtMfEzY
do you think this video makes a good allegation of undercover police or employed by police to stir up trouble on Saturday's protests?
do you think this video makes a good allegation of undercover police or employed by police to stir up trouble on Saturday's protests?
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No. It's impossible to really tell what happened there, I understand why people are suggesting the man flashes an ID card but there's no way to be sure.
I was at the Trafalgar Square occupation, which was peaceful before the police arrived. There was a conga line and a rave down by Nelson's Column... I didn't see any vandalism take place at the gathering, but it had happened earlier in the day (a bit of graffiti).
Riot police started rushing in to the square, pushing people back, trying to break up the occupation. I went over to see what went on, they were just stood in a line. One police man struck a protester, but that was it so far... There were say... About three or four protesters throwing things, like bottles, or a traffic cone...
They then came up behind us, making us move out of the square. I don't really get their problem. I went up the steps and saw a policeman hit a woman with his shield so that she smacked in to the ground. The woman was unarmed and I don't know why he did it... They herded us out and then sealed off the square. Friends on the outside who were watching, said that they were moving in to kettle people... Some individuals refused to move, so they would have been the ones kettled for hours.
A friend of mine with UK Uncut, who are nonviolent (and by the way, he needs a CRB for his job, so refuses to affiliate with violent groups) was assaulted from behind by a copper.
Edited: I've actually read an article by a group involved with some of the vandalism here and with some scuffles with police... I don't know if all/a lot/some of the actual violence was them, as I think there were people going along, just to cause shit as well (one looked about fourteen). They seem like intelligent people to me.
I know the last paragraph was a bit of a tangent lol!
It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the proven use of agents provocateur in protest groups and the proven existence of an entire division of ACPO (a private company) dedicated to espionage, could it?
No, thought not, must be that anyone who thinks that the police have agents provocateur are batshit mental :rolleyes:
They also know their history.
There was a case about this recently, which was publicised widely...
Also, allegations from the G20 protests...
The FBI used to do it all the time, as have other countries. It's really nothing new...
Next time a leader with a moustache gets elected I hope my wild assertions meet with the same charity.
The question was about this video, which doesn't prove anything.
I know the police can behave very badly at mass protests, I'm sure they use undercover officers in all sorts of ways and those officers don't always act as observers or peacekeepers, I don't dispute any of that. But this video proves none of it.
Michael Gove clearly has his work cut out if our education system is producing people like that.
The vast majority of people demonstrating werent anarchists though
Incidentally, given the wave of articles in the Graun, you'd think they'd toppled capitalism...
Is the state getting smaller? You could have fooled me.
All that's happening is the state is staying the same size, but instead of the state owning the infrastructure some cunt from Lockheed Martin or Crapita is instead.
As for the public sector shrinking, not really. It's just that instead of having secure jobs with the Government, they're getting to do the same work for less pay and less protection so some cunt from Jarvis can cream up a fuck-off huge profit-driven bonus.
As for the "terrible violence", smashing up bank property is not violence, it's making a valid political point. Smashing up bank directors would be violence. And, hand on heart, if someone wanted to smash up Bob Diamond in a fairly serious manner I'd fully endorse their actions.
I know maybe I should start another thread on this... But what are people's views on UKUncut being tricked in to arrest?
Sounds like the state getting smaller to me... Well, actually what you wrote sounds like privatisation which, as we all know, kinda sits between both. And, with retrospect, was probably a bad idea.
Secure doesn't cover the half of it. Thank God the Hutton report called the death knell for final-salary pensions in the public sector, which, as the Beeb's graph here nicely illustrates, will only cost us more every year it runs.
Can't find where I mentioned "terrible violence" but hey ho.
I know how vitriolic you can get on these things, so I'll let it slide, with just a small reference to the power of peaceful protests in the past and what it has achieved; Ghandi and MLK for starters.
Wannabe trots are generally the middle-class ones who come down to London town for a jolly radical time and play a being Ches for the day. Such as this clown.
Anarchists were the ones hurling petrol bombs, paint bombs, light bulbs filled with ammonia, that sort of thing.
As for UKUncut, I'm sure their hearts are in the right place but their heads are clearly up their arses. For starters, F&M is owned, ultimately, by the Garfield Weston Foundation who, according to the Charity Commission, donated just shy of £35m in 2010 to various good causes, out of an income of £60m, making it one of the largest charitable foundations operating in the UK. Booo, evil Tories! Nasty party, hiss!
If, as UKUncut stated in their press releases, they want to protest against tax avoidance, they could have done a lot worse than protest at the offices of the mouthpiece they so often use to trumpet their half-baked ideas, the Guardian (or, more correctly, the parent Group; Guardian Media Group). GMG is one of Britain's shrewdest tax avoiders, as has been covered by Private Eye and Guido Fawkes for years. Example? Well, 2008 was a bumper year - GMG made £306.4m before tax. How much did they cough up to the taxman? £800k. Source
Or would that be biting the hand that feeds? The way I see it, either UKUncut didn't do their research, or they just thought F&M is where all Tories do their weekly shop and put a frankly very tenuous coating on what I see as nothing but class hatred / envy.
Public sector workers generally earn less throughout their careers, so I don't see why they shouldn't get better perks and protection in lieu of the extra pay.
I'm not referring to the senior managers who name their own salaries, I'm referring to the people on the shopfloor, the people who do the actual work, the people who are suffering from the redundancies and the cuts to pensions. There are major issues with senior management in local and national government getting their friends, under the guise of a "pay commission", to give them telephone number salaries. But they're not the people who are being squeezed, their gravy train is carrying straight on. But that's no different to the private sector.
I don't know about vitriol. Given how many lives the likes of Fred Goodwin have ruined, and how they a) don't care and b) aren't being punished, I honestly wouldn't have any problem at all with a bit of mob justice. If someone wanted to illustrate the problems of banking to Bob Diamond by stringing him from a lamp-post, I'm not sure that I'd shed a single tear. Maybe I should, maybe it makes me a bad person, I don't know. People are executed in many countries for ruining fewer lives than what they have done, I don't see why someone like Goodwin shouldn't be executed for what he did. I'm not against the death penalty for people who are clearly guilty, and he's clearly guilty of destroying millions of lives and being culpable for thousands of suicides due to the financial meltdown he caused.
However peaceful protest is better than unpeaceful protest, I completely agree.
But as Nelson Mandela proved, sometimes a bit of unpeaceful protest is what you need to get things done.
As for the rest of your post, the fact that you've quoted the Daily Mail and Paul fucking Staines illustrates your agenda really quite nicely. There's no discussion of the police indulging in a little bit of political policing against the people in Fortnum and Mason, who were protesting peacefully. Instead there's a Daily Heil diatribe and some drivel about the Guardian Media Group.
On one hand, you're accusing activists of class envy, on the other hand, you're using "middle class" as an insult.
I was actually asking about the police arrest, rather than the group itself. The Garfield Weston Foundation may give to charity, but they also donate to right wing think tanks (and the Tories). There are several targets UKUncut could go for and they have and will in the future. I don't disagree that other... In fact, all tax dodgers should be held accountable.
So a single person, who has just retired will be on around £10K.
Greedy bastard.
I know it's your firmly held belief that anyone favouring a more progressive tax system is automatically doing it out of envy, but I can assure you it's not true. I don't think it requires envy or class hatred to demand the closure of loopholes that are used in a way that is clearly against the spirit of the tax system (any more than it is class hatred to want to close loopholes that allow people to abuse the benefit system). If you want a system in which the extremely wealthy pay tiny amounts as do big companies, then get out there and campaign for it, but do it honestly. What people object to is a system where we're told that X is the rate for high earners and Y is the rate for corporations, and then find out that neither are paying anything like that amount, because of the various loopholes put in place and quietly condoned by politicians.
That's me convinced then.
Spirit ?
I would have thought someone who usually lauds the secular would see the tax system as a set of rules which,of course, it is.
If, however,that "spirit" was investigated you would find that the framers/rewriters of the system (circa 2003) encouraged taxpayers to arrange their affairs in such a way as to minimise the amount of tax according to the rules just as the revenue collectors will do likewise to maximise the grab. (Their words not mine).
Conversely, honesty would see the supporters of a so-called progressive taxation calling for 100% tax (the ultimate in progression).
To give you the benefit of the doubt, your derogatory term (loophole) could apply to both additions to or omissions from the rules.
If it is an addition then it is there in black and white for all to see. Whether you make use of that addition is a choice for you to make. ISAs, National Savings, Personal Allowances, Welfare Benefits etc, etc
If however you are going to include omissions from the rules then you are open to a call of being disingenuous. The list is almost endless.
Seriously? You're going there?
Historically a loophole was an arrowslit for archers to fire through making it impossible to fire back at them. I can see where an impossibly PC mind might suddenly jump to the conclusion that it must mean the hangman's noose, but it doesn't.
LOL. You're such a Jesus-face. I bet people referring to music as "having soul" sends you positively spasmodic.
Wasn't arguing with you, just explaining myself
Incidentally, the Guardian footage showing what seems to be barefaced lying and illegitimate arrest of UK Uncut members is really fucking worrying.
All arrests shown on Youtube e.t.c look illegitimate to those who aren't in the job. I caught a shoplifter a little while back and ended up taking him to the floor very roughly. To a casual observer it would have looked illegitimate and over the top. But then, he was trying to stab me with a syringe and doing what i did was the only way to stop him doing it.
Sorry mate... There are some good cops, but plenty of scum as well.