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London Student protests - Wed 8th Dec+ Thurs 9th

gentlegreen said:
I hope you wevolutionawies realise that the UK's actual, genuine working classes almost certainly want nothing to do with your wevolution ?

Not in my name for a start and I'm a worker - at least as defined in "Marxism 101" - and as I have said before, my own job is potentially on the line.
My own Union encouraged us to attend an earlier demo - I will be asking my shop steward what Unison's view is about what happened yesterday.
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Like the working class are one monothinking group that can be lumped one way or the other. :rolleyes:
 
Proper Tidy said:
I've been to a few of these demos, although not yesterday, and the kids are overwhelmingly working class, many from the poorest backgrounds. I'm unconvinced by the media narrative of these being 'middle class kids'. Seems to me the definition of middle class is being stretched ever tighter. I am yet to meet a middle class kid who gives a fuck about EMA.
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Hm, the impression I got yesterday (not from within the protest; I went down there after work and could only look on from outside the police lines) wasn't that the protesters were overwhelmingly working class. This is based on the people stood chanting behind the police lines, and those walking away from the area who had obviously been protesting earlier in the day, who I passed on my way there.

Not very scientific but there you go; that was my impression. Felt different from other protests I've been to.
 
gentlegreen said:
I hope you wevolutionawies realise that the UK's actual, genuine working classes almost certainly want nothing to do with your wevolution ?

Not in my name for a start and I'm a worker - at least as defined in "Marxism 101" - and as I have said before, my own job is potentially on the line.
My own Union encouraged us to attend an earlier demo - I will be asking my shop steward what Unison's view is about what happened yesterday.
Click to expand...

I'm sure the youth will be gutted.

What about the violence from the police? Is it surprising that, on demo number 4 (including Millbank), some protestors have by now clocked on to the fact that the police don't give a fuck what your intentions are and will bully you anyway, and are instead starting to fight back?

You're the fucking wevolutionary. Fucking creme egg. Stick to candlelit vigils.
 
gentlegreen said:
I hope you wevolutionawies realise that the UK's actual, genuine working classes almost certainly want nothing to do with your wevolution ?

Not in my name for a start and I'm a worker - at least as defined in "Marxism 101" - and as I have said before, my own job is potentially on the line.
My own Union encouraged us to attend an earlier demo - I will be asking my shop steward what Unison's view is about what happened yesterday.
Click to expand...

I was one the demo as a union member. I spent most of the time with the RMT fellas I knew - down there with their banners. Yep, most folk will not like the violence and see it as pointless. Most folk will be reading this in millionaire run newspapers and will have not witnessed what actually happened. But they will blame the government for it as much as those youths and will probably be much more concerned about their own jobs and insecurities. Millions will participate in events - some will end up experienceing exactly what these students have and start looking on the 'law' in a different light - some already have - see Lewisham a few days ago. "I don't support violence, but what is happening to these/my kids is all wrong". That's going to be the general response - I would bet my last dollar on it.

So whats your point - we are all meant to bend over and get shafted. We are meant to try and reason with the ideologically driven burlington club toffs - like we tried to reason with the new labour government about the war? To show our 'moral' superiority? Have you ever tried 'reasoning' with a riot copper on a horse? If you are scarred of your own shadow I would recommend you stay indoors, close your curtains and shut the fuck up
 
Neither the 80% cuts to the university teaching budget, nor the subsequent trebling of fees are necessary on the coalition’s own terms of deficit reduction.

The ‘country’ did not demand that the Liberal Democrats enabled a minority Conservative administration, let alone that they form a coalition with them; party political interests as identified by key figures in both partners were the drivers for this marriage of convenience.

In this context, faced with a government propelled by a toxic mixture of ideological commitment, naked careerism and tribal self interest, what are the students' alternatives?

They could listen to that doleful chorus, repeating ad-nauseum the tired old mantra that there is no alternative, then quietly turn their backs and return home to endure.

They could march respectfully from the Embankment to Trafalgar Square as millions have done before, and to the same effect.

They could lobby their disinterested, whip bound MP or hold a candle, hopelessly in the dark.

That many of them choose none of the above, preferring instead to show in turn bravery, imagination, determination and desire, is cause for celebration.

A heartfelt cheers - Louis MacNeice
 
strung out said:
so these snooker balls. any evidence for it actually happening, or is it just more made up bullshit?
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I didn't see any myself, but I loved the idea of the festive Christmas baubles filled with paint that were apparently lobbed at the police.

Mind you, there was a lot of stuff being lobbed at police - I was right behind their lines and had to duck to avoid objects flying over. It was mainly pretty harmless objects though - the biggest thing I saw was a plastic workers helmet.
 
strung out said:
so these snooker balls. any evidence for it actually happening, or is it just more made up bullshit?
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i would like to see evidence also, they went on about it enough!
loving the neat pile of broken breezeblocks on sky news this morning filmed this morning
all the graffiti had gone but conveniently the "dangerous weapons" were left lying about
this was after 9am as well :hmm:
tossers

and praise be or the 'remarkably restrained armed police' wtf! :mad:
 
its 1am and kids are still on westminster bridge according to twitter.
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oh my God. I saw them there around 10:35pm last night, I asked a couple of kids were they serach and they said no. This would explain the police moving people away from the south side. There were Police Van parked like cattle containers and letting people squeeze through in between. Were anyone serached?
 
Louis MacNeice said:
Neither the 80% cuts to the university teaching budget, nor the subsequent trebling of fees are necessary on the coalition’s own terms of deficit reduction.

The ‘country’ did not demand that the Liberal Democrats enabled a minority Conservative administration, let alone that they form a coalition with them; party political interests as identified by key figures in both partners were the drivers for this marriage of convenience.

In this context, faced with a government propelled by a toxic mixture of ideological commitment, naked careerism and tribal self interest, what are the students alternatives?

They could listen to that doleful chorus, repeating ad nauseum the tired old mantra that there is no alternative, then quietly turn their backs and return home to endure.

They could march respectfully from the Embankment to Trafalgar Square as millions have done before, and to the same effect.

They could lobby their disinterested, whip bound MP or hold a candle, hopelessly in the dark.

That many of them choose none of the above, preferring instead to show in turn bravery, imagination, determination and desire, is cause for celebration.

A heartfelt cheers - Louis MacNeice
Click to expand...

Hard to disagree with any of that.
 
Citizen66 said:
I can't get my head around the muppets that are the old bill. Are they not arsed about the diminished life chances of their own progeny?
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I bet a lot of them are, but equally some of them are too caught up in the battle to see which side they should be on. This is based on their actual individual actions - they don't have an awful lot of choice about being sent in to police the protests. The protesters'd be a lot worse off if all the decent cops quit.
 
Louis MacNeice said:
Neither the 80% cuts to the university teaching budget, nor the subsequent trebling of fees are necessary on the coalition’s own terms of deficit reduction.

The ‘country’ did not demand that the Liberal Democrats enabled a minority Conservative administration, let alone that they form a coalition with them; party political interests as identified by key figures in both partners were the drivers for this marriage of convenience.

In this context, faced with a government propelled by a toxic mixture of ideological commitment, naked careerism and tribal self interest, what are the students alternatives?

They could listen to that doleful chorus, repeating ad nauseum the tired old mantra that there is no alternative, then quietly turn their backs and return home to endure.

They could march respectfully from the Embankment to Trafalgar Square as millions have done before, and to the same effect.

They could lobby their disinterested, whip bound MP or hold a candle, hopelessly in the dark.

That many of them choose none of the above, preferring instead to show in turn bravery, imagination, determination and desire, is cause for celebration.

A heartfelt cheers - Louis MacNeice
Click to expand...


POTD!
 
65459_10150100164238755_709758754_7562838_287181_n.jpg
 
Louis MacNeice said:
Neither the 80% cuts to the university teaching budget, nor the subsequent trebling of fees are necessary on the coalition’s own terms of deficit reduction.

The ‘country’ did not demand that the Liberal Democrats enabled a minority Conservative administration, let alone that they form a coalition with them; party political interests as identified by key figures in both partners were the drivers for this marriage of convenience.

In this context, faced with a government propelled by a toxic mixture of ideological commitment, naked careerism and tribal self interest, what are the students alternatives?

They could listen to that doleful chorus, repeating ad nauseum the tired old mantra that there is no alternative, then quietly turn their backs and return home to endure.

They could march respectfully from the Embankment to Trafalgar Square as millions have done before, and to the same effect.

They could lobby their disinterested, whip bound MP or hold a candle, hopelessly in the dark.

That many of them choose none of the above, preferring instead to show in turn bravery, imagination, determination and desire, is cause for celebration.

A heartfelt cheers - Louis MacNeice
Click to expand...

well said
 
Louis MacNeice said:
Neither the 80% cuts to the university teaching budget, nor the subsequent trebling of fees are necessary on the coalition’s own terms of deficit reduction.

The ‘country’ did not demand that the Liberal Democrats enabled a minority Conservative administration, let alone that they form a coalition with them; party political interests as identified by key figures in both partners were the drivers for this marriage of convenience.

In this context, faced with a government propelled by a toxic mixture of ideological commitment, naked careerism and tribal self interest, what are the students' alternatives?

They could listen to that doleful chorus, repeating ad-nauseum the tired old mantra that there is no alternative, then quietly turn their backs and return home to endure.

They could march respectfully from the Embankment to Trafalgar Square as millions have done before, and to the same effect.

They could lobby their disinterested, whip bound MP or hold a candle, hopelessly in the dark.

That many of them choose none of the above, preferring instead to show in turn bravery, imagination, determination and desire, is cause for celebration.

A heartfelt cheers - Louis MacNeice
Click to expand...

Well said.
 
scifisam said:
they don't have an awful lot of choice about being sent in to police the protests. The protesters'd be a lot worse off if all the decent cops quit.
Click to expand...

I know what, let's go back to the situation pre-Peel ... no police, just vigilantes - that'd save money too. :)
 
'I am yet to meet a middle class kid who gives a fuck about EMA.'



Thats rubbish, plenty of 'M/C' young students have raised the issue of EMA and have been very angry about it all.
 
Riklet said:
I was there today, it was all pretty chaotic and crazy really, we went straight to Westminster and joined the march which had arrived at parliament square, the cops had their horses around the crowd and were properly edgy as the horses were freaking out. Ended up having the pull back and whilst it wasn't a proper kettle they were trying to seal the square effectively. I didn't want to get kettled so early on so climbed into the church yard and got out that way, through a side gate, then went all the way 'round seeing where the police positions were and trying to get in touch with people.

I think it was fairly effective in some ways their sealing off of westminster, but there were A LOT of protesters all over the place outside, where ever I went... ended up having a look in at the lame NUS "glowstick vigil" thing and whilst their were some interesting speakers it was still pretty shit, top-down dictatorial crap. Yelled for the NUS to be burned with the health-and-safety hazard missing candles n then left.

Only really started seeing the violence and chaos I was hearing about later when it got dark, I met up with people and went back to whitehall to see the kettling etc from that side and see what we could do. Whitehall was open and there were riot police dividing it off from the square, seemed like a lot of horse movements and tings from what I could see and a fair bit of shoving back. Was a bit worried about getting kettled and some people were allowed out so a fair few people started moving back up the Mall but we were then kettled/re-kettled and penned in there into a second kettle. The video of people smashing barricades into the cops and smashing up the treasury all happened there. Saw some serious violence and police craziness going down, it was fucking scary at one point as the police lined all their horses up at the top of whitehall and we thought they were going to charge properly. They battered and pushed everyone back and contained us for a couple of hours before people were allowed out. Some people did manage to break out over a side wall but proper riot thugs went after them clotheslining people and beating them to the floor. I think so many resources went into the central kettling people basically then could start running riot around trafalgar and places, up to oxford street. A friend of mine saw the Christmas tree trying to be set alight, loads of windows smashed and the royal car attacked haha. I had to get a bus and ended up getting out of the kettle and heading for that. People from my uni saw a disabled guy pulled out of his chair, lots of people badly beaten/unconscious/covered in blood, a guy with his head split open and blood squirting out almost and also a girl who was sexually assaulted in the kettle and the police told to fuck off and get back in there along with some children who were also not allowed out. Fucked up.

Was a seriously tense and violence atmosphere around Whitehall, I guess i've not been to many protests but i've never felt an atmosphere quite like that hah, people were properly fed up and going for the police, totally antagonised by being detained, repeatedly smacked and yelled at/intimidated. No idea how the police can claim their operation was a proper success, they had a vast number of police out (3:1 kinda ratio) and were still struggling to contain stuff. The centre was proper carnage though, loads of fire and smoke n noise, was fucking proud of everyone who was there and did loads more than me.

Need much more civil disruption next time IMO, groups all over the place shutting down traffic even more than yesterday, tunnels etc. Thanks to the NUS incompetence, the police tactics and the sheer number of people things were pretty fragmented in a lot of places, but still, felt like a good message was sent!
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quoted for the morning crew
 
gentlegreen said:
I know what, let's go back to the situation pre-Peel ... no police, just vigilantes - that'd save money too. :)
Click to expand...

Or we could try to go forward to a situation where polcing is carried out by people who are recognised by, respected by and accountable to the public they serve; at present recognition, respect and accountability are not the key characteristics of the relationship between many many of those being policed and those doing the policing.

Louis MacNeice
 
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