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

[revol68]

From a very good article posted to Libcom, "On violence against the police - The Commune".

"Someone has to say it: mass violence against the police is necessary as part of any social struggle. We wish it wasn’t but it is. The reason is simple: the police defend the state unconditionally, the state defends capital unconditionally, and capital attacks us without remorse – or even a second thought. Reasonable liberals yearn for a compromise: but the state isn’t listening. Neither should protestors."

 

[dylans]

and what of those living under the British jackboot, those that Churchill proposed gassing?

try taking a more universal position.

Not too popular in South Africa either

When concentration camps were built in South Africa, for white Boers, he said they produced "the minimum of suffering". The death toll was almost 28,000, and when at least 115,000 black Africans were likewise swept into British camps, where 14,000 died, he wrote only of his "irritation that Kaffirs should be allowed to fire on white men". Later, he boasted of his experiences there: "That was before war degenerated. It was great fun galloping about."

Or Ireland

As Colonial Secretary in the 1920s, he unleashed the notorious Black and Tan thugs on Ireland's Catholic civilians

Or India

When Mahatma Gandhi launched his campaign of peaceful resistance, Churchill raged that he "ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back." As the resistance swelled, he announced: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." This hatred killed. To give just one, major, example, in 1943 a famine broke out in Bengal, caused – as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved – by the imperial policies of the British. Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits". At other times, he said the plague was "merrily" culling the population.

Or Kenya

Churchill believed that Kenya's fertile highlands should be the preserve of the white settlers, and approved the clearing out of the local "blackamoors". He saw the local Kikuyu as "brutish children". When they rebelled under Churchill's post-war premiership, some 150,000 of them were forced at gunpoint into detention camps – later dubbed "Britain's gulag" by Pulitzer-prize winning historian, Professor Caroline Elkins. She studied the detention camps for five years for her remarkable book Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, explains the tactics adopted under Churchill to crush the local drive for independence. "Electric shock was widely used, as well as cigarettes and fire," she writes. "The screening teams whipped, shot, burned, and mutilated Mau Mau suspects."

As for the claim that Churchill was merely a man of his times. Not so he was a vile extremist racist even by the standards of his day

Churchill was seen as at the most brutal and brutish end of the British imperialist spectrum. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was warned by Cabinet colleagues not to appoint him because his views were so antedeluvian. Even his startled doctor, Lord Moran, said of other races: "Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...e-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.html

So for all these reasons you will excuse me if I am not shocked by someone pissing on his statue.

 

[Pickman's model]

From a very good article posted to Libcom, "On violence against the police - The Commune".

the library's the only good bit of libcon

 

[DotCommunist]

they nearly did it in brixton in '81 and there were soldiers among the cops in the miners strike.

Hotly denied by the est. though...

 

[Clair De Lune]

and what of those living under the British jackboot, those that Churchill proposed gassing?

try taking a more universal position.

Not just that, but without the cover of war most of the atrocoties could not have taken place and many more people would have escape with their lives.

 

[Pickman's model]

Hotly denied by the est. though...

they would, wouldn't they?

 

[Steel Icarus]

Great picture of the bridge kettle - I think this must have been in the later stages cos there were more people detained to begin with:

You can clearly see proof of the BBC's assertion that "the police are trying to move protesters off Westminster Bridge".

Of course, you have to be facing due Bullshit North.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Isnt there now a right to recall your MP? ....not happy and theres enough of you ...change it at the ballot box .......

Yeah they should vote Liberal Democrat! fucking hell

 

[audiotech]

the coalition doesn't seem to have thought about this. Or perhaps they have and believe that the UK can cope with a significantly worse, US-style teenage gang problem in our inner-cities.

LLETSA, do you remember the 'Community Programme Scheme' in the 80's? I'm sure they will have thought about the introduction of a similar scheme for today. Although, this time, involving the voluntary and charitable sector, rather than, as then, local authorities. For those on the 'Community Programme Scheme', including myself (one year contract), we were at least, paid a comparatively, reasonable wage during it's implementation and duration. We also received free, steel, toe-capped wellies, a donkey jacket and more importantly, trade union involvement giving us some protection. Today?

 

[DotCommunist]

they would, wouldn't they?

yes they would. One of the advantages of mass photography and 'citizen journos' is that they have less of a hold on the media narrative these days.

 

[belboid]

I'm sure you could prove than there was a lot of dislike for Churchill's politics among the troops, but that would only affect his political popularity, (which proved non-existant in the election) not the popularity he had gained by the way he roused the country not to give in to the nazi bastards.

the cigar anecdote of Burgess' shows clearly it was not simply his politics. It was him.

 

[Tankus]

Seems to stir vague memories of some 'BNP fellow traveller' on there...

heh ...nowhere near ............ I used hang out on geekish forums ...PCA PCpitstop ...not particularly interested in BNP or ever have been ..RA boards I have no idea .....but ...whatever

 

[Spymaster]

You're making the assumption that you know the motivation of the pisser, and I didn't make a comparison, I was trying to point out that the person pissing may have had as little motivation as a bird shitting on the Cenotaph.

So the cunt swinging off the cenotaph didn't know what it was, ditto the scum that were urging him on?

Or alternatively, there exists an acceptable reason for such behaviour?

Bollocks. I'd have expected better from you, tbh.

 

[belboid]

So the cunt swinging off the cenotaph didn't know what it was, ditto the scum that were urging him on?

Or alternatively, there exists an acceptable reason for such behaviour?

Bollocks. I'd have expected better from you, tbh.

you didnt really know what it was either tho, you thought it had something to do with hitler despite it being built in 1920!

 

[Citizen66]

So the cunt swinging off the cenotaph didn't know what it was, ditto the scum that were urging him on?

Or alternatively, there exists an acceptable reason for such behaviour?

Bollocks. I'd have expected better from you, tbh.

Yep, sod thinking what effect these cuts will have on the living and instead be all outraged that somebody had a wee on a monument for those long dead.

 

[past caring]

So the cunt swinging off the cenotaph didn't know what it was, ditto the scum that were urging him on?

Or alternatively, there exists an acceptable reason for such behaviour?

Bollocks

I don't know why anyone engages with this cunt or claphamgrass or the rest. Some might think the past hositility from the likes of LiamO and myself was simply out of some kind of badness - but it was, on the contrary, because of a certainty that however pleasant or witty or urbane these fuckers might appear on a day to day basis, once an issue arose of real importance, once the gloves were off, there would be no doubt as what side they'd take.

That being so, why one would want to accord them any semblance of civility or respect on a day to day basis, I don't know.

I've no time for this over-priveleged Gilmour fucker - the real issue with the student protest isn't about him or other students of his class - but let's be clear; the "outrage" of Spymaster and his ilk at Gilmour's behaviour is no more than a convenient get-up, something on which to hang his bigotry and hatred of anything progressive under a mask of "decency".

Fuck 'em.

 

[GuerillaPhoto]

OK, people who are complaining about people pissing up against statues etc....

There was no where to go... seriously there was no privacy, the police had every side surrounded, the only way to go to the toilet without waving your dick at underage girls was to piss up against objects so as to hide your man bits. I am not condoning it at all but I believe it was a necessity not an act against the statues and what they stood for.

 

[Spymaster]

you didnt really know what it was either tho, you thought it had something to do with hitler despite it being built in 1920!

What on earth are you on about?

 

[Brainaddict]

You can clearly see proof of the BBC's assertion that "the police are trying to move protesters off Westminster Bridge".

Of course, you have to be facing due Bullshit North.

Is that how the BBC described it? What utter shitheads the BBC have been throughout these demos. Unsurprising I know but I can still get annoyed about it. Yeah, the police were trying to move us off the bridge - in the sense that they were keeping us there for hours against our will. Still, same difference eh? War is peace etc etc

 

[GuerillaPhoto]

Great picture of the bridge kettle - I think this must have been in the later stages cos there were more people detained to begin with:

I can almost figure out which one of those people is me. Looking at the clock, this is about an hour before they finally let us leave the bridge. cold, hungry and some younger people were crying.

 

[Citizen66]

Fuck the living. They can suffer. But don't ever disrespect the dead or those who gave up their lives to perpetuate the suffering.

 

[Spymaster]

Yep, sod thinking what effect these cuts will have on the living and instead be all outraged that somebody had a wee on a monument for those long dead.

Fuck the living. They can suffer. But don't ever disrespect the dead or those who gave up their lives to perpetuate the suffering.

Of course, because the two issues can't be considered seperately can they? Condemning the desecration of the cenotaph means condemning the protest in its entirety.

 

[Brainaddict]

I can almost figure out which one of those people is me. Looking at the clock, this is about an hour before they finally let us leave the bridge. cold, hungry and some younger people were crying.

You were there too? I got out around 1030 so I'll also be in this picture somewhere. It was obviously mostly shit, but the mixture of anger and humour that kept people going actually kind of inspired me and made me feel almost proud to be there.

Edit to add: it was surprisingly tiring though. I had to get up 630 the next morning for work and I've rarely been so tired at the beginning of a day in all my life. Kettles are knackering.

 

[Citizen66]

Of course, because the two issues can't be considered seperately can they? Condemning the desecration of the cenotaph means condemning the protest in its entirety.

Well that's what you're choosing to focus on.

 

[GuerillaPhoto]

You were there too? I got out around 1030 so I'll also be in this picture somewhere. It was obviously mostly shit, but the mixture of anger and humour that kept people going actually kind of inspired me and made me feel almost proud to be there.

Edit to add: it was surprisingly tiring though. I had to get up 630 the next morning for work and I've rarely been so tired at the beginning of a day in all my life. Kettles are knackering.

I was the last to leave, we were busy ruining the live sky news broadcast. and pointing out which officer had his shield upside down. I have shots on my blog.

 

[belboid]

Of course, because the two issues can't be considered seperately can they? Condemning the desecration of the cenotaph means condemning the protest in its entirety.

you utter hypocrite

 

[Spymaster]

Well that's what you're choosing to focus on.

I've said all along that I support the protests.

The only reason we're arguing is because of fuckwits here defending the filthy behavior of Gilmour et al.

 

[Spymaster]

you didnt really know what it was either tho, you thought it had something to do with hitler despite it being built in 1920!

you utter hypocrite

You utter liar.

 

[ymu]

You support the protests but choose to spend your time condemning the actions of one of the protesters? You have some pretty fucked up priorities, right there.

 

[Citizen66]

I've said all along that I support the protests.

The only reason we're arguing is because of fuckwits here defending the filthy behavior of Gilmour et al.

Well he's public school educated, what did you expect?