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

[littlebabyjesus]

Read anything I have ever written. I am entirely consistent. I believe the truth is ALWAYS our ally.

If I've smashed windows in on a march, the truth is not my ally. The truth will land me with two years in prison.

That's simplistic nonsense.

 

[Citizen66]

They have all the images they want. Better to emphasise a simple fact. Rioting without a mask will get you caught, end of.

No. The images they have are at specific locations - the cenotaph, the 'discarded' police van etc etc. You want to provide them with further evidence of ehat they regard as a crime scene as that makes you radical or something.

 

[ferrelhadley]

I have shown up on a youtube video that got pulled and I did not cover up. Both sides have a point. I turned up not intending to get involved in anything that would attract attention but go sucked in by the need for bodies to 'defend protest space' so to speak. I am pretty happy the video with my mug got pulled but have to take responsiblity for my face appearing, whats more the police and the company involved probibly have some kind of footage of me. As I tend to be involved in non violent stuff I am more in favour of images appearing as they have a higher likelyhood of getting people off than implicating them in what the state considers criminality. Having literally had a couple of coppers pulling at me trying to get me out the crowd I feel that you have to take responsibility for covering your identity. Too many people with cameras and besides the coppers and companies have more than enough of their own.

 

[Citizen66]

Poll Tax riot. Miners strike. Wapping. Bangkok. Phnom Penh. Gaza. West Bank. I have nothing to prove to you.

I don't dispute you've 'been there'. But maybe as just an observer?

Why else would you place active participants' identities into the hands of the enemy? To be thanked?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I have shown up on a youtube video that got pulled and I did not cover up. Both sides have a point. I turned up not intending to get involved in anything that would attract attention but go sucked in by the need for bodies to 'defend protest space' so to speak. I am pretty happy the video with my mug got pulled but have to take responsiblity for my face appearing, whats more the police and the company involved probibly have some kind of footage of me. As I tend to be involved in non violent stuff I am more in favour of images appearing as they have a higher likelyhood of getting people off than implicating them in what the state considers criminality. Having literally had a couple of coppers pulling at me trying to get me out the crowd I feel that you have to take responsibility for covering your identity. Too many people with cameras and besides the coppers and companies have more than enough of their own.

I can only really repeat what I said before. It is one thing for me to tell people to cover up so that the police cannot identify them. It is quite another thing for me to tell people to cover up so that I cannot identify them for the police.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Poll Tax riot. Miners strike. Wapping. Bangkok. Phnom Penh. Gaza. West Bank. I have nothing to prove to you.

I couldn't care less where you've been tbh, that doesn't make you any less wrong.

 

[dylans]

I couldn't care less where you've been t
bh, that doesn't make you any less wrong.

I have little interest in mentioning it either. It was in response to this offensive bollocks by c66.

What is more probable is that you masturbate over such stuff and need to see their faces to bring you to a climax.

 

[Citizen66]

I have little interest in mentioning it either. It was in response to this offensive bollocks by c66.

I'm rarely offensive tbh. But I get riled when someone who is allegedly on my side defends themselves as being a useful idiot for the state. I want to slap your face to be honest mate. But I apologise for being rude.

 

[dylans]

I can only really repeat what I said before. It is one thing for me to tell people to cover up so that the police cannot identify them. It is quite another thing for me to tell people to cover up so that I cannot identify them for the police.

Ok. After thinking about it. You are right and I am wrong. Even if the state has a million images we shouldn't make their job easier. I'm convinced. A journo who is on our side has a responsibilty over and above a journo who claims to be neutral.

GP you should black out the faces.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Take the same person, take them out of the uniform and out of the circumstances and they would probibly give you a wonderful well reasoned explanation of extreme circumstances that none but the most hardline here would cast doubt on. They know right from wrong.

When they put on the uniform and get they swept away in the tribal tide of agro on a demonstration then the rationality leaves. Striking someone with blows to the head is just dumb, its career threatening and even jail threatening in the day of handset cameras and youtube. But still in the febrile heat of battle they do it. You can train people out of getting into that state, but it takes will from on high.

I've made exactly that point to a certain apologist on this forum a number of times over the years, but he just assumes I'm being anti-police and pro-military (because the military were/are trained not to let the red mist take over).

 

[ymu]

Poll Tax riot. Miners strike. Wapping. Bangkok. Phnom Penh. Gaza. West Bank. I have nothing to prove to you.

If you've done stuff in Gaza and the West Bank, you'll know how important it is to check with Palestinians before using their name or image in any kind of report. Or did you just ignore all that stuff because you know better?

E2A: sorry, missed that last page. Kudos for backing down.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

@ Dylans

 

[ViolentPanda]

But it's not though is it? Time and again, for fucking decades, we have seen cops get away with battering people with impunity. They know nothing will happen if they crack skulls, so .....they crack skulls.

Although I'm not convinced that better coverage/footage/evidence of police misdeeds will result in any greater degree of disciplinary/criminal action against them, what it will and does do is make it clear to an ever-wider proportion of the public that the police can and do get away with violence up to and including murder.

 

[Lock&Light]

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

I see that you think you're too clever for everyday folks.

 

[Citizen66]

Ok. After thinking about it. You are right and I am wrong. Even if the state has a million images we shouldn't make their job easier. I'm convinced. A journo who is on our side has a responsibilty over and above a journo who claims to be neutral.

GP you should black out the faces.

I seldom see people back down anywhere. I take my hat off to you (if I was wearing one).

 

[Lock&Light]

A journo who is on our side has a responsibilty over and above a journo who claims to be neutral.

A journo on anyone's side, is not a genuine journo.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Believe me, I have been in the "sharp end of these situations far far more than you. What you are calling for amounts to a demand for censorship nothing less. Fuck you. You don't get to tell me what I can see or photograph or record. If we follow your logic we would have no footage of the poll tax riots, miners strike, greece, italy, the list goes on. We would have only heavily edited and heavily censored images of blacked out faces. That's utterly self defeating. Here is an idea. Wear a fucking mask.

To be fair, you're talking about kids with fuck-all experience of the kind of shit-rain that can be brought down on their heads, so they don't know to carry a scarf or similar, same as they don't know to pad over their kidneys. They don't know any better, and perhaps "old hands", rather than having a rant because they didn't mask up, could do something constructive, like putting the word out that carrying an oversized hankie can be good for your health.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A journo on anyone's side, is not a genuine journo.

All journalists take sides. The only ones worth shit are the ones who know which side they have taken.

 

[Citizen66]

A journo on anyone's side, is not a genuine journo.

Then a 'genuine journo' is an oxymoron.

Everyone has a side. Whether they are documenting things from their view or paid to represent other people's views.

 

[ViolentPanda]

And threatening to attack journalists is constructive? Uncensored images by sympathetic journo's help our side. They tell our side of the story and (as the footage of the kettle above shows) go someway to rebalancing the bullshit in the mainstream media. Start demanding censorship and we lose that weapon.

It is absurd to claim that images shot by sympathetic journo's will be used to prosecute rioters. As the press will no doubt demonstrate in the coming days. They have all the images they want. Better to emphasise a simple fact. Rioting without a mask will get you caught, end of.

You're kind of missing the point of confirmatory evidence. Having someone on one camera, from one perspective, doing something naughty, can be argued, along the lines of "that's not my client, it's someone who just happens to look like him from that angle/perspective". Add various other photographic perspectives of the event to that and it helps them build a stronger case.

 

[Lock&Light]

All journalists take sides. The only ones worth shit are the ones who know which side they have taken.

Then he/she becomes a commentator. Not a journalist.

 

[Lock&Light]

Then a 'genuine journo' is an oxymoron.

As are all arbitrators.

 

[Citizen66]

Then he/she becomes a commentator. Not a journalist.

They take their megaphone to the races?

 

[Citizen66]

As are all arbitrators.

Show me a 'genuine journalist' and then I'll provide evidence of God. You first.

 

[Lock&Light]

They take their megaphone to the races?

And genuine journalists don't automtically believe that man has ever walked on the moon.

 

[Citizen66]

And genuine journalists don't automtically believe that man has ever walked on the moon.

The cameraman was the first man on the moon. I told you years ago.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Then he/she becomes a commentator. Not a journalist.

you clearly haven't understood my point. There is no such thing as a neutral report. The reporter may not realise this, and may not realise which side he or she is taking in filing the report. That reporter is the one that is not worth shit.

 

[Citizen66]

you clearly haven't understood my point. There is no such thing as a neutral report. The reporter may not realise this, and may not realise which side he or she is taking in filing the report. That reporter is the one that is not worth shit.

Perfectly displayed by the BBC whom the right accuse of having a 'left bias' and the (genuine) left counter accuse.

 

[Lock&Light]

you clearly haven't understood my point. There is no such thing as a neutral report. The reporter may not realise this, and may not realise which side he or she is taking in filing the report. That reporter is the one that is not worth shit.

A reporter is not a journalist.

 

[smokedout]

Ok. After thinking about it. You are right and I am wrong. Even if the state has a million images we shouldn't make their job easier. I'm convinced. A journo who is on our side has a responsibilty over and above a journo who claims to be neutral.

GP you should black out the faces.

respect