Tim
Creative Writer
Te following is a biased personal viewpoint of what is going down here. I'm an anti-cuts activist so although I try to be balanced, of course it never will be, much like academia!
You've probably seen some inflammatory news coming out of London after this Saturday. There were loads of groups involved in all sorts of things,but the police decided to make mistakes again.
I didn't get to this event due to childcare issues, but loads of my mates went, a number came back bruised and bleeding.
There is going to be a furore soon about a number of things that went off. Sure, some anarchists went out, 250 strong, paintballs, smoke,flares,kicking in windows, etc. But there are numerous groups of anarchists and most of them are peaceful right now.
Some pics
March 26th - images from TUC March and Oxford Street actions
Sky news reporters have been accused of offering some protesters £25 to lob a few bricks so they could get the "breaking news"
Riot police went all mental in Trafalgar Square after a few of them tried to wade in and arrest one person, and others in the protesters grabbed him back off the police. They beat hundreds of people,probably in revenge for the violent direct action protesters.
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011...quare-kettle-these-are-the-facts-i-was-there/
Police battering anyone and everyone they could reach really:
Baton charged by police: on the frontline with the Black Bloc
But they didn't have it all their own way when protesters turned the tables on them:
The police also lied to 138 members of UK Uncut who had peacefully occupied a floor in a posh shop over the companies illegal tax evasion,bouncing money back and forth, and considering they have charity links, it was interesting. Anyhow, there is video of a chief inspector telling the groupinside they had cleared the street of violent protesters and would allow them to leave safely and without arrest. When the group left the building they were all arrested.
Cuts protesters claim police tricked them into mass arrest <<< important video
We still have supporters in the government though:
Labour MP backs anti-cuts group after hundreds of arrests
The government and police are pushing to be allowed to use anti terrorism laws on our own people to stop dissent at an unpopular government. Guess they don't realise we watch films warning us about this sort of thing.
Charlie Vietch, ex-British Army,warning soldiers not to follow orders to shoot on civilians. Resounding note, as I pleaded with the troops at the Houseguards Museum on the 9th December 2010 not to do the same.
The Royal Wedding is coming up and police want to ban anyone from London, football hooligan style, they 'believe' are planning violent action at the event, which historically has included simple things like waving an inoffensive flag.
Arts Against Cuts will need to build a new trojan horse,because someone set fire to the one they brought to Saturday's event.
The unfortunate accident with matches:
(NB. pics no longer there, will have to find alternatives later, meanwhile, here's some video
One of tomorrow's papers showing the coming loss of liberties:
The anti-cuts groups in my city are meeting tomorrow night to talk 'war stories' and plan ahead. We have lost all trust in the police now after this and will tell them as much. We may start protesting every Saturday, all day, banners and flag in every main tourist street here so no one can get a picture without protest material coming up in it. At least that's my suggestion I'm bringing to the table.
Meanwhile I have a fight in my university. If you have been following the cuts to education,particularly higher education, you'll see virtually all funding has been cut from universities and they are effectively private now, but the government still calls them state, and only allowing them to charge so much, well virtually all uni's are charging the full amount available and the government has to load the students the money up front and they haven't got it!
My uni was going to try charging a bit less, as they have some nice business interests putting them in a decent financial position. Unfortunately for them I'm going to try and take that business away, because it involves training troops,civil elite and royal families from countries with records of human rights abuses in Military English, that qualifies them to get British military training at one of our bases before they go home to murder civilians. I feel fairly sure they are doing that, because as a student volunteer teaching English, I was asked to take some of them into my workshop and frankly, I am angry that we've had Yemeni and Libyan 'students' in my uni and a whole plethora of 'students' from other countries with bad records. In dialogue with my Vice Chancellor, he refuses to say the words "Military English" and insists those courses are "closed". He also obviously didn't read my letter as spouted complete nonsense as if I was utterly naive. So I'm running a campaign against the uni to get them to stop it, otherwise all our degrees are paid for by blood money.
Anyhow, we're peaceful protesters,not the smaller other type. Hope you are getting unbiased news on this, but that is doubtful. Try not to believe the party line hysteria, it's getting like China here. We need the worlds biggest cinema to fit everyone in to watch V for Vendetta and then maybe everyone will rise up and kick our government to touch. Have fun trying to watch the Royal Wedding on tv without catching hundreds of thousands of protesters in the edge of the shots
You've probably seen some inflammatory news coming out of London after this Saturday. There were loads of groups involved in all sorts of things,but the police decided to make mistakes again.
I didn't get to this event due to childcare issues, but loads of my mates went, a number came back bruised and bleeding.
There is going to be a furore soon about a number of things that went off. Sure, some anarchists went out, 250 strong, paintballs, smoke,flares,kicking in windows, etc. But there are numerous groups of anarchists and most of them are peaceful right now.
Some pics
March 26th - images from TUC March and Oxford Street actions
Sky news reporters have been accused of offering some protesters £25 to lob a few bricks so they could get the "breaking news"
Riot police went all mental in Trafalgar Square after a few of them tried to wade in and arrest one person, and others in the protesters grabbed him back off the police. They beat hundreds of people,probably in revenge for the violent direct action protesters.
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011...quare-kettle-these-are-the-facts-i-was-there/
Police battering anyone and everyone they could reach really:
Baton charged by police: on the frontline with the Black Bloc
But they didn't have it all their own way when protesters turned the tables on them:
The police also lied to 138 members of UK Uncut who had peacefully occupied a floor in a posh shop over the companies illegal tax evasion,bouncing money back and forth, and considering they have charity links, it was interesting. Anyhow, there is video of a chief inspector telling the groupinside they had cleared the street of violent protesters and would allow them to leave safely and without arrest. When the group left the building they were all arrested.
Cuts protesters claim police tricked them into mass arrest <<< important video
We still have supporters in the government though:
Labour MP backs anti-cuts group after hundreds of arrests
The government and police are pushing to be allowed to use anti terrorism laws on our own people to stop dissent at an unpopular government. Guess they don't realise we watch films warning us about this sort of thing.
Charlie Vietch, ex-British Army,warning soldiers not to follow orders to shoot on civilians. Resounding note, as I pleaded with the troops at the Houseguards Museum on the 9th December 2010 not to do the same.
The Royal Wedding is coming up and police want to ban anyone from London, football hooligan style, they 'believe' are planning violent action at the event, which historically has included simple things like waving an inoffensive flag.
Arts Against Cuts will need to build a new trojan horse,because someone set fire to the one they brought to Saturday's event.
The unfortunate accident with matches:
(NB. pics no longer there, will have to find alternatives later, meanwhile, here's some video
One of tomorrow's papers showing the coming loss of liberties:
The anti-cuts groups in my city are meeting tomorrow night to talk 'war stories' and plan ahead. We have lost all trust in the police now after this and will tell them as much. We may start protesting every Saturday, all day, banners and flag in every main tourist street here so no one can get a picture without protest material coming up in it. At least that's my suggestion I'm bringing to the table.
Meanwhile I have a fight in my university. If you have been following the cuts to education,particularly higher education, you'll see virtually all funding has been cut from universities and they are effectively private now, but the government still calls them state, and only allowing them to charge so much, well virtually all uni's are charging the full amount available and the government has to load the students the money up front and they haven't got it!
My uni was going to try charging a bit less, as they have some nice business interests putting them in a decent financial position. Unfortunately for them I'm going to try and take that business away, because it involves training troops,civil elite and royal families from countries with records of human rights abuses in Military English, that qualifies them to get British military training at one of our bases before they go home to murder civilians. I feel fairly sure they are doing that, because as a student volunteer teaching English, I was asked to take some of them into my workshop and frankly, I am angry that we've had Yemeni and Libyan 'students' in my uni and a whole plethora of 'students' from other countries with bad records. In dialogue with my Vice Chancellor, he refuses to say the words "Military English" and insists those courses are "closed". He also obviously didn't read my letter as spouted complete nonsense as if I was utterly naive. So I'm running a campaign against the uni to get them to stop it, otherwise all our degrees are paid for by blood money.
Anyhow, we're peaceful protesters,not the smaller other type. Hope you are getting unbiased news on this, but that is doubtful. Try not to believe the party line hysteria, it's getting like China here. We need the worlds biggest cinema to fit everyone in to watch V for Vendetta and then maybe everyone will rise up and kick our government to touch. Have fun trying to watch the Royal Wedding on tv without catching hundreds of thousands of protesters in the edge of the shots