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G20 Protests: Riot Police, or Rioting Police?
At the G20 protests in London only one group appears to be looking for violent confrontation – and it's not the protesters
The trouble-makers are out in force
again. Dressed in black, their faces partly obscured, some of them
appear to be interested only in violent confrontation. It's almost as
if they are deliberately raising the temperature, pushing and pushing
until a fight kicks off. But this isn't some disorganised rabble: these
people were bussed in and are plainly acting in concert. There's
another dead giveaway. They are all wearing the same slogan: Police. 
The police have been talking up violence at the G20 protests for weeks. They briefed journalists and companies in the City of London about the evil designs of the climate campaigners intending to demonstrate there, but refused to let the campaigners attend the briefings and put their own side of the story. They also rebuffed the campaigners when they sought to explain to the police what they wanted to do.
The way officers tooled themselves up in riot gear and waded into a peaceful crowd this afternoon makes it look almost as if they were trying to ensure that their predictions came true. Their bosses appear to have failed either to read or to heed the report by the parliamentary committee on human rights last week, about the misuse of police powers against protesters. "Whilst we recognise police officers should not be placed at risk of serious injury," the report said, "the deployment of riot police can unnecessarily raise the temperature at protests."
But there has always been a conflict of interest inherent in policing. The police are supposed to prevent crime and keep the streets safe. But if they are too successful, they do themselves out of a job. They have a powerful interest in exaggerating threats and, perhaps, an interest in ensuring that sometimes these threats materialise. This could explain what I've seen at one protest after another, where peaceful demonstrations turn into ugly rucks only when the police attack. The wildly disproportionate and unnecessary violence I've sometimes seen the police deploy could scarcely be better designed to provoke a reaction.
If this is so, they lose nothing. They might get the occasional rap over the knuckles from MPs or the police complaints commission. It doesn't seem to bother them. By planting the idea in the public mind that the streets could erupt into catastrophic violence at any time, were it not for the thick blue line thrown around even the mildest protest, they establish the need for a heavy police presence. While the public lives in fear, no government dares to cut the policing budget.
12 Comments so far
Show AllI believe the CTV public cameras in London have all been turned off "for the duration" and, if I understand correctly, it is illegal for civilians in London to have cameras in the crowd? Yes? Richard Daley from long and long dead ago days must be having a wet dream...shouldn't they just open the uniform museums from the III Reich and hand them out to the "Bobbies"? Hell, never mind, nobody'd notice the difference anyway, they're so similar in appearance, deportment, and values. Love the ones who dress up like anarchists, pull their stunts, then ride in the cop cars to the next "location". I wonder how many of those they have to do in a day to get the "bonus"?
so England is not "enlightened" after all?
I guess when you're part of the Axis of Idiocy (a.k.a, Western Civilization ), these things just seem to happen.
- Insurgent
Writing as the unfortunate veteran of several police riots (where luckily I emerged unscathed), it is not surprising the cops go wild when they are given license to "kick ass on social misfits."
"Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" Juvenal
There is no England now.
Apparently England now feels that Mussolini and Hitler were 60 years ahead of their times and Churchhill and the Brits were wrong to try and fight off Fascism.
"mein Fuhrer! I can walk!!!"
This is why I walked away today. They wanted a piece of me. I could feel it. Fuck. I let them get to me.
Watch this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#30001674
Specifically, towards the end of Olbermann's exchange with Richard Wolfe re the nature of the protests.
Fox News couldn't have framed it better.
And we wonder why we can't get any momentum in the US?
I've heard the protesters denigrated on several "progressive" shows in the last few days.
It boils my blood.
It seems our "progressive" radio and tv hosts don't understand they're supposed to SUPPORT these people.
The coercive arm of capitalism is its state. The capitalist state consists of the police, judiciary, prisons, military, parliamentary democracy, etc. that's main role is to maintain the capitalist system by controlling and terrorizing the population. Marx referred to this state under capitalism as the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie". He also pointed out that the state exists because of class antagonisms within a society and the terrorist state will only wither away when exploiting classes are finally eliminated. All previous revolutions according to Marx, each brought about a new economic system with its own state control, from slave society to feudalism and ultimately capitalism because the majority of the population continued to be exploited by the ruling class of their era. It is only when the final revolution takes place (the socialist revolution) that the majority class fulfills its historic role by taking power and finally liberates the masses from a ruling class. It is only then that there is no longer any need for a state and it will, according to Marx, simply "wither away".
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What Is Marxism? - a short primer on a subject the working class needs to know.
http://www.marxist.com/Theory/what_is_marxism.html
The police are supposed to protect the super-rich. That's their job. Did you think otherwise?
http://www.infowars.com/who-controls-the-black-bloc-anarchists/
>>>Who Controls The Black Bloc Anarchists?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The British authorities seemed to have little problem with allowing a group of violent black bloc anarchists to smash up the RBS building while provoking police yesterday, despite the group announcing their target in advance, yet a legitimate anti-poverty organization has had its “accreditation” to protest at the G20 removed on the orders of Downing Street.
This once again underscores the completely undemocratic power of the government to decide who is allowed to protest against them and who is not. When you have to get permission from the government to exercise a God-given right, as in China or Russia, then we know we are already living in a police state. The freedom to protest is not one that has to be “accredited” by the state, a license to protest as it were, it is an innate human right.
Apparently, if you wear black hoods and scarves, smash up private property and provoke police, then that’s absolutely fine and you’ll be left largely untouched. But God forbid if you’re a middle of the road anti-poverty group that just wants to peaceably march down the street.
“An anti-poverty group expressed “outrage” after its accreditation to attend Thursday’s G20 summit was suddenly withdrawn on Wednesday,” reports the Telegraph.
“The World Development Movement said it had no idea why the decision was taken but claimed it was on the orders of 10 Downing Street.”
“The group, which was part of last weekend’s huge (and peaceful - ed) Put People First Alliance which held a rally in London, said the Foreign Office received a note from 10 Downing Street telling it to revoke the accreditation.”
Benedict Southworth, the group’s director, said that the decision was part of the government’s plan to “stage-manage events and prevent voices of dissent and disagreement being heard.”
The black bloc anarchist assault on the Royal Bank of Scotland building yesterday certainly had an air of being stage-managed. The target was announced in advance, the authorities knew that the building was a prime target, and yet it was the only one in the street not boarded up. A cafe across the street was boarded up and yet the RBS building was left completely vulnerable to attack.
Stage-managed? Press photographers outnumber anarchists as the RBS siege is perfectly “produced” for a live television audience.
Cue a relatively small gaggle of black-bloc anarchists, followed by an similarly sized press corps to photograph every angle of every smashed window, and you have the makings of a stage-managed event to instantly be consumed by the watching middle classes thus enlisting their support for a police state crackdown. In this instance, the police stood back and let them do pretty much whatever they liked, which is highly suspicious within itself, but the week is far from over and a wider crackdown could ensue now that public acquiescence has been garnered through repeated footage showing the hostility of the anarchists.
We’re not saying for a minute that every anarchist group is working at the behest of the authorities as provocateurs, nor that the majority are not legitimate protesters expressing their right to free speech, but as we have documented, this particular black bloc sect are at best completely infiltrated by provocateurs who can routinely be relied upon to provide the media with violent footage with which to demonize legitimate protesters at every major global summit stretching back nearly two decades.
To emphasize our point that a lot of these people are merely hired thugs, whenever someone asks them what they are actually proposing to replace the evils of capitalism, they have no idea, as the video below highlights.
Meanwhile, people who actually have a defined cause and merely want to exercise their right to free speech as a public platform to draw attention to the issue, and have already proven they are a peaceable group, are barred from doing so by the government removing their “accreditation” to protest.
Why are the authorities so keen on stifling peaceful protesters while giving free reign to people who dress up like terrorists, attack buildings and provoke cops? Whose interests do the violent actions of the black bloc benefit? The interests of the general public in using free speech as a means of political change? Or the interests of the authorities in providing the perfect pretext with which to crush and outlaw that free speech?
You can’t overthrow the entire system by smashing one bank and starting a bonfire. Real political change takes generations of struggle, decades of building respected educational platforms, and a gargantuan grass-roots movement focused on taking power on the local level and expanding upwards. Throwing a brick through a window isn’t going to achieve anything other than making the vast majority of the general public despise you even more, and support the very systems of power that you are supposedly opposing.
We have documented numerous different occasions where the leadership of the black bloc anarchists were actually working with the authorities to provide a pretext for a police state crackdown.
Following the SPP protests in Canada two years ago, Quebec provincial authorities were forced to admit that three rock-wielding black mask-wearing “anarchists” were in fact police infiltrators used to gather information on protesters.
Video shows two of the provocateurs pick up rocks and try to incite violence before they are outed as cops by legitimate demonstrators. The two thugs then tried to slip behind police lines before their fellow officers were forced to stage their arrest. Again, the fact that they were cops in disguise was later admitted by authorities. Watch the video.<<<