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I am so Jealous of Paris

Gary24 | 18.03.2006 19:48

After what i have seen this week and 3months ago I am so jealous from Parisians and so sad to be from London and England.

Three months ago we had the working-class rioting against the government from the Banlieus and this week we see the middle-class students rioting against the government.

While watching the pictures i am pleased to see French people standing up for themselves against the real violence of the government and the real criminals who are the police but i am also jealous beacause in my country i see nothing.

Londoners are soft, Londoners and apathetic and Londoners need to start having some self-respect and start believing in something.

We have to copy our French brothers and bring protests to the streets of London to the similar oppressive Laws and oppressive Police we have here.

LET FREEDOM RING!!!!!!!!

Gary24

Additions

why is this here?

19.03.2006 09:31

Sorry what is the news here? That you like rioting?

1. This isn't a bulletin board so why is your post here? It's not news, and it doesn't add to my understanding of the situation.
2. Your point is crap. It's not a bloody game, it's a dirty, violent business that should be done with great reluctance when there's no other option. Yes the French fight back, and good on em, but being jealous of the fact they're having to take on trained police in riot gear, armed only with rocks, to voice their dissent at a draconian new law is just bloody stupid. Be jealous of the rights the French have defended while we gave ours away, not of the fact they're having to do it again now.
3. Londoners (incidentally, there's an entire country outside London which is also in existence, it's called the UK) aren't soft, they're defeated and divided. The British government is a great deal more clever at doing these things than the French. Insulting peoples' will to fight is just irritating and a piss-poor analysis of the situation.

Saii


bring it on

19.03.2006 13:30

We're not going to achieve change without challenging the authorities and that means violence - and breaking with hegemonic notions that prevent us from achieving our goals. Drop the faux fleet street pretensions and shut the fuck up - the time to fight is now!

people of the world unite!


Go on then

19.03.2006 16:48

I await the results with interest. Anything you're going to be fighting for in particular? Or will it be just to get that monumental chip off your shoulder?

Seriously though do you actually read anything that you post? Capitalism won't stop because of a riot, it will stop when communities linked by bonds of mutual goodwill, and industries filled with people who want a better world, decide it. And you don't build goodwill by calling people weak. You don't build solidarity by proclaiming riots as something to be jealous of. You do it by sensibly and reasonably building from the ground up a sense that self-preservation is about fighting your neighbour's corner against all-comers. Calls to arms ONLY work when you have the trust of others, when you have proven you aren't just some wild-eyed maniac who thinks a couple of scraps with the police will end an all-pervasive social/economic/political system.

France has something closer to that level of mutual trust, we don't. That's a major reason why people in the UK don't fight, and French people do. It's also why this mindless sloganeering is counterproductive - you are not trustworthy, and you have shown nothing to suggest you are. Why should your statement be anything but dismissed out of hand? Why should your post be worthwhile filling up a major platform like indymedia, displacing real journalism or useful commentary?

What is the point?

Saii


Opinion in a comment box

19.03.2006 19:36

But I'm not arguing that riots are a bad thing, I'm arguing that they're sometimes a necessary evil in the face of governmental excess, but they should not be painted as anything other than what they are. There's a very good reason why people are sickened by governmental glorification of violence - people get hurt - so why does this suddenly not apply any more when it comes to ordinary folks vrs the state? By all means laud the people doing it, but you wont get much support if you're saying 'I wish we had riots over here', because no-one with two bain cells to rub together wants to get caught in a baton charge if they can help it.

I'm not arguing against organising either, in fact that's precisely what I'm arguing for. But you AREN'T arguing for ogranising. You're arguing that you and whoever is impressionable enough to follow you to take to the streets with no plan and no solid base of support, and imploring people who don't trust you to do the same simply because you say so. I'd love to have hundreds of thousands out on the streets to fight injustice, but I'm also a realist, you have to build the structures to allow that to happen long before you try anything, or it a) gets crushed b) gets everyone arrested c) makes no impact.

I'm fighting capitalism every day, I'm just smart enough to realise that limited resources should be used wisely and not frittered away on idiot schemes which have no long-term realism and don't contribute in any meaningful way to the cause. Calling for riots in a situation where society is atomised, divided and unable to even run its own communities effectively is pissing in the wind. What should be called for is the rebuilding of community so that the support base for effective resistance to be called can eventually be viable.

I am posting comments on your 'article', not putting something up on the newswire - that's the function of the comment box. If you wish to comment on breaking news, I suggest you use the fucking comment box like everyone else, or find a forum and stop publishing slogans on the front of the site as though they should carry the same level of authority as proper reportage or even proper analysis. It's crap like this filling up the site that makes the 'promotion' wire necessary.

Saii


Comments

Display the following 11 comments

  1. blog — sofuckingeasy
  2. OVERTHROW THE CRIMINAL REGIME — Don't Give Up, Don't Accept Anything Less
  3. WAKE UP!!!!!!!! — Big Straight Al
  4. London riots. — Alf Narkist
  5. time time is now! — Voice of Opinion
  6. I'm with Saii on this one. — artaud
  7. Not Really Violence — Gary24
  8. Importance — Gary24
  9. IM Volunteers Hide Unpopular Views as Opinion and Make Additions of Popular Ones — Opinion
  10. Not to be promoted - opinion only ! — sin
  11. More comment — Saii