I think one thing is clear - that there is a big CLASS division between the public school landed ( neo )liberal careerists of these climate camp heirarchists and the people protesting about that most of us in this country are dispossessed, have crap/no jobs, are sick of being ripped off by the rich and their middle class collabarateurs. This is the same bunch of liberals that keep coming out with the 'police only doing their job', small handful of anarchists/chav troublemakers ( take your pick), etc etc. They seemed no support for the people being attacked by the police earlier.

Take this from the Independent - an eyewitness student account...

"Looking back now it feels as if the police changed strategy after the Royal Bank of Scotland building's windows were broken and they encountered trouble among a tiny proportion of anarchists. But the Climate Camp was totally peaceful and obedient, which makes me even more shocked and angry about the police's behaviour. "

Of course this bunch are sitting quite comfortable on the staus quo at the moment, whilst this country as the centre of capitalism has no food security. It';s easy being a lifestyle green when you're bourgois.

How can anybody in this country be considered peaceful and support capitalism? By letting others do their dirty work?

As for the end of peaceful protest - where have these people been living?Hampstead? The Maldives?

...you kind of sound like a daily mail op ed. suggesting that all anarchists are trustafarians... yes, some within the climate camp may want to distance themselves from smashing things up etc...but remember the climate camp "view" is diverse as the g20 protests was themselves: of course the liberal press will pick on the young middle class professional to tell them what they want to hear... that's just as inevitable as them condemning "violent protests" and defending the state.

if it wasnt for that 'small handful of anarchists' holding the police back then the bank of england protest would have got shut down as fast as the climate camp.

By beeing totally indescriminate against activists, the Police is going to end up with a violent movement on their hands. And it will be completely their fault.

I see that the operation to mitigate the MPS has already started.

Get ready for it everyone. There will be some truly malevolent and nasty filth coming out of MPS over the next few days as they try to encourgae the public to believe that black is white and white is black.

A PR operation to save the police's reputation will unfold (if it hasn't already, are we now all aware that it seems to be the case that whenever the police get themselves into problems they immediately start persecuting muslims?) and the BBC especially will be used to spread the poison.

I really do feel for the family of Ian Tomlinson. They shouldn't be exposed to this poisonous filth.

I don't think this is a question of the police being indiscriminate with the more 'peaceful' and the more 'violent'. The question is that thousands of people are blocking a road and 'seriously disrupting the life of the community' and their violence is, hence, justified, according to the current British legislation (the Public Order Act for example. Check sections 11 to 14. 'Reasonable' force can be used if there is not compliance). The question is that the forces of the state are the ones who, according to the present social system, have the monopoly on violence and therefore, individuals have not the right to defend themselves from their aggression (when under the law, of course). Now, you might agree with this state of things and then accept that if you are going to disrupt the economic life of the city the state has the legitimacy to assault you. Or, you might want to disagree with it and then accept that, even if not a very clever thing to do in the present circumstances, responding to violence with violence in order to defend your physical integrity and freedom is an inalienable individual right, regardless whether the person who assaults you is a policeman, a soldier or any other type of authority.

I'll bet the police are simply sorry that it wasn't a protester that died, because if it was, it would have been so much easier for them to lie about it: "troublemaker" "anarchist" "missile thrower" "rent-a-mob" etc.

I think the establishment of a violent backlash is exactly what the state is hoping for by clamping down so hard on dissent. Surely, you can't have institutional incomptence on such a scale, the fomenting of disorder and militant dissent has to totally deliberate.

It'll give them the excuse to come down hard on people with all these powers they have enacting for the last couple of decades.

After all, it's an old Thatcherite policy and NeoLabour are more tory than the Tories!

The attack on the Climate Campers was deliberate, and an act of revenge and intimidation against the Climate Campers, who have succesfully hosted demonstrations and protests, who have won most of the arguments concerning Government sponsored Carbon Trading Policy, Renewable Energy and so on. And done all this peacefully, with love in their hearts.

The RBS incident was a set-up, and it was designed to allow the police action against the campers to be disguised or justified.

Both tactics failed - as they were bound to.

There is far too much evidence being gathered about the events around the G20 Climate Camp and other actions that prove the motive behind such policing is POLITICAL.

Those gentle people have strong hearts. They do this not for themselves, but for the rest of us, and our children. Their committment is genuine, and this is feared by the State. This committment is the hardest thing for them to deal with, because it won't go away, just because it's raining......... The policing IS linked to the pollitics.

The BBC and other media have collaborated with the Police Operation, prior and afterwards. And will continue to do so.

Those who claim that 'inalienable right to defend themselves with violence in response' and apply that for a 'movement' miss one point - that right is primarily an individual right, and not properly part of the strategy of genuine movements for change, for grass roots power. Those who do take to the streets, and are faced with police brutality cannot respond with violence, for that undermines their aims.... they can and must use whatever means they can to chase these abuses through the courts, though the media, through their local networks, their families. In other words, tell their story to as many people as possible. The movement must speak to people, real people, and most especially to the people who have no jobs, who live on meagre incomes, who have been shutt out and disenfranchised in this nouveau middle class society of consumers..

The best defence, going forwards, is to expose the way policing is working and to create an awareness of how and why it is so. And to understand and expose the societal psychological conditioning that creates people who will follow orders and enjoy beating people up - it's a huge adrenaline rush, and added to that there's also the issue of 'bonding' that uniformed personel go through -m these and much more will be needed over the coming 20 year sor so, and violence from the movement will not resolve these issues....

"The question is that thousands of people are blocking a road and 'seriously disrupting the life of the community' and their violence is, hence, justified, according to the current British legislation (the Public Order Act for example. Check sections 11 to 14. 'Reasonable' force can be used if there is not compliance"....Nice legalese. However, the road was not blocked and people came and went of their own free will, and through the camp, until the police decided to kettle it. THEY seriously disrupted the life of the community. The force used was unreasonably in terms of the disproportionate arms of each 'side', and the fact that no resistence was offered. Arrest people if they are breaking the law. Reasonable force legislation needs removing.

And Jung, sorry, but you paint a bad hippy picture of the climate camp...Self defence IS a right. I just wish there was an "official" statement from Climate Camp to stop this good protester/bad protester stuff, so as I am a Climate Camper, HERE GOES:

MOST OF THE PEOPLE WHO PUT A LOT INTO CLIMATE CAMPS ARE ANARCHISTS!

NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION AS A TACTIC AND PHILOSOPHY IS ANARCHIST!

DIRECT DEMOCRACY THROUGH CONSENSUS DECISION MAKING IS ANARCHIST!

REJECTING AND RESISTING THEIR "POWER OVER" AND ENFORCING OUR "POWER TO" IS ANARCHIST!

AKA CLIMATE CAMP IN THE CITY, SELF-ORGANISED, NVDA, DIRECT DEMOCRACY AND RESISTANT, IS ANARCHIST!!!!!!

I agree with all your points. So lets keep it anarchist. I'm also waiting for CC statement. Someone said there was one on the go during an Indymedia debate last week:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/04/426271.html?c=on#c219780

I think the question regarding the indiscrimate use of force is down to the level of force used by the police to clear the climate camp. The climate camp was predominately peaceful, and there was no need for the cops to wade in striking people with their batons. I have a huge problem generally with people crying police brutality when there hasn't been any simply because it detracts from the many instances of proper police brutality. However, there is no question in my mind that there was much brutality in the way the climate camp was evicted, and, even if you agree the police should have cleared the road, there was no justification for using that amount of force.

Even if you are a person who only wants to operate within the paramenters of the law, the 1967 Criminal Law Act gives citizens the right to use "reasonable force" to prevent a crime from taking place. Perversley, in many acts on non violent resistance, such as sitting in the road, courts have ruled that not enough "force" was used, or that sitting in the road is not "force" at all.

Jung Junkie, I'm not being funny, but anyone who truly and passionately believes in a cause think they have won all the arguments. Of course the policing of the whole of the G20 was political, as is the policing of most demonstrations. However I totally disagree that the policing was just aimed at the climate camp. The anger directed at bankers from all sides of the political spectrum is immense, and this is what is more likely to capture the imagination of a large number of people than the climate camp. I support the climate camp, but the economic situation is what is really going to effect people at the moment, and rightly or wrongly, it is this direct impact on people's lives which will get them onto the streets.

However, the statement that really irritates me in what you've written is this one "Those gentle people have strong hearts. They do this not for themselves, but for the rest of us, and our children. Their committment is genuine, and this is feared by the State. This committment is the hardest thing for them to deal with, because it won't go away, just because it's raining." Have you not considered the fact that the people who fight back also feel like this? Or are you too happy and ready to tow the media and police line that we don't have any politics and don't believe in what we're doing? People don't fight back and break windows because it's fun. They do it, and take great risks doing so beacause they are caring, compassionate people, many of whom have children and want to create a better world for them.

Political policing is nothing new, alhtough it has changed and expanded. Ignoring it, or responding without a show of force will not make it go away. The people who didn't get kettled were the ones who fought back, and this is something we should all learn from. Over the last ten years the police have been systematically quashing dissent - and it is about time we stood up to them. Whilst using the media, courts etc are all potentially useful tools, they are also tools which predominately rely on rich white people to both make and win our points for us. We need to fight against police brutality by standing up to them and letting them know we will no longer tolerate such action.

I don't believe the police, in making all their summer of rage statements were trying to encourage violence. They've spent the last ten years trying to erase any of the militant events that happened in the 1990s. Instead they've puported the summer of rage to justify the repression without the need for any violence on the part of protesters. They don't want people to fight back, because when they do, their lines break, and they lose control of the situation.

We let the police get away with what they do - which is why the FIT teams have been allowed to predominate public order policing for so long. In other countries this policing would not be tolerated, and it only happens here because we are too passive in our resistance and to accepting of our own repression.

Hi,

We do need to be a bit careful here. Caricaturing people and/or movements be they Meltdown/ Fitwatch/ climate camp does not help us do better actions/ demos etc in the future. Lets not make the flinging of stereotypes and myths and rumours become a self-fulfiling prophesy of 'fluffies' and 'spikies' in each corner - to be oh so oldskool.

The police cleared the climate camp violently as we were having a full blown street party in the middle of the square mile at 1 am in the morning (why this is seen as 'not hardcore' I've no idea). FFS, they needed to get us off that street so it could be cleaned and back to business as usual in time for the workers. The question is, given that we were going to be dispersed some time soon, was it tactical to turn the camp into a full-scale riot (remember we did have the bottles from 6 hours worth of hundreds of peoples drinking, our whole kitchen, toilets etc.). No. Not tactically sensible. So nobody tried.

We do need to divorce tactics and the outcome of deliberate actions from measurment against ideological convictions that we must always attack the police. There is a time and place for that. And it wasn't it.

The cops were none-to-happy about the camp in the city, as for 4 climate camps in a row we have had long-term autonomous spaces taken on our own terms - the time and place of our choosing. Nothing liberal nor hippy about that.

We should remember not to believe everything we read in the newspapers!

Camper.

>MOST OF THE PEOPLE WHO PUT A LOT INTO CLIMATE CAMPS ARE ANARCHISTS!
It's good to hear such a proud boast.

>NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION AS A TACTIC AND PHILOSOPHY IS ANARCHIST!
Sort of, non-anarchists also use NVDA, and anarchists sometimes use tactics ranging up to targetted assasinations of tyrants.

>DIRECT DEMOCRACY THROUGH CONSENSUS DECISION MAKING IS ANARCHIST!
Seconded!

>REJECTING AND RESISTING THEIR "POWER OVER" AND ENFORCING OUR "POWER TO" IS ANARCHIST!
Yes it is.

>AKA CLIMATE CAMP IN THE CITY, SELF-ORGANISED, NVDA, DIRECT DEMOCRACY AND RESISTANT, IS ANARCHIST!!!!!!

QED not AKA. AKA is short for 'alternatively known as' while QED is short for the latin phrase 'quod erat demonstrandum'. Which is a posh way to say 'Therefore I have proven it follows that such and such'. In my opinion you have just proven you for one aren't upper class and are an anarchist. Non violence is the smart tactic when facing your enemies bodyguard, but violence is sometimes just, whenever an act of violence can reduce the overall level of violence for example. Anarchists need to keep their tactics diverse and adaptable, a sea of opinion eroding the rock of the state. I don't know who choose the four horses or why, but I think the decison to hold different events was a good one that proved successful.

I only watched the demos from afar, on low res Sky TV pictures but even from that sick vantage point it is clear that both of the demos could learn something from the successes and failures of the other one. For instance, non-violence didn't prove too successful a tactic for the Greens holding their camp for a day, but it did bring police brutality home to a wider section of society even before Tomlinson was reported murdered.

The Observer may have been reported if an anarchist protestor had been killed, but all the media except the BBC have covered this important story properly once the Guardian released their footage. Even the Times and the Telegraph are using this to beat the police tactics now. That is partly thanks to the anarchists, like you, at the climate camp giving the media a 'fluffier' type of casuality / witness.

Danny

Actually BBC News 24 had the Tomlinson footage on 'heavy rotation' for a whole day. It started of with caveated language but after a few hours it moved from "alleged push" to the the ever-so-daring forthright and unequivocal 'pushed'.

Defending yourself from attack is not violent behaviour. The Police assaults were violent, the defensive REactions weren't. NVDA and complete pacifism are not the same thing.

And we can tell from your comments on social class, you are an inverted snob who is too stupid to realise he is perpetuating the class system by his pride in being a class victim (like all of us are). The idea of class struggle is to overcome class and achieve equality, no to put the shoe on the other foot. And it has obviously escaped your notice than a substantial chunk of anarchist intellectuals were born into castes other than Working, and unsurprisingly had the free will to reject their inherited culture and look beyond it.

Arguing that only working class people are capable of being anarchists is obviously extremely moronic, as caste is a social phenomenon and not a genetic one. Does a social dialect prevent anarchist thinking in the same way that 19th century racists believed black people "couldn't speak English on account of their thick lips" or that neolithic tribes were subhuman due to their lack of algebra?

The fact of the matter is that the class divisions of Marx and his ilk are largely gone- though the extreme gap is worsening. Some of us wish to see them completely gone.

P.S. correcting others' "language failings" is regarded in modern education/linguistics as a rather bourgeois trait hungover largely from the once Latinate, didactic authoritarianism of the Public School system. An attitude that was and still is to a lesser degree responsible for great social marginalisation of the Working Class. At least be consistent in your hatred of everything non-or anti-proletarian!

>Actually BBC News 24 had the Tomlinson footage on 'heavy rotation' for a whole day.
Not on the day though, BBC coverage was minimal.

>And we can tell from your comments on social class, you are an inverted snob who is too stupid to realise he is perpetuating the class system by his pride in being a class victim
Unless you are assuming I've posted multiple comments on this thread under various names,which I haven't, I don't think you should be calling anyone stupid. You go on to correct several mistakes you claim I've made, except I didn't make them. Reread what I really said - I have no problem with the climate change campers calling themselves anarchist and made no class analysis of them. So you are creating strawmen for the sake of argument, but let me help you pad them out a bit.

>Arguing that only working class people are capable of being anarchists is obviously extremely moronic,
Good job I never argued that then eh?

>as caste is a social phenomenon and not a genetic one.
Tell that to the inbred upper classes! Truth is working class kids get harsher sentences for the same crime and middle class kids, who have spent their whole lives being selected for obedience, are more likely to be police informers, sell-outs or trying to build a political career out of mild protest. That isn't a criticism of CC though, just a personal observation of class differences between the activists I've known.

>The fact of the matter is that the class divisions of Marx and his ilk are largely gone
Bullshit, they've just been more closely defined so as to be more useful to the corporate marketeers. Britain is as divided as ever, more so than ever in simple terms of wealth, health and education.

>P.S. correcting others' "language failings" is regarded in modern education/linguistics as a rather bourgeois trait hungover largely from the once Latinate, didactic authoritarianism of the Public School system. An attitude that was and still is to a lesser degree responsible for great social marginalisation of the Working Class. At least be consistent in your hatred of everything non-or anti-proletarian!

Again, bullshit. There is nothing wrong with education and knowledge, it is just a shame only 7% of the British public can afford the best education possible. It is a good thing to know the difference between AKA and QED and there is nothing wrong with pointing that out.

I had news 24 on the day (or rather the morning after the night...) the Guardian broke the video footage. It was rotated heavily, albeit with the caveats indicated gradually waning. I assume a timorous stance whilst waiting for more accurate language to pass through Legal.

I have notice you stick the boot in on class in many threads. You reasoning seems quite clearly that only working classes can be anarchists.

I can only guess you have done no reading on Victorian social conditions a.k.a. working class abject poverty. Things are bad now, but there were truly horrific for my great grandparents. Infant mortality is by comparison negligible, whilst social factors in mortality are still shameful there is no longer raw sewage flowing through working class streets, and nutritional pathology has stood its head. Educational access (despite recent setbacks) is vastly better for the working classes. Nowhere near perfect, but also nowhere near Dickens. And certainly no argument to rest on our laurels while the rich claw back all the progress now.

A far more accurate and honest rebuttal would have gone thus: the ruling elite have now simply moved the class horror abroad to where it is cheaper to exploit people, and now the Working class are riding on the backs of misery too. If not in fact, condemned to ride in that saddle more than the better paid- as low income families have little choice but to shop unethically.

The gap between the middle classes and the working class is narrowing. The strata/mechanics of the Marxist era is near defunct.

At best, pulling people up for their grocer's apostrophes is needless pedantry which serves to demoralise the target, at worst it is the repressive measure familiar to any dialect speaker in the UK. If you know what people mean,and you that their intended target will understand the speaker, the 'correct English' lesson serves only to elevate the corrector above the correctee: it's linguistic divisiveness at the thin edge of the class apartheid you espouse to reject.

At the very least familiarise yourself with Keith Waterhouse and ask yourself if you really want to pitch a tent in his camp. Better still, get a second hand edition Trudgill's essential (jargon-light) reading 'Sociolinguistics'. Language is possibly the first social battlefield we all encounter.

Attacking people for their background just isn't very helpful and no more clever than the bigots in Oxbridge who act class gatekeepers.

>I have notice you stick the boot in on class in many threads.

If you thought things had changed,
Friend you’d better think again,
Bluntly put in the fewest of words,
Cunts are still running the world.

I'm half peasant so I'm allowed to hate everyone thanks to Mao. If you want to have a go at my attitudes on class then why not wait until I comment on an article about class. You just thought I was having a go about Climate Camp when I wasn't, so don't bother recommending books for me to read, away and learn how to read yourself. A few years ago I honestly didn't think class was of any interest to me as an anarchist but that was a bad mistake. I'd say it is fairly crucial as an activist, knowing how people from different backgrounds are prepared to interact with state and corporate power, who is motivated by what.

>The gap between the middle classes and the working class is narrowing.

No, it isn't. Maybe since Dickensian times but over my life time the gap between the middle classes and the working class has widened and is widenening at an increasing rate. Thatcher sold lots of the working class their own coucil homes, and renamed them middle-class, but I don't think home ownership is a class indicator.

>The strata/mechanics of the Marxist era is near defunct.
Actually sales of Marx are through the roof in the West, again you couldn't be more wrong.

>At best, pulling people up for their grocer's apostrophes is needless pedantry which serves to demoralise the target, at worst it is the repressive measure familiar to any dialect speaker in the UK.

Nah, that's a misrepresentation. I never criticised his use of AKA, I merely pointed it out so next time he may communicate more clearly.

>Attacking people for their background just isn't very helpful and no more clever than the bigots in Oxbridge who act class gatekeepers.

It isn't very helpful to who exactly? Military Intelligence don't recruit from the sort of places I've been educated.


Lot's of the protestors on all the G20 events who have been interviewed seem genuinely shocked by police tactics and police violence. It wasn't shocking to anyone who lives in a poor neighborhood. It is standard practice, every weekend. I've seen a middle aged male cop smash a baton into a girls skull drawing blood, she must have been about 12 years old, and then throw her into the back of a police van. Her only crime was to be trying to walk past a fight between some lads, and the cop was trying to look busy until the fight was over and he could arrest the lads. Her mistake was to assume a policeman was there to protect her from violence when she was old enough to know better.

Police violence is appalling, unjust and illegal but it isn't the lest bit shocking or surprising to the working class. When a cop draws a baton you can either run, fight or bleed, and if you are going to fight then you have to be prepared. I saw a nice tribute to Tomlinson from another Millwall fan who pointed out that he would have been used to being treated as a subhuman by the cops simply for wearing a Millwall shirt.