Hopefully, a point has been made.

Anyone who upsets the status quo is going to have their property smashed up and their liberty taken from them. The same applies to anyone, knowingly or unknowingly, asscociated with them. No exceptions or excuses.

The best way to deal with terrorists is to either lock them up, smash their property, or kill them.

Yes, you are right. The Iona school is a private school that some out of Sneinton parents pay £3k per year to send their kids too. It also has a fair number of kids attending from working class families in Sneinton who's places are funded by the school. The school has no income, it raises money by fund raising and the small amount of fees.

If you want to comment, then at least comment on things you know. I appreciate your trot views on smash the classes, but this is a tiny school in a shit building with limited resources. Not some place with polo ponies outside!

The school follows steiner principles, don't know much about it myself, but maybe better to teach things to kids outside of the government controlled eduction system that you would prefer. Look up Steiner and see what it's about.

My original post was trying to keep people informed about the situation at the school. A school that has been smashed up because the police don't give a shit. This is not a place to start discussing the in's and out's of our education system.

As I mentioned if anyone wants to help out in Nottingham with repairs or help then please contact the school. It is a valuable part of the Sneinton community and would show the press that we ain't all bad. If you want to sit on your arse moaning about everything, but doing nothing then just shut up. You make no difference to the world we live in!

I'm sure wondering how the police found out about this is the last thing the 114 activists will have thought to do! Especially while they were so busy sat in cells all day with so many other more important things to think about! It's really sad that the school got smashed up but that's nothing compared to the destruction climate change has caused and will continue to cause, the destruction that these brave activists were presumably trying to act against. Suggesting that the 114 activists should go and and help fix the school up is rubbing salt in the wound, don't you think? Perhaps some of the vast majority of people who are too lazy/selfish to do something as brave as what these guys were trying to do, could get off their arses and help the school out? The 114 were acting for the good of us all and for the good of our only planet. Yes, occasionally actions are going to get busted and occasionally things are going to wrong, that's because none of us involved with the grassroots movement are hired professionals, we're just ordinary people trying to make the world a better place- sometimes things we try will go wrong, but at least we're trying. Now stop criticising the mistakes in other people's actions and get out there and plan your own.
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The joys of indymedia is that when ever I post the occasional comment on here someone is always anti what ever I have wrote, most of the time without knowing anything about me.

My comments at the bottom of my article basically agrees with what you are saying? Lazy bastards who don't do anything!

Maybe my dig at the actual activists was a bit close to the bone, I applaud the activists actions mate! Well done to em, they are all heroes in my eyes. I was just thinking that as activists then maybe they would be willing to repair the damage done by the police, the reason the school was raided because it happened to be in a location that the activists chose as a location for a meet. The mainstream media are trying to pin the blame for their actions on the activists, turning up to help the school can only be an good thing. At the minute residents in Sneinton are blaming the activists for it all. I know and you know that is bullshit, but the general public gets there info from the mainstream press.

If your comments about doing stuff and the importance of action on the climate are aimed at me then just know that I work for a local climate change charity as a community activist actively working with communities to reduce carbon (so know a little bit about climate change!!) and in my spare time am involved in local Sneinton transition movement and am also just helping the school apply for a wind turbine on the land at the back (in my spare time).

I have also been in touch with the school to offer to help with repairs, what you offering other than criticism?

The school insurance is paying out for the damage the police caused smashing open door etc while being offered keys. A clean up crew was offered but apparently not required. The school itself houses a number of educational and community projects and had no connection with those who had hired the space.

No insurance company in Britain will pay out for police action, it's a standard exemption. The police are liable for damage they cause, but are very slow to pay out.

Blair's New Labour Nazi thugs may have smashed up this school 'wrongly' in the moral sense of the word, but they were acting with the same specific intent as when they assaulted and murdered people during the G20 protests. And there is good reason why New Labour Nazi shills will attempt to demonize the school for being outside of state control.

Although you wouldn't know it from visiting Indymedia UK, Blair has announced National Service for all young people to coincide with the raising of the school-leaving age to 18. Idiots that think National Service will be avoided by a Conservative victory before 2011 will find the same proposals promised in the forthcoming Conservative manifesto. There is a two fold significance to these coming changes.

Firstly- the right to educate at home is to be abolished. The reason is that since young people can not claim benefit before 18, Blair has no financial leverage over them. The extension of the current school leaving age to 18 could currently be fulfilled by the young person educating themselves at home, with the excellent assistance of the Internet. Today, this would be completely legal. Do you think Blair is raising the school leaving age, only to have thousands of young people say "F**k you Blair".

Home-schooling is illegal in Germany, so the state has exclusive rights of indoctrination. Blair will use this model as an excuse to end home-schooling in Britain. Private schools will still be allowed, of course, since they are still under effective government control.

Secondly- National Service requires access to the young people, something that cannot happen if they are at home educating themselves (which is completely legal today for 17 and 18-year olds). Once the principle of National Service passes into British law, the duration and nature of the service can be varied without further votes in the Houses of Parliament. Blair's puppet (remember, Blair will be permanent president of the EU by then), be they Conservative or New Labour Nazi, will have absolute power to create an enforced Blair-youth military program.

The National Service program was created by a 'NGO' headed by Blunkett, and was floated as a Common Purpose document a few months back. It became official New Labour Nazi policy in that tiny period of time, giving you a clear insight into the operation and purpose of Common Purpose.

The real war is always a war for the minds of the young. When Blair's uniformed thugs smashed up this school, and mass arrested people associated with it, they were sending a clear message- dissent, and Blair will silence you, in that good old Hitler, Stalin, Mao fashion.

all day i've been thinking like everyone else in the country that the protesters were using the school unauthorised and pitying the poor sod with access to that school who had dragged them unwittingly into it as all along the media have been reporting it that way. and now it turns out the cops preferred to deliberately break into the EMPTY school actually refusing keys from the keyholder himself. even on the tv news when someone from the school was showing the journo round saying "this door is broken, that window" etc it still wasn't reported that the school wasn't touched by protesters. the cops are so wickedly dishonest, they've been encouraging the press to report things that way all along.

I know parents at this school. The school did not have any role in this action, and didn't authorise use of their premises, from what I've heard. The people who run it are very sound, and I wish them luck in bouncing back from this - rumours about computors or other learning equipment being siezed by police are false, incidentally. Also I don't think we should blame the protestors for holding a meeting - they didn't ask the police to smash down all the doors when the keyholder was right there!

Policing has changed, and the days when hundreds of people can crash together on a school or church floor are gone. Fifty tents scattered around the countryside would have stopped this arrest. Even the meet-ups should be no more than half the people at a time to make sure someone gets through.

I loathe Steiner schools ( and the fee is £3,800 ) but I know this isn't the time or place for bitching. I think Sneintonite is quite right to ask for protestors here to help repair the school, you should always take full responsibilty for clearing up any camp. It'd also be perfect publicity to repair what the police break. Not all the protestors will be social anthropologists and marine biologists, at least a few will be, or be friends with, a joiner who can fix the doorframes. Some will be teachers who could help out with lesson plans. Everyone could collect some kids books and crafts and send them to the school.

Sneintonite, if the school do want protestors to help then ask them for a list of the damage and of the confiscated equipment and posts it here, preferably with a few photos so the work can be estimated.

"we will fix it, we will stitch it, we will make it new, new, new"

Protestors should offer to help fix the damage the police have done, as it helps to show the wider community that the climate activsts are part of the community like the school rather than a 'bunch of irrational people' like the state would like to paint them to be.

fixing the damage isn't accepting responsibilty for it though. That should be made clear.

i am in london, a single parent kept busy with school holidays being on.
however, i can't help but wonder why y'all are saying "the activists" should repair the school, by which i am presuming you mean the 114 arrestees.
i totally agree that it would be right and proper (and good PR) for folks from the wider activist community in nottingham and their friends to offer help to the school.
it just seems like the actual arrestees surely have enough to deal with this week?
how about those in nottingham who have been posting about this go do it themselves? tell the school you are part of the same community as those arrested, do it on their behalf, but do it yourselves.
consider it arrestee support and solidarity.

Clarification: there was no one in the part of the building that is used as a school, the police smashed their way in there, refusing offers to open doors from keyholders who were there. Offers of help were put forward to the school, but as someone already has said their insurance company is dealing with it. They do not want lots of people ringing the school to offer help.

Also, can I suggest that people think about the comments and reports they put up in relation to the alleged incident. People have been arrested under conspiracy and don't need people who don't know what they are talking about putting up ill thought out comments.
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It's like some crap newspaper letters page with a bunch of people mouthing off about something they know nothing about without even bothering to read the previous comments. Indymedia should get rid of comments, they only encourage crap and are more harmful than useful.

The steiner school was not used by the 114 people arrested, they were using a different part of the complex,

The police either didn't have enough intelligence to raid the correct part of the building (which sadly seems unlikely), or they just enjoy smashing stuff up for the sake of it.

The special needs school was also smashed up by the cops, leaving glass all over the carpet and forcing the school to cancel the day nursery and loss around £500 in revenue.

The school was offered help fixing the damage and cleaning up but they did not want the help. The insurance company has looked at the damage and agreed to pay.

Now perhaps people could stop talking shit.

The Ofsted report on this school reports that "The school makes outstanding provisions for the pupils spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and is at the heart of the schools purpose. There is a very strong emphasis on respect for each individual. Pupils are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning; they learn tolerance, care and concern for others, which underpin everything the school does. The emphasis on quiet reflection, tolerance for others, and creative development means that there is a great celebration of diversity and different ways of doing things. Social responsibility and moral development are encouraged very well indeed through the everyday happenings, stories and the history and geography themes"

Would that some of the various posters above demonstrate such qualities. Would that all schools demonstrate such qualities.

While there is justifiable reason to be angry at much, if not most, of what Government and Corporate activity results in, that anger has to be harnessed and then focussed to be an effective driver of change. Abusive commentary negates such a drive.

One of the FACTS about State Complusion Schooling is that the processes children are subjected to will give rise to anger, an anger that many may find hard to manage, mostly because it was their own parents who, in good faith, sent them to state schools (and who what child wishes to direct anger at their parents) and because the design of state compulsion schooling SYSTEMS per se tends towards exterting adverse control over pupils lives in ways which the pupil is disempowered - and within that there is a huge conspiracy of silence with regard to this FACT. Teachers and Administrators refuse to blow the whistle to protect their income and careers. "It's more than my jobs worth..."

That leaves many young people very, very angry yet without a place to direct that anger at.

That is intentional, for some uses of that unfocussed anger serve the state system : military, police, prison systems et al are obvious beneficiaries of this. Those police who as we have seen 'attack' peaceful people have serious anger management problems which their superiors capitalise upon.

Those who 'drop out' or are 'disruptive' serve as a warning to others to toe the line.

Others are driven to 'succeed' by that same anger. Those who are from poorer areas suffer most from this. They are not always to blame, the system sets this up for it's own purposes - to divide communities. To enroll that anger and direct it at those to be demonised. Currently it is Islamic people. It was the Irish when I first came to England.

The state is not the only entity to direct that unconscious anger.

That undirected anger can be observed on many high streets on the weekends when many drunken folk, of all ages, pour out their venom on each other. That also keeps A&E wards quite busy.

All of which serves to support the States contention that we need police, prisons etc etc to keep all these 'types' in line, so to speak. when in fact the Police protect the state, and the prison system merely professionalises criminality.

To those who post such angry sloganeering on such asite as Indymedia, whose purpose is to report what is occurring at the grass roots, fromthe grass roots perspective, an absolutley neccessary activity in these times, I say this - learn to manage your anger, find the place where it ought best be utilised for effective change, if you really want to help.

Those who are provocative can become provocateurs, and can be 'managed' by skilled operatives without realising it. Of course there are professional paid provocateurs as well. They will be more easily rooted out if those who are simply angry can manage their anger as a tool of effective change, because such effective change precludes actions such as smashing windows for the worlds press (thus undermining the intent and message of ture dissent).

As in the Ian Tomlinson case, the movement cannot co-opt events for it's own purpuses without entering into areas of activity that they claim to wish to change.

Ian Tomlinson was no protestor, his tragic death was a combination of factors. He is not to be used as apolitical football. The movement can address policing as well as retaining the message - this has been lost in all the reportage on the London G20 events. Not one piece of media has been focussed on WHY the climate campers were there and what their valid arguments are.

And that is because some people seem to be either unable or unwilling (it is a good adrenalin rush, after all!) to FOCUS their anger, and thei minds and bring bot to bear on the issues we and our children will face in the future, short-term and long-term.