Talkin Bout a Revolution

[David Guyatt]

I posted this in another thread, but like Peter P I consider the observations of the protestor important, and am adding them here:

I was driving today and listening to news reports of the November 24 student protest on the radio.

The key image for MSM and the government spin doctors has been the police riot van being attacked by "violent protestors".

On the radio, I heard a marcher say that this was all a setup. The police van was deliberately abandoned by police in the area where the most militant students had gathered.

The rozzers then mysteriously vanished.

MSM snappers and TV crews stayed.

Another setup, then.

And even then, some marchers apparently tried to stop other marchers from attacking the deliberately abandoned police van.....

It absolutely looked like it had been purposely abandoned to me. The police cordon - and several other vans used for blocking - were located at both ends of the street, and the van left in the middle.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Plus there was a police cavalry charge caught on camera, despite an official denial of such an event by the Met Police Commissioner. It can be seen at c1:09 in the YouTube clip.

Great way to radicalize kids. :dancing:

Here are some words:

Student protests: video shows mounted police charging London crowd

Met police issue denial but witnesses tell of terrifying ordeal

Adam Gabbatt and Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk, Friday 26 November 2010 13.50 GMT

Video footage has emerged showing mounted police charging a crowd of protesters during this week's tuition fees demonstrations, the day after the Metropolitan police said tactics "did not involve charging the crowd".

Tens of thousands of school and college pupils and university students demonstrated in largely peaceful protests across the country against government plans to increase tuition fees and scrap the education maintenance allowance, but there were violent scenes at the central London protests. Hundreds of protesters were corralled or "kettled" by police, and later advanced upon by mounted officers.

Many who were in the crowd complained of being charged by police on horseback.

Police have denied that mounted officers charged at protesters; however, a five-minute video posted on YouTube last night shows a number of officers on horseback advancing at speed through a crowd of people.

Jenny Love, 22, who graduated from Bath University in July, said mounted officers "charged without warning".

"When the horses charged I was fairly near the front of the demo, where we were very tightly packed in, and found myself very quickly on the floor where I assumed the foetal position and covered my head while people simply ran over me," she said.

"Thankfully another protester picked me up before I could suffer any serious damage."

Love described the charge "as pretty terrifying" and said she suffered bruising during the ordeal. "I'm very angry that the mounted police were ordered to charge on a crowd containing many people like me who were only interested in peaceful protest," she said. "Police chiefs should think themselves lucky that no one was more seriously injured."

Naomi Bain, a member of support staff at Birkbeck University, was at Whitehall on Wednesday to protest against the government cuts. She said: "We were right at the front of the crowd. I've been in a lot of protests before, so we weren't particularly scared of police shouting at us and telling us to move. We were standing our ground – until the horse charge.

"I don't think I've ever seen anything quite so frightening. I've seen police on horseback, but this was like a cavalry charge. There was a line of police on foot, and they just moved out of the way, then maybe a hundred yards down the street there was a line of police on horseback. We'd been standing firmly and just moving back slowly, but when the police on horseback charged, that was the moment when we absolutely ran."

Bain said she was standing with school and college pupils, some as young as 15, when mounted police advanced. "There were people who fell down who would have been under the horses' hooves if they hadn't been grabbed – and these were really young kids as well."

Jonathan Warren, a freelance photojournalist who was at the protest, said mounted police advanced "with no warning". "There was a line of police officers, which parted, and then the police on horseback just started charging," he said, adding that protesters were left "angry and scared".

Archie Young, 18, who was protesting with his mother, Josa, said he was left bruised following the charges. "I was at the forefront of the crowd of protesters that they charged, yes – my left boot still has a hoofprint-shaped mark on it from where I was trodden on," he said.

Yesterday a spokesman for the Metropolitan police said: "Police horses were involved in the operation, but that did not involve charging the crowd." He added: "I dare say they [officers policing the Whitehall demonstrations] were doing the movements the horses do to help control the crowd for everyone's benefit, which has been a recognised tactic for many, many years, but no, police officers charging the crowd – we would say, 'No, they did not charge the crowd.'"

However the spokesman did also say that charging was a "quite specific term". His rebuttal came after the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, told a Metropolitan police authority meeting he had "no reference" to police officers on horseback charging at protesters.

The Guardian witnessed a charge by police mounted on about 10 horses shortly after 7pm on Wednesday near Trafalgar Square. The incident occurred when about 1,000 protesters had gathered outside the kettle to call for those inside to be released. Some began hurling missiles and surging forward.

In a co-ordinated move, the riot officers, who numbered about 100, simultaneously retreated to the sides of the street, allowing the horses to come forward approximately 100 metres. Panic spread through the crowd as protesters sprinted away. Witnesses said it was the second time police had charged with horses in the space of an hour, with unconfirmed reports of a young man having been trampled.

The police denial that officers had charged was strongly disputed by people commenting on the Guardian's coverage of the protest aftermath yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26...ses-charge

[Magda Hassan]

I posted this in another thread, but like Peter P I consider the observations of the protestor important, and am adding them here:

I was driving today and listening to news reports of the November 24 student protest on the radio.

The key image for MSM and the government spin doctors has been the police riot van being attacked by "violent protestors".

On the radio, I heard a marcher say that this was all a setup. The police van was deliberately abandoned by police in the area where the most militant students had gathered.

The rozzers then mysteriously vanished.

MSM snappers and TV crews stayed.

Another setup, then.

And even then, some marchers apparently tried to stop other marchers from attacking the deliberately abandoned police van.....

It absolutely looked like it had been purposely abandoned to me. The police cordon - and several other vans used for blocking - were located at both ends of the street, and the van left in the middle.

From Sky News of all places but still a cop out on their part. . Click here to play video http://blogs.news.sky.com/frontlineblog/...eb70b3cb98
Take a look at the video below. These shots were captured at the student demonstration in Whitehall on Wednesday.

It shows the police van, which would become the target of vandals, shortly after it had parked up. The shots were filmed by a Sky News cameraman at 12:48pm - 12 minutes before the decision to contain thousands of protesters.
Does it portray a tense, volatile situation, in which police officers are in a vulnerable position?
This is an important question. On the day of the protests, the Met released a statement saying the carrier had been left because "officers felt vulnerable and decided the best course of action was to leave the van", yet the first obvious acts of vandalism towards the van did not occur until just after 1:05pm.
The pictures seem to show that the scene at 12:48pm was not obviously threatening. Indeed a group of Territorial Support Group officers can be seen first looking at the carrier and then walking past it. They are attracting little attention from the crowds.
So why did they leave it there? From 12:58pm protesters are picked up on the microphones of Sky News cameras asking 'why has that van been left there?'.
As the day progressed, and the vehicle was vandalised, there were some in the crowd claiming it had been left intentionally as 'bait' to provoke criminal damage and justify the use of containment tactics.
That theory has now become the focus of internet debate - search for 'bait van' and you'll have no problem finding a number of differing explanations, some pointing to a basic operational balls-up, others arguing it was a fully developed conspiracy.
The Met dismiss this speculation out of hand.
It's fair to say, most of the so-called evidence wheeled out by the conspiracy theorists does not stand-up.
The vehicle's markings were not 'out-of-date', the license plates were on the vehicle until they were ripped off, and the rust on the back windows indicates nothing other than it was one of the older vehicles in the Met's fleet of carriers.
There is however a legitimate question of why the vehicle was not moved when, as our video seems to suggest, there was an opportunity to do so.
We've put that question to the Met and we're now awaiting a response.
The explanation is likely to be fairly straightforward. The officers in our shots may have been focused on another aspect of the operation, the scene may have been more volatile when the van was forced to stop, the officers seen in the shots may have been ordered to join their colleagues in the police lines, maybe they simply didn't have the keys?
Whatever the explanation, the idea that officers were forced to abandon the vehicle because they were in a vulnerable position doesn't quite fit with the footage.

[David Guyatt]

Blimey! For Sky that is really quite astonishing.

Double blimey! The BBC footage of the Police cavalry charge shows what liars the Met are about this incident.

[David Guyatt]

The grovelment continues to engage in desperate tactics to deflect attention from the latest student protests, this time by bringing in the dependable royals to face the growing anger, in order to raise the hackles of Mr. & Mrs. Ordinary Voter.

But...

After tuition fees vote, students will ensure politicians are the biggest losers
The electorate will not forgive or forget the betrayal by Vince Cable and others who broke their pledge to oppose higher fees

Aaron Porter
guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 December 2010 11.30 GMT

Student protesters gather before marching on parliament where the vote on tuition fees was taking place.

The last 30 days have shaken the coalition. Together with UCU, the lecturers' union, we brought 50,000 to the streets of London on 10 November for the biggest student demonstration in a generation. It has sparked a new wave of activism that has involved tens of thousands of students, parents, pupils and teachers in creative, nonviolent protests and direct action.

By piling pressure on MPs with dozens of spontaneous demonstrations, scores of occupations and hundreds of thousands taking action around the country, we have come together to defend education and fight for our future. A generation has found its voice.

We won the arguments and the battle for public opinion and, even in parliament, MPs admitted they agreed with us that the government's proposals were unfair, unnecessary and wrong before trailing through the lobbies to vote for them. There are no winners from Thursday's vote, but we will ensure that the biggest losers will be politicians.

We lost the vote in the House of Commons because MPs broke the promises they made to voters. We knew that had their pledges been honoured, we would have won the day.

Twenty-one Liberal Democrat MPs kept their promises and they deserve our praise. I will write to each of them individually to thank them for standing up for students and their families. It was great to see them join Conservative, Labour, Green, SNP, Plaid Cymru, DUP, SDLP and independent MPs as a rainbow coalition to vote down the government's proposals. It is a democratic disgrace that their motion was not considered and that the people were not heard.

The responsibility for the outcome lies on the shoulders of those MPs who have broken their promises to voters. Those who broke their pledge and voted for the government have lied, and those who abstained have not only lied, but they are also cowards. As a result of that vote, students will pay a big price but many politicians cost themselves their integrity and their seats. They dishonoured themselves in the lobbies.

MPs in seats such as Bath, Burnley, Bradford East, Bristol West and Brent Central are a busted flush. The claim from Simon Hughes that he abstained in the vote "on principle" is a joke and Nick Clegg has lost all integrity. As he has spun on his heels in ill-advised U-turn after U-turn, Vince Cable's credibility has been shot to pieces. This may impress Strictly Come Dancing judges, but voters will take a very dim view. The electorate will not forgive or forget this betrayal.

We intend to hold politicians to account for what they have already done and in time we will do so.

But we have urgent battles to fight. The proposals to triple fees will go the House of Lords on Tuesday and we will be urging peers to vote them down. On Monday we will join forces with teachers and lecturers for a day of action to save the education maintenance allowance. The EMA transforms lives and supports the poorest college learners to stay in education. We will fight to defend it as the government looks to pull up the drawbridge on the next generation and price out the poorest learners.

If universities are to be allowed to charge up to £9,000 then promoting, defending and extending the rights of students will become even more crucial than it is already.

Our fight is not just an issue of policy, but one of principle. The government has blamed the financial crisis and told us there is no alternative. The first people who will pay these astronomical fees were aged just 13 when the banks fell. They didn't cause the crisis but they are becoming its victims.

There is still much to be done to build on what we have done together. The student movement has a strong future but we are in the fight of our lives to defend ourselves and each other. Our fight goes on.

In 5 years after this grovelment goes to the polls again, the LibDems will discover they are finished for another 100 years...

[Peter Presland]

Watch this video.

London's finest dragging a man with cerebral palsy from his wheelchair and about 30 yards across the road before being stopped by other protestors.

Then note the persistent attempts by the BBC interviewer to incriminate the victim in a classic illustration of Orwellian role reversal. The thing is I bet the interviewer simply has no idea what he is doing either.

Jody McIntyre makes a telling point about how the interviewer might deal with Prince Charles being treated in similar circumstances.

The BBC fawning subservience to any kind of State sanctioned power is, as always puke-inducing

[Magda Hassan]

One of the most ridiculous interviews I have ever seen. "But the police thought you were wheeling towards them" Well it wasn't a bloody armoured tank the man is in a wheel chair and uses it like walking.

[Magda Hassan]

ben.brown@bbc.co.uk
His email, I believe, if anyone wants to tell him what a bloody awful interviewer he is.

[Peter Presland]

One of the most ridiculous interviews I have ever seen. "But the police thought you were wheeling towards them" Well it wasn't a bloody armoured tank the man is in a wheel chair and uses it like walking.

He is also unable to propel the wheelchair himself but needed someone - to push it for him.

There's another very brief Flash 10 video from press TV here. It is prima facie evidence that there were indeed determined and well briefed agent provocateurs operating under police cover in Parliament Square.

I had a brief spat in the comments section of Iain Dale's Blog on the subject the other day after Dale issued one of his Dale-Winton-like profundities to the effect that demonstrators must be required to remove face coverings (I enjoy winding them up occasionally)

Requiring demonstrators to remove face coverings is a non-starter I'm afraid. Not least because it would pose a serious problem for the police themselves by making it both difficult and extremely dangerous for their Agent provocateurs to continue operating

I know I know, Our fine upstanding police forces would not stoop to deliberately provoking violence, much less staging the odd bit of spectacular criminal damage for the cameras themselves now would they? The Chief Constable himself ridicules the idea, so perish the very thought.

But hang on a mo - as the effects of peak just-about-everything and the consequent end to that sine-qua-non of capitalism, economic-growth, become increasingly in-your-face bloody obvious to those with half a brain (and those not quarantined in the Westminster goldfish bowl); in turn dictating the ever more draconian policing/surveillance powers clearly needed to maintain a bankrupt system, on which those in (or aspiring to) power currently depend - ask yourself this one simple question: QUI BONO?

Then take a look at the many 'balance of probability' and several 'beyond reasonable doubt' cases of recent police agent-provocateuring. A simple Google search should do the trick.

Though I guess it's less intellectually challenging to simply go with the flow, join the Daily Mail in its apoplectic outrage and indulge that age old urge to simply kill the messenger eh?

The apoplexy it generated together with most of the other comments are illuminating and depressing in equal measure.

[Peter Presland]

ben.brown@bbc.co.uk
His email, I believe, if anyone wants to tell him what a bloody awful interviewer he is.

Thanks Magda

I sent the following:

I suggest you watch your interview with Jody McIntyre again and try -
strain every sinew and TRY - to understand what you were doing throughout.

What is it with the BBC eh?

Whenever there are issues of political/establishment power involved
every possible attempt must be made to incriminate the victim. Are you
briefed on the methodology or does it just come naturally to you?

No doubt you will also find any suggestion that there are determined,
well-briefed, police sanctioned groups of hooded and very violent
agent provocateurs operating in pretty well all politically motivated
demonstrations these days? - perish the very thought eh? This is Britain
for Gods sake; we have 'British Values'. The BBC, along with most of
what passes for journalism these days, is so far up its own arse it
simply can't see daylight. anymore

Shame on you.



Peter Presland
WikiSpooks <https://wikispooks.com>

I'll keep the thread posted on any reply