G20

polystyle

Well-known member
Quite a confluence today in London
A reported 4000 protesters out today
Video of people pushing , shoving on CNN Int. right now
One square filled with people , many in black blocking access to a major highway is it ?
Tonight sounds like it could get hot ...
How's it for Dissensians out in there ?

Merkl looks for regulation
China comes in strong
Russia - US talk nuke reduction for first time in dunno , 10 years
The N Korea missile they said was a sat sits on the launch pad, but lost game to S Korea
Sudans leader pretty much fetted and defended
Conficker computer virus April 1
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Crackerjack
just hearing from TV about the police tactic you experienced at the protest-
keeping protesters fenced in and not letting people out once they are in !
Must have been crazy to be in it ...
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Crackerjack
just hearing from TV about the police tactic you experienced at the protest-
keeping protesters fenced in and not letting people out once they are in !
Must have been crazy to be in it ...

"kettling" - been doing it at least since Mayday 2000. Keep protestors confined for hours and watch them get angrier and angrier.

We like our ritualistic confrontations in London.

I'm off up there to have a look in a minute. (it's on my way home).
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Crackerjack
just hearing from TV about the police tactic you experienced at the protest-
keeping protesters fenced in and not letting people out once they are in !
Must have been crazy to be in it ...

It was pretty calm for the first hour or so, then people started getting pissed off (and pissing - an informal bog was set about behind some banners strapped to the railings and the pavement looked like it was the centre of a rainstorm).

I began on Threadneedle St, then left when the dickheads started chucking red paint and bottles at the police (that reminds me - does putting your trainers thru the washing machine fuck them or the machine up?).

I asked one copper why we hadn't been warned what would happen and he said "we don't give away all our secrets". You could sense peopl getting increasingly ratty about being hemmed in. I was determined to sit it oout and avoid any violence, but I'd just had enough and there was a pretty clear tipping point when you could see a tide of people moving towards the Cheapside cordon so I joined that.

Once everyone deciced they were breaking through there was nothing the police could do to stop it. It didn't actually seem that violent and I got through without any major fuss, just a lot of pushing and pulling, some people trying to whack police with placards. I did my Ghandi bit, then kept on walking. Been reading guardian blogs and it seems minutes after wee broke through there they started letting people out.

I just don't understand the thinking that says the best way to handle a crowd with about 2-300 slightly violent people is to hem everyone else in with them against their will, so you've got thousands of demonstrators instead of hundreds.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
"kettling" - been doing it at least since Mayday 2000. Keep protestors confined for hours and watch them get angrier and angrier.

It was clearly a prearranged tactic. The PCs station at one cordon wanred us beforehand that this might happen, so i went around to the one on Threadneedle St which ws pretty lax. Until.


I'm off up there to have a look in a minute. (it's on my way home).

I'm getting the Free John Eden banners ready
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Think the logic is to use the blocked in protesters as human buffer that's not going to move until they allow them to ?
 

martin

----
I just don't understand the thinking that says the best way to handle a crowd with about 2-300 slightly violent people is to hem everyone else in with them against their will, so you've got thousands of demonstrators instead of hundreds.

It's a top tactic, works, and has a lot to do with human dynamics. Technically, it's easier to police 800 fenced off, fed up folks (and this tactic goes way back to football matches in the 60s and 70s) than it is having smaller groups running around freely. Just look what happens to people when their tube's stuck in a tunnel for a hour on a sweltering hot day - they normally snap and lose it with each other.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
'13 arrested so far, 11 for trying to bring in Police uniforms'
people drinking inside a police corden,
"The Climate Camp'
'Financial Fools Day'
'G20 Meltdown'
'Make Capitalism History !'

The view from Grace Church St.
Bank Of England windows broken
Royal Bank Of Scotland as well ?
No cabs, hard to get around, 'completely melted down'
Rush hour coming
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
'13 arrested so far, 11 for trying to bring in Police uniforms'
people drinking inside a police corden,
"The Climate Camp'
'Financial Fools Day'
'G20 Meltdown'
'Make Capitalism History !'

The view from Grace Church St.
Bank Of England windows broken
Royal Bank Of Scotland as well ?
No cabs, hard to get around, 'completely melted down'
Rush hour coming

23 arrests so far, RBS the main target of window-smashers - lots of good TV footage. I like the fake coppers idea - but how were they so stupid as to get caught?

Foyles remains intact, thus far.

Amidst armageddon, pockets of civlisation remain.:D
 

polystyle

Well-known member
Rain in the Middle East
Drone attack kills 8 in Pakistan
Orissa. Rare tornado on India's East Coast
Helicopter ditches in North Sea with 16 onboard
Canadian Oil Co. confirms 1000 seabird deaths
Natalie Cole liver transplant
Rare dolphins discovered in jungle

world leaders arriving via the Quadrangle inside Buckingham Palace
Obama , the Queen , Brown , Merkl , Hillary
Dinner at Downing St.
My wife happens to be in London as of yesterday ,
will be hearing how she's doing today in all this activity !

What's the soundtrack to today and tomorrow's street fighting ...
?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
It's a top tactic, works...

hell yeah it is...so much easier to control a single large mass than tons of smaller groups roaming around a city...once a few years ago at an anti-IMF demo I saw the D.C. cops execute it to perfection...just hemmed everyone from the big main (planned, permitted) march in at the beginning, pressed them up agianst a row of buildings & arrested everyone en masse...like 800 ppl, charged them all with disorderly just to get bodies off the streets...

on the other hand think of something like Seattle, all these small groups going around unchecked...I mean this sounds silly but it's like guerrilla warfare, you're never going to be able to stand up to the cops in an open fight, or rush a well-defended barricade...makes so much more sense to hit & run...swim in the sea of non-protestors...I reckon that business about dressing up as cops was a bit too clever for its own good...

anyway I'm quite skeptical about these big protest summits & have been for some time...whether you go to chuck a brick or to hold a placard it's equally symbolic...I guess as John Eden says people love their symbolic confrontations, make the whole thing into a big Spectacle...I guess the economic nuts & bolts stuff is much less exciting...

*EDIT* but nonetheless best of luck to Crackerjack & anyone else out on the streets...
 
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Tanadan

likes things
I began on Threadneedle St, then left when the dickheads started chucking red paint and bottles at the police (that reminds me - does putting your trainers thru the washing machine fuck them or the machine up?).

I've done this - it's fine for both, although it didn't have much of an effect on the trainers themselves.

craner said:
Foyles remains intact, thus far.

Oh, that's good to know. No sarcasm.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
There are TV pics now of the police just wading in with truncheons. Even Sky News (sample quote earlier: the police seem to have handled things pretty well) aare shocked.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
didn't see much of anything on the way home. Very quiet, no traffic. Lots of roads blocked off.

A few groups of people sitting down in front of police lines. I saw one guy stand up and just walk towards the cops and get arrested, which was a bit mad.

Apparently the cops are now harassing the fluffy climate change campers, tho. Not good.
 
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