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re: G20 and policing in general
I also agree that something needs to be done. We all know how the police are in the States and it sickens me how many British people turn a blind eye to things like what happened at the G20 march and claim that the police are different here. They're not!
For those of you who are familiar with psychologist Zimbardo's 'Prison Study' we know that once the uniform is on police have an overwelming sence of power over the public, which for some reason makes them treat the public like they should be thrown around are treated like cattle when the order is given.
I KNOW that at least from where I am police call the cells "the bins" and I am personally sick of seeing police on protesters like flies, we did nothing to deserve a stigmatised label, we fight for our own peace and justice and if the police have nothing to hide then they would not have to restirct us from expressing our voice.
"Policeman takes his club to a head, just like he's beating a drum.
The news reporters dance like hell, to the sounds."
news
G20 and policing in general
I think it is clear to most people with a critical mind that we have a problem with our police. Even before Ian Tomlingson at G20 (and the other video of an unknown woman being beaten) most people could see that the police can bully, brutalised, disrespect and pretty much commit any crime they wish with impunity. The IPCC are in the pockets of the police and fail to bring the force of the law against them, as can be seen by their sluggish investigation and denial of there being CCTV cameras in the area, only to be shamed into admitting 10 days later that there were indeed cameras in the area.
Anyway basically some thing needs to be done, and while it is important to protest in the streets, I think we must use all the arrows in our quiver. So I have created an online petition urging the government to control the police and would greatly appriciate any signitures offered.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/policecontrol/
Thanx
news
Save The Lambeth's Women Project!
The Lambeth Women’s Project is facing a new threat of closure - as Lambeth Council have told them they want to give their building at 166a Stockwell Road in Brixton to the neighbouring school. Please help stop this from happening!
There are a number of ways in which you can help:
1. Sign the petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lambethwomen/index.html
This petition has been around for a while, but if you have not signed it yet PLEASE DO SO NOW!! The Project needs to be able to prove to the council that they have mass support, and the petition is one way in which they can show this. So if you can’t do anything else please take two minutes to add your name.
2. If you live in the borough of Lambeth, please write to your local MPs and councillors to ask them to stop the council from closing LWP:
Councillor Rachel Heywood rheywood@lambeth.gov.uk
Kate Hoey MP hoeyk@parliament.uk
Tessa Jowell MP jowellt@parliament.uk
3. Send a statement of support, memories of LWP or ideas for how you would like to use LWP in the future to: savelambethwomensproject@gmail.com These will be used to support the proposal (see below) to keep the building which the project is submitting to the council.
If your group/organisation has had any involvement with LWP, it is important that this is documented. Even if your group/organisation has not had any relationship with LWP in the past but would like to discuss using LWP’s space in the future, please do get in touch asap.
Some more info about Lambeth Women’s Project
There has been a Women’s Project at 166A Stockwell Road for 30 years now. The project has served countless women from Lambeth and the rest of London. We do not intend to let this legacy die now. We applaud Lambeth council for the recent unveiling of the Bronze Women statue just minutes away from our building but are concerned that she will become a monument to the needless loss of a women’s service in the borough.
Lambeth Women’s Project proposes that Lambeth council leases the building they have been existing in for the last 30 years to them formally for a period of 5 years in order for the project to prove that they can exist as a successful, autonomous space that serves its local community. Our current service has been hindered by building problems, a flood and a lack of clear status with the council. We would like to clarify this situation and show the council exactly what a diverse, useful, dynamic and needed space LWP really is and can be.
These are just some of the groups that have a long standing relationship with LWP: Muslim Sisters Jammat, Lambeth Women’s Aid, Lambeth Childminders, Black Deaf Sistahs’ Group, The Eritrean Women’s Group, Hi Tea, Lambeth Young Women’s Service, Girls Rock! UK, Remembering Olive Morris Collective, Feminist Activist Forum, Women Asylum Seekers Together, Urban Inclusion, Lambeth Archive, The Feminist Library.
PLEASE ACT URGENTLY TO HELP SAVE THIS UNIQUE AND MUCH-VALUED PROJECT!!
news
G20 and what it means to me
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. or I must not fool myself, and I am the easiest person to fool!
Here's my angry look at the 'whole picture', in no particular order :
1. Policy and Policing is 'Force Majeur' in the context of the incidents at G20. The following is offered in support of this contention.
2. Police have never been mandated, other than as lip service, with anything other than protecting the state. The 'peelers' were 'invented' to keep the streets of parts of London clear of beggars. Safe for the new emerging middle classes and their lordships.
They exist today because most people would not accept troops on our streets. This is historical fact. That some volunteeer for 'good' reasons eg to protect the public etc etc is merely a reflection in the quality and depth of conditioning in our society.
3.a. Police arrests following public incidents are notorious for bias, falsified evidence. I am Irish, I came over here in '79. I was treated like Islamic people are treated today. I was under surveillance. I was 'interviewed' by Special Branch. I was regularily insulted by English people. I was a 'paddy'. I was and am innocent of any indictable crime against the state.
The Majority of people arrested in the UK for Irish Bombing Campaigns in the 70s vand 80s were eventually released, not guilty! Quality policing at work! Yeah Right!
Most cases against so-called 'Islamic Fundamentalists' have failed. Why?
4. Thinking we have freedoms and comparing those freedoms to the brutality of Dictatorships (who for the most part are put in place by the same ECONOMIC POWER that controls our society - JP MORGAN = PINOCHET, UNITED FRUIT = ALLENDE, Standard OIL/BP = Saddam Huissein etc ect) is part of the control system that we take on. Hook, line and sinker.
Ask yourself why is Tony Blair paid to 'advise' JP Morgan Chase and UBS, the largets Banks in the world, who are buying smaller banks at a rate of knots, with taxpayer money given to smaller Banks that have ' toxic assets' - ie: loans they owe to the likes of UBS and JP MOrgan Chase : What possible 'advice' could that craven man offer the worlds financial experts?
Why is Tony BLair a paid consultant to the Columbian Government of Uribe? What could he offer to a Policital leader, Uribe, whose hands are red with blood, the blood of campesinos, students and people who work at grass roots to oppose POWER.
5. 'Our' Police, the MET in particular, have at least four recorded cast iron requests to investigate the war crimes of the UK Cabinet, which they are deliberately blocking. Policy is Force Majeur. We are talking about the murder of millions of people, and the plundering of an entire nation, facillitated by OUR GOVERNMENT. And we pay the Governments bills. AND THE POLICE PROTECT THEM.
6. Following illegal orders is still a criminal act. Nuremberg. The International Criminal Court Act 2001 (England)
7. The Banking crisis is pure fraud. The same people have been revolving from Government to Banking/Finance and back again, undermining regulation, the lining their own pockets, allowing corrupt practices to flourish. Tony Blairs jobs for UBS and JP Morgan Chase are PAY-OFFS for following Instructions... These are not seperate events to the G20, but part and parcel. Google LIAR LOANS for a quick deconstruct of the so-called sub-prime crisis.
8. POLICY IS FORCE MAJEUR! And policing is the enforcement of policy, which ever way you look at it.
9, The South American peasants have managed to take back power in a few countries. Mostly peacefully. However, and this is the caveat, they were willing to stay on the streets, to campaign, to face down the troops and riot police, many died in the process, they continued in spite of the forces pitted against them, to build grass roots community from the poorest sectors of society upwards...
the South Americans are building their future upon the welfare of the poorest..... and upon a solid understanding of the forces ranged against their interests.... both of which are sadly lacking in the UK....
10. APPEALING TO POWER REAFFIRMS POWER. And thus far, the main public strategy of the mainstream campaign groups leadership has been to appeal. To petition. To follow the lead of the Intellectuals, the state sanctioned Scientists, the Media and the Politicians, rather than set the agenda, rather than start to build at grass roots the solutions - why wait for Government when you can build permaculture NOW - Climate Campers have taken successful direct action, and many are involved in grass roots work. Thats why they got hammered. They are winning the discussion! Thats why they got hammered at g20.
The RBS incident was a set-up. It set the condtitions for the hammering the Climate Camp peacefully edured. NOW THOSE ARE STRONG SOULS!
10.a Ask yourselves why have the largest mainstream campaigns largely ignored the poorest in England; they have avoided the Poor, (2 million families living in relative poverty in the UK) the Muslim community, (apart for the anti-war groups) the Black Community, The Sikh Community, The Christian Community, The Children in our Schools, the elders....... I may be wrong, but I see none of these constituent groups being involved deeply in policy making in these campaigns.
11. The only way to deal with power is to take it back, and we have mechanisms to do that, though only just...
http://www.powerinquiry.org/
Power is not a parlour game, it is a war. And since we don't have the weapons, nor do we have the stomach for violence (which is fine by me) then we must use intelligence, craft, guile and an unbelievable stubborness to retreive POWER as communities. And that means grass roots.
THE POLICE and THE ARMY are not GRASS ROOTS - they are the visible hand of force in this land, and anyone who misses that is either willfully ignoring the honest history of this land, or living in a fairie tale of their own making : neither of which will do anything for the future of our chidren, for which we are ALL RESPONSIBLE.
For those that want to understand the nature of that Force, of Agent Provocateurs, of resistance to grass roots changes by UK Governments and the depths to which they are prepared to go, please read EP Thompsons "The Making of The English Working Class".... without it you are blind. Or Geiorge Monbiots Captive State'... order them vis your local libraray, read them and leave them for othjers to find.
I am appalled at the willigness of so many of my contemporaries to watch media movies, to take jet-set holidays, seek healing, talk to their animal spirits, devote huge amounts of energy to 'spiritual practices' etc etc and NOT ENGAGE WITH A deep and PROFOUND analysis of the FACTS of our time, our history,
Comments I have heard time and time again indicate that most people seem to have very little detailed knowledge of what has been happening, and is happening, here and in places far away, that has been driven by our culture. None of this info is 'hidden'. If you wish to learn, its' all there.
It's not my job to do all that for anyone else. It is my role to share what I have learned and ask that YOU LOOK AT THE SHIT with me! If you don't I will not stop. Thats no longer an option available to me. I have children to think about! Many of us do.
It's almost as if many, many people DO NOT WANT TO LOOK SQUARELY at the harshest realities, in the hope that some alien or god or other will come along and sort it all out!
THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
Only facing FACTS will bring any possibility of change. Because the FACTS drive action that works.
ONE WILL NEVER BE DIMINISHED IN SPIRIT BY LOOKING AT AND APPRAISING THE FULL TRUTH. ONE IS DIMINISHED BY FEAR THAT ONE TAKES ON.
For those of you with a few quid to spare, I highly reccomend Naomi Kleins work " The Shock Doctrine!" just so you can catch up on the detail OF THE PROCESS UNDERWAY, .....away from 'conspiracy' theories and Alien Saviours heralded by ancient societies as discovered and interpreted by westerners who publish books that make one feel good and do nothing...... and begin to understand what is happening and what is rapidly becoming a toxic farce. 2012 my arse!
Her website is helpful : http://www.naomiklein.org/main
in a word, shit or get off the pot, folks!
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Do what you love, it's your gift to universe