Of Horse And Men

I was again on another march on the 29th of January against the cuts in Manchester. Now the feeling overall was one of anger but peaceful, the majority wanted a peaceful march but the minority spoilt that, the minority in florescent jackets.

The day began with people gathering outside of the Manchester museum. The atmosphere was good, people from all around the north had gathered to show their anger at the governments plans. This was more than a march against the rise in fees, more even then a march against the cuts to higher education, this was a march against a government which many feel will send us backwards and damage us for generations to come. Of course the main message was against the cuts in higher education but amongst that were cries against NHS cuts, against library closures and tax avoiders. Along side that, unsettlingly, were messages against police brutality, something which is steadily growing as people begin to grow sick of the heavy handed tactics and over excited officers ever present at these protests, more on this later.

As the march began all was peaceful, messages of solidarity with Egypt and Tunisia, with Greece and protesters all over the world. There were chants and songs with music coming out of speakers on trolleys. All in all it was nice and peaceful as we marched down through Rusholme to the rally in Platts Fields. As we entered Platts Fields the discontent was obvious as people felt as though the NUS had purposefully lead us out of the way, away from anywhere of significance, out of the public's eye. However Arron Porter, president of the NUS, was promised at the rally and so we waited.

There were many speakers, most of which gave empty statements about solidarity and that they needed to take action but no real substance. When there was a moment of silence the cries rose up for Aaron Porter to show his face. Unlike the lies printed in the Daily Mail there were no anti-semetic chats at the rally [link], "Aaron Porter your a f****** Tory too" just happens to sound like "Aarron Porter your a f****** Tory Jew", easily mistakable but with the level of anti-racist protesters present it is undoubtable that any reports of racist chants are false aimed to direct anger at the protesters and detract from the message. There are some reports of anti-semetic chats but what was not reported were the large number of people chanting back at them saying things such as "No, Racists, No!", unreported to alienate the students from the rest of society. Many feel that Aaron Porter has deserted the students he is meant to represent with condemnations of many protests and talk of defeat from the get go.

As it turned out Aaron Porter did not turn up to the rally. Anger amongst students at Porter and some felt they needed to make their point heard. It turns out that earlier in the day he had been confronted by angry students and some eggs had been thrown at him [link]. When a leader sells out their movement and then attacks its members then they should expect anger. Aaron Porter was not hurt in this confrontation, more humiliated and scared. He locked himself into Manchester Metropolitan University Students Union and did not leave to go to the rally, for fear of more abuse. Let there be no illusion had he turned up there would have been more eggs and chants but alas he did not arrive. This angered many who wanted to show their anger and felt like Porter had been spineless in not turning up.

This is where the protest changed. Once word had got out that Porter was not turning up the populous, not just 150 as reported in the news [link] left the park and marched back towards where they thought Porter would be. There wasn't any violence just hundreds walking peacefully back into the city where our voices could be heard. As we marched people sounded their horns in support and generally the public seemed supportive. However as we reached the end of the curry mile the problems started.

At the end of the curry mile we could see a line of blue lights and after the events of the 9th of December we were wary. I and some friends saw the front of the protesters being brought to a stop and we made the decision then to avoid this, to avoid being kettled. Nothing is more angering and demoralising then being caught in a tiny area for hours on end and that is what we believed was going to happen so in that moment we descided to go around. Not to cause trouble but to get where we wanted to be without being aggrivated and pushed around by police for hours.

So after this we found ourselves running around back streets trying to avoid police confrontations and to get back towards the main protest. After about half an hour and after dumping our placards in a bin, after all we arn't going to litter, we found a large group of protesters. As it turns out they had managed to break through the police line at the end of the curry mile and continue on down. By this point people had been hurded down to one side of the street and there was a tense feeling in the air. No-one quite knew where we were going and the police seemed on edge, which later on would come to the surface. We decided a good place to aim for would be town hall as we felt that this would be a likely place to meet more people. As we arrived there were a few more protesters and one talking to the police stating that we know they are just human and are just doing their job but pleaded for the rest of the day to remain peacful, if only it could have.

We stayed at town hall for a few minutes until we saw a large group of people, they had been into town to protest against tax avoiders like Vodafone. As we joined them it was obvious that something had changed, the atmosphere had turned sour and the police had became jumpy with people being thrown against walls and shouted at before being released. By this point the numbers had dwindled and we had been split up. This is when the protest truly turned ugly.

As we marched down the road suddenly the line stopped and I and some friends hung back to see what was happening and then the inevitable happened. A line of police wrapped around the small group of protesters and closed in, there was at least a 3 deep line of police around what could have bearley been 100 people. By now the florescent gloved fists were flying and the horses were being used to walk onto the path endangering both the health of the protesters but also of the civilians around.

As time progressed they force the protesters into a smaller and smaller area angering those inside and out. The police then drove us down the side of the road towards the Hilton. One man was chased around by two police on horseback for taking a picture, the horses seemed unsteady and panicked by the darting movement they were forced to make. This was not in some secluded area either, these horses where darting around in the middle of the road with many people around, it is amazing no-one got hurt.

It is inevitable though, when horses are used so recklessly that someone was going to get hurt. As we were being moved towards the Hilton hotel, just as the police decided to move in and step between us and the Hilton, a policeman on horseback walked directly into the back of a person facing the other way. The man fell to the floor and as he turned to his front and shouted out asking what the policeman was doing, at this point 3 police jumped on him and arrested him. This man was not even facing the horse when it walked into him and he was arrested for it, it is sick to think that people can be arrested for being assaulted.

Events like this are rarely reported or even twisted to show the protester in the wrong. This again just goes to show that any news report should be taken with a grain of salt. Make no illusion to the fact that the news is often not as un-bias as it should be, a lot of the time the news is often skewed by the personal views of the editor of the paper or CEO of the news outlet. I'm not saying you shouldn't believe anything said by any certain news outlet but it is important to try and read a range of sources before making up your mind. Without, or even with, first hand witnessing it is very hard to get a full idea of events and in the major media it is very very very rare to see any criticism of police tactics. It is only a matter of time before another person is killed, it has been just over a year since Ian Tomlinson was killed at the G20 protests and many people will have forgotten about it. We cannot allow the police to continue using tactics that are dangerous and we cannot allow more people to be killed. We must report and talk about any brutality and I will make an effort to continue doing so.

However I will not finish this blog on the subject of police brutality. No, this should be about the success of the protest. Thousands of people took to the street. People of all ages came together to mouth their angers and until the end, when the police got a bit excitable, it was peaceful. We showed our anger at the betrayal by Aaron Porter and we got the public talking. As we marched people we passed would start conversations about the issues, not complain about us but to discuss the issues. To get people thinking is always a good result and lets hope at least a few people continue to think about it.

The movement is growing and the issues at hand are increasing in number. The trade unions are mobilising, the next major march is on the 26th of March [link]. When the government discusses privatising the forests of this country [link] it is obvious that they are not looking out to save the economy but to benefit the rich. We cannot sit back and allow them to dismantle our great country so I hope to see you on the 26th and I hope you keep fighting because we can and we will win.

Stay alert, Stay free.

A Simple Song Of Hope

As I stare into the night sky I am hit by a wonderful feeling. Staring back at me as I lie on the grass are a billion stars. A billion tiny dots of light spread across the black canvas of the sky. Each tiny dot a star like our own sun. A billion stars with the possibility of planets, of life. Out there are billions of possible Earths, each with their own worries, their own fights, their own struggles. Each as important as our own to those concerned.

It is then that it hits me. These stars are not only far away but long ago. It has taken many million years for a lot of these stars light to reach here. These stars, these planets, their stories may all have played out before we as humans even left the trees.

We may feel important but truly we are naught but a drop in the ocean of this universe. I have spent a lot of my time on this planet consumed with anger and hate. This serves no-one, hate only serves to destroy the vessel that carries it. In the big picture it makes little difference what we actually do with our time on this Earth.

What I want to take from this, for you to take from this is not to stop fighting injustice, to not give in on the struggle from freedom and fairness but to fight not with hate but with love. The world has seen far too much hate. We are not here long so rather that recirculating the hate back towards those who have wronged you, have hurt you, respond with love. A revolution is not worth fighting if we leave the world with the same hate and fear as before.

This is not a call to arms. This is a personal awakening. We are controlled bu fear and hate and from here I will try to chose love. I will falter, I am human after all but I will attempt to make others lives a little better. If we all try to do one thing nice a day, or to even just make small changes to make others lives easier we can bring an end to fear, to hate. We are born equal, we will die equal, let us live equal.

Just a ramble today, didn't really have much of a plan when I started so I hope it has come out alright. This blog will return to normal with the next post. Let us try to make 2011 a great year.

Thank you for reading, I will be grateful for any comment, they will help me to advance this blog.

Stay alert, Stay free.

Like Pigs To The Slaughter

We are winning! We'll at least that's what they want us to believe.

How many times have you turned on the news to get a story of our progress in Afghanistan/Iraq [link] only to be told moments later that the number of casualties is increasing at an ever faster rate [link]? Now I may not be an expert but that doesn't really make sense. If every day we are making progress then how are we constantly losing more and more troops?

It just takes a look into the history books to see why they call Afghanistan the "graveyard of empires". Not only did the Soviets get defeated there [link] (with a little help from the US funding the Taliban but that's another story) but also us, the British, have been defeated on Afghan soil, not once, but twice [link1][link2]. These are but two states that have been defeated in Afghanistan and there are many many more [link]. It is obvious from the history of this region that any war would inevitably be long and drawn out leading to a large number of casualties, Mission Accomplished indeed.

As the war in Afghanistan continue it is becoming more obvious that this war is not going to be confined to within the borders of Afghanistan. It began subtly with drone attacks starting to edge across the border into Pakistan as early as 2004 [link]. It is estimated that between 2004 and 2010 there have been 200 strikes into Pakistan, 100 happening between 2009 and 2010. This signals a shift in the battlefield. The war is shifting across into Pakistan, a nuclear state[link], which promises to further destabilise the country and the area. Pakistan has been at war and close to war with it's neighbour India many times throughout it's history [link]. This is particularly scary due to the fact that India is also a nuclear power. With conflict possibly spilling further into Pakistan this brings a real threat of war if Pakistan were to become destabilised.

As the Afghanistan war threatens to destabilise yet more of the middle east at least it means we are protecting our own shores? Nothing could be further from the truth, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq raise the risk of an attack if nothing else [link].

We are being sold lies in an effort to continue these illegal wars which are now only causing more death and lowering global stability and security. The people here do not agree with the wars [link] and they are quickly turning into unjustifiable slaughterhouses. We need to get out, how many more lives are these illegal wars worth?

There are many more issues to be covered here but I'm not going to create a sprawling post right now so this is your lot at the moment.

Stay alert, Stay Free.


Any comments are always welcome, keep the discussion alive.

The Lies, The Slander

Now I am unsure as to how this post will go, I have so much I want to say and much of it is in an incoherent mess within my mind but I feel like if I wait too long to post this I feel as though it may never be made and will not be an accurate portrayal of my feelings.

Any way I and around 30,000 other people marched onto parliament square on Thursday the 9th of December 2010 to protest against the increase in student fees, the education cuts and generally against the effective privatisation of the education system within this country.

The measures put forward by the Con-Dem government will put further education out of the reach of many of the young people of this country under the guise of cutting the deficit. However this is not the case, how can increasing fees in 2 years decrease the deficit now and help us get out of the current crisis. A crisis which was caused by people taking out loans that they could simply not repay. How are the majority (not all as some, namely the upper class, student will be able to) of students be able to repay a debt of around £40,000. A lot of this debt will go unpaid which will do no favours for anyone. We already have the highest fees in Europe [link] why should they be any higher? Do we want a system similar to that of the USA were parents need to start saving from the birth of a child in order to send them through education or indeed for people to be completely priced out of further education. We need educated people to build a future for this country.

Furthermore the idea that cutting the funding by 80% or even 100% for the arts is a good way to ensure our education system is well funded and world class is an utter disgrace. Other countries are investing in their future whilst ours is cutting back, I say cutting back more like cutting out. This will cause the closure of many universities which many less well off students rely on again pricing students out of university.

A Con-Dem proposal for paying the first year or two of the poorest 16,000 or so student does little to compensate for those who are just above this threshold who will be left to suffer the full brunt of the fees. Furthermore the fact one or two years is payed doesn't help when the people still come out with more debt then they would previously, some A LOT more.

Alas at the moment I do not wish to dwell on why these cuts and increases in fees are a terrible idea. I would prefer to dwell upon the illegal and out of proportion response of the police to these actions.

Firstly I shall start on the point of police horses. The whole idea of having an animal in this sort of situation is sickening and cruel. Sure these animals are trained but there is only so much an animal can take. An excuse often used for police brutality is that the person gets stressed out. Now we are logical animals and have more of an understanding of the situation, an animal no matter the training will not understand the situation. That amount of noise and violence will stress out a horse and cause it to become dangerous, both to us and the police [link] as well as itself. This is animal cruelty and must stop.

I shall take a step back and explain what I meant by violence in relation to police horses. A tactic used a lot on Thursday was to charge into the crowd of protesters (never mind some were as young as 13/14) in an attempt to separate them. The crowd however is not always able to separate resulting in people getting trampled causing great damage to the person. This causes great fear as people could well die under the hooves of these horses. If a person is faced with the possibility of death or serious injury they may well throw whatever they have to try and stop this. The protesters did not target the horses in a malicious manner and even when something was thrown in a last ditch attempt at self defence it was undoubtedly aimed at the police on the horse. This means that the police by introducing the horses lead them directly to harm which is cruel and should stop.

Furthermore the actions of mounted police aside the rest of the force were also staggeringly heavy handed and illegal. As we entered parliament square we were instantly kettled, few, very few, people were able to leave from that point onwards the majority had no chance of leaving and had no real access to toilets or food and water. This is a direct attack on our freedoms and human rights and is an attempt to anger the masses into escalating the violence. A lot of violence was due to people aiming to leave the kettle, especially near the end when we had been detained for at least 6 hours. The majority of the demonstration were peaceful, no matter what is portrayed in the media, and we were all trapped on Westminster bridge for around 3 hours. This serves no end but as an attempt to scare as many of the first time protesters from protesting again. This is not however the effect it had, if anything it has made many protesters question the establishment and yes the police.

The kettling and the provocation it caused is just the tip of the iceberg. The sheer force that the police used against unprotected people is astounding. Now I can understand some force in order to keep people out of parliament, after all these peoples jobs have been manipulated to mean that their duty is to protect a government that is gong to cut their jobs. However the sights that I saw cannot be fully described by my words but I shall simply tell it like I saw it. People of all ages returned from the front line after clashes literally pouring with blood from their heads and young girls crying their eyes out along side old women hysterical with fear. People with broken bones were sent back into the kettle and denied medial help leaving them to have makeshift slings made until they were aloud out.

The violent methods used by the police did nothing but anger the protesters and escalate the violence. Images of fences being carried across the top of crowds were pounced on by the media and the masses told that they were being thrown at police. This was NOT the case. Fences were being taken to the front line. They were not however, being used as weapons. What actually happened was that the fences were being placed between the protesters and the police in order to protect the protesters from the truncheons of the police.

A person was nearly killed after being hit by a truncheon to the head. As a result of this he got bleeding on the brain, he was then denied medical assistance by police officers before an ambulance worker intervened [link]. Another protester was dragged from his wheelchair multiple times. We are expected to be thankful that they did not open fire? What has happened to this country? It is disgusting but it will not stop us. As long as the government acts to destroy out country we will continue to fight.

Now the point of this post is not to be anti-police because in most situations the police are necessary and a force for good but I fail to see how nearly killing people is for the people. We will hold solidarity when you are cut if you march. We will march for the more general cuts then just in education. This is our fight, this is your fight. Rise together and win together, solidarity until the end.

I'm sorry this post has been a lot more opinion and first hand experience than being backed up by sources as usual but this has made me very angry. I will endeavor to make a post supported by more factual sources next time but I hope this has made you question a few things said by the media and at least entertained.

Stay alert, stay free.

A New Beginning

One good thing about the Torys, they're waking up this generation to the absolute bull that comes from downing street and the media. They can kettle and they can shutdown Wikileaks but they can't shut our eyes once they have been opened.

A new generation took to the streets, a generation that supposedly doesn't care. Sure this is over fees which many feel will effect them financially in a direct way, for many this is the first time they feel as though their way of life is under direct attack by the government. It feels normal for a change to take up a banner and march in the street, I don't feel marginalised for wanting to go out and show my disgust with the way things are ran.

There has been a shift in the consciousness of the young people of this country. No longer are they content to say "If you don't like it then move" or "At least its better than [insert country name here]" and for that I thank the Torys and their elitist regime. This is an exciting time to be a student, we finally have an enemy we all identify with. Cameron the smug upper class weasel that we all resent and Clegg for lying straight to our faces.

What is most exciting though is not that students and none-students a like are fighting against cuts in their thousands, it's that there are thousands of people simply mobile in the streets. One act of civil disobedience over an issue will make it more likely that they will continue onto other issues. The police have tried to quash the protests for this reason, planting police vans and kettling protesters to try and scare us from returning. Alas all it shows is that the powers that be are scared, the Lib-Dems changing dates and venues for meetings shows this. As Thomas Jefferson once said "When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." We are witnessing a scared Government, we are regaining our liberty.

However there are two sides to this post. As you may all now Wikileaks released a great deal of documents dealing with the Iraq and Afghanistan war as well as other documents. My opinion on the matter is that information should be able to freely move and if there is evidence of the Government lying to it's people then we should be able to access this information, obviously information on current operations should be kept secret to protect our troops but I feel as though we should have a right to know if we are being lied to. Yet as we stand on the brink of our generation waking up we are confronted with outright censorship by our freely elected governments. Wikileaks has been shut down and has moved servers many times in the past weeks due to political pressure. This is a blatant act against freedom of speech and information. When we live in an age were we are told that North Korea fired unprovoked into South Korea [link] before discovering this is may not the case at all [link].

We are entering an age were the government is more open to blatant abuses of power and attacks against our freedoms yet we are also seeing more and more people wake up and fight back. It may be student fees and education cuts that have got people onto the street but there is a sense that this is only the beginning. These are exciting times, the balance of power is shifting. We can fight and we can win. A mere few months ago that sentiment would seem ridiculous to many but now it seems this thought has penetrated the zeitgeist. This is merely the beginning of the war, the people together will never be defeated.
Stay free.

We will march on the 9th, we will march until we win.

Poster Fun

Today I bring you posters.
Now it can't just be me that thinks these are to say the least a little retarded? I'll start with the top one. So someone in your street decides it's time for a good clean and after they're done they throw out the bottles of chemicals they used. So you being the upstanding citizen you are see the bottles and remember this poster... Now what was I meant to do again? Ahh yes phone the fucking cops. So now for cleaning their house they get armed police raiding their house searching for bomb making equipment and probably a little bit of interrogation to make suffice. Ok, ok, so a terrorist is REALLY making a bomb and needs to get rid of the bottles do you really think they'd be retarded enough to throw them away like this? If they're serious they'll have ways to cover their tracks.
Moving on to the second poster and all I can say is this is just a lie. If someone can give me one example of anything like this happening then I'd be happy to listen and I will admit I'm wrong but I highly doubt that will happen. Also would a CCTV camera really stop a suicide bomber blowing themselves up? I mean there was plenty of footage of 7/7. Even if some "terrorists" have been staking out CCTV why wouldn't the trained policemen at the other end of the camera spot it? Are they so badly trained that it's our job to survey the land? If that's so they why do we bother with CCTV at all if no-one with half a brain is watching the other end?
These posters just seem like a futile attempt to scare us into a state at which we're ready to give up our freedoms. To a point we'll take anything they give us. I for one am not terrified, if I was wouldn't that be playing into the terrorists hands? Or is fear a tool used by both sides? We shouldn't be any more scared then usual for when we are fearful we cannot enjoy ourselves. I'm not saying be stupid. If you, by some astronomical chance, see something which truly makes you believe something could be happening then fine report it. Don't be scared but don't be retarded.
In other yet connected news videos of Ian Tomlinson (R.I.P.) have been arising across the Internet and various news outlets. Basically it shows him walking away from police in a calm manner with his hands in his pockets when police basically smashed him to the floor. Moments later he dies of a heart attack. The attack is unprovoked, Ian wasn't even a protester, he was walking home from work, he wasn't threatening the police at all.
If this sort of conduct is allowed to go without anything being done then I personally feel sick at what this country has become and what it will become. If you mix the factors of fear and police brutality together you get something sickeningly like a police state, add citizens informing on their fellow man the picture turns much like 1984. I fear for what this country will become, for what humanity will become. No justice, no peace.

If you want to watch the video here it is but it is rather somber.


R.I.P. Ian Tomlinson