Dear Reg....
..please loan him a decent camera next time, or at least a Nokia Lumière.
Anonymous' #MillionMaskMarch hit London amid a flurry of fireworks on the symbolic date of 5 November, Guy Fawkes night. Despite the symbolism, it was pretty lame. Your correspondent, fresh from a hard day staring at screens and drinking tea, wandered along to Trafalgar Square to see what the fuss was all about. There was a …
"FIGHT THE SYSTEM!"
"EAT THE RICH!"
"Hey, how will we do that? How do we show we are united as one?"
"Err...let's buy a mask who's image is owned by the people we supposedly hate and was probably made in an environmentally unsound and employment-rights unfriendly factory."
"Great idea!"
"DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING!"
Would you have expected the usual rent-a-mob of right-wing sympathisers at an event like this??
Right-wingers have jobs. They don't want to protest at the end of a long day, they're tiiired. :)
Seriously, they have those left-wing rent-a-mobbers in Boston and San Francisco. They get an email telling them where to go and a $10 gift certificate for showing up. Sometimes it's just a coupon for a free StarBucks. They will tell you, just go up to them and ask, it's easy to join.
Palestinians & Arabs ...
These would be the people that rejected every freedom deal since 1948 and call a guy that drove a car into 9 innocent people, killing one, a hero?
If the Palestinians were serious about freedom rather than killing anyone they don't like and especially Jews, then it would be serious cause. Europeans have supported the Palestinians financially far more than the rich Arab states and what to they get out of it?
If the Palestinians were serious about freedom rather than killing anyone they don't like and especially Jews
For now, its brownshirtish Israelis doing the killing, so spare me.
Europeans have supported the Palestinians financially far more than the rich Arab states and what to they get out of it?
The US supports Israel with >3 billion per year and what do they get out of it? A few wars, kickbacks and otherwise the finger and accusation of un-americanism. Chutzpah, we hardly knew you!
You ever been to one of these central London protests? It's the same old procession of Socialist Worker placards, Palestine flags and weed-smoking trustafarians at all of them. Often the organisers are outnumbered by the rentamob eejits who love an excuse for a day out to "stick it to the man". The only ones which come to mind as being different are the static protests opposite Downing Street - but then those don't feature an option to cause traffic disruption, get on the news and spread litter around.
Bleat about bias all you like - I'll write it as I see it.
You left out the inevitable group of short-haired chaps in black hoodies and shiny boots who, shortly before starting the ritual kicking-in of the window of the Mc Ds opposite Horse Guards, are usually to be found clustered around an older guy with the unusual nickname of 'Sergeant '...
"... I'll write it as I see it."
Which would appear, unfortunately, to be from the perspective of an especially petulant and outraged Daily Mail commentard with a fondness for hackneyed cliche and a bee in their bonnet about littering.
There's a fine border between sharp humour and prim nastiness, and the wrong side of it just looks cheap and bleaty.
And receiving a very restrained (and possibly quite sensible) response, judging from those pics and the Buzzfeed movies and comparing with similar events in my own misspent youth. No armoured robocops visible (just a few helmeted serials in hi-vis), no drawn batons, no blinders (sorry 'torches'), no face-flattening round shields, no kettling for an hour or five. Maybe the Met is over-budget for clubbing hysterical Italian LSE 'anarchists' by this point in the year....
I was indeed real.
My first year of uni I shared a flat with an ex-member of Strathclyde police who'd been in the SPG. He was doing a psychology degree and after a few jars would claim it was so he could find out why he didn't like hitting people.
Given that Constable Savage was written by a police forensic scientist need I say more.
I like the bit in the Poll Tax riots where a van arrived behind a police cordon, a load of plain clothed people got out, were waved through the cordon and almost immediately started throwing things over the police line. Seems they dont like a peaceful march the Met.
No looting at all and here i was hopping to have my Christmas shopping done
DISCLAIMER i meant this comment as a JOKE and do not take responsibility if this does encourage you to perform looting for your Christmas shopping and would not condone any such acts.
Thats a great Idea mtech I am going to do that , you can disclaim all you want , but unless you've paid a parasitical blood sucking drain-on-society lawyer to rubber stamp it it dont mean shit. So i blame you for my actions.
DISCLAIMER this too is a joke. I hereby declareclaim i can discliam my own claims without professional help , contrary to all of the above.
"damp squid" is such a famous snowclone that it's been used as a book title.
Read the title of the article.
or a least trying to get through it to the Randall Munroe talk (brilliant by the way!) and then back through it to get to a good pub. A few bins kicked over, a lot of mess made ... no-one I talked to seemed to know what it was about (including the cabbie who put it down to "just another of those down-with-everything protests"). It wasn't even a damp squib: to the outside world or those not in the know it just looked like a bunch of kids having a barely-orchestrated tantrum.
AC so I could get the mask!