The headlines have screamed something about the cops telling City workers to stay at home next week due to the G20 protests and now the banks will close for those days, apparently.
And this article in the Guardian made me think. It did occur to me reading the various sensationalist headlines about protesters (read, unruly mob) demonstrating next week that it smacked of demonisation and alarmism.
Is this an ongoing strategy by the establishment targeting anyone who disagrees with the government and who is willing to protest? I wouldn’t be surprised as it reflects the social authoritarianism of NL. More powers to the cops, increased legislation on counter-terrorism, widening definitions of ‘terrorism’ and extremists’ and the further erosion of civil liberties. And the clamping down of the right to protest.
What the establishment conveniently ‘forgets’ or would rather ignore is the fact that people are angry, bloody furious, by the banks being bailed out, Fred the Shred’s pension, recession, unemployment and redundancies…… so on and so on. And who is gonna pay for their screw-ups? We are…..
And one way of articulating this collective anger is demonstrating which is what the establishment is getting nervous about therefore the demonisation of protesters which create a kind of moral panic. The establishment is worried about a fightback.
It is the art of political distraction. Lets not look at the reasons why people are bloody angry lets demonise them with the media leading the pandering to this populism.
I will be there tomorrow and maybe next week on the 1st and 2nd April. Though I expect (like many of the demos I have been on in the past year) the cops to be indulging in strong arm tactics (read that as violent and brutal thuggery).
And I will definitely be there with my camera to document the events….
See you there comrades.
This is pissing me off so much. I watched Jon Snow interview Boris Johnson on channel 4 news earlier where our mayor had this little gem of wisdom:
“And if I had a slogan for the crusties and the nose-ringed protestors who are going to be out on the streets of London doing all their ludicrous antics, they should be saying:
“‘What do we want?’ ‘Free trade.’ ‘When do we want it?’ ‘Now.’ That’s my slogan.”
ignoring the whole ‘free trade’ ridiculousness… characterising all protestors as crusties and nose-ringed is so fucking dismissive even i was in awe of his fucking cheek. yeah, because it’s only the crusties and punks who are pissed off with the financial system. right. fuck you boris.
(it’s online here btw:
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/boris+a+chant+for+g20+crusties/3051687)
This sounds so familiar! In 2007, George Bush came to Sydney for APEC and we organized a massive protest despite months and months of sensationalist headlines demonising protesters and trying to scare people away.
But it was the cops that were the violent ones, with a brand new $600,000 water cannon and more cops than I’ve seen in my lifetime.