The passing of wood through glass is a remarkable feat. There are those who believe that royalty can perform miracles – there is a well developed cult around the vain and vicious Charles I, for example. It now appears that the presence of the future Charles III also has the ability to suspend the laws of physics.
The police have now issued extensive CCTV footage of the attack on the vehicle of Charles and Camilla on the fringes of the anti-tuition fee demonstrations, and the media have been replete with more nonsense about Camilla being poked with a stick. Yet of all the CCTV footage and numerous photographs, there is no evidence at all of this attack and all the images show the car windows to be closed – as they would be. One gets cracked but not holed.
There is in fact no evidence at all of any intent to harm the persons of the expensive royal layabouts, as opposed to discomfiting them and damaging their vehicle. It is fascinating that the media continually repeats the “Camilla attacked with a stick” line when it is so blatantly untrue. There appears to be a closing of ranks by the whole Establishment to perpetuate the myth – both the Home Office and St James Palace have deliberately fostered the myth by refusing to confirm or deny.
Personally I would not touch Camilla with a bargepole. I dislike violence at demonstrations. Demonstrations, good, riots, bad is my basic mantra. Attacks on people in a civil demonstration are always wrong, including attacks on the police unless in self defence. I did not join in the outrage at the prosecutions of violent demonstrators after the big Lebanon demonstration in London, because I personally witnessed the group hurling dangerous missiles at police who were neither attacking, threatening nor kettling them. That is absolutely unacceptable.
But a policy as appalling as the withdrawal of state funding from university teaching, carried out by Nick Clegg by one of the most blatant political breaches of fatih with the public in history, , is bound to provoke huge anger. The government reaps what it sows. Demonstrators should not set out to hurt people. But all the evidence shows they had no intention of hurting Charles and Camilla.
I have personally worked closely with the royal family’s close protection officers in organising two state visits abroad, and plainly they too could see there was no intent to injure – that is why weapons were not drawn. They deserve commendation rather than the crap spouted out by Sky News, who seem to think they should have gunned down the odd student.
All of which serves to take the focus off vicious police attacks on students and the use of kettling to detain people who were seeking peacefully to express their views. Kettling people in extreme cold and with no access to toilet facilities raises questions on illegal detention which genuine liberals in government would wish to address. What is it? Is it a form of arrest? What is the status of the fenced pens into which people are herded? Should they not be formalised as places of police detention, and individuals booked in and given access to lawyers? If that is not possible, this detention – which can be for many hours – is not lawful.
(Moderated: abusive.)
(Moderated: abusive.)
Those links between the Tucson gunman and the political right:
http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/white-terrorism.html
I know alot about this subject and I have mixed views. You the people have allowed the police to become an armed instrument of the state. I didnt see any of you demonstrating against the erosion of police independence through legislation, targets, political appointments of senior ranks, Police used to have discretion now although not legally taken away targets have removed it. Cheif officers used to be politically independent but Labour dominated police authorities chose the political appointment that were willing to tick the correct boxes.
Police are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Last year a group of pro Gazza protestors wanted to make a peaceful protest police allowed this and as the organisers assured police they would steward it and ensure order only a handful of officers were allocated to the march when they got near the Islaely Embassy all hell broke loose and the officers were mobbed the Embassy nearly got breached and alot of property was damaged including cars windows and other street furniture. Police could not be heavy handed as it was policed by a few home beat officers and PCSO,s to facilitate crossing roads etc. The polices trust was broken and god help anyone who tried to get in the embassy. It took police hours to get enough resources to regain order.
On the flip side I have witnessed peaceful protests where police have made them protest miles from there target and blocked the little view they have with vans. Then they wonder why people kick off.
Police are in the middle pawns of the state. Small pockets of scum cause problems and wind up others to join in. Police cant stand by and let damage or violence happen. Police work to a very clear set of rules and are in a catch 22 situation. They get ordered by senior officers to disperse a crowd or deny access they train in tactics some violent. When they use the training and carry out the orders. They get prosecuted as they are personally responsible for the actions they take and have to justify each action. So the order goes up to prevent access to road (A) the police dont know why but a violent crowd comes up the road intent of getting through the cordon. Police have to baton charge to disperse the group hitting a few protestors. They are accused of excessive violence and put in Court. The judge asks why they stopped the crowd entering the road or was the reason enough to justify the use of force. the officers dont know as it was a strategic decision made by a senior officer in a control room looking at heli tele. When senior management are called they say we only said we wanted the cordon put in we didnt say to use force. Its a crazy situation to be in. I suggest thats why the police stood back and watched when a mob stormed the tory HQ. If you act as an officer you are personally responsible for your actions. If you dont do anything the MET gets criticised. So which is better for you and your pension.
“I wish someone would have put a bullet through Mrs Thatcher’s brain instead of a US Democrat campaigning for health care.”
Presumably if someone does just that we can consider anno as guilty as some believe Sarah Palin to be.
Juan Cole is wrong. His post looks like opportunism to me. This is always a bad thing if you are promoting yourself as a provider of “informed comment”.
You would have to be an idiot to call your post “White Terrorism” as well. All this reveals is that it is Juan Cole who thinks in racial terms. No one disputed that the Weathermen, the IRA, the UVF, Richard Reid, Timothy McVeigh and various others were terrorists.
But at the same time, many people didn’t think that the Virginia Tech guy was a terrorist. The media bent over backwards to say that Major Hasan was not a terrorist but just a guy who went crazy (until the Anwar al-Awlaki links showed up). Most people consider the animal rights activists and Neo-Nazi thugs who blow things up to be terrorists.
What you will find with many people such as Cole is that they will dispute, to the high heavens, a murder or massacre by poliitcally motivated Muslims as terrorism but be as eager as pie to pin the term terrorism on many other random acts of irrational violence and throw tantrums when that term is not as readily applied by others.
@anon:
“Presumably if someone does just that we can consider anno as guilty as some believe Sarah Palin to be.”
I think the story from the US is not just a cautionary tale for the American Right, but the whole of the US political environment. In the UK, the landscape is obviously much less highly charged, though you still make a fair point – to what degree can one make flippant remarks about violence against (even cruel) political opponents without being in danger of incitement?
I don’t think that Palin intended for her ‘cross-hairs’ to incite someone to murder. But it was irresponsible all the same, especially given some implications within the Tea Party that they’ll “use the Second Amendment” i.e. an armed insurrection against the government.
@anno – Islam perfect, everything else bad, everyone else idiots. Same old record. Isn’t that approach a bit, erm, fundamentalist?
Astonishing editorial in the Telegraph, on Lord Green’s qualms about the arms trade.
“Individuals may object to certain businesses on ethical or moral grounds but that’s not how our economy works. If it’s legal we are at liberty to make it, do it, sell it.”
preview.tinyurl.com/24uougl
a
@anon at January 10, 2011 10:03 AM
“What you will find with many people such as Cole is that they will dispute, to the high heavens, a murder or massacre by poliitcally motivated Muslims as terrorism but be as eager as pie to pin the term terrorism on many other random acts of irrational violence and throw tantrums when that term is not as readily applied by others.”
Unfair. Here, for example, he makes some interesting comparisons.
preview.tinyurl.com/yjpch2r
“Terrorists are terrorists, Christian or Muslim”
Wonder if any of PC Mark Kennedy’s colleagues were on the student protests and/or are enmeshed in the movement.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/power-station-protest-trial-collapses-2180527.html
Somebody,
Good thinking – undercover police in peaceful protesting about to explode – I wonder if any undercover police are on this board?
“Unfair. Here, for example, he makes some interesting comparisons.”
Not unfair.
He is going to pains to paint a group of whacko Christians as terrorists. This is as perfect an example as I can find of the equivocation of leftists given that it was a militia not responsible for killing or terrorising ANYONE but only, according to “some reports” with having thought about it. He compares them to the Mahdi Army in Iraq and says that as far as he is concerned they are identical and therefore should be called “Christian terrorists”. Yet I am searching in vain for a place in which Cole calls the Mahdi Army terrorists.
So, while he titles his piece “terrorists are terrorists. Muslim or Christian” he actually only comes close to suggesting that the Christians are terrorists.
Oh God!
Here we go:
“One terrorist attack was carried out in 2009 in all Europe by persons of Muslim heritage (I do not say ‘by a Muslim’ because terrorism is forbidden in Islamic law).”
In fact he argues that no one who is Muslim can possibly be a terrorist and yet in that other article he says:
“Unlike the generally secular white supremacist organizations, Hutaree are explicitly Christians.”
In other words, not “of Christian heritage” with lots of dutiful word-mincing but full-on Christians.
Then,
“The U.S. press is saying the Hutaree people are a Christian “militia” but is avoiding calling them ‘alleged Christian terrorists.” Apparently only organized Muslim radicals can now be called terrorists.”
No, Juan! According to you it is impossible for organized Muslim radicals to be called terrorists.
Ha! Mark. Watch out for earrings and a swarthy look. This is his photo from the BBC webpage. {http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12148753}
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50724000/jpg/_50724969_markshadesup.jpg
@Vronsky – a disappointing piece from Damian Reece, certainly. But not surprising – it was in the Telegraph. Perhaps it is time that representatives of neo-capitalism are willing to say out loud that their jobs and lifestyles have come to depend on a system that is amoral.
At least the comments, even for this newspaper, are a sufficiently mixed bag!
dreoilin Jan 9 9:22 AM
Clark Jan 10 12:26 AM
dreoilin Jan 10 1:35 AM
Vronsky Jan 10 7:14 AM
On “conscience”,
Thanks Clark, Vronsky for clarifying. Yes I was referring to the new(ish) science of Evolutionary Psychology. Yes there have been experiments to understand the nature of conscience. I think the impact of this new science will be profound, in the end. Our understanding of human nature in general, and the true relationship between the sexes, will be challenged. Matt Ridley’s work was a good start, for me.
(Tangential) Sociopath is the new fashionable term. “Psychopath” has become associated with the violent and extreme stereotype.
So yes, at one extreme the sociopath who cares for doing the right thing only to the extent that it helps them achieve their goals. At the other extreme, someone who agonises about their every step. But I, probably most of the others on this forum, Chomsky (thanks Suhayl for the reference earlier on another thread) and the majority in general, will be somewhere in between these two extremes. The variation probably follows a Gaussian (bell-curve) distribution. That is the nature of biological variation, we are not binary machines that either work as expected or don’t work at all.
On another tangent – I have a strong suspicion that hierarchical power structures that are not moderated sufficiently by democratic mechanisms result in the systematic promotion to the top positions of individuals tending toward the sociopath end of the spectrum. Scum floats to the top, so to speak. Political parties perhaps especially affected since the potential rewards are so high, and so are the stakes as far as moneyed interests are concerned. Selection of representatives “by lot” is not such a daft idea if my suspicions are correct. Or perhaps the structure of political parties could be democratised to the point where they cannot be subverted.
So it turns out that the shooter was also a 911 truther:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot_gunman_11
No surprise.
Thanks @confused for the Egypt story, most encouraging.
@Duncan, I approved your comment on that topic – watch out for links in the body of a comment, as they tend to trigger the spam filter. Recommend you add one per post, and post again if you want to add more.
Dreoilin, it looks like our disagreement is about definitions; one end of my spectrum you’d call “conscience”, the other you wouldn’t. I suppose my point is that we can never tell about another person – is it conscience, or fear of discovery? Each of us can only tell that about ourself, and careful reflection could be needed.
Anno, my assumption is that if God gave me a brain, God probably wanted me to use it. That includes making critical decisions about what I consider true and false. Displacing my responsibility to the contents of an ancient book would be to abdicate that responsibility. The choice of book would still be down to me.
Jon wrote above, “I don’t think that Palin intended for her ‘cross-hairs’ to incite someone to murder.”
That’s very naive, with all respect. Guns, Gad and “taking our country back” (from that ni… erm, Kenyan Marxist communist fascist in the White House) is what the teabaggers are all about. At their core, they are a racist, hate-filled group. There is hardly a black teabagger to be found.
From Sharon Angle talking about “second amendment” remedies if the vote did not work in their favour, to Palin’s talk which is always peppered with gun-speak, the intent is clear enough. It’s happened with a terrible regularity – the thug Bill O’Reily referring on hundreds of occasions to “Tiller the baby killer”, leading a campaign of lies against a doctor until some nut killed him. Glenn Beck going on about the Tides centre in San Francisco (a charity which nobody had ever heard of before), until some nut went armed to the teeth to kill everyone there. He ended up having a shoot-out with the police on the way.
Another nut went into a methodist church to shoot “liberals and democrats” in Tennessee in July 2008 – again, whooped up to a state of hatred and fear by the far-right broadcast infrastructure.
Teabaggers were encouraged to “exercise their second amendment privileges” by taking their guns to democratic party town-hall meetings. And of course, we’ve got Palin’s blatant use of sight targets to indicate those they want “taken out”. They’re delighted at this development, and hope this is just the start. Come on, Jon – this bunch of terrorists ought to be taken seriously. There’s a huge list of examples, and it only encourages the far-right hate machine. Fox News is a terrorist network.
To put it in perspective, consider this: “What if the teabaggers were black?”
http://ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html
somebody,
I laughed at the photo, although I have a certain affection for the green movement and felt guilty.
But of course this is a serious heads-up at the start of a vulgar, unjust and immoral 2011. Our Britain is becoming a ‘little America’ with ‘sting’ operations, FBI and other infiltrators, massive undercover video surveillance, false-flags and illegal use of personal database information. All this while royalty and their extensions are immune to FOI requests and poor people including the disabled threatened to lose an inexorable third of their income in local cuts and VAT.
The ‘Big Society’ is now the ‘Big Poor Society’ subjugated and overpowered by the State.
@glenn, interesting, although for me there’s perhaps too many generalisations in what you say. I agree that there are a great deal of people on the fundamentalist Right who mean their gun-obsessed threats, and I also think that Palin’s politics are deplorable. But I suspect she’s a useful idiot; she’s absorbed the pro-gun, violent and hyper-masculine rhetoric, and in using gun-sights on a Democratic map and campaign imagery of her wielding a rifle, she is just reflecting the poisonous political environment around her.
That’s not to say that there aren’t people in the Tea Party movement who aren’t pleased at the surge of pro-gun rhetoric in the US media. But I am not of the view that most of the Tea Party are genuinely (if secretly) thrilled at this latest instance of gun violence – how would the death of a nine-year old at the hands of someone who is mentally ill help their cause? I think they are back-tracking on some of their language that in retrospect appears inciteful, and are of course they are lying about it.
But, we’re probably agreed that the worst of the pro-gun Right won’t learn from this episode at all. And yes, a discussion needs to be had on the nature of Fox News et al – not a terrorist network, to my mind, but certainly not at pains to calm the rhetoric down.
Another thing that occurs to me. I wonder if the various legislations around the world that keep broadcast media balanced could be introduced into the US? (We have such a thing in the UK, I believe, which is what has stopped the growth of a Fox-style news outlet). I think it would be difficult to implement now, especially given how Obama seems given to centrist compromises. But it would certainly help to put out some fires, and I’d see that as something even moderate Republicans could support.
Steve, thanks for your post at 9:46 AM. Yes, the erosion of police independence has happened piecemeal; no single issue has been big enough to sound the alarm and bring out the demonstrators.
Glenn, note Steve says: “…they train in tactics some violent”, and later: “…was the reason enough to justify the use of force[?] The officers dont know as it was a strategic decision made by a senior officer in a control room looking at heli tele. When senior management are called they say we only said we wanted the cordon put in we didnt say to use force. Its a crazy situation to be in”. This is just the sort of thing I was referring to. God, what an awful job.
Glenn, there must be some principle about the people giving the orders being safely behind TV monitors in a warm, dry control room while the actual responsibility of how much force to use is put upon police on the street who can’t even get an overview.
Steve, Glenn, is any public scrutiny of control room operations available?
Jon: You ask how this sort of thing helps the cause of the teabaggers. First of all, it’s not their cause – it’s the cause of the billionaire investor class that these useful idiots are supporting. It helps their cause by making democrats afraid of holding public meetings, or indeed walking out of their house. Introducing a sense of intimidation that has already caused regular “town-hall” style meetings to be cancelled, or severely restricted. Most importantly, by giving licence to any nut who wants to strike out in the way that this crazy bastard has done by shooting a Democratic Congresswoman. They are constantly upping the stakes.
You also say that Fox was, “certainly not at pains to calm the rhetoric down”. Are you kidding? That’s like saying the Bush administration was “certainly not at pains to make clear Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the WTC attacks.” Fox is the propaganda arm of the Republican party without qualification, and the hosts like Beck actively encouraged race hatred and murderous action against community organisers, while other hosts are busy whipping up homophobia, terrorism against family planning clinics, and anti-Muslim bigotry. Do you have any idea what they’re about, in all seriousness?
If anything, I did not generalise enough!
Mark Also look out for long hair and a silly hat. I can’t believe people got taken in as the disguise is so ridiculous.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8250564/Call-for-inquiry-after-undercover-policeman-turns-against-the-Met.html
Jon (again!): you wrote, “I wonder if the various legislations around the world that keep broadcast media balanced could be introduced into the US?”
There used to be The Fairness Doctrine, which was abolished under Reagan by Presidential Order. Fox won the right to lie – blatantly lie – to viewers in a Florida court ruling which I reference if necessary.
Clark: You asked about monitoring, yes – there is some. This is a good place to start :
http://mediawatch.org/
http://www.fair.org is a good one in that group. But there’s nothing officially in place to stop blatant partisanship and flat-out lying, there is no state instrument to enforce accountability, apart from the FCC who’s only role (just about) is to fine organisations if they drop the F-bomb on air.
Last summer on a jaunt to the States there were a few parties held in honour of our visit (with a scattered extended family there, it was a three-centre tour: LA, San Diego and St George, Utah). I was astonished at the diversity of opinion that could be gathered, apparently amicably, around one dinner table. Political opinions ranged from frighteningly far left to hilariously far right, and religion was all over the place (picture a Jewish/Catholic/Presbyterian/atheist party in Mormon Utah). Yet these people were all firm friends, not just behaving well before visitors. I found myself asking: do these people know what they’re saying? Do they believe what they’re saying? It just crept me out (learned that expression over there).
A gathering in Glasgow similar to the one in Utah would quickly result in – well, I’ll leave you to imagine. It made me think that there must be a disconnect in the American mind between what one thinks and what then might happen as a consequence. I’d quite happily accept that Palin has no intention of inciting violence, just for that reason – I don’t think she can connect the way she behaves with potential outcomes. I wonder if this is actually related to the sub-thread on conscience. Whether conditioned or learned, it’s a weighing of actions against consequences. What if you just can’t do those sums?