Where Is TUFC's No 1 Fan?

..................and they've even elected "Zebidee" as President and "Florence" as his consort ;D

The French love to protest and put their mouth's into gear but when it actually comes down to getting their hands dirty, blood on their shirts and working bloody hard they run up the white flag and go missing........................time after time after time. Perhaps that's why our SWP correspondent chooses to operate from the other end of the Chunnel, and his leafy suburban university "educated" oiks choose to hold their protests and disruption away from their own backyard choosing to minimise MY potential for supporting myself for two days and that of the people who actually live (yes, plenty of people DO live in the City of London) in the Square Mile.

Try telling the residents of Hanbury Street, Brick Lane and Clerkenwell that "protesters" have a "civil liberty" to run amok in their neighbourhood and I'll find you a thousand who will tell you all to piss off back to Ealing Common, Esher and Paris and wave your flags, piss on the ground and share muffins in your 'hood matey!

Agreed, 100%...I hope you don't mean that because I can string a sentence together that I do not share working class interest; that I am not part of the working class. Those are steroetypes which need tearing down and do a huge disservice to the hundreds of workers who have taken an informed decision to go on strike right now - you'll find mass occupations currently taking place in areas as far apart as Enfield and Belfast.

The theory is certainly the problem. I know this only too well having spent a lot of time with 'left types' in london. Most of them could tell you far more about the subtle differences between the early writings of Lenin and Trotsky than they can about current British trade union movement. And when you get down to theory, academics and nit-picking, is it any surprise that the left fragments horribly? The powers that be are gleefully rubbing their hands watching us do their own divisive work for them.

I will support whatever justifiable worker movement I can because I have a world view that is slowly falling into place (it is nowhere near complete) and is reaching a stage where I can justify - to myself - what I consider to be right and wrong. If you see that as rabble-rousing I'm sorry, but to me it isn't that.

You speak about decency and society...some kind of moral honesty. Well I guess we come at these questions from different directions. I feel like the word 'decency' has been appropriated to mean doing what you're told, keeping your head down, adhering to a strict quasi-protestant hard-work ethic as if working hard necessarily makes you a 'better' person. I'm not saying that being a lazy git and contributing nothing is good, but it's dangerous to think work = ethically good. You must always consider WHAT work, for who, and why. I try to be as energetic as I can and I have to support myself while also attempting to pay off obscene debts and devote as much time to my passions like this and, of course, TUFC. That requires a lot of effort and I resent any insinuation that I sit around on leafy university boulevards discussing Derida and having a mental wank over the idea of false conscioussness or whatever.

And decency for me is to do what consists with your morals. I realise that the protest caused disruption for some people for one day but for me that's a price worth paying. Again I realise it wasn't MY livlihood that was hurt...but I think we agree on what constitutes doing the 'right' thing; being clear on your morals and being morally consistant. After that it's just a question of what you consider to be 'right' and important. And on that level I'm happy to accept your priorities, and I hope you can accept mine, even though we disagree. I realise that's not at all clear but it's a hazy subject and I've only had 4 hours sleep and feel ROUGH.



And precisely, again...for me, this wasn't war. How does 'your' society work, in your head? For me we all sacrifice certain freedoms for the good of the group, certain liberties (we agree to observe the law) in exchange for the safety of the group (we are protected by the laws).

The right to make our voices heard is protecting and as such the police are normally there to assist us. Our fight is not necessarily against them, until they make it that way. But ultimately they are organs of the state we oppose - the literally are the hand which strikes us - and as such this has descended into a fight. It didn't have to.

As I said before I draw a line between the anarchists at the Bank of England and the event on Bishopsgate. If you oppose the anarchists, fine. I disagree, but we will never (it is likely) see eye to eye on that.

But I refuse to accept that the policing of the event on Bishopsgate was anything other than a monumental balls-up, and a disgrace to a police force that has found itself embroilled in more and more trouble over the last year or so.

Let's look at this respetcable force shall we? Another hugely disproportionate presence and budget at the Kingsnorth power plant demo was justified by the exceptional number of 'injuries' sustained by the police...these have turned out to consist of bee stings and sunburn (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/15/kingsnorth-climate-change-environment-police)...more BS budget justification. Those are our big strong protectors are they? Please.

While that is just ridiuclous and embarassing for them, this one's appalling: officers convicted of a "serious, gratuitous and prolonged" attacked on an asian man had been the subjects of scores and scores of race complaints over the years. The Met managed to lose "several large mail sacks" of the complaints over the 6 years these guys were perpetrating these crimes - never having been taken off duty despite the volume of accusations. It's mostly here though for some reason I can't find all the links (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/20/met-police-officers-accused-assaults).

I'm not here to get everyone to sign up to some sort of intellectualised revolutionary struggle. Just to accept that it is important to recognise that sometimes the people who we think are there to protect us don't necessarily have our best interests at heart. Their protestor-bashing interests coincided with your wanting-to-work interests this time, but who knows what series of events could conspire to see you negatively affected by what you consider to be ridiculous governmental/state heavy-handedness.

It's important to keep asking questions of those with that power if what they're doing is right, representative and legitimate. In this case, I think the questions are difficult for them to answer.

Sorry for another long post! I'm usually not so full of hot air.

And I wish everyone a great day at the carvery. Massive game today in my opinion, here's hoping for the performance we know the lads are capable of putting in...

Agh, I feel guilty! I hereby renounce my commitment to ridiculously long posts...that was the last one, honest!

Getting over the second would've helped.

Gents (and ladies, of course),

I know you've been worrying about my whereabouts also, as I haven't posted in two-and-a-half weeks now...

Just to let you know I'm fine, I just haven't had a day off in the last fortnight and by the time I get home the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer.

You were all worried, right?

Petejones great post, really opened my eyes to what the thinking and purpose of this protest in London was about and the reason for your involvement! Us in Torbay are a world away from this!

Merse and others, congratulations for bringing out this debate and some quality analysis on the issue.

Which leads me to think is the police action really over the top or just the only way in which the authorities can deal or know how to deal with such protests? There have been many confrontations between protesters/strikers and the police over the years (Wapping, miners, poll tax, may day riots etc) and each and every time accusations of police brutality but how do they deal with it in a proper and correct manner. Like football, the minority will always grab the headlines and the true reason for the action is often lost in the midst of violence. How many really understand the true reason for any form of action?

Sorry for bringing this thread to the top, but have found it fascinating!