Anonymous hacktivists' Million Mask March protest hits London London cops made 11 arrests last night as thousands of supporters of the hacktivist group Anonymous led protests outside Buckingham Palace. The Register had a vulture on the ground, watching as the group of about 1,000 masked “Anons” marched from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square, before bursting through a police cordon …
"Can I just point out that the Anonymous mask image is actually owned by Time warner and they are paid a fee for each mask that is sold."
It's worse than that, and they apparently know this to be true:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/marthagill/100244704/anonymous-have-been-exposed-as-hypocrites-who-use-sweatshops-watch-them-try-to-wriggle-out-of-it/
I'm afraid an idea is not as bulletproof as you seem to believe, as the braincells that are fused together in the minds of people who are receptive to such an idea can easily be shattered by a passing bullet. Shatter enough braincells, and any idea can be easily extinguished.
"Like Communism"
There's nothing all that bad about communism. The real world implementations at a state level that we've seen so far haven't worked all that well. It's worked quite well on a small scale in many places around the world. The problem isn't communism, or even the idea of communism. The problem is that it almost invariably ends up with some power mad loon in charge.
"There's nothing all that bad about communism...." Seriously? You must have missed the last century of history then.
".....The real world implementations at a state level that we've seen so far haven't worked all that well...." Massive understatement! The big, BIG problem with Communism, which is simply Socialism in it's purest form, is that it does not allow any form of development, it simply leads to stagnation. Without a means of valuing product through a financial system how do you both steer demand and trade with other countries? And that's before we get round to the fact that Communism, as the original poster mentioned, does not take into account human nature. Capitalism and democracy are pretty poor systems but they allow advancement and development and at least attempt at equal opportunities, BECAUSE it takes into account human nature, making them the best compromise yet.
".....The problem isn't communism, or even the idea of communism....." Complete cobblers! The simple example is how the Soviet Union failed to keep pace with developments in the West, leading to their eventual collapse. The so-called "Communist" system in China is anything but Communist, except for the tyrannical control and repression of freedoms. Communist China needed the Capitalist West as a trading partner to climb out of the immense lag in development. Pure Communism is an ivory tower myth, it almost always degenerates into failure and collapse or resorts to Capitalist systems for survival.
".....The problem is that it almost invariably ends up with some power mad loon in charge......" Which is exactly what the original poster said - Communism requires the "pure of heart", entrusting full control to a small group of people on the basis they will only ever make the correct decisions for the benefit of all, and leaves the majority with no means of removing the decision makers if they get it wrong or get greedy. Communism appeals through it's almost religious outlook of the inherent good of people, hence its failure. Capitalism and democracy work better because they take human nature into account. If you really want to continue insisting there is nothing wrong with Communism then I suggest you go talk to some East Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians or Russians, the majority of whom will quite happily tell you how stupid you sound.
"Pure Communism is an ivory tower myth, it almost always degenerates into failure and collapse or resorts to Capitalist systems for survival."
Ivory tower? Yes.
"almost always degenerates". Yes, "almost always", that was my point. As for your other points, I already addressed them if you read what I wrote.
I've been around the world a fair bit and I can say with a great deal of certainty that Communism sucks as much as democracy but at least in most democracies people have more freedoms.
By the way: I note that the "Million Man March" didn't have a million, if 1000 people were in London and 450 other locations had the same (I doubt they did) then it was a 450,000 man march. Yes this is big but not representative in democratic terms. If a million marched on London I would be more impressed.
When it comes to this uprising, yes things aren't very even and British & American politics is something of a farce, but I don't like the alternatives. So far the only alternative I have seen proposed is anarchy, if Brand actually wanted to lend his weight to this he would be either proposing some alternate structure or endorsing someones proposal. But as it stands I see no 'structure' under which society can live effectively and democratically. People are suggesting technological solutions, but these create an even greater divide because the savvy become the elite instead of populus.
Well, we can give you a uniform, a couple of days training, a stick and a bit of gaffa tape to cover your badge number and you can smash all the noses you want.
The thing you aren't understanding is that this is called "democracy" and "liberty" and you wanting to use violence to get your way is exactly what these people are standing against.
Live with it.
"...but those Anonymous Masks make me want to smash the noses of the people wearing them"
For me the laugh is on them. Fawkes wanted to destroy parliament in order to return the UK to the dictatorial catholic fold. Anyone who is remotely stupid enough to adopt such a symbol to characterise a rebellion has either a lack of cultural awareness or has been consuming too many Nepalese Temple Balls. Or both, and possibly a little more. They remind me of the New Romantics in the 1980s, so adroitly satirised by the junior police officers in Ashes to Ashes, and so many other fools that have over the centuries adopted silly clothing to signify their membership of a Cause.
Russell Bland - you're not Che Guevara you tosser.
Of course not, and he's got some weird ideas at times too. But every so often he does come up with a gem, like in that Paxman interview - even Paxman said afterwards that there were bits he actually agreed with. He's a bit light on follow through, but I think someone like him will at least keep you thinking. Or drinking :).
Why is it insane?
I'm with him. I've not voted in a general election since 1997. This is not apathy, or laziness, or some mis-guided idea that my vote is worthless - I value my vote highly, and absolutely refuse to cast it for someone just because they are not someone else, or for any other reason than that they (or, at a stretch, their party) are worthy of my vote.
Give me a candidate worthy of my vote, and I will vote again. Until then, fuck 'em all, and the horses they rode in on.
GJC
We've been given the right to choose between a douche and a turd.
It's democracy in action! Put your freedom to the test.
Actually the democracy part means that you can stand as a third option. No doubt your ideas will be perfect and everyone will vote for you. Then you have to implement them, and that's when reality will bite you.
The current system is far from perfect, but it has arisen through practice, not just some paper/mind-based theory.
"Actually the democracy part means that you can stand as a third option. No doubt your ideas will be perfect and everyone will vote for you. Then you have to implement them, and that's when reality will bite you."
My ideas are far from perfect, and I would be lousy in politics.
"The current system is far from perfect"
The problem is not the system, per se. It is the people who generally rise to power in our political system. Hence my tongue-in-cheek quote from a South Park episode (maybe I should have included the joke icon to make it clear). It is captured in another line from that episode:
"But Stan, don't you know, it's always between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. Nearly every election since the beginning of time has been between some douche and some turd. They're the only people who suck up enough to make it that far in politics."
I do think there is another reason for this: Most people do not understand fully what they are voting for. Sometimes this is down to the voter (e.g. they are just voting for Party X because their parents did or they were too lazy to actually look into the issues), sometimes it is down to the politicians not giving enough information to make an informed decision. The politicians (from all parties) also tend to do as much work trying to discredit their opposition as setting out their policies (I am being generous, here).
And finally, the bottom line is that politicians do not do after the election what they said they would do before it. This is, I believe, most people's biggest gripe. They may say that they couldn't, but they should not be making promises they cannot keep. So how can we, the general public, the voters, make an informed decision when the politicians will not do most of what they say anyway?
"Actually the democracy part means that you can stand as a third option. No doubt your ideas will be perfect and everyone will vote for you"
The "theory of democracy" part means that you, me and anyone else can stand as a third option.
The "practice of democracy" part means that you, me and anyone else can only get elected as a third option if we are multi-millionaires willing to bankroll our own campaign, or find some multi-millionaires willing to support our campaign*. Perfect ideas don't matter if those ideas can't be heard, and the ideas can't be heard above everyone else's shouting. Not to mention that the current incumbents will lie through their teeth about their own proposals and paint us as monsters. Not to mention that why should people believe us if all the politicians they've ever known were liars?
"Then you have to implement them, and that's when reality will bite you."
In the miracle case of not only getting elected but getting enough clout and following to propose laws and have backing for them, then we have to implement them and all the special interests will come out of the woodwork pleading exceptions. More likely than not these will form a pretty good subset with the people who have financed you and are now pleading special treatment.
Thanks but no thanks, I'd much rather have the "none of the above" option, combined with a framework that allows citizens to propose / amend their own laws through referendum (as in Switzerland for example)
*Said financiers of course will more likely than not dictate or at least influence policy direction or withdraw future funding.
So what you're basically saying is you want a change but can't be bothered to get off your arse and make an attempt at changing things because it's too much hard work for ickle you, so instead you'll just throw childish tantrums and break stuff.
What a load of cobblers.
The free press in the West are gagging for stories, they would love the opportunity to publicise a "third way" that actually was a third way. Watch some of the online vids on the London march and you'll see the journos onscreen often outnumber the protesters! There are plenty of options for free media coverage outside of traditional print and TV, including Twatter, Faecesbook, etc., etc. Actual registration (the deposit) for a local election probably costs less than the average Anonyputz wastes every year on drugs, booze, and trendy clothing (note how many of the "protesters" in the failed MillionMaskMarch are young trendy types in branded gear). Seriously, you are just pathetic to make that claim Grow a pair or STFU.
Welcome back to normality Matt :)
What I am NOT doing is throwing stuff. I am simply suggesting alternative rules for a game that is not rigged (or less rigged at least), then maybe I would be interested in playing. And it seems to me that in agreeing to the 'none of the above', that you also support changing the rules of the game. The party I do support with my vote and my money is one that explicitly campaigns on changing the rules of the political game.
I have no interest in playing a game that I know to be rigged against me (same reason I don't buy lottery tickets). Doing hard work that I know will not lead to a desired outcome is stupid. So if you want to call making public suggestions instead of directly campaigning / standing for election "lazy", please yourself, but for me, better lazy than stupid anyway.
"Welcome back to normality Matt :)...." Sorry, but I really don't think your version of "normality" is anywhere I want to be.
".....I am simply suggesting alternative rules for a game that is not rigged (or less rigged at least), then maybe I would be interested in playing....." Being intesrested in "playing" with Communism is the equivalent of suicide.
"....And it seems to me that in agreeing to the 'none of the above', that you also support changing the rules of the game...." Wrong. My agreeing with the "none of the above" is simply agreeing that you and everyone else should have a right to show their disagreement, not that I actually don't happily vote for one of the options presented.
".....The party I do support with my vote and my money is one that explicitly campaigns on changing the rules of the political game." I support your right to do so absolutely, just as I would support your right to wear a pink tutu in a blizzard if you want, but you are making the mistake of assuming my support for your right to what I consider a stupid choice is agreement with your choice. And, to be brutally honest, the other reason I am happy to let you air your choice is because I am confident it is a minority view. One of the truths about democracy is you know it's working when the extremes of Left and/or Right are moaning about how it isn't letting them over-rule the majority.
" I value my vote highly, and absolutely refuse to cast it for someone just because they are not someone else, or for any other reason than that they (or, at a stretch, their party) are worthy of my vote."
When will we finally get a "None of the above" that is legally enforced? ie if "None of the above" is the most popular option, fresh elections are held with new candidates (old candidates barred from standing)
"....When will we finally get a "None of the above" that is legally enforced? ie if "None of the above" is the most popular option, fresh elections are held with new candidates (old candidates barred from standing)" Blimey, a suggestion from Jimbo I can actually agree with! The skies must be falling.....
"At least turn up to the polling station and spoil your ballot, otherwise you're no different from everyone sat on their arses at home who are too lazy to vote."
Indeed, as I have on occasion done. We after all owe it to our forebears, who over centuries of wars (particularly in the period between 1939 and 1945 [VE and then VJ day in the case of the forgotten armies]) contributed to what eventually became a universal franchise.
What we need is a "none of the above" box on the ballot.
With that i predict turnout climbing over 80%, with "none of the above" being the clear winner.
I happen to be fortunate that for the last several election's I've had an MP worth voting for, that regular turns up to work for his constituants (not lobbying firms, etc.), asks well thought through and researched questions both in the house and on committee, and holds regular surgerys, despite his current ill health, damn shame about the other 600+ NON-bench warmers.
"Brand's an appealing guy and he's correctly identified the problem, but then so has everyone else. His solution, however, is insane"
Brand looks more like an idiot to me (especially for his answerphone message) not least for his suggestion WRT voting. However, Webb's diagnosis of our country being a revolutionary country is not only misplaced, but also overlooks something contained in the very anti monarchy revolution to which he points; revolutions are bloody affairs, and have been since the French one. The old order is not replaced by anything ethically better, but by creatures of opportunity who slaughter, torture and imprison whomsoever they wish (after the October Revolution which was snatched from the Mensheviks by the Bolsheviks, monks and nuns were detained whilst murderers, thieves and rapists were released, because their crimes were surely the fault of capitalist society). The point about not having a dictatorship of the proletariat is that you can vote the bastards out, although in Blair's case the halo had evidently vaporised with the first million that he made, and yet he was returned 3 x.
Oh yes, indeed; I can hear the shouts of 'it will be better when we have the next revolution, we can do this properly'. That's what the proponents of every religion say, from Islam to Marxism.
Not always. See the Carnation revolution for one. Granted, I do agree with you about the opportunists ...
"There goes the mob... I must follow them, for I am their leader."
"Not always. See the Carnation revolution for one. Granted, I do agree with you about the opportunists ...
"There goes the mob... I must follow them, for I am their leader.""
I was talking this through a couple of years back with a Portuguese acquaintance. We moved from talking of Portugal as England's oldest ally to what happened there, but was it truly a revolution? What is a revolution?
More modern case studies of revolution can be found in the middle east, and they are a warning, as is our past.
We're gradualists in this country, and small wonder. Our two civil wars/revolution spilled much blood, set father and son against one another, mother and son, brothers, daughters... ...one of the reasons why we do not have a food foraging tradition is that these wars marked the last times we had cities under siege, with people eating snails, rats, horse and all of the other delicacies beloved of 'continentals' but mostly not us.
I post on ARRSE.co.uk, where a few years back an ugly rumour began circulating that the New Labour government had begun the process of getting soldiers to sign 'loyalty' documents. This was some time before Blair was booted, because they could see that this wealthy man had been doing things for which they had no mandate and had earned the ire of the electorate.
As the now sadly defunct Clann Zú observed through one of the passionate (brief) interviewees in their song The sailor who fell from grace with the sea "The richest people in the world they are less than 2,000 people, they're controlling 6 billion people on this planet, this planet belongs to all of us.". They omit to say that not all of the people on the planet are controlled by the few, that the few are greater in number, that there is a pyramidal structure of what amount to commercial civil servants who determine what happens [...]. Clann Zú's wild and strange music used to be freely available from http://clannzu.com/ but someone in Motown appears to own the site and is using it in pursuit of regenerating the one time powerhouse of the USA. How ironic that is, from so many perspectives. It tells a story that you will not hear in many headlines.
This is all that I can find of them now: http://web.archive.org/web/20071014062538/http://clannzu.com/
Gone, just like Abunai! whose different brand of strangeness is still available at their site: http://www.abunai.com/ Get it whilst it is still there and look at their photographs only when you've heard the music, which is a modernish variety of space rock. They look like bloody social workers!
The police failed at being in control all evening, the crowd just did what they wanted with impunity until the end of the night when the groups had split.
From what I saw, the police had tried talking to who they thought the organisers were to try and get some control but with the de-centralised nature of this kind of protest, they were unable to do so. So the police had no idea what direction the crowd would go or when. There were about 1500 to 2000 protesters so when they chose to walk through a police line, they just did it. Often the moves were just spontaneous decisions and the crowd just followed.
One guy wheeled a speaker around playing some loud loud music which had a pied piper effect on some followers. On the Mall they had three police vans blocking the road and about 5 cops as they didn't expect the sudden movement in that direction. Barriers both sides of the road and a sergeant shouted that no one goes beyond his 5 man line or they get arrested, whereby someone just opened a section of barrier and everyone walked around them laughing while they maintained their line looking like lemons.
The police looked so lost and helpless all night that one can only speculate that they did not expect so many, as well as having the issue of no organiser to harass in to moving how the police wanted them to move.
"The police looked so lost and helpless all night that one can only speculate that they did not expect so many"
This began somewhere between 1997 and 2010; you may remember some Muslim demonstrators actually chasing coppers down London streets, threatening them with violence.
You may find pleasure in the impotence of the police, relatively leaderless and without tactics and other resources, but during the riots and across the country innocent people were made to suffer by people who refused to obey the laws that protect people in this country. It would be a shock to such demonstrators if those who suffered retaliated in kind, yet this fate awaited them if they crossed Sikh lines in west London; they had unsheathed ceremonial swords and were prepared to use them, and that along with the use of a firearm by at least one set of rioters says enough for me.
why am i not surprised the met tried to find "central command" for what was effectively a bunch of anarchists
even when SOCA required "permission" to demonstrate, it wasn't that organised (see Mark Thomas's Seriously Organised Criminal video for some LOL entertainment on this)
Yeah, they don't really seem to know exactly what they are protesting about other than "The Man" in general. Russell Brand's recent political musings are a little sixth form in nature, albeit very eloquent. However, he does make a good point that the mainstream parties don't really strike a chord with millions of people in this country.
Maybe that is what is at the root of this type of protests, a generation that seem to be disenfranchised and want some kind of change, but they don't know exactly what?
There has been virtually NO coverage of this by the UK media except attempts to portray the whole protest as a bunch of violent idiots because of a few mindless pillocks launching fireworks at Buckingham Palace.
And it's not what they're protesting "for", it's what they're protesting against (which has been clearly demonstrated by the media establishment supporting the status quo).
"And it's not what they're protesting "for", it's what they're protesting against (which has been clearly demonstrated by the media establishment supporting the status quo)."
'Oh man, heavy-heavy, we don't like the compromise the adults have reached and want to tear everything down, even though we are a minority group and hold ideas that most people find risible. Shit man, we gonna do some real heavy shit tonite man.'
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