Due to the ill health of this blogger Jan Nieupjur is guesting today. As I have previously stated, his views and mine are not necessarily the same:
A number of youths sit in a central London pub.
Youth #1: "Let's pretend to be outraged by government policy and go to the demo. See if we can wind the police up enough to get them on the attack".
Youth#2: "Yeah".
Youth #3: "Power to the people, right on".
Cut to: Some time later on the street: youth #1 is sitting in the road with a look of outrage on his face holding a Che Guevara bandana to a scratch on his forehead.
Youth#1: "Fucking monstrous. That copper hit me. It's not fair".
Youth #2: "Yeah".
youth #3: "I'm telling my mum".
Listen... If you go to the barricades you must expect the worst. You must have no consideration for your own safety (bloody hell! Liberty got her kit off for the cause). You are there to abuse authority and authority has as much right to freedom of action as you do.
Stop fucking whining!
Within a collective action the acts of each individual represents the whole; if one idiot is balaclava'd up and gratuitously smashing a window then you are, by being there, all part of it. Expect to get hurt.
Of course you have the right to voice your convictions but the bloke in the uniform you are lobbing bricks at has an equal right and might to over-react and smack you on the head with a truncheon.
If your mum had any sense (and wasn't down the pub) she would clip you round the ear and send you to bed without your beans on toast and with a copy of 'A Tale of Two Cities'.
I was interested to see that the Press snappers were doing most of the 'egging on' as usual.