I have been silent for a few days, (you hadn't noticed), my internet connection went down for almost a week, so I had to do with the real world for a while, but I'm now back connected to the cyberworld.
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Inverness.
Slowly, slowly, the guns come on to our streets. First special occasions, then routinely at airports, now walking our streets. The establishment is always fearful that the people will one day wake up and realise, we don't need our lords and masters, and then do something about it. Inverness, one of the areas with the lowest crime rate in the country, and there are cops strutting around the streets with guns strapped to their sides, Wyatt Earp's of the north.
The powers that be are now going to look at this. A bit late, should the issue of putting guns routinely on the streets not have been discussed before it happened, or is this sort of decision to be left to the whims of some over zealous authoritarian police chief? Sooner or later we will have an armed police force patrolling our streets. The establishment is well aware of the economic future the people of this country are facing, and the fear of civil unrest will always shape their thinking. Let's not forget, the police are not there to protect you, but to protect them, our lords and masters.
Luton.
This from Anarchist News:
1. What happened to Mike Brown is a tragedy that can’t be put into words. A less spoken tragedy is that it’s the day to day reality for so many of us–especially those of us who are young, who are people of color, who don’t fit the cops’ idea of an acceptable, law abiding citizen. How often do the police kill someone? In St. Louis, it seems like almost every month. We often don’t do anything about it, or feel like we can. The last few days have been different.Read the full article HERE:
2. People in Ferguson have shown–through gathering, talking and debating with each other, protesting and rioting– that this tragedy won’t be yet another one placed on our already over-burdened backs.
3. Day to day, we don’t have a voice. Working people, people of color, poor people, the disenfranchised – we don’t have an official media that will argue our interests like the rich and middle class. We don’t have a police force we can call like the middle class or an army like the rich. We only have each other. Large protests and rioting gives us a voice, gives us power. These actions let us take back some of our dignity.
4. The 1960s saw many urban uprisings: riots and looting where fed-up, voiceless people were able to have a voice and, for once, the nice things that are constantly kept out of our reach. One of the police and government’s biggest fears is that people will realize we don’t need them and their mentality.
5. In response to the urban uprisings of the ‘60s, police developed a two-fold strategy. First, that police from then on would have counter-insurgency training, gear and weaponry, and would use it as their day to day way of patrolling neighborhoods where poor people and people of color live. We see the effects of this constantly: getting pulled over not by one cop but 3-5 cars worth, having ourselves groped, our shoes taken off, having the doors of our homes kicked in.
