Ban 'kettling'

You brought up the example. What is it an example of?

It is an example of someone bringing attention to a greater crime by breaking a window. Given his defence of breaking a window to bring attention to the fire, he's not the fire brigade so he shouldn't be expected to put the fire out. He's hardly to blame if the fire brigade didn't bother to turn up.

You've criticised the example. Now you say what you would have done instead that would have actually stopped the corruption at a stroke. Or are you saying it's useless to try to fight corruption so he shouldn't have bothered?

What attention did he bring to it, aside from talking about it in court and getting himself out of a vandalism and public mischief charge?

I can't tell you of some different solution on those facts, because I don't know enough about how council estates work, whether the members are elected etc etc. But I've seen enough about protest in general to believe that usually, sporadic acts of street violence do nothing to remedy the problems they're supposed to be addressing.

He brought it to the attention of the courts, of the police, of the local paper - you're a bit thick when you want to be, aren't you.

So what would you have done?

Ah, you'd have done nothing. Very helpful.

Ok, so we've gone past the point of discussion. I need some groceries, anyway.

Does voting? Address the problems that its supposed to be addressing?

We're talking about protest and civil disobedience. I don't think sporadic violent acts in the street are of assistance in most cases.

What's Kettling?

It's like tea-baggin, ony rougher,,,

you've already hamstrung yourself with this one by appealing to the non violent Civil Rights movement as an example- completely ignoring social context and others like the panthers and so on, the local anti klan org.

Hoover targeted the Panthers for their efforts, for the most part, they ended up dead or serving very long prison sentences. They have little or no legacy; Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy and other proponents of nonviolence, have a long and large legacy.

Look chaps I've been to Kettering and it's a jolly nice place, King John in AD 1204 signed it off as a god thing and who are we to argue with that?

Fuck, I'd only just got over docking...

lmfao

Er ... yes ... you're point is ...

Your story well illustrates some of what I see as the "ground rules" for when breaking the law is necessary to make a point:

1. Lawful means were tried first - breaking the law was a last resort
2. The breaking of the law was obvious ... but minimal and chosen so as to have the minimal collateral impact on other people
3. The person breaking the law readily submitted to the course of the law ... and did not fight the police (who they acknowledged were just doing their job) or whinge and whine that they had been arrested, charged and prosecuted (acknowledging that that was the inevitable consequence of breaking the law and accepting that that was a proce worth paying for what they saw as a necessary step in bringing about what they considered necessary change).

Contrary to what the fuckwits think, I have absolutely no objection whatsoever to people breaking the law in pursuit of a legitimate grievance if these ground rules are observed. Quite the contrary, I have great respect for them ... as, I suspect, do the majority of police officers, many of whom I have seen treat such offenders with huge respect and courtesy as they have processed them through the arrest and charge process.

Who I (and, I suspect, the majority of police officers) hate with a vengance are those criminals who hide amongst legitimate protesters simply so that they can have a fight with the police and / or do a spot of light looting. They have no idea what the protest issues are (and certainly have no strong feeling about them). The reason I hate them is two fold: once for committing the crimes they do and once for damaging the cause of the actual protest. They are scum. Genuine protesters should consider them scum too.

The main problem with our current system (in fact the main problem with any established system) is that to get to a position of power and influence you have to "play the game". This either means you sell out and, by the time you get there, you are part of the problem and no longer the solution or that you have been forced to do so much "bad" stuff to preserve your cover that you are terminally susceptible to the "hypocrisy" card.

It was one of the reasons I bailed out of the police: IF I had played their game then I maybe could have achieved chief officer rank and "made a difference" ... but there is no way that I could play their game and maintain my integrity ... thus the options were (a) remain, keep doing the right thing (some fuckwit senior officer memorably told me "You are very good at doing the right thing ... but not at doing what you are told!") and get more and more frustrated whilst being passed over for promotion or (b) get out. I chose the latter.

We need to chip away at the party political system - certainly at local level, independent councillors are eminently possible ... perhaps that way lies better democracy?

It's a cool and trendy new name for the well-established police public order tactic of containment.

do you think Luther and the non violent crowd woul have been paid any attention if the threat of less reasonable opponents hadn't been there?

Why would anyone be against the police containment of unruly mobs?

Who knows, if they weren't legitimately contained in this fashion, they may go on to break shop windows or otherwise damage property?

You're quite right.


They need to be less sporadic.

It appears to be police slang, originally coined by the German police.

the german police as well, so practically Nazis.

Yes, there used to be official and unofficial kettling warnings put up well outside various 'events' decades ago in West Germany - it's not a a new trendy term. It's a deliberate adoption of an aggressive version of a tactic. And the german police adopted it because in military use it was usually the precursor to a massacre.

No. It appears to be a German police name for the tactic of containment.

But this can't be right ... the fuckwits tell us with absolute certainty that "kettling" is brand new and have absolutely no truck whatsoever with my repeatedly pointing out that it is a trendy new name for something (containment) which has been a tactic since the old King died ...

My money is on ten posts before some fuckwit claims that either (a) the police massacred the students on Westminster Bridge and threw the bodies into the Thames or (b) they intended to do so and would have done but for the brave "citizen journalists" who recorded every move ...

You noticed the word 'term' didn't you? No, you didn't. Or if you did you chose to ignore it.

Thanks for cutting out the substantive part of my post - the bit you disagree with.

Great, we get this shit all day once more.