bad moves at climate camp?

[slaar]

I don’t think there can be even the most tenuous connection made between the employment conditions of Gate Gourmet workers, and the protest against airport expansion – in fact, I guess a new runway would probably be good news for Gate Gourmet workers – so I do find it a bit odd that people don’t seem to have enough to keep them busy relating to climate change protest, and are choosing to widen the protest to just about anything happening in the vague vicinity of Heathrow, but I don’t think you’re a numpty.

But if people are going to take some bold direct action against something, of the kind that’s likely to make the news, I think it would have been a good move to try something a little more directly related to the cause the camp’s there for rather than trying to grab some kind of two-for-one deal.

Yep, otherwise the protestors tend to look like the anti-globalisation activists in the West Wing who shout at each other and everything while Toby reads the sports pages.

 

[peacepete]

this is the lamest critique of an action I've ever heard.

it's challenging that people would choose to target an Israeli freight company, but what exactly is wrong with it I'd love someone to give a meaningful account of.

 

[Yossarian]

What were the aims of this protest camp, then? To protest against *everything*?

 

[justuname]

What a pile of armchair whining about people who are under attack from violent police and patronising stay-at-home know-it-alls because they give a fuck and actually, you know, do things.

It's still there btw if you want to join in.

 

[Fullyplumped]

What were the aims of this protest camp, then? To protest against *everything*?

Certainly seems to be to protest against planes!

Make planes history? Does that mean they want to see the return of the Queen Mary and the Titanic on the Atlantic run?

Unless they're also against carpentry.

 

[chymaera]

What a pile of armchair whining about people who are under attack from violent police and patronising stay-at-home know-it-alls because they give a fuck and actually, you know, do things.

I do happen to give a fuck, which is why I don't fly anywhere, don't eat at Maccy D's, and have spent over £6000 insulating my home.
A few, as the many e-mails to the BBC are putting:- "soap dodging dole scroungers" taking 1800 police officers away from other duties is not the way to make friends and influence people with the general public.

 

[justuname]

Jesus, what a load of reactionary shite.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Personally not Indymedia.

Instead you believe a man with a vested interest in saying what he did. How odd.

And for the record I don't know who to believe as I can't possibly know. Perhaps you hsould put those mind reading skills to better use?

 

[chymaera]

Instead you believe a man with a vested interest in saying what he did. How odd.

Did I state that? I just happen to take anything Indymedia states with a huge pinch of salt. This does not mean I suspend systematic scepticism when evaluating other news sources.

 

[jimmer]

I don’t think there can be even the most tenuous connection made between the employment conditions of Gate Gourmet workers....

The picket line that people went and supported was at Nippon Express:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/378711.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

George Monbiot on some of the paper scare stories........More bullshit from the press as usual.

The allegations have been plaguing the Heathrow climate camp all week. They began in the Evening Standard: "Hoax bombs to cause alerts. Assaults on airport fence ... Protest leaders calling themselves 'The Elders' advised 'clashes with police will happen'."

When I was asked on to Newsnight to discuss the issue of whether climate change is a greater threat than terrorism, we kept being dragged back to the hoax bombs. The story was later picked up across the media, including appearances in the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, and by Friday had been embellished with some lurid new quotes from the Metropolitan police in the Daily Express, which warned: "Extremist yobs hijack airport demo in plot to cause mayhem".

All this has left us at the protest camp scratching our heads. The actions planned for tomorrow have been discussed openly at huge meetings. But nothing even resembling the schemes proposed by the Evening Standard has even been mooted. The campers will certainly be breaking the law by taking direct action - all protests can now be deemed unlawful - but they will be governed by strict non-violent principles.

There are quite a few of us veterans here but age, sadly, confers no privileges: the camp is non-hierarchical, and no one has heard of "The Elders". There are plenty of anarchists, but the last thing they want is a ruck with the police, not least because - armed with nothing more than a sheaf of scientific papers - they would lose. As for scaling the perimeter fence, it has been ruled out on the grounds that we would probably be shot. Invading Heathrow's massive runways would put the lives of thousands at risk.

So where did the story come from? It was, or so the byline claimed, written by Robert Mendick, the Evening Standard's chief reporter. One of the campers phoned Mr Mendick and asked him what was going on. "I'm very constrained about what I can say for various reasons," Mr Mendick replied. "Suffice to say I understand what you're saying and I can't go into it. Er, and I would further say it's, er, not something I was actually massively involved with and, er, I'll leave it at that." "What do you mean?" "... I really can't go into it."

So what does he mean? Why is Mr Mendick unable to say where the claims in his story came from? How did he manage to write an article that he was not "massively involved with"? Is there a computer programme at the Evening Standard that composes reporters' articles on their behalf? I left messages for Mr Mendick yesterday but was unable to speak to him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2151301,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Did I state that? I just happen to take anything Indymedia states with a huge pinch of salt. This does not mean I suspend systematic scepticism when evaluating other news sources.

No, you wouldn't do that, of course not!

 

[corporate whore]

I can't believe how many dodgy angles people on this site swallow from the Guardian.

It's not a Guardian story, it's from the Press Association, reproduced almost in its entirety from the original, omitting only more from the police and some irrelevant comment from an onlooker.

Look at the end of the item - Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2007, All Rights Reserved.

 

[ViolentPanda]

George Monbiot on some of the paper scare stories........More bullshit from the press as usual.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2151301,00.html

Looks like Mendick let his editor use his by-line for a propaganda piece, the twat.

 

[Random]

But if people are going to take some bold direct action against something, of the kind that’s likely to make the news, I think it would have been a good move to try something a little more directly related to the cause the camp’s there for rather than trying to grab some kind of two-for-one deal.

'Sorry Gate Gourmet workers, this one's just about the environment, so no pickets today, please'. FFS

And then, of course, some people would have slated the camp for failing to make links with workers...

 

[chico enrico]

I do happen to give a fuck, which is why I don't fly anywhere, don't eat at Maccy D's, and have spent over £6000 insulating my home.

Oh, to be as rich and pious as thou.

 

[detective-boy]

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/379037.html

Once again it boils down to who you believe ...

And, just in case anyone was confused by this bit of the Indymedia report:

It is surprising that the Press Association ran this story without reporting the fact that each activist was subjected to a search under Section one of the Police And Criminal Evidence Act, a power which the police have been using widely to deal with activists from the Climate Camp. Such searches require the activists to be intimately searched by police officers, and no arrests were made for any alcohol related offences.

1. s.1 PACE is the standard stop and search power and hs been since 1984. It is nothing special, quite the contrary, it is the standard power which everyone whinging about s.44 (the terrorism related stop and search power) points at as being the "right" way of doing stop and search.

2. s.1 PACE requires reasonable grounds to suspect prohibited articles (e.g, stolen property, drugs, equipment for burglary, weapons). If it has been "widely used" to deal with people from the Climate Camp then every occasion must be individually justified, made the subject of a record and the person stopped has a right to that record. The fact that the people are connected with the Climate Camp is entirely incidental and I cannot see it forming any of the reasonable grounds in any individual case.

3. Far from s.1 PACE requiring people to be searched "intimately", it actually prohibits that in a public place or anywhere other than a police station or vehicle. In those places a strip search would be possible but an intimate search is something entirely different and can only be authorised in relation to a person in police detention (i.e. under arrest for an offence) and even then cannot be conducted without the persons consent unless extreme circumstances exist. Even if it did, it is not usualy necessary to search someone to provide evidence as to whether they are drunk or not ...

4. s.1 PACE has absolutely nothing to do with offences of drunkeness. It provides no power to deal with drunkenness. Drunkenness offences can only be committed in public places. Even then simply being drunk is not something you would be arrested for - you would have to be incapable of caring for yourself, be disorderly or otherwise fit one of the specific arrest conditions of s.24 PACE (as amended by s.110 SOCPA 2005).

Clealy Indymedia have about as much grasp of the law as the non-independent media they despise ...

 

[Fruitloop]

Indymedia doesn't have an editorial line, it's just a resource for citizen journalism, so the level of accuracy is highly variable.

 

[TAE]

Clealy Indymedia have about as much grasp of the law as the non-independent media they despise ...

Or you could read the article again and apply some common sense!

Perhaps they were making a general comment that no arrests for drunkenness were made - unreleated to stop-and-search powers ?

Perhaps they were not using the word 'intimate' in the same technical sense that you would?

Perhaps the police do not always follow the letter of the law themselves ?

 

[chymaera]

Oh, to be as rich and pious as thou.

I am most certainly not rich. (My wife had a spell on JSA recently and £59 and a few pence a week does not go very far).
I was very fortunate to purchase a flat back 1975-76 for £9500, my current home was purchased in 1984 for £23950. Just because it is "worth" £200000 now does not mean I am rich. In common with many other home owners who have been in the same home for several decades they cost a hell of a lot to maintain. What people are worth on paper is not the same as finding the cash to pay water rates, council tax ect. ect.

 

[lostexpectation]

Not that Indymedia is biased of course. (I still think it was stupid to have a go at a Jewish owned company with the potential for it backfiring very badly from an image point of view.)

wahey intelluctually dishonest posts like this got you put back on my ignore list tobyjug congratulations

 

[Miss-Shelf]

2. s.1 PACE requires reasonable grounds to suspect prohibited articles (e.g, stolen property, drugs, equipment for burglary, weapons). If it has been "widely used" to deal with people from the Climate Camp then every occasion must be individually justified, made the subject of a record and the person stopped has a right to that record. The fact that the people are connected with the Climate Camp is entirely incidental and I cannot see it forming any of the reasonable grounds in any individual case.


...

many people coming to the camp were stopped and searched and many people leaving during the camp and leaving to go home were stopped and searched the reason being that they were associated with the camp and this was enough to suspect they might have equipment to cause damage on them

 

[detective-boy]

Or you could read the article again and apply some common sense!

The media, "Indy" or otherwise have a duty to accurately inform the public. If someone has no (or very limited) knowledge of the law how can they be expected to apply "common sense" and discern what the situation actually is? Giving people a misleading impression of the law increases significantly the chance of them falling foul of it. And it raises the fear of policing.

I'm surprised that you support such scaremongering spin.

 

[detective-boy]

many people coming to the camp were stopped and searched and many people leaving during the camp and leaving to go home were stopped and searched the reason being that they were associated with the camp and this was enough to suspect they might have equipment to cause damage on them

I think that suspicion of possessing items to cause damage could be partially based on connection with the camp (this is the squatters principal problem - although they may be in possession of land / buildings they do not own them and hence any damage or alteraction can usually be dealt with as a criminal offence) but I would not be happy signing off a search record based solely on that.

If people are concerned about the legality of the searches they should request copies of the search records (write to the Chief Superintendent, Hillingdon Borough Police, Uxbridge Police Station) if they have not already got copies and seek legal advice as to the grounds for the search recorded.

(Note: If the s.44 Terrorism Act power was used then there do not have to be any additional grounds at all BUT if the search under that power was purportedly for items to simply cause damage it would be illegal (the searches MUST be for items involved with terrorism which can include damage in particular circumstances but not at the camp itself).

 

[rioted]

The media, "Indy" or otherwise have a duty to accurately inform the public.

 

[Tom A]

I ceased considering Indymedia a reliable news source when "9/11 truth" articles became part of the "promoted" newswire (and in the case of the Sheffield region, even a feature), and where rants (and pure rants with no real information) about the evils of Crossrail and Notting Hill Housing Trust dominated the newswire, along with this tendecy among users of IMCUK to support people just for being "anti-West", eg Mugabe, Milosevic, the FARC, and the Maoists in Nepal, just as an example. Also somewhat miffed about the large number of "Zapatista fetishta" (as described once by SchNEWS) articles that occur on there, yes I know one should be aware of what happens in other parts of the world, but many involved in UK "Indy"media seem to be more concerned about what happens in the likes of Oaxaca City than outside their front doors.

</derail>

 

[Miss-Shelf]

I think that suspicion of possessing items to cause damage could be partially based on connection with the camp (this is the squatters principal problem - although they may be in possession of land / buildings they do not own them and hence any damage or alteraction can usually be dealt with as a criminal offence) but I would not be happy signing off a search record based solely on that.

If people are concerned about the legality of the searches they should request copies of the search records (write to the Chief Superintendent, Hillingdon Borough Police, Uxbridge Police Station) if they have not already got copies and seek legal advice as to the grounds for the search recorded.

QUOTE]

most searches were under PACE and police were signing them off (happy or not) purely for being connected with the camp

I came across one female WPC who was unhappy with this (she was from another station than the other 40 male officers present) and she stalled for time and rang her superior for back up.

the legal team are on the case DB.

 

[bluestreak]

indymedia is as reliable or unreliable as those that submit to it. it is, like all media, POV-led and subjective. this is both good and bad. the trick is, like all media, to use your critical faculties, or find someone with critical faculties to help you.

 

[TAE]

The media, "Indy" or otherwise have a duty to accurately inform the public.

Yes, my point was that YOU seem to have gotten the article backwards somehow and were making some very strange points.

For example, the article never claims/implies that people can be arrested for drunkenness under stop-and-search powers.

 

[8ball]

Just wondering - since when has eye-gouging been a police restraint technique?