Can this new protest movement be sustained? That depends…
A lot of lefties love nothing more than attending a protest or a demo. And why not: you make friends, they’re fun and you feel good about try to change society in some way. Well, in most cases anyway.
But is there a danger the newly developed protest movement is going too fast, and could run out of steam? I think so.
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Socialists write absurd letter defending Assange
The Guardian publishes this letter today:
We protest at the attacks on WikiLeaks and, in particular, on Julian Assange (Report, 9 December) The leaks have assisted democracy in revealing the real views of our governments over a range of issues which have been kept secret and are now irreversibly in the public domain. All we knew about the mass killing, torture and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan has been confirmed. The world’s leaders can no longer hide the truth by simply lying to the public. The lies have been exposed.
The actions of major corporations such as Amazon, the Swiss banks and the credit card companies in hindering WikiLeaks are shameful, bowing to US government pressure. The US government and its allies, and their friends in the media, have built up a campaign against Assange which now sees him in prison facing extradition on dubious charges, with the presumed eventual aim of ensuring his extradition to the US. We demand his immediate release, the dropping of all charges, and an end to the censorship of WikiLeaks. [emphasis mine]
signed
John Pilger, Lindsey German, Salma Yaqoob, Craig Murray, Alexei Sayle, Mark Thomas, Caryl Churchill, AL Kennedy, Celia Mitchell, Ben Griffin (former soldier), Terry Jones, Sami Ramadani, Roger Lloyd Pack, David Gentleman, Miriam Margolyes, Andy de la Tour, Katharine Hamnett, Iain Banks
I’m with them on the points regarding WikiLeaks and the attempts to shut it down.
But while I support a discussion of the case and the charges (minus all the ‘radical feminists’ rubbish that has graced some coverage), the idea that all charges against Julian Assange should be dropped immediately is patently absurd.
The charges should be fully investigated and to say otherwise does imply the women are lying. Without evidence that simply won’t do.
Watch: police on horses charge students again
Earlier today, a girl from Cambridge was crushed by a horse and had her collar bone broken.
Hacktivism: a fiftysomething writes
I could tell you all about overdetermination in the thought of Althusser or what it means to posit the proletariat as the identical subject-object of history. But when the conversation turns to Distributed Denial of Service Attack, all I can say is (a) that sounds nasty, missus and (b) I hear it’s a good way of buggering up major corporate websites.
From what I can gather, hordes of teenage nerds unhappy with the Visa and MasterCard’s action in blocking transaction involving WikiLeaks have arranged among themselves to disrupt web-based services operated by the big league credit card companies. This will presumably cost those bloodsuckers plenty and might even get some suits the sack, which may have been the point.
Coverage of student protests – live
Once again, it will all unfold on Twitter.
Follow the action here, below.
A final goodbye to Phil Woolas and his rubbish
contribution by Cory Hazlehurst
Apologies for coming back to the Phil Woolas saga after his career was shot to pieces, but I couldn’t help it after I got around to reading his statements after leaving court last Friday.
It’s very impressive in how many inaccuracies it contains.
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WikiLeaks infowar heats up: Visa to be sued
The credit card company Visa might end up losing more than they bargained for in the latest furore. After banning payments to WikiLeaks via their system, they tried to pressure a smaller payment company partner to do the same.
The company in question, Data Cell, yesterday announced it was going to sue Visa in retaliation. A statement on the Icelandic company’s website says:
DataCell ehf who facilitates those payments towards Wikileaks has decided to take up immediate legal actions to make donations possible again. We can not believe Wikileaks would even create scratch at the brand name of Visa. The suspension of payments towards Wikileaks is a violation of the agreements with their customers. Visa users have explicitly expressed their will to send their donations to Wikileaks and Visa is not fulfilling this wish. It will probably hurt their brand much much more to block payments towards Wikileaks than to have them occur. Visa customers are contacting us in masses to confirm that they really donate and they are not happy about Visa rejecting them.
It is obvious that Visa is under political pressure to close us down. We strongly believe a world class company such as Visa should not get involved by politics and just simply do their business where they are good at. Transferring money. They have no problem transferring money for other businesses such as gambling sites, pornography services and the like so why a donation to a Website which is holding up for human rights should be morally any worse than that is outside of my understanding.
Elsewhere
Today’s revelations show the oil giant Shell claiming it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians’ every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Unbelievable. Shell had “access to everything”
The government official who linked the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has signed a statement condemning the attempts to shut down WikiLeaks.
In a letter to the Guardian published today, Katrin Axelsson from Women Against Rape said Sweden had a poor record bringing rapists to justice and saw political motivations behind the rape charges. “There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women’s safety,” she says.
Facebook say they have no intention of removing the WikiLeaks fan page for now. But the hacking group Anonymous – behind the attacks on Mastercard and Visa – were chucked off both FB and Twitter yesterday. There’s an excellent article here on the group behind #payback.
Blast from the past: when Michael Gove wanted to restrict and privatise education
Will the government’s fees hike put off poorer potential students? Many people have worried about that. But what about those who rather hope the fees hike will put potential students off?
Such as the current Education Secretary Michael Gove, if we are to judge by his views for the Times before entering Parliament back in 2003 – arguing that £21,000 or more in fees is “a bargain”, that anybody who is deterred is simply too stupid to go to a top university, and that the only vision for Britain’s universities he believes in is to privatise them.
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NUS hits back at Telegraph ‘desperation’
The NUS president Aaron Porter today hit back at a Telegraph article alleging that the NUS “urged” a cut in grants.
A statement released late last night said:
It’s hardly a secret that in the run up to the publication of the Browne review, NUS met with ministers and officials to discuss and model various potential impacts of cuts to Higher Education and the implications on other budgets that would flow from Government avoiding an increase in fees.
In all of these meetings and communications we stated our firm and clear opposition to cuts- to distort these discussions on the eve of the fees vote by suggesting that we were somehow “urging a cut in grants to poorer students” is nothing short of political desperation from a coalition government losing the arguments on its own policies.
The Daily Telegraph alleges the NUS secretly urged the Coalition to make deep cuts in student grants and charge market rates of interest on student loans, according to leaked emails.
The Daily Telegraph has seen emails from Mr Porter and his team in which the NUS leadership urged ministers to cut grants and loans as an alternative to raising tuition fees.
In private talks in October, the NUS tried to persuade ministers at the Department for Business to enact their planned 15 per cent cut in higher education funding without lifting the cap on fees.
The newspaper quotes a “Coalition source” but has no one actually going on the record on the so-called controversy.
Exclusive: leaders ask police not to victimise students at protests
This letter – signed by a range of student leaders and commentators, is published here exclusively and will also be sent to the Metropolitan Police.
There have been several recent incidents, highlighted on Liberal Conspiracy, of police heavy-handedness at student protests.
The police have charged into protesters on horses, punched students without provocation and sprayed dangerous chemicals in their face.
Jon Cruddas is the only MP to sign the letter, though it was organised at very short notice today.
Today, tens of thousands of students and school pupils will march on Parliament to express our sincere and strongly held opposition to the coming public sector cuts, and in particular to the higher education bill upon which the Commons is set to vote. We will be marching in the best traditions of British representative democracy.
What we ask is that our voices be heard, and that we not be victimised by the police.
After being comprehensively let down by the Parliamentary process we have resorted to the last recourse available to concerned citizens in a democratic country: direct action. We intend to march on Parliament square, as any other destination would be inadequate to our purposes. We are asking ACPO, the Metropolitan police and the executive to respect our right to do this, as outlined in the European Convention on Human Rights (Articles 5, 10 and 11).
The police response to recent anti-cuts protests and to non-violent direct actions such as flashmobs has employed what many consider excessive force, from holding teenagers against their will for hours in sub-zero temperatures to unprovoked physical attacks on young protesters, one of whom has already been hospitalised following these tactics on the part of the police. Such violent tactics are not adequate responses to public disorder – rather, they actively provoke public disorder. We are asking the Metropolitan police to protect the children and young people of Great Britain as we gather to make our voices heard.
The current Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister were elected, if barely, on a platform of protecting civil liberties. Less than six months into this government, however, we have already seen police horses charging at children at the symbolic heart of the mother of democratic parliaments. If they do not want to be complicit, as our elected representatives, in fatally undermining the right to protest, a right which is part of the constitutional foundation of any democracy, they must ensure that we can reach our Parliament safely today.
Moreover, following the emergence of compromising video footage of police protest tactics in recent weeks, the relationship between officers of the law and the public, a large proportion of whom support the students and school pupils in their cause, is already imperilled. If excessive force is perceived to be employed by the police against minors today, it may disintegrate entirely. As law-abiding citizens, we would not wish to see this happen, and so we implore you to help us reach our Parliament safely today.
We are peaceful, and we are determined to be heard. Many of us are frightened of how the police may react to our non-violent action today, and fearful for our safety and the safety of our friends, but there is something that frightens us more: the prospect of a future where public education and welfare provision are distant memories, where secure jobs and places to live are the sole preserve of the rich. Yesterday’s ‘concessions’ in the tuition fees bill are as much use as offering a flannel to a drowning person. We fear the destruction of educational opportunities, social security, jobs and public services more than we fear the police, so we will march today in spite of prior intimidation, and we will not be cowed.
We are peaceful, and we implore the police to respond to our action in a peaceful manner. For the sake of democracy in Britain, we urge the police and the executive to refrain from any and all punitive tactics and to respect the provisions for our safety and free expression guaranteed us in the European Convention on Human Rights by not detaining young people against their will in the open air, assaulting protesters with batons, or by employing police horses or dogs intimidate us. An outrage may happen inside Parliament today: we ask you to ensure that another does not occur on the streets outside. We ask you to help us reach our Parliament safely today, as we gather to take a stand against the violence being done to our future.
Aaron Porter, president, National Union of Students
Clare Solomon, president, University of London Union
Wes Streeting, former president, National Union of Students
The University College, London occupation
The King’s College London occupation
The London School of Economics occupation
The School of Oriental and African Studies occupation
The Manchester University occupation
The Royal Holloway occupation
The Oxford Education Campaign
The University of Cambridge occupation
The University of Warwick occupation
The University of East London occupation.
Sheffield University Occupation Stop The Cuts
Camden School for Girls occupation
Acland Burghley School occupation
Billy Bragg, activist and musician
Jon Cruddas MP
Johann Hari, columnist, the Independent
Suzanne Moore, columnist, The Daily Mail and Guardian
Laurie Penny, columnist, New Statesman
Sunny Hundal, Editor, Liberal Conspiracy
Dr Max Pemberton, Daily Telegraph
Clare Sambrook, novelist and journalist
Professor Keith Ewing, King’s College London
Anthony Barnett, Open Democracy
Stuart Weir, Democratic Audit
Graham Turner, Economist and author
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