GRcade

Dual wrote:Knoyleo why do you hate the police so much?

He explained this in another thread.

Knoyleo wrote:strawberry float tha police, Comin straight from the underground
Young ***** got it bad 'cause I'm brown
And not the other color so police think
They have the authority to kill a minority
strawberry float that gooseberry fool, 'cause I ain't tha one
For a punk muthafucka with a badge and a gun
To be beatin on, and throwin in jail
We could go toe to toe in the middle of a cell

Yeh it's clearly from someone who was arrested there and probably wasn't treated as a criminal. They have a better understanding of how they were treated in their own situation to have sent flowers with their own money (although cutting flowers and wrapping them in plastic ) In some countries people get killed for protesting the climate.

It could have been this mother



Does she agree with police prejudice? Probably not.

XR isn't really an entity that sends flowers out. It's a collection of people and if that person sends a box of milk chocolates to a police officer then it isn't representative of the movement and their support of the dairy industry or institutional racism.

It's dangerous for a protester to encourage a sympathetic view of the police, though. Regardless of the leanings of individual officers, it's part of their job to be opposed to the goals and methods of XR and to formally caution or convict if possible. To ensure as few of the protesters as possible end up with a record after arrest, the best advice is to politely but firmly respond "no comment" to all questions. But part of how they'll try to open you up is to say e.g., "look, we're reasonable, nice people, I'm worried about the climate too, just answer a few questions and we'll see if we can release you...".

Yeh I can understand that too. We don't know what happened in that particular interview. I imagine it was that particular persons first time being in a police station, let alone arrested. Would that person have any information beyond what's already out there on the internet that could endanger someone else's freedom? Probably not.

On the flip side that tweet also reinforces the view that this is a peaceful protest full of mums and grannies rather than "crusty tree huggers who need to get a job".

I think it's probably in the movement's favour to appear police-friendly. It needs large, popular support and that's easier to get if you're not spending your time trying to convince joe public on the (legitimate) problems with the police.

I don't think a protest movement should ever put optics above the safety of protesters, who could go to prison if they are caught unawares.

Fatboy Slim sampled Greta Thunberg's UN speech. It's pretty awesome:

twitter.com/TorbsTalks/status/1180819459382169600

Karl_ wrote:I don't think a protest movement should ever put optics above the safety of protesters, who could go to prison if they are caught unawares.

Absolutely educate everyone going out on a protest as to how to best interact (or not interact) with the police.

But also I'm not sure I agree with your assertion. If protesters not being arrested is your number one concern above all else, the best advice with the minimum risk of arrest is to not go out protesting to begin with. There's always an inherent trade-off between effective protest and risk to protestors. Although I would add that the optics here are largely aimed towards the wider non-protesting public (who might become supporters) rather than the existing active protestors. The messaging can be different.

I don't see what you get out of taking "the movement should prioritise the safety of protesters" and retorting "aha! there shouldn't be a movement then! got you!" but you do you.

I'm very new on the 'strawberry float the Police' train, and that's because I grew up a white guy in the English suburbs. Even if they were confiscating our Strongbow and telling us to go home (I wasn't there, obviously, I was posting on Gamesradar), they were still, systematically, on 'my side'.

When you encounter police who are systematically not on your side it's a whole other kettle of fish. Not going to in the slightest suggest that my experiences are comparable to other peoples but I do understand what it's like to genuinely feel like the police do not have your best interests in mind.

And in those cases, when you come up against the police as a system.

Yea, strawberry float 'em.

I think Orange was saying you can educate people who haven't been arrested before while still appealing to the public.

A lot of people who have been arrested have put out social media posts after, sometimes even before, explaining why they did or are doing what they are.



This is a slightly different protest than a few people breaking in to a private property for example. The XR goal is to have 3.5% of the population out on the streets and prepared to be arrested. That figure has been calculated as what is needed to effect change: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2019 ... -the-world

The police as an organisation can't protect the government and big business when the officers side with the movement or the movements numbers are large enough to render the system ineffective

BID0 wrote:I think Orange was saying you can educate people who haven't been arrested before while still appealing to the public.

A lot of people who have been arrested have put out social media posts after, sometimes even before, explaining why they did or are doing what they are.



This is a slightly different protest than a few people breaking in to a private property for example. The XR goal is to have 3.5% of the population out on the streets and prepared to be arrested. That figure has been calculated as what is needed to effect change: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2019 ... -the-world

The police as an organisation can't protect the government and big business when the officers side with the movement or the movements numbers are large enough to render the system ineffective

That's a really interesting article, I'm a little surprised the number is so low.

I don't think it's realistic to suggest the police will one day side with XR as a movement, or enough individual officers will have sympathy with XR to undermine the system's fundamental opposition to the act of protest. That's not because I think they're necessarily bad people as individuals, it's because part of their job is to criminalise protesters. The police want to arrest protesters and give them criminal records, that's their goal at a protest, that's why they're there and it's also why they infiltrate protest groups and maintain large intelligence databases about protesters.

There are a million ways to suggest to the public "we are a friendly mass movement, not scary terrorists" without sending gifts and thank you notes to the police. Courting the police plays into their hands, because it will make it easier to convince protesters to trust and talk to them, and that makes it easier to criminalise them.

EDIT: For what it's worth I don't want to come across as some kind of crazy person. I'm a bit ideologically suspicious of police (they wield state power in a way which is often racist, classist, etc.) but I have never had a bad run-in with them myself (which makes sense as I'm white and come across as quite posh). In fact they've only been more-or-less helpful the couple of times I've ever had to deal with them. I recognise that lots of individual officers join the force because they want to help people and I think "catching thieves and murderers" is a good thing. What I'm saying is that at a protest and in the context of protesting you have to recognise that they aren't there to help you.

Skarjo wrote:I'm very new on the 'strawberry float the Police' train, and that's because I grew up a white guy in the English suburbs. Even if they were confiscating our Strongbow and telling us to go home (I wasn't there, obviously, I was posting on Gamesradar), they were still, systematically, on 'my side'.

When you encounter police who are systematically not on your side it's a whole other kettle of fish. Not going to in the slightest suggest that my experiences are comparable to other peoples but I do understand what it's like to genuinely feel like the police do not have your best interests in mind.

And in those cases, when you come up against the police as a system.

Yea, strawberry float 'em.

It's difficult though innit as in most cases they're a necessary evil.

That fatboy remix is class.

Some excellent work by the Guardian

twitter.com/guardiannews/status/1182649133204725760

twitter.com/guardian/status/1182654885097103361

twitter.com/mrmatthewtaylor/status/1182646475270082560

Hackney Council renewable by April 2020

twitter.com/hackneyabbott/status/1182647344946393088

Karl_ wrote:The police want to arrest protesters and give them criminal records, that's their goal at a protest, that's why they're there and it's also why they infiltrate protest groups and maintain large intelligence database.

As someone who knows a little bit about policing I just need to say this is complete rubbish.

FatDaz wrote:

Karl_ wrote:The police want to arrest protesters and give them criminal records, that's their goal at a protest, that's why they're there and it's also why they infiltrate protest groups and maintain large intelligence database.

As someone who knows a little bit about policing I just need to say this is complete rubbish.

Shut up narc.

BBC Breakfast just now showing a protestor who got on top of a train in London getting dragged off and absolutely battered by regular commuters.

Surely XR should be blocking roads rather than rails?

Those protestors were idiots, for blocking public transport and the guy kicking at the blokes head. But more importantly, it really is not right to drag someone from a train, and do whatever happened after that.

That's vigilante behaviour. And that's not good.

Squinty wrote:Those protestors were idiots, for blocking public transport and the guy kicking at the blokes head. But more importantly, it really is not right to drag someone from a train, and do whatever happened after that.

That's vigilante behaviour. And that's not good.

It's scary that a not insignificant proportion of the commuter population is capable of doing that on a Thursday morning. Kicking someone helplessly trapped on the floor, surrounded by other people doing the same thing... you like to think something like that is confined to a dramatic scene taken from a gangster film.