Apologies for another rather late start, caused this time by HMRC (once again) and some computer problems.
The quite unprecedented Schnews gives a ten-point tactical guide to fighting the police. It is not exactly schnew Schnews. And these fellows are too young to remember marbles.
I was discussing the matter of public protest with an acquaintance of mine who has some experience of the matter and we came up with a quite different set of suggestions.
1. Arrange your protest personally and well in advance; do not use phones of any kind, e-mail or the internet. You may wish to notify trusted journalists, if this is considered not to be an oxymoron. Post is the best method owing to the expense and inconvenience of its interception. Wear gloves and do not lick envelopes, but always sellotape them all round to thwart the ’split-bamboo’ or ‘knitting-needle’ methods of opening and to force the use of cruder and more detectable methods. If any post is delivered as ‘damaged’, cancel all plans and make new ones.
2. Dress normally and carry to the event no placards, posters or any other materials associated with protests. Photographers, who are to take no part in any action, should dress as tourists and carry cameras openly. A full command of English is not required for this position.
3. Do not carry any form of identification or documents, mobile phones, credit cards, phone cards, Oyster cards or any other items which might assist in tracing you. Do not carry anything which could be construed as a weapon.
4. Do carry: a modest amount of cash, for fares and phoneboxes, and without which one might be subject to a charge of vagrancy; and a great many small, and preferably apparently valuable, items of harmless but miscellaneous tat. Mysterious and unidentifiable electronic components, or items of jewellery, would be good. A few dozen, or three pocketfuls, will suffice. Carefully list these items before starting, leaving the list at home. A blank notebook and pen are also essential.
5. Do carry: several different coloured hats, of the baseball cap or jungle hat variety that folds easily into a pocket. Regularly change the colour of your hat. If you can carry a change of top, also change this whenever you can. The same goes for style of sunglasses. Trade clothing, if possible, with others. This will play merry hell with automated surveillance and tracking systems. Always change somewhere unlikely to be covered by CCTV. Wear jeans, which are scarcely identifiable from one another even as fibres, particularly if you do not normally wear them.
6. If necessary, train until you are sufficiently disciplined and accurate to meet reliably at a given point and time without anyone hanging around there beforehand. All must arrive at the point from different directions at once. Never write down any details of the points or times.
7. On meeting at the target, without any hesitation immediately form a line across the road and sit down.
8. Eventually the police will arrive, if they’re not there already. They will tell you that you must stop obstructing the road. Very politely, explain that you are acting upon conscience and that though you appreciate the difficulty of their position you are sure that they will understand that you cannot comply voluntarily with their requests. Soon they will start carrying people out of the road. Offer no resistance to this process, but offer no co-operation either. As soon as you have been carried to the pavement, return to the road and sit down again. Before long the police will be obliged to arrest you. When they do, continue to act towards them with the greatest civility but explain again that you are acting on principle and may not be able to assist them with their enquiries.
9. When you reach the police station, insist that all of your belongings, including all of the mysterious miscellanea, are listed in full detail on the property sheet. This will take ages. Offer no assistance with identification of your valuable property, again being as polite as possible, but make clear that any losses or variation from correct procedure will be noted and made the subject of an official complaint. You may either refuse to give your name and address, leaving the police to try to identify you, or give it, without being able to provide any evidence that it is true. If you have a group, it might be worth adopting one another’s identities for the day, so that all the fingerprints, DNA and photos are those of the wrong people. If you happen to be disabled or pregnant, make as much of this as seems appropriate.
10. Complain, politely but continuously, about everything. Write everything down in your notebook, particularly the collar numbers of all the police officers you meet. If your notebook is confiscated, demand writing materials. Answer no questions other than to explain yet again that you are acting upon conscience. Demand to see a solicitor. Refuse to accept a caution. Refuse to accept bail. Promise the police that, since you are acting on conscience, you will have no alternative if released but to return to the road and sit down again. Soon their custody suite will be full. Soon the prisons will also be full, and prisoners will have to be transported all over the country. You will soon be released. If charged, insist first upon being remanded in custody on the grounds that you intend to re-offend, and then upon your day in court before a jury of your peers, which day you should transform into a tedious and time-consuming propaganda exercise. While waiting, follow up each and every complaint, also writing to the press, MPs, etc. about them. Since you have used no violence, and have been effusively polite throughout, and are clearly using the legal process for your own propaganda purposes, it is very likely that your case will eventually be dismissed, on the grounds that ‘it would not be in the public interest’ to try it.
If two dozen people did these things, they would cause considerable inconvenience, though perhaps not very spectacularly. If two hundred did it, the custody capacity of central London would be severely stressed, and a great deal of police time would be consumed. If two thousand did it, police and court logistics would be brought to the point of collapse, and it would take many months, possibly years, for all of the cases to be heard, if indeed they ever are. If twenty thousand were to to do it, then it would have a good chance of bringing about regime change on the spot.
And all without so much as raising one’s voice, let alone anything that could ever be portrayed as ‘violence’.
This is what one might call a ’strategic’ ten-point plan. Of course I am open to correction in detail by those with more recent experience of this sort of thing, in which I have not been involved since I was at college (and then not exactly on the same side).
I shall not be fighting the police this afternoon, because they are not the enemy, but when (as opposed, perhaps, to ‘if’) my bit of string finally snaps I know what I’m going to do, and it hasn’t got anything to do with masks, shin pads, CS gas or baton-guns.
I take the unfashionable view that all this isn’t just some sort of traditional Bank Holiday sport. It’s actually real. While as a libertarian I naturally support both the right of the dreadlocked anarchist to enjoy his fun (within the limits set by the concept of ‘initiation of force’) and that of the policeman his overtime (likewise) I can see no purpose in indulging in dramatic, noisy, sometimes violent but always ineffectual ‘protest’ when with a bit of planning, training and discipline one could achieve a considerably more satisfactory target effect.
Speaking of the protest life of dissident banana republicans, here’s a cheery little analysis:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/experts-on-third-world-banana-republics-the-us-has-become-a-third-world-banana-republic.html
My only contribution is that the political proprietors of the US and UK states have in a useless Baby Boom professionalist spasm transmogrified two whole countries into parodies of the dreadful “universities” and polytechnics which spawned their own careers. This is a non-historical vision indeed, of therapy for all and a low-level “asymmetric” war at the margins, mainly to drain off the really recalcitrant young before”the little bastards” can ask too many questions, at home.
Your plan, LUC, will only work if there is parallel action, in trade:
Whilst one or more of the family are “on the barricades,” the rest must load up as much of the broken defective chinese rubbish from Tesco’s and WalMart possible and hie and hoick along in baskets, together with a gunnybag full of all the packaging with bar codes still left, back to the returns and “customer service” counters.” There, while carefully spreading and sorting and matching wrapping and items, firmly and politely insist on refunds. “Cash, please, I’m sorry, a credit slip just won’t do today….”
THAT will get the dirty bastards’s attention.
Hardly fair on Tesco or WalMart (not that I hold any brief for either of those institutions, with neither of which I choose to do business). Repellent though they may be, they are not the enemy either.
Overlarge human aggregations whether governmental or corporate ARE the enemy (“THE dirty bastards,” emphasis added) and they bode no good. Not even for those in their web. They devour us and then themselves. And the night falls….
Between your wonderful blog, LUC, plus various others like Obnoxio’s, Croydonian’s, DK’s, and the Libertarian Alliance’s, my respect for certain British types goes up each day.
Emmett: you are of course right that very large corporations can pose as great a threat to liberty as the political class; however, it is only by replacing the political class that I feel we can address the issue.
CG: many thanks; not, as I pointed out, entirely my own work on this occasion.
Emmett, Corporate power is always limited and is easily negated by not giving them your custom. It’s when they partner with the state that they’re dangerous. Just why the state would have the ability to extend vast amounts of rent-seeking and regulatory capture is still a question being debated.
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