It's Gonna be hot in London next week

[malaise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/27/g20-protest
<snip>
Yesterday, the Metropolitan police was understood to have contacted a number of protest groups warning that the main day of protest, Wednesday, 1 April would be "very violent", and senior commanders have insisted that they are "up for it, and up to it", should there be any trouble.

The force has refused to rule out the use of anti-terror legislation, with Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met commissioner, conceding that the week ahead, in which President Barack Obama will lead a cortege of other world leaders to the UK, will be the Met's greatest challenge.

Senior officers insist there is intelligence that some activists demonstrating against climate change, capitalism, war and globalisation are intent on violence and will try to disrupt the summit. They say that some troublemakers who were active in the 1990s have emerged once more, and that chatter between groups shows they are forging alliances to take their message to world leaders. Some protesters have also promised to storm buildings, taking out their anger over the collapse of the capitalist economy with direct action designed to bring London to a standstill.

However, David Howarth, a Liberal Democrat MP who is leading a parliamentary group of observers at the protests next week, said: "I am increasingly worried that what the police are saying about the protests will end up in a self-fulfilling prophecy. By talking up the prospect of violence they will put off peaceful demonstrators and start to attract other sorts."

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Meanwhile the coward banks are closing during the protests.
<snip>
Branches of Lloyds TSB and Halifax in the path of the G20 protesters are to be shut for two days to protect customers and staff during what could be angry demonstrations against banks bailed out by the taxpayer.

It is understood non-essential staff are also being told to work from home on 1 and 2 April - the day that officials from the G20 countries are due to meet in ExCel to the east of the City.

The G20 Meltdown campaign is intending to converge on the Bank of England from four directions. Each set of protestors will march behind one of the "four horsemen of the apocalypse".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/27/g20-protests-banks
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[jwirr]

1. I wonder what it is going to take before the "rulers" of this world realize

that it is ready to go up in flames? I do not mean the elected leaders but those behind the throne: Corporations. The bonus people from AIG have had people angrily picketing their homes now for weeks. France is in riot mode. China is barely able to control it's angry protesters. I do not think there is a single country in the world that does not have people who are angry enough to pick up the pitchforks. Do they think their money can save them? The last thing I want to see is a world wide revolution but I have a feeling it could come to that.

[malaise]

2. The more anger the more they will be forced to change

I don't give a flying fugg about either the corporations or governments.
It's time for change for the people and we're going to get that change.

They will reform or they will feel the wrath of humanity.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. I object to your use of 'coward'

Are you saying the banks should force the employees at those branches to go in to work, to face whatever might happen? Are you saying that a bank teller is as much to blame for the anti-bank feeling as a CEO?

[cali]

4. I noted that too.

nothing cowardly about closing the banks in the path of the protests. simply prudent

[vadawg]

5. i think the keyboard revolutionary is cowardly, hoping to see people hurt is cowardly

it always shocks me when i read of this upcoming peoples revolution, i have a feeling that a lot of us people are gonna be sent to the gallows if we are not idealogically pure enough.

[cali]

6. of course if the fever dream of a revolution that dances through the heads

of some DUers, the ideologically impure would be purged. And I'd certainly be among them. I have no high regard for 'the people'. I don't think the proletariat contains the wisdom of the ages. In fact, I think human nature is pretty constant from onw social group to another. Furthermore I detest and fear mobs and mob mentalities.

Yes, I'm a bad little comrade.

[malaise]

8. Until the people of this planet wake up and realize

that they are entitled to their rights, those who control wealth and their allies - the political elite and the arms manufacturers - will continue to push the envelope.

I worry more about that mob than the majority of decent people who can take no more of this criminality by the oligarchs.

[cali]

9. human nature is human nature. I don't take a romantic view of it.

I don't think there is a majority of "decent" people. I think people are both decent and not decent. I do think power corrupts. It corrupts most who attain it, to one degree or another. I think talking about the people waking up is way simplistic. And furthermore, people who are struggling merely to subsist, don't have that opportunity- EVER. Please see Maslow to understand why.

When I speak of a mob, I am referring strictly to the phenomenon of a group of people who are out of control and who are no longer thinking independently. All mobs are potentially lynch mobs. And I don't like lynch mobs.

[malaise]

7. My use of coward was for the owners who lord it over

the planet but feel no one should object to their criminality. I am in total sympathy with the bank tellers of the planet. They are underpaid workers like the rest of us.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. So shutting the banks where they work is a good thing, then

I was surprised you brought up a case of the bank management actually doing the right thing with the phrase "coward banks".

[Hannah Bell]

11. not surprising to hear the police hyping the threat of violence. i think that's the program.

interesting venue the g-20 picked this time, the heart of the world financial system during a global recession, millions of people within a short train ride.

if they were wanted to avoid violence, they would have chosen another location.