Violent Protests As Mps Vote To Raise Tuition Fees

[ballaughbiker]

C'mon jim there's no need for that.

[macmannin]

What a gobshite you are jimbims

[John Wright]

I went on demos when I was a student. Disinvestment, ie trying to persuade businesses not to run subsidiaries in South Africa and aid apartheid, ANL (Anti Nazi League) against the National Front and racism, Gay Pride, oh and stuff about grants and educational cuts. I was a student for 5 years, so I had ample opportunity.

 

My tuition fees were all paid for, I had a small Board of Education maintenance grant and my father made it up to the full amount, plus I worked holidays, when not writing my Thesis etc. For my postgrad my garnt was half grant and half loan to be paid back. It was £705. I earned £1560 my first year. less tax and N.I.. My mortgage was £40 per month. It was tough. Imagine doing a three year degree now and ending up owing £27k for fees and say £15k for living expenses. Worse, imagine doing medicine or dentistry or architecture.

 

My sister left school at 16, few qualifications. Once I started work it took me 6 years to earn in my working lifetime what she had. Since I have outstripped her. I have paid much more tax as a result of my education. I continue to do so.

 

Tax is progressive, if imposed and collected correctly. Tuition fees and repayment are not. I go on paying the extra tax all my working life, supporting others. Why is the UK government afraid to impose higher taxes to meet these type of obligations. What is wrong with a lifetime graduate tax, progressive at 1% on those earning £20k to £25k, 2% on the next band and so on to 5%?

 

Any way back to demos. There were always a few who went wanting to cause trouble. Others who got caught up in it when it started. A sort of mass hysteria. I was not at the recent ones, but you do not go wearing a balaclava without having trouble in mind. Maybe face obscuring by white males should be just as culturally unacceptable as bhurkas.

 

Mind you hitting protesters obver the head with battons or pulling disabled protesters out of wheek chairs? (Why could the police not just wheel him to one side?)

 

I believe in extra parliamentary pressure, writing to MHKs, MPs, lobbying, pressure groups, etc. It is a legitimate expression of democracy. Marches and demos are part of that.

 

I just happen to think that we hapen to look at all these things with very blinkered eyes.

 

I was suitably amused to hear that the Iranian Foreign Minister had pulled in the UK ambassador and hauled him over the coals about the brutal police treatment of a peaceful demonstration. Sometimes we have to step back and look at ourselves as others see us, and question why we see others as we do.

[P.K.]

Ultimately, only a complete Philistine could seriously argue that education can ever be wasted.

 

My education was wasted. Well, it was on me anyway!

 

One of the reasons you pay tax is so that your kids can get an education. With no mandate from the electorate the Tories have decided that in a few years time they'll give that investment I've made in future education to already well-off tory voters in the form of tax cuts.

 

Cleggy is a fool to go along with that...

[La_Dolce_Vita]

OK you are of course correct in every aspect, I expect you are also pure Manx

It is strange, Jimbms, that you get your knickers in a right big twist about people supposedly taking your comments out of context or supposedly picking bits out of your posts - as if they have missed some crucial point by doing so and therefore completely misunderstood you. But, you are one of the worst for reading a post and coming to conclusions that cannot be had from a simple reading. Seems rather hypocritical. (And am I to assume this is part of your Englishness?)

[jimbms]

(And am I to assume this is part of your Englishness?)

 

Racist

[ballaughbiker]

Quite right John, face obscuring by anyone for the purposes of avoiding identification shows a certain preplanning of trouble, as does carrying weapons.

 

There's nowt wrong with demonstrating. I nearly went on a march or two when Bliar to us to war (quiet PK!)but whatever your gripe, violence, whilst it may ultimately work, is unforgivable. I'm very grateful for not having to pay tuition fees for my 5 years as a student just as I'm very grateful for not having to pay my son's 4 year course fees at the moment. Because of that I am basically on the side of students but can't help thinking it could be a lot worse if you had to borrow at commercial rates and payback times and conditions.

 

Did I mention student pilots? I think I might have. Go and borrow £70-100k to qualify with a time expiring skill in a market where there might be no jobs by the time you're done. If you are very lucky and get a job, you might earn around £25k (or much less) when you qualify assuming you get through another very tough initial flying test repeated at 6 month invtervals and the training 'on the job'. If it goes tits up and you don't get a job or don't survive the training, there's no financial umbrella to offset the immediate loan payback requirements.

 

See? it could be a lot worse!

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Any way back to demos. There were always a few who went wanting to cause trouble. Others who got caught up in it when it started. A sort of mass hysteria. I was not at the recent ones, but you do not go wearing a balaclava without having trouble in mind. Maybe face obscuring by white males should be just as culturally unacceptable as bhurkas.

But, of course, it is harder for the police to know which 'citizens' are breaking the law when they faces are covered. And of course for those who believe that the law must be upheld no matter what scarves, shemahs, and masks are something to be concerned about. I have no problem with it myself. It is wise for keep one's face covered if particular actions are going to be undertaken that would constitute a breaking of the law. AnArchists certainly don't want MI5 and the police keeping tabs on the direct action they take, as it doesn't stop at demonstrating.

 

I believe in extra parliamentary pressure, writing to MHKs, MPs, lobbying, pressure groups, etc. It is a legitimate expression of democracy. Marches and demos are part of that.

I don't know in what sense you mean a legitimate expression of democracy, unless you mean that in a limited sense there are elements of democracy to be seen in the ABILITY of people to march or demonstrate. What such demonstrations result in is another matter. And little can be said about democracy when the liberal democracts have reneged on their promises.

 

In the circumstances, in such an undemocratic environment, I think the students should really try and employ all means they can put their point across, legal or non-legal.

[ManxTaxPayer]

Quite right John, face obscuring by anyone for the purposes of avoiding identification shows a certain preplanning of trouble,

Not necessarily. It could be viewed as a quite justifiable response to the fairly recent police policy of photographing ALL demonstrators at a demo, identifying each one, and adding all to a database of so called potential troublemakers.

[ballaughbiker]

MTP We have our 'pictures taken' on CCTV all the time and never complain. Imo if the police take your picture and you're doing nothing wrong, well what's the problem? If you think there is, you might already be on a database of whatever from CCTV.

[John Wright]

I am sure I am on that list anyway. I would be very disappointed if I wasn't!

[La_Dolce_Vita]

But that's precisely the issue, people who value freedom are the ones who wish to guard it most. Those who care little about it and think it costs them nothing for others to have information about them do not complain. Those who are concerned about strangers or organisations (the State)that cannot be trusted having the information do complain and I believe most people are not happy at the extent to which we are under surveillance in the UK. But who do they complain to?

 

I would have a problem with some stranger taking a photo of me when I am doing nothing wrong and I would certainly have a problem if its scummy policeman doing the snapping considering what they use it for.

[John Wright]

Oh LDV, the assumptions you make and the attributions you make to others and their motives and attitudes.

 

You know that there is a strong historic strand of anarchic pacifism, intellectually it is the state that is violent, we should not stoop to their methods, if we protest we should do so in a non violent manner. Ghandi's civil disobedience and the behaviour of someone like Mandela in prison and on release are examples.

 

I do not accept that anarchism must or should be violent.

 

I have always been a non conformist and in a minority. Of course I expect to be on a list and the file to have a photo or two. I am realistic, not acquiescent. The authorities having me on a list and having my photo does not lessen my freedom of action or my ability to think and express my opinions.

 

I guard my freedoms and that of others by my actions, words and thoughts. I complain, I take on unpopular cases, against government, I campaign.

 

Maybe I am no longer as idealistic as you, but I do not rest on my laurels.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Anarchism need not be violent. I am not advocating violence necessarily. For instance, I view violence against another person as a taboo unless that person has used violence first. And although the State uses violence less and less in a liberal democratic regime, if the State uses it against demonstrators or if the States uses force or the threat of force to curtail direct action then it is quite acceptable for violence to be used.

 

I completely appreciate what you mean about the campaigns of Ghandi and Mandela, but their success owed much to the climate of political opinion in respect of their campaigns. Frankly the British public are largely an impotent and passive populace when it comes to political matters. Their minds have been won to the propaganda of the government and public relations and the media to an extent where very objectionable matters are left to be resigned upon. In this instance it is really only the students who care enough about this to campaign and although their numbers are large they are not large enough in number for civil disobedience to be effective.

 

As for photos, certainly holding a photo of you doesn't limit your freedom, but the issue of one of an institution that hold such information without any ability of the public to deal with such an intrusion or matter of curiosity. The issue of one of this institution gathering information and refining its tool in order to better control the populace its governs.

[ballaughbiker]

the States uses force or the threat of force to curtail direct action then it is quite acceptable for violence to be used.

 

Violence is unacceptable from either side (if we correctly assume there are just two sides which personally I don't believe). However you know how it is. It starts off with something minor that the perpetrator knows 100% will provoke a reaction from the other side giving them instant justification to lash out violently. It happens time and time again.

 

Remember that incident somewhere in Cheshire last year? A group of lads were doing something antisocial on a housing estate probably caused or exacerbated by drinking on an empty head. Some decent person's tries to tell them that they shouldn't do 'that' and stop, then wham! they've now got their reason to really 'retaliate' and they kick him to death! It can all change within a minute. I think the same type of thing happens many many times in these demonstrations and it's always the police that get blamed. I've seen the footage and there's no doubt that they too are out of order and not for the first time at demonstrations. I also deplore this new idea of kettling. That will provoke a reaction the opposite way innit?

 

It seems to be a raision d'etre of yours LDV, as an anarchist, to hate the police as they are (in your mind) a tool of the all controlling state. There is no doubt that a percentage of coppers are wrong 'uns and abuse their power but even if it's as much as 20% (which I doubt) it's still a minority, rather than the norm which you appear to suggest. It is rare to find a bad one on the island although there are one or two. (By the way PC 7* stationed at Ramsey, I still want a word on yer about the way you kept my son at the roadside at 1 am for near on an hour earlier this year. Whilst I've only got laddo's word for it, your behaviour can only be described as bullying at best. Were you trying to impress the two other uniforms with you? The fact that you finally released him having found nothing wrong with him, his driving or the vehicle suggest to me that you were exceeding your powers by a fair margin. It's a shame you hadn't got the balls to speak to me later the next day when I contacted you.)