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2st Edition October 2012 Lancastertoeuston.tumblr.com

LANCASTER TO EUSTON

www.garybarker.co.uk

The

University

is an

Amnesiac

Institution

Chris Witter

Adam

Macarthur Facebook –

And why

we need a

Rally of The

Real

Ryan Flitcroft

The

changing

State and

the state of

change Ben Stanford

2

Welcome all to Lancaster to Euston

and to Lancaster University. Some of

you are here for the first time, while

others return to continue to sample

the delights Lancaster has to offer.

To many of you, this will be the first

copy of Lancaster to Euston you have

seen. We strive to provide a forum

within which political ideas can be

discussed and debated. We attempt a

different ethos to other publications

within campus media. Our stance is

very simple. We want to provide

students and non-students a space

where they can be political, and they

can attempt journalism in a style less

available in SCAN and The

Whistleblower.

We appreciate longer articles and

attempt at all times to respect the

wishes of the author. Some articles in

this publication contain references

where others do not; this is wholly

dependent on the wishes of the

particular contributor. Hopefully,

this emphasis on the importance of

the writer has you hoping to

contribute to Lancaster to Euston

yourself in the future. All articles are

published online, and the best/most

current are available in the print copy

currently available at the beginning of

each month.

In a personal capacity, I hope to see

both SCAN and The Whistleblower

providing more critical and political

journalism in the coming year. I feel

there cannot be enough mediums

through which students can express

their political ideals. The student

population at Lancaster has been

worryingly apathetic politically over

the past year or two, and I hope that

this lethargy can be remedied. I also

hope that this publication can

contribute, if only slightly, to a

realisation amongst students that they

have not only an option to be

politically engaged, but a duty.

We live in very contentious times,

and to think that students, of all

people, had ceased their radical edge,

upsets me greatly. On the topic of

‘contentious times’, the current

talking point around campus is the

restructuring process which is

occurring within the college bar

system.

I would like to write that this is a

very simple issue and simply reflects

University Management’s ineptitude;

however, I feel it would be overly

brash to do so.

The issue of the college bars is a

complex one and I’ll try to set out

concisely some of the upcoming

structure along with the positives,

and finish with my personal opinion,

looking to provide criticism where I

feel it is necessary.

What we’re moving from is

essentially a system whereby each bar

has a landlord, and they are all

answerable to the Director of

Commercial Services, currently Jo

Hardman who replaced David Peaks.

The system we’re moving to has Lou

Davies at the helm as Retail Services

Manager, with three Venue Managers

consisting of two former Licensees

and a third spot which I believe is

currently unoccupied. The bars will

then have Venue Assistants at each

bar. These roles will be like

landlords, but not landlords; more

like senior members of the bar staff

with additional duties.

The restructuring process is,

according to Jo Hardman, aimed at

bettering the colleges and getting

more students into the bars. On

paper this goal is exactly what one

would be hoping someone in his role

would be hoping to achieve.

But how does he intend to do this,

and in what ways and to what degrees

is this to be judged successful?

Jo wishes to double the footfall in the

college bars over the coming year;

which sounds to me like a very

ambitious target. His plan to do so

relies on a full overhaul of the current

process. At the moment each bar

runs largely in its own capacity, and

many of them specialise slightly in

certain areas. The most notable ones

are obviously Grad, known for its

Real Ale and CAMRA status, and

Grizedale, which serves a wide

variety of cocktails.

What we are to expect under Jo

Hardman’s leadership is further

specialisation. Grizedale will add to

its chic image by providing tapas

along with cocktails. Bowland will

seek to push its Real Ale credentials

and hopefully gain CAMRA status.

Fylde will look to serve more food,

possibly adopting a ‘grill’-like style.

Certain bars on campus will utilise

the entertainment licence and extend

their current opening hours to one

o’clock. County bar already has the

stock in to serve ‘Glitterbombs’ and

‘Firebombs’, plus, it now has the raw

materials to throw together the

Sugarhouse’s Shagga cocktail. Expect

County, and presumably Lonsdale, to

be turned into venues more similar to

Sugarhouse than they currently are.

Looking into the future, one of the

aims; apparently initially proposed by

Gareth Ellis – former licensee of

Grad Bar, now one of the Venue

Managers; is to establish a micro-

brewery on campus. This idea would,

at least in the form it is being

discussed at the moment, lead to

Grad bar stopping its Real Ale

specialism, and instead, see Real Ale

on southwest campus moved to

Cartmel – where the micro-brewery

would be based. Cartmel would then

EDITORIAL:

3

receive investment to improve both

the bar, and the eating facilities.

On top of this, Pendle would

continue to push live music, but

where Grad and Furness are left is

currently out of my sphere of

knowledge.

Additionally, Jo hopes to work with

other aspects of the university in

order to provide an occasional

overlap between the academic and

the social; for instance, a poetry

night, a literary festival, or an art

exhibition in some of the bars.

Now that you’re relatively filled in,

and I feel I can safely say that the

above information is true, at least at

the time of going to print, it is

probably fairly important that we

delve a little deeper.

First of all, I think many of the ideas

proposed by Jo Hardman and others

involved with the process are

excellent ideas. It has been clarified

many times that the changes are in no

way a cost cutting exercise. The only

cost cutting I have heard of is that the

move from having multiple bar

licences to once centralised licence

will save about £9000; which, in

reality, is a very small amount of

money. Spending is actually to

increase in many areas. The proposed

changes to the bars are likely to

require investment, and real

investment into the bars is something

which is necessary and welcomed.

The idea of integrating more with

other areas of the university is nice to

see. However, I feel that it is essential

to point out that these positive

changes are not inherently part of the

restructuring process. The bars can

be invested in, and can expand their

scope, without any changes to the

overall structure.

I am not an advocate of the current

(read: previous) structure, but some

change is not necessarily good change.

The structure of the bars could have

been changed with vastly different

outcomes. They could have been

handed back to their colleges and ran

entirely under the governance of the

licensees, allowing them to

implement the changes they felt were

necessary. The university could have

provided an investment fund which

colleges could have bid for to

undertake larger changes within the

bars.

Alternatively, the bar management,

organisation, and co-ordination could

have been conducted by a centralised

body made up of each licensee. They

could have met on a weekly or bi-

weekly basis to discuss policy, and

then had a team of administrative staff

to do the day-to-day work required

to implement these changes, while

the licensees ran their bars.

Or there could have been a structure

proposed which was neither of the

above. Considering this is not a

manoeuvre designed to reduce the

budget, there could have been time

for discussion of different potential

structural ideas.

This brings us on to a wider

important point. Jo Hardman says

that his role regarding the bars begun

in June, and to implement changes in

time for the coming year required it

to have been done over summer and

before term had properly begun. The

problem, of course, is that this means

the structure of the bars is radically

changed, resulting in job losses,

without those who work within that

sector, nor the student body, having

any input into the decision making

process. This reflects a wider

problem within the decision making

of the university management as a

whole. Consultation and discussion

appears to be a secondary concern.

This process left many licensees in a

state of limbo; uncertain about their

job prospects in an already

increasingly uncertain economy.

I feel it is a great shame that college

bars will no longer have landlords.

They are the face of the bars, and are

also key figures within college

communities. The organisational

structure of the catering department

appears to have been thrust onto the

bars without consideration that a

landlord is a key figure in a

welcoming community orientated bar

environment.

Additionally, student engagement

with the restructuring has been

disappointing to say the least. The

press release from LUSU read like it

had been sent straight down from

University House. I appreciate LUSU

for calling a General Meeting, but

bearing in mind the General Meeting

is being held after the changes have

mostly been implemented;

particularly the crucial decisions; it

seems like it could prove an

ineffective exercise. Though, I do

hope I am mistaken.

SCAN’s coverage has been useful and

relatively thorough, and I cannot fault

them on that. The same cannot be

said for The Whistleblower, who,

considering they bill themselves as

the critical voice, carried out a very

poor critique of Ronnie Rowland’s

post on LUSU’s new YourVoice e-

democracy website. The article fails

to provide an accurate representation

of Ronnie’s piece, while

simultaneously implying support for

the restructuring without any serious

discussion of the issues at hand.

I hope to see frank and critical

discussions in student media during

this academic year. This issue,

alongside many others, needs

considerable scrutiny.

Adam Harrison-Henshall -

Editor

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Website:

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Facebook Page: Lancaster to

Euston

Twitter: @toEuston

Email:

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If you want to become part of the

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IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial – Adam Harrison-Henshall : pg.2

The changing State and the state of change – Ben Stanford : pg.5

The Final Admission; Society was crazy, not you – Northern Loudmouth : pg.5

A Look At Syria; Does the UN really promote peace – Laura Clayson : pg.7

The University is an Amnesiac Institution – Chris Witter : pg.8

Daniel Morgan; Police Corruption Hidden Away – Vicky Millinship : pg.11

Motion of Support for the TUC at the LUSU General Meeting – foreword by: Adam

Harrison-Henshall : pg.12

It’s time to De-Worm the Financial Markets – Jed Bartlett : pg.14

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; No-one Blows the Whistle on The City on The Hill – Northern

Loudmouth : pg.15

Assange’s Cult of Personality is destroying Wikileaks – Northern Loudmouth : pg.16

Julian Assange; Certain Questions Need Answering – The Fencesitter: pg.17

Facebook – And why we need a Rally of the Real – Ryan Fletcher : pg.19

Despatch from Madrid – An account of the S25 demonstration: Part Two – Will Taylor

: pg.21

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The changing State

and the state of

change

arket state: The emerging constitutional order

that promises to maximise the opportunity of its people, tending to privatise many state activities and making representative government more responsible to consumers”1

Upon inspection, it is obvious that the State is heading in only one direction. The market-state is now creeping upon us and is developing with devastating consequences, especially upon the poor and needy. The market-state is characterised by three crucial and interconnected factors; privatisation, outsourcing and cutting back the welfare state. Each will be addressed in turn to see how individuals are being frustrated on every possible level.

In the recent meme cult-phenomenon which engulfed the internet and gave students yet further procrastination ammo, one above others amused me most. We all know the one - Condescending Wonka. In particular, a highly relevant portrayal depicted the current state of the rail system in the UK;

1 Professor Philip Bobbitt, Terror and Consent: The Wars For The Twenty-First Century

“So we have the most expensive to run rail system in the Europe and get year-on-year above inflation fare hikes. Tell me more about how privatisation makes services more efficient and benefits the consumer.”

“

Upon inspection, it is obvious that the State is heading in only one direction. The market-state is now creeping upon us and is developing with devastating consequences

”

Competition in the transport industry, the supposed ace in the hand of those who advocate privatisation, is a myth. I simply adore arriving at the bus stop and being spoilt for choice, window shopping to pick which bus provider offers the best deal to the consumer. In actuality, we need only look at Lancaster University with one bus company to shuttle students to and from town. Year upon year, prices rise. Year upon year, services stagnate or even worsen. The university in fact has to effectively bribe the bus company to run services at “unprofitable” times and days. In the academic year 2009-2010 I paid £199 for a Unirider. Going into 2012-2013 it is now £226. The Stagecoach website proudly proclaims that “99% of students surveyed in 2012 said that they would recommend Unirider to a friend.” I can only assume that the remaining 1% of students are moronic enough to suggest taking a taxi is a financially viable alternative.

Looking closer to my home, Preston, Stagecoach under-priced their services to drive out an emerging competitor, Preston Bus. Eventually,

the Competition Commission stepped in but only when it was too late to force a half-baked, half-considered solution. Preston Bus has ever since only ran a handful of routes, nowhere near as numerous as initially planned. Nationwide providers like Stagecoach will always have the resources to crush emerging local competitors and it seems little will be done to protect emerging competition. The same can be said of the electoral system in this country, where the cash pumped into Labour and the Tories in particular will serve to greatly limit the effectiveness of emerging parties. The AV proposals by the Liberal Democrats might have been an important step to change that, but anyway, that’s another story.

Most people associate privatisation with the Thatcher governments but it has continued ever since in true slippery slope style. An article written by Richard Seymour sums it up in a greater way than I could ever fashion.2 Under Thatcher, British Airways, BritOil, British Telecom, British Rail, British Steel and British Gas all went. The water and electrical utilities were also sold off despite fierce opposition, as the coal industry was crippled leading to unemployment hitting above 3.5 million. Reducing the United Kingdom to a financial services industry base has placed us amongst the most vulnerable of states in a globalized economy, another symbolic manifestation of the market-state. The fact is that the echoes of the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 are still felt today in devastating fashion and will be for many years to come, whilst other manufacturing industries have since recovered. Today, Royal Mail is threatened more than ever, highways could soon be in the hands of private companies, as could schools, probation services and of course, our treasured NHS. Currently living in the United States of America, I can truly say how much

2 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/29/short-history-of-privatisation

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the British people take the NHS for granted, despite the fact that has been slowly chipped away at over the years. The attempt to sell off protected national forests was defeated by a popular movement, largely led by 38 Degrees online, showing that when large numbers really do stand up then governments will listen.

Secondly, consider another related manifestation of the market-state, that of outsourcing essential state services to private contractors. The year 2012 was hyped as a great year for all things British as we proudly held the Royal Jubilee and then hosted the Olympics, London being the first city worldwide to host the games three times. What it really showed was that the UK is second only to the USA in its steamrolling transition to the market-state. Security was to be the paramount consideration and it was ultimately to be the paramount failure of the games. The government, sensing a saved buck or two decided to contract Group 4 Securicor, better known as G4S, to provide basic security for the Olympics. The rest is history as soldiers and police were forced to stand in to plug the holes left by the pure ineptitude of essential state service delegation. Even if police outsourcing is off the agenda for now, it will return soon. After all, as the saying goes, “if it isn’t nailed down…”. When basic state services are contracted out, the underlying common denominator between them to provide a good service disappears. It is in fact replaced by the quest for profit. To provide a good service is at best a secondary consideration, a supplementary bonus if you will, one which is certainly not essential to the task of raking in cash. No adherent to the ruthless and often ineffective market system can deny that the approach of many companies, TNCs and brands is detrimental to infrastructure provision.

Finally, the burdens placed upon every individual have never been greater. Tuition fees have risen to

£9,000, meaning a student in a typical three year programme can expect a debt of £36,000-£40,000 as a conservative estimate. The justification offered that people won’t actually repay until earning over a certain amount simply doesn’t stick. Interest soars on unpaid debts and jobs are few and far to find. Even to rebut those claims is futile in the face of the evidence that there was a drop of 8-10% in university applications this year, depending on what source you read. Elsewhere, people are expected to contribute more to the pensions and retire older. Education Maintenance Allowance has been cut, hampering a student’s most fundamental task of getting to school or college. The contributory employment and support allowance (ESA), provided to thousands of people physically incapable of working is being faded out or limited.

“

When basic state services are contracted out, the underlying common denominator between them to provide a good service disappears

”

Market states see their legitimacy founded in the maximisation of opportunity to citizens.3 When this “opportunity” is limited to one service provider, or severely let down by the incompetence of outsourcing, or held back by capping benefits available to the neediest, it is plainly an illusory opportunity. States should never outsource such essential services as security, education or health care provision. Indeed, as the great Anuerin Bevan once said;

“No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means”

3 Again, see the work of Professor Philip Bobbitt and other constitutional legal scholars!

I have no problem with competition in a world of capitalism for non-essential services. That is a reluctant compromise we must perhaps make. But surely it has to be genuine to salvage any credibility in the twenty-first century where inequality grows and worsens every year.

Ben Stanford

The final

admission: Society

was crazy, not you.

ay I take the time to congratulate Conservative MP for Croydon Central

Gavin Barwell and the House of Commons MP’s (something I don’t think I’ve ever done) for voting through the private members bill to reform this country’s, frankly mad, mental health laws. Barwell’s private members bill sees an end to MP’s and company directors being removed on the basis of mental health problems, including problems which the sufferer may have long since recovered from. Not only did those laws put a glass ceiling on the careers of mental health sufferers but it also excluded them from serving on juries, a tacit admission by the law that society didn’t see people who suffered with mental illness fit to take full part in society.

The scrapping of these particular laws is the final admission that society and government were the real crazy people and not mental illness sufferers like me.

Mental Health seems to be the last social stigma in our society, we’ve made great strides in combating

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homophobia, racism, sexism and physical disabilities but mental illness, due to its nature was still stigmatized against. Mental illness is of course not always visible to the human eye. It is not simply identifying the loon on the bus and the train, mental illness can affect anyone at anytime and its symptoms differ from person to person due to the complex nature of the human brain.

“

The scrapping of these particular laws is the final admission that society and government were the real crazy people and not mental illness sufferers like me.

”

I was only truly open about my bi-polar disorder recently, a few friends and close family were made aware of my condition but no one else knew, even so I felt like I was unfairly targeted by my manager at work once he found out about my condition. Furthermore for someone of my ambition - I still want to enter the world of politics one day - I feared that it would be used against me wrecking any chance of a great career.

Previously I would have been most terrified about a particular episode I had back in 2010, while at university, which saw my mind almost unravel completely and culminated with me trying to jump off a bridge one evening. I felt if anyone found out about it, I would be finished. I would never have a career, develop long-term relationships and possibly would even be locked up when another episode developed. Not only did this mean concealing my illness from almost everyone it also stopped me from seeking treatment, for fear of it going on a record which could be dug up by someone. All this did was increase my stress, paranoia and exacerbate my condition; no one

should have to feel that same sense of shame for who they are.

1 in 4 of us will experience a mental health issue in our lifetime and 3 in 4 will deal with a close family member suffer with a mental illness, so the laws as they stood meant our society were completely unrepresentative. As a result some very talented people were excluded from leading a successful life, particularly when only rare, extreme cases prevent people from doing so. In my experience of mental illness, it can be drawn upon positively, allowing you to gain a unique perspective which can aid creative thinking, such as going from agony to ecstasy on a regular basis as a norm. To exclude such people is horrendous discrimination and in an increasing busy, stressing and fast developing world, it will mean excluding even more people as more people will develop a mental health issue in such conditions.

The glass ceiling has been shattered now, it is time we rose above its remnants to finally do away with society’s last remaining bastion of accepted discrimination.

Northern Loudmouth

A look at Syria; Does the UN really promote peace?

o maintain international peace and security.”

The Holocaust. Cambodia’s Khmer

Rouge. Rwandan genocide. The latter are certainly juxtapositions to the aforementioned Article 1 of the UN charter. Whilst the charter’s initial creation did go on to say that they are not authorized to intervene in the domestic jurisdiction of states, changes since then have granted them further powers for doing so. This is highlighted especially within the creation of the 'Responsibility to Protect' doctrine by Kofi Annan in 2001. The doctrine certainly appeared to accentuate the UN’s desire for peace as it states that should a country fail to protect innocent civilians then it is the role of the international community to intervene. So, the UN said we had learnt and had made concessions for future domestic issues that would allow them to display these mistakes as rectified. Yet when we observe the Middle East and the current war raging in Syria one has to take a step back and question whether the UN really do promote the peace supposedly at the heart of this supranational institution. Certainly we have seen successful

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intervention in places such as Korea and Libya; campaigns conducted bringing back some kind of stability to the region. Indeed, this surely pioneers the UN as justified in labelling itself so? However, the use of the 'Responsibility to Protect' doctrine successfully used for the first time in Libya, has seen a serious failure in its lack of application in Syria, whose civilians are now in a much worse situation. The UN’s excuse? The failure of Russia to agree to a resolution. This may appear reasonable at first as all 5 members of the Security Council have to agree on a course of action before it can be taken. However, when we consider the case of Libya, China failed to agree to Western intervention and so NATO was used as a force instead. Why therefore can the same not be done for Syria?

“ Yet with crimes against humanity being committed on a daily basis in this war torn country and the situation deteriorating further still, the legitimacy of perceiving the UN as a promoter of peace, as opposed to using it for confirmation of power primacy amongst the superpowers, must be questioned ” I think in order to answer this question we must analyse the relations between the powers of the world. In the Cold War there was a bipolar structure of international relations, with the US and the Soviet Union constituting the two poles. This meant that the two states were locked in a stalemate, i.e. neither could act because they would be faced with the same brute force from the opposing side. Yet, as the US’

unipolar position appears to be declining, with the rise of states such as China and India, we are progressing to a situation of multi polarity, i.e. there are now too many countries making up the poles. Therefore, stalemate ensues, exacerbated by the fact that with the five members of the Security Council all having access to Nuclear weapons, the push of a button could incite nuclear war. Thus I propose that this state of affairs and the inability to wage war between themselves has led to Middle Eastern countries being used as the stage upon which these anguishes are fought out. This can certainly be seen in Syria, where we have Russia and China engaged in a fierce battle with the Western powers, each providing assistance for the opposing side. This interpretation is supported too within the recent stopping of a Russian ship

in UK waters transporting military equipment to Syria. Thus it seems to be very much a war fuelled directly by the world’s powers, as we saw these types of trade and arms embargos in the World Wars. Furthermore, recent observations from an ‘Amnesty International Senior Crisis Response Adviser’ have informed us that there has been an intensification of armed confrontation on the ground as weapons reach the armed opposition. Such an interpretation certainly provides issues for those who wish to be humanitarian in their approach to the Syrian situation as unless the powers decide to change their approach it is very unlikely anything can be done until one of the members changes their focus. This too reflects badly upon the UN as a peace promoter as it appears personal interests fuel their motivations in getting involved with the domestic issues of other countries, as opposed to the wish for bringing peace back to areas of conflict; in Libya there was oil, in Syria there are only innocent

civilians. Yet with crimes against humanity being committed on a daily basis in

this war torn country and the situation deteriorating further still, the legitimacy of perceiving the UN as a promoter of peace, as opposed to using it for confirmation of power primacy amongst the superpowers, must be questioned. With the new international mediator, saying that Syria is a “global threat” no longer isolated to the country alone, I believe that the “global threat” facing the world is Syria being used as a political pawn for warmongering among the superpowers. Yet however the situation may be interpreted nobody can refute the horrific scar this is going to leave on the UN's record, or the history of humanity, just like the scars it is currently leaving on the bodies and hearts of the innocent people of Syria while the world looks on.

[To ask the Russian Foreign Minister

to stop supplying arms to Syria please

visit: www.amnesty.org.uk/syria ]

Laura Clayson

The University is

an Amnesiac

Institution

e like to imagine that universities are places where different forms of

knowledge and alternative histories are preserved and remembered – where they might even continue to live. But, as we enter a new academic year, we should confront this basic fact: the university is an amnesiac institution. This amnesia takes many forms – from professors actively rationalising, legitimising and proselytising for the state, to the specific content and form of our so-called education, which

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FEATURE:

9

here presents theory as fact, there fact as theory. Whether it is the neoliberal indoctrination courses that are administered by the management school or the softer, deliberately ahistorical and apolitical, ‘postmodern’ ideologies that are propagandised in the humanities departments, the idea that a sense of history (which is to say, self-knowledge, learning) lies – or once lay - at the heart of the university is mere myth. However, in talking about the university as amnesiac institution my subject here is specifically the way in which amnesia operates within Lancaster University with relation to its own history. In the interest of concision, let me briefly outline three of the primary means by which Lethe’s waters envelop us.

1. Control of information First, it seems simple enough to observe that there exists a managerial bureaucracy – composed of university managers and Lancaster’s Student Union (LUSU) – which is able to possess and control the primary means by which information about the university is disseminated on campus. Through a host of media – e.g. websites, emails, posters, letters, signs and newsletters, and even the architecture of the University itself – this bureaucracy disseminates the information, images and narratives that are useful to it, whilst suppressing or withholding anything controversial. Two of the major controversies of last year, the Business Processes Review (i.e. the forced cull of administrative staff) and briefly floated and rapidly aborted Lancaster-Liverpool merger, were indicative of this. Not only students, but also staff, were purposely kept in the dark in order to ease the way for a management determined to steamroller through destructive measures without consultation. The University administration is not the only culprit, however. LUSU have, over the years, been

remarkably good at failing to fill student in with regards not only their own goings on, but also all those controversial aspects of University and Government policy that they cannot be moved to oppose since doing so would threaten their own credibility. A prime example is the way that they chose last year, and continue to choose, not to inform students about national student and anti-cuts demonstrations – even when those demonstrations were officially supported by the NUS. However, there are plenty of other examples, including the mysterious and never explained tussle between three LUSU Presidents over a proposed Tuition Fees Working Group; the exact specification of the controversial attempt by LUSU, last year, to take over the student bars; or the way LUSU scare and cajole first year students into accepting the awful houses and tenancy agreements of one of the worst landlords in Lancaster, their own LUSU Housing.

“ Not only students, but also staff, were purposely kept in the dark in order to ease the way for a management determined to steamroller through destructive measures without consultation ” One further source of information, of course, is SCAN – the student newspaper. It would be facile to say that this is ‘the Party rag’ of LUSU or the University management; it has a degree of autonomy, and may run a critical story from time to time. On the other hand, it is utterly deluded to pretend that SCAN does not have bonds of allegiance to LUSU: whether they are bonds of friendship, collegiality, and common purpose, or common structures of governance and funding. Beyond this, the paper must go to the source for information: thus the general control exerted over information by the managerial bureaucracy is reproduced

by SCAN. Indeed, even when information is available from alternate sources, the codes of ‘journalistic professionalism’ dictate that a cover-story be elicited from the managerial bodies in the interests of ‘objectivity’, ‘balance’ and – in the last case - avoiding defamation suits. Thus any information from alternative sources is subjected to a process of ‘damage-limitation’, or more subtle forms of selectivity. A key example here is the way that LUSU managed to covert the push against the BPR last year into a LUSU success story (and particularly a George Gardiner success story). The buoyant SCAN coverage completely omitted the support a grassroots coalition of students and admin staff managed to build amongst staff and students prior to LUSU’s General Meeting, as well as the fact that this group had initially to pressure into action a clayfooted LUSU hesitant to openly move against management. Having noted these more subtle forms of influence and manipulation, let us not forget that LUSU and SCAN can and have deliberately excluded oppositional voices. Last year, SCAN’s editors deliberately and vindictively censored and excluded writers from political group Lancaster University Against Cuts (LUAC) as a revenge against LUAC’s 2010/2011 Re-open Nominations (RON) campaign against the election candidates for LUSU Presidency, which was run on the basis that the candidates were all tuition fees apologists. In the process they demonstrated their ability to exert control over the student media - as well as the limits of this: witness the plethora of new ‘independent’ newspapers that sprouted as a result. (The anarchist slogan puts it succinctly: ‘screw us and we multiply!’) Before moving on, one last point to make is that, needless to say, all of the examples I’ve just given have been rapidly erased from collective memory.

2. Il n'y a pas de corps étudiant

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Beyond direct control of information, a second problem confronts any attempt to articulate a common, critical history on campus. That is, the fact that there is no coherent subject which might produce, experience and speak this history. Following this, we are correct to say that, in a very real sense, there is no such thing, at Lancaster University, as the ‘student body’. In order for such a subject-entity to emerge there must be a space for it to emerge in: forums in which it might appear and articulate itself. That is to say, such an agent must have political representation on campus if it is to exist. But, as I have begun to indicate, those bodies which pretend to represent it – e.g. LUSU and University management – in fact exist, not only at a remove from the so-called ‘student body’, but as forces actively blocking its emergence. If the Student Union’s apparent purpose is the representation of students’ needs, desires and demands, the reality is that it has become an extension of the University management. In exchange for simulated authority and prestige (plus CV material and a reasonable salary) LUSU administers the ‘student experience’ and manages a handsome portfolio of ‘student-orientated’ businesses. If it clashes with management on rare occasions, it is always sure to respect its correct forms and procedures. The idea that it represents the student body, then, is mere ideology. In fact, only those within the ‘LUSU Club’ have any sway. Beyond the yearly elections in which a minority of students votes, there are no existing means by which LUSU is able to connect with students. Only about, say, 250 students actively participate in the union: a minority group composed of LUSU officers, the JCRs, some members of clubs and societies, and their friends. LUSU does not know what students think or what students want – whatever it says.

Since students do not have a forum, and therefore do not have a means of articulating themselves, they never form a ‘student body’ – except in the most general sense in which there exists an aggregate of students attending the university. For a ‘student body’ can only emerge in its encounter with itself on the terrain of political action: that is, in establishing a forum in which it is able to articulate its common identity and will. Given that, beyond the concrete aggregate of unrepresented students, no student body really exists, we must conclude that the so-called ‘student body’ is a mere projection of management and LUSU - a spectre evoked to justify plans which are really determined by and designed to suit their own interests. Examples of this include LUSU’s protestation that “no students are interested in attending national student demonstrations”, which is frequently used to fend off pressure from LUAC to promote these and fund coaches; or the University’s insistence that Library and Admin redundancies and cuts in fact constitute ‘planned improvements to meet student needs.’ Here we – non-managerial staff, as well as students - see how we are first systematically excluded from the political process, and then evoked, ex post facto, to justify actions we had no hand in. Indeed, in these examples we see that not only is the student body a mirage, but this mirage is used to combat the actual concerns and demands of any groups of students (and staff) who attempt to assert a political will.

“ If the Student Union’s apparent purpose is the representation of students’ needs, desires and demands, the reality is that it has become an extension of the University management. ”

Following from this, we can see that not only is the University an amnesiac institution because it actively suppresses and distorts history, but also because it actively suppresses the coming into being of any subject that might live and create that history: students are actively blocked from making their own history.

3. The natural rhythm One final thing to note is what I will call the ‘natural rhythm’ of the university: the simple fact that new students come and old students go. As we have seen, the amnesiac process is manufactured by and geared to suit the interests of the managerial bureaucracy: it is no accident of nature. But, the fact that students tend to rapidly arrive and leave the university is certainly a major stumbling block to establishing a collective memory. What occurs to me, now, is that this year almost all of those students who were involved in the 2010 student movement will graduate: will that brief explosion of energy leave any mark at Lancaster? Here, of course, we see another sense in which amnesia benefits the managerial agenda. For the new arrivals the way things are on campus is the way they’ve always been. There’s always only been one wind-block above the Venue; there have always been Tesco-style self-service checkouts in the Library, rather than a team of knowledgeable and helpful staff; the plethora of interesting, tailored-to-research third year modules in humanities departments never existed. Likewise, it’s well known that resistance to new measures is weakened by a staggered introduction: that way change always lies in the future until it has become a forgotten event of the past. Forms 1 and 2 of amnesia feed in here: attempts to control of information can certainly take advantage of the absence of anyone who remembers, whilst ‘emergent’ student collectivities (e.g. LUAC) are faced with the challenge of their own continuation beyond the allotted

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study-time of their core membership. Conversely, this ‘natural cycle’ feeds into the forms of amnesia described above. The fact that the existing structures appear antecedent to the arrival of students aids in their naturalization, in their appearance as necessary and unquestionable, and in their detachment from the ‘student body’. To take again the instance of LUSU, the fact that it appears to precede the very body it is supposed to represent (i.e. the students attending the University at any given moment) reinforces its abstraction and detachment from the student population. Of course, a prime example of this process of using the ‘natural cycle’ of the student population to help push through changes is the introduction of tuition fees in 1998 (who remembers this now?), and the fee increases of 2004 and 2010. But here, of course, we see the limits of this ‘natural phenomenon’. For students still rose up in 2010 to say ‘no’ to the fees, despite the fact that they were to be imposed on future students – the cohort entering the universities this year, in 2012. The question remains open as to whether or not this fight will be continued by the new students. Amnesia is the enemy What becomes clear is that amnesia is produced by the managerial bureaucracy and used to their advantage, against staff and students. Even where the ‘natural cycle’ pulls students in and out of the university, it is the deliberate control of information and strategic implementation of policy that produces the amnesiac effect. Amnesia, then, is not a natural fact but a shroud pulled around the enemy: a managerial group who wish to block us from any meaningful participation in determining the form of the University and its development. The existence of this strategy leads us to the following fact: it is only necessary because the University is developing in ways which are

antagonistic towards the needs and desires of students and staff. Our University and our education is being ‘rationalised’ away by managers keen only to increase profits. This whole process is premised upon finding new avenues by which to exploit students (e.g. more expensive accommodation, more expensive courses, more hidden costs) whilst cutting the cost of producing education (e.g. less course modules, less Library journals and paper books, less support, more intensely exploited staff). In this situation, we see the importance of those who keep an oppositional history alive. This includes groups such as Lancaster University Against Cuts (LUAC), as well as specific individuals and ‘alternative media’: the indispensible Subtext(http://www.lancs.ac.uk/subtext/)is worth a particular mention, as well as Lancaster to Euston and Whistleblower. We also see that we must overcome the forces of amnesia and master our own history, or we will be subjected, without our knowledge, to the whims of a bureaucracy that places itself beyond our control.

Chris Witter

Daniel Morgan; Police Corruption Hidden Away.

olice corruption is of particular interest these days, from News of the World and

Ian Tomlinson to the continuing persecution of black youths and the cover up of the Hillsborough disaster. Whilst I applaud the hard work by all involved to uncover these truths and raise public awareness, it saddens me

that one of the hardest hitting cases of police corruption I know of is slowly slipping into the dark recesses of history.

Daniel Morgan – who has been described by his brother as hard-working and intelligent – was a private investigator working for Southern Investigations in South London. It is believed he was working on exposing drug-related police corruption. In March 1987, he was brutally and devastatingly murdered in a pub car park in Sydenham, Lewisham. After having met with his business partner Jonathan Rees, he was heading home when he was attacked with an axe. A watch was stolen as well as pages from his note pad, but a large sum of money was left on his person. From the start, it didn’t seem to add up.

Rees is not a man without blemishes. In the late 90s, he was found guilty of planting drugs on a woman so she would be deemed unfit to take sole custody of her child. More recently, he has been intimately involved in what has been described as an “empire of corruption” in which he sold information to the now defunct News of the World weekly newspaper. Rees has been reported to have said that “no one pays like the News of the World [does]”.

Moreover, the links between Rees and the local police force is remarkable and it seems rather fortuitous that the detective charged with leading the murder investigation was Sid Fillery who later retired and became Morgan’s replacement at Southern Investigations. Sid Fillery, along with Rees, Glenn and Garry Vian and two Metropolitan Police officers were arrested without charge on suspicion of murder in April 1987. In 1988, a Southern Investigations employee, Keith Lennon, gave evidence of Morgan and Rees’s worsening relationship, stating that Rees had said “My mates at Catford nick are going to arrange it. Those police officers are friends of mine and will either murder Danny themselves or will arrange it.” It was at this point the Judge returned a verdict of

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‘unlawful killing’ – a verdict which has initiated a cruel game of cat and mouse ever since.

Despite five inquiries, police bugging the main four suspects, a ‘mountain of evidence’ which has since been acquired linking the suspects to the murder, and the police still have failed to bring these men forward to a proper trial. In March 2011, the case was again pulled by a chief prosecutor, after a series of mistakes and ‘coaching’ of a key supergrass witness, stating that there would never be scope for further investigation or prosecution. Tim Godwin, former Acting Police Commissioner, apologised to Morgan’s family and stated there was a

“repeated failure by the MPS over many years following Daniel’s murder to accept that corruption had played such a significant part in failing to bring those responsible to justice…We recognise that we have to take responsibility for the consequences of the repeated failure of the MPS over the years to confront the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice.”

This story serves to highlight in the most damnable way the preservative nature of the Metropolitan Police service, or as London Assembly member Jennette Arnold has put it, “a reminder of the old police culture of corruption and unaccountability”. Daniel died trying to expose these all too often miscarriages of justice, dished out by those who pledge to protect society. What he knew might have led to fewer police cover ups over the years – would Hillsborough ever have happened, for instance, if only a prior example had been made of this constabulary? His revelations certainly would have seen an early

end to Rees’ empire of corruption. Perhaps it would have even led to a better and less distressing court battle for the Lawrences, whose son’s murder in nearby Eltham was notoriously covered up by the police for a number of years. What really disturbs me, however, is the lack of awareness concerning this story. If I mention it to most people I know, I would have to recount the entire story. It is troubling that a story full of such obvious failures has been washed away by the annals of time, with many oblivious to the implications being made. Whilst there are a lot of police officers out there who wish to do good, how easy can it be when such thuggish attitudes pervade their line of duty? How can we allow this decent man’s memory to be forgotten, and not demand that serious changes must be enforced so that the police cannot hide behind the reaches of the law? Daniel Morgan should be up there with Tomlinson, another man whose life was lost due to the dodgy world of police brutality and dishonesty, in the British public’s consciousness.

Vicky Millinship

Motion of support

for the TUC at the

LUSU General

Meeting

he following text is a motion of support for the TUC to be proposed at Lancaster

University Students' Union's general meeting on the 8th of October. This text was initially drawn up by Sam Hale and has received endorsements from Lancaster University Against Cuts and the Lancaster University Humanists Association. Any more official endorsements from societies or bodies affiliated to either the student's union or the university will be added to the article during the lead up to the meeting.

“

LUSU should endorse, actively promote and to help organise transport for the Trades Union Congress (TUC) ‘For A Future That Works’ Demonstration in London on October 20th, 2012 and any future anti-austerity demonstrations and strikes organised by the TUC.

This Union Notes:

- As a result of economic recession, students and young people face many

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difficulties before, during and after higher education.

- Whilst incomes have stagnated or declined, and many people face job insecurity, students are being asked to pay very high tuition fees.

- As undergraduate student loans are inadequate to cover the actual cost of higher education (including living costs), students tend to accumulate large debts.

- Meanwhile, as postgraduates struggle to secure funding, many of these continue to accumulate debts.

- According to official figures, general unemployment levels are currently above 2.59 million – or 8.2%; another 1.4 million say they are working part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time employment, whilst youth unemployment levels are at over 1 million, or 21%

- Therefore, young people, including students and graduates, find it very hard to find work. This affects students before, during and after university.

- Those who do find work are likely to enter professions on terms that are less favourable than they once were.

- Changes to pensions and salaries brought in by employers during the recession will not only negatively affect new employees, but will disproportionately affect them, as many employers bring in new, less favourable terms on a staggered basis. - In general, there is strong evidence that increased unemployment has lowered wages.

- Young people will also be badly affected by new employment legislation being introduced by the Government, including plans to make it easier to fire employees.

- Meanwhile, new graduates who are not able to find work face reduced benefits available to support them through this difficult time.

- Further to this, the Union should note that the strongest political force fighting against these developments – i.e, public sector cuts and increased exploitation in the workplace - has been the trade unions.

- The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is holding a demonstration on 20th October in an attempt to build resistance to the destructive developments listed above.

- There are also discussions within the TUC about the possibility of conducting a general strike in the near future, whilst many unions have already or are currently balloting to strike.

- LUSU has supported union strikes and demonstrations in the past, including the UCU strikes last year.

- Students on campus – particularly those involved in Lancaster University Against Cuts (LUAC) - have expressed a wish to attend the demonstration on October 20th, and to see their union work effectively with trades unions to oppose the public sector cuts which have badly affected students and staff at Lancaster University.

- This does not necessarily mean funding transport where this proves beyond the Union’s resources. However, it does necessitate a general and active commitment.

This Union Believes:

- That public sector cuts and austerity have a detrimental effect on students, young people and working people more generally – as well as those who cannot find work, or who cannot work, such as the disabled.

- That it is in the student interest for LUSU to ally with and support trade union struggles against public sector cuts and austerity measures.

- That better communication and cooperation between LUSU and trade unions would allow us to fight for a

more inclusive and better University, as well as improving the lives of our graduates.

- That neither students nor LUSU exist in a bubble; our interests are intricately entwined with the general wellbeing of society.

- That we a University is not a mere training centre, designed to provide new recruits to fit economic needs. Rather, it is a place that should promote inclusive learning with the aim of working towards a more sustainable and equitable society.

This Union Resolves:

- To commit to a struggle against public sector cuts and austerity.

- To endorse, actively promote and help organise transport for the Trades Union Congress (TUC) ‘For A Future That Works’ Demonstration in London on October 20th, 2012.

- To actively support any future anti-austerity demonstrations and strikes organised by the TUC.

- To work more closely with Trade Unions on campus.

- To involve students in this process, keeping it open, transparent and inclusive whilst, at the same time, taking sufficient initiative to ensure that campaigns and events are successful.

”

LUSU's General Meeting is to be held on the 8th of October. The meeting was called initially to discuss the future of the bars, however, this meeting may have proven to be too late to stop the restructuring process even if the Union declared that its official aim. Nevertheless, it is important that students attend in order to voice their views to our

14

Union representatives. The restructuring of the bars could still in theory be challenged, and other issues, in particular the above motion, could also be heard. This meeting will hopefully serve an important role in helping LUSU understand, and be able to work with, you the student body.

Adam Harrison-Henshall

It’s Time To De-Worm The Financial Markets

s a member of the UK’s

youthful population – here’s

to hoping a year of birth

that saw “A groovy kind of love” by Phil

Collins reach number one still

constitutes youthfulness- there’s

always been one analogy that, when

spoken by those my senior, riles my

inner sceptic to the nth degree. The

phrase in question usually takes the

following form: “It was never like that

when we were their age” or “things just

aren’t as they used to be.”

The reason such analogies rile me so

is that I’ve always felt they explain

nothing as the idea the past trumps

the present seems a cyclical

phenomenon as old as humanity

itself! Whether from the subjects of

the Roman empire who witnessed its

final stages of disintegration or folk

music fans predicting the downfall of

their scene due to a certain Mr.

Dylan’s adoption of the electric

guitar, the one common denominator

is that each aforesaid phase of human

history is likely to have had those who

considered the past as categorically

superior to the present.

It’s a logic that, if drawn to some

sort of natural conclusion, would

surely interpret the pinnacle of

human existence as being sat in a cave

worrying whether a big cat was going

to treat you as a light savoury snack

or not.

However, my firm, or maybe even

dogmatic, adherence to this belief has

recently started to falter. The thought

that perhaps there are a few

fundamental flaws with the current

era that, to my understanding at

least, didn’t have such a presence in

past eras has increasingly occupied

the little thinking matter there is

between my lugs.

“

Rather than people

treating markets as a

means to an end, the

modern day market is

the end.

”

Let me put forward one argument

that will hopefully begin to explain

my change in mood. During the

twentieth century and up to the

present date, I would suggest there

have been six major economic

slumps: the post World War I

depression; the 1929 great

depression; the oil-centred 1970’s

depression; the early 1980’s and 90’s

depression and the current one.

What strikes me is that of these six

recessionary periods, the first three

occurred within eighty-ish years of

the twentieth century commencing

whilst the last three have all occurred

within the last thirty years. I can’t

help feeling that such concentration

of fiscal misfortune in the latter

quarter of the twentieth century and

the beginning of the twenty first

century makes for an interesting

conundrum.

And to those that may argue the

economics of an era are inextricably

tied to an array of political and social

factors that, dear boy, your

comparison fails to even begin

comprehending, I can only

reply........that, I think, is my point.

The meaning to this seemingly

gobbledygook-based point being that

perhaps the lack of consideration

between what’s considered the

economic sphere and the political-

cum-social sphere could explain my

conundrum.

There are those who have been

considerably more articulate on this

than I. It was John Maynard Keynes

who spoke of “markets” being

idolised to the extent that they

represented: “the worm that had

been gnawing at the insides of

modern civilisation.” My

interpretation being correct, the

metaphor implies that rather than

people treating markets as a means to

an end, the modern day market is the

end.

In relation to the economic model

our financial markets are based on,

there is arguably no shortage of

evidence to see where Mr. Keynes

was coming from. Interest rate

rigging, endless boom/bust cycles

and grotesque so-called “merit-based”

bonuses smack of one value only; the

value of unchecked accumulation

that, to the majority it seems, is proof

that financial markets can’t be

interpreted as producing or, to

follow the aforesaid metaphor,

existing as any kind of socially useful

“end.” It’s easy to see how the system

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is perceived as having little legitimacy

in terms of accepted political or social

values.

This begs the questions: how to we

cleanse our twenty-first century

financial systems of that gnawing

worm? How do we reorient financial

markets so that our political, social

and economic values co-exist

harmoniously? I would suggest that

only when we’re prepared to back-

track in time and, in a fashion that

would seem to me reminiscent of the

Keynesian era, fundamentally

reconsider what we want our

financial markets to do, to be and to

stand for, can the de-worming

process begin!

Jed Bartlett

Don’t Ask Don’t

Tell: No One blows

the Whistle on The

City on The Hill.

his past weekend I came

across the intriguing story

of Gwenyth Todd4, a

former USA naval analyst,

whose career was destroyed and

safety put at risk for blowing the

whistle on and thwarting a right-

wing, Neo-Con military plan to start

a war with Iran in 2007, a war which

would be disastrous for the Middle

East. The crook of the matter was a

Vice Admiral, with anger issues and

obviously compensating for

something, by the name of Kevin

Cosgriff. He was (and probably still

is) a man spoiling for a war with Iran

by sending three aircraft carriers

through the diplomatically sensitive

Strait of Hormuz. This is a

particularly sensitive area of water

and provided a flashpoint for the Iran-

Iraq War in the 1980’s, a war which

irreparably damaged the Iraqi

economy and killed around half a

million at a time the USA was happy

to support the blasphemous despot

Saddam Hussein. Todd disclosed to

the State Department against

Cosgriff’s orders about the plan so

the Cosgriff’s dangerous Hollywood

style madness could be stopped.

Todd right now resides in Australia

with her husband and is too afraid to

set foot on home soil due to getting

on the wrong side of powerful people

who evidently want to exact revenge

for throwing a spanner in the works

of those very incendiary plans. As

exemplified by a clumsy ruse by the

FBI in 2011 to try and get her to the

US embassy for questioning and likely

arrest her and take her back to the

US. This was because she had been

erroneously implicated in a money

laundering and international fraud

scandal orchestrated by a former

4 http://m.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/sunk/2012/08/21/96209788-cebd-11e1-aa14-708bac2c7ee9_story.html

lover. Gwenyth Todd had absolutely

nothing to do with the scandal, but

the implication by the Justice

Department showed the will of

powerful people to punish her for

showing an ugly side to a country

eager to portray itself as better than

everyone else.

The ordeal of Todd, one which has

caused her to take a form of exile to

protect herself from her own

government, has me thinking once

again of the current ordeal of Bradley

Manning and how America exacts

rather petulant and dangerous

revenge on its whistleblowers. It is a

practice that demonstrates a rolling

back of people’s liberties under the

guise of fighting terrorism and with

the failure of capitalism and

America’s self-interested subversion

of Liberal Interventionism it is a

practice that I fear will be enforced

more punitively as we move forward.

“

It is a practice that

demonstrates a rolling

back of people’s liberties

under the guise of

fighting terrorism

”

Bradley Manning has now been held

in custody for more than 2 years

without trial, for a substantial period

of this time Manning was abused in

custody and denied his right to due

process. Manning’s defense lawyer

David Coombs even published the

motion which showed that Manning

was abused on the orders of a 3 star

general at the Quantico Marine Brig. 5 Among this was 23 hour a day

5 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_zC44SBaZPoQ2hLa21jNlM0WmM/edit?pli=1

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confinement; told to constantly stand

or sit upright away from the wall;

given no hygiene items; forced to

remove and hand over his clothes at

the end of the day; the list goes on

and on. Manning is a danger to no

one, but his disclosure of cables

which included abhorrent conduct of

US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan,

including the murder of civilians. I

fear for Bradley Manning’s safety

because many security zealots and

“patriots” are so eager to see him

punished and it would take a brave

judge to dismiss the frankly ridiculous

charges against an American citizen

who showed conscience in America’s

War on Terror. Particularly when

you consider people in America have

called for Julian Assange, the head of

Wikileaks who published Manning’s

information to the public, to be

assassinated. God forbid anyone tell

us we have another Vietnam on our

hands!

Manning and Todd are not special

cases either. Joseph C. Wilson was

the US diplomat who, in 2003,

revealed that the United States

government had used the exaggerated

British intelligence on Saddam 6Hussein to justify the invasion and

now disastrous occupation of Iraq.

An occupation which was hurriedly

ended and left the country a barely

floating wreck with serious sectarian

violence and possible government

corruption and the emergence of al-

Maliki as a new Arab strongman. The

price Wilson paid for this disclosure?

His wife Valarie Plame had her career

at the CIA ended by the Bush

administration when the revealed her

identity as an operative by the Bush

administration; a vindictive move

which actually put US security more

at risk than the disclosure of the

6 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html

phony reasons for an illegal war.

Reasons which many informed

observers would have seen through

anyway, considering the Bush

administration’s connection to big

corporations to companies who won

contracts in the reconstruction.

Of course there is also the infamous

case of Daniel Ellsberg, the man who

released The Pentagon Papers, which

revealed how the USA’s engagement

in Vietnam was knowingly

unwinnable yet were the government

were still willing to sacrifice many

innocent lives for. It also

demonstrated the web of lies and

subterfuge from successive

administrations surrounding the war,

such as lying about the amount of

casualties; true long term intentions;

as well as extending the war to

Cambodia and Laos. The response of

the Nixon administration was to carry

out a campaign to shut down

anymore whistleblowing and

personally discredit Ellesberg, a man

who recognized how wrong the war

was. This campaign included

wiretapping; break-ins, attempts to

undermine his mental health and even

an aborted plot to “incapacitate”

Ellesberg on American soil.7

These four cases are not exceptions

to the rule either, it is representative

of a dark side of the ‘City on a Hill’

so keen to protect its image and

ideology that it will go out of its way

to attack anyone who discredits it. In

an era where its brand of political

ideology can be seen as failing or

failed already and the fact it is still so

keen to spy on its own people shows

America shows no sign of dropping

its Cold-War style behaviour anytime

soon. Maybe rather than trying to

discredit, imprison and intimidate its

7 http://www.democracynow.org/2006/4/27/exclusive_nixon_white_house_counsel_john

whistleblowers, America should

thank them and understand where it

is going wrong because: it isn’t 1991

anymore and it isn’t the end of

history, time to learn from your

mistakes America.

Northern Loudmouth

Assange’s Cult of

Personality is

destroying

Wikileaks

ell the diplomatic

standoff involving 4

countries and the

founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange

doesn’t look like it will settle down

soon and neither does Assange’s cult

of personality which is now

something he has 100% bought into.

Unfortunately it is something that has

now fully overshadowed the

excellent work of the organization he

founded.

First of all, I don’t know whether

Assange has raped these two women

or not, and apart from the two

women and Assange himself, neither

does anyone else; despite many

people, including many of you I’ll

wager, having made your mind up

one way or the other. I for one, being

a natural cynic don’t completely

believe everything we have been told

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and I’m naturally suspicious of the

Americans, to the Assange accusers,

America has a history of being

underhanded against individuals who

have embarrassed them, look at how

they are treating Bradley Manning, a

man I fear will die in custody or be

executed. However Sweden cannot

extradite Assange to the USA while

the threat of execution hangs on.

Furthermore considering the UK’s

rather cosy arrangement with the

States it would have been much easier

to smuggle him out of here to a

prison in the USA, we already did it

to an innocent man with a mental

health condition.

However, what is really bothering

about this entire row, is that Assange

is overshadowing the wonderful and

valuable work of Wikileaks and is

moving debate away from how the

United States, a so called free, fair

and democratic country is, via its

corporations is trying to bring down

Wikileaks and infringe on your

liberties. Instead Assange ascended to

a balcony to give a speech like Eva

Peron or a deluded Emperor from

the Age of Antiquity to address what

are his followers. People who don’t

seem to be able to discern where

Assange ends and Wikileaks begin.

People who don’t realize that

Wikileaks is about the collective

sending out information to the rest of

us to create transparency in

government, which the media have

failed to do enough of in recent years,

being either bullied by government

or concentrating on celebrity tittle-

tattle.

Right now Wikileaks is in a situation

where it needs donations urgently to

prevent itself from being shutdown,

due to state governments and big

companies not wanting you to know

their dirty little secrets, information

you have a right to know, after all

you elected some of those people.

Now we have a situation where

Assange is centre stage, where he

wants to be and making himself look

increasingly guilty by the day by

refusing to go to Sweden and face

down and discredit his accusers. Not

only is the “Church of Assange” and

William Hague’s idiotic bullishness

overshadowing Wikileaks but

Assange’s actions discredit Wikileaks

by association, which is more

damaging still.

Worst of all though Assange and his

ego are overshadowing Bradley

Manning, a man who I fear will die at

the hands of his own country for

showing a conscience, treatment

which is against morals and laws. So

next time Julian Assange stands on a

balcony how about not putting

cameras on him or turning up out the

Ecuadorian embassy to support him,

because all you are doing is taking the

attention away from the people doing

the real work and are a credit to the

Wikileaks organization, free speech

and transparency in government.

Northern Loudmouth

Julian Assange;

Certain Questions

Need Answering

he Julian Assange case has

polarised opinion. And then

some. Some defend him as if

he is the last bastion of free speech.

Others accuse his supporters of being

apologists for rape and argue Assange

is a media-hungry, attention-seeking

paranoid fantasist with messianic

delusions. We cannot know the

“truth”, whatever that is, but we

should at least strive for

understanding. So here are some

thoughts; or, rather, some questions.

First, on Assange and the alleged cult

of celebrity. Why might someone

seek the spotlight if not for the love

of the media? Personal safety perhaps?

While in the public eye, he can’t go

‘missing’. Simple. Also, I’d guess, the

authorities know he has details of

other secret wikileaks activists,

locations, informers, whistleblowers,

techniques, etc. It's not necessarily

him they want, but his information.

Hence Ecuador talk less about the

death penalty and more about

Assange facing torture interrogation

if he does somehow wind up in CIA

hands. The bigger his reputation as an

egotist, the safer - hopefully - the

people behind the scenes. And the

likelier, one would hope, that

wikileaks continues to expose lies,

hypocrisies, cover ups and mistruths.

“

The question, however, is what else extradition to Sweden brings into play?

”

Second, then, the debate about

whether extradition to Sweden

automatically means a handover to

the States. Let’s be clear: the

argument that Sweden will

not extradite anyone for capital

offences is accurate. To have Assange

moved on into the hands of the US

would be lengthy and time

consuming because it would have to

be done through the courts. As

Britain found out when trying to

deport Abu Hamza, the European

Court of Human Rights still has some

muscle. If the Americans want him,

T

INSIGHT:

18

they cannot legally be given him if the

charges will lead to the death penalty.

In addition, I’m pretty sure the

Americans would want least possible

attention on the matter; that’s

especially so given there is not yet

any official ‘charge’ to face in the

States. There are rumours of an

indictment for publishing sensitive

material so as to strengthen the

position of the ‘enemy’, but these are

just rumours. So, on the one hand,

extradition to Sweden to face charges

of sexual assault should be

straightforward. One would hope so.

The man has not done himself many

favours and his public attitude

towards women (remember

the Time interview?) reveals a

character cloaked in sexist self-

aggrandising machismo. The poster

boys of the Left have often been some

of the most chauvinist bastards I’ve

met. He must face his accusers. The

question, however, is what else

extradition to Sweden brings into

play?

Deeper research reveals at least three

very good reasons to be cynical. First,

Sweden has in the past allowed the

extraordinary rendition of suspected

terrorists (google Mohammed al-Zari

and how the Court of Human Rights

found his handover, by Sweden, to

American forces in Egypt, to be a

repugnant abuse). Second, Sweden is

signature to a special arrangement

with the US called “temporary

surrender”. Again, google it. It’s

complicated, but a simple explanation

is that Sweden has an arrangement

which might make it easier to move

Assange into US custody from

Sweden than from the UK. Third,

who is Sweden’s advisor on

international law? None other than

Karl Rove, the Washington hawk

thought even too hawkish for the

Bush Jr regime (google up Don

Siegelman for starters). That he

advised the Swedes on their legal

arrangements is a fact: he advertises it

as one of his consultancy jobs on his

website. That he is currently is bed

with Obama is widely known. That

he advised on the Assange case is

speculation (but Swedish media is

alive to a connection). Together,

that’s more than enough

circumstantial evidence to allow the

reasonable suggestion of American

influence.

The third issue raised by the Assange

issue is much trickier, ethically, to

deal with. Ken Clarke, British Justice

Secretary, got in all sorts of hot water

for suggesting some rape is more

‘serious’ than others. What he meant

was that rape, at knifepoint, by

multiple assailants required different

legal procedures to child grooming,

date rape, spousal rape, etc. The

Swedes recognise such distinctions in

law, and different cases receive

different sentencing terms – if the

accused is found guilty. In many

ways, Sweden has one of the most

progressive legal systems in the

world. Here’s the timeline: Assange

was originally questioned over ‘sex

by surprise’, that is, sex without a

condom. Both women (and this is in

the Swedish records) have made

statements to say that sex was initially

consensual. From the victim

statements, it is clear that Assange is

accused of coercion, and not just in

his refusal to wear a condom. He has

a case to answer. When the

authorities wanted to upgrade the

charges from ‘sex by surprise’ to

rape, however, one of the women

retracted her statement that Assange

had penetrated her whilst she was

asleep. Upon that public retraction,

the Swedish prosecutor threw the

case out in 2010. The case was

reopened in 2012, by Marianne Ny

(google her, especially her

connection to Rove). In Sweden, the

victim does not have to press charges

for the authorities to pursue a

criminal investigation. Why was the

case reopened? What was American

influence on that decision? The cynic

in me thinks we need to know the

answers to these questions. What I do

know is women’s rights are human

rights and Assange needs to face the

interrogation for his crimes. What

the cynic worries about, however, is

that the case was reopened in order

to bring Assange not to trial for being

an alleged rapist, but to bring him to

Sweden to make him more accessible

to the Americans.

“

There are too many unanswered questions to allow for anyone to take the moral high-ground and fling judgemental statements about willy-nilly.

”

So, I don’t know what to think, but I

do think there are enough reasons

both to want to understand more

about shadowy diplomacy and more

about what influenced Marianne Ny

to reopen the case against Assange. If,

as a result of all this, governments are

forced to take rape more seriously

than they currently do, then good.

Britain could do with incorporating

some of Sweden’s legislation. At the

moment, only about 5% of reported

rapes in the UK lead to prosecutions

and the culture of not going to the

police is something which needs

serious attention. Too often women

are the victims and men are not found

responsible for their actions. In this

case, Assange needs to face the

charges. However, if it is found that

the experience of the two victims is

being used for political reasons, then

there are other questions to be

answered.

Finally, Ecuador was a clever country

to choose. President Correa survived

an American-led coup attempt in

2010 (google it, Wikipedia even has a

case on the Ecuador Crisis of 2010).

US activities in Latin America under

Reagan and Bush Sr were some of the

first examples of willful neglect of

international law exposed by

19

whistleblowers. Look up how

Ecuador is fighting tooth and nail to

preserve its rainforests against the

corporates. Ecuador gain from giving

asylum to Assange, but also look at

their human rights record: they are

no angels.

There's context here. It’s not an

either/or, black and white situation.

There are too many unanswered

questions to allow for anyone to take

the moral high-ground and fling

judgemental statements about willy-

nilly. So, please, do a bit of research

before shooting off shotgun

accusations and condemnations.

We’re only party to a fraction of the

information. For those outside the

embassy, supporting Assange, the

focus is the bigger picture: the US

wants to shut down wikileaks and

Assange has information they want.

For those who claim that to support

Assange is to support a rapist, put

pressure on the authorities to follow

up two possibilities. First, on some

legal interpretations, he can be

interrogated outside Sweden; it’s not

easy, but there is precedent. Second,

although Sweden cannot legally

promise not to forward Assange to

the States should the US put in a

request, it can use the terms of the

“temporary surrender” to ensure he

has to be returned to Sweden. That

would not be an unprecedented

request, so I wonder why Sweden has

yet to make that move?

The Fencesitter

Facebook – And

why we need a

Rally of the Real

wish to state some basic

assumptions surrounding the

varying usages of social media

sites and my aim is to show that not

only can most of these usages be

achieved more effectively elsewhere,

but also show how utilising sites like

Facebook is detrimental to both

creative thought and political cause.

So without further ado I would like

to jump straight into the motivation

lying behind this line of thought. We

have all sat scrolling through the

myriad of posts that force themselves

unto us as we search for something to

entertain us, interest us, etc. And for

many of us who are politically

minded or active, this is satisfied

when we come across a piece of satire

or a new ‘campaign’ that attempts to

collect as many names under its

banner as possible in an attempt to

induce positive change. We smile;

that lonely sense of individualism lost

momentarily as we realise there are

others out there that think the same

as we do, that the world may not be

totally lost after all. We feel a buzz,

we ‘like’, and we continue our daily

scroll. Some of us will sit for hours at

a time, ‘waiting’ for a post, a post

that reflects our thoughts that we can

grab onto and hold tightly; we tell

ourselves that as long as we know

there are others who feel the same,

that the world is a better place.

“

We have been pushed out of physical reality altogether

”

It is thoughts like these that

completely undermine the entire

supposed ‘accomplishment’ that the

era of the internet has ushered in. At

the crux of this argument lies the

notion that ideas, once somehow

‘confined’ to reality (a

domain apparently now lacking in the

ability to produce creative thought if

we are to believe those who staunchly

defend this digitisation of people) are

now free to expand, to ‘blossom’ in a

way totally unachievable through the

traditional physical channels of which

we are accustomed to. This is

illusive. Furthermore this illusion

ignores why we have felt the need to

digitise our wants, our needs, our

goals and crucially the way we

organise ourselves as a society. The

move to the digital world was not a

natural occurrence. For many the

move was facilitated not by the mere

fact of this new means of

communication, but by the inability

of people to now organise without

the internet. Our hand was forced

when we lost the ability to gather at a

communal area (a now mythical

location, lost to both cuts and state

security). A get-together of no more

than a few politically ‘active’ beings

to discuss new modes of thoughts, to

speak out against inequalities and the

wrongdoings of those who abuse

power, is almost universally followed

by intense questioning by local

police, by abuse from your friendly

neighbourhood right-wingers or

simply from passers-by with the age

old heckle to “remove ones buttocks

from their seat and seek

employment”. Even as students in

I

INSIGHT:

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what are meant to be the hubs, the

vanguard, the forefront of intellectual

debate that form our crumbling

education system, we are unable to

even find a place to gather and

exchange ideas… not without

following a strict procedure for

booking a room with an established

apolitical purpose, not without

payment, not without forming an

official society (one that requires

strict hierarchy to exist legally within

the universities walls, I kid you not).

So we have been pushed off not just

the streets, the parks, the coffee

houses where debate and discussion

were rich and rewarded by action and

real change. We have been pushed

out of physical reality altogether.

Restricted to the bars of binary that

construct this new digital world,

activists from all walks of life now

find themselves using social media as

their new platform for debate, and

yes to some degree this has had

positive effects. But my argument is

not absolutist; I do not wish to negate

the existence of a few success stories.

Instead I believe these positives are

massively outweighed by the

negatives.

Posting on Facebook is similar to

loosening a valve within some form of

industrial complex. The release of

pressure and steam allows those who

use Facebook and the site itself to

continue running smoothly without

stress or risk of breakdown. But what

happens to the steam itself? It is not

recycled, reused, chucked back into a

series of cogs and gears that may lead

to some other effect. It is lost. Lost

down a funnel of frustration that

leads to nowhere, for we must

remember that the industrial

complex of Facebook is not real; a

build-up of steam need not have

consequence on the overall functions

of the machine and merely dissipates

into nothing. Unlike reality, the side-

effect of letting loose these

frustrations on an ever-growing

audience of people can be heard by

no-one at all, and even when heard

and acknowledged, rarely manifests

itself into enriching discussion.

Merely name-calling and ‘trolling’

follows where people are less pressed

to provide rational reasoning to

support themselves, for in our online

prison there is no accountability; you

can flee without repercussion and

getaway with intellectual murder.

The danger in releasing our thoughts

in these bite-size chunks is the loss of

the motivation behind what caused

the post in the first place. After

reading a news article telling us of the

latest swindle or injustice we take to

our digital thrones in the hope that

our complaint will be met by other

like-minded individuals and that

(through an inexplicable process that

very few of us consider in detail) will

lead to a solution of the problem at

hand; a campaign perhaps, or merely

the belief that the ‘noise’ of a few

thousand angry digital personas will

be enough to force the culprits into

redemption. This act leaves us

fulfilled when it surely should not.

Back in the physical realm, one

lacking in its digital counter-part, the

same person who would in this

situation turn to Facebook to make

their voice heard is left without a

funnel to yell down. They feel upset,

depressed, or emotions unable to be

conveyed due to the seething anger

the injustice has left them in. But

there is no outlet for this person and

so they continue embittered as they

carry on their lives hearing of further

and further injustices until they are

unable to bear the strain anymore.

What follows is real action. This

person is forced to begin campaigning

against these crimes in order to

relieve themselves of helpless

frustration. They are forced into

finding and contacting others to

arrange demonstrations against the

target of their anger; they are put

into a position whereby to relieve

their stress they must make a

difference. This hypothetical being is

the men and women of the world

previous to our digital age. It was the

inability to relieve themselves of the

pressures of injustice through small,

ineffective gestures on the virtual

plain that made these people so

effective at reacting and rejecting the

wrongdoings of others. ‘Posting’

excuses us from making real life

exchanges or activities as they quell

the emotional build-up that creates

action amongst both the active and

the inert.

“

Facebook and other similar sites can act as a tinted filter that transforms even the most horrific obscenities in the world into a distant, near-mythical event

”

Our internal emotional struggles are

the cause of the majority of our

actions. Without the motivation

that is raw emotion we would be left

shallow husks with little desire, let

alone the complex wants involved in

performing an act of empathy with a

person or a group who have suffered

from unjust treatment. Facebook and

other similar sites can act as a tinted

filter that transforms even the most

horrific obscenities in the world into

a distant, near-mythical event. This

zoo of insane social injustices and

atrocities is carefully separated from

us, filtered through silver glass until

the target of outrage is simmered into

a mass of data that appears before our

eyes. It is little wonder our emotions

barely flinch when such abuses

are thrown at us, framed by the

petty, niggling annoyances of others

that share this virtual arena that

surround the data. And it is of less

surprise why then simply ‘sharing’ or

‘liking’ the data in question quickly

dissipates what ‘emotivation’ we

would of otherwise had were we not

staring down this tainted lens.

21

But surely, I often hear, the sheer

mass of content on these social

networks is proof of an increase in

thought, of ideas, of communication

and of creativity? I imagine most of us

have witnessed posts or pictures that

have thousands if not millions of

‘views’ or ‘likes’ or ‘shares’; surely

this shows evidence of not inertia but

engagement from people who

otherwise may not be included in this

type of activity in the physical world?

Yet it is these three demons that

mock and belittle our ability to be

creative. Our yearning to feast upon

these abstract numbers have caused

our thoughts to now have a rating

system applied to them that

systematically dismantles any desire

to produce critical or creative

comments, that may not be well

received or regarded by the virtual

masses. This is especially so in regard

to the concept of ‘sharing’. We may

spot a picture or someone else’s view

that we agree with so much so that

the ‘like’ button does not appear to

do it justice. ‘Sharing’ then draws

attention to what we believe should

be in the glorious limelight of

internet stardom. But why now

would you want to post something

closely similar or even identical? This

thought prevents people from placing

their own unique message online.

Our subjective perspective, no

matter how close we relate it to what

we have seen, will never be fully

accommodated by the words or

pictures or wit of another. The

minority post, the majority ‘share’

and the rest is lost to the memory

hole. The individual is lost amongst

the reproduction of the same

message, whereby even if the

thoughts of one person seemingly fit

with what ‘you were going to say’, it

will never truly be an accurate

expression of your mind. This in turn

obliterates the uniqueness of any

given person who resides in this

virtual world. Yet it is in these slight

differences that give birth to

enriching discussion and debate, to

new radical ideas and modes of

thought, to artistic expression, to

entire libraries of literature; and this

should be no surprise for it is in these

differences that allow us to exist,

each as separate conscious entities. If

we continue to ‘like’ or ‘share’ as

replacements for our own comments

and thoughts then we lose an

unimaginable amount of content, and

risk strangling our own creativity in

the process. Yes these tools work for

a pleasant joke or a funny picture…

but not for any meaningful display of

thought.

Finally the destructive nature of

‘trends’ in our virtual cage must be

accounted for. It has been said that

you can kill a person but you cannot

kill an idea. Well you can on

Facebook. The ‘news feed’ trickles

down our screens, an endless swirling

mass of thoughts and non-thoughts

held together by whatever algorithm

Facebook uses to decide what you

may wish to read; devoid of context

and, too often, content. Ideas here

leave the virtual world and fade away

into dust and can be lost forever.

They can be pulled by the Facebook

admins, or left unobserved, which in

the virtual world is as good as death

for a thought. In reality when you are

desperate to be heard you can make it

so with your voice, with a scream if

need be. But only on Facebook can

you scream as loud as you can and it

be possible for no one to hear you.

And with that the silent scream

follows the stream of the ‘news feed’

into nothingness, left unanswered and

becomes lost.

We need emotion to have

motivation. We cannot allow

ourselves the ease to relieve ourselves

of our primal instincts with miniature

outbursts on the walls of our virtual

prison. These feelings we have exist

for a reason, and kept to the physical

realm we see them manifest in real

action, in real change and most

importantly in true creativity. We

need a Rally of the Real to sober

ourselves from this most opiating of

drugs.

Ryan Flitcroft

Despatch from

Madrid – An

account of the S25

demonstration:

Part Two

ISCLAIMER: This is a personal account that makes no claims to be objective,

the conclusions I have drawn are not necessarily correct. Furthermore, the events I am recording were chaotic and there has yet to be a single factual history that everybody agrees upon. Here you will only find my side of the story. I distinctly remember the conversation that I was having when the police began their assault. I was talking to two other people, a dreadlocked young guy and a girl who had to break off the conversation every other minute to justify wearing a face mask to rabid pacifists jabbering about “bad press”. We were speculating about how many people in the crowd would camp in the plaza, and how many would demonstrate the next day. Already, small numbers of people who had chanted and marched enough for one day were drifting away, fatigued after 8 hours on their feet. “We need a demonstration every Friday, like in

D

INSIGHT:

22

Egypt” said the dreadlocked man. “That will bring the government down.” I opened my mouth to agree with him but my voice was drowned out by a rising collective scream of alarm. Trawling through the videos later, I figured that the catalyst for the police charge was a militant bloc pushing forward into the police lines with flagpoles. The jury still isn’t out yet as to whether they were plainclothes, acting to give the police a casus belli to wade in. I don’t know, but it seems certain that there were some plainclothes at work amongst the crowds. The police immediately responded with massive and overwhelming violence, beating everybody in sight to clear out the plaza. After the crowd began to scream and shout, like a shoal of minnows they surged away from the cops, who then exploited this to keep up the pressure. Moving in such a large crowd is highly dangerous, with the risk of people trampling each other and getting pulled under. People began to call out “!suave!” (smoothly) and for people not to run, and within a few moments the panicked rout became an orderly withdrawal. Still it was very hard to move, as I could barely pick my feet up for the press of bodies and sometimes by body was being carried without actually taking steps. I twisted around to look behind me and I could see the cops getting closer, an image of Robocop visors and falling truncheons. Finally the crowd made it out of the plaza into the relative safety of the green space that divided the two traffic lanes of the Paseo Del Prado. Here the tree trunks, park benches and low fences gave us some respite from the assault and the police checked their advance. Assessing the situation, I saw that the police had driven everybody out of the plaza into the surrounding green spaces. The mood had obviously shifted completely. People were hurling abuse at the police officers. Lots more people were masking up, and beginning to throw missiles. Mostly empty bottles, but some rocks

were also coming in, as well as the occasional firework. Until now they were being used recreationally, now they were being employed as weapons. This is also the first time I saw and heard the police fire rubber bullets. The Spanish National Police issue an attachment that goes into the barrel of a standard shotgun, which looked to similar to a Mossberg 500 and they fire rubber bullets through these, rather than using a dedicated rubber bullet gun. I suppose this makes a certain tactical sense, since if they want to they can unscrew the rubber bullet launchers and start firing live ammunition. When these things fire they boom like a thunderclap and a lot of sparks emit from the launcher barrel. However despite the police violence the people were undaunted. The chanting continued, albeit with different, more militant chants.

“asesinos” – “murderers”

“hijos de puta” – “sons of bitches”

“que no, que no, que no tenemos miedo” – “we are not afraid”

“ahorras son azules, antes eran grises”

– “now you are blue, before you were grey”

The last chant was a reference to the grey uniforms that the police wore during Franco’s dictatorship, implying that the police are still a fascist force in society today. I threw in a few renditions of “No Justice, No Peace, Fuck the Police!” for old times’ sake, but it was received with bafflement. Militant tactics were now being used more. Whereas before the pacifists had dominated the mood and execution of the demonstration, they now found themselves in the minority. After a brief respite, the police advanced again, firing salvo after salvo of rubber bullets, driving people in all directions. As I ran towards the Prada museum, I heard a sickening wet slapping sound and a guy next to me went down like a sack of potatoes. It took me a while to realise what had happened, and in a

short space of time he was surrounded by a hoard of camera toting journalists. Eventually protesters fought their way through the journalists and dragged the casualty to safety. This took us up the side steps of the Prada Museum, where a middle aged woman was used to work as a nurse took over until the ambulance could arrive. The casualty had taken a round to the stomach, not life threatening but highly painful.

“ Despite the police violence the people were undaunted ” The police advanced again, and at this point both the crowd and the police lost all coherence, shooting off in all directions. After a very stressful run down the Paseo del Prado with a spiked high wall – utterly devoid of escape routes - on one side of me and vans of riot police on the other, I arrived at the large roundabout of Atocha, where a couple of hundred demonstrators had mobbed up after running from the police. In spontaneous move, groups began flooding off the pavements and into the main road, blocking traffic and chanting “vamos piqueteros!” (Picketers). The piqueteros tactic – blocking the arteries of capitalism for progressive social change – originated in Argentina during their struggles against IMF imposed neo-liberalism. The tactic was first employed in Spain en masse in 2011 with autonomous groups supporting strikers by blocking roads. Now it is commonly employed and has been used by Austrian miners and Madrilenian public sector workers to name a few. Some drivers honked their horns in exasperation, some slouched into their seats, resigned to waiting. A handful wound down their windows and raised their fists to wild applause. Some motorcyclists tried to creep forward and we had to physically block them from passing, although we also had to restrain some of the more enthusiastic piqueteros from

23

getting in fights with angry drivers. We held this position for some time, dragging dustbins into the road, until the police returned to dislodge us. The police tactics were puzzling. They advanced everywhere in small squads of about 10 agents, with riot shields to the front and rubber bullet firing marksmen behind. When they got close to demonstrators they would break out of their tight formation in order to easily beat people, but they quickly formed up again. When they needed to shift position they would call up the riot vans for hops across town. These small units would fan out across the city chasing demonstrators, beating and shooting people indiscriminately. Thus a situation that was confined to a reasonably small part of the urban fabric became generalised throughout central Madrid. If the London Met had been policing that protest, they would have kettled the largest possible amount of people for 8 hours, denied them food, toilets or water, squeezing them into a smaller and smaller space, strangling the protest, whilst dispersing the rest. The Spanish National Police swapped one big protest outside Congress for hours of running battles in multiple locations. By this point I was losing the ability to run well, as I had been no-stop on my feet from 14:00HRS of the 25th until 01:00HRS of the 26th. I lost track of the running battles, and headed for the Atocha metro station. This was also surrounded by police vans, and when I went inside I saw people running away from riot squads, who were being assisted by the truncheon wielding private security guards of the metro. I finally made it back to my hostel early in the morning, my feet in agony and my trousers in pieces, and feel asleep straight away. Since the S25 demonstration there have been more and more clashes over the preceding days, although on a smaller scale. Rumours are flying like wildfire, as they tend to do, that large numbers of riot cops are calling

in sick and that live rounds were fired into the air on the 27th. On the 29th another demonstration has been called, with marches gathering across all the cities of Spain to besiege their centres of government, rather than a single convergence in Madrid. I plan on attending the one in Bilbao. Lisbon and Paris are also answering the call out, I don’t know about Athens, but knowing the Greeks I suspect they too will be one the streets. I will try and post an update after the S29 demonstration as soon as possible.

Will Taylor Follow Will’s account of Spanish protests at http://socialist-in-spain.blogspot.com.es/

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