London Students: Villains or Victims?

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London Students: Villains or Victims?

Posted On : Dec-29-2010 | seen (556) times | Article Word Count : 935 |

Over 52.000 students and lecturers protested at Britain’s Parliament in central London.
They made very clear their anger at government plans to increase tuition fees while cutting state funding for universities.

The government claims that the rise in fees is part of the effort to tackle the deficit.
What it does in fact, it shifts the cost of higher education from the state onto students and their families.
The demonstrators became very angry after the result of the vote was announced.

They were confronted by the police who once again, used their ‘containment’ tactic, also known as kettling, in their attempt to control the situation.
The tactic failed as usual, when the students felt suffocated by the police blocking them from all sides, they reacted predictably in a violent way.
The Conservatives headquarters were stormed, there were acts of vandalism and there were injuries on both sides, demonstrators and police.

The confrontation lasted for several hours and spread from Westminster to Trafalgar Square and the trendy West End.

Prime Minister Cameron and Big Brother media were unanimous and predictable in their condemnations of the violent actions of the demonstrators.
So what was all the fuss about?
First the government insists the law about hiking universities tuition fees is a necessary adjustment forced by the recession and part of the government austerity program.

In a lame attempt to make this unpopular and unjust law more palatable for the general public the government claimed the law is aimed to help poor students.
This is of course just window dressing, social engineering at its pathetic worst.
The voting on the hugely unpopular law triggered the biggest student demonstration in generations.
The protest was organized by the National Union of Students and the lecturers’ union, the UCU.

The protest was against raising tuition fees as high as £ 9000 per year while making 40% cuts to university teaching budgets.
The lecturers and the students labeled these cuts as barbaric.

The establishment’s media cried ‘wolf’ about the level of violence into which this protest escalated.
Yes, a few benches and a Christmas tree was burned, a few policemen were hurt in skirmishes with demonstrators while using heavy containment tactics, a few windows were broken and oh, almost forgot, Prince Charles’ limo rear window was cracked much to his dismay (and Camilla’s surprise).

Let’s take a closer look at the acts of vandalism and violence:
1. The burning of the benches and the trees, well, the demonstrators had to spend several hours in the freezing cold, hoping common sense will prevail with the politicians. It didn’t.

2. The fights between demonstrators and police were provoked by the police tactics of containment. When you already have an angry and frustrated crowd, blocking it on all sides can only result in steering the crowd into complete submission or in the case of a highly spirited crowd -this should have been obvious even for policemen- into confrontation with the frustrating factor.
The unexpected violence against Prince Charles’ Rolls Royce Phantom limousine, it’s rather ironical. While I don’t condone mindless violence, the timing of the encounter between protesters and the Prince was, well… let’s see:
-on one side a crowd of cold, angry and bitter protestors who just found out that they are to be in debt for half of their lives
-on the other, a member of the royal family watching it all with the cold curiosity from the warmth and the comfort of his luxury limo (let’s not forget the subsidies he and Camilla receive from the tax payer and the tax scandals Charles was involved in regard to him dodging the taxes he was to pay on the profits made by his property- The Duchy of Cornwall.)

What could possibly go wrong?

3. While it is possible that mixed with the students were a few vandals and anarchists with their own agenda, the scale of the violence contradicts the official version of the events which claims that the protest was hijacked by other groups. The fact is, there were a lot of angry students at that meeting.
Yes, a few shop windows were broken. Ironically, media footage shows the windows belonged to Top-Shop. It might be worth remembering that Philip Green, the owner of Top-Shop chain does not pay UK taxes and owes money to the Treasury.
Also Treasury windows were broken. This is the same Treasury which insists that the banks are systemic but education is not.
In other words, there is recession for the poor and bailout funds for the banks and the big corporate business.
Not to mention the avoidance of tax for the big players.

Focusing on the violence misses the point. It diverts from the real reason why over 50.000 angry people congregated for several hours on a cold December day.
While a young generation, the future of the nation is not considered systemic, the greedy corporate entities and the big banks who created this economic nightmare thrive through tax payer based subsidies and loans at ridiculous rates, while dodging taxes at every opportunity.

Another example of how The Corporation socializes the loss and capitalizes the profit.

Big Brother wins, for now…
The students said that this was just the beginning and their fight will continue and intensify until the politicians will understand which are the nation’s priorities.
If the corrupt banking system will not make the necessary adjustments and allowances for other social groups – in this case students – then it will be responsible for its own demise.

Game on!

Re-Publish this Article

<h1>London Students: Villains or Victims?</h1> Author: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/profile_lstone.aspx'>lstone</a> Over 52.000 students and lecturers protested at Britain’s Parliament in central London.
They made very clear their anger at government plans to increase tuition fees while cutting state funding for universities.

The government claims that the rise in fees is part of the effort to tackle the deficit.
What it does in fact, it shifts the cost of higher education from the state onto students and their families.
The demonstrators became very angry after the result of the vote was announced.

They were confronted by the police who once again, used their ‘containment’ tactic, also known as kettling, in their attempt to control the situation.
The tactic failed as usual, when the students felt suffocated by the police blocking them from all sides, they reacted predictably in a violent way.
The Conservatives headquarters were stormed, there were acts of vandalism and there were injuries on both sides, demonstrators and police.

The confrontation lasted for several hours and spread from Westminster to Trafalgar Square and the trendy West End.

Prime Minister Cameron and Big Brother media were unanimous and predictable in their condemnations of the violent actions of the demonstrators.
So what was all the fuss about?
First the government insists the law about hiking universities tuition fees is a necessary adjustment forced by the recession and part of the government austerity program.

In a lame attempt to make this unpopular and unjust law more palatable for the general public the government claimed the law is aimed to help poor students.
This is of course just window dressing, social engineering at its pathetic worst.
The voting on the hugely unpopular law triggered the biggest student demonstration in generations.
The protest was organized by the National Union of Students and the lecturers’ union, the UCU.

The protest was against raising tuition fees as high as £ 9000 per year while making 40% cuts to university teaching budgets.
The lecturers and the students labeled these cuts as barbaric.

The establishment’s media cried ‘wolf’ about the level of violence into which this protest escalated.
Yes, a few benches and a Christmas tree was burned, a few policemen were hurt in skirmishes with demonstrators while using heavy containment tactics, a few windows were broken and oh, almost forgot, Prince Charles’ limo rear window was cracked much to his dismay (and Camilla’s surprise).

Let’s take a closer look at the acts of vandalism and violence:
1. The burning of the benches and the trees, well, the demonstrators had to spend several hours in the freezing cold, hoping common sense will prevail with the politicians. It didn’t.

2. The fights between demonstrators and police were provoked by the police tactics of containment. When you already have an angry and frustrated crowd, blocking it on all sides can only result in steering the crowd into complete submission or in the case of a highly spirited crowd -this should have been obvious even for policemen- into confrontation with the frustrating factor.
The unexpected violence against Prince Charles’ Rolls Royce Phantom limousine, it’s rather ironical. While I don’t condone mindless violence, the timing of the encounter between protesters and the Prince was, well… let’s see:
-on one side a crowd of cold, angry and bitter protestors who just found out that they are to be in debt for half of their lives
-on the other, a member of the royal family watching it all with the cold curiosity from the warmth and the comfort of his luxury limo (let’s not forget the subsidies he and Camilla receive from the tax payer and the tax scandals Charles was involved in regard to him dodging the taxes he was to pay on the profits made by his property- The Duchy of Cornwall.)

What could possibly go wrong?

3. While it is possible that mixed with the students were a few vandals and anarchists with their own agenda, the scale of the violence contradicts the official version of the events which claims that the protest was hijacked by other groups. The fact is, there were a lot of angry students at that meeting.
Yes, a few shop windows were broken. Ironically, media footage shows the windows belonged to Top-Shop. It might be worth remembering that Philip Green, the owner of Top-Shop chain does not pay UK taxes and owes money to the Treasury.
Also Treasury windows were broken. This is the same Treasury which insists that the banks are systemic but education is not.
In other words, there is recession for the poor and bailout funds for the banks and the big corporate business.
Not to mention the avoidance of tax for the big players.

Focusing on the violence misses the point. It diverts from the real reason why over 50.000 angry people congregated for several hours on a cold December day.
While a young generation, the future of the nation is not considered systemic, the greedy corporate entities and the big banks who created this economic nightmare thrive through tax payer based subsidies and loans at ridiculous rates, while dodging taxes at every opportunity.

Another example of how The Corporation socializes the loss and capitalizes the profit.

Big Brother wins, for now…
The students said that this was just the beginning and their fight will continue and intensify until the politicians will understand which are the nation’s priorities.
If the corrupt banking system will not make the necessary adjustments and allowances for other social groups – in this case students – then it will be responsible for its own demise.

Game on!About the Author: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://hottopics.me">hottopics</a> Article Source: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/Article_London-Students-Villains-or-Victims_46411.aspx'> http://www.articleseen.com/Article_London Students: Villains or Victims?_46411.aspx</a>

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