Tuesday 13 January 2009

Rabble-Rousing; UK’s Main Growth Industry…

I’m sure Bristol and Gaza have little in common in reality (certainly not climate!), but thanks to the influence of radical leftists and anarchists, they obviously have more in common than anyone thought:
Visitors to Broadmead in Bristol had their shopping disrupted when a group of about 30 protestors clashed with police and security staff at Marks & Spencer.

One person was arrested when scuffles broke out after the protestors got to the checkout and refused to pay for their food.

They were demonstrating because Marks & Spencer imports food from Israel, which is currently bombing Gaza in a conflict with its leaders Hamas.
Well, of course? Why not bring some of that conflict to the English high street, and terrorise shoppers who probably couldn’t point Gaza out on a map? I mean, if you flew over there to show ‘solidarity’ with the Hamas scum, you might wind up on the end of an Israeli bullet. At the very least, you’d miss signing-on day…

Naturally, being England, you don’t face much consequence at all for your behaviour:
An Avon and Somerset police spokesman confirmed that one man was arrested for public order offences and said that after the arrest was made, the other demonstrators left the store.

A Marks & Spencer spokesman said that nothing was taken from the store during the protest.
If these kind of ‘protests’, whipped up by professional agitators, aren’t nipped in the bud quickly, we’re in for problems…
Do we want to end up with scenarios like this one from the States?

A protest over the fatal shooting by a BART police officer of an unarmed black man mushroomed into several hours of violence Wednesday night as demonstrators smashed storefronts and cars, set several cars ablaze and blocked streets in downtown Oakland.
The storefronts and cars belonged to ‘the establishment’, did they? Not quite:
The mob smashed the windows at Creative African Braids on 14th Street, and a woman walked out of the shop holding a baby in her arms.

"This is our business," shouted Leemu Topka, the black owner of the salon she started four years ago. "This is our shop. This is what you call a protest?"
Strangely, this didn’t move the members of her ‘community’:
"I feel like the night is going great," said Nia Sykes, 24, of San Francisco, one of the demonstrators. "I feel like Oakland should make some noise. This is how we need to fight back. It's for the murder of a black male."

Sykes, who is black, had little sympathy for the owner of Creative African Braids. "She should be glad she just lost her business and not her life," Sykes said. She added that she did have one worry for the night: "I just hope nobody gets shot or killed."
Presumably, she mean no demonstrators. Cops and other people were no doubt considered fair game…
Earlier in the evening, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums met the mob on 14th Street, urging calm and leading them on a walk to City Hall, where he gave a speech.

"I sense your frustration," he told the crowd. "I understand that you've lost confidence in a process because you've seen what you believe is a homicide ... But listen to me, we are a community of people. We are civilized people. We are a nation of laws.
And they then immediately set out to prove how wrong he was…
Nearby, Godhuli Bose stood near her smashed Toyota Corolla as a man walked by, repeatedly called her a misogynist slur and then added, "F- your car."

Bose, a high school teacher, said: "I can't afford this."
These people weren’t ‘protestors’ – they were a mob of animals, interested in only one thing – violence and disorder.

And behind it all? The usual suspects:
The core group of the mob appeared to be about 40 people, several of whom were with Revolution Books, a Berkeley bookstore. A man distributed the "Revolution" newspaper - whose tagline is "voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, U.S.A." - as he shouted "This whole damn system is guilty!"
Anyone thinking ‘Well, it’s the US – that won’t happen here!’ can go read this example of what the police are facing while the anarchists and professional agitators are driving the anti-Gaza demos in London…

1 comment:

JuliaM said...

"Anyhow, it's easy to sit at home and sneer at people like this, but remember that it is 'professional agitators' and rabble-rousers who often help to achieve positive change in society."

Except it's not - particularly in the case of the Suffragettes as you quoted.

There are reams of books on the topic, but they mostly agree on one thing; that the Suffragettes achieved publicity and little else.

WW1 actually did more to advance the cause, by requiring women to take on many male jobs and therefore proving the argument very handily.

"What harm a bit of disrupted shopping, in the scheme of things?"

Why should people in Bristol have their shopping disrupted simply to massage the ego of some students?