Every Friday at Sydney Town Hall, this group continues to stand up for Julian Assange. Stirring speeches about Australia's whistleblowers and Australia's involvement in war-crimes, Albanese's failure towards Assange, our crocodile tears for the prisoners of other regimes, but not for Julian Assange.
See inside a videoed discussion on the question of Did the French police use excessive force against the Yellow Vests? Criminologist, Xavier Raufer, one of the guests, describes a situation where the French government allows the same violent saboteurs, known to the police, to continually attend Yellow Vest demonstrations and cause havoc. The police response has caused injuries, maimings and deaths, mostly through the use of rubber bullets. President Macron has been criticised by Human Rights organisations and the United Nations, but he persists in allowing career sociopaths to break shop windows and assault people, using this as an excuse for his own extreme violence. The discussion was on the amazing Frédéric Taddeï's show, Interdit d'interdire [Forbidden to forbid] on RT France.
Jérôme Rodrigues, a Yellow Vest, who lost an eye to one of those rubber bullets, also in the discussion, talked about "15,000 rubber bullets. More than in the last five years. It's pretty enormous." He described the unpleasant faces Macron makes when he is criticised for shooting at his own people, whilst he fancies himself encouraging democracy in lesser countries.
XAVIER RAUFER, Criminologist : [Translation from French]: "You have asked quite a serious question. Everyone knows that there are violent elements. In sum, 300 young men from the extreme left, called the “Black Block”[2] and about 50 extreme right nationalists. Although measures to stop them could easily have been taken – because they are the violent elements – that is, if ever these individuals were withdrawn from the demonstrations, 90% of the violence would disappear. But never, at any moment, in any of these demonstrations, has anything been done to stop them, as the law permits, to arrest them in their homes, before the demonstrations.
You know, once I spoke to some of the upper management police in Paris. They have the entire list of every Black Block. They know who they are. They come from rotten suburbs full of drug addicts and police informers. Furthermore, the police don’t only know who the French ones are. There is a European police network, and when wide boys come from the Holland Black Block or the German Black Block, a list of their vehicules, with the registration numbers, and the road they are travelling on, are communicated. As for the extreme right nationalists, [at the time of] one of the most violent of all the demonstrations in December, those people gathered in front of their meeting place – the conspirators – in front of their meeting place. From there video-cameras followed them, without interruption, right to Place de l’Etoile [Paris square], where they were able to begin their violence. No-one stopped them. They were followed minute by minute via the police’s urban video cameras. Why were they allowed to go ahead?" [1]
Here is the point where Criminologist, Xavier Raufer, begins to speak: https://youtu.be/wst5E6ejHUU?t=538
People may have wondered why I have had almost nothing to say on candobetter about the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) when I have otherwise often commented on and translated French political material. It is not because I am not interested in what is happening; it is because I am too interested. As some people know, I specialise in comparing French and British land-tenure and inheritance systems and the effect they have on political organisation. I was not surprised that France was able to produce a movement like the Yellow Vests (which has many activities besides public demonstrations), when no other European or Anglosphere country has been able to.
For the last two years I have been working on a book about why the French were able to sustain a democratic republican revolution (1789-1871) but the British could not. I began it in 2007, but it was interrupted by dramatic life events, and I am not sure when I will finish it - but I am working hard on it. To my mind, France is probably the only country where ordinary people are still able to self-organise a response to economic liberalism, mass immigration, and constant overseas warring. That is because their land-tenure and planning system means that they are still viscously organised in families and clans in place - at least outside Paris. President Sarkozy made some of the first changes to inheritance law that would break this organic system down. Macron is using a sledge hammer.
The British (Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English) made many attempts to revolt against the system at the time of the French Revolution, but they were so disorganised and divided by constant population movement, that it was easy for the viscous elites to corrupt them with paid spies. This is the system that Australia, Canada and the United States imported.
[1] Original French, transcribed by Sheila Newman:
La Police fait-elle un usage excessif de la force?
XAVIER RAUFER, Criminologist : Vous posez une question qui est tout de même grave. Tout le monde sait qui sont les éléments violents. En gros, 300 garçons issue de l'extrême gauche, qu’on appelle les 'Black Blocs', et une cinquantaine issue de l'extrême droite identitaire. A aucun moment, les mesures qu'on pouvait aisément prendre - c'est eux les éléments violents - c'est à dire que si jamais ces individus sont retirés de l'ensemble des manifestations, 90% des violences disparaissent. Et jamais, a aucun moment, dans aucune des manifestations, rien n'a été entreprit, comme la loi de permettait, pour les arrêter le matin chez eux, avant les manifestations. Vous savez, une fois j'ai parlé à des grands patrons de la direction de renseignements de la préfecture de police de Paris. Ils ont la liste intégrale de tous les Black Blocs. Ils savent qui c'est. Ce sont des milieux qui sont pourris de toxicomanes, d'indicateurs de police. Et, non seulement, ils connaissent les français, mais l'Europe de la police existe, et quand des gaillards arrivent d'Hollande ou arrivent d'Allemagne Black Blocs, la liste des véhicules, avec les numéros des véhicules, l'autoroute par laquelle ils vont arriver, est communique. Quant à l'extrême droite identitaire, un des manifestations les plus violentes du mois de décembre, ces gens-là se sont réunis devant leur locale, - les conspirateurs - devant leur locale. De là les cameras les ont suivi, sans discontinuer, jusqu'à la place de l’Etoile, ou ils ont pu commencer à casser. Personne ne les a interrompus. Ils étaient suivis de minute en minute par les cameras urbaines a la préfecture de police. Pourquoi laisse-t-on faire?
[2] Black Block or Black Bloc refers to violent people who wear black and disguise themselves with scarves etc in political demonstrations.
In 2001, the UK had the second highest child poverty rates in the European Union. Ten years on they have grown into angry disaffected youths
.
The police brutality issue and the case of the police killing of Duggan is a legal issue and likely a police cultural problem associated with the UK riots last week.
But Duggan's killing belies broader and deeper social problems across English urban societies. The rioting thus far has been in England (London's underprivileged Tottenham, Hackney, Croydon, and working-class English cities of Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Liverpool and Wolverhampton). It has not spread to Scotland, Wales, Ireland, or Northern Ireland yet - why?
Rioting though has also copycatted to the more rural privileged English towns of Cambridge, Gloucester, Bristol and around County Kent - why? What is the common denominator? All riots involved youths and Y-Gens committing break and enter and burglary of retail shops and communicating with social media mobile devices, notably Blackberry's.
It is convenient knee-jerk ignorant simplism by the English government and the media attributing blame to just 'criminals', poor-parented youth, opportunistic hooligans, and gangs.
Poor understanding of social problems by any government will not enable its social problems to be addressed. Inept media analysis also confuses the situation.
Prime Minister Cameron, with his elite background is distant and aloof to England's urban social problems. His ideological mindset as a Conservative is centred upon national economic prosperity, which presumes social good flows from economic growth and prosperity. He seems incapable of recognising the disconnect between the parallel economy of the 'haves' and the 'have nots'.
Cameron is narrow-minded in his reading of the situation. He has said in Parliament last week that what the nation had witnessed was criminality "pure and simple". He said his government would do "whatever it takes to restore law and order". How easy and simplistic it is for Cameron to blame criminals? He sees it as a matter of parental discipline and a lack of responsibility in society. Cameron rejects the suggested underlying causes of underclass and poverty in Britain. He says: "This is not about poverty, it's about culture...a culture that says everything about rights, but nothing about responsibility." Impressive words, but when the leader of country is in denial about the causes of widespread urban riots being more than criminal opportunists, the root causes are ignored and the problems risk getting worse.
Cameron clearly has inherited a depressed and debt-ridden economy from Labor and the GFC. He came to office with an economic mandate to restore sound economic management and this has necessitated severe austerity measures reducing government public service delivery. But by simplistically focusing on addressing the economic ills will not auto-address social ills. Economic and economic policy is a subset of sociology and social policy. Societies don't magically become healthy by delivering on economic policy. Did Blair's Labor window of opportunity for social reform deliver to British have-nots? If not, how could British 'have-nots' have appealed to opposition Conservatives for recognition through the Blair years? What political party was listening to the plight of British underclass who probably voted informally anyway?
David Cameron, like his counterparts in Greece and Italy, are "flat-footed, reactive, trapped in double-talk, these are second-rate political creatures unprepared to deal with those responsible for the crisis". Even Barack Obama has been spineless. Hence the blunt words of Jacques Delors, three times president of the European Commission: "We don't just need firefighters; we need architects too."
A British blogger responding to the riots in Britain agreed: "WTF is going on with this government? Are they deliberately trying to rub our noses in it, or do they just have a tin ear? What a frightening bunch of amateurs."
With injustice now the blighted face of democracy, cynicism and fatalism gain ground. "What's the best way to deal with this crisis?", runs a popular Japanese joke. The answer: "Let the system collapse." The panacea looks more plausible by the day.' [Professor John Keane, 12th August 2011].
Cameron needs to get out more and listen to the ordinary citizens of urban England. He is sending an arrogant classist message by taking foreign holidays in Tuscany, while England's poor and unemployed are suffering abject downtrodden hopelessness. The public's perception that the government has let the banks and financial gamblers get away with rampant insolvency and handballing the corporate debt to the State is not helping matters.
England's and Britain's demographic been allowed to radically alter as a consequence of open door immigration. Whilst the country side may be relatively similar, Britain's urban demographic has little similarity to that of the 1960s or even the 1980s. Immigrants are a dominant characteristic of British urban society. What was the population policy plan and intended outcome? Where was the social investment in making multiculturalism work? There has been none. Since Thatcher economics has been rather liberal and laissez faire. Problem is the same approach has been taken of changing urban society. Economic theory is inappropriate for social re-engineering. Much of urban England and Britain is characterised by inter-generational unemployment, truancy, child poverty, broken homes, domestic violence and street crime.
What causes thousands of people in multiple urban centres to riot, commit violence, arson and loot shops? Recognise no single one cause. Many are clearly opportunists. Not all are disaffected underclass. But as to the underlying causes, start where people see injustice. Examine the social problems in England urban centres over the past twenty years. Who sent the messages inciting the riots? Controlling street violence is essential in the short term, and I am sure we will see the water canon armoured vehicles in London reminiscent of their use in the Northern Ireland riots of the 1970s. But water canons can't prevent riots and can't address the causes.
In 2001, the UK had the second highest child poverty rates in the European Union. [Read More]
Well those children are now adolescents and many have nowhere to go and no hope for the future. And dangled in front of them and in the media constantly is the government's Olympic decadence.
Cameron's Olympics do not have a happy outlook. English urban society has a far bleaker outlook.
London 2012 Olympics logo - it may well become a legacy of English society divided
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
Police victim, Mark Duggan, with his first born child
Online investigation of the current UK Riots reveals that the riots have been part seeded by immigrant concentration and unemployment; but more so by youth underclass reacting to the UK's conservative government's austerity cuts in public funding in response to the GFC failures, which themselves are perceived by many people to have been caused by the corporate sector - banks, stock market, corporates, the rich, the government, the police. Hence the riot targets have been corporates, the perceived 'haves' (business owners, McDonald's, commercial retailers displaying spoils of wealth). Cameron's arrogant Tory image must be reopening memories of Thatcherism. Cameron was holidaying in Tuscany at the time thanks very much - so his forced return must have had some sense of win by the mobs.
England's disenfranchised urban youth have had this sentiment played on by various radical, extreme Left and anarchist movements. There has been recent history of violence with comparable modus operandi. All it has taken is idle youth over a hot summer and a trigger - the police shooting of a young black man, Mark Duggan.
See messages on the following UK websites. Some of these web sites are quite scary in what they are advocating...
National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts(UK)
wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_anti-cuts_protest_in_London
thegreatunrest.net/2011/01/10/nus-wont-back-ema-day-of-action
But when you listen to the British media, they seem to not have a clue about any real cause behind these riots. They just naively attribute the rioting to youths spontaneously reacting to a police shooting of a man with a gun in Tottenham, and otherwise out for a bit of fun over the hot August summer break. Simultaneous riots in multiple urban centres around England strung out over four days. Yeah right! These riots are clearly co-ordinated, but their perpetuation reveals broader and deeper anti-government sentiment . Philadelphia in the US has also experienced rioting over the same weekend. "Police are blaming riots and looting in London and other United Kingdom cities on flash mobs organized with social media like Twitter. Incidents in Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights join disturbances such as one in Philadelphia last Sunday. [Read More].
Clearly, the social media organisations, Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry Messenger, used by the mobs to incite violence, looting and vandalism; need to be held partially responsible just as Murdock's print media have been recently held legally to account for unethical behaviour.
The pertinent social question is do the UK riots have common causes to those recently in Greece?
Anyone kindly giving the above listed lot the benefit of the doubt about their propensity for violence, search Google, type 'anarchist violence' and select Googles images option, then double click on any image result.
In Tottenham last weekend, McDonald's was one of the first targets for arson
Anarchists attack London last April
'If a copper has to die to get our point across then so be it,' an anarchist known as Seth said. 'I'm happy if the filth get sent crashing to the floor and don't get up - then we've had a good day out.'
[Read More]
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia
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