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Occupy the cold equations #1

Saturday 15th October, fine and clear.


Mail from a friend of mine early this morning: wish me luck, I'm off to join Occupy LXS. Good for you, we texted back: with you in spirit. But that's not exactly true. I don't think I'm entirely one of the 99%. My allegiance is different: our name is legion, but it's getting to be a little smaller, this legion, every day and every hour. I want the redistribution of wealth, sure, I want this feral global elite tamed, of course I do, but that isn't what I really want. In fact, be honest, what I want requires everybody to get poor. and live poor.

So, anyway, I wish her well, and hope things go well, but our police, especially the Met, don't have that reputation, do they? Looking at it from our rulers' point of view, you cannot guarantee that protestors will be violent, and discredit themselves. But you can easily guarantee that the police will be violent -you just have to give the order, or the licence, and hey presto! A violent demonstration!

What if the good, decent police people scratched their heads and thought, hm, actually, these guys are on our side. And on the side of the police work we want to do, except we're being eviscerated by these cuts... And decided to renounce violence?

I suppose you never know.