Sunday 19 April 2009

Police, Violence, Obfuscation etc.

It's been interesting to read the coverage of the aftermath of the G20 demos in the 'blogosphere' over the last few days. The videos and pics of cops hitting people have been causing quite a sensation, especially in the mainstream press, but interestingly some of the blogs have been outraged in a way that implies some kind of loss of innocence. There have been some exceptions to this of course.

It is odd though, that a lot of people seem to be discovering police violence for the first time. It's not like history doesn't give us enough examples, after all. Pete Dale even had a song about polis covering up their ID years ago.

I have to ask, who was ever seriously in doubt about these things? Surely anyone who's ever been on a demo has seen the neanderthals*, the ones fingering their CS gas, truncheons or submachine guns a bit too readily?

I don't mean this in that ghastly Tory way where you start blaming the victims for not expecting to be beaten up, but rather that I'm very surprised at just how much news this has all been to such a large number of people, some of them quite unexpected. I know it seems ungrateful, seeing as how now there's some mobile phone footage of what's been going on for decades something might actually be done, but sadly, as I'm sure you're aware, this really isn't anything new.

*Mixed in with some thoroughly nice people I hasten to add. I've known some lovely policepersons over the years.

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