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You are here: Home > Forum > A Place of Safety > General Talk > U.K. Copying U.S. style police state tactics?
U.K. Copying U.S. style police state tactics?  [message #65101] Sat, 11 December 2010 16:47 Go to next message
E.J. is currently offline  E.J.

Really getting into it
Location: U.S.
Registered: August 2003
Messages: 565



So you're a (not quite) teenager upset at budget cuts proposed for your youth center, what do you do? You could organize a peaceful protest on Facebook. Apparently the police are now reading 12 year old's Facebook pages.

"Nicky Wishart, a pupil at Bartholomew School, Eynsham, Oxfordshire, organised the event on Facebook to highlight the plight of his youth centre, which is due to close in March next year due to budget cuts.

The protest, which was due to take place today, has attracted over 130 people on Facebook, most of whom are children who use youth centres in Cameron's constituency, Witney.

Wishart said that after the school was contacted by anti-terrorist officers, he was taken out of his English class on Tuesday afternoon and interviewed by a Thames Valley officer at the school in the presence of his head of year. During the interview, Wishart says that the officer told him that if any public disorder took place at the event he would be held responsible and arrested."


I wounder if they tried waterboarding.........

Read more here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/10/schoolboy-quizzed-cameron-office-picket



(\\__/) And if you don't believe The sun will rise
(='.'=) Stand alone and greet The coming night
(")_(") In the last remaining light. (C. Cornell)
Re: U.K. Copying U.S. style police state tactics?  [message #65102 is a reply to message #65101] Sat, 11 December 2010 17:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751



He and his parents need to make a formal complaint about this. This is not behaviour we expect from a UK police force.



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: U.K. Copying U.S. style police state tactics?  [message #65103 is a reply to message #65102] Sat, 11 December 2010 18:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Nigel is currently offline  Nigel

On fire!
Location: England
Registered: November 2003
Messages: 1756



But the boy's an easy subject to enable the police to reach their stat targets.

Hug
N



I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.

…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
Re: U.K. Copying U.S. style police state tactics?  [message #65106 is a reply to message #65103] Sat, 11 December 2010 19:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
chrisjames147 is currently offline  chrisjames147

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Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630



Of course they probably were given the technology for such monitoring by the American Homeland Security Department...or as it has come to be known: Department 1984. (Thank you George Orwell)



Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
I want to share something from my youth on the topic  [message #65108 is a reply to message #65101] Sat, 11 December 2010 23:31 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751





Harvey Andrews is a prolific singer songwriter who is also little known. I used to see him regularly at The Organ Inn Folk Club in Ewell. The club was run by a band named Mosaic.

This song is described as follows:

The full story is long and complicated, but very briefly; on May 4th 1970 members of Ohio National Guard were attempting to disperse a student protest at Kent State University. The students were protesting at America's invasion of Cambodia. Whilst trying to break up the protestors some guardsmen fired into the crowd, injuring 9 and killing 4. One of the dead was Sandra Scheuer, who this song focuses on.

She wasn't even a rioter. She was just trying to get to class.

There was a poll taken in a small town in America - a campus town, so they'd do 'town and gown' pretty much the same as us.

A soldier shooting a subversive student in the back was seen (at the time...) as fair play, by a narrow majority.

A student blocking a soldier's gun (with a flower...) was seen as a violent, punishable act. Narrow majority.

Makes you wonder - if we did the poll, how many victims of hazings that went wrong would vote that way...?

and how do you vote?

You can learn more about the singer here: http://www.harveyandrews.com/



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
icon14.gif Re: I want to share something from my youth on the topic  [message #65109 is a reply to message #65108] Sun, 12 December 2010 00:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
chrisjames147 is currently offline  chrisjames147

Really getting into it
Location: U.S.
Registered: November 2009
Messages: 630



I'm not sure how we got here, but I appreciate the posting. Harvey Andrews sounds like one of the singers I used to enjoy in my college days Eric Anderson. Those were protest songs that called to mind the injustices faced by those who could not vote but could be sent off to war to die.

The killings at Kent State in Ohio brought the university system in this country to a halt for many days...including mine, the University of Maryland. Students occupied buildings and offices of the administrations and refused to leave. Campus riots and the smell of tear gas pervaded the quads at many schools. I spent two nights sleeping on the floor of the chancellor's office.

But the most significant thing that happened after the Kent State killings, my father actually began to understand that the Vietnam War was wrong and Richard Nixon was a fool. How sad that it took these deaths for him to understand.

I remember standing at the iron fence around the White House with thousands of protestors and all of us chanting: Shame. And my favorite protest sign: "Why change dicks in the middle of a screw? Vote for Nixon in '72."

It's interesting that Kent State should reach across the pond like it did. How sadly wonderful. Four dead students changed the heart of America and this became their song:

[Updated on: Sun, 12 December 2010 00:55]




Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
Re: I want to share something from my youth on the topic  [message #65113 is a reply to message #65109] Sun, 12 December 2010 08:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
timmy

Has no life at all
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751



We got here from the alleged threat reported by Nicky Wishart



Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
Re: U.K. Copying U.S. style police state tactics?  [message #65114 is a reply to message #65101] Sun, 12 December 2010 11:19 Go to previous message
nick is currently offline  nick

Likes it here
Location: London
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 351



The story raises a lot of questions.

There is perhaps a more balanced account at:

http://lateforlawschool.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/the-right-to-protest-cameron-and-a-12-year-old-boy

In summary, it may not have happened in quite the way the press reports described, but if the police did suggest that the boy might be arrested, then they were WAY out of line. And they should have made sure his mother was there.
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