Armchair Revolutionaries

George Galloway MP has just sent the following letter to the Home Secretary, concerning the actions of a police agent provocateur, who has been identified as Inspector Chris Dreyfus, at the anti-Bush demonstration.

To Rt Hon Jacqui Smith

Home Secretary

Urgent

Dear Home Secretary,

As you may be aware I wrote to Sir Ian Blair and Mayor Johnson calling for an inquiry into the policing of the demonstration against George W Bush on Sunday 15 June in Parliament Square/Whitehall. I enclose a copy of my letter to him. I should say I have since been visited by Superintendent Tim Jackson and have given him an account of the basis of my original complaint.

I did tell him, however, that subsequent newspaper revelations may indicate a far more sinister involvement of the police in actual law-breaking on the demonstration which sought to provoke exactly the ugly scenes which eventually ensued.

Since my meeting with the superintendent yesterday this issue has become clearer and obliges me both as a Member of Parliament and as a close witness to these events to write to you as Home Secretary demanding a full inquiry by the government into the extraordinary events and policy decisions surrounding the policing of this demonstration.

You will be aware by now of an article in the Mail on Sunday of 22 June by Yasmin Whittaker-Khan in which she recounts her shock at meeting a man, whom she knew to be a policeman from a previous encounter, who seemed determined to bring about a confrontation between the demonstrators and the police.

This man for at least 30 minutes was stood right next to me at the front of the protest and it is inconceivable that no police photograph will confirm this. I say this because several police stills cameramen and at least one video cameraman were constantly filming.

Rapped ... Insp Chris DreyfusI can now confirm that this man was Chris Dreyfus, an inspector in the police.

This man, to my direct knowledge, committed four criminal offences during the 30 minutes or so he stood next to me. First, he repeatedly chanted the arcane, antiquated Americana, “Kill the pigs!” This is a clear incitement to violence, indeed murder. If a Muslim demonstrator had been chanting it, say, outside the Danish Embassy, he would likely now be in prison. Secondly, he repeatedly (crushing me in the process) attempted to charge the crush barriers and the police line behind them. Thirdly, he repeatedly exhorted others so to do. Fourthly, he instructed a young demonstrator on the correct way to uncouple a crush barrier, which was successfully achieved and was subsequently thrown at the police, and was presumably one of the justifications for the deployment of a riot squad which eventually waded in to the protesters.

Home Secretary, there can hardly a more grave indictment of the conduct of the police force in a democratic country than this. People in the labour movement have often mythologised the state’s use of agents provocateurs throughout my 40 years experience and no doubt long before. But, to my recollection, we have never caught one red-handed before.

This inspector’s criminal actions must place all the other in themselves legitimate complaints about police tactics in a new light. I wrote to Sir Ian – and to Mayor Johnson – questioning the competence of the policing on that day. It now seems that what happened was a deliberate conspiracy to bring about scenes of violent disorder, seen around the world and for purposes on which we can only speculate.

You, however, have clear responsibility to get to the heart of this matter. I do hope you will begin to do so without delay. In any case,

Yours sincerely,

George Galloway MP

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2533

Found this on a now defuct blog. Thought I'd share it with you guys.

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Here is a question for all those who accept the authority of those who run our society: If you owned a large and successful private business, like Virgin Airlines for example, do you think that anyone in public office could to run it as well as or as profitably as the people who are already running it? Putting it more bluntly, can you think of any named individual in public office who would be a benefit to your successful company? I can't.

It is a strange and mysterious thing that in our society at present, only those who are the least competent to run a successful business, present themselves to the general public as being the only ones clever enough to run a whole country.

Throughout history, well before the concept of democracy had taken root, the fortunes of the country as a whole were entirely dependant on the competence and good-will of those in charge. A bad or useless ruler meant bad times for the general public. A good ruler meant, insofar as the limitations of science and technology would permit, good times for the general public.

Why then, in a period when the country as a whole is not subject to the vagaries of War Lords or hereditary potentates, should we still suffer the consequences of stupid and incompetent rulers? As stated before in this blog, a free society will always act in its own interests so the answer must be that our current form of democracy does not allow for government by consent or government by approval. What we have in fact, is government by the least able; much the same as we did before the dawn of democracy.

It is significant that in the distant past, before democratic rule, virtually all the social difficulties encountered by the ordinary citizen were as a result of forces that were beyond the ability of anyone, even the most learned, to control. Sickness and disease, pestilence and plagues, natural disasters, ignorance and illiteracy, food shortages and malnutrition and most of all, the shear hard work of life without harnessed mechanical power.

By contrast, all the social difficuties we endure today are as a result of forces created entirely by our own ruling elite. Apart from death itself, there are no examples of problems which are the result of things beyond our control, all our existing social problems being self inflicted. Thus we are forced to live under a paradox; a system of false democracy which simultaneously causes most of our problems and claims to solve them.

In reality, the administration which so often causes the major socio-political difficulties we, the general public have to endure, cannot possibly find a solution. They have not the competence to do it. There are so many examples of this damaging contradiction that it is impossible to decide where to begin. Education is probably the most easily identified. Dismantling the Secondary and Grammar School system was brought about entirely by government dictate. It was not a policy favoured by the majority of the public but the public had to endure the consequences of this blunder. Having caused a massive educational problem, our administrators insist that they alone have the expertise to solve it. They clearly don't.

Examples like this are common-place. The reorganization of the Health Service; our rail network, dismantled in the 60's now bitterly regretted; the tampering with pensions by government causing long-term financial difficulties; the crippling cost of housing caused by unrestrained and irresponsible human migration; the Third-world shortage of skilled labour caused by political neo-colonialism; the destitution of third-world farmers while our political masters tighten the food cartel created in Europe; the over-priced farmland caused by mis-conceived subsidies; the causing of the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland; the gigantic losses following the Foot & Mouth outbreak; ill-conceived wars in the Middle East. The list goes on and on, yet the culprits causing all these problems just keep going, making more mistake as each day passes while all the while, assuring us that they are the only people who can solve these problems.

These not a Party political issues; all Parties make the same type of mistakes. They won't stop. Nothing will stop them because they have the power to override, dismiss and ignore the Will of the people. This is not democracy. Absolutely none of these problems would exist if the General public had had anything to do with it.