J30- strikes and excessive force..

We in ALARM had been anticipating this day for a while and were expecting a numerous things to be happening in London as many unions from the public sector were out on strike asking for to maintain the pensions they have and that retiring at 68 is not on either. There were a few actions round west but mainly central west London there were a few good pickets at various Westminster uni campuses and there was a benefit claimants action against atos which was fairly well attended bringing up the issue of how medical examination for incapacity benefits will be carried out by non doctors and by a private company.After that I headed up to Lincoln’s inn fields to check out the march hoping to link up with a fellow politicos to March. As i got there i saw a few uneasy looking comrades being surrounded by alot of police being stopped and searched for wearing black, I overheard the word s60 and thought oh fuck. We were there to show solidarity with the unions on strike and to march peacefully but it seemed very much that we were being targeted for no real reason other than our politics. I saw alot of these stop and searches even before the march left on so many people and of course there was a fit officer to snap them. Well we all gathered together somewhat and set off for the march guess what people that even vaguely tried to remain anonymous were pulled out of the march stopped searched and just generally harassed. A notable event during the march was that when me and my friend released we were marching too fast, we stopped and waited for the solfed banner to catch us up. We turned around and couldn’t find the banner then we noticed the rest of our comrades had been surrounded stopped and searched also snapped by the fit team. Some people were even arrested from what it seemed for having a jacket in their bag which seemed ridiculous as changeable weather had been fore casted for the day. The march carried on down to parliament square for the strikers assembly thing.

Later on a kettle had been created by whitehall which was on a bewildering scale for a crowd of about twenty kids maybe fifty tops who clearly weren’t on any violence at all. But i guess the police forgot with draconian preventative tactics  or whatever they were gonna have alot of very bored coppers to deal with. Seeing tsg thugs beat up young teenagers for literally no reason was really quite something, the police was definitely on the offensive today. Undercover snatch squads at a peaceful family demonstration punching random protesters in the face was also quite ridiculous but i wasn’t surprised. The amount of police tomfoolery was really quite a sight to be held. The chant of ‘this is what a police state looks’ was what was ringing my ears and also the overhearing of the police tell the fellow scumbags to watch out for the legal observers when nicking anyone because they will do you just added to the feeling of being totally oppressed. The last arrest i saw was when a young lad was trying to get some distance from the police (i mean who would want to be near such people anyway) they pulled him because of his rapid motion some people tried to call the police on this action for being simply unreasonable and they just kidnapped this kid right away. 35 arrests at a peaceful demonstration was actually almost kind of impressive!! I mean how do you do actually arrest someone who wasn’t breaking the law?

Well we called it day and converged on a pub near the national portrait gallery to mull over what happened through out the day and drink! To be honest it wasn’t an awful day we managed to hang out and at least have a presence at a mainly trot demo, we got to talk to alot of people and listen to alot of opinions about these austerity measures we are facing together. It seemed that we shouldn’t all glumly accept them together with this ‘ we are all in it together’ bullshit but infact we should all resist them together instead. Another comedy moment was when these brimmers from counterfire told us to stop being mean to the cops driving past and They got told to piss off obviously! After a while it was home time for me.