The Telegraph and Sunday Times are particularly notorious for publishing false information about Mayday. Last year, it was reported for example that Reclaim the Streets had prepared bunkers full of weapons to unleash on London. As it turned out, the Guerilla Gardening exercise was quite peaceful, despite state attempts to colour it as being violent and unruly. It is possible that the police/state security services set up the smashing of McDonalds.

This page is an attempt to catalogue these silly articles. Please email silly articles to zerozero@pcworks.demon.co.uk

BY STEWART TENDLER AND DANIEL MCGRORY

EXTREMIST groups are plotting to paralyse London with violent May Day protests 48 hours before the expected general election polling day.

  Intelligence reports say that organisers are recruiting support from abroad to choke the capital on May 1. They intend the protests to spill over to election day. Police are monitoring "electronic traffic" between anarchist groups to thwart their plans, amid fears that ringleaders are intent on causing more trouble than at last year's May Day protests.

  Sir John Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that he was drawing up plans to cancel all leave over the May Day period and was considering a ban on all protests in the capital.

  He has been shown intelligence reports on how organisers want to exploit the timing of their May 1 protest to embarrass the main political parties.

  British anti-capitalist protesters are urging extremists from abroad to visit because of the publicity that the London rallies would get so close to a general election.

  The fears of the police are shared by ministers, who are daunted by the prospect of campaigning on law and order while there are running street battles around the capital. Every security agency in the country has been told to concentrate its efforts on uncovering then blocking the protesters' plans.

 Sir John said that if necessary he would borrow officers from neighbouring forces to reinforce the Metropolitan Police ranks. Sir John, speaking to The Times to mark his first year as leader of Britain's biggest force, said that last year the protesters planned to take over a government building in Whitehall and challenge police to remove them, but they were thwarted. This year he said that the Yard had drawn up contingency plans.

  "We will have the resources to meet, match and beat (the protesters). We cannot have the streets of London descending into anarchy, people being physically hurt or damage done. That cannot be allowed," Sir John said.

  The problem with the police and other intelligence services eavesdropping on the protesters is that the groups know that their planning on the Internet is being monitored. Aware that anyone can access such websites, the organisers are believed to be sending false information.

  The belief is that there will be a major protest at a well-known, symbolic London venue, which will be advertised on the Internet - but the real trouble will come from breakaway groups that will strike at alternative sites.

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard terms and conditions. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Times, visit the Syndication website.

Reproduced without licence by
Chris Aldridge,  Roadbuster.
members.gn.apc.org/~roadbusters

By Alasdair Palmer

IT was touching to see Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, nod sagely in agreement as Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, insisted last week that the May Day "anti-capitalist" demonstration was going to be hijacked by rioters who "will seize every opportunity to commit crime and disorder under the guise of lawful protest". Red Ken had previously greeted the similar protests in Seattle in 1999 - which had degenerated into violence precisely because rioters had "seized the opportunity to commit crime and disorder under the guise of lawful protest" - by saying that he "personally had always been in favour of direct action". He added later that capitalism killed more people every year than Hitler, and that, as Mayor, he would let the World Trade Organisation into London only if "we can get vast stocks to put them in so we can throw stuff at them".

Ken's attitude seems essentially to be that the rioters may go a bit far, but their basic point about the iniquity of multinational corporations is right. It is surprisingly widely shared: the view that prosperity, technology, and economic growth are morally bad for you is very sincerely held by some people. You can be sure, however, that the sincere believers won't be among the individuals who will try to take "direct action" against capitalism on Tuesday. On May 1, "direct action" - if the police do not succeed in preventing it - will consist of kicking people, breaking into shops and thieving. It won't be motivated by ethical principles. It will be motivated by the very things which the anti-capitalists say are destroying the world: violence and greed.

A lot of those planning to riot call themselves "anarchists". Don't be fooled. "Anarchism", in this context, isn't a protest against multi-nationals, globalisation or economic growth. It is simply shorthand for enjoying smashing things and people, and a way of making it sound respectable. If you hit someone at a football match, you are rightly described as a hooligan. But if you do the same thing claiming to be an "anarchist", there are those who will praise you for it and say you are bravely standing up against "globalisation" or "economic exploitation". That is why anarchism and other forms of "political" ideology are becoming increasingly attractive to the sort of people who used to be football hooligans - although most of them have as much understanding of political philosophy as the thugs who think that "paediatrician" means "paedophile", and who attack consultants who specialise in treating children's diseases as a result.

The people who hope to kick and smash their way down Oxford Street on Tuesday are in the tradition of the 18th-century mob which used to terrify London, and whose finest, or rather darkest, hour came during the Gordon Riots of 1780, when rioters spent five days looting and burning the capital. The ostensible catalyst for the violence was the Parliamentary repeal of some of the restrictions imposed on Roman Catholics, but once the fires got going, the original religious motive seems to have been replaced by simple delight in destruction. The mayhem went on for a week, and was only suppressed by the army, which killed nearly 300 people in the process.

In the deluge of academic articles and books on riots and rioting in history, it is something of a surprise to discover that the Gordon Riots - the biggest in British history - do not feature prominently. Indeed, they have almost been air-brushed out of it. The reason for the omission is that the social historians who have studied rioting have mostly been socialists. They wanted to dignify the rioters, and to discover some moral motive behind what they did. So E P Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm and George Rude tried to paint rioters as ideologically motivated proto-socialists: they were protesters against the inequities of capitalism, they were trying to establish social justice, and they were precursors of political revolution. It is not easy to fit most 18th-century protests into that ideological straitjacket, but it is impossible to do it for the Gordon Riots. If the rioters had any ideology at all - and most of them didn't - it was violently prejudiced, bigoted and xenophobic. They looked backwards, not forwards. They hated Catholics and foreigners, and their "social justice" consisted in stealing Catholics' goods and handing them out to good Protestants.

Attempts to dignify the sort of people who plan to kick heads next Tuesday fail for exactly the same reason. The would-be rioters are just violent bigots, and nothing, short of lying about it, can be done to disguise that. All the same, the extent to which those who are sincere in their anti-capitalism - such as the Guardian columnist George Monbiot - are willing to delude themselves is astonishing. He has seen "anti-capitalist" rioters as symbolic of popular disquiet at globalisation, even as proof that our political system has failed. Old lefty professors who fantasise about the barricades - and there are quite a lot of them - even like to claim that the rioters of the present day are representative of the "dispossessed, disenfranchised proletariat".

This overlooks the critical fact about contemporary rioters: they are stupid, and without anything remotely resembling political convictions. Last year, the peaceful protest in favour of environmentalism and vegetarianism turned violent when "anarchists" broke into a McDonald's, and proceeded to eat as many Big Macs as they could - an appalling affront to the vegans who had set up the demonstration in the first place.

The rioters are not "dispossessed": Giro cheques see to that. They are not "disenfranchised": unlike their 18th-century forerunners, they can influence the political process by peaceful means. Indeed, thanks to Labour's obsession with new assemblies and referendums, there is now more opportunity to vote than ever before. That fewer and fewer people choose to do so reveals only that economic and political security have brought boredom with the political process.

The deception about the rioters' motives does not extend to the rioters themselves. They know that their "anti-capitalist and globalisation" jamborees are organised by using that tool of global capitalism par excellence, the internet. As George Orwell said, there are some truths so obvious that you need a particular kind of intelligence to stop you from seeing them. You don't have to believe that running a multinational conglomerate is the acme of human achievement to recognise that capitalism has brought an unprecedented degree of prosperity to the mass of people in
the countries that have adopted it.

The Gordon Riots moved from protests to uncontrolled violence largely because the magistrates then in charge of London sympathised with the rioters' bigotry, and said so. They only realised their mistake when the rioters moved on from burning the houses of Catholics to threatening everyone's property. Just as his forebears admired anti-Catholic prejudice, Mayor Ken Livingstone's sympathies are with "anti-capitalism". This year, he seems to have been persuaded by the Met that everything possible should be done to prevent the planned May Day protest from spiralling into violence. Let us hope London's Mayor maintains that attitude. It is not a sure thing. The man who said the economists on the IMF should die painfully in their beds will not give up his convictions without a fight.

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      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
            http://www.ainfos.ca/
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CYCLE OF REPRESSION 2

MONOPOLY ANARCHISTS

PLAN MAY DAY HAVOC

Today's Sunday Telegraph (February 18th 2001, p 3, David Bamber) has a report that 15,000 anarchists from all over Europe plan to take over London at the start of May, for 3 days of rioting, in order to disrupt the UK general election. All Metropolitan Police leave has been cancelled, and the army put on standby. The rioters are said to be using the monopoly board as a blue print, and plan to occupy streets like Park Lane and Mayfair, as well as company head offices. A senior police officer said 'Their aim is clear. They want a violent and bloody conflagration on the streets. They want to disrupt polling and cause anarchy.' The anti terror team who tracked the Nazi nail bomber have been drafted in. Among the anarchist groups fingered for this outrage are the Seattle rioters, Black Flag, and German terrorists.

IN LINE WITH PREVIOUS

This example of media fabrication is entirely in line with previous lies about protest groups. Perhaps the kernel of truth at the middle of this fable might be that RTS are producing a successor booklet to the excellent 'Squaring Up To The Square Mile' brochure produced for J-18, based on the Monopoly game. If so, the state's foreknowledge here would be indicative.

Cycle of Repression 1 told how Punch magazine (January 31st - February 13th 2001 - Dan Adams) slanders Class War /  MA'M as potential assassins of the Royal Family. This media attack is part of a broader campaign against the radical movement, the Monopoly story being the latest episode.  We see examples of this in the eco / road protest movement, and animal rights. An anonymous circular, warning people about a special Branch infiltrator inside South Downs Earth First, supplying information about Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, is being sent round. The leaflet repeats the story also aired in the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times September 3rd 2000 and Guardian 30th January 2001. It has been suggested that the leak came from an activist who was later arrested selling the Terra1st Earth Liberation Front newspaper in 1994, but released without charge. Norman Baker is of interest due to his pivotal role in the recent sacking of Peter Mandelson, an event which is suspected to be an MI6 plot against MI5.

THE PATTERN OF ACTIVITY

There is a pattern of activity here, and it works like this: Some state institution or policy (eg roadbuilding, the city of London, the Monarchy or the HLS lab) is under pressure from the protest movement. So, the media claim extremists are involved [8] Then, some violent incidents are engineered, invented or fabricated. Guess what happens next? The media call for the protest group to be banned, and Jack Straw obliges by bringing out his latest anti terrorism laws. All the time, the index of repression goes up, while public opinion is manipulated into support for this. [NB - This is what Chomsky calls "Manufacturing Consent" - ed]

CAMBRIDGE IN AUGUST

Let's look at the animal rights movement as a particular example of this. Following on from the success of the anti Hillgrove campaign, the 'Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty' Campaign [9] has been particularly effective against the HLS laboratory near Huntingdon. By August 2000, HLS were under pressure over the fall of their share price and their loan from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). On 19th August, a large protest 'Cambridge In August' (=CIA!) had been planned. Four days before this, four SHAC newsletter editors; Greg Avery, David Elliot, Heather Avery and Natasha Dallegmagne, were raided and arrested for conspiracy. The protest went ahead and was successful, picketing John Major's house. At least five protesters were arrested.

SYREFORD AND FREELAND

Timed to coincide with the return of David Shayler to Britain, on 21st August, a bomb was found by the proverbial man walking a dog, on a wall at Syreford in Gloucestershire, about 6 miles east of Cheltenham. At the time, it was claimed to be an animal rights bomb aimed against huntsmen. Soon after this, on 26th August, another man walking a dog found another bomb in woods at Freeland, 3 miles north east of Witney in Oxfordshire, not so very far from the now closed Hillgrove Farm. Just four days later (30th August), on cue, Home Secretary Jack Straw announced more police powers to deal with animal rights protesters, as part of a series of phased announcements covering the restriction of football supporters' movements abroad, and the expansion of DNA data bases. Coincident with this, on 30th August, several HLS workers' cars were firebombed.

SOPHISTICATED

The Gloucestershire / Oxfordshire bombs were later described as nail bombs, with sophisticated electronic timers, and anti-handling devices - which go far beyond previous animal rights devices. The picture seems to show a bag of steel nuts. Subsequently, Irish terrorist groups, Copeland style Fascist bag bombers, and even the Serbians were thought to be behind them. A Banbury man was reported to have been arrested in connection with these [10] but this story quickly disappeared, and no follow up report was heard. [11]

MEDIA HATRED

There then followed a surge of anti animal rights propaganda. Paul Routledge in the Daily Mirror [12] for example called on Jack Straw to 'sort these twisted terrorists'. A report claimed there were 1200 animal rights attacks in 1999, causing 2.6M damage. 'Last weekend, these nutters firebombed the cars of five science lab workers outside their homes'. The article called for a ban on the ALF. Alasdair Palmer, in the Telegraph [13] similarly, quoted the familiar stuff about Hitler being a vegetarian, and Goering opposing vivisection, as seen in the Kugelblitz TV 'Against Nature' anti-green propaganda documentary of Autumn 1997. Daniel Foggo, as mentioned in footnote eight, produced the Searchlight sourced story about Nazis infiltrating SHAC and the Shamrock Farm campaign. [14] The Times also, with 'Fanatical campaigners who show no mercy' followed the trend. [15] while even Radio Four got in the act, with an item about how a vivisector's one year old son had his birthday party disrupted when masked up ALF protesters attacked his house. [16] When faced with a co-ordinated media campaign such as this, all following the same agenda, with no right of reply for the animal rights protest movement, it is a fair question to ask just who is doing the co-ordinating?

This is part of the cycle of repression. Bad publicity is followed up by engineered incidents, which are then used to 'justify' further repressive measures. State propaganda spin-doctors have a 'monopoly' of access to their tame puppet-media.... (to be continued...)

REFERENCES
8] For an example of this in operation, see Daniel Foggo, 'Neo Nazis Join Animal Rights Groups' Sunday Telegraph, 3rd September 2000, claiming that Troy Southgate of the NRF was involved in Cambridge In August and the anti-HLS campaign, while the ITP (International Third Position) were involved in the Shamrock farm campaign. Foggo, it will remembered, tried to infiltrate the Earth First summer camp in Suffolk, 1998, and later broke the story of the Graham Hall fake 'ALF' branding, November 1999.
[9] Stop Huntingdon Animal  Cruelty, PO Box 381, Cheltenham, Gloucester, GL50 1YN website at: http://www.shac.net
[10] November 28th 2000
[11] Five 'Irishmen'? were arrested in Ealing, 1st February 2001, and said to be in possession of pipe bomb materials. Later a denial was issued over the claim of links to dissident republicans. One version suggested they were from the Middle East.
[12] Paul Routledge, Daily Mirror, 1st September 2000
[13] Alasdair Palmer 'The Evil in the Animal Lovers' Telegraph, 3rd September 2000.
[14] How very similar to the 'Fascist groups linked to world trade riots' Sunday Post, December 5th 1999. Debbie Manson.
[15] Times, September 5th 2000 'Fanatical campaigners who show no mercy'. Valerie Elliott.
[16] Robin Crystal, BBC Today programme, 5th September 2000.