You may wonder why should be so concerned about the gagging law since it barely effects the small fry like us, but we need to worry, as it will in ways we wouldn't expect. Basically small campaign groups will be at a massive disadvantage to Political Parties financially in the year before an election when it comes to expressing their views on policy and trying to win votes (the amount of money campaign groups can spend will be limited for the whole year, while MP's can spend as much as they want until 4 months before the election) .
It won't effect smaller groups like us as we don't spend much, if any money. But larger groups who would speak up for us like 38 Degrees and Trade Unions etc will not be able to spend money on events with speakers, printed material and things like that, so will be effectively be gagged. Without the help we've had so far from groups like this things would be even worse for the poor and downtrodden, as there would be no one raising awareness for us on a large scale.
Once 2015 begins it will all be down to small grass roots campaign groups to raise awareness of how many thousands of us are being treated by the sweeping changes this government has made, and no other future government has any intention of reversing judging by what they have said so far. Social media accounts that mock the government are already being shut down on twitter, in the year before the election many more will go too, along with other pages promoting the alternative media and our take on what is going on.
Combined with the new policing and antisocial behaviour bill it will make it pretty much impossible for smaller groups to have peaceful flash protests too where we raise awareness with the public of what is happening, as they will be able to arrest us just for being there. You can see now why they are preparing water cannons for the summer etc, they are going to start arresting peaceful protestors who pose no threat, which will spark anger and trigger Police brutality. The media will present what started out as peaceful protest as a riot, and we will not have got our message out.
It all goes to show that the government are scared of us and want to silence us, and that our democratic rights are slowly being eroded. Don't look back and wonder why you did nothing, join us in peacefully fighting these unjust laws.
It's understandable if you don't want to join a protest, I don't trust the metropolitan Police to be able to use a water cannon safely either, you may not realise this but they are not there simply to get you wet, they are a crowd control device. They have different settings from "get them wet" to "punt them a few meters down the road into stationary objects in bone smashing agony". They have to be used with precision and be fired from exactly the right distance away or people will get broken bones and possibly even die. If one goes off way too close the jet hitting you alone can take your skin off. The Met don't exactly have a good track record for getting this sort of shit right do they either? Look how many unarmed people they've shot and just gone "oh sorry my bad we thought he had a gun", then just got away with it, and now were giving the water cannons?!
Also please remember when the media show you protests they only show you the people who were kicking off, the photographers dive in to get a picture of the person being arrested elbowing people out of the way to get that footage. I've been at many and the vast majority of people at these events are completely peaceful and just exercising our democratic right to protest, and if we stop now we face a horrific dystopian future where huge corporations actually openly control everything and there will be nothing we can do about it.
I understand many of you have reasons to live and don't want to die trying to peacefully resist what this government is doing, just spare a thought for those of us who have lost everything and no longer care. I've always been a pacifist and will never turn to violence, but I also will never stop fighting any other way I can for our rights and for justice for all the people who have already died as a result of the changes to the welfare system. Under the new laws passive resisters like myself will be treated as brutally as someone attacking the Police or causing damage to property though. I really hope it doesn't turn out to be as bad as this and we can raise enough awareness of what these new laws mean before it gets to the point where peaceful protestors are being hurt in large numbers. But we've already seen the videos of how brutally students were treated for daring to try and protest peacefully on their own campus, in some cases by private security guards not even the Police. There has not been enough of an outcry about that too in my opinion so it doesn't look good.
I'll leave you with some footage of the Irish Police (who are trained to use water cannons) demonstrating water cannon use. Notice how they still manage to fuck it up and actually get the crowd wet as they drove it to close to them when demonstrating the "diffuser" setting.
Also listen to the sound this Turkish protestors body makes as he crashes to the ground, and notice how motionless he is, and believe me if you were from Turkey you would be angry and protesting too so don't judge him harshly for angrily shouting at the water cannon and provoking them.
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