Trots

Plus ça change

What the police got was a bloody good hiding.

Bernie Grant, Council Leader, London Borough of Haringey, 1985 (after the Broadwater Estate riots).

if you want to see “the feds” get a bloody good hiding, see this film.

Socialist Worker, August 27, 2011 (Review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes).

Edmund Standing adds:

I’m reminded of this ‘classic’:

The good news is, given preparation (the opportunity for which, of course, is normally denied), the average citizen can match a police officer blow for blow. A police officer has access to hand arms, in particular clubs, but the ordinary citizen can get and/or easily improvise these. The same is true of body armour and self-defence. The police have roadblocks, the people barricades. The police can use sturdy, powerful vehicles, so can the public. The police can use tools such as water cannons to disperse a crowd but a resourceful crowd can use similar devices to reverse effect. The police can use small firearms. Even in Britain it is not impossible for a member of the public to get hold of some. Any weapons won from the police in battle can immediately be used against them.

Lenin’s Tomb, ‘The just-about-Gramscian theory of successful rioting’, May 31, 2008.

habibi adds: a Socialist Worker take on the riots:

The police are the enemy of everyone who want to see a more just, fair society.

We should drive the police out of our estates and off our streets.