Paul Treanor wrote:
>I can not undertsand that anyone takes these stories seriously. According
to the >people who circulate them, the work of peaceful civil society
organisations is >being discredited by the violent demonstrators at
summits. Threfore, they say, the violence must be orchestrated by police or
secret services.
So lets just ignore it then, shall we? I'm pleased that I don't have to
worry about all your previous postings on how democracy isn't the normative
democracy of geographic discourse. Obviously you're now of the view that
all police are thoroughly nice chaps, working in peace and harmony in their
communities for the good of the majority. I'm glad we've cleared that one
up, I'll sleep much sounder tonight....
>It is an absurd claim about violence: the truth is exactly the opposite.
>The peaceful mainstream organisations are dependent on the violent
demonstrators >for their status, and their political influence...
So does that mean, Paul, using your own logic and working through this
whole violence/peace dichotomy, that the violence of recent demonstrations
is also dependent on the peace of previous demonstrations? One needs the
other in order to have any meaning, and so this must be equally true.
Or lets look at it another way, using this, ahem, 'logic': the police need
the violence of the Black Bloc to legitimate their presence there, so
perhaps there is a conspiracy!
So if violence is the only thing that works, as you suggest, shall we all
go and buy ourselves baseball bats?
(Oh, and you can't _really_ be insinuating that Tony Blair and George Bush
are responsible for historic acts of violence?)
Oh to live in a simplistic Treanor world, where the media reports the
truth and the police are there to help everyone, what bliss!
;-)
Helen Twidle
Postgraduate Office
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences
University of Wales
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 3DB
UK
Tel 01970 622610
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