Moral panic

The news since Sunday has been unrelenting in whipping up fear and anxiety across Scotland about how these anarchists ae going to kill everyone. The Edinburgh riots were actually - as well eported by Mark ballard the Green MSP - caused and exacerbated by deliberately heavy policing, for little good reason.

My correspondent on the ground in Stirling tells me that despite breathless reporting of riots in the town, there was no sign on violence - but a very heavy police presence.

The police had cordoned off the eco-vilage - the campsite where some protestors were staying - and none of them could get out to go to Gleneagles. Most of them of course are peacable. Just like you really.

Some of them got a bit annoyed and there was an altercation - but hardly a riot.

In the town centre the police had closed the railway station - but again little actual violence to report. Apart from the damage to the truth.

The local radio and some UK tv were reporting riots even though there were none to see - purely because the police had told them they were taking place.

Obviously, what you can't see can be used by the authorities (police and media) in evidence to make you very frightened.

Meanwhile the cops were driving around in Stirling with sirens wailing - but chasing nothing much.

My correspondent says the atmosphere throughout the day has been weird - like Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, she feels as though she's the only one who can see that there isn't much going on. The shopkeepers are boarding up their windows, but no-one is interested in smashing them.

Oh well.

In the same way as the "Edinburgh riots" - where there was little damage and seemingly no casualties - the event has largely been fabricated so that the police keep the initiative, and can justify any actions including pre-emptive action eg closing routes, and photographing all and sundry.

Meanwhile, the BBC website is giving minute by minute accounts of whats "happening" but there's so little to actually see that their 12 - picture gallery of G8 "protests" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4655191.stm starts with a minor face-off at the eco-camp this morning and by image 6 or 7 they're showing Gerhard Schroeder, Paul Martin of Canada and the Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi coming down airliner steps as they arrive in Scotland.

With any luck these guys will protest - hmmm fat chance...

Meanwhile meanwhile, Bob Geldof is slagging eveyone who doesn't do it his way. It's alright for him, he's hot triple-A VIP tickets to meet the bastards within the ring of steel. In some ways you have to admire him - he's certainly operated in a very effective way throughout - sometimes out there, calling on a million to turn up, sometimes infuriatingly praising the peopple who are responsible for the problem because they are speaking to him... the set-up is all set up. The outcome will be hailed as a victory by Blair - a person no-one should trust, because of both his judgment and mendacity - and there will be little that Saint Bob can say to articulate the truth.

The truth being that the G8, the World Bank, the IMF and enforced privatisation won't solve the problem of poverty. Far from it. They are at the root. Even on their own terms. World economic growth has slowed down since the neo-liberal economists have taken over (which happened in the 70s.) The great postwar boom which was actually allowing post colonial countries to develop has stopped and protectionism for the rich means the poor are frozen out.

Ah well, at least we don't actually believe the hype.

malky
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