You Will Anyway: Unwelcome

Monday, July 9, 2018

Unwelcome

Police are planning the biggest mobilisation of officers since the 2011 riots as thousands of people in the UK prepare to protest against the arrival this week of Donald Trump.

Thousands of officers will be moving across the country to contain demonstrations against the US president.

[...]

Firearms officers, armed counter-terrorism units, public order officers and dog handlers are being deployed for the visit.

The Guardian

Some people are saying he will have the biggest protection operation in history.

One chief constable said the resources that had been asked for were on the scale required “if London was burning down”.

Some people are saying not just London - the whole world is burning down.

Several chiefs told the Guardian they were concerned the demands to send personnel to protect Trump added to the pressure to find enough officers to keep their own areas sufficiently safe.

[...]

It is understood that about 4,000 officers will be mobilised, to support colleagues in the areas Trump is visiting, and that some forces in other regions have restricted leave so their officers can make up the numbers.

The Police Federation has already acknowledged said that the president’s visit will put “unquestionable pressure” on UK police forces.

The 43 police forces in England and Wales are supposed to support big surges in demand in other forces through “mutual aid” agreements. One chief constable said: “They are the highest ever requests for mutual aid I have ever seen.

“More mutual aid is being asked for than the [London 2012] Olympics, than for the terrorist attacks last year. I’ve never seen mutual aid requests like this Every force is sending their maximum and above.

Trump always gets the most of everything.

He will also go to Scotland, where police say their bill could run into millions of pounds.

Money they could have used toward their share of NATO funding, something he's going to complain to them about not giving enough.

One chief constable said: “There is concern nationally about how we will keep the show on the road.” Anotheradded: “These are eye-watering numbers. It’s a bit rich for the government to demand this when all they’ve done is cut our numbers since 2010.”

Maybe you should stage a protest.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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"It takes only a bit of knowledge of history to realize how dangerous it is to think that the people who run the country know what they are doing." -- Howard Zinn

"It’s not about not having something to hide; it’s about having something to lose. What we lose when we’re under observation is our humanity...Rights are inherent to our nature, they’re not granted by governments, they’re guaranteed by governments. They’re protected by governments." -- Edward Snowden

"Terrorism is the willingness to kill large numbers of people for some presumably good cause.” -- Howard Zinn

"What we have is a foreign policy which is essentially a marketing strategy for selling weapons." -- Jill Stein

"We should always remember that the danger to societies from security services is not that they will spontaneously decide to embrace [Stasi style] mustache twirling and jackboots to bear us bodily into dark places, but that the slowly shifting foundation of policy will make it such that mustaches and jackboots are discovered to prove an operational advantage toward a necessary purpose.” ~ Edward Snowden

"America: just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable." ~ Hunter S. Thompson

"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." ~ Mayer Rothschild

"News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising." ~ LACUNA

"What matters in journalism isn't politics, which are as universal and inescapable as breathing. What matters -- along with a fundamentally adversarial attitude toward government, without which "journalism" is simply public relations -- is integrity, transparency, evidence, coherence, and principle. These are the principles on which we should evaluate the quality of journalism, and their absence is why some journalists are so desperate to get you to focus on something else." ~ Barry Eisler

"There is no inverse relationship between freedom and security. Less of one does not lead to more of the other. People with no rights are not safe from terrorist attack." ~ Molly Ivins

"The brain of our species is, as we know, made up largely of potassium, phosphorus, propaganda, and politics, with the result that how not to understand what should be clearer is becoming easier and easier for all of us." ~ James Thurber

"The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plane....When you hold up your arm and swear to uphold the Constitution, you don’t say, 'Except in wartime.'" -- George McGovern

"I’ll believe that corporations are people when Texas executes one." ~ Bill Moyers

"When did hope become a political dynamic? Hope is right below wishful thinking and right above performing a rain dance on the scale of activity." ~ Rich Hall

Life, as Explained in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead"

GUILDENSTERN: What a fine persecution---to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.

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ROSENCRANTZ : The only thing that makes it bearable is the irrational belief that somebody interesting will come on in a minute.

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GUILDENSTERN: But for God's sake what are we supposed to do?!

PLAYER: Relax. Respond. That's what people do. You can't go through life questioning your situation at every turn.

GUILDENSTERN: But we don't know what's going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don't know how to act.

PLAYER: Act natural. You know why you're here at least.

GUILDENSTERN: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.

PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions.

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GUILDENSTERN : We act on scraps of information... sifting half-remembered directions that we can hardly separate from instinct.

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PLAYER: Life is a gamble, at terrible odds-if it was a bet you wouldn't take it.