was no stunt but was brutally real.
Before the invader had said much more than is quoted above some of the platform party surrounded him, shouting objections, and trying to wrest the microphone from his grasp. This brought two more squaddies leaping up in support of their man. Their intervention turned the disagreement into a scuffle and finally into a brawl with fists as well as words being thrown. (Thus in minutes providing a graphic demo of how wars begin: provocation; angry objection; resort to physical violence; and so to battle.)
Just as soon as his leader was interfered with, a squaddy stationed at the side of the platform for this very purpose grabbed the wires trailing from the mike and cut them with clippers.
Meantime (mean time indeed) the gang of squaddies who had jumped down on the side of the truck facing the crowd were approached by three or four of the nearest police, coming to the aid of their mate who had flagged the truck down. The squaddies let the police reach them then dodged away in all directions, bulldozing through the crowd and snatching at banners, which they flailed above their heads, thus turning posters for peace into weapons of war (and demonstrating the neutrality of matter). As they bludgeoned swathes through the protesters, people scattered, shouting, stumbling, falling, ducking away, the squaddies yelling and whooping, and raising Cain by way of yet another demonstration that all men are not brothers.
During this riving diversion the oldest (he was forty if he was a day), biggest, most fiercely and expensively leathered squaddy of all, who had so far sat watching from the truckâs cab, climbed onto the back, and from there, using a bull-horn, continued the speech begun by his platform henchman.
A couple of police, hearing this, detached themselves from the keystone kops pursuit now in progress against the crowd busters, and turned their attention instead to the silencing of the truculent orator. Only to find, as they ran towards it, that the truck moved off just fast enough to prevent them reaching it, circling skilfully, zigging, zagging, curling along the edge of the disintegrating crowd, thereby leaving the bill behind, sloshing about in the mud churned up by its wheels, and causing further mayhem among the protesters now fleeing outwards from the mêlée.
NIK â S NOTEBOOK :Â Â Planned. All of it worked out before-hand and executed like a military op.
She was trapped. And stood her ground, still holding up that gormless banner. Others near her scattered. But not her.
One of the black leather boys came right at her, shoulder charging. She went flying, arms spread-eagled, legs kicking. Her banner rocketed out of her hands. He caught it in mid air, swung it, and batted her across the buttocks like she was a shuttlecock, sending her pancaking flat-faced, into the mud.
That did it. Observer turned activist. Pacifist turned belligerent.
Iâve never felt anything like it. Me, Iâm a watcher, not a doer. The world is splitting at the seams with doers. People who think they know best, who want to be in charge, want to be the ones who make the running for the rest of us. Mighty Mice dressed up as Supermen.
One of the reasons I like history is that it tells about the doers. And it seems to me the bigger the doer becomes the more he/she turns into a murderous, power-hungry, hypocritical, self-righteous, arrogant prig. While ordinary non-big-doers like me and Grandad and all the tellywatchers of the world, who want only to live our lives unmolested, are supposed to be thankful, and admire these Big-Doer creeps, who always pretend theyâre doing what theyâre doing for the sake of the rest of us, when theyâre really only doing it for themselves. And they pay ad-people (who are no better) to make ads and TV programmes presenting them as heroes.
I HATE HEROES .
Selah.
But when I saw her splattered into the mud by a turd in black leather, something
Before the invader had said much more than is quoted above some of the platform party surrounded him, shouting objections, and trying to wrest the microphone from his grasp. This brought two more squaddies leaping up in support of their man. Their intervention turned the disagreement into a scuffle and finally into a brawl with fists as well as words being thrown. (Thus in minutes providing a graphic demo of how wars begin: provocation; angry objection; resort to physical violence; and so to battle.)
Just as soon as his leader was interfered with, a squaddy stationed at the side of the platform for this very purpose grabbed the wires trailing from the mike and cut them with clippers.
Meantime (mean time indeed) the gang of squaddies who had jumped down on the side of the truck facing the crowd were approached by three or four of the nearest police, coming to the aid of their mate who had flagged the truck down. The squaddies let the police reach them then dodged away in all directions, bulldozing through the crowd and snatching at banners, which they flailed above their heads, thus turning posters for peace into weapons of war (and demonstrating the neutrality of matter). As they bludgeoned swathes through the protesters, people scattered, shouting, stumbling, falling, ducking away, the squaddies yelling and whooping, and raising Cain by way of yet another demonstration that all men are not brothers.
During this riving diversion the oldest (he was forty if he was a day), biggest, most fiercely and expensively leathered squaddy of all, who had so far sat watching from the truckâs cab, climbed onto the back, and from there, using a bull-horn, continued the speech begun by his platform henchman.
A couple of police, hearing this, detached themselves from the keystone kops pursuit now in progress against the crowd busters, and turned their attention instead to the silencing of the truculent orator. Only to find, as they ran towards it, that the truck moved off just fast enough to prevent them reaching it, circling skilfully, zigging, zagging, curling along the edge of the disintegrating crowd, thereby leaving the bill behind, sloshing about in the mud churned up by its wheels, and causing further mayhem among the protesters now fleeing outwards from the mêlée.
NIK â S NOTEBOOK :Â Â Planned. All of it worked out before-hand and executed like a military op.
She was trapped. And stood her ground, still holding up that gormless banner. Others near her scattered. But not her.
One of the black leather boys came right at her, shoulder charging. She went flying, arms spread-eagled, legs kicking. Her banner rocketed out of her hands. He caught it in mid air, swung it, and batted her across the buttocks like she was a shuttlecock, sending her pancaking flat-faced, into the mud.
That did it. Observer turned activist. Pacifist turned belligerent.
Iâve never felt anything like it. Me, Iâm a watcher, not a doer. The world is splitting at the seams with doers. People who think they know best, who want to be in charge, want to be the ones who make the running for the rest of us. Mighty Mice dressed up as Supermen.
One of the reasons I like history is that it tells about the doers. And it seems to me the bigger the doer becomes the more he/she turns into a murderous, power-hungry, hypocritical, self-righteous, arrogant prig. While ordinary non-big-doers like me and Grandad and all the tellywatchers of the world, who want only to live our lives unmolested, are supposed to be thankful, and admire these Big-Doer creeps, who always pretend theyâre doing what theyâre doing for the sake of the rest of us, when theyâre really only doing it for themselves. And they pay ad-people (who are no better) to make ads and TV programmes presenting them as heroes.
I HATE HEROES .
Selah.
But when I saw her splattered into the mud by a turd in black leather, something
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