The real problem is all around us.....

On the 9^th December 2010 we have seen the most violence from both sides of the student/police divide but having spoken to people on both sides and having witnessed some horrendous injures I question the logic of this stand off at all.

In previous protests I've noticed that the police were in some instances sympathetic to the students, and that they too are feeling the pinch of the cuts. This was again the case today and perhaps despite the violence, more so. One officer spoke of his personal wish to be in support of the students, at this point I asked why he was standing on the police side of the line if that was the case. He said that they had to uphold the rule of law. The counter was obvious, I pointed out that if he didn't agree with the current vote for many of the same reasons as the protesters then he couldn't agree with the system making the law he was protecting, namely Parliament and MP's. He laughed but it was an awkward laugh, he knew.

The outline is simple and more focussed because of the subject; education has always in some way given preference to the rich and this transfers into who holds power. Today those who pushed the vote to increase tuition fees are on the whole millionaires and public school educated people. I am not speaking of all MP's of course, what I am noting is that even if an MP wishes to vote against a bill and their own government, the system allows that government to bully them into compliance. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of the cabinet are of the mega rich ilk, they control the whips and thus the vote, wallet and livelihood of their MP's and their constituents. You think you are voting in an individual, don't, you're voting in a servant. By extension too the police are being bullied, they have to pay their bills. It makes it easier to hit a child over the head when you know its helping you to feed your own perhaps? The police are fed an ideal of the fairness of the law, its their self protecting discourse, through this they hide from reflection. Yet as that officer who laughed knew, their law is put together by a group of people who practice little more than economic apartheid and also coincidentally, either directly or indirectly manipulate their bills and way of life though commerce as well as law.

What should be happening now is to find a way for all of us to work against a system that has fundamentally trapped everyone. One option is to turn on the systems of capitalist life that trap us and we need to do it together: the banks, the corporations, the marketing, the landowners, the law and of course, parliament. I'm not saying riot, since 'we're all in this together', I'm saying make them explain everything, administer them, slow them down, cost them money, make them pay for every inch of their power whilst at the same time helping each other. Students have been calling this movement the 'The Big Society' and they are right, I have seen more kindness and community in these past few hours than I have in years, strangers feeding each other, clothing each other, picking each other up off the floor and people simply talking; across gender, age, class and race. It takes guts to start questioning what goes on everyday but we have started and we need to do it more, argue every bill, start asking shops where their produce comes from and how much the workers get paid, mend your old clothes, write to the papers, blog, lobby your MP's and councillors, anything, but just simply keep talking and keep questioning, keep challenging.

This system is flawed from top to bottom, the only way to reflect on how to change it is to stop it working properly. No-one can debate a capitalist system on equal terms; no exchanges, campaigns, governance, protection or even education can be equal under this regime. (That’s perhaps the point). There is an ideological chasm between capitalism and equality because capitalism favours property over people and seeks to own individuals in turn. Even the people who's job it is to make London a 'safer place' cannot reflect openly on it, thats too dangerous and as a consequence life is only ever made safer for the few who are taking our liberty, tax dodging companies, Mp's who block the poor out of education and privileged landowners. Students have in fact been educated to realise that their futures are deemed by the powerful as less valuable than windows, this they know for sure and if Nick Clegg thinks that is living in a 'dream world', then where does he think he was tonight? Certainly not on the streets feeling dreadful about beating children like that policeman, no, he was in a palace and I for one know he's dreaming if he thinks people will ever forget that.