I met a friend last Tuesday that told me that Liverpool Street seemed to be preparing for a hurricane, that the buildings had their windows shot and protected with wooden panels. And yes, the media was also preparing us for a hurricane, so much that the hurricane almost didn't come.
I went down to Bank on Wednesday and played the game of trying to break the police barrier. It all felt so symbolic and useless. I am particularly interested in the manufacture of fear as a mode of control. The UK authorities master the technique and they used it once again this time. They spread the hype of a really dangerous wave of protests, they deployed an army of policemen and in the finally, to me, it all felt so little... I just read this post at K-punk http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2009_04.html, and thought it was weird that we haven't discussed anything here in Netbehaviour... Not only the hurricane almost doesn't come, but it leaves almost no traces.. In the post M. Fisher argues that is time to move on, that these protests lead nowhere. I agree. However, even if there is no response from the governments, there is something about camping on the streets that I still find worth it. It's a day of deviation, of using the street in a completely different way... and even if it's just for the feeling that this gives you I think it is still something. _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
