Blogging from the airport...

Funny thing about fog, it usually makes me rather sentimental for those early mornings in Hamilton when you're riding to school, and then arriving so saturated, you may as well of swam to school. But when you're sitting in an airport waiting for the fog to lift long enough to get a flight, it is rather frustrating. Thank goddess for laptops! I'm certainly not the only one effected. So is the announcement of the Labour Party List. Here's hoping it comes out soon... I'm certainly interested to see what it looks like. So now I can catch up on some blogging I wanted to do. Firstly, had a rather exciting weekend. I went to the anti-war rally from Civic Square to the US Embassy. There wasn't that much of a turn out, but those that were there were loud and proud. What was amazing however, was my first ever participation in a de-arrest. After the speeches at the embassy, a friend dressed up as George Bush offered himself up as stress relief and rotten fruit was offered to the crowd to throw at him. The Police quickly stepped in and informed people that they could throw fruit at each other but not at the embassy. They gave us all a warning and said if anyone threw fruit at the building, they would be arrested. Fair enough. So another friend picks up a piece of fruit and goes to throw it at the GWB character. I'm not too sure if the fruit actually left his hand or not, but he was immediately arrested and dragged down the road. He protested the arrest informing the police that he had followed their instructions and warning and had not thrown anything at the building. They appeared not to care and continued the arrest. The crowd was not having a bar at this blatant abuse of police power and proceeded to crowd the police, surround their car so they couldn't get their detainee in the vehicle, and once he got down on the ground, lay on top of him and linked up with various parts of his body so they couldn't take him anywhere anyway. The rest of the crowd then surrounded the action chanting "let him go" and "wrongful arrest". The Police soon realised this was a fight that they weren't going to win. And probably conscious of the number of cameras around and how bad it would look if they brought in reinforcements, decided to negotiate. Ten or so minutes later release without charge was successfully negotiated and our friend skipped off waving an anarchy flag. Inspiring stuff. I have seen so many incidents in protests where people have been arrested and shouldn't have been. Not only is this a blatant waste of police and court time (not to mention tax payer dollars) but doesn't do anything to instil respect for the police. Sure, if people break the law, then the police have grounds to send someone to court You can see pictures etc at Indymedia. You can also read about the less than appropriate Police behaviour in Auckland. Mr Farrar seems to think this is OK. Wonder how he would feel about being arrested for carrying a copy of a newspaper? In light of this ridiculous behaviour on the part of the Auckland Police, the GrAnarchists put together this must read for all police officers. Nice one. UPDATE I am now leaving the airport, it's closed, grrr. In other news. I see that NRT has noticed that the Greens are working on a new blog. I was aware of this and have been contributing to the discussions around how it will work. I'm pleased to see them doing this, I must say. So much of the work that the Greens do either a) gets ignored by the Press Gallery for not being controversial/confrontational/simplistic enough or b) ridiculed, yet it is work that people are calling for all the time. I hope this project gets the positive work that the Greens do in parliament out to the public more. Might also provide us with an entertaining gossip source...