BAGnewsNotes “Our Man at the G20″ Exclusive Slideshow: The Paramilitary View

I don’t usually make the comparisons, but that – THAT’S the closest I’ve seen to the SA – Sturmabteilung

Hi Wordsmith. I don’t quite agree with your comparison to the SA. Or rather, I do and I don’t!
I do in respect to what ‘Sturmabteilung’ suggests, just not the image you link to. The stance, the down-cast eyes, the slim frames of the men marching: all seem at odds to the image posted above.
These men are more muscular, their stance more threatening (they are stopping people from moving rather than moving themselves). And even though the people in each are wearing uniforms, the men in the picture above somehow seem more militaristic. Though I am sure there are no-doubt more apt images / comparisons!
All the best, Sean.

It was my gut reaction at viewing the first image. The SA were the infamous ‘brown shirts’ of course and their presence was threatening and was meant to be viewed as threatening. I’m not looking to argue the merits of the militaristic stance of the above with the SA of the Third Reich. It simply comes from living in Germany for a number of years….yadda, yadda, ya…
I see the message as being the same….the absolute threat of violence.

I think the square format and the formalism it brings to the images enhances the threatening nature in them.

I’m not saying that the truncheon bagging is Sieg Heil but that thought is not that remote and it sure scares the bejesus out of me when I see this behavior
‘I didn’t realize they were blocking the road completely, so I walked up to them. Only when I was fairly close did I become aware of their ferocious beating; pounding on their shields, they were marching slowly forward to a rhythm, like primal warriors advancing into battle. Bang, bang, bang, bang, Halt! Wait!… Forward! Bang, bang, bang, bang, Halt! Forward! Bang, bang, bang…. And so forth. It was mesmerizing.
http://www.simonhewittjones.com/…/collective-energy-sacrificing-the-individual/

Hm. I thought Star Wars – the Empire’s troopers. Also (because I’m sleep-deprived) I looked at the guy in the middle and thought: Wow, that’s one hell of a bulge in his pantleg,

I thought the images were not strong enough for the piece, felt like the photographer was disengaged.

Picture number 1 is fantastic.
It’s the way their shin guards bunch up their pants to look like the old jodhpurs that the Nazis were so fond of. Plus the idiotic half-slouch, half-stance that was so characteristic of the SA.
Something like this: http://biblicone.com/wp-content/uploads/300px-die_uniformen_der_allgemeinen_ss.jpg
Or this: http://www.ssrelics.net/PROPAGANDA%20ASSETS/ss-postcards/day-of-the-ss-police.jpg
Propagandists in Nazi Germany could have done no better.
And in number 7 they are reminiscent of nothing so much as Imperial soldiers from “Star Wars”:
http://bonzuko.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/300px-General_veers.jpg
When you find yourself dressed like that, it’s the world’s way of saying you’re doing something wrong.

The Seattle Police and King County Sherriffs Dept were doing this a decade ago at the WTO meeting, and of course its now become common practice wherever these summits convene, for them to be surrounded by massive paramilitary force.
In 1999 I photographed massed ranks of paramilitary cops going on a teargas and billyclub rampage after a co-ordinated non-violent blockade shut down the World Trade Organisation meeting in the city.
They shot rubber bullets, stun-grenades and teargas cannisters for most of the day and well into the night, peppper sprayed people en-masse, drove around the city in armoured personnel carriers and did the ‘Zulu-warrior’ shield thumping thing. When people refused to move they stabbed them in the ribs with staves.
Passers by were assaulted along with demonstrators who offered up zero resistance either before or after. During the day a bunch of Black Bloc chumps turned up and trashed a Gap store. They were comprehensively told to piss off by the protesters who bundled them away.
Typically however, this one act of petty vandalism became the orthodox thumbnail ‘history’ of the event.
The media coverage was a complete travesty, whipping up paranoia beforehand (saying the protesters would turn up with weapons) and afterwards, downplaying an act of banana republic-style Police brutality on huge numbers of peaceful and diverse protesters. This has become the standard operating procedure of mainstream coverage of these summit protests.
On a personal note, the rumour is the teargas used in Seattle was obtained from the military and wasn’t designed for use in urban areas as it was too potent. I can’t confirm this but I do know that since covering that protest (without a gasmask) my breathing has never been the same, and a peak flow test from the doc says I’ve now got about 85 percent lung function, so I’ve got a smokers lungs, but without the enjoyment…

Visually, ‘Star Wars’is a very apt analogy.

Sion,
Thanks for the (constructive) shooter’s recollection.

yup, they’re dressed like storm troopers, and for the same reasons, protecting the same interests.
as sion noted, that’s nothing really new, although the gear and look and context has been refined and more nasty hardware was deployed, like the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/30-3
the missing piece of coverage though, is of the actual protesters, their messages, and maybe a little context of the “50 anarchists” amongst the larger gathering – hundreds? thousands? of g20 protesters, and the concurrent protests around the world.
i think protests are a primarily a reactive action – they meet to carve up the world, we protest…. and the media (including the bag, this time out) invariably focuses on the violence – be it a broken window, or the storm troopers; overlooking the myriad of actual, articulate grievances and points of view being presented by a myriad of actual, articulate, creative people who have chosen to bear witness, to protest, at these elite greed pits.
someone commented here recently, “what are they protesting anyway?”, and that’s understandable. for perspective, think how much coverage of the “teabaggers” actual messages has been presented here at the bag. for the g20, it’s mostly about cops, and tattooed youth getting tear gassed, etc.
as jason andrews says in his slide show “the worst temptation was to see it as some kind of show”. exactly. like the (young women) on the roof. protesters outframed, yet again.

Wow, is this supposed to be journalism or are you pushing your own agenda here? Way to be impartial. This is not my idea of journalism.

So whats your take on these photographs ?

sorry, but how are we meant to believe what you’re showing, if you don’t show what happened in the “mosh pit with pepper spray”?

most cops are right leaning. they got their rocks off wailing on a bunch of lefties.

wonder if cops showboating was a factor in our losing the olympic bid.

“most cops are right leaning” – indeed.
remember the hilarious T-Shirts worn by the filth at the recent conventions (last year):
“We get up early to beat the crowds”.
Brownshirts indeed. SmalltownPJ – you need to wake up, man.

I don’t know, in slide 13 the headgear looks more like the Satire Darth Vader character from Space Balls. Granted, they are more dangerous. That was just my first impression.

Shouldn’t vicious shocktroops be smartly arrayed? Shirts are not tucked in properly, pants not bloused but weighed down with who knows what, and pot bellies exemplify this shoddy example. Simply from an espirit de corps point of view, they look tacky.
I’m not trying to downplay the serious nature of the incidents that must have happened off camera.