here in the land of Oz in 2003 when several hundred thousand protestors marched against the Iraq war, from our office we looked down on a protest meeting in the Town Hall square with lines of police officers shoulder to shoulder across the square. (This was in the days before militarised uniforms so the police were in their normal uniforms or overalls.) Other officers were on the Town Hall roof & on the balconies of an old office building opposite. One of my colleagues was a policeman's son who had also had done security work before getting an office job. He pointed out the high powered guns on the balconies, explained what they were watching for & pointed out the small groups of officers going after the hot heads hiding their faces with scarfs & removing them before they could cause further trouble. Around the same time one of my old leftie folkie mates wrote a simple marching protest song so that marchers could unite & the messages from the trouble-making hotheads would not disrupt peaceful protests. sandra
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