Guarding the Palace

Right—there’ll be no shirking here. Previously, I had the doubtful responsibility of buffing up the English language skills of 500 Wal-Mart associates. Before that I was a nurse. Then there was the cello, to which I’ve recently returned. And now?

Defender of Buckingham Palace!

It seems that The Queen’s Guard—the one that gets changed every day, you remember—is completely slipping up. Because take a look at the picture below!

Yup—it’s a firework exploding against Buckingham Palace.

OK, having taken on Putin (see here and here) and won, a few days ago—he now assures us that he’ll welcome LGBT folk with open arms and vodka bottles—I was all in the mood for a nice quiet time. But no, with the slackers apparently overtaking the Guard, somebody has to step up to the plate. What if the queen had been strolling on her balcony?

So I turned to The Guardian for the dope, and discovered that the protest was part of a worldwide demonstration against austerity cuts; here’s what they had to say on the topic:

Similar events were staged in cities in Japan, Australia and New Zealand in opposition to austerity cuts, corruption and an increase in state surveillance.

Well, the event attracted hundreds of people, of whom 11 were arrested. In addition to the fireworks directed at the palace, a fire was started near the gates of the building, and the Lord Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square sustained damage. And apparently things got a bit heated—here’s more from the Guardian:

Ceylan Hassan, 24, a university graduate, who was among the protesters in London, said: "They started shouting 'move back, move back', but we had nowhere to go. The police started pushing us, screaming 'move back, move back'.

"There was a fire on the right hand side of the monument and people started throwing things."

OK, so I absorbed that, but then the question became: who was Anonymous, apparently the group behind the protest? And what were they all about?

In fact I don’t know—or rather, they don’t. But here’s what Trent Peacock (love the name, by the way), an Anon (as they call themselves) had to say, as cited in Wikipedia:

We [Anonymous] just happen to be a group of people on the internet who need—just kind of an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society. ...That's more or less the point of it. Do as you wish. ... There's a common phrase: 'we are doing it for the lulz.'

Lulz, according to that Wikipedia entry, is “entertainment.” But the group’s idea of entertainment includes hacking—for some of its members—and they’ve gone after some really worthy targets, including Scientology and the Westboro Baptist “Church.” Here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

Several attacks by Anons have targeted organizations accused of homophobia. In February 2011, an open letter was published on AnonNews.org threatening the Westboro Baptist Church, an organization based in Kansas in the US known for picketing funerals with signs reading "God Hates Fags".[83] During a live radio current affairs program in which Topiary debated church member Shirley Phelps-Roper, Anons hacked one of the organization's websites.[84] After the church announced its intentions in December 2012 to picket the funerals of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, Anons published the names, phone numbers, and e-mail and home addresses of church members and brought down GodHatesFags.com with a DDoS attack.[85] Hacktivists also circulated petitions to have the church's tax-exempt status investigated.[86] In August 2012, Anons hacked the site of Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi in retaliation for the Parliament of Uganda's consideration of an anti-homosexuality law permitting capital punishment.[87] 

Good work, guys!

Anons also supported the Occupy movement in its early days, and have protested stock exchanges and major corporations; they also were active in the Arab Spring.

For all this, the group attracts attention, if not notoriety. In 2012, Time Magazine named them on the 100 most influential people; according to Wikipedia, the NSA agreed. Here’s what it says:

In 2012, Public Radio International reported that the US National Security Agency considered Anonymous a potential national security threat and had warned the president that it could develop the capability to disable parts of the US power grid.

I report all of this dispassionately—it’s hard to get a finger on this group’s pulse. But one thing I’ll say: we’re skating quite rashly on the thinnest of ice. The 1% is getting unimaginably rich, and worse, frightenly isolated. The rest of us are forming a collective time bomb of unemployment, poverty, and disenfranchisement.

Anybody remember the French Revolution?