Yesterday's News

Dang, you'd think I'm a newspaper or something. This story happened yesterday, and I'm not getting to it until today.

Anyways, the story is further evidence that a liberal uprising will never be successful. The Kyoto Protocol went into effect yesterday, according to the story. Members of Greenpeace, not content with this drastic economic treaty, decided to take action on their own, and set their sights on the International Petroleum Exchange in London.

Greenpeace had hoped to paralyse oil trading at the exchange in the City near Tower Bridge on the day that the Kyoto Protocol came into force. “The Kyoto Protocol has modest aims to improve the climate and we need huge aims,” a spokesman said.

Was this a peaceful, non-invasive protest? You wish.

When a trader left the building shortly before 2pm, using a security swipe card, a protester dropped some coins on the floor and, as he bent down to pick them up, put his boot in the door to keep it open.

Two minutes later, three Greenpeace vans pulled up and another 30 protesters leapt out and were let in by the others.

They made their way to the trading floor, blowing whistles and sounding fog horns, encountering little resistance from security guards. Rape alarms were tied to helium balloons to float to the ceiling and create noise out of reach. The IPE conducts “open outcry” trading where deals are shouted across the pit. By making so much noise, the protesters hoped to paralyse trading.

So Greenpeace invaded the Exchange with tactics intended to disrupt trading. I'm not sure what they expected to occur, but I guess this wasn't it:

[T]hey were set upon by traders, most of whom were under the age of 25. “They were kicking and punching men and women indiscriminately,” a photographer said. “It was really ugly, but Greenpeace did not fight back.”

Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.”

Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion.

This reaction may sound harsh, and may have been harsh. But I can only imagine what my reaction would have been if protestors invaded my workplace and tried to disrupt my coworkers and I in such a fashion.