London Mayday protests

[Peter K.]

Jim J. wrote:
>I am not impressed by this rather typical 'middle-class' article...
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>BUT: people who are all worked-up over this rather petty violence don't
>(yet?) see the 'Big Picture'. Trashing a McDonalds, or facing down pigs, is
>_nothing_ compared to the slaughter these goons have been engaged in
>world-wide (let's take WWI as a convenient 'starting point'). Literally
>MILLIONS of people have suffered at the hands of these very state forces.
>Why should we get worked-up over broken heads and wrists -- when masses of
>people have died, for instance, at the hands of the NATO imperialists and
>their stooges?
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Just saw a music video by the Cottonmouth Kings that contained a riot with
black clad messengers battling cops in riot gear. I don't know, you may be
right. But I do know I was impressed by the way you ALL CAP certain words
like they used to do in the 18th century, like in _Tristam Shandy_ for
instance. Barbara Ehrenreich made the same points you did in a recent
Progressive column. Whenever this discussion comes up I think of how the
American civil rights movement changed into the black power movement, partly
b/c state forces assassinated people like Fred Hampton.

One of the things I liked about that "middle class" article was how the last
paragraph provided a little FRISSON:

"On Mayday, I recognise one of the famous tunnellers, once a green idealist,
fantastically chirpy and eager to talk to anyone who would listen. Now, all
in black, hooded and scarved-up, she seems to recognise me, but she
definitely doesn't want to talk."

I wonder what happened to this woman. Is the same thing happening to the
proletariat?

Peter