>I didn't see many people 'facing down pigs' in Trafalgar Square. The
>police politely pulled back whenever anyone gesticulated at them. The
>most that I saw thrown was plastic cider bottles. Trashing McDonalds was
>indeed 'nothing' - nothing but the hystrionic spasm of the middle class
>protesters against the mass society they so despise.
There are a number of flaws in this sort of 'analysis'
First off there are simple factual ones, for instance the trashing of McDonalds was actually initated by 'stalinists' from one of the turkish communist parties. The TV footage was all from three or four minutes after the attack started when they had done a good job of taking out the windows and doors and others had taken over the rest of the demolition. I'm not absolutely sure how accurate 'stalinist' is as a description of their politics but I suspect its a lot closer then the traditional left insult of 'middle class'
Secondly any leftist with any sort of clue in Britain should be sensible enough to get through the media sterotype of 'mindless violence' or more obscurely 'hystrionic spasm'. Apart from anything else the fact that McDonalds was systamatically destroyed while the plate glass windows of the shops and pubs beside it were untouched should provide a clue that there is something else going on here. Many for instance would identify the Mclibel trial (when McDonalds spent months and several millions suing a postal worker and an unemployed women for distributing leaflets outside their stores) as a point in time when McD's volunteered themselves for the targets of such attacks.
Thirdly the 'middle class' protesters were the ones specificlly heading to Traflagar square to link up with the 'working class' May Day march (and in particular the Dagenham workers). While I agree the so called rioting was farcical the fact remains that the May Day march was stopped not by riot police but by traffic police! No attempt was made by the left to break through to the square.
Fourthly the very obvious point to be made is that the police choose to offer McDonalds as a handy sacrifice to justify the intervention of the riot police and block the may day march. On anti-apartheid marches in the 1980's there would be five or six ranks of cops linking arms outside the South African airways office the marches passed. There were _none_ outside McDonalds despite the fact that it was obvious to everyone (even Sky News) that it would be attacked.
Fifthly I'm not sure the 'middle class' label is worth responding to given the fact that the left in Britain have made it meaningless as anything other then a standard insult you apply to those you disagree with. The only people we know about in terms of 'class background' were those who were arrested. Most of these were working class with a few notable exceptions like the 17 year old Eton pupil (a very posh English school).
Anyway the real issue for the left it how it relates to the mass movement against 'globalisation' that MayDay was part of. As far as I can see the only people capable of doing so are the anarchists - certainly at the MayDay conference before the march we were the only political tendancy there that received any respect from the mass of particapants.
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