> how could the guards
> be avoided? what are all the things you can do besides shooting at people?
>
> mbs: can't avoid guards at a summit. one could avoid
> committing crimes, like backing a car over a mortally
> wounded civilian, or assaulting police officers.
>
> In one sense, official policy these days is driving
> a mandate for police to violate the law, since non-
> violent civil disobedience is routinely responded to
> with police violence and other crimes, like abrogating
> the right to assemble. This unjust mandate is invoked
> to prevent any disruption of official meetings.
again, you eventually get to the point. perhaps a response other than guards armed to the teeth to hold back protesters (not assassins or some osama-bin-ladin-destroy-the-powers plot) would be to genuinely democratize the process, rather than to simply put your foot down and say, "no. because we said so, and we know better than you."
>
> Perhaps things started entirely legally and peacefully
> in the streets, and police aggression provoked what
> followed. Or perhaps a minority of anarchists, once
> again, encroached on a non-violent demonstration and
> turned it into a two-sided riot (police and anarchists).
> I don't know; I wasn't there. But there is some point
> where prudence and politics dictate restraint on the
> demonstrators' part. So far there is nothing to
> indicate that this line wasn't crossed by the
> anarchists, with logical results.
well, without going into barcelona, there are two things that can be said, here: (1) train your troops not to get out of control. train them not to fire tear gas canisters *at* protesters. otoh, if that's really what you *want* them to do, that's another matter, isn't it? (2) i don't know that it really matters "who started it." the question is a red herring that allows us to (a) keep condeming the "radicals" while not actually addressing the issues, and (b) excuse the state and its actors for inexcusable acts.
>
> There is no political profit in memorializing someone
> who assaults police officers. This does not look
> like self-defense. If it can legitimately be
> construed as self-defense, then I'm wrong.
again, you could really say the whole movement is self-defense, but perhaps you would consider that sophistry.
perhaps i reacted harshly to your original email, but i truly believe that "common sense"-type responses to this violence (like that in your "i'd shoot, too" hypothetical) really sidestep the issue.
j
-- jeff fisher dilettant -- er, that's 'intellectual nomad' jfisher at igc.org
"I've come to the conclusion that revolutions aren't profitable." - Kevin Kelly