--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> Speaking of London, how was May Day, Daniel? The FT had a
> great
> headline on the German protests: "Anarchists pelt police with
> stones."
It was all in the West End in the end -- looks like Niketown has taken over from Barclays as the poster-children for global villainy. And I tend to make an earlier start to the day than the average anti, so I never even saw them on the way in to work. But from what I read and from mates who were nearer by, it was handbags at dawn stuff. It was raining, so the awkward squad weren't shoving cider down their necks all morning, so there wasn't much in the way of pandemonium. The Old Bill were out in numbers, and had a very definite policy of corralling the demonstrators to Oxford Circus and keeping them there all day. A policy which was more or less successful. The much heralded Wombles (UK antis copying Ya Basta) hadn't managed to get enough baton-proof suits made, so they weren't able to make anything like the impression they were hoping for on the police lines. Can't have helped the cause that this time round, police strategy wasn't materially hampered by turf wars between the Metropolitan and City of London Police. So the anarchists were more or less shut down, and there were fewer arrests than you'd expect at the average footy match. The protestors were not exactly happy about being kept on their feet for up to six hours in the rain, without so much as a literal pot to piss in, and nor were the few tourists and office workers who managed to end up on the wrong side of the cordon, but the general impression is "passed off without incident".
But there were lots of non-violent protests and consciousness-raising exercises throughout the day, so since the protests weren't "marred by violence", then presumably lots of people have been won over to the anti-capitalist cause. Or something.
Meanwhile, none of the fucking newspaper and TV pundits who had been banging on for the preceding week about looting, samurai swords and christ knows what else, have bothered to so much as look embarrassed.
dd
>
> Doug
===== ... in countries which do not enjoy Mediterranean sunshine idleness is more difficult, and a great public propaganda will be required to inaugurate it. -- Bertrand Russell
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