[lbo-talk] Seattle redux

[Tim Fisken]

On Thu, 2003-10-02 at 02:26, boddhisatva wrote:
> police incitement.  The London Metropolitan Police use about 600 officers to
> patrol soccer games city-wide and of course they are confronting people who
> actively plan large brawls for every important game.  Daytona Beach hosts

I don't think that's a valid comparison to Seattle. There are probably
less than a 100 football hooligans at any given match, and the rest of
the crowd are actively interested in _not_ getting into trouble. I don't
think that was the case at Seattle, where a large proportion of the
crowd was interested in civil disobedience and unauthorised protest. A
better comparison from London would be the Mayday protests, where the
past couple of years have seen 3000 police to control crowds of around
5000. Indeed, the main crowd-control tactic used by the Met, corralling
demonstrators in one place, depends on overwhelming numbers. 

-- 

     "When the proletariat takes power, it may be quite possible that

      the proletariat will exert towards the classes over which it has

      just triumphed, a violent, dictatorial and even bloody power. I 

      can't see what objection one could make to this."

                                                         -- Michel Foucault
Tim Fisken                  http://www.huh.34sp.com/      tim_boetie at fastmail.fm

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