Last Saturday I participated in an excellent anti-capitalist demonstration in downtown Palo Alto. There were 300-400 demonstrators and, to counter this small group, there were between 50-60 riot police, 20 mounted police and a helicopter overhead. I usually think some people overstate the issue of a "police state" but downtown Palo Alto looked as if it were under martial law. I dont usually see riot police brandishing rifles as in this case. The demonstartion was organized by a group called Anarchist Action, though I think few of the marchers were actually anarchist.
Here are some pics: http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/06/1749518.php
Having a demonstration in such a small place had some interesting consequences. One, there was more interaction with spectators. Also, Palo Alto did not use its own police, but instead brought in riot police from San Jose. As a result, we were able to do out maneuver them at first. For example, the demonstration took a detour and went shopping (!) at the Stanford Mall, a very upscale shopping center in Palo Alto. I dont think such a demonstration would have gotten the media attention that it did here. Many big media outlets (radio, tv and newspaper) were here as well as all of the local media. Also, Palo Alto is just far enough from San Francisco/Oakland that the vanguardists did not make the trip. As a result, the demonstration did not have that tired patina of usual demos, many fresh voices were heard.
And the message was definitely ANTI-CAPITALIST, not just anti-war.
The organizers made some mistakes (such as letting the demonstration get pinned into Lytton Plaza, but much better than the stuff than the IAC or P&J group put together. -Thomas
<<We are at such a point in mankind's evolution where changed conditions invalidate all our policies that have been so successful even in the recent past, and that presumably have constituted the ideal response to a presumably unchanging and unchangeable human condition. No wonder we are stupefied and confused-but our mistake is the same which many cultures have made before us, namely to force a rigid model upon a fluid reality.
Erich Jantsch - "Design for Evolution: Self-Organization and Planning in the Life of Human Systems"
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