G20

[padraig (u.s.)]

It's a top tactic, works...

hell yeah it is...so much easier to control a single large mass than tons of smaller groups roaming around a city...once a few years ago at an anti-IMF demo I saw the D.C. cops execute it to perfection...just hemmed everyone from the big main (planned, permitted) march in at the beginning, pressed them up agianst a row of buildings & arrested everyone en masse...like 800 ppl, charged them all with disorderly just to get bodies off the streets...

on the other hand think of something like Seattle, all these small groups going around unchecked...I mean this sounds silly but it's like guerrilla warfare, you're never going to be able to stand up to the cops in an open fight, or rush a well-defended barricade...makes so much more sense to hit & run...swim in the sea of non-protestors...I reckon that business about dressing up as cops was a bit too clever for its own good...

anyway I'm quite skeptical about these big protest summits & have been for some time...whether you go to chuck a brick or to hold a placard it's equally symbolic...I guess as John Eden says people love their symbolic confrontations, make the whole thing into a big Spectacle...I guess the economic nuts & bolts stuff is much less exciting...

*EDIT* but nonetheless best of luck to Crackerjack & anyone else out on the streets...

[padraig (u.s.)]

What's the soundtrack to today and tomorrow's street fighting ...

small arms fire? I guess it depends on where the street fighting is taking place...

[Tanadan]

I began on Threadneedle St, then left when the dickheads started chucking red paint and bottles at the police (that reminds me - does putting your trainers thru the washing machine fuck them or the machine up?).

I've done this - it's fine for both, although it didn't have much of an effect on the trainers themselves.

Foyles remains intact, thus far.

Oh, that's good to know. No sarcasm.

[crackerjack]

There are TV pics now of the police just wading in with truncheons. Even Sky News (sample quote earlier: the police seem to have handled things pretty well) aare shocked.

[john eden]

didn't see much of anything on the way home. Very quiet, no traffic. Lots of roads blocked off.

A few groups of people sitting down in front of police lines. I saw one guy stand up and just walk towards the cops and get arrested, which was a bit mad.

Apparently the cops are now harassing the fluffy climate change campers, tho. Not good.

[polystyle desu]

Protests at Excel Center , Moorgate , Belgravia and Liverpool Street
effigy of a banker burned by Bank Of London
around 2,000 - make that 200 protesters penned up some for 9 hours.
Blackberry anarchists , twitter mobs

G20 group photo with the Queen
"Abolish Money"
MSNBC just mistakenly identified the Korea leader as being Japanese
Israel foreign minister Avidor Lieberman dismisses Annapolis 2007 declaration

[crackerjack]

I've just remmebered the most disturbing incident of the whole thing - a really, really terrible hippy singing about the 60s "when music meant something". I heard the names Jim and Janis. He was performing beneath a 9/11 troofer banner. you can see why people get wound up by this shit.

[polystyle desu]

clearing out ?
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/...-protests.html

[mistersloane]

The soundtrack today was some pretty good breakcore and some hippies singing.

It kicked off down by the bank at between Throgmorton Street and Threadneedle and then we got cordoned off by mounted police. I've been caught in them before and they scare the shit out of me so I went through the scaffolding to get out. Good on the Climate lot though, that was nice, a nice little tactic.

It was nice round London Bridge on the way home.

Indymedia says that Bank's being cleared out now, single file with searches and photos taken.

[mistersloane]

around 2,000 - make that 200 protesters penned up some for 9 hours.

lol

[crackerjack]

One dead

[padraig (u.s.)]

One dead

what???

well...it looks like he just collapsd tho or at least that's what's being reported...anyway know anything more specific?

also, not to take away from a man's death, but I'm kind of surprised that only 30-odd people have been arrested, especially given that there were so many scuffles with the cops...

[UFO over easy]

yeah that's awful if true, can't find anything about it online though?

[john eden]

also, not to take away from a man's death, but I'm kind of surprised that only 30-odd people have been arrested, especially given that there were so many scuffles with the cops...

could be more to come - grainy cctv footage: "do you know these people?"

[baboon2004]

Terrible news that that guy died - can't find any more info at the moment.

I missed most of the latter-afternoon violence (was there til about 3), but...can someone tell me what the point was, if the whole thing was going to be so fragmented and disorganised? To be frank, it was a fucking shambles, and has only made those who protest even more demonised in the eyes of the mainstream media.

People have to be a lot less stupid if there's any hope of change, I'm sorry. No-one was handing out leaflets or any written materials to clarify the point of the protests to passers-by (correct me if I'm wrong), there were loads of pissed up cunts making it easy for the protest to be dismissed as that of 'louts', and it was all so homogenous in a way. What about converting laid-off bankers and others recently disillusioned with 'the system' to the idea of the protests? Or ANYONE other than the usual suspects (wrong choice of words, perhaps!)? It's al too fucking....studenty, and what do a lot of the people there do on the other 360 days of the year with their time, after they've attended their 5 annual protests?

Sorry to be so negative, but it was self-defeating bollocks.