G20 Summit
 

The G20 summit arranged for the 2nd April will bring major world leaders to East London in order to discuss the current financial crisis. Police are fearful that 'anarchists' and other 'anti-capitalist' groups are planning to riot on the day leading up to the summit and on the day itself. A number of institutions and businesses within London have announced that they will be closed tomorrow and Thursday to avoid possible involvement in the planned protests.

Any thoughts, predictions, hopes or fears regarding what might occur?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...GkyMo&refer=uk

I hope Berlusca will drown in the Thames.

More likely, there WILL be some "clashes" between extremists and police (and possibly some problems with "normal" people too, unemployed guys etc), but I hope nobody will get seriously injured. Sure thing, the atmosphere is quite heavy..and I guess police will strike pretty hard, if provoked.

do you know why they call it the G20? because when you look at it, you turn around 20 degrees.

(or so I've heard)

The windows of a Starbucks will get smashed. Sadly, no bankers will be hung from lampposts.

There'll be some sporadic low-level trouble, but not much else. The G20 will be one giant talking shop, which will serve as little more than an ego-boost for various world leaders. They'll all be doing their best too to ignore the fact that the whole idea of free markets has been thoroughly shown to not work.

Some anarcho-punk will finally feel less like a poser because he threw a gas can back at the police.

I'll bet the Kaiser Chiefs are excited.

Don't forget Rage Against The Machine.

They'll be raging.

Joe Strummer's gonna be well pissed he missed it.

ahahahahahahahahah

God knows, but you know Bragg will be lurking.

The cops and the Dept of Precrime are really baiting the news with their incessant fearmongering, unattributed warnings like "We saw a posting on a website and got scared" but the most interesting this was in the news today that they will be taking down the CCTV network "because it is not legal" or some some dumb shit - my immediate impression is the State doesn'tt want a record of its provacateurs. And they are real, I've seen them in action here in NYC and in the Bay Area. They provoke in order to create a policeable reaction.

if i could afford to go to London (or anywhere for that matter...) right now, I would. I get moist just thinking about a good riot...

It will only create more chaos than there already is from East London to The Strand, and right into the city centre, especially with all the works being done to the water pipes along the way.

With this bunch of idiots promising ''a good punch-up'' with the coppers (quoting from the Evening Standard), it just means more commuter misery, and the inability to use public transport altogether for one day or more.

Disruption is taking place already, what with companies refusing to do their daily deliveries as normal because they are guaranteed to have their drivers being stopped by the police. There was already a lot of chaos going this morning, just imagine what it will be like on the day.

to hell with Cheyenne
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haha. If words could whine...

If protesters could all be thrown into the river with the coppers, and out of the way....hehe.

i hope london burns! or at least that public transport is disrupted on my way to work but not on my way home, or better yet sufficiently disrupted that i don't have to go in.

I have that exact same response when it looks like it might snow.

I don't have any sympathy for these idiots; what the hell are they protesting about? They seem so pathetic and childish.

http://news.uk.msn.com/in-pictures/g...entid=15608140

But isn't it the pigs telling the newspapers what your so-called 'idiots' promised?

i'm not sure if peaceful protests work against a system that is not overtly oppresive.

of course they are. just do it right. for example peacefully march a hundred people down a street with large pieces of metallic debris strapped to their backs. i mean hauling broken farm equipment; automotive shrapnel, the wing of an old fighter jet.

It was a quote from a leader of these 'serious' protesters.

I can understand it's a lot of fun creating a bit of chaos and dressing up like a cup of Starbucks coffee or some shit like that, but you must be a complete idiot if you think that anyone, including the coppers, will ever find you intimidating. Unless you are yourself one of these charlatans or one of their supporters, of course.

the enormous police presence and violence proves someone is intimidated...

Oh and the traffic was fantastic this morning, so I take my other post in this thread back. Plus the atmosphere in Trafalgar Square with all these unwashed hippies was kind of different, more colourful.

It's only normal to have police presence for events like this. The protesters they take more seriously are the ones who don't shout much, not these amateurs who do it to inflate their own egos. You should know better, Mr Tesla.

In the New World Order, when you protest, you are either a "looney" "whack-job" or "anarchist" and then when you get violent you are a "terrorist."

as long as rich fucks can get their hands on all the cocaine and 10 MPG SUV's they want nothing will change.

Nobody says a thing when members of a revolutionary party gather outside Monument station on a weekday to spread the word. Admittedly it's also because they aren't a prominent threat to the man yet, but also because they do things the way they should be done, not for fashion. There are ethics even when it comes to protesting seriously, unless, of course, one just wants a bit of fun and something to write about on their boring blog.

I do not see what they hope to accomplish. They are ants in the eyes of the G20 people.

LOL at anarchist. Really people it will take more than a few people protesting to bring down capitalism. And from which most of these people use the system anyways.

The G20 protesters strike me as being far more adept at playing with the media than they are promoting any kind of coherent political idea. In such a media saturated world this probably makes more practical sense than distributing some perfectly argued pamphlet. At the end of the day though, if there's no real substance behind their protests they'll always be viewed by the authorities as more of a threat to law and order than to anything more substantial.

Also, dress like you mean it, not in trainers or pink hair, which means wearing a pristine-looking suit and groomed hair with you finger-nails cut and clean. That's adequate protestwear. Nobody of any political relevance takes someone who doesn't even care about their own personal appearence seriously. It's unbelievable that in this time and age people are still so stuck in the fucking 60's. Ask Bono.

that's why the "Man" got scared and took the Nation of Islam seriously. They dressed to impress and expected respect in return, whether you agreed with their politics or not.

The Nation of Islam will also FUCK YOU UP.

sarramkopp its real easy for you to sit there in front of your screen sitting in judgement on people based on their hair color and the clothes they wear and name call people who are expressing themselves the only way they know how, while you do nothing, basing all your conclusions on the information approved by the State and corporate media.

I guess from your perspective the civil right movement in the US should never have happened, dem negros dey should jus accept dere servitude, right?, and all those suffragettes should have just stayed home in the kitchen, and those "anarchists" you seem to feel such power smearing fought long and hard for the resulting 8 hour day - there was a time when workers worked 12 hours and 363 days a year with only 4th of July and Xmas off. This didn't change because owners were suddenly nice, it changed because militant labor fought oppressive and evil working conditions and made it too unprofitable. The power elite should be scared shitless of the masses, but they trained self loathing assets like you to spread defeatism. Your critique is about as intellectually valid as MTV.

^^^ actually, no, it's a very valid point. in fact, I believe atari posted something similar about a year ago, and I completely agree.

if you dress like a crusty, NOBODY (beyond other crusties) will take you seriously, so what's the point of even trying?

are you truly looking for change or is it just another venue to have yr half-cocked ideas heard?? I suspect that it's 95% the latter.

note: the "you / yr" in the above statement is intended to mean "them", not "you" (per se).

I'm a political activist. I write, incite, and take action about politics. I just don't go on about it as much as you do. I've also been been a waged member of a revolutionary party before, and I might be again, who knows?

indeed, the man will take those crusties with as much respect as those same crusties would show to someone wearing a suit.

To a degree this is true. But they might also appeal to young, potential voters that are big enough in number to make any Party have to take them at least slightly seriously - if only in trying to secure their votes. Throughout much of the 90s, the idea of capitalism was of concern only to bankers and marxists. Now the topic has been placed at the centre of popular culture (just as green issues were in the 80s). The political rhetoric surrounding it may be confused and at times naive, but at least it's now being discussed beyond the usual confines of bank boardrooms and Socialist Worker Party meetings. Protesters won't change things, but as naive as they or books like No Logo, or the films of Michael Moore undoubtedly are, they do seem to have captured the imagination of a significant amount of people who are now just becoming eligible to vote. No government is scared of protest, but if some of the issues raised by these protesters start to resonate (albeit in a much watered-down version) with voters (which i think in the case of significant sections within the young they are) then mainstream politics can't simply ignore them.

They absolutely are. Nixon looked out of the White House at the million antiwar protestors and decided that maybe they shouldn't drop nukes on Vietnam as the generals were pitching. they want you to think it doesn't matter but it does. Why did Bloomberg go to such lengths to round up protestors and witnesses during the RNC and prevent antiwars marches? they don't want you talking to each toher. They don't want you networking outside of the Fox network (i.e. myspace) or the CIA (ie facebook). they don't want diverse people to understand their needs are similar and differences can be strengths. You had to see the cops riot when activist tried to flyer outside the Carlyse Group - pigs flipped out and arrested people just trying to get to work.

but samkarrop I do agree with you regarding the halloween atmosphere - its like a huge excuse for everyone to 'get primitive'. to paraphrase M Gira from one of my favorite bootlegs, maybe they could "act with a little dignity". in nyc there are all these 'groups' of people that have to come out in funny costumes and perform, often as ads for their little troops.