I guess that makes any of us that somehow manage to hang onto any vestiges of social conscience or cynicism RIGHT WANKERS, eh?

Marginally better than being a right-wing wanker I suppose... ;-D

It's so touching to see that you are appealing for the SWP to help you after the cops have beaten you to a pulp.

If you go around calling yourself 'anarchist rioter', you are going to have a target on your head and a lot of nasty connotations going through the media's heads. Go ahead and riot, but that's your choice and your responsibility when the truncheon comes smashing into your face. Don't expect the SWP or anyone else to take responsibility for your stupid, pointless actions.

People knew the score when they trashed McDonalds. It was bound to attract negative attention and enable the police to undermine successive demonstrations and no-one will give a toss. And, hey, look McDonalds is still standing while the MayDay2002 site can't find a server to host them.

The trashing of McDonalds in Whitehall in 2000 and the willful, planned rioting at Euston on N30 (don't say it wasn't, I witnessed both events) was going to get the movement nowhere and make most of us the subject of police violence. Suffice to say, I can't be bothered with any of it - you 'rioters' have pissed me off enough.

What the hell do you expect from the state? Hugs and kisses?

Wake up dear neSWPaper seller...

Don't you go making false claims about Mayday. It was them, not us!

One day you will know...

agamemnon,
if you were at mayday then were did you leave your brain?
typical SWP comments.
what you are saying is that everyone at mayday was responsible for trashing mcdonalds?
that place was trashed by 10 maybee 20 people-a small percentage.
now,while you twist your head up with yr SWP views of "our way or no way",i think you'll find that most of the people there are supportive of letting people take their own action as they feel they should.this is one of the big points that seperate SWP from the rest of the movement.
YOU ARE SELLOUTS/
what do you hope to acheive with waving a banner with the permision of the people responsible for the things your against?
we have seen in NYC this year that no matter how large the demonstration,the media dont give a fuck unless there is violence.
what kind of coverage did the imf in NYC get?
next to nothing.
how about barcelona?
half a million people was it?
i wouldnt have know anything about it unless i came to this site.
i used to have a view half similar to yours(but without the naive and close minded idiocy)
i was beggining to think that at each protest,the media miss the point due to the violence,i dont disagree in the sligghtest with smashing a mddonalds,but i thought the voilent minority were distracting from the issues.
but after the more peacfull protests of the last 4 months my view has changed.
i now see that the voilent minority are the only thing we have to get our voices heard.
the only way the peacefull(?)trafalgar sqr march will get a mention,is for something on a lighter note after the coverage on the mayfare protest.
we all know that the mayfare protest wont be entirely peacefull,mainly due to a few people who come down with no idea of the cause but they want some action.
the rest of the trouble will be caused by the proteters who arnet prepared to take orders from a bunch of unreasonable thug cops.
im not talking about when the cops try to stop a window getting smashed...we all expect a reaction from that,
im talking about when your pushed around for no reason or when cops atart arresting people for tiny stupid things,when you get told you'll be arrested if you dont step a cm back out of the road onto the pavement or being prevented movement illegaly by the police and then the braver of the demonstrators get to the front and push thru.
i havnt yet seen any protester use violence first,only refuse to bow down to the unreasonable orders of the cops,and as soon as you try to push thru you get hit very hard with a 2 foot solid steel bar...and why wouldnt you fight back after such an attack?

if you were really at mayday then you would see that it si the police who are the thugs.
anyone who stands in that front line and fights back is truly brave.
do you respect the police?
if they are enforcing the law then i may do as they say,
but when the very people who's sole purpous is to uphold the law tell you that you cannot go to the toilet or get a drink of water or be reunited with your child who has been seperated from you by the cops...........im not gonna respect that,and too many people just do as they say anyway.
the people who say no to them are the real hero's standing up to the thugs/
so you should join the real demoonstration this year and have a closer look at what goes on.
any trouble will definetly be started by the police.
the only reason we get painted as hooligans is because people like yourself have too much respect for the police thugs.
the attitude seems to be one of-"if the police tell you to do something and you dont,then you deserve to have 5 seven foot coppers beat you for a good few minutes with all their strength with big thick iron bars"
well...if what they told you to do was reasonable and you refused that would still be completely over the top(and highly illegal)
and as it tends to go.....the police request you didnt cooperate with was a fucking ridiculous unreasonable one anyway......
etcetcetcetcetcte
dont comment till you at least put some thought into it.

You both seem to have missed the point. Riot or don't riot. Trash or don't trash. Who fucking cares? Demonstrations are stupid regardless.

Chris

So you don't care? Ok, well that's enough for me! I'll just live the shit life on offer and say nothing shall I?

Oh, and agamemnon - I say you're a cop and I claim my £5.

The state is keen to crush dissent, it would very much like to be able to implement the New World Order without any inconvenience from the likes of us. And punters like Chris want them to do it.

Now is not the time to be splitting the movement, now is not the time to be setting up one group for a beating ( the other group will get its very own beating later BTW)

Guy "Class Traitor" Taylor, I hope you are proud of what you have achieved. Oh, and you won't get a beating, I see a place in a nice right-wing labour Cabinet in your stars. You lucky, lucky man - a decade or two and you can still be deciding which activists should be attacked first.

Sorry if I have posted this twice, don't know if it worked first time.

I hope that both protests go well, the Trafalgar Square one and the Mayfair one. Just a bit confused about the idea that the first one is ‘boring’, ‘offical’ etc. and the second is ‘real’, ‘interesting’. Correct me if I’m wrong, but won’t Trafalgar Square be full of ordinary people of all ages, sexes, nationalities, a genuine good mix of people and there will be tens of thousands. And won’t Mayfair be overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly 18-30, a few thousand.

I have nothing against white guys protesting but why do they feel the need to keep slagging the diverse protest?

For as long as it does, I will make it my job to point this out.

Why not just say that both protests are good, go to whichever one you want?

I'm not affiliated to any particular group, but i'm intending to go down to Mayday, from Cambridge to try and reclaim democracy and express my concern over the global political system and the inequality it seems to be perpetuating. ( I personally reckon that violence alone can be counterproductive. It just gives the police and the politicians an excuse to condemn us)

I reckon this petty squabbling should stop. Its always been divisions on the left that have stopped the movement getting enough widespread support. It's seems to be that, whether we call ourselves anarchists or socialists or whatever, some of the fundamnetal beliefs are still the same. Therefore we should be united over issues such as war, inequlaity, poverty,rather than fighting amogst ourselves.

I thought the interesting thing about the BBC report was the *highly* paranoid talk about fringe groups "infiltrating" the Trafalgar Square demo. The question they failed to ask is: why would anyone bother doing such a thing, especially with something organised by the "fringe groups" (read anarchists) just up the road?

Just a way of stirring up hype I suppose.

*Firstly, I'd just like to make one thing clear. The handle "Anarchist Rioter" is a piss-take of the corporate media coverage of anti-capitalist demonstrations. The BBC and the right-wing media seem to think that all anti-capitalists are "anarchist rioters". Rather than bleat on about how awful this is, I thought that I'd turn the tables and call myself "anarchist rioter". It's supposed to be irony . . . for the record, I'm not a pacifist. But neither do I endorse the trashing of corporate property if it endangers the lives of other demonstrators. I am not "anarchist rioter" because of my actions - actually, I have no criminal record - but because of my beliefs. Read between the lines, people!

By the way, Agamemnon - enjoy your cappucino. I hope it doesn't choke you.

It's pointless to talk about the media trying to divide us. We are already divided. The anti-capitalist movement split right down the middle after Seattle. On the one hand, you had all the folks who made it happen - anarchists, autonomists, free-thinkers, radical environmentalists, proponents of NVDA, lesbian avengers, renegade steelworkers. On the other, you have all the reactionary hangers-on - NGO's, fake leftists, carpers and whingers, pseudo-academics, trade union bosses - a veritable army of cock-suckers and ass-kissers, all desperate to be first into Clinton's pants.

Cut to Trafalgar Square, Mayday 2002. A massive fellatio-fest to honour Tony Blair is in progress. "Ooh, Tony, isn't in wonderful that you put up National Insurance to make the NHS great again!" Suck suck, kiss kiss. Well, whoopee, they're taxing the workers to pay for the "war on terror". When Charles I put up taxes to pay for another war, the people cut his head off on Whitehall. When Blair puts up taxes to pay for another war, the SWP stick their tongue so far up his arse that you can actually see his lips move.

If only the placard-waving masses knew what Uncle Tony really thought about them. It's not much fun being cannon-fodder in someone else's war. On second thoughts, Agamemnon, the next round's on me.

(PS - This is just a quick message for the Trafalgar Square crowd - when I'm in prison along with all the other genuine revolutionaries, which government department should I address my correspondence to? I take it that you will all be working for the State in the years to come . . . )

Maybe a mob trashing McShit and Whitehall is due to class anger rather than an organised riot.

Anarchist rioter you are a fool.

The Trafalgar Square protest is against privatisation, against war, against Israeli terror in Palestine among other things. The whole thing is giving the middle finger to Blair. The Trafalgar square crowd that you dismiss will be black, white, asian and others, it will be young, old and inbetween, it will be male and female, ordinary people representing a big mix of ideas, but united in protest AGAINST Blair and his class.

Your white guys’ protest in Mayfair will also be against Blair, and I am happy you are doing it. But while you or anyone feels the need to keep slagging off the Trafalgar Sq protest, I will continue to point out what a narrow group of white young men will be involved in your thing. Good luck to you, you are on the right side, but I fail to see how white young men are more interesting, and it is bollocks to say that they are the only real revolutionaries

The sisters hate being referred to as "young white men".

The Trafalger Square March will be like all the other Trafalger Square marches.

The SWP will claim that it organised the anti-capitalist response, it's stewards will make sure that all the people on it's march show max respect to the state and it's agents, and if they're lucky they'll sell loads of papers and recruit some paper sellers.

The other mayfayre will be less disrespectful, will not negotiate with the state, and none of it's participants are destined to become cabinet ministers.

And the media will be hoping that the mayfayre kicks off, but will fail to show the police repression.

I'm glad there are two demonstrations - one I can go on without fear of getting caught up in a rain of bottles and truncheons and another where I can demonstrate in peace and security. I tell you what, 'Anarchist Rioter', I'll pick the latter and you go on your pathetic little adolescent tantrum, kicking in windows in Mayfair. The media will report your ridiculous vandalism and ignore the wider issues which many of us are trying to highlight. You'll be in a prison cell and I and many others be depressed because you and your kind attract the wrong attention and achieve little more than criminal damage.

With a little luck, maybe the wider public will see that you 'rioters' are in an extreme minority while the rest of us will be seen as a bit more dignified and coherent. If that happens, then we actually might have a hope in hell of mobilising support beyond the cliques of nutters who've done so much to ruin things over the years.

Yes, keep the two demonstrations separate. We're pissed off with your nonsense and you can practice it elsewhere.

Oh and by the way, I'm not SWP or any other group. I'm concerned about poverty and exploitation. You'd do well to understand these, 'anarchist rioter', rather than kicking in some windows because you can't make friends. Ahh, poor rioter.

you naughty people! how DARE anyone suggest going on a demonstration with people who are going to attack banks, corporate window displays, multinational fast food outlets and other symbols of corporate power! you show a COMPLETE disregard for private property, law and order, authority and the legitimate 'democratic' process, thereby alienating the corporate media who would otherwise be die-hard anti-capitalists. disgraceful. SHAME ON YOU ALL!!!

It is ridiculous to dismiss the Trafalgar square protest as SWP, it will be much bigger and much more diverse and interesting than the SWP

Ok, there will probably be some (mainly white) women at Mayfair too, but it will be overwhelmingly young white men. The more there are at Trafalgar square AND the white guys protest, the better, but I don’t believe the white guys one is more revolutionary or interesting

Dear Mr Anarchist,

having slagged off 'fake leftists' and the like, might i ask what exactly your views are, apart from, obviously, smashin' shit up? It's just that i don't really understand your objection to "the placard waving masses" exercising thier right to protest, in order to bring certain issues to light. What's the point of smashing up Mcdonalds if no one knows why you're doing it? And besides, the people who are gonna suffer when you do stuuf like that are the students like me getting paid shit wages while the bosses remain unharmed.

Waitaminit ! If GR-SWP [Grubby Lies Persistance- Sad Waste of a Party; Slogan: Our Morals Are Up for Sale] if they are abandoning the real mayday activities and sulking off to Trafalgar, thats not such a bad thing, is it ?
It could be they've got the message: "Independent Socialists Dont Want To Be Co-opted Into Labor Aristocracy Totalitarianism And Neo-Capitalist Imperialism"

Anna Keys, no one is ‘skulking of to Trafalgar’, Trafalgar has been planned for ages, it’s a thing that happens every year. Never been? Well like I’ve said time and time again, it is fantastically diverse, with people from all over the world, and with all kinds of opinions. Not everyone who attends is a revolutionary, some are, this year everyone will be united against New Labour’s privatisation, there will be big sections against Israel’s terror in Palestine, against war. Not everyone will think the same, but we will all be protesting against Blair & New Labour.

Some people thought it would be much more interesting to have a white guy’s protest where everyone thinks pretty much the same, so they organised one in Mayfair. Good luck to them. I’m sure a lot of the white guys going to Mayfair will be happy that there is also this diverse march going on in Trafalgar. A minority who are going to the white guys’ march feel the need to attack the diverse one. I support the white guys march too! But I’ll be going on the big international one, stop slagging it off.,

Cut the Nostradamus shit and get on with it!

Protests are made up ultimately of individuals, who can't all be stereotyped as fake lefties/mad rioters.

Good luck to both sets of protesters.

Diversity of tactics, man.

Okay, brief comments from an actual SWP member!

Would we like everyone to come on the main demo? Yes, of course; the bigger and more diverse, the better.

But do we slag off those choosing the Mayfair event instead? No. We'd rather folk did something than nothing.

Isn't that a strength of this movement; diversity, each doing our own thing? What do we gain from bickering?

The SWP are not part of this movement. Every real revolutionary knows perfectly well they are part of that movement.

It's a pity that Agememnon and Souk didn't bother to read my last comment. If they had, they'd have twigged that "Anarchist Rioter" is a wind-up. Yes, I am an anarchist. No, I'm not a rioter. That's just how the Daily Mail wants to portray me.

Yes, I am white. Yes, I realise that the anarchist (and anti-capitalist) movement in the North is overwhelmingly white. Yes, I want to do something about this as a matter of urgency. Marching from Clerkenwell to Trafalgar Square with a placard reading "Socialist Worker" is not a political statement. It's the political equivalent of taking valium. If you want to be where the real anti-capitalist action is, come to Mayfair!

No, I will not be engaging in property damage. Anyone who thinks that Mayfair is about property damage is missing the point. You guys obviously haven't read the leaflet! But then some people don't want to get to know us, do they - it's much easier for them to hide behind their fake left sectarian prejudices.

You boys will still be marching in 50 years . . . I just hope you don't get sore feet.