Well it was tried and it did have effect in a few instances
i.e. the samba band and also the WOMBLES on Mayday
2001. It looks like the idea for padded and organised
blocks on actions are still relevant post-genoa.

After the turmoil of teen hysteria, hyped-up bullshit propaganda (made by middle class youth) and senseless "restistence" delivered in Gothenburg and Genua, no one any longer gives a fuck whatever "actions" against the EU summits are launched! The present Copenhagen fiasco is a lesson for all of us!! Maybe, all in all, 5000 people have showed up.
Does anyone of them sincerely belive the´ll stop the expansion of the EU?
Let´s fight for a better Europe, whatever our opinions are concerning the rapid expansion of the EU.
I belive in education - not propaganda!
I belive in broad consensus and respect - not violence!
I belive in the people - not the high pitched voices of the ignorant few !

State education IS propaganda, capitalist propaganda at it´s worst, directing people to a competitive and boring life. Our propaganda, on the other hand, is basically educational...We make people think, get together and create...We try to make educate themselves and act for themselves among those with their same problems.


If you read a little of history you´ll see that every step foward for human kind has been taken after a few started shouting, it´s pretty stupid to think we everybody is going to work for a change at the same time...And somebody has to start it!


I don´t believe in violence either, but the capitalists and their cops certainly do...Sometimes we got go to fght back. Actions in Copenhague have been of resistance, not of violence.

Well ZK, what is it your trying to tell us?
"Beware of education" - It´s all state/capitalist propaganda?
So, nothing is real - Sounds like there´s a true lack of true education behind that thin surfacial Matrix-inspired layer of radicalism you hide behind when trying to show off here on the IMC. These "views" has got nothing to do with commitment to societal issues.
That´s the general problem. Some people who pose as radicals aren´t that very radical when it comes down to using critical reason. It´s easy to adopt views that fit a fixated notion of reality. Getting rid of these uncompromising, perverted notions that form the "ideological" left/right "radical" hype that´s got into your head is far more difficult.
I´m not saying you lack the intellectual ability to comprehend these matters.
BUT; Your opinions with regard to the EU are not an expression of a thorough consideration. You´re just regurgirating pre-fab political material, basically
the stereotyped notion of the EU shared by addicts of the anti-gobalisation craze, consisting in a load of ignorant lies about history and false prophesies about the future.
Anyone claiming that the EU is "nothing but a tool for the global capital", or uttering any similar addle plate nonsense, is actually displaying a mental potential for fitting into such a (per se conceivable) totalitarian society - as such an order can only be maintained through the lame cooperation of individuals who can´t think for themselves.

I know that the wombles engaged in collective self defence in 2001 on Mayday, and this was impressive! Yet where I was -trapped in Oxford Circus- no one collectively resisted the police provocations.
The point I am trying to make is that the whole of the Anarchist bloc (about 2000 people) all linked arms and formed chains, so preventing the police from arresting most of the people in the crowd wearing masks. The solidarity was truly awesome! So as the anti-capitalist bloc in the uk is almost always surrounded -as we were at the end of the demo yesterday- maybe we could try this tactic at a future demo and possibly beat Section 60: in this way we would all have to leave together or all be arrested.

I think the debate on tactics in street demonstrations and how we deal with the police is very important. But please not lets descend into the usual pathetic slaggings often seen on Indymedia....

I think we have a lot to learn from how they work in Europe. I couldn't see what happened in Copenhagen (mass linking arms) working in Britain, which is a shame really. We just don't seem to have the same organisational skills.

The Ya Basta/Wombles padded white overalls tactic might be a good idea, but i know a lot of British anarchists are very wary of being associated with Ya Basta becasue of their supposedly auhtoritarian Marxist ways of working.
Unfortunately since Mayday 2001 this tactic seems to have failed (eg. DSEi and Brighton Labour Party Conference) cos of lack of numbers and police "pre-emptive" arrests of anyone in body armour. So i don't think that tactic would really work - it just makes you an easy target for the police.

Any comments or ideas?

You say that you cannot see mass numbers of people getting involved with wombles style action; well on this point I entirely agree with you. But what I experienced in Copenhagen showed, I think, that mass numbers of people can get involved in resistance to police attacks on a demo provided a few activists put this suggestion to people on the demo itself.
In Copenhagen, as soon as the Anarchist demo 'Against Police State Europe' began a number of activists went up and down each side of the demo urging people to link arms and form chains or if people did not wish to do this then they urged them to move to the back of the demo. In this way, the local anarchists ensured that people had a choice to join the chains or not. They did not force people to do so!
In addition to this, the organisers of the demo had a PA system over which they also urged people to form chains by linking arms. Now what we can learn from this, I think, is that people do not spontaneously link arms and form chains to resist police attacks but will do so only if prompted. Thus it does take a few activists to organise this act of self defence.
Quite whether UK activists would be prepared to do this I'm not sure. The anarchist movement in the UK seems at present to be far too infected by a negative individualism. If the movement could learn from the more collectivist organisational tactics of the European anarchists then perhaps we might have a chance of breaking free of this negative individualism and actually smash Section 60.
Section 60 encapsuates the oldest trick in the book; namely to isolate atomise and smash our collective resistance. But this need not be the case if only we organise collective resistance. On the next big demo where there is an anti-capitalist block surely it should not be too difficult for the block to be organised via chains of people linking arms and marching close together. And, once again, if people do not wish to join the chains then they could join the rear of the bloc.
In Copenhagen, the anarchist bloc was surrounded by the police yet we managed to break free of the police's grip by maintaining our collective solidarity via the chain formation. But this was not a chain formation of just a few heroic activists at the front dressed in padding. Rather it involved the whole crowd -consisting of thousands of people.
One final point,I think we could perhaps turn people's fear of getting arrested, beaten etc by the police to our advantage when the police surround and attack the anti-capitalist bloc. It is a fact that most people do not want to get arrested. It is also a fact that most people want to eventually leave a police cordon and go home etc. Well if the bloc collectively resists the police tactic of surrounding the crowd by forming chains prior to the act of being surrounded, then people would be prepared for this tactic; and, in addition, people would be less likely to be tempted to be individually let out of the cordon (and be subjected to questioning, search, photographing etc.

Why is it that every article and viewpoint in "indymedia" is so blatantly leftist and marxist? Will you dumb morons never be happy until every formerly white and prosperous nation is overcome with the brown starving masses of the third world whose own actions/inactions have created the poverty and ignorance that they find themselves in? I can't believe 10,000 people supposedly protested th EU meeting in Denmark. What do all you deluded idiots actually want for your nation? Fuck you all anyway, especially you white lefties. You're gonna have your solidarity with your beloved brown shitskin friends when your nations quickly become impoverished from too many ignorant mud people that prefer to live off productive white people rather than get a job. I hate you all and wish you all a slow agonizing death.

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I am a resident/activist of Copenhagen, and i think your discussion on wether or not chainlinked arm tactics, and pa systems in your demos is way off. Ofcourse you can do it, and you also need to remember we (DK activists) did not do on our own, No we had the help of thousands of demonstrators from all over europe including english.
So the way i see it is, rigth now you are talking about how and why it cannot be done, well you just have to try it and see for yourselves.....

Ps. Where do you think we got the idea of using paintbombs against police cameras:-)......