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Mayday a Success!!

John Smith | 01.05.2003 16:09

After seen nearly every shop in the Strand boarded up, some high streets shops in Oxford St. Closed down for the day, and even a shop boarded up around Goodge Street I can only suggest that Mayday has been another successful day

And according to the Evading Standard businesses have lost £20 million add that to what it costs to have 4000 policemen and helicopters, etc...

The capitalists have had a hit in their pockets, that is where it hurts to the scum.

John Smith

Comments

Hide the following 23 comments

Pigs v Sheep

01.05.2003 16:23

The Capitalists suffered for one whole day! WOW!

Dissidents were coralled like sheep in a pen, by the pigs at Trafalgar Square.

Agog

Police Censorship

01.05.2003 16:49

The BBC have a page where you can look at CCTV cameras. But guess what? Nearly all of them are off!
Also the City of London timeline which hasn't been updated since 4.45pm, even though its nearly 6pm and there are still loads of people in Trafalgar Square according to Indymedia.

Miss Point
- Homepage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/travel/jamcams/mayday_cams.shtml

The police are so quick

01.05.2003 17:39

Well the police timeline has been updated at last, but they are only an hour late with the news that -
"1720 on May 01 2003: There are currently a group of approximately 400 people participating in a demonstration in Trafalgar Square."
It is now 6.40pm, come on Mr Plod what's going on? Your advice is so out of date its useless.

Miss Point
- Homepage: http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/incident-room/latest-details/details1.htm

Nobody makes a loss

01.05.2003 18:33

Business loses £20 million? Media Garbage!

No one loses big on May Day. These figures are for lost sales but you can't lose what you never had. These business stock levels will be the same on Friday as they were today. So they can sell the stock tomorrow and they haven't lost any money. Their heating and lighting costs will be next to nothing so in the end all they lose is a days rent which they were gonna have to pay anyway and the cost of a few boards.

Neil

Moving on from J.Smith's verbal diarrhoea

01.05.2003 20:43

John Smith says the capitalist scum have lost it where it hurts. So what about all the small businesses affected today. Is a newsagent or small pub or shoe-repair outlet as much "Capitalist Scum" as an oil company or arms dealer. We really need some sense of proportion here.

Your Nazi-style fervour that is dismissive in such a broad-sweeping way indicates that the natural tendency of human beings to create wealth is denied by you, as your comments fail to make any connection to the very real and legitimate protests happening today. Your over-arching vision is laughable, a conclusion which you assume is the sum of the parts of what everyone other protestor today would take to be the logical conclusion of what needs to happen, you pathetic misguided fool. Better we kill everyone so that we really stamp out that natural human tendency to create wealth.

Anti-Capitalism is meaningless when we have half-witted comments posted like yours. Anti-capitalism must surely be rooted in the philosophy of cooperation and mutual sharing, yes, but we can't stamp out the natural inclination to create wealth. otherwise, it's just stalinism. The real point in anti-capitalism is to take issue with the privitisation of credit, since most money creation by banks is geared into capital accumulation via useless consumer spending instead of publically-created credit for things of benefit to society and that are environmentally sound (i.e. public transport, solar panels, wind generators ..etc).

SuperShopper

Mayday

01.05.2003 23:09

Wonderful! Ok so some businesses had to close for a day, but maybe that’s part of life, business plans may not take that into account. Shit that’s a bummer but hey! What a good opportunity to engage with people and show them what a laugh life can be.

Pacino

Mayday

01.05.2003 23:11

Wonderful! Ok so some businesses had to close for a day, but maybe that’s part of life, business plans may not take that into account. Shit that’s a bummer but hey! What a good opportunity to engage with people and show them what a laugh life can be.

darryl

Mayday 03

01.05.2003 23:14

Wonderful! Ok so some businesses had to close for a day, but maybe that’s part of life, business plans may not take that into account. Shit that’s a bummer but hey! What a good opportunity to engage with people and show them what a laugh life can be.

Darryl

Think about it you twat

01.05.2003 23:49

>but we can't stamp out the natural inclination to create wealth


you are fucking dreaming if you think that is natural or even something that needs to be supported. Moron

Jimmy

great day

02.05.2003 01:10

that was a great day. cops are wankers at demos we know but they can't keep up with a running crowd! that's why they got pissed off. people ran rings around them all day with fluffy canrival party, they wanted to get their toys out at the end that's all, a bit expected really given the last few days hype and all police leave cancelled etc etc.

big respect to everyone on the streets today, loads of energy, almost felt like waking from a dream after all the anti-war demonstrations. oil, arms, war, what can you say, it's all pretty clear.

mayday - our-day,
damn right!

awake!

mixed day

02.05.2003 03:38

Bit of a mixed day I think, some really great moments,
but spending hours penned at the end was not appreciated...

IMHO:

What's the most annoying/disempowering thing about recent maydays?
Getting penned in.
Why do we get penned in?
Cos the cops sometimes outmanuever us.
Why do we STAY penned in?
Because the cops outnumber us and are violent.
So what's the answer?
More mobility, more people, more padding :)

Easier said than done tho I suppose :P

green_tube

mayday

02.05.2003 05:25

No disrespect, but the protestors were totally outhought, outnumbered and outdone by the police. There was no focus, no reals ense that there was any burning injustice to be redressed no nothing. The Mayday protests were pathetic from the word go when the Samba was split off from the folk at Lockheed Martin. Sorry, just an observer, but if you snigger snigger hint you're going to cause mayhem for the thrid or fourth year running you have to expect the system to take action. A Bit like Graham Hick batting against crap county attacks in midweek cricket matches, they are flat track bullies, saw the lack of number and lack of any real anger and stuffed the protestors.Which is a shame.

nastynige

Never again

02.05.2003 10:54

Never have a witnessed such a bastard of a day. All that happened the whole day was we tried to have a peacefull protest against the arms trade and got punched, pushed, abused and trapped as if we were Jews in Nazi Germany, as if the sadistic fools thought we were lesser human beings for wanting peace. they wouldnt even let tourists who were desperate for the toilet leave the slaughter den. Its just not right siple as that. feel free to add debates on our board cheers xx

James Koppert
- Homepage: http://www.bdhc.tk

May Day

02.05.2003 11:10

ouch, those police are nasty

blogger

limping..

02.05.2003 11:25

"ouch, those police are nasty"

yeah, be careful, them riot cop boots cause nasty bruises...

I realy should've worn some damn padding...

bogzla

Lack of of a showdown just a lot of KO corral

02.05.2003 11:39

I arrived at Lockheed at 2pm just as the Police tightened the cordon. I was grabbed roughly by Police and pushed into the cordon as were press and other protestors alike. Half an hour later they Sectioned 12'd the group and that sealed our fate for the day. We were marched where the cops wanted us to go, at their speed, despite a couple of sit downs.

People were prevented from leaving the cordon in a heavy handed fashion but the number of Police to protestors about 800 cops to 3000 protestors meant that dissent was vocal but there was no getting out.

There was just a load of crustys drinking Special Brew and then complaining that they couldn't get out to piss!!!

We eventually got to Trafalgar where we were hemmed in and forced to listen to dodgy Drum and Bass- Oh the final torture!

Waste of time and effort

apeinflames

bad luck endell prisoners

02.05.2003 12:00

must have been shite. I got out just in time to join the green march which spent a few hours running rings around the cops before geading towards the 4pm meet up point.

people are right though, we should not let ourselves be surrounded like that. everyone needs to be more alert and move quicker in these situations. the green group escaped several attempts by police to surround them, often with the whole crowd running.

success and failure / freedom and detention

can't win em all

pete

What next time

02.05.2003 18:45

The whole movement needs to re-think tactics for next year. The Met are winning the "pen them in" game - why did I stand and watch some idiots trying to fight their way 'in' to the pen around 6pm?? The answer surely is more planned unannounced smaller activities - bit like the breakaway march/run around 8pm - though starting this from Trafalgar was hardly much of a surprise for the boys in blue - though it did take them 20 mins to react in Piccadilly! Let's get organised for next year, small and frequent 'events', it doesn't take much to bring things to a hault. Leave the idiots who only want to face off to a riot cop break their way in to the pen !!!!!

Stevie

Why Bother

06.05.2003 08:33

Why bother planning for next year at all? Mayday has become an over pigged farce - and its not the only day/night of the year to take anti-capitalist action, we should seek to make our whole lives an opposition/attack on this society. And i dont mean simply by buying organic fair trade food.

Billy

Arrested at 3.30 on the Strand

07.05.2003 08:46

My boyfriend (Ben East) was arrested at about 3.30 on the Strand outside the Nationwide. He was running with the Brighton cheerleaders and some other friends and was grabbed by a cop and pushed to the ground. On the way down he hit his lip/teeth on another cops head, Ben split his lip and the police man had a small cut on his head. He has been charged with assaulting two police officers. Ben is about 6"2 with short black hair he was wearing green combats and a black t-shirt, he wasn't masked up. If anyone thinks they may have seen him being arrested or just before or after it happened please get in touch.

Thanks.

Tammy
mail e-mail: totto@fish.co.uk

Why anti-capitalism is such a complete joke.

08.05.2003 10:21

>but we can't stamp out the natural inclination to create wealth

>you are fucking dreaming if you think that is natural or >even something that needs to be supported. Moron.

Hospitals are wealth. Houses are wealth. Food and clothing are wealth. Isn't it funny when someone points out it natural to want these things, they get called a "moron"?

It's funny to see a site dedicated to stories about people getting hit by policemen. On the front page now, "were you hit by a policeman? If so, contact us!". A community desperate to identify itself with an oppressed minority.

Anti-capitalism is a joke. Seperate out the issues you care about, protest by all means, but half-witted rhetoric about "capitalist scum" is plain embarrassing. We live in one of the most open, permissive socities history has ever seen and to pretend that you're particularly hard done-by is simply ridiculous.

Phil
mail e-mail: vanronson@hotmail.com

Kick it till is breaks

08.05.2003 12:02

> We live in one of the most open, permissive socities >history has ever seen and to pretend that you're >particularly hard done-by is simply ridiculous.

And we fuck over people all over the world, we have an encroaching big brother society, more and more repressive laws - but they are subtle rather than overtly brutal, but society is brutal none the less.

Lets face it society is going to shit and about time too, because it aint sustainable in terms of the ecology of the planet or our humanity. Alienation is widespread, despair, emptyness in short the misery of daily life - you just have to open your eyes, your mind and your heart to let this poverty be realised!

Of course the anti-capitalist movement is full of half baked remarks- thats because it is made up of a grab bag of liberals, socialists, trots, and god knows who else. It has a partial critique of society and fails to really anlyse the root cause of all this shit - CIVILISATION and mass society is exploitation of nature and animals (we are animals), dont tinker with the system with 'anti-capitalism' kick it till it breaks....................

ted

the sum of our parts!

08.05.2003 16:12

I don't think I but this anti civilisation gumph, its a reductive argument, considering that this whole discourse is supported and defined by our nasty old civilised society. But I think what we can all agree on is the basic tenant that the modern mindframe encouraged by many of the institutions of this civilisation is lacking somewhat. Alienation is only one of the problems that arises for us, but it is certainly eased by coming together to complain, shout, dance & show that another way of thinking is possible! Whats really hard in revolution of any kind is overthrowing certain dogma that reside in the mind, stuff that you dont even notice until you step back a bit. unless we can self improve, there's no point in demonstrating, unless we can resist on our own, when we come together the result will be sterile & a pretense. blah blah blah...

bennyboy