I didn't see the critical mass but the trade union / globalise resistance / stop the war march was pretty small, the lockhead martin stuff was pretty small, the shell thing didn't happen at all, autonomous actions didn't really happen at the places on the map and generally there seemed to be a lot less protesting and a lot less chaos going on than last year.

So let's try harder next year.

Here are my ideas:



Everyone should bring at least some of the following:

Friends
Banners / placards / flags
musical instruments / drums
whistles
balloons
beach balls / footballs / tennis balls
Coloured chalk.

I personally wouldn't recommend bringing spraycans - hey that might get you arrested.

Let's see more people dressed up. Whether it's white overalls, pink and silver, black stuff, subversive t shirts or whatever, let's dress for the occasion!

People should organise into affinity groups and actually do stuff in that affinity group rather than just following the big crowd everywhere and letting the police tell us what to do.

Go to Nike and Gap and McDonalds and Oil companies and all the rest of it and do actions. Hand out leaflets outside, go in and dance around, whatever... I personally wouldn't advocate doing anything violent - hey that would be illegal.

Talk to people in the street.

Dance around in the roads, stop the traffic, reclaim the streets for the day. Do stuff in smaller groups. It's good to have big crowds some times but it's good if they're fluid, morphing together and apart again as a collection of autonomous afinity groups rather than one big herd.

It would be good if some people would hand out free placards and chalk and stuff for other people to use. And stickers. People were doing this but it would be good if more people did.

Also, as someone suggested, let's see more solidarity with the crowd. If we get penned in we should let the police know that we want to be released all at once rather than in ones and twos. People should all link arms and remain together. Perhaps sitting down as well.

Let's see more legal advisers too.

Another idea. Indymedia radio should broadcast for the whole day. News of what's going on in different parts of the demo + music. AND people should bring radios with them.

IT WOULD BE HARD TO CONFISCATE OUR SOUND SYSTEM IF OUR SOUND SYSTEM IS THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WITH RADIOS!

One more thought:

London's pretty big. The protests should be based on individual autonomous afinity groups but it's better if we're all reasonably close to eachother so I suggest we stick to central London.

Well that's just my take on things. Anyway...

We really can do better next year. Let's see some proper PEACE, LOVE AND CHAOS!