Seems the international view is the same as that of the 'anarchists' here. Sorry Tom, your delusions are getting funnier by the moment....Poor translation but its global - ESF has been stitched up and ruined:

SOCIAL FORUM European: COBAS AGAINST English COMMITTEE = (AGI) - Rome, 18 Oct. - The conclusive procession of the Social Forum European of London is been marked heavily
from the intolerable behavior of the organizing Committee British, particularly of the forces dominating in it, the Socialist Works Party, Socialist action (the group of the
mayor of London Ken Livingstone) and some unions of category. Different hundred of youngsters, provenienti from the "autonomous spaces" (included in the program of the
Forum but that the first day had disputed of it hard, but without violence, the management) and confluenti in the procession, came loaded from the police that carried out
four stoppings, and between these two Italians. It is how much denunciation Piero Bernocchi, spokesperson Cobas on the facts of London that adds: "All'insistente requests
of the Italian delegation affinche' if the liberation demanded of it, the British Committee did not give answered".

"To the conclusion of the procession - always according
to the reconstruction of Bernocchi -, trying to make to give from the platform news of the event, we discovered that the access to the platform was reserved to the Committee
and that, in place of the concert expected, around twenty interventions would have been yourselves monopolized from the English and from that the European delegations were
excluded. To that I push, the affected youngsters in priority shoved the service of order that called the police provocative other stoppings (9 in the whole day), among
which Javier Ruiz, English person in charge of Indymedia". "The Cobas - concludes Bernocchi - denounce responsabilita weigh down them' of the Committee and of the
organizations cited that managed procession and assembly like if be 'their thing' and used the police to resolve the contrasts in the Motion throwing a heavy shadow on a
Forum that instead saw to discuss passionately thousands of persons and that threw importantissime mobilizations against the war in Iraq and Palestine, against the social
politicsFor the defence of the migrating: and that in the final assembly it proposed a deep alteration of the actual by now insufficient structure to manage the conflict
antiliberista and antiguerra. Of this, of how to guarantee the greatest inclusion and that done like those of London it is not repeated ever piu' we will discuss to Paris
in the next European Assembly 18 and 19 December". (AGI) Vim

"self righteous anarchists"? there's definately a few about, not to mention a few self righteous socialists. From my point of view, as neither anarchist nor socialist yet having done as much work for this as anybody, this was not a battle against the powers that be but a battle between the autonomous and the official resistance.

As I see it the autonomous won it on the first day when the ESF was forced to hire conway hall off an autonomous person for the registration. I say "first day", that only applies to offical events, Rampart st has been running daily events since 9/11 this year and the ECF have been running monthly since march, never mind the wombles stuff, pheonix's stuff and the Chalk Farm road crew (massive respect to all). Our opening event was the previous sunday at the Lincoln Lounge, Venezuelan solidarity tuesday outside US Embassy, wednesday bug bar, brixton, enertainin the que at conway hall thursday (good thing we come wid the good vibes as you had a whole pile of very pissd off europeans suffering terrible organisation), official esf musical revolution seminar friday mornin, critical mass friday, peace not war live squat party friday night, streetstreet performers day saturday I mean, Ally pally every night.... too much to write... what we did for this...

the lack of acommodation, we know London owns no buildings since thatcherism so your work was hard but....

eg. tex from the wombles,

"Can u get people to come up to bounds green squat tonight or early morning. We can sleep 600 here but need help...."

You socialists really ought to appreciate how much the "self righteous anarchists" have done for you - with all the europeans comments i heard saying how lame english socialism is ("~Ingsoc").... I mean, in Paris we played from the back of a flatbed lorry to 60,000 people with a 40 foot hi model of the world with george bush sitting on top holding a petrol pump.... what HAS impressed the europeans is the strength of the unnofficial resistance, the vibrancy of squats, the freeness with which everyone's message has allowed to be expressed, the radio stations, video production workshops, the gigs, the banner making workshops (where you don't get told what to put on the banner)... they were opening about 4 squats a week for this, walls have been painted, electricity rewired.... but you lot don't know because you're all in your exclusive little groups.... same way for the anarchists actually, refusing all contact with the "official"..... I've been in both camps and I'm an outsider from all.... when they stormed the palace i did think... the police are just gonna think this is stupid... what are they protesting at their own protest for? we were already in the palace with no passes, no wristbands and more people dancing outside Joe Lett's london to baghdad bus than the main ESF stage at one point.... we didn't have to fight the security guards, we just breeze thru on pure good vibes....

you lot, anarchist/socialist need to sort your bl**dy differences out if we are to stand half a chance of getting england off the axis of evil and this kind of babyish name calling does not help

SWP has been known for 20 years or more to be incapable of working with outside groups... this would have been fine had they not insisted on rebranding themselves as the Stop the War Coalition... taking on the responsibilty for the UK peace movement (which is now nearly dead)... "Coalition"? What? was that a joke? A play on the Americans use of the word coalition to describe a coalition of one? We had all the original speakers corner peace movement with us, the ones who said "what about us" when the StW announced itself, they were there already. The Green Party said the same about the "Respect" coalition, "respect"? they said, what kind of respect is that? Nevertheless nuff respect to all those whove been working hard but WE HAVE GOT TO LEARN TO WORK TOGETHER. Gada Rasuki, got involved in our discussion with the police about letting the London to Baghdad bus onto trafalgar sq., the police were actually prepared to let us go further than her and as a direct result of her intervention we were removed from the march... thus, the peace and love, strictly good vibe, which was us, was removed, and the demo was allowed to be one of "anarchist thugs" just because the restrictions were so strong people blew off steam.... where we would have been, "shouts out to the childrens performers" now all of a sudden the clowns are getting treated like anarchists (and reacting as such), we had four samba bands, 5 sound systems and four carnival blocks including rising tide and christiana within the demo and we were all seperated.... Let us run it next time and we'll show you how its done properly

ps. carl marx was an arsehole, the workers would have had there revolution by now if it hadn't been for marx

the rub (sorry if this is a little aggresive but i am extremely pissed off with the whole thing)

ps. i personally have wasted no time complaining about the SWP, quite the contrary, i have always discouraged it, but i think i might start after Rasuki's behaviour... first time u lot have tried interfering with my sh*t and i'm still working out my reaction, what we "waste out time" doing in general is cleaning up after a whole bunch of lefties who use our spaces, painting walls, installing computers and networks, putting events on for you, putting your leaflets on our tables, keeping alternative media online and things like that, as you have obviously never had any contact with us mister "red tom" you dont know these things, get some information next time you wanna try spouting off ya mout'

It matters what kind of movement it is. If you're question is "would you prefer to build a massive movement with no democracy or accountability?" then the answer is: of course not.

Now a question for you: when the governing party and a bunch of cultists try to take over social movements and co-opt them into their quest for power, should you just follow along bleating like sheep "follow the mass movement?"

red tom, your postings are all over the place, generally repeating yourself.

is this YOUR "Last word from the ESF", or are you speaking for everyone?

i personally, am hoping that there is lots more to come about the esf!!!

also, how helpful do you believe your flipant comments about the anarchist are, in building coalitions for the future!

we'd rather build a movement that has some chance of achieving its objectives, a revolutionary change in social relations, and not waste time elevating those that have a clear vested interest in things as they are (with a few extra taxes, perhaps). Its laughable: the largest 'revolutionary' party in the country acting like determined social democrats. Sorry if we're not impressed.

For note to all you nutters who seem to think the anarchists were just into trashing stuff. You should understand that on sunday evening the various squats that had been opened to provide free accomodation took in a huge number of official ESF delegates who had no where else to stay after the dome was closed.

spot on rub...