A few police softly pushing/guiding people into an obvious dead-end ( hence the sign posts and incredulous locals wondering where the fuck we were going
( and showing us a better route ) and a missed opportunity to go to the motorway.
The cops and some of the 'marchers' seemed to want to stop people heading to the motorway!!!! I and a few otherswalked through the pathetic police line and back again! There was absolutely no reason to get penned in unless you really wanted to!

One explanation just after was that certain individuals were trying to de-esculate the action!!!

One reason given was the bombs in London. Is this an executive decision?!

Funny - Bombs and murders in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Siera-Leone, Pacha-America, Darfur to name but a few - plus the 30,000 people being murdered every day through starvation due to G8 imperialists. Did I mention DU, the arms trade, concentration camps, colonialism, genocide, black ops etc etc. So many reasons. I am not condoning murdering people on public transport but there is a much wider picture.......

We should protest even more against these bastards because this is how we have ARRIVED at this sorry state of affairs.

They will step up the propaganda. The Royal WE and corporate Olympics. Bob Gelolf has saved Africa by licking cameras, and we are ALL INNOCENT. yeah right. More executive decisions?

one of the locals i spoke to as we waited for our friends outside the cordon was quite puzzled at why we were heading to the most empty area of glasgow with only the biggest cop shop in the west of scotland. saying this i was glad we were prevented from reaching the north side as the idiot wannabe black blockers who were to ignorant to appreciate that we were marching through a residential district and that nobody on that march wanted to see violence and still attempted to create trouble would have landed us in the sh*t elsewhere.

From what I can see this was intended to be a street party.

It 'reclaimed' a five lane bridge in the middle of the Glasgow one way system, hundreds of people danced and generally enjoyed themselves in the sun and so did many children (not an option at most of the weeks events). On top of that the police were forced to close a slip road off the M8 motorway, a break away group nearly got onto the motorway at a different point, another group closed a second bridge and the clowns had fun at a Shell garage. Not bad really.

Yes it may not have changed the world over night but, as someone else suggested, it was a return to pre J18 style actions, a welcome rest on the last day after a mobilisation heavily influenced by black block tactics. Not that they don’t have there time and place! However, if people had smashed their way through Glasgow city centre it may not have gone down too well with Glasgow residents, would have been a pointless exercise, and the day would not have received the same media coverage it did, coverage which suggested that some people feel the G8 will not address climate change, detailed the problems and local discontent with the M74 and if nothing else illustrated that the Dissent! network was not just about rioting.

G

“However, if people had smashed their way through Glasgow city centre it may not have gone down too well with Glasgow residents”


Why not try it anyway? You did with Edinburgh & Stirling…why not Glasgow?

If it was a “party” with “party goers” then explain to me why the guy in photo 3 has got his face covered like that?

Was it a fancy dress party?

Oops caught out again people!

I headed down to Glasgow after having spent the week in Stirling.

The atmosphere on the bridge was great, characterised in particular by the cheers when the clowns arrived. What was also particularly noticable was the appreciation on the faces of Glasgow residents walking across the bridge, many of whome actually came and joined the party. Even those who didn't stay still seemed to be perfectly happy about what was happening. There was a clear purpose for the action, and lots of concise leaflets being handed out to people passers-by explaining exactly why we were here.

But seriously, the march....unbelievable. As we left the bridge the cheers were amazing, but it soon became clear that no-one really knew where we were going or why we were going there. Walking past shops and a few houses you could gradually see the expressions on the faces of the people watching from the pavement becoming less and less impressed. When one member of the (four or five-strong) black bloc decided to turn over a wheelie bin and then almost cause a car crash it became obvious that this was a lost cause. We quickly decided that this wasn't something that we wanted to be a part of, so we turned down a side street and found ourselves in a tiny pub with twenty or so locals, all of them completely at a loss as to why this was going on. And, frankly, we had a difficult job of explaining why there were a few hundred people running around their city perpetrating mindless acts of petty violence.

Please, someone explain to me...what does this achieve?! The bridge action was brilliant, we really did seem to be contributing to something of worth, and the opportunity for some local outreach was enormously valuable. But all the 'march' achieved was some really fucked off Glaswegians trying to get home on a Friday afternoon.

Talking to these people in the pub, what they were universally impressed by was the camp in Stirling. They said that it was obvious that it was a group of people who were demonstrating an alternative way of life simply by living it, peacefully and without imposition on those who chose not to take part. I know a lot of the balaclava brigade will be spouting something about no change without conflict, but the conduct of the vast majority of those who stayed in Stirling certainly only did us favours.

I personally think that A to B marches, or mass 'walks' as we witnessed in Glasgow can only come a shoddy third to empowered direct action and community outreach. If we really want to change anything, marching around Glasgow or Hyde Park is almost totally worthless. I'm taking a slightly unsuitable example, but imagine if all those on the million-strong anti-war march had decided to blockade all of the military take-off points around Britain instead? We really could have stopped the war! And accuse me of pandering to the capitalist establishment or whatever if you will, but again, if we want to change anything we are going to have to present a publicly attractive face in the mass media. Why give them the opportunity to plaster the front pages with photos of black bloccers hitting policemen? I really do believe that our success is dependent on demonstrations (in both senses of the word) such as the eco-village in Stirling. Because what better way is there of trying to change the system than by actually living the way we want to live?

I have to agree with the original post. This was a crap end to an empowering week. The idiots who thought that this 'march' was a good idea should piss off and join the Labour party or something. It was totally against the carnival yet highly organised and political ethos that those RTS actions were famous for. Wankers.

It's down to everyone attending an action to decide (as an individual) wether or not to follow some self appointed gimp into an blatent trap. If you dont know or trust them and they dont seem to have a plan then tell them to fuck off before they get us all killed!

For all the above reasons the march was a pretty pointless end to such an inspiring Stirling based week. No locals involved as far as I could see, no map, leading to a stupid self-set trap and no exposure to any busy part of the city for public interaction. It did however cement my respect for those who attend these things with a definite positive agenda - the 5 piece samba band played continously for hours throughout the marching and containment keeping up the happy energy; the clowns made positive distractions for a hot and potentially aggravated crowd and thanks to those who took the initiative to negotiate a safe and peaceful end point plus to the brilliant medics.