I told my friends - wow G20 in London, prepare yourselves for some major action!

After all we have fundamental challenges to our freedoms and constitution, a smug prick of a prime minister, increasing inequality in the country, the endless greed of our major corporations and bankers revealed in all their evil glory, the continuing death tolls and tragedy of illegal wars, the obvious rape and inhuman manipulation of vulnerable countries around the world, the cynical destruction of natural habitats and the environment by governments and multinationals, still - the relentless coercion of supranational bodies to push economic policies that enrich the wealthy at the expense of the poor....

And everybodies pissed because its so fucking obvious now...

And its HERE in London...

Fuck, theres gonna be mayhem on the streets while we show those bastards that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

And what is happening? NOTHING... a big fat silence

Am I wrong?

I think the people first demo on sat 28th March is the place to be. We are all alone in this together. This ultimate crisis of capitalism. Stop the War previously were pushing a demo on 2nd April but that has disappeared from its website recently.

since i dont want to 'steal anyones thunder' or 'let the cat out of the bag' or 'insert similar idiom here' is either get to london on the 2nd, or make sure you're still there from the previous days actions.

and keep your eyes and ears peeled for the announcements that will be coming up soon.

I'm not so excited by patience and secret meetings that summon up actions out of the the radical scenes. Who are these actions meant for? As someone above points out, these things have to come from being fed up and angry by the blatant state of things. The current crisis is the best starting point for an upsurge in community campaigns, mass street actions, strikes and occupations and initiatives that go beyond spectacles and one-offs or mere survival calls for jobs, cheaper prices (although Im not knocking our basic needs for survival) etc.

I guess everyone who isn't content to just re-hash old victories and old forms (J18 RTS etc) is looking, waiting or feeling that something finally is happening in the spirits of us poor fucking sufferers. Recent inspiring signs have been the militancy of the Gaza demos, the college occupations (although they never went into full occupation mode with a critique of the university itself, followed by a critique of work, capital etc towards something better than fairly limited 'demands'). The wildcat strikes around the oil industry and the actions of Cowley car workers are even more inspiring. It's just bringing all these threads together into something that begins to look and feel and act like a mass movement. Also a movement that's not mediated or led by supposed revolutionary groups (trots or anti-capitalist, anarchist).

Inspiration also comes from France, Italy and Greece with the dynamic forms of occupations of buildings for large assemblies, talking shops, convergence zones, info points etc. Taking that energy and experiment in new ways to be around each other out onto the streets to block the movement of capital, physically in the roads and rail networks. These actions always consciously done with the single idea: we wont pay for their crisis.

That's something that needs to be taken up in the UK- we wont pay for their crisis. Not in redundencies, wage cuts, benefit cuts, student fees, pension cuts, price rises, bail-outs (and bonuses etc). That feels like something a movement mobilises around. Refusal and not half-assed demands (like Put People First).

I guess we are all waiting for a chance to act, for something to come out of the blue, some form, struggle, some riot, some event that just spontaneously begins a new round of struggles, a way to be involved in solidarity with others in struggles and for our own struggles to become others too.

Hopefully something can come out of the G20.

Seems like the best bet is for people to go the big march on 28th and make it angry. Make no demands, just make it fiesty! That's what spreads enthusiasm and energy, when other people see that something they can relate too is going on (like the wildfire of the poll tax riots all over England in March 1990).

sorry would it be possible to get some info on g20, being thick i thought it had something to do with the G8.
any links to info would be appreciated. thanks

"The Excel Centre has been selected to host the London economic summit in April. The exhibition centre in the Royal Docks will be the focus of world scrutiny when international leaders and finance ministers from across the globe meet there on April 2 to discuss the economic crisis".

Am sure the locals of Canning Town will enjoy red-zone exclusion zones and over the top 'anti-terrorist; policing on those few days.

See you there, I guess!

As a previous poster noted, a great many people are pissed off ... increasingly so as it becomes ever more obvious that the role (& duty!!) of the ordinary person in the street is to consume blindly to keep the capitalist hamster wheel rolling, to obey the diktats of the government officials, and to be docile in the face of the greatest surveillance state in the so-called "free" world. When the financial shit hits the fan, it is we who have to bail the fucking system out - no referendum, no vote, no questions asked - while social programmes are left bankrupt and people on benefits are means tested in a vicious system of judgements that designed to exclude recipients.

The laundry list of grievances goes on and on ... where does one start getting a head around them? Yet, it seems to me that it is of pivotal importance that these grievances, these injustices, the incremental encroachments on our (alleged) liberties, the horror of our warfare governments and their toadies be listed and made explicit. It seems to me that it is critical to start raising these issues time and again, to get the general public to wake up from their slumber to recognise just what is actually going on in this country underneath the glitz of celebrity suck and consumer goods. I also think that we need to be aware of our audiences and develop literature and awareness campaigns designed specifically to target different demographics.

Finally, I think that we need to begin to articulate the alternate vision - what we are trying to build, not just what we are trying to destroy. Many people who would potentially be supportive of these causes for justice, liberty, ecological sanity, etc., are likely to cling to the old and exploitive ways because (a) they at least know this devil for all of its evilness and familiarity breeds a certain degree of security (even if illusory and at someone else's expense) and (b) if they feel included in both the shaping of a new vision, can begin to say and see what the viable alternatives are they may be more willing to express their anger in meaningful direct and political action - however that might be possible for them at their level. The level of strategic organisation within the anarchist movement is a significant Achilles heel which the authorities exploit to throw longer-term planning and actions into confusion and disarray. Let us not give them that opportunity.

In short, if we begin to think about the techniques the political and corporate tyrants use to engender docility and passivity, compliance and apathy and see how these might be appropriated to our own ends, we have established a potential Trojan Horse - slipping radical alternatives into the mainstream under the "Watchful Eyes" of the surveillance state and its myriad gatekeepers without them even noticing. I know that the radical zines attempt the task of communicating and kudos to them for all of their efforts. However, I also know that the radical zines are pretty much preaching to the choir. We need to start changing track in order to seed that groundswell, that critical mass, that will unseat the power bases of exploitation and elitism, and also provide a clearer sense of what the proposed alternatives are to this system. That will take vision, good writing and presentation skills, as well as providing a litany of how the daily life of every UK resident (and tourist!) is being impacted upon. Just as an aside, imagine getting it into "The Lonely Planet" and "Rough Guide" tour books just how regulated the spaces are in the UK, just how restrictive the laws are, just how under surveillance we all are as warnings to potential tourists. And on and on ...

Oh! for fucks sake come on!!

Peace camp, people first?!!

I'll bet that will have all the major capitalists of the world reassesing their policies of greed and global dominance.

Come on -

"The G-20 (more formally, the Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors) is a group of finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies: 19 of the world's 25 largest national economies, plus the European Union (EU). It has also met once at heads of government level, in November 2008. Collectively, the G-20 economies comprise 90% of global gross national product, 80% of world trade (including EU intra-trade) and two-thirds of the world population."

This is THE major event of 2009, possibly the last obvious major political target before the next elections

This is a chance to demonstrate our anger and frustration at the whole shabby economic crime being perpetrated by the greedy corrupt few against the vulnerable - and not so vulnerable - in the entire fucking world.

This is a chance to show our determination that we will not stand by while they cynically destroy OUR fucking planet.

This is a chance to shame our government on the world stage for all its shitty authoritarian legislation. To act against the police state it's steadily assembling, for the fascist surveyllance society were being subjected to, our stolen rights, the pandering to the greedy while punishing the needy, political arrogance, corruption and the complete undermining of our democracy.

I mean this is the chance for something fucking enormous

Every interest group has something to shout about here, no matter what it's politics. Every laid off worker, every dispossesed homeowner, every trade unionist, every environmentalist, every NGO for third world causes, every human rights activist, every socialist, every communist, every anarchist, every one ever stopped and searched under the misuse of terrorist laws, every anti war activist - EVERY fucker has a reason to be there!!


Hell I'm 52, middle class and pretty liberal and I'm so angry I could spit glass right now!

This country is going to shit and we need TO GET FUCKING ANGRY

Everyone I know has had enough. We need to stage a huge rally with broad popular appeal. Forget the radical and the narrow interest group stuff and stick with the big issues everyone identifies with - fuck theres enough of them!

There should be a 100,000 people DEMANDING to be heard there

Form an umbrella organising committee under which all interest groups can be included without partisan interests

This is NOT the time for a polite bit of placard waving or tea outside the bank of england

We need to make a major statement before the next elections. All parties need to see that there is a rightous rage in the country, that they CANT just do anything they want and we will sit by apathetically while they dismantle every chance we have to stop their domination.

They are cutting our balls off and we are just lying there while they do it!!

Time 4 action has a point:

This is a GI-NORMOUS opportunity. This is the solidarity promised to the Greeks, a revolt against the self-same system that saw (& authorised!) the murder of 15-yr old Alexis, the self-same system that instructs corporations on the degree to which exploitation will be accepted in exchange for power and prestige.

So what are we gonna do? Fuck the cops ... we already have their number, despite their technocrappology and their paranoia-inducing intimidating creation of a goldfish bowl society. We know them, we outnumber them, and we have a greater passion to protect life than they do to protect some abstract order passed down the hierarchy.

So, what then? There is solidarity and strength in sheer numbers, an anonymous throng of anger and passion and belief in something better. The elites are probably shitting themselves, and one can expect a major crackdown in the weeks leading up to the G20 Summit. Go slow, keep low profiles and decentralise. God speed, friends.