The post above brings up interesting points about how to respond to police attacks on the demos. I wouldn't criticise it for making suggestions but I would bring up some points that I think would be good to be explored at this point when something has changed quite suddenly. Dec 9th was the first time (in the past month of struggles) when we as a crowd / demo / movement seriously challenged the police on the streets by fighting them. The question is never violence vs non violence (as that is not an option) but more importantly how, why and when do we use violence to resist.

Italy also shows that you can't win against the police by escalation. Neither the autonomist movement could win in 1977 against police violence and repression, nor the Tute Bianche in Genoa 2001 when they were smashed by the overwhelming force and violence of the police. In some senses also, the Tute Bianche were always a bit more into the symbolism and performance of large padded shields and white overalls. For better, or worse, they were not fixated on the confrontation per se, but on trying to use new tactics on the symbolic realm. The recent Italian Book Block is both a practical tactic to push police lines and resist batons but also to show the cops at their most basic level - thugs who do what the State asks them to do to protect itself when it feels threatened by a social anger and movements. Cops batoning copies of Plato and Petronius carried by students protesting the right to education - well the theatre and symbolism is clear also.

So it's a tough call when the movement has to face that it needs to fight back against the police but there is only so much you can do without the movement risking splitting into those who will and those who don't want to or can't. This is a serious time because that split would be a disaster when right now it's obvious that many many people new to demos and protest are seeing exactly what role the police play and how incredibly brutal they are. All of the last few weeks of amazing struggle and protest have been about people learning lessons really fast. Those lessons are in the raw heart of what struggle is - a conflict that always places the police in the middle as sponge to soak up bricks, bottles and fences and to also demoralise resistance through violence and kettled mass imprisonment. If we fixate on the police, then we are losing the point slowly of what the wider resistance is - occupation, blocking the economy, taking back the space and institutions we want to change, organismic ourselves collectively in whatever way we think works.

It's always unpopular to say it, but alongside the very very strong and brave resistance that people bring to the resistance in terms of going up against the cops, a large majority of those are men. This is not to say that women are not also involved (they clearly are) but that fighting the cops is heavily gendered question which throws up all sorts of thorny issues about male violence, gender roles, male subjectivities and so on. This is not an argument against any fighting the police but it is a call to recognise how gender is played out in riots and confrontations. It also comes back to the heart of the post above - where does the heartfelt resistance start and where does the acting out and role-playing of being 'more militant', 'more radical' begin.

Recently, during the student protests, there were a few occasions where the self-rightiousness of 'militants' actually diminished the joyful and festive but assertive dynamics of the crowd. Being more militant than everyone else and enjoying the attention of the press is seriously bad for your health and your liberty. Better to be stuck in and anonymous than to be stuck in raising your arms into the air for another press photo.

Yet there were so many times when everybody just got stuck in because it just seemed like that was the thing for everyone to do at that point. It's in that equality that the resistance teaches lessons to all who maybe have not been up against riot cops before, or up until that point had not ever questioned what the police's role is,, or who believed that politicians will listen to demonstrations and care what is being said. It's also a moment that can teach more radical people that their way is not always THE way in every moment! militancy'.

No-one is stopping anyone from padding up, masking up and bringing tactics to demos but there is a context to it all that is good to feel and understand and then act from.

Monday 20 December, 2010. 12:00 Piccadilly Circus, London, March of Resistance to Education Cuts.The MPs have broken their pledges!They thought they won. Let's prove them wrong! This is a national march in Central London.This time we shall make a difference! Invite everyone!

The date is fixed on the 20th of December, so everyone come down to London. We meet at Piccadilly Circus at 12:00 and then we are going through the central London streets, where the police will find it difficult to kettle us. Facebook event:
 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179218858770566

Can someone who's good at such things design a good poster for this and send it everywhere. We need thousands again.

A bunch of Stalinists regarded by Italian Anarchists as police collaboraters, posers, and informers.

...read bodyhammer:
 http://www.devo.com/sarin/bodyhammer.html

Thanks General Strike - and there is always the option of games of marbles for the next day out ..
Anyone thought about the merits of oil?