"Several angry demonstrators tackled the hooligans and brought them to the police, demanding that they arrest them. the police simply had too much on their hands, and couldn't spare the manpower. instead the gangs roamed free, and the largely non-violent crowd was gassed and shot and subdued." (emily rain a little ways up the thread.

"Couldn't spare the manpower"...It's a few years since I was last in a police riot (Derry, London), but that sounds familiar enough. Yes, there have always been a few movement crazies about, but when someone next to you starts shouting "Kill the Pigs", and throwing things, it's safest to bet they've been put there by someone to do just that, and that someone isn't on the side of the people in the streets. And they aren't the ones that get busted.

But it's great to be able to talk once again about some kind of Movement, and to see at least some hope America has got through a bad bad time.

The last few years it's been a constant succession of waking up to find this tired old century has pulled yet another surprise out from its sleeve. Mostly bad ones, but not all. And for me, a good one this time.

(And that doesn't mean I don't regret the bad things happening to people who just get caught up in this kind of event, like Benjamin was talking about. In the same way, I'm sure the people who think the WTO and all that stuff is really worth it really do sometimes regret that the price for their, and our "prosperity" is child slave labour, and poor people being wiped out, and the planet being devastated. But what people who back the protest have to be sorry about is a lot less than what the fans of the WTO have to be sorry about.)