I hear you, sista.. But still think that what got my rights better were the constructive negotiators rather than the bra-less drama queens. It's the militants' fault that half of the planet wants to puke when you mention women's rights..It slows the process down.

I somehow feel that if you want to make the system better you must work within the system first, unless you do it solely for making yourself visible. That requires huge amount of learning, discipline, diplomacy and humility. I have lived with those nutty die-hard for the cause alternative folks for a while and I did not see much humility there. Lot of anger.

People who really work on successfully making our world a better place rarely feel the urge to PR themselves or their cause in a destructive manner.

Video here

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justi...665157,00.html

Exactly what I said was going to happen when you don't clearly combat and condemn the actions of the extreme left. Berlin is terrorised by leftists attacking policemen in mobs and burning hundreds of cars per year, vandalizing public property and police stations.

I don't really know what you're talking about... of course there were large mass demonstrations in the US after the election of GWB and to my memory they didn't sentence hundreds of demonstrators to death after their arrest ?
But I might have to use the term militant left instead of extreme left, and I believe they are by far less oppressed than the militant right for example, and every year they can riot without any major oppression by the police at all, just reaction when the riots start. They always try to deescalate, not provoque, stay out of sight etc etc... And give them plenty of free space to do whatever they please, just like in Geneva.

Look I went to high school here in Switzerland and I had plenty of left-wing friends who joined the 1st of May demos every year to vent off a bit and smash some windows, none of them ever got arrested, so am afraid I don't agree with you. But let's agree to disagree ok ?

Nothing is black and white, certain actions of the extreme left (and right) should be criminalised because they are criminal activities. Vandalising property is not a form of peaceful protest; it is not terribly environmentally friendly either. Not to mention that democracy should not be confused with anarchy.

I agree with you. There is no collective guilt -- only individuals should be denounced for their actions. There is collective responsibility, though. Don't you think that the protest organisers also have responsibility to make sure that it does not degenerate into violence?

The government did not ban the protest. The police dispersed the crowd at the moment when the protest was clearly not peaceful and orderly any more. Even then there is no evidence of indiscriminate police brutality.

Yeah, why don't you educate us.

Probably because if they acted prior to anything happening there'd be lots of whiners like you going through the roof about how they're being "repressed"?

Well, since you seem fairly educated on the subject, tell me where this repression is you're talking about ? Friends of mine used to illegallly occupy abandoned buildings, install themselves there, sometimes for years, have parties and concerts, litter, go to demonstrations, throw rocks at police, smash windows, rant endlessly and without any knowledge about how they have to fight the system, how great socialism is (sigh..), how everyone has a right to (insert random entitlement) but nobody can be forced to (insert random duty or responsability)... I could go on endlessly. But they seemed to enjoy a jester's licence, it's even worse in Berne and Geneva where they occupy a whole quarter where drug dealing became rampant, and police have to negotiate and announce a raid with the occupiers... I seriously have no clue how they could be LESS respressed. Some punks are hanging around Bahnhofbrücke and the tram stop every day, sometimes doing drugs, always drinking, begging for money (illegal), sometimes harrassing people... I have only once seen police checking them for drugs and then realeasing the whole bunch.
A tad bit more repression certainly wouldn't hurt, especially as they're already financed by taxpayers anyway.

Ok.. we seem to be talking about completely different things. The protesters in Geneva are among the people I describe, not the ones you mention (peace activists etc..)
Militant left, not leftist activists. The first group mainly fights for themselves and some obscure ideas, the 2nd for specific, clearly defined goal.

Very well <> very little.

In my book.

It seems you're making a lot of general assumptions based on what happens in "insert random place here" and then apply them to Switzerland - justifying it with "the global conspiracy against free thinking people".