We almost went to the flea market in Geneva today but overslept (thank you Toddler Gods for the extra couple of hours ). Was just now checking the news on the internets and see this:




Story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34182788...orld_business/

Is this really going to advance the protesters' agenda?? Glad we live in a sleepy town- I've no time for violent drama .

Terrible! THanks for sharing the news!!!

we were there at the flea market- hahaha! but honestly it seemed to be way more police than protesters- they were checking thru the belongings of anyone under 30- was a bit strange at first because we didn't know what was happening. other than seeing a few tractors go by and a few groups of people playing the drums down the street we had no idea what was happening. until walking back to the train and seeing ALL the bank windows smashed in... quite a site!
actually i was even debating on joining in on the protests- we've been to a ton of protests in nyc and washington d.c with hundreds of thousands of people, and now i'm glad we ended up spending the afternoon at the market- that kind of stuff is stupidity really, and something i've never seen in bigger mass protests! but i guess it got them attention (mostly negative )

This seems to happen whenever and wherever the WTO meets. If they were to hold a meeting at the South Pole I'd expect to see snowmobiles burned and griffiti on igloos...

Edward J. Cunningham
Derwood, MD

... good luck finding any igloos at the South Pole ... or within about 20,000 km of it ...

"Igloo" sounded better than "scientific research lab". The point is that WTO protesters crawl out of the woodwork WHEREVER these things are held. But unless we want these meetings held in China every year, this is what we have to expect...

Edward J. Cunningham
Derwood, MD

Best to hold them near the North Pole, then. There's no woodwork in igloos.

Santa's elves can provide much better security than Seattle or Geneva!

I think with the economic crisis developing further and further, there will be more and more problems.
There is resentment and the young have time being unemployed.

Some protesters are genuine believers and concerned, other people are just there for a good time and to loot if the opportunity arises.

I think there may well be a lot of civil unrest in Western Europe in 2010 when the unemployment situation and debt gets worse.

The protest was made to be peaceful, should even have been a discussion at the end of it.
But as always the *Black Blocks Guys* where there. 200 people hidden in the crowd.
Put their masks before attacking.

What do you want police can do in those conditions... ?

I start to think BBG are headed by the guys from the WTO ... They are always in the same places....

Nah, that's silly Bertrand. We all know that the extreme left has plenty of militant guys in Geneva. And the problem is that until recently they enjoyed a lot of sympathies from the general left, including from politicians in the parliament. Just look at this
and consider the fact that even after the incident several politicians from the Green Party and SP commended their actions... Enough said I think. There is unfortunately in both Switzerland, Germany and France a tolerance of violence from the extreme left. Just look at Berlin to confirm this, just recently have they started countering their terror. And the problem of the local police chief is that he runs against the administration, the SP and Wowereit, the mayor..

no form of violence should be tolerated no matter what is the cause.
the end doesnt justify the means.

i've seen on tv some of the video of the guys breaking stuff in geneva:

it looks more like local "neds/chavs", from the local "ghettos" ("cités").


... as usual.

I do want them held in China every year...they know how to welcome a violent protester...

More on this here.

actually i didn't no anything about these black blocks guys before this post, but strangely enough i did notice a man sitting on the edge of the market putting a full ski hat (the kind that lets only the eyes thru) and a scarf over and around that. honestly i remembered thinking how out of place it was, not really knowing what was going on not to far away. now to read this post it's quite eerie, but the guy (while you can't really go on appearances anyway) was not that young, maybe about 30-35, and not a typical tree-hugger looking type although i'm not saying he looked a banker either-

Ha ha, our kids saw the action because we live in the centre, actually just across the street from the park where some 'action' took place. I actually consider Geneva quite sleepy in general, you rarely see anything like this, except whenever anti-globalisation protesters are in town.

Is this going to advance the protesters' agenda? Have no idea, it seems that organisers always claim that 99% of them do not agree with violence. Curiously, they always stage the same kind of protest and the same 1%come into town explicitly to smash a few windows and put some cars on fire and the peaceful protesters go home without even approaching WTO.

Ah, this righteous anger -- it all probably comes from living in sleepy Swiss towns and villages, opressed by your parents' middle class values...

shameless.

I don't agree with this at all. I just think that in this case the protestors are morons and their cause is nonsensical. I bet you agree with police action - the police are also using violence against what they see as an unacceptable infringement.

However quite ironically the people "mobilise themselves" against the WTO without a single one of them actually taking up the issue or "standing up for their rights" with their own respective government - considering governments are the ones sending policy-making representatives there in the first place. Kinda shows you the degree of understanding the "mobilised masses" actually have with regards to the WTO...