The amazing victory of "protestor" bullshit. Was: Re: A question of self-defence - Fire extinguishers & self defence

[Andrew Woods]

I agree with your statements regarding confrontation of heavily armed 
militia men. The email was basically a response to the general conception 
that he was throwing the extinguisher, a conception which is somewhat 
contrary to the photographic evidence.

The question, given the evidence, is whether the protestors were pounding 
on the Italian paramilitary, or the paramilitary came to pound on peaceful 
protestors who stayed in the designated area, and then something went awry. 
I agree with both Choate (oops) and Petro, that cops should not be trigger 
happy, and sending soldiers into "peacekeeping" actions is counter to the 
majority of their training and habits.

How can you possibly know the intentions of "most of the protestors"? I 
suspect (but do not know) the intent of the rowdier 10% of protestors was 
to disrupt the meeting of the Group of 8 through their actions, not simply 
to fuck up the city of Genoa.

I will ignore your useless ad hominem attack, because you know even less 
about me than what happened to Carlo Giuliani.

At 12:43 AM Tuesday 07/24/2001, Black Unicorn wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Andrew Woods" <andrew at pokerspot.com>
>To: "Jon Beets" <Jon.Beets at pacer.com>
>Cc: <cypherpunks at lne.com>
>Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 1:14 AM
>Subject: Re: A question of self-defence - Fire extinguishers & self defence
>
>
> > There are pictures of
> > about 10 fellow members of law enforcement a short distance away, including
> > one with both hands on his forehead area. He appears anguished.
>
>Wow, the propaganda in the .ppt was effective on SOMEONE anyhow.  Give that PR
>guy a cigar, or a raise.
>
>Bottom line, never, ever, ever, mess with armed thugs- in whatever form.  Not
>only will you die or be otherwise grievously injured but you will get zero
>sympathy from anyone with a brain.  Do, however, expect to be featured in
>excellent propaganda- your consolation prize for being under 30 and dead
>(brain-dead or deaddead).  It may even sway the occasional Mr. "Armchair
>Anarchist" Woods.  Who knows, perhaps so much that he sends an e-mail, if he
>manages to finish it before the evening stock reports come on and distract
>him, or before the phone rings with some 20something begging him to switch to
>AT&T because he can get $0.07 a minute on his long distance right this second
>and at the station he's gotten to in life how could he deny that to himself?
>
>In the end it's evolution in action.  And good evolution at that.
>
>Using any old excuse to pound on some armed Italian para-military types seems
>more a demonstration to me that these people have nothing real to do than
>anything else.
>
>Mother: "Where ya going Flavio?"
>Son: "Oh, out with Juliano and Francisco.  We're going to go to the mall,
>maybe catch a movie and then try and catch the last couple hours of the
>protests and pound on some pigs while we can before the Gwhatever summit
>leaves."
>Francisco: "Yeah, don't forget to bring your mask cause I want to smash that
>damn Starbucks that Sylvia works at too, the one on the corner!"
>Mom: "That's nice dear.  Be home for supper."
>
>Many tears shed, many pictures taken, much hand wringing, then, in a month,
>life goes on.  Deal or don't protest violently near armed thugs.  "C'mon,
>shoot me, shoot me, I dare you, pig.  Shoot me.  Whatcha gonna do?  C'mon, you
>can't do it can you?  Can you?"  *Bang*  -Surprised Look-
>
>What a worthless exercise.  What a dumbass.
>
>The only thing that really upsets me to any degree is that most of the
>protestors have come into town with the express intent of causing trouble.
>This means they are generally burning down someone else's neighborhood, not
>their own.  Ah well.  Can't have everything.