October 06, 2003
MISSILES OF PEACE
Peace and understanding. That’s what Rome’s anti-globalisation demonstrators want:
The demonstrators say the proposed constitution is designed to promote the free market and capitalism and is not focused enough on the need to build peace and understanding.
To reinforce their message, the demonstrators peacefully discussed matters with police:
"Protesters wearing helmets and carrying their own shields pushed up against the police lines and started throwing stones and bottles," a Reuters journalist at the scene said.
They understandably altered the architecture of an employment office:
At one point group of about 50 anti globalisation protesters attacked the offices of a temporary work agency before being chased away by police, and an ambulance was seen moving in to take away an injured demonstrator.
They delivered a whole load of peace to Silvio’s place:
In central Rome, a small group of anti-globalisation demonstrators hurled rolls of toilet paper at riot police guarding Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s offices - the day before, a group dumped barrels of dung in front of the Italian leader’s private residence.
And they offered traditional gifts of wood and stone while dressed in the colourful folk garments of understanding and peace:
As darkness approached some protesters, wearing hoods and masks and armed with sticks, forced a line of police to crouch under a hail of stones and missiles.
Wouldn’t it be terrible if these people ever turned violent?
(Via reader Bob B., a peaceful man who understands.)
Posted by Tim Blair at October 6, 2003 01:29 AMi dug the tv scenes showing riot police cracking heads with batons and boots .YEE-HAW! now if the aussie forces were able to do the same...
Posted by: roscoe p coltrane at October 6, 2003 at 09:59 AMJust so I understand, the view from the left is:
It's just and right for mobs of armed protesters to attack government buildings and private businesses in the name of peace.
It is not just or right for duly elected governments to remove a sadistic dictator for the benefit of the country's population and the region as a whole.
Riiiiiight....
Posted by: Jake D at October 6, 2003 at 10:00 AMAh, the fine representatives of the "People's Utopia", whose words and supposed convictions never quite match their actions. Their heroes are people like Castro. Castro's actions and words don't match either, so they probably see no problems with actions matching words.
Perhaps it's because they envision themselves as leaders in the new Utopia? Leaders don't have to abide by the same rules as the peasants.
I'm sure a great % of the "People's Utopia" are those who hate Western Civilization and are working as hard as they can to hasten its demise.
I've never understood people who can preach and teach about how horrid our countries are and STILL LIVE HERE!! Why don't they go and live in countries they believe have better values, culture, etc.?
The irony is: the Supra Euro Gvt. is not being raised to promote free markets and the liberation of capital, and this liberty in general.To the contrary, it is the entrenchment of things which only undermine prosperity and liberty in favour of central coercive govts.
The whole thrust of both the OZ coalition govt, and the ALP, and the various states govts. is , underneath it all, not much better.Captain Kockum Beazely has only explicitly stated in his various speeches that which is common ground to each of the parlaimentary parties, natioanl socialism. The only road that leads to, in the end, is totalitarianism.
Genuine economic liberty is the fount of general civil liberty and the only counter and preventative of totalitarianism. Something which is as inconvenient to the coalition as the ALP and, moreover, as the unions and various leftoid groups, so to `conservative sociailsts' who seek to have their interests secured and preserved to them by almighty god govt. To all this, why does corruption occur, precisely becasue of governments having corrupted markets with the complicit involvement of those particular interests who such corruption serves.Whether, they be `businesses' -including farms, unions, IRC and `industrial law lawyers', NFPOS,NGOS, and the armies of bureaucrats, pseudo-scholars and et al who are now dependent on big thieving govts.
Posted by: d at October 6, 2003 at 11:42 AMOr:
'They can march up and down until they're bloody well footsore.'
(Former Victorian Premier Henry Bolte's milder version of NSW Premier Robin Askin's famous quote.)
I get to enjoy the aroma of these pernicious narcissists every two week or so because the offices of the Washington Post is across the street from my office.
They are emotional adolescents. They want an easy, work free life as they understand it, and they want society to hand it to them on a platter. They also want to reserve the right to not thank you for it, and angrily ask for more.
They are like an angry deluded lover. I dont know if any of them are smart enough to have an "aha" epiphany, and realize that if they actually want a utopia, that they have to contribute to the public well being in some way, and that the ideas can't be theirs' alone.
I doubt if they could learn tolerance while they keep screaming for "justice."
As for the street outside, they are a well-to-do, yet unbathed pestilance which should go litter their own streets.
Posted by: Joe at October 7, 2003 at 11:15 PM