Francis
I enjoyed your account. My account is completely different -i was in genoa a week prior to the demos. Met some amazing people. I just wanted to comment on what you said about the police - you may not think the police are the enemy - but they certainly act like it. Not just in Genoa - but here too. Maybe you've never really expereinced the anomisty a lot of people I know, have. See if you can get to see a film called 'Injustice' the police are tryig to stop it here - but it goes on about the fact that 1000 people have died in police or prison custody and not one police officer has ever been convicted. Anyway I do understand - you only arrived on the day of the big demo - so maybe you didn't feel the sadness and anger that I and many people felt at the murder of Carlo. I just wanted to put a different reality across.
Anyway keep up the good work
Dazza

The police ARE the enemy , we want to be free from the chains of authority that the atate imposes on our lives. 'They' DON'T want to be free , they oppress and ARE oppressed .... they have tanks and guns and prisons for people like me and you.

i find people who hide behind the cloak of 'peace', a bit irritating and disingenuous, really.
as Victor Serge* said in his magnum opus "What Everyone should Know about State Repression", when you begin to effectively challenge state power and economic interests, you will eventually be met with violence, so i get tired of moralisers such as the one who wrote this article who presumably claim to some kind of ethical superiority over other protesters.
equally, i get fed up with those who turn up to peddle their own narrow agendae, such as "debt relief" and what-have-you. all these campaigns do in effect is to refine imperialism and neo-capitalism by removing its very most excessive features. readers may care to ponder that Globalize Resistance is a conglomerate of such groupings.

*Serge is an interesting character. he could never quite make up his mind about his favored brand of leftism, but this book contains much that is still valuable today for young activists. Available second hand from dingy bookshops!

stories like these show the institutionalisation of protesting - the constant reference to 'we' despite a generally individualistic piece of writing. the lack of insight, as noted in a comment above, into the mechanisms of state repression, and how it comes about, in both theory and practice is all too evident.

probably a 'good' guy, but uninformed; and being uninformed is not a very good platform upon which to stand to pass on judgments about people who spend their blood, sweat and tears 'living' against the evils of the world.....

get beaten up or shot a couple of times as an innocent bypasser or as a journalist and an all-together-different perspective will arise........

however, there should space for all - but that certainly requires 'accountants' like this one to consult the literature and history of state repression and fight against 'the Empire' before judging.

A fresh, naive viewpoint revealing a certain potential for the struggle........