running battle in Collins St : Melbourne Indymedia

Police launched a running attack down Collins St with batton wielding and attacks on many people. Police attempting to move on media van from position. About 50 people around van. People chanting 'whose streets, our streets'. Very aggressive response from Police which will cause injuries. One person was actively de arrested by crowd. Police lost their line and could hold the person. Loads of media....

good to hear about de arrests happening, well done.

No reports of peacful protests though. What happend to all those promises???

Sky News has been flashing up banner reports of protesters using, and I quote, "smoke bombs". What next? RPG's, Tanks, F-16's. Dang those protestors. Far too much money and access to heavy weaponry. Also liked the comment that "Police were forced to baton charge protestors." Forced! Tee hee. I bet the cops hated that!

And finally, I believe it was Costello that has used the ol' hurling of urine claim. This time protestors were accused of throwing balloons filled with urine. Has anyone ever tried pissing in a balloon before? Now i'm not sure what the treasurer used to get up to when he were a lad, but...

Surely if the actions of protestors was so wrong you could simply present the public with the actual events of the day and automatically the public would be on your side.

Personally I feel that, when businesses are allowed to meet with ministers behind closed doors, with those who will be affected by any discussions they have not only locked out but prevented from accessing any info about such discussions, it is our duty to disrupt the talks.

As an aside, it appears local media were prevented from gaining access to many ministers but strangely the likes of Sky and Fox were welcomed.

The reason people like you are locked out of conferences like this is because you wanty to use violence to disrupt them.

Your lack of access is your own fault, because of your own thuggish and anti-democratic tactics.

By that rationale, anyone not deemed 'violent' would be welcomed with open arms in to the conference. I didn't see too many church groups, civil society groups, peak bodies or Non-governmental international aid agencies being invited in for a cup of tea and a chat.

Anybody realise that the last two posts were identical but from different authors. :O

The author got a responce and more people noticed his comment because he did something different.........

Now if a peaceful protest happened in Melbourne would it get on the news?

How many people were actually there?
From the photo's police outnumbered those that cared.

What exactly was the point?

if 'Make poverty history' is left in the hands of those who made 'western nations wealthy' the delegates should have achieved the goals by now.

Make Poverty History should have been a natural side effect of so much wealth creation, but Australia has Oxfam and World Vision programs helping our indiginous poor and theyare poor because whites stole their wealth.

Trust whitey and he'll fix it

Obviously if wealthy nations are encouraged to develope economic growth they will increase the gap between rich and poor and increase pollution following the trend that has never broken.

So go ahead , get arrested. It will do no good, no one has an alternative plan so street battles will not change the attitudes of those who pull the strings.

demonstrators do not pull strings, they just react when their strings are pulled.

"Now if a peaceful protest happened in Melbourne would it get on the news?

"How many people were actually there?

"From the photo's police outnumbered those that cared. "

Perhaps you should look at more photos.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/11/130800.php

There were thousands and thousnads of peaceful protestors. There were perhaps 20 violent persons, who I think many other protestors would dissociate themselves from in a second.

But we -- protestors -- don't hold a fascistic totalitarian strangle grip on the right to protest. If violent people turn up at protests, what are we to do? Do you have a good suggestion? This is what the media loves, and anyone who actually thinks it does the movement good to get this type of media coverage is the type who think 'no publicity is bad publicity' -- Microsofties of the protest movement! hahaha. So ironic.

Read the thread above if you disagree with this, because I don't see that violent protest buys anything. If you can overturn the state, that is one thing, if you can merely get us on the news in thirteen different countries as a bunch of terrorist-wanna-be's, I think we are better off without you.

If you have the backing to overturn the state, why do you need violence? Violence is the state we are trying to overturn, brother.

If you want publicity for your policy, I don't think the type of media who report such sensationalist actions are going to report your agenda accurately. Sad but true. Deal.

This Bunch of idiots calling themselves protesters need to be shot. I f only our brave police had of just knocked of one of these idiots then the rest of them would have crawled back under the bush they came from. I see the gutless wonders who were to scared to show there faces didnt show up again today. shame australia shame.

"you want to use violence.... Your lack of access is your own fault, because of your own thuggish and anti-democratic tactics."

And the people inside the conference are not at all like this?

Great action.