Agreed. I'd be more sympathetic to his concerns and dissatisfaction with the constraints of 'permitted' protest if I had any reason to believe he were going to take some initiative, insteading of being content with posting on infoshop.org , leafing through Crimethync, or asking somebody else to get the ball rolling in building a direct action network. So when are these direct action trainings and affinity groups going to form? Who's going to take the initiative to organize them? The original poster? We'll see.

Or is this just another wolf ticket tossed in the hope that somebody - anybody - else will take the responsibility? We've all seen this before -- It's time to put up - if you are serious.

for information on the use of body armour, i can clarify our experience of it London as the WOMBLES (wombles.org.uk)

as a previous poster pointed out - and as we discovered - the cops always targeted those with obvious armour as the crowd was building. individuals would be pre-emptively searched, and frequently arrested or at least detained for a bit. this was a constant problem.

what DID work was bringing the entire 'armoured' block into the action space as a single group (like we did at may day 2001 and the DSEi action on 11 September 2001).

for DSEi, we split the group (around 100 people) into three groups at different stations on the train line and arranged it so that each group got onto the same carriage, where we could all 'armour up' and leave the train at the action as a ready block. but we normally found moving difficult, as the cops would surround us tightly.

also, in the UK we only have to deal with batons - cops do have CS and pepper but they don't use it in large confrontations - UK cops prefer the 'roman' battering ram of massed riot bots marching down the road clubbing everyone.

it can work in the context of a larger mass action (like gleneagles, genoa, prague) because you already dominate the streets (ideally). but i guess it would be much tougher on the streets of the US.

in the debate about tactics, its always important to plan on the reality on the ground - the cop's tactics, willingness to use gas (and what type), their use of video surveillance to identify individuals;

for example, greek police rarely have video surveillance teams, there are very few street CCTV cameras. They use gas as a dispersal strategy, to break the crowd up and make a few snatch arrests.

in london sometimes it seems every other pig has got some type of camera (as well as the street cctv everywhere) and one force is actually trialling fixed camera helmets for their riot squads.

london cops like to contain the crowd, crushing us into a 'kettle', making snatches from the crowd, surrounded by cameras. the only way out (after some hours) was to allow your photograph to be taken, be searched and identified. escape from 'kettles' were rare - this was one reason for the start of the WOMBLES, to be able to deal with our local cop strategies. we had varying success.

the use of armour in italy by tute bianchi was based on a different context, different movement, different times.

there would be little point in 30 people arriving together at a huge pacifist anti-war demo carrying baseballs bats, helmets and shields. you wouldn't get far.

we tried to keep an open mind, to be willing to experiment and take educated risks, we tried to plan tactics in the context of the objectives of the action. not always successfully, but hey, that's life!