°G8 - zoning, quarantining
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time something billed as a protest has been nothing of the kind, but surely there has to come a point where it becomes all-too-obvious that continuing to hold protests at the time and place decided by capitalist junketeers requires some rethinking.
Not least because such protests have long become part of the security and PR planning. The element of surprise has gone, replaced by nostalgia and recycling on the part of protesters and a much more efficient processing and partitioning between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ protesters on the part of police, policy, media, etc.
Of course, ‘free speech zones’ and mass arrests aren’t that at all when there’s music. Or so the usual distinctions run. Though, it’s hard to see who might not consider Live 8 as aural punishment.
