So that protest was a success - assuming the idea was to turn people against the protestors:
SEATTLE (cnn) - At least 19 people had been arrested Tuesday afternoon in the protests, in which anti-WTO demonstrators rallying for an assortment of causes broke downtown store windows, engaged in some looting, blocked major intersections, clogged streets and prevented delegates from leaving their hotels.
"The whole world's watching," protesters chanted at one clogged intersection where a garbage dumpster was set afire amid volleys of tear gas from police.
"It was chaos in the streets," said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, who is attending the conference.
"I was struck by how loopy some of the protesters were," he told CNN. "I expected a more serious group that had some message ...but they didn't. They were sort of dancing in the streets, pushing people, acting crazy, breaking windows and throwing things. So it looked like a group that was out of control."
LONDON (Reuters) - Riot police broke up a violent protest on Tuesday by hundreds of anarchists who ignited a fire outside a major London train station in a demonstration against capitalism and a WTO summit in the United States.
In a two-hour rampage the anarchists overturned vehicles and disrupted London's evening rush hour commuter travel with their attack on the forecourt of Euston Station in the center of the capital.
A police spokesman said at least 15 people were arrested and about 10 bystanders were injured when the anarchists hurled bottles, iron bars, paving stones and other debris as police moved forward to push them back from the station entrance.
Police herded thousands of commuters away from the glass-fronted station entrance into safety deeper inside the building.
Police sealed all entrances to the station, stranding thousands more commuters outside. By about 9 p.m. there were only about 100 protesters left with none of them closer than 200 yards to Euston Station.
``This was purely yobbish behavior. It was violence for the sake of it. Unnecessary and unprovoked.'' police spokeswoman Commander Judy Davison told reporters.
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The expression 'shooting yourself in the foot' seems appropriate. The WTO couldn't have wished for more positive publicity. Why do protestors, given such an opportunity in relatively free countries to speak out, mess it up by appearing to be 'looneys' who just wreck things for the hell of it? A Londoner I know e-mailed me that there were some people handing out envelopes purporting to be information but actually containing razor blades so arranged to hurt people!
Please tell me it was a tiny minority spoiling it for everyone plus some hamfisted policing. Mcspotlight usually has some 'in' knowledge about. maybe some other posters do too.
