Excellent coverage of events from Al-Jazeera. The BBC instead opted to focus upon the low drama of the day, although the police setting themselves upon protestors making their way from the city centre to the Kensington Israeli Embassy is worth mentioning. Apparently Galloway was amongst the beaten, a few SWP members were hospitalised. Doubtless certain elements are applauding this thuggery.

Anyway, I turned up around half an hour late but things were still immensely busy. The turn out was quite simply massive, in the tens of thousands. We filled the entire square and then overflowed

I didn’t get to listen to many speakers (Galloway’s speech was forgettable and a young Palestinian/Briton declared Israel an “Illegal state”, but that’s about all I caught sight of) besides the purged man Rees, who was introduced as “The delegate to Cairo” since he was unceremoniously dumped from the SWP Central Committee. His speech conspiciously failed to mention socialism a single time, but the same was true of the few others I heard.

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Turning up hideously late to things is rather my calling card, as at least one of my collaborators is fully aware. Accordingly it was with some concern that I turned up to the protest against the recent and on-going Israeli action against the Gaza Strip, which was held for the second consecutive day outside the Israeli embassy, was agains yesterday at 2PM will be held for the fourth time at the same time.

The crowd was largely Muslim, with a heavy grouping towards the centre pressing against the police who seemed to be pretty much devoid of any other faction, excepting a single person waving a red flag marked with the hammer and sickle. I was in conversation with a late middle aged Asian man who wryly remarked “Which one?” when I mentioned the presence of the “Communist Party” the flag announced, alerting me to the fact I was speaking to a kindred spirit. Apparently he had been a part of a collectivist group in Iran, as well as one of the endless legion of left wing groups in Britain (I confess that I have forgotten the name of both, quite shockingly, although I believe the latter might have been the SWP).

He told me that he thought the reason no group would ever get anywhere was their excessive bureaucracy and absolute alientation with their membership. It is impossible to implement socialism, he said, without a democratic organisation attempting to introduce it.

Although they find it impossible to get anywhere beyond a miniscule groove the far-left groups in attendence also show a remarkable tendency to avoid death, as evidenced by somebody offering me an edition of Newsline. This, as I was told when asked, is the organ for the Workers Revolutionary Party. The WRP that still exists, that is, after for a time there was a split were neither was willing to lose either name and there were a pair of WRPs producing two Newslines.

I wasn’t certain if the survivors were the loyalists to the notorious molester embezzler who used to run the joint and probably should have asked.

In addition to those old timers though there was also a group I’d never heard of, and if there’s a British far-lefty group I’ve never heard of its generally because they haven’t existed for a very long time. That is certainly true of The Commune, who were founded in August/September (”There were only ten…” was the excuse given). The person handing me the leaflet described himself as a “Libertarian Socialist”, a term I had only ever heard as a euphamism for “Anarchist”. He rejected that term due to its connection to historical ideologuary, wanting to steer clear of “Bakunist faction”, “Proudhon faction” stuff, which is a tendency I often share and can appreciate entirely.

He was friends with a member of AWL, a group he left after being expected to recant his “Troops Out” views, presumably under the tenants of Democratic Centralism. His friend knew well Robin, another member of the AWL who I’d met in Cambridge during a dire Marxist note reading session which I’d expected would be more of a talk on the socialist take on global warming (something that actually interests me). Anyway, point is: the far-left is a small world.

(I could tell you about my encounter with a New Communist but to be honest they aren’t too interesting. Besides their celebration of a new Mao Museum their paper was Stalinism at its least shocking and least amusing. The man I spoke to told me that his Communist Party was the only real Communist Party, didn’t have much of an answer as to why a party with that name that had been around since 1977 hadn’t changed it yet and described Zimbabwe as “A difficult one”. Does any of that really surprise you? No, didn’t think so.)

Making my way to the other side of the protest I came across the Jews Against Zionism, a rather striking bunch given the context, but perhaps undeservedly so. Before we can get onto them, though, I should deal with the crazies:

Anything involving Israel involves the Jews and when the Jews come up certain people are utterly insane. There were four examples of this, the first being a 9/11 truther who was possibly not all that anti-semitic but was certainly a nut-job. He told me that “It was an inside job” and when I asked how exactly that was relevant to the matter at hand he replied “War on Terror”. I pointed out that the Gaza attacks were not per se part of that at all and he replied that they certainly were and…Well, it was all one big inter-connected tapestry that I couldn’t see properly. He sprouted a view events (1977 Israeli attack on USS Liberty, 9/11insidejob, Gaza attacks) and expected me to draw links, which is rather a minimalist approach to conspiracy theories really, or perhaps just a little lazy.

The second was trying to insist to a rather bemused Muslim man that they use a slogan which told the “Ruling class” Jews to return to their homes, their homes being Eastern European. Apparently having converted in the 7th century they weren’t real Jews and had no claim to Israel. He had a photocopy of an Encyclopedia Brittanica page which demonstrated as much.

The third was perhaps the most obviously deranged, wearing a rather twisted looking depiction of Christ crucified on his back dropped an early hint of this. He handed out a leaflet asserting that the “leechers” were responsible for all the wrong doing in the world and featuring on the front page a black and white photo of the IDF bundling away a crying Palestinian child. The back made a rhyme about how the “leecher usurers” had killed Christ. When I asked him to define the word “leecher” he played it coy and asked me if I knew what it meant, before saying that they were someone that would “Drain the life out of you” and that I could well be a target.

The fourth was engaged in trying to convince one of the anti-zionist jews that the bankers had caused all the woe of the world, and met with some resistance both from him and me. I pointed out that if this was all some elaborate scheme it clearly wasn’t running on course given that the financial sector is presently imploding and she replied that there are a lot of people making a lot of money out of it.

Eventually we warded her off and got talking. The perspective of the anti-zionist was that until the coming of the Messiah Jews have no claim to be the ruler of any nation. He argued that atheist zionists had “brain-washed” people into falsely believing otherwise and stated that what jews should do when people wished to purge them was to send their elders to try and convince the leaders of the area otherwise or else submit and depart.

The jews were a little aloof from the rest of the protest, in their own separate sphere. They were clearly not unwelcome though, and their presence confounded the notion that these affairs are a gaggle of frothing mouth jew-haters.

Things were not entirely peaceful, with flaming cones (filled with Socialist Workers? an AWL member speculated) being passed to the front and then promptly extinguished. But there wasn’t blood on the pavement or anything. I also suspect that the chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” which broke out briefly, but broadly, unsettled the two staters present.

Eventually once things ended I headed with the protestors who still seemed keen on protestors, who got edged by the police down the street. For about half an hour ample opportunities to block off the whole high street abounded and were all missed. We eventually moved down the High Street until finally a combination of riot police and horseback mounted coppers (along with the standards) got us boxed in against a shopfront and refused to allow us to leave.

Robin took the opportunity to being discussions with some Muslims, including a white convert. He struggled to understand how someone not indoctrinated from birth (indeed, a former atheist) could believe such stuff. “Look around you, this is God’s creation”, we were told. We looked around us and saw a circle of policemen hemming us in.

Some idiot through a firework at the coppers but fucked it up, an Iranian film crew with an Indian presenter was harassed by the youths, implictly for being a woman (”Come on, show us your emotional side…”) and explicitly because “Mumbai was a inside-job”. After numerous attempts she finally managed to get a decent take done and was loudly applauded by all present save the police.

Eventually we were filmed, had personal details taken down, were thoroughly searched and allowed to leave. In some database or other there is now film of me asking under what pretext I could be arrested if I refuse to be filmed, which strikes me as quite delightfully meta.

Then off to the pub. With popcorn, a libertarian socialist, two Allied Workers and (sadly, but predictably) zero Muslims.

Protests for this week are as follows, please do come along:

• Wednesday 31 December, 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy

• Thursday 1 January 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy

• Friday 2 January 2 - 4 pm. Outside the Egyptian Embassy, . 26 South Street, London, W1K 1DW. Call for Egypt to open the border immediately.

• SATURDAY 3 JANUARY. DEMONSTRATION AND RALLY. Assemble 2pm Parliament Square, W1. Nearest tube Westminster

Rupert has a plan:

I think I have a pair of slightly mouldering size 12s which should just fit the parcel. Gordon may expect a package shortly, once the post sorts itself out…

Shocking news as anarchist activists near the Republican National Convention are mass arrested in a raid that was seemingly over nothing. Glenn Greenwald has coverage here and the group victim to the raids is giving updates here.

The story is startlingly similar to this event, where the Italian did their best to stamp out peaceful protest. Its also worth, once again, urging you to watch this and see how the police here in Britain treat those that protest.

All of this leads me to the conclusion that police force’s across the parts of the world that really have no excuse have taken to attempting to smash people organising peaceful towards a political end instead of doing their goddamn job of making sure that nobody gets hurt. What redress we can have for this tendency is uncertain, but for the time being we should at least watch. Perhaps even protest…

That year has been endlessly referenced across the entirety of the media. But the events which preceded the Summer of Love were the Spring of Prague. It seems to me that the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia bears far more historical assonances with this year, forty years on, than the revolutionary joy that the Anglosphere enjoyed a few months later.

Which is unfortunate on more levels than I can bear express.

A strange situation at Pickled Politics tonight; take a look at the comments thread here. The poster raised the well documented absurdity of the policing at the Kingsnorth Climate Camp. And found himself leapt upon by commenters as a hysterical leftie thoroughly disconnected from reality.

The following comment is typical:

The state are not imposing anything on anyone here. Just because you are forcibly removed from an area does not make you any more right, nor does it automatically entitle you to call yourself a victim. Why don’t these people, go home, get ‘actually’ politically active and try to come up with solutions instead of trying to manufacture publicity through stunts?

Pardon? The state very much has imposed itself here. Citizens have a democratic right to protest; one supposedly guaranteed in law by the Human Rights Act. They may gather on any piece of public land to voice their concerns over any matter. The state should exist to protect those very freedoms. If the state - or its agents, the police - attempts to restrict them, it commits an assault on liberty and fails in its role.

The protestors at Climate Camp were clearly peaceful. They came there to hold workshops on environmental life and climate change, not viciously beat up policemen. Some didn’t attempt to hide their intention of shutting down the power-station, no; but that, at most justified a police cordon around the power station to protect what’s legally private property. (That it spews out noxious gas and thus directly affects those around it, very much bringing the matter into the public interest, remains to be addressed…). The protestors within the Climate Camp should have been free from harrassment.

So when the police spend an estimated £3 million to bus in officers from far-flung corners of the country to set-up a cordon around the camp before routinely entering it, ransacking private possessions and cart-off protestors on any pretext, they do impose themselves. The protestors have a right to make themselves heard, and when a force supposed to protect that right mercilessly shits on it, they are victims.

More bizarre were comments along these lines:

I showed an American friend this video, she laughed, she said they were so brutal, her shoe nearly fell off!

Come on. There actions are probably over the top. But brutal? Have you heard the quip about heaven, where the Police are British, the chefs are French etc?

In France, the CRS would have literally beat the shit out of them. In fact, I cannot think of another country where the all police wouldn’t have drawn their batons straight away.

Wait - so because our instances of authoritarian policing are less brutal than those abroad, they become okay? Police brutality against peaceful protestors remains police brutality; just because the French riot police are downright sadistic doesn’t stop an assault on democratic freedoms across the channel from being just that.

It isn’t hysteria to rage at length over this. Protest is an essential tool to remind the powerful you exist; the state, which exists to protect and extend the freedom of all citizens, cannot be allowed to choose when or how it’s acceptable to exercise that freedom. Unless the exercise of liberty infringes on that of another, it’s not its job, and shouldn’t be - unless we enjoy repression.