Of course, not to be out manoeuvred by the international anarchist conspiracy, much of the press informed its readers that the police had "crushed" the anarchists because, well, the anarchists did what they said they were going to do (i.e. protest and celebrate) rather than what the police said they were going to do. These anarchists truly are evil masterminds!
The ironies do not stop there, oh no. The Daily Telegraph (2nd May) argued that "the voices of protesters will be heard much more clearly if they are peaceful ones who co-operate with the police and condemn the thugs." Not that you would know what those voices were from the Telegraph as it did not consider them newsworthy enough to report. Rather, they concentrated on the small amounts of "violence" that occurred, with their coverage seemingly directly proportional to the "violence" they claim to abhor. Their hypocrisy is clear.
Simply put, the Telegraph recommends the kind of "protest" that it can ignore. This explains its fond memories of when "the trade union movement found marching an altogether more effective way of making its point than present-day spin." Yes, marching is easier to ignore than strikes and other forms of direct action. As well as being much more "effective," they radicalise and can create real an alternative to capitalism, namely workers' self-management. Little wonder the Telegraph suggests other forms of protest!
It also comments on the "new style" of protest that had "rather sinister overtures" as it "unlawfully keep the police in the dark about further intentions and then create a stir by ambushing and damaging in spectacular fashion someone else's property." Interesting that the idea you have to report to the police your actions is not considered "sinister." The paper is right, of course. Not doing what the police order you to do will "lead to prohibition and pointless fighting against the police" but every struggle for liberty must, by definition, involve that. Truly, the policeman's job is only easy in a police state. Luckily, we have the likes of the Telegraph to guide us in that direction by their unquestioning love of the police and its powers.
The funniest thing in the paper was its opinion that "Mosley and his Blackshirts failed because they aped the bullyboy tactics of Europe's dictators." Fascism failed in Britain because, well, we are unlike the continental Europeans! Incredible that such xenophobic nonsense can pass as analysis in a daily newspaper. I suppose it is easier to be bigoted than to undermine its own argument by mentioning the working class direct action which actually kicked the fascists off the streets. It would also be uncomfortable to mention that fascism developed in Italy precisely to crush the labour movement and the extremely influential anarchists who were applying anti-capitalist ideas successfully in it. Nothing like a bit of historical revisionism to set the scene for inane arguments.
The Scotsman (2nd May) opined that "for this is a generation of 'antis' who think with their emotions and not with their heads, Freud has replaced Marx, television images have replaced analysis." Yet the same can be more truly said of their editorial. No cliché is ignored, no stone left unturned to smear the protestors by association.
It claims, for example, that the protesters are "unable to make the connection between their uncompromising anti-globalisation . . . with the rise of ultra-nationalists such as Le Pen, who is a quintessential anti-globalist." Thus the protestors are responsible for Le Pen. That fascism has been around a lot longer than the current "anti-globalisation" movement is forgotten, as is the fact that his particular brand of politics has been getting sizeable votes the last 15 years. As such, the paper's argument is somewhat lacking. In addition, given that the "anti-globalisation" was invented by the US media to avoid the term "anti-capitalist" and imposed on the protestors, this is ironic. If the Scotsman bothered to looked at the politics of the "anti-globalists," it would soon discover that most, if not all, are internationalists, aiming for a globalisation from below rather than one imposed from above.
It continues by asserting that "they are unable to understand that a return to subsistence economies based on small peasant holdings, now being pioneered in Zimbabwe, will only lead to Malthusian famines." However, few, if any, of the protestors want such a society, but never mind. Why let facts get in the way of a good argument. Ironically, the paper earlier asserted that "they seemed bereft of any concrete notion of what they wanted to replace the amorphous 'capitalism' they were complaining about." I wish that it would make its mind up!
As well as fascism, the editorial also raises the Soviet bogeyman. The protestors "carry placards claiming 'capitalism doesn't work' but they fail to address the serious issue of how alternatively to allocate resources without blundering into the inefficiency, corruption and loss of liberty that characterised the failed societies that once lay behind the Iron Curtain." However, the Scotsman fails to address the serious question of whether capitalist allocation is efficient from a human or ecological perspective, whether the loss of liberty associated with wage slavery is worth it and, of course, the question of whether "liberal democracy" is actually democratic or promoting of liberty.
It ends by claiming that "if May Day represents anything, it is the power of liberal capitalist society to evolve successfully over the last 116 years and solve each wave of social and economic problems." Yet May Day was only "solved" by the judicial lynching of the Haymarket Martyrs and a wave of state terror which broke the 8 hour movement. Equally, most people in the world, and a sizeable minority in the "liberal" UK and USA, work far longer than 8 hours a day. And it would be churlish, but accurate, to argue that it was the "power of liberal capitalist society" which created the very problems which the paper alleges it has "solved."
The Scotsman acknowledges that "we live in no utopia, but it is still the most successful political and economic model that has emerged to date." Which is true, if we ignore the positive anarchist social experiments in various revolutions which offered a small glimpse at a better society, one based on liberty, equality and solidarity. That these experiments had to be crushed by fascism (in Spain and Italy) and soviet "communism" (in Ukraine) makes the Scotsman's attempts to smear the May Day protestors with both the soviet and fascist bogeymen insulting. Ultimately, the Scotsman's argument boils down to the belief that evolution has stopped, which it never does. Given that people are resisting capitalism all across the globe and, in the process, creating alternatives to it based on that struggle, we can safely say that the new world is emerging as the Scotsman pontificates. Hopefully anarchists had help these seeds of liberty grow and blossom.
Finally, hats off to the Daily Record, which has it all worked out. It is all "senseless protest" a la Marlon Brando in the Wild One (I'm not kidding). It argues that the protestors "seem to know what they're against. But what are they for?" Perhaps they could have reported the viewpoints of the protestors? No, of course not. Instead, we are just labelled "nuts." In the words of Bob Dylan, "Don't criticise what you don't understand" or, for that matter, have no interest in finding anything out about.