May Day? WTF is that? 273 police injured in Berlin protests.

AP:

"Rainer Wendt, chairman of one of Germany's national police unions, criticized Berlin interior minister Erhart Koerting's handling of the operation, saying protesters were allowed too much time to get out of hand and urging that a 'no tolerance' policy be adopted in the future. 'Whoever throws a stone or wears a mask must be immediately taken out of play,' he told the Neuen Osnabruecker Zeitung newspaper."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090502/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_may_day

That's a very American attitude.

This is not . . .

From Der Spiegel leading up to May Day:

"Police in Berlin are braced for further violence on Friday with several different groups, including trade unions, far-left parties and neo-Nazis all taking to the streets for demonstrations. In what has become something of a choreography of confrontation, the usually peaceful May Day street parties and concerts, particularly in the district of Kreuzberg, tend to give way to car-burning and stone-throwing as day turns into night.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,622348,00.html

Not so peaceful this time, it seems.

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1510166,00.jpg

They look really happy, huh? It would be nice to live in country where you could just accept that people have to blow off a little steam and the cops are totally freaked out about stuff like this, too. Not the total Fallujah response the American cops are so into these days, like in Denver and St. Louis. Lot's of "no tolerance" going on there.

They aren't demonstrations anymore. People have been going to these with the intention of rioting for at least the last 10 years. A crackdown might not be a bad idea

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know what May Day is? Seriously.

acted like it was just another day.

Did you note the distinct lack of coverage?

This was my point.

Also, it seems countries that we liberated after WWII seem to have a much more "vigorous" take on fighting for their rights than we seem to have, nowadays.

I'm not advocating violence, but as the article points out there's the "CHOREOGRAPHY OF CONFRONTATION" that both sides understand. This is what democracy really looks like. Not anonymous snipping on some chat board.

their purpose was to start a fight and they expect the police to react. the neo nazi`s and some of the far left parties are not like the groups in the usa.

There are peaceful demonstrations and then there are the groups you mentioned that just look forward to cause chaos and harm people. It's the same every year for quite some time now and it's not getting better.
So, concerning some other posters above, when one wants that more of these dangerous idiots get real punishments for a change (prison time), then that doesn't make one a fascist. No one would ever think of putting an end to the peaceful demonstrations because of the long tradition and historical significance that these kind of peaceful gatherings have.