| As we drove on the highway bypassing Genoa, it was clear that the city was on fire.
The train stations had been closed down, turning a 3 hour trip into a 5 and a half hour adventure... I was just trying to get to La Spezia for the Bob Dylan concert... but the G8 protests and urban warfare had clsed the city down.
A striking difference is noted the next day on Saturday when comparing the news coveragee of the riots. The International Hearld Tribune shows photos only of rioters destroying things... the slant on their story is how out of controll the anarchists of the black block are.
The Italian newspapers counter saying "Tragedy in Genoa" and show clear photos of a carabinieri office holding a pistol point blank to the head of one anarchist wearing a mask and brandeshing an unwieldly fire extingisher. Additional photos show him lying dead in a pool of his own blood, having been shot in the head. Another shows clearly his flattened and broken body after the police jeep backed over his already dead body and then drove over it again. You can see where his legs are smashed flat...
The New York Times comments, "why couldn't they shoot him in the leg, why not use rubber bullets..."
As I leave trains are still pulling into the station carrying more demonstrators... There are an estimated 300,000 in the city.
One editorial cartoon in the Italian daily La Stampa shows George W. Bush and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi in an ivory tower as the red and black masses below set it afire..., "we are the fathers of the G8," they say together... the crowd below responds, "we are thr children of '68."
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