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Mole
Games, anarchists and bombs
There was a Parisian campaign to say "non" to the Olympics - which, surprisingly, got no coverage over here - as well as the (slightly reported) campaign by sensible people in London who oppose this corporate-promoting festival of nationalism and tribalism.In a spirit of international solidarity, it was hard not to sympathise with the campaigns in both cities to avoid being host to the theft of resources from community necessities to fund grandiose facilities for the elite. As far as The Mole is concerned, when it comes to the Olympics, it's Paris wot won it.
Some hoped that many more delegates would vote against London because of opposition to Britain's invasion of Iraq. After all, at least Hitler waited until after the Berlin Olympics before going around invading everyone.
Active abstentions
Following the General Election, it was good to see newspapers maintaining one of the great traditions of the British press - writing anarchists out of history. The constituency "turnout" figures published in the results tables were universally false. They were clearly all invented by just adding up the valid votes cast for each candidate, ignoring "spoilt" papers - including those of active abstainers.The logical (and indeed legally correct, according to the Electoral Commission) turnout figure - as announced by Returning Officers - includes all ballots counted, whether for any candidate or not. If the media pretend that anarchists who try to interact with the voting system don't exist, it's hardly surprising if some anarchists choose other methods to make their point...