>Urban riots are very instructive. there is a lot of rage ( "Rodney King got beat up - somebody owes me a TV set !" ) and a lot of pretty senseless trashing of one's own environment. An excuse for thugs to be thugs. But self-restraint suddenly kicks in when approaching an appliance store with half a dozen very serious Koreans on the roof with AK47s. Mobs are not uncontrollable - they are just uncontrollable by those who aren't serious about it.

During The Walk, Milošević regularly tried to insert provocateurs - so he could finally start showing the opposition as a horde of barbarians ransacking the liquor & jewelry stores. But the guys didn't suck oars (i.e. weren't naive... just an expression from home) and had very vigilant security of their own. With a rally lasting 88 days, they were actually doing quite good, most of the time there was zero violence (unless cops beat someone), zero trashing of shops etc. But then there were days when the regime would insert heavily indoctrinated cops from the south, beef them with tales that they're defending the country from western fascists and traitors who have deluded our youth etc etc, and there would be broken noses.

>( remember *why* the boulevards in Paris are so wide <s> )

So Napoleon could ride with his cavalry and pass under the Triumph gate? OTOH, why are the streets so narrow all around the Mediterranean?