George Monbiot: Rattling the bars

Covering the European Social Forum 2003, Monbiot says the young don't reject politics, just politicians. And points his irony at the media, who cover in exhaustive detail a meeting of a few hundred mostly old conservatives in their annual conference, but have barely one small notice per paper of a meeting of 51,000 mostly young people in Paris. (Of course we know why that is - the 51,000 non-elected activists have less than a tenth of the power of the several hundred office-holders and party hacks. Unpleasant, yes, un-democratic, maybe, but the way it "works").