Two Protests Compared

I'd like to take a minute and compare two very different protests in two very different countries in two very different parts of the world. The first occurred a little over a week ago at the beginning of April in London, England. The protest was over the G20 summit, globalisation, world trade, etc. The hipsters showed up in their tight black faded jeans, cute little caps, and razor blade hair-dos. The thing that really blew me away was seeing all of the photographers that showed up for the event. I mean seriously guys, it's called Flickr- share. 

The second protest occurred in Bangkok, Thailand over the weekend. These protesters are all dressed in red, wearing bandannas to deal with the tear gas, have machetes, slingshots, Molotov cocktails. These folks are taking on the army rather than the bobbies, and they even blew up a few buses. Now, I am not condoning violence. Violence is bad period, and I don't like the nature of the Thais protest, but you really have to hand it to them. No gaggles of photographers following them around as they break windows, oh no, this is clearly too dangerous for that kind of coverage. Maybe it is just me, but our western protests seem practically benign compared to what has been coming out of Asia these days...maybe it is just me, but is this the difference between a newer democracy and an older one looks like...is it just pure complacency? 

Pictures were taken from the Big Picture, and The Frame respectively.