Anti austerity march in London

A day of two halves, of positives and negatives, uplifting and depressing in equal measure... equilibrium.  I'll try and balance both sides as I go along. Well, firstly there weren't as many participating as I'd have liked or hoped for.  That said, those who attended came from diverse organizations, were from across the country and were of various ages, genders and cultural backgrounds, representation was diverse; one aspect that I was particularly heartened by were the amount of young people who took part, it's often cited that young people are apathetic, and yes, many no doubt are, but maybe it's more that they've not had the opportunities or scope to participate and that decent is not condoned.  I was happy to see that there was more media coverage for this protest than usually given to the multitude of weekly demonstrations somewhere in the country and most of it quite fair, even generous when citing '250,000 protesters', there was no way that many people were there; though the mainstream media coverage still focused on the celebrities rather than the issues, that said, online coverage was very good and many of the celebrity speakers were great, Charlotte Church, Mark Steel and Jeremy Corbyn in particular, Natalie Bennett too was for more articulate in person than on radio or tv.  The Police, ones I saw anyway, acted with good humour, one even posing for a less than flattering photo with his ice cream. Many clearly understood who the enemy was and why the people were marching; front line officers weren't tooled up for war, the riot types were kept in back roads so not to insight no doubt, and you couldn't feel an overly oppressive ominous atmosphere which was refreshing, even the exploits of the Black/Red Flag types received the minimum of attention. There was a positive atmosphere with performers, music, some imaginative placards and general good spirits, it was uplifting to be with others of similar minds, knowing you're not alone in the fight, giving some glimmer of hope and maybe a chance of change; though I had to steel myself for the facts: hope can be a dangerous illusion and change is never easily won, I had to fight hard to keep my nihilism at bay. Still, on reflection I saw more to be positive about than negative, though I'm under no illusion that things are going to get a lot worse before, or if, any positive changes are to manifest. We need to engage in more protests whilst we still enjoy that right, show our dissent, we need to make the government fight for every policy they try to foist upon us; not only to stem their assaults on all we hold dear, but for our own sanity and dignity. This doesn't only have to be on mass rallies in capitols, more importantly it has to be locally, on local issues. If one thing has firmly established itself in my mind it's that the only chance we have to facilitate the changes we want to see, is by taking local actions is our best prospect and that's where hope will be kept alive and nurtured.