Net Gains: Log on to the campaign trail

As the run-up to last month's anti-capitalist demonstrations proved, the Internet is the ideal forum in which the various non-mainstream direct action political groups can debate their standpoints. And they're not all cross-bow-toting survivalists.

Urban 75 is a typically vibrant direct action British site. Some claim that its like is inheriting the mantle of Britain's long pamphleteering tradition. Quite how its "Punch a Politician" feature advances this theory I'm not sure, but Urban 75 is an undeniably heady brew of football, drugs, raves and various direct action initiatives. What it lacks in sophistication it makes up for with humour and advocacy of issues such as mass trespass and road reclamation.

If Urban 75 is the Loaded of direct action, the Act Up site is the New Statesman (www.actupny.org). Act Up gives the messy business of civil disobedience an academic makeover. This is very much what the well-behaved direct-action connoisseur would consult, with considered advice on everything from campaign direction to jail solidarity.

There's even a site for the seditious under-10s, Anarchy & Kidz (/burn.ucsd.edu/ mai/didz. html). In amongst the serious debates on the future of compulsory schooling and curfew legislation, though, there's still room for that old playground battle-cry: ban school uniforms!