Police are even cracking down on protesters in lefty San Francisco. At a Tuesday evening demonstration against both the G-8 and Bio 2004, an international biotech conference held in the city this week, police outnumbered the few hundred protesters. As the march down Market Street got underway, it became clear that the police weren't going to let marchers so much as step into the street without a crackdown. Dozens of motorcycle cops roared into action, speeding ahead of the march to block it off and shut it down. Sirens announced the arrival of riot cops and an arrest bus. Wielding batons and zip-tie handcuffs, riot police formed a wall around the protesters. Within two hours, they'd arrested 133 people, adding to the 32 demonstrators who were arrested earlier in the day.

Beyond the barricade, hundreds of curious onlookers questioned why such heavy-handed police force was necessary to quell the colorful, but otherwise run-of-the-mill San Francisco demonstration.

In Georgia, it seemed clear what drove the massive police response. Officials there have pointed to what happened at the FTAA in Florida as a model, not a disgrace. Bill Hitchens, director of Georgia's Department of Homeland Security, was in Miami to observe the police response to the FTAA protests, and upon his return he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "I certainly think this is a precursor for what we could see" at the G-8 summit. "We need to do much the same as they did."

In the end, though, police never got a chance to try the Miami model in Georgia, because there was no one to use it on.

A large part of the problem was geographic. There was no way for protesters to get close enough to the summit to be seen or heard, and for organizers, Brunswick proved a poor alternative.

Activists planning rallies and a so-called alternative summit -- an anti-globalization conference and fair -- were denied permits to use most of Brunswick's parks and schools. At the last minute, Gov. Perdue intervened to help them secure a permit for Coastal Georgia Community College, an out-of-the-way campus on a stretch of road filled with fast-food franchises, a Bowlarena and little else. The only outsiders who got a glimpse of the activities there were the police who lingered in the parking lot and the enterprising locals who set up shop selling fried shrimp and fish sandwiches. Motels nearby were difficult to come by -- most had been booked to house out-of-town police, and those that had rooms were charging $150 a night and more.

When protesters left the campus to march through the streets of Brunswick, both cops and reporters easily outnumbered them. On Tuesday, the antiwar vigil on St. Simons Island, an upscale community near Sea Island, took place largely without incident, but on Wednesday 100 police, some in riot gear, blocked a few dozen demonstrators who tried to march across the bridge separating St. Simons from Brunswick.

"Brunswick is not the easiest place to get to," said Jason Mark, communications director at Global Exchange and co-author of the 2003 book "Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power." "They deliberately put [the G-8] in a red state. The location really hurt."

It wasn't just logistics, though, that kept so many away. Fear played a role, as did a sense of futility. "A lot of people went down to Miami, got the shit kicked out of them, and said fuck mass convergences," said Matt Jones, a 25-year-old college student from Rome, Ga., who was handing out free bread, muffins and burritos at the Food Not Bombs table. "A lot of people when they come to a mass convergence feel like they can't make a difference."

That's one reason that Jones says he's not going to protest the Republican National Convention in New York in August and September. After Miami, he said, he's interested in "decentralized, autonomous action -- working in your home, your community."

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