# Stop the War? Pull the other one..



## changingman (Sep 26, 2005)

I can't find any posts about last Saturday's Stop the War demo. Did nobody go?
(I guess this post should belong under "protest/direct action", but the only visitors to that forum seem to be assorted anarchos, trots, Leninists, Stalinists, Gramsciites,  SWPers, IMGers, situationists, single-issue activists, revolutionary communists, libertarian vegetarians and other ne'er-do-wells and anal obsessive-compulsive purveyors of political fantasy. No point just talking to them) .
** Later: oh, i see i've been moved..into the ghetto we go.

It was an utter waste of shoe-leather and of an otherwise pleasant afternoon.  A generous estimate would say some 15,000 souls max, 99 percent of them professional demonstrators. Last time, when more than a million of us marched in 2003, hardline politicos and hobbyist protestors  were overwhelmingly outnumbered by ordinary folk who normally wouldn't go anywhere near a demo. That's what made that  event so significant (even though it achieved nothing). Saturday was preaching-to-the-converted time, with speaker after speaker trying to hijack the event  for a succession of right-on causes, from Palestine to climate change to nuclear disarmament  to not locking up or deporting avowed Muslim terrorists to free bus passes for one-legged Nicaraguan lesbians. 

Why can't the organisers of these  mungbeanfeasts see that  roping in a daisy chain of tangentially related or totally unrelated causes celèbres only serves to 1. dilute the core message and 2. alienate hordes of potential sympathisers??  

They certainly alienated me. I marched in 2003 primarily because, along with many others, I could see that rubbing salt into the wound of global Islamic fundamentalism, by invading Iraq, would only put Britain top of the list of  potential terrorist targets. 7/7 proved us right. I marched last Saturday principally for the same reason, but when i got to Hyde Park I realised I was totally alone. So I turned and buggered off... 

There really is no hope..


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

You didn't like the fact that other people on a demonstration brought up issues which they felt were related - like, say, peace movement issues on an anti-war march, or Palestine on a march about Western imperialism in the Middle East. Tough shit. I doubt if anyone will miss you.


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## changingman (Sep 26, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> You didn't like the fact that other people on a demonstration brought up issues which they felt were related - like, say, peace movement issues on an anti-war march, or Palestine on a march about Western imperialism in the Middle East. Tough shit. I doubt if anyone will miss you.


Yeah, me and 985,000 others.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Yeah, me and 985,000 others.



You see that only makes sense if you think that the other couple of million people who have been to anti-war marches weren't on the last one because they don't like other people raising issues which are linked to the war. Are you seriously suggesting that?


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## slaar (Sep 26, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> You see that only makes sense if you think that the other couple of million people who have been to anti-war marches weren't on the last one because they don't like other people raising issues which are linked to the war. Are you seriously suggesting that?


It certainly pissed me off (particularly conflating Palestinian with Iraqi issues) but the reason most people aren't marching is because they don't want our soldiers out of Iraq now they are there, it's that simple.


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## Divisive Cotton (Sep 26, 2005)

The death of the peace movement - it's disappeared into thin air.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

slaar said:
			
		

> the reason most people aren't marching is because they don't want our soldiers out of Iraq now they are there, it's that simple.



In fact every opinion poll shows that a majority of people want "our" (whose exactly?) soldiers out of Iraq, so your "simple" answer is every bit as false as changingman's.


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## rocketman (Sep 26, 2005)

slaar said:
			
		

> It certainly pissed me off (particularly conflating Palestinian with Iraqi issues) but the reason most people aren't marching is because they don't want our soldiers out of Iraq now they are there, it's that simple.



That's rubbish, the reason people aren't marching is because the meedja are not now giving the protestors any coverage before these events take place. And opinion polls seem to indicate major support for withdrawing the troops.

By the way, on an issue by issue basis, while some things are silly, the message that the Arab world feels that they have been oppressed for years is pretty important and that chasm between cultures should be addressed.

Is an invasion proof against what they feel is the case? I do not think so.


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## OriginalSinner (Sep 26, 2005)

slaar said:
			
		

> It certainly pissed me off (particularly conflating Palestinian with Iraqi issues) but the reason most people aren't marching is because they don't want our soldiers out of Iraq now they are there, it's that simple.



Hmm. Personally I think it's because not enough people got laid for having a social conscience and thus have tried to find something else to be 'interesting' about... and in doing so - get laid.


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## districtline (Sep 26, 2005)

most people arent marching because it achieved nothing last time around, despite the fact that they were joined by 1-1,5 million others. why would this one have any effect?


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## rocketman (Sep 26, 2005)

districtline said:
			
		

> most people arent marching because it achieved nothing last time around, despite the fact that they were joined by 1-1,5 million others. why would this one have any effect?



I also agree with this. I think everyone - Western or in the Middle East - feels like they have no control and their voices and political systems offer them no way to affect what these mad bastards who have power are doing.

It's incredibly damaging and creates a vacuum that threatens the concept of democracy itself. Whatever that is. I have never experienced a democracy, just an oligarchy, or perhaps a plutocracy.


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## OriginalSinner (Sep 26, 2005)

districtline said:
			
		

> most people arent marching because it achieved nothing last time around, despite the fact that they were joined by 1-1,5 million others. why would this one have any effect?



Life ain't MTV.

Too many people believe it is.

The huge numbers on that first march were not (IMO) an indication of the strength of feeling in this country but the power of the media to influence us.

It's unrealistic and unreasonable to expect things to change because of one march... these things take time and a real stomach for the fight.

Most of the rest just wanted a day off work and maybe a shag.


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## Wolfie (Sep 26, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> I can't find any posts about last Saturday's Stop the War demo. .....




http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=130897

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=132471


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

Wolfie said:
			
		

> http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=130897
> 
> http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=132471



The first poster specifically excluded threads from the politics section of the board because he wanted to express his opinions in the more wiberal-friendly parts.


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## xes (Sep 26, 2005)

aah cheggers,If I know you were going I'd have give yis a bell.

But agreed,it was very dissapointing,but I put that down to the fact that it wasn't very well advertised to people who don't usually go to demonstrations.

How are people supposed to know it's on if no-one tells them?


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## Sorry. (Sep 26, 2005)

I actually broadly agree that the multi-issue march publicity was a bad idea - more because it's ineffective marketing than because it annoys me. I think focus and clarity is important in terms of demonstrations. 

The lack of numbers reflects a number of things 
- perception of pointlessness/ repetition
- the media was more helpful on F15
- the war issue is much older and demands/policies need refreshing
- F15 was a moment that many participants saw as historic, not just another march

Realistically I don't think the resources and attitudes that made F15 happen will ever be available again for this issue. In fact the "success" of that day probably impeded the more vital process of building functional local anti-war groups that could do the groundwork to make more demos and keep the pressure on the government. To maintain momentum there had to a capacity for local StWCs to have regular regional anti-war demos and engage in direct action to hamper the war effort (even if only to disrupt/antagonise the government). 

Consistent building of large London demos every 6 months or so was never going to be effective, or even practical.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> Consistent building of large London demos every 6 months or so was never going to be effective, or even practical.



A fair point - how long ago do the school student strikes seem now?


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## Lock&Light (Sep 26, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> There really is no hope..



I started to think that many years ago, but I still haven't been able to convince myself.


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## Wolfie (Sep 26, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> The first poster specifically excluded threads from the politics section of the board because he wanted to express his opinions in the more wiberal-friendly parts.




he doesn't actually do that - he says he realises this thread should be in P and P - "I guess this post should belong under "protest/direct action"," - but he doesn't exclude that arena from his assertion that "I can't find any posts about last Saturday's Stop the War demo"

so


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## OriginalSinner (Sep 26, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> There really is no hope..



Rubbish. It entirely depends on what you are hoping for.


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## districtline (Sep 26, 2005)

OriginalSinner said:
			
		

> Most of the rest just wanted a day off work and maybe a shag.



dont we all?


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## Wolfie (Sep 26, 2005)

I would have thought it was possible to want all three simultaneously - stop the war, day of work and a shag - that would've been a result, eh?


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## Sorry. (Sep 26, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> A fair point - how long ago do the school student strikes seem now?



and how many of us have subsequently watched what existed of local antiwar groups disintegrate into sectarian rumps of negligible use to anyone?


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## poet (Sep 26, 2005)

The F15 march happened in spite of, not because of the STWC.


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## Wolfie (Sep 26, 2005)

seeing as changingman seems to have started this thread and then buggered of, and it seems to be attracting the "usual suspects" I can't see any merit in it remaining in "General" - off to P&P it goes ....


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

Wolfie said:
			
		

> seeing as changingman seems to have started this thread and then buggered of, and it seems to be attracting the "usual suspects" I can't see any merit in it remaining in "General" - off to P&P it goes ....



What? You lot get back in your ghetto?


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## OriginalSinner (Sep 26, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> The lack of numbers reflects a number of things
> - perception of pointlessness/ repetition



In some respects repetition *is* the point.



> - the media was more helpful on F15
> - the war issue is much older and demands/policies need refreshing
> - F15 was a moment that many participants saw as historic, not just another march



Which is basically all down to the way the march was represented and who was chosen to represent it.

And who chooses them?

Yep. You guessed it.  



> Realistically I don't think the resources and attitudes that made F15 happen will ever be available again for this issue. In fact the "success" of that day probably impeded the more vital process of building functional local anti-war groups that could do the groundwork to make more demos and keep the pressure on the government. To maintain momentum there had to a capacity for local StWCs to have regular regional anti-war demos and engage in direct action to hamper the war effort (even if only to disrupt/antagonise the government).



It's true - which makes you wonder if it wasn't orchestrated that way.

Yes I know it's borderline 'conspiracy theory' tm but it's sooo fucking obvious... and sooo fucking easy.


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## tollbar (Sep 26, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> Realistically I don't think the resources and attitudes that made F15 happen will ever be available again for this issue. In fact the "success" of that day probably impeded the more vital process of building functional local anti-war groups that could do the groundwork to make more demos and keep the pressure on the government. To maintain momentum there had to a capacity for local StWCs to have regular regional anti-war demos and engage in direct action to hamper the war effort (even if only to disrupt/antagonise the government).
> 
> Consistent building of large London demos every 6 months or so was never going to be effective, or even practical.



The truth is that this was always on the cards given the fact that StWC is controlled by the unholy alliance of the SWP, CPB, and MAB who are all far more interested in promoting their own agendas and excersising their own control over the movement then allowing the sort of regional and local autonomy that the creation of regional and local StWCs would entail. You could see this coming in the immediate run up to the war when the StWC all but pulled out of the school students uprisings and actively opposed efforts like the attempt to demonstrate at Fairford. I think that you could rebuild part of the movement around, say the third anniversary of the war next march, but you would have to go for a more regional approach, starting building local actions now, and allowing people to get on with it. The likeliehood is however that they will just opt for more of the same, another London demo.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 26, 2005)

I would have gone, but I felt it had got hijacked by lots of people who had lots of agendas many of which weren't mine. So I ddin't go. ''It/They'' 
( STWC)  no longer broadly represents what I believe, and I can't protest behind banners for things I don't support. Not In My Name cuts both ways.

 I went to 4 Stop the War things, well one was a CND Vigil outside Downing St before Iraq, pre-STW that I heard about via Women in Black, then the biggie 1m + one , the kid's one in Parliament Square and another one.

My agenda in going to all 4 was to protest about an illegal invasion that was transparently about oil and US interests, had no discernable exit plan and did nothing to help the Middle East peace process or to encourage democracy and made us a target and stirred up race/faith hatred.

I suppose some people were there to protest about all that lot - let's just call it - The War Was Wrong as a catch-all subheader - but there were a lot of pretty extreme viewpoints leaping on the T.W.W.W bandwagon and I just wasn't comfortable with that.


Find me a march that is basically saying The War Was Wrong ( in fact it is fucking immoral) and I'll go on it. And so will about 300,000 other people.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

tollbar said:
			
		

> You could see this coming in the immediate run up to the war when the StWC all but pulled out of the school students uprisings



It was worse than that, the StWC leadership risked sabotaging the strikes by arbitrarily changing the dates late on, essentially because they couldn't stomach the fact that the organisation had been done outside of their control. Not a proud moment.


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## Sorry. (Sep 26, 2005)

tollbar said:
			
		

> I think that you could rebuild part of the movement around, say the third anniversary of the war next march, but you would have to go for a more regional approach, starting building local actions now, and allowing people to get on with it. The likeliehood is however that they will just opt for more of the same, another London demo.



But I do think you can take the 'blame the StWC and the nefarious forces therein' critique a little far. I don't think there was anything stopping other forces developing an alternate critique and acting effectively on it, so it's worth asking why they didn't. 

Or is it realistically too much to ask; with the resources being sucked into the big coalition, it's function as a publicity center drawing in people and the tendency of people to look toward it? Maybe it wasn't feasible to build another structure alongside that would have to veer toward outright opposition to the main coalition. But then that's kind of what happened with the poll tax campaign ...


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## grogwilton (Sep 26, 2005)

i dont know what stw you guys have been involved with, but it was completely different to my experience. 

every time at uni and before, stwc encouraged local events in the run up to the  big london demos. thats why for example we had a local demo in Reading of 400 people a week after feb15. in exeter we had a demo of a 1000 in exeter at the time of the bush visit. stwc also encouraged people to demonstrate and walk out of work on the day the war began.

the reason stw distanced itself from the school strikes, was because a lot of anti war people i knew disagreed with that policy, thinking it was irresponsible to encourage kids to leave school. in practice most stw activists encouraged it on the quiet, and putting the supposed discouragement down to swp control in stw is nuts, the 2 school strikes i went on, as a school kid, had loads of swp on them, and the one my mate at henley college was on was organised by the swp, (organised by him), and that was blocking a bridge over the thames, direct action enough for ya?

the reason stw has declined is because a combination of people feeling its pointless to protest when theyve been ignored, people agreeing with anti war but not anti occupation, and less media coverage cos its not as big news as it was in the run up to the war.


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## Squatticus (Sep 26, 2005)

slaar said:
			
		

> It certainly pissed me off (particularly conflating Palestinian with Iraqi issues) but the reason most people aren't marching is because they don't want our soldiers out of Iraq now they are there, it's that simple.



Er...

"Only 12 per cent of the 1,009 people questioned by an ICM poll published in the Guardian newspaper said the British troops' presence in Iraq was helping improve the situation and 51 per cent said Prime Minister Tony Blair's government should set a date for the withdrawal of the soldiers from Basra."

(According to various newspapers I read today)


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

The StWC leadership was tepid at best on the issue of school student strikes right from the off. The idea was raised inside the Coalition and there was no interest. When it became apparent that they were going to happen anyway, and had been organised outside of their control, they stepped in to arbitrarily change the date. This caused serious problems for those who were actually out trying to organise the strikes - and in fact some couldn't be rearranged and happened on the original date anyway. 

That's not to say that some SWP members didn't take part in and even organised strikes in a few schools. They did, but their contribution as an organisation was belated and minor. It was also a serious mistake to "distance" the coalition from what were the most effective actions of the StW movement so far.


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## james_walsh (Sep 26, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> The StWC leadership was tepid at best on the issue of school student strikes right from the off. The idea was raised inside the Coalition and there was no interest. When it became apparent that they were going to happen anyway, and had been organised outside of their control, they stepped in to arbitrarily change the date. This caused serious problems for those who were actually out trying to organise the strikes - and in fact some couldn't be rearranged and happened on the original date anyway.
> 
> That's not to say that some SWP members didn't take part in and even organised strikes in a few schools. They did, but their contribution as an organisation was belated and minor. It was also a serious mistake to "distance" the coalition from what were the most effective actions of the StW movement so far.



I heard that the CPB where behind the orginal school strikes-not as act policy i expect , i think they where in birhingham, it would explain how they got leaflets out etc. As my old man says, a spontaneous riot, takes a lot of organising.


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## mk12 (Sep 26, 2005)

Do the CPB have any members in school?


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

james_walsh said:
			
		

> I heard that the CPB where behind the orginal school strikes



Nope and in fact the CPB were more concerned to distance the StWC from the whole issue than the SWP were. Apart from anything else the CPB age profile wouldn't be very conducive to organising anything involving schools!

The idea was raised by young Socialist Party and ISR members, who distributed 50,000 leaflets calling for school student walkouts and explaining how to organise them on the previous national anti-war demonstration. They then set about doing a great deal of on the ground organising, leafletting schools and colleges and preparing for walkouts in their own schools, but it has to be said that other groups and people not in any group also took up the call.

The vast bulk of those who walked out did so independently of any organisation - they heard about the idea and organised things in their own schools. If these things are to work on any kind of scale they have to take on a life of their own, well beyond the capacities of any of the originating organisations.


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## JHE (Sep 26, 2005)

Squatticus said:
			
		

> Er...
> 
> "Only 12 per cent of the 1,009 people questioned by an ICM poll published in the Guardian newspaper said the British troops' presence in Iraq was helping improve the situation and 51 per cent said Prime Minister Tony Blair's government should set a date for the withdrawal of the soldiers from Basra."
> 
> (According to various newspapers I read today)


Yup, that was the ICM poll.

According to the same poll, support for the occupation is at 41% and only 12% believe that British troops are helping to improve the security situation.

According to a recent YouGov poll the proportion who favour withdrawal is higher than the 51% indicated by the ICM poll.  YouGov says 57% favour withdrawal.

ChangingMan has a point.  There are things about StWC that probably put off some people who want an end to the occupation.  But I don't think those things explain why many fewer people joined the march than the StWC had hoped and later (dishonestly) claimed.

Anyone who watches the news knows that Iraq is a bloody mess.  According to ICM, 64% believe the situation is getting worse.  Most people are unconvinced that the occupation is doing any good or is going to do any good.  A majority - 51% or 57%, take your pick - oppose the occupation.  However, with a few obvious exceptions, people are not up in arms about it figuratively, let alone literally.

I think most people are just waiting for the govt to see sense and pull the troops out - and don't expect demonstrations to make any difference.  Next spring seems to be the time for pull-out now being leaked.

The enormous demonstration in 2003 was at a time when it seemed that there might be a chance (albeit a small chance) of averting invasion.  It should not surprise anyone that there has not been another march of that size.


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## flimsier (Sep 26, 2005)

james_walsh said:
			
		

> I heard that the CPB where behind the orginal school strikes-not as act policy i expect , i think they where in birhingham, it would explain how they got leaflets out etc. As my old man says, a spontaneous riot, takes a lot of organising.



Errm, you are correct, according to at least two people I know. The SP and Workers Power tried to take credit.

The worst bit was when an SP member tried to take credit for some action at my school - organised and led by a student utterly independent of them. They've no members in the school, and had never gone near any of the students. It was all down to an (agitating) SWP member who has since left, but couldn't reveal her role.

Dishonest at best.


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## flimsier (Sep 26, 2005)

Nigel, I wrote that before seeing your latest post. I might delete it because it doesn't help. Dennisr has denied that this SP member exists, despite him selling your paper and proposing your candidate for NUT GS. 


Anyway, why are you bothering with this shit?


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> Anyway, why are you bothering with this shit?



What are you talking about? What "shit"?




			
				me said:
			
		

> The idea was raised by young Socialist Party and ISR members, who distributed 50,000 leaflets calling for school student walkouts and explaining how to organise them on the previous national anti-war demonstration. They then set about doing a great deal of on the ground organising, leafletting schools and colleges and preparing for walkouts in their own schools, but it has to be said that other groups and people not in any group also took up the call.
> 
> The vast bulk of those who walked out did so independently of any organisation - they heard about the idea and organised things in their own schools. If these things are to work on any kind of scale they have to take on a life of their own, well beyond the capacities of any of the originating organisations



That's an entirely accurate account of how the idea for the school student strikes was raised and where things went from there. Which bit do you think is "shit"?


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## flimsier (Sep 26, 2005)

The 'shit' bit is to do with the thread.

Carry on though.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> The 'shit' bit is to do with the thread.



Now I don't even know what you are talking about.


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## flimsier (Sep 26, 2005)

Right, I was saying 'why are you getting involved with this shit'?

I meant 'why did you get involved in this shitty thread'?

ok?


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> I meant 'why did you get involved in this shitty thread'?



I was responding to some arsehole who was whining on about people raising issues like nuclear arms or Palestine at an anti-war demonstration.

Then the thread turned into a more serious one about what exactly has gone wrong for the anti-war movement in Britain. That's quite a serious issue and one which deserves a bit of thought. Looking back over the thread, I think that people are concentrating a little too much on the errors made by the StWC leadership - which were many - and not enough on the objective situation.

The school student strikes came up as an example of the kind of wide participation and militancy that were features of the anti-war movement a couple of years ago. For me that's just as graphic an illustration of the scale of the current decline as the fall in the numbers on the marches.


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## X-77 (Sep 26, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> I marched last Saturday principally for the same reason, but when i got to Hyde Park I realised I was totally alone. So I turned and buggered off


were you the one person who actually carried a union jack with '95 RIP' on it? Bet it was you, wasn't it...


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## X-77 (Sep 26, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Yeah, me and 985,000 others.


yeah right - if there's so many of you tossers who don't give a fuck about war/Palestine etc and only care about 'islamic extremism' (*YAWN* - change the record  ) then why was the Feb 15 2003 demo a sea of peace placards, Palestine flags, and every other type of banner associated with the left. Strange enough, don't remember a single 'controversial' banner banging on about Islamic extremism. 

Anyway, keep dreaming that most of those people thought the same as you. Whatever keeps you happy 

Whoever said the media was a big factor was exactly right - there was a load of hype surrounding that demo whereas no subsequent demos have had that same focus. In the US, the massive Washington DC march on Saturday was the culmination of a lot of coverage of Cindy Sheehan etc. It's not a matter of people being as callous as you, more likely most people aren't aware of demos until the media decide to mention it, very conveniently, on the day.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

School student walkout background for anyone who is interested:

SP and ISR members raised the idea inside and outside the Stop the War Coalition, as it was an idea that their sister organisations around the world were pushing for (and something many of them had previously had a lot of success with, for instance during the previous Gulf War). The StWC leadership weren't very interested.

ISR started producing material about it anyway and began distributing it. 50,000 leaflets about walkouts were distributed on a national anti-war demo alone and many more were distributed at schools and colleges. From there things took on a life of their own, with all kinds of groups and individuals joining in. As I said above, the vast bulk of those who walked out did so independently of any organisation - they heard about the idea and organised things in their own schools. If these things are to work on any kind of scale they have to take on a life of their own, well beyond the capacities of any of the originating organisations

The StWC leadership, for reasons of their own, had stepped in before the strikes and rearranged the date which led to some difficulties on the ground. Most of the strikes were rearranged but some were not and took place on the original date. 

Meanwhile over the same few weeks a whole load of school student strikes happened in other countries - Northern Ireland had huge ones in proportion to the population there, Sweden, Germany and Australia also had very large walkouts. These were all countries where sister organisations of the SP and ISR had been heavily involved in pushing the idea. Spain also saw very large school student walkouts, which were initially called by a different left wing current. The SSP took the lead in Scotland. I can't remember what other countries were involved.

A second wave of school student strikes were then called for Day X.


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## Chuck Wilson (Sep 26, 2005)

I thought cockers had said that workers power had led strikes in schools against the war, in fact I think he claimed it as the only industrial action taken against the war.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 26, 2005)

Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> I thought cockers had said that workers power had led strikes in schools against the war, in fact I think he claimed it as the only industrial action taken against the war.



Not quite, I think you are mixing up two different claims he made.

If I recall correctly he claimed that Revo and Workers Power had organised some of the school student walkouts and also that they had organised some actual industrial action somewhere. I don't know if either claim is true or not, but I do vaguely remember Revo/WP being one of the groups that took up the call for school student walkouts.


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## Chuck Wilson (Sep 26, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> Not quite, I think you are mixing up two different claims he made.
> 
> If I recall correctly he claimed that Revo and Workers Power had organised some of the school student walkouts and also that they had organised some actual industrial action somewhere. I don't know if either claim is true or not, but I do vaguely remember Revo/WP being one of the groups that took up the call for school student walkouts.



Yes, he claimed that teachers who were members of workers power had led strike action aginst the war at two schools in London.


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## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

Wolfie said:
			
		

> he doesn't actually do that - he says he realises this thread should be in P and P - "I guess this post should belong under "protest/direct action"," - but he doesn't exclude that arena from his assertion that "I can't find any posts about last Saturday's Stop the War demo"
> 
> so


It wasn't an assertion.. it's just that I simply couldn't find them (well I found the "let's go drinking" one but that wasn't what i was looking for). Thanks for putting me straight Wolfie.


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## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> I would have gone, but I felt it had got hijacked by lots of people who had lots of agendas many of which weren't mine. So I didn't go. '


Exactly. QED. And the rest of your comments are spot on too. Thanks Badge..


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## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

Wolfie said:
			
		

> seeing as changingman seems to have started this thread and then buggered of, and it seems to be attracting the "usual suspects" I can't see any merit in it remaining in "General" - off to P&P it goes ....


Apols for buggering off..  all I did was go home (to claim my place on the settee to watch a whining man on telly who can't sing or play harmonica. See other thread in the Music bit. And I'll be doing the same tonight.) After spending most of the day in an office chained to a computer, the last thing i want to do is go home and do the same there..


----------



## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> You see that only makes sense if you think that the other couple of million people who have been to anti-war marches weren't on the last one because they don't like other people raising issues which are linked to the war. Are you seriously suggesting that?


Yes. See Badger Kitten's eloquent response. And she of all people would have had more reason to go than the rest of us, being an (almost) direct victim of the threat I was talking about.


----------



## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> I was responding to some arsehole who was whining on about people raising issues like nuclear arms or Palestine at an anti-war demonstration.


Nice!! Moderator??  Is this guy one of the "usual suspects" you were talking about? Certainly lives up to his name. But as a grumpy old man I applaud that. Should be more of it.





			
				X-77 said:
			
		

> were you the one person who actually carried a union jack with '95 RIP' on it? Bet it was you, wasn't it...


No I wasn't. I abhor nationalism of all stripes (English, Irish; Israeli, Palestinian) so wouldn't be seen dead with a Union Jack. I'm a bit thick so I don't get the ref, to '95 RIP'. Can u pls enlighten me?


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## Pickman's model (Sep 27, 2005)

nostalgia for a year now gone?


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## Pickman's model (Sep 27, 2005)

anyway, if killing 52 people is the best (or worst) the mussulman terrorists can do in london, i doubt we should be quaking in our beds or on our tubes.


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## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> anyway, if killing 52 people is the best (or worst) the mussulman terrorists can do in london, i doubt we should be quaking in our beds or on our tubes.


They didn't just kill 52. They blew the arms, legs, faces, eyes, who knows what else off more than another 700. The forgotten. And they're not going to stop there..


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## Pickman's model (Sep 27, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> They didn't just kill 52. They blew the arms, legs, faces, eyes, who knows what else off more than another 700. The forgotten. And they're not going to stop there..


yeh. but it's small beer compared to what we have been repeatedly told would happen. frankly after 3,000 dead in sept 2001 52 dead and 700 injured doesn't indicate to me a clear and present danger of the onslaught tony blair would have us believe.

if you put even a minute's thought into what you could do with two 10lb bombs and a tube train, the death toll could have been far nearer the 700 mark, with perhaps 52 injured.

we're not facing people who could destroy an entire russian convoy in the salang tunnel before breakfast, but a bunch of fucking amateurish wankers, which though no comfort for the relatives of the dead, and the wounded, is quite a comforting thought for the rest of us.


----------



## grogwilton (Sep 27, 2005)

nigel i wasnt involved in internal debate on the left during those school strikes, so i dont know who started organising the strikes.

but i do remember going on an anti war demo in oxford before feb 15th, and there were loads of swp stickers saying 'on the day war breaks out strike occupy protest' 

is it really possible that no school students read these? i think your claim that isr was the only organisation pushing strongly for school strikes and that stw (and by implication swp) were trying to damp down school student strikes is a bit far fetched.


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## kyser_soze (Sep 27, 2005)

> It's not a matter of people being as callous as you, more likely most people aren't aware of demos until the media decide to mention it, very conveniently, on the day.



Not at all - a lot of the people I talked to on F15  were more than a little annoyed to see Free Palenstine and mutliple issue banners on what had been billed as an anti-Iraq war march, so it's not entirely unbelievable that the impression of any future marches being people by multi-issue folks like the lovely Nigel may well have put them off.

That and the fact that 

a. It's a waste of time

b. Even tho many agree with 'troops out' the Iraq war is not especially high on most people's agendas, with domestic issues like employment, health, education and L&O dominating...as usual really.


----------



## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> yeh. but it's small beer compared to what we have been repeatedly told would happen.


It still hasn't happened. Wait for the dirty bomb.


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Sep 27, 2005)

grogwilton said:
			
		

> but i do remember going on an anti war demo in oxford before feb 15th, and there were loads of swp stickers saying 'on the day war breaks out strike occupy protest'



The first wave of school student strikes took place well before "the day war breaks out", so if those stickers had anything to do with them somebody, somewhere would have had to have psychic powers. 

The Day X school walkouts were a second wave of the same thing - by that stage it was widely accepted in the anti-war movement that they (a) could happen and (b) could have an impact. Although some organisations still prioritised organising them much more than other groups (with the SWP in the latter category).


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## Sorry. (Sep 27, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> It still hasn't happened. Wait for the dirty bomb.


the dirty bomb that appears to be a logistical nonsense?


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 27, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Exactly. QED.



One person agrees with me! QED!


----------



## grogwilton (Sep 27, 2005)

i only knew of 2 school walk outs, those on the day the war broke out, and those on the day before that. at the time and still i havent heard of any others, and that wasnt for lack of trying, that was back in the day were i was an eager fresh recruit for the left, reading anything anyone put in my hand.


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## grogwilton (Sep 27, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> It still hasn't happened. Wait for the dirty bomb.



dirty bombs arent dangerous at all, all they are is a regular explosion, which spreads radioactive material over a certain area. the resulting slightly radioactive area gives you a higher risk of cancer. if you live there. and if the site isnt cleaned up.


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## flimsier (Sep 27, 2005)

grogwilton said:
			
		

> i only knew of 2 school walk outs, those on the day the war broke out, and those on the day before that. at the time and still i havent heard of any others, and that wasnt for lack of trying, that was back in the day were i was an eager fresh recruit for the left, reading anything anyone put in my hand.



Me too. Are you claiming there were loads before this NI?


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 27, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> Me too. Are you claiming there were loads before this NI?



 

Yes.

The first large wave of school student strikes took place on the 5th and 7th of March 2003 and involved thousands. (A smaller wave had taken place a week earlier in Scotland initiated by the SSP). The second wave of school student strikes was on Day X and was built on the success of the first. I wasn't aware that this straightforward historical fact was in contention.  

On the same days up to 10,000 walked out in Northern Ireland, by the way.


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## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

grogwilton said:
			
		

> dirty bombs arent dangerous at all, all they are is a regular explosion, which spreads radioactive material over a certain area. the resulting slightly radioactive area gives you a higher risk of cancer. if you live there. and if the site isnt cleaned up.


Oh that's alright then.  I shall look forward to it. Maybe get some beers in for the big event.

What's all this crap about school strikes doing on my thread? Just seems to back up my point about dragging in irrelevant "ishoos"...


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## kyser_soze (Sep 27, 2005)

I'm always amused by the concept of schoolkids striking and taking the day off school. 

I mean let's face it - how many were actually 'RAH!!!' and how many were like 'Yeah! Day off skool!!!'


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## pin retaining (Sep 27, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Find me a march that is basically saying The War Was Wrong ( in fact it is fucking immoral) and I'll go on it. And so will about 300,000 other people.



Well put.


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## X-77 (Sep 27, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> I'm a bit thick so I don't get the ref, to '95 RIP'. Can u pls enlighten me?


british troops killed I took it to mean...there's a pic of him in this account of Saturday:

http://opendemocracy.typepad.com/wsf/2005/09/marching_for_ju.html

(just over half way down page)


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## X-77 (Sep 27, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> I abhor nationalism of all stripes (English, Irish; Israeli, Palestinian) so wouldn't be seen dead with a Union Jack.


so if you abhor nationalism then why were you only marching because of the effects that a war would have on your own country? People in other countries being bombed by your own country (and a heck of a lot more than 52 to say the least) doesn't seem to bother you on quite the same scale, does it? Why's that then?



> I marched in 2003 primarily because, along with many others, I could see that rubbing salt into the wound of global Islamic fundamentalism, by invading Iraq, would only put Britain top of the list of potential terrorist targets


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## changingman (Sep 27, 2005)

X-77 said:
			
		

> so if you abhor nationalism then why were you only marching because of the effects that a war would have on your own country


You're making a lot of assumptions there. 
1. i wasn't ONLY marching because of etc etc. if u read my post it says "primarily".
2. it's not the effects on the country i'm concerned about, it's the effects on the people who live in it. 
3. and i am very concerned, like many others, about the violence being wreaked (wrought?) on the Iraqi people, both by so-called insurgents and by British and US troops. I'd sign up to everything Badger Kitten said in her very eloquent earlier post about the war being about oil, being illegal etc. Why would i go on the friggin' march if i didn't?    But if the march had been about that and that alone, a heck of a lot more people might have come along too.

I remember very well a column by Howard Jacobson at the time of the 2003 march. Now Jacobson's an avowed Zionist (and, personally, I abhor zionism too) so, although he wanted to go on the march to protest against the expected war on Iraq, he could not bring himself to march alongside pro-Palestinian groups.

And that's my point.  Regardless of what you think about Jacobson's views on Israel (which don't stop him being a fabulous writer), he surely has as much right to hold them as any of us  have the right to hold any views we damn well like. Surely that's what the "diversity" we are all supposed to celebrate is all about. Or are some people allowed to be more diverse than others (to paraphrase Animal Farm)? 

Apols in advance but I'm going to bugger off again now. Enough computer for one day.


----------



## Badger Kitten (Sep 27, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> yeh. but it's *small beer * compared to what we have been repeatedly told would happen. frankly after 3,000 dead in sept 2001 52 dead and 700 injured doesn't indicate to me a clear and present danger of the onslaught tony blair would have us believe.
> 
> if you put even a minute's thought into what you could do with two 10lb bombs and a tube train, the death toll could have been far nearer the 700 mark, with perhaps 52 injured.
> 
> we're not facing people who could destroy an entire russian convoy in the salang tunnel before breakfast, but a bunch of fucking amateurish wankers, which though no comfort for the relatives of the dead, and the wounded, is quite a *comforting thought* for the rest of us.





Do you know, I really find this remark quite incredibly tiresome of you.

America is an enormous country, yet when 3000 citizens were killed in WTC, it was seen as 'an epochal change in history'.

Very few in 9/11 were injured; because of the spectacular method of attack: you either _died,_ or you _escaped._ Few injuries.

You also saw it , if not involved, _on sexy Live TV_. 
*The pornography of direct-hit silver screen tourist-camera friendly destruction.* 

Deeply memorable, of course.



The 52 dead  ten weeks ago were blown to teeny tiny unmemorable pieces: dental records was all left - I saw -  and the 700 injured were hurt _under-fucking ground _ . YOU couldn't see.

 But we are a small country, nothing like the size of the US - and that was 750 _in one hit_, in a matter of _minutes_. In 9/11 they died outright, here, they screamed, were injured, terrified and  died  WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CAMERAS , underground for half an hour or more -  and we heard and saw and you didn't see and you don't have the imagination to care. And so you call it trivial.

And the reason I raise this on this titchy  People's Fucking Front of Judea  thread in the widerness is because you said it here, and I was here before, telling you why I did march _then _ and didn't march last weekend...

Because, sunshine, _some things are more important than numbers, then television, than the 'small beer' of the screaming injured and dying in the commuter carriage  _ that you were fortunate not to  see 100 feet below Russell Square. And equally,  the 'small beer' the Daily Mail reader doesn't see in the suburbs of Bagdad. 

And the 'comforting thought' that you and your Daily Mail reading counterpart hold onto , why it 'doesn't affect you', is why I am posting on this  small, silly, ignored thread.  It's  why I marched before and why I don't march now: people like you make the marches meaningless, it's too small, too parochial,. too much about scoring points against the Nigels and the Jeremys and the Popular Judean Front vs The People's Front of Judea. You lost the urgency; this ain't party politics.

This is not point scoring.


Fuck the size of the marches and the snide points about them: far more people than voted for Labour now hate the war. The non-political, the too-young-to-vote, the cynical, the right-wing, the left-wing: they all *hate it. * And yet, they don't protest.

 And more than that, they're so scared. Scared to get on a bus to the West End.

 The latest demo mustered a tiny amount of people, compared to the numbers who want the war over and the soldiers out and the tubes safe.

Fuck arguing why the demo was this small and this speaker wasn't that exciting. Just fuck it. What do you _believe_? Why do you think its important? What are you doing to make what you want happen, soon?

I hate all this squabbling about the small stuff on demos. It's killing it.

The war was just wrong; blowing people up is shit, here, in Bagdad, Palestine, Jerusalem, anywhere.  We're scared of the hate and what it does to us.  Millions agree; why bicker? Let's hit the streets if that will stop it; whatever will stop this, please, wtf is the damn point of any of your arguing?

_Wrong damn place, wrong damn thread, fuck it. Going to bed; wasting my time._


----------



## 888 (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> I suppose some people were there to protest about all that lot - let's just call it - The War Was Wrong as a catch-all subheader - but there were a lot of pretty extreme viewpoints leaping on the T.W.W.W bandwagon and I just wasn't comfortable with that.



What were these extreme viewpoints? Are you imagining them? Aren't you displaying the same parochialism you criticise by not going just because you don't agree with 100% of what everyone there is demonstrating about? 

btw America is only 4-5 times bigger than the UK.

The majority of people didn't go to further marches because they either didn't think they'd have any effect (and were right) or thought they'd made their  point by going on one and felt morally smug and satisfied.


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## changingman (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> And the reason I raise this this on this titchy  People's Fucking Front of Judea  thread in the wilderness..... ... why I am posting on this  small, silly, ignored thread.


'Ere, leave my thread alone!

The march was on Saturday, I put up my first post on Monday and it's now Wednesday. Time to draw this one to a close I think. We were doomed once we were moved into the angels-on-a-political-pinhead (with the emphasis on "pinhead") zone that is Protest/Direct Action/Activism.  Got hijacked by the same forces that drove Saturday off the rails.

I started it, so I want to finish it. Is that OK?

I started it because Saturday's experience left me dismayed, disappointed, and depressed (in the non-medical sense). And many of the comments above I've found  quite disturbing and in some cases (e.g. the "small beer" one) shocking. I've told you the main reason why I marched. There are plenty of others - among them the women and children incinerated in the al-Amariyah bomb shelter in the first Gulf War; the thousands of civilians wasted during the so-called Shock and Awe campaign; the lies over WMD; the intimidation of the BBC over Gilligan, and the BBC's pathetic, supine capitulation;  the wedding party bombed by "accident"; the queues of hapless job-seekers being targeted by suicide bombers in Baghdad day after day after day; the citizens of Fallujah who were blasted to bits as they hid in the cellars of their own homes. The squaddies I'm not too bothered about.. they're all volunteers after all (so, see, I wasn't the one carrying the "RIP 95" flag, I was in fact wearing a "Bliar" T-shirt).  

But the image that's remained in my mind since 7/7 is the thought of those 700-odd souls, dotted around the hospital wards of London, missing arms, legs, eyes, faces even, with brain damage and other injuries too awful to contemplate, facing the prospect of another 20, 30, 40 years of life without being able to run again, or play football, or learn to play guitar, or roll a joint, or wipe their own arse  or brush their own teeth, or watch the sunrise or look into their lover's face, or listen to music, or make love properly. Those poor, poor bastards. All victims of the Pandora's box opened up by Blair,  and his ministers, undersecretaries, parliamentary private secretaries  and other cronies who only went along with it for fear of losing their jobs.  

Thanks to them we are living in very, very dangerous times. For many of us the most dangerous in our lifetimes. I don't want to join those 700 (or the 52 who died) any time soon. I don't want my wife to, i don't want my kids to. I don't want any of you to (yes even the total arseholes among you). That's why I marched.


*The End. No more posts, please.*

P.S. it just occurred to me nobody in Hyde Park brought up fox hunting. Wonder why not? Maybe it was after I left.


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## X-77 (Sep 28, 2005)

888 said:
			
		

> What were these extreme viewpoints?


I'd like to know what these 'extreme' views are too? 

And why shouldn't people who join the marches raise other - not unrelated - concerns, for example Palestine? Do some here think that our govenrment has nothing to do with the Israel-Palestine issue, that we are removed from it all?


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## Pickman's model (Sep 28, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> I started it , so I want to finish it. Is that OK?


no.


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## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

BK: I can see you're upset and all, but I can't let that stop me raising that you first said you wouldn't go on the marches because people were raising other issues as well as the war, then later in the thread said you were sick of squabbling over small stuff on demos. Seems a bit of a contradiction to me.


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## kyser_soze (Sep 28, 2005)

> And more than that, they're so scared. Scared to get on a bus to the West End.



Sorry if you had a bad experience following &7th July BK, but quite frankly if people have alloowed their lives to be this changed by those bombs then the bombers have totally achieved what they set out to achieve.

I had 4 friends injured and one FoaF died on 7th July so I'm not just saying this out of some kind of armchair warrior mentality. Point of fact is that I'm more likely to be knifed by a random nutter on the buses or tubes than I am blown up by someone, and anyone who can't accept that and stays in scared to use public transport might as well consider ALL the other interesting and imaginative ways they can die when they step out their front door...indeed, when they get out of bed. (more people died from slipping and falling in their bathrooms than died of the bombs)


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## changingman (Sep 28, 2005)

X-77 said:
			
		

> And why shouldn't people who join the marches raise other - not unrelated - concerns, for example Palestine?


I explained why - in post no. 76 above. Now stop it! we're just going round in circles.


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## changingman (Sep 28, 2005)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> quite frankly if people have alloowed their lives to be this changed by those bombs then the bombers have totally achieved what they set out to achieve.


Of course they have!! They bombed us for christ's sake. I now refuse to go on the tube (and my life's better for it..). Do you think East Enders' lives in the Blitz didn't change?? 
*ENOUGH ALREADY. STOP * .. I'm off to music/clubs/raves/festies - they're a more reasonable crowd in there..


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## Sorry. (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> And the reason I raise this on this titchy  People's Fucking Front of Judea  thread in the widerness is because you said it here, and I was here before, telling you why I did march _then _ and didn't march last weekend...
> 
> Because, sunshine, _some things are more important than numbers, then television, than the 'small beer' of the screaming injured and dying in the commuter carriage  _ that you were fortunate not to  see 100 feet below Russell Square. And equally,  the 'small beer' the Daily Mail reader doesn't see in the suburbs of Bagdad.
> 
> ...



What an astonishingly arrogant post this is. I mean who exactly is 'we' supposed to be? Some imagined liberal majority of everyday folk that you're claiming to be spokesperson for? 

You want to know why threads like this really happen? It's because the People Fucking Front of Judea types you sneer so maliciously at are actually passionate, caring people, who actually want to dedicate themselves to change. Not for power or privilege but they genuinely give a flying fuck and want to dedicate themselves to it. They're arguing over how best to get people like yourself - the concerned majority - to actually get off up your arse and do something about this great injustice you've worked yourself up about. Because let's face it - you aren't going to do anything about it on your own. You'll go to 1/2 demos (organised by the People's Fucking Front of Judea, publicised by the People's Fucking Front of Judea) and fuck off home. Then, you'll stand on the sidelines and whinge about the whole thing being hijacked by the 'extremists'. But ask yourself why the 'extremists' end up in charge of this shit, could they do it if the 'ordinary folk' were actively involved? The usual suspects run the show, so you don't have to (it's not a good thing, it's just how it is). 

Don't like it, do your own thing. In the meantime we'll have to bicker about why nothing we (the active minority) does ever seems to work, because the likes of you tut and sit on your hands.


----------



## winjer (Sep 28, 2005)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> Not at all - a lot of the people I talked to on F15  were more than a little annoyed to see Free Palenstine and mutliple issue banners on what had been billed as an anti-Iraq war march


It may have been billed as an anti-Iraq war march by the mainstream press but it was always "Don't Attack Iraq - Freedom For Palestine" from the organisers, as was the half-millionish march in the previous September. How would *you* make sure there were no multiple-issue banners, if that's what you want?


----------



## Isambard (Sep 28, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Of course they have!! They bombed us for christ's sake. I now refuse to go on the tube .



Great, I'm more likely to get a seat without you nabbing the seats and stealing the oxygen down there.

How dare you have the arrogance to demand a thread by stopped the minute it FINALLY dawns on you that your argument isn't washing.

The bombings were a milestone if you like in the history of London but didn't change the way of life. 

Get over yourself, you wanna get some argument off somewhere else apart from the "coffee morning-lifestyle" supplement of the Substandard. 
You know you might even think for yourself for a change, huh.


----------



## winjer (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Find me a march that is basically saying The War Was Wrong ( in fact it is fucking immoral) and I'll go on it. And so will about 300,000 other people.


 So organise one


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> What an astonishingly arrogant post this is. I mean who exactly is 'we' supposed to be? Some imagined liberal majority of everyday folk that you're claiming to be spokesperson for?
> 
> You want to know why threads like this really happen? It's because the People Fucking Front of Judea types you sneer so maliciously at are actually passionate, caring people, who actually want to dedicate themselves to change. Not for power or privilege but they genuinely give a flying fuck and want to dedicate themselves to it. They're arguing over how best to get people like yourself - the concerned majority - to actually get off up your arse and do something about this great injustice you've worked yourself up about. Because let's face it - you aren't going to do anything about it on your own. You'll go to 1/2 demos (organised by the People's Fucking Front of Judea, publicised by the People's Fucking Front of Judea) and fuck off home. Then, you'll stand on the sidelines and whinge about the whole thing being hijacked by the 'extremists'. But ask yourself why the 'extremists' end up in charge of this shit, could they do it if the 'ordinary folk' were actively involved? The usual suspects run the show, so you don't have to (it's not a good thing, it's just how it is).
> 
> Don't like it, do your own thing. In the meantime we'll have to bicker about why nothing we (the active minority) does ever seems to work, because the likes of you tut and sit on your hands.




Right. I did point out that I went to 4, not 2 marches pre-Iraq, from the Women in Black/CND  silent protest  outside No. 10 in october before the war - there were only about 350 of us there - then 3 more, including the biggie, plus - i din't bother pointing this out - but 6 other peace vigils via Women in Black as well. So I've hardly been sitting on my hands. But let's not have a how high can you piss contest.

 I have irritations with the way Gate Gourmet workers, Juan Charles de Menezes justice supporters, people whose aim is to establish  an Islamic or communist or socialist  state in Britain were all there marching and drawing attention to those causes when it was meant to be about, I thought, *stopping the sodding war. *  ( Yes, look at the stop the war website)  Pertinent as those other causes may be, if you allow loads of random, loosely -affiliated causes, some fairly out-there, some simply not relevant to an anti-war march  - to be there, then yes, you will freak out the less extreme political majority who may have a huge beef with the war and with Blair but _don't really want to march with the Gate Gourmet workers or whoever becase they are nothing to do with the thing . _ It takes a small amount of sorting but isn't it worth doing? Multi-issue marches are a mess, and far fewer people come, than if you just say 'It's about saying bring the troops back' or whatever, and then wait for the ( much bigger) turn out.


It seems though that the hardliners (who I affectionately mock as the Judean People's front vs. People's Fromnt of Judea)  care more about their own internal battles and competing ideaologies than actually doing what you claim to want to do -  which is reach out to the majority of non-marchers. You'd rather stereotype people like me as arrogant and uninvolved and I dunno, bourgouisie or whatever, than tone yourselves down and compromise what you say for one second in order to make a real difference. 

And that's the point I was trying to make.  Go mainstream. Tone it the fuck down. Forget the finer points of ideaology and winning the battles therein. Focus on organising a simple 'Bring the troops home' single issue march, and taking a moderate, determined clear anti-war line and see if that attracts more people out on the streets. Politics is about compromise and it suits those in power just fine tio have a fragmented Left all at each other's throats over the finer points of ideaology because then we are weak and ineffective.


----------



## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> BK: I can see you're upset and all, but I can't let that stop me raising that you first said you wouldn't go on the marches because people were raising other issues as well as the war, then later in the thread said you were sick of squabbling over small stuff on demos. Seems a bit of a contradiction to me.




Tried to cover this in post above. Let me know if I'm still not making sense.


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## Pickman's model (Sep 28, 2005)

when you say "pre-iraq", i assume you're referring to the marches in 1990/91.

the anti-war march on 12/1/91 (iirc) was the best for chants i've ever been on.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

X-77 said:
			
		

> I'd like to know what these 'extreme' views are too?
> 
> And why shouldn't people who join the marches raise other - not unrelated - concerns, for example Palestine? Do some here think that our govenrment has nothing to do with the Israel-Palestine issue, that we are removed from it all?




I covered what the extreme/irrelevant to an anti-war march point swere in longer reply above. I will quite happily march for freedom for Palestine but trying to conflate every single worthy cause into one doesn't work, it's confusing, it puts the vast majority off, it makes it look as if you don't know what you are standing for, it suits those in power to say - look! You  don't wantto go on that there march it's all about the M.A.B/Gate Gourmet/anti-police following de Menezes - not stop the war at all.

 If the march were simply and unashamedly about stopping the War I bet you'd get more resopect and more response. That's why.

 Yes of course Muslim resentment - Palestine- Iraq are all intra-connected, but marches need to be simple things with a simple clear message, or they... just don't really work as effectively.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> <snipped fairly large amounts of vacuous apolitical self serving bollocks>
> I have irritations with the way Gate Gourmet workers, Juan Charles de Menezes justice supporters, people whose aim is to establish  an Islamic or communist or socialist  state in Britain were all there marching and drawing attention to those causes when it was meant to be about, I thought, *stopping the sodding war. *  ( Yes, look at the stop the war website)  Pertinent as those other causes may be, if you allow loads of random, loosely -affiliated causes, some fairly out-there, some simply not relevant to an anti-war march  - to be there, then yes, you will freak out the less extreme political majority who may have a huge beef with the war and with Blair but _don't really want to march with the Gate Gourmet workers or whoever becase they are nothing to do with the thing . _ It takes a small amount of sorting but isn't it worth doing? Multi-issue marches are a mess, and far fewer people come, than if you just say 'It's about saying bring the troops back' or whatever, and then wait for the ( much bigger) turn out.
> 
> <more of it here>



What these people were doing was showing a thing called _solidarity_  - that is offering support to those in struggle who've shown support for them. I'm not suprised that you've not yet came across it frankly.

If you think people actively refused to come to this last march because of GG workers daring to turn up, or because the march was organised by communists then frankly you're out of touch and drowning. The whole series of huge marches were also organised largely by the same people - so why were the numbers down this time? Why are you claiming that these previously unmentioned things have suddenly developed into being a major block on this demo? You are obviously simply trying to associate your own views with hundreds of thousands of others on no basis other than your personal arrogance. 

A more crude and self serving post i've not seen for some time. There would be nothing if it wasn't for the people you're criticising - how about you get off your arse, stop turinng up things you don't want to be at and start organising thinsg that you do want to be at, then we'll see just how far you the 300 000 you think you speak for get. Shall we?


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> when you say "pre-iraq", i assume you're referring to the marches in 1990/91.
> 
> the anti-war march on 12/1/91 (iirc) was the best for chants i've ever been on.




 I joined CND in 1989, so I went on a lot of anti war marches over the years.  Yes the 1991 one had good singing.

 I was referring to the silent Vigil outside No. 10 in, I think, the October before the Iraq war ( it was really cold) ; that was the first specifically anti-Iraq war event I went on. It wasn't STW, it was Women in Black and CND organised.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Yes of course Muslim resentment - Palestine- Iraq are all intra-connected, but marches need to be simple things with a simple clear message, or they... just don't really work as effectively.


 Why do they? When have they ever been? You don't have much idea of what public and social protest has looked like over the last 300 years do you? It've rarely, if ever been mono-issue, even the utterly ineffectual CND marches of the late 50s and early 80s.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> What these people were doing was showing a thing called _solidarity_  - that is offering support to those in struggle who've shown support for them. I'm not suprised that you've not yet came across it frankly.
> 
> If you think people actively refused to come to this last march because of iGG workers daring to turn up, or because the march was organised by communists then frankly you're out of touch and drowning. The whole series of huge marches were also organised largely by the same people - so why were the numbers down this time? What's brought these previously unconnected things to the fore now -  you are obvioulsy simply trying to associate your own views with hundreds of thousands of others on no basis other than your personal arrogance?
> 
> A more crude and self serving post i've not seen for some time. There would be nothing if it wasn't for the people you're criticising - how about you get off yout arse, stop turing up things you don't want to be at and start organising thinsg that you do want to be at, then we'll see just how far you the 300 000 you think you speak for get. Shall we?




yeah yeah, ignoring the personal abuse. There's lots of good things about solidarity, but conflating loads of things and calling it solidarity doesn't serve the anti-war cause too well. The big Feb March worked because there was a widespread perception that it was about protesting the war; single issue stuff. I know when you turned up that there were loads of other causes showing 'solidarity' but it was 'sold' as ANTI THE IMPENDING IRAQ WAR and the big turn out was because of that. 

 I am critisising the methods, not the aims. Its a _campaign_. Campaigns need to stand for a simple proposition to be effective and reach large numbers of people. STW doesn't anymore, its a mess, and there's infighting and conflation of causes and bandwagon jumping and it muddles it and makes the campaign ineffective and unpalatable to the people you are trying to reach. Or don't you care about that?


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

People are drawn to the anti-war thing because of lots of reasons, .like they are drawn to any political party or cause. And when they get there they will all be slightly different. But when 'solidarity' becomes bickering is when the cause loses its power and its draw.

It's a _campaign._ It needs to stand for a simple proposition. Most effective campaigns over the last 300 years have had that, whether it is 'Liberty! Fraternity! Equality!'' or '' No Bishops, No Priests!' or 'Troops out!' or' Maggie out!' .Or 'Persil washes Whiter' for that matter.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> yeah yeah, ignoring the personal abuse. There's lots of good things about solidarity, but conflating loads of things and calling it solidarity doesn't serve the anti-war cause too well. The big Feb March worked because there was a widespread perception that it was about protesting the war; single issue stuff. I know when you turned up that there were loads of other causes showing 'solidarity' but it was 'sold' as ANTI THE IMPENDING IRAQ WAR and the big turn out was because of that.
> 
> I am critisising the methods, not the aims. Its a _campaign_. Campaigns need to stand for a simple proposition to be effective and reach large numbers of people. STW doesn't anymore, its a mess, and there's infighting and conflation of causes and bandwagon jumping and it muddles it and makes the campaign ineffective and unpalatable to the people you are trying to reach. Or don't you care about that?




Rubbish - you're simply dismissing things that you're not interested in (but oddly enough admit are 'pertinent' - so why shouldn't they be involved?) and assuming that what's true for you is true for everyone else. Where you coerced into supprting the GG workers in any way? Into supporting the JCDM campaign? If not, then please shut the fuck up - it doesn't affect you.

You're also trying to hide this behind a veneer of tactics, without backing it up with a single piece of evidence - if you're the expert on organising demos why aren't you out there doing it instead of attacking those who are? Really, go do it - you and the 300 000.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> People are drawn to the anti-war thing because of lots of reasons, .like they are drawn to any political party or cause. And when they get there they will all be slightly different. But when 'solidarity' becomes bickering is when the cause loses its power and its draw.
> 
> It's a _campaign._ It needs to stand for a simple proposition. Most effective campaigns over the last 300 years have had that, whether it is 'Liberty! Fraternity! Equality!'' or '' No Bishops, No Priests!' or 'Troops out!' or' Maggie out!' .Or 'Persil washes Whiter' for that matter.



You're the one bickering - who else is going on about the GG workers or the JCDM campaign? No one.

It's not  a PR campaign, it's not a lobbying project and it's not an advertisement.  And no, you are wrong on your history as well - woefully so in fact.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

> It's not a PR campaign, it's not a lobbying project and it's not an advertisement.




Well, dur, but that's exactly what it should be. Look at how the people in power get stuff done. By treating everything like a marketing or advertising campaign with sound bites, focus groups, clear propositions, brand communications, staying on mesage, reaching the target audience effectively and the like. Wake up and smell the coffee, *use the enemy's strength against him.* Engage.

 Or stay forever marginalised.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Well, dur, but that's exactly what it should be. Look at how the people in power get stuff done. By treating everything like a marketing or advertising campaign with sound bites, focus groups, clear propositions, brand communications, staying on mesage, reaching the target audience effectively and the like. Wake up and smell the coffee, *use the enemy's strength against him.* Engage.
> 
> Or stay forever marginalised.


 " Wake up and smell the coffee" - jesus christ - thought it was 1985 for a second there - a time when marketing cliches strode the land and passed for analysis.

Oh what a suprsie to see you finally argue this. Do you know kyser btw? I feel sick now. Do it our way - TINA. Do you think those past campaigns that you were just lauding did it that way? I don't? Nor does anyone else.

So go do it anyway, you go do it. Prove yourself correct and the people who got 2 million on the streets wrong. See, that's the point, you think this is a numbers game - typical ad-bollocks.


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## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Well, dur, but that's exactly what it should be. Look at how the people in power get stuff done. By treating everything like a marketing or advertising campaign with sound bites, focus groups, clear propositions, brand communications, staying on mesage, reaching the target audience effectively and the like. Wake up and smell the coffee, *use the enemy's strength against him.* Engage.
> 
> Or stay forever marginalised.


 Are you taking the piss?

Do you think that the state can be shamed into changing it's policy? That all the myriad strategic and commercial imperitives, with their *real, material pressures* can somehow be undone by some savvy marketing?

Jesus Christ.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

> See, that's the point, you think this is a numbers game - typical ad-bollocks



Erm - the threads have been about why the small numbers on the march. The numbers is what people do tend to look at, like it or not.


So you're saying you'd rather have a small number of pure-hearted individuals showing solidarity than large numbers on the streets? 

Is this about changing things and mass protest or is it about a special marching social club you like to belong to, full of like-minded souls? Salt of the earth types you trust but don't let's get slick or arganised or anything, or people might join in and take us seriously. 

It's not the aims, its the organsiation and communication I was arguing about. 2 million was great, fucking GREAT, why has it dwindled and dwindled ever since, and yet more and more people say that they are against the war?


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## mk12 (Sep 28, 2005)

> why has it dwindled and dwindled ever since, and yet more and more people say that they are against the war?



Because there are too many slogans, apparently.


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## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> It's not the aims, its the organsiation and communication I was arguing about. 2 million was great, fucking GREAT, why has it dwindled and dwindled ever since, and yet more and more people say that they are against the war?


 Because it was a totally ineffective mechanism for effecting a change in corporate/state policy, and people aren't stupid enough to keep banging their heads against a brick wall?


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Are you taking the piss?
> 
> Do you think that the state can be shamed into changing it's policy? That all the myriad strategic and commercial imperitives, with their *real, material pressures* can somehow be undone by some savvy marketing?
> 
> Jesus Christ.




I am slightly taking the piss, but I am also not taking the piss. If you want to reach out and get a wider message out to more than 15000 people, why not use slicker organistion and more effective communication and campaigning methods? When seeking to change people's minds, _why not _ nick tactics from advertising and marketing which are, after all, about getting people to change their minds? 

Yes, I do think if large numbers of people seem to be particularly riled up about something, the state will change its policy, yep. That's exactly how New labour behave. Look at all the fuss about school dinners FFS.

Single issue, easy-to-understand bollocks; it's the future


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## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> You are so unbelievably naive


Funny, that's how you strike me.


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## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

why?


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Erm - the threads have been about why the small numbers on the march. The numbers is what people do tend to look at, like it or not.
> 
> 
> So you're saying you'd rather have a small number of pure-hearted individuals showing solidarity than large numbers on the streets?
> ...




No i'm saying that you're ignoring why 2 million marched and didn't get anything like political recognition of that fact - that is, factors outside of the immediate control of the organisors of the series of marches in favour of spurious finger pointing at people merely showing their solidarity with wider aims. Whilst as ever people like you claim it's becaue their specialist advice isn't being followed - and that something they cannot and will not ever understand refuses to listen to them.

If you had your way i suppose it'd just be a direct one to one talk between those with power. Branded, directed and all that other crap.

Anyway, how are you progressing with your effective single issue, ad-speak march - has your arse left the seat yet?


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> why?


 It's all about the new methods man, the same methods that apolitical clowns like this have been pushing for 100s of years. If you could just change the message a little bit, ok, thanks, now a little bit more, a bit more. Cool, now you agree with me and i am the voice of the man on the street. What we're we after then?


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## audiotech (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Well, dur, but that's exactly what it should be. Look at how the people in power get stuff done. By treating everything like a marketing or advertising campaign with sound bites, focus groups, clear propositions, brand communications, staying on mesage, reaching the target audience effectively and the like. Wake up and smell the coffee, *use the enemy's strength against him.* Engage.
> 
> Or stay forever marginalised.



Placards, banners, posters, leaflets, megaphones, invading conferences. That's publicity and marketing out of the way.

Visiting picket lines, organising demo's. Target audience and focus group done.

Staying on message with; abolish capitalism and create something better, Brand communication determined.

Business students, don't you just love 'em.


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## Sorry. (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> I have irritations with the way Gate Gourmet workers, Juan Charles de Menezes justice supporters, people whose aim is to establish an Islamic or communist or socialist  state in Britain were all there marching and drawing attention to those causes when it was meant to be about, I thought, *stopping the sodding war. *



First off, you're irritated that they were there? Who the hell do you think you are? Do you think only concerned moderate liberals should be allowed to go on anti-war marches? Gonna vet people's banners at the starting point? 

"Sorry you'll have to go home, your banner claims that war and capitalism are somehow interrelated"



> Pertinent as those other causes may be, if you allow loads of random, loosely -affiliated causes, some fairly out-there, some simply not relevant to an anti-war march  - to be there, then yes, you will freak out the less extreme political majority who may have a huge beef with the war and with Blair but _don't really want to march with the Gate Gourmet workers or whoever becase they are nothing to do with the thing . _ It takes a small amount of sorting but isn't it worth doing?



Who are you claiming to speak for and on what grounds? I sincerely doubt that there are a significant number of people who object to marching with the gate gourmet workers. Small amount of sorting? This is a public demonstration we're talking about here, not a Soviet May Day parade, you can't tell people they can't march or they can't have a loud hailer or a banner. 



> Multi-issue marches are a mess, and far fewer people come, than if you just say 'It's about saying bring the troops back' or whatever, and then wait for the ( much bigger) turn out.



For all that, I actually share some of your criticisms of how the StWC has organised this stuff. I still think the demo would have been tiny for all whole load of other political reasons (in fact most of the debate on this thread was about how the things have been organised, and more effective ways of doing it, but don't let that stop you sneering)



> It seems though that the hardliners (who I affectionately mock as the Judean People's front vs. People's Fromnt of Judea)  care more about their own internal battles and competing ideaologies than actually doing what you claim to want to do -  which is reach out to the majority of non-marchers. You'd rather stereotype people like me as arrogant and uninvolved and I dunno, bourgouisie or whatever, than tone yourselves down and compromise what you say for one second in order to make a real difference.



I'm not stereotyping you. You _are_ arrogant and the evidence is on this thread for all to see. Nothing to do with you being bourgeois (so am I) or even uninvolved, merely with your claim to be an all-encompassing knowledge and voice of the people. 



> And that's the point I was trying to make.  Go mainstream. Tone it the fuck down. Forget the finer points of ideaology and winning the battles therein. Focus on organising a simple 'Bring the troops home' single issue march, and taking a moderate, determined clear anti-war line and see if that attracts more people out on the streets. Politics is about compromise and it suits those in power just fine tio have a fragmented Left all at each other's throats over the finer points of ideaology because then we are weak and ineffective.



Ok, find me an instance of the extremism on show in the StWC's platform. Or in their official literature. or anything that means what you've written above has an ounce of truth in it.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

> Rubbish - you're simply dismissing things that you're not interested in (but oddly enough admit are 'pertinent' - so why shouldn't they be involved?) and assuming that what's true for you is true for everyone else. Where you coerced into supprting the GG workers in any way? Into supporting the JCDM campaign? If not, then please shut the fuck up - it doesn't affect you.
> 
> You're also trying to hide this behind a veneer of tactics, without backing it up with a single piece of evidence - if you're the expert on organising demos why aren't you out there doing it instead of attacking those who are? Really, go do it - you and the 300 000.



Ker-ist, pot kettle. You assume that you  know best as well; it's a fucking discussion board, let's, hey, discuss our differring views. Saying 'you organise a demo' then is a pointless straw man. When did I say I was going to organise a demo? I did pop up in a thread about demos saying why I personally wasn't going on the latest one, and ever since then have been accused of all sorts of fanciful things, including an attempt to sinlgel handedly speak for and to mobilise the concerned middle calsses of Great britain, or something. Love the 'veneer of tactics' gibe BTW - and why does the only 'evidence' you'll accept have to come in the form of me, BK, personally organsing a demo with a minimum turn out of 300k?

The thread is  about *why is hardly anyone going to the anti war demos anymore,* despite, as I point out, the enormous unpopularity of said war. I, an until recently keen marcher and still very much against the war pop in to express a few reasons why I have been put right off and am frustrated that the people  - few as they are - don't seem to have any relation to me and don't even seem to be marching pridominantly against the war, even. Despite the peculiar charmlessness of some of the thread contributors, I still think it to be a conversation worth having. And I do think there is a point in asking questions about the organsiation and confusing mixed messages that STW sends out: why, with so much potential support, do you have so little support? Could it be, is possible that you might be able to imporve in a few areas? Shall we discuss that? Comment on how STW appears to a basically sympathetic, previously enaged onlooker whois still very much against the war and fairly gagging to  demonstrate?

No? Thought not. As you were then. *Sigh*


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## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

yes, that's right: no one has oferred any other possible reasons for the numbers decreasing over time. Give yourself a pat on the back.


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 28, 2005)

Perhaps you could try taking up Sorry's challenge before treating us to more of your bleating. In case you missed it:

Ok, find me an instance of the extremism on show in the StWC's platform. Or in their official literature. or anything that means what you've written above has an ounce of truth in it.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Ker-ist, pot kettle. You assume that you  know best as well; it's a fucking discussion board, let's, hey, discuss our differring views. Saying 'you organise a demo' then is a pointless straw man. When did I say I was going to organise a demo? I did pop up in a thread about demos saying why I personally wasn't going on the latest one, and ever since then have been accused of all sorts of fanciful things, including an attempt to sinlgel handedly speak for and to mobilise the concerned middle calsses of Great britain, or something. Love the 'veneer of tactics' gibe BTW - and why does the only 'evidence' you'll accept have to come in the form of me, BK, personally organsing a demo with a minimum turn out of 300k?
> 
> The thread is  about *why is hardly anyone going to the anti war demos anymore,* despite, as I point out, the enormous unpopularity of said war. I, an until recently keen marcher and still very much against the war pop in to express a few reasons why I have been put right off and am frustrated that the people  - few as they are - don't seem to have any relation to me and don't even seem to be marching pridominantly against the war, even. Despite the peculiar charmlessness of some of the thread contributors, I still think it to be a conversation worth having. And I do think there is a point in asking questions about the organsiation and confusing mixed messages that STW sends out: why, with so much potential support, do you have so little support? Could it be, is possible that you might be able to imporve in a few areas? Shall we discuss that? Comment on how STW appears to a basically sympathetic, previously enaged onlooker whois still very much against the war and fairly gagging to  demonstrate?
> 
> No? Thought not. As you were then. *Sigh*




Discuss? You are joking aren't you? You put forward a whole list of definitive problems and what should be done about them and all based on a series of demonstrably false assumptions. Which other posters have attempted to bring to your attention. And which you've then attempted to defend on a non - existent basis.

I'll accept any evidence you may have btw - i've yet to see a single example of it though. All i've seen is a personal opionion unrelated to anything else elavated to the single reason why the turnout was down, larded with swipes at other people who did turn out.


If you think i'm a defender of the STWC or most of the other posters here are, then you're wrong - and we've all gone into great (and far more and informed) details about about worries and criticisms over countless thread in the P&P forum over the last 3 or so years . I suspect many of us have just been provoked by your utter arrogance into defending them and their actions. Because you really do strike me as one of the most pig-head pompus and self regarding  fucks i've ever come across on these boards.


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## james_walsh (Sep 28, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Are you taking the piss?
> 
> Do you think that the state can be shamed into changing it's policy? That all the myriad strategic and commercial imperitives, with their *real, material pressures* can somehow be undone by some savvy marketing?
> 
> Jesus Christ.



Well said.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> Perhaps you could try taking up Sorry's challenge before treating us to more of your bleating. In case you missed it:
> 
> Ok, find me an instance of the extremism on show in the StWC's platform. Or in their official literature. or anything that means what you've written above has an ounce of truth in it.


 Yep, let's go with that for now. Please answer this one.


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## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

"pig-head pompus fucks i've ever come across on these boards."

No, no no: "reasoned practical bulwark against the Looney Left"

Or is it "People's Front of Judea"?


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

from WIKI because I have to finish my work said:
			
		

> Criticisms
> Critics of the Coalition have alleged that the Socialist Workers Party has too much control over the organisation. The pro-war commentator Nick Cohen has criticised the relationship of the StWC with religious Muslim organisations accusing the coalition of choosing to involve itself with Islamofascist organisations and ignoring the requests of secular trade unions in Iraq. As he and other commentators have pointed out, there is a contradiction involved in an organisation that calls for respect for human rights joining with organisations that call for the death penalty for homosexuality and apostasy [5].



Leaving aside the personal abuse yet again - sorry I'm not one of the lads and have different views to you but there, there. The most cursory speed readign of Wiki points out the well known criticisms of StW in a reasonably balanced way and as I have little time left to post right now, will have to suffice. What Wiki said, basically.

 The reason BTW I went off the rails initially and adopted a fucked off tone was because of Pickman's ''small beer'' point about which I covered in post 77 which I was massively offended by. Since then, if I have appeared arrogant to you, I am sorry, but what I am is angry and frustrated. With STW. With many of the posters on this part of u75. 

I would fucking love to march against the war. But I look at the march and the dwindling numbers and I come in here and I engage and I take the personal abuse and I  make some points and yes, I don't claim to speak for that many people but I would like to speak out. 

I do believe that there are many, many people who would like to march or protest or register that they are against the war and want to bring troops home. I do believe there are better ways of engaging with those people. The bickering and the shittiness on this thread is quite a good microcosm of why there isn't much enagement from people, _like me _ who has not posted here on P7P before.

Anyway, enjoy the backslapping as the door shuts behind me. The - whatever I am - arroagant, naive, not-one-of-you- ignorant blah blah   has something to write for somebody and a deadline to meet. I'd like to carry on, but I have to go and get on with work. It's been an experience,


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Odd how idiots always let other people know they're a idiot even when they're flouncing isn't it? Frankly, you can't blame people people for getting pissed off at what you admit was arrogant behaviour then make a whole series of other compliants on the basis of that arrogance that you've just apologised for. 

We all know what the criticism of the STWC are - we've made and fleshed out most of them on here -and we've had Nick Cohen using them in his columns as well.

The question posed to you still awaits an answer btw

edit: idiot for journo


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

_Pops back in to point out that I am not a journo or business student_

_Waves_


Oh, and read the New Statesman


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## Nigel Irritable (Sep 28, 2005)

So in other words you couldn't "find an instance of extremism on show in the StWC's platform. Or in their official literature. or anything that means what you've written above has an ounce of truth in it". Instead you tried to crib some criticisms of the StWC from Nick Cohen, a pro-war propagandist.

I'd mock the way in which you fled the field on being challenged to put up or shut up but really I think you've delighted us long enough here.


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

Psst


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## Badger Kitten (Sep 28, 2005)

ahem


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## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

from NI's post ...who got his criticisms form Urban75.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Psst


 Fuck me, what year is it? Are you new to this game luv?


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## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> ahem




Errm, the majority of people on this thread (I'd guess 95%) would agree with that. I wouldn't, but can you now make your case?


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> ahem


 Busy writing eh? Don't get too distracted by articles we've already dicussed or asumptions that every poster here is SWP.


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## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Psst



I'm sorry. This is 

Do you think the people on this thread haven't heard this stuff? Seriously?

I'm guessing you'll flounce properly once you realise that you've united opposite ends of the U75 P&P spectrum.


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## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

1. pop up and spout bollocks
2. get called on bollocks
3. screech "people's front of judea"
4. flounce, claiming being hounded.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Shut up SWP/MR twat.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

Sorry, the march had very very clear aims and reasons.

The fact that others raise other slogans is (a) good (imo), (b) inevitable and (c) expected.

FFS.


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## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Shut up SWP/MR twat.



What's MR? Is that me?

By the way, my (d) was 'fuck, what the fuck would a 'march' be if it didn't accept other issues being raised on it.

BK won't reply. She's wrong, and she knows it, but she thought she had the high ground! 

I tell you, if I wanted to unite the entire P&P of Urban, I'd invent BK.


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## Sorry. (Sep 28, 2005)

what gets me is that you know this'll enter folklore as an example of how inhospitable p&p is, how we're all just macho full-time politicos who scare off the girls and newbies.


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## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> What's MR? Is that me?
> 
> By the way, my (d) was 'fuck, what the fuck would a 'march' be if it didn't accept other issues being raised on it.
> 
> ...


 Don't start you muppet - that was directed at Kroppers. Really mate, get your board comprehension skills brushed up (and whilst you're there ask them to have look at the articulation motor - it rarely works)


----------



## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2005)

he was taking the piss: she seems to be assuming that anyone who disagrees with her is "looney left", which she seems to be categorising as SWP.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Sorry. said:
			
		

> what gets me is that you know this'll enter folklore as an example of how inhospitable p&p is, how we're all just macho full-time politicos who scare off the girls and newbies.


 Oh yes. Scarily correct i fear.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Don't start you muppet - that was directed at Kroppers. Really mate, get your board comprehension skills brushed up (and whilst you're there ask them to have look at the articulation motor - it rarely works)



deleted because I can't be arsed tonight.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

Ooh have i got the ern-lite-as-fuck annoyed? Flims, you can't write and you're quite astoundingly stupid at times.

You wind no one up because you have not the tools to hurt them. You're not a big cat - you're a lost mouse.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> deleted because I can't be arsed tonight.


 Do you want reminding?


----------



## soam (Sep 28, 2005)

I guess that for me there are several reasons why i didnt go on the 24th Sept demo. 
Firstly i suppose that the constant A - B marches are a waste of time and effort - if million people marching on 15/2 achieved nothing then i dont think any further marches are going to.
During the run up to the outbreak of war , and after i tried to become more active in my local STWC group, and began to atend planning meetings etc - all of which were made up of the same SWP members who have been around in the town where i live for at least the past 12 years, and who had no interest in differing ideas, opinions, tactics etc. I remember the farcical 'direct action' on the halloween day of action when we held up traffic by......pressing the buttons on the crossing and parading back and forth as the green man flashed - classic  
Mostly i think that i just dont trust the SWP/STWC - the day of the foil the base demo at menwith could have seen coaches from all over converge on the base, instead of the demo called in London on the same day. Always seemed dodgy to say the least - almost creating a divide between 'good' and 'bad' protestors.What could have been if thousands had demonstrated at the base that day??


----------



## X-77 (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Yes, I do think if large numbers of people seem to be particularly riled up about something, the state will change its policy, yep. That's exactly how New labour behave. Look at all the fuss about school dinners FFS.
> 
> Single issue, easy-to-understand bollocks; it's the future


so that's where we've been going wrong all this time - if only Jamie Oliver was on the anti-war case the government would never dare invade or occupy another country ever again and  imperialism would be but a thing of the past! 

Edit to ask: BK, do you really think more of a fuss has been made over school dinners than over Iraq???


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Ooh have i got the ern-lite-as-fuck annoyed? Flims, you can't write and you're quite astoundingly stupid at times.
> 
> You wind no one up because you have not the tools to hurt them. You're not a big cat - you're a lost mouse.



errrm. ok.

Well done.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> errrm. ok.
> 
> Well done.


 You tried to do your act mate - don't do it if you don't want people to respond to that ill-fitting act and then don't bottle it by editing your post when they do. Do it or don't do it. Not this half arsed coward stuff.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Do you want reminding?



Are you saying I don't remember?

I do. If you've a problem with it, pm me, like most people do. If you want to be the silverback, press something home when I'm pissed off with your dreadful insults.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> You tried to do your act mate - don't do it if you don't want people to respond and then don't bottle it by editing your post when they do. Do it or don't do it. Not this half arsed coward stuff.



Are you accusing me of editing my post after your reply?

Because I refute that.

Other than that, I think you're being a twat, but I'm ready to bite, I admit.#

In a minute PM will be along to snipe from the sidelines...


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> the silverback


the automotive (?) allusion is lost on me.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> Are you saying I don't remember?
> 
> I do. If you've a problem with it, pm me, like most people do. If you want to be the silverback, press something home when I'm pissed off with your dreadful insults.


 You what? I had a problem with it and i posted a public response - i didn't try and hide it by editing my post and demanding that it's done via PMs.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> the automotive (?) allusion is lost on me.



Well I wouldn't call him predictable, but....

wife is calling me.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> You what? I had a problem with it and i posted a public response - i didn't try and hide it by editing my post and demanding that it's done via PMs.



Now what are you on about? I posted something and edited it before any replies had been posted.

You know why? I'll tell you if you want to ask, but I'm not posting it on here. Suffice to say, I realised I was being antagonistic. I'll happily tell you. I anticipate no sympathy. However, I'll have it out with you privately. You have my email, or by pm. I'm not interested in this chest beating.

You are now being a twat.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> Are you accusing me of editing my post after your reply?
> 
> Because I refute that.
> 
> Other than that, I think you're being a twat, but I'm ready to bite, I admit.




No, you don't refute it - you deny it. If i had made a claim that bore any relation to yours then you could proceed to refute it. I did't though did i? 

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you edited yours whilst i was writing and posting mine. Why?


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

Because I don't want a row.

About refute v deny, or anything else.

You do. Go on then. I'm not in the mood, hence my edit.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> Now what are you on about? I posted something and edited it before any replies had been posted.
> 
> You know why? I'll tell you if you want to ask, but I'm not posting it on here. Suffice to say, I realised I was being antagonistic. I'll happily tell you. I anticipate no sympathy. However, I'll have it out with you privately. You have my email, or by pm. I'm not interested in this chest beating.
> 
> You are now being a twat.



Are you in a perpetual whirlygig or something? It's hardly worth dechipering your meanderings anymore because you don't actually say anything. It's all impresionist bollocks - if i wanted to dignify it with a school name that is.


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 28, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> Because I don't want a row.
> 
> About refute v deny, or anything else.
> 
> You do. Go on then. I'm not in the mood, hence my edit.


 I'm going to the shops to buy a pizza flims. I hope your balls have dropped by the time i return.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 28, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Are you in a perpetual whirlygig or something? It's hardly worth dechipering your meanderings anymore because you don't actually say anything. It's all impresionist bollocks - if i wanted to dignify it with a school name that is.



Well thanks for that mate.


----------



## catch (Sep 28, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Focus on organising a simple 'Bring the troops home' single issue march, and taking a moderate, determined clear anti-war line and see if that attracts more people out on the streets. Politics is about compromise and it suits those in power just fine tio have a fragmented Left all at each other's throats over the finer points of ideaology because then we are weak and ineffective.



How do you think war, not 'the war', will be stopped? Breaking things down into single issues suits those in power far more than trying to analyse and explain how they're related.


----------



## Badger Kitten (Sep 29, 2005)

Well, I've done the thing  I needed to do and I wanted to pop in again and thank you. Because what I was angry about when I stumbled in here, was why, when I felt so passionately that the war was wrong, I didn't feel the march was for me. 

I'd marched and protested about no more war before, many times in my life so why now did the anti-war movement feel as if it had nothing for me? Now, of all times? It made me feel furious, let down, angry, so I came on here and blasted my feelings. 

I'm not a march organiser, FFS, I don't spend my life on here discussing the ins and the outs of the various political permuations of the march organisers - what I caricatured, affectionately, as the People's Front of Judea stuff. I wanted the clear certainity that I had on that February morning when a million plus of us shuffled round London together and it felt like we were all on the same page. Not the bickering and the strange stablemates that being in a disparate group of 'professional protesters'  and that was what STW looked like to me , when I disappointedly investigated it once more, and read a few threads here about it.

Of course I seem naive to you - I'm not one of your gang, I don't know nearly as much as you. I wanted to engage with you to see in microcosm what it would be like if I went out on Saturday, talked to people. And what I got back, confirmed it. This isn't for me. At least, not as it is, right now.

And yet, it fucking should be. I wish it was as simple as I wanted it to be. I wish, and wish, that what I feel could be mirrored by those I march alongside. Stop the war, it's wrong, bring the troops back. In solidarity with those of the 7th July, with those who have suffered since. For all those who suffer at the hands of bombs, here and abroad.

It's not about the Socialist Workers Party, or the Muslim Council of Great Britain, or about fuck the police, or justice for Jean Charles, or Gate Gourmet workers, or join the Union. Whilst all those have sympathy with the broad aims of the march, ( I hope) it's not really about that. At its simplest, it's an expression of ordinary people's anger, and trying to give that anger a legitimate voice. 

I argued badly, I was tired and pent up and fed up with you all and mostly with myself. I needed to vent the anger and I actually needed you to be that shitty with me. To remind me to let it go. There are other ways of being against the war. There are other ways of showing my anger and trying to make changes for the better. I've just done something else and I feel better for having done it, because it was using the tools I have and language I can work with to register something with passion and to make a point I needed to make. I had a personal reason which wasn't really anything to do with any of you for turning up and kicking off. And without knowing it, you all helped.

So I'm off to bed with a lighter heart.Thank you, good night, I'd like to come back here when I am less prickly and fucked off with the whole thing, and try again. But for notw, that's enough.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 29, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Well, I've done the thing  I needed to do and I wanted to pop in again and thank you. Because what I was angry about when I stumbled in here, was why, when I felt so passionately that the war was wrong, I didn't feel the march was for me.
> 
> I'd marched and protested about no more war before, many times in my life so why now did the anti-war movement feel as if it had nothing for me? Now, of all times? It made me feel furious, let down, angry, so I came on here and blasted my feelings.
> 
> ...



I'm not being cynical, so fair play to this post, BK!


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 29, 2005)

Note our 'shitty' responses.


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

Blimey, what a mauling. "_Leave it, Badger.. they're not worth it_".

Christ, they sound like me when i was a student. The reassuring thing is these intellectual pygmies evidently don't stand a chance of ever getting organised enough to impose their infantile political agenda on the rest of us, thankfully. Instead they can spend the rest of their lives standing in cheap clothes on tatty high streets on wet Saturday afternoons posing as proles and trying to flog badly printed newspapers to make themselves feel ever-so self-righteous.

As for bringing side issues into the STW campaign out of "solidarity" (_does impersonation of Neil out of the Young Ones, holding up first two fingers of each hand in "peace, man" salute_):

1. Gate Gourmet workers.. missed this one as I was out of the country at the time on business in my overpaid bourgeois job so have no idea what the issues are/were, and what's more I don't really care that much (ooh-err missus). The flights I took on that trip didn't have any food anyway.  Besides which, by contributing to the exponential growth in aviation weren't the Gate Gourmet lot helping contribute to global warming and the death of the planet ?

2. "Free" Palestine.  A second racially-exclusive state in the Levant is just what the world needs.. I don't think. One is more than enough and has caused enough trouble already. And what does "free" mean anyway? It's a value judgement.. one person's freedom is another's servitude. (They were a good band though in their time..._Awwllllriiight Nooooww...!!!_)

3. I don't want to march on behalf of or alongside Muslim this or Muslim that  - any more than Sikh, Catholic, Buddhist, Jewish, or Protestant or Catholic this or that - because, as a lifelong, devout atheist, I consider all religion to be medieval mumbo-jumbo, and a major hindrance to world peace and understanding. And surely Islam has proved itself an even greater hindrance than the rest in recent times. What was it the speccy guy from Liverpool sang? "Imagine no religion...."

4. I would like to march about Climate Change but NOT at the same time as Stopping the War. My brain is very limited and has room for only one issue at a time, even though I passed my 11-plus first time and went to grammar school (fuck me I'm completely beyond the pale aren't I?). Not to mention there may well be loads of people out there who want the mayhem in Iraq to stop but are fully in favour of global warming. Or fully-paid-up environmentalists who want to hammer the Saddam-supporters. Who knows?

The trouble is I don't have an over-arching, catch-all ideology that instantly gives me all the answers without me having to find out what even half the questions are, so I have to work it out for myself from first principles. Much like the majority of the sensible, level-headed population. Ordinary, working people.  "Ordnary Lundners" as Ken calls them.

I've also got a life, so i'm buggering off back to Music.. I never asked to be here anyway.

Yes I know, I won't be missed. You told me before.  

I won't miss you either.


----------



## kyser_soze (Sep 29, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Of course they have!! They bombed us for christ's sake. I now refuse to go on the tube (and my life's better for it..). Do you think East Enders' lives in the Blitz didn't change??
> *ENOUGH ALREADY. STOP * .. I'm off to music/clubs/raves/festies - they're a more reasonable crowd in there..



Right, so following the knife attack on a guy with his girlfriend over a dusagrement about someone throwing chips at them, are you going to stop travelling on a bus too?

3,600 or so people die every year on the roads - that's a pretty high risk if being hit by a car and as for serious injuries numbers...well, you just don't want to go there cos if you're scared of being blown up in a tunnel, with quite frankly astronomical odds against it happening you must be terrified to leave your front door in the morning...


----------



## belboid (Sep 29, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> 1. Golden Gourmet workers.. missed this one as I was out of the country at the time on business in my overpaid bourgeois job so have no idea what the issues are/were, and what's more I don't really care that much (ooh-err missus). The flights I took on that trip didn't have any food anyway.  Besides which, by contributing to the exponential growth in aviation weren't the Golden Gourmet lot helping contribute to global warming and the death of the planet ?


your comments might look slightly less silly if you got the name of the comapny right. _Gate_ Gourmet.

Tho, actually, they wouldn't look any less silly as you blatantly know absolutely nothing about the dispute, so should probably have shut the fuck up about it.


----------



## mk12 (Sep 29, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Blimey, what a mauling. "_Leave it, Badger.. they're not worth it_".
> 
> Christ, they sound like me when i was a student. The reassuring thing is these intellectual pygmies evidently don't stand a chance of ever getting organised enough to impose their infantile political agenda on the rest of us, thankfully. Instead they can spend the rest of their lives standing in cheap clothes on tatty high streets on wet Saturday aftermoons posing as proles and trying to flog badly printed newspapers to make themselves feel ever-so self-righteous.
> 
> ...



What a nice fellow.


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

belboid said:
			
		

> your comments might look slightly less silly if you got the name of the comapny right. _Gate_ Gourmet.
> 
> Tho, actually, they wouldn't look any less silly as you blatantly know absolutely nothing about the dispute, so should probably have shut the fuck up about it.


Thanks. Sorted. I like a pedant.


----------



## catch (Sep 29, 2005)

Not sorted very well.



> The flights I took on that trip didn't have any food anyway. Besides which, by contributing to the exponential growth in aviation weren't the Golden Gourmet lot helping contribute to global warming and the death of the planet ?


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Not sorted very well.


They think it's all over.. it is now. Thanks again. Golden Gourmet sounds much nicer though, don't you think?


----------



## catch (Sep 29, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> They think it's all over.. it is now. Thanks again. Golden Gourmet sounds much nicer though, don't you think?



No. And the rest of your post isn't very nice either.



> weren't the Golden Gourmet lot helping contribute to global warming and the death of the planet ?



You don't think the first step towards an ecologically sound transport system that's managed towards human need might involve aviation workers having some resistance to their bosses?

What jobs do you think are available around Hounslow/Southall then? Should tube drivers refuse to service the Piccadilly line becuase it "contributes to the inevitable growth in aviation" too?

If you want to see an end to either the war or climate change, you're going to have to deal with the root causes that lead to the "inevitable growth" of capital which is so often in contradiction with the interests of the vast majority of humanity.


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> No. And the rest of your post isn't very nice either.


And that total savaging overnight of the perfectly reasonable Badger Kitten _was_ nice? It was like a dozen blokes beating her up with baseball bats. After all she's been through.
You're utterly bonkers you lot. And totally humourless.  Definitely my last visit to P7P (Why's it called P7P?)


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 29, 2005)

I thought you'd gone to drown in the music forum?


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> I thought you'd gone to drown in the music forum?


I have..


----------



## butchersapron (Sep 29, 2005)

You're not in stiff little fingers by any chance are you?


----------



## X-77 (Sep 29, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> It was like *a dozen blokes beating her up with baseball bats.* After all she's been through.
> You're utterly bonkers you lot. And totally humourless.  Definitely my last visit to P7P (Why's it called P7P?)


what a drama queen...

how can you tell whether posters on here are blokes by the way? I'd be intrigued to find out.

Oh and bye.


----------



## catch (Sep 29, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> can't answer any of your points so I'm going to insult you anyway, even though you've only posted on the thread a couple of times and have been exceptionally polite


.


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

Sorry Catch, please accept my sincerest apologies. How very rude of me. But congrats on the html skills .. i never said that..!!!

But hang on, what's this just come in?



			
				Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> Do you know what, I've seen the light. That Changingman has a point. His/her posts make a lot of sense in retrospect.  How refreshing to see the voice of reason here in P7P for a change (and why's it called P7P?) I'm off to join the LibDems in the morning.


----------



## flimsier (Sep 29, 2005)

I thought you flounced.

three times now.


----------



## catch (Sep 29, 2005)

Yet another post devoid of substance.

edit: at changingman


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> You're not in stiff little fingers by any chance are you?


No, but Bruce Foxton is and he lives up the road from where my nan used to live. Does that help?


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

flimsier said:
			
		

> I thought you flounced.
> 
> three times now.


Now four. I know, it's addictive innit? Better fly off to the States for rehab...


----------



## changingman (Sep 29, 2005)

kyser_soze said:
			
		

> Right, so following the knife attack ... etc etc blah blah .. are you going to stop travelling on a bus too?


I never did .. they're for pensioners going to the bingo.


----------



## kropotkin (Sep 30, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Now four. I know, it's addictive innit? Better fly off to the States for rehab...


 you're not very bright , are you?


----------



## Batboy (Sep 30, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> You see that only makes sense if you think that the other couple of million people who have been to anti-war marches weren't on the last one because they don't like other people raising issues which are linked to the war. Are you seriously suggesting that?



i would say that is a very pertinent point. I would not go on any of these marches simply because it pisses me of how the likes of SWP try to hijack these causes and spout off at tangents that I do not agree with.


----------



## Batboy (Sep 30, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> Well, I've done the thing  I needed to do and I wanted to pop in again and thank you. Because what I was angry about when I stumbled in here, was why, when I felt so passionately that the war was wrong, I didn't feel the march was for me.
> 
> I'd marched and protested about no more war before, many times in my life so why now did the anti-war movement feel as if it had nothing for me? Now, of all times? It made me feel furious, let down, angry, so I came on here and blasted my feelings.
> 
> ...




everything she said..(applauds) .

This war in Iraq is opposed by probably 85% of people . If there was a movement that did not involve the myriad of political opportunists that attempt to monopolise these issues and then blur them with their own political ambitions then the public would feel far more inclined to protest and the War in Iraq could well of had the plug pulled on it.

SWP  etc are Blair and Bush's best allies in prolonging the War in Iraq.


----------



## WasGeri (Sep 30, 2005)

Batboy said:
			
		

> i would say that is a very pertinent point. I would not go on any of these marches simply because it pisses me of how the likes of SWP try to hijack these causes and spout off at tangents that I do not agree with.



Are you seriously suggesting that it's the involvement of the SWP that puts people off going on marches? I am no fan of theirs but that argument is completely false. I suspect the vast majority of people have no idea who the SWP even are.

Peoples reasons for not going on demos are many and varied. I went on a couple to begin with but now I don't see the point. Nothing to do with the SWP or any other political group, I just see it as a waste of my time and energy.


----------



## 888 (Sep 30, 2005)

Badger Kitten said:
			
		

> It's not the aims, its the organsiation and communication I was arguing about. 2 million was great, fucking GREAT, why has it dwindled and dwindled ever since, and yet more and more people say that they are against the war?



Because marching, i.e. expecting the government to change just because you disapprove, is totally innefectual.

changingman - voice of the working man? Isn't that what the intellectual pygmies also claim to be? Fortunately you'll never succeed in imposing your  naive views on the rest of us, etc. etc.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 30, 2005)

after things like the various mayday do's, going on an a>b march is always going to be a bit of a letdown.


----------



## kyser_soze (Sep 30, 2005)

> changingman - voice of the working man?



Voice of the scared-to-use the Tube man more like...


----------



## audiotech (Oct 1, 2005)

Batboy said:
			
		

> everything she said..(applauds) .
> 
> This war in Iraq is opposed by probably 85% of people . If there was a movement that did not involve the myriad of political opportunists that attempt to monopolise these issues and then blur them with their own political ambitions then the public would feel far more inclined to protest and the War in Iraq could well of had the plug pulled on it.
> 
> SWP  etc are Blair and Bush's best allies in prolonging the War in Iraq.



I would remind you that in the UK at least a million people have marched against the war in Iraq and the only political opportunists I've witnessed have been those pursuing this war. I would also remind you that the government have already ignored the biggest march ever to take place in the capital. So, it's clear, the public have and are continuing to make protests.

Can you explain how the SWP are Blair and Bush's best allies and how are they 'prolonging the War in Iraq'?


----------



## X-77 (Oct 3, 2005)

MC5 said:
			
		

> Can you explain how the SWP are Blair and Bush's best allies and how are they 'prolonging the War in Iraq'?


didn't some try to say that the Vietnam protesters were responsible for prolonging that war too? I never did quite get that 'logic'...


----------



## Batboy (Oct 4, 2005)

MC5 said:
			
		

> I would remind you that in the UK at least a million people have marched against the war in Iraq and the only political opportunists I've witnessed have been those pursuing this war. I would also remind you that the government have already ignored the biggest march ever to take place in the capital. So, it's clear, the public have and are continuing to make protests.
> ?




Sorry that is scrotumsville, the irony is the SWP are just as much a bunch of politcal opportunists as New Labour elitists.




> Can you explain how the SWP are Blair and Bush's best allies and how are they 'prolonging the War in Iraq/'



Because most people get pissed at the likes of the SWP and their cheap advertising boards hijacking causes to promote 'their' name and therefore give them an avenue to promote 'their' other issues, so the general public don't go along to the protests. Hence why a million people did not march on the current march.


----------



## Batboy (Oct 4, 2005)

X-77 said:
			
		

> didn't some try to say that the Vietnam protesters were responsible for prolonging that war too? I never did quite get that 'logic'...



See my prior post. My point is the political opportunists like the SWP do more harm than good, I grant that is a paradox.  If a million people without political allegiance or political promotion protested everyday for a week or two the government would cave in. You need momentum. There was none.

As it was there was one march of a million people with the usual considered 'loony' suspects brandishing their advertising hoardings and propaganda leaflets...Then all followed by small voiced rallies and one 'big' march that attracted less than 2% of the original 'stop the war' protest. What message does that give out?

So it don't work.


----------



## Batboy (Oct 4, 2005)

Geri said:
			
		

> Are you seriously suggesting that it's the involvement of the SWP that puts people off going on marches? I am no fan of theirs but that argument is completely false. I suspect the vast majority of people have no idea who the SWP even are.
> 
> Peoples reasons for not going on demos are many and varied. I went on a couple to begin with but now I don't see the point. Nothing to do with the SWP or any other political group, I just see it as a waste of my time and energy.



Many people do not go on these marches becasue of the SWP and other fringe political groups -me included and by the looks of it BK got pissed off with the ancillary causes climbing out of the woodwork. Most people do know who the SWP are and if they don't and went on the march they would do now and that may well go someway to explain why many people did not march again...just like BK.

Apathy of course is any governments best controlling device yet nothing quite like the SWP et all, to fuel that apathy.


----------



## Batboy (Oct 4, 2005)

888 said:
			
		

> Because marching, i.e. expecting the government to change just because you disapprove, is totally innefectual.
> 
> .




What is ineffectual is lack of momentum, Marching is fine providing you sustain and build upon momentum. Of course that is difficult to do as dissenting voices get sore feet and need to go home for dinner.


----------



## WasGeri (Oct 4, 2005)

Batboy said:
			
		

> Most people do know who the SWP are



Most people where - on this site? On the march? In this country? In the world?


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## changingman (Oct 4, 2005)

Blimey is this still going on?  The Mousetrap of the Urban 75 world. This argument seems to be going round and round in ever smaller circles and will soon disappear up its own fundament. Good place for it.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 4, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Blimey is this still going on?  The Mousetrap of the Urban 75 world. This argument seems to be going round and round in ever smaller circles and will soon disappear up its own fundament. Good place for it.


fundamentalist!


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## treelover (Oct 4, 2005)

Although I have no love for the SWP/STWC, I think a lot of these tensions about what a demo is for is because essentially we live in a conservative (with a small c) country where the parameters of ‘what is political’ have increasingly shrunk and been contained, both by the media and by a new ’commonsense’ created by consequetive 'tory' govt’s. . In Europe, particularly in Spain, anti-war demos still routinely attract half a million people. What is more, you will see banner for a mutiplicity of causes present. In Britain in the seventies, most marches would have ‘guest’ speakers who would champion this or that cause, it was called solidarity, something we seem to have largely forgotten. Imo, this is because Europeans , (but particulaly the southern europeans) are very aware of how things are connected and their political horizons have not been narrowed by a very conservative discourse like what operates here in the UK: that for instance the Brazilian man was killed because of a racheting up of security after the London bombings, which themselves were a consequence of our involvement in iraq. They also still understand the meaning of solidarity. I do take some of BK’s point that some of the causes represented on the latest STWC demo were ‘far-out' but hey thats democracy, we shouldn’t pander to the limited world view of the ‘conservative’ englishman/woman, 


As someone once said:’everything connects’…. 



btw, well done bk for sticking with it , while I may disagree with you soemwhat you are one of our best new posters whose posts are often very heartfelt and sincere. Just out of interest, where you involved in Reclaim the Streets?


btw2, dont usually indulge in slagging folk off, but changingman you sound like some very cynical and tired bourgoisie, who maybe in his youth dabbled in the the more 'scene' elements of the left, you also seem to be singing from the same songsheet as our other veteran cynic and 'manipulator of the people' KS. Imo, not a good thing...


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## kyser_soze (Oct 4, 2005)

> btw2, dont usually indulge in slagging folk off, but changingman you sound like some very cynical and tired bourgoisie, who maybe in his youth dabbled in the the more 'scene' elements of the left, you also seem to be singing from the same songsheet as our other veteran cynic and 'manipulator of the people' KS. Imo, not a good thing...



What, as opposed to someone who bangs on about how at some mystical point of this country's history (the 70s) there was this 'solidarity' thing? Someone who yearns for a lefty Britain that never really existed and managed to shoot itself in the foot by forgetting that The People are more than just memebers of trade unions?

It probably escaped your notice but at the time of the 7/7 bombing opinion polls at the time showed that about 65% of Londoners (dunno about the rest of the country) made the link between Iraq and the bombing, so it's not that people in the UK don't _make_ the connection, as I said earlier on this thread, they don't _care_ OR the hardcore demostrator types put them off.

Most of the people who marched way back in the day did so for ONE reason, and that was to protest about the War - not to make a point about Palestine, or Gitmo or the Worker's Struggle against Capital. They went to say 'I don't want a war' - and if they got put off by a bunch of zealots against any further anti-war marches whose fault is that - the marcher for being conservative or the zealot for being...over enthusiastic?


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## treelover (Oct 4, 2005)

ok, KS but what  about my other points, that essentially we live under a conservative hegemony, which constrains how people how people think and act and which is not as prominent on the continent. Maybe a bit like Marx's false consciousness, but i would not be so patronising to suggest that.

btw, ks i actually like reading other points of view, i'm not one for monothought, despite what you may think


though
mythical solidarity in the seventies, well...what about this


'Saltley Gate

The mood was electric as almost all of Birmingham�s 40,000 engineering workers went on strike, and some 10,000 marched on Saltley Gate. They joined 2,000 miners at the gates. The 1,000 police on duty were simply overwhelmed.

"At first there were only ten of us, then twenty, fifty, five hundred and finally ten thousand", reported Bob McKee outside the gates. "That is how the picketing built up outside Saltley coke depot." He continued, "men from Dunlops, British Leyland, Rover, Drop Forge, GEC, etc. were there. Birmingham industry was at a standstill and ten thousand people flooded the square outside the depot, stopping the movement of traffic. The police closed the gates for the day. Victory was ours. I cannot describe to you the feeling of joy, relief and solidarity that descended over all of us there. Leaflets I brought to hand out were taken out of my hands in bundles by total strangers, who distributed them for me � it was like what Petrograd 1917 must have been!" (3)

Arthur Scargill also described what happened:

"Some of the lads� were a bit dispirited� And then over the hill came a banner and I�ve never seen in my life as many people following a banner. As far as the eye could see it was just a mass of people marching towards Saltley� Our lads were jumping in the air with emotion � fantastic situation� I started to chant� �Close the Gates! Close the Gates! And it was taken up, just like a football crowd."'

http://www.marxist.com/hbtu/chapter_20.html


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## kyser_soze (Oct 4, 2005)

What, and at that Saltley Gate protest they had marchers carrying banners for a wide variety of different causes? Or were they ALL there for one reason of protest?

And you're equating the solidarity of a largely homogenous racial group (bet the picket lines were TEEMING with ethnic minorities eh?), a group which had a shared class interest at a time when irrespective or whether you agreed with strike action being taken you had to go along with it or risk social ostracism, with an anti-war protest that had an ethnic mix probably wider than the UN?



> that essentially we live under a conservative hegemony, which constrains how people how people think and act and which is not as prominent on the continent.



More on this later.


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## butchersapron (Oct 4, 2005)

I think risking your own job to save that of another counts as real not mythical solidarity- and they were there to blockade, not on a demo - they are very diff things. I don't know WHAT THE FUCK you think you're doing by implying that the above instance of solidarity was race based.


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## kyser_soze (Oct 4, 2005)

I wasn't implying it was race based, I was making the point that the London demo was probably far more diverse from both a class and ethnic perspective than the blockade/marches of the 1970s. 

Put your knickers back on FFS.


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## butchersapron (Oct 4, 2005)

Why though? To what end?


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## kyser_soze (Oct 4, 2005)

You're an intelligent bloke BA, work it out.


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## changingman (Oct 4, 2005)

treelover said:
			
		

> dont usually indulge in slagging folk off, but changingman you sound like some very cynical and tired bourgeois, who maybe in his youth dabbled in the the more 'scene' elements of the left...


Hmm, very perceptive, treelover. Hence the handle. Slagging off? I take it as a compliment. Bourgeois and proud of it. (BTW I've corrected your spelling of bourgeois). I tried proletarian early on and didn't like it .. bad food, bad sex, bad music, awful wallpaper..

It's my privately held view (this is a rare public airing) that in the post-war years British politics have turned themselves on their head. The Thatcher revolution showed that the working class was no longer (if it ever was anywhere other than in the fantasies of the left) the progressive class. Thatcherite values are the core values of the new British proletariat - selfishness, greed, racism, wilful ignorance, philistinism, militarism, nationalism, imperialism, homophobia, misogyny, distrust of education - and if there is a progressive element in our society, it lies within the bourgeoisie. Educated folk, who think, and treat each other with respect. After all, Stephen Lawrence wasn't killed by a lawyer, a stage-set designer, a newspaper editor and an aromatherapist, was he? No, he was killed by plumbers, hod-carriers, white van men.     

That's wot I fink anyway.
_(Thinks: that should keep this paltry little thread chuntering on for a couple of days more.. Might get a  Longest Thread of the Year award..)_


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## treelover (Oct 4, 2005)

So that would be like Condoleeza Rice, Kissinger, Pol Pot, the 'cultured leaders' of the Einstaztgruppen to name but a few choice mass killers.


boy, you have lost the plot in your flight from your own past...



> Educated folk, who think, and treat each other with respect


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## audiotech (Oct 4, 2005)

*Completely Batty!*




			
				Batboy said:
			
		

> Sorry that is scrotumsville, the irony is the SWP are just as much a bunch of politcal opportunists as New Labour elitists.



What ever 'scrotumsville' is your clearly very original at name calling. Comparing the SWP with New Labour is even more original. Well done! 



> Because most people get pissed at the likes of the SWP and their cheap advertising boards hijacking causes to promote 'their' name and therefore give them an avenue to promote 'their' other issues, so the general public don't go along to the protests. Hence why a million people did not march on the current march.



So, according to you the general public are pissed off with the SWP and this is why a million people didn't march this time. Can you indicate which sophisticated, statistical methodology you used to come up with this simple and completely barking conclusion?


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## audiotech (Oct 4, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Hmm, very perceptive, treelover. Hence the handle. Slagging off? I take it as a compliment. Bourgeois and proud of it. (BTW I've corrected your spelling of bourgeois). I tried proletarian early on and didn't like it .. bad food, bad sex, bad music, awful wallpaper.



Changingrooms, your bourgeois prejudice is showing.




			
				changingman said:
			
		

> It's my privately held view (this is a rare public airing) that in the post-war years British politics have turned themselves on their head. The Thatcher revolution showed that the working class was no longer (if it ever was anywhere other than in the fantasies of the left) the progressive class. Thatcherite values are the core values of the new British proletariat - selfishness, greed, racism, wilful ignorance, philistinism, militarism, nationalism, imperialism, homophobia, misogyny, distrust of education - and if there is a progressive element in our society, it lies within the bourgeoisie. Educated folk, who think, and treat each other with respect. After all, Stephen Lawrence wasn't killed by a lawyer, a stage-set designer, a newspaper editor and an aromatherapist, was he? No, he was killed by plumbers, hod-carriers, white van men.



Stephen Lawrence wanted to be an architect. How does that fit with your working class caricature?

One of his alleged killers, David Norris, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 1996 for drugs and firearms offences. Customs and excise have reportedly won an appeal allowing them to seize the Norris's luxury £600,000 house in Chislehurst, Kent, after a confiscation order for £386,000 worth of proceeds from his drug deals. A gangster dealing in drugs with a penchant for a bourgeois lifestyle it appears, rather than a plumber, hod carrier, or white van man.

Thatchers' revolution was old style class warfare in which a battle was fought. Significant sections of the working class fought that battle, however, Thatcher didn't win it and the war has not been lost, or gone away.

The 'Thatcherite core values' you talk about are the prejudices of that rump now left in the Tory party, which dreamed of becoming the bourgeoisie. As this weeks Tory conference has made clear, in statements from all sections of the Conservative Party, those 'Thatcherite values' are no more. Afterall, those very 'values' keep losing them elections.


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## changingman (Oct 4, 2005)

MC5 said:
			
		

> allowing them to seize the Norris's luxury £600,000 house in Chislehurst, Kent, after a confiscation order for £386,000 worth of proceeds from his drug deals.


And that makes him a bourgeois? Nouveau riche prole mate in my book (Das Kapital). He probably shops at Asda with Jade Goody. 



			
				MC5 said:
			
		

> Stephen Lawrence wanted to be an architect. How does that fit with your working class caricature?


Eh?
well, exactly!!!


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## audiotech (Oct 4, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> And that makes him a bourgeois? Nouveau riche prole mate in my book (Das Kapital). He probably shops at Asda with Jade Goody.
> 
> Eh?
> well, exactly!!!



What, that murdering plumbers, hod-carriers and white van men are working class caricatures of your own making, or that Stephen Lawrence was from a working class background?

Bourgeois in a sense that he probably likes to rule the roost, wherever he might be (The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State).


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## Batboy (Oct 4, 2005)

*I'd rather be batty than a swppy*




			
				MC5 said:
			
		

> What ever 'scrotumsville' is your clearly very original at name calling. Comparing the SWP with New Labour is even more original. Well done!
> ?



Comparing them as opportunists..i somehow feel I am not wrong there.  



> So, according to you the general public are pissed off with the SWP and this is why a million people didn't march this time. Can you indicate which sophisticated, statistical methodology you used to come up with this simple and completely barking conclusion.



I said this as one of the reasons- if you read through my posts you will see how I cite 'apathy' and 'going home for dinner'. There are very few people who have the stomach for a full on entrenched protest.

But I will still say that the 'majority' of people do not want to be associated with the SWP or any other fringe obscure political group that comes out beating their drum, flying their advertising hoardings and discolouring what should be a simple protest issue with a variety of tangents causes

You want a protest - keep the fringe groups out and keep it simple. Single issue protests do work.

And for the record nobody is more pissed off than me at this fuckwitted government taking us to war with Emperor Bush but I would not want to go on a SWP beano to Hyde park...sorry that is how I and many others feel...

fuck this thread is boring....worse than premiership footie...


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## audiotech (Oct 4, 2005)

*You are Batty.*




			
				Batboy said:
			
		

> But I will still say that the 'majority' of people do not want to be associated with the SWP or any other fringe obscure political group that comes out beating their drum, flying their advertising hoardings and discolouring what should be a simple protest issue with a variety of tangents causes



The 'majority' can make up their own minds. These groups are afterall voluntary organisations.



> You want a protest - keep the fringe groups out and keep it simple. Single issue protests do work.



Your up for banning political groups (even those that organised the thing in the first place?) I take it?



> And for the record nobody is more pissed off than me at this fuckwitted government taking us to war with Emperor Bush but I would not want to go on a SWP beano to Hyde park...sorry that is how I and many others feel...



No apologies necessary. I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings and that of your 'many others'.  ffs don't go on the bloody march then, agitate and organise these 'many others' you keep rambling on about and then go for a 'beano' with them (I alway's liked the Bash Street kids myself  ).



> fuck this thread is boring....worse than premiership footie...



Try Man City, LETTSA will give you the details.


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## Chuck Wilson (Oct 4, 2005)

changingman said:
			
		

> Hmm, very perceptive, treelover. Hence the handle. Slagging off? I take it as a compliment. Bourgeois and proud of it. (BTW I've corrected your spelling of bourgeois). I tried proletarian early on and didn't like it .. bad food, bad sex, bad music, awful wallpaper..
> 
> It's my privately held view (this is a rare public airing) that in the post-war years British politics have turned themselves on their head. The Thatcher revolution showed that the working class was no longer (if it ever was anywhere other than in the fantasies of the left) the progressive class. Thatcherite values are the core values of the new British proletariat - selfishness, greed, racism, wilful ignorance, philistinism, militarism, nationalism, imperialism, homophobia, misogyny, distrust of education - *and if there is a progressive element in our society, it lies within the bourgeoisie*. Educated folk, who think, and treat each other with respect. After all, Stephen Lawrence wasn't killed by a lawyer, a stage-set designer, a newspaper editor and an aromatherapist, was he? No, he was killed by plumbers, hod-carriers, white van men.
> 
> ...



Very similar to the loonies in the RCP.


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## Batboy (Oct 5, 2005)

MC5 said:
			
		

> No apologies necessary. I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings and that of your 'many others'.  ffs don't go on the bloody march then, agitate and organise these 'many others' you keep rambling on about and then go for a 'beano' with them (I alway's liked the Bash Street kids myself  ).



To be honest marches no longer work (Unless the principles of momentum are in place). Direct action is more effective. 

But none of it works if it is under the banner of SWP.




> Your up for banning political groups (even those that organised the thing in the first place?) I take it?



_you_ know I never said that..




> Try Man City, LETTSA will give you the details.




 I aint that bored!


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## redsquirrel (Oct 5, 2005)

Well Badger Kittens certainly got enougth stuff for her next article anyway.


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## treelover (Oct 5, 2005)

what article, is she a journo?


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## redsquirrel (Oct 5, 2005)

treelover said:
			
		

> what article, is she a journo?


   No, never how dare you suggest such a thing. She's not a journalist, not at all, no way.


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## changingman (Oct 5, 2005)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> No, never how dare you suggest such a thing. She's not a journalist, not at all, no way.


Nor business student. This is like "What's my Line?" on the telly when i was a kid. Is she hiding behind the partition? Or am I getting confused with Juke Box Jury?


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## audiotech (Oct 5, 2005)

Batboy said:
			
		

> To be honest marches no longer work (Unless the principles of momentum are in place). Direct action is more effective.



Marches may not change government policy, but they can serve as an irritant to those it's directed against. It reminds those in power that an opposition exists. People who regard such protests as pointless should imagine how much happier ministers would be if they never had to face them. Any examples on how "effective direct action" has influenced those in power to end this war? I would prefer to see a million people marching rather than a handful of self-appointed glory seekers on a mission.



> _you_ know I never said that..



It was implied with the "keep the fringe groups out" comment.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 5, 2005)

MC5 said:
			
		

> Marches may not change government policy, but they can serve as an irritant to those it's directed against. It reminds those in power that an opposition exists. People who regard such protests as pointless should imagine how much happier ministers would be if they never had to face them. Any examples on how "effective direct action" has influenced those in power to end this war? I would prefer to see a million people marching rather than a handful of self-appointed glory seekers on a mission.


and when a million doesn't have any effect? and when that million becomes a handful?

people protest in different ways - some people think that marches are effective D) and some people feel that their protest is better registered through the use of other tactics. frankly, direct action usually has a much better chance of getting the goods than some fuckwitt'd shuffle from a>b. just because da hasn't stopp'd this conflict doesn't mean that it is a foolish idea. marches certainly haven't stopp'd the fucking war, & so i'd prefer to see the fucking end of some fucking self-appointed gloryhunting trots organising another excursion for their foul organisations.


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## audiotech (Oct 5, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> and when a million doesn't have any effect? and when that million becomes a handful?



Still an irritant. When some political hack turns up for a photo-op I somehow doubt that going through their mind at the time is the thought: 'Oh I do hope I have a howling posse giving me grief today.' They would prefer to put on a stupid grin and shake hands with some local dignatory than face any opposition.




			
				Pickman's model said:
			
		

> people protest in different ways - some people think that marches are effective D) and some people feel that their protest is better registered through the use of other tactics. frankly, direct action usually has a much better chance of getting the goods than some fuckwitt'd shuffle from a>b. just because da hasn't stopp'd this conflict doesn't mean that it is a foolish idea. marches certainly haven't stopp'd the fucking war, & so i'd prefer to see the fucking end of some fucking self-appointed gloryhunting trots organising another excursion for their foul organisations.



People do protest in different ways, but I don't see how a few people involved in direct action compares with action involving a million. The million people who marched against the Iraq war didn't stop the damn thing, but it demonstrated to the government that a massive opposition was out there against it and who were prepared to come out onto the streets to make that known.

The powers that be still understand that and no doubt a few in the cabinet would like to see an early exit from this debacle. Let's also remind ourselves, that a leading candidate for the Tory leadership has clearly been influenced by the opposition to the war. Also, pound to a penny it will make them think twice before they make another decision along the same lines.


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## Badger Kitten (Oct 27, 2005)

redsquirrel said:
			
		

> No, never how dare you suggest such a thing. She's not a journalist, not at all, no way.



Ha. Just saw this.


Sigh.


I'm not a journalist, but I have been writing. And guess what? I seem to have a freat deal of material. One would almost think there was enough going on in my life without me having to troll the politic and protest forum of U75 for ideas.  


But you know, if I ever decide a) to be a full time journo and b) decide I need to get ideas from red squirrel instead of having my own, I'll be sure to credit you, sunshine.


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