Here are the details for coaches from Birmingham...

Coaches will be going from Birmingham, leaving Allison Street, Digbeth at 8.30, £8, unwaged £4. Money in advance, please, to West Midlands CND, 54, Allison St., Digbeth, B5 5TH, 0121 643 4617, cheques to "West Midlands CND".

The lastest info I have is that CND will be taking at least 2 coaches and another 3 are going from Birminghams central Mosque.

Let's make this a big one, because every bomb Bush and Blair drop is a victory for terrorism.....

If Afghans can endure bombs raining on them day and night, we can suffer water raining on us, for one day...and umbrellas have duel purposes!

Rain in the UK or drought in Afghanistan, who's playing the HAARP?

"Invisible enormous rivers of water, consisting of vapors that flow, move towards the poles in the lower atmosphere. They rival the flow of the Amazon River and are 420 to 480 miles wide and up to 4,800 miles long. They are 1.9 miles above the earth and have volumes of 340 lbs of water per second. There are 5 atmospheric rivers in each Hemisphere. A massive flood can be created by damming up one of these massive vapor rivers, causing huge amounts of rainfall to be dumped. The GWEN Towers positioned along the areas north of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers were turned on for 40 days and 40 nights, probably mocking the Flood of Genesis. (This was in conjunction with HAARP, that creates a river of electricity flowing thousands of miles through the sky and down to the polar ice-cap, manipulating the jet-stream , like The Woodpecker.) These rivers flooded, causing agricultural losses of $12-15 billion. HAARP produces earthquakes by focusing on the fault lines. GWEN Towers are on the fault lines and volcanic areas of the Pacific Northeast"

Ideological disputes threaten to split Stop the War coalition, with liberals and revolutionaries begin infighting


The SWP is attempting to lower its profile within the Stop the War coalition. But the leadership's attempts to control the organisation have become evident, helping to deter many liberals and other Marxist groups. One prominent criticism of the Coalition is that the executive is not democratically elected and democratic procedures are not adhered to at meetings.

Meanwhile, a conflict has emerged between the liberal pacifists of the Bruce Kent variety and more orthodox Marxists groups calling for a revolutionary approach to the war on Afghanistan.

The CPGB is accusing the SWP of ditching revolutionary politics in favour of populist reaction which is unwilling to go beyond simply stopping the war. It also castigates the involvement of ARROW, which it claims is right-wing. Meanwhile, liberals are condemning the 'No War but Class War' slogans, claiming they are inappropriate at this time. They wish more UN mediation, appealing to the 'progressive' values that were supposed to define the UN.

Just a few questions: Is the Coalition becoming victim to Trotskyist infighting or SWP domination? Does the coalition need to develop more formal, accountable structures, or will it remain a loose coalition? Is there a case for liberals and revolutionaries to organise on separate agendas, or is unity preferable even if it means the coalition's aims are more vague?

Answers on the back of a ciggy packet, please.

Uno - you seem to have gone beyond the idea of raising bad practice to just a general rumour mongering - that last comment you made looks like an attempt to get everyone arguing rather than pointing out problems through research as your last comments did. A shame.

I am just reiterating what has been said in a number of other fora. I think the questions I pose are essential if we are to have a united front or at least a co-ordinated campaign. I am just exposing the different agendas being followed by members of the Stop the War Coalition. Isn't openness the best way to organise a coalition, instead of the covert actions of some groups intent on steering it towards their own interests/ideology?

Actually Uno, the main priority at the moment is to stop the war. The bombs are killing real people. Of course we need a democratic coalition, that's the only way we can all unite. But if everyone concentrates on making conspiracy theories of splits and plans of domination, we'll all end up arguing internally and losing sight of the whole point of this - to stop the war. So instead of getting drawn into all that inward looking shit, use your energy to make the coalition and the movement grow. See you on Saturday.

I want to way first that the reason I am reporting this is so that we can remove obstaclesto building an effective anti-war movement not to simply slag off the SWP. What is such a fucking shame is that their undemocratic behaviour will hold back a mass movement from being built. It is even more of a shame given that most SWP members are putting lots of effort into building such a movement, but here is the sorry tale

In Sheffield there was a large public meeting to launch the anti-war coalition. This was followed by an activists meeting on October 3rd with maybe 50 people at. There was discussion about the nature of the steering/group committee. There were differences of opinion expressed. Some speakers all from the SWP calling for a small committee. Other groups/individuala called for all to be represented. Another idea was for spokes council type system which has been common in the peace movement and direct action movement for a long time. People familiar with the history of the workers movement will recognise that this in outline is a skeleton of the form of organisation known as workerscouncils. This bottom up rather than top down organisation was the key to the mos succesful political movement in the UK in recent times - The Poll Tax revolt

The idea is that each group sends a represenative. So if there is a local area group, or workers group or action group (say anti-war artists) they can send along a spokesperson plus observers to ensure accountablity if they want. This is democratic and it means that any decisions taken can be quickly implemented. It maximises participation. It also can ensure that any new groups getting involved can be involved in decision making. It means that all are accountable. This was a form of organisation that operated in Sheffield successfully during the gulf war and the SWP were happy to participate in.

The CND chair suggested a compromise, so that a divisive decision could be avoided. The compormise was that there should be an open meeting and that anyone who wanted to be on the committee could be on. Given the desire to achive consensus and focus on campaigning rahter than structure those wanting a more democratic system did not ask for a vote. The chairs compromise was agreed on.

At the first "steering group" meeting, this consensus decision was overturned by a meeting at which about 17 SWP members and 6 or 7 others attended. A commitee of the SWP's chosen ones was elected. This is completely undemocratic and disempowering.
Given the SWP memos that have ben published on indymedia perhaps their behaviour should not be surprising.

It leaves those of us committed to democracy, participation in decision making and change coming from below rather than the top down with a difficult choice, should we Have a big row at the next activists meeting and piss off loads of people that just want toget on with stopping the war?
Stay silent about such a stitch up? Accept that the SWP runs the coalition and will use it for their own ends which in the long run will piss off people who want to stop the war and ? Take our ball home and sulk and leave the field clear for the SWP to recruit and sell merrily (probably what they want) ?

There is a silver lining in the sorry saga, the SWP must be getting pretty desperate to be behaving in such a way.

I'm not interested in creating splits, but highlighting them so they may be resolved. Don't blame me for it - look at what is happening at Stop the War coalitions. Ignoring these problems won't solve the matter and ultimately the current fragmentation at so early on in the campaign threatens to create an implosion.
As for using my energy, I am using all my spare time in this campaign and I will certainly be there on Saturday as should everyone concerned at the US/UK terrorist attacks on impoverished people.