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Leaflet for Radicals at the "Anti-War Demo" 28th Sep

Radical Action Now Coalition (temporary) | 25.09.2002 10:18

This leaflet has been produced by a coalition of anarchists who see the need to move beyond being "moral witnesses" to genocide and abiding the rules laid down by those resposnible for the genocide. We argue for direct assults on the institutions and personalities who wage this unending war against all life, to sustain this society.

Message from “The Organisers” of
Don’t Attack Iraq Demonstration

 Stay peaceful.
 Don’t think, just follow.
 Don’t do anything that might upset the plans to obliterate Iraq.
 Don’t upset our good relationship with the Government. Let us have a nice day out, go home and wring our hands and moan when the bombs start raining down on defenceless women and children. We will lobby our mass murderers/liberal politicians.
 Don’t damage property, property is worth more than life. If someone breaks this Commandment then we must all repeat in mantra “we oppose violence”. Then we’ll turn them over to the State.
 Don’t acknowledge that property feels no pain. As damaging property means our friends’ profits will be effected. We wouldn’t like that and our friends in the press will criticise us for not controlling you properly.
 Don’t recognise that our role has always been to sap the energy and anger of people and push them in more pointless, fruitless ways. Like walking around shouting slogans, waving placards, selling papers, writing letters, signing petitions and donating money to our coffers (I mean our charities/causes). While the slaughter and devastation goes on unabated.
 Do remember that people must not be allowed to take direct action to stop the devastation of the planet and the murder of its inhabitants. (proviso: unless the “direct action” is a pointless media stunt to bring more money into our bulging bank accounts).
 Don’t do anything that might give you empowerment and self-worth and might actually achieve something. Allow us to continue talking and making a living out of the catastrophe which is modern society.
 Allow us to do our role of prolonging the system. Which we achieve through manipulation, false promises, fake rhetoric and promises of an afterlife (i.e. wait, wait, wait, tomorrow, tomorrow). Through these ways we spread dis-empowerment by claiming to be “representatives”, taking people up dead ends of becoming “recruiters for the cause” (party/organisation), selling papers and following orders (political/religious doctrines). We remove hope that people can actually change things themselves. All our manoeuvring, compromising, sell-outs and elitist snobbery and moral self-righteousness means that the majority of people withdraw from any attempt to fight-back. Leaving the field open to us, to do nothing.
 Follow us, We will march you up the hill and back down again! Trust Us, we have had more than Two Hundred Years of doing this. We have been running this society (if not literally, then with our ideas). We are adept at destroying the chances for revolutionary change (e.g. 1800’s England & 1968, France), as well as actually killing them off, i.e. Russia, Spain, Cuba etc.
 Stick with us, our ideologies/religions, our worship of “Progress”, Industry & Technology and we guarantee to keep you in your work-consume-die existence. We promise that you will get monthly updates on our campaigns, allowed to come to meetings to receive orders, moulded into a cog in our organisational machine and given a sense that you are “doing something” while the planet is devastated and life destroyed.
 Mass murder? Genocide? Planetary devastation? We’ll discuss it in the next meeting. “Next Cause, anyone?”


Signed:

“The Organisers” of Don’t Attack Iraq (not yet anyway, just kill a few more million silently, so we won’t have to hear about it)

Endorsed and supported by:
Parliament, the Police, the Windsor Family, the Business Community, All Religious Bodies, the TUC and All Political Parties (including the governments/bosses in waiting, SWP, SLP, Green Party, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace etc etc…).

Radical Action Now Coalition (temporary)

Comments

Hide the following 14 comments

Hmmmmmm....

25.09.2002 11:48

The implication here is that demonstrators should attack property/the police instead of marching peacefully. As someone who works for the dreaded Corporate Media and who will be working this weekend, I would like to say that on a slow news day nothing would please me more than a bunch of hooded, balaclava wearing political hooligans hijacking this event and rioting.

As someone who is evry worried about the prospect of this oil war, nothing would damage the image of the anti-war people than this sort of action taking place. It would play especially badly when you consider that there was almost no trouble./arrests or even bloodly litter as a result of the CA protest last weekend.

Whichever plastic revolutionary wrote the above should stand back and look at the wider picture here. Breaking a few MoD windows and bashing a copper is NOT going to alter HMG policy an inch in respect to Iraq -- although it might be quite adrenalising for the so-called anarchists in question.

Perhaps they should consider supporting Millwall FC if street-fighting shoulder to shoulder with "the working classes" is their bag.

db
mail e-mail: darius2001@hotmail.com


Will this text achieve its intended aim?

25.09.2002 11:59

I think the more SWP-free, direct action-inspiring information passed out on Saturday the better. But I fear that this text has a heavy negativity that might be more likely to deflate people's up-for-it-ness. There will be people out on Saturday who have never been on a demonstration of any kind before, and for whom this text will be confusing at the very least.

Wouldn't positive examples of the joys and more-than-occasional successes of confrontational direct action be the best way to get people to question the current mainstream methods of protest?

Nice one all the same for getting something together...

Mike

Mike
mail e-mail: well@least


Agent-Provocateurs......

25.09.2002 16:20

I endorse Darius's points above 100%. Slip off and do what ever adolescent shit you are into in the late afternoon as its getting dark. But don't give the police the excuse to section 60 the entire demo at the Embankment.

What precisely do you think breaking windows is going to achieve? or even charging the police (dont you know they are paid by the machine to take/give violence?). Do you think more or less people will come out in the future if the scent of blood is on the air?

Think long term-- this movement has got to last through the Iraq war and into all the other little wars that Bush/Blair have up their sleeves.

(And, ok, the SWP and the Trots in general are boring, but they aren't the one's you are fighting with)

All in all, please grow up. This is not Arsenal vs. Spurs, this is a moment in which the public opposition to war on Iraq is going to make itself visible and heard.

If you really want to do direct action, think up something really creative which grabs the public attention and don't reach out for violence and destruction (the other side will win at that game). How about hacking into the BBC to take command of the airwaves for a guerrila broadcast maybe five minutes long? What about a piece of guerrilla theatre of some kind?

And one last thought-- the other people on the march won't shop you, but the CCTV and helicopter cameras will. We can be sure that the police will be there in f--g military strength. Ramming your head into a brick wall isnt the most clever of radical strategies

Supadupa


Direct action

25.09.2002 16:48

Direct action on a march should be limited to sit-down protests and passive resistance. Smashing windows and pelting the cops is worse than useless. Whether you like it or not, most people going to the march are not into this kind of action and by causing a riot you are forcing your violence onto the protestors as well as the police. It also tarnishes the image of the campaign in the public's eyes and damages the property of those not involved in the war.

However, I think there are instances where property damage has a role to play. Those manufacturing arms and defence equipment, oil corporations, US consulates and others with a direct role to play in the war should be targetted for disruption and direct attack. Property, share-holders meetings, etc, are all potential targets of the resistance to war. We need to take the example of the animal liberationists, who have succeeded in bringing HLS to the brink of bankruptcy. This should be done outside any mass demonstration and consist of non-lethal guerrilla-style attacks.

Antidote


each to their own

25.09.2002 16:52

Why doesn't everyone do what they want while not condemning everyone else for doing what they want. The important thing is that people do SOMETHING to show their opposition to the war.

A massive march will be ignored by mass media and the government. A few smashed windows will be ignored by the government and pounced on by the media to discredit the protest.

But what if there was both? A massive demonstration AND some direct action. If the non-direct-action crew did not condemn the direct action tactics and the action was somewhat effective then we could be a force to be reckoned with.

Even if all that meant was stopping the traffic rather than being herded about by the state we're protesting against.

Anyone got any better ideas?

eyes


Constructive or destructive??

25.09.2002 16:58

I think Mike's comments are hitting the right note. I will be there on Saturday even though I don't won't to sell a paper or chant a tired old line but at the same time I don't see anything constructive in randomly chucking bottles at the cops or smashing any buildings. Direct action is the way forward but please don't tell me how I should take this direct action, if a pensioner/child/whoever wants to walk down the embankement opposing the war good for them, the vast majority of people in this country won't get off their arses to do anything. Instead of berating their efforts you should be handing out info, talking to them, expressing your opinion and listening to theirs. I along with many direct action people started life in the usual demonstrating way and slowly began to see the negative as well as the positive sides. People are willing to listen if you have a valid point, but if you use them as a cover for throwing bottles etc you undermine the whole direct action point, and it seems you are more out for your own ego than any revoluntionary activity.
I am fed up with all the infighting within our groups, we are all united in most of our opposition but seem incapable of using this unity constructivly. Lets stop the war and the bickering

JC


!

25.09.2002 16:58

!

!


well if you must

25.09.2002 17:43

I hope there is no serious trouble on the march but there is a certain large green building just down the river from HP at vauxhall bridge, opposite the railway station right on the sea front, that could do with a paint job , make a great squat fine river side rave site and many other uses better than the present ....

brooke bond


But...

25.09.2002 19:48

I think the more people on the streets on Saturday the better. If we start to belittle each other and each others' tactics, aren't we kind of forgetting who we're up against and aren't we directing our energies against those who are actually with us, not against us? And isn't this just what the establishment wants - infighting instead of efficient dissent? There is a lot of work to do and we all have different ways of doing it so let's not waste our time and energy slagging off each other but instead concentrate on what we want to achieve. I completely understand your frustration but in the end many people on the march on Saturday have strong opinions against the war but are not ready (yet??) for direct action and it would be a shame to exclude those people from this action simply because you might think that your chosen tactic is the only right one!

Carmen


_Wise_ direct action

25.09.2002 22:30

I agree with the majority of the people who have already
posted comments on this. We certainly need direct action,
but it needs to be effective and appropriate direct
action, not untargetted violence. Loads of police will
be trying to control this march...use the opportunity to
do another direct action somewhere else in town, or march
with the anti-capitalist block and make a decision to
do a direct action autonomously. Whatever you do, please
don't alienate the vast numbers of people who will
not be familiar with the arguments in the movement and
will just see (to their eyes) a load of hooligans kicking
off. If you're going to do something, respect diversity of
tactics and do it where it won't involve and harm other
people.

I agree that property isn't sanctified, but at the same
time, breaking some windows will achieve absolutely fuck
all apart from some very bad media attention. If you're
going to do an action, do something properly courageous...
climb the London Eye (if you've got the skills, don't try
it if you don't!) etc...it'll capture the media attention,
and it won't be hateful...

Much love,

Matt

Matt S


Something stinks

26.09.2002 08:49

The acrid irony running through this enlightening post posits the condenscending idiocy that if all the protestors would just listen to anarchists, then the war would be stopped. Then we can all run away together to magical happy land.

People don't oppose property destruction because "property is more valuable than life." They oppose it because it makes you look like a bunch of idiots - even more so than the spurious load of drivel you just posted.

The people on the march will have fairly left-wing views, unlike vast swaths of the rest of society. Is insulting them supposed to further your cause? Or does petulant ranting about how peaceful protest is futile make you feel big? (even more so than smashing windows which will be replaced the next week.) If you're so pissed off about everything, why are you seeking to alienate your potential friends?

Marching around peacefully probably isn't going to stop the war, so long as the retards in the White House are determined to have it. News flash: Fetishizing breaking windows and lame ranting about people you have a paranoid delusional hatred for isn't going to stop it either.

chris

chris
mail e-mail: cprice@imsmaxims.com


Cowards

26.09.2002 09:56

The protestors intent on violence get excited about big demonstrations like this because they need a majority of peaceful protestors to hide within. They do not take responsibility for their own actions because they hide their identities. They break a few windows then run back into the crowd, letting the peaceful demonstrators face the police response.

If you're all so revolutionary and brave, why aren't you out on the streets doing it every day? Why not fight every police officer you see, at all times? Because you have to wait for the peaceful majority to shield you that's why.

Get it into your thick heads - the majority of people on this demo do not want violence. If you want to have a little kiddies tea party tantrum please wait for another day. In fact why not prove how committed you are by calling for a violent demonstration the following week. Then everyone can demonstrate in their own way without having to disagree. If you stay away from our demo we will stay away from yours.

So come on, let's see how brave you are on your own, you fucking wasters.

The serious point is, that you will never build a mass movement with the use of violence because most people don't agree with you. It is undemocratic for you to put people into a violent situation. If you want a mass movement then you have to make it as inclusive as possible. Deliberately increasing the risk of violence and danger scares off new people joining in, and excludes whole sections of the population such as children and older people for whom it will be more frightening.

Or maybe you don't really want a mass movement, because being the minority you will then be totally insignificant within it, and it seems important to you to be bigger and better than everyone else.

Mercury Kev


breaking windows isn't direct action

26.09.2002 11:53

Smashing windows isn't necessarily direct action. Direct action is going out and actually making the change you want in the world - in the case of this war it means things like blockading military bases, strikes, sabotaging military vehicles and trains, army recruitment centres etc. etc.

Smashing windows is just attention-seeking from the mass media. There's nothing wrong with it, but I for one would rather go to jail for firebombing an army barracks than trashing a bank.

I think we should go on the Anticapitalist Bloc, though, because we have nothing in common with the religious zealouts and racists on the main demo, and there could be the chance to do some mass direct action to actually disrupt the war effort there - I mean, they've already cancelled a day of that Army recruiment even on Whitehall because of it!

Only Direct Action can stop this war!

blacknred


Only public opinion will stop this war

26.09.2002 12:58

The anti-war protest cannot be an end in itself, it has to be the expression of wide public disquiet.

This is a government that cannot blink without consulting opinion polls and focus groups. They will try to persuade, to cajole, even to blackmail us, but in the end if they think it will cost them the next election, they won't do it.

If we really want to stop the war, or at least force a serious hesitation, nothing at this point is more important than to show indivisible solidarity between the marchers and the wider voting public.

And nothing will do more to break this link than behaviour that can be protrayed as agitprop, anarchy or mindless violence.

As an earlier contributer, the hack, told us, the pro-war brigade in the media are on their knees praying for "proof" that the anti-war protest is just a bunch of anarchist anti-capitalists.

Don't give it to them.

Fitz