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…).
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
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
e-mail:
darius2001@hotmail.com
Will this text achieve its intended aim?
25.09.2002 11:59
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
e-mail:
well@least
Agent-Provocateurs......
25.09.2002 16:20
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
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
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 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
brooke bond
But...
25.09.2002 19:48
Carmen
_Wise_ direct action
25.09.2002 22:30
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
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
e-mail:
cprice@imsmaxims.com
Cowards
26.09.2002 09:56
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 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
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