What about the current one? The invasion (for those who did not see it) is transforming itself to long occupation. The effort of Mark Thomas and others should to end this occupation. Some thing like 150 Iraqis have been killed during the last three days.

Will he be calling for a smaller campaign, without those annoying big demonstrations that we had to have against the build up to the war on Iraq. Its so hard to be noticed in a demonstration of millions, even with a witty slogan on your T-Shirt. I hope he will repeat all those suggestions he made in his New Statesman column about how to build an anti war movement - like keep out all those weird boring SWP types, we dont want them helping ; make sure not to appeal to trade unions; make sure not to leaflet in wierd boring places like Shopping Centres (only squares and normals go to them) ; try to keep to small "direct Action" events, especially when the action can be caught by Mark and his director to show on his TV show, thats so "inspiring".
As its a public meeting, he might even mention SchNews /Driect Action Collective instead of just borrowing all their arguments but only mentioning Quakers by name like he did in the New Statesman- becuase in a public meeting its easier to be more crazy and wild than in the pages of the New Statesman.

Im glad its taking place in Brighton, becuase only places that begin "BR" like Bristol and Brighton count.

Sounds like a great meeting. we must organise an anti war movement that doesn't involve labour mps - they are not important, george galloway never had a telly show with jokes on like Mark. Lets have a movement that doesn't involve big demonstrations, because massive demonstrations "are bound to result in diminishing numbers" on subsequent demos. Lets have small demonstrations in the first place, and then no one willl call them failiures. They won't even get noticed at all. Lets make sure and exclude the SWP - they are loony leftys and spend all their time putting up posters and organising stuff. Lets make sure there are no newspapers sold on our demos - anyone who wants to read left wing stuff can stick to the NEw Statesman, which they can buy in WH Smiths (please ignore the right wing stuff in it) . Lets make sure and not approach the Unions - that might lead to bigger demonstrations, which we dont want -and some trade unionists are "squares". The only workplaces that count are television centres. Lets just have small "inspirational" things that look good on telly - remeber , MArk is only doing a one camera shoot, so he wants to just film one thing at a time, like him going and annoying some poor security guard.

The truth is that those people carrying out various forms of Direct Action, are also the same people who have been working themselves to exhaustion filling coaches to National Demonstrations.

The fantasy that there is a separation between the people who take part in Direct Action, and those who organise National Demonstrations, is a lie propagated by the likes of Lindsey German (SWP), so as to support her convoluted argument that Direct Action is elitist.

This intentional attempt to divide the movement by falsely villifing those who take part in Direct Action is a smokescreen to hide the reality that the only tiny minority elite within the movement are the handful of SWP who have effectively hijacked the STWC steering committee.

So let's reject this either/or nonsense coming from the SWP, & recognise that those taking part in Direct Action are in fact working at least twice as hard as those who only support holding A to B Demonstrations in London.

~

When the invasion/occupation of Iraq was declared, it was good to see 20 -30 people amass in the town centre of where we live here (Malvern) and announce a stop the war group was meeting the following evening ...

We went along, but to our total dismay, there in the front of the meeting where 3 self elected chairmen, all SWP!!!! The holy f*cking trinity! We disrupted the meeting of marxists, christians and other 'mystics' after our call for localised direct action was shunned and ignored ...

Subsequently sod all effort was made to actively oppose the slaughter in Iraq on street level by the 20-30 people who 'joined' the STWC and were allocated various 'positions' by the ''SWP Leaders'' ... We anarchists (two of us!) got rid of 5000+ anti-militarism/state leaflets over the following weeks ... much to the 'horror' of the local STWC/SWP ... If Mark T can do something to persuade others to stuff the marxists and the mystics next time, then good on him.

You are going down the wrong track bashing the SWP for their hard work in the Stop the war campaign.
Agreed the SWP did not understand the Stop the city demonstration which should be seen as an earlier event in the anti globilisation movement than Seattle.
But they did catch up in the end.
But the anti globalisation movement in the UK went backwards after stop the city
But its doing good in Italy because in Italy they are not being secretive & complaining about left wing groups hijacking the movement.
Indeed in Italy the unions and even the Communist party are following along behind the autonomists.
Which is quite amusing.

stuart

All this talk of who works hardest makes it sound like a job application - "I am a hard working self starter"

I'm sure everyone works hard, but works hard at what ?

Mark Thomas argument in the New Statesman was that he wants a smaller anti-war movement - and not just kicking out the SWP, but also trying to avoid the Labour Party. SK of Malvern also seems to want to "kick out" the "mystics" from the movement - I assume this means religious people.

“Monkey Unit” bizarrely argues against “intentional attempts to divide the movement” , while supporting a call for an anti war movement that excludes the larger parts of the left

So some on the left, used to comfortable demonstrations of "people like us" really can't cope when an issue led by the left becomes massive and actually starts having an effect - they don't like it because new demonstrators might be anti-war , but still hold many different political ideas. So some on the left, too tongue tied to try and win over , say, committed moslems, labour party supporters, or even just plain liberals, would rather they were simply excluded from the demos, so they can be the nice, small stunts of like minded people they are used too.

SK of Malvern really gives the game away - faced with a broad based anti war movement , (s)he says (s)he tried to "disrupt" their meetings – so instead of taking action against the war, (s)he took action against…the anti war movement – because it wasn’t his or her kind of anti war movement. I’m sure SK worked jolly hard handing out thousands of leaflets – but (s)he seems vague about whether these actually persuaded anyone else in Malvern to join in and actively oppose the war. Or were they just 5,000 leaflets each designed to prove that SK and his/her one friend were right about everything, and every one of the 5,000 people leafleted was wrong.

Well Bill,
Yeah, the leaflets were generally effective and provoked constructive discussion and support. No, the leaflets excluded no one, nor did they offend anybody, only those that were pro murder/carnage of course and those that would have us sit and listen to SWP members bollock on nonsense for hours at meetings for some reason. Sorry to dissapoint you on this one Bill.

The regional STWC for weeks before the war had promised via the local media, direct action and civil disobedience i.e mass workplace walkouts, strikes , boycotts etc But when it came to war, the regional/local STWC wanted NOTHING to do with direct action and only to chair 'tediously boring meetings'where they even elected a f*cking 'president'! A right bloody farce!.

Ok they organised orderly coach trips to London to be marched around by cops all day, guided by stewards etc to end up in 'controlled,confined spaces' surrounded by cops to listen to politicians, pop stars, celebs and of course SWP members chant and talk and talk and ... then go home in an orderly fashion and, at home-stand around like cardboard cutouts holding 'pray for peace' placards (£1 each from the local STWC meetings) ...

Get real Bill, we disrupted the meeting after an hour or so because we were looking for something 'real' something 'direct', something the STWC/SWP had bragged about for weeks beforehand. It never occured then, nor the weeks after that ...

The chances of something 'real' and 'effective' happening if the SWP are still in the 'self appointed leaders' position of the anti-war movement the next time the ruling elites go to war to kill more innocent working class people, the chances are, the same innactive/unconstructive shit will be churned out to the masses from the STWC/SWP again.

If you want something "real" and "direct" to happen -why not just organise it yourself ? Saying that nothing "real" or "effective" will happen because of the SWP leadership is just a cop out - if there are masses of people waiting for your lead - why not offer it ?

Then again, when it comes to organising something yourself, you say you issued some leaflets which were

"generally effective and provoked constructive discussion and support"...err..is that it then ? some leaflets that provoked discussion...is that the best on offer. So on the one hand there are some people who at least can hold a local meeting and organise some coaches to a big demonstration.

and on the other a set of young firebrands who talk direct action , but only come up with a little bit of consciousness raising

and your the one saying "get real"

Stop The 'What' Coalition?

We do not 'lead' nor wish too (tut tut Bill) SWP pacified and contained the malvern massive, the state are grateful, but don't worry Bill, we've found activists and activity! Sorry the leaflet business disturbed you so much.

Bye.

Hello Bill,

It's really is sad when people try & set others up as straw men in order to make a point.

"Monkey Unit bizarrely argues against 'intentional attempts to divide the movement', while supporting a call for an anti war movement that excludes the larger parts of the left.

Umm. Did I say that? No, I think not. So why are you trying to put words in my mouth? I myself am a Socialist, I just don't accept that Socialists have to spend their time hijacking movements, damaging other actions, or attempting to impose party style hierachies on movements which don't belong to them. All of these things have been done by the Steering Committee.

Bill, you've clearly jumped into this debate without much prior knowledge of the issues of contention.

"If you want something 'real' and 'direct' to happen -why not just organise it yourself ? Saying that nothing 'real' or 'effective' will happen because of the SWP leadership is just a cop out - if there are masses of people waiting for your lead - why not offer it? !"

Here's a copy of an open letter by a member of Bristol-Stop-The-War, which may help you get up to speed on these issues. The fact is that the SWP minority have got a hold of the National STWC email database, which makes it difficult to advertise events adeqately until we've built up an alternative database or we've broken their hold upon it. The list everyone helped to build up has effectively been stolen by a minority with a censorious agenda.

Please don't reply further Bill until you've researched these issues enough not to patronise everyone with your uninformed interventions.

************************

REGARDING CENSORSHIP BY THE STEERING COMMITTEE

For the past 6 months the National-Stop-The-War Steering Committee have systematically censored & sabotaged virtually all forms of Direct Action. From the international significance of USAF Fairford, to the Mass Sit-Down on the 15th Feb National Demo, to the Reclaim The
Bases Weekend on 5th & 6th April, the Steering Committee has used & abused the national email list & website to squeeze out, downplay, or just plain censor these, & many other actions.

The censorious agenda of the Steering Committee was most plainly exposed during the lead up to the 22nd March Fairford National Demo. Stop The War groups around the country were telephoned by someone claiming to be from the National Steering Committee, who was spreading the message that Fairford had been cancelled. Whether this individual was genuinely from the Steering Committee is unclear, but the issue remains that the Steering Committee refused to use resources at it's disposal to refute this sabotage, as it clearly suited their censorious agenda to allow Fairford to be damaged in this manner.

The Steering Committee have therefore made it absolutely clear that they have no intention of representing the full spectrum of opinions which make up the coalition, but only those opinions & actions they narrowly approve of. This is the definition of a hijacking, & that is exactly what has occurred. Furthermore, on the 20th June defendants who took part in various forms of Direct Action at Fairford will be making the first UK legal challenge to the legality of the war. It is expected that this landmark event will also be censored by the Steering Committee, & sidelined at conference.

The Steering Committee still has the opportunity to pull back from this active censorship & sabotage of the movement. If it does not then the calls to bypass the Steering Committee will continue to grow. This is one of the first, & in the longer run, as more people become aware of the extent of events, actions & landmark legal cases which have been censored from view, trust in the National Steering Committee will evaporate, & shift to those who diligently bring this information to the movement in it's uncensored form.

In the interim, 'National' events called by the Steering Committee will be referred to only as 'London' events in Bristol-Stop-The-War News, & the 'National' website will be relegated to an ordinary link in our links page, as it is not representative of the movement, & therefore should
not be advertised as such. If people have an issue with this they should refer it back to the Steering Committee. In the interim, 'National' Demonstrations will continue to be called 'National Demonstrations'.

Voice your concerns to the Steering Committee:
 office@stopwar.org.uk
07951 235 915 or 0207 053 2153/4/5/6

James Venables
(Bristol-Stop-The-War Communications)

The STWC coalition should be functioning as a network for existing groups to advertise events through, & a bridge for them to meet on, unfortunately the model presented by the Steering Committee appears to be to supplant & censor existing groups in the interests of a fake consensus.

For an example of how the STWC should be functioning across country see the latest update from Bristol-Stop-The-War. BSTWC excludes no-one & includes everyone. Anything which argues for less than this is just a disingenuous repacking of hierarchy & censorship.

 http://uk.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=72496&group=webcast

~