So you turned up, the samba band played, slogans were shouted, placards were waved.

Then what ?
Was the event postponed ?
Did you stop any of the business taking place?
Where any of the delegates forced to not attend ?

A protest is just that a protest, it is hard to accept but your achievment was zero. Only by the political process will events like this be stopped and the wealth of Iraq returned to the Iraqi people. Engage in the body politic, MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Ray, if people didn't start to try nothing bigger would every get going.

Just because you think you have a better way of protest, doesn't mean you should have a go at people who do bother but go about it another way. I dare not ask you what your way of making a difference is. Support people who are bothered, don't just post naff comments on their Indymedia posts.

Go fuck yourself Ray.
1./ You didn't do anything. was it the weather or would you miss Eastenders?
2./ I wouldn't vote for you.
3./ Politicians got us in this mess. Would you like to be the next Tony Blair, you cunt?
4./ Don't post if you haven't anything constructive to say.
5./ If voting changed anything etc etc. Parliamentary democracy? Oxymoron.

Ray, you're implying that only representative democracy is "the body politic", and "the political process". But there are many kinds of politics: direct action and direct engagements of many kinds are also valid political processes. Many people see them see a more politically moral and honest process than representative democracy, after having voted repeatedly for liars and power addicts who do neither what the majority asks for, nor the individuals concerned.

As an example, the recent successes in shutting down Genetically Modified food trials was mostly due to actions like this, as well as the more confrontational kind involving trashing crops etc. If we had left if up to "the body politic" (corpse politic, more like!) we'd all be munching GM sandwiches for lunch today. The only party properly reflecting public attitudes to GM are the Greens, and they never had a chance at gaining sufficient power in parliament in time to prevent GM from going from the joke "trials" to dinner table. Yet once GM is widely planted, there's no going back.

The same can be said for the Iraq carve-up: the Lib Dems have offered only token opposition, and there are no other MPs in parliament from the smaller parties who oppose it completely. Yet the carve-up is going on right now: do you suggest that we wait for some Trot/Green/whatever party to get elected to parliament before doing anything to stop the next generation of western-backed enslavement of these people?

And what's wrong with using both approaches? They're not mutually exclusive. Go on trying to change things through the same old representative political processes if you like, we're not stopping you. But don't demand that we donate our time, effort and resource to something with such a pisspoor track record at making any difference.

Ray's right to ask the questions. It's just his "conclusion" doesnt follow.
Some people may remember the same issues during the Anti-War protests. StoptheWar
pushed a mega-march and censored info about mass action at Fairford (USAF base).
Others argued mass action disrupting the flights of B52s from Fairford etc would have far more effect.
At DSEi Arms Fair politicians up to London's mayor opposed the event and achieved
nothing. Direct Action cost £4.5 million in policing and has raised the possibility
next time the organisers might have to pay for it themselves.
At the Russian Economic Forum a demo combined with direct action emptied the face-stuffers on to the street (and produced interesting chats with the temporarilly liberated staff!)
The problem isn't demos- it's not going that one step further