Lets get together to organise something like this against BAE Systems who have a massive presence in the midlands and elsewhere. Let' s keep it local, national and international.

How many people were there on the demo? Just interested

The important question is not how many were on the demo (about 200 max in case you missed it) but how many saw it. The answer to that is thousands.

Not forgeting many more thousands who saw the TV and argus coverage. Great demo. Well done.

but how many of those "thousands" cared? Not many I'd imagine.

Good turnout for your demonstration. I was just wondering though, who provides the shelter of a democracy for you to voice your protests under?.........

Oh yes, I remember........it's our Armed Forces.

Hmmmm a bit of a dichotomy here ......... perhaps we had better stop making guns and bombs and give our forces banners and placards instead. You know the kind of thing ... "Please don't invade us, we're all very nice and caring people" or perhaps "Go away terrorists (pretty please)". Somewhat less of a deterrent methinks.

"Tourist Fiona McHugh, 32, from London, was among the customers in the shops and cafes in the busy street who watched the demonstration. She said: "We knew nothing about EDO MBM ten minutes ago but we do now and I think this kind of protest is a good idea."*

The public seemed pretty receptive, even more so when the police assaulted people giving out leaflets in a blatant but clumsy attempt at political censorship. One bloke sat in a pub shouted 'get a job', someone shouted back 'its saturday, its my day off!' and bloke's mates laughed at him.

The momentum is growing, and edo have no clue what to do about it except employ failed old tactics like disinfo and burying their heads in the sand with no comment to the press. Who knows, with EDO's directors in jail for war crimes, maybe MBM could be turned into a civilian workers' co-op - everybody wins!


*  http://www.theargus.co.uk/the_argus/archive/2005/06/13/NEWS25ZM.html

You think free speech is a gift from the state? Can't you distinguish between attack and defence? Britain is a genocidal imperialist power; if you include the deaths that are a direct and avoidable consequence of the financial archictecture our armed forces are *used* to uphold (i.e. debt-financing, IMF/WB) then capital's empire has killed many more people than Hitler, Satlin and Mao combined.

Our free speech is a right won by the people, and until the internal army (police) was created especially for the task, it was the armed forces job to crush popular movements like the Chartists. I have family in the forces, and they're well aware that very little of what they do has anything to do with defending the *people* of Britain, and a lot to do with defending 'interests', which generally involves aggression and plunder.

The idea we can only demonstrate because of the benevolence of the state/military is nonsense. Demonstrating is 99% illegal. Free speech is like a muscle, it must be exercised or it wastes away to be found wanting when it is needed.

We are everywhere.
We are winning.

>>but how many of those "thousands" cared? Not many I'd imagine.

That's a very sad state of affairs if it's true. People are being blown to pieces, families are being torn apart, people are losing their limbs... 90% of casualties of wars all over the world are civilians. Those committing these war crimes are buying their weapons from companies like EDO and BAE Systems and others. If you sell someone weapons and they use them to butcher innocent people (or any people really) then you can't deny you're complit in that crime.

Now if people see that this is happening but they really don't care, then I think that's very sad and reflects very badly on our society - if it's true.

Well, perhaps the sight of people protesting has become a bit of a cliche and people don't really pay attention any more. But out of everyone who saw the protest but didn't care, I wonder how they'd react if they saw the victims of war close up. All that blood and gore. And all those wrecked lives, all those recurring nightmares for years into the future. If people saw that close up they might care more.

But I think people DO care. I think the person who wrote "but how many of those "thousands" cared? Not many I'd imagine" is wrong - he mistakes his own lack of conscience for everyone elses. Just because he doesn't care doesn't mean that other people don't. He may like to think other people are as cynical, selfish and amoral as him. But that doesn't make him right. (and it probably is a him).



Secondly,

>>
Good turnout for your demonstration. I was just wondering though, who provides the shelter of a democracy for you to voice your protests under?.........

Oh yes, I remember........it's our Armed Forces.
>>

So let's analyse the logic in this.



1) Our armed forces protect us from terrorists
2) Therefore we are able to live in a democracy with freedom of speech
3) Therefore we have the right to protest
4) Therefore we shouldn't protest.


Or to put it differently,

1) We have been given the privilege of the right to protest
2) Therefore we should be grateful for this privilege
3) It would be ungrategul to actually use exercise this right
4) Therefore we should not protest.

(I am reminded of when Tony Blair said how happy he was to see protesters against the war because it showed that we lived in a democracy where we have that right and that in order to allow the iraqis that right we had to bomb them)


Two points.

Firstly, like the other said, our armed forces are used to bully or threaten other countries into accepting the status quo, which is a global economy weighted massively in favour of the rich countries staying rich at the expense of the exploitation and plunder of the global south.

Secondly, look at the actual issue of the EDO protest. Large numbers of civilians have been killed in Iraq using weapons made by (or with components made by) EDO.

You may argue (rightly or wrongly) that our armed forces have the right to exist and that (in some shape or form) we need them (or not!)... to argue that is one thing... but to generalise from that to saying that our armed forces can do whatever they want and that we should just be grateful and not criticise them and not try to hold them to account - that's frankly stupid.

And besides, the demo is about "SMASH EDO", not smash the armed forces (though I suspect many protesters would like to do that). If you want to disagree with the protest you should talk about why we should not "smash edo". I don't see you addressing that at all.

(And besides, the demo is about "SMASH EDO", not smash the armed forces (though I suspect many protesters would like to do that). If you want to disagree with the protest you should talk about why we should not "smash edo")

So we keep the Armed Forces, but send them off to do their job armed with nothing more than goodwill and a protest banner, and perhaps a flower in their hair!!

And another point about your posting ...........yaaawn ....(continued page 94)

"Tourist Fred McBloggs, 28, from Iraqistan, was among the customers in the shops and cafes in the busy street who watched the demonstration. He said: "We knew nothing about Smash EDO MBM ten minutes ago but we do now and I think this kind of protest is a waste of time, and these scruffy oiks have really spoiled our shopping trip."

Wow! Seems like the public are ordinary people who like to live under the protection of a secure democratic society where there really is no chance of being gassed by a dictator, or murdered by the state for their polictical views.

"Tourist Bob McSpigot, 68, from Loch Heed, was among the customers in the shops and cafes in the busy street who watched the demonstration. He said: "We knew nothing about EDO MBM ten minutes ago but we do now and we've been searching for these type of products for ages. We think EDO are smashing!"

Wow! Seems like some of the general public are other defense manufacturers


The thing about activism is .....yaaaawn.....(continued on page 94)

'Wow! Seems like some of the general public are other defense manufacturers'

Yeah, all 50,000 of you nationwide. How much are your jobs subsidised by us every year? Get a proper job, you useless scrounger!

i find it quite laughable that, you would have the workers and directors of edo tried for war crimes using uk law,or even under international law yet you activly ask your supporters to defy an injuction set by a court under the same law....smacks a bit of hypocracy..you want to use the law but dont adhear to it

suggest we all just ignore all laws in future ,including speed limits and even ones about murder etc etc after all..anarchy would be much better than a democracy....wouldnt it -not!!!!

"suggest we all just ignore all laws in future ,including speed limits and even ones about murder etc etc after all..anarchy would be much better than a democracy....wouldnt it -not!!!!"

Any tribe, society, or group of people have a Law whether written or unwriten. The Law is supposed to (in theory) regulate behavior and relationships between people in a society based on the principle of Justice. Thousands of books have been written on the subject of what Justice means, so I won't go into that here, but each of us instictively know what Justice is if we don't suffer to much from the self-inflicted delusions of ignorance that EDO's directors, and to be honest, most of their workers cling to with all of their greedly desperation and shame. The bottom line is don't instigate actions on others that you would not want to endure the direct consequences of yourself (I'm not a Christian, but JC had a point there). If you wouldn't like a Paveway bomb landing on your house, stop playing your part in making the war machine that drops them on the houses of others. You can only justify your part in the slaughter in Iraq by entertaining lies and distortions about the world that are fed to you. Lies that you lap up without question so that you can continue your sad, unimaginative, destructive lives without feeling too bad about yourselves. If you can be bought off with a 40,000k salary and a flash car in exchange for your conscience, your Humanity, and your time (time that you will never get back - you only get one life), then I must say that you people are cheap. Bargain basement. Try thinking for youselves a bit. Imagine a Law that protects the powerful and crushes the powerless. But that would imply that the government and the law makers are fundamentaly corrupt, wouldn't it? That would never happen in good old Blighty, would it. Nah, only the Arabs, Africans, Asians and South Americans have laws like that, right?

"i find it quite laughable that, you would have the workers and directors of edo tried for war crimes using uk law,or even under international law yet you activly ask your supporters to defy an injuction set by a court under the same law....smacks a bit of hypocracy..you want to use the law but dont adhear to it"

The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 came out of the need for a Stakers Law. The law that we actually got had been expanded a bit by that lovely principled man, Timmy Lawson-Cruttenden. Smart guy, Timmy. He realised the potential in extending the Stalkers Law to protect contraversial business and corporations from the inconvinient protests of the concerned public. TLC is the only lawyer who currently specialises in this (mis)use of the PHA, his bank manager must be pleased. We do have other laws that contradict this abuse of civil injunctions, such as articles 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998. This law can and will be restricted to protecting the people who rightly need it. No, not ARMS DEALERS, Timmy, I mean STALKERS.

So EDO's directors want the protection offered by dodgy Timmy's 'law', yet they expect to be immune from International and ICC law? That's not hypocracy is it? It's just good business sense, right? Don't these disgusting hippies realise that EDO are helping to defend British Petroleum, oops, I mean the British people.

Take those blinkers off! You really are not paying attention are you, EDO-philes? Stay behind for detention.

I think that the protesters should stop taking their mind warping drugs and get real. me and my neighbour T.Arget live in brighton and we love EDO.

What a lesson in Law from 'Mr(Ms) Can Lawson etc etc'

>

Get yerself an eduuuucation! Your 'lesson' totally ignores what society does when people step outside your 'common inate sense of justice' (by the way, it doesn't always need a capital J).
Take for example the case of (just off the top of my head you understand) a violent dictator who routinely resorts to murder and terrorrism to rule his people over many many years. The answer (just in case YOU haven't been paying attention), is that society steps forward to protect those unable to protect themselves, ie: the subjects under said dictator.

Now (because I know you'll struggle to comprehend this bit) sadly, things ain't always black or white, and someone has to have the courage to make difficult decisons knowing that innocents will suffer in the course of their action. But thank god the west acted and did't follow the lead of the pathetic, toothless UN !

Not so long ago, it was all too late for the Balkans as we stood and watched the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, but no doubt you and your mates all felt better about that, no blood on your country's hands.

You're in no position to lecture anyone on the law.

On the subject of activists, the European Constitution reminds us that .........yaaawwwn (continued page 94)