Stop the War Coalition ... Time to go?
riotact | 15.09.2006 13:35 | Anti-militarism
Little chance of the state feeling threatened by this shambles however, which is not actually being held during the conference but the night before. So it seem talk of surrounding the conference may be, how shall we put it, a lie.
The Stop the War Coalition is an undemocratic, unthreatening farce which has led the peace movement in the UK into a dead end time and time again. A sorry assembly of SWP stalinists and bitter old trotskyites the plan seems to have been to bore the anti-war movement into submission by holding a series of ever more pointless and depressing marches from A-B.
STWC stewards have become notorious for working with the police to stamp out such dangerous activities as sitting down in the road and their own idea of direct action was to build a Blue Peter style statue of George Bush and then knock it down (the three year old often plays a similiar game here at the void). They must be shitting bricks in the Whitehouse.
Ego-maniac George Galloway has probably caused more damage to the anti-war movement than most with his embarrassing performance on Big Brother and lack-lustre performance as a constituency MP yet further discrediting what began as the largest peace movement the UK has ever seen.
When almost every peace and antiwar group was mobilising to disrupt the DSEI Arms Fair in 2002, the STWC organised a so called 'mass demo' for a couple of weeks later, neatly ensuring that SWP followers from outside of London would book the coach to that rather than brave Canning Town on a cold Autumn night.
Now we're not claiming there to be an agenda naturally, we're not paranoid here at the void, but the fact is they couldn't have got things more wrong if they were all in the employ of MI5 and can no longer be trusted to lead the anti-war movement. Change from within is impossible as the STWC maintains notoriously undemocratic decision making processes and if yer face don't fit, or you ask too many questions, then you ain't getting in.
We call on all anti-war activists to reclaim the movement from these goons before it's too late. Sack Parliament (1) on the 9th October may be a start to creating an effective movement against the war which doesn't rely on the state to tell us how we can protest, but this will only be achieved if people get off their arses and out into the street!
Meanwhile an anarchist bloc will be present on the Manchester March. Meet at 12.30 in the Peace Gardens, just round the corner from Albert Square on the day of the march. They'll be the lot with the red and black flags.
You can find a list of other activites surrounding this year's Labour conference (which is sure to be entertaining) here. (2)
(1)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
(2)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
riotact
Homepage:
http://johnnyvoid.blogspot.com
Comments
Display the following 24 comments