Mary N B | 09.10.2006 15:45 | SOCPA | Anti-militarism | Repression | Social Struggles | London
Mary N B
e-mail:
mary_margaret1948@yahoo.com
09.10.2006 18:09
Tried, really tried
09.10.2006 21:42
doley
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Comments
Hide the following 19 comments
Shame
09.10.2006 16:51
Shows these fucking half-arsed fakes only turn up to potentially ineffective mass events of their own creation.
Christ, their masses could have just turned up for a single photo shoot couldn't they?
SHAME ON THEM
revenge_of_the_little_people
Sack parliment.
09.10.2006 17:17
Obviously the revolution will have to take place at a weekend and be finished by monday morning so everyone can be up bright and early for work!!
What happened to the critical mass?
Anon
Very poor turnout.
09.10.2006 17:18
Bring the war home
Re:Sack parliment. & Very poor turnout.
09.10.2006 18:45
Brian B
Homepage:
http://www.brianb.uklinux.net/antiwar-discuss/
I knew...
09.10.2006 19:12
The only thing I can think off is the rise of the entertainment industry during the same period at the decline of the protest movement. People have other thing to keep their mind busy, the internet usage has rised dramatically from the early 00's and so has other entertainments such as the wide screen t.v. 24/7 free t.v. coverage and the mind numbing daily nnewspaper which consently bombard your with right wing ideas. This is too marked with interest with the falling attendance in football matches, church congregation and local community events, engagements and local shops.
People prefer to stay at home at "shoot" virtual enemies on computer games rather than engage with the real facts of life, I have notice it coming for a while. Seven Million Londoners and all content with the entertainment industry thrown at them and yet when you speak to them the real issues they agree with you, particularly if you talk about privatisation. Not from one person have I heard anything good said about the privatisation policy.
Anyway must dash time running out here at the cafe.
My points aired!
I knew
Analysis of action would be useful...
09.10.2006 19:28
Some kind of analysis of this action would be useful and interesting after the fact...Most people didn't turn up I suspect because it wasnt a very good idea. Blaming people for not making the event bigger doesn't factor this in. Some kind of debate could be had here on pros and cons of the day and on the future possibilities for radical street protest.
Anyway, big up those who showed up.
@-Com
focusing on blair
09.10.2006 19:31
Nowun Inparticlar
Comments and thoughts
09.10.2006 20:07
Re the 'everyone's too busy watching tv and playing computer games' comment, well, a large percentage of people who turned out today were in fact young people pissed off with their politicians.
Re actions and demos in london, well, calling an event 'Sack Parliament' with its double meaning, and saying you intend to blockade MPs from entering using direct action and thus preventing parliaments re-opening could only ever lead to massive policing. In my opinion it would have been enough to present the protest as giving notice to the MPs that their services are no longer required, and that, within the SOCPA framework, may have made things a little clearer.
Though that said, plenty of people are repeatedly showing the SOCPA legislation for what it is, a crap bit of repressive nonsense that has no place in a balanced society. They're doing this week in week out, with many being arrested.
One of the forthcoming events advertised is for a peace camp that intends to set up on parliament square. It's part of a weekend of nonviolent resistance to the occupation of Iraq on the 2nd anniversary of the Nov 04 US/UK massacre in Fallujah. The "unauthorised" 24hr peace camp in Parliament Square will demand an end to the occupation on 29 Oct (meet 12 noon, Parliament Square). The camp will begin with Maya Evans and Milan Rai reading the names of 100 Iraqis who have died as a result of the occupation - one year after their arrest for doing this in Oct 05. See:
musing
why people were not there
09.10.2006 21:11
I think the idea and balls behind the Sack parliment campaign is inspired -but lets face it, this was never going to appeal to the masses, as the masses are not in anyway ready for this kind of radicalism. We can not be surprised at the low turn out.
Unfortunately changing peoples hearts and minds is a slow unglamorous process, involving talking and persuading the british public to give up their entrenched conservatism. I do not want to force my own radicalism on others as this end up being another form of fasism surely?
Don't preach to the converted tho, lets get out their and try talking to people....
Tish
tish
lesson of the day
09.10.2006 23:10
Next time don't tell the world you are coming.
A hundred people could have shut down parliament for the whole day with the right equipment, (and the good fortune not to be gunned down by armed police) if only they had used the element of surprise.
But anyway well done all who took part.
terry
Need to be more rooted in the movement
10.10.2006 08:53
Before organising this type of direct action you need to establish before hand as to whether people would want to carryout this type of action. Did any of the organisers ask what the masses were prepared to do? Was this type of action proposed to anyone outside the ranks of the anaracists?
Was there a discussion with members of STWC, not necessarily the leadership, but the coalition faithfull who attend the demonstarations, I was on the last demonstrations, nobody ask me to attend , there was no leaflet or publication to draw in the mainstream anti war types.
In the final analysis, this was lead by the anaracists who obviously do not carry much wieght in the movement (they have a tendency to dismiss the movement and have a secterian attitudes towards the STWC) and this is reflected in the poor turn out.
red letter
I didn't come....
10.10.2006 09:56
1) I couldn't see the point of the action. I understand the politics of the action, but not the point. How was it going to change anything, either short term or long term ? How was it part of a bigger movement for change ?
2) I still could have turned up for the fun of it, but then again I knew darn well what was going to happen : people would just get penned it for the afternoon, outnumbered and pushed around by aggressive police. Not so fun !
blark
Oh dear!
10.10.2006 11:23
Time to shutdown LARC and give power to the real resisters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BigEye
one reason: police state
10.10.2006 11:42
After the 'Cold War', governments were looking for an excuse for a total police state. Then they dreamt up the 'War on Terror', a war against unknown enemies who for the most part don't exist, but gives a perfect excuse for destroying the last vestiges of freedom within the most unequal system of government and economics this world has ever seen. And it sells a lot of papers, being totally idiotic in nature too - so the population can be lulled into a state of near panic/xenophobia. Perfect!
The reports coming back from London today don't make me change my mind about this at all. I don't know what is going to change things, but I hope someone thinks of it soon.
Krop
You guys crack me up !
10.10.2006 12:20
Tammy Sheridan
e-mail:
karlm@confusedpolitics.com
solidarity
10.10.2006 12:25
well done to all who tried.
fair play to anyone who didn't want to go down for whatever reason, but didn't feel the urge to slag off people for doing stuff.
and... fuck off and throw your keyboard out the window to all of those armchair critics who have bullshit analyses as to why this particular thing you saw in the media didn't inspire you.
i really wish it was possible to read indymedia articles without having to encounter the utter bullshit of such people. you are as bad as politicians grabbing people's attention by standing in the right place and shouting louder than the people who have something important to say. you make me wish the internet was never invented.
pete
well put, and astute!
10.10.2006 21:37
Anything done by anyone to highlight, to publicise the issue of this madness, the rush in to a police state at war run by corporations who instruct councillors and politicians who have been voted in by people who have no say in the work of those elected and will be the frontline troops in their aggressive wars, the consequences of which the Iraqi and Afghan Peoples sadly are all to well aware, not to mention so many other places around the globe!
Britain has always been 'ruled', it's people have never been free to choose their way, only to vaguely choose who imposes what spurious 'economic' theory or ideology from a narrowly selected cadre of greedy, narcissistic and emotionally blind men and women who should know better, that being so their crime is all the greater.
Revolution if it occurs at all, starts indiviually and grows expotentially. .... it emerges as a pattern of behaviour that rejects the 'conventional wisdom', turns from it and in rejecting it, disempowers it and it's agents whilst empowering self and community. The traditional macho revolution is a sham, a fools errand that the ruling elites know too well how to manipulate to their own ends,
They cannot handle awake, aware self-reliant networked people. They cannot handle community. They fear it such that they are driven to destroy it. They must be stopped. All of what I say, we know is truth.
coreluminous
Homepage:
http://www.corneilius.net
lost property
11.10.2006 12:31
request
power - take it or leave it!
25.10.2006 22:30
Well the power inquiry is a really good start.
The fantastic Power Inquiry Report, entitled Power to The People, After eighteen months of investigation, the final report of Power is a devastating critique of the state of formal democracy in Britain. Millions of people in the UK actively support campaigns such as Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, and others. And millions more take part in charity or community work. But political parties and elections have been a growing turn-off for years. The cause is not apathy. The problem is that we don’t feel we have real influence over the decisions made in our name. The need for a change is urgent. And that requires a solution that is radical.
Nothing less than a major program of reform to give power back to the people of Britain... and only we, the people, can make this happen, the politicians are resisting it's recommendations.
I know, as I had words with Menzies Campbell, leader of the so-called Liberal Democrats, on this at the Power Inquiry Conference earlier this year and he refused to address my questions.
I noticed that in all the recent and current discussions in the media on Party Funding, none referred to the recommendations in the Power Inquiry! Very Curious!?
so yeah! SACK PARLIAMENT - and let's do the work together.........
corneilius
Homepage:
http://www.corneilius.net