The forth coming G8 in the UK

Could the Wombles make a statement re Saturday?
And perhaps make sure it is sent to the fools at the Guardian.

blah blah blah blah split blah blah blah wreck bak blah blah blah wine

Of course the institutional left wants to organise something. This will be there perfect chance to completely destroy the credibility of a movement they have nothing in common with!

Instead of being worried we need to start engaging with the anti-G8 network that has formed called Dissent! We can out organise these people and make them get their hands off our movement. Start a node of the network today, organise a benefit gig and get ready to stop the G8 next year :)

We've actually been mobilising against the G8 coming to Scotland since last year, sorry, we should have realised that we are not allowed to do anything unless it is ok by you "anti-authoritarians" who I now realise are the only people who can give us permission to fight capitalism.

We even organised this which has been circulating across Scotland for a while, how stupid of us, we should have known that trying to organise anyone who wanted to oppose the G8 would in fact be selling out to facism and racism.

Thanks for showing us the error or our ways, we'll be sure to consult with you before we ever do anything again.

FYI denouncing purposes I reproduce below the text of the letter, which I now realise is an attempt to smash any protest not help it.



"We wish to protest against the meeting of the Group of 8 apparently planned for Gleneagles, Scotland in the summer of 2005

The policies of the Group of 8 big powers are destructive and discredited. During the years that the G8 has met their aggressive free market programmes have led to the privatisation of essential services around the world and big corporations have imposed the priorities of profit on every area of life.

The results are well known; environmental crisis, a massive increase in the gap between rich and poor globally and big power foreign policy based on war. Today the US and UK alone spend billions of dollars on weapons every year while nearly half of humanity lives on less than two dollars a day.

We believe the vast majority of people in Scotland and beyond oppose the policies of privatisation, free trade and corporate power pursued by the G8. We call on all concerned organisations and individuals from Britain, Europe and the World to come together in a massive campaign of peaceful protest against the G8 meeting in 2005.

Signed:

Gill Hubbard, Globalise Resistance Scotland; Mike Arnott, Dundee trades union council; Frances Curran MSP (SSP International Spokesperson); Roseanna Cunningham MSP (SNP); Elaine Smith MSP (Lab); Patrick Harvie MSP (Green party); George Galloway Glasgow Kelvin MP & RESPECT candidate for European elections; Gilbert Oakley, Regional Industrial Officer, TGWU Scotland; Aamer Anwar, human rights lawyer; Robin McAlpine, editor, the Scottish Left Review; David Sherry branch secretary on behalf of TGWU 7/151 Scottish Housing branch; Philip Taylor, Reader in Industrial Relations & Stirling University Stop the War Group; Alastair McIntosh author of Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power; Lindsey German, RESPECT candidate London Mayor; Ken Loach, film director and Respect executive member; Mark Thomas, activist and comedian; Chris Nineham, Globalise Resistance, UK; Hilary Wainwright, editor Red Pepper; Dr. Clarke Mullen, Orchard House Health Centre, Stirling; Professor Chris Baldry, University of Stirling."

Look Sonic - none of those signatories are ANTI-CAPITALIST! Therefore they can't seriously consider themselves part of the ANTI-CAPITALIST MOVEMENT. No political party that asks people to vote for Tony Blair or Labour (under whatever circumstance) and be called anti-capitalist; they are capitalists! Renationalising the railways and increasing wages are NOT anti-capitalist demands. They are reformist demands that leave people powerless and as marginalised by decision making processes as before.

So in a way no - there is no way you are part of this worldwide movement for a different world...because you are presenting the same old world with different bosses, managers and facade. But in another way, you are pretending that you hold the answers and are part of this movement, but you will bore people with your lack of answers and put people off from being involved.

You risked wrecking the ESF, though many of those who attended probably saw past the self-interest of the old left and enjoyed many of the debates; many in fact, supported the intervention that annoyed you dinosaur-lefties so much, because it showed you unable to control in the face of horizontally organised, grassroots organisation. In effect, it showed that there was an alternative to your state-sponsored jamboree, complete with minimum-wage staff and corporate security.

What you are being warned about now is ruining a process that aims to shut down and disrupt the G8 next year in Scotland. Having a music festival, with some empty rhetoric about revolution and a march from A>B will not disrupt the conference, or even be noticed by the G8. But going by the politics that you espouse, you probably want the G8 to go ahead unhindered and will be happy with the empty promises of a few dollars aid increase and a million or so off debts to the poorest...and the possibility for yourselves of increased job prospects with your state friends...leaving the structal problems that lead to massive inequalities in economics and politics, both local and global completely UNTOUCHED!!!!

Go away! Go and vote for Tony Blair! Leave the movement alone as you are not part of it an not welcome.

sonic why dont the SWP on the letter say they are SWP

lindsey german
Philip Taylor
Chris Nineham
probably others

I find this dishonesty of the SWP members strange
I also find it strange that the same few cadres in the party are the same ones who were leading in the 70s and 80s (apart from those who have left or died.)

I am not saying that this is necessarily sinister but in the 70s the SWP was a mostly young growing vibrant organisation

unfortunately its leading members have made careers and dont want to let go of power
Where are the young?

The SWP has failed in its mission which was to recruit new cadres from the working class like shop stewards and grass roots activists,It failed to recruit black people because of having a policy that black people should join the Party not have their own organisations,similarly it failed to keep its best women members because of similar reasons.and cos of sexism by some leading party members.The swp did play a big role in combatting the NF and bm but then pulled out of the anl in the 80s,they tried to start it up again some years ago. like they are doing with STW.
One of the biggest groups on the left are PeoplewhousedtobeinSwp oh yes and a lot of them are still active.
its time the swp had a reevaluation of What went wrong,

And to other activists there are still good people in theParty so dont condemn them all,most of them will eventually leave and go on to other things

Many of those people, including myself, were at Genoa and Geneva during the G8, who the hell are you to tell us that we cannot describe ourselves as anti-capitalists.

The so called anti-authoritarians can be bloody authoritarian when they choose it seems.

What we are trying to do in Scotland is build the widest possible coalition against the G8, exactly as the Genoa social forum did when the G8 came to Genoa.

If you want to go off as a tiny little group and do you own thing thats your choice, but dont start labelling anyone you disagree with as somehow inferior to you.

Sonic. You were probably condemning the anti-capitalists in Genoa for standing up to the police, just as Alex Calinicos did, and did again in his report on the recent ESF that he has just posted. You might want to read the brief comment I made being in the anti-cap movement.

The SWP are just launching from one initialive to the next - wearing one hat this day and another the next. GR/STWC/RESPECT/ESF/SOCIALIST ALLIANCE/ANL/SWP - Some of your comrades must have a full hat-stand, and a major identity crisis to boot. Why not just SWP and be ...mmm... proud of it, then you might turn around.

Seriously, I give you a couple of years to when all that's left is a half a dozen branches. The RESPECT thing will be a total disaster - burnout, bankruptcy and noone elected , even with my vote. And you aint recruited jack shit from Stop the War. Your reputation in the ESF couldn't be lower.

Face it. The SWP has to change radically, or it is history. You are last in a long line of dissappearing Trots.