Why are we giving money to Stop the War/Socialist Worker?
We need to give DIRECT AID to the Palestinian people in Gaza!!!!!!!!!!!!
We need to give DIRECT AID to the Palestinian people in Gaza!!!!!!!!!!!!
I went to London today. I wanted to stand up and be counted. I wanted to show my solidarity with the people of Gaza, suffering so much. Under such pressure. I didn't want to stand in the cold and listen to speeches. So I walked the routes of the march to track down the Israeli embassy – avoiding the oh-so-obedient white tape designed to hold in what should have been 50,000 angry and pissed off people (I saw many people praying along the route, reflecting and asking in their own way for peace. Not my style, but I entirely respect this, especially in front of lines of riot police when I wouldn't have the nerve to lower my head).
Along the way there are Stop the War Coalition/Socialist Worker buckets asking for money, and even two wheelie bins (ooh, expectant there) asking for donations “to help pay for the costs of the protest”. Hang on! Apart from the odd canape with your opposite number in forward intelligence, what can our so organised (and long-winded-speechy-type Socialist Worker brethren) be needing money for? A mystery? Anyway, I kind of assume this is to collect money for people in Gaza. But the small print weighs on my mind.
I pass the Israeli embassy, cold, and a bit bored, throwing stuff and getting in the way of stupid cops, when I see the glorious glastonbury-style TV and speaker relay. Am I outside Big Brother (telly, not George Orwell novel to which this is more akin). AHA! This is the cost of protest, and all those placards, and all the fluorescent bibs of cack-handed wannabee peace-cops herding people away from the embassy lest any 'freedom of speech per square protestor' be exceeded and the organisers have to pay an excess charge. No, we are to be channelled 400 yards from the embassy to this immense screen where some white middle class woman goes on repeatedly about how she 'is a Palestinian'. I'm sorry, but apart from anyone born there or being of Palestinian heritage, if you are going home to a warm bed, a bed, a a bed free from being rocketed into a non-bed, in the centre of london, you are not a PALESTINIAN. A big telly – is this the cost of protest?
I talk to some folks from Islamic Relief – still on the ground in Gaza providing practical aid. They are collecting for money too. Their money is being accounted for at a collection room at the Royal Albert Hall – and Stop the War/Socialist Worker, who counts your money? I ask the Islamic Relief folk about the money being collected for the 'costs of the protest'.
“Yeah, they asked us for a cut from our buckets, but we said no. They said they had spent 20,000 on the protest”.
Fuck the war
Fuck Stop the War
FUCK SOCIALIST WORKER
DIRECT AID NOW
HELP GAZA, NOT THE GAZA VAMPIRES
www.freegaza.org – these people are aiming to send another boat of direct aid to Gaza today, Sunday 10th January
http://www.palestinercs.org/Donate_online.aspx – this is the International Red Crescent, despite being fired on and killed by Israeli army these folks are evacuating dead and injured Palestinians
Solidarity, Love and Rage xxx
Along the way there are Stop the War Coalition/Socialist Worker buckets asking for money, and even two wheelie bins (ooh, expectant there) asking for donations “to help pay for the costs of the protest”. Hang on! Apart from the odd canape with your opposite number in forward intelligence, what can our so organised (and long-winded-speechy-type Socialist Worker brethren) be needing money for? A mystery? Anyway, I kind of assume this is to collect money for people in Gaza. But the small print weighs on my mind.
I pass the Israeli embassy, cold, and a bit bored, throwing stuff and getting in the way of stupid cops, when I see the glorious glastonbury-style TV and speaker relay. Am I outside Big Brother (telly, not George Orwell novel to which this is more akin). AHA! This is the cost of protest, and all those placards, and all the fluorescent bibs of cack-handed wannabee peace-cops herding people away from the embassy lest any 'freedom of speech per square protestor' be exceeded and the organisers have to pay an excess charge. No, we are to be channelled 400 yards from the embassy to this immense screen where some white middle class woman goes on repeatedly about how she 'is a Palestinian'. I'm sorry, but apart from anyone born there or being of Palestinian heritage, if you are going home to a warm bed, a bed, a a bed free from being rocketed into a non-bed, in the centre of london, you are not a PALESTINIAN. A big telly – is this the cost of protest?
I talk to some folks from Islamic Relief – still on the ground in Gaza providing practical aid. They are collecting for money too. Their money is being accounted for at a collection room at the Royal Albert Hall – and Stop the War/Socialist Worker, who counts your money? I ask the Islamic Relief folk about the money being collected for the 'costs of the protest'.
“Yeah, they asked us for a cut from our buckets, but we said no. They said they had spent 20,000 on the protest”.
Fuck the war
Fuck Stop the War
FUCK SOCIALIST WORKER
DIRECT AID NOW
HELP GAZA, NOT THE GAZA VAMPIRES
www.freegaza.org – these people are aiming to send another boat of direct aid to Gaza today, Sunday 10th January
http://www.palestinercs.org/Donate_online.aspx – this is the International Red Crescent, despite being fired on and killed by Israeli army these folks are evacuating dead and injured Palestinians Solidarity, Love and Rage xxx
Comments
Hide the following 19 comments
You got a point
10.01.2009 23:12
:|
Talks for new people
10.01.2009 23:26
Rod
replying
10.01.2009 23:39
replying
Was the protest advertised as direct action/occupation of the embassy?
10.01.2009 23:58
No
If people were angry enough and this is what it turned into, who could stop people? Certainly not STW stewards!
You need a stage and a PA to communicate to 1/200,000 people, people need to hear the politics, ideas for what to do, like a boycott campaign which could actually END the problem, Stop The War is a broad campaign, it is not Socialist Worker, take a look at the speakers today, are we going to argue Annie Lennox is a secret Trotskyist? Get real…the demo was mobilised by groups all over the country not the SWP CC, that's why it was huge! Those people need to get arguments to take back home to spread the campaign and to counteract the influence of the mainstream media on other people they know, there's no reason why spectacles need be disempowering, it depends what ends you put them too, radicalising 200,000 people at a deeper level seems a good reason to me.
I like many in Socialist Worker would love to have had the embassy occupied and turned into a Palestianian embassy but that wasn't on the cards. So stop moaning at others, have some patience and convince others of your views.
noel
How dare they make money from slaughter.
11.01.2009 00:13
How dare they make money from slaughter! They reckoned it cost £10.000 to build the stage for the speakers ......who by the way when the going gets tough get removed ...by the police from the front line. (or underpass)
£10.000 please! If they cared that much they would build it for free with their own hands and stolen mdf.
misshumblebee
misshumblebee
just stop talking shite and sort out some direct aid
11.01.2009 00:47
Patience for what, a peace settlement? Aid coming in via the Israeli state? GET REAL!!
DIRECT AID NOW!!
www.freegaza.org – these people are aiming to send another boat of direct aid to Gaza today, Sunday 10th January
DO IT< DO IT NOW.................
hey ho,
Stop the War Bollocks!
11.01.2009 01:13
Stop war apart from helping to build a huge coalition and the largest march in British history has achieved fuck all! Some people call them "gatekeepers" for the government because they contained the anger over the Iraq War.
What happened to civil disobidience, blocking roads, public transport. In Italy the unions stopped many services, the public blocked major roads. If stop war pushed ahead in this direction then we would have had mor impact.
The zionists (israel and the british government) are not bothered about the march until they see physical impact! Then they take notice.
I also feel some in stopwar are simply concerned with building their own profile off the back of these protests!
However I would still urge people to protest and attend march as it does help sway public opinion. I hope on future marches we coordinate split into groups of 100 after the march and block major roads in all directions in the city.
Gridlock thats what we need!
Just Marching AtoB
i comment
11.01.2009 01:32
WOTEVA, we all do wot we cAn that fits in this situation and this is all fine. You are all great, acting within your own spaces... The important thing is that we ACT!!! Indepenent of people in charge, but completely dependent on what needs to be done. just to be clear.... like you don't know
....it'd be great not have any leaders (think about it trots, woudln't it be great, eh???/// YOU'D LOVE IT!!!)
...it'd be great to decide things together... hello, i'm your friend, not your enemy
...it'd be great if you didn't shoot us all once we'd help you (1936, and generally not shoot us anarchists, be nice if you made up for general mistrust), I mean we ALL, share powet
What you reckon???
you lovely people
StW and alternatives
11.01.2009 02:25
> it depends what ends you put them too, radicalising 200,000
> people at a deeper level seems a good reason to me.
Actually, I'd say that the messages from StW speakers usually are more 'preaching to the converted' than 'radicalising'. And anyone who's been part of a crowd defending itself against riot police knows that actions and experience are much more deeply radicalising than words and speeches.
Having said that, those of us calling for more confrontational, less shepherded mobilisations should temper our criticisms of StW with the knowledge that we haven't yet organised a decent alternative to them ourselves. We should focus our energies on organising the confrontational movements that are needed, rather than criticising StW - not only because it's a fairer approach, but because we can't expect them to change and it's more empowering to do it ourselves.
Of course, it's quite a challenge to build a movement that is broad and diverse, but also has a radical, confrontational edge and genuine respect for a diversity of tactics.
The recently launched Anti-Militarist Network might be a useful framework to start this process:
g
STWC as a building block?
11.01.2009 04:05
Marching around a city BEFORE the Iraq war did nothing. When we marched again during the war it still did nothing, and now with this new war, it still does nothing.
STWC has done a great job of uniting us and has created an extensive network of activists and campaigners. Maybe now it's time to take the next step and put that network to GOOD USE, although it could be argued there's nothing to stop individual groups around the country from organising their own action that causes problems for the system.
True. But the impact will be greater if these groups could connect with each other and co-ordinate national days of action. Pockets of disobedience is too easy to deal with, we need to cause problems on a national basis. The knock on effects of this could held amazing results.
We don't need STWC to tell us what to do or how to do it, but we do need their network even if it is somewhat controlled from the top down.
:|
yes without a doubt
11.01.2009 05:29
my email is
lets do it
e-mail:
endwarnow@hotmail.co.uk
STW Stewarts
11.01.2009 12:28
The problem that if we do start a new mass movement, the SWP will come in an try and take it over AGAIN. These Trots have a history of disarming and destroying movements from the inside out that span back to the spanish civil war and russia.
Most of these kids are preppy university types from my experience who have no ambition outside of build the party.
Ant
e-mail:
seditious1968@gmail.com
Agree with article
11.01.2009 13:06
In reply to the Trot who commented above: you're talking shit mate. If that's true, what exactly was the need to have TWO sets of speeches at the demo eh? It was SO OBVIOUSLY a deliberate collaboration with the police, the British government and the ZIONIST EMBASSY to dissipate the anger directed at the embassy away to another set of BORING speeches where people would be cold, tried, bored and go home quickly. As indeed happened with a lot of people, though the SPONTANEOUS militant action of large sections of the youth against the embassy and the filth was very inspiring and should be repeated time and time again till the Zionist embassy is SHUT DOWN.
I agree that speeches are good for people starting out, but I took my younger sister and a friend on their first ever demo yesterday and they were bored by the speeches, as they were already intelligent enough to know it all before. They just wanted to start the march right away and and DEFINITELY not interested in ANOTHER set of speehed by the time they got to the end, as they were tired, cold and hungry. While they were in the large rowdy crowd throwing shoes at the embassy and filth, though, the adrenaline was pumping and they wanted to get stuck it, or at least witness it!
p.s. WHERE are the anarchists rioters when we REALLY need them? They had their heads up their own theoretical arses, giving out leaflets about how Hamas and the "Israeli government" are as "bad as each other". You AF (Anarchist Federation) wankers have now lost all credibility in my sight, with your pathetic, non-insights into the "conflict". Your analysis is ridiculously flawed, morally callous and and, frankly you've bitten the BBC propaganda line of "balance". I bet your older members were kibbutzniks in the 70s. What exactly is the difference between yourselves and the liberal wankers on the BBC etc. who blame "both sides" for the conflict? EH?? Yesterday of, all days, you chose to leech onto the demo to criticise the Palestinian resistance???? When the AF is on the front lines, using armed self-defense in Gaza City against the Israeli barbarians, THEN you can criticize Hamas. Until then, FUCK OFF AF! How dare you. Really: HOW DARE YOU. You are even more irrelevant than the Trots. Why don't you try reading a REAL anarchist for once:
Fuck the SWP, fuck STW and FUCK ISRAEL!
Jonas
Something funny
11.01.2009 13:47
Anarchist
To Jonas
11.01.2009 17:22
We don't say Hamas are as bad as Israel, that'd be ridiculous. We just don't side with the lesser of two evils. We don't say Labour are as bad as the fash either, but that doesn't stop us hating both sets of authoritarian wankers. We don't oppose Hamas because we think that them firing a few rockets at Israel is as bad as the atrocities the Israeli state's committing in Palestine, we oppose them because they're also killing independent Palestinian activists. (See:
One of AF
Reply to AF
11.01.2009 22:09
"WHOEVER DIES, HAMAS AND THE ISRAELI STATE WIN"
In other words: "they're all as bad as each other". Spare me. It's got nothing to do with Hamas. Gaza is being killed because they dare resist Israel.
Jonas
RE Jonas
11.01.2009 22:23
Min
To Jonas & Min
12.01.2009 12:21
"Which is why I was so pissed off Your flyer concludes:
"WHOEVER DIES, HAMAS AND THE ISRAELI STATE WIN"
In other words: "they're all as bad as each other". Spare me. It's got nothing to do with Hamas. Gaza is being killed because they dare resist Israel."
Ah, that. See, this is one of the difficulties of being in an anarchist organisation: not every member can control what everyone else is doing. The group I'm involved with produced and distro'ed a shorter version of the same text (
To Min: "AF don't riot. They write pamphlets criticising others that are actually on the front line." - Fuck's sake. Have you had any actual contact with AF, or did you just get given a leaflet that you didn't like and decide you know everything about us? I'm not going to get into some internet dick-waving contest where we publicly claim responsibility for illegal actions, but we do both theory and action. Is that OK with you, or would we only be a proper anarchist group in your eyes if we just smashed shit up without considering why we're doing it or what the consequences'll be?
One of AF
PalestineSC asked for volunteer stewards,join& help comms-tactics dont
12.01.2009 15:52
Many of the stewards are far more radical than you give them account for, most were against the standoff with our people surrounded. They realised fighting & antogonising police especially when surrounded by multiple lines as we were at the end was silly, they then did a great job calming people down & standing in between both lines risking injury to themselves from police & from angry protesters, we need to uninfiltrate swc-psc stewards.
Anarchy is not just about direct action by our blocs & affinity groups its about helping facilitate & achieve direct democracy.
The smashing of the Starbucks at the point were police deliberately kettled us almost seemed like it was laid on for the corporate press,
Medical support team