changingman
Cyber curmudgeon
I can't find any posts about last Saturday's Stop the War demo. Did nobody go?
(I guess this post should belong under "protest/direct action", but the only visitors to that forum seem to be assorted anarchos, trots, Leninists, Stalinists, Gramsciites, SWPers, IMGers, situationists, single-issue activists, revolutionary communists, libertarian vegetarians and other ne'er-do-wells and anal obsessive-compulsive purveyors of political fantasy. No point just talking to them) .
** Later: oh, i see i've been moved..into the ghetto we go.
It was an utter waste of shoe-leather and of an otherwise pleasant afternoon. A generous estimate would say some 15,000 souls max, 99 percent of them professional demonstrators. Last time, when more than a million of us marched in 2003, hardline politicos and hobbyist protestors were overwhelmingly outnumbered by ordinary folk who normally wouldn't go anywhere near a demo. That's what made that event so significant (even though it achieved nothing). Saturday was preaching-to-the-converted time, with speaker after speaker trying to hijack the event for a succession of right-on causes, from Palestine to climate change to nuclear disarmament to not locking up or deporting avowed Muslim terrorists to free bus passes for one-legged Nicaraguan lesbians.
Why can't the organisers of these mungbeanfeasts see that roping in a daisy chain of tangentially related or totally unrelated causes celèbres only serves to 1. dilute the core message and 2. alienate hordes of potential sympathisers??
They certainly alienated me. I marched in 2003 primarily because, along with many others, I could see that rubbing salt into the wound of global Islamic fundamentalism, by invading Iraq, would only put Britain top of the list of potential terrorist targets. 7/7 proved us right. I marched last Saturday principally for the same reason, but when i got to Hyde Park I realised I was totally alone. So I turned and buggered off...
There really is no hope..
(I guess this post should belong under "protest/direct action", but the only visitors to that forum seem to be assorted anarchos, trots, Leninists, Stalinists, Gramsciites, SWPers, IMGers, situationists, single-issue activists, revolutionary communists, libertarian vegetarians and other ne'er-do-wells and anal obsessive-compulsive purveyors of political fantasy. No point just talking to them) .
** Later: oh, i see i've been moved..into the ghetto we go.
It was an utter waste of shoe-leather and of an otherwise pleasant afternoon. A generous estimate would say some 15,000 souls max, 99 percent of them professional demonstrators. Last time, when more than a million of us marched in 2003, hardline politicos and hobbyist protestors were overwhelmingly outnumbered by ordinary folk who normally wouldn't go anywhere near a demo. That's what made that event so significant (even though it achieved nothing). Saturday was preaching-to-the-converted time, with speaker after speaker trying to hijack the event for a succession of right-on causes, from Palestine to climate change to nuclear disarmament to not locking up or deporting avowed Muslim terrorists to free bus passes for one-legged Nicaraguan lesbians.
Why can't the organisers of these mungbeanfeasts see that roping in a daisy chain of tangentially related or totally unrelated causes celèbres only serves to 1. dilute the core message and 2. alienate hordes of potential sympathisers??
They certainly alienated me. I marched in 2003 primarily because, along with many others, I could see that rubbing salt into the wound of global Islamic fundamentalism, by invading Iraq, would only put Britain top of the list of potential terrorist targets. 7/7 proved us right. I marched last Saturday principally for the same reason, but when i got to Hyde Park I realised I was totally alone. So I turned and buggered off...
There really is no hope..
