Brian Haw

[butchersapron]

The point being that there's better targets. Not that he's effective. Don't be a cock.

 

[blamblam]

The point being that there's better targets. Not that he's effective. Don't be a cock.

What me?

Better targets for what? I couldn't care less about him really. He looks like a weirdo. In Bloom's obviously having a jokey, silly thread. If you're talking about political enemy targets, then you can easily apply that to anything. For example: "Man I fucking hate the Arctic Monkeys" - "Ah come on now there are better targets", etc.

 

[montevideo]

politically ineffective anti-social adolescent weirdos who do nothing as a political strategy slagging off middle aged anti-social weido for being politically ineffective in what he chooses to do. Hmm, wonder just what real people would think?

 

[TAE]

Brian Haw is doing what he can without hurting anyone.

If everyone else did that, whatever 'that' may be, the world would be a better place.

 

[montevideo]

Eccentric? He's a fucking mentalist and a complete embarrassment.

Was at one of the Parliament square protests, people were being dragged off by police and thrown in the back of vans, what was Brian Haw doing? Posing for the cameras while standing on a wall ranting about the gestapo

and what pray were you doing?

 

[butchersapron]

Pull my strings...

 

[montevideo]

Pull my strings...

pinocchio?

 

[butchersapron]

You can all yourself anything you like. You still respond.

 

[montevideo]

pair of jacks

 

[butchersapron]

A single arse.

 

[Random]

Better targets for what? I couldn't care less about him really. He looks like a weirdo.

So you care enough about him to insult him on a personal level. Which makes you look: like a cock.

 

[Matt S]

Is there an option on the poll for 'both'? Because I respect what Brian is doing (as an act of personal witness) and think he has done a lot of good for the anti-war/anti-occupation movement - on the other hand I think he also has some quite serious mental issues and is not the person that I would chose to 'speak for' anti-war protestors.

I don't mean to sound harsh, because if I did what he had done I would be stark staring bonkers - but I think people should be aware that he is a few screwdrivers short of a full tool kit....

Matt

 

[JonnyT]

Some friends and I went down to visit during DSEi and he basically told us to leave him the fuck alone. Seems a tad less friendly sans media/demonstrators.

Personally I don't see him as having any real relevance one way or the other, except perhaps as an object of curiosity.

- Jonathan

 

[bluestreak]

so basically, what this thread is, is a load of people who do fuck all attacking someone else for doing something in a way that the fuck all people don't like, and a few people stnding up for him. since when did donig fuck all become a position from which to attack another person? ok, so you think he's ineffective, but at least he's doing something that he himself can justify. you lot care so fucking much go and do something better. fucksake, sometimes even in an enlightened and intelligent place like this it can be like drowing in arseholes.

 

[butchersapron]

Nah, i don;t think that's a fair summation at all - of the content of the arguments people have made, their motivations for making them or their actions (that you may or may not know or care about - but it's handy to lump them all into one big do nothing bag - i understand that).

 

[JonnyT]

so basically, what this thread is, is a load of people who do fuck all attacking someone else for doing something in a way that the fuck all people don't like, and a few people stnding up for him. since when did donig fuck all become a position from which to attack another person? ok, so you think he's ineffective, but at least he's doing something that he himself can justify. you lot care so fucking much go and do something better. fucksake, sometimes even in an enlightened and intelligent place like this it can be like drowing in arseholes.

Opinions seem to have (loosely) covered embarrassing, useful, and irrelevant, with reasons given behind each.

And even if that wasn't the case, "doing something" is not an end in and of itself, nor does it give one license not to be judged by those who are less visibly active (which in itself is quite an assumption you're making...).

- Jonathan

 

[Sesquipedalian]

I meet Brian Haw on the morning of the final day of this years Big Green Gathering.
It was a beautiful warm sunny morning.I was having coffee at the Little Urchin cafe before packing up for the long jouney home.
He sat down at my table.I was having a friendly conversation with a lovely woman from the Green Party,Sushila Dhal,(suspect spelling),an elected councillor in Oxford and a man who took part in those mass nudist photo shoots whose name i don't recall.
Anyway,Brian joined in the conversation shared his tobacco with me and was generally pleasant.
I was very stoned,very tired.....i thought i saw a look of arrogance in his eyes as the conversation became more heated.

Then a man who just happened to be walking by stopped at our table and asked if anyone needed tobacco?
He was holding out an unopened 50g pouch of Golden Virginia.
I said yes i need tobacco.....how much do you want for it i asked ?
I only had a couple of pounds left..
He said he didn't want anything.......he didn't need it anymore.....
He gave it to me freely.
I accepted it gratefully.
It was one of my festival moments.

 

[maldwyn]

He’s certainly strange. I pass there daily and often wonder if there’s a network of supporters bringing him hot drinks and emptying his piss pot. It’s odd to think he’s the only person allowed to protest so near a bunch of over-protected hypocrites, perhaps we have unreasonable expectations of him.

 

[In Bloom]

What me?

Better targets for what? I couldn't care less about him really. He looks like a weirdo. In Bloom's obviously having a jokey, silly thread. If you're talking about political enemy targets, then you can easily apply that to anything. For example: "Man I fucking hate the Arctic Monkeys" - "Ah come on now there are better targets", etc.

Thank you. Fucks sake, don't anybody have a go at saint Brian

 

[In Bloom]

and what pray were you doing?

Go back and re-read the post. Then take a guess

 

[max_freakout]

Just to post my 5 cents i think Brian is a true hero. I know that the politicians at Westminster just think of him as an eyesore, the public is largely unaware of him, and he is not causing any actual benefit to Iraq by doing what he is doing, but the posters that he has on display say everything that needs to be said to the people 'in charge', even though they probably havent read them and wouldnt understand them anyway. He has made it impossible for politicians to ever claim in the future that they 'didnt realise what they were doing' because he is actually displaying to them the broad consequences of their actions and they have to pass by his display every day. Whilst im sure it was because of his being an 'eyesore' that they persistantly try and remove him, there must be SOME kind of deep-seated guilt in some of those mp's hearts when they see him.

 

[cats hammers]

"Man I fucking hate the Arctic Monkeys"

What music are YOU making?

 

[bluestreak]

sorry, got a bit angry there. the blokes just doing somethign that he sees as valuable and yet it seems that it isn't enough just to be doing something (which i think is inherantly more useful that not doing anything). i would have thought that any action was better than no action at all. if you think he's counter-productive then let's have some discussion on what he should be doing. if people think there should be a permanent peace camp there instead why not try and set one up. brian haw has given up his life for his protest, which is more than any of us have done, and yet, just because his protest hasn't worked somehow that makes him a twat, and a threat to the anti-war movement. i cannae understand that thinking. it seems devisive and unhelpful. why not support brian and get on with your own thing as well, show a bit of solidarity with people who are on your side? but no, he's a nutter, he's a mess, he's rubbish, he can fuck off. useful.

 

[montevideo]

Go back and re-read the post. Then take a guess

i guess when you saw people being dragged off by police & thrown into vans you went in the opposite direction to the pub, right? Almost as bad as saint brian giving interviews...

so basically, what this thread is, is a load of people who do fuck all attacking someone else for doing something in a way that the fuck all people don't like, and a few people stnding up for him. since when did donig fuck all become a position from which to attack another person? ok, so you think he's ineffective, but at least he's doing something that he himself can justify. you lot care so fucking much go and do something better. fucksake, sometimes even in an enlightened and intelligent place like this it can be like drowing in arseholes.

i don't think the anti-socials strategy of doing nothing is the basis for their attack. I suspect it's more adolsecent fury 'look at the strange man giving protest a bad name'. To them what brian haw does or doesn't do isn't really the point, the point is he's doing it wrong.

Elevates them to a position of gifted individual who knows what right instinctively & allows them the posibility of never having to express their politics beyond words.

Alternatively pick an easy target to reinforce your very tenuous link with what you imagine real people think or do & further disguise your inability to do anything at all.

 

[newbie]

Is there an option on the poll for 'both'? Because I respect what Brian is doing (as an act of personal witness) and think he has done a lot of good for the anti-war/anti-occupation movement - on the other hand I think he also has some quite serious mental issues and is not the person that I would chose to 'speak for' anti-war protestors.

Isn't that what was said about Helen John (one of the founders of the Greenham womens peace camp and more recently the Menwith camp) or before her Pat Arrowsmith? Still is, come to that.

Anyone who stubbornly commits themselves to some abstract cause in the way any of them has is open to accusations of monomania, obsession or whatever. Clearly they're not 'normal', because the vast, vast majority of us simply give up long before they do. History is littered with such characters, some revered, some reviled.

Anyway he doesn't really claim to speak on behalf of anyone else, nor is he recognised as doing so.

 

[Thora_v1]

I really don't think he does any harm to the anti-war movement. He's also generated some positive press and embarassed the government a little - those are things many people think are positives. So he's a bit weird, who cares? Call me a romantic, but I'm always rather impressed by people who really do care like he does, who believe they can make a difference and are prepared to try.

Also, through a convoluted series of events I managed to cause him to be arrested a couple of weeks ago, so I feel a bit of a connection to Brian Haw.

 

[omni]

I really don't think he does any harm to the anti-war movement. He's also generated some positive press and embarassed the government a little - those are things many people think are positives. So he's a bit weird, who cares? Call me a romantic, but I'm always rather impressed by people who really do care like he does, who believe they can make a difference and are prepared to try..

Indeed...if each and everone of us had the determination to stabd up (or lie down) for what we belief in, risking arrest, beatings, being pissed/puked upon and nuemonia every night, then maybe something would change. I respect his determination and persistence. He's a nuisance to many, but mostly to those that are a nuisance to me, so right on.
I like a bit of eccentricity anyway. (however, some of his placards are a bit random though..but whatever.)

Also, through a convoluted series of events I managed to cause him to be arrested a couple of weeks ago, so I feel a bit of a connection to Brian Haw.

just out of naughty curiousity, care to explain?

 

[In Bloom]

i guess when you saw people being dragged off by police & thrown into vans you went in the opposite direction to the pub, right? Almost as bad as saint brian giving interviews...



i don't think the anti-socials strategy of doing nothing is the basis for their attack. I suspect it's more adolsecent fury 'look at the strange man giving protest a bad name'. To them what brian haw does or doesn't do isn't really the point, the point is he's doing it wrong.

Elevates them to a position of gifted individual who knows what right instinctively & allows them the posibility of never having to express their politics beyond words.

Alternatively pick an easy target to reinforce your very tenuous link with what you imagine real people think or do & further disguise your inability to do anything at all.

1/10, must try harder monty

 

[Wilf]

Some pretty weird judgements on this thread. Haws is a bloke who seems to have been totally fucked up/over by society/his life - delete as appropriate. His response to all that has been to escape from everything and end up in an obsessive protest. By the by, that has annoyed the government and given the anti-war movement a bit of publicity. He could equally have ended up a smackhead who nobody would be even discussing - but through random cause and effect he's ended up in Paraliament Square. That we should be judging him by some abstract 'activist ideal' is, as i say, pretty odd.

 

[Kidda]

hang on....

theres an anti war movement?