G8 SUMMIT 2006 will u be going ?

[TeeJay]

In its current summit-hopping guise and in a UK context it can.

Of course you might define the 'ac movement' differently.

 

[In Bloom]

In its current summit-hopping guise...

Hardly an argument in favour of rts

 

[aurora green]

I dont understand anymore. So you guys all think rts was useless, pointless and crap?

 

[laptop]

In its current summit-hopping guise and in a UK context it can.

More than a UK context.

The Birmingham street party around the last UK G8 meeting was the first action around such a summit that I can recall.

And it was part of the Global Street Party. Which inspired Seattle. Which means that the recent events in Hong Kong are in a lineage directly traceable to RTS - and are rather more than "summit-hopping".

Also, the combined effect of this lineage has led to a sea-change in the internal politics of the WTO. See the accounts by small-country delegates in Seattle of looking at what was going on on the streets and realising that they had influence within the process - the actions de-hypnotised them, helping to expose US control of the process for the sham that it was.

Now, this reformist outcome was not the effect that RTS people were looking for. But it has had an effect on the politics of trade, may yet (relatively) improve the conditions daily of life of hundreds of millions of people, and has played its part in upsetting the previous kind of US hegemony.

Back in the UK, government definitely thinks three times before proposing to bulldoze a road through a much-loved landscape. The Hastings Relief Road and the Birmingham-Manchester M6 widening/duplication are going to be interesting.

And as for genetically modified food...

 

[Buds and Spawn]

Which roads were halted altogether? How was the car-orientated society fundamentally altered?

Well, Stringers Common for one - although there was only full-time RTS'er involved in that campaign. Lyminge too - although not a road scheme. Oxleas never happened because of a strong local campaign. To name a few. Why did you ignore them? Perhaps you hadn't heard of them? You're not relying on the media as your primary source of information surely? Smacks forehead...

A few crucial points here:

RTS were part of a wider movement - let's not forget that - it's wrong to fixate on one group or network.

Why not ask 'How would things be today if RTS, EF!, the anti-roads campaign and movement against the CJA to name a few, hadn't happened?'. I would answer a lot bloody worse.

I'm ashamed to admit that one of our failures as a movement was not writing and documenting events thoroughly enough. Where are peeps getting information about RTS from? A couple of paragraphs in No Logo? It's not surprising there's so much ignorance.

 

[TeeJay]

Hardly an argument in favour of rts

I don't understand what arguing "in favour" or "against" RTS actually means.

RTS events happened.

They stand in their own right.

They were - are are still - successful in and of themselves.

If you don't understand what I am talking about I suggest you go and read some of the links I posted earlier.

A lot of the negative comments here just sound like sour grapes and way-after-the-fact whinging from people who don't really "get it".

 

[Buds and Spawn]

people who don't really "get it"

And therein lies the problem...

 

[Ryazan]

people who don't really "get it".

I sincerely hope that that was only directed at posters on here who have in this thread and others, badmouthed RTS. it is fair to have a go at people, if they are unwilling to produce evidence of how they formed their opnions, but perhaps it is also fair, if evidence allows, to see how the RTS has been a non-entity of a radical network in the eyes of most ordinary people? Perhaps they aren't the ones not getting it?

As far as the dockers solidarity going on in that link, do you have any more links or suggestions for me to source information about RTS activities with working class communities and industrial action? Considering the more trivial concerns people have, such as lack of decent public transport, access to amenities amongst other things in deprived areas, how has RTS successfully communicated it's ideas to the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of the working class?

 

[Buds and Spawn]

do you have any more links or suggestions for me to source information about RTS activities with working class communities and industrial action? Considering the more trivial concerns people have, such as lack of decent public transport

What like this? That's just one example from this very website.

And why the sole emphasis on the working class and industrial actions anyway? A major success of RTS was the combining of radical social AND ecological politics.

But FFS why the fixation with RTS? The time for the feeble minded and gutless to put the boot in has long past. BORING...

 

[D-Day Dan]

There really isnt any point in going, don't forget you won't be in the UK their police will fuck you up for the slightest reason ..... i think protesting might be one of them. Have fun though i'll enjoy watching it on the news.

 

[TeeJay]

I sincerely hope that that was only directed at posters on here who have in this thread and others, badmouthed RTS.

It was.

RTS also didn't design and manufacture a zero emission airplane or find a cure for cancer. I think some people really aren't even trying to look at it in its own terms - they are trying to judge it by their own invented yardsticks, for some reason.

 

[laptop]

I'd forgotten: http://rts.gn.apc.org/tube/

 

[Ryazan]

There really isnt any point in going, don't forget you won't be in the UK their police will fuck you up for the slightest reason ..... i think protesting might be one of them. Have fun though i'll enjoy watching it on the news.

The Omon don't take shit, and they carry machine guns. That is why those that can afford to fly over there from the UK and think about starting a ruck will do so in not the same frame of mind as their Russian counterparts. A lot won't have experienced the repressive heavy handedness that goes on there. It won't be a "bit of a laugh", if rucking is what you want.

 

[D-Day Dan]

yep you'd get a good kick in at least