March 18th - Stop the War demo

[Donna Ferentes]

If the union bosses had had the nerve to call for strikes and self-appointed anti-war leaders had called for direct action and supported those who took part, then I believe that many more people would have taken action of the kind I mentioned earlier.

And as far as getting people to do it goes, I've been involved in supporting direct actions for several years now. And I've seen the gains that can be made from direct action first hand.

It's the "self-appointed" bit again. It doesn't make any sense. Nobody was forced to follow these people. If people were following them and not, say people like yourself, is it not possible that this is because they agreed with them and not with you?

 

[audiotech]

I didn't say it was.

Mass direct action, sabotage, strikes, civil unrest and so on might have [stopped the war].

There was not a catting hells chance of "mass direct action" to stop the war at the time, so get off the holier than thou soap box and enter the real world.

 

[socialistsuzy]

the SP tried to get STWC to call for a general strike but the SWP just laughed. now many SWPers say a general strike would have been the only way to stop the war from taking place. its funny how these things work......

 

[audiotech]

the SP tried to get STWC to call for a general strike but the SWP just laughed. now many SWPers say a general strike would have been the only way to stop the war from taking place. its funny how these things work......

General strike? How many followed that bit of advice btw?

 

[Pilgrim]

This is the sort of thing that I take issue with these days. If they were "self-appointed", why not appoint yourself and people life yourselves instead? Why don't you take a lead? Could it be that you just don't have that much of a following, that much of a constituency? Could it be that there just weren't very many people who wanted to go down that road?

After all, nobody was stopping you from doing anything or calling for anything. Nobody.

Certainly, the direct action side of protest doesn't have the kind of following it needs or deserves.

Yet.

And, as a member of the AF, and not being a hypocrite, I'm somewhat reluctant to simply junk my principles by setting myself up as a little tin god seemingly accountable to nobody, then insist that others follow my decisions and slag them off if they don't. I'm also not going to become the very kind of self-appointed and unaccountable 'leader' that I so often criticise.

And we will never know exactly how many people wanted to go down that road, because those union bosses and self-appointed 'leaders' didn't seem to encourage any sort of direct action, at least not on any grand scale.

And as far as the 'nobody stopping us' part goes, I beg to differ. I was on one of the Fairford protests, usually a rather smaller affair than the London ones. I was discussing this particular protest with a colleague of who is well-respected and who I would trust completely. She related to me a discussion about an email, sent from the offices of the Stop The War Coalition, informing people that the protest at Fairford had been cancelled and that all people planning to go should instead head for the demo in London on the same day.

I'd trust this particular person completely, and she doesn't have any axe to grind with the Coalition and has no reason to lie about it.

Hardly a display of solidarity.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Give it a rest with the "self-appointed". It's just a way of covering up the fact that other people had far more support than you did.

Oh, the Fairford malarkey? Absolute bollocks. That claim was made on this website at the time and was contradicted by the fact that it was still advertised on the STW website. Even if it weren't, by the way, that still wouldn't constitute stopping anybody.

I have very little patience for this stuff. It simply involves blaming other people for the fact that your ideas have very little support.

 

[Pilgrim]

Give it a rest with the "self-appointed". It's just a way of covering up the fact that other people had far more support than you did.

Oh, the Fairford malarkey? Absolute bollocks. That claim was made on this website at the time and was contradicted by the fact that it was still advertised on the STW website. Even if it weren't, by the way, that still wouldn't constitute stopping anybody.

I have very little patience for this stuff. It simply involves blaming other people for the fact that your ideas have very little support.

I never denied that direct action doesn't have as many followers as it needs and should have.

But I retain my faith in direct action as a tactic.

Properly planned and executed it can get the job done.

Another A to B march simply won't have any real impact.

If February 15th didn't work, and it didn't, then why persist with a failed method?

Why not attempt something that might work, as opposed to something that almost certainly won't?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Because there isn't the support for it.

 

[Pilgrim]

Because there isn't the support for it.

Which rather begs the question, if you are content to simply repeat a failed tactic, over and over again, what is the actual point of protesting about anything?

People can troop up and down through London as many times as they like, and the powers that be will be content to allow us to do that, at the price of maybe being made to feel a little uncomfortable. They'll put up with pre-arranged marches, along pre-determined routes, with people shouting slogans from inside police pens and all that, because it simply doesn't pose any real threat to them.

We can march a thousand times, and they can ignore us a thousand times.

And they probably will.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

But that's just rhetoric, because you have no means of bringing about anything more effective.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

As for the point - well, protest is better than silence.

 

[Pilgrim]

But that's just rhetoric, because you have no means of bringing about anything more effective.

Come to somewhere like Faslane, or Aldermaston or Devonport.

Visit an Earth First! gathering.

Look at the case of Francesca's Cafe in the Broadway Market. That situation is still ongoing, but what would have been achieved by standing across the road in a police pen and shouting a few slogans?

As a result of the occupation and so on, if memory serves, Wratten has now agreed to sell to the highest bidder.

You wouldn't have got that result with an A to B march alone.

But direct action, in the form of the occupation, appears to be having a much greater effect.

 

[sovietpop]

I went to see Chomsky speak tonight in Dublin. An SWP member asked him would he endorse the March 18th march and he said demonstrations weren't a principal, they were a tactic, so you had to ask in each case, is this demonstration useful. He said they did influence the elites in society, though the elites pretended that they didn't however their main importance was that they could inspire activists to do more important work, which was to be constantly struggling. He said people shouldn't expect instant gratification, that any one demonstration will change anything, change comes from continuous work and the commitment of activists. (I quote)

"Demonstrations are vaccous if they are understood as a call for one day and back to your life. Demonstrations are useful if they inspire the commitment of activists, and harmful if they are a substitute for that committment."

 

[Random]

Because there isn't the support for it.

Fatuous, 'common sense' conservatism.

Just because some people don't have the bottle to do direct action, Donna, don't pretend that there's not the potential to organise it en masse. Thousands and thousands of people have participated in that kind of stuff, and if the resources of the STWC were swung behind offering people direct action opportunities, many more would do so.

As it is, the resources of the 'coalition' are monopolised by those who see the medis and parliament as the main focus of their efforts, and people in the STWC who advocate more direct methods are bullied and booted off.

I know it's cosy to sit back and let the SWP be your vicarious mass movement, and then you can pretend that everyone else is as passive as you are.

'Well if people wanted social change, it would have happened by now, wouldn't it?'

 

[free spirit]

Problem with the 'Stop The War Coalition' for me was that when it really came down to it, when we really had the momentum behind us to actaully stop the war in it's tracks, had just come off the back of the biggest demonstration in UK history etc. they showed their true colours and stopped being a 'Stop the war coalition' and became a 'WAIT UNTIL THE WAR STARTS BEFORE PROTESTING AGAIN COALITION'.

so fuck em, they are either completely fucking incompetent, utterly lacking in the balls or imagination to do something radical, or infiltrated and compromised like most of the big movements before them.

That march should have been the launch pad for a wave of co-ordinated national actions (anything from DA to mass attendence of MPS surgeries) instead it seemed like the STWC just shrugged, said well we did our best now lets just let the politicians get on with having their war so we can say we told you so when it all fucks up.

STWC took it upon itself to be the big umbrella organisation to stop the war, and to be fair were incredibly successful in mobilising people for that march, but completely failed to follow that up with any meaningful co-ordination of any type of actions to stop the war, thereby leaving a massive vacuum at a point when it was too late for any other grouping to mobilise effectively to actually do anything meaningful.

Just my opinion like, but I'm buggered if I'm going to travel the length of the country for a pointless march run by an organisation that I've completely lost faith in.

 

[rich!]

Apart from the poor sods clearing up the litter and dog shit after the event.

After the big one in 2003, I went for "a couple of ales" and then wandered back into the park. Surprise! the organisers had no provision for litter. Me and a few other random fools engaged in a spot of Autonomous Litter Picking - a hobby I'd recommend to those who go to demos with gloves. (Don't do it without gloves)

 

[rich!]

I don't know if I'll be going yet, but most especially after the million+ march, I find them utterly disempowering. Walk the same tired old route, no one listens, rarely even makes the news these days, it's hard to see the point really.

Well, it's a spot of exercise, an opportunity to get pissed with different people, and a chance to wander very slowly around central london.

Plus, it turns up on the policing budget, and hence the London budget, which makes it hard to ignore even if the media do.

 

[rich!]

or infiltrated and compromised like most of the big movements before them

no surprises there then.

I assume you've read the counter-insurgency stuff, and you know the importance of putting up a plausible moderate but impotent front organisation to ensure that any activist organisations will have no base to operate from?

 

[laptop]

I went to see Chomsky speak tonight in Dublin. An SWP member asked him would he endorse the March 18th march and he said demonstrations weren't a principal, they were a tactic, so you had to ask in each case, is this demonstration useful. He said they did influence the elites in society, though the elites pretended that they didn't however their main importance was that they could inspire activists to do more important work, which was to be constantly struggling. He said people shouldn't expect instant gratification, that any one demonstration will change anything, change comes from continuous work and the commitment of activists. (I quote)

"Demonstrations are vaccous if they are understood as a call for one day and back to your life. Demonstrations are useful if they inspire the commitment of activists, and harmful if they are a substitute for that committment."

Trust Noam to manage to say "no" with semicolons in

 

[free spirit]

I assume you've read the counter-insurgency stuff, and you know the importance of putting up a plausible moderate but impotent front organisation to ensure that any activist organisations will have no base to operate from?

well i guess i've read some of that kind of stuff, and seen enough examples of them doing it in the past to realise that it's fairly likely to have happened again this time round given all the other bullshit that went on to get us to war at all costs

 

[In Bloom]

I really wish I could, but I've already made plans to hit myself in the face with a hammer over and over and over that day.

 

[Pickman's model]

I won't be going because I won't be in London, but if I was I'd defo go. I love a good march, me.

that's as maybe, but if you 'love a good march' why go on a swc load of wank stroll?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Fatuous, 'common sense' conservatism.

Just because some people don't have the bottle to do direct action, Donna, don't pretend that there's not the potential to organise it en masse. Thousands and thousands of people have participated in that kind of stuff, and if the resources of the STWC were swung behind offering people direct action opportunities, many more would do so.

As it is, the resources of the 'coalition' are monopolised by those who see the medis and parliament as the main focus of their efforts, and people in the STWC who advocate more direct methods are bullied and booted off.

I know it's cosy to sit back and let the SWP be your vicarious mass movement, and then you can pretend that everyone else is as passive as you are.

'Well if people wanted social change, it would have happened by now, wouldn't it?'

Oh, bullshit.

If you think many thousands of people are ready to be signed up to DA, then why not call for it? Nothing STW does prevents you from doing that. You could create your own organisation, issue your own calls to action and all the rest of it. Nobody is preventing you and nobody is interfering with you.

You don't, because you can't. So what you do is blame somebody else for not making those calls instead. But why should they? They don't think the same things you do.

It's indicative, to me, of how parasitical a lot of this stuff is. You have people who, they say, believe in organising themselves and doing their own thing. But in practice, they do very little of that. What they do is denounce other people who organise things, for not organising the things they want. They denounce other people for not calling for the things they want. You'd think they'd go off and organise these things themselves, wouldn't you? If they were honest? But they don't.

 

[Pilgrim]

Oh, bullshit.

If you think many thousands of people are ready to be signed up to DA, then why not call for it? Nothing STW does prevents you from doing that. You could create your own organisation, issue your own calls to action and all the rest of it. Nobody is preventing you and nobody is interfering with you.

You don't, because you can't. So what you do is blame somebody else for not making those calls instead. But why should they? They don't think the same things you do.

It's indicative, to me, of how parasitical a lot of this stuff is. You have people who, they say, believe in organising themselves and doing their own thing. But in practice, they do very little of that. What they do is denounce other people who organise things, for not organising the things they want. They denounce other people for not calling for the things they want. You'd think they'd go off and organise these things themselves, wouldn't you? If they were honest? But they don't.

More sweeping generalisations.

Have you ever heard of Earth First!, Trident Ploughshares, the three national Anarchist/Anarcho-Syndicalist federations, Greenpeace, the various smaller direct action crews and Anarchist groups at local level?

Do any of those names ring any bells?

We ARE creating our own organisations.

And we DO issue calls to action.

We also organise our own events, benefit gigs, direct actions, public meetings and so on.

Your ignorance of direct action and the people involved in it is awesome.

Go away, do some research, maybe meet and talk with some people who are involved in direct action groups and then come back with having at least tried to learn something.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Your point-missing capacity is really quite something.

If you have these things (which are of varying size and influence) then you are not being stopped from doing anything. If you have these calls to action then you are not being prevented from making them.

So what's your gripe?

Your gripe is that people aren't listening and aren't joining in. Which isn't actually anybody's fault. But you pretend that it is.

 

[Pilgrim]

Your point-missing capacity is really quite something.

If you have these things (which are of varying size and influence) then you are not being stopped from doing anything. If you have these calls to action then you are not being prevented from making them.

So what's your gripe?

Your gripe is that people aren't listening and aren't joining in. Which isn't actually anybody's fault. But you pretend that it is.

My gripe is that the union bosses COULD have called for strikes against the war.

But they DIDN'T. They had the chance, and they pussied out.

Likewise, the self-appointed clique that ended up running the Stop The War Coalition COULD have issued a call to direct action.

Again, they had the chance, and they pussied out.

Why, because they were fucking spineless.

And there is something about direct action that you, with your monumental ignorance of the subject, have failed entirely to spot.

First, there is more to direct action than high risk or arrestable actions. There is always a need for plenty of support roles to be filled. Legal observers, stewards, drivers (to collect people when released), people to man the phones, police liaison (on some actions/campaigns), media liaison and various other jobs that all need doing at various times.

Second, for all the talk about those who get arrested and go to jail, no sorted direct action crew will push anybody into doing something they don't want to. If you don't want to be arrested, or can't afford to be, then simply don't take part in arrestable actions and stick to support roles. For every person who gets arrested there are, more than likely, at least half a dozen supporting them in various ways.

And you failed to answer Random's earlier point about more militant voices being pushed out of the Stop The War Coalition. If this is true, then that surely constitutes 'stopping people' from having their say and encouraging others to take a stand.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

And you failed to answer Random's earlier point about more militant voices being pushed out of the Stop The War Coalition. If this is true, then that surely constitutes 'stopping people' from having their say and encouraging others to take a stand.

No it doesn't. You've said yourself that you have no problems setting up yuour own organisations and issuing your own calls to actions.

As for the rest of it, it's just another tired denunciation of other people for not doing what you demand of them. It serves the purpose of allowing you to pretend that the reason things don't go your way is not because very few people agree with you. It's rhetoric at its emptiest.

 

[Pilgrim]

No it doesn't. You've said yourself that you have no problems setting up yuour own organisations and issuing your own calls to actions.

As for the rest of it, it's just another tired denunciation of other people for not doing what you demand of them. It serves the purpose of allowing you to pretend that the reason things don't go your way is not because very few people agree with you. It's rhetoric at its emptiest.

Just so we all know, Donna, and remember not to incriminate yourself or others...

Exactly how much experience of direct action do you have?

Have you ever taken part in an action?

Have you ever taken up a non-arrestable support role at an action?

Have you actually done any research (whatsoever) on the subject of direct action, its theory and practice?

Have you ever been involved with any direct action groups? Feel free to list any groups you have been involved with, that won't incriminate anybody.

Now, to reply to your post:

I don't personally follow leaders, but apparently many people still do, although why I don't know. I haven't disappeared so far into the activist ghetto that I'm not aware of that.

If the so-called (and self-appointed) anti-war 'leaders' had issued a call for direct action, or even pledged some support for those who willing to take direct action, then I believe many more people would have followed. Not all, by any means, but enough to make going to war difficult if not impossible.

Direct action, as a tactic, when properly planned and executed, WORKS.

I've seen it work.

With my own eyes.

And I've seen as much (if not more) positive effect come from decent direct action than from the A to B marches I've been on, and there are no shortage of those.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

All very informative but mostly irrelevant to the point - which is not the efficacy of direct action per se but whether substantial numbers of people are actually interested in going down that road.

Now you do say this:

If the so-called (and self-appointed) anti-war 'leaders' had issued a call for direct action, or even pledged some support for those who willing to take direct action, then I believe many more people would have followed. Not all, by any means, but enough to make going to war difficult if not impossible.

Well, maybe. But probably not. Because, as I say, there were people making such calls. And very few people followed them. So what you have to do is to blame some other people ("self-appointed", like you) for that.

You don't have any evidence for your contention, but never mind, you're quite happy to denounce other people anyway, for the fact that you couldn't get people to listen to you. In all honesty I have no patience for this stuff these days. It's really unpleasant, denouncing people who did a lot of work because they didn't substitute for your lack of numbers. It also deliberately evades the point that the whole reason they had influence (because they had no official status, remember) was that they were saying and advocatingthings that people agreed with . People like you had no influence because you were advocating things that people did not agree with.

As it happens, I remember the STW meetings in the last couple of weeks before the law, after the big demo. People were saying they reckoned that the game was probably up and that the war was going to go ahead. I was in a small minority in saying we shouldn't give up yet, perhaps there was still a chance if we could blockade Parliament or central London or whatever else we could think of. It didn't happen: not because anybody was a sell-out but because there simply weren't sufficient people with sufficient will and energy to bring it about. I could pretend that if only the STW leaders had argued otherwise, it would have been difference, but I don't because that would be an evasion of reality on my part, as it is an evasion of reality on yours. In truth there had been a lot of political discussion at all levels of the movement for a very long time and people knew pretty well what they wanted to do (and were capable of doing). Pretending that if only the leaders had used their influence things would have been different is a way of blaming somebody else for the unfortunate fact that people don't often agree with that the radicals say.

 

[Pilgrim]

All very informative but mostly irrelevant to the point - which is not the efficacy of direct action per se but whether substantial numbers of people are actually interested in going down that road.

Now you do say this:

Well, maybe. But probably not. Because, as I say, there were people making such calls. And very few people followed them. So what you have to do is to blame some other people ("self-appointed", like you) for that.

You don't have any evidence for your contention, but never mind, you're quite happy to denounce other people anyway, for the fact that you couldn't get people to listen to you. In all honesty I have no patience for this stuff these days. It's really unpleasant, denouncing people who did a lot of work because they didn't substitute for your lack of numbers. It also deliberately evades the point that the whole reason they had influence (because they had no official status, remember) was that they were saying and advocatingthings that people agreed with . People like you had no influence because you were advocating things that people did not agree with.

As it happens, I remember the STW meetings in the last couple of weeks before the law, after the big demo. People were saying they reckoned that the game was probably up and that the war was going to go ahead. I was in a small minority in saying we shouldn't give up yet, perhaps there was still a chance if we could blockade Parliament or central London or whatever else we could think of. It didn't happen: not because anybody was a sell-out but because there simply weren't sufficient people with sufficient will and energy to bring it about. I could pretend that if only the STW leaders had argued otherwise, it would have been difference, but I don't because that would be an evasion of reality on my part, as it is an evasion of reality on yours. In truth there had been a lot of political discussion at all levels of the movement for a very long time and people knew pretty well what they wanted to do (and were capable of doing). Pretending that if only the leaders had used their influence things would have been different is a way of blaming somebody else for the unfortunate fact that people don't often agree with that the radicals say.

So, seeing as you had access to 'all levels of the movement', as you must have had to know what all levelswere discussing, perhaps you can explain why the so-called and self-appointed 'leaders' were too gutless to openly issue calls for direct action?

With your direct line, connected as it was to 'all levels of the movement', perhaps you can explain once and for all why the 'leaders' lost their nerve at a time when proper and competent leadership might have changed things?

Do you have a decent explanation for why our so-called 'leaders' pussied out when a call to direct action was still worth trying, even if it had only made going to war more difficult, or possibly, just maybe, stopped it altogether?

Well?