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Anti war march - why are you going?

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Goodness Gracious Meme

19:18 / 13.02.03

If you're going to an anti war march somewhere - why are you going? what are your aims?

I'm having a go at moving on the rather dead-ended conversation Bill and I were having as i think there are interesting points that were buried under mutual snarkiness.

But I'm also interested in people's motivations.

Ok. for me, it's what I call a 'bare minimum' thing. I'm really not sure if marching makes a difference, or will in this case, but I am sure that at times in the past, mass popular demonstrations have been part of processes or gradual sweeps that have changed things for the better.

And have at times affected things for what I would see as the better. The Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam Protests, Gandhi's protests, for example.

And I'm aware that I'm going to be slammed for being naive for this, but who cares.

What I *am* sure of is if there is no resistance put up, that if everyone who objects to various conditions under which we live, various acts that are committed 'in our name' decides there's no point, *things don't change*, pretty much guaranteed.

And that as we can't see what's going to happen over, say the next 100 years, if there's the *slightest chance* that participating in any way in such a resistance could help, it's worthwhile.

If there's the slightest chance that on a more metaphysical (?) level, this kind of action could be part of a cultural shift in humanity (and I'm not saying it's *at all* likely), I can be bothered to take a walk round London.

So shoot me.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

19:28 / 13.02.03

For the birds, Cilla.

19:34 / 13.02.03

i dont think me being there will hurt the war effort, but the march in general needs to go ahead so as to let the rest of the country realise that it is not a unanimous decision, if only for a fleeting second on the news later.

its the old adage that i think bush used; all that evil needs to succedd is for men of conscience to do nothing.

to that end, i want to be a peacenik of this war.

19:41 / 13.02.03

My reasons are partly selfish. I tend to be very cynical in my politics, so need to feel that there are human beings out there who are not willing to accept spoon-fed excuses to questionable government decisions. Put simply, I want to feel that I'm part of a group that does object when our leaders make horrible errors of judgement, and that will make their views known. Bah. Mark Thomas put that far more eloquently than I, but you get the idea.

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:43 / 13.02.03

Yeah, that too.

19:49 / 13.02.03

Me and Mordant are planning to go to Dublin tomorrow and intend to go to the march on Saturday. The reasons are many, but are probably more succintly stated as feeling like the right thing to do. I have my fair share of apathy and cynicism, but theres a stage where that whole bag becomes an excuse. In the end that seems cowardly and I'd rather do something than rationalise doing nothing.

20:11 / 13.02.03

ditto ditto ditto, but also:

1. Nostalgia for the demo's of my youth, when we knew we wouldn't change the world overnight but we needed to maximise our dissonant voice. Some of the protests did have a much greater effect than we realised at the time. Sadly, some of them had no effect at all and, like Bill, I would lose the faith. But I am heartened by the present groundswell of opinion against the hypocritical warmongers.

2. Because I can. Think of all the times you've seen public protest brutally squashed, in China, in Burma, all over Eastern Europe before Gorbachev. I don't want war with the people of Iraq but I am also aware that I can march to declare my opposition to the government line here and they can't over there with that fucker running the show.

3. Because I'm sick of hearing that the biggest protest march ever in this country was the one organised by the Daily Mail for the green wellied brigade and I want this one to be the biggest ever.

4. Because it will be fun, a glorious feeling and not one I am often going to experience, to be part of this enormous crowd of people, by and large on the side of the angels. Crowds scare me and can quickly turn into Nuremberg rallies but I think this one will be different, a good and much more positive thing.

And I'm opening a book here on how far Bengali gets wearing Platforms.

Brigade du jour

20:17 / 13.02.03

Because I'm a peaceful man, man. And I want everybody to know it.

Besides, I haven't been on one before and I must admit, as a shame-faced bandwagon-jumper, it looks like it could be the social event of the season, dahling.

The first reason was the serious one btw.

yawn - thing's buddy

20:28 / 13.02.03

Hive mind thing. crowds n that.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

20:37 / 13.02.03

Because I'm not brave/stupid enough to go be a human shield in Iraq.

Because Saddam Hussein is 2 pints of shit in a half-pint glass but that is not a reason to kill innocent people.

Because Bush, Rumsfeld, Blair and the rest of the scumfucks that support this aren't even pretending to do it legally, simply ignoring and tearing apart whatever legality gets in their way.

Because, by being there it infintessimaly raises the odds that someone, somewhere will say "fuck, that's a lot of people, perhaps we should rethink this."

Just because.

20:42 / 13.02.03

Young and naive, it's better than not going, and like Tezcatlipoca said, it's a good feeling to know you're not alone in this.

But goddamn it, it starts at 1pm and I have to be at work by 330pm. Hopefully if worse comes to worse, 'being detained by police' is a valid excuse for being late...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

21:27 / 13.02.03

Off to Dublin for the demo, as Lurid says.

Why? Oh, I dunno, I've just got this thing about the pointless slaughter and mutilation of countless people who are already reeling from the last round of pointless slaughter and mutilation, not to mention year upon year of backbreaking sanctions, none of which has done anthing to shift that evil scumfuck off his perch and all of which were perpetrated by the exact same people who put said scumfuck on said perch in the first fucking place because they decided they didn't like the Ayatollah and wanted a nice convenient bogeyman to keep the Saudis in line and...

You get the picture.

My aims? Haven't got any. I don't belive for a moment that my turning out for a demo is going to make a hap'orth of difference to anyone or anything. However, my staying home won't make a hap'orth of difference either and at least this way I get to be around other people who feel the way I do; reassure myself that I'm not just a looney. Or at least, not a solitary looney.

22:22 / 13.02.03

I'm a successful cynic but my heart's not in it.

For pretty much every reason given thus far - particularly the 'selfish' wanting-to-have-done-something reasons. Because, while I'm convinced of Saddam Hussein's general bastardliness, I abhor the dishonesty of waging outright war on his country here and now while ignoring despots in Zimbabwe, Israel, etc. Because going to war with a country based on a tenuous suspicion that they might have been stockpiling weapons is not a great example to set (India? Pakistan? Attack!)

Because all my friends are doing it.

22:31 / 13.02.03

Very selfish, but let's be honest.

It's a chance to see a whole pile of friends I haven't seen in ages and it's convenient.

I've never been on a protest, because the last one I might have gone on was the fees one... except I don't have a problem with University fees. If you pay for something, you can expect quality. If it's free, you can't expect anything. I have a problem with loans. So I want to do this, even if I am scared of people trying to bomb it.

I believe in the cause very strongly; it's something worth protesting about.

It gets me away from University for a much-needed short break in the city. You can't guess how much I need to be out of here, if only for two days.

Selfish as hell, then, but I wanted to be truthful.

03:29 / 14.02.03

I marched a couple weeks ago because hell, somebody has to show dissent and distaste. That and the fact that it felt good to be among like-minded people.

The Tower Always Falls

05:14 / 14.02.03

Because I'm American and I'm not too proud of that fact right now.

Because I woke up this morning and realized I would feel worse doing nothing, than a pointless something.

Because I don't know a single person who truly supports them in this, and the media isn't reporting a very large portion of the populations viewpoint. The media here tends to report on the Republican and Democrat viewpoints. Since this administration is so far right, the Democrats have had to move far right themselves to even be heard in the public discourse. This leaves out a whole lot of people...

Because war IS a given. It's a foregone conclusions and this administration is not listening to a great deal of people who are very, very nervous about this. This protest isn't to stop the war. It's to tell the rest of the country and the world that their actions don't represent us.

And because for me, it's late, and I'm tired- and I got a chance to pretentiously vent this out on some primarilly British message board with a lot of stacatto "Because" in the form of some silly manifesto. And maybe it says something that I feel safer voicing my views here than I do in my workplace or even in fucking public anymore. And that's just pathetic.

Lilly Nowhere Late

06:03 / 14.02.03

Anti war indeed. I am closing my business, and taking my Amerikan
self and my 17month old daughter and going along to what promises to
be one of the largest protests, worldwide, of all time. As I am going
to go to the London march, I am prepared to deal with all the
anti-amerikan sentiment which will no doubt abound, but I would urge
everyone to realize that altho we are all big fat selfish head in the
sand buttfaces, most amerikans are truly not behind the efforts of the
current administration and its evil plans to wipe out the Iraqui
people in order to control the oil industry a little more. My 89 year
old grandmother(southern bible belt conservative woman of another
time) told me on the phone last week to make sure all the people in
England know that no one is for this war other than Bush and all his
"bushit" minions.

Further, and perhaps more importantly, my little brother who is just
about the most peacefull, friendly, generous, humanity loving person
you'd ever want to meet has been tricked by free education into a
military career and so is now sweating it out in Kuwait, more likely
to killed by "friendly fire" than any enemy imagined/created by
the amerikan government.

What do you figure they are paying Blair off with to get him to ruin
his entire career?

Anyhow, no one is going to stop this war, but I foolishly hope that
some kinetic miracle happens when people the world over are united for
some magical moments in common protest and collective hope.

I need more coffee and shorter sentences.

Anyone in the London area planning a meeting up at the Southbank
Center pre-march? Look me up. I will be the amerikan hairdresser
with a pram and a conscience.

07:10 / 14.02.03

"I marched a couple weeks ago because hell, somebody has to show dissent and distaste. That and the fact that it felt good to be among like-minded people."

Slim has summed it up rather nicely. I'm no longer anywhere near London, but if I was, I would be going on the march, even though I stopped going on marches (in general) a fair few years back because I was frustrated at what often appeared to be a pointless exercise, the only winners being the SWP, who got loads of free publicity. I don;t think there's many people going to any of the marches thinking that that action will stop the war, but it's important for people to be counted - in great numbers, by the looks of it - as saying this is bullshit, you are not doing this with my blessing. I've just found out that there isn't much by way of local demos going on - a load of coaches are going to London from Cornwall instead. I think that's because people do want to be amongst a a big group of like minded folk. I would certainly feel better for it, but I will be doing my own thing in the village.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

07:36 / 14.02.03

Lilly- As one of the people here most guilty of using 'the Americans' or 'the U.S.' because I can't be bothered to type in 'the American Government' or 'the U.S. political system' you can tell your Granny that it feels good and humbling to know that almost all of American and British people can see through Bush's bullshit.

(And we're meeting at the NFT cafe, over the river from Embankment between 12 and 1 if you want to bring your pram that way. We tend to be staggeringly difficult to miss when we get together).

07:42 / 14.02.03

I'm gonna be at work, so no marchy for pinny. Sucks.

But I want to know something- why is it that people feel this march should be taken as a valid expression of public opinion while the "everything in the countryside. No, really. EVERYTHING. Not just foxes. Not at all. Really" march shouldn't.

I'm just interested, and I'm not shit stirring. Honest.

08:57 / 14.02.03

I *wish* I were going - but I don't really leave the house at the moment. If I could go it would be for the reasons that Sfd states - helping to let the govt. know they are not doing this with the blessing of huge chunks of the populace.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:00 / 14.02.03

I'm going just because it would feel wrong not to.

Can't find the book at the mo, but there's a great bit in Mark Steel's "Reasons To Be Cheerful" where he talks about the fall of Ceaucescu, and how when he came out on the balcony, someone in that crowd must have turned to one of his mates and said "hey, get this... when he comes out, I'm gonna boo instead of cheering like we're supposed to. Will you join in?" Yes, comedy. But the part that gets me is when he follows it up by saying that if the guy had just gone home, he'd have been sat there going "fuck, these Romanians. None of 'em would've joined in, anyway".

I'm going. Night shift tonight, a couple hours' sleep, march, hopefully a couple hours' sleep, then night shift again. But I'm definitely going.

Also, as I think I probably bored everyone with last time (so skip this bit if that includes you) I don't really think it's gonna change the mind of anyone who matters. Right now, I think the entire population of the UK except Blair could march and he'd still think the war was a great idea. What I do think is more important than people give credit to is the sense of solidarity- as Mordant said, knowing you;re not a loony. That other people- a fuck of a lot of other people- are in agreement.

And I'm worried by the fact that more people may have marched for their right to kill foxes than their duty not to kill children.

And the fact that in future, someone may say "so what did you do, then?" and yes, walking around a bit with a flag isn't exactly going to Spain to fight Franco, but it's something we can all do, so should.

But Christ, am I dreading the Saturday nightshift... apart from anything else, there's gonna be loads of news to monitor, what with this big march an' all...

Oh, and respect to my bosses, who, having not been able to give me the night off due to staff shortages actually came and apologised to me for this afterwards, because they wished everyone could take the weekend off to go the march but it just wasn't gonna happen.

12:34 / 14.02.03

I don't mean to sound snarky anyone but I am going on my own to the sit down job purely for the adrenalin and pics of cops getting psycho on people. I am an adrenalin junkie and a demo voyeur, nothing else. If I make it to the pub I'll be high as a kite - that's a damn good reason to go in my book.

Hattie's Kitchen

13:02 / 14.02.03

Not that you need extra impetus to go, but in today's Evening Standard, Tony Blair is reported as saying: "Tomorrow's mass demonstration of opposition would be punishable by torture, imprisonment and death if it took place in Baghdad...People are saying Stop the War...there is no conflict at the moment."

Fuck-featured little wank-splash.

Hattie's Kitchen

13:07 / 14.02.03

No Tony, I think you'll find that people in Iraq have been demonstrating their opposition to the war as well, as they have been for the past 12 years, which is how long they've been coming under allied bombing raids...

Hattie's Kitchen

13:09 / 14.02.03

Sorry, I'm just really pissed off that I can't make it tomorrow - shout some slogans for me, you lot.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:34 / 14.02.03

Pin- Because the countrysiders were marching for the right to be beastly and the no-warers are marching against beastliness to other people?
And technically, the Government seems to be paying more attention to the CA (seeking some compromise to allow them to hunt) but ignoring the amount of people saying no war.

15:17 / 14.02.03

What everybody else said.

Plus my own particular bugbear at the moment -- where has the idea of this war come from all of a sudden? why is there any more reason now than there was three, four, five years ago? why and how has it been the top story on the News for weeks on end? how has the entire world been manipulated into weighing up the pros and cons of launching a bloody great war with absolutely no solid catalyst, absolutely no single event or invasion or whatever that can be put forward as a possible reason, something which has been considered necessary in the past, even for the absolute evil-est, most unneeded imperialist wars in history...? Regardless of personal political beliefs regarding legitimacy of conflicts, Western imperialism blah blah blah, I think it's important to show the US/UK governments that the populance can't be persuaded to back a war which has no actual sane purpose, even from a right wing nationalist perspective, just because they're told about it everyday on Sky News..

Also, the way that the basis of the various arguments on either side are getting lost amid endless simplification and repitition. I think possibly the most important issue in the whole situation, which even some anti-war people are failing to question, is the seeming willingness of Western powers to "strike first" against a possible enemy, regardless of whether they do or don't have Giant Jolly Madness Bombs or whatever. If that can be allowed to become a precedent, then the likely future of the whole world outside of North America and Europe looks pretty bleak.

Oh yeah, and of course there's my instinctive and deep dislike of nation states, militarism, the very concept of the 'economy', the military-industrial complex and so on and so forth, but I suppose that's almost a side issue restricted to us anarchic weirdoes..

phew.

Sorry to go all "ranting guy with megaphone" there.

Tryphena Absent

16:22 / 14.02.03

While I'm sick of being given excuses for an unjust mass slaughter of innocent Iraqis this demo won't stop our attack. Hopefully it will do something else- a Prime Minister who refuses to listen to his MP's and the public should be out of office. This march might just give the government a push to eventually get rid of him.

16:44 / 14.02.03

I'm just interested, and I'm not shit stirring. Honest.

Damn good point. As one of the Fascist BNP guys selling The Countryman on that demo stated, c.90% of UK cits want those they see as 'ethnic minorities' repatriated. Ergo, if we had a democracy in this country, there would be no 'ethnic minorities', whatever that means. But of course, us leftie 'Loids aren't elitists are we? No, we respect the will of the masses. Er, except when they're Nazis, of course. %Not that we're full of absurd contradictions and general gobshite, of course.% The left is a waste of time and like I sed, I'm bailing. I'll shut up and piss off now, I promise.

16:49 / 14.02.03

Out of (non-baiting, non-spunky) interest, where are you bailing to?

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:57 / 14.02.03

but, darling, you're *always* spunky...

17:02 / 14.02.03

Yeah, but I've given up my weapon of mass turbation.

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:03 / 14.02.03

now 'nesh, there's no need to throw the baby's arm out with the bathwater. That's just *excessive*

17:07 / 14.02.03

Get a load of that, baby.

*slams 12-inch dossier on the table*

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