Watery Pacifist Shit - do other people experience this?

[nz revolution]

I was wondering what it is like in other areas organising anti-war marches. We have people wanting to call them peace marches cos anti-war is too negative and think chanting is too aggressive.

Silent marches had been suggested and one women even said candle-light processions are too dangerous (not that I would do that anyway), hair could catch on fire.

ARRRRGHHHH

[Ian]

Fuck man, seems like your organisations have been infiltrated by the NZ Catholic chruch, do you have the Uniting church over there? They are fucking annoying...
Just bring along a few flame throwers to the candle lit procession :)

[nz revolution]

more like Quakers...

[Lefty]

We had none of that here, my friends and I had to quiet one guy down, he wanted to set fire to the police station and shit...after that he just walked away, broke a little window on the side of a bank, and ran away. I think he was on crack.

[RedCeltic]

in November last year we had a large peace march in Albany from the State capital building to a park in the middle of the downtown area. Some woman was there with small kids and didn't realize there would be a large contingent of militant anarchists there. (we have two large collectives in Albany.)

The Anarchists were chanting, "1-2-3-4 We don't want no fucking war.... 5-6-7-8 Down with the Police State" Some people were asking them to stop, but considering they were in the minority, they were ignored.

Some people were there to speak, were part of a seven person sit in that broke into congressman McNulty's office. When one of them boosted another to put a flower inside the rifle of a statue's rifle, a cop jumped off his horse and ran after them. Some anonomous person in the crowd tripped him. :biggrin:

I'd say that was the most "peaceful" demo that took place here. The day the war started a womans organisation protested outside of the federal building demanding to see representitives, but when the were denyed this, they snuck into the building just as it was being locked up, and ended up being locked in for the night. lol..

Another group, camped outside the capital building one night and were there early morning to block polticians from getting in. Some were also causing a ruckus with traffic and banners.. lol...

But not everyone in the anti-war movement is radical left. What people forget is that there are soccer moms, dads that drive SUV's and vote republican/democrat most of the time. Yes, there are alot of vocal radical leftists in the movement, and yes there are alot of washed out hippies in it also.

But don't forget that there are also people who are not involved in radical politics, who are also against this war. It is not just people who are against George W. Bush anyway, who are against the war.

[Zombie]

Quote: from nz revolution on 6:37 am on April 20, 2003
I was wondering what it is like in other areas organising anti-war marches. We have people wanting to call them peace marches cos anti-war is too negative and think chanting is too aggressive.

Silent marches had been suggested and one women even said candle-light processions are too dangerous (not that I would do that anyway), hair could catch on fire.

ARRRRGHHHH

will the revolution happen through prayers for bloody sake? nay! i don't see the point in having marches that are that peaceful...
i mean that candle shit, that's way out of line. the 110 year old pussy who proposed that idea should stay safe at home near the fire place, and die there... jeez.
call it anti-war and chante as hard as you can mate, if that's what you want, don't let anybody tell you how to express yourself, EVER.

.Z.

[nz revolution]

Oh dont get me wrong, I got confronted for being too vocal, friends of mine kind of took over and told this middle-class suit to go fuck off and smoke some more drugs you hippie.

Check out the thread with Anti-War Slogans and banners if you want a little run down.

[Sensitive]

We only had one big "march" in my Midwestern town. There were actually several people with "NO IMPERIALISM" signs, but most were just part of the tiny (non-socialist) liberal/progressive minority in my arch-reactionary state.

[Miguelito]

Americans are not well prepared for a revolution. The police will crush any rally that gets out of control. It's useless to do so unless you are ready to fight a full revolution, which very few people in the US are. Otherwise you just get arrested, black-listed, and your phone line is tapped, than if you show any inclination toward dissent, you are arrested and imprisoned in direct violation of the Constitution.

Rights don't exist if no one is willing to enforce them.

[nz revolution]

From what I have heard and what you say I'd say you are pretty correct, Im sure there would be a lot of people who would want a revolution in the US, getting them together would be hard...

[dopediana]

the thing is, plenty of people who i know that plan on protesting are discouraged by bad weather. pretentious americans. if they're going to make the difference they talk about, they have to get out there and in the action. on jan 18 in DC it was way below freezing but we still had a turnout of over half a million. it was awesome.

in march in williamsburg, we had a protest. wiliamsburg is this small touristic city, mainly historical plus a couple of amusement parks. my dad was on the board of organizers and we had anywhere from 300-500 people there which was pretty awesome, considering what a conservative place it is. about 20 kids i know who came from a local high school only came because they were counting on civil disobedience, sitting in the middle of the street. but then there were about 5 other really hardcore anarchists there who after the march were all pissed off because we didn't sit in the middle of the street. one of them got elevated on something and started a great rallying speech but everyone told him to shut up. he was saying good stuff but we didn't want to do civil disobedience in order to demonstrate how we wanted peace. i was wicked mad after the news article came out in the va gazette because they hate the college of william and mary and are very pro-war. they ended the bit article with a statement from one of the police officers. it went like this:

"we figured we'd give them 10 minutes to do what they wanted to do and that's how it worked out."

lousy fuckers. after reading it, i regretted not sitting in the middle of the road. i'm for peace, but sometimes you just ought to cause a stir, let them know you mean business. if you just keep marching and holding signs and don't really STRETCH your rights to speech and assembly, they're going to ignore you. the system has to know you mean business and you won't stand for less.

[Dirty Commie]

What I don't get, is why so many amerikkkan protesters are afraid to lob a molotov cocktail at a pig's car, or chuck rocks at embassies, Every where else in the world protesters take action, not reaction and start the initiative in a battle with police. Any reasons (other than pacifist quakers, wimps, obesity, cowardice) why amerikkkan protesters are such wimps?

[The Sniper]

Yeah a few year ago i woza all for peace marchs and shit liek that and didnt see the point of them gettin out of hand and believed all the bullshit properganda being thrown at me. But recently with the media blackouts of marches in Britian the police brutality becoming more and more apprent and the fact we have a right wing american arse lickin prime minister pretendin to head a Labour party. Now any violence and radicalism is good otherwise u could have a 2 million ppl attend a march (like in febuary) and have almost no media coverage wot so ever. I wouldnt be surprized if over the next few months many ppl grew tried of wavin their banners around and singin "give peace a chance" and went and threw bricks at the US embassy.

[Kez]

this is why we should have got the best elements of stopthewar and fucked it off, it was a fuckin disgrace.

they got as one of their groups "capitalists against war" WHAT THE FUCK!!! and then you get the wishy washy opportunist leftists who say we dont neeed a revolution and that capitalism doesnt cause war (SWP). FUCK THAT SHIT.

the fact of the matter is capitalism is THE root cause of war, and that we should explain this position to EVERYONE and to make everyone as militant as we are.
However, we musnt use individual acts of terror like throwing fuckin stones and shit, thats no use to no1. What we must do is entereing the labour movement, activate the most active and consious layers and build a tendency from which we can spring the revolution

workers of the world unite!

[The Sniper]

Thats all very well and good but the world is a harsh place and sometimes we have to face up to the harsh reality that the media will generalyl support the government and if a march is peaceful and nothing happens its not deemed interesting enough to make the news. Im not saying that petty acts like violence and vandalism are right all im saying is like it or not these are what makes the news, and with media coverage comes publisity and thats something the radical far left needs. Its all very well saying "workers of the world unite" ied like nothing more but we have been waiting over 100hundred years for this to happen in a country like Britian and nothing has come close. If we want something radical to happen we have to do radical things no just sit and talk about them. If causing havoc on mayday is what is gonna get the medias attension then thats wot is gonna happen, and if it doesnt work it might as well be tried. Anyting in my view is better than having such a strong anti-governemnt feelin and letting it be blackedout by the media and governemnt properganda.

[Donut Master]

Dirty Commie said: What I don't get, is why so many amerikkkan protesters are afraid to lob a molotov cocktail at a pig's car, or chuck rocks at embassies, Every where else in the world protesters take action, not reaction and start the initiative in a battle with police. Any reasons (other than pacifist quakers, wimps, obesity, cowardice) why amerikkkan protesters are such wimps?

Because random acts of destruction won't achieve anything good. I am not against revolutionary action, but I am against the kind of idiotic behaviour that only serves to harm our cause.

However, I agree that American protesters are generally "wimpier" and more watered-down in their anti-war views. To understand why, you have to realise the political atmosphere we live in. There is a strong push to be "patriotic" and subversive to authority. This subtle brainwashing affects everyone, even dissidents. I despise this, but it explains why American protesters are less militant.

The Sniper said: Yeah a few year ago i woza all for peace marchs and shit liek that and didnt see the point of them gettin out of hand and believed all the bullshit properganda being thrown at me. But recently with the media blackouts of marches in Britian the police brutality becoming more and more apprent and the fact we have a right wing american arse lickin prime minister pretendin to head a Labour party. Now any violence and radicalism is good otherwise u could have a 2 million ppl attend a march (like in febuary) and have almost no media coverage wot so ever. I wouldnt be surprized if over the next few months many ppl grew tried of wavin their banners around and singin "give peace a chance" and went and threw bricks at the US embassy.

This kind of action may gain more attention, but it will be negative attention. You have to choose your tactics wisely and use common sense. Otherwise, you will lose support.

TavareeshKamo said: they got as one of their groups "capitalists against war" WHAT THE FUCK!!! and then you get the wishy washy opportunist leftists who say we dont neeed a revolution and that capitalism doesnt cause war (SWP). FUCK THAT SHIT.

the fact of the matter is capitalism is THE root cause of war, and that we should explain this position to EVERYONE and to make everyone as militant as we are.

Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed into part of the anti-war coalition. We need all the support we can get in mass movements like this. From there, you can have your seperate factions with revolutionary or non-revolutionary perogatives.


PS: I don't mean to come off as a wishy-washy pacifist; I'm not at all. I do think the movement needs to be more militant, just in a smart way. On Jan. 18th, (as Amaryllis mentioned) when it was freezing cold, I was there.

(Edited by Donut Master at 1:46 am on April 28, 2003)

[nz revolution]

TavareeshKamo, are you from the States or Britain? The SWP parties there are quite diff from each other.

Me Im from New Zealand

[dopediana]

ah, the brazilian protestors have a great sense of humor. in brasilia i think it was, they bombarded the US embassy with chocolate eclairs.

the humor in it? the word for eclair in portuguese is "bomba", same as the word for bomb. i'd rather have eclairs rained upon me than grenades and shit like that.

dammit, i want to go back to brazil.

[Kez]

i was talking about the SWP in Britain

"If causing havoc on mayday is what is gonna get the medias attension then thats wot is gonna happen, and if it doesnt work it might as well be tried."
- fucks that gonna do but make us look even worse. Thats an ultra-left tactic to be left for twats to use and make us look shit, thats y they use agent provaceurs. Marx warned us not to use individual acts of terrorism, its makes the movement even worse. What we must do is act within the mass workers structures wherever u maybe, and work to make it revolutionary rank-and-file using the most consious active layer for the revolution itself.


"Just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed into part of the anti-war coalition. We need all the support we can get in mass movements like this. From there, you can have your seperate factions with revolutionary or non-revolutionary perogatives."
But its a disgrace for them middle-class guilty fuckups to be my voice. This is what i say to those twats "Not in my name" dont speak shite in my name you ****

comrade kamo

[The Sniper]

The thing is though, blair isnt gonna stand up and notice the massive opposition to him till it gets more radical, now like im against random acts of violence to property, but untill that happens im afied the movement is gonna just be swept under the carpet. Anyway i dont think people will view it as bad press rather as a reaction to no media coverage of the movement and the governemnts inhability to face facts and act democractic. I actually think physic damage will be minium but the effect on traffic will be so great ppl are gonna have to stand up and take notice. Time the elft-wing movement stopped pussyin out and started being a damn sight more militant.