- Five arrested at the protest ban protest, which was joined by Cherie Blair's sister. Looks like the family are beginning to be a bit of a pain in the arse for old Tony - only a matter of time before he passes a law to ban 'em...
Assuming they haven't been locked up (or shot in the head), expect reports from the Parliament Protest Blog and Bloggerheads at some point soon.
Update: Kitty Killer's initial post and photos.
It'll be interesting to see how people on the ground reckoned it went - from the BBC London news it must be said that it looked to go how I feared it would: most acting sensibly, but a few twats acting like dickheads and making it look like something other than what it was intended to be. The Stop the War Coalition's stupid "Troops Out" banners likewise warped the message - it should have been kept purely to being about freedom of speech. Bring other politics in, you ruin it and lose support. Nice one, Stop the War lot. You've blown it.
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I left a preliminary post at KK, will fill one out proper when I finally get back to Brum
As for the stuff on the troops out business, I don't think there was ever any chance of anything else being said there. You may or may not differ from STWCs position on when troops should leave iraq, but they felt that it was a message they they would be prevented from saying under the new law. Hell, they organised the demo and no one else did, and whilst I was there everyone was pretty well behaved.
I just didn't want to hang around to get arrested in a city 200 miles away from home.
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Except for Tim Ireland, who helped organising with his posters and stuff. Much better than the CPGB/SWP/SP type crap being handed aboot.
Except for Tim Ireland, who helped organising with his posters and stuff
Oi! Shut it, you slag!
/eastenders
PDF: Organising a demonstration in a public place in the designated area (132. (1) (a)): 51 weeks in prison, or £2500 fine
:O)
I have similar feelings about the effectiveness of the protest. I wish I felt otherwise.
The problem I've seen with nearly every recent protest in Washington DC has been a chronic lack of FOCUS. It seems to me that it's at least partially a result of poorly conceived 'alliances' between various groups, in an attempt to increase the head count at the protest. It's understandable to want a nice, big crowd for the cameras, of course. If you can't get the crowd without forming an 'alliance', the message usually gets lost in the noise.
As a result, protests in DC have become a bore. I don't know of anyone who really cares about them anymore. "Stop the war in Iraq and give more money to schools and the poor and stop corporate greed and pull the troops out now and stop racism and free Tibet (but don't use force, just free it please, we're anti-violence) and free Mumia and save Darfur and feed Niger and stop Dubya from killing _insert anything living here_ and save the whales and stop nuclear proliferation (except in Iran, stop hassling those poor people) and allow gay marriage and stop Ashcroft from being a fascist (never mind that he's not the Attorney General anymore) and save the rainforest and, and, and...and...*hyperventilate*"
No focus = no message = no interest.
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