Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Troops Out Demo Presages Hot Summer of Dissent

Ed | 20.03.2005 15:41

The July 2205 G8 should make this a hot summer of dissent, and inspire Britain's biggest ever festival of dissent. The London anti-war demo saw a very large turn out, despite demands from other political activities: elections, G8, pension cuts, etc... yet this has been a powerful warm up for what’s ahead. More pertinently, it has reminded Tony B Liar that he will never be able to draw a line under his illegal destruction of Iraq, and the brutal cold-blooded murdering of 100,000 innocent Iraqi people. The march 19 demonstration has ensured that his despotic decision should haunt him for a long time to come.

The sun shone as the bus loads flowed in from around the country, as London townspeople streamed into speakers corner for a pleasant but subversive stroll around town. The Sambatistas raised the temperature by degrees: burning and simmering all day in the warm sun; powerfully claiming space for the carnival of dissent that flowed passed the US embassy and snaked its way to Trafalgar Square - dancing and drumming, moving in the rivers and rhythms of resistance.

Thanks again cops for providing them with a protective escort. But hey, lets see a bit of samba in your marching step next time - loosen up. OK the Met don't train you in dance, but I hear Charlie Clarke wants to train you to do the goose step- that would be a laugh!

There were many who couldn't find the time to attend the March 19 demonstration, yesterday, because of elections, building for G8 and scores of other political activities will hopefully be free for the Gleneagles G8 festivities.

Organizing the national public workers strike action for next Wednesday was one activity that kept some away - although it may be called off now because John Prescott has promised to withdrawer the governments Robert Maxwell-like robbery on public workers' pensions. If they do, its a timely victory for union power which should boost Trade Union confidence for battles to come.

Inevitably, Newish Labour will come back after their general election victory and try pull the “Maxwell“ again, because they have squandered vast collective wealth on the rich, private commercial and industrial policy, and a plethora of unnecessary projects, and need to make the less well off pay for it - just like the Robber baron Maxell.

Gordon Brown has blown mountains of cash on: illegal wars; bogus wars on mythical terrorists; policing demos and dissenters; subsidising the arms trade; making a mess of Africa, Columbia, the Middle East and other countries, in league with the USA; GCHQ Cheltenham the global eavesdropper; the Eurofighter and other needless military procurements; locking up asylum seekers and refugees; privatising the NHS; PFI; cuts in corporation tax for big business; cuts in tax for the rich,; subsidising the big agro-industrial to the detriment of small farmers; trebling MI5 and MI6's budget; MP's salaries and pensions; subsiding the bloated pensions of the fat cats; huge salaries for local government and NHS executives; unnecessary roads; 1 billion on a Dome for Tony Bullshiter Blair‘s new years eve party; 2 million last week in Derby to police some street theatre; many billions on management consultants to advice the government on privatizing everything; many billions to the private sector to manage the London Underground and the railways; many billions for the private sector to develop useless over expensive government computer systems; huge sums on propaganda for Newish Labours re-election campaign which has been ongoing since 1996 known as the "permanent election campaign" led by Alistair Campbell... and so on

And making it personal - because it is as well - the large sums wasted on: barking mad Alistair Campbell; right Charlie Clarke’s huge Lunch expenses and inflating his big pompous head; Tony Bullshiter Blair’s and Alan Milburn’s hairdressers; Prescott’s several homes and cars; Blunket’s huge power-crazed ego and mistresses; Jack Straw’s travel expenses and his doll and toy soldier collection.

What a shower of pathetic individuals. They are just Tories without the hundred years experience of hiding their personalities behind front, bluff and a stiff upper lip - nouveaux Tories.

The economy is heading for the skids, and guess who will have to pay: the poor in reduced pensions, wages, benefits, and poorer working condition through the planned completion of the neo-liberal privatisation project. Yet, the rich will further benefit. Look at the sums again Gordon, the economy is going down the tubes, unless you can get the poor to pay for it.

As teacher and union officer from Coventry, Jane Nellist, said on the demo: "Don't say we didn't warn you Gordon." And neither would the Tories or Liberals do anything different to avert the very probable economic disaster from which the poorer will mostly suffer.

This battle in the mainstream is against Newish Labour, the Tories, and the Liberals, because what only differentiates them are their rhetorical nuances and spin.

So if the likes of Cllr. Dave Nellist in Coventry (too busy fighting the cuts in Coventry and trying to get his general election campaign moving to attend the march), and George Galloway in London, get a good result it would be a blow against Newish Labour, and to an extent the Liberals and Tories.

The new boy on the electoral block, ex-MI5 jailed dissenter David Shayler - who was on the march - deserves a mention because he is looking for support to stand in his homeland, against in Tony Bullshit Liar's Sedgefield constituency - he‘s hoping to do a Martin Bell in a white suite caper. Fair play to David - the big, vain, bullshiter actor-prime-minister, himself, might at least lose a few more of his dyed hairs, and a few thousand votes, if not his seat in parliament.

If all three of them were to win the revolutionary period would be getting up to full speed. Soon we'd all be down the Social Centre, social club, pub, cafe, church, temple, mosque or synagogue for a celebration of the beginning collective history, real history, and not the history of self-aggrandizing psychotic emperors, kings, queens, prime ministers and presidents playing perversely evil power games.


Back to more prosaic matters: In Coventry - a traditional test bed for new ideas and government measures - we have to fight the imposed huge reduction in Council wages for which industrial action is being imminently balloted. This will be rolled out nationally if they get away with it. It's part of cutting costs in local authorities nationally, before all local services are privatized and the poorer are further ripped off and abused.

If the Chief executive of Coventry Council does not back down, we could do with some support from further a field to support our defense against the attacks of these neo-liberal stooges. Details to follow sometime.

So, all the creative displays of dissent and protest, the tanks, the coffins, the music, the inventive banners - not to mention all the material that was passed around and out to the on lookers made it a very successful yesterday.

I only heard two speeches: one from an older but no less highly potent unrelenting firebrand Tariq Ali, and the passionate words of Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty.

Looking to tomorrow, the G8 meeting in July should make this a hot summer of dissent, and maybe give biggest festival of dissent this country has ever witnessed. Lets hope as many as possible can all find time to get up there.

The London anti-war demo has been a good warm up for what lies ahead, it will require more than the sambastistas, alone, to hot up the G8 in Gleneagles.


Fight for peace, equality freedom and true justice.

Ant-G8 Network: www.dissent.org.uk

Ed

Comments

Display the following 11 comments

  1. Where were you ? — ece
  2. Forty coaches — l
  3. It was a good turn out! — anti-g8
  4. I know — ece
  5. Hmmm — The Author
  6. Reveal you true identity — The Author
  7. Tony Blair wants you to think there's no point in marching — RW
  8. OK — ece
  9. Ok - Ece — E
  10. Trainspotters Convention going here. — Stato
  11. Ece — The artist formerly know as Ed
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech