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Sack Parliament Photos

Sack Parliament.

Sack Parliament

Mary N B
e-mail: mary_margaret1948@yahoo.com

We tried to make it, my friend was arrested on spurious grounds moments after leaving the train, i was followed through london by two met officers, spent two hours trying to lose them, by the time i did i was miles from westminster.

Bollocks to the Don't Stop the War coalition too....

Tried, really tried

Informal debrief...

09.10.2006 21:42

Some of us are planning on having an informal 'debrief', about the day and the ideas behind it, at the rampart social centre this friday night (their 'pub' night apparently). Would be great to chew the fat, throw some ideas about, slag each other off and try to put the world to rights over a very beers. Come and join us if you fancy it.

doley

Comments

Hide the following 19 comments

Shame

09.10.2006 16:51

Where were the "Stop the War" coalition today?

Shows these fucking half-arsed fakes only turn up to potentially ineffective mass events of their own creation.

Christ, their masses could have just turned up for a single photo shoot couldn't they?

SHAME ON THEM

revenge_of_the_little_people

Sack parliment.

09.10.2006 17:17

How sad to see the small numbers of people attending,well outnumbered by the police,where they there in solidarity? I arrived at 1pm and left by 5pm. I`m not having a go at the people who turned up,it`s the ones` that didn`t! Obviously people seem more intrested in marching from A to B at weekends as some form of weekend recreation rather than make a stand,it`s one thing to moan about the "government" and another thing to actually empower ourselves and do something about it. I know it`s a work day,haven`t people heard of thrwing a sickie?
Obviously the revolution will have to take place at a weekend and be finished by monday morning so everyone can be up bright and early for work!!
What happened to the critical mass?

Anon

Very poor turnout.

09.10.2006 17:18

As you can see from the photos it was a very very poor turnout. We need to think up ways of getting far more people to attend such events in the future. Or we are never going to stop their wars.

Bring the war home

Re:Sack parliment. & Very poor turnout.

09.10.2006 18:45

It was never publicised as a non-violent protest or even one aiming to be non-violent. Reports on Indymedia, possibly scaremongering disinfo from Labour war-party supporters said that violent WOMBLES would turn up, giving a false website address (and STWC have shown themselves to be Labour/Blair supporters with their "GO" placards in response to Blair saying he would err...go). It was also another demonstration not mentioning Blair (at least not on the fliers or front page of the website) organised by those that think it not necessary to mention the names of these war criminals. Of course...it's the system stupid! okay i'm stupid there are never some individuals/parties who are more criminal/war criminals/monsters. Agree we need to do more to stop the war against Afghanistan and Iraq though.

Brian B
Homepage: http://www.brianb.uklinux.net/antiwar-discuss/

I knew...

09.10.2006 19:12

I knew it was going to be a small turn out for this event, "hence" I didn't turn up for a.) firstly I needed to keep a lower prolife as I been to one too many demos, secondly I like many others tried to rally a protest movement for May Day this year. It just seem that interest in these events is coming to a dead end compared to the events of the late 90's and early 00's.

The only thing I can think off is the rise of the entertainment industry during the same period at the decline of the protest movement. People have other thing to keep their mind busy, the internet usage has rised dramatically from the early 00's and so has other entertainments such as the wide screen t.v. 24/7 free t.v. coverage and the mind numbing daily nnewspaper which consently bombard your with right wing ideas. This is too marked with interest with the falling attendance in football matches, church congregation and local community events, engagements and local shops.

People prefer to stay at home at "shoot" virtual enemies on computer games rather than engage with the real facts of life, I have notice it coming for a while. Seven Million Londoners and all content with the entertainment industry thrown at them and yet when you speak to them the real issues they agree with you, particularly if you talk about privatisation. Not from one person have I heard anything good said about the privatisation policy.

Anyway must dash time running out here at the cafe.

My points aired!

I knew

Analysis of action would be useful...

09.10.2006 19:28

Recent protest history demonstrates time and time again that attempts at 'mass' actions in central london that are advertised beforehand will be met with lots of coppers and lots of their new laws. Most people on the demo will only stand about and not take any initiative and then end up penned in. Its good that people wont to have a go at something and are at least in some way angry about the state of things but there is a lack of imagination at work. Anarchists seem very good at running straight at a tough State brick wall.

Some kind of analysis of this action would be useful and interesting after the fact...Most people didn't turn up I suspect because it wasnt a very good idea. Blaming people for not making the event bigger doesn't factor this in. Some kind of debate could be had here on pros and cons of the day and on the future possibilities for radical street protest.

Anyway, big up those who showed up.

@-Com

focusing on blair

09.10.2006 19:31

The entire point of Sack Parliament is that it isn't just Tony Blair that's the problem, but the whole of Parliament for allowing what's been happening (erosion of human rights, going to war, varoius other stuff) to happen.

Nowun Inparticlar

Comments and thoughts

09.10.2006 20:07

The (quote from above poster:) "reports on Indymedia, possibly scaremongering disinfo from Labour war-party supporters said that violent WOMBLES would turn up" were actualy news reports from both the London Evening Standard website and the Daily Mail.

Re the 'everyone's too busy watching tv and playing computer games' comment, well, a large percentage of people who turned out today were in fact young people pissed off with their politicians.

Re actions and demos in london, well, calling an event 'Sack Parliament' with its double meaning, and saying you intend to blockade MPs from entering using direct action and thus preventing parliaments re-opening could only ever lead to massive policing. In my opinion it would have been enough to present the protest as giving notice to the MPs that their services are no longer required, and that, within the SOCPA framework, may have made things a little clearer.

Though that said, plenty of people are repeatedly showing the SOCPA legislation for what it is, a crap bit of repressive nonsense that has no place in a balanced society. They're doing this week in week out, with many being arrested.

One of the forthcoming events advertised is for a peace camp that intends to set up on parliament square. It's part of a weekend of nonviolent resistance to the occupation of Iraq on the 2nd anniversary of the Nov 04 US/UK massacre in Fallujah. The "unauthorised" 24hr peace camp in Parliament Square will demand an end to the occupation on 29 Oct (meet 12 noon, Parliament Square). The camp will begin with Maya Evans and Milan Rai reading the names of 100 Iraqis who have died as a result of the occupation - one year after their arrest for doing this in Oct 05. See:

http://www.rememberfallujah.org

musing

why people were not there

09.10.2006 21:11

Anyone with any brain who has attended any action over the last few years does not want to waste any more of their time being held in a police cordon. Yawn. I know i didn't which is why i didn't throw a sickie (which would have meant the needy children i work with being left) Has this protest moved the country on anywhere?

I think the idea and balls behind the Sack parliment campaign is inspired -but lets face it, this was never going to appeal to the masses, as the masses are not in anyway ready for this kind of radicalism. We can not be surprised at the low turn out.

Unfortunately changing peoples hearts and minds is a slow unglamorous process, involving talking and persuading the british public to give up their entrenched conservatism. I do not want to force my own radicalism on others as this end up being another form of fasism surely?

Don't preach to the converted tho, lets get out their and try talking to people....

Tish

tish

lesson of the day

09.10.2006 23:10

Forget about the 'masses', they are a fictional category dreamed up by anarcho closet fascists with dreams of world domination.

Next time don't tell the world you are coming.

A hundred people could have shut down parliament for the whole day with the right equipment, (and the good fortune not to be gunned down by armed police) if only they had used the element of surprise.

But anyway well done all who took part.

terry

Need to be more rooted in the movement

10.10.2006 08:53

Although I wish all those people well involved in this event, I am preturbed that some people are directing their frustrations at the STWC.

Before organising this type of direct action you need to establish before hand as to whether people would want to carryout this type of action. Did any of the organisers ask what the masses were prepared to do? Was this type of action proposed to anyone outside the ranks of the anaracists?

Was there a discussion with members of STWC, not necessarily the leadership, but the coalition faithfull who attend the demonstarations, I was on the last demonstrations, nobody ask me to attend , there was no leaflet or publication to draw in the mainstream anti war types.

In the final analysis, this was lead by the anaracists who obviously do not carry much wieght in the movement (they have a tendency to dismiss the movement and have a secterian attitudes towards the STWC) and this is reflected in the poor turn out.

red letter

I didn't come....

10.10.2006 09:56

It seems some people are wondering why people don't come ? Well, here's my story. I didn't come because :

1) I couldn't see the point of the action. I understand the politics of the action, but not the point. How was it going to change anything, either short term or long term ? How was it part of a bigger movement for change ?

2) I still could have turned up for the fun of it, but then again I knew darn well what was going to happen : people would just get penned it for the afternoon, outnumbered and pushed around by aggressive police. Not so fun !

blark

Oh dear!

10.10.2006 11:23

Anything organised by LARC committe is a stinker The Committe cannot even buy soap for their comrades to have a bath let alone shutdown a political whore house.

Time to shutdown LARC and give power to the real resisters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BigEye

one reason: police state

10.10.2006 11:42

I reckon the reason hardly anyone turns up is because everyone realises it makes no differences. The state has become so proto-fascist in nature that you just know you will be followed around or beaten up by the police, acting on 'our' government's orders. Most people don't enjoy seeing police everywhere, shoving people about and acting as the state's private defence force.

After the 'Cold War', governments were looking for an excuse for a total police state. Then they dreamt up the 'War on Terror', a war against unknown enemies who for the most part don't exist, but gives a perfect excuse for destroying the last vestiges of freedom within the most unequal system of government and economics this world has ever seen. And it sells a lot of papers, being totally idiotic in nature too - so the population can be lulled into a state of near panic/xenophobia. Perfect!

The reports coming back from London today don't make me change my mind about this at all. I don't know what is going to change things, but I hope someone thinks of it soon.

Krop

You guys crack me up !

10.10.2006 12:20

I think this attempted demo says a lot about the so called "anti-war" movement. First of all, if you really were anti war you would be demonstrating in front of the Sudanese embassy every day. But I digress. Most of your supporters are half hearted middle class types who temporarily thought it was cool and trendy to put their little palestinian head scarves on and do a bit of protesting as long as it didnt effect their lifestyle or cause them to skip Uni or work too often. Also what a bunch of wimps you all are, you let a few police cordon you in all day, you call yourselves anarchists ? Direct Action ? What a joke ! Would the bolsheviks let a few police stop them ?

Tammy Sheridan
mail e-mail: karlm@confusedpolitics.com

solidarity

10.10.2006 12:25

after all the internet wank posted above i just wanted to say:

well done to all who tried.

fair play to anyone who didn't want to go down for whatever reason, but didn't feel the urge to slag off people for doing stuff.

and... fuck off and throw your keyboard out the window to all of those armchair critics who have bullshit analyses as to why this particular thing you saw in the media didn't inspire you.

i really wish it was possible to read indymedia articles without having to encounter the utter bullshit of such people. you are as bad as politicians grabbing people's attention by standing in the right place and shouting louder than the people who have something important to say. you make me wish the internet was never invented.

pete

well put, and astute!

10.10.2006 21:37

What a well put an astute comment!

Anything done by anyone to highlight, to publicise the issue of this madness, the rush in to a police state at war run by corporations who instruct councillors and politicians who have been voted in by people who have no say in the work of those elected and will be the frontline troops in their aggressive wars, the consequences of which the Iraqi and Afghan Peoples sadly are all to well aware, not to mention so many other places around the globe!

Britain has always been 'ruled', it's people have never been free to choose their way, only to vaguely choose who imposes what spurious 'economic' theory or ideology from a narrowly selected cadre of greedy, narcissistic and emotionally blind men and women who should know better, that being so their crime is all the greater.

Revolution if it occurs at all, starts indiviually and grows expotentially. .... it emerges as a pattern of behaviour that rejects the 'conventional wisdom', turns from it and in rejecting it, disempowers it and it's agents whilst empowering self and community. The traditional macho revolution is a sham, a fools errand that the ruling elites know too well how to manipulate to their own ends,

They cannot handle awake, aware self-reliant networked people. They cannot handle community. They fear it such that they are driven to destroy it. They must be stopped. All of what I say, we know is truth.

coreluminous
Homepage: http://www.corneilius.net

lost property

11.10.2006 12:31

a friend of mine got arrested and it seems that his glasses that were in their case in his possesion were 'lost' by the time he got to the station. anybody find any? seems like quite a few others had their glasses smashed by the cops. time for people to start wearing contact lenses on demos me thinks!

request

power - take it or leave it!

25.10.2006 22:30

One of the things missing in this action is the answer to the question : what can we do with the power when we've rid ourselves of these self serving monsters who launch wars, stir up racial hatred ? ( Another question - if muslim women wearing a veil makes Jack Straw and Tony Blair uncomfortable, can they explain how they are comfortable with a war that has murdered nearly one million people?)

Well the power inquiry is a really good start.

The fantastic Power Inquiry Report, entitled Power to The People, After eighteen months of investigation, the final report of Power is a devastating critique of the state of formal democracy in Britain. Millions of people in the UK actively support campaigns such as Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, and others. And millions more take part in charity or community work. But political parties and elections have been a growing turn-off for years. The cause is not apathy. The problem is that we don’t feel we have real influence over the decisions made in our name. The need for a change is urgent. And that requires a solution that is radical.

Nothing less than a major program of reform to give power back to the people of Britain... and only we, the people, can make this happen, the politicians are resisting it's recommendations.

I know, as I had words with Menzies Campbell, leader of the so-called Liberal Democrats, on this at the Power Inquiry Conference earlier this year and he refused to address my questions.

I noticed that in all the recent and current discussions in the media on Party Funding, none referred to the recommendations in the Power Inquiry! Very Curious!?

http://www.powerinquiry.org - the official site

http://www.commentonpower.org/ - a supporting site, with details of the recommendations of the Power Inquiry - very interesting indeed!

so yeah! SACK PARLIAMENT - and let's do the work together.........

corneilius
Homepage: http://www.corneilius.net

UK Indymedia