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davorg (18)

davorg
  dave@dave.org.uk
http://dave.org.uk/
Yahoo! ID: daveorguk (Add User, Send Message)

Hacker, author, trainer

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Journal of davorg (18)

Monday February 10, 2003
10:39 AM

Anti-War Demo

[ #10503 ]

[ My desire to keep politics out my journal here has, on this occasion, been overtaken by my desire to advertise this as widely as possible ]

If you don't know that there's an Anti-War Demo on Saturday then you must be living on another planet.

From what I'm seeing the number of people who are planning to go on this demo is huge. When I was a student, I was surrounded by people who thought like me and we'd all go off on demos together. Since then I seem to know less and less people who would see spending an afternoon marching through London as a useful way to spend their time. I've become used to people looking at me slightly strangely when I say I'm going on a demo.

But this this time it's different. Everyone that I talk to is planning to go along. Even people who have never been on a demo in their life are considering going along. This march isn't just going to be people selling Socialist Worker or career lefties. It will be people from all sections of British society. I really think that the government is going to be taken aback by the breadth of support that the anti-war movement has. Blair is wrong to support Bush. Only a very small number of people can't see this.

I strongly suspect that this could be the largest demo that London has ever seen.

Please come along and help prove me right.


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  • I really think that the government is going to be taken aback by the breadth of support that the anti-war movement has. Blair is wrong to support Bush. Only a very small number of people can't see this.

    The US has a different view of the UK position on the upcoming second gulf war. For the past few months now, the US press has portrayed the UK as generally supportive of the US POV. Most of this news coverage has taken the form of Tony Blair speaking on behalf of Parliment, and Parliment speaking on be

    • Links (Score:3, Insightful)

      by davorg (18)

      You might find this page of links to Guardian stories [guardian.co.uk] gives you a good overview of the UK Anti-War movement.

      • I enjoy the political posts because it helps me have perspective. Perl people are just smart in general! Even the ones who have wacked out politics usually have points of view that are worth my time to consider.

        I particularly enjoyed seeing your post, because I hear very little support for the war coming from Europe. Knowing there are folks who feel as you do is quite revealing, and I would have never seen that if this journal entry were not here to draw it out of you.

        Any attempts to deduce my standi

        --
        J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
        • There have always been political posts here on use.perl. Personally I've kept them to a minimum since starting my other blog [dave.org.uk] but I don't think you'll ever stop them completely. We've even discussed religion here at times. The vast majority of these discussions have been extremely civilised. I don't think I've ever been disrespectful of anyone's politics (tho' I will confess to occasionally being less than completely respectful about some people's religion)
        • Of course The Guardian is biased. However I don't
        • FWIW, I am the owner of use.perl, and I've made probably as many political posts as anyone. So whatever. :-)

          I agree that the posts should stop -- or certain guilty parties should stop -- when the discussions lack civility. I, too, have occasionally been guilty of this.

          And I didn't know there was an antiwar protest this weekend. Maybe it is more a UK thing? I dunno. Regardless, when you wrote "demo," I thought it was gonna be some Flash animation or something ... :)

  • Antiwar Protest (Score:3, Insightful)

    by davorg (18) <dave@dave.org.uk> on 2003.02.10 11:14 (#16838) Homepage Journal
    Most of this news coverage has taken the form of Tony Blair speaking on behalf of Parliment, and Parliment speaking on behalf of the British people.

    Tony Blair is deliberately misrepresenting British public opinion. The opinion polls are mostly showing the majority of the British population don't support the war (at least, not without another UN resolution).

    On what grounds are the British people not supporting war in the gulf?

    It's not just in the UK. Much of Europe seems to have the same doubts. There are a number of different reasons. The major one seems to be that the US seems to be trying to circumvent proper UN procedures to start the war as soon as possible. Others I've heard include:

    • Too many Iraqis will die
    • It's clearly just about the oil in the region
    • A war will destabilise the region
    • The US has no right to remove the leader of another sovereign nation

    Other people may offer their favourites to the list.

    • May I add my favourite reason ?
      • the continuous arrogance of US' foreign policy is going to fabricate more terrorists and Al Quaeda supporters.
        • the continuous arrogance of US' foreign policy is going to fabricate more terrorists and Al Quaeda supporters.

        I'm not sure what will create more terrorists, but I know what will create less.

        I believe that Al Qaeda is less secure today than before we went into Afghanistan. I like to think that this means less terrorism.

        I feel less secure with Al Qaeda access to a huge stockpile of VX, Anthrax and possibly smallpox from Iraq.

        I do believe that more Al Qaeda supporters are being created daily with Osam

        • I feel less secure with Al Qaeda access to a huge stockpile of VX, Anthrax and possibly smallpox from Iraq.

          Saddam Hussein is an atheist (or an autotheist, "someone who thinks he is God"). He's the leader of a socialist party (the Ba'as party). He's also a megalomaniac. I don't imagine him funding islamic terrorists, unless he has complete control over them (obviously not the case with Al Quaeda). Al Qaeda zealots are against democracy, against separation of churches and state, and as well against Saddam

      • Right, because doing nothing has made for less terrorists and Al Qaeda supporters ...
          • we still don't have any actual evidence of Iraq commiting a serious breach of UN resolutions

            This is plainly false. Not even the leaders of France or Germany could say this with a straight face. After Powell's presentation, France did not say Iraq was not in breach; it accepted that Iraq was in breach, and said we should give them more time.

            You're simply making things up out of thin air. No serious person familiar with the facts believes that Iraq is not in serious breach. Both El Baradei and Blix hav
      • The major one seems to be that the US seems to be trying to circumvent proper UN procedures to start the war as soon as possible.

      The US has worked under the auspices of the UN for more than a decade. The allies have worked assiduously to develop a concensus in the UN, with some success (Resolution 1441).

      However, the UN is not World Government. It's ineffective in that role due to the ability of any Security Council member to veto. The UN did not approve of the bombing of Serbia over Kosovo because o

      • The point that the US has gone along with UN procedures needs to be emphasized. For the last six months, the US has not in any way stepped outside UN procedures, nor done anything to circumvent them. It simply is not happening.

        Could it happen? Could the US go to war without the support of the UN, or against the apparent will of the UN? Yes. But there are no examples of the US doing this. To say the US is trying to circumvent UN procedure is fabrication.

        Perhaps it is meant that the threat of acting w
          • I'm not an expert on this stuff, but it was my impression that the ongoing UK gov/US gov bombing campaign/"no fly zone" was outside UN procedures.

            I specifically said "for the last six months." Yes, the enforcement of the no-fly zone has continued in that time, but it has been going on for a decade, and I was thinking of new things, not long-term continuing things. Sorry for the confusion.

            I, for one, am highly skeptical that a dictator installed by the US gov after an invasion would treat people much b
            • Oh, and in addition, Chalabi doesn't look like a dictator (in description) to me, though, of course, appearances can be deceiving.
              • Again: not addressing the issue of disarmament. Not convincing.

                As to opposition and the INC, yes, the head of the Iraqi National Congress has apparently been blessed by the US government to take over. It's not just the US, though; apparently, Chalabi also has the blessing of Iran and is working to gain support from the other main opposition groups (last I heard, a couple of weeks ago, a summit was planned for today in Northern Iraq).

      • When you are out there marching with the Imams - who want to establish Taliban-style regimes everywhere, anti-American Communists and pacifist who would have given in to Hitler, think about which side you may be choosing.

        I was taking your comments seriously until you spoilt it with that piece of stereotyping.

        If you only take away one piece of information from this discussion then let it be this - the Anti-war movement in the UK is not just made up of hippies, socialists and radical Muslims. A complete c

          • It's ironic to me that you would show solidarity with those who would take your rights away to protest in the future.

            Sure, if they were marching for the right to take away my rights to protest in the future, then that would be a problem. But they're not. They are marching for the same reason as me. To protest against this war. This is a single issue march. And on that single issue I agree with everyone else who will be there on Saturday. You can't draw any other conclusions about the beliefs of anyone w

    • As to it being "clearly just about the oil," what do you mean by that? Do you mean the US is trying to steal the oil; if so, why didn't Bush 41 and Cheney march into Baghdad when they had the chance? If not, what do you mean?

      As to stability, the whole point -- one which the UN Security Council has agreed with on many occasions -- is that Iraq is a threat to the stability of the region until it is disarmed. And all of us know that Iraq has not, for a decade now, been cooperating with disarmament.

      As to r

      • As to it being "clearly just about the oil," what do you mean by that? Do you mean the US is trying to steal the oil; if so, why didn't Bush 41 and Cheney march into Baghdad when they had the chance? If not, what do you mean?

        This is what I mean. There are many countries around the world with human rights violations on their records, or who have weapons of mass destruction, or who have repeatedly ignored UN resolutions. So the obvious question is why pick on Iraq? And the answer that most easily comes to

        • You are not actually saying anything there, you are insinuating, and I do not know what you are insinuating. Is America going to take Iraq's oil fields, something the Bush administration has said in no uncertain terms it will not do? Is it trying to get lower oil prices, despite that war will increase oil prices for the forseeable future? What exactly are you insinuating?

          Further, that the answer comes most easily to your mind isn't exactly compelling. More to the point, you have completely disregarded
  • I'm glad to hear that people are mobilizing the peace effort in the UK. I think if Europe was unified in it's anti-war stance it would do a great deal to decrease the likelihood that the US would move forward. So good luck!

  • I'll be there (Score:3, Informative)

    by autarch (914) on 2003.02.10 12:31 (#16843) Homepage Journal
    There's going to be demos in many US cities as well. The local one here in Minneapolis will start a few blocks from my home, so I don't have any excuse not to go.

  • Size (Score:3, Insightful)

    by darobin (1316) on 2003.02.10 13:23 (#16847) Homepage Journal

    I've noticed while travelling or living abroad that demos tend to vary greatly in size depending on local culture. In Paris 100-200k happens on a regular basis, same thing in Brussels (proportionately). 500k happens once every 5 years, and we've been over a million five times in the past fifty years or so (though two of those were the Libération and the World Cup). On the other hand US and Australian demos tend to be really small (say, 25 people on the curb count as a demo). So how big are your typical London demos? Are the cops often violent?

    I hope it goes well and many people show up. Are you having "London Perl Mongers for Peace" pannels?

    --

    -- Robin Berjon [berjon.com]

  • I strongly suspect that this could be the largest demo that London has ever seen.

    IIRC The record for a peaceful demonstration was over a million, at a demonstration at some point during the nineteenth century. (Hence as a proportion of the popluation would have been much greater than 1 million now)

    Hopefully someone helpful will now tell me the details.

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