Wibbling Thoughts

AGAIN!

That’s pretty much it…

Will report back just in case anyone is reading

Well, we got Colin to London, it was hard work, but the attention we got in hyde park was worth it. We must be on hundreds of peoples demo photographs – which is nice. I even got on indymedia for the second time (first time was dancing on a road block, second time was looking vacently the other way as someone photo’d the dalek).

We missed most of the march, and I tuned out the speakers, so I can’t really say much about how it went. I won a book that was raffled on the coach on the way there (Stop the War) and found out I know all the words to the Rudyard Kipling poem about “five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark” as someone sang it on the way home. We also got ‘tutted’ at for getting a bit hyper at the service station on the way back. G was rolling on the floor after we’d tickled him. We also used coke bottles as light sabers…

Not sure what else to say apart from I have a VERY impressive collection of bruises. I managed to fall over a post quite spectaculally when we were in London for DESi – i was looking over my shoulder for police – and ended up with a couple of big bruises on my knee and legs, and a sore elbow. And just to top it off, I managed to fall down the stairs earlier today – I have skinned my elbow and it’s turning in to a big bruise. I also have a bruise on my back. And it hurts.

I’m heading down to London again tomorrow to take part in the latest Stop the War march. Even when I was writing the ‘blog entry on apathy I was half planning the trip down to London this week, the one next week, and the Martin John Nicholls concert the weekend after. All of which are either protests or have an activist edge (MJN has written some deeply cool protest songs).

I don’t expect to stop the war this weekend. I don’t even expect the governement to listen, or that we’ll get anywhere with the march. It will all be nice and fluffy, and hopefully a reminder that there is still opposition to the war – and that the war is still going on, that people are still dying. I’ve heard it said that the hope of stop the war lies in america – that whilst the movement is dwindling here, it’s expanding accross the pond. Which is hopeful.

Oh, and we are taking the Dalek down to Stop the War. How we’re going to get the damn thing around, and just how much of a bad idea this is hasn’t been discussed. But we’re going to do this. Provided I phone up and ask. And we get wheels on the damn thing, and, and, and…..

So, given we have to leave at about 6.30 tomorrow to take the dalek to the pick up point, I have a lot to do today. And it’s raining.

A few quotes…

“With practiced plauability you blame the anarchists. You say we’re just misguided fools – naive idealists”

“When the words of mass deception have been written and rehearsed
And the cowards of the media machine have done their worst,
When the silence has been shattered and we’ve seen the bubble burst
We’re still here.

You can raise your flag you can raise your gun,
We will not tremble we will not run,
After all is said and all is done,
We’re still here.

We have our rights and we have our pride,
We may scatter but we will not hide,
We maybe torn apart and terrified,
But we’re still here.”

Dave (in the comments section) rightly said that the lable “anarchist” probably didn’t help, so I thought I’d waffle about about anarchism, and what the media seemed to think it was, and what my experience of it was.

I think I said after I came back from Stirling that the camp was the kind of place you could leave your mobile phone under the wheels of a truck, and come back hours later and find it still there, well, the place I stayed in this week was the same – mobile phone, ipod shuffle, all left lying around, all still there when I came back. The only time I paniced that I’d lost the shuffle was when I put it in my bag instead of on the floor next to my sleeping bag. All the food is done on trust, you pay for what you have, and if you really can’t pay, you don’t. And everyone is so nice!

The media image of an anrachist is someone who deliberatly wants to cause trouble, who sets out to beat up police ect, and that’s just not what it really is. As far as I can tell there was no one at the site who wanted to beat people up – aside from the young girl who decided to kill me two repeatedly two nights running. The other thing that doesn’t fit with the media image is the meetings. EVERY descision is made by consensus desicion making – which means everyone has to agree on the action – I won’t go off on a detailed explaination. The whole thing is more democratic that the ‘democracy’ we live in. Everyone is equal, everyone is respected – there were loads of kids there, families, students, hard core anarchists, hippies, christians, atheists, everyone together. When a job needed to be done, it was done, simple as that.

And a world run along those lines, small collectives working together, would be absolutely fantastic. I’m not sure how anarchisty that is though, I’m sure someone will tell me.

As for me, I’m anarco-something. I don’t think I’m a true anarchist, and if I am I’m definatly a fluffy one. For anyone who wants more information, try the I-58 website, I’ll put it up on the links, but here it is… http://www.almostfamous.co.uk/i58/

I don’t know why I bother protesting – it’s not as if it does any good at all. I spent the whole week practicing my right to protest, and how much media attention did it get? None. And how much good did it do? None.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t protest for media coverage, but as far as I can tell, not even the Daily Mail was outraged that 300 odd anarchists descended on London. And the Daily Mail being outraged would have shown that we were at least having SOME effect. But no, no one gives a shit. Part of it is the lack of actions taking place, we could have done more, we SHOULD have done more, but we didn’t. The publically called action for thursday (blockade of customs house station) failed misrably, but luckily the affinity groups actions, and the critical mass made some difference (the DLR was stopped for a couple of hours and we blocked a road). The pulicity said that 2003 was a warm up, and we were going to shut down DESi in 2005. Yeah right.

But what really gets me is the apathy. The worlds biggest arms fair is happening in London, and most people don’t even know! And if they do know, they don’t care. They don’t seem to be even a tiny bit outraged that illegal weapons are being sold in the excel center – that millions die because of the trade that’s going on inside this building surrounded by police, security guards, and fences. If anything, they are pissed off at us, or laugh at us. I don’t mean the people we delay. They have every right to be pissed off at us – but the other people. The people who looked at us in disgust as we talked about plans, where we were meeting ect, the people who stared at us as we were taken off a train.

And it makes me wonder why I carry on. It makes me wonder if protesting will ever get anything done. Make Poverty History? Disarm DESi? Drop the Debt? Stop the War? Nothing has worked – we’ve not had any effect on those in power at all. If DESi doesn’t come back to London, it won’t be from our actions, it will be because Ian Blair says that policing it is a drain on resources.

And the world won’t know what went on, what we did. No one will know about the people violently arrested, the cordons, the rows up on rows of police surrounding small groups of protesters, the way we were hearded like cattle, and only allowed to protest in a small pen. No one will hear the stories from the protests, no one will join us, we won’t become a mass movement, we won’t change anything.

A police officer put it best last night – in his words, “It looks like we’re winning”.

And they are.

Off down to London to protest, more info later.

Prayer appriciated….

The Dalek is having it’s first official York appearence on Saturday at the second white band day. Also present will be the Doctor, his companion, and if I have my own way, a TARDIS (fridge box painted blue).

Which means this week is to be spent mending the Dalek, and contacting the media. Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE contacting the media? I have no contacts, hate cold calling, hate telling the press that there is gonna be an event just in case it flops/they don’t come/the dalek falls apart/they take photos…

But I’m gonna do it anyway. Am hoping that as I’m the one of the group with the SLR and photography experience, it will be me taking photos, G being the Doctor (note to self: scarf), R being companion, and J helping push (he doesn’t like cameras).

We’re also planning a photo shoot in sainsbrys. Dalek choosing fair trade bananas, chocolate, coffee ect. I can’t wait

I got a new pen today, and as I always do, I started writing with it to see how well it writes. This pen writes fantastically, and after scribbling on a bit of paper I wrote “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

And in this case it’s true. My pen is made from two bullet shells from Sarajevo, it was made from something created to destroy buildings and lives – the bullets that came from the shells in my pen could have caused untold damage, but the shells are now being used to house something completely different. A pen, it provides a voice to the writer, and ecconomy to the war torn areas of the former Yugoslavia.

It’s quite an amazing pen really.