Moonbat Media have some good pictures from Saturday’s demonstration in Manchester by the usual suspects… plus some coverage of an incident where Reza Moradi and a friend were removed by Stop The War organisers because they staged a counter-protest, interrupted Tony Benn’s speech. Check it out.
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The smug twat at the bottom of that page really deserves a slapping for that t-shirt.
“I [heart] Iran”. Fuckwit.
No, the prized for idiocy has to be the older woman with “STOP DICTATORSHIP NOW, SUPPORT A CALIPHATE”. And a Caliphate, being a religious theocracy is… NOT a dictatorship? Amazing.
The “Make Tea Not War” poster is kinda funny.
(chuckling)
It’s interesting how these low brow fascists and their stooges always seem to work swastikas into their symbolism. Of course it is everyone else who is the Nazi to these twits. Perhaps it is just a way to show the true symbols of their ideology in a stealth manner?
How the radical leftists can make common cause with the Islamic types is still hard for my old bald head to understand.
All that time I spent reading my near namesake (Karl Marx) and the rest of them (on the basis of “know the enemy”) and they make common cause with (indeed more than make common cause with – slavishly support without any hope of gaining control over) Islamic types who do not share the ideology they supposedly believe in.
And what about the various leftist doctrines (most of which have only a indirect connection to Karl Marx, if any connection at all) about how religion is silly, or about feminism, or about “homosexual rights”.
Do they not really believe in any of it?
Is it just “death-to-the-West” and nothing else?
Watching those clips stirred up something quite strong and incandescent within me. Not necessarily with the thousands of pro-appeasement, pro-Islamofascists, but with ourselves and our allies at the thought of “why the hell can we not organise counter-protests which are even remotely as effective as theirs?”.
Why is it so difficult for us to make our voices heard in this way?
I remember the Trafalgar Square demo from a bit back, but even then, it could have been more encouraging.
Pro-Test seems to have got things running smoothly with their counter-protest movement. Could we learn a thing or two from them?
I’d personally be inspired by a ‘Stop the Appeasement’ movement. Not necessarily because I’m ‘pro-War’ (I’m not), but because I don’t believe in us collectively standing idly by as they push their agenda on to the streets.
There should be a strong voice for those of us who believe in and will staunchly defend the absolute values of freedom of speech, liberty and reason.
I like the chap with the t-shirt sporting a list of countries the US has bombed since 1945. Korea is on the list. Perhaps he should have nipped over to the chaps with the communist banner and asked why the US bombed Korea.
Why the hell can we not organise counter-protests which are even remotely as effective as theirs?
We have jobs, children to take care of, households to run, and other responsibilities.
Oh, well I’m glad to know you’ve got my back covered when I need it, Tim 😉
Oh, well I’m glad to know you’ve got my back covered when I need it, Tim 😉
Your back will be covered when you need it, but I’m not going to put the welfare of my wife and future kids in jeopardy by giving up significant amounts of my time to protests which probably influence nothing whatsoever, and try to compete in such activities with a mass of unwashed cretins who only act in such a way because there are working taxpayers who write their dole checks.
Personally, I’d rather spend my time educating myself on matters and trying to influence events by voting with my pocket or at the ballot box. This, I believe, gets you in front of far more powerful and important people than wearing silly shirts in Manchester.
After all, how many pro-NATO marches were organised in the UK during the Cold War compared to the idiots who marched in favour of Communism and “peace”? Yet whose ideas held firm for 40 years and won the day in the end? This is because the protest marches were ignored and the silent majority – like you and me – registered our beliefs as best as we could along more constructive channels.
“I [heart] Iran”. Fuckwit.
Rather depends on the context. Nothing wrong with loving Iran. Loving the Iranian government is quite another matter.
Interesting to note how a bunch of people supposedly devoted to liberty and the pursuit of individual autonomy rabidy show groupthink (worthless hippies, workshy swampies etc) when confronted with a bunch of people they disagree with and (heaven forbid, dress a bit strange). Sure a number of the arguments of anti war protesters are flawed, some even baseless, but many voice legitimate concerns. Sad to say, but this is yet another ‘libertarian’ blawg I’m shuffling off my favourite list because it blurs the lines between those who pay lip service to liberty and the neo-cons in lib clothing. Pfft, away with ye all.
I live in Manchester and almost went into town to see this cavalcade of jackanapes. I was going to take some photos…
And guess what? My girlfriend says, “Nick we don’t have any food in… lets go to ASDA”. So we go to ASDA. I made a nice tuna carpaccio on saturday night.
Tim Newman is absolutely correct.
I guess it was a protest in a way. Afterall the righteous left wouldn’t want me bunging a few quid Sam Walton’s way.
Or perhaps not. A few years ago my girlfriend was a student at Universtiy of Westminster. She saw (and was vaguely inconvenienced) by a “Anti-Globalisation” march through central London. Because it was an early start a great number of the storm-troopers of the left needed a bit of a pick-me-up so they all went to Starbucks!
Lizzy swears that to be the case.
I’m not really sure quite what point Mr Benn was trying to make. He did though make a very clear point in favour of euthanasia for the elderly and demented.
It was also interesting to see how peaceful these peace activists were when someone disagreed with them.
Fraser,
The only thing to say to a guy with a “I [heart] Iran” shirt on is, “So why haven’t you moved there already?” That’s the only thing to say to him. I didn’t say that I don’t fully endorse your original suggestion of bitch-slapping him.
Aaronm, whilst one should not define your own views simply as being opposed to someone else’s, I think that when a whose-who of paleo-communists and islamo-fascists turn up for a protest, if you find your self on the other side you are probably doing something right. There is nothing neo-con about rejecting appeasement and refusing to see that for all its flaws, the USA is vastly preferable to Islamo-fascism and we really are in a clash-of-civilisations. That does not mean Israel or Bush should be above criticism (gawd known I have slagged both off on many occasions)… but calling down scorn on idiots like those protesters seems fairly reasonable to me.
Aaronm is a perfect example of why only insane people vote for the lp these days.
Discussing T-Shirt slogans I am always reminded of the famous Private Eye cartoon which showed a mullah wearing Bob Geldorf’s “I ran the world” shirt with the logo changed to “Today Iran, Tomorrow the world!”.
I also live in Manchester, Nick. I’ve heard that the people working in the cafes & restaurants were completely fed up with the protestors by the end of the day. Apparently the left-leaning, lovers of the common worker are not only very bad tippers but also tried to bring in their own food & drinks to eat at the outdoor tables. Lefties didn’t seem to understand that these places make their money from customers buying the food on the premises!
Campaign against the government on a weekend, back to work for it on the Monday, along with the superb pension, for most of this pitiable colection of marching misfits.
Gabriel said…
Aaronm is a perfect example of why only insane people vote for the lp these days.
Care to expand on this?
but many voice legitimate concerns
I’ll guess what some of these concerns are
1) The military-industrial complex is out to get you.
2) Zionists, possibly in *cabals*, are involved in said complex.
3) Bush and the American Taliban are creating a theocracy.
4) Space rays from zionist/CIA run sattelites are controlling the sheeple, thus stopping them from realising 9/11 was an inside job.
There was a time when not all lpers were Murray Rothbard obsessives, but that time seems long gone.
Elaine:Lefties didn’t seem to understand that these places make their money from customers buying the food on the premises!
Maybe they only understand the taking, but not the making part.
I think what he’s trying to say, Aaron, is that although the Libertarian party has some good ideas about limited government, it’s also packed to the brim with whackjobs and Randroids, probably like yourself.
I concur, and that’s why when I vote Libertarian it’s only for the small offices, like local county commissioners, etc.
The nadir was the “Boot Boortz” campaign. The message being that if you don’t think the American government is responsible for all evil the world over, you’re not welcome in our gang.
P.S. I’ve no problems with randroids in this regard. I don’t appreciate their militant atheism or their insisitence that Ayn Rand was a good writer, but they are sound on foreign policy and can keep in perspective who the truly evil people on this planet are. Unlike, say, Badnarik.
Gabriel and Hank,
I was merely referring to issues such as the erosion of civil liberties, government transparency and the role of foreign policy. Still there are the conspiracy nuts and vanguardist trotskyites who pretty much drove me from the pacifist movement long ago. The point I was initially trying to make was the danger of descending to ad hominems, which would make those of us on the libertarian/classical liberal/rationalist etc side of the debate little better than the thugs waving the Iranian flags in the videos.
Elaine –
What? Leftists free-riding? Unheard of.
Aaronm – No one on the Left (and I may be being somewhat presumptuous here – ah, bugger it – practically no one at that march) can disdain the loss of civil liberties, much less government transparency, and maintain ideological consistency.
Having said that, I’d be pretty pissed off if I was at a protest march (of any variety) if, whilst trying to listen to a speaker, some dude next to me popped up with a megaphone and started ranting. That’s just rude – there’s a time and place. Such behaviour was bound to provoke hostility, whether he had a point (which he did) or not.
Elaine,
I just completely counted central Manchester out of my plans for Saturday. Which was a shame because I needed to get into see a travel agent.
Which I have now done. Got the flights and on October 16th off on honeymoon to DC and then Key West.
OK, this is really OT and I apologise for that… but any of the commentariat got any suggestions for things to see, do or places to stay?
I hang my head in shame but I’m a fairly long-standing member of the commentariat and it is a very special occasion.
James,
If I was listening to the clap-trap His Wedgieness was spewing forth any distraction would have been welcome. Yup, even an amplified kazoo. Playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”.
Clarification,
I just worry that people will get the wrong end of the stick. Mainly because I’ve given it to them.
While prime task was to see a few travel agents I did think of getting a few snaps of the protest. And savouring the “atmosphere”. But in the end we went to ASDA instead.
I considered going into town but then completely discounted it. Not least because the traffic would have been a nightmare.
Ahem, I actually went along to see what was going on. Well it was a nice day and I didn’t have much to do and anyway, it was supposed to be primarily an anti-Blair march. What I didn’t understand was why people were carrying “Free Palestine” signs to a protest against Tony Blair. Even his almighty Tonyness must be aware it is not in his power to grant the Palestinians their own state. [I considered bringing a sign that said “Blair Out. Maggie Back.” but decided against it on personal safety grounds.]
At one point I overheard one socialist ask another where she got her T-shirt from.
“Oh er.. actually I got it in the States” she said.
Honestly. You just can’t find good socialists these days.
When I see Trostkyists and Islamofascists protesting the state of civil liberties, I am filled with a mixture of scorn and hilarity. Clearly they are only protesting that they are not the ones doing the infringing of civil liberties.
Understandable.
A fair point. However I do find it hard to not get a bit stroppy when I see people supporting totalitarian political systems protesting in the assumption they are on the moral high ground and somehow they actually care about civil liberties.
It’s unlikely they’ve read any Marx. Not only are they the fake and fascist Left, they are the fantasy Left: tiny minds have seized on a limited number of precepts which stroke their egos by telling them how ‘progressive’ are. I mean burquas are s-o-oo today. Actually I’m not sure they have minds at all. I see no sign their brains are plugged into a power source. Read Koorosh Modarresi of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran on ‘the Western marginal Left’: ‘Anti-war coalitions: Lost causes and self-defeated movements'(Link)
Marx on religion
The foundation of irreligious criticism is this: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed man’s self-consciousness and self-awareness so long as he has not found himself or has already lost himself again. But, man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man — state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, it enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right by Karl Marx
Lenin on religion
Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.
VI Lenin: Socialism and Religion
I regard religion as a psychological artifice, an attempt to make the realities of the world more bearable… I have little time for it but I do regard it as hilarious that Marx and Lenin were anti-religious when what they were pushing was nothing less than a ‘secular religion’.
The whole notion of scientific socialism is based on preposterous notions about the ability to plan complex human interactions (in fact, it always ends up using force to simplify human interactions to try and make them plannable), a negation of the scientific principle (socialist science is quite literally an oxymoron) and subjectivist epistemology just as weird as any religious creation myth. There is nothing rational about socialism.
BTW, fascinating article you linked to, Ysabel, thanks for that.
I do not regard the Iranian Communists as the ‘good guys’ to put it mildly (wanting Communism rather than Islamic Fascism is rather like committing suicide for fear of death), but Koorosh Modarresi is obviously very clear headed and his description of the ‘marginal left’ is perfect.
Lenin’s dislike of religion stems purely from the fact that the church in Russia was a large obstacle to his aim of running his totalitarian system of government. As most of the peasants listened to the priests more than they listened to some bearded twat from Ulyanovsk, they posed a serious threat to his power. The answer, of course, was to eradicate the church and the peasantry.
James
why the hell can we not organise counter-protests which are even remotely as effective as theirs?
I couldn’t agree more. Tim Newman is typical of the vast majority of libertarians. Happy to fight for the cause, provided i dont have to leave my armchair.
If you dont stand up and fight for your liberties, you will lose them.
Protest marches do achieve something. Witness the sea change in thinking on Animal Rights in Oxford caused by the Pro-Test marchers.
It may be the punchline to a joke, but it’s also true. ‘We have jobs.’ And my job confines me to a very small area whether I’m working, or just on call.
They day someone figures out how to organize an on-line ‘march’, I’ll be there.
Online demonstration… I think you might have the seed of a good idea.
pommygranate,
Pro-Test was so successful because it tapped into the silent majority. There wasn’t a “sea change in thinking” after the march. A majority of people already agreed with the Pro-Test lot but they just weren’t organised. They lacked a rally-point. And I think the ALF-types scored a stunning own goal with the “kidnapping” of the old ladies body. There is evil and there is stupidity but if you combine the two…
Marxist Communism is astonishingly like a “secular religion” on the Judeo-Christian-Islamic pattern. It has a founding prophet (Marx), an infallible and unreadably turgid scripture (Marx’s writings), a hierarchical priesthood charged with intepreting the holy texts and shepherding mankind in the right direction (the Communist party), a demonic force to be struggled against in this world (capitalism), an eschatological narrative of Armageddon and final redemption (the class struggle, which Marx foretold would inevitably be crowned by victory and a Communist Utopia), and the satisfying sense, for believers, of being one of the elite “in the know” about the inevitable course of history, even helping bring it about. One could cast Lenin as Communism’s Constantine, and perhaps its St. Paul as well, though it doesn’t do to push analogies too far. It wouldn’t surprise me if Marx and Lenin quite deliberately modeled their movement on Christianity in these ways, knowing that it would resonate in minds reared to internalize that model. All it lacked was a deity and an afterlife, which may explain why its power to motivate people burned out after just a few generations. But it wrought horrors enough in that time.
As a general rule, if you can publicly denounce the government of the country you’re standing in as totalitarian and not get arrested, it isn’t.
There are plenty of reasonable leftists out there. Most of the people I know personally would fall into that category. But they don’t go to these demonstrations. They have jobs too.
Nick
Yes, Pro-Test did tap into the silent majority. But before its arrival, these same individuals were too scared to publically speak their minds. Now people realise that they are not the only ones who abhor the animal rights fanatics and feel confident to openly condemn them.
Those involved in the animal testing industry have renewed confidence that what they are doing is not immoral or wicked.
Laurie Pycroft has done more to promote liberty in one year than all the libertarian bloggers put together.
Yes, MidWesterner, we all have jobs. But sometimes you just gotta do something.
Pommygranate, I believe in putting my money where my mouth is and it represents a not insignificant drain on my resources… and I assure you that blogging is not my only form of ‘activism’.
That said, I think that considering the money and time I spend helping ‘good causes’ across the Anglosphere in one way or another, Samizdata probably represents the biggest return-on-investment for me personally.
Turning out for demos is not a waste of time but I am not sure it is always cost-effective (though that does rather depend on the political temperature of the moment in question). Certainly the pro-Freedom of Expression demo in Trafalgar Square was not just a waste of time, it was a mistake. I simply have no interest in making common cause with people I otherwise despise unless they are willing to TOTALLY focus on the issue which brought us together rather than their broader and often detestable agendas. Sean Gabb was the best speaker that day by far because rather than pushing a broader libertarian agenda, he stayed focused on the exact issue that the demo was about, rejecting a Muslim veto over freedom of expression. What a pity almost none of the other people did likewise. I did not show up to be lectured about Gay Rights or Communist notions of freedom in Iran.
I was reminded of Napoleon’s dictum that he would rather fight an alliance than be a part of one.
Yes, MidWesterner, we all have jobs. But sometimes you just gotta do something.
I will not/cannot quit my job. I have no control over when what little free time I have occurs. I would enjoy a group public action for the reasons named here plus the social contact. How nice it would be to actually meet a bunch of like minded individuals for a change.
Do you have a useful suggestion?
Fair enough, Imade an assumption which on reflection was unjustified. Nevertheless I do not think engaging in amusing logical fallacies quite places me, or anyone else, at the same level as those who spray acid in women’s faces. Nor do I have any wish, whatsoever, to have a debate with such people.
Perry – I do most definitely consider running a major blog such as this doing something
MidWesterner – good question. I think Pro-Test has been so successful because it focused on a single, specific issue – that of ensuring Oxford University can proceed with buiding its research lab.
I have watched with interest the Left try to restore some sanity to their cause with the introduction of the Euston Manifesto. Whether they achieve anything from it is another matter.