london march 10th january

skrewface · Post by **skrewface** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 1:33 am

Gaza live, for the non-believers.

http://switch434-01.castup.net/cunet/gm ... =CH2News_2

doomtube · Post by **doomtube** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:00 am

[quote="resktwo"]i didn;t read everything cuz it;s all the same. i have to say something.

I had the courtesy to read you post, you should read mine. And if you do you will see nothing anti-israeli. Just Anti-war. (I hope!)

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:06 am

tr0tsky wrote:Is Starbucks a franchise?

Yes. Stores are owned by individual shop owners. The image and branding are owned by Starbucks Corp, but they smashed the windows of people trying to scrape a living through an already hard economic time. - As a Trotskyite, I assume you'd sympathise with the argument of the working man.

Do they really think that individual business owners working hard to keep a coffee shop running have time to get involved in Middle East politics? Attack corporate HQ if they must (although they'll probably just put a load of cleaners out of work), but attacking stores is completely illogical.

It worries me that people are so quick to jump to violent reactions and so slow to sit, wait and think about what they're actually doing.

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 8:09 am

tr0tsky wrote:What sort of Israel would you want to see? 1968 boaders? 1948 boaders?

Whichever one stops the bloodshed.

It's quite simple really... with people on the Palestinian side, although not in official statements yet, actually starting to make noises like they'd accept the 1948 proposed borders (remember your history : It was the Palestinians that didn't agree in 1948) then the world must push both sides into finding any sort of peaceful resolution.

My housemate put it nicely. This isn't about winning a war. It's about stopping a war. Too many people at the protest didn't care about stopping a war, they were just concerned because their side was losing.

doomtube · Post by **doomtube** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 9:18 am

My housemate put it nicely. This isn't about winning a war. It's about stopping a war. Too many people at the protest didn't care about stopping a war, they were just concerned because their side was losing.[/quote]

I agree with your housemate.
There was an issue raised on newsnight last night about muslim extremist groups using the Gazza conflict as a point to stir up anger in young muslims and to us jihad (not sure of the grammar). I saw on Saturday a lot of extremely angry young men who would smash up a starbucks at the drop of a hat and could easily be lead down the extremist path and into terrorist action, is not the destruction of a coffee shop a terrorist act?
It is a very fine line to balance on and must be tread carefully or we could see a new surge in young muslims being prepared to do craziness in the name of a situation the do not utterly understand....does that make sense?

badga tek · Post by **badga tek** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 9:52 am

doomtube wrote: I agree with your housemate.
There was an issue raised on newsnight last night about muslim extremist groups using the Gazza conflict as a point to stir up anger in young muslims and to us jihad (not sure of the grammar). I saw on Saturday a lot of extremely angry young men who would smash up a starbucks at the drop of a hat and could easily be lead down the extremist path and into terrorist action, is not the destruction of a coffee shop a terrorist act?
It is a very fine line to balance on and must be tread carefully or we could see a new surge in young muslims being prepared to do craziness in the name of a situation the do not utterly understand....does that make sense?

I read an interesting paper regarding radicalisation of young western Muslim youths. I highly recommend it

http://www.microconflict.eu/publications/PWP2_OR.pdf

tr0tsky · Post by **tr0tsky** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:02 am

Restwo, I wrote a very long reply to you but I closed the window by mistake.

I really don't have the time today to respond to you points by points but I might do later tonight.

Magma wrote: Yes. Stores are owned by individual shop owners. The image and branding are owned by Starbucks Corp, but they smashed the windows of people trying to scrape a living through an already hard economic time. - As a Trotskyite, I assume you'd sympathise with the argument of the working man.

Same goes to you, Magma. I wrote something quite well structured but closed the window like the fucktard I am.

Just some links about how Starbucks does fuck-diddly all for the working man. Starbucks are famous union-busters.

http://www.nosweat.org.uk/node/323

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnf ... =rss_daily

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnf ... =rss_daily

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:05 am

tr0tsky wrote:
Magma wrote: Yes. Stores are owned by individual shop owners. The image and branding are owned by Starbucks Corp, but they smashed the windows of people trying to scrape a living through an already hard economic time. - As a Trotskyite, I assume you'd sympathise with the argument of the working man.
Same goes to you, Magma. I wrote something quite well structured but closed the window like the fucktard I am.

Just some links about how Starbucks does fuck-diddly all for the working man. Starbucks are famous union-busters.

http://www.nosweat.org.uk/node/323

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnf ... =rss_daily

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnf ... =rss_daily

Oh, dude, don't for a second think I'm letting Starbucks off the hook as some kind of perfect company. What I'm saying is that attacking franchise holders is not the way to make a political point about the crisis in the Middle East. Because of the structure of the company, it's not even a great way to make a point about Capitalism or Globalisation.

And although Starbucks are the poster-company for this sort of hatred these days, there are far worse stories told about the actions of Ford in South America (esp Argentina and Chile) than there have been or will ever be about Starbucks. Why aren't people trashing Ford dealerships? Most likely because it wouldn't actually achieve anything other than ruining someone's working day.

In fact, violence is seldom a great way to make a point about anything. Except maybe who's got the hardest fist.

tr0tsky · Post by **tr0tsky** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:21 am

Just to clarify, it was a block of Anarchists that attacked the Starbucks.

I'm assuming that they were thinking more of "big bucks capitalism, die!!" rather than about the Middle East but who is to say, it was more likely a combo of the two.

I agree with you that Starbucks are far from the worst when it comes to ethics, but hey. Perhaps the target was symbolic.

I do also agree with your analysis of random acts of propert distruction. If I was a worker in Macdonalds having the clear up after a bunch of fucking twattish middle class anarchkids I wouldn't move any closer to joining the revolutionary vanguard.

I'm just trying to develop a deeper understand of why things happened that evening rather than the binary "violence = bad", "detracts from the message of peace".

Also, I've seen a Ford dealership trashed before.

ps: I'm not a Trotskyist.

resktwo · Post by **resktwo** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:30 am

doomtube wrote:
resktwo wrote:i didn;t read everything cuz it;s all the same. i have to say something.

I had the courtesy to read you post, you should read mine. And if you do you will see nothing anti-israeli. Just Anti-war. (I hope!)

i will, i just had to respont. I will take time to read everything today.

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:31 am

Sure, my blanket assertion that "Violence is bad, m 'kay" is a bit short sighted... I'm not suggesting we turn into a world filled with hippies (The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror showed us we need at least nails in boards to stave off one-eyed-alien invasion!), but I find it funny that people protest violence and inhumanity by being violent and inhumane. It's also funny that a large section of these sort of protesters are, as you say, pretty middle class and probably only have enough spare time and cash to live the way they do because Mummy and Daddy are paid up members of The System.

The irony of it all seems completely lost on them, which is a shame!

doomtube · Post by **doomtube** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:02 am

Badga Tek, just got it looks heavy but im gonna skim through it...

Magma what is this 'system' of which you speak

Also from first hand experience of saturdays march and other anti-war post 11/09/01 marches it seems from a pure personal view that (apart from the few black flag waving trouble for troubles sake trustafrians) the most angry violent aggressive (undoubtedly for good reason)an quite honestly scary people at these protests are the young male asians. That may sound racist, it isn't. It is a simple eye witness account. Now what percentage of these blokes are muslim i have no idea. But it only takes one to become lost into the world of jihad websites and forums to cross over into a place far nastier than kicking over a barrier at a march....
does that make sense? ...... ill read http://www.microconflict.eu/publications/PWP2_OR.pdf now.....

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:05 am

doomtube wrote:Magma what is this 'system' of which you speak

"You haven't been to college yet, man, you don't understand. It's all the Corporations' fault, maaaaan"

doomtube · Post by **doomtube** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:13 am

Magma wrote:
doomtube wrote:Magma what is this 'system' of which you speak

"You haven't been to college yet, man, you don't understand. It's all the Corporations' fault, maaaaan"

is that a quote from south park or are you saying i haven't been to college?

doomtube · Post by **doomtube** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:15 am

http://www.microconflict.eu/publications/PWP2_OR.pdf

A VERY GOOD READ!!!!

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:25 am

doomtube wrote:is that a quote from south park or are you saying i haven't been to college?

South Park! Just adding a bit of light to the shade!

tr0tsky · Post by **tr0tsky** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:26 am

Magma you've warmed my heart on what was up to now a boring day at work. Kudos.

On the question of radicalisation of young Asian men, I'm speaking now wearing a number of different hats, which I hope can help me analyise a complex problem.

I'm grew up in a working class family, in a working class area in which 99.5% of the people in the streets and estates around where I lived were Indian or Pakistani.

I'm a young, radical and passionate Asian man.

I'm educated and work within politics and so have to think abot society, sociology etc etc.

I think that it's a shame, a huge fucking shame that we on 'the Left' (for lack of better term) are losing the arguement.

It's true to say without a doubt that the Asian (well mostly the Pakistani and Bangladeshi) community disproportionetly suffers from structural and social problems.

20% of Bangladeshi men are unemployed in the UK, that's 4 times more than White British men.

Pakistani men have the lowest levels of education standard.

73% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi children are living below what trendy sociologists call the "poverty line".

If we combine unemployment, poor education and poverty with a distrust of social and political establishments we're on the route for some seriously pissed off blokes.

The perception of racism from the Police, from educational establishments and within unemployment naturaly leads to a deeply ingrained sense of hostility.

Add to this a sense of being attacked due to ever increasing Islamophobia, the rise of the 'new' far Right (that has dropped anti-Semitism for Islamophobia) and a sense of international solidarity with oppressed brothers and sisters in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan etc we've got a powder keg.

The great shame in all of this is that the bearded, old, white, real ale-drinking dinosaurs on the traditional Left don't have the fucking foggiest clue about releating to radicalised yoots. I'm the lucky one, I was interested in philosophy and history before my radicalisation and so was more accessable to Leftist politics, but 9 times out of 10 you see young men being missed out, and thus turning to their Immams.

Maybe I'm wrong, who knows. 21 years does not a lifetime of wisdom make.

tr0tsky · Post by **tr0tsky** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:44 am

doomtube wrote:http://www.microconflict.eu/publications/PWP2_OR.pdf

A VERY GOOD READ!!!!

This.

Especially after SO MANY academic peices written by people who would be better off working for the Daily Mail.

magma · Post by **magma** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:50 am

tr0tsky wrote:Maybe I'm wrong, who knows. 21 years does not a lifetime of wisdom make.

No, it doesn't, but you've got a very right attitude and as long as you keep that, you'll do just fine. There's no "right way", as we've managed to pretty well prove by all expressing our points and not changing each others minds that much.... but if you keep your mind open to at least accepting that other people feel differently then you stand yourself in good stead of being able to be involved in proper process.

Without turning this into one massive ballcupping session, keep on with the politics. Young minority communities need voices, but, especially, all causes need voices that are connected to working ears.

resktwo · Post by **resktwo** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 11:52 am

[quote="tr0tsky"]Restwo, I wrote a very long reply to you but I closed the window by mistake.

I really don't have the time today to respond to you points by points but I might do later tonight.

Ill be waiting for your reply , all thoug i know u didnt belive anything i said and u think my mind is filled with "poison"

london march 10th january

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