Forums > Social Discussion > peace protest

Posted: 27th Mar 2003
Too late, stop the war now and those who've died have done so for nothing. Regardless of whether you feel the war is justified, chances are those who are gone thought that their sacrifice meant something. I hope this is over soon and there is a point at which you stop and say "screw it", but this war has only been going for a week and despite the excuses I've heard there's no reason not to at least get Saddam and his ilk out of power.

Also, are there really so many people on this board from the area you specified that advertising here will ge them to come?

No one knows me like I do.

Posted: 28th Mar 2003
yes

Posted: 27th Mar 2003
There is an astonishing amount of them, yes.


Nice use of "ilk" in a sentence by the way. It's an oft overlooked word.

Meh

Posted: 27th Mar 2003
Perhaps the title should state "Bath" as well.

I would come but the media told me that I could only be either "Pro-War" or "Anti-Troops" and I'm still trying to decide.

Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]

Posted: 2nd Apr 2003
how did the protest go? how many morons are there in bath? i suppose leave saddam in power and allow his son quesay (sic) to continue murdering innocent iraqi citizens, or hows this!!! allow saddams despot son to rape my iraqi friend again! at gun point , just like 3 years ago, i am sure she would love that! you people are narrow minded perverts and it is sickening, he is a despot, a crazy, a murderer, a thief, and so are his two sons. Yeah say no to war! keep the Rapist and murderer in his plush dictatorship with a personnal income of $2,000,000,000pa whilst his people starve. Wake up, get a real education at uni, and not one degree, try 3 or 4, then get back to me, to converse intellectually.

Remember last time we were here? The mud,the blood,I ended it that day.And 87 years later Im back. What goes around, really goes around.

Posted: 2nd Apr 2003
Hey Mason, you're right Saddam and his government are pigs. I'm truely sorry to hear about your friend too.

However, I think your attitude and especially your post above sucks. It is agressive, offensive, condecending and completely unnecessary.

If you are trying to convice people that the war is right you could do it in a better way. If that wasn't your intention and you just wanted to scream at some tree hugging hippies cause you think you know something they don't then your a walking example of narrow mindedness.

I live in a world of infinite possibilities.

Posted: 2nd Apr 2003
Well said DSS, Mason in case you hadn't noticed there are allot of very well educated, eloquent discussions on these boards..

As a tree huggin hippy, you can shout and scream as much as you like, but until you can converse in a quite and rational way, I can't hear you.

Oh and if you are on a dictator rant - hows about doing the same for Mugabe.. at least the world is trying to do something about Saddam and his family, even if a hell of alot of people don't agree with the way its done.. don't hear a flipping thing about the misery in Zimbabwe do you? The misery that me, my family and 1000's of others have witnessed personally.. Wind your neck in!

[ 03. April 2003, 03:10: Message edited by: MisStix ]

I honour you as an aspect of myself..

You are never to old to storm a bouncey castle..

Posted: 2nd Apr 2003
Does Zimbabwe have oil?????

Posted: 3rd Apr 2003
While we are at it let's not forget about Syria,Saudi Arabia,Iran,North Korea,China, and the dozen or so other countries all guilty of countless human rights violations.How does being at war for the next century sound to you all?

BTW I was gonna bring up Mugabe,being that he is taking full advantage of the little attention being shown to his policies since the war in Iraq started.Good call Misstix.

Posted: 2nd Apr 2003
To all the above mentioned.
My previous posting irritated some POI members. And If you personally found this offensive than i do sincerely apologise.
However the point I was generally was tryinng to make and hopful debate was the "No war for oil slogan", being bantered around in this current climate. I feel it should be a connstitutional right to protest, BUT! all i am saying is protest with accuracy. This is not a "war for oil", if it was about oil then America, being the capitalist demigod of the world would surely be after all the oil it can get its slimey hands on. But this is not true.eg if they wanted just oil, why do the Americans send oil to North Korea? an adversary, why didnt America secconder Kuwaits oil after the gulf war? and iraq's oil production of $20mill/ day has already been designated to rebuilding Iraq in a post Saddam government. $20 million a day isnt going to go far rebuilding Iraq with such significant social damage.America has though spent approx $200 billion on this war so far, and a mear $20 million a day is bugger all in cccomparison after Iraq takes out what it needs to rebuild.
And if it takes 100 years to remove these vicious tyrants that are present in Zimbabwe or North Korea then so be it. As a soldier I am willing to sacrifice my life, for the freedom of my brother or sister on the other side of the world.
Are you willing to die for someones freedom, civil liberties and human rights? or will you just say "Oh that bad Mr Stalin" and carry a banner?
Sometimes war is justified, unfortunately.

Remember last time we were here? The mud,the blood,I ended it that day.And 87 years later Im back. What goes around, really goes around.

Posted: 3rd Apr 2003
Wow, things got testy in my absence ^_^

Thanks for your willingness to sacrifice, Mason.

Though, I hope no one ever thought I was quite as vehement as you were up there (aside from that one time when I read "your father is a murdere".... but given your position as a soldier and what happened to your friend, I don't blame you for not liking people who tell you you're a murderer and essentially defend Hussein's right to rule his country as despotically as he likes (though when asked they'll say "oh, yeah, he's bad too").

Note: though it may not have been said here, I've dealt with mroe than a few folks lately who have had the balls to tell me that all soldiers are nothing more than state sanctioned murderers..... Excuse me if such an incredibly naive and hateful view point (you bet it is) doesn't exactly encourage me to join up at my local peace rally.

Does no one understand anymore that if you tell a man with a gun over and over and over and over again to drop that weapon and you do nothing to make him drop it, he's just gonna start laughing and shoot you? Kind of a weak anaology, I know, but bare with.

Hussein has been getting away with crap for years and all the UN has every really doen is say "hey now". You can only warn a child so many times before he realizes that you're not gonna do anything but warn him (maybe a better analogy that time). I'm sorry but military force is the equivalent of Hussein's spanking and in the grownup world an international spanking is sadly gonna end up with some innocents getting spanked along with, but hey until assassination gets considered a better option than war (when pressed I've had anti-war advocates say "well, just send in an assassin or something" as an answer to fixing Hussein-regime problems, not the brightest but hey this is what I'm being given to work with here), then that's how it is.

As for, "well other countries are doing the same thing, why don't you get them too"...... So we should ignore them all?

Cause honestly the threat of "international law" is nothing without some "international police" to back them up (Interpol so does not count). You can only "warn" someone not to break the law so many times before you either have to do something (on this kind of level, that means war) or pretty much be laughed off and never get taken seriously again...... I mean what, like Mugabe is afraid of a f-----g warning?

As for China, as a student of Asia and its history it is my firm belief that given China's recent unique status in the past two decades (fastest growing economy in human history, period) and their rapid growth in terms of civil society and media....... well, I'm thinking they're gonna be able to clean up their own act. NK, more of a threat than hussein in my opinion, but hey, I don't make the military decisions and neither do you and god willing neither one of us ever will (there CANNOT be a democratic/socialist military, just doesn't work that way "I vote we send you over the hill-" "oh yeah, well I vote we send YOU over the hill!")

Anywho, hope this made sense.

No one knows me like I do.

Posted: 3rd Apr 2003
I and the 1.5 million who marched with me in london are opposed to this invasion at this time.

War is a last resort, when all other options have been exhausted.

Please respond to this Dalai lama

200 billion is easily, enough to feed the world, and Solve most of the problems of world poverty.
3 billion people - 50% of the world population do not have access to clean drinking water and sanitation services. that is the problem which 200 billion usd could have solved nicely.
That is a far more worth problem to solve before burning money in iraq

quote:mason"iraq's oil production of $20mill/ day has already been designated to rebuilding Iraq in a post Saddam government."
I say if you break it you pay for it. So i believe that cost of rebuilding iraq, should be borne by the british and americans and other invaders. Every us citizen has already spent
(200 000 000 000 usd div by
370 000 000 us pop)
500 USD each you americans have spent in taxes bombing iraq. pretty shit isn't it.

Last week we blew up a marketplace in bagdad. Do we have any more right to do this that the iraqi army has to put a bomb in time square. the answer to both is no?

Talking is the only way to end conflict.

[ 03. April 2003, 23:03: Message edited by: Glåss ]

Posted: 3rd Apr 2003

quote:

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200 billion is easily, enough to feed the world, and Solve most of the problems of world poverty.
3 billion people - 50% of the world population do not have access to clean drinking water and sanitation services. that is the problem which 200 billion usd could have solved nicely.
That is a far more worth problem to solve before burning money in iraq

---

And the reason behind that problem? Oppressive Government Regimes

Dropping food into a country is all well and good, until John Q Starvation is threatened with violence from his own government if he accepts the gifts of food from the "capitalist devils." These people don't simply lack the means to live a productive life, they have those means taken from them by those in power, regardless of how much we toss their way.

So say we do drop in a huge chunk of food and they accept, what good does it do? It takes away the profitability of farming for the local villagers and so they do not produce their own means for survival. Did you know Ethiopia has some of the best farming land on the planet? They're still poor as hell, and can't break out of that because producing their own food would be a financial loss.

Rebuilding a new government is the ONLY way to solve this problem in Iraq. Not simply tossing food at the civilians, but giving them a means to earn and produce their own.

quote:

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Last week we blew up a marketplace in bagdad. Do we have any more right to do this that the iraqi army has to put a bomb in time square. the answer to both is no?

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The difference is that we wouldn't put a significant military target (missile launcher, AA gun, chemical weapons facility) next door to it... or force the shopkeeper to put his booth up right there... either way, it's human shielding and is a despicable practice that Saddam will be held accountable for.

quote:

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Talking is the only way to end conflict.

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Tell Saddam that. Tell France - a government that outright stated they would veto anything we put on the table at the UN, which is the political equivalent of covering your ears and screaming "I'm not listening" in a discussion. Tell it to the Iraqi people, who have been without a voice for fear of getting themselves tortured or killed (and their relatives as well), if they so much as scribble an anti-Saddam note in their notebook at school.

Talking is only good if the sides are willing to listen, and I think it's been made abundantly clear for the last 12 years who the willing parties are.

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 3rd Apr 2003
Firstly Dio; your likeminded opinion is greatly appreciated, you convey the message so elequontly. and secondly to Glass " you americans have already spent xxxx" read between the lines Sydney is in Australia not America! Third just expanding on dio's points of discussion, did anybody else see the satelite image of the Iraqi Republican guard deliberatly moving a tank infront of a mosque and then deliberately blowing it up so that they can claim the Americans blew it up? i saw it! And finally unless i have been living under a rock, has it been acertained beyond doubt that the Americans even blew up the market where civilian lives were tragically lost? or is this yet another piece of Saddam tyranny and propaganda? please tell me the exact outcome of this event, not who or what YOU think blew it up. And as for assassination yeah thats fine and less blood is spilt, but untill Saddam and all his despot fanatics are removed another tyrant will just take his place. This regime must be destroyed. I think the British and American forces have done an exceptional job, History shall show that giving power back to the Iraqi people was essential and military involvement was the final and much exhausted only option available.

Remember last time we were here? The mud,the blood,I ended it that day.And 87 years later Im back. What goes around, really goes around.

Posted: 4th Apr 2003
missed the protest soory yeah there are a fair few swners posting here I think.
Protesting is one thing but it is time to start thinking about what more we can do. Direct action can be powerfull but also in dangerous allination from other parts of the population looking for a quiet life. Think about how you can live without depending on a government, without depending on imported oil and most other recources. If people can evolve to be independent and happy then that is our only hope don't be blind, try not to be scared, lets make a change now!!

Posted: 5th Apr 2003

quote:

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Think about how you can live without depending on a government

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This sort of state is referred to as anarchy, and among humans it is generally impossible. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke described this as a "state of nature" where humans are left to their own interests. Though they both conceived of this notion, they also had radically different views.

Hobbes believed that humans in this state would be unable to survive. He described it as "harsh, nasty, brutish... a war of every man against every man." Basically a survival-of-the-fittest situation. A governing body would be necessary to alleviate people's natural fear of a violent death, and that governing body would have to be a sovereign strong enough to "hold [us] all in awe." Justice would be determined by this sovereign and that power would be dependent on the consent of the governed.

Locke, on the other hand, believed it was quite a pleasant idea to live near a state of nature. He believed that because people are rational beings, they would respect each other's natural rights and require a minimal amount of governance, say limited to the areas of police, fire department, military, etc, for cases in which justice would need to be meted out.

In both cases, one where humans are capable of respecting each other, and one where they are not, there is still a need for a just government. A state without a government would not work, no matter how responsible you believe people are.

As for the young ones attending the peace protests, I am very proud of you. You are raising a voice to be heard in your country and are not sitting idly by while things run their course. Did you know that only about half of eligible Americans vote? We need more active players like yourselves, and when you do reach voting age, I hope you'll still want to take part in the political processes of your respective nations. Peace protests (or even pro-war rallies, whichever side of the fence you're on) are a great way to get younger people involved in national decisionmaking. Whether we agree or disagree, you're definitely contributing, and that is admirable.

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 22nd Apr 2003
Oh I can't resist. Let me put forth a different idea for government then. Anarchy is impossible for the very reasons Hobbes said: we are all pricks. We can all sit here and say "I would be fine in that state, because I would never infringe on anyone else", but there are still people out there, like the NRA for instance (Haha, just kidding, please don't shoot me!) that believe we still live in a survival of the fittest situation... even though the vast majority of people would be fine in an anarchistic gov't, might makes right as this silly war has shown us first hand.

So let's work up from no government to find something that works. Government is supposed to act on behalf of the people, basically so we don't have to take stock in anything and we have other people to point fingers at when things go wrong. This is bad IMO. Therefore, government must step back and not hog the limelight, but allow the true actors, the people, to do the work. The leadership should serve no other purpose than to guide and help, not rule and dominate. Laws would be basic, in fact beyond protecting the people and our environment from those who would exploit it, theres not a whole lot of stuff for gov't to do in this case. This is radical individualism taken to the even more extreme.

In this case also then, judges would be people who were truly wanted by the people instead of appointed. We could have a democracy actually based on VOTES instead of stupid systems like the electoral college, etc. But I digress.

Size of government. This I think should break down to about the size of states, if not cities and communities. A larger regional coilition would then be able to oversee basic rights, leaving each area to come up with it's own laws based on their community.

Next we would have to look at economics, as for some weird reason the "civilized world" is hell bent on money and its accumulation instead of living free. But how far do we want government to be able to control the economy, and how do we protect the government from the economy's influences as well? I won't touch this one because with the current political atmosphere I think I might be labeled a communist or something.

Basically it forces people to take stock in their existance instead of existing as fairly dead individuals. If man kind is truly a social creature, the further regression into individuality we see today sure speaks otherwise.