[g8-sheffield] Re: Good and bad protesters

[adriana]

"¡Barbaros, las ideas no se matan!"
(Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, President of Argentina in the XIXs)

Schoolchildren were learning this famous phrase and i continued
believing it: that's the risk of teaching famous statements to children.

Now,  what may happen and how things might evolve?
Yet the present is but the fruit from the past: these things have
already happened here in Sheffield, somewhat.
There have been good and bad protesters before.

> 
> 
> WORKING PRINCIPLES
> 
> 1.      We give unconditional support to anyone arrested as a result 
> of participation in protests or actions against the G8. We are not 
> the judge and jury of the validity or otherwise of the tactics of 
> protesters.

Couldn't it be possible to say that whoever agrees to this principle
would be regarded as a "bad" protester by g8-sheffield dissent?

Then where are they supposed to go?
Then why the name "sheffield dissent" if in disagreement with the
Dissent working principle ?


Thanks

amp




atw wrote:

> dh> So far as I know, Make Poverty History hasn't made any statement
>  dh> attacking Dissent. The media are stirring this up - and it seems
>  to be dh> working.
> 
> I don't know either. I was going on a sentence in Chris Malins email,
>  "Make Poverty HIstory and other similar groups are typically willing
>  to condemn types of behaviour".
> 
> 
> dh> I don't deny the importance and usefulness of direct action. But 
> I dh> don't believe that it's the only form of political action that 
> ever dh> achieves anything - which seems to be your position, if I've
>  dh> understood?
> 
> I don't think demonstrations achieve anything. At least I don't know
>  of one that has. I'm guessing MPH is some kind of continuation of 
> Jubilee 2000 who managed to get 100,000 at the last G8 in Birmingham?
>  I think they were basically ignored - the only success being that 
> Tony Blair made some sort of wishy washy statement about how he 
> supported them but wasn't going to do anything anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> dh> The sheer size of take-up of the MPH campaign (including a 
> bandwagon dh> of celebrities, half of whom doubtless haven't a clue 
> what they're dh> talking about) has forced the issues of trade, debt 
> and aid to an dh> unprecedented profile in the British media this 
> year. That keeps up dh> the pressure on the government, which 
> contributes to (and I say this dh> through gritted teeth) the British
>  government taking a relatively more dh> impressive line on those 
> issues compared to other G8 governments. dh> However, the coalition 
> has not endorsed the government's position, dh> despite Blair's 
> attempts to co-opt it, but continues to lobby for more dh> radical 
> reform on all three fronts.
> 
> dh> This won't end capitalism - but it may save huge numbers of lives
>  dh> in the mean time.
> 
> 
> I certainly hope so - but I wouldn't count on it. And if the other G8
>  governments don't agree then the British government's effort will be
>  simply words and Blair will have both his cake and eat it. He'll 
> have credibility with MPH for having tried but nothing will have 
> changed.
> 
> steve
> 
> 
>