blessed britons

Sessional Orders are passed at the beginning of every Parliamentary session under an 1839 law to ensure free passage for MP’s to arrive and depart from Parliament. Similar Orders apply to the House of Lords. Under the 2005 SOCPA legislation any march / demonstration in the vicinity of Parliament must be allowed to take place so long as a minimum of 6 days notice is given to the police.
Something more restrictive was needed so the 1839 legislation passed many years before this country had universal suffrage is now being used to attempt to ban the 8 October Troops Out march. Since the march to Parliament is intended to be a peaceful attempt to alert Parliament to the feeling of the majority of the British public about the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and MP’s themselves will be on the march this cannot be interpreted as obstructing the passage of members of Parliament.

— Stop the War Coalition

www.stopwar.org.uk

mad world

On 25 October 2005, [Milan] Rai was arrested opposite Downing Street with vegan chef Maya Evans, after the pair read out the names of Iraqis and British service personnel who had been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Mr Rai was subsequently convicted of organising an "unauthorised" demonstration within 1km of Parliament, fined £350 and ordered to pay £150 in costs.
In May 2007 the pair were convicted again, this time for organising and participating in an "unauthorised" demonstration within 1km of Parliament, namely the "No More Fallujahs" weekend of nonviolent resistance marking the 2nd anniversary of the US/UK onslaught on the Iraqi city of Fallujah. At least 550 women and children are believed to have been killed during the latter attack, during which US forces used white phosphorus - a substance that burns down to the bone on contact with human flesh - as a weapon.

— Justice not Vengeance

JNV (Milan Rai was later jailed for a month for not paying his fines)

orwell

what did it matter who invented aeroplanes?

Submitted by antarchi on June 5, 2007 - 16:19.

Often Julia was ready to accept the official mythology, simply because the difference between truth and falsehood did not seem important to her. She believed, for instance, having learnt it at school that the Party had invented aeroplanes. And when he told her that aeroplanes had been in existence before he was born, and long before the Revolution, the fact struck her as totally uninteresting. After all, what did it matter who had invented aeroplanes?
George Orwell, 1984
What does it matter? And yet if it doesn't matter that we have been given the wrong facts, or not all of the facts; if it doesn't matter that there is a reason why the facts were hidden from us; if it doesn't matter that those who bothered to hide the facts from us (deliberately) continue to be 'believed', trusted - or at least in positions of authority; if it doesn't matter that others continue to believe in their lies, and that by those means, their lies become the 'truth'; if it doesn't matter, above all, that all of this doesn't matter to people - then what, in the end, matters?
Lying matters partly because you can't build trust on lies. But it also matters because the fact of lying - or holding back the truth - is nearly always a symptom of disrespect - or mistrust - towards others. Why otherwise do you not give them the story as you see it? Do you think they would not want to hear it? Or do you not trust them to hear it as you say it?
'To glorify democracy and to silence the people is a farce; to discourse on humanism and to negate people is a lie'
Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

doing their duty

Submitted by antarchi on June 16, 2007 - 00:57.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are ‘only doing their duty’, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life.

doublethink

Submitted by antarchi on May 17, 2007 - 06:50.

...the English language ... becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

stolen words

Submitted by antarchi on January 7, 2007 - 02:17.

Modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.

George Orwell

So here are some good resources written by other people and gummed together antarchically. The humbug is of course on my part, not on theirs.

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