Was the State of the Union demo the start of a new wave of protest in the U.S.?

~lady speaker for shirts off coalition at sorry state of the union concert

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=03/01/30/6340845

The movement definitely needs to change into something else, not just the same old fashioned protests we’ve all been to a hundred times. We need to get the people who seem bored when they march, to realize why they’re there–to be excited about stopping this fuckin war, to be on fire about changing things. LOUD MARCHING BANDS CAN DO THAT!

Call up your high school band buddies, or get your award winning college marching band to come to the Feb. 15 Protest/March.

The UK is planning a general strike too, I don’t know if that day is the same day as theirs, but we gotta coordinate to make a dent in this society.

I’ll put the 10th on MY calendar, that’s for sure.

as it was so well said in army of darkness, “you aint’ in charge of but two things. jack and shit. and jack has left town.”

we can pat ourselves on our backs as much as we want and suck each other’s dicks just because we think we got something done. but let’s look around? the earth is dying, animals are being murdered, and humans are being pushed out onto the cold streets. now we can at least agree that bush wasn’t legally elected to office, but the mayor was. and why do these people want to be the mayor, the president, the CEO of some company? for control! but what if this job cost them something. not just their freedom from the press following them around or devling into their personal lives. but freedom from us not showing up at their homes at 3am and freedom from us not plastering the city with pictures of their faces and murder written above it. put out personal information about them: phone numbers, email addresses, etc. make it personal.

in the UK, things are different. the numbers are greater but people take this shit seriously. look at the campaign to close huntingdon life sciences (http://www.shac.net/ and http://www.shacamerica.net/). we’ve got a few political prisoners in this country for home demonstrations where shit got broken and the UK has even more. but what is so effect is that nobody wants a protester showing up at their house. mayday dc, while showing their speciesm by calling the mayor a pig, has at least picked up on this idea that it needs to be made personal.

and look at the results.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1042491372438

Call to outlaw animal rights threats
By Geoff Dyer
Published: January 31 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: January 31 2003 4:00

The biotechnology industry has called on the government to introduce legislation that would criminalise intimidation and threats by animal rights activists.

Industry executives met ministers yesterday to call for measures to outlaw campaigns that tried to put animal testing companies and their backers out of business. These would be based on measures already used to prosecute football hooligans.

“If the intention is to damage legal businesses through demonstrations, there should be potential for criminal prosecution,” said David Chiswell, chairman of the BioIndustry Association. “How legitimate is it to demonstrate at 3am in front of someone’s house?”

The police wanted to take action, he said, but were hampered by laws that still left activists ample room to intimidate people.

The government has amended the criminal justice and police bill so that company directors under threat from activists can keep their addresses private. It has also provided banking and insurance facilities to Huntingdon Life Sciences, the testing company that has been the target of activists.

According to the BIA, in the last quarter of 2002 there were 62 home visits by activists to directors or employees of companies with links to animal testing, and 20,000 e-mails, phone calls or text messages were received.

Mr Chiswell said the government had given considerable support to the biotechnology industry on animal testing and other issues.

But he added: “The government has to recognise that this is a continuing problem, and put the appropriate resources behind it.”

As well as making it illegal to campaign with “the sole intention” of causing a business to close, the BIA called on the government to ban demonstrations outside homes. It also called for all directors’ addresses to be kept private, not just those immediately at risk.

Liberty, the civil rights campaign group, said the proposals were questionable. “There are clear controls already under public order laws that apply to demonstrations like that,” said the group.

The proposal was welcomed by the pharmaceuticals industry. “Everyone has a right to demonstrate, but surely there is no right to intimidate a person and his family for doing something that is completely lawful,” said John Patterson, chairman of the Association of British Pharmaceuticals Industry.