NoneFive More Wars? (2005)

This video clip shows scenes from the British anti-war movement in the period 2003-2005. The location is mostly Manchester, but there are some shots of the huge 12th April 2003 demonstration in London. This was not the massive 2 million march on February 15th 2003--just before the war started--but a later march, the largest ever peace demonstration during an ongoing war in British history. Out of this mass movement emerged the British anti-war political party Respect. This video shows some of the key moments in the establishment of the party in Manchester.

The final part of the video shows scenes from a day of political campaigning on Friday 22nd April 2005 for the British General Election that takes place on 5th May 2005. The location is the Manchester electoral constituency of Stretford and Urmston which has a sitting Labour MP who voted for the Iraq war. The constituency includes the Old Trafford soccer ground of the legendary Manchester United.

The question in the title highlights the fact that all three mainstream British political parties supported the bombing of Iraq. If any of them win, we coul not only be in for five more years of government on behalf of the corporations--pressing ahead with the privatisation of the health service and schools--but also for five more wars. The Liberal Party's anti-war stance collapsed when the invasion of Iraq got under way. From the point when the invasion took place, it supported the war and even now it refuses to call for an end to the occupation and for the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops. This party's anti-war pretensions are thus highly suspect.

George Bush stated, shortly after his re-"election", that: "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table." Does this mean that he is waiting for Blair's re-election before proceeding with plans for the invasion? Events will shortly reveal the truth about this. The war is very unpopular in Britain. Was Bush's comment designed to lull the British electorate until after the election is over? We shall see.

For the benefit of non-British viewers, the 11-Plus is an examination taken by school children at 11 years old in some local boroughs in England--although most have long since abandoned this archaic and divisive system. It creates a majority of "failures" at a very tender age. It is designed to select children for elite, university-orientated Grammar Schools (similar to the Gymnasiums in continental Europe). The rest of the school population is destined to become factory/cannon fodder.

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People in the Americas, and other non-PAL regions, may have standalone DVD players that can handle DVDs encoded in both the European TV standard (PAL) and the American TV standard (NTSC). Most DVD players in Europe can handle both standards, but a few years ago I heard that in the Americas DVD players can usually only handle NTSC. Things may have changed since then. Check your manual. The ability to play both standards is certainly something to look for when buying a new DVD player. If your DVD player cannot handle PAL, you will have to convert the MPEG file to NTSC before burning to disk. For advice about conversion and burning to disk go to videohelp.com

If the MPEG1 and MPEG2 files are viewed on a computer in a software player (e.g. VLC), it does not matter whether the file is PAL, NTSC or whatever--software players like VLC can handle all TV formats.

This item is part of the collection: Manchester Antiwar Videoblog

Director: None
Producer: Chris Edwards
Production Company: None
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: war; antiwar; respect; election; peace; Manchester; London
Contact Information: chrisedwards2004@yahoo.com stretford@respectnorthwest.org

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0

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Reviewer: mr_loophead - - September 20, 2007
Subject: Good flick

People are dying, and there would be LESS death if the US, the UK and other allied forces (Canada / Netherlands) would step BACK from occupying countries which they weren't invited to in the first place.

War is never the answer. War is the product of stupid people who use weaponry and force instead of their minds and voices.

Reviewer: glenn - - September 14, 2007
Subject: spam reviews

The only way to make these 'spam' reviews (the ones where the same old regulars spout their personal feelings and DON'T REVIEW the content) is to write real reviews when you download something.

See, if you just download you are dragging down the community:
If you liked the file, maybe others will, write about what qualities you appreciated, and your review could help someone who's looking for the same thing you are... if you met these people, you might be friends, at least you have some common ground with them. Help your friends.

If you DIDN'T LIKE the file, maybe others will appreciated your review -- it could help someone who doesn't want to view the same content YOU didn't like. Thesepeople also might be friends.

Help your friends.

Nuke the spammers, if everyone reviewed everything they could, their spam would gradually disappear. Spammers enjoy having their spam at the top of the list.

Don't engage with a spammer, since they are losers who for some reason can't or won't go and find people to talk with directly, too lazy or inept to create a blog on their own space, where only people who want to read their stuff have to cope with it.

Help your friends and community fight this scourge and review what you download.

Think of it as a way to pay back the community for this important treasure.

If everyone reviews everything they download, we could all waste less time downloading stuff we won't appreciate.

This looks good, I'll be back to review this when I finish downloading it. If I don't, feel free to email me and remind me: drglenn AT dr DOT com

Reviewer: Telephone Toughguy - - July 5, 2007
Subject: They stop blowing shit up, we leave

It's simple. If they were smart they'd cut out the car bomb nonsense and we would leave. the simple fact that they have not figured this out proves how retarded they are. You guys in the UK remember car bombs, right? You should have never confronted the IRA. They were freedom fighters... insurgents. Fighting for their religion, ring a bell?

UPDATE:

If the will of the residents of the "occupied" countries truly want sharia law, we have set up two freely elected governments that would legally allow them to elect representatives that would push for their interests in those said governments. If they were smart, they would stop blowing shit up and join the government and votethemselves into power, but that would eliminate the need to behead and torture people. Stop following the in crowd with your catch phrases and think for yourself. According to Mr Larkin's logic, we should have not bothered the German insurgents in France and don't you realize yesterday was the anniversary of the day we told the UK to go do themselves? We threw some tea in the bay and went after soldiers, WE NEVER BLEW UP INNOCENT BRITISH WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

I am far from stupid, but you seem to be feeding into what's popular at a time when it's against the interests of the future of your species. You don't have to go along with slogans and phrases because your friends put them on their myspace pages. It's common sense, even the other tribes are turning against the Taliban and joining the fight in Iraq, but you won't here that on CNN.

Reviewer: Jim Larkin - - March 25, 2007
Subject: Telephone

Hey, Telephone: it's the occupation, stupid. All the US and UK have to do is stop gate-crashing, looting and trashing other people's countries and the armed resistance will stop. Just like it did in Vietnam.

"Don't give no shit about honour and soil,
It's all about the price of oil." - Billy Bragg

Great little video. Keep up the good work!

Credits

London footage by Richard Searle

Manchester footage by Chris Edwards

Martin Luther King and Civil Rights Movement stills (public domain) courtesy of US National Archives and Records Administration.

Song: "Get Up and Get Out" (open source) composed and performed by Gerry Dempsey. An mp3 of this song can be downloaded here.