Friday Fuckwits - Stop the War Coalition (well its executive and those voting against Hopi)

I posted up a letter last week from John McDonnell MP and Professor Moshé Machover calling for an end to Hopi's exclusion from the StWC. I  won't regurgitate the argument as you can click and read for yourselves.

I was disheartened but not surprised to read Jim's report on the conference. Check it out, but here are the main points re Hopi:

Sadly the affiliation of Hands off the People of Iran, an organisation that opposes war and sanctions as well as providing solidarity with Iranian trade unionists, feminists and other progressives, was again blocked.

The speeches against came from the chair, in his capacity as chair (where else does this happen?), and a particularly vacuous individual who actually said that if Hopi wanted to support the progressive movements against the Iranian regime they should hop on a plane and do it in Iran. But where do they campaign against sanctions or invasion from?

I've been told to go back to Russia a number of times in my life but this is the first time I've heard go back to Iran. I look forward to this person denouncing those who provide support to anti-occupation movements in Afghanistan and Iraq and demanding these people go to these countries if they want to fight the regimes there. No? Thought not.

Jim is asked in the comments what the argument against Hopi is, and he explains :

They were astoundingly weak.

The speaker against said that you couldn't oppose the Iranian regime without making the case for war and sanctions (which isn't true), that it was up to Iranians to make these decisions (which has an element of truth to it but if taken to its logical conclusion means that solidarity work is impossible, including the work of the stwc), that argument also makes the assumption that solidarity work is the same thing as overthrowing the regime from the outside - which seems facile to me.

Most of his speech was taken up with saying why the stwc shouldn't take up the policies of hopi - which is a complete irrelavance to the debate.

Andrew Murray's arguments were equally weak. They centered around the fact that in 2006 Mark Fisher of the CPGB said nasty things about the stwc. It was jaw droppingly thin - but delegates were pre-disposed to vote against hopi affiliating i think - and having heard some of the bizarre things people come out with about it sometimes I think there's a whispering camapign against it, which is probably where that vote was really won.

So this week's 'honour' goes to the executive , those who argued against Hopi and the sectarian fodder that voted against. No wonder the left is fucked.