I have contempt for people that take their kids out to stuff like this.

I also have contempt for the StWC, the Hizbollah supporting fuckwits. And what does Palestine have to do with anything?

The simple answer to the first question is don’t go on a march if you don’t have something else for your young children to do (such as a friend looking after them, kindergarten, etc.).

I don’t think taking children on a march is as indoctrinating as organised religion, mainly because a child would take part in organised religion far more frequently than they would a march.

I see the trap of the definition of what is a basic right/wrong lurking before me so I will refrain from answering that question.

As to the question of your 13yo daughter, responsible parents should be able to determine whether their children are coming along because they believe in the principles of whatever the march is standing for, or whether they think it will be a fun day out.

Tristan, I agree with you entirely, I saw exactly the same things as you describe. It’s ironic that the US supported “friendly” dictatorships for exactly the same reason - the dictators were supportive of their aims. Democracy should exist for democracy’s sake.

Chris

I’ve read reports that someone who sought to protest against the Iranian Islamists and for human rights was silenced by Stop The War officials… then again, Stop The War seems to be a far left puppet these days, so what do you expect…

Its hard to oppose the war, but stand up for human rights and democracy amongst such people. That’s why I’ve given up on them. They’d rather have a dictator than democracy if the dictator was ‘a friend’ of their cause (they don’t like the current dictators because they’re often friendly with the US).

And is taking them on a march any more indoctrinating than taking them to Church? Or teaching them basic rights and wrongs?

What if one of your children demands to go on the march, as my 13 year old daughter did with the big anti-Iraq war march in London?