A commentator on an independent media platform recently posed the question, ‘What on earth has happened to the anti-war movement’? What, indeed! A number of authorities are now saying that World War III has already started; and whether this be seen as an exaggeration or not, it’s undeniable that global geopolitics are in truly dire straits, and are deteriorating rapidly.

To be clear, we have no truck whatsoever with war-mongers of any hue – whether it be Vladimir Putin, Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalions, an expansionist NATO or the West’s insatiable Military Industrial Complex. For many weeks on the Info-Hug street stall, we have been handing out a leaflet calling for ‘De-escalation, Negotiation and Disarmament – for Peace, Prosperity and Freedom’.

Some members of the public have noticed the use of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) logo on our leaflet, and one has even vociferously objected to our using it! Woke cancel-culture ideology has surely reached absurd levels when people are ridiculed for being anti-war by people who were themselves previously anti-war supporters! Orwellian times indeed. But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, given the flagrant war-time propaganda with which we’re being relentlessly bombarded by our mainstream media. Yet what we can’t understand is how anti-war campaigners previously alert to the propagandising strategies of the war-mongers seem to have fallen silent on this particular Ukraine war – which could soon escalate into the worst nuclear confrontation in world history.

If humankind hasn’t yet learned the lesson of the futility and counter-productive nature of war, perhaps we’re just incapable of learning the lesson and evolving beyond such infantile behaviour. But we live in hope. We urge all those opposed to this senseless war in Ukraine to join with us in uniting against it, and to bring pressure to bear on political leaders to start ‘jaw-jawing’ at the earliest opportunity. After all, these politicians are meant to be serving the needs and wishes of us, the people – not those of unaccountable death-dealing corporations who have effectively captured modern states and the Western mainstream media, and who are ruthlessly pursuing their anti-human agendas with impunity. It’s time for us to rise as one with a resounding ‘No! –

emphatically not in our name’. We intend to call a public meeting to discuss these grave issues.

Kitty Ager

Marcus Blackett

Richard Catlin

Alice Flower

Richard House

Helen Kerr

Louise Maclellan

Gabriel Millar

Joanna Nind

Kevin Towell

Stroud Info-Hug