Edie,Edie, you must be a Tory Troll to come out with such bollocks. Still at least you did read "a book" the other day. Unfortunately when societies go into a long period of profound social crisis,as it is at present since the 2008 Crash, "shit just happens" and all sorts of people enter into "resistance activity" on all sorts of levels - which can lead to beneficial revolutionery outcomes , or all sorts of reactionery shit. You "stick with capitalism" though if that's your bag. Growing numbers of people across the world seem to be growing into ever increasing oppositional mode though don't they ?
During the biggest crisis of capitalism of our generation, why is the UK anarcho-left not growing?
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Edie,Edie, you must be a Tory Troll to come out with such bollocks. Still at least you did read "a book" the other day. Unfortunately when societies go into a long period of profound social crisis,as it is at present since the 2008 Crash, "shit just happens" and all sorts of people enter into "resistance activity" on all sorts of levels - which can lead to beneficial revolutionery outcomes , or all sorts of reactionery shit. You "stick with capitalism" though if that's your bag. Growing numbers of people across the world seem to be growing into ever increasing oppositional mode though don't they ?
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Yep, loads achieved on Workfare. Got to keep the momentum going.
Well, that and the unreadable papers and sectarian slanging matches that haven't changed since about 1937.
*scarpers*
BigTom
Well-Known Member
As to the OP, why isn't the anarcho-left growing? Some reasons I think are:
Like Edie said, the wider left has been dying because of the loss of large workplaces and the casualisation of Labour
alongside this, unions have lost huge amounts of power, and lost lots of high profile struggles over the past 30 odd years. Thus even in small workplaces there is an individualisation of the workforce. This has combined with the complete acceptance of neo-liberalism by the Labour party, and the general idea that Labour represent the Left and therefore if even they are following these policies then those who oppose them must be extremists. The idea that we live in a post-ideological age and a classless society goes hand-in-hand with this.
Then you have the things Thatcher did in her aim to change the soul using economics - sell off of council housing, emphasis on the motor car as transportation, privatisation of utilities and more things I'm forgetting at the moment - all stuff which individualised things that had been colectively provided or consumed beforehand. As crap as left/right is for describing political ideologies, there is definitely something about the left thinking about communities and the right thinking about individuals, and the structures that have been destroyed in the last 30 years have been the communal ones, and they've been replaced with individualised structures instead.
Then there is all the infighting/secterianism on the far left, it's not attractive to people not involved, and it's exclusionary - it says "if you don't think exactly what I think, not only will I think you are wrong but I'll attack you for it, even though we agree on the bigger issues".
The fact that local demos are small and have mostly been focused on council cuts where very little has been won.
There's a definite problem of "what's the point?" which was concreted in many people's minds after the Iraq war demo.
The issue addressed by the "give up activism" piece about how activism separates itself from ordinary life, and in doing so excludes people, and of how we make stuff accessible and welcoming for people who haven't been involved in campaigning/demonstrations before.
those are some thoughts of mine, nothing well worked out though.
Like Edie said, the wider left has been dying because of the loss of large workplaces and the casualisation of Labour
alongside this, unions have lost huge amounts of power, and lost lots of high profile struggles over the past 30 odd years. Thus even in small workplaces there is an individualisation of the workforce. This has combined with the complete acceptance of neo-liberalism by the Labour party, and the general idea that Labour represent the Left and therefore if even they are following these policies then those who oppose them must be extremists. The idea that we live in a post-ideological age and a classless society goes hand-in-hand with this.
Then you have the things Thatcher did in her aim to change the soul using economics - sell off of council housing, emphasis on the motor car as transportation, privatisation of utilities and more things I'm forgetting at the moment - all stuff which individualised things that had been colectively provided or consumed beforehand. As crap as left/right is for describing political ideologies, there is definitely something about the left thinking about communities and the right thinking about individuals, and the structures that have been destroyed in the last 30 years have been the communal ones, and they've been replaced with individualised structures instead.
Then there is all the infighting/secterianism on the far left, it's not attractive to people not involved, and it's exclusionary - it says "if you don't think exactly what I think, not only will I think you are wrong but I'll attack you for it, even though we agree on the bigger issues".
The fact that local demos are small and have mostly been focused on council cuts where very little has been won.
There's a definite problem of "what's the point?" which was concreted in many people's minds after the Iraq war demo.
The issue addressed by the "give up activism" piece about how activism separates itself from ordinary life, and in doing so excludes people, and of how we make stuff accessible and welcoming for people who haven't been involved in campaigning/demonstrations before.
those are some thoughts of mine, nothing well worked out though.
Where have you been since 2008, Truxta.. in a bunker on Planet Zog ? Seems to me. looking at the European political scene, that, after a 30 year collapse of the Left generally, and the Radical Left in particular, that if you shift your viewpoint just a tad from the UK, you'll find a gigantic resurgeance in all graduations of the Left in places where the world crisis is more advanced than here , eg, Greece, Spain, Italy,Portugal, France. You need to look at the international news a bit more I suggest .
The level of crisis in the UK, because of our relatively privileged position as a key component of World Finance Capital, is still way behind most of Europe, but give it time... the "austerity" cuts of the Coalition are just starting to bite -- the NHS will soon be in big time trouble, people under 25 will soon be homeless en-masse due to the Housing Benefit changes, and mass unemployment on a 1930's (or current Spanish and Greek) scale will eventually hit us too. In this situation you aint seen nothing yet for a repeat of the current Greek experience, including a major revival in street Anarchism, Revolutionery Socialism... and of course, the Far Right. Just be patient TruXta... its all coming down the pike.
krink
I'll do it this afternoon
Is this what you mention Tom? I've not read it yet...
http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no9/activism.htm
Actually that is probably the main reason tbf. Things just aren't NEARLY shit enough for the majority of people in this country yet.
No, no, Roadkill, and killer b, the reason you can't be bothered with " the Left" is because you are lazy little toerags, without the bottle to get up off your arses and actually do something to fight back against the capitalist offensive. Back to your, "all action adventure" games consoles sonny boys.
TruXta
tired
Is it fuck. The right is resurgent, not the left. The discontent you see might avail itself of leftie jargon, doesn't mean it'll have any kind of political impact as an organized force in opposition to capitalism.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Yeah, that's it - I think it makes some really good points about activism and how it can be exclusionary.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Fuck's sake!
Why would a scene that has no answers and in fact isn't even listening to the right questions grow in response to a crisis?
Mentalist
Mr.Bishie
pickled egg
You are seriously on Fantasy Island , Truxta... look at the recent election results in Greece and France, and Germany too.. the Left in various forms is growing massively in strength.. as of course are the Far Right. In Greece it is the Radical Left (and anarchists)who are leading the fight at local and national level against the austerity offensive. The Far Right Nazis have only won about 8% of the vote.But you choose only to look at the advance of the Far Right... as in "don't confuse me with reality... I've made up my mind". Your pessimism is just an excuse for personal inactivity.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
If I can't be a self-righteous patronising git who denounces everyone else as being lazy, it isn't my revolution.
what would you recommend? I don't think I've played one since 1995
Spanky weighs in with his usual profound insight . Another follower of the "I've decided that the Left is dead, so don't confuse me with real world examples where the Radical Left is experiencing explosive growth ... because they actually are seen by masses of people as having an analysis, and solutions to the capitalist crisis". Yeh, Yeh, I know Spanky... we all need to "Get out there on the landings".
TruXta
tired
Hollande is a leftie? Speaking of Fantasy Island you're clearly holding the deeds. As for Greece, top marks for effort, shame about the results.
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
That's quite an interesting read.
http://www.eco-action.org/dod/no9/activism.htm
Some of the phenomena it describes are very clearly on show on this thread I think.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Well at a recent meeting in Birmingham someone from Greece whose part of Syriza came over to speak and he was asked what he thought the UK left should do to try to emulate the success of Syriza, and he said the worst thing was the sectarianism, attacking people for not being ideologically pure, and we needed to get rid of that if we were to experience the same kind of growth in active/formalised left politics here as he's seen in Greece.
I think that as economic conditions get worse here we'll see more people looking for a different way of going about things, but if we attack people for being tory trolls, for not being ideologically pure and so on, because they believe some things that don't fit then those people will not hang around, they'll fuck off. Saw it at occupy birmingham, although the biggest problem there was the conspiracy theorists who wittered on about chem trails, banking conspiracies, 9/11 and government mind control etc..
I think that as economic conditions get worse here we'll see more people looking for a different way of going about things, but if we attack people for being tory trolls, for not being ideologically pure and so on, because they believe some things that don't fit then those people will not hang around, they'll fuck off. Saw it at occupy birmingham, although the biggest problem there was the conspiracy theorists who wittered on about chem trails, banking conspiracies, 9/11 and government mind control etc..
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I'd like to make an announcement on behalf of British anarchism. We quit. All of us. After reading Spanky Longhorn's flawless, pin-sharp, blow-by-blow critique of our activities we all immediately realised that yes, everything we've ever done has been for shit and we didn't even know why we were doing it anyway.
We would like to address our extreme regret that Mr Longhorn did not choose to share his wisdom with us sooner, as this might have saved us many long years of trying to make the world a slightly less shit place for everyone to live in and guided us to the noble path of...whatever he does that's so awesome he gets to just sit there and bitch about people in the vaguest possible terms.
the viewing figures for P/P don't seem to be stellar...
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