like I asked you to when you asked if it was OK to use them you mean?
Yes, that would be nice. Plenty more tales of finding humour amongst the blood and snot (otherwise known as Uncle Albert moments) too.
Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action
- Thread starter cogg
- Start date
like I asked you to when you asked if it was OK to use them you mean?
Yes, that would be nice. Plenty more tales of finding humour amongst the blood and snot (otherwise known as Uncle Albert moments) too.
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
blimey, i have been very cautious. although the book is obviously pro-AFA and follows the physical and ideological resistance line, it is more a documentation of events than a critique of the history of militant anti-fascism. it lays out the case for it and explains that it is only 1 part of anti-fascism and only useful in certain times. like now, its pretty hard to do so other tactics come into play, like mass blocking has been extremely successful recently in brighton, bristol and walthers!
skank
bignose1
Searchlight Spoiler
Anthony David Jones from Ashton under Lyne supplies Redwatch with information and has consistently for over 40 years been doing similar stuff on behalf of a number of organisations. I know he reads this forum so Im letting him know that Im putting online shortly some of the 'intel'which was obtained a number of years ago. It'll cause a few ripples in quite a few circles non more so than his chums in Northwestnationalists.
Deareg
Well-Known Member
Hiya ADJ!!! You were the first Fascist I ever twatted.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Cherry Popper Smurf
Larry O'Hara
Well-Known Member
'dear honest name'... I nearly choked laughing at this.
In the immortal words of Brendan Gleason's character in 'In Bruges'
I am undecided if you are MrX or you are the buffoon who called Gary O'Shea an 'armchair general' (oh how I LOL'd) at a public event in Belfast. Either way you are a wrong'un and, indeed, a cunt.
Pony up... or fuck off...
There are a couple of issues here, firstly, do people have the right to challenge regardless of their own political CV ? Of course they do. If Tilzey had applied the same parameters to his co-author as he now does to posters on here, he would never have co-written his book with Hann.
So before anyone asks, I did 10 plus years in ANL, AFA, Manchester followed by 10 plus years AFA, Red Action, London & South East as an organizer and street activist, have copped numerous arrests, some convictions and some acquittals. I have worked with most of the declared players who post on here during that time. I trust this meets the 'bignose criteria' for posting on this subject. My views on Bignose are set out in post 586 and have not altered despite the incoherent personal bile which my posts seem to attract from Bignose.
Secondly what is the purpose of publishing militant anti fascist history. If it is to set down events as seen through the eyes of the participants for the benefit of others who follow, then it has to be authentic. Likewise if the history is a fabrication then what is its purpose other than to mislead and misdirect? Inevitably the wrong conclusions will be drawn from an erroneous history.
So is No Retreat authentic. Tilzeys version is, Hanns version is not. I believe this was the point of JR previous post. Whilst Tilzey could well have written his own story over the whole period covered by NR, he chose not to, preferring instead to sail under the AFA /Red Action/Hann banner rather than the Searchight banner for the period in question.
A brief synopsis of Manchester AFA would read as follows. It was formed in 1985, and was still going strong in 1990, witness events at Stockport (1985) and Swinging Sporran (Jan 1990) which highlight an existing AFA network with an extremely capable street capacity throughout. Manchester was arguably the strongest AFA branch outside London and was independent of Red Action, although there had been a very good working relationship over many years. AFA was relaunched in Manchester in 1991 by the newly formed Red Action branch.
Dave Hann after falsely claiming he moved to Manchester in 1987 assessed the situation then as follows ‘There was almost nothing going on. As a consequence of all this inactivity there was also no permanent anti-fascist organisation. The AFA group that had smashed up the NF in 1985 had faded into oblivion as the anti fascsists became victims of their own success and succumbed to the twin lures of family life and careers. Only a couple of individuals remained active and even these were semi retired’ (No Retreat pages 125, 126)
To accommodate Dave Hann’ political CV as outlined in No Retreat as credible, you have to delete 3 years of authentic Manchester AFA history. See post 642 for a fuller account of AFA history during this period. Likewise the Swinging Sporran gig, organized by Hann in 1990, is omitted from No Retreat because it disproves his argument that Manchester AFA was politically dead in 1987.
Hann’s involvement in the mugging is no longer a matter of dispute. The only unknowns are how many other muggings took place before they were caught and whether the victim’s sexuality was co-incidence or not. The location of the attack would indicate not.
The legal challenge to Beating the Fascists and their publishers was a further attempt to censor authentic history to maintain the hoax political CV of Dave Hann in No Retreat. Following disclosure of the witness accounts to Hann’s involvement in the mugging and subsequent trial, alongside detailing the erroneous nature of Hann’s CV in No Retreat, to Messrs Carter Ruck, representing Louise Purdrick, the matter was no longer contested by them.
Perhaps the reason that Bignose attracts criticism, is that despite knowing all of the above to be true, he co-wrote NR with Hann, and continues to claim on this forum that the above is a conspiracy of lies perpetrated by a few twisted souls. Whilst Tilzeys story stands up, Hann’s does not and Tilzey was party to the collaboration that required the removal of authentic working class militant anti fascist history (not Red Action’s) to accommodate Hann’s fraudulent Red Action CV.
Well spotted Pickman .. a simple misstype on my part .. the word intended was "deign" ("condescend to do -( patronizingly)" ) . as in.... "condescend to".. question or challenge Bignose1. Good.. that's out of the way then... Next question......
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
Demu, you sound very well placed to write something on Manchester AFA etc. is this a possibility? there isnt enough of it.
'publishing militant anti fascist history ... to set down events as seen through the eyes of the participants for the benefit of others who follow'
'publishing militant anti fascist history ... to set down events as seen through the eyes of the participants for the benefit of others who follow'
Yeh, quite right, I was trying to be diplomatic, Demu,(always a mistake.. and sooo unlike me) to avoid the usual "Hann issue" from erupting again on this thread , when I said "the overall picture in NR of the anti fascist struggle is a very accurate one". Yep, "the anti fascist struggle.... not the detail of exactly what happened in manchester etc on such and such a date" . It's , in my view, still a ripping, highly, accessible, anti fascist propaganda work.. not hard history. I still think it's a good book though, just as that. I also think its a shame Tilzey didn't stick to his own account. I of course have no direct knowledge of the post 1987 era, other than what you and others have told me. I still can't see why , this far forward in time , the account of the breakup of AFA in NR still rankles so much. But then I wasn't there, so it's always easy to float above it all when one wasn't involved.
I'm not sure that the myriad of anti fascists who have done time/ been arrested whilst fighting fascism will be too happy with your statement Liam0:
"Sometimes, getting nicked may have been an occupational hazard but the harsh truth is that it was usually (including in yours and bignose's case for Rochdale) because of impulsiveness/impetuosity and more of a sign of stupidity, of losing the run of yourself and of failure than something to boast about. That is not to judge or denigrate anybody who did get nicked (and fair play to those who did the jail) it's just the truth".
Only the impulsive/ impetuous, stupid, and out of control , "usually" got arrested ? No denigration or judgementalism there then. This is an extraordinary thing for an anti fascist to have written,Liam0.
It certainly would have been.... had I written it. And yes you are quite right. There is no denigration and no 'judgementalism' here. Not a single iota.
Don't be such a drama queen Ayatollah. I was just pointing out that using arrests as a metric of anti-fascist credentials is plain daft. I have the greatest of respect for those who did jail for anti-fascist activity. But my statement is essentially true.
In order for those arrests to be worth it, it is necessary for everybody - inside and out - to critically analyse and to learn from the mistakes. I am struggling to think of an example of arrests where there was nothing to learn and where wiser action at crucial moments could not have made a critical difference. I would be happy to provide plenty of examples once we have gotten the thorny issue of my intent (and you have chosen to read it) out of the way.
I am personally impetuous. I often benefited from the timely intervention of the wiser heads of comrades in both political and social settings to save me from a nicking.
Even the most experienced players were not exempt from doing impulsive, daft things. Take Joe Reilly... years of getting away with taking part in and organising mass mayhem... no nickings. One daft, impetuous interaction with a copper (in a totally non-political arena IIRC) and he gets the jail (which, ironically, actually benefited AFA hugely in the long term).
I can think of several occasions when he saved me and many others from a similar fate with a timely intervention. That's because he possesses, as I am sure you do when you are calm, the self-honesty to admit an error of judgement, to learn from it and to apply the experience for the benefit of his comrades.
I was providing an off the cuff example of a theoretical stripped down one line "CV" that someone could use to meet the "Bignose1 test" of being an "activist" rather than an " armchair critic", when I threw in "arrests" as an example of a possible sample of key events from a person's personal anti fascist record. The fact remains that your contention that most nickings are the result of personal failings by the anti fascist arrested, is intentionally or unintentionally, deeply insulting to every anti fascist who has ever been nicked. Sorry,but it just is:
"Sometimes, getting nicked may have been an occupational hazard but the harsh truth is that it was usually (including in yours and bignose's case for Rochdale) because of impulsiveness/impetuosity and more of a sign of stupidity, of losing the run of yourself and of failure than something to boast about. That is not to judge or denigrate anybody who did get nicked (and fair play to those who did the jail) it's just the truth".
There are all sorts of reasons for getting nicked as an anti fascist, because it is indeed "just an occupational hazard of the activity" .... from random bad luck on the day when a copper picks you out, being repeatedly right in the front line of combat, being heavily outnumbered, etc. But the main thing is, the more active an anti fascist is, and the longer he's active, the more likely he is to get nicked. The only guarantee of avoiding nickings as an anti fascist.. is to retire and stay away from the danger zones. Personal stupidity, ill discipline, bad pre-planning, etc, are indeed sometimes reasons for getting nicked, but aren't really high on the list of reasons for either being nicked or doing time in my considerable experience.
I don't know what it was like in your day, Liam0, but in mine we had a golden principle.. to respond to requests for help from comrades without question or delay. It often led to false alarms, and sometimes to cock ups, both in terms of near misses with the cops, or meeting up with much larger numbers of fascists too. It was a principle that saved many a comrade from a kicking though. That's why 9 of us (only 5 being Squadists - the others the IS Students who asked for help on the night - plus the provocateur)) were unlucky enough to fall into a long term trap set by a remarkably scheming fantasist IS Society student nutter at Manchester Poly, leading to the well known cock up in Rochdale, and prison. Not the first time our "respond to cries for help first, consider later", principle had got us into trouble. But it was the way we built a mutual, unswerving, Squad loyalty and determination that saw our remarkably small numbers in Manchester able to hammer the fascists across the North west. So spare me the "stupidity" and "impetuousness" jibe. Because it is simply a jibe. Your lack of arrests is entirely down to level-headedness and not doing "daft things" on the day is it , Liam0 ? More like pure luck I would suggest. I know from Demu, that you are an OK bloke , so good luck is all it can be down to. Just be grateful to Lady Luck . Liam0, and lay off the "you got arrested from stupidity" crap, eh..
bignose1
Searchlight Spoiler
LiamO's post made me think quite closely about the nickings Ive had ..the near nickings and the possibility of any in the future and Id say that apart from maybe the Rochdale one (which Demu missed by a whisker) Id usually been very careful andI dont think its fair in what you say.
Ill bring on fellow comrade Demu who a while back on this thread referred to an incident when Roy M hit me from behind whilst I was driving a minibus and is obvious by the way he brought it up thought it was really ok. The amount of times certain people made excuses for lumpen undiscplined behaviour from within was fucking no end. but because they were deemed by the hierarchy as something special it was ignored. Same when DN 'bitch' slapped me in Belfast...thats ok Gary is it. That was a time when we were all ok as well...but not a fucking peep infact someone was heard to say I asked for it. ( I didnt go to the bar !) All Sycophantic bollocks.
Getting back to the point LiamO the reluctance to take chances often resulted in being labelled a coward. Fact. It happened. So lessons about driving vans on the look out for fash shouldnt be learned? And the fact there was an old bill van a few cars back didnt seem to matter. But then it was the top boys wasnt it. Fucking hate that bollox and it was synonomous with the posturing around certain people/types.
The same ideology the Kemps/Dyers and McIntyres of this world adopt when doing programmes on underworld figures. To this end the crimes attributed to DH pale into insignificance to what certain people inflicted on the communities of Manchester and elsewhere and is something to there shame. Unfortunately its only too real to the victims and their families. Utter hypocricy.
You might want to edit the rest of that in the morning mate, to make it more intelligible... and some white space would not go amiss.
Just for the novelty, why don't we stick to the point in hand. Did you read my post which set Ayatollah off as an attack on you... the way he read it as an attack on him?
I never said that. That is how you have chosen to read it.
What I did say is that IME the vast majority of nickings were preceded at some point by an act (however well intentioned) of impulsiveness or impetuosity. You state as much in your post re; Rochdale. That may make uncomfortable reading for you but it is my truth.
Sometimes (often actually now I think of it) the first impulsive act was not made by the people actually lifted (I am speaking generally here, not of your case).
My post cast no aspersions on the honesty of intent, or indeed the individual and collective bravery of the individuals arrested. None.
No. That is just your selective and subjective interpretation of what I said. I am sorry you read it that way but your reading is erroneous and I am happy to clarify my intent.
Your impassioned plea on behalf of Tilz led you to use an utterly useless and stupid measure (arrests) of an activists bona fides. I pointed that out. You took the hump.
I, personally, was never arrested on a political activity. Big fuckin deal. I draw no inference from that. None. (other than I was lucky and even luckier to be surrounded by collective experience). Bizarrely, YOU are the person attempting to foist inference onto my statement via your mind-reading.
Equally the number of times somebody was lifted gives no clue as to the circumstances. That is why it is a totally useless metric. That is what I pointed out. Given that my whole point is that arrests are no measure of anything - and that to use arrest figures in this way was essentially willy-waving... it would make absolutely no sense for me to then engage in willy-waving of my own.
You have chosen to interpret my stating this an assertion of some mystical superiority... and continue to attack me for what you feel is implicit... despite my explicitly stating that you are mis-reading my posts.
Frankly I am surprised a man of your undoubted intelligence can remain emotionally hijacked like this. I look forward to re-engaging with you climb down off your moral high-horse and become rational once more.
bignose1
Searchlight Spoiler
Liam thanks for the tip about the gaps...now corrected. But more intelligible?. My point may have drifted but it was meant to add to the debate about certain behaviours and their consequencies.
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
i was 'okaying' the use of diplomacy (he said diplomatically) cos i hate all this infighting and slagging. tis undignified!
Don't know if this has already been mentioned, but anyone read this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bloody-Nasty-People-Britains-Right/dp/1844679594
Just saw it on a bookstall and had a very quick flick. Interesting to note that AFA aren't mentioned in the index. Still Owen Jones is quoted on the front cover as saying it's 'authoritative'.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bloody-Nasty-People-Britains-Right/dp/1844679594
Just saw it on a bookstall and had a very quick flick. Interesting to note that AFA aren't mentioned in the index. Still Owen Jones is quoted on the front cover as saying it's 'authoritative'.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
it seems to be part of the revisionist history, the likes of searchlight, lowles, goodwin etc writing AFA out. i read the recent goodwin the new british extremists one which i didnt think was much cop at all. this is why militant antifascists have to take charge to creat our own narratives. did i mention my book ...
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
Beating The Fascists is mentioned in the Trilling book. I think there is a thread on it in the books sub forum.
But yeah it is very much a Verso/New Statesman type take on the BNP.
But yeah it is very much a Verso/New Statesman type take on the BNP.
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
ah right, cheers fozzie. most of the stuff i have been going thru recently - apart from BTF - is pretty unrivetting stuff.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Data wise as an insight into who votes for the BNP and their political strategy Goodwins book is invaluable imo
The search function is my friend -- book's discussed from here onwards:
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/what-now-for-the-bnp.287021/page-25
They don't say I've my finger on the pulse for nothing...
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/what-now-for-the-bnp.287021/page-25
They don't say I've my finger on the pulse for nothing...
malatesta32
Not Serb. No, Really!
i got an excellent breakdown of the core membership of the BNP in Sociology journal (issue 1, vol 45). surprisingly useful!
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