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*Brixton Movement for Justice March

Peter - I think what you've perceived, as I have (also a newcomer) is two strains in these threads. One sees, and possibly experienced, real faults with policing but believes that something can be achieved to improve it, to all our benefits. And some of those contributing have got off their arses to do something about it over a long slog, on the evidence Mrs M, ats and Brian Paddick at least.

Others either repudiate the notion the law and its policing - but don't say so directly - or point to faults but offer no remedies.

Not hard to choose sides on that one
 
Looking at my last post, I see that there is a whole chunk missing........God knows how I managed that! There was a whole load of stuff about protecting the most vulnerable in society, how crime affects us all and Restorative Justice! Heigh ho, perhaps I'll add it tomorrow.........Also Peter, it wasn't in answer to your post, more as a riposte to some of what had been posted previously.
 
If 'Realism' means more unaccountable deaths you can stuff it...

Pooka said some time ago "But, if that engagement doesn't score high enough on some radicalometer and disqualifies me, then I'll piss off somewhere else!" thats why i commented " if you're not radical enough that's your problem and not mine btw..." and thats still the case...

There are many approaches to the police [YOUR woods/trees], from fascist ones (ie they are NOT racist enough!) to anarchist and abolitionist ones that are well thought out and very coherent and practical. just cos you don't know about them don't assume they don't exist - it is a school of thought that is quite influential in certain countries where even judges know something of it and agree unlike here.

To be honest Pooka i have the answer BUT i refuse to put it here :eek: :eek: :D
Go ahead, try to reform the police all you want... how long will you give it before you acknowledge there might be a flaw in the strategy? People have been trying already for decades....

The Black Hand
Critical and proud and engaging.

PS. On the contrary Peter it is too easy to try to reform using the existing institutions, it is your cowardice that is not letting you look elsewhere...
 
If 'Realism' means more unaccountable deaths you can stuff it...

Originally posted by The Black Hand
.........anarchist and abolitionist ones that are well thought out and very coherent and practical.
To be honest Pooka i have the answer BUT i refuse to put it here :eek: :eek: :D
Click to expand...

Says everything and nothing, The Black Hand.
Perhaps you could give us a clue, like in which countries these well thought out, coherent and practical solutions had been put to work and with what results?
 
If 'Realism' means more unaccountable deaths you can stuff it...

Originally posted by The Black Hand
On the contrary Peter it is too easy to try to reform using the existing institutions, it is your cowardice that is not letting you look elsewhere...
Click to expand...

That statement is a pile of shite with a cherry on the top frankly. It reminds me of a quote on a thread started by pk
The Black Hand...I am well known in Anarchist circles...
John Wisehammer...Yeah, well known as that fuckwit in the corner....
 
Aw, let me down lightly Mrs M. I thought I was engaging with a "professional revolutionary" who's going to set some bangers off outside Downing Street while Betty and crew are having dinner. Now, that will change the world
 
Many liberals have eyes but refuse to see...

Magpie - it get's irritating when there's an argument aimed at us by Peter calling 'radicals cowards' and i'm not allowed to reply using the same language... I could go on and say Magpie is known as the fucking liberal reformist bastard from Brixton but i won't cos i'm not like that...
When you want a grown up debate i'll be there...

It shouldn't look like this -
magpie "i'm really nice you know trying so much"
The ghost of Harry Stanley "....**&%$£*&**...."

You replied to my post by saying " That statement is a pile of shite with a cherry on the top frankly." and didn't say why....

Pooka - well you've acheived fuck all change yourself .... Thanks for looking at my profile btw it shows 'you care'....

The Black Hand - still refusing to play the liberal rigged game that changes nothing that matters....
 
"To be honest Pooka i have the answer BUT i refuse to put it here"

"When you want a grown up debate i'll be there..."

Dissonance or what?


"Pooka - well you've acheived fuck all change yourself "

How'd you know what I've achieved or not?

Btw "professional" means getting paid for what you do. Is someone paying you to be a revolutionary? We should be told!

But, I'm mostly here to learn - hopefully I might contribute something, others can judge. But I've given up on learning much from yourself The Black Hand. Forgive me if I seem to politely ignore you from here on.

{Edited to add} "Magpie is well know as................", wow Mrs M., you score on every count, puts you right up there on my estimation :)
 
Many liberals have eyes but refuse to see...

Originally posted by The Black Hand
I could go on and say Magpie is known as the fucking liberal reformist bastard from Brixton but i won't cos i'm not like that...
Click to expand...
Actually, apart from the fucking bastard bit that's all true and I'm happy with that.........just remember, without us liberal reformists, homosexuality would still be a crime.
Also "it is too easy to try to reform using the existing institutions". No it bloody well isn't. It's fucking hard, stressful work. That part of your statement made me really angry.
As for the cowardice bit, I must confess that I hadn't noticed that Peter had said something similar to you, so I won't get drawn further into that one.
 
I would say also that trying to reform institutions is the easy option. This does not mean that trying to achieve reform is not hard work.

I can think of loads of people who have dedicated a life of service to achieving meaningful reform.

Take examples from the Labour Party for example. Tony Benn is a selfstated radical socialist who has fought tooth and nail for a better Labour party. He after a lifetime has got...Nowhere.

It is a reasonable (IMHO) view that this lack of progress was pre ordained. That is was never possible for the Labour party to be anything other than a capitalist party and that all his efforts were wasted from the start.

It could also be argued that if he was less blinkered he may of realised this and took a different path, perhaps the rocky path of radical/revolutionary change.

He may well of still got nowhere but his efforts may have inspired others rather than acting as an example of going up the garden path.
 
Nope - Benn was always too much of a parliamentarian to go that way. Re-inented himself recently as a cuddly, elder statesman. He is certainly very erudite, likeable and mostly sincere.

It's not fair to say he achieved nothing - Benn and the bennites did more than their fair share to make the Labour Party so out off step with voters that they put the Tories in for 18 years.
 
Don't forget Mrs Magpie's example of homosexuality not being illegal any more (so there's still discrimination, too much, but don't forget it used to be totally criminalised). And that was partly down to that fat complacent liberal Roy Jenkins (under pressure from both activists and liberals). Likewise abolition of capital punishment.

TC you are selective in picking Tony Benn as your example. There are others. Without Aneurin Bevan there wouldn't be a Health Service for instance.

Just because the Labour Party is shite now doesn't mean it didn't achieve worthwhile liberal reforms in the past. Some of which have not been totally undone.
 
WoW said:
TC you are selective in picking Tony Benn as your example. There are others. Without Aneurin Bevan there wouldn't be a Health Service for instance.
Click to expand...

Well of course I am. I would disagree that reformism was the main factor behind the setting up of the NHS.

My grandfather (RIP) was very much of the view that so many servicemen came home from the war determined to achieve change AND brought all sorts of weaponary with them and that THIS was the factor that caused the government to throw us the tasty bone known as the NHS, he felt that this, and the subsequent house building programme were set up to stop the ruling class's bering killed in their beds.

Anyway, what I was trying to point out is that to want to achieve across the board change but to settle for a long and arduous path of attempting reformism can be a waste of time. Just as to agitate for a revolution that is nowhere near can/is also a waste of time.

The ruling class have stitched it all up. Whichever way you choose to act they will attempt to stop you.

I would say live and let live whatever your approach, I have a problem though when reformist or "fluffy" types try to dictate to others how they shold protest. The example of CND officials in the 80's bringing the police over to arrest people who were cutting the fence at Molesworth instead of forming a ring a roses with bells comes to mind but there are loads more possibly relevent examples.

:) :)
 
eh?

Mrs Magpie:

"John Wisehammer...Yeah, well known as that fuckwit in the corner...."

What is this about? :confused:

I haven't even been reading this thread in over a month, let alone posting, and I don't have a clue what you're talking about. If you think that The Black Hand and I have much in common, then you're just showing the extent of your false assumptions. Would you care to explain or are you just content to throw abuse about?
 
Was it not connected to a spat you had with TBH over the shoplifting thread? I seem to remember a lot of insults and a couple of treasured comments by TBH about being very good at karate...

Anyway....
 
the sound of one handing clapping (against my forehead)

Oh, I seeeeeee - aww right, yes. Ahh, William's bringing back vague memories. Well, TBH and I have had a bit of a "knockabout" discourse in the past but I think we both recognise it's hyperbolic bollocks not to be taken seriously between two people who know the other is just posturing a bit (at least, I bloody hope so!). Which is funny, because if he'd called me a fuckwit, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid but when you think it comes out of nowhere from someone, it can be quite upsetting >sniff< which is doubly odd because if it's someone that doesn't know you, why should you care?

Ahem - anyway, apologies, Mrs Magpie, if I've got it backwards there. Back to the topic (whatever it is)!

(TC: not to worry. I may not know karate but I could outrun that fat bastard any day of the week! :p :D )

****

TC - when you're talking about the above point, do you mean there's pressure on the government because (working class) ex-soldiers are in a morally/socially strong position to negotiate (as they've just been acclaimed as heroes defenders etc etc), or do you mean that the fact that each serviceman tried to bring home a Luger from the war meant that there was a serious risk of armed insurrection?

I find the latter quite hard to believe (though I'm willing to be convinced) but the former's got something going for it. Soldiers returning from war have been quite important in getting social housing built and the vote (ww1 - am I right about the vote there? not sure), welfare state (ww2), disabled rights (vietnam) and general political dissent, esp through disabled vets' organisations (arguably, soviet afghanistan), but I dunno if it's all/anything to do with the weapons. After all, how many more weapons could the US take?

There's probably loads of books about this. Has anyone read any of them?
 
Pooka i really couldn't give a flying fuk (wow) what you do, and i'm not here to be your teacher. bad Pooka, 6 of the best... quite clearly you've changed nothing, if you have shout it out and be proud about it - mine was what you call an educated guess...
as for being a professional that is a joke... and somebody with experience would have known that....

As usual TC is talking sense and if you read my posts you would see that i encourage people to go ahead and try to reform... BUT you must reassess your tactics after a suitable period (as i and many others do) There is ALWAYS more than one way, and i see what reform has acheived and WHAT IT HAS NOT ACHIEVED...

IMHO the abolitionist school of criminology and associated political strategies are better... {i know and i'm not telling:p :p :D }

call me a kid if you like but i get my kicks like this:D
The Black Hand
 
The Beveridge plan was actually drawn up during the War by a Liberal. Soldiers coming back had endured hell and demanded a "land fit for heroes". They demonstrated what they wanted by booting out Churchill and giving Labour a landslide. That didn't stop the Tories fighting the creation of the NHS every inch of the way.

Clearly the "ruling class" did not stifle their opposition to the welfare state either before or immediately after that election. They were simply outvoted. The consensual post war settlement, and then Butskillism came later. Of course it's possible to argue that there the "ruling class" could have stopped the welfare state if they had wanted to, and it was only the thought of all that armory hidden on folks allotments that made their attempts half-hearted. Possible to argue, because it can't be disproved, like all good conspiracy theories. But if there was so much amory about, how come it's been so slow to surface? I don't recall reports of grenades in the gardenias or bayonets in the begonias at any time over the last 40 years.
 
Bugger - can't resist
The Black Hand:

"as for being a professional that is a joke" - erm, my question was less than serious, ---- "someone with experience...."

"that i encourage people to go ahead and try to reform... " Blimey! Throughout this whole thread you've castigated reformers and scorned the whole idea of reform in respect of the police, the criminal justice system and pretty much everything else.

"I see what reform has acheived and WHAT IT HAS NOT ACHIEVED..." Yup, and I see what revolution has and has not achieved - usually ends in a Gulag someplace.

"abolitionist school of criminology" - The penny's finally dropped - you're gonna abolish crime! Brilliant! Do you do that walking on water thing too?

Note though, that whilst I may disagree with you I make no assumptions about who you are or what you have or haven't done. A little less patronage from your side is in order
 
I should really try to stop being POOkas teacher...

Pooka - who's talking about revolution? Not me, it's not on the agenda at all... our movement will have to get substantially bigger [200 times at least] before we are anywhere near...
Your lack of sophistication in the varieties and historical experience of revolution also betrayed inexperience...

Pooka said "abolitionist school of criminology" - The penny's finally dropped - you're gonna abolish crime! Brilliant! Do you do that walking on water thing too?"
surely you should know something about the subject before you pronounce on it in such a crass way like you did here?


Pooka i've got what is known as an open approach, i encourage people to get on with nearly anything but there has to strategic reassessment at some point doesn't there? That doesn't stop me being in your face when i perceive there to be weaknesses in arguments...

Finally in the current climate with open and hidden coppers all over these boards i think you were a bit stupid to say we're going to let 'bangers' off at the Choke on it action on April 29th... that is a sure way to get the heavy handed cops all over our backs that nite... thankyou very much...

to stress again for all the cops watching we're intending a peaceful demo if a bit noisy against the Queen and nothing more....

The Black Hand
 
eh?

Originally posted by John Wisehammer
I haven't even been reading this thread in over a month, let alone posting, and I don't have a clue what you're talking about. If you think that The Black Hand and I have much in common, then you're just showing the extent of your false assumptions.
Click to expand...

John has got the wrong end of the stick, but I don't blame him. The posting does read at first glance as though Mrs M is dissing him. Actually, she's quoting with approval something he said about the Black Hand. I know this, because she's quoted it to me on more than on occasion.

So don't worry John, you are still admired.
 
Yes it really wasn't clear what I meant, apologetic pms sent to JWH. I mainly remembered it, not because of the two people mentioned. I remembered it because it made me laugh and I was hoping to rework it into a different context and format at a later date! You'd know all about that ats....outing ats as ex-stand up comic....much missed on the circuit very funny comedian.........lobbing neat polemic in a very funny routine......
 
The Black Hand:

I don't really want tuition from you The Black Hand (Somehow you're style is not one I associate with a natural teacher and I wouldn't want you to exert yourself against the grain:) )

But if you dismiss other people's efforts to effect positive change, then intellectual honesty demands that you say what you would do instead. Reciting formulae is not enough; they are open to all sorts of interpretation as I gently pointed out (I thought you'd appreciate the humour, you indicated such in an earlier post :) )

But you steadfastly refuse to offer any cogent policy. Given your terminally damming analysis of the police and the law, your distain for any evolutionary policy of reform, then it is not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that your approach, wreathed in enigma as it is, may well be revolutionary. And yes, I am mindful that that might take many forms, but frequently ending in adverse consequences.

You are certainly right to point to the need to undertake strategic assessments of achievment; if we had some notion of just what your approach might be then we could take tally - reformist achievements vs whateveritis.

But I must apologise. You did not suggest setting off bangers outside Downing Street. Whistles, banners and cameras it said. I was speaking loosely and I'm sorry for any embarrasment I've caused you:)

You preface your current post on the Choke on it "action" with mention the behavior of the police to homeless people, based on what friends have told you. I have helped provide services to homeless people and have never seen this, though I've heard the stories. I have seen police acting like social workers however and the only times I've seen force used were in protecting homeless people, people working with homeless people or the police themselves from people getting out of hand, usually through drink though occasionally mental illness. I wouldn't presume to lecture an anarchist on the importance of relying first and foremast on your own observation.
 
Everyday 'Normalised repression' needs to be politicised

Pooka - as for POlice behaviour to homeless people i've known people and worked in the field myself for over 10 years... the information i have is from very trusted sources who have many more instances of police insensitivity, ignorance, brutality and slackness between them...

Pooka said "But you steadfastly refuse to offer any cogent policy. Given your terminally damming
analysis of the police and the law, your distain for any evolutionary policy of reform, then it
is not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that your approach, wreathed in enigma as it
is, may well be revolutionary. And yes, I am mindful that that might take many forms, but
frequently ending in adverse consequences."

If i am an engima then so is everybody else! This opposition of what is meant to 'revolutionary' from 'evolutionary' is nonsense... Everyday life is not framed in ways of seeing like this.... oh, i must be evolutionary at the supermarket today instead of revolutionary shoplifting etc... Basically its a false argument to begin with, lets look at the concrete proposals and then we might be able to have a REAL debate at the way forward...

As for 'adverse consequences' you have to be clear about the particular societies that the actions happened in and have an objective assesment of what was politically possible at the time. As well as analysis of the ideological nature of the various groups and classes involved... Also you seem to be forgetting that the biggest genocides in history have been capitalist and that 34000 (so Free the Peeps said) children are dying everyday because of capitalist social relations like we find in Britain...

Pooka perhaps you should ask yourself what crime is? Why over 90% of people in prison (prison pop 70000 and rising) are in for property related offences that cannot be divorced from capitalist social relationships even if their consciousness is not 'revolutionary' 'anarchist' 'communist'...
What are the causes of crime? I know that the criminal justice system as it stands is extremely harmful and dangerous to people who it sees as its property - prisons are not known as universities of crime for no reason.... We need to go back to basics and repoliticise everyday relationships that go under the guise of depoliticised normalised repression today...
That is my political priority, dissect it as you like...

the Black Hand
 
The Black Hand: Thanks for taking the time to set out your response so extensively - though still no concrete proposals. I shall mull over and get back to you when I have more time
 
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