Cost of Living Crisis: Enough is Enough Campaign
- Thread starter Smokeandsteam
- Start date
No doubt this one is 'far right' 
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Ditto. Ideas travel faster and wider than a million leaflets, memes and boring leftie meetings.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Correct me if I'm wrong bit don't you publish stuff on the ACN website with a readership of less than ten? We're mostly all speaking to a small audience on the internet, but hopefully we're chatting to more people in real life. But even if not here is a good place for discussion, to help work out our ideas and learn from others. That's all dragged down with endless shit memes, and that will drive people away in the long run.
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What I would say though is that the word consciousness only appears twice, its hardly 'blathering on about.' I don't think you've really made a substantive point. I think ultimately you're just being pedantic about the use of words, or maybe you're being critical of stylistics. In any case, you're welcome to write us something.
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
it appears twice. it wouldn't have appeared once in class war or in wag, the whitechapel anarchist paper. for me, it signals a certain attitude which says rather more about the acn than it does about eie. i think the article is much stronger without those two mentions, which for me undermine the otherwise good points dreyfus makes. it reads to me like someone who is intent on emphasising their own superior consciousness rather than attracting people whose first political encounter has been eie.
dreyfus talks about the limitations tu consciousness puts on things. i actually really disagree about that, so many people here have over the years been deeply impressed by what bob crow and more recently mick lynch have said. some trade union leaders, and many trade unionists, understand the role of unions but also see beyond that role. crow's quote about if we all spit together we'll drown the bastards for example - if only rmt members gobbed it'd just be a small lake.
in this case for me the role of anarchists is to offer an inclusive alternative with a superior analysis, the famous leadership of ideas. see what can be done within the eie framework but also promote what eie can't, or won't, do. i think the leadership of eie have a very good notion of what they want. But they want it firmly under their control, and we've seen in the past from the days of o'connell calling off the monster meeting at clontarf, from the chartist leadership bottling it in 1848, through to more recent examples that at that point the leaders giving it large now can be relied upon to shrink from the confrontation. And if there is a confrontation, as there was at the poll tax riot, those leaders may be 'responsible' and call on people to grass up those who didn't play the game as they think it should be played. the trade unions have massive resources and can offer a base from which to build but the leaders will take steps to protect their own interests and devil take anyone they see attacking them.
my opposition to eie would be founded around the planks of a) limited reformist objectives: a £15 minimum wage is going to be rapidly eroded by inflation and it won't do anything to make work more fulfilling, for example; b) power, which i think is in this case a better framework for analysis than consciousness: who gets to speak? who gets to set the direction of the movement? what internal democracy is there? so in many ways i don't differ much from dreyfus, i think. but i feel really strongly that referring to tu consciousness is a) a sneer and b) rather wrong, the people in charge here know precisely what they want, and a large part of that is to have a movement on the left that they can control and will bring more people into trade unions. that's their day job and so they'll be invested in that, even if, and i'm sure this would be the case, the leadership of all the unions involved, and a vast proportion of the members, will have a more sophisticated political analysis generally than you seem to expect.
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hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
Now that I've been prompted to re-read the article, I also have no idea what this bit means: "With exhortations to support strikers picket lines and get out on the streets, the emphasis that the unions will take the lead and show us the way risks the same compulsory muscularity of the Miners strike, a potentially alienating factor." It puts me in mind of that interview with Lynch going "does this look like the miners' strike?", and I'd also say that reducing the legacy of groups like WAPC and LGSM down to "alienating compulsory muscularity" feels a bit off. Especially since the next sentence calls for an escalation in tactics, which sounds a bit muscular to me.
ETA: Oh, and direct link to that Seymour article is here, for a moment I was worried you just had to read it as part of a PDF but thankfully it's available in blessed html: The Harsh Discipline of Democracy - Richard Seymour on Stuart Hall
ETA: Oh, and direct link to that Seymour article is here, for a moment I was worried you just had to read it as part of a PDF but thankfully it's available in blessed html: The Harsh Discipline of Democracy - Richard Seymour on Stuart Hall
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I've also always thought that union members took the lead in strikes, much more frequently I think than non-union workers. That may be wrong, possibly. But for me the streets are going to be where change comes from, sadly not from posting on the Internet or sitting in meetings
HoratioCuthbert
Deep seated inconsequence
The SHOUTY UNIONIST MAN stuff alienates us working class women at least as much, if not more given the demands on women to reign themselves in already. And shouty working class women being endlessly dragged on Little Britain, Catherine Tate show etc.....
I had written a huger piece about this but I then realised the phrase "Compulsory Muscularity" might mean something more specific so I'll save it for another time.
Edit: I mean the stuff sneering at shouty unionist men, going back years now
I had written a huger piece about this but I then realised the phrase "Compulsory Muscularity" might mean something more specific so I'll save it for another time.
Edit: I mean the stuff sneering at shouty unionist men, going back years now
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Ta, will try to get alongLeeds rally next. Still no sign of any community groups in public, but apparently some are meeting already not publicly.
We're a networt, so quite loose. We're not a tight organisation or really an organisation at all. So we don't all have to agree with every line of an article that goes up on our website. Just to be clear.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Don't know if this was posted already but without much fanfare (that I have seen) the McDonnell fronted coalition Cost of Living Action, which has lagged behind the EIE campaign, have launched their website Cost of Living Action
It seems that - perhaps because there's already a national campaign - it will try to focus on coordinating actions at local level through 'local assemblies'. Signatories are mostly non-union radical left. I think it's a shame the left of the union movement and non-union left didn't manage to organise together but don't really know the history of why it didn't happen.
It seems that - perhaps because there's already a national campaign - it will try to focus on coordinating actions at local level through 'local assemblies'. Signatories are mostly non-union radical left. I think it's a shame the left of the union movement and non-union left didn't manage to organise together but don't really know the history of why it didn't happen.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the tyranny of structurelessness
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
That wouldn’t be an accurate parallel. The ACN (of which I’m a member) is a young formation, and hasn’t yet had its inaugural conference. We haven’t yet decided structures, as opposed to having decided not to have them.
Dreyfus is a good comrade, an anarchist communist of several decades’ standing, who enjoys writing articles (this is not the first organisation for which he has provided articles), and I’m very happy to let him do so. They are, however, not statements of ACN position, since we have not yet decided protocols by which that would happen.
However, I’m sure he’ll be interested in the feedback.
Karl Masks
Birds Angel Delight
The argument against an increase in wages makes little sense. Of course £15 isn't enough. It's a transitional demand while we campaign to remove the whole rotten system. It's something that can be won in the meantime to help people live. Meanwhile you work to raise consciousness
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
if you're going to make a transitional demand it would make more sense to make a demand for an amount that was enough.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
as i've said in many ways i agree with the article, i disagree strongly with one aspect of it.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
And your comments in that regard are read with interest.
Your feedback is appreciated, thankyou.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
The figure is based on the rate advised by the Living Wage Foundation and then adjusted for inflation. We can agree or disagree about the subjectivities of transitional demands but the rate EiE is demanding has not been plucked from the air.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Brighton event due to take place on Tuesday evening has just been postponed!
Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice
Yep, its a truce - but not from the ruling class. The left is a joke.
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The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Anyone any idea what UNITE’s ‘unite for a workers economy’ is all about and why they haven’t joined Enough is Enough ?
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
The Skwawkbox take, FWIW.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Tbh all of the unions (at least the ones I know of anyway) and Enough is Enough are being horrendously sectarian and politically immature with all this. Some of the stuff I've heard direct from an Enough is Enough organiser is really depressing (no actual intention to do anything with the groups beyond recruit people to Acorn and get people on picket lines basically) and reports from others who've tried to get stuff done with them in any way is shit too.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
We are not supporting EiE. Depending on who you speak to it’s due to either those on the NEC (LM/HB supporters) who continue to be obsessed with viewing everything through the Labour Party lens or it’s a decision also endorsed by Sharon Graham who isn’t willing to get involved with something not under Unite’s control. Either way, it’s pathetic and it’s embarrassing. Ironically, our Branch did vote to support EiE and has now been told it by the full timers that it cannot use ‘union resources’ to promote it or affiliate.
Unite for a workers economy is essentially a vehicle to influence Labour and represents a massive backward step to the failed strategy of the past which overwhelmingly focussed efforts and resources on obtaining influence in the party. It’s also pathetic and is widely seen as such by activists. Its premature launch was clearly rushed to counter a shopfloor desire to support EiE.
They weren't invited is what I heard.
But yeah, usual lefty sectarianism/careerism.
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
I appreciate you've posted that with disclaimers, and it is an indefensibly shit move from the Unite leadership, but that is quite a shit article as well, feels like the work of someone set on refighting the 2021 election?
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Spot on. There is an organised grouping in Unite activity seeking to undermine Sharon Graham and opposed to her and for whom the election should be fought over and again.
The article from the risible shitebox is their bollocks written up as ‘news’.
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