Firebox run by Counterfire: Champagne socialism.
- Thread starter DrRingDing
- Start date
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Quite possibly the only amusing joke ever perpetrated by the Socialist Meme Caucus. It really captures something of the glamour of being in the SP.
imposs1904
Thread Killa'
Quite possibly the only amusing joke ever perpetrated by the Socialist Meme Caucus. It really captures something of the glamour of being in the SP.
There's been a few funny jokes over at SMC, but it's funniest when someone makes a joke about Taaffe. The SMC admins never seemed amused.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
There's been a few funny jokes over at SMC, but it's funniest when someone makes a joke about Taaffe. The SMC admins never seemed amused.
You are being much too generous to the SMC as far as humour is concerned. Most of it's about as amusing as a child dying of botulism.
They do publish people's Taaffe jokes, but those tend to be particularly unfunny. Except for that picture of him in a truly remarkably hideous shirt.
The trotsky puns they did were horrendous, I nearly unsubscribed.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
'Forward to the Red 90's' is hilarious and one of Taaffes.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
It was funny ten years ago when the joke did the rounds.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Forward to the red 30s in slow motion?
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
From weekly worker
"Respond to this letter
Playing politics
On March 3, Class Wargames hosted a games-playing session in the basement of the Firebox cafe in London. Over the course of this spring afternoon, the political struggles of the 1789 French Revolution were played out on the board of Martin Wallace’s Liberté.
In this game’s opening phase, as happened in history, it was the liberals who prevailed over the guardians of monarchy and superstition. Then, as the conflict intensified during the next round, the republicans emerged from third place to seize control of Paris and - within a few moves - take over the whole country. Best of all, learning from the mistakes of the past, Napoleon Bonaparte had been sent to the guillotine in this ludic recreation of the revolution. Our Sunday afternoon of leftie gaming in a Trotskyist cafe was coming to a most appropriate conclusion. This time around, the Jacobin republic had won.
In other attempts to simulate these tumultuous events in late 18th century France, the different players take on the role of the rival factions or personalities. You are the leader of the red republicans - and your task is to move your pieces around the board until you’ve beaten the blue liberals and white monarchists. Martin Wallace’s game slyly subverts this familiar trope of historical re-enactment. Instead of having each person restricted to playing one of the rival factions, Liberté allows everyone to have a go at being a little Louis XVI, Lafayette or Robespierre. France is divided into different provinces and - during your move - you can choose to commit your forces to fighting for monarchical reaction in one region, while simultaneously championing liberal moderation and republican radicalism in other areas of the board. The players of Liberté are leaders of occult conspiracies who are competing to manipulate the contending factions of the 1789 French revolution. In Martin Wallace’s game, the liberals almost always come out on top during the opening rounds - and the republicans in its concluding phase. The trick is to be on the winning side at the correct moment. Whichever party dominates, your conspiracy must be in charge.
While playing the game and in the pub afterwards, the political meaning of Liberté was a constant topic of discussion. If nothing else, recognising and talking about the characters and factions featured on its cards was a history lesson in itself. More interesting were the ideological assumptions embedded within the game’s mechanics. By enabling each of the players to be monarchists, liberals and republicans at the same time, Wallace was echoing the paranoid fantasies of Hippolyte Taine and other 19th century Catholic historians, who blamed the social upheavals of the 1789 French Revolution on malevolent conspiracies of freemasons, Jacobins and Jews.
However, we reckoned that Liberté owed much more to those bizarre websites which denounce the elite members of the Illuminati who are plotting to subjugate humanity to the new world order. Left and right, big business and big government, they’re all controlled by shape-shifting lizards. Similarly, as players of Liberté, you act as the dark forces which give the orders to the politicians, generals and agitators who are directing the revolution. So, we wondered over a pint later on, does this mean that Wallace has invented an inherently conservative game? This time, the Jacobin republic might have won, but the players’ moves that had culminated in this heartening result were realising a reactionary logic. In this cynical reading of history, duty to the king, the rights of man and the one-and-indivisible republic had become nothing more than empty ideological slogans of rival conspiracies struggling for power.
Yet, ironically, it was precisely this reactionary model of the 1789 revolution that had enabled its players to share the experience of leading the monarchist, liberal and republican causes. When the Jacobin republic won, everyone around the table in the Firebox cafe had contributed to its victory.
Back in 2007, one of our main motivations for founding Class Wargames was boredom with stereotypical ways of thinking about radical politics. In the back of Len Bracken’s biography of Guy Debord, we’d come across the almost forgotten rules of The game of war. As well as providing thrilling contests with down-to-the-last-move finishes, his ludic masterpiece was also - most wonderfully - a smart lesson in situationist theory. Over the years, our participatory performances of The game of war have revealed the political effectiveness of this seductive combination of playing and reasoning. First-time contestants are always curious to find out whether or not Debord had succeeded in turning The society of the spectacle into a board game.
Of course, what puzzles many people is why he didn’t invent a simulation of May 68. Instead, the two sides in The game of war are commanding pieces which represent the military trinity of Napoleonic warfare: infantry, cavalry and artillery. But, once they start playing the game, its situationist logic soon becomes apparent. North and south are rival cybernetic systems. The winner is not the person who can take the most pieces, but the one who can fatally break their opponent’s network. By the time that the match is decided at our participatory performances, both sides will have understood that The game of war is Debord’s theory in ludic form.
In these times of austerity economics and imperialist wars, the more po-faced members of the left dismiss playing games as frivolous and infantile. However, as Debord well realised, the class enemy has no such inhibitions. Simulations are an essential tool for planning military expeditions, deciding business investments and plotting political power-grabs. Debord conceived of The game of war as a détournement of these ludic manifestations of spectacular capitalism. He created a set of rules which would train revolutionary activists in Carl von Clausewitz’s military precepts for successful strategy and tactics. Just as importantly, he’d invented an entertaining game to be played in bars and cafes of the more proletarian and bohemian neighbourhoods. As this inveterate drinker would have appreciated, our participatory performances of The game of war are much improved when accompanied by generous supplies of alcohol!
Class Wargames invites you to join us at one of these Sunday afternoon sessions at Firebox. We’re also open to invites to host participatory performances in your own town or city. Above all, we would urge leftists to enjoy playing political games together. What better metaphor can there be for socialists resolving their sectarian squabbles than moving pieces over a board? We can only successfully argue with each other by agreeing to observe the rules of the game without too much cheating. Competition requires cooperation. In honoured memory of Guy Debord, Class Wargames is proud to proclaim its world-historical mission: playing politics as the ludic guide to intelligent communist thinking. Proletarians of all nations, unite and fight on the game board!
Richard Barbrook
www.classwargames.net"
"Respond to this letter
Playing politics
On March 3, Class Wargames hosted a games-playing session in the basement of the Firebox cafe in London. Over the course of this spring afternoon, the political struggles of the 1789 French Revolution were played out on the board of Martin Wallace’s Liberté.
In this game’s opening phase, as happened in history, it was the liberals who prevailed over the guardians of monarchy and superstition. Then, as the conflict intensified during the next round, the republicans emerged from third place to seize control of Paris and - within a few moves - take over the whole country. Best of all, learning from the mistakes of the past, Napoleon Bonaparte had been sent to the guillotine in this ludic recreation of the revolution. Our Sunday afternoon of leftie gaming in a Trotskyist cafe was coming to a most appropriate conclusion. This time around, the Jacobin republic had won.
In other attempts to simulate these tumultuous events in late 18th century France, the different players take on the role of the rival factions or personalities. You are the leader of the red republicans - and your task is to move your pieces around the board until you’ve beaten the blue liberals and white monarchists. Martin Wallace’s game slyly subverts this familiar trope of historical re-enactment. Instead of having each person restricted to playing one of the rival factions, Liberté allows everyone to have a go at being a little Louis XVI, Lafayette or Robespierre. France is divided into different provinces and - during your move - you can choose to commit your forces to fighting for monarchical reaction in one region, while simultaneously championing liberal moderation and republican radicalism in other areas of the board. The players of Liberté are leaders of occult conspiracies who are competing to manipulate the contending factions of the 1789 French revolution. In Martin Wallace’s game, the liberals almost always come out on top during the opening rounds - and the republicans in its concluding phase. The trick is to be on the winning side at the correct moment. Whichever party dominates, your conspiracy must be in charge.
While playing the game and in the pub afterwards, the political meaning of Liberté was a constant topic of discussion. If nothing else, recognising and talking about the characters and factions featured on its cards was a history lesson in itself. More interesting were the ideological assumptions embedded within the game’s mechanics. By enabling each of the players to be monarchists, liberals and republicans at the same time, Wallace was echoing the paranoid fantasies of Hippolyte Taine and other 19th century Catholic historians, who blamed the social upheavals of the 1789 French Revolution on malevolent conspiracies of freemasons, Jacobins and Jews.
However, we reckoned that Liberté owed much more to those bizarre websites which denounce the elite members of the Illuminati who are plotting to subjugate humanity to the new world order. Left and right, big business and big government, they’re all controlled by shape-shifting lizards. Similarly, as players of Liberté, you act as the dark forces which give the orders to the politicians, generals and agitators who are directing the revolution. So, we wondered over a pint later on, does this mean that Wallace has invented an inherently conservative game? This time, the Jacobin republic might have won, but the players’ moves that had culminated in this heartening result were realising a reactionary logic. In this cynical reading of history, duty to the king, the rights of man and the one-and-indivisible republic had become nothing more than empty ideological slogans of rival conspiracies struggling for power.
Yet, ironically, it was precisely this reactionary model of the 1789 revolution that had enabled its players to share the experience of leading the monarchist, liberal and republican causes. When the Jacobin republic won, everyone around the table in the Firebox cafe had contributed to its victory.
Back in 2007, one of our main motivations for founding Class Wargames was boredom with stereotypical ways of thinking about radical politics. In the back of Len Bracken’s biography of Guy Debord, we’d come across the almost forgotten rules of The game of war. As well as providing thrilling contests with down-to-the-last-move finishes, his ludic masterpiece was also - most wonderfully - a smart lesson in situationist theory. Over the years, our participatory performances of The game of war have revealed the political effectiveness of this seductive combination of playing and reasoning. First-time contestants are always curious to find out whether or not Debord had succeeded in turning The society of the spectacle into a board game.
Of course, what puzzles many people is why he didn’t invent a simulation of May 68. Instead, the two sides in The game of war are commanding pieces which represent the military trinity of Napoleonic warfare: infantry, cavalry and artillery. But, once they start playing the game, its situationist logic soon becomes apparent. North and south are rival cybernetic systems. The winner is not the person who can take the most pieces, but the one who can fatally break their opponent’s network. By the time that the match is decided at our participatory performances, both sides will have understood that The game of war is Debord’s theory in ludic form.
In these times of austerity economics and imperialist wars, the more po-faced members of the left dismiss playing games as frivolous and infantile. However, as Debord well realised, the class enemy has no such inhibitions. Simulations are an essential tool for planning military expeditions, deciding business investments and plotting political power-grabs. Debord conceived of The game of war as a détournement of these ludic manifestations of spectacular capitalism. He created a set of rules which would train revolutionary activists in Carl von Clausewitz’s military precepts for successful strategy and tactics. Just as importantly, he’d invented an entertaining game to be played in bars and cafes of the more proletarian and bohemian neighbourhoods. As this inveterate drinker would have appreciated, our participatory performances of The game of war are much improved when accompanied by generous supplies of alcohol!
Class Wargames invites you to join us at one of these Sunday afternoon sessions at Firebox. We’re also open to invites to host participatory performances in your own town or city. Above all, we would urge leftists to enjoy playing political games together. What better metaphor can there be for socialists resolving their sectarian squabbles than moving pieces over a board? We can only successfully argue with each other by agreeing to observe the rules of the game without too much cheating. Competition requires cooperation. In honoured memory of Guy Debord, Class Wargames is proud to proclaim its world-historical mission: playing politics as the ludic guide to intelligent communist thinking. Proletarians of all nations, unite and fight on the game board!
Richard Barbrook
www.classwargames.net"
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Tell that to Green Anarchist
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
Finding it difficult to believe that a cafe would be able to open, and get insurance, without a burglar alarm
rekil
to menny cranks
Trigger from only fools and horses is on their side.
I wonder did he send his kids to Bedales, his old, currently 30k a year, school.
I wonder did he send his kids to Bedales, his old, currently 30k a year, school.
love detective
there's no love too small
You should have done a trigger warning before that post
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
It's growing what are the odds it will be bigger than Marxism 2013.
We wrote to you a couple of weeks back and asked for your feedback on Firebox. We were bowled over with the replies; so many of you told us that you valued Firebox
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fe38b3199bc8bb6fc04f2a108&id=311cb853a5
'This is a movement for subversive and radical ideas'
'an international festival of resistance and celebration'
'such an exciting festival in the pipeline'
'pop-up performances'
'we want everyone to get a taste of the dangerous ideas we're dishing up'
'dangerous ideas'
'Organised by Tariq Ali, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Firebox project manager Clare Solomon'
'bitesize commentary'
'a real haven for progressive people'
This is
because the way I look at this spiel is probably the way 70% of people look at any anti
cuts material.
We wrote to you a couple of weeks back and asked for your feedback on Firebox. We were bowled over with the replies; so many of you told us that you valued Firebox
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fe38b3199bc8bb6fc04f2a108&id=311cb853a5
'This is a movement for subversive and radical ideas'
'an international festival of resistance and celebration'
'such an exciting festival in the pipeline'
'pop-up performances'
'we want everyone to get a taste of the dangerous ideas we're dishing up'
'dangerous ideas'
'Organised by Tariq Ali, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Firebox project manager Clare Solomon'
'bitesize commentary'
'a real haven for progressive people'
This is
because the way I look at this spiel is probably the way 70% of people look at any anticuts material.
Casually Red
tomorrow belongs to me
yeah, fuck that shit . Been there , done that..never ate their vegan gruel though . Not least because its inedible and hippies dont wash their hands
Casually Red
tomorrow belongs to me
wont take any claims of centre of radical subversion remotely seriously until i see at least one ashtray
Idris2002
canadian girlfriend
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
seventh bullet
sovietwave
Cosmonaut Coffee is now being served at the PD burger van, which doubles as a travelling agitprop theatre.
It's growing what are the odds it will be bigger than Marxism 2013.
We wrote to you a couple of weeks back and asked for your feedback on Firebox. We were bowled over with the replies; so many of you told us that you valued Firebox
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fe38b3199bc8bb6fc04f2a108&id=311cb853a5
'This is a movement for subversive and radical ideas'
'an international festival of resistance and celebration'
'such an exciting festival in the pipeline'
'pop-up performances'
'we want everyone to get a taste of the dangerous ideas we're dishing up'
'dangerous ideas'
'Organised by Tariq Ali, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Firebox project manager Clare Solomon'
'bitesize commentary'
'a real haven for progressive people'
This is
cuts material.
at a time when 500'000 people are using food banks, don't they realise how this will look?
barney_pig
Po-cha-na-quar-hip
Does not knowing what a"Berlin style buffet" is mean I am not welcome?
diversifying innit. the paper's going to be dead in a couple of years...
http://www.thedrum.com/stuff/2013/05/30/guardian-announces-launch-guardiancoffee-shoreditch
you can earn more working there than as a journalist on the paper too.
you can earn more working there than as a journalist on the paper too.
JimW
支那暗杀团
http://www.thedrum.com/stuff/2013/05/30/guardian-announces-launch-guardiancoffee-shoreditch
you can earn more working there than as a journalist on the paper too.
Well, in terms of use values produced, allocating more work points to comrades on the bun run than them modding CiF seems reasonable.
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