London Anarchist Bookfair 2015: predictions/dramas/confrontations...

[LDC]

The London Anarchist Bookfair for this year is fast approaching, and I assume a fair number of folks from here will either go or have been in the past.

So, what particular predictions do you have for this year? Who's going to fall out with who? Anyone going to be punched in the pub afterwards? What balaclava wearing teddys are going to be thrown of the political pram?

Failing that, what meetings or events are you excited to go to? Anarchist Bookfair

Yes, I'm bored.

 

[JHE]

The new venue:

Central Saint Martin’s
Kings Cross, N1

Ah, an art school. That just gives the game away. When it was at Queen Mary's you could at least pretend it was for real. Now everyone will know it's a performace art installation thingy.

 

[Belushi]

Isn't that Kings Cross development a private space?

 

[LDC]

Isn't that Kings Cross development a private space?

And...?

 

[smokedout]

its well posh the new St Martins complex, Guardian HQ just over the road as well

 

[William of Walworth]

Once upon a time I went every year, but I'm not living in London any more ....

<grabs deckchair and popcorn anyway >

 

[LDC]

They've really really struggled to find any venue that's suitable in London, so I think criticism of choosing the space they have seems a bit unfair to me, especially if it's just on the 'it's private' grounds.

If you want to see a good drama about Anarchist Bookfairs and venues used, have a look for the SF Bookfair a couple of years back that rented a porno studio to use for the event.

 

[LDC]

...Guardian HQ just over the road as well

Great, maybe Laurie Penny will pop in...

 

[Idris2002]

Great, maybe Laurie Penny will pop in...

"There is more rejoicing over one lost sheep. . ."

 

[DaveCinzano]

Great, maybe Laurie Penny will pop in...

Maybe pop in? She's already submitted her breathless first person account of it to CiF!

 

[emanymton]

Great, maybe Laurie Penny will pop in...

I think she'd have been more likely to turn up at the one in the porn studio.

 

[UK subversive]

I go to Anarchist bookfairs if i can, but i find after having been to a few, much like the SWP's Marxism conference, its all kind of same of the same.
perhaps this time it'll be different. there are always some interesting speakers however, and worth going.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Since you asked... I wouldn't mind punching the anarcho-imperialists in the face, I'm looking at you Rojava solidarity and Plan C (who also seem to be on my university campus...)

Absolutely no different to the Kautskyian shitheads of WW I. That moment when Lenin owns one on you

And I'm not even a Leninist...

RE this, if I go I'll be outside.

 

[LDC]

You're going to punch a whole organization in the face? Can I watch? And care to elaborate on why?

 

[ManchesterBeth]

You're going to punch a whole organization in the face? Can I watch? And care to elaborate on why?

No. I'm not an idiot. One can dream, though.

Because they back the ethnic civil war in Turkey (as in, Kurdish guerrillas should kill turkish w/c soldiers) supported the US with regards to the PKK, see the Stalinist outfit as a counter to ISIS, even though all the evidence is to the contrary, expect people in the region to participate in bourgeois elections. An utterly unprincipled delay of internationalism. They don't even have a clear position on the state, just blah antiauthoritarianism blah contradictions between technology and labour are breaking down the state form blah. Recycled operaismo-lite.

That and they're just generally shitty social democratic inclined hipster leftists who publish garbage like this

I assume you're an anarchist?

 

[LDC]

I agree that some of them have what I also find odd positions in a number of areas, but that doesn't mark them out from the rest of the political scene tbh. I'm not sure your accusations about the position some of them hold is that fair either from what I understand, although I do agree with a bit of what you say.

I think they're a classic form over content organization as well. Their website looks lovely and they do produce a fair bit of writing, but the actual groups are mostly pretty non-existent really. Quite a lot of academics involved too, which comes through quite clearly (or not ) in their writing.

I've considered myself an anarchist for a number of years. I'm not sure that it's an entirely useful or accurate label for my politics now though. What with that and the creeping embarrassment of what passes for 99% of the anarchist 'movement' I do tend to shy away from it a bit, although it is also a useful shorthand term sometimes as well.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

I agree that some of them have what I also find odd positions in a number of areas, but that doesn't mark them out from the rest of the political scene tbh. I'm not sure your accusations about the position some of them hold is that fair either from what I understand, although I do agree with a bit of what you say.

I think they're a classic form over content organization as well. Their website looks lovely and they do produce a fair bit of writing, but the actual groups are mostly pretty non-existent really. Quite a lot of academics involved too, which comes through quite clearly (or not ) in their writing.

I've considered myself an anarchist for a number of years. I'm not sure that it's an entirely useful or accurate label for my politics now though. What with that and the creeping embarrassment of what passes for 99% of the anarchist 'movement' I do tend to shy away from it a bit, although it is also a useful shorthand term sometimes as well.

Left communism 4 real.

But if I've misconstrued any of their positions I'm willing to be corrected.

 

[tim]

"There is more rejoicing over one lost sheep. . ."

Coming willingly to slaughter.

 

[stethoscope]

Great, maybe Laurie Penny will pop in...

Already happened a few years back, so she's done it and probably wrote about it too... "I was there on the front line..."

Now, more importantly, where's the nearest Wetherspoons to the new venue?

 

[LDC]

A very good point. It wouldn't be the Bookfair without a Weatherspoons afterwards.

Find your local Wetherspoon pubs in London | J D Wetherspoon

 

[The39thStep]

No. I'm not an idiot. One can dream, though.

Because they back the ethnic civil war in Turkey (as in, Kurdish guerrillas should kill turkish w/c soldiers) supported the US with regards to the PKK, see the Stalinist outfit as a counter to ISIS, even though all the evidence is to the contrary, expect people in the region to participate in bourgeois elections. An utterly unprincipled delay of internationalism. They don't even have a clear position on the state, just blah antiauthoritarianism blah contradictions between technology and labour are breaking down the state form blah. Recycled operaismo-lite.

That and they're just generally shitty social democratic inclined hipster leftists who publish garbage like this

I assume you're an anarchist?

Key issues facing most working class women lol:

• How does telling people what you do for money make you feel?
• What does your gender enable you to do?
• How do you feel at the end of a day’s work?
• Who do you care for? Who cares for you?
• How much of your time do you spend supporting other people?
• What was the worst thing you ever did for money?
• To what extent does the gender which other people ascribe to you match your self-perception?
• Who do you compete with?
• How is your performance monitored in the workplace?
• How is your performance monitored at home?
• Are you ever unobserved?
• Who are you attracted to and why?
• What parts of yourself are unmarketable?
• Are you needed?
• What would happen if you went AWOL for a day?
• How do you feel in public space?
• Do you know what will be paying your bills in six months’ time?
• Do you ever forget what gender you are? Class? Race?
• What’s the difference between your sexual feelings for women and men?

 

[LDC]

...if I've misconstrued any of their positions I'm willing to be corrected.

That's very reasonable and rational. I assume you're not an anarchist?

 

[DotCommunist]

tempted to go now, it'll be like that scene from the matrix 2 where neo fights off an entire horde of Agent Smiths. But with dialatician as keanu reeves

 

[ManchesterBeth]

That's very reasonable and rational. I assume you're not an anarchist?

Of course not. Organic centralism all the fucking way.

 

[LDC]

Plan C won't throw punches, just nicely designed (but very wordy) leaflets.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Plan C won't throw punches, just nicely designed (but very wordy) leaflets.

TBF some of my university peers are involved in it and I'm struggling to keep my bile down - they're really nice and compassionate people but that's not what I base political work on, otherwise I'd work with labourites and the AWL! wanted to meet, organise and discuss with fellow communists and class struggle anarchists but it seems like I'm literally the only one with a true internationalist, anti-reconquering union posts for the working-class, and anti-electorial position.

I even heard an anarchist at my uni wanting to set up red unions. Honestly!

 

[Citizen66]

I go to Anarchist bookfairs if i can, but i find after having been to a few, much like the SWP's Marxism conference, its all kind of same of the same.
perhaps this time it'll be different. there are always some interesting speakers however, and worth going.

It's just a piss up.

 

[The Pale King]

Key issues facing most working class women lol:

That's a really strange set of questions. Sounds very individualistic-therapeutic, although they seem to try to incorporate that criticism in advance.

 

[William of Walworth]

It's just a piss up.

Not 'just', shurely?

An in any case what's wrong with .... etc, etc


A bit more seriously : I've had plenty of Anarchist Bookfair experience combining real book searching/buying, with debates and so forth too, followed by ... all that rest of it later.

The books I still have, and I'm glad to have them. My not very young driving instructor (teaching me right now) asked about some Class War related stuff recently (he used to hang out with Ian Bone, he claims, when IB was still in Swansea a zillion years ago).

Some of the (Book Fair) memories though? I possess far less than the books
I was only on the really insignificant fringe in Book Fair terms, anyway.

 

[William of Walworth]

Still can't bloody find a copy of 'Copse' by Cartoon Kate (aka Evans). Want!

<prompts self to check properly online again ... >