Someone also asked if it was The Zosia Brom so it sounds like there's at least three.
This Zosia Brom will have to fight That Zosia Brom, in a battle to the end, and as one lies defeated upon the ground, the other will lean in to salute their valour, and as they embrace lightning will strike them both and meld them together into The Zosia Brom.
Thanks for the apology but you missed the mark by a long way. Try harder.
You first.
I've been critical of how we got from the old bookfair to now and I'd tend to agree about the diminishing links to real world struggles. Having said that I think there was some attempt to relate to things like the cost of living horrors and I'd generally say that the new organisers took this on and it became their thing. It's also hard graft and you do put yourself in the firing line if you organise something like the bookfair, so there's a bit of slack to be cut. I'm probably all over the place then. The much more important point is that the increasing irrelevance to working class lives and struggle is one of the movement, not so much this bookfair. There's stuff going on like the Angry Workers and the rest and I was at the 'Martin and Lisa' meeting, but nobody could see contemporary anarchism in this country/countries as being relevant to where we are at. A point that could also be made about the wider left.
Excitement about new poster --> turns weird --> new poster never posts again
What was the Martin and Lisa thing like?
Aye. I’ll talk about Glasgow, but I’m sure it’s the same everywhere. One of the things you notice is that every time there’s something on - demo in George Square, picket of the Home Office in Brand Street, A to B march, and so on - it’s the same faces, the same dwindling organisations. The same banners. It’s all seasoned hacks. No muggles. No outside interest.
I'm not all that active in stuff at the moment, but even from tootling along to various things in person and online, that's my experience/impression too. I particularly agree with the point about not doing things in the old ways. If the connection between people's everyday lives and the left is broken, turning up in the centre of town with red (or black) flags isn't always that useful. Equally, when you are working in a particular left/anarchist group and the question gets asked, 'we need to do something' and the answer comes back 'lets have a public meeting on the miners strike'... why? 'Our' history is important and something like the poll tax is a good example of how we can get rid of attacks on the working class (obvious links to cost of living today). But assuming these are all levers to pull and pathways to bring people in... nope.
Exactly.
One of the reasons that Don't Pay has been an interesting breakthrough.
Yeah, sloppy wording when I said 'bring people in'. I do think it's about community organising, though all too many groups still have a 'this is us, come over and join us' model. That applies to the anti-austerity groups I've been involved in as well - 'open to all', but not active 'in'/part of working class communities.
I agree the former were big, while in vogue, but Kill the Bill things here were tiny. Probably partly due to a perception that the legislation didn’t directly affect Scotland. (It didn’t, but the indirect effect was hard to communicate).
I think the absence of continuous or self sustaining working class organisation was also a factor. However you theorise the relationship between race and class, there have to be organisational links. It wasn't so much that BLM has been and gone, it hasn't and will flare up again and, as you say, have all kinds of effects. But the opportunity for links and enrichment through the whole working class movement were limited precisely because the working class movement is so small and ossified. Not to say that there weren't useful developments in different places.
Your last sentence brought back memories of Cockers in defending why Workers Power weren't going anywhere, he'd always add on 'as is the wider left' as well.
freedomnews.org.uk
Yup.
It was okay and had about 20 there (not actually that great a turnout I suppose). Martin - there are going to be riots when the full cost of living hits. We need to get on board. Well, we'll see, but I have an awful feeling there won't be riots, just flare ups of individual despair or at best small scale anger. Lisa's focus was on how she got Brexit right
and how UK anarchists don't understand working class lives. Stuff I was generally on board with.
That all sounds very dismissive, not intended to be, I'm just very dopey. The tone of the meeting was a bit up and at 'em, positive and all about what anarchists/lib-communists could do, but equally a starting point of despair at the attacks taking place and the distance @ism has moved away from that battle. More alert comrades my be able to offer a better account.
I don't know, I'm still waiting for Just Books to send me my paper copy of ZB's post.
(The actual discussion that's started happening now is a good one, will try and contribute something to that when I have the time to concentrate properly.)I think that's what this campaign around the cost of living crisis is trying to address: Cost of Living Action
