National Walkout Against Fees 24.11.10
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Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
people were radicalised, loads of them. we just got totally ignored by the govt
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
yes, absolutely
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
to be honest you just seem to be parroting the usual line without paying attention to what is happening on the ground. that's not a dig as its easy done but for example, the first half of your post there sits really badly in the context of the last few days (i.e. Wednesday).
this is a chance for all those from Wednesday to go and carry the energy we saw back locally, to use it as a catalyst for getting more folk involved, active and organised. without that as a second step your direct action is going nowhere outside of national demo's attended by the usual suspects in London potentially kicking off (which they won't from now on anyway as they will be policed to death).
you're allowing cynicism to cloud your judgement tbh (and IMO), again though, its understandable, i'd normally feel similarly to you, there's just such a weight of opposition out there ready to be tapped into this time that optimism is genuinely warranted.
if you read up on the 2006 campaign against the CPE measure in France (which was succesful and, got the measure repealed having already been passed into law) it started with boring marches, more boring marches, walkouts and occupations, then, once support was solid thousands engaged in direct action and the like. then they won.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
That's my point. What more do we need? What can a central committee do? We can't rely on the TUC or the left grouplets to tell us what to do - we just need to do it. A means of communicating is all we need.
I think we should announce a national day of mayhem on 27th November, to capitalise on the publicity from the walkout on 24th. No need to contact anyone - just pick a target in London or your local town and get a group together to have some fun.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
good post.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
The tabloid hysterics and fake outrage over what was in fact a very mild bit of aggro really are deliberately exaggerated of course, and they are exaggerated for a reason. They want to set the outrage standard very low from the beginning in anticipation of real street violence over the next couple of years. If a lousy broken window can merit a national manhunt and calls for a return to public flogging etc then imagine the cries for punishment when something like the poll tax riot occurs. It's about intimidating the opposition and trying to set the rules of the coming game.
For us too. It's not often that I agree with Ian Bone but his blog piece was spot on here. The student demo should be seen as the first step in breaking down the so called "acceptable" or "respectable" rules of protest that are intended to paralyse an effective fight back. Our answer should be more civil disobedience, more mayhem and now.
To this end, this is a brilliant idea. I love it.
For us too. It's not often that I agree with Ian Bone but his blog piece was spot on here. The student demo should be seen as the first step in breaking down the so called "acceptable" or "respectable" rules of protest that are intended to paralyse an effective fight back. Our answer should be more civil disobedience, more mayhem and now.
To this end, this is a brilliant idea. I love it.
I think we should announce a national day of mayhem on 27th November, to capitalise on the publicity from the walkout on 24th. No need to contact anyone - just pick a target in London or your local town and get a group together to have some fun.
someones had the same idea - only for the 4th of next month not the 27th of this month.
http://anticuts.org.uk/?p=679
theres a pretty good flow of events for momentum now to continue imo.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
BigTom
Well-Known Member
ok, so I work in a school as a teaching assistant. I would love to help students to walkout on the 24th - there is a 6th form at the school so there are people applying to university right now - but I am at a loss as to how I could/should go about this, so any suggestions/help would be welcome.. please bear in mind that as a TA the students I have contact with have SEN and are in the bottom sets of subjects, they are not looking at university and I don't work with any 6th formers. The school is 99% muslim (reflective of the area it is in) and the year 11s (15/16 year olds) that I work with had not heard of the EDL, so they really are not politically/socially aware.
I don't have citizenship or tutorial time with them where such things could be legitimately broached.
The only thing that I can think to do is to slyly drop some flyers/info about it in the 6th form common room and maybe the yr 11 social area and see if anything come of it, I can't imagine the school being supportive of my actions, though privately they might be happy, I'm not sure I could agitate for the students to walkout and not take some heat from senior management (which I'm only half-bothered about - I like the school and need the job, don't know how long it would take me to find another one, but at the same time, I can't be shy about taking heat from management in these situations).
It'd be easy enough to talk to students in the classroom, but from my conversations with them about EDL, I don't think there's much point with the ones I work with, I'm not sure what they need to be more aware but they aren't at the moment and 10 days is not enough time to do it.
come the revolution this will definitely be a bank holiday. I'll be out somewhere on the 4th for sure, hopefully will get mentioned at the meeting in brum tomorrow or at least I can start to build my own political networks which have been lost over the years so I can be informed about what might go on in birmingham
I don't have citizenship or tutorial time with them where such things could be legitimately broached.
The only thing that I can think to do is to slyly drop some flyers/info about it in the 6th form common room and maybe the yr 11 social area and see if anything come of it, I can't imagine the school being supportive of my actions, though privately they might be happy, I'm not sure I could agitate for the students to walkout and not take some heat from senior management (which I'm only half-bothered about - I like the school and need the job, don't know how long it would take me to find another one, but at the same time, I can't be shy about taking heat from management in these situations).
It'd be easy enough to talk to students in the classroom, but from my conversations with them about EDL, I don't think there's much point with the ones I work with, I'm not sure what they need to be more aware but they aren't at the moment and 10 days is not enough time to do it.
come the revolution this will definitely be a bank holiday. I'll be out somewhere on the 4th for sure, hopefully will get mentioned at the meeting in brum tomorrow or at least I can start to build my own political networks which have been lost over the years so I can be informed about what might go on in birmingham
the EMA being scrapped may be relevant Tom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Maintenance_Allowance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Maintenance_Allowance
DrRingDing
'anti-human wanker'
http://www.starwars.com/kids/activity/crafts/f20041027/index.html
Masking up using these as templates would be super cool.
Masking up using these as templates would be super cool.
ska invita
back on the other side
look forward to seeing how the 'nick clegg was always going to cut revelation' plays into this <huge development i would speculate - will make the coalition so fragile, perhaps all it needs is a few kicks and a push. definitely will add more fuel to the fire of the student side of the anticuts movement.
problem is the best case scenario is bringing down the government and getting the not-so-thin-end-of-the-wedge-labour back. anyhow, getting too ahead there. great stuff to see seemingly non-aligned groups in action.
problem is the best case scenario is bringing down the government and getting the not-so-thin-end-of-the-wedge-labour back. anyhow, getting too ahead there. great stuff to see seemingly non-aligned groups in action.
ska invita
back on the other side
the more i think about it the more perfect this move is. no doubt this week every young tory is being paid up to go and infiltrate and snitch - the genius with this move is its decentralised, spontaneous and next to impossible to police. here's hoping it kicks off! (<for any sky reporters looking for a pulitzer!)
going to be great having reports coming in from actions around the country... cities other than london in the spot light for a change. what student in leeds say who saw the footage of london isnt going to want to represent their neck of the woods? university challenge is on! come on scumbag!
going to be great having reports coming in from actions around the country... cities other than london in the spot light for a change. what student in leeds say who saw the footage of london isnt going to want to represent their neck of the woods? university challenge is on! come on scumbag!
couldnt agree more. but then again, it wasnt two windows in a bus shelter, it was tory hq (with libdem hq narrowly avoiding it). it was tory hq! ha ha! still sinking in!
BigTom
Well-Known Member
cheers, somehow I've completely missed ema being scrapped amongst everything else.
I'm going to have a chat with one of the teachers at the school who is politically active and the NUT rep and see what he thinks we could do. I would have thought that the scrapping of EMA would be something that we could potentially get senior management to be alright with getting the students politically active about it.
lobster
Well-Known Member
A March is just one of many ways of showing a disappointment which we can happily take part in. Many people in the world cannot even do that without risking there lives. Its not so much the effect that matters, its that we can assemble in groups and protest that is important.
Similar to drinking alcohol, having sex or going abroad, anyone can take part in all three if they want to or don't want to, but the fact that we can, means a lot.
I don't think the voters in this country understand the concept of coalition, the conservatives have 306 seats in the house of commons, libdem have only 57 , so the conservatives have the biggest influence of policies overall. coalitions are about compromising, otherwise there would be collapse, re-elections after re-elections. I am disgusted by the fees news as much as you might be but the majority of voters chose the conservatives . A country gets what its voters chose. There is little reason to whine about that. In Scotland , there are no student fees, the elderly are looked after better amongst other better policies in Scotland so why can;t we down south vote similarly ? Conservatives have been for a very long time a minority party in the Scottish parliament, go figure. They don't just vote for party A because party B was naughty this time.
I do worry that from now on protests may have huge presence of riot police that will put many people of going to them.
The protests that happened throughout central and eastern Europe in 1989 made a huge difference, so just because the recent protests over the years have done bugger all , does not automatically mean they won't do anything ever.
lobster
Well-Known Member
i think your looking into protests a little to much, would you rather they be banned? and any attempt of organising them would throw you in the slammer? Most people are never going be radicalised , its not part of the human gene. The Russian revolution is the best we have yet seen and that was destroyed early on by selfish humans.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
the bolded bit is not true, iirc ~25% of eligible voters voted for the tories (i think they got 36% of the vote on a 62% turnout).
Many people voted for the lib dems against the tories, especially in the south west
the vast majority of voters did not get what they voted for
democracy is not about voting every four or five years and then accepting whatever happens because a party got enough votes to get power.
As someone else said, if the tories were in a minority government, do you think that they would be trying to introduce 9K fees?
lobster
Well-Known Member
Of course people who did not vote are not to blame for any mess , i never said otherwise.
Then those voters cannot bitch, they could have spent time doing something more constructive than voting for libdems if they feel let down by them.
If they did not get what they voted for, what did they get then?
I go into a pub, order a guinness and get a guinness not a cider, same with asking for a libdem to govern....
I agree, that's why any protest however minimal is not a waste of democracy. As well as petitions, conventions and anything else you might think of.
That's my point about the libdems, or to put it another way if they were the majority in the coalition, more of their policies would pass , possible changed a bit to fit the whole coalition but more of their policies would be up for debate and enacted.
I say if the Scots can do well , we should be able to as well..
BigTom
Well-Known Member
fair enough
my point though was that many people voted lib dem believing that they would not form a coalition with the tories, they actively voted against the tories.. are you actually suggesting they build a time machine and go back to change their actions in the past? because that's what it sounds like. Obviously in the future they should do something more constructive but they can't change the past - and they absolutely have the right to whinge about it now.
75% of people did not vote for the tories. these are the people who did not get what they voted for, I have no understanding of your reply here, it doesn't make any sense to me, please explain further.
but you say people shouldn't whinge? do you only mean those who voted for the tories? they are not the ones who are whinging..
I don't understand this at all. sorry. Could you answer my question please.
total agreement with you on this one
lobster
Well-Known Member
Your right on that one, i too would be pissed off .
Your totally correct, imagine if a lot more people voted and chose smaller parties, we would have much more interesting coalitions.. Its going to take a lot of will power, the bbc debates with just the three parties was a shamble, no wonder not many people voted who could. For a lot of its unbiased reporting that was very disappointing.
yeah, tory voters cannot complain.
I was just trying to say that the libdems policies however much people like them, they are only going to be effective if the conservatives agree with them not the other way around. I hope that answers your question .
BigTom
Well-Known Member
ok, I think it's clearer now, you are saying that tories and lib-dems who support the coalition have no right to whinge because the lib dems can't expect (all) their views to be represented when they are the minority partner in the coalition.
But it seems a bit pointless to be in the coalition if the lib dems policies are only going to be effective if the conservatives agree with them. To me, that says that the lib dems can't do anything without the tories say so, and the tories can do what they want without the lib dems.
But it seems a bit pointless to be in the coalition if the lib dems policies are only going to be effective if the conservatives agree with them. To me, that says that the lib dems can't do anything without the tories say so, and the tories can do what they want without the lib dems.
lobster
Well-Known Member
That's great, i am understood
, it is pointless coalition, of course the libdems are loving the fact that they are in power and don't want to upset their boss as it were.this facebook for a high school walkout was set up 2 hours ago. they already have 60 signed up to walking out. amazing how quickly these things can spread. the potential for the 24th is massive.
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128881170503266
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128881170503266
Whatever you think of Porter, he is the first NUS president in perhaps many many years to endorse non violent direct action, just think of Jim Murphy or Woolas,
btw, the endorsement of outrigh violence by a fair few on here has been a bit of a shocker, i may take my leave of P/p
btw, the endorsement of outrigh violence by a fair few on here has been a bit of a shocker, i may take my leave of P/p
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