Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Crap. RTS became explicitly class based as it progressed, see the link up with Liverpool dockers, striking tube workers etc.
#occupy London....
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Crap. RTS became explicitly class based as it progressed, see the link up with Liverpool dockers, striking tube workers etc.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
They will do this...how? Without links to a wider social and workers movement, this is going nowhere. That means an acknowledgement of class.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
thing is Blagsta, I think that many people haven't really come across the marxist idea of class, and when they talk of class they are talking about the liberal idea of class - various strands of working, middle and upper class... it's just trying to be inclusive without realising that "working class" should be inclusive (even including claimants who do not or cannot work) anyway..
to most people, working class describes just a small section of what me and you would think of as working class..
I don't think it's an issue that is worth getting picky about tbh, I think those outcomes sound good.. if somewhat liberal, but then as tl says this is not a revolutionary movement (yet).
In terms of the links to wider social and workers movement, they have expressed support for N9 and N30 - so that's building links with both the student and public sector unions.. also someone I know down there was talking to a sparky, who was saying that the occupy thing needs to join up with their struggle.. he'd just wandered by at the start of the day, but has stayed down there and now is thinking of staying on.. just one person, but the kind of story that if repeated will build those links.
These links can, and hopefully will, be built.
to most people, working class describes just a small section of what me and you would think of as working class..
I don't think it's an issue that is worth getting picky about tbh, I think those outcomes sound good.. if somewhat liberal, but then as tl says this is not a revolutionary movement (yet).
In terms of the links to wider social and workers movement, they have expressed support for N9 and N30 - so that's building links with both the student and public sector unions.. also someone I know down there was talking to a sparky, who was saying that the occupy thing needs to join up with their struggle.. he'd just wandered by at the start of the day, but has stayed down there and now is thinking of staying on.. just one person, but the kind of story that if repeated will build those links.
These links can, and hopefully will, be built.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
it's back to the middle ages with the church providing sanctuary against the forces of law and order
how the fuck has yer man made st paul's 'relevant again'? eh? if the bloody movement needs some god-botherer, some sky pilot, to supply a safe space for the movement to grow, is it a movement which deserves to survive?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
*taps watch*
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
that's shut you up treelover
bingiman
Jah Gaza
Give them a break. They didn't plan on ending up in front of the cathedral the police forced them there. Frankly there are probably worse places to be. It might even be the first time I have asked people to go to church on Sunday 
, it is a foothold, no more no less. But lots of other churches very strategically placed around our city of london if you needed to establish a base. 
, it is a foothold, no more no less. But lots of other churches very strategically placed around our city of london if you needed to establish a base. 
Paulie Tandoori
shut it you egg!
thing is, the sparks have a definite cause to rally around, and they've shown themselves to be remarkably resourceful and resilient recently.
whereas the londonlsx things have looked a bit pointless imo, which is sad. what do we want, to sit down, when do we want to, um, tomorrow maybe....if we're allowed to
shaman75
Well-Known Member
Some pictures I took:
Yesterday: http://entoptika.co.uk/occupylsx1/
Today: http://entoptika.co.uk/occupylsx2/
Yesterday: http://entoptika.co.uk/occupylsx1/
Today: http://entoptika.co.uk/occupylsx2/
BigTom
Well-Known Member
obviously I can never really comment on the London thing, as I'm not going to be there. I'm interested to see what Birmingham is like when I go down there tomorrow (been too ill to join it over the weekend).. from the people I know who have been there, it seems to be mostly very inexperienced people, people who have never been active before.. They'll soon drop the idea that they need to be allowed to do something, though I bet they are well pleased they are allowed to be outside St Pauls and are not getting beaten by police anymore (sometimes permission is good!)
I'm well impressed with the sparks.. I hope that links are built and that the occupylsx camp more or less clears out early wednesday morning to support the sparks protest (at Blackfriars?).
If it becomes a base for wider actions, then it could start looking like something more than what you are seeing at the moment.
I'm well impressed with the sparks.. I hope that links are built and that the occupylsx camp more or less clears out early wednesday morning to support the sparks protest (at Blackfriars?).
If it becomes a base for wider actions, then it could start looking like something more than what you are seeing at the moment.
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
They are aknowledging class, just not in direct classical terms. It is clear who is cited as controlling the economy, implicitly including the means of production and distribution (the 1%). What the movement does not appear to be trying to do is drive a wedge between the percieved working and middle class, most people who see themselves as middle class are actually working class anyway and increasingly likely to sympathise with working class identity. Why stir un neccessary emnity? The movement is explicitly anti elite, that is entirely appropriate.
He never responds to questions, just makes the same autistic statements over and over and over and over
Might have known you would leap to their defence you weird freak
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
are they really comparable? I mean the #occupylsx thing is obviously modelled on the #15m stuff in Spain, the idea being to mobilise people against the financial and political classes in general. Now the latter hasn't managed to change anything particularly profound about the Spanish state, but it has developed a very broad base of activists available to help out with a wide variety of more practical things - preventing evictions, supporting a teacher's strike and had the helpful side effect of creating a public space for people critical of the system per se.
With the best will in the world, you're not going to get that out of strike support.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the thing which is going to mobilise people against the financial and political classes in general are the actions of those people. it's not a case of rallying people around a set of abstract notions, it's the actions of people in the city and in parliament which are themselves fomenting disquiet and dissent. this disaffection may be reflected in initiatives like occupy london - but those attracted by this weekend's activity seem to be a curious melange without any real analysis of the situation beyond a vague 'down with this sort of thing' and with an unusually high proportion of conspiraloons. while you wouldn't expect people to turn up with a fully formed and documented analysis of where we are, how we got where we are and where it's hoped to be in six months time, it's depressing that *at best* you suggest this occupylsx business can produce 'a very broad base of activists available to help out with a wide variety of more practical things'. it's long been my view that we have fucking activists coming out of our ears, that activists are the last thing anyone needs, and that activism is something which has brought the british left (of whatever hue) to the poor state it's in now. activists, a sort of poor man's professional revolutionaries, are in my opinion the greatest obstacle to a positive and effective revolutionary social movement. in addition, it's by no means more activity we need, but activity which includes and does not exclude, activity in which anyone can take part, activity which shows what is possible.
they've dropped 'class' in favour of 'background' now. must've been watching...
http://occupylsx.org/?p=221
http://occupylsx.org/?p=221
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
I agree with a lot of what pickman's model says but I want to stress that I think the term "political class(es)" and "financial class" are fairly meaningless. It confuses what 'class' is to mix it or apply it to a group of people on a whim. Does it make sense to talk about a "military class" or "manufacturing class"?
It also leads to two dangerous ideas:
1. If we had MPs only serve one term (i.e. not be a class) things would be better.
If MPs had to perform a non-politics role for X years before they were allowed to MPs things would be better.
2. 'Bankers are the problem' / 'Finance is the problem'.
Back in the 1930s the problem was seen as being an international finance problem, and Britain needed to look to tariff protection within the Empire to sort it out.
In the last recession of the 1980s the idea was that old, heavy 'non-value adding' industry (coal) was the problem. What Britain needed to do was restructure and reform, become like Switzerland or Germany, let money go to new high-tech industries and retail.
Once again this crisis is being blamed on 'finance'
We shouldn't single out a struggle against finance and leave the rest of the capitalist system unexamined or 'leave that for that'. It has to be done at the same time, otherwise the non-finance side the manufacturing, retail, agricultural, services wing of the ruling class can organise itself into action knock out the excesses of finance capital, steal the goodies for itself but impose the costs onto the w/class all in the name of fighting the 'financial class'.
We need to start consolidating our ranks, actually listening to and trying winning back the disaffected young people, expelling the renegades, trying to extend the idea of nationalisation and socialisation in single-hander and small business industries/sectors, trying to isolate those who want to extend jail for 'benefit fraudsters' from our ranks, refusing to talk with Labour councillors unless they talk sense,
applying pressure on those on our side not to start letting houses, take voluntary redunancy, use 'saving for children's university fees' as an excuse, investing in shares, , stopping the boom in small businesses is rent insurance companies, try to get thinking in terms of mass participations (millions ideally) [mass boycotts of university examinations, non-payment of utility bills with specific demands for prices, non-fare taking of public transport, strike sympathy actions]
It's those types of things in Greece that have really allowed people to claw back some things there.
Without some support from the rest of Europe - i.e. us - Greek people will lose.
We need to start thinking as the producers' class - that's not 'the 99%' vs 'the bankers'. Our enemies are much wider than the '1%' for a start the 10% (at leasT0 below them make up the ruling class.
Also, if strikes are going to win, then blockades, protests and sit-downs will have to be a part of them.
AKA pseudonym
Well-Known Member
ffs.. there seems to be a heap of people here who know the 'pure dictum' way to protest...
scratch that...
Its a learning curve for all of us.... no dogma? the fluidity of protest is the beauty imo....
doing, rather than talking, is the best way to learn innit?
scratch that...
Its a learning curve for all of us.... no dogma? the fluidity of protest is the beauty imo....
doing, rather than talking, is the best way to learn innit?
Treacle Toes
Time
Agreed! ^^^ It's like those who always moan about the SWP...I always think...'well at least they are doing something!' We don't have to agree on everything...it's the things we do agree on that are important IMO!
AKA pseudonym
Well-Known Member
Some pictures I took:
Yesterday: http://entoptika.co.uk/occupylsx1/
Today: http://entoptika.co.uk/occupylsx2/
lulz.. @ Dale farm for example it was agreed to drop these cliche internal forms of expression ie activist circle jerk masturbation....
btw: this so alienates the general public....
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
the rich, the rothschilds and the zionists want a new world order.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
i hope a trot shoves a paper up that guy's arse, the anti-semitic twat.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
that's why in the second sentence i made it clear who i was talking about, people in the city and people in parliament, although i recognise that there are a lot of other people involved in the drawing up, passage and execution of policies which i find objectionable. however, for the sake of brevity i thought that people in the city as financial classes and people in parliament as political classes would do. i meant this as sections of the population, of course, as opposed to class in the sociological sense.
Treacle Toes
Time
That may be, however there are some practicalities involved in cholding/communicating in large meetings.
Do these conspiracy theorists have an active hatred for jews or is it more abstract, they don't seem like C18 types or even the more 'gentile' League Of St George
There does seem to be lot of the latter (abstractions) on the OLSX facebook page, 'tentacles' and all that...
There does seem to be lot of the latter (abstractions) on the OLSX facebook page, 'tentacles' and all that...
Treacle Toes
Time
Where is the dislike button? 
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