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#occupy London....

taffboy gwyrdd said:
I don't know if that is a deliberate mis-read. I don't mind people thinking class should be more overtly mentioned by the Occupations. It's a debate to be had and it's happening here as much as anyone else.

I was reacting to a terse post aimed at me from SL:

"Might have known you would leap to their defence you weird freak"​
What questions was s/he raising there? None. Just some vapid insults. Certainly no critical judgement. Not that you managed to post some dismissive against Spanky for that. Are you being a tad selective in who you denounce?​
I am not advancing a case of "accept what you are given". I do think it's too early to dismiss the movement out of hand as a few too many people seem to be starting to do.​
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A post which didn't say a damn thing about:

So it is only to be expected that the jargon fetish "considerably more left wing than you" faction are wheeling out the "they don't mention class in quite the precise way I would like" whinge.
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Did it? You just used it as stick to beat everyone else with.
 
frogwoman said:
there's a difference between "not using class in the way i would like" and zionist/rothschilds/conspiracy bollocks. these people poison everything they fucking touch. it's not unreasonable at the time of one of the worst recessions in history to not wish these types to hijack - and potentially destroy - any fledgling movement
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It's an open space. Everyone's trying to get their oar in. I agree with you about the difference, but far from every conspiracist is harbouring a secret anti semite agenda. It's probably a waste of all our times to re-bake this issue here and now. I daresay and hope that it will take place out on the street. All these things need to be had out.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
It's an open space. Everyone's trying to get their oar in. I agree with you about the difference, but far from every conspiracist is harbouring a secret anti semite agenda. It's probably a waste of all our times to re-bake this issue here and now.
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it doesn't matter whether they're openly anti-semitic or not or if they're into some type of "spiritual" woowoo. i'm not just talking about open anti-semites here. they are recognised as loons and known as such.the problem is as much one of perception, i and most people here don't want any kind of protest against the banks to become indelibly linked with the loon movement, we don't want to give the loon movement any credibility. and the moment it becomes linked to the loon movement to the point where people who don't want to see loon stuff are not only being put off, but actively discouraged from attending - see the ban on union stuff etc - that's what will inevitably happen, it will inevitably draw the hardcore anti-semitic nutters in.
 
butchersapron said:
A post which didn't say a damn thing about:

Did it? You just used it as stick to beat everyone else with.
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"everyone else" - that's some exageration there Butch.

It was part of a broad post covering predictable attacks on the occupations. If people think that class isn't spoken to in the right way, fair enough. Get on down to an occupation and say so, or try and start a local one. If people aint happy with how it goes, they should say so. There are plenty of ways the occupations could go wrong. It doesn't take much imagination to say what they are. But they aint gone wrong yet and I think they should have our broad support with political criticism kept to a neccessary minimum in the short term. Logistics are probably more important right now.
 
It's gone from a specific reply to a single post to a broad reply to many posts in one post :D

Look, what the hell do you want people to do other then put their disagreements - you say in one post that these things need to be out there and in public yet you attack people for putting their views. You can't have it both ways.
 
When I say they "need to be out there" - I mean at the occupations. All this stuff has been had out on the internet for many many years. This is a time for constructive engagement,even if it's critical. It's not a time for "pah - they got it wrong"
 
frogwoman said:
it doesn't matter whether they're openly anti-semitic or not or if they're into some type of "spiritual" woowoo. i'm not just talking about open anti-semites here. they are recognised as loons and known as such.the problem is as much one of perception, i and most people here don't want any kind of protest against the banks to become indelibly linked with the loon movement, we don't want to give the loon movement any credibility. and the moment it becomes linked to the loon movement to the point where people who don't want to see loon stuff are not only being put off, but actively discouraged from attending - see the ban on union stuff etc - that's what will inevitably happen, it will inevitably draw the hardcore anti-semitic nutters in.
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Presumbably the more non loons there the better then. I think on larger occupations this is more likely to be the case. Smaller occupations are more at risk numerically from loon (or other harmful group) take over. If you are worried about public percpetion then I would submit that having randoms staggering around drunkenly shouting at all hours is more likely to be an obvious issue early doors.
 
Just to re iterate Butch - the post that sparked this little cul de sac was from SL slating me as a "weirdo freak" when I "defended" the occupation somewhat over their handling of the class issue.

How occupations should address class is open for debate, I was reacting more to SL than my feeling about that critique. However that critique is one of a few I listed (the one I am most sympathetic to hearing out) that have been trotting out on the internet and press in recent days. They all sound a bit stale to be honest, and as I have said (and is obvious) "we are the 99%" is a fairly clear allusion to class.
 
butchersapron said:
Now, that level of not being organised puts me off, forget the loons and that.
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Ah well! I see it as an opportunity to support them. Have a few sleeping bags, a tent and some blankets that they can have, planning to take them down when I visit tomorrow. I figure some people have stayed on who didn't plan to, also that staying there needs to be supported. I don't think it's easy to set up a campsite just anywhere.
 
Lo Siento. said:
Take any social movement in history and there were people in it who were more or less active. I'm not saying "brilliant, more people to sticker "do something" gorillas all over the place!" at all. I totally disagree that "the activists" are the greatest obstacle, for whatever their faults, if there really was the basis for a revolutionary social movement waiting to surge forth, then the activists would be swept aside, an utter irrelevance. There isn't, and in that lies their continuing presence.

For all the criticism, they aren't preventing people from carrying out the activity we need. They're engaging in gesture politics against a symbol. That's not going to change the world, but there could, potentially be some positive side effects.
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there is a different from people being active and people being activists. people being active in any campaign or social movement can be people from any walk of life, any age, any creed. activists, by contrast, are imo so named because they are active apparently for the sake of activity. not all activity promotes a cause, and much actually retards its interests. one thing which retards the appearance and interests of a revolutionary social movement is the sort of event you see in the city now. the idea that the people gathered there are the sort of people who others up and down the country can identify with is laughable: and the anodyne statements emanating from the city are not going to influence many people towards the sort of activity which could move forward anti-statist, anti-capitalist politics. the liberal wank coming out of the occupylsx affair puts people off activity which could be construed as revolutionary and most certainly does not attract them.
 
Rutita1 said:
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!
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The reason people moan about the SWP is because of what they do - their agenda of entryism into other movements in order to turn them into membership resources.
Remember StWC before and after the Swappies? Remember Socialist Alliance before and after the Swappies?

I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at. :)
 
AKA pseudonym said:
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?
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so you're not too keen on this occupylsx either then
 
Pickman's model said:
there is a different from people being active and people being activists. people being active in any campaign or social movement can be people from any walk of life, any age, any creed. activists, by contrast, are imo so named because they are active apparently for the sake of activity. not all activity promotes a cause, and much actually retards its interests. one thing which retards the appearance and interests of a revolutionary social movement is the sort of event you see in the city now. the idea that the people gathered there are the sort of people who others up and down the country can identify with is laughable: and the anodyne statements emanating from the city are not going to influence many people towards the sort of activity which could move forward anti-statist, anti-capitalist politics. the liberal wank coming out of the occupylsx affair puts people off activity which could be construed as revolutionary and most certainly does not attract them.
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I don't think your neat little division stands up to much analysis tbh. "Activists" with a capital A are just normal people like anyone else, involved to a variety of degrees with other activities that are more or less useful.

This is just a mirror of the media's line that people have to qualify for a certain degree of "typicalness" to be worth listening to, and that, by definition, people protesting have to be weirdos.

Beyond the usual stuff about being "off-putting", I don't see how they're actually retarding anything, given that the field is still open to whoever to start whatever initiative they fancy. At worst, it's pointless, to describe it as actively damaging is well over the top.
 
treelover said:
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...
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Two of the oldest, most hackneyed narratives in the conspiraloon arsenal are that Jews are behind everything bad, and that "the illuminati" are behind everything bad (and of course Jews took over the illuminati soon after inception, apparently!).We supposedly stand behind everything CTers stand against.
Therefore an "active hatred" of us isn't necessary. An adherence to CT often encourages a prejudice (i.e. "an irrational fear") towards Jews, it's a prejudice that could be said to be semi-institutionalised, even if you code your prejudice with references to "international bankers" and "lizards".

The problem is that this prejudice sees "Jews" as a monolithic and homogeneous "bloc" of people sharing the same motivations, needs and desires, the same sins. It's the sort of prejudice that produced centuries of pogroms in the Russian empire and its' satellites, and eventually the holocaust in the 3rd Reich. If you see a people as a monolithic and homogeneous entity, then you deny their individuality, you deny the fact that Jews aren't homogeneous, but are rather heterogeneous. Denying those things makes it/has made it easier to hate us and, for some people, easier to consider our annihilation.

Personally I see the anti-Jewish prejudice of some CTers as a marker of their lack of ability to apply logic to their researches, and a display of unfamiliarity with Occam's Razor.
 
Ah, but Lo Siento, what you don't get is that if a social movement isn't revolutionary it is by definition wibewal capitalist clap-trap - ergo it is actively damaging Teh Cause.
 
Lo Siento. said:
I don't think your neat little division stands up to much analysis tbh. "Activists" with a capital A are just normal people like anyone else, involved to a variety of degrees with other activities that are more or less useful.

This is just a mirror of the media's line that people have to qualify for a certain degree of "typicalness" to be worth listening to, and that, by definition, people protesting have to be weirdos.

Beyond the usual stuff about being "off-putting", I don't see how they're actually retarding anything, given that the field is still open to whoever to start whatever initiative they fancy. At worst, it's pointless, to describe it as actively damaging is well over the top.
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i made clear what i mean by activist in post 319, which you quoted and where you didn't take issue with my definition - it seems to have flown over your head. your bit about 'normal people' doesn't add anything to your facile nonsense.
 
frogwoman said:
to be honest that entire thing is shot through with anti-semitism. if you believe that shite that all the talk of rothschilds, the gold standard, the federal reserve, 9/11, and that, that it's nothing to do with hatred for the Jews and that t's all about opening your mind man, that that's true, you're either an idiot not worth listening to or you're lying
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Believing an over-arching narrative that fixes the blame to a (relatively) small number of actors is always going to appeal to people who don't have the capacity to accept that the chaos of ongoing history occasionally resembles ordered events. :)
 
Just briefly been to Birmingham camp. First conversation involved chemtrails and fluoride in the water. Not good. :(
 
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