Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
yep, sorry, should have said that clearlyBlagsta said:Hang on, which RTS group are you on about? Just London?
yep, sorry, should have said that clearlyBlagsta said:Hang on, which RTS group are you on about? Just London?
I agree with this completely. 9/11 changed everything.editor said:9/11 and the subsequent trrrrsm hysteria put paid to any chance of similar protests happening.
Brainaddict said:yep, sorry, should have said that clearly
No?Brainaddict said:It's you that's treating me like I'm your enemy. I'm really not y'know
Brainaddict said:Hmmm, a bit of an easy get-out clause to explain the group break-up if you ask me.<snip>If you don't admit it when you fail, how are you going to learn?
Brainaddict said:You acknowledge that there was bad feeling at the end but you seem to want to downplay it as some kind of minor factor compared to other external pressures.
And then you admit you weren't actually involved at all but are instead relying on second-hand accounts from other people. If you can't understand why I may become slightly peeved, if I'm polite, in repeatedly being told that I'm wrong in those circumstances, I think you've got a bit of learning to do my friendBrainaddict said:You only acknowledged it when I pushed you to (see your first post), and you're still waving it away with the 'Nothing lasts forever' line.
Did you go to the big open meetings? I'm not denying there were all sorts of reasons for individuals to stop going to parties when they did. But the big open meetings where a certain amount of organisation was meant to happen ended somewhat unhappily. It's fine if people want to 'focus on the positives' but it could have been a learning experience I reckonbluestreak said:Brainaddict, do I know anyone of these people who talk about who walked away pissed off? Like paulie I was involved in RTS from the beginning, albeit in a minor way, and I'd be interested in speaking to them.
See, for me, what damaged RTS was that I found myself going on street parties that had no politics. To an outsider they would have looked like it was just a bunch of peopl having a party and not a political action. However that wasn't due to RTS per se, it was due to no individual taking responsibility for explaining to passers by and the media why it was happening.
bluestreak said:See, for me, what damaged RTS was that I found myself going on street parties that had no politics.
Ok, 10 learning experiences for you, off the top of my head:Brainaddict said:It's fine if people want to 'focus on the positives' but it could have been a learning experience I reckon
laptop said:It seems to me, somewhat depressingly, that there's a regular cycle here:
- Movement / current / campaign launches on a specific issue
- Does exciting things
- Starts affecting the issue at hand
- Those most active get more politicised
- They start slagging off "single-issue politics"
- They move toward organising events that are about everything
- Those whose involvement is offering their body and soul for a day or so go "eh?"
- The activists start complaining about people who just come on the events (experts say this is a symptom of lack of sleep)
- Fewer come on the events
- ... ... pause ... ...
- A significant part of the original issue is actually won - though the exciting movement gets none of the credit
- Those who were most involved get angry if you remind them they won a reform, 'cos they didn't win the quite different things they wanted at the time they stopped being most involves
No, this isn't the whole story either. But I've seen it be part of the story through three generations of campaign/activism/politics
editor said:The full argument for the demise of RTS is pretty complex, but here's my thinking-out-loud thoughts:
I'd say the issues simply got bigger and the movement lost its focus as a result.
When it started it was primarily against road building and car culture, but then people started to look at what was driving this forward, leading to the focus moving on to the broader issue of capitalism.
The Mayday/anti-capitalist movement was dealt a massive blow by 9/11 (and the subsequent hysteria), given a killer punch by the total failure of the Stop the War march to change a god-damn thing and, coupled with a wider acceptance of consumerist lifestyles, most people's appetite for street protest seemed to have been finished off for now.
When RTS was going on you felt that you could bring about real change and force the political agenda. It felt the same with the CJA marches. Who feels that now with issues like the Iraq war?
Dillinger4 said:*saves post*
laptop said:* invoices Dillinger4 *
Well there's the rub innit? You either accept that certain key decisions need to be made and played out by a certain select few, with wider discussion only on the wider issues involved, or you try to be completely egalitarian and let everyone have their say and watch as it eventually develops and/or descends into a "who can shout the loudest" competition essentially.Brainaddict said:That's interesting stuff Paulie. At the risk of sounding like I'm harping on (I am genuinely interested in terms of future organising - not just poking with a stick ) what implications would you draw from Lesson 5 for organisations that would like to grow but want to remain directly democratic?
laptop said:If you were going to hold the 2008 equivalent of an old-skool RTS, what genres of music would you play?
Yes, this is an indirect suggestion for one of the many reasons for it fading.
Dillinger4 said:That is interesting. I am doing a module about radical protest in this next semester, about protest cycles and how radical protest groups actually function.
*saves post*
mitochondria said:ACID TECHNO all the way!!!
Brainaddict said:This isn't a solution that is favoured by people of an anarcho persuasion who hate institutions of any kind
I'm 19 and in Sydney, Australia. From what I gather there were some pretty decent RTS parties on here back in the day. I'm disappointed I missed them.Originally posted by bluestreak
wanderlust, how old are you and where are you based?
Originally posted by Brainaddict
after a fantastic few years it became a sad failure of non-hierarchical organising and in my opinion should be recognised as such.
wanderlust19 said:Thanks everyone for the replies and the interesting discussions.
I'm 19 and in Sydney, Australia. From what I gather there were some pretty decent RTS parties on here back in the day. I'm disappointed I missed them.
I don't have any knowledge of its internal workings and structural shortcomings or whatever, but I don't think I could ever consider the movement a failure even if it did split at the seams and (arguably) fail to progress to anything significant. The reason I was so shocked and surprised when I read about it was that living in this time of complete political apathy and numbness by most of the general population and especially other young people, I couldn't even imagine things like that happening so spontaneously and successfully now. It made me thrilled to hear that there ever were such things ... even if it didn't amount to mass changes.
Now, a lot of people here have mentioned that RTS just split off into smaller groups. But wasn't the point in the first place to join groups with similar anti-capitalist/corporate interests? Isn't that how it kind of started?
I dunno. Can you imagine a contemporary RTS party with broken beats and nu-rave???Blagsta said:No way. It suited the times then but it's way too dated now.
Old skool!Blagsta said:Old skool jungle/d'n'b. Get Megabitch out of retirement!
Sorry, badly phrased - was not meant to imply all anarchists hate institutions - 'people who hate institutions of any kind' would have been sufficient I suppose.Blagsta said: