Unite against Fascism (UAF) has failed (?)

[Spion]

This is more like the socialism of fools

 

[cogg]

where art the Fifth international these days? last time I checked their stopped watch they were still on the mantra of workers defence squads ala James P Cannon

When you click on that link, the fist thing you see is a banner headline that says "Drinkall for Vauxhall". I tought they were offering free drinks for votes A good old fashioned tradition. Unfortunately it's a WP Nomark called jeremy drinkall standing for the anticapitalists (A new force...)

 

[sihhi]

Comical interview with Labour, UKIP, BNP, Lib Dem, Conservative candidates on SKy News in Barking

Interesting debate about a "sons and daughters" policy




2 minutes in on part 2

Griffin "That's our policy Margaret"
Hodge "This is about fairness, the BNP come at it from racism"

Any Unite against Fascism dissent?

 

[Pickman's model]

If i wanted to find a modern example of a fascist state I would look at the likes of Iran, Syria, Saudi (anything in common?) not Britain which i see as one of the most liberal and democratic countries in the world and at all costs has to remain so and be defended.

britain doesn't have a constitution. britons are probably the most surveilled people on the planet. i don't see how you can describe britain as liberal or democratic when it falls short on both fronts.

 

[mk12]

The fact that this site allows people to discuss how to smash the state should suggest that this is a relatively liberal country.

 

[Pickman's model]

The fact that this site allows people to discuss how to smash the state should suggest that this is a relatively liberal country.

i think you should reread your post and edit accordingly.

 

[The39thStep]

i think you should reread your post and edit accordingly.

LOL!

 

[danny la rouge]

Comical interview with Labour, UKIP, BNP, Lib Dem, Conservative candidates on SKy News in Barking

Interesting debate about a "sons and daughters" policy




2 minutes in on part 2

Griffin "That's our policy Margaret"
Hodge "This is about fairness, the BNP come at it from racism"

Any Unite against Fascism dissent?

Sihhi asked for my comments on this. I've not been able to watch the videos yet (I'll need to watch them at home rather than work), but I'll be interested to see what's being said.

Bearing in mind that I'm talking generally, rather than about any specifics I haven't yet seen, my point of view is that while I would obviously oppose any policy which resulted in racial discrimination, or which result in segregation, (whether intentionally or not, whether covertly or overtly), I obviously hope that social housing policy will be tailored towards local needs. Clearly young people should be able to continue to live in the community they grew up in, if that is their wish. Any policy which forces them out of their community is obviously wrong. But I can see no reason why their interests should be set against the interests of refugees (for example); it is only one or the other because that suits the interests of the ruling classes.

We are in a situation where local communities have things foisted upon them from above. We need to oppose that. We, as communities, need to find ways of acting which address the interests of the working class as a whole, whether "sons and daughters" of Barking residents, or political asylum seekers, or other immigrants. Not allow our political overlords to dictate whose interests trump yours.

So, with those caveats, I'd support a "sons and daughters" housing policy. Whether I support what Labour proposes in Barking is another question entirely. I don't know yet, until I see the details.

 

[sihhi]

Sihhi asked for my comments on this. I've not been able to watch the videos yet (I'll need to watch them at home rather than work), but I'll be interested to see what's being said.

Bearing in mind that I'm talking generally, rather than about any specifics I haven't yet seen, my point of view is that while I would obviously oppose any policy which resulted in racial discrimination, or which result in segregation, (whether intentionally or not, whether covertly or overtly), I obviously hope that social housing policy will be tailored towards local needs. Clearly young people should be able to continue to live in the community they grew up in, if that is their wish. Any policy which forces them out of their community is obviously wrong. But I can see no reason why their interests should be set against the interests of refugees (for example); it is only one or the other because that suits the interests of the ruling classes.

We are in a situation where local communities have things foisted upon them from above. We need to oppose that. We, as communities, need to find ways of acting which address the interests of the working class as a whole, whether "sons and daughters" of Barking residents, or political asylum seekers, or other immigrants. Not allow our political overlords to dictate whose interests trump yours.

So, with those caveats, I'd support a "sons and daughters" housing policy. Whether I support what Labour proposes in Barking is another question entirely. I don't know yet, until I see the details.

What are these ways?

Basically the video is Margaret Hodge agreeing with Nick Griffin to a 'sons and daughters policy' on BNP terms, but saying it comes from fairness not racism.
Hodge is the person being backed by UAF and HopeNotHate.

There's a difference in tone and a difference if the BNP actually formed a government, but as local MPs - Griffin or Hodge - same difference - there I said it.

 

[sihhi]

Counterfire vs EDL "We need bigger demos with more local MPs"

Bizarre rally plans

A 200-strong rally in a town can enthuse and motivate by providing arguments for those attending. That audience can take those arguments into workplaces, union meetings, schools, colleges, mosques, churches and the rest, drawing in thousands more. For the full impact, these rallies will need to be co-ordinated across many different towns and cities, weeks ahead of the counter-demonstration.

A plan for antiracist demos in Keswick, Swansea, Plymouth, London on different weekends to counter an EDL demonstration two months later in Newcastle. (?)

Bizarre notions of how to defend yourself from the police:

And the police will find it much harder to attack and arrest a platform on a demonstration that includes Labour MPs and trade union leaders alongside anti-racist campaigners.

Bizarre appeals to history:

When the National Front tried to march in the 1970s, this strategy stopped them. The BNP faced the same challenge on the streets in the 1990s, and were defeated.

The EDL is a different sort of threat to the NF and the BNP. But the method must be similar.

Bizarre unspecified campaign

Mass mobilisations will block the EDL. Mass mobilisations can only be achieved as part of a larger campaign. Time is now short. But that broader campaign must be built.

Islamophobia is now the only “respectable” racism in Britain.

Laughable claim - nothing respectable against Irish travellers, non-English speakers, Roma from East Europe.


from Counterfire

http://www.counterfire.org/index.ph...bia/4613-defeating-the-english-defence-league

 

[Pickman's model]

Bizarre rally plans


A plan for antiracist demos in Keswick, Swansea, Plymouth, London on different weekends to counter an EDL demonstration two months later in Newcastle. (?)

Bizarre notions of how to defend yourself from the police:

And the police will find it much harder to attack and arrest a platform on a demonstration that includes Labour MPs and trade union leaders alongside anti-racist campaigners.

Bizarre appeals to history:


Bizarre unspecified campaign





Laughable claim - nothing respectable against Irish travellers, non-English speakers, Roma from East Europe.


from Counterfire

http://www.counterfire.org/index.ph...bia/4613-defeating-the-english-defence-league

Sun Tzu said:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

You know neither the enemy nor yourself: therefore the stragegy outlined in the counterfire strategy is useless. The EDL is not the NF or BNP, they acknowledge it is 'a different kind of threat'. But they then go on to say that the methods used to defeat them 'must be similar'. That - at best - would only work if the NF and BNP were themselves defeated by those methods. And that is, I submit, questionable.

The fascists of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were not defeated by taking someone else's arguments into 'workplaces, union meetings, schools, colleges, mosques, churches and the rest'. They were defeated by men and women who were prepared to physically oppose them, not to utter mealy-mouthed and totally uninspiring slogans, but to get out on the streets and defend their areas, to attack fascist meetings and to give a reality to the slogan 'no platform'.

Riots like those at Red Lion Square, Southall, Lewisham ran the NF off the streets in the 1970s. The 1990s saw fascists defeated at Waterloo. Make no mistake, either anti-fascists go into this with their eyes open or they leave themselves facing defeat before even leaving their homes. There must be a diversity of tactics used to defeat fascists, be they the BNP, EDL, Blood and Honour or the NF. But - as Anti-Fascist Action realised - this diversity has to provide offering an alternative, a means by which the fascists can be undermined and around which opposition to them can crystallise. A positive culture of resistance has to be developed into which young men and women who may otherwise drift towards the EDL, BNP etc can join. AFA saw this as a cultural development, and put on a number of festivals which showed how this can work.

Basing opposition to the likes of the EDL round opposition to Islamophobia is allowing them to set the agenda. It isn't going to attract widespread support from people outside a certain range of backgrounds and opinions. And it ignores the fact that there is a strain of Islam, Islamism, which frankly deserves opposition. To make any headway against the BNP or EDL, the very real current of Islamism must be opposed as much as their white counterparts.

I find it very hard to see anything positive about sharing a platform with people from the Labour Party, a party which has yet to shoulder its share, the lion's share, of responsibility for the growth of fascist extremism in this country over the past decade. They are not part of the solution, they are as much part of the problem as Nick Griffin or the leadership of the EDL. The Labour Party has forfeited any right to address anti-fascists, or anyone else, as they have shown quite clearly that they are a corrupt party with the morals of a hyena, from the lies which took us into Iraq to the expenses scandal or the lies about the defeat of boom and bust. They have had their chance, and fluffed it. Indeed, listening to someone from the Labour Party is more likely to attract votes for the BNP than otherwise.

Nor has UAF anything to offer. Their knowledge of the far-right is as great as their knowledge of the bars of Ulan Bator. Yes, we all know that the EDL are nasty. But what are the UAF going to do about it? There is little empowering about shouting from behind police lines and relying on the police to defend you from the EDL. The UAF by their politics and their practice act as recruiting sergeants for the far-right. They describe longstanding anti-fascists as fascists (http://whitechapelanarchistgroup.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/united-against-fascists/). The BNP recognise the UAF as a boon, and have said as much on the London Patriot blog.

For real, serious, and effective opposition to the BNP and EDL a new approach is needed, one which recognises the reality of the enemy, which seeks to use imagination and guile as much as argument, which is prepared to act utterly ruthlessly to achieve its objective. Such opposition would be based on the politics of class, draw its inspiration from the likes of the 43 Group and Anti-Fascist Action, act without the hindrance of working with the police and strike where necessary. If - as the article above suggests - anti-fascism in this country is to work with ineffectual and moralising speechifiers and windbags from the Labour Party and sky-pilots from churches, I for one want nothing to do with it. I want instead a confident anti-fascism, which promotes a positive agenda of empowerment for the people the fascists seek to recruit. These people already despise the Labour Party, they despise the churches, and rightly so. It's time for anti-fascists to set the agenda, to stop responding to EDL provocations, and rather deal with the threat by any means which should prove effective.

 

[TremulousTetra]

"They are" social fascist?

 

[butchersapron]

Huh huh you got him trapped now. Despite nothing he said arguing anything like that, nor the UAF front mapping onto a political party like the SPD. Pathetic.

It's always 1932 in your house isn;t it?

"They are" the kings of the kop. What is that is "They are" then follow it up with anything you want? It's bizzare dishonesty.

 

[Pickman's model]

"They are" social fascist?

there's always one, isn't there, and it's surprising how frequently it's you.

 

[butchersapron]

You criticise the UAF therefore you must mean that the UAF are the SPD and you're the KPD and oh god no here come HITLERS.

Grow up. Stop trying to 'gag people with solidarity'.

 

[Pickman's model]

 

[butchersapron]

The 'you' is the fantastic ever evolving rmp3.

 

[Pickman's model]

The 'you' is the fantastic ever evolving rmp3.

ah! mr 78rpm!

 

[sihhi]

The EDL is not the NF or BNP, they acknowledge it is 'a different kind of threat'. But they then go on to say that the methods used to defeat them 'must be similar'. That - at best - would only work if the NF and BNP were themselves defeated by those methods. And that is, I submit, questionable.

Good point and good post Pickman's.

Riots like those at Red Lion Square, Southall, Lewisham ran the NF off the streets in the 1970s. The 1990s saw fascists defeated at Waterloo. Make no mistake, either anti-fascists go into this with their eyes open or they leave themselves facing defeat before even leaving their homes. There must be a diversity of tactics used to defeat fascists, be they the BNP, EDL, Blood and Honour or the NF. But - as Anti-Fascist Action realised - this diversity has to provide offering an alternative, a means by which the fascists can be undermined and around which opposition to them can crystallise. A positive culture of resistance has to be developed into which young men and women who may otherwise drift towards the EDL, BNP etc can join. AFA saw this as a cultural development, and put on a number of festivals which showed how this can work.

I noticed in some EDL videos although many older people are singing "God Save the Queen", some are just mouthing the words, but I think festivals etc might not be very useful.
How can this "culture of resistance" be developed?

Basing opposition to the likes of the EDL round opposition to Islamophobia is allowing them to set the agenda. It isn't going to attract widespread support from people outside a certain range of backgrounds and opinions. And it ignores the fact that there is a strain of Islam, Islamism, which frankly deserves opposition.

To make any headway against the BNP or EDL, the very real current of Islamism must be opposed as much as their white counterparts.

Some solid anti-islamist action that actually did something would be good.
I can't think of simple, solid direct action that could be easily mobilised or be effective.
There are many bad aspects of islamism in Britain - corporal punishment in saturday Koran schools in certain islamic charities, domestic violence etc but solid, meaningful action to conduct against it ?? ????

EDL did take direct action against a rather meaningless manifestation of islam in the form of halal food in KFC stores
http://www.kfc.co.uk/about-kfc/halal/





The EDL on one side and the Islamists need one another. There's a good photo of Nick Griffin sharing a stage to discuss with Abu Hook Hamza.

Nor has UAF anything to offer. Their knowledge of the far-right is as great as their knowledge of the bars of Ulan Bator.

I have noticed basic errors about the far-right, errors in chronology, totally false assertions, no knowledge of key participants, no knowledge of when violence was and when it wasn't used by the far-right. I don't think the UAF takes political education about its enemies seriously. Its seminars and conferences are inevitably led by key 'participants' divided according to group power balances who give long speeches about building hope, how racism is bad, how communities can unite etc with little time to ask questions.

If - as the article above suggests - anti-fascism in this country is to work with ineffectual and moralising speechifiers and windbags from the Labour Party and sky-pilots from churches, I for one want nothing to do with it. I want instead a confident anti-fascism, which promotes a positive agenda of empowerment for the people the fascists seek to recruit.

You are right much energy is being frittered needlessly away on 'the BNP are terrible' leafleting when the cuts have already started the rug is being pulled out from under feet - thousands of better paying jobs are under threat - there won't be money for trade union-funded jollies or leftist propaganda any more.

Here is a general example leafleting about the BNP instead of something else - the space can still be held as an 'anti-BNP space' even if you are doing something else.

FRIDAY, 16 APRIL 2010
Southsea Against the Nazis.
Assemble Mountbatten Fountain.

1.30 P.M. 17th April

Commercial Road Southsea.
Street meeting and leafletting.

Geoffrey Crompton is the proposed Nazi candidate for Portsmouth south.He might sound like a character out of a P G Wodehouse novel but he's representing a hate filled Nazi organisation.We need to get the word out and make it clear to the Nazi BNP that public spaces in our city are Anti-Nazi zones.

Last saturday we had a magnificent afternoon of leafletting against Barry Bennett the BNP candidate in Gosport.Between 35-40 people were involved in the afternoons action and we had a magnificent response.

 

[danny la rouge]

What are these ways?

From one perspective that's the 2 million Euro question, from another it's a no-brainer. The first perspective is that of the vanguardist, who wants to tell people how to act, who wants to bus activists into areas they have no connection with, to demonstrate just how wonderfully anti racist they are (and, on the flip side, just how gullible and stupid the local working class community is; the enlightened saving the deluded). This course of action will lead only to bookish activists stroking their beards and wondering how The Problem will ever be solved. The second perspective is the one I favour, and involves not imposing solutions on communities, but supporting communities' own solutions.

And yes, you're right, Labour is the enemy, too.

 

[TremulousTetra]

A plan for antiracist demos in Keswick, Swansea, Plymouth, London on different weekends to counter an EDL demonstration two months later in Newcastle. (?)

Bizarre notions of how to defend yourself from the police:
Sun Tzu said:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

You know neither the enemy nor yourself: therefore the stragegy outlined in the counterfire strategy is useless. The EDL is not the NF or BNP, they acknowledge it is 'a different kind of threat'. But they then go on to say that the methods used to defeat them 'must be similar'. That - at best - would only work if the NF and BNP were themselves defeated by those methods. And that is, I submit, questionable.

The fascists of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were not defeated by taking someone else's arguments into 'workplaces, union meetings, schools, colleges, mosques, churches and the rest'. They were defeated by men and women who were prepared to physically oppose them, not to utter mealy-mouthed and totally uninspiring slogans, but to get out on the streets and defend their areas, to attack fascist meetings and to give a reality to the slogan 'no platform'.

Riots like those at Red Lion Square, Southall, Lewisham ran the NF off the streets in the 1970s. The 1990s saw fascists defeated at Waterloo. Make no mistake, either anti-fascists go into this with their eyes open or they leave themselves facing defeat before even leaving their homes. There must be a diversity of tactics used to defeat fascists, be they the BNP, EDL, Blood and Honour or the NF. But - as Anti-Fascist Action realised - this diversity has to provide offering an alternative, a means by which the fascists can be undermined and around which opposition to them can crystallise. A positive culture of resistance has to be developed into which young men and women who may otherwise drift towards the EDL, BNP etc can join. AFA saw this as a cultural development, and put on a number of festivals which showed how this can work.

Basing opposition to the likes of the EDL round opposition to Islamophobia is allowing them to set the agenda. It isn't going to attract widespread support from people outside a certain range of backgrounds and opinions. And it ignores the fact that there is a strain of Islam, Islamism, which frankly deserves opposition. To make any headway against the BNP or EDL, the very real current of Islamism must be opposed as much as their white counterparts.

I find it very hard to see anything positive about sharing a platform with people from the Labour Party, a party which has yet to shoulder its share, the lion's share, of responsibility for the growth of fascist extremism in this country over the past decade. They are not part of the solution, they are as much part of the problem as Nick Griffin or the leadership of the EDL. The Labour Party has forfeited any right to address anti-fascists, or anyone else, as they have shown quite clearly that they are a corrupt party with the morals of a hyena, from the lies which took us into Iraq to the expenses scandal or the lies about the defeat of boom and bust. They have had their chance, and fluffed it. Indeed, listening to someone from the Labour Party is more likely to attract votes for the BNP than otherwise.

Nor has UAF anything to offer. Their knowledge of the far-right is as great as their knowledge of the bars of Ulan Bator. Yes, we all know that the EDL are nasty. But what are the UAF going to do about it? There is little empowering about shouting from behind police lines and relying on the police to defend you from the EDL. The UAF by their politics and their practice act as recruiting sergeants for the far-right. They describe longstanding anti-fascists as fascists (http://whitechapelanarchistgroup.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/united-against-fascists/). The BNP recognise the UAF as a boon, and have said as much on the London Patriot blog.

For real, serious, and effective opposition to the BNP and EDL a new approach is needed, one which recognises the reality of the enemy, which seeks to use imagination and guile as much as argument, which is prepared to act utterly ruthlessly to achieve its objective. Such opposition would be based on the politics of class, draw its inspiration from the likes of the 43 Group and Anti-Fascist Action, act without the hindrance of working with the police and strike where necessary. If - as the article above suggests - anti-fascism in this country is to work with ineffectual and moralising speechifiers and windbags from the Labour Party and sky-pilots from churches, I for one want nothing to do with it. I want instead a confident anti-fascism, which promotes a positive agenda of empowerment for the people the fascists seek to recruit. These people already despise the Labour Party, they despise the churches, and rightly so. It's time for anti-fascists to set the agenda, to stop responding to EDL provocations, and rather deal with the threat by any means which should prove effective.

Huh huh you got him trapped now. Despite nothing he said arguing anything like that, nor the UAF front mapping onto a political party like the SPD. Pathetic.

It's always 1932 in your house isn;t it?

"They are" the kings of the kop. What is that is "They are" then follow it up with anything you want? It's bizzare dishonesty.

You criticise the UAF therefore you must mean that the UAF are the SPD and you're the KPD and oh god no here come HITLERS.

Grow up. Stop trying to 'gag people with solidarity'.

ah! mr 78rpm!

So thats a yes, the Labour party are social fascists!

 

[butchersapron]

OMG we're letting Hitler in!!

 

[dennisr]

OMG we're letting Hitler in!!

"You've only got yourselves to blame"

 

[TremulousTetra]

OMG we're letting Hitler in!!

Nahhhhhhhh, just talking shit.





Where's the nutter, I was hoping for another umpteen posts of confusion.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Where's the nutter, I was hoping for another umpteen posts of confusion.

 

[emanymton]

Sun Tzu said:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

And if you know your enemy but not yourself ?

 

[emanymton]

They describe longstanding anti-fascists as fascists (http://whitechapelanarchistgroup.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/united-against-fascists/).

The UAF people in that story are clearly prats, but your comment is disingenuous as that is not what happened.

 

[emanymton]

The EDL on one side and the Islamists need one another. There's a good photo of Nick Griffin sharing a stage to discuss with Abu Hook Hamza.

I don't agree with those who argue that the extreme elements of Islam is Fascist. But this has not occurred to me before. It's rather like the common ground the Zionists has with the Nazis both stress conflict and separation not unity.

 

[Pickman's model]

The UAF people in that story are clearly prats, but your comment is disingenuous as that is not what happened.

what did happen then?

 

[emanymton]

Sounds to me like it amounts to some one said that guy looks like a BNP supporter, someone points out is X who is an ant-fascist so they went oh OK then. You make it sound like there were accusing other anti-fascists of being fascists when in fact it was just some crass stereotyping. Stupid but not malicious.