what a depressing load of bollocks mayday was
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MatthewCuffe
New Member
It was about volume 2.
It needs to be volume 11.
It needs to be volume 11.
The weekend saw a smallish Trade Union march that was much like every other year with an important exception. The normally loyal TU leading bureaucrats were savagely critical of the Labour Govt.
The weekend also saw a large anti-racist festival in Trafalgar Square made up of in the main young people. I mean teenage young and early twenties. Last year's saw TU leaders (ab) use the opportun(ist)ity to implore everyone to vote Labour and extolled the 'virtues' of the LP Govt This year they did not. Although the youngsters were often pissed they were remarkably polite and well behaved, I thought, like the boring adult I am. It was good to see the cannabis laws blatantly disregarded by those only just old enough to legally buy cigarettes. It was very good to see and hear thousands of young people black and white chant 'fuck the police'.
The weather was nice.
Sure, many leftists were out canvassing for Respect or leafletting against the BNP.
The Labour and TU movement is undergoing change. The @narchos have gone to bed/grown up/given up but were always insignificant. The TU movement is radicalising from the bottom up but still suffers lack of confidence. There is a new and growing left that is much younger than it was a few years ago, while many former leftists have become old and boring and reminisce for the good old Thatcher years when small groups of @narchists occassionally blocked the streets while workers suffered defeat after defeat.
The new generation will be led by the school kids who struck against the war and fought with the police. They are starting work now, joining unions, or they are at Uni where the left is bigger than it has been for years.
There were no rucks over the May Day weekend. But you know, in the 1980s the police would not have stood by while crowds of teenagers chanted 'fuck the police'. In the 1980s tired old leftists rabitted on about the sixties and seventies. Sure there was significant revolt then. Look around you. See the huge movement in latin America. See the anti-war movement. Listen to the revolutionary youth. It is not yet 68, but it is a fuck of a lot better than 86.
The weekend also saw a large anti-racist festival in Trafalgar Square made up of in the main young people. I mean teenage young and early twenties. Last year's saw TU leaders (ab) use the opportun(ist)ity to implore everyone to vote Labour and extolled the 'virtues' of the LP Govt This year they did not. Although the youngsters were often pissed they were remarkably polite and well behaved, I thought, like the boring adult I am. It was good to see the cannabis laws blatantly disregarded by those only just old enough to legally buy cigarettes. It was very good to see and hear thousands of young people black and white chant 'fuck the police'.
The weather was nice.
Sure, many leftists were out canvassing for Respect or leafletting against the BNP.
The Labour and TU movement is undergoing change. The @narchos have gone to bed/grown up/given up but were always insignificant. The TU movement is radicalising from the bottom up but still suffers lack of confidence. There is a new and growing left that is much younger than it was a few years ago, while many former leftists have become old and boring and reminisce for the good old Thatcher years when small groups of @narchists occassionally blocked the streets while workers suffered defeat after defeat.
The new generation will be led by the school kids who struck against the war and fought with the police. They are starting work now, joining unions, or they are at Uni where the left is bigger than it has been for years.
There were no rucks over the May Day weekend. But you know, in the 1980s the police would not have stood by while crowds of teenagers chanted 'fuck the police'. In the 1980s tired old leftists rabitted on about the sixties and seventies. Sure there was significant revolt then. Look around you. See the huge movement in latin America. See the anti-war movement. Listen to the revolutionary youth. It is not yet 68, but it is a fuck of a lot better than 86.
), but there's no way that I and many others "...reminisce for the good old Thatcher years". Now the seventies? 1974 being a particularly good year.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
ah groucho, ever the swppie. the anarchists haven'tgrown up,they're justundergoing a law-induced collective identity crisis. but by the sounds of it we should have joined you guys for the concert totry and recruit all the kids. god forbidthey get luredinto the borgmind rather than good honest anarchy!
bluestreak said:
Trouble is I've not seen much of this 'good old anarchy'. Too often it is just an excuse to snipe at everyone else for not being 'radical' enough. A genuine challenge to the status quo led by @narchists would quite excite me, though ultimately I think that any revolutionary movement would need democratic accountability and discipline when up against the State, the media etc.
I quite liked the Mayday Monopoly idea and the resistance is fertile stuff but these were not the exclusive preserve of @narchists.
The school student strikes - that was inspired by young Marxists. The workers illegally walking out against the war - Marxist 'led'. The unofficial strikes in the post...blocking the road in Whitehall in protest against the war etc etc.
Defiance of the ban on demonstrating in Parly Square has been led by liberals and was derided by self styled @narchos on these boards. Back in the 80s there were @narchists who actually did stuff. Unfortunately, for all their rhetoric they were exclusive, highly centralised and undemocratic organisationally before imploding.
I prefer to organise to fight the system not to sit back and whinge about those who do try. That is not aimed at you, but some of the @narchists on these boards who have now left, and many others I have met over the years.
I'd prefer to storm the barracades than spend my time petitioning and talking, but I'd prefer petition than to deride others for not storming the barracades.
MatthewCuffe
New Member
Groucho is right. The Left is regenerating from the roots upwards. It is fiercely critical of this government and it will replace them. It lacks confidence because it has been bullied for many years, decades. But it has spirit and energy, and even if the volume is quiet that does not mean it will not be roaring in the coming years.
For me it was my first proper MayDay, and it was an absolute and total revelation.
It was home.
Amalgamate the Love Music Hate Racism festival along with the TUC march and the Autonomous Bloc (those elements of it that are open to amalgamation - the rest will never be forced by anyone to do anything) and you have something potent, intellectual, musical, joyous and utterly, utterly alive (if a little poor at the moment).
It was good to see the Bank of England renationalised by the Space Hijackers, too.
For me it was my first proper MayDay, and it was an absolute and total revelation.
It was home.
Amalgamate the Love Music Hate Racism festival along with the TUC march and the Autonomous Bloc (those elements of it that are open to amalgamation - the rest will never be forced by anyone to do anything) and you have something potent, intellectual, musical, joyous and utterly, utterly alive (if a little poor at the moment).
It was good to see the Bank of England renationalised by the Space Hijackers, too.
Yeah, and its not joining the SWP!, in my home city, the youth group that came out of the Iraq war, the Independent Socialist Youth Forum will have nothing to do with SWP, indeed, they think it is a joke. In fact, some of them were pictured on IUK with the autonomous bloc on mayday.
Ave N. Ham
winging it
In Preston over the Mayday weekend the SWP/Respect only appeared at the Workers Memorial Day event wearing their rosettes and singing hymns along with the vicar of Preston. The anarchists, or more accurately, the anarcho-syndicalists, had a very enjoyable Cabaret night, raised money for strikers, had a stall on the Flag Market on Mayday itself, the only workers group to do so, and laid a wreath at the 1842 memorial commemorating all those workers who had died in struggle against capitalism and the state. I know who I am more impressed with.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
heh, i knew i'd get a rise out of you for that, groucho.
anarchists got sick of being caught between the pointless liberal bollocks of marching with the trades unions (about the only power the bloody unions have left) or spending the day playing cat and mouse with the cops. these days anarchists work in small groups, generally doing work in their community and positive actions rather than trying to amass political power by co-opting today's fashionable cause.
matt cuffe - this was your first mayday eh? and you can tell us that it had more spirit than the maydays before the police invented the kettle? nothing like a free gig to bring people out is there. if you think most of them would ahve been there otherwise you're a fool. and the point of autonomy is to be autonomous. the reasons why anarchists often don't amalgate is because they're told "join us for unity" by people who stand to gain power and influence in ways that anarchists, by the nature of their convictions, are automatically opposed to.
the gig was a damn good idea, and i hope that anarchists more farsighted and less wary of mayday than myself were spreading the good word.
anarchists got sick of being caught between the pointless liberal bollocks of marching with the trades unions (about the only power the bloody unions have left) or spending the day playing cat and mouse with the cops. these days anarchists work in small groups, generally doing work in their community and positive actions rather than trying to amass political power by co-opting today's fashionable cause.
matt cuffe - this was your first mayday eh? and you can tell us that it had more spirit than the maydays before the police invented the kettle? nothing like a free gig to bring people out is there. if you think most of them would ahve been there otherwise you're a fool. and the point of autonomy is to be autonomous. the reasons why anarchists often don't amalgate is because they're told "join us for unity" by people who stand to gain power and influence in ways that anarchists, by the nature of their convictions, are automatically opposed to.
the gig was a damn good idea, and i hope that anarchists more farsighted and less wary of mayday than myself were spreading the good word.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
You say so because?
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
It also has the advantage that you never have to work with anybody else at their pace, or work with anybody who doesn't agree with you, or indeed relate to anybody else except by denouncing them for not being as active as you consider yourselves to be.bluestreak said:
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Donna Ferentes said:
there is that advantage too.
of course, this does have its downside, hence the constant between aspects of the left and the assorted anarchists. and of course, between anarchist and anarchist.
it used to really piss me off, but then i realised i was just as inflexible as all the rest and stopped trying the change the world. but no matter how much we can be accused of divisiveness by the SWP and their ilk, anarchists and the SWP are never going to see eye to eye because they quite simply have different aims at heart.
What has the British left done well, ever?Donna Ferentes said:
The British left is nearly completely disconnected from the white working class, and this has meant that the BNP are being able to take the position that the left once had as being the only people interested in working class people's concerns. The left is more interested in cosying up with Imams and trying to run any emerging social movements into the ground than representing the concerns of ordinary people. Not that I'm saying the anarchist movement is significantly better, but at least a lot of anarchists realise what needs to be done, and a lot have been doing it.
Taxamo Welf
kebagels pls
Fuck me!!!MatthewCuffe said:
MatthewCuffe said:
no elements of the autonomous block are open to amalgamation with the TUC or a LMHR concert i'm afraid. A real pity
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