ANarchist Federation Public Meeting

[Blagsta]

I'd like to come to this, but I have an exam at college that evening.

 

[pk]

Sounds too much like hard 'work' to me...

 

[Frank Drebben]

I refer you to what Charlie said before.

The ICC are not 'banned' - that's your phraseology, not Anarchist Federation's - the ICC are not welcome to descend en masse as a group with blatent intent to disrupt the meeting.... but any individual is welcome to attend and join the discussion as equals who are genuinely interested in anarchist thought.

Sounds like they are banned to me.But its your meeting and you have the right to enforce the rules if you are worried about them trying to recruit your audience.

 

[Alfredo]

We don't disrupt meetings of other political groups. We argue for our ideas: people may disagree with the ideas, they may think we didn't put them forward very well, but we go to meetings to debate, not break them up. We will come back to the specific meeting that led to this ban (almost ten years ago in my memory), but if the AF were at all serious or principled about this they would explain to the outside world just what it was about our behaviour that outraged them so much.

 

[charlie mowbray]

It just goes to show the Orwellian lengths that political groups go to to maintain morale, and sense of belief and purpose in their own moribund organisations. You say the ICC disrupted it so it cannot have been 'succesful' as you say... Or is success that it happened at all. I cannot agree that cos your orgs (in various guises/labels) have existed for '20 years in a downturn' (a paraphrase of one of your members) that this counts as politically worthwhile...

No,they did not attend that meeting, which had a good turnout.
Don't you have anything better to do with your time?

 

[charlie mowbray]

We don't disrupt meetings of other political groups. We argue for our ideas: people may disagree with the ideas, they may think we didn't put them forward very well, but we go to meetings to debate, not break them up. We will come back to the specific meeting that led to this ban (almost ten years ago in my memory), but if the AF were at all serious or principled about this they would explain to the outside world just what it was about our behaviour that outraged them so much.

There's no need to.

 

[The Black Hand]

No,they did not attend that meeting, which had a good turnout.
Don't you have anything better to do with your time?

2, 3 or 4 people?

 

[Alfredo]

The ICC are not 'banned' - that's your phraseology, not Anarchist Federation's - the ICC are not welcome to descend en masse as a group with blatent intent to disrupt the meeting.... but any individual is welcome to attend and join the discussion as equals who are genuinely interested in anarchist thought.

I made it clear in my original post on libcom about this that I wanted to come with one other comrade, which is hardly 'descending en masse'.

 

[Luther Blissett]

Hmm... reminds me of all the different obscure Trot sects.

Me too.

For the 1000th time:

Why can't we all just get along?

This is where i understand contemporary anarchism to be - an increased tolerance and cooperation between the various anarchist tendencies......

 

[Luther Blissett]

We don't disrupt meetings of other political groups. We argue for our ideas: people may disagree with the ideas, they may think we didn't put them forward very well, but we go to meetings to debate, not break them up. We will come back to the specific meeting that led to this ban (almost ten years ago in my memory), but if the AF were at all serious or principled about this they would explain to the outside world just what it was about our behaviour that outraged them so much.

ICC are not anarchists by any stretch of the imagination, and so I can't imagine why they would want to attend an A-Fed meeting.

'The outside world' (an elitist/vanguardist perception) does not require A-Fed to give an explanation or appraisal of their perception of the ICC.

If ICC wants to argue for it's ideas, then why not set up their own meeting, otherwise, if they specifically want to argue for ICC ideas in contrast to anarchist ideas, then why not suggest a topic for public debate and request A-Fed or any of the other anarchist tendencies to participate.

 

[118118]

ICC are not anarchists by any stretch of the imagination

Im(limited)e, the main difference between one could accuse the icc of is:

a lack of inetranl orgnization that would guard against derailing workers efforts toward state capitalism.

whereas those same inetrnal organization guards against a turning toward liberal agenda in the organization.

but, im(limited)e, the exact opposite is evidenced. icc have had terrible internal problems, whereas i sympathize with lefort's criticism of anarchism which says that it is implicitly authoritarian.

i would strongly imagine that come the cruch the opposite of this evidence would occur.
-------------------
as far as their ideological vanguardism of the class goes, it seems to me that left-communism has a plentiful critique of party-rule. that the dnager in their leninism is, not an ideology of class vanguardism. their criticisms of party-rule, iirc seems genuine and not-slight.

but can that be maintained/be real simply by virtue of what the party belives?


-luther - what do you see as the differences between you and the icc? i doubt that you agree that it is a lack of discipline/leadership in your group?

of course i have no knowledge of what the icc are really like, how they do/would get involved with workers efforts. but they do seem to have a criticism of party rule. doesn't that, coupled with their critique of liberal agandas, put you on the same side? is it that their critique of party-rule is not virulent enough? or that the critique would not be implmeneted (-surely if its the latter, then thats down to the structure of the party and not the individuals in the party?)

hope that made sense that seems badly thought out the more i write, from both sides perspective

 

[118118]

what i'm trying to say, is that there seems to be other ways to skin a cat: there are other ways to avoide party-rule than by not using the concept of vanguardism. so why is this not the case/why are they authoritarian/etc.

 

[Luther Blissett]

I am struggling to make sense of what you wrote, 118118

anarchism follows non-hierarchic principle - which is being referred to in these contemporary (i.e. here and now) times as 'horiztontalism'. if you follow the link to my homepage, i've put up a link to a podcast interview from the radio show 'Against the Grain' (20th March 2007), interviewing Marina Sirtin, which will explain the principle, and there's also a link to an article written by her in summer 2005.

"Horizontalism" is one of the ways in which so many here describe part of what they are doing and how they are doing it. Horizontalism is not an ideology, however, it is a relationship -- a way of relating to one another in a directly democratic way while at the same time creating through the process of discovery. What has resulted is the creation of an amazing complex of movements, all linked,that range from hundreds of occupied and producing factories using forms of direct democracy and collective decision making, to dozens of neighborhood asambleas (assemblies), to dozens of piquetero groups, many of whom are organized into a network of the Movement of Unemployed Workers (MTD), and hundreds of autonomous neighborhood kitchens and centers of popular education."

www.contemporary-anarchist.blogspot.com/2007/03/against-grain-podcast-horizontalism.html

 

[118118]

so you're saying that left communists are authoritarian becaiuse they are not horizontal? I guess what i'm saying is that they are not trying for party rule, so the structure of their organization is irrelevent to whether they are authoritarian.

 

[Luther Blissett]

eh? I'm still struggling to make sense of what you've written, 118118

 

[The Black Hand]

Me too.

This is where i understand contemporary anarchism to be - an increased tolerance and cooperation between the various anarchist tendencies......

You know, I increasingly think we are going to have to ignore them...

 

[charlie mowbray]

You know, I increasingly think we will have to ignore you

 

[The Black Hand]

You know, I increasingly think we will have to ignore you

You always did.

 

[pk]

Can't think why...

 

[Luther Blissett]

You know, I increasingly think we are going to have to ignore them...

That would mean going against the principles of membership of the Anarchist International, and I'm not going to do that.

 

[118118]

meh. i'm not icc and have nothing to do with politics in reality. i just post round here.

 

[TeeJay]

The ICC are a left communist group whose main activity (besides holding their own public meetings) is showing up at other left groups meeting and events and handing out leaflets about how shit the other group are.

So exactly what you try and do here on u75 - for example your latest incessant bleating about how pointless RTS was.

Incidentally, didn't you also say how pointless and worthless your own political activity is - presumably you think the AF is as well then?

 

[In Bloom]

Incidentally, didn't you also say how pointless and worthless your own political activity is - presumably you think the AF is as well then?

Twist my words, why don't you? I said that I'd never been involved in a successful campaign, which is true. I also said that the left is an irrelevance, which is equally true. You pulled "pointless and worthless" from your own arse, I'm afraid.

Any chance you can stop trolling in the announce forum by the way? You get so upset when other people do it.

 

[The Black Hand]

That would mean going against the principles of membership of the Anarchist International, and I'm not going to do that.

Will have to gen up on that...