I think I'm back in the Lib Dems.... I think
- Thread starter Shevek
- Start date
JHE
.
I'm not sure that AFed has many rucks with the police, if any - unless there's an anarchist rugby team that plays the Met's seventh XV or something. I think you'll find life in AFed is more about selling the group's publications, having 'socials' with the anarcho-syndicalists of SolFed and debating with Class War. (I'm not sure what they debate. The best type of cider? Whose round it is?)
In any case, what you've got to do is agree an open political relationship with the Lib Dems. You've got to explain that you do love them, but you have other political needs too and a free person's needs cannot all be met within one single relationship. The Lib Dems, you must explain to them, should not feel hurt if you go off to Brighton for a dirty weekend with AFed or a week of Tantric Lovemaking with the Greenies in Glastonbury. You don't love the Lib Dems any less. If all else fails, remind them that they are supposed to be liberals and the personal is political.
In any case, what you've got to do is agree an open political relationship with the Lib Dems. You've got to explain that you do love them, but you have other political needs too and a free person's needs cannot all be met within one single relationship. The Lib Dems, you must explain to them, should not feel hurt if you go off to Brighton for a dirty weekend with AFed or a week of Tantric Lovemaking with the Greenies in Glastonbury. You don't love the Lib Dems any less. If all else fails, remind them that they are supposed to be liberals and the personal is political.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
In case you didn't get the point the last 3 or 4 times, i'll spell it out explicitly, there's no way on earth the AF would accept you as a member.
Pre-banned list?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Yep, him and ern
Shevek, it doesn't sound like you actually agree with the AF's politics in the first place. Why would you want to join?
Our aims and principles are the minimum level of political agreement within the organisation, give them a read. I fail to see how you can agree with them and say things like:
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I honestly don’t think you could pick a worse example to support your position than Chile/Allende shevek.
For starters, there was no Communist govt and Allende was not a Communist - he was a moderate socialist at the head of a broad coalition that included the Communists. His disastrous government actually highlights all the contradictions and limits of the 'moderate change within the boundaries of the law' approach.
The most obvious lesson being that attempts to develop real change (leaving aside if this is what they were after) is not met with a shrug of the shoulders by the local state and international capital, it's met with resistance across a number of fronts: economic (capital strikes, distribution boycotts, sabotage of production, unilateral abandonment of agreed international trade contracts, credit squeezes etc); Military (domestic terrorism, murder, violence, coups and dictatorship); political (funding of opposition parties, media, prominent personalities).
The end result of the Allende govt’s illusions in the sort of politics you’re trying to sell here was 30 years of military dictatorship and thousands and thousands dead. The system does not allow challenges to its functioning to arise from within itself - no anarchist should need telling this in 2009.
For starters, there was no Communist govt and Allende was not a Communist - he was a moderate socialist at the head of a broad coalition that included the Communists. His disastrous government actually highlights all the contradictions and limits of the 'moderate change within the boundaries of the law' approach.
The most obvious lesson being that attempts to develop real change (leaving aside if this is what they were after) is not met with a shrug of the shoulders by the local state and international capital, it's met with resistance across a number of fronts: economic (capital strikes, distribution boycotts, sabotage of production, unilateral abandonment of agreed international trade contracts, credit squeezes etc); Military (domestic terrorism, murder, violence, coups and dictatorship); political (funding of opposition parties, media, prominent personalities).
The end result of the Allende govt’s illusions in the sort of politics you’re trying to sell here was 30 years of military dictatorship and thousands and thousands dead. The system does not allow challenges to its functioning to arise from within itself - no anarchist should need telling this in 2009.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
That A&P mission statement thing is simultaneously the best and worst written thing I've seen about anarchism. Leaving aside it's use of jargon, it's about as clear a picture as you can get of what anarchists believe, and manages to explain it fairly clearly.
Altho point 7 wanders off a bit, and a couple of the paras could do with more editing
It also sums up why, in it's present form, anarchism is never going to achieve it's aim of worldwide overthrow of capitalism:
Of the 6.7bn people on the planet, most of them hold some kind of religious belief. Nearly 3bn of them hold an Abrahamic belief. About 1.3bn are Hindu. About I would presume that among this multitude, you will find the working class the previous 9 paragraphs allude to.
So basically, on a global level, you're opposed to something that most of the world, certainly the world's poorest, hold as a deep belief and faith. Good luck with trying to turn that one around.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That point is simply there to keep religious headbangers out of the AF - it''s got nothing to with wider dynamics of religion or secularisation.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
you're not an anarchist, you're a radical liberal
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
It's a mission statement saying 'We believe the working class of the world must unite to save itself' and then says 'Only we don't like the beliefs of 90%+ of this global working class, and you can't join us if you have them'.
And you have to admit, point 7 does go on a bit.
YouSir
Retired from Urban
Ah Shevek, where's the point to your constant political re-positioning? Everyones beliefs evolve but yours seem to do so every 24 hours and in completely contradictory directions. Sit down, have a think, decide what you actually believe and then stick to it for a week at least.
Plus you don't necessarily have to join the AF, it's not obligatory for Anarchists surprisingly enough.
Plus you don't necessarily have to join the AF, it's not obligatory for Anarchists surprisingly enough.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It's really not a mission statement, it's a list of minimal positions required to join the AF. It doesn't help to confuse it with a more substantial analysis - which runs along the lines of religion dissapearing when the conditions which produce it are overcome by the w/c themselves - not by the the AF. It's simply a prgamatic clause to keep,as i said, religious nutjobs out.
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
politically, you're all over the shop, all ting to all men, I'd say.
which is prolly why you were LD to start, as that pretty much sums up both their ID & MO.
nuffink personal, like....
JHE
.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
The torries have the same job open. Slightly longer hours the the salary is double.
Time to join your local foxhunt to blag your way in?
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
1) there's a mixing up here of formal practices and cultural ID (being born into a society where a particular Faith is dominant) on the one hand, and burning faith on the other. The Uk is overwhelmingly, ostensibly C of E england - 71% in the 2001 census; can you see 35m brits caring that deeply about god, or if indeed anything beyond 'hatches, matches n despatches"?
I grant you the Brits are amongst the planet's most irreligious people, but the same lack of firmity or depth of faith is actually a global phenomenon - why d'ya think all those godless lefties are so enduringly popular in catholic south america?
secondly, the key point is 'organised religion'. There is NOTHING, to me, to prevent an AFer - or any other ideological lefty - from grasping a progressive/socialist xtian in a warm comradely embrace, and agreeing to debate the fine detail later, and accept each of us have a right to the gods of our hearts. But huge religious-bureaucratic insdtitutions are a different matter of evil entirely, and are undoubtedly a key part of the problem, so can never be a solution.
Aye. For instance, Spain has, historically, had one of the strongest and most anti-clerical anarchist movements, despite being one of the most staunchly Catholic nations in the world, so I don't see how being anti-religion is really that much of a barrier to growth.
More importantly, the AF is not a mass organisation or a representative organisation, nor do we aim to be. We are what we are, a minority organisation within the wider pro-working class movement with a specific set of politics. We don't aim to persuade a majority of people to agree with every minutae of those politics, so much as we aim to promote working class self-activity and anarchist forms of organisation.
The As+Ps are not really aimed at explaining what anarchists believe, so much as they define the politics of our organisation, I'd say that they do that reasonably well, even if they could be a little better written.That A&P mission statement thing is simultaneously the best and worst written thing I've seen about anarchism. Leaving aside it's use of jargon, it's about as clear a picture as you can get of what anarchists believe, and manages to explain it fairly clearly.
Altho point 7 wanders off a bit, and a couple of the paras could do with more editing
why?
Does everyone in the AF appear a ready-made ideologically pure anarchist. All I am saying is I like some of the ideas and would like to find out more. You may not neccesarily agree with everything I say but I am open to debate and persuasion. Isn't it enough to be interested in the ideas? Surely the rest follows?
Shevek
YouSir
Retired from Urban
If you're interested in ideas talk to people, don't join a fully fledged organisation which has clear cut ideological guidelines. Not that I entirely understand your yearning to 'belong' anyway, be it Lib Dems or AF I reckon you'd be far better off clarifying your own thoughts than joining any group with a view to embracing their views.
but thats just it anarchists like butchers and (I think) in bloom dont discuss or debate ideas with people they just snipe at you from the sidelines, picking holes in what you say. I get the impression that butchers is really well read on anarchist history for example but he mostly gives one line answers. Why can't he elaborate on things? You'd think they would be pleased someone was interested in anarchism.
Shevek
JimW
支那暗杀团
You'd think they'd be crying out for stalwart cadre, steadfast and unwavering and endlessly loyal fighters for the class in the heroic tradition of the Free Women of Spain!
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