Pre/Post Bookfair events, inc. launch of 'Mayday'

[The Black Hand]

William - No you should. I haven't seen you since the Dove (Broadway Market)some years ago when I lived in London - I'll be there on Friday evening

 

[biff curtains]

If it helps the two workers who walked out are not asking people to boycott them, it might be good to go and have a go at any trustees you see around.

Personally I am boycotting though, fuck 'em.

 

[The Black Hand]

It does have a great name ('mayday') and some sound folk writing for it so as long as it steers clear of using words like 'praxis' and supporting folk who dismember tramps alive and keep their heads in the fridge here's hoping it might be the start of something good

Look here Chico -
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/09/382291.html?c=on#c181684

The link is to a provisional front cover. It could actually BE the front cover, I am not sure....

 

[The Black Hand]

If it helps the two workers who walked out are not asking people to boycott them, it might be good to go and have a go at any trustees you see around.

Personally I am boycotting though, fuck 'em.

Your choice. I think it is important to keep radical outlets going though, and develop some more where there are none - see the Durham November 3rd Bookfair thread, there are no outlets in the North East...

 

[butchersapron]

That's an awful ghetto cover i'm afraid.

 

[newbie]

isn't it? what on earth would induce anyone over the age of 17 to read that?

excepting those drawn in by the use of the word 'praxis', of course.

 

[biff curtains]

I will buy it but the cover is terrible...

 

[The Black Hand]

That's an awful ghetto cover i'm afraid.

Though cool and stylish too. I am still very black bloc at heart and the aim is to the movement at present, you know, those that actually fight back. NOT those who foolishly imagine you can speak to an imaginary general public 'just like that' (although they and others never manage to themselves).

 

[biff curtains]

NOT those who foolishly imagine you can speak to an imaginary general public 'just like that'

What about those who are actually working on issues that really do effect the day to day lives of thousands of working class people?

 

[butchersapron]

Though cool and stylish too. I am still very black bloc at heart and the aim is to the movement at present, you know, those that actually fight back. NOT those who foolishly imagine you can speak to an imaginary general public 'just like that' (although they and others never manage to themselves).

I'm also a bit worried about that tribe of wombles article - if they've reduced what was an examination of a social tendency born out of the previous decades movements to the existance of one group then i don't think they really got it.

 

[The Black Hand]

What about those who are actually working on issues that really do effect the day to day lives of thousands of working class people?

you mean Trade unionists?

 

[biff curtains]

I should add, I do like the masthead and issue number design, very face magazine!

The picture looks like it was laid out in word though.

 

[newbie]

oops. as part of the general public I thought for a fleeting moment it might say something to me.

 

[The Black Hand]

I'm also a bit worried about that tribe of wombles article - if they've reduced what was an examination of a social tendency born out of the previous decades movements to the existance of one group then i don't think they really got it.

I think you will find that article is more sophisticated than you might imagine. Certainly it's an attempt to describe UK class composition in a far better way than has previously been done.

I think you will say it 'is a good contribution but could have done this and that too' when you have read it...

 

[biff curtains]

you mean Trade unionists?

Trade unionists, non unionised workplace activists, anti debt workers, radical advice workers, tenants and residents association members, anti cuts campaigners, etc etc.

 

[biff curtains]

Trade unionists, non unionised workplace activists, anti debt workers, radical advice workers, tenants and residents association members, anti cuts campaigners, etc etc.

Just to qualify, I don't disagree with mags aimed at activists of a certain type, or academics or whatever - but to claim that the only alternative is a publication aimed at an imaginary general public is ridiculous.

 

[The Black Hand]

Just to qualify, I don't disagree with mags aimed at activists of a certain type, or academics or whatever - but to claim that the only alternative is a publication aimed at an imaginary general public is ridiculous.

Perhaps so, it is just that the movement doesn't publish any that do as you say I am griping about

 

[chico enrico]

actually, i know ill end up reading it anyway so ill just wait till then.

i just wish @s would do something constructive like trying to mobilise some sort of campaign against the govt proposal to get rid of 'meals on wheels' (or even better perhaps organising their own replacement service - tho no vegan slop please).

just an example off the top of my head but you can surely see where i'm coming from.

thing is, i just think they wont do something like that cos it ain't 'extreme' and 'romantic' like all this wombles cobblers and folk getting masked up and chucking bricks at some bank's windows in prague.

 

[The Black Hand]

actually, i know ill end up reading it anyway so ill just wait till then.

i just wish @s would do something constructive like trying to mobilise some sort of campaign against the govt proposal to get rid of 'meals on wheels' (or even better perhaps organising their own replacement service - tho no vegan slop please).

just an example off the top of my head but you can surely see where i'm coming from.

thing is, i just think they wont do something like that cos it ain't 'extreme' and 'romantic' like all this wombles cobblers and folk getting masked up and chucking bricks at some bank's windows in prague.

I think this is about establishing the groundwork and theoretical stance which can regroup the large number of disperate folks out there, and doing more good actions. I think it is niave to pretend 'great events and organisations' can appear as if by magic, i think they are achieved through struggle... The amount of 'nay sayers' in the movement is itself an obstacle....

 

[chico enrico]

I think this is about establishing the groundwork and theoretical stance which can regroup the large number of disperate folks out there, and doing more good actions.

ah! but i think that's where you're going wrong from the outset. why even bother trying to regroup these folk, let alone entering into ideological dialogue with them? the @ movement is full of nuts and weirdoes and these folk just fuck up everything as they have in the past and will continue to do so in the future. 25 years ago these were the 'pacifist types' now it's 101 other different types of cranks.

CW only became a success by telling everyone else to fuck off.

6 folk with their heads screwed on can achieve more than 600 folk who act like headless chickens

 

[newbie]

I think this is about establishing the groundwork and theoretical stance which can regroup the large number of disperate folks out there,

so why aim at 17 year olds who paint their bedroom black and romanticise about getting masked up and breaking stuff?




btw, did you mean disparate or desperate? this isn't a dig about the standard of spelling in academia, it could be either but changes the meaning quite significantly.

 

[The Black Hand]

Chico - I happen to think that there are more good people out there. We start by not being over ambitious I think.

 

[The Black Hand]

so why aim at 17 year olds who paint their bedroom black and romanticise about getting masked up and breaking stuff?

btw, did you mean disparate or desperate? this isn't a dig about the standard of spelling in academia, it could be either but changes the meaning quite significantly.

As I said I like people who fight back rather than talk about it.

And yes, it was disparate.

Who's in academia? Not me.

 

[Raw SslaC]

That's an awful ghetto cover i'm afraid.

Maybe we should have had a photo a pasty faced book worm politico hunched over a computer - very attractive!

The cover wil entice people in, the articles will help inform and radicalise. job done.

Ales
(the designer)

 

[cesare]

Maybe we should have had a photo a pasty faced book worm politico hunched over a computer - very attractive!

The cover wil entice people in, the articles will help inform and radicalise. job done.

Ales
(the designer)

Couldn't you have used an image representing workplace organisation or summat?

I find that cover off-putting and I'm a sympathiser

 

[butchersapron]

Maybe we should have had a photo a pasty faced book worm politico hunched over a computer - very attractive!

The cover wil entice people in, the articles will help inform and radicalise. job done.

Ales
(the designer)

No, the cover will make people laugh harshly (see the threads on this already). I don't know about the content. But your involvement confirms the ghetto nature of the inititiative for me - it's designed by a ghetto queen. Why ape euro-anarchists? Why fetish their politics and culture and try to copy them here? Why not try to connect to peoples lifes rather than politics?

 

[The Black Hand]

No, the cover will make people laugh harshly (see the threads on this already). I don't know about the content. But your involvement confirms the ghetto nature of the inititiative for me - it's designed by a ghetto queen. Why ape euro-anarchists? Why fetish their politics and culture and try to copy them here? Why not try to connect to peoples lifes rather than politics?

Nobody is apeing Euro anarks or fetishising the politics and culture - you are jumping the gun. The articles connect to the UK situation in very good ways, they theorise and suggest ideas to take the movement forward. You are being an OTT 'nay sayer' at the minute...

 

[butchersapron]

Nobody is apeing Euro anarks or fetishising the politics and culture - you are jumping the gun. The articles connect to the UK situation in very good ways, they theorise and suggest ideas to take the movement forward. You are being an OTT 'nay sayer' at the minute...

You are fucking joking? Look at the front cover? It's got some one posing in a euro-afa type fucking hat. It's full of euro buzzwords demandning that the writers be allowed into the 'serious' autonomists club.

And no, i'm not being a nay-sayer for the sake of it- you know i've wished you well on this and hoped you'd come through with something. But frankly, it just looks like the 'political' bollocks i had hoped it would set itself against. I hope i'm proved wrong on that by the content though.

 

[chico enrico]

if it's about 'enricing people in' why not put a picture of Belladonna on the cover?

either way , that guy on the cover looks like a smelly. if you're gonna have someone on the cover at least they they shouldnt be dressed like a hunt sab.

 

[The Black Hand]

You are fucking joking? Look at the front cover? It's got some one posing in a euro-afa type fucking hat. It's full of euro buzzwords demandning that the writers be allowed into the 'serious' autonomists club.

And no, i'm not being a nay-sayer for the sake of it- you know i've wished you well on this and hoped you'd come through with something. But frankly, it just looks like the 'political' bollocks i had hoped it would set itself against. I hope i'm proved wrong on that by the content though.

Let's hope so. You have seen a draft of one of the articles - i sent it to you ages and ages ago.

We have gone with what we have got, not with what we 'should have'. I would like to have all sorts of things but I am practical too.