Proposal Mayday 2009

[The Black Hand]

To reconfigure the anarchist, Marxist humanist, Autonomist (but fek the Ultra left) and other open Marxists into more of a conscious movement, to improve politics and especially political practice. This includes groups/federations (local ones too) but also many of the disparate individuals there are. This will be the first Congress of the class struggle libertarian movement this country have ever seen, and will then take place every 2 years. So the next would be Mayday 2011.

May 2008 is taken up with the 40th anniversary of 1968, so the movement will be rudderless (still) without this sort of proposal for better politics, the alternative is the crap sectarian and divided movement(s) we have now. So - you are either for improving politics at events like this, or continuing the status quo. Which is it?

 

[Keyser]

Who is organising Mayday 2008? Will the Anarchist Federation and Solidarity Federation be involved in this and will it be organised with the May 1st rallies we get at Mayday?

Sounds like a reasonable idea and I'm all for having Marxists (non-Leninist ones) link up and work with class struggle anarchists, long overdue IMHO.

 

[JHE]

Who is organising Mayday 2008?

This year it is the turn of Banbury Town Council.

http://www.banbury.gov.uk/infopage.asp?infoid=1545

The anarchists are staying in and washing their hair, I think.

 

[The Black Hand]

Who is organising Mayday 2008? Will the Anarchist Federation and Solidarity Federation be involved in this and will it be organised with the May 1st rallies we get at Mayday?

Sounds like a reasonable idea and I'm all for having Marxists (non-Leninist ones) link up and work with class struggle anarchists, long overdue IMHO.

Yes, it needs to happen. Currently we have a political movement which doesn't do politics!!

 

[The Black Hand]

The lack of discussion of a topic such as this shows that people do not seriously want to confront the problems the movement has. Instead, it's 'petty bitching business as usual', rather than serious politics.

Politics means real world discussion not a load of virtual shite, and it is in the real world that political progress will occur. Not online...

 

[The Black Hand]

This is a relevant link and spot on. It appears that some other predictable @'s and others are in denial about the scale of the problem(s) which face us all;

http://ianbone.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/the-anarchist-movement-slower-than-a-glacier/

 

[brasicritique]

there is no movement and none of the various factions on these boards can say they represent anyone but themselves

 

[The Black Hand]

there is no movement and none of the various factions on these boards can say they represent anyone but themselves

But that does not mean the different parts of what exists cannot discuss this idea seriously, the alternative is further fragmentation. Discussing something does not commit anybody to anything, and nobody would take anything said on this site as the last word would they? I certainly never have.

 

[Oletjo]

To reconfigure the anarchist, Marxist humanist, Autonomist (but fek the Ultra left) and other open Marxists into more of a conscious movement, to improve politics and especially political practice. This includes groups/federations (local ones too) but also many of the disparate individuals there are. This will be the first Congress of the class struggle libertarian movement this country have ever seen, and will then take place every 2 years. So the next would be Mayday 2011.

May 2008 is taken up with the 40th anniversary of 1968, so the movement will be rudderless (still) without this sort of proposal for better politics, the alternative is the crap sectarian and divided movement(s) we have now. So - you are either for improving politics at events like this, or continuing the status quo. Which is it?

Cool, I like it. Can I join in? But Can I take out the humanist - I am more of a POSThumanist.

 

[Oletjo]

Actually, not TAKE OUT humanist - just add post in brackets - there can be no POSThumanism without humanism

 

[Dillinger4]

*yawn*

Boredom is always counter-revolutionary.

ALWAYS.

 

[audiotech]

there is no movement and none of the various factions on these boards can say they represent anyone but themselves

There's alway's your bowel movement to consider.

 

[Oletjo]

*yawn*

Boredom is always counter-revolutionary.

ALWAYS.

Are you *the* dillinjer?

 

[The Black Hand]

Cool, I like it. Can I join in? But Can I take out the humanist - I am more of a POSThumanist.

Blimey - sensible people alert, U75 needs more like you

 

[In Bloom]

Why would anybody want to spend their bank holiday afternoon in some stuffy student union meeting room, listening to a bunch of lefty groupsicules talk at each other? The mind boggles

 

[Dillinger4]

Why would anybody want to spend their bank holiday afternoon in some stuffy student union meeting room, listening to a bunch of lefty groupsicules talk at each other? The mind boggles

I agree.

 

[Oletjo]

Why would anybody want to spend their bank holiday afternoon in some stuffy student union meeting room, listening to a bunch of lefty groupsicules talk at each other? The mind boggles

Dunno - better than spending it on the beach eating Ice Cream I guess - but each to their own. Just because some people are happy to work nine to five in a dull job - only to have their home repossesed when the reccesion comes and don't get excited by the opportunity of maxing out their credit card on crap, doesn't mean others shouldn't waste their time working towards an alternative more fulfilling lifestyle.

Just a thought.

 

[Dillinger4]

Dunno - better than spending it on the beach eating Ice Cream I guess - but each to their own. Just because some people are happy to work nine to five in a dull job - only to have their home repossesed when the reccesion comes and don't get excited by the opportunity of maxing out their credit card on crap, doesn't mean others shouldn't waste their time working towards an alternative more fulfilling lifestyle.

Just a thought.

Sitting on a beach eating ice cream is far more revolutionary than anything suggested here.

Don't confuse things here.

 

[Oletjo]

That said, I don't see a huge metaphysical difference between the ideals of thatcherite neo-liberalism and entrepreneurs sitting around talking at each other coming up with new ideas on how to make money. The only difference is 'Lefties' - if that is what I am, which I would actually contest - sitting around coming up with new ideas on how to structure a progressive and compassionate economic and civil system dont think money is the most important thing. I have always felt, 'radicals' who sit around fucked off with incompetence would also make pretty good entrepreneurs if they were to think that material gain was the most important thing in life.

 

[Dillinger4]

Yeh, me either. I think that much goes without saying.

But you are not going to come up with any new ideas in those dull as fuck meetings.

You should go and sit on a beach and eat ice cream instead.

 

[Oletjo]

Sitting on a beach eating ice cream is far more revolutionary than anything suggested here.

Don't confuse things here.

Only if you stole the ice cream - or developed an economic system based upon sitting on a beach eating ice cream - just accepting the norm is hardly revolutionary... I always wonder if your sollution is - actually I'm pretty content with the way things are and can't be fucked to do anything about it - why you would spend your tinme sitting around in a dingy web forum talking at each other.

 

[Oletjo]

Yeh, me either. I think that much goes without saying.

But you are not going to come up with any new ideas in those dull as fuck meetings.

You should go and sit on a beach and eat ice cream instead.

Oh - I should probably wait for you to reply first!

 

[Dillinger4]

So, unless you go to meetings, you accept the norm?



Like I said, eating ice cream is far more revolutionary. Revolution of everyday life.

 

[Oletjo]

Hmmm - however - us having this discussion - if I go away and consider how eating ice cream could actually be revolutionary then doesn't that prove that having a meeting (all be it in a virtual, rather than actual world) could be productive - thus - simply sitting on a beach has only been presented to me as a concept for revolution by us communicating. If we both just sat, individually on a beach, eating ice cream, I would not have considered that it was possibly a revolutionary act.

That said, the concept of revolution is slightly problematic - again, talking this through would help determine what we hope or fear from the concept. Just sitting on the beach allowing the icecream, as it melts and runs over our fingers, to determine a shift in social values is a bit of a lazy way of approaching it don't you think - it's much the same as saying God, or science, or 'nature' will sort it out.

 

[Dillinger4]

You have a pretty naive and simplistic view of revolutionary theory.

Placing your faith in talking about socialism with socialists and 'determining a shift in social values' seems an even worse way of approaching anything that leaving it to 'god science or nature'

 

[Oletjo]

You have a pretty naive and simplistic view of revolutionary theory.

Placing your faith in talking about socialism with socialists and 'determining a shift in social values' seems an even worse way of approaching anything that leaving it to 'god science or nature'

I am not a socialist. I am talking about working towards building viable alternatives within the the current econo-political system - now, I agree, even that is naive, it is inherently linked to modernist-humanist ideology which is itself a product of judaio-christian belief which replaces heaven with the development of a possibility of a utopian society.

I guess the way I would prefer to view it as creating temporary zones of stability which operate within and as part of the wider economic system but that provides a better, more productive environment for existence - maybe this is a kind of anarcho-syndicalist nesting instict - though I am not one of them either. To be honest, I just believe that in the same way capitalism will not survive if it does not create new markets, new products, new business I believe that progressive politics will not survive if it does not engage with similar processes of trial and error - on a micro scale that is allowed to develop or fail on its own terms. Maybe it is a kind of evolutionaly social-communalism.

I don't know, and to be honest I don't care - I am going to continueto build things within the actual world that work towards viable progressive alternatives - I am not interested in Utopias I just can't be arsed to spend my life working for some ignorant company that couldn't give a shit a bout me as a human being with the only reward being a little bit of money which I can spend on survival.

 

[In Bloom]

Dunno - better than spending it on the beach eating Ice Cream I guess - but each to their own. Just because some people are happy to work nine to five in a dull job - only to have their home repossesed when the reccesion comes and don't get excited by the opportunity of maxing out their credit card on crap, doesn't mean others shouldn't waste their time working towards an alternative more fulfilling lifestyle.

Just a thought.

Listen you patronising, Fabian fuck, I hate meetings, I absolutely loath them. The fucking boring arguments, the pointless declarations, the whole idiotic bloody process. Unfortunately, somethimes they're necessary, I'd just rather avoid the pointless ones.

Changing the world by "building alternatives" is a hopelessly utopian fantasy. Do you really think your housing coops or your social centres on their own can stand against the collective economic might of global capitalism?

 

[In Bloom]

So, unless you go to meetings, you accept the norm?



Like I said, eating ice cream is far more revolutionary. Revolution of everyday life.

I have to disagree there. Everyday life is not revolutionary, but any revolution must, by necessity, begin with everyday life. We have to rupture from the everyday, the mundane, it's just you're never going to do that standing apart from it, talking about how to "build alternatives".

 

[Dillinger4]

I have to disagree there. Everyday life is not revolutionary, but any revolution must, by necessity, begin with everyday life. We have to rupture from the everyday, the mundane, it's just you're never going to do that standing apart from it, talking about how to "build alternatives".

I agree. It was kind of what I was trying to say, albeit in an incredibly simplistic way.

I fucking loathe 'meetings' as well myself.

And eating ice cream is far far more revolutionary than any of the meetings I have ever been to.

 

[Oletjo]

Fair do's. you've convinced me. I'm off to shoot myself in the head.