PROTEST PROTEST PROTEST OCTOBER 9th 2006

[FreddyB]

so you think the fact that new roads being built were being faced with an eviciion bill that ran to several millions of pounds as well as the massive PR damage wasnt the reason that even before they lost the election the tories retreated massively on there road building project and by and large new labour have never followed it up?

I don't think they retreated at all and Labour built a road despite explicitly saying in their '97 manifesto they wouldn't, the PR didn't matter to either of them and it's hard to say what effect the costs incurred had.

That's not to say attempts to stop roads weren't worthwhile, I think they were and I'd do it again but saying that they actually stopped when none of the roads directly challenged were is of over egging of the pudding somewhat.

anyway fuck off with yer derail, thats not what this thread is about

I'll shut up now

 

[smokedout]

the one way you will NOT build any vaguely progressive movement - anarchist or otherwise - is by idiotic, futile protests like this. they simply play into the hands of the propagandists amongst your enemies, because it will look so ridiculous, and deter any and all potential recruits by such a seemibngly-hopeless protest.

so was mayday, seattle, rts etc idiotic and futile

i dont see why anarchists demonstrating (and at least attempting) to take direct action on the day of the opening of parliament is futile or idiotic

Instead you do it by slow, painstaking, agonisingly tortuous grassroots building, focussing on local issues that directly hit people's pockets, and having confidence that most people are smart enough, long term, to see where all the dots join up.

sounds like a load of reformist wank to me mate

belive it or most working class kids (and non working class) would rather head into town for a bit of a ding dong with the old bill and a chance to get on telly than attend a trade union meeting

if a thousand anarchists turn up and manage to disrupt the opening of parliament then that will be what all those, present and future whove been involved in the anachist movement so badly need

a victory ... no matter how small

and from that we will start to become a potent force that people at grassroots/community levels will start to take seriously

 

[smokedout]

fair points btw freddie

 

[JHE]

...go ABSOLUTELY MENTAL and SPONTANEOUSLY RISE UP and, even if you have no hope of anything better occuring, just dance and sing and speak and protest and rant and rage and agitate and organise and mobilise for something better?

 

[treelover]

You could say the same about the walkout by the RMT and the heckling at the TUC conference today, for me it gave me a bit of hope that there is still political passion and fire in the labour movement, and not just careerists who think unions are just about better insurance.Fashions come and go, maybe blairism is losing its appeal, yet some of its policies that will be in the Queens Speech are very very nasty. We can't be silent, can we?

he one way you will NOT build any vaguely progressive movement - anarchist or otherwise - is by idiotic, futile protests like this. they simply play into the hands of the propagandists amongst your enemies, because it will look so ridiculous, and deter any and all potential recruits by such a seemibngly-hopeless protest.

 

[Tom A]

so was mayday, seattle, rts etc idiotic and futile

Simple test:

By May 2 (or June 19 or whatever), was the world now:

(a) a bilssful anarchist utopia where everyone was happy except vivisectionists, meat eaters, and fascists (aka anyone to the right of Bakunin), or

(b) the same old evil nasty capitalist system that had remained in place for the at least the past three centuries and is quite likely to remain in place for at least three centruries more in one form or another.

Oh, and

belive it or most working class kids (and non working class) would rather head into town for a bit of a ding dong with the old bill and a chance to get on telly than attend a trade union meeting

And most would quite happily shop till they drop and then collapse in front of Big Brother/Celebrity Love Island/Teen Idol than either of those things put together x 1000.

 

[treelover]

If 911 had not happened, imo, the anti-globalisation/ pro democracy movement would have been in a much stronger position.

 

[Streathamite]

so was mayday, seattle, rts etc idiotic and futile

jesus...I've said it before, i'm saying it now, the problem with all too many anarchists, and the reason why they've not once got ANYWHERE is that they live in a complete lalaland, and never have enough theory OR practice, let alone a credible untiy of the two.
ALL of those movements you mentioned -as really, you should know, to give yourself SOME credibility - happened not as some spontaneous outburst but as the end product, the last stage in the process from precisely the zslow building process I referred to.
and yes, as it happens. they all were, excepting RTS, futile. What concrete societal change did they achieve? stuff all. That doesn't ruin the point of doing them, but they need to happen in conjuction with other campaigns, organisation, community building. here people just won't be able to relate irt to the bread-and-butter circs of their own lives.

dont see why anarchists demonstrating (and at least attempting) to take direct action on the day of the opening of parliament is futile or idiotic

1) you won't get anywhere near parliament
2) you'll give the redtops carte blanche to portray all leftist protest as mindless thuggery
3) you won't stop Parliament
4) you will drive potentially interested, politically unconsconscious-but-vaguely-angry people back into tory apathy because they'll see you as a bunch of clowns.

sounds like a load of reformist wank to me mate

err, i'm a marxist, I don't do 'reform'. i do, however, do 'reality' and it doesn't really surprise me that you brush off any accounting for reality as 'reformist wank'! Let me i ntroduce you to this place called 'real life', one day, when you are ready for it....

belive it or most working class kids (and non working class) would rather head into town for a bit of a ding dong with the old bill and a chance to get on telly than attend a trade union meeting

really??? well fuck a duck I'd never have guessed that!
most working class kids - like me once - would prolly refer to go to watch the footie or go clubbing than do either, but it still doesn't obviate the need for people to unite ideas as to why we do all this - what the cause, and aim, and programme is,
sorry, did you actually have a point here?

if a thousand anarchists turn up and manage to disrupt the opening of parliament then that will be what all those, present and future whove been involved in the anachist movement so badly need

err...HOW MANY members in afed, solfed, class war etc? and where else do you expect them to come from? you really are living in dafties dreamland here. you'll get -- at m,ost - a handful, and any disruption they manage to cause will be used by the State to justify even more draconian curbs on civil liberties

a victory ... no matter how small

a massive propaganda own goal that will leave you even more impotent, adrift and marginalised

and from that we will start to become a potent force that people at grassroots/community levels will start to take seriously

I can think of no better way to ensure nobody takes you seriously than this ill-conceived, hairbrained plan.
the genuine revolutionaries of china, russia, spain etc would piss themselves laughing if they could see this.

 

[Streathamite]

Simple test:

By May 2 (or June 19 or whatever), was the world now:

(a) a bilssful anarchist utopia where everyone was happy except vivisectionists, meat eaters, and fascists (aka anyone to the right of Bakunin), or

(b) the same old evil nasty capitalist system that had remained in place for the at least the past three centuries and is quite likely to remain in place for at least three centruries more in one form or another.

Oh, and

And most would quite happily shop till they drop and then collapse in front of Big Brother/Celebrity Love Island/Teen Idol than either of those things put together x 1000.

<applause>
THANK YOU Tom A - this might drum sense into their heads.
people like these are a living explanation as to why the corporate world gets away with murder.

 

[soulman]

<applause>
THANK YOU Tom A - this might drum sense into their heads.
people like these are a living explanation as to why the corporate world gets away with murder.

and your solution is...

 

[smokedout]

youre right of course tom, we should never have done it and we never should again

after the failure to implement immediate global revolution in a single day we should all admit defeat, get a job in mcdonalds and tell the southern hemisphere sorry folks, nothing we can do to help you ... other than send you the odd tenner when bono tells us to

i couldnt agree more, i cant believe that me and so many others have wasted so much time, ftom marx to bakunin to debord to us sorry fools in the present age

protest in pointless, direct action even more so, for fucks we should never challenge state and corporate power, theyve given us so much and we should do our best by keeping quiet and working hard

and, more imortantly, we should immediately leap on those who attempt to organise any public resistance and smear them as students (not that ive ever been one, but why should that be an insult) , counter-revolutionary's and idiots

thanks for your insight tom, ill be sending my cv to reed plc in the morning and also writing a formal letter of apology to the ftse 100, the government the police and the military for all of my past misconceived trouble making

 

[Tom A]

and your solution is...

(to the theme of Bob the Builder)
ONE SOLUTION
REV-O-LU-TION!
ONE SOLUTION
RI-IGHT NOW!


But seriously, if I had the soultion would I be ranting on message boards all the time? Personally I gave up on there being any soultion about a year ago, history will show us who will have the soultion, IMO it's impossible to tell who does at this present time.

 

[treelover]

But surely someone makes history, perhaps the suffragettes shouldn't have bothered and let someone else do it, but who? I am not sure about this event, but the cyniscism on p/p is often suffocating. Ii'm all for 'bread and butter' issues thats why i have some involvement in the welfare reform demo in Manchester, etc, but i don't expect many urbanites to go, i wonder why,

www.swansheffield.org.uk

 

[soulman]

(to the theme of Bob the Builder)
ONE SOLUTION
REV-O-LU-TION!
ONE SOLUTION
RI-IGHT NOW!


But seriously, if I had the soultion would I be ranting on message boards all the time? Personally I gave up on there being any soultion about a year ago, history will show us who will have the soultion, IMO it's impossible to tell who does at this present time.

no probs but don't understand how you an red jessa can decide what is and isn't going to help. you two marxist/leninists...

 

[Tom A]

I'll take the coward's way out and just say it's up to "the others" to decide. The fact is that the only people that are going to remove the issues that people like to protest about are those who are directly suffering as a result, for example, the only people that can really stop poverty in Africa are the people of Africa, how they will do this I do not know, it's for them to decide, all we in the decadent West can do is observe what is happening as history unfolds whilst sorting out our own problems back home.

 

[Tom A]

...thats why i have some involvement in the welfare reform demo in Manchester, etc, but i don't expect many urbanites to go

Now my personal opinion why I am unlikely to be at this demo (even though I wish all the best to those that are there) is that I went though a "radical student" phase about four to five years back and heavily involved myself in the Stop The War demos, including the 1.5 million strong one, yet still they bombed Iraq. Yes, I know that welfare reform is a different issue, one that directly affects me (unlike the war in Iraq), and I get really pissed off when I hear on the news about people droning on about "reform" of incapacity benefit (read: get a job you scroungers!), but I have gotten very pessimistic and felt that all I was doing by going on protests was hitting my head against a brick wall and getting nowhere, also my group of fellow protesters eventually disntergrated into a talking shop where we aruged a lot (mainly about "consensus" within the group) and did little. Hence why today my political involment involves merely being involved in pointless debates on various internet forums. Yet another blood-red student bites the dust when faced with the cold hard light of reality. Ok, rant over now.

 

[smokedout]

I went though a "radical student" phase about four to five years back and heavily involved myself in the Stop The War demos,

oh sorry i shouldnt have been so harsh, you dont actually know what mayday, j18, rts etc actually meant, how it felt to take control of the streets for a day on our terms

how it increased in all who attended a sense of own empowerment, a sense that all is not lost, a feeling that we could make change happen ... a feeling that was sweeping the golbe at the time

sounds a bit like hippy bollocks these days granted but it inspired thousands to go into their communities and work at grass root levels for change .. and without it we may not even be having this conversation

theyve been trying to wipe out anarchists since they invented us

and we need to get back on the streets, old and new and show that we are strong enough as a people to offer physical resistance if we have to, to some of the plans theyve got in store

a large, strong anarchist (and leftist - the red and the black, even the green i spose) presence at the opening of parliament would begin to re-establish our position

every UK government has been terrified of the london mob ... anit saying we should riot, just that we should show that we will resist

i really hope people come out for this, i dont see what weve got to lose and weve got a lot to gain

i think youre v wrong about the revolutioneries of history redj, i think they would be appalled to hear old timer, so called revolutioneries turning on the young who are trying with a bitter stream of un-productive invective

2) you'll give the redtops carte blanche to portray all leftist protest as mindless thuggery

well that depends what happens, but i think the political mood is very different to the one in 1998/99

lots of people are very angry, a new generation is coming up who are showing a genuine inclination towards political activism (the school walkouts) and also most wc folk dont believe the crap they read in the papers anyway

 

[smokedout]

HOW MANY members in afed, solfed, class war etc? and where else do you expect them to come from?

i know many who would call themselves anarchist, probably running to hundreds, and many more who share many of the principles and may potentially support this event

none of them, including myself are members of those organisations

were not big ones for joining organisations see

but believe me, we are fucking everywhere!

 

[TeeJay]

...i dont see why anarchists demonstrating (and at least attempting) to take direct action on the day of the opening of parliament is futile or idiotic...

I think this idea lacks three things that maybe some of the old rts etc stuff had:

1. A coherent idea or demand behind it
2. Any realistic sense of tactics on the ground/on the day
3. Style and humour

It is talking big but I predict what is actually going to happen is a small turn out, severe kettling and maybe a few arrests for public order and/or waving banners t-shirts etc within the no-protest zone.

In my opinion it is the space-hijacker and mark thomas types that are 'carrying the flame' - along with a whole range of organisations and people who continue to campaign on specific issues be they human rights, war, the environment or whatever, and use a range of activity - from lobbying and elections to demos and direct actions - to put across coherent ideas, rather than pointless and seemingly contentless noise, or seeking confrontation with the police simply for the sake of it.

 

[smokedout]

I think this idea lacks three things that maybe some of the old rts etc stuff had:

1. A coherent idea or demand behind it
2. Any realistic sense of tactics on the ground/on the day
3. Style and humour

as with rts its up to us to bring those things, rts at its peak had over a hundred people attending meetings

the tactics and style and humour came from the participants as well as the organisers, tha'ts thousands of us

if youre involved in calling a mass demo the first thing someone has to do is pick a date and a place, without that nothing ever gets anywhere (believe me, ive sat through the meetings)

a bunch of people have called for an action/event at the state opening of parliament, seems as good an excuse as any (eg the g8, eec summit etc)

its up to all of us what we decide we do with it it, by going to meetings or organising our own fun and games covertly on the day

this aint the swp, it wont be served up on a plate, it will be as positive and successful as we choose to make it

weve got almost a month to go, a lot can happen in a month

 

[treelover]

anyone who was at the climate camp would have been very impressed by the energy, comittment and drive of the youth there, they were clarly against the market economy and neo-liberalism, the thing is though, they see all other issues as subordinate to the coming 'environmental crisis'.

 

[treelover]

yeah,

'a lot can happen in a month'

 

[Streathamite]

and your solution is...

can you actually read english?
I said it in my last post - a marxist solution.
it takes time. slow, patient building - in the case of the Uk, right from scratch, so completely have the 'left' failed to engage the working the working class. it takes organisation, TU activism, and iron discipline. But it can get there - maybe in a coupla hundred years.
it will NOT get there by braindamaged, hotheaded schoolboy political masturbators like smokedout and Vforvictowy and their laughable, random explosions of political effluence.

 

[Tom A]

...you dont actually know what mayday, j18, rts etc actually meant, how it felt to take control of the streets for a day on our terms

how it increased in all who attended a sense of own empowerment, a sense that all is not lost, a feeling that we could make change happen ... a feeling that was sweeping the golbe at the time

Yeah but then all the "empowered" people did eventually have to go home, y'know, and then the "liberated" space soon returned into the evil clutches of capitalism. Also I have no doubt that the poilce would have been quite capable of smashing it up if they had wanted to. Battle of the Beanfield anyone? Not to mention that fuckwittery that has just gone down in Essex...

 

[Azrael23]

I`ll be there, hugging the alleys.

 

[soulman]

can you actually read english?
I said it in my last post - a marxist solution.
it takes time. slow, patient building - in the case of the Uk, right from scratch, so completely have the 'left' failed to engage the working the working class. it takes organisation, TU activism, and iron discipline. But it can get there - maybe in a coupla hundred years.
it will NOT get there by braindamaged, hotheaded schoolboy political masturbators like smokedout and Vforvictowy and their laughable, random explosions of political effluence.

Yeah sure i can read English [tho it would be ironic if it wasn't my first language], what I can't read is your thoughts. So explain what you mean by a marxist solution...

 

[smokedout]

what he means is never actually do anything, all protest is counter-revolutionary

sit at home reading marx and trot off to your union meeting where you can expect them to deliver a communist revolution to you as long as you keep paying your fees

if you dont happen to have a job your dole scum, student scum and probably have dreadlocks and are called tarquin

(most unemployed people actually have a huge trust fund, as do most squatters, travellers and all anarchists except jezza and in bloom who are WORKING CLASS)

if youre jobs too well paying youre bourgeois scum

(theres a salary range of about 10-18k that is acceptable, anyone falling out of this range is counter revolutionary scum)

in short read lots of boring books and only ever complain about anything through your union representative

remember protest bad
slagging off protesters on well read message boards good
activism VERY bad
meetings GOOD

(actually htheyre both just after a job on the daily mail, there deep seated loathing of anarchists and even themselves qualifies them perfectly, they just cant quite admit it to themselves yet)

 

[The Black Hand]

the one way you will NOT build any vaguely progressive movement - anarchist or otherwise - is by idiotic, futile protests like this. they simply play into the hands of the propagandists amongst your enemies, because it will look so ridiculous, and deter any and all potential recruits by such a seemibngly-hopeless protest.
Instead you do it by slow, painstaking, agonisingly tortuous grassroots building, focussing on local issues that directly hit people's pockets, and having confidence that most people are smart enough, long term, to see where all the dots join up. This, on the other hand, is one up from Citizen Smith.
QUOTE]

Your view of political change is just plain historically incorrect, and a recipe for doing nothing but experience permanent 'work'. You view of peoples capacity is similarly warped, Havel (remember him, actually in a revolutionary situation, said 'who knows what lies within the masses of the people' - or something to that effect)...

 

[The Black Hand]

Now my personal opinion why I am unlikely to be at this demo (even though I wish all the best to those that are there) is that I went though a "radical student" phase about four to five years back and heavily involved myself in the Stop The War demos, including the 1.5 million strong one, yet still they bombed Iraq. Yes, I know that welfare reform is a different issue, one that directly affects me (unlike the war in Iraq), and I get really pissed off when I hear on the news about people droning on about "reform" of incapacity benefit (read: get a job you scroungers!), but I have gotten very pessimistic and felt that all I was doing by going on protests was hitting my head against a brick wall and getting nowhere, also my group of fellow protesters eventually disntergrated into a talking shop where we aruged a lot (mainly about "consensus" within the group) and did little. Hence why today my political involment involves merely being involved in pointless debates on various internet forums. Yet another blood-red student bites the dust when faced with the cold hard light of reality. Ok, rant over now.

Yes, its a worthwhile cause/campaign, but marches/publicity/meeting people are one of the ways campaigns actually get bigger. Those who don't try to spread struggles that affect them are part of the problem (as one old 1960s slogan said) - if you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem...

 

[bluestreak]

and umm no, i didn't really, I was apolitical till uni, and fortunately, the people were on hand to deliver that education.

what people? is this some shadowy cabal?