Would you support revolutionary "criminals"

[Pilgrim]

So your support would be dependant on how effective they are? OK thats fair enough but how do you judge effectiveness the only way I can see is with hindsight which would then prevent you supporting them till either afterwards or very late on - wouldn't it? Maybe not. I dunno.

But for instance Leon Czolgosz (if I've spealt that right I'll be happy!) assassinated President McKinley in the 1900's. He said he did it for working people and was not sorry for his "crime". But it wasn't at all effective really was it? I mean he did kill the president but it didn't achieve much. Personally I think he did quite well and would be supportive of that sort of thing but in the end he was tried and executed for it which would mean that you aren't supportive of it(??)

I can see your point and it's an interesting take on things but at the same time I'm trying to work out what it would and wouldn't support.

FFF

I'm sure I recall having read somewhere that Leon Czolgosz made overtures to various Anarchist groups and individuals in the USA, and was rebuffed none too subtly for his trouble.

So I wouldn't call him an example of a 'revolutionary' criminal, more of a lone maniac with a gun to be honest.

 

[The Black Hand]

In the last century, about 1976 , the local left used to meet up in a pub on a Friday in Wembley after the paper sales. There had been a bit of anti fash activity in the area and three or four blokes who drank in the pub started to engage with the group we were with. After about three weeks one of them asked if we wanted weapons as he had a contact, we laughed him off but some of the students got very excited about it. We were doing a building job on Kilburn Police station about a fortnight later when to our surprise the same three blokes walk out of the cop shop and into an unmarked car.

So? Guns are not a problem, if you want a shotgun that is...

Pistols ain't that hard to get hold of either, and so are other weapons. I've been reading to many copies of "Shooting Times", Shooting Gazette" and "The Countrymans weekly"

The poor don't need idle chatter, they NEED guns 'to reap the crop so widely sown'... But, I guess you don't want rhetoric, somebody does have to fire the first bullet however. Agreed, now is not the time in the UK, but that doesn't mean it will always be like that.

 

[Taxamo Welf]

The Red Brigades and the RAF were very very different things, they shouldn't really be presented as generic examples of left-wing terrorism. The Red Brigades arose from factory workers initiatives against immediate local bosses and formen and developed their own practical logic from that point on. The RAF developed out of their own pathological disatisfation, arrogance and elitism and had fuck all connection with any wider class based movement - the contexts in which their violence developed was also very different. Italy was in a state of near insurrection from the mid-late 60s onwards, Germany never appraoched being in the same siutation and this was one of the reasons for the RAFs embrace of armed substitutionism - their frustration and contempt at the stupid german proles.

i knew all of that; my point was their modus operandi and the effect they had were pretty much the same, and they can be looked at simultaneously as examples of left wing terrorism.

I'd leave out the Angry Brigade and the Weathermen because they never killed anyone (apart from themselves, yes).

yes the greeks were caught a few years back, i only found out about it recently

 

[butchersapron]

i knew all of that; my point was their modus operandi and the effect they had were pretty much the same, and they can be looked at simultaneously as examples of left wing terrorism.

I'd leave out the Angry Brigade and the Weathermen because they never killed anyone (apart from themselves, yes).

yes the greeks were caught a few years back, i only found out about it recently

And my point is they were not the same, not in birth, developement, organisation, context, activty or result. The RB's effectively took part in an attempt to deliberately sabotage a social movement that was begining to put the functioning of the state in question - thereby doing the states work directly and indirectly (they were riddles with state agents throughout much of their active existence). The policy of aggressive militarisation and going head to head with the state, theorised on a very limited basis and without sufficient public support sidelined the far more interesting and useful activity going on in wider society at that time and startd a process that led to there being at least 2000 political prisoners by the early 80s and many forced into exile.

All the Germans managed was to allow the state to either use old Nazi laws or introduce new ones in order to deal with them -exactly as the RAF had planned, and which today still act as the basis for legal represiin of oppositional movements.

 

[Taxamo Welf]

All the Germans managed was to allow the state to either use old Nazi laws or introduce new ones in order to deal with them -exactly as the RAF had planned

sorry, they wanted the laws?

 

[butchersapron]

Yep, they wanted to expose the unchanging nazi like authoritarian nature of the FRG in order to wake up those stupid proles i mentioned. Hence their attacks were deliberate provocations designed to elict strong measures or over-reactions in turn from the state. (Notice the lack of an active w/c in pursuing its own needs and organising its own activty in this little scenario).

 

[FifthFromFront]

I'm sure I recall having read somewhere that Leon Czolgosz made overtures to various Anarchist groups and individuals in the USA, and was rebuffed none too subtly for his trouble.

So I wouldn't call him an example of a 'revolutionary' criminal, more of a lone maniac with a gun to be honest.

Wasn't he rebuffed because the editor of an anarchist paper was convinced he was in fact an agent provocateur (well that one was proven a bit wrong!! ) and so put out a warning.

Emma Goldman later said that her sympathies were with him because he didn't do it for personal reasons but for the good of the people didn't she?

To dismiss him as a lone maniac with a gun is a bit harsh I think. He might not have been the most sensible of people but I guess he did it for the right reasons

FFF

 

[Taxamo Welf]

(@ BA)
I see.

Fuck when it comes to being all machiavellian like that, its just becomes ridiculous.

So in summary:
BR start off as armed wing of workers movement, drift and eventually have very little contact with original base, are heavily infiltrated, end up doing the govt's job for them.

RAF start off as brainchild of intellectual revolutionaries, have no contact with workers movement, end up doing gvt's job for them.

Is that ok?

 

[Pilgrim]

Wasn't he rebuffed because the editor of an anarchist paper was convinced he was in fact an agent provocateur (well that one was proven a bit wrong!! ) and so put out a warning.

Emma Goldman later said that her sympathies were with him because he didn't do it for personal reasons but for the good of the people didn't she?

To dismiss him as a lone maniac with a gun is a bit harsh I think. He might not have been the most sensible of people but I guess he did it for the right reasons

FFF

To be fair to Czolgosz, I'm not aware of the agent provocateur part, so I may have been a tad harsh on him. I certainly wasn't aware of Emma Goldman's support for his action, and, TBH, I'd like to see Bush and Blair killed tomorrow if possible.

This particular act of 'Propaganda of the deed' was certainly not the only one that occurred during the period. IIRC, Alexander Berkman was later to serve a sentence for attempting to kill an industrialist named Henry Frick. And we all know what happened to Sacco and Vanzetti simply because they were Anarchists.

 

[butchersapron]

Not really!

But i'm not going to get into Italy or Germany in the 70s, i'm trying to watch the football! I can agree on the conclusion that both ended up doing gvt's job for them though in very diff ways that were a result of their differing conditions.

 

[LLETSA]

Guns and bandanas

So? Guns are not a problem, if you want a shotgun that is...

Pistols ain't that hard to get hold of either, and so are other weapons. I've been reading to many copies of "Shooting Times", Shooting Gazette" and "The Countrymans weekly"

The poor don't need idle chatter, they NEED guns 'to reap the crop so widely sown'... But, I guess you don't want rhetoric, somebody does have to fire the first bullet however. Agreed, now is not the time in the UK, but that doesn't mean it will always be like that.

Attie and the Enema Squad go out 'among the poor' again, listening to 'what they want.'

Indeed, why bother with idle chatter when keyboard posturing will do?

 

[Pickman's model]

Indeed, why bother with idle chatter when keyboard posturing will do?

i had thought you'd be able to answer that very question.

 

[LLETSA]

i had thought you'd be able to answer that very question.

So says the man with twenty-five thousand posts, half of them indulging his Galloway fetish.

 

[Pickman's model]

So says the man with twenty-five thousand posts, half of them indulging his Galloway fetish.

i take it you've counted them.

 

[Pickman's model]

if it's half my posts on galloway, that should be 18,000 posts on that grubby little man.

have you really counted every single one?

 

[LLETSA]

Fuck's sake Pickmans, get a life.

 

[Pickman's model]

Fuck's sake Pickmans, get a life.

which would presumably mean doing more of what you do? no thanks!

i'm not that crazy.

 

[LLETSA]

Still crazy after all these years

which would presumably mean doing more of what you do? no thanks!

i'm not that crazy.

Doing what?

 

[Pickman's model]

i don't know what it is you do - though that's not for want of asking - but i'd sooner top myself than find myself as joyless as you.

 

[LLETSA]

i don't know what it is you do - though that's not for want of asking - but i'd sooner top myself than find myself as joyless as you.

How does rejection of comical pseudo-revolutionary posturing equate with joylessness?

You and some of your mates on here bring me lots of joy, in actual fact.

 

[Pickman's model]

How does rejection of comical pseudo-revolutionary posturing equate with joylessness?

have you ever put forward a positive suggestion in all your posts here? have you ever suggested a way forwards? i very much doubt it.

all your posts that i've encountered have been depressing put-downs, reasons to do nothing, rejections of any positive proposals and so on and so forth.

perhaps i'm wrong - perhaps there's a side to your posts i've missed. but i doubt it. stop pretending your portentous put-downs indicate you've anything to offer anyone. it just makes you look like some johnny no-mates wanker trying to piss on everyone else to obscure the fact he's nothing to offer by way of an alternative.

 

[Taxamo Welf]

He's IWCA so he has already proposed his way forward.

It could be argued that all he does is troll most of the time, but its clever trolling.

 

[LLETSA]

perhaps there's a side to your posts i've missed. but i doubt it.

Unlike some who post on here I'm under no illusions about anything. This is a forum for debate, nothing more. However, if anybody wants to search my posts they'll find that there can be a 'positive side'.

 

[LLETSA]

all your posts that i've encountered have been depressing put-downs, reasons to do nothing, rejections of any positive proposals and so on and so forth.

No they haven't. The trouble with you and certain others on here is that you can't take criticism of your chosen religion.

 

[LLETSA]

He's IWCA so he has already proposed his way forward.

It could be argued that all he does is troll most of the time, but its clever trolling.

Trolls get banned, don't they? I've never even come close to being banned.

 

[LLETSA]

it just makes you look like some johnny no-mates wanker trying to piss on everyone else to obscure the fact he's nothing to offer by way of an alternative.

I repeat: those with tens of thousands of posts to their names have no right to call people they don't know 'Johnny no-mates wankers.'

 

[Taxamo Welf]

not what i meant - you participate in discussions simply to laugh at other opinions, and even start piss-take threads about them; this is trolling, but of a funny, almost constructive sort.

 

[LLETSA]

not what i meant - you participate in discussions simply to laugh at other opinions, and even start piss-take threads about them; this is trolling, but of a funny, almost constructive sort.

There's a constructive side to everything I do.

For instance I'm off to take a constructive crap now. Then I'm going for the last hour in my local. Wish I had some mates to talk to though. Even Pickman's would do.

 

[Fedayn]

There's a constructive side to everything I do.

For instance I'm off to take a constructive crap now. Then I'm going for the last hour in my local. Wish I had some mates to talk to though. Even Pickman's would do.

You mean you're gonna go to the pub and talk to some real mates/people? How dare you ignore U75 posters... what an outrage.

 

[Pickman's model]

I repeat: those with tens of thousands of posts to their names have no right to call people they don't know 'Johnny no-mates wankers.'

what, and people you spend a piddling hour with in a pub really know you?