# CIRCA - crap/not crap?



## In Bloom (Jul 11, 2005)

Better than I expected them to be, IME.


----------



## Garcia Lorca (Jul 11, 2005)

*good stuff*

brightened up a dull week in scotland.


good stuff.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Jul 11, 2005)

Maybe not crap, but could have been better.  Sometimes seemed to function as peace police too, trying to prevent people who wished to take a confrontational approach from doing so.


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 11, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> Maybe not crap, but could have been better.  Sometimes seemed to function as peace police too, trying to prevent people who wished to take a confrontational approach from doing so.



Overall crap splattered with moments of minor giggle's but mostly rubbish and in the end a diversion from the confrontational nature of direct action. Maybe they are a legitimate expression of the mediocricity i encountered within the dissent network.

Overall the strirling camp needed a good pair of clippers and some press ups to be effective!


----------



## rednblack (Jul 11, 2005)

it was amusing to see the police's reaction to them, but pretty much pointless tbh


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Jul 11, 2005)

Samba bands for a new generation?


----------



## rednblack (Jul 11, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> Samba bands for a new generation?



possibly, but then what are the infernal noise brigade who are well smart?


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Jul 11, 2005)

An invaluable tool.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Jul 11, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> Maybe they are a legitimate expression of the mediocricity i encountered within the dissent network.


Dissent - Days of boredom, nights of mediocrity!


----------



## kropotkin (Jul 11, 2005)

> Overall the strirling camp needed a good pair of clippers and some press ups to be effective!


----------



## WasGeri (Jul 11, 2005)

I hate clowns, so I think they should be wiped out.

Along with celery.


----------



## FreddyB (Jul 11, 2005)

The ones I came across on the A9 were great, blocking traffic while the police didn't seem to know hat to do about them.


----------



## rednblack (Jul 11, 2005)

Geri said:
			
		

> I hate clowns, so I think they should be wiped out.
> 
> Along with celery.



actually clowns are allergic to celary, so poison them first, then get the weed killer out


----------



## Larry O'Hara (Jul 11, 2005)

*I wonder...*

Has this thread made IPRN ROFL??  Probably not


----------



## IPRN (Jul 11, 2005)

Larry O'Hara said:
			
		

> Has this thread made IPRN ROFL??  Probably not



Sorry Larry, been busy, only just noticed it.   

(I do like the Infernal Noise Brigade though!)


----------



## rednblack (Jul 11, 2005)

IPRN said:
			
		

> (I do like the Infernal Noise Brigade though!)



they just show how crap the samba band is...


----------



## Thora_v1 (Jul 11, 2005)

IPRN said:
			
		

> (I do like the Infernal Noise Brigade though!)


Me too - but those grey and flourescent orange uniforms do make them look like dustbin men.  Revolutionary dustbin men.


----------



## kropotkin (Jul 11, 2005)




----------



## rednblack (Jul 11, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> Me too - but those grey and flourescent orange uniforms do make them look like dustbin men.  Revolutionary dustbin men.



nah, filipino traffic cops


----------



## IPRN (Jul 11, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> Me too - but those grey and flourescent orange uniforms do make them look like dustbin men.  Revolutionary dustbin men.



I used to like that firm that played the dustbins!


----------



## rednblack (Jul 11, 2005)

IPRN said:
			
		

> I used to like that firm that played the dustbins!



stomp, they were cool - they'd be good on an RTS thing


----------



## IPRN (Jul 12, 2005)

rednblack said:
			
		

> stomp, they were cool - they'd be good on an RTS thing



Wasn't there a fuss because they smashed up a Rolls-Royce on the telly?


----------



## poet (Jul 12, 2005)

I was deeply sceptical about CIRCA, but now I've seen them in action I think they're absolutely fantastic. They are confrontational, just in a witty, joyful way that the police can't deal with. The plod want us to charge up against them and get into a ruck on their terms because they'll batter us, but they've no idea how to respond to a bunch of clowns making them look like the ridiculous, opressive machine that they are.

So much of what I believe is wrong with modern anarchism is summed up by the moody German teenager shrouded in his hoodie, hanging about with his Black Bloc mates looking miserable and getting ever more pissed off at his political beliefs being dismissed as teenage angst. The Clown Army express what I want from an anarchist revolution - a serious, well organised group of people who understand that our revolution shouldn't be an act of anger and violence but an act of joy and love. People so often say to me 'well you're against the state, you're against this that and the other, but what are you for?' - CIRCA suggest what I want the world to look like whilst fighting against what I'm opposed to. If I can't dance, it's not my revolution - call that frivolous if you like, say I'm not going to change anything, but I don't think the answer to violence and hate is more violence and more hate.


----------



## In Bloom (Jul 12, 2005)

poet said:
			
		

> I was deeply sceptical about CIRCA, but now I've seen them in action I think they're absolutely fantastic. They are confrontational, just in a witty, joyful way that the police can't deal with. The plod want us to charge up against them and get into a ruck on their terms because they'll batter us, but they've no idea how to respond to a bunch of clowns making them look like the ridiculous, opressive machine that they are.


This is my problem with CIRCA though.  While they're very media friendly rolleyes: ), the whole thing seems to be predicated upon making the police look stupid without actually attempting to achieve anything.

On the other hand, they are quite good at NVDA stuff like blocking roads and gates, _as long as the media are around_.

Edited to add: I'm not saying that CIRCA are just after media attention, just that the police might be a lot less reluctant to beat up and arrest Krazy Korporal Kapital when the cameras aren't around.


----------



## dozzer (Jul 12, 2005)

Send in the clowns 

Had to vote not crap after watching the riot police charge them. 

Their crime?

Doing the Hokey-cokey.


----------



## IPRN (Jul 12, 2005)

dozzer said:
			
		

> Their crime?
> 
> Doing the Hokey-cokey.



BASTARDS!!!


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 12, 2005)

poet said:
			
		

> I was deeply sceptical about CIRCA, but now I've seen them in action I think they're absolutely fantastic. They are confrontational, just in a witty, joyful way that the police can't deal with. The plod want us to charge up against them and get into a ruck on their terms because they'll batter us, but they've no idea how to respond to a bunch of clowns making them look like the ridiculous, opressive machine that they are.
> 
> So much of what I believe is wrong with modern anarchism is summed up by the moody German teenager shrouded in his hoodie, hanging about with his Black Bloc mates looking miserable and getting ever more pissed off at his political beliefs being dismissed as teenage angst. The Clown Army express what I want from an anarchist revolution - a serious, well organised group of people who understand that our revolution shouldn't be an act of anger and violence but an act of joy and love. People so often say to me 'well you're against the state, you're against this that and the other, but what are you for?' - CIRCA suggest what I want the world to look like whilst fighting against what I'm opposed to. If I can't dance, it's not my revolution - call that frivolous if you like, say I'm not going to change anything, but I don't think the answer to violence and hate is more violence and more hate.



The trouble is with all the dancing and clowning you may forget that we need to remove a serious and violent state that will unleash its full force against you. Alll the clowns in the world wont help you then.

Destruction and violence are not always negative and can be used as a positive force to create this peace and love you talk of!  

To create a transition to your all dancing clowning world you may just need moody people in black to do it. I have seen samba, sound systems and assorted jugglers ask for protection from so called 'moody teenagers' once the trouble closes in on them.


----------



## the big bad pig (Jul 12, 2005)

An appeal for help is just that, human to human, love in the face of violence.


----------



## JonnyT (Jul 12, 2005)

Much of the criticism of CIRCA seems to be predicated on the (incorrect) idea that we're in some kind of revolutionary situation.

We're not.

While Black Bloc may have all the *visual* cues of what one would assume a revolutionary situation to be - street fights, burning buildings, physical combat with symbols of power - images alone do not a revolution make.

(anecdote)
One activist (I forget who at present) was, in the late nineties, was given a visit by special branch. Their advice to him? "Don't think you're a political threat, because you're not. You're a public order threat. That's all."
(/anecdote)

Those of you who accuse CIRCA of not understanding that if we're effective we will have to confront the full violence of the state - have you brought this point up with them, or simply assumed that "tactical frivolity" and its like somehow require a less in depth analysis than your typical black bloccer?

Accusations about their over-friendliness to the media seem to be valid in my experience, to be honest. And as for the police - clowning damages their credibility but doesn't hurt them physically, fighting leaves them with some "credibility" but allows for a physical confrontation. Depends which you place emphasis on really.

Personally I'm one of the people who uses "diversity of tactics" as a serious idea rather than a way to get people to support what I wanna do....black, pink, green, purple, pink, we've got room for more blocs than a tetris convention.

- Jonathan.


----------



## cats hammers (Jul 12, 2005)

Nah.  Both Circa and Black Bloc are shit.


----------



## parallelepipete (Jul 13, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> Destruction and violence are not always negative and can be used as a positive force to create this peace and love you talk of!


Careful there Herbert - tiny hint of GWB creeping in there? 

<runs away, very fast>

<thinks, fuck, what did I say that for?>

 ...


----------



## parallelepipete (Jul 13, 2005)

JonnyT said:
			
		

> ...And as for the police - clowning damages their credibility but doesn't hurt them physically, fighting leaves them with some "credibility" but allows for a physical confrontation. Depends which you place emphasis on really.


That's why I voted 'not crap'. Does anybody here _want_ a police force with credibility intact _and_ spoiling for a fight? Seems to me that making them look like clowns (sorry, CIRCA) and not even giving them any excuse to try out their luvverly new helmets and batons (  ) is a much better strategy. Their image suffered enough from their treatment of tough miners in the 80s - they'd look _really_ smart if they started laying into someone for sticking flowers on them!

Or maybe that's the plan. CIRCA are suicide jokers, or humour martyrs or something, and their aim is to discredit the police by showing the public what a violent, repressive lot they are...


----------



## In Bloom (Jul 13, 2005)

JonnyT said:
			
		

> (anecdote)
> One activist (I forget who at present) was, in the late nineties, was given a visit by special branch. Their advice to him? "Don't think you're a political threat, because you're not. You're a public order threat. That's all."
> (/anecdote)


Because special branch are such a genuine, honest bunch, aren't they?


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 14, 2005)

parallelepipete said:
			
		

> Careful there Herbert - tiny hint of GWB creeping in there?
> 
> <runs away, very fast>
> 
> ...



GWB what do not understand


----------



## aurora green (Jul 14, 2005)

I was impressed with what I saw on tv, which wasn't much, but did anyone else see the footage of them all standing on one side and a load of communists (?or whatever) on the other side, and one clown said 'lets make friends with the communists' (or something), and the two sides all intermingled. It was a hilarious and beautiful moment.
(actually, I haven't descibed it terribly well, but it was inspiring.)


----------



## treelover (Jul 14, 2005)

I don't think the communists were smiling, but more likely bemused


----------



## jimmer (Jul 14, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Nah.  Both Circa and Black Bloc are shit.


 I think Circa are shitter though.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 14, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Nah.  Both Circa and Black Bloc are shit.


ffs! 

there is no group called black bloc! it is something which people do, rather than something which people are!


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 14, 2005)

anyway, the clowns aren't as shit as i thought they were, they managed to confuse the filth so people could get on with important stuff. 

that people didn't get on with as much important stuff as they might have is another story.


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 14, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> ffs!
> 
> there is no group called black bloc! it is something which people do, rather than something which people are!



Thank god some one else knows a tactic is not a group or political ideology


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 14, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> Thank god some one else knows a tactic is not a group or political ideology


i don't know what god's got to do with it!


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 14, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> i don't know what god's got to do with it!



cock off


----------



## Wilf (Jul 14, 2005)

Despite things i said before the g8, i've just voted 'not crap' after seeing them in action (for similar reasons to PM).  They certainly weren't the sideshow i thought they would be - but ended up in the thick of it.  

Still, i don't think i will be donniing the greasepaint myself..


----------



## sleeper (Jul 15, 2005)

uggh

the clowns

*shudders*


----------



## cats hammers (Jul 15, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> ffs!
> 
> there is no group called black bloc! it is something which people do, rather than something which people are!



...Yes, that's a good point, because a tactic can't be shit.   

I suppose I can't say "Pacifists are shit" or "Non-violence protest is crap" because there's no group called "The Pacifists" or "The Non-violents", then?


----------



## montevideo (Jul 15, 2005)

JonnyT said:
			
		

> (anecdote)
> One activist (I forget who at present) was, in the late nineties, was given a visit by special branch. Their advice to him? "Don't think you're a political threat, because you're not. You're a public order threat. That's all."
> (/anecdote)
> 
> - Jonathan.



This seems very familiar, do we know the same people? Or maybe they use the same line? What makes it interesting is the absolute necessity in controlling public order situatins. Because when those situations reach a point when the police are unable to control them then it becomes political. The recognition that having a uniform or consent from the state doesn't make your power legitimate. Indeed that power has melts into air.


----------



## cats hammers (Jul 15, 2005)

Yea, football hooliganism, that's well politicaltoo, that is.


----------



## montevideo (Jul 15, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Yea, football hooliganism, that's well politicaltoo, that is.



even as a memebr of the amusing middle classes you life seems incredibly sheltered.


----------



## knopf (Jul 15, 2005)

Hmmm...... jack & monte. This is going to get nasty......


----------



## cats hammers (Jul 15, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> even as a memebr of the amusing middle classes you life seems incredibly sheltered.



My life is sheltered because I don't think public order situations are inherently political?   

Is there actually ANY logic behind that at all, or are you just hiding your lack of critique behind the ever handy "middle class" strategum?


----------



## sovietpop (Jul 15, 2005)

knopf said:
			
		

> Hmmm...... jack & monte. This is going to get nasty......


----------



## knopf (Jul 15, 2005)

Salon anarchist!


----------



## butchersapron (Jul 15, 2005)

You're not 'a lad' are you monty?


----------



## montevideo (Jul 15, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> You're not 'a lad' are you monty?



heaven forbid.


----------



## montevideo (Jul 15, 2005)

although i've off to do some critiquing now.


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 15, 2005)

*Better than Clowns any day*


----------



## janis joplin (Jul 17, 2005)

*samba and the infernal noise brigade*

i was also deepy impressed by the fantastic talents of infernal noise brigade, and felt like they showed up rhythms of resistance somewhat...  but then i sat down and talked with them about how they do it.  here is what i learned:  they are a closed group, if and when they need to boost their numbers they hold musical auditions, usually having invited the applicants in, and they rehearse three times a week.
they are an entirely different thing to rhthms, the samba band some of you love to diss so much.  rythms is open to anyone who turns up on the streets or at a (once weekly) practise meeting.  people join who have never ever played any kind of music before, as well as very talented muso's sometimes.  people come and go freely, meaning the actual folk performing under that name can vary entirely from one gig to the next.
what rhythms does is so much more than what you see on the streets, to really understand their contribution you'd have to talk to one of the many who personally and politically gained or is gaining so much from being part of this unique group, often going on to all sorts of wonderful projects from there.
altho i left the band months ago, i retain a lot of respect for their work at inclusiveness (and the fact that its so female dominated - a rare treat on the london scene!) and for keeping on doing it in the face of so much slagging.  the homeless projects, the demos where only 5 sambaistas made it but still we doubled the crowd size for an unpopular cause, the funds raised for other groups and actions, the fucking hard work involved in keeping it going, and how they deal with the extra work involved in keeping such a concensus-led group open to newcomes in a genuine way.  true tolerance of diversity, whether its language, mental health, being a parent, whatever barriers a person finds to joining other groups, they simply aint barriers to rythms.
infernal are great and i love them, other activist groups are also great, but rhythms is unique and so comparisons cannot work.


----------



## montevideo (Jul 18, 2005)

infernal noise brigade sound like pigbag. FACT.


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 18, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> infernal noise brigade sound like pigbag. FACT.



better than samba, im sure in six years i wont like them either but for now pigbag is better than cumsack samba


----------



## Thora_v1 (Jul 18, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> better than samba, im sure in six years i wont like them either but for now pigbag is better than cumsack samba


You can't compare samba and the INB - as janis pointed out.


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 18, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> You can't compare samba and the INB - as janis pointed out.



Just trying to explain as Monte is not part of the 'scene'


----------



## nes (Jul 20, 2005)

i just can't believe how cynical these posts are..if you think the clowns are rubbish why not get off the internet and do summat you wont slag off..

personally i think the clown army is a great tactic and watching them break pens and through police lines without violence and instead by ridiculing the police is inspiring...and pretty funny

and the infernal noise brigade is havin it..


----------



## Thora_v1 (Jul 20, 2005)

nes said:
			
		

> i just can't believe how cynical these posts are..if you think the clowns are rubbish why not get off the internet and do summat you wont slag off..


Ah, the holy grail of "doing something" - anything, we're not fussy!  Do you not think it's possible that the people criticising the clowns *may* actually be doing something, or maybe feel that doing something crap is more damaging than doing nothing?


----------



## Ryazan (Jul 20, 2005)

Doing nothing is so nihilistic.


----------



## nes (Jul 20, 2005)

we're all on the same side though remember.. x


----------



## aurora green (Jul 20, 2005)

nes said:
			
		

> we're all on the same side though remember.. x




Exactly!


Welcome to the boards nes.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Jul 20, 2005)

nes said:
			
		

> we're all on the same side though remember.. x


Are we?


----------



## treelover (Jul 20, 2005)

Wow, Pigbag eh, de de de de de deh, de de de deh!

Monte, surely you are too young to remember such a band?


----------



## Garcia Lorca (Jul 20, 2005)

nes said:
			
		

> we're all on the same side though remember.. x



i beg to differ. 
been really thinking about what the G8 protests where about. What really happened, what did I achieve personally, what did I learn? etc...

im learning that these boards can be a hostile place with infighting/slagging of other groups with slightly different opinions.. making it very intimidating to make  a posting.... ach well ill get over it. 

fair enough on the different opinions, but i do see no unity in the movement. No one really working together towards one goal..indeed its all becoming very mish mash out there.  seems everyone wants to be their own anarchist.


----------



## janis joplin (Jul 21, 2005)

*agreeing with perry1*

this worries me too.  i'm depressed by all the people choosing to identify by their tactics instead of by what they hope to achieve.
i'm depressed by people who only ever stick to their chosen tactic no matter the situation, and who have shitty attitudes towards anyone using a different tactic, regardless of whether they share the same motivation.  when people start to identify themselves as "black bloc" or "non-violent direct activist" or "spiky" or "fluffy" or "pink and silver" or whatever it is, instead of being flexible and using a variety of means to achieve their desired outcome(s) according to what they see would be the best tactic for that moment, tbh we are fucked.
these are tactics, not a way of life or an identity, and your tactic is not necessarily superior to another just because you possibly aren't able to stretch your mind enough to see how a diversity of tactics is our strength.
so far i have taken part in actions masked-up and in black, i have also been a samba dancer/drummer, was briefly a clown, have worn the street-medic's cross and the legal team's orange bid, and have worn my own bloody clothes on the streets, in meetings and whilst writing for prison solidarity!
sometimes i am confrontational but other times i negotiate, flirt, whatever gets me what i think i want.  different things are valuable in different situations.
i wish people would try to swap their roles around a bit more and be more constructive in their criticism, i also wish they would try to communicate their thoughts more directly to the activists they want to criticise, so that dialogue can take place, instead of endless bitching on websites and in pubs amongst others of their clique.


----------



## Judgedread (Jul 21, 2005)

*unity in diversity worked.*

Hey don't take this place too seriously. It's just a few tired old hacks acting out the more cynical than thou role. That's what they're supposed to do. It is after all the default position in this culture, the safest place to be. who cares, I mean what ever gets them through the day.

What matters is that the whole unity in diversity thing actually worked in Scotland. The only agreement was to Blocade the G8 summit on the 6th July. It had to go up against the largest security operation mounted in this country. 10,000 cops, £100 million budget and a summit that had been moved out of large cities to a rural location to make it easier to police. And the movement actually did it. We built the infrastructure to enable large amounts of people to be in the right area, we agreed the aim of a blockade and then worked out plans that allowed the maximum amount of autonomy in acheiving this, only the minimal amount of consensus needed. People (around 500+people that is) slept in the woods and came down to Blockade the A9 near Gleneagles, people formed small affinity groups and blocked smaller roads, People broke out of the encircled convergence centre in Stirling and blockaded the M9. People mobilised in Glasgow and Edinburgh and blocked delegates and stretched the polices resources all over Scotland. The tactics were nearly all complimentary to the overall aim and it worked. Central Scotland was in road chaos. Delegates were strung out all over the area. Delegates were delayed for hours, some even gave up for the day.

What matters is that people organised non-hierarchicaly, with no central command and let collective intelligence triumph over a vertically organised police central control.

What did we achieve? We kept space open for the movement. If Sir Bob had just had his embedded protest, where the Government decides what protests aims are then the anti-globalisation wave would have been over or at least serverly closed up. In stead we showed there was opposition to the G8's existence we showed a movement alive and kicking and incredibly effective. Even if we only showed it to ourselves that's still the basis for a million interesting things to come.





			
				perry1 said:
			
		

> im learning that these boards can be a hostile place with infighting/slagging of other groups with slightly different opinions.. making it very intimidating to make  a posting.... ach well ill get over it.
> 
> fair enough on the different opinions, but i do see no unity in the movement. No one really working together towards one goal..indeed its all becoming very mish mash out there.  seems everyone wants to be their own anarchist.


----------



## Herbert Read (Jul 21, 2005)

Judgedread said:
			
		

> Hey don't take this place too seriously. It's just a few tired old hacks acting out the more cynical than thou role. That's what they're supposed to do. It is after all the default position in this culture, the safest place to be. who cares, I mean what ever gets them through the day.
> 
> 
> > Its tired old hacks like me who will continue to crtique Dissent turn up help with infrastructure, take part in direct action not just at the G8 but all year. Criticism and dialogue is healthy and needs to be discussed. Two many people want to brush all debate under the carpet!


----------



## catch (Jul 21, 2005)

janis joplin said:
			
		

> when people start to identify themselves as "black bloc" or "non-violent direct activist" or "spiky" or "fluffy" or "pink and silver" or whatever it is, instead of being flexible and using a variety of means to achieve their desired outcome(s) according to what they see would be the best tactic for that moment, tbh we are fucked.



Would you agree that your list only relates to different sides of the same tactic - protests?


----------



## catch (Jul 21, 2005)

Judgedread said:
			
		

> Hey don't take this place too seriously. It's just a few tired old hacks acting out the more cynical than thou role.



Not old, not tired, not a hack. Very skeptical about the G8 protests and dissent though.


----------



## punkrockfaggot (Jul 21, 2005)

janis joplin said:
			
		

> this worries me too.  i'm depressed by all the people choosing to identify by their tactics instead of by what they hope to achieve.
> i'm depressed by people who only ever stick to their chosen tactic no matter the situation, and who have shitty attitudes towards anyone using a different tactic, regardless of whether they share the same motivation.  when people start to identify themselves as "black bloc" or "non-violent direct activist" or "spiky" or "fluffy" or "pink and silver" or whatever it is, instead of being flexible and using a variety of means to achieve their desired outcome(s) according to what they see would be the best tactic for that moment, tbh we are fucked.
> these are tactics, not a way of life or an identity, and your tactic is not necessarily superior to another just because you possibly aren't able to stretch your mind enough to see how a diversity of tactics is our strength.
> so far i have taken part in actions masked-up and in black, i have also been a samba dancer/drummer, was briefly a clown, have worn the street-medic's cross and the legal team's orange bid, and have worn my own bloody clothes on the streets, in meetings and whilst writing for prison solidarity!
> ...




Abso-fucking-lutely.


----------



## Bernadette (Aug 12, 2005)

*pc blakelock - now that was funny!!!*

I don't see the point in ridiculing the police and making them look stupid. i'm quite up for the police being what they are - a brutal, repressive domestic army - and pushing them to reveal their true colours at all times. and fighting back and out of the repression. we live in a totalitarian state the psychological apparatus and brilliance of which CIRCA are a depressing example. what's the point in keeping it sweet? let's get it all out in the open, then there might well be a chance for a revolutionary situation, a point reached where we can't just wash the greasepaint off and go to the pub for a pint (or to the arts council for another grant) after we stopped some symbolic talks (again) for a factored-in day of protest... simplistic but i'm on a time limit, sorry.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 12, 2005)

So less of the feather dusters, more beheading coppers then?


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 12, 2005)

Bernadette said:
			
		

> I don't see the point in ridiculing the police and making them look stupid. i'm quite up for the police being what they are - a brutal, repressive domestic army - and pushing them to reveal their true colours at all times. and fighting back and out of the repression. we live in a totalitarian state the psychological apparatus and brilliance of which CIRCA are a depressing example. what's the point in keeping it sweet? let's get it all out in the open, then there might well be a chance for a revolutionary situation, a point reached where we can't just wash the greasepaint off and go to the pub for a pint (or to the arts council for another grant) after we stopped some symbolic talks (again) for a factored-in day of protest... simplistic but i'm on a time limit, sorry.



It would be embarrassing to raech a point of insurrection to find your self dressed as a clown.

Death to clowns and smother all artists in there own pretentious bile.


----------



## Drunken Miss Ho (Aug 12, 2005)

Bernadette said:
			
		

> we live in a totalitarian state the psychological apparatus



No we don't.



> then there might well be a chance for a revolutionary situation, a point



We are in class retreat, we are nowhere near that. And it's going to take more than playing games with coppers to reverse that.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 15, 2005)

what about CCTV, prisons, ID cards, Miliatary force,perpetual war for perpetual peace, Police,Wage slavery,class system plus many more or do you agree with the propganda of choice and freedom.

Just because are cells are decorated with nice objects, sky tv and a choice of news papers does not mean we are free!

I agree with bernadette you dont need a gun to your head to be forced to work or submit to a regime you do not want!


----------



## Drunken Miss Ho (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> what about CCTV, prisons, ID cards, Miliatary force,perpetual war for perpetual peace, Police,Wage slavery,class system plus many more or do you agree with the propganda of choice and freedom.
> 
> Just because are cells are decorated with nice objects, sky tv and a choice of news papers does not mean we are free!
> 
> I agree with bernadette you dont need a gun to your head to be forced to work or submit to a regime you do not want!



Yes but this clearly isn't a totalitarian state is it? If it was you and I would be in prison. ID cards and CCTV aren't the same as rigged elections, censored press, no Trade Unions, capital punishment, systematic torture etc etc. Fucks sake, beat cops don't even carry guns here!

Of course, I don't think liberal democracy is any kind of genuine "freedom", but it's stupid to think the UK is a totalitarian state. For one it waters down the concept of totalitarianism and our understanding of genuine fascist or totalitarian regimes. Do you think people in, say, fundamentalist Iran are no worse off than us? Course they bloody are.

Secondly it means you're failing to recognise what freedoms we as a class have gained. 300 years of working class struggle has given us Trade Unions, a welfare state, a living wage and so on. Capitalism is not a system of the ruling class constantly getting their way, it's a product of the struggle between two classes. You need to recognise this to understand how any effective class struggle can work. If we were all simply toiling away under despotic regimes there would be no hope of any change.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> Capitalism is not a system of the ruling class constantly getting their way, it's a product of the struggle between two classes.


don't you mean history is "a product of the struggle..."?

capitalism is something subtly different, i think you'll find.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> Yes but this clearly isn't a totalitarian state is it? If it was you and I would be in prison. ID cards and CCTV aren't the same as rigged elections, censored press, no Trade Unions, capital punishment, systematic torture etc etc. Fucks sake, beat cops don't even carry guns here!
> 
> Of course, I don't think liberal democracy is any kind of genuine "freedom", but it's stupid to think the UK is a totalitarian state. For one it waters down the concept of totalitarianism and our understanding of genuine fascist or totalitarian regimes. Do you think people in, say, fundamentalist Iran are no worse off than us? Course they bloody are.
> 
> Secondly it means you're failing to recognise what freedoms we as a class have gained. 300 years of working class struggle has given us Trade Unions, a welfare state, a living wage and so on. Capitalism is not a system of the ruling class constantly getting their way, it's a product of the struggle between two classes. You need to recognise this to understand how any effective class struggle can work. If we were all simply toiling away under despotic regimes there would be no hope of any change.


also, i'm confused by yr apparent conflation of "totalitarian" and "fundamentalist". 

when you say "censored press", do you not think that we _do_ have a censored press?

the basick flaw in yr argument is that it appears to be predicated by history as some sort of teleological trajectory, where things never move backwards, where 300 years of working class struggle cannot be undone, and where we're not on the way to a really exceptionally proper police state. consider, for example, the ways that the gains of centuries of class struggle to which you allude have been undermined by governments in this country, specially since 1979. we are heading for an increasingly authoritarian state, and one where the two largest political parties vie to outdo each other in suggesting repressive legislation. yeh, we aren't in a proper totalitarian state _yet_, but we are surveilled all the fucking time, by supermarkets (which provide customer profiles to government as & when required), by 3 million + cctv cameras, by every phone call and email being captured by gchq or the yankee nsa, by leaving an electronick trail every time we use a debit or credit card...

bigger, gilded cages and longer chains...


----------



## Drunken Miss Ho (Aug 16, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> don't you mean history is "a product of the struggle..."?
> 
> capitalism is something subtly different, i think you'll find.



No. Capitalism is a relationship between two classes. Whatever a capitalist society is at any given point is the result of the antagonisms between the working and ruling classes.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> Yes but this clearly isn't a totalitarian state is it? If it was you and I would be in prison. ID cards and CCTV aren't the same as rigged elections, censored press, no Trade Unions, capital punishment, systematic torture etc etc. Fucks sake, beat cops don't even carry guns here!
> 
> Of course, I don't think liberal democracy is any kind of genuine "freedom", but it's stupid to think the UK is a totalitarian state. For one it waters down the concept of totalitarianism and our understanding of genuine fascist or totalitarian regimes. Do you think people in, say, fundamentalist Iran are no worse off than us? Course they bloody are.
> 
> Secondly it means you're failing to recognise what freedoms we as a class have gained. 300 years of working class struggle has given us Trade Unions, a welfare state, a living wage and so on. Capitalism is not a system of the ruling class constantly getting their way, it's a product of the struggle between two classes. You need to recognise this to understand how any effective class struggle can work. If we were all simply toiling away under despotic regimes there would be no hope of any change.



We have been thrown the crusts from the table of the rich and you expect me to applaud.

We do live in a totalitarrian state the only choice we have is to consume!

Are you a tory what a crap argument 'look at those in Iran they are worse off then me'
The regime we live in is far more subtle, infectious and insipid than any theocracy or fascist government. You are a prime example, trumpeting the minor victories of the workers and comparing us to less fortunate people in far off lands.

Look around you,you are controlled, forced to work, forced to consume, every move can be monitored, dare to resist and self manage and you will be black listed and cut adrift from society. Oppose society and they will lock you away and im not talkning about MPH and A-B marches the govt likes them. Take direct action and a whole world of shit is opened up.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> No. Capitalism is a relationship between two classes. Whatever a capitalist society is at any given point is the result of the antagonisms between the working and ruling classes.


& the middle class are where?


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> & the middle class are where?



just use ignore i think her/his understanding of communist politics is based on gin


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> just use ignore i think her/his understanding of communist politics is based on gin


Like mine!


----------



## qwerty777 (Aug 16, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> No. Capitalism is a relationship between two classes. Whatever a capitalist society is at any given point is the result of the antagonisms between the working and ruling classes.




Capitalism , is a certain economic system ..... as marx said , private control of the production of means . its not purely the realtionship , altough the realtionship is an inherent effect of it ...innit....


----------



## Drunken Miss Ho (Aug 16, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> when you say "censored press", do you not think that we _do_ have a censored press?



Not as such no. The mainstream press is owned by the ruling class and reflects their interests, but we do not have a press that is effectively owned by the state, nor are independent left-wing publications banned.



> the basick flaw in yr argument is that it appears to be predicated by history as some sort of teleological trajectory, where things never move backwards, where 300 years of working class struggle cannot be undone, and where we're not on the way to a really exceptionally proper police state. consider, for example, the ways that the gains of centuries of class struggle to which you allude have been undermined by governments in this country, specially since 1979. we are heading for an increasingly authoritarian state, and one where the two largest political parties vie to outdo each other in suggesting repressive legislation.



No, I never said it was one way. The class struggle ebbs and flows, there is progress and regress. Currently we are in a period of class defeat and retreat, hence we have increasingly right-wing governments, privatisation, wage attacks and all the rest of it.



> yeh, we aren't in a proper totalitarian state _yet_, but we are surveilled all the fucking time, by supermarkets (which provide customer profiles to government as & when required), by 3 million + cctv cameras, by every phone call and email being captured by gchq or the yankee nsa, by leaving an electronick trail every time we use a debit or credit card...



CCTV etc aren't really as important issues as the anarchist movement likes to think. Not when compared to attacks on labour laws or the erosion of public services.

You say we are moving towards an ever more authoritarian state. Go back forty or fifty years - there was no legal equality between men and women, homosexuality and abortion were illegal, there was capital punishment, we had national service... Is the state more or less authoritarian now than it was then?


----------



## Drunken Miss Ho (Aug 16, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> & the middle class are where?



Middle class are part of the proletariat, i.e. working class.


----------



## qwerty777 (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> We have been thrown the crusts from the table of the rich and you expect me to applaud.
> 
> We do live in a totalitarrian state the only choice we have is to consume!




I agree , The  values of consumerism enforced by this capitalist society that we live in are an extremly powerful method socail control , Not to mention they way they deliver education with ''socailisation '' and subtle hints , The way that the whole british justice system , in its laws and in its practice is fundamentally geared towards repression , the soma of TV , and the right wing bullshit of the tabloid press ..... Just becuase the control over us isnt overt , it isnt done in the way of beatings and executions ...... Just becuase it isnt as visable dosent mean that it doesnt exsist or that it isnt as brutal .......


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> Not as such no. The mainstream press is owned by the ruling class and reflects their interests, but we do not have a press that is effectively owned by the state, nor are independent left-wing publications banned.


that's different from not being censored. the press is self-censored by journalists, by the media's owners, by the advertisers - just cos it ain't blatantly by the government don't prevent the press being censored.





> _CCTV etc aren't really as important issues as the anarchist movement likes to think. Not when compared to attacks on labour laws or the erosion of public services._


i think you'll find that the insidious influence of cctv and other surveillance has a more pernicious effect on personal behaviour than you suggest... please stop introducing pears and oranges into a discussion about apples.





> _You say we are moving towards an ever more authoritarian state. Go back forty or fifty years - there was no legal equality between men and women, homosexuality and abortion were illegal, there was capital punishment, we had national service... Is the state more or less authoritarian now than it was then?_


you make it increasingly plain that there are large gaps in yr knowledge of the state, a passing glance at discipline & punish should remove some of the scales from yr eyes.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> Middle class are part of the proletariat, i.e. working class.


that is an unusual view.


----------



## Drunken Miss Ho (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> We do live in a totalitarrian state the only choice we have is to consume!



Much as I hate capitalist economics, I do love to consume. Materialism is awesome.



> Are you a tory what a crap argument 'look at those in Iran they are worse off then me'



Well are they or aren't they? Seriously saying the UK is such a totalitarian regime is fucking patronising to people who _do_ or did live in totalitarian regimes.



> The regime we live in is far more subtle, infectious and insipid than any theocracy or fascist government. You are a prime example, trumpeting the minor victories of the workers and comparing us to less fortunate people in far off lands.



I think the victories of the workers are fantastic. That's part of the reason why I continue to fight the same struggle.



> Look around you,you are controlled, forced to work, forced to consume, every move can be monitored,



Baaa! Baaa! I am a sheep, I have no free will!



> dare to resist and self manage and you will be black listed and cut adrift from society. Oppose society and they will lock you away and im not talkning about MPH and A-B marches the govt likes them. Take direct action and a whole world of shit is opened up.



Start some shit with the police while dressed as a clown and you get arrested... no shit sherlock.


----------



## qwerty777 (Aug 16, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> that is an unusual view.




Nah , Its true always has been from the orginal definiiation , The proletariot is anyone who dosent own the means of production .... Who dosent own the land , or factories .....

Even though the class structure of it has changed a lot since marx was writing  , the basic premise can easily be applied to today , if your working for someone else your part of the proletariot ..... if your making money of someone working for you your not....


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2005)

ERiN BuRGeR said:
			
		

> Nah , Its true always has been from the orginal definiiation , The proletariot is anyone who dosent own the means of production .... Who dosent own the land , or factories .....
> 
> Even though the class structure of it has changed a lot since marx was writing  , the basic premise can easily be applied to today , if your working for someone else your part of the proletariot ..... if your making money of someone working for you your not....


i think you'll find people divided society into classes before marx was a twinkle in the milkman's eye.


----------



## qwerty777 (Aug 16, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> i think you'll find people divided society into classes before marx was a twinkle in the milkman's eye.




Indeed , but he defined the word as we use it today .... and thats the word we were discussing...


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

im sorry but you fuckng muppets banging on about us living in a totalitarian state need to drop your fucking Adorno readers and get a grasp on reality. We may well live in one of the most survelienced countries in the world and the state may be enacting increasinlgy repressive legislation but it is not "totalitarian". May I just point out that youse muppets are allowed to continue to talk about "revolution", "insurrectionary clowns" or whatever else takes ot your activist befuddled heads without getting dragged off to a fucking labour camp. To use the label "totalitarian" so loosely is to debase it of all meaning (like those arseholes who shout "fascists" at the police on every demo  ) I mean if the UK is "totalitarian" what the fuck is Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Cuba, China, the West bank, or the numerous other brutal regimes in the world? 

The person who said it is "totalitarian" cos the only choice we have is to consume was mistaking a "totalised" system of the commodity and "totalitarianism", hardly the same thing. I mean in a totalitarian society would the BA workers been allowed to carry out their wildcat? 

Late capitalism does not depend on homogenising all into a dead conformity ala Adorno but rather it depends on more and more fracturing, more sub cultures all with niche markets, the production of identities. All discourses are permitted, infact the more the merrier, it is the law of the market, every idea is as equally valid as the other, exchange value. Be a womble, be a clown , be whatever the fuck you want as long as you don't actually begin to grasp the "hidden abode of production".

In as much as the UK is "totalitarian", groups like the Wombles and Circa are a working part of it's machinary, another alternative discourse, another bunch of "cultural subversives" are themselves detourned by a capitalism, that having trashed the working class as a organised entity, sits down and laughs at itself. Circa are nothing more than the Kings jester, in being able to laugh at itself the Kings power is affirmed even more.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

Hello revol - nice first post


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

thanks Thora.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

lol, nice one, Revol.  I think that you and Herbie might get on eventually, but maybe after you've 'aired' your differences.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> lol, nice one, Revol.  I think that you and Herbie might get on eventually, but maybe after you've 'aired' your differences.


Mmm, I can't see it personally...


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 16, 2005)

ERiN BuRGeR said:
			
		

> Indeed , but he defined the word as we use it today .... and thats the word we were discussing...


no he didn't.

i mean, marx's definition's a useful starting point for discussion, but i would hope that in the last 122 years we have at least added somewhat to his definition - and imo a definition which famously makes estate agents to be proles is fucking well outdated.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

"Mmm, I can't see it personally..."

Why, just because Revol's an intellectual ponce?


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> "Mmm, I can't see it personally..."
> 
> Why, just because Revol's an intellectual ponce?


I think Herb would laugh at emo kids.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> I think Herb would laugh at emo kids.



But they both hate 'activists'.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> But they both hate 'activists'.


True.


----------



## rednblack (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> But they both hate 'activists'.



i think they're both


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> im sorry but you fuckng muppets banging on about us living in a totalitarian state need to drop your fucking Adorno readers and get a grasp on reality. We may well live in one of the most survelienced countries in the world and the state may be enacting increasinlgy repressive legislation but it is not "totalitarian". May I just point out that youse muppets are allowed to continue to talk about "revolution", "insurrectionary clowns" or whatever else takes ot your activist befuddled heads without getting dragged off to a fucking labour camp. To use the label "totalitarian" so loosely is to debase it of all meaning (like those arseholes who shout "fascists" at the police on every demo  ) I mean if the UK is "totalitarian" what the fuck is Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Cuba, China, the West bank, or the numerous other brutal regimes in the world?
> 
> The person who said it is "totalitarian" cos the only choice we have is to consume was mistaking a "totalised" system of the commodity and "totalitarianism", hardly the same thing. I mean in a totalitarian society would the BA workers been allowed to carry out their wildcat?
> 
> ...



I hate Circa and have nothing to do with the wombles.

Im not into the top trumps game of whos the most totalitarain state thats not the point. All states are totallitarian be it liberal, religious or communist. The point of totalitarianism is the complete control of society through one ideology. The UK and west is controlled completely by global capatalism it may be more subtle than religious police and iron fist communist dictatorships.

Just because workers can strike does not mean we live in a free society, the workers will at best regain crap low paid jobs or at worst have to get crap low paid jobs and a life a minimum wage living. The fact they went on strike will further mark them out to employees as troubkle makers consign them to more low paid work, smacks of totallitarian control to me.

one shit job for another shit job either way the boss is winning seems pretty totallitarian to me. The masquerade of allowing strikes and alledged freedom to form a union is a smoke screen. Do i have to point out that the wild cat is actually illegal under law and punitive action will be brought against the workers involved.

Your text book definition of totallitarianism is subjective as we live in a capatalist totallitarian liberal regime. Liberal academia defines it and you bought the ideology.

One regime points a gun the other uses products and money to define social relationships. even alledged liberal regimes will alwys use a gun in the end. If it was that free why do we need prisons?

As pickman pointed out gilded prisons longer chains!


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

Come off it, Herbert.  As Revol said, you're confusing a 'total' system -- like comsumer capitalism, that is infused into our everyday lives -- with a 'totalitarian' system, which is usually used to mean a system with total *police* control.

The 'total' capitalist system is actually stronger than the polcie states -- when the state has to resort to armed force against its own population it's a sign of weakness, and usually leads to the regime being short lived.

But that doesn't mean that it isn't better to live in a non-police state.  let's rmember that the freedoms we have -- the gild on the cage -- are only there because we've fought for them throughout history, even if many of the 'freedoms' we were granted were twisted in such a way as to make us less able to gain other freedoms.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

> The point of totalitarianism is the complete control of society through one ideology



except that isn't the case in the UK, the ideology of late capitalism can be understood as the fragmenting of ideology. late capitalism doesn't give two fucks what we really believe, it's welded together by it's own systematic complex operations. Ideology refers to meaning and systems of thought, but increasingly in the west we are situated in a system of pervasive non meaning. The irrational rationale of capital bleachs social life of significance use value is buried under the exchange value. Ideas become commodities competing for markets, finding niches and like capital continously self expanding, multiplying identites, the haemorrhaging of significance triggers triggers a multitude of pathological symptoms in society, violence, drugs, mindless revolt, Wombles, Circa, Oi music   and befuddled searches for mystical significance through quirky religious new age bullshit. But in general it merely leads to cynicism (  ), apathy and general dissillusionment. We know work is shite, our managers know work is shite, everyone knows they're stuck in a sadistic role play that could only have been dreamt up by a management motivational consultioum and yet we are forced to act it out, not cos we believe in it, but because we are powerlessness. And in as actors we are powerless, as spectators we are powerless, someone else has written the script. Whilst we stay at the level of culture and consumption we will never be able to transcend it's limits, but when we grasp that we collectively write the script, that we are the both the producers and the actors then we can begin to change the lines. 

The protest junkies, the subvertisers and circa are throwing rotten fruit from the balconies in an attempt to change the script, whilst all the while blind to the fact they are actually trapped in it. 

But all this is not totalitariamism, totalitariamism refers to conscious indoctrination and control. Totalitarianism is a desperate attempt to deny the non meaning of capitalism, it seeks to graft some sort of order and ideological unity onto the irrational commodity form.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> Come off it, Herbert.  As Revol said, you're confusing a 'total' system -- like comsumer capitalism, that is infused into our everyday lives -- with a 'totalitarian' system, which is usually used to mean a system with total *police* control.
> 
> The 'total' capitalist system is actually stronger than the polcie states -- when the state has to resort to armed force against its own population it's a sign of weakness, and usually leads to the regime being short lived.
> 
> But that doesn't mean that it isn't better to live in a non-police state.  let's rmember that the freedoms we have -- the gild on the cage -- are only there because we've fought for them throughout history, even if many of the 'freedoms' we were granted were twisted in such a way as to make us less able to gain other freedoms.



No i wont come off it and care less for a total system or totallitarian system.

You reckon we dont have total police control, have you not read the prevention of terrorism act or any of the other laws. Dont get all come off it liberal with me 'its not that total' crap. I care not for illegality and legal arguments, the police and state have the power of arrest, if like me you have no money and are working class the state can put you in prison at any time they want and no one will give a flying fuck. States like Iran would do anything for a comprehensive CCTV system as the UK has. ID cards ring any bells to be fair  ID is just the cherry on the top. 

Consumption is control, take mobile phones for instance i know more than one activist who ahs been placed in a place at a time due to mobile phones. Stupid activist right but it serves to highlight the total control of surveillance. RFID chips seen them when you go shopping what do you think the future implications are. The more people consume the more trhey are addicted to the sytem a de facto consumption addict and total slave to material senses, this to me is totallitarian control. False choices with the same result.

Come off your liberal pedastol and realise the chains of silk you are bonded in. Victories for freedom dont make me laugh, these were given to appaese and divide us. So people would say 'have freedom' the ruling class can and will take these back when they want.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> except that isn't the case in the UK, the ideology of late capitalism can be understood as the fragmenting of ideology. late capitalism doesn't give two fucks what we really believe, it's welded together by it's own systematic complex operations. Ideology refers to meaning and systems of thought, but increasingly in the west we are situated in a system of pervasive non meaning. The irrational rationale of capital bleachs social life of significance use value is buried under the exchange value. Ideas become commodities competing for markets, finding niches and like capital continously self expanding, multiplying identites, the haemorrhaging of significance triggers triggers a multitude of pathological symptoms in society, violence, drugs, mindless revolt, Wombles, Circa, Oi music   and befuddled searches for mystical significance through quirky religious new age bullshit. But in general it merely leads to cynicism (  ), apathy and general dissillusionment. We know work is shite, our managers know work is shite, everyone knows they're stuck in a sadistic role play that could only have been dreamt up by a management motivational consultioum and yet we are forced to act it out, not cos we believe in it, but because we are powerlessness. And in as actors we are powerless, as spectators we are powerless, someone else has written the script. Whilst we stay at the level of culture and consumption we will never be able to transcend it's limits, but when we grasp that we collectively write the script, that we are the both the producers and the actors then we can begin to change the lines.
> 
> The protest junkies, the subvertisers and circa are throwing rotten fruit from the balconies in an attempt to change the script, whilst all the while blind to the fact they are actually trapped in it.
> 
> But all this is not totalitariamism, totalitariamism refers to conscious indoctrination and control. Totalitarianism is a desperate attempt to deny the non meaning of capitalism, it seeks to graft some sort of order and ideological unity onto the irrational commodity form.



It is totalitariansim to me, maybe not you. Its not top trumps iran level 10 UK level 6. The point is control, i think we are on the same level


----------



## JoeBlack (Aug 16, 2005)

On the other hand your not living somewhere where you'd be worried that on your way home from work tonight you'll be pulled into a car and disappeared unless your family are lucky and your body gets washed up.

This is the case in some areas of the world today and was much more extensively (across most of South and Central America for instance) in the recent past.  The gap between being active under those conditions and under these where we do indeed live under the CCTV is a very large gap indeed.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

JoeBlack said:
			
		

> On the other hand your not living somewhere where you'd be worried that on your way home from work tonight you'll be pulled into a car and disappeared unless your family are lucky and your body gets washed up.
> 
> This is the case in some areas of the world today and was much more extensively (across most of South and Central America for instance) in the recent past.  The gap between being active under those conditions and under these where we do indeed live under the CCTV is a very large gap indeed.



I have been through this before its not top trumps and pointing out its worse over there is a bag of shite defence.

well the result is the same (apart from death) fear of political activity reduces resistance and produces people who comply. resisting will result in prison or death.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

no but you can't just level all forms of control to be the same, it's just daft. Otherwise we fail to grasp not only our relative victories and how these open up bigger fissures in the system. 

Totalitarianism cannot be expanded to cover the totality of the commodity form without becoming meaningless, and the Uk can not be described as totalitarian without sounding like some mad fuckng activist who thinks the CIA are after him cos he had a street theatre outside tesco's wearing a George W Bush mask.

This is reminding of the ICC debate whereby they refuse to distinguish between liberal democracy, stalinism, and fascism cos they are all at heart systems of capital accumulation.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

and seriously herbert you need to drop this pseudo ultra leftism that sees every development as another crafty trick by capitalism to control the working class. Perhaps you should read some autonomist marxist stuff. though Miss Drunken Ho has already laid out much of it;s centeal thesis.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> and seriously herbert you need to drop this pseudo ultra leftism that sees every development as another crafty trick by capitalism to control the working class. Perhaps you should read some autonomist marxist stuff. though Miss Drunken Ho has already laid out much of it;s centeal thesis.



never 

Plaese dont patronise me i have read lots of autonomist marxist, anarchist, libertarain, lenin, marx and god knows what else.

Politics is the way i feel its not a theory but how interperet my surroundings, im not an academic or keyboard warior and my beliefs are honest and only my interpretation.

Drop the lenninist labelling ultra left you sound like some grovelling trot.

You have some good points and i have taken them on board it was good ranting with you


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

i said pseudo ultra leftist!  

and i wasn't patronising you, im just amazed that someone obviously as bright as you sees historical developments in such a one dimensional way. I mean we aren't going to leap from being completely fucked over and defensive to libertarian communism, thats the theory of vanguardists who corss their fingers and hope for another crisis to sweep them into power. No, proletarian self emancipation requires a huge amount of confidence and that will mean winning small victories, or guidling the cage and lengthening the chains as you put it.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> You have some good points and i have taken them on board it was good ranting with you



Awww, you see -- it's happening already  

Seriously, Herbert, if you see every 'freedom' as just another trick then you're saying the working class has never won a victory -- not one.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

Will you two stop flirting!  Very unseemly.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> i said pseudo ultra leftist!
> 
> and i wasn't patronising you, im just amazed that someone obviously as bright as you sees historical developments in such a one dimensional way. I mean we aren't going to leap from being completely fucked over and defensive to libertarian communism, thats the theory of vanguardists who corss their fingers and hope for another crisis to sweep them into power. No, proletarian self emancipation requires a huge amount of confidence and that will mean winning small victories, or guidling the cage and lengthening the chains as you put it.



I would prefer a sustained insurrection to freedoms one (only joking)

But we arent goint to get anarchy by reforming the present system by guilding our cages.


----------



## Trouble (Aug 16, 2005)

nothing to add apart to say Random and Revol are clearly winning the argument against herb's rantings


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> Awww, you see -- it's happening already
> 
> Seriously, Herbert, if you see every 'freedom' as just another trick then you're saying the working class has never won a victory -- not one.



Freedom is an illusion mate, a complete illusion my views are very Nihilist everything under the present system needs destroying including your self percieved freedom and imaginary victories!


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

Trouble said:
			
		

> nothing to add apart to say Random and Revol are clearly winning the argument against herb's rantings



I never said they were not rants my politics is my feelings unlike some i could mention who are dogamatic and guided by abstarct and alien theories.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> I never said they were not rants my politics is my feelings unlike some i could mention who are dogamatic and guided by abstarct and alien theories.


And your politics are all the better for the fact that you didn't just read it all in a book.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> my politics is my feelings



You see, Thora?  Herb *is* an emo kid.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> You see, Thora?  Herb *is* an emo kid.



Only if an EMO kid would kick your head in to a fucking jelly


----------



## Trouble (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> I never said they were not rants my politics is my feelings unlike some i could mention who are dogamatic and guided by abstarct and alien theories.



Feelings ebb and flow, and while they no doubt have important effects on everyone's wish or ability to be engaged in struggle - they must be tempered by an objective analysis of the existing circumstances in order for any struggle to have any chance of any success. You can maintain your analysis as long as your like about the nature of the current state in the UK, but  it will lead you to the wrong strategy. In my view, Revol's anaylsis of the state is more accurate and therefore, ultimately, more useful.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

Even though he's an intellectual ponce -- you forgot to add that bit.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

an intellectual ponce who got a fuckng 3rd you forgot to add!


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> an intellectual ponce who got a fuckng 3rd you forgot to add!



There you go, fetishising the capitalist mode of intellectual production    No real revolutionary should ever be good at exams


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

exams aren't the problem doing coursework is! Oh aye and showing up for exams.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 16, 2005)

Trouble said:
			
		

> Feelings ebb and flow, and while they no doubt have important effects on everyone's wish or ability to be engaged in struggle - they must be tempered by an objective analysis of the existing circumstances in order for any struggle to have any chance of any success. You can maintain your analysis as long as your like about the nature of the current state in the UK, but  it will lead you to the wrong strategy .



the right strategy been Respect  

I cant take political advice from you trouble as you are in the SWP and support Respect  

My view is actually is essentially the same as revol my failure is to diistinguish between the different strands of control and lump them together this is something i have thought about and will continue to ponder and muse over. I assert i am essentially right about the end result which is control and coercion, i was a bit hasty getting there.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

"exams aren't the problem doing coursework is! Oh aye and showing up for exams."

...to busy reading Paul Lafargue...


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

never heard of the cunt, who is he?


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1883/lazy/


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

Lafargue:
http://libcom.org/library/taxonomy/term/118

Good to see you over here revol!


----------



## Trouble (Aug 16, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> the right strategy been Respect
> 
> My view is actually is essentially the same as revol my failure is to diistinguish between the different strands of control and lump them together this is something i have thought about and will continue to ponder and muse over. I assert i am essentially right about the end result which is control and coercion, i was a bit hasty getting there.



No, your view is not essentially the same. Your mistake is to label the british state totalitarian by reference to methods of existing social control that are qualitively different from those likely to be implemented by a real totalitarian state, and too call any examples put forward to you by other posters as examples of how struggle has brought economic, political or social material benefits as insignificant gidling of the cage. By doing so you dismiss the act of struggle itself, as well as the result. Such an anaylsis, if maintained, is likely to lead you to cynicism and the abandonment of class struggle.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

No one's allowed to tell Revol who I am on Libcom


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

aye up catch, you can pm me and tell me who random is and i'll take back the nasty things I said about Bookchin and his piss poor analysis of Anarcho Syndicalism.  

i wish those other cocks would use the same name on both boards ffs!

As for trouble well he is right in away about herberts pseudo ultra leftism but ultimately he is in the SWP and hecneforth has no right to suggest that someone might give up class struggle if they continue in a certain manner.

Or is George Galloway a one man fucking Soviet?


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

I believe Random called Bookchin a twat on here once. So you both owe him an apology. I'll take offers.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> I believe Random called Bookchin a twat on here once. So you both owe him an apology. I'll take offers.



I don't remember that.  Wonder what it was over


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> I believe Random called Bookchin a twat on here once. So you both owe him an apology. I'll take offers.


Catch, I really think you should respect Random's privacy and not give away his identity to revol.


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> I don't remember that.  Wonder what it was over



I think it was during a discussion on communalism, and Bookchin's attempt to use the word because it hadn't been fucked up yet, which it had...

Thora, I wasn't aware that anonymous usernames came under the provision of privacy. Not that I'm going to


----------



## Trouble (Aug 16, 2005)

As for trouble well he is right in away about herberts pseudo ultra leftism but ultimately he is in the SWP and hecneforth has no right to suggest that someone might give up class struggle if they continue in a certain manner.

Or is George Galloway a one man fucking Soviet?[/QUOTE]

Nope, GG is not a one man soviet.

Theres lots of ways people give up the class struggle; Herb clearly has not done so, my comments being merely an observation.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

Bookchin, _is_ a twat, of course.  I've enjoyed some of his theory, and the Spanish Anarchists is very good, but the whole setting up a fee-paying college and spouting off grumpy old man broadsides at the current anarcho movement does not impress.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Thora, I wasn't aware that anonymous usernames came under the provision of privacy. Not that I'm going to



Well I won't mind too much, because I consider both catch and revol to be cyber-buddies, but I want to be free to have some fun before being unmasked


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> whole setting up a fee-paying college


Like every other college in the US then. Not that I think the ISE is a good idea. I'm also not sure how much of the setting up was Bookchin and how much his mates.



> and spouting off grumpy old man broadsides at the current anarcho movement does not impress.


 It impresses me  

Nearly said something else then, but it'd give the game away, so will wait 'til later.


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Nearly said something else then, but it'd give the game away, so will wait 'til later.



Ho ho.  I worked out who you were at the CAG, but only because you used the term 'libertarian municipalism', without appending the work 'wank' at the end


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

bookchin's deliberate divorcing of anarchism for syndicalism in the spanish civil war pisses me off! Especially cos it's blatantly so he caricature anarcho syndicalism as an out date current only relevant to "the industrial proletariat" who no doubt work in THE ACME BIG SPARK AND HAMMER FACTORY.


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> bookchin's deliberate divorcing of anarchism for syndicalism in the spanish civil war pisses me off! Especially cos it's blatantly so he caricature anarcho syndicalism as an out date current only relevant to "the industrial proletariat" who no doubt work in THE ACME BIG SPARK AND HAMMER FACTORY.



Classical anarcho-syndicalism does pretty much rely on there being a large industrial proletariat though doesn't it?

Fair enough it's evolved since then, but its main interest was as a historical current at a specific time, one which no longer exists.


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

Random said:
			
		

> Ho ho.  I worked out who you were at the CAG, but only because you used the term 'libertarian municipalism', without appending the work 'wank' at the end


----------



## Random (Aug 16, 2005)




----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

no thats bullshit propagated by arseholes who haven't a fucking baldy. I mean the barbers and waitors in Barcelona were some of the most commited and revolutionary CNT members there was. It also organised deep within the community over a wide berth of issues. Anarcho syndicalists never held workers control to mean just managing the current economic apparatus and were actually developing critiques of the production line way before any of those Italian autonomists started handing out surveys at FIAT. Also the CNT was a union but for most of it's existance it was illegal and hence acted more like a structured network of workplace struggle groups, something that could probably give us some inspiration for organising retail and temp workers.

the bullshit that Bookchin says about anrcho syndicalism is based on his piss poor grasp interpretation of the proletariat, as anyone who has read "Listen Marxist!" could testify to.


----------



## kropotkin (Aug 16, 2005)

Aye, I'm just about to start Bookchin's "Post-Scarcity Anarchism"... I'll form my own opinion in the for/against-catch-a-thon

Alright revol.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

alrite kropotkin, whats your libcom name???


----------



## kropotkin (Aug 16, 2005)

pingtiao


----------



## Thora_v1 (Aug 16, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> pingtiao


What does pingtiao actually mean, btw?


----------



## kropotkin (Aug 16, 2005)

They were a revolutionary group in a series of books called "Chung Kuo" by David Wingrove, their name was supposed to have meant 'the levellers' in Mandarin. I don't think it does though.


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> the bullshit that Bookchin says about anrcho syndicalism is based on his piss poor grasp interpretation of the proletariat, as anyone who has read "Listen Marxist!" could testify to.



Nah. The point with Listen Marxist! is he's responding to a conception of the proletariat that hadn't evolved for decades, one that was directly informing the tactics of Marxist parties in the US: dressing in proletarian clothing, affecting a working class manner and entering the factories, as was also occurring in the UK during the '70s, (CPB M-L is one example I think awaits leftie trainspotter schooling). His response to this fossilised definition was to keep to the fossilised definition and ditch the word, others have expanded/updated the definition and retained it; and some people get jobs in Scottish meat packing factories.

If I hear proletariat, I think factory worker as a first reaction, despite acknowledging the difference between "industrial proletariat" and "proletariat". It might mean wage labourer, but that's not everyone's conception of it. There are different ways to deal with these different reactions to words that increasingly we take for granted as having a quite specific meaning.

Loads of people, especially on Urban, complain about a two class analysis because their conception of the working class is one based on sociological and cultural definitions. This leads either to constant explanation (my preferred method), or the use of wanky terms like "masses", "multitude" or libertarian municipalism/communalism instead of working class and workers' councils.

both are valid, both have their own problems.



> alrite kropotkin, whats your libcom name???



N00b!!11!111


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

> What does pingtiao actually mean, btw?



it actually means "one who wears silly necklaces and shirts straight form a Hollyoaks set circa 1998", or so the ole wise fella from the Orange phone commercials told me.

Catch the problem with Listen Marxist! (and forgive me as i haven't read it in about 2 years) is that it essentially argues that the revolutionary impetus has moved away from the proletariat and is now permeated through all classes, as cpaitalism threatens the whole planet. He not only rejects the term proletariat cause of it's historical baggage but he also moves away from the point of production as the locus of struggle and instead locates it in a multitude of groups in "civil scoiety" eg activist and single issue campaigns.


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> They were a revolutionary group in a series of books called "Chung Kuo" by David Wingrove, their name was supposed to have meant 'the levellers' in Mandarin. I don't think it does though.



A mate of mine speaks/reads Mandarin. I'll ask him. He's supposed to be lending me some books on China as well


----------



## kropotkin (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> it actually means "one who wears silly necklaces and shirts straight form a Hollyoaks set circa 1998", or so the ole wise fella from the Orange phone commercials told me.


 I'm going to punch you in the mouth next time I see you, I swear to Jebus


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> Catch the problem with Listen Marxist! (and forgive me as i haven't read it in about 2 years) is that it essentially argues that the revolutionary impetus has moved away from the proletariat and is now permeated through all classes, as cpaitalism threatens the whole planet. He not only rejects the term proletariat cause of it's historical baggage but he also moves away from the point of production as the locus of struggle and instead locates it in a multitude of groups in "civil scoiety" eg activist and single issue campaigns.



You mean like a social factory analysis with an ecological bent then? And one that took into account increasing working class disassociation from stable occupations (if not workplaces in general), some time before casualisation became the norm.

He rejected activist/single-issue/counter-cultural groups pretty quickly afterwards I think, and of course revised/clarified some of his ecological writing when he saw how easily recuperable it was.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> You mean like a social factory analysis with an ecological bent then? And one that took into account increasing working class disassociation from stable occupations (if not workplaces in general), some time before casualisation became the norm.
> 
> He rejected activist/single-issue/counter-cultural groups pretty quickly afterwards I think, and of course revised/clarified some of his ecological writing when he saw how easily recuperable it was.




no actually i mean that he caricatures the proletariat as working in factories, then looks outwards to "civil society", like he's making some sort of fucking discovery, when in truth anarcho syndicalism historically (at least in practice) grasped the concept of the "social factory" and understood the proletariat to produce away from the direct point of production, hence it's organising of house wives, independent schools, hospitals etc. 

As for casualisation you could do well to remember that a huge proportion of the CNTs base was made up of seasonal argricultural labours and "precarious" rural immigrants to the urban industrial centres. 

he doesn't look at "civil society" as a "social factory" in the sense that it is a point of production but rather as somewhere to organise "politically" on "issues".


----------



## cats hammers (Aug 16, 2005)

Nice one revol, stick it to the liberals. 




			
				catch said:
			
		

> If I hear proletariat, I think factory worker as a first reaction, despite acknowledging the difference between "industrial proletariat" and "proletariat". It might mean wage labourer, but that's not everyone's conception of it. There are different ways to deal with these different reactions to words that increasingly we take for granted as having a quite specific meaning.



Ah Catch, Catch, Catch.  You fail to understand the true power of the proletariat, by identifying it as the working class, and not the class of the critique of work. 




			
				Dauve said:
			
		

> If one identifies proletarian with factory worker (or even worse: with manual labourer), or with the poor, then one cannot see what is subversive in the proletarian condition. The proletariat is the negation of this society. It is not the collection of the poor, but of those who are desperate, those who have no reserves (les sans-réserves in French, or senza riserve in Italian), 5 who have nothing to lose but their chains; those who are nothing, have nothing, and cannot liberate themselves without destroying the whole social order. The proletariat is the dissolution of present society, because this society deprives it of nearly all its positive aspects. Thus the proletariat is also its own destruction. All theories (either bourgeois, fascist, stalinist, left-wing or "gauchistes") which in any way glorify and praise the proletariat as it is and claim for it the positive role of defending values and regenerating society, are counter-revolutionary. Worship of the proletariat has become one of the most efficient and dangerous weapons of capital. Most proles are low paid, and a lot work in production, yet their emergence as the proletariat derives not from being low paid producers, but from being "cut off", alienated, with no control either over their lives or the meaning of what they have to do to earn a living.



 

Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement


----------



## revol68 (Aug 16, 2005)

> All theories (either bourgeois, fascist, stalinist, left-wing or "gauchistes") which in any way glorify and praise the proletariat as it is and claim for it the positive role of defending values and regenerating society, are counter-revolutionary.



Someone should stick this quote up on the CLASS WAR typewriter!


----------



## cats hammers (Aug 16, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> Someone should stick this quote up on the CLASS WAR typewriter!



Don't be silly, it's too busy warning the proletariat of dangers of users of the 73 bus.


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 16, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Loads of people, especially on Urban, complain about a two class analysis because their conception of the working class is one based on sociological and cultural definitions.



True enough, and it can get tiresome dealing with people who try to put workers and slightly better paid workers in different classes. But there is a better reason to object to a "two class" analysis than that. It simply disappears the petit-bourgeoisie, a quite substantial class in most countries. Where do lawyers or artisans or managers fit into a "two class" analysis?


----------



## blamblam (Aug 16, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> True enough, and it can get tiresome dealing with people who try to put workers and slightly better paid workers in different classes. But there is a better reason to object to a "two class" analysis than that. It simply disappears the petit-bourgeoisie, a quite substantial class in most countries. Where do lawyers or artisans or managers fit into a "two class" analysis?


You know, mr Marxist, that lawyers and managers aren't technically "petit-bourgeois"

Shit I had a point to make... but I'm pissed... fuck.

Yeah that was it - Bookchin (and catch's) analysis of anarchosyndicalism/the proletariat is balls. But, revol, Listen Marxist! was aimed at members of the Marxist Maoist group the PLP in the US who did hold that shit Maoist analysis of the proletariat - which unfortunately bookchin/catch still goes by...


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 16, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> You know, mr Marxist, that lawyers and managers aren't technically "petit-bourgeois"



So which of the "two classes" do they fit into?




			
				icepick said:
			
		

> Shit I had a point to make... but I'm pissed... fuck.



Hate when that happens.


----------



## cats hammers (Aug 16, 2005)

Managers oversee the extraction of value, and so are ruling class, innit.

Control and ownership of the MOP as you well know don't always overlap.  How many CEO's 'own' the companies they run?


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 16, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Managers oversee the extraction of value, and so are ruling class, innit.



So they are ruling class despite not owning the means of production and having to sell their labour to survive? And lawyers? And artisans? And shopkeepers? (and most CEO's also hold substantial equity by the way).

This kind of thinking strikes me as an equally incorrect reaction to arguments which divide up the working class according to sociological criteria or income and declare anyone who doesn't own a whippet to be middle class. There *are* strata in society which are neither part of the working class nor part of the ruling class.


----------



## cats hammers (Aug 16, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> So they are ruling class despite not owning the means of production and having to sell their labour to survive? And lawyers? And artisans? And shopkeepers? (and most CEO's also hold substantial equity by the way).



Yea, but they don't OWN the MOP.  Very few CEO's have enough of a stake to have any form of meaningful ownership.  Neither did the Soviet bureaucracy own the Russian MOP.

Doesn't make them not ruling class; control over the MOP is the important issue, not formal ownership.

If you impose work by way of the commodity form, you're ruling class.  If it's imposed on you by the commodity form, you're proletarian.  Sure, there are some rough edges (small capitalists, better off sections of the proletariat etc.), but then, it's not really about viewing it as individuals, it's a matter of a class as a whole exploiting a class as a whole.

Christ, it's enough to make you sympathise with Negri for abandoning the proletariat for the 'multitude'.


----------



## catch (Aug 16, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> Yeah that was it - Bookchin (and catch's) analysis of anarchosyndicalism/the proletariat is balls. But, revol, Listen Marxist! was aimed at members of the Marxist Maoist group the PLP in the US who did hold that shit Maoist analysis of the proletariat - which unfortunately bookchin/catch still goes by...



I've said on libcom that I was using proletariat interchangeably with industrial proletariat, which it shouldn't be. I still think the word "proletariat" has historical resonances that don't well adapt to usefulness in contemporary society - in the same way that it'd be good to find a decent, and non-wanky, term to replace "working class" so people didn't think whippets/flat caps. However, Marx was discussing the industrial proletariat when he wrote capital, they've remained the minority of society, and hence Bookchin in Listen Marxist! makes sense when it's read in the context of the people it was aimed at.


----------



## blamblam (Aug 17, 2005)

Catch - yeah LM! makes sense cos it was aimed at the cocks of the PLP - doesn't mean you should copy them!

Nige - petit-bourgoies means self-employed/artisan so managers don't count

yeah jack the USSR is the best example of people controlling the MOP being like the bourgeoisie.

night all...


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 17, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Yea, but they don't OWN the MOP.  Very few CEO's have enough of a stake to have any form of meaningful ownership.



Only if you think that most significant companies are owned by a single individual rather than by a group of substantial investors. Almost all CEOs are substantial shareholders, including equity in companies other than their own.

However, this is off the main point. Most managers are not CEOs or even senior executives. Many many more of them are some form of middle management and that's before we even consider the low level "managers", team leaders and the like, who are another question again. Similarly you have avoided responding to any of the other examples I have given of people who fit into neither the working class or the ruling class, but instead form a middle strata in society (ie the petit bourgeoisie despite not all of them being literally small capitalists) - artisans, shopkeepers, lawyers etc etc etc. Taken together these groups add up to a significant portion of society.

I quite agree that the fundamental division in society is between the capitalists and the working class. I vehemently oppose arguments which write people out of the working class because they have a higher wage or because their labour isn't manual enough or they don't eat coal. But none of this means that there are only two classes - and that's quite important if we are intent on analysing our society. As you say there are "rough edges".


----------



## cats hammers (Aug 17, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> Similarly you have avoided responding to any of the other examples I have given of people who fit into neither the working class or the ruling class, but instead form a middle strata in society (ie the petit bourgeoisie) - artisans, shopkeepers, lawyers etc etc etc. Taken together these groups add up to a significant portion of society.



Because it's silly to focus on classifying individuals - as I said capitalism is about a class exploiting a class, not just a matter of individuals exploiting individuals.  It's a social relationship, not just a split between evil capitalists and good honest proles.  But since you insist...

How many artisans are there today?  An insignifanct number, most of whom would suffer the imposition of labour by wider market forces, and would be proletarian.

Shopkeepers are small capitalists.  If you wanna view the petit-bourgeoisie as a separate class, then go for it, but as far as I'm concerned, they're just a sub-section.  Kinda like how lumpens might be vile and have nothing to offer the proletariat, but are still part of it.

Lawyers it really depends.  I don't really think a QC performs the same social role as a solicitor who takes mainly legal aid cases, for example.  And even if their social position re: the MOP is 'proletarian', this doesn't necessarily mean they don't act in a manner hostile to the wider class.

Going back to the CEO's.  You said almost all are substantial investors.  What about the ones who aren't?  Are they not ruling class?  Or the Soviet bureaucracy?


----------



## catch (Aug 17, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Managers oversee the extraction of value, and so are ruling class, innit.



In modern top-heavy bureaucracies, a lot of people on "management grades" aren't really managers, they only manage one or two staff, don't get paid much more, and their hours are open ended rather than fixed. More properly they're supervisors - management of labour is a small part of their job, and they'll often have 3, 4, 5 layers of management above them as well. I'd put them in the "members of the working class who have anti-working class jobs" category, along with parasites like estate agents or bailiffs, people who work in cheque cashers, the police etc.

[Edit:] I see Nigel has mentioned "Team Leaders". This is what I'm referring to. It's a fairly recent phenomenon when everyone is a team leader or co-ordinator or whatever, and to reject these people from the working class due to the minimal control they have over other workers is to fall into the trap that Capital has set through further stratifying and diversifying the class in this way. Those job titles (which in some cases don't involve any managerial capacity at all, may even mean "whipping boy when things go wrong for a bit more cash") are designed to divide the class, fairly consciously by management consultants and the like. To accept this stratification and develop revolutionary theory around it is the opposite of what we should be doing, which is uniting the class around it's common position in relation to capital.[/edit]

There's a certain point with management jobs, or many others, where the income is so high that it allows the individual to enter the ruling class proper by allowing them to buy property which will provide a significant income without working. There are also social networks that allow company directors, or high level civil servants, to maintain very high salaries even if their businesses/services go down the pan.

As there are gradations in the working class according to income and social status, there are also gradations in the ruling class, this doesn't mean we should throw out a material class analysis. A small shopkeeper who employs a couple of staff and works long hours themselves in order to earn a living, is a business owner in the same way someone employing 500 (or 5000) staff is, relationship to employees is the same (hence petit-bourgeios, although the majority of their income will be from their own labour). However, materially, that small business owner employing five people might be worse off in terms of income than a highly skilled worker like a doctor who employs no-one, and doesn't necessarily have institutional authority. The classes overlap considerably imo, and since sections of both classes are likely to act against their objective material interests during a revolutionary situation, I don't have  a problem with thinking of it like that.

When you start to look at individuals, or even individual occupations, you begin to personalise Capital, which removes the analysis of Capital as dead labour vampirising living labour, and the importance of the commodity form and wage labour in determining social relationships.


----------



## catch (Aug 17, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> Catch - yeah LM! makes sense cos it was aimed at the cocks of the PLP - doesn't mean you should copy them!


----------



## cats hammers (Aug 17, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> In modern top-heavy bureaucracies, a lot of people on "management grades"



Yea, I agree, I wasn't being clear on this, obviously lower level "managers" aren't ruling class, I meant more "actual" managers.  Lots of people in "management grades" are doing effectivly the same job a supervisor would do.

Agree about not looking at things as a matter of individuals, it's what I was trying to do.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

> I'd put them in the "members of the working class who have anti-working class jobs" category, along with parasites like estate agents or bailiffs, *people who work in cheque cashers*, the police etc.



All jobs have a degree of anti working classness to them eg when i work in a conveniance store im responsible for maintaining food as a commodity and if I stand there and let half of Belfast walk in and out with shit without paying i'll be sacked. The issue isn't if the actual job is part of a wider institution that is anti working class but rather does your role bring you into direct and serious conflict with working class interests in a long term basis, so much so that your interests begin to converge to such a point that your interests become inreconciable. I would imagine that bank tellers don't find themselves in such a position, nor the person in your local cheque cashers. The Police are a different matter in that they are constantly there to control the working class, but at the same time they are not completely alien from the rest of the working class and can not be guaranteed to always side with the state, especially when struggle moves from marginalised groups to the wider working class. in such cases special police units are often brought in, as was the case in Paris 68.


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 17, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Because it's silly to focus on classifying individuals



It's not about classifying individuals - it's about working out the relationship of social roles held by large numbers of people to the MOP, which is believe it or not an important part of analysing a class society.

As far as I am concerned there are substantial bodies of people who do not fit into a meaningful categorisation of working or ruling class. These people have traditionally been referred to as the petit-bourgeois, although I don't think the label particularly matters and in fact I get hives when people insist on using proletariat and similarly unneccessarily archaic terminology. These people by and large form an intermediate layer in society, with certain interests in common with the ruling class and certain interests in common with the working class. This is a precarious existence - they are at risk of being absorbed into the working class and losing their relative advantages as has already happened to many of the social roles which fit into this category in Marx's time - which leads to a certain political volatility (part of the social base for fascist movements for instance).

Talking of some middle or low level manager or shopkeeper or priest, probably on a lower income than a highly skilled worker, as "ruling class" is nonsensical. Is the state apparatus run in their interests? Can they choose not to work and simply rely on their property for survival? Class is the central issue in politics but it is messy.




			
				jackwupton said:
			
		

> Going back to the CEO's.  You said almost all are substantial investors.  What about the ones who aren't?  Are they not ruling class?



I think you will be a long time trying to find a CEO who does not have substantial investments, but your wider point is important. The ruling class isn't just the capitalists themselves, it also for our purposes contains what could be considered as auxilliary sections from the very top management to the likes of Judges and politicians (and I suppose Bishops etc). Class, as I keep saying, is messy. It defies sweeping simplifications.




			
				jackwupton said:
			
		

> Or the Soviet bureaucracy?



I would use the term "caste" rather than class for the Soviet bureaucracy, but that's another equally huge subject. Let's stick to one kind of class society at a time.

Finally, I notice that this discussion has dealt entirely with the objective reality of class, and not at all with the subjective element. Can any of the class struggle anarchists tell me what part if any class consciousness plays in your theories?

[edited to add: since I started writing this some of this has come up with regards to "anti-working class" jobs. Also while I'm editing I quite agree about team leaders and so on, which is why I said they were a seperate question again from the kind of middle and low level management "proper" I've been talking about]


----------



## catch (Aug 17, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> All jobs have a degree of anti working classness to them eg when i work in a conveniance store im responsible for maintaining food as a commodity and if I stand there and let half of Belfast walk in and out with shit without paying i'll be sacked. The issue isn't if the actual job is part of a wider institution that is anti working class but rather does your role bring you into direct and serious conflict with working class interests in a long term basis, so much so that your interests begin to converge to such a point that your interests become inreconciable.



'tis true. If I was working in somewhere like Brighthouse on commission I reckon there'd be a pretty serious conflict (no idea if brighthouse people work on commission), a manager in a homelessness hostel could be equally compromised though. I think you're saying it's a matter of degree rather than nature of anti-working classness in most occupations, in which case I'd agree, with the police being an example of nature _and_ degree - doesn't stop them being working class though. And the last sentence is definitely in the realm of psychology - since it depends how individuals react to the job. I had a job which was at least in part contributing to the control of psychiatric patients, and left it really sharpish when I realised how bad it was. With others I worked with, it led to a complete dehumanisation of the patients, one of the main reasons I left.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

The other problem is that the degree to which people can be criticised for taking anti working class jobs is relative to the actual level of working class struggle/ viability of an alternative. It's alright for me with a degree to sit and gob off about the police and there role in subjugating the working class, but in a time of low class conflict the polices role becomes much more mystified. I mean I can abstractly talk about the role of the police but at a time when the police are generally seen as an imperfect, but only possible, response to violence and other anti social behaviour we aren't going to convince many working class kids with no real qualifications not to join, especially when for many it, alongisde the armed forces, are one of the only attractive career options they have.
I thought about this once on a train talking to a girl I knew who had just had a kid and was applying for the Police, I mean who the fuck am I to get moralistic to some girl just wanting to earn some money and get her kid off to a good start, I mean im sitting there with no responsibilties and a third level education.


----------



## kropotkin (Aug 17, 2005)

you are starting to sound reasonable mate. You wanna be careful


----------



## Top Dog (Aug 17, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> bookchin's deliberate divorcing of anarchism for syndicalism in the spanish civil war pisses me off! Especially cos it's blatantly so he caricature anarcho syndicalism as an out date current only relevant to "the industrial proletariat" who no doubt work in THE ACME BIG SPARK AND HAMMER FACTORY.


revol, you're never a syndicalist are you?!   i was nodding along with you over the last couple of pages and then...... ?!!!


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

im always reasonable.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

Top Dog said:
			
		

> revol, you're never a syndicalist are you?!   i was nodding along with you over the last couple of pages and then...... ?!!!



well im not a synidcalist, but I have to say I have alot of sympathies with anarcho syndicalism, but I don't see it as some sort of blue print for class struggle. It has a rich history, infact I'd go as far to say it has probably the richest history of any working class current. I basically believe in working class self organisation, and am in favour of anything which increases the confidence and self reliance of the working class whilst at the same time extending potentially communist and internationalist tendencies. I have no time for those who see libertarian communism as a programme that we recruit people to and just plain hate leninists.


----------



## Top Dog (Aug 17, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> well im not a synidcalist, but I have to say I have alot of sympathies with anarcho syndicalism, but I don't see it as some sort of blue print for class struggle. It has a rich history, infact I'd go as far to say it has probably the richest history of any working class current. I basically believe in working class self organisation, and am in favour of anything which increases the confidence and self reliance of the working class whilst at the same time extending potentially communist and internationalist tendencies. I have no time for those who see libertarian communism as a programme that we recruit people to and just plain hate leninists.


well i meant '@' syndicalism... id agree that it has an enormously rich _history_... but what of its future? genuinely interested...


----------



## belboid (Aug 17, 2005)

Nigel Irritable said:
			
		

> True enough, and it can get tiresome dealing with people who try to put workers and slightly better paid workers in different classes. But there is a better reason to object to a "two class" analysis than that. It simply disappears the petit-bourgeoisie, a quite substantial class in most countries. Where do lawyers or artisans or managers fit into a "two class" analysis?


where do you think the notion of the `aristocracy of labour` fits in with this nigel? particularly with regard to interests in pension funds (which also often make up very significant holdings in companys, particularly overseas companies)?


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

i think it has a future if it stops being held as the exclusive property of tiny propaganda groups wanking over the Spanish CNT.  

well, as I said it has alot of lessons to teach us and is as good an organising model as we have seen so far, but ultimately I think that we are along way off thinking about anarcho syndicalist unions and instead should be involving ourselves in existing struggles (often within unions), and proving the validity of workers self organisation by showing the worth of such tactics in actually winning some small victories.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 17, 2005)

*Trouble*




			
				Trouble said:
			
		

> No, your view is not essentially the same. Your mistake is to label the british state totalitarian by reference to methods of existing social control that are qualitively different from those likely to be implemented by a real totalitarian state, and too call any examples put forward to you by other posters as examples of how struggle has brought economic, political or social material benefits as insignificant gidling of the cage. By doing so you dismiss the act of struggle itself, as well as the result. Such an anaylsis, if maintained, is likely to lead you to cynicism and the abandonment of class struggle.



Hmmm i think you are looking through your trot tinted spectacles. Class struggle is essential and central to my arguments. The victories won have been hard fought, wage rises, housing health care, trade union. They are also given to us by the state and can be taken aweay easiar than they were Fought for. We have seen a massive erosion in civil liberties, rise in prison numbers, war for oil, criminalisation of the trade union movement, privatisation of the NHS and whole sale of socail housing. The hard fought victories are under constant attck and erosion.

The welfare state/NHS was given post WW2 to stave off the chance of socail unrest and combined with economic boom and the rise of consumerism, has served as a buffer zone between the classes creating security for both sides. These victories are also the salve of capatalism each victory raises confidence in the class but also serves to weaken the overall movement. 

The victories become a gilded cage from which people look out of and say 
'havent we struggled for our victories its less totallitarian around here'
To extent they are correct Iran, north korea and china are toatllitarian in that there states can not exist with any viable opposition so must react through extreme physical punishemnt and retribution to maintain power.
The problem with liberal/western capatalism is that it can adapt to any opposition and resistance absorb it through parliamentary democracy, local govt or turn it into a consumer product such as punk, green products and cooperative living thus making activity a life style ghetto.

My mistake was to misunderstand totallitarianism with 'total control of society'
resistance is some thing that capatalism can and will accommodate. My analysis is a gut reaction and is quite clear in its understanding, that we are under total control and allowed to live under a masquerade of victories and a pantomine of struggle. This does not mean i do not believe in struggle or direct action, the raising of confidence and political awareness is essential if we are to move from minor victories and riots to full scale insurrection.

Back on the thread CIrca are crap and an expression of this fucking charade of crap activism!


----------



## jonH (Aug 17, 2005)

Freedom to share food?


----------



## Trouble (Aug 17, 2005)

Class struggle is essential and central to my arguments. The victories won have been hard fought, wage rises, housing health care, trade union. They are also given to us by the state and can be taken aweay easiar than they were Fought for. We have seen a massive erosion in civil liberties, rise in prison numbers, war for oil, criminalisation of the trade union movement, privatisation of the NHS and whole sale of socail housing. The hard fought victories are under constant attck and erosion.

- Agreed. The ebb and flow of class struggle is a constant one, under which the working class are for a good part of it on the backfoot. Collective militant struggle (i.e. Gate Gourmet) is, in my view, the most effective answer to this issue. But what you have written above is not the tone of what you were writing earlier (although i admit since i am at work i do not have time to reread the thread)

The welfare state/NHS was given post WW2 to stave off the chance of socail unrest and combined with economic boom and the rise of consumerism, has served as a buffer zone between the classes creating security for both sides. 

- Agreed. 

These victories are also the salve of capatalism each victory raises confidence in the class but also serves to weaken the overall movement. 

- Disagree. This is far to mechanical an anaylsis of the history of struggle. Sometimes it weakens, sometimes it strengthens the overall movement.

The victories become a gilded cage from which people look out of and say 
'havent we struggled for our victories its less totallitarian around here'

- Which, may be objectively correct.

The problem with liberal/western capatalism is that it can adapt to any opposition and resistance absorb it through parliamentary democracy, local govt or turn it into a consumer product such as punk, green products and cooperative living thus making activity a life style ghetto.

- Civil society within modern capitalism is certainly adaptive and highly resistant to incursions of radicalism or revolutionary organisation/politics. I do not agree that it "can adapt to any opposition and resistance". I think this is far too pessimistic an analysis. most of the time it will adapt, sometimes it may not or more likely may not be able to. I think this is a key aspect of revolutionary marxist theory that ultimately an objective serious crisis is necessary for a movement to become revolutionary.

that we are under total control and allowed to live under a masquerade of victories and a pantomine of struggle. 

- This is my point. I just do not accept this as a theoretical position and find it a wobbly foundation to base an anaylsis of modern society upon. Not all victories are false and not all struggle a pantomine.

This does not mean i do not believe in struggle or direct action, the raising of confidence and political awareness is essential if we are to move from minor victories and riots to full scale insurrection.

- But, i would suggest, your above analysis does tend to lead you to opposite conclusion i.e. that struggle is ineffective and therefore you may as well disengage from it.

Back on the thread CIrca are crap and an expression of this fucking charade of crap activism![/QUOTE]

- On Circa - I think it they have been an effective spectacle and we should always have a place for them at demos etc Reminds me of the pink fairies in Praque initially managing to chase the police away. Truely uplifting. I do not think that their strategy of spectacle offers us any truly effective method of social change. but then i would be surprised if members of CIRCA felt this was the answer anyway.


----------



## Drunken Miss Ho (Aug 17, 2005)

Trouble said:
			
		

> - On Circa - I think it they have been an effective spectacle and we should always have a place for them at demos etc Reminds me of the pink fairies in Praque initially managing to chase the police away. Truely uplifting. I do not think that their strategy of spectacle offers us any truly effective method of social change. but then i would be surprised if members of CIRCA felt this was the answer anyway.



But the problem with CIRCA is not just their inneffectiveness. We all know they present absolutely no serious challenge to capital. But they are also part of a damaging trend. How many are in CIRCA? 20, 30, maybe 50 at the most? And yet because they are such a spectacle (whilst simultaneously achieving little of real significance) they make excellent news. So the result is a small bunch of - let's call a spade a spade - wierdos as media spokespeople for the left/anarchism/whatever you want to call it. People like CIRCA have helped to keep the protest movement a ghetto, a freakshow, a certain lifestyle. In other words a minority interest which has little to offer the majority of people, and doesn't feed back into people's real situations.

Plus of course they are part of the radical liberal activist movement, which sucks a large quantity of balls.


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 17, 2005)

belboid said:
			
		

> where do you think the notion of the `aristocracy of labour` fits in with this nigel?



Short answer - I'm not entirely sure.

Longer answer - I've only really been thinking about this one recently. When I've encountered labour aristocracy theories in a form which gives this "aristocracy" a central role in creating reformism or holding back struggle, I've been very skeptical. I don't think you need a section of the working class to be bought off by imperialist super-profits to explain reformism and in fact reformism is a feature of the neo-colonial world too. In addition some of the sections of the working class which have been described as the aristocracy of labour have been amongst the most militant. 

What's more, attempts to use a modified version of the concept to explain the attitudes of Protestant workers in Northern Ireland have always struck me as muddled in the extreme, essentially just a more sophisticated way of saying that socialists in Ireland don't need to bother with them.

That said, less extreme versions of labour aristocracy theories may have some explanatory features, so I'm reluctant to just write them off wholesale without thinking about them in a bit more detail.

On pensions, that's just deferred wages no?


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

> What's more, attempts to use a modified version of the concept to explain the attitudes of Protestant workers in Northern Ireland have always struck me as muddled in the extreme, essentially just a more sophisticated way of saying that socialists in Ireland don't need to bother with them.



yeah the aristocracy of labour model has been used to justify the lefts atrocious record of relating to the protestant working class. Of course even the economic premise on which this theory is based (mainly protestant domination of skiled manual jobs) has been almost completely wiped out, and the protestant working class now finds itself rather fucked compared to catholics who were more likely to embrace higher education as a means of overcoming sectarian employment practices in industrial work. 

Im not sure where the statistic comes from but I seen it somewhere (think it was the guardian or something) the protestant working class (of course this will be a sociological definition but anyway) in northern ireland has a lower take up rate for third level education than working class blacks. My own experiance would suggest this is not so suprising as further education was seen as a waste of time and that ypu'd be better off getting a trade.


----------



## Trouble (Aug 17, 2005)

Drunken Miss Ho said:
			
		

> But the problem with CIRCA is not just their inneffectiveness. We all know they present absolutely no serious challenge to capital. But they are also part of a damaging trend. How many are in CIRCA? 20, 30, maybe 50 at the most? And yet because they are such a spectacle (whilst simultaneously achieving little of real significance) they make excellent news.
> 
> - The history of struggle (protests/strikes/demonstrations) is littered with elements of the particular movement using spectacle as a means of criticism. I would see CIRCA in that tradition. I tend to think that their numbers are small, they do not really have an impact on the outcome; either positive or negative, so my view is sanguine towards them.
> 
> ...


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 17, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> the aristocracy of labour model has been used to justify the lefts atrocious record of relating to the protestant working class.



Essentially yes - although it is important to note that elements of the left have a much better record and some parts of the left which didn't adopt the model have just as bad a record as the parts which did. What was particularly strange is that the varieties of left republicans who adopted this kind of theory actually divorced it from its original meaning. It was as if they liked the sound of the term, rather than the content of the analysis. After all most Protestant workers, even in the days when they did enjoy important employment advantages over their Catholic equivalents, were not in highly skilled, highly paid jobs. Any theory which ends up arguing that an unskilled labourer is part of a "labour aristocracy" is a theory which doesn't make much sense.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

well im sure you don't me to tell you this but left republicans aren't the most nuanced of theorists, infact all they seem to do is try and take on trendy buzzwords aka "anti imperialism", "irreformable Orange Statelet" etc etc. Most are far to wrapped up in their dogmatic nationalist teology to even begin to look at actual reality. Hence you still get arseholes talking about British Imperialism in the North and how if the Brits withdrew everyhting would be fine and dandy.

But hey why would we need reality when we've got James Connolly books!


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 17, 2005)

I think you might be overstating some of that. The problem isn't with recognising that British imperialism created and exacerbated the divisions in the first place, it comes with a failure to understand certain important realities about the North currently. And Connolly is well worth reading, as long as you remember when he was writing and keep your critical faculties working.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

would you recommend his magmum opus; Workshops on Socialism or perhaps some of his lesser known pieces about Ireland as proto communist paradise in Gaelic times?
 

The problem with talking about British Imperialism is that Britains role in ireland and vice versa extends way back before Imperialism was even a glint in Young kautsky's eye. This is especially true for the north east as it's links with scotland were more often than not deeper than links with the rest of the Island. Even one when considers the plantation it has to be kept in mind that it was never applied in CO.DOwn or Antrim and that these areas had always enjoyed movement between Scotland.

it might be understandable to understand some of the souths underdevelopment in terms of "imperialism" but in the north east Belfast was firmly intregrated into the metropolis.


----------



## Nigel Irritable (Aug 17, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> Even one when considers the plantation it has to be kept in mind that it was never applied in CO.DOwn or Antrim and that these areas had always enjoyed movement between Scotland.



I think you may be misunderstanding something here. The "Ulster Plantation" didn't include Down or Antrim, but they were nonetheless subject to plantation in an earlier (and more effective) scheme.

On the other side issue you raise, Connolly was clearly wrong about Gaelic Ireland but understandably so given the limited information available to him. Gaelic Ireland just prior to the arrival of the Normans was a slightly atypical but essentially feudal society.

I don't have time (off to the pub) to get into a proper discussion of imperialism at the moment, but I think that a key thing to remember about the conquest and plantations of Ireland is that in their earliest phase they were part of the process of primitive accumulation which gave capitalism in Britain a kickstart.


----------



## revol68 (Aug 17, 2005)

oh ae of that there can be no doubt but what thats got to do with "imperialism" in the north is beyond my comprhesion. Surely one of the major tenants of imperialism is the extraction of raw materials and cheap labour for accumulation whilst keeping the colony outside of the metropolis's cricuits of capital, clearly this wasn't the case with the North east.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 18, 2005)

Trouble said:
			
		

> Class struggle is essential and central to my arguments. The victories won have been hard fought, wage rises, housing health care, trade union. They are also given to us by the state and can be taken aweay easiar than they were Fought for. We have seen a massive erosion in civil liberties, rise in prison numbers, war for oil, criminalisation of the trade union movement, privatisation of the NHS and whole sale of socail housing. The hard fought victories are under constant attck and erosion.
> 
> - Agreed. The ebb and flow of class struggle is a constant one, under which the working class are for a good part of it on the backfoot. Collective militant struggle (i.e. Gate Gourmet) is, in my view, the most effective answer to this issue. But what you have written above is not the tone of what you were writing earlier (although i admit since i am at work i do not have time to reread the thread)
> 
> ...




My theory is not on shaky ground it is based in reality and not wanting to create false confidence that can lead militants to drop out and disengage. From knowing me personally trouble, you also know that i have a long term and constant committment to direct action and anarchist politics. Probably more than some of your comrades who trumpet sounds of the class struggle what please your ears!
Has my analysis led me to the view that class struggle is ineffective on the contrary it has led me to believe that the mass direct action of the working class is the only viable agent of change. To overthrow the state you need mass struggle and insurrection. How else would i achieve this with a small scale affinity group   

You continue to misunderstand and misinterpret my views,  crtique of victories does not mean i condemn class struggle, it means that i understand that they are only small victories and not a complete and concise victory for the entire class, ie the destruction of the capatalist state. 

Trouble as you know circa are crap, funny but crap, they are the militant liberal activists that should get out and fuck off. I have seen them act as the peace police and diffuse tense situations that could lead to resistance. They are part of the liberal middle calss tradition of interfering in working class politics. The working class can liberate itself and does not need carp posh artists and gap year rada students fucking around in it. They serve to cause problems for direct action and act as a pacifist boot stamping out and hampering direct struggle.


----------



## Trouble (Aug 18, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> My theory is not on shaky ground it is based in reality and not wanting to create false confidence that can lead militants to drop out and disengage. From knowing me personally trouble, you also know that i have a long term and constant committment to direct action and anarchist politics. Probably more than some of your comrades who trumpet sounds of the class struggle what please your ears!
> Has my analysis led me to the view that class struggle is ineffective on the contrary it has led me to believe that the mass direct action of the working class is the only viable agent of change. To overthrow the state you need mass struggle and insurrection. How else would i achieve this with a small scale affinity group
> 
> - Re-read my post Herb. I have disagreed primarilly with your anaylsis of the results of struggle and not questioned your existing and past commitment to class struggle. I have raised a concern that you current perspective of the conditions in which struggle occurs and the result of that struggle is far to black and white/pessimistic. It is this aspect of your position that i am identifying as what i consider to be a long term problem.
> ...


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 18, 2005)

I agree with raising solidarity for heathrow workers.

Pessimistic what do you expect my politics are Nihilist with a smattering of class struggle anarchism. You mistake analysis for pessimism, maybe a little to advanced for trottery  

I stand by my points the small sacle victories are a double edged sword!

What is this 'mythical struggle' that you pontificate about with your theoretical analysis. My experience of class struggle does not fit in with any one theory or dogma, you talk as if you know the correct way to engage with politics and its either 'your way or the highway'. Any one who disagrees is alienated from the class or pessimistic or doomed to drop out from struggle. This analyis is truly doomed, one sided and needs to be carefully reconsidered!


----------



## revol68 (Aug 18, 2005)

to be herbert i think your the one being dogmatic.

as for nihilism, what the fucks the point in that.


----------



## Herbert Read (Aug 18, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> to be herbert i think your the one being dogmatic.
> 
> as for nihilism, what the fucks the point in that.



To be dogmatic you have to have a belief in a political system i dont


----------



## rednblack (Aug 18, 2005)

Herbert Read said:
			
		

> Trouble as you know circa are crap, funny but crap, they are the militant liberal activists that should get out and fuck off. I have seen them act as the peace police and diffuse tense situations that could lead to resistance. They are part of the liberal middle calss tradition of interfering in working class politics. The working class can liberate itself and does not need carp posh artists and gap year rada students fucking around in it. They serve to cause problems for direct action and act as a pacifist boot stamping out and hampering direct struggle.



all true except the funny bit


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Nov 2, 2005)

Strange but true..................

http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/news/s/180/180028__clown_arrested_in_circus_clash.html


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 2, 2005)

rednblack said:
			
		

> all true except the funny bit



I quite agree.


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 2, 2005)

Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> Strange but true..................
> 
> http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/men/news/s/180/180028__clown_arrested_in_circus_clash.html


could this be the work of the *Real* Clown Army?


----------



## free spirit (Nov 3, 2005)

clown army ridicule police line into full retreat video 

kind of goes to show there's more than one way to force a line of riot police to move. 

Wonder what would have happened if the clown army had been replaced by a similar number of people lobbing bricks?


----------



## free spirit (Nov 3, 2005)

I don't know what it is with peeps on this site, but from this thread and the recent one about dissent it seems nobodies happy unless their slagging off anyone who dares to actually get off their arse and do something.

The CIRCA people spent most of the summer touring the country running training weekends for people who were interested in joining in and trying out a new non violent tactic that also allowed people to have some fun while doing it. 

Maybe other groups could learn some lessons from this committed approach if they're serious about increasing participation in their protest / direct action method of choice. Just a thought


----------



## free spirit (Nov 3, 2005)

clown armies anti G8 politics & tactics explained


----------



## DaveCinzano (Nov 3, 2005)

free spirit said:
			
		

> I don't know what it is with peeps on this site, but from this thread and the recent one about dissent it seems nobodies happy unless their slagging off anyone who dares to actually get off their arse and do something.
> 
> The CIRCA people spent most of the summer touring the country running training weekends for people who were interested in joining in and trying out a new non violent tactic that also allowed people to have some fun while doing it.
> 
> Maybe other groups could learn some lessons from this committed approach if they're serious about increasing participation in their protest / direct action method of choice. Just a thought



well whoop-de-doop for them and for you


----------



## free spirit (Nov 3, 2005)

> well whoop-de-doop for them and for you



lol

<fs removes holier than thou attitude and goes to bed>


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

free spirit said:
			
		

> clown armies anti G8 politics & tactics explained



A lot of people do things of social worth, when off their arses.  And a lot of them aren't middle class people dressed as clowns.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

free spirit said:
			
		

> clown army ridicule police line into full retreat video
> 
> kind of goes to show there's more than one way to force a line of riot police to move.
> 
> Wonder what would have happened if the clown army had been replaced by a similar number of people lobbing bricks?



OMG i was cringing the whole way fucking through that.

If only the cops had whacked the unfunny cunts.

Seriously all the charisma of the wankers off that early 90's student cooking programme Get Stuffed!, just listen to them, a blatant bunch of middle class wacky wankers.


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

You forgot the "..." at either end of wacky.


----------



## 888 (Nov 3, 2005)

Why did the police leave? Did they happen to recieve an order to go elsewhere or ...?


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> You forgot the "..." at either end of wacky.



no they are wacky, it's just wacky people are without exception grade A wankers.


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

I wasn't having a go at you.  Just something as contrived as that performance shown on the video does not register as being wacky, as I understand the word.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

888 said:
			
		

> Why did the police leave? Did they happen to recieve an order to go elsewhere or ...?



I think they all just got fed up dealing with a bunch of middle class wankers putting on stupid voices, imagine having to listen to those cunts for more than 5 minutes, with a shield and truncheon in hand and not being able to knock the fuck out of them.

Remarkable restraint on behalf of the boys in blue....

fuck me "activists" don't half bring out the daily mail reader in you.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> I wasn't having a go at you.  Just something as contrived as that performance shown on the video does not register as being wacky, as I understand the word.



i wasn't having a go back.

Problem is 99% of wackiness is always contrived.

When do we get the post modern clown army, they can just follow the CIRCA lot around making snidey comments with half arsed make up and a bottle of read wine in their hand.


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Nov 3, 2005)

free spirit said:
			
		

> clown army ridicule police line into full retreat video


Thank you for posting that video fs. It is the definitive artefact on CIRCA.

Circa, are fucking crap. Humiliating, sad, debilitating, boot-licking shit. Those cops got an order to go somewhere and deal with people who might actually be a threat to anything ever.

I actually find CIRCA not only annoying and sad in this video, but disempowering. 'Clowns' have always been laughed AT not with. A clown/jester type has historically poked fun at authority figures - thereby validating their authority. As they did in that clip. I don't think the cops felt threatened, confused, outwitted in the least.  Talking to the police in a silly kiddy voice, talking bollocks drawing a smiley face on them with a crayon: who has the authority in that situation?

what a load of shit. If i am on a demo with these wankers, i will leave. This is exactly what i meant when i said on another thread, 'it doesn't matter what your message is if passers by would be embarassed to be seen with you'.



> Wonder what would have happened if the clown army had been replaced by a similar number of people lobbing bricks?


 Something a lot more interesting and valid.

The definitive video on that is the Revolt films 'Rural Riot' which no doubt you have seen, or possibly witnessed.


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

Did it all kick off like?  Violence and that.


----------



## JonnyT (Nov 3, 2005)

Taxamo Welf said:
			
		

> I actually find CIRCA not only annoying and sad in this video, but disempowering. 'Clowns' have always been laughed AT not with. A clown/jester type has historically poked fun at authority figures - thereby validating their authority. As they did in that clip. I don't think the cops felt threatened, confused, outwitted in the least.  Talking to the police in a silly kiddy voice, talking bollocks drawing a smiley face on them with a crayon: who has the authority in that situation?


That to me is the main issue with CIRCA and tactics of that kind. Choosing tactics that can only apply when the cops are being non-aggressive forces an obsession with de-escalation that makes them both ineffective and deeply, deeply dull. and irritating.

oh, and the video? from the way the cops were acting, would assume they received orders to move to another disturbance.

that being said, those clowns I've chatted with haven't all been quite the wankers one would assume them to be.

- Jonathan


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Nov 3, 2005)

JonnyT said:
			
		

> that being said, those clowns I've chatted with haven't all been quite the wankers one would assume them to be.
> 
> - Jonathan


No, i'm sure they weren't. someone said they had done black block and clowning on different demo's here. 

That said, the tactic - 'the clowns' if you will - is wank.

can't believe it won this poll, what a disgrace!


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

Is the Black Bloc tactic wank also?  It does all seem dead scary.  And hard.


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Nov 3, 2005)

it can be effective depending on your aim: to disrupt the meeting.



yes it kicked off:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/10/324769.html 

if you have 25 mins spare


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> Is the Black Bloc tactic wank also?  It does all seem dead scary.  And hard.



as someone who used to love all that black bloc shit i can honestly say it done more for my adrenaline levels than it ever did in fighting capitalism.

still putting a brick thru a mercedes showroom is one to tell the kids.


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

I'd rather see something more contstructive coming from radicals than just smashing up symbolic objects.  I can understand rioting as built up frustration among the poor bursting out into activity, but not middle class kids.....It is prejudicial I know, but....


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> I'd rather see something more contstructive coming from radicals than just smashing up symbolic objects.  I can understand rioting as built up frustration among the poor bursting out into activity, but not middle class kids.....It is prejudicial I know, but....



well yeah so would i.

Well i don't think im poor but i'm not middle class either, not by along way.
My problem is that I was doing as an activist though, it was part of a symbolic struggle, albeit one that managed to make headlines once, now it's just passe, like people still wearing D&G.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2005)

d&g?  dungarees?


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

I wasn't saying you were middle class.

But as far as this destruction stuff goes at demos, it just doesn't carry much respect from me.  Not when the groups involved contain people that aren't really on the shitty end of stick socially, or economically, and they knows it.

Not to say that I respect poor people who destroy objects for the sake of it, as it seems a lot of these so called anarchists do so.  Working in communities by setting up decent independant advice on housing and benefits has been one of the kinds of things I have seen done by middle class radicals.  And that is worthwhile, and I admire it, considering my past experiences in a single parent family on benefits.  Not wearing daft clothing and breaking up obviously symbolic property beacuse it is "hardcore".  As much as it might be a buzz, and just fun, it isn't going to to do anything of any long term worth for working people.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> d&g?  dungarees?



Dolce & Gabana or Desperate & Grasping as they are now daubed by those in the know.

about as cool as FCUK and Von Dutch.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> Dolce & Gabana or Desperate & Grasping as they are now daubed by those in the know.
> 
> about as cool as FCUK and Von Dutch.




i try not to associate with anyone wearing anything like that.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> I wasn't saying you were middle class.
> 
> But as far as this destruction stuff goes at demos, it just doesn't carry much respect from me.  Not when the groups involved contain people that aren't really on the shitty end of stick socially, or economically, and they knows it.
> 
> Not to say that I respect poor people who destroy objects for the sake of it, as it seems a lot of these so called anarchists do so.  Working in communities by setting up decent independant advice on housing and benefits has been one of the kinds of things I have seen done by middle class radicals.  And that is worthwhile, and I admire it, considering my past experiences in a single parent family on benefits.  Not wearing daft clothing and breaking up obviously symbolic property beacuse it is "hardcore".  As much as it might be a buzz, and just fun, it isn't going to to do anything of any long term worth for working people.



there's no disagreement there, but I don't think middle class people should be seeking to do things for the working class, rather they should just be honest and fight on issues that actually involve them, much more revolutionary than being a martyr to someone elses struggles and a lot less patronising.

As a young person with no responsibilites I was able to indulge myself in a bit of Blac Bloc nonsense, the problem arises when people forget the relatively previleged (notfinancial or class) position they find themselves in and universalise their experiance onto the rest of the class.

Anyway the whole summit hopping thing is useless.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> i try not to associate with anyone wearing anything like that.



yes but you probably hang around people who think bomber jackets and class war baseball caps make them working class.


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> i try not to associate with anyone wearing anything like that.



A few of the lads at work have worn FCUK.  I am not going to snub someone because of that.  I own an adidas rucksack


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> yes but you probably hang around people who think bomber jackets and class war baseball caps make them working class.



   But, I do wear a donkey jacket.  Mind you I am not in any radical social/political organisation.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> A few of the lads at work have worn FCUK.  I am not going to snub someone because of that.  I own an adidas rucksack



i wouldn't snub them, but i wouldn't sit next to them in the pub, not cause of any ole lifestylist shite about brands but purely cos it looks like shite.


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

Some of them are a good laugh on a night out.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> Some of them are a good laugh on a night out.



they could be Peter Kay but i still wouldn't sit with them in FCUK shirts, I mean come on maybe in 1998 but.....


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> yes but you probably hang around people who think bomber jackets and class war baseball caps make them working class.


don't they?


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> don't they?



nope.

Infact some of them wear nice clothes and are even known to eat out everynow and again. 

"Armed with the news that the working class don't dress like 1980's football casuals and dine on a diet of Crispy pancakes and FishFingers, the Class War Federation made great theoretical developments, relenting their brutal war against bruschetta bread, the word "What" and the Number 73 bus."

If only....


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> they could be Peter Kay but i still wouldn't sit with them in FCUK shirts, I mean come on maybe in 1998 but.....



My donkey jacket is sooooo 84 but .......


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> nope.
> 
> Infact some of them wear nice clothes and are even known to eat out everynow and again.


but not at the evil 15 restaurant, i'd expect, with their extortionately priced beans on toast.


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> My donkey jacket is sooooo 84 but .......



Donkey JAckets carried on well into the eighties but they were at their zenith in the Winter of Discontent, the  heavy material hung on the shoulders like the collective alienation of thousands of years labour, the wieght giving the posture a down trodden look, it fixed the gaze at the ground, almost in knowing preparation for the wrath of Thatcher. The donkey jacket is the proletarian in his most alienated form.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> Donkey JAckets carried on well into the eighties but they were at their zenith in the Winter of Discontent, the  heavy material hung on the shoulders like the collective alienation of thousands of years labour, the wieght giving the posture a down trodden look, it fixed the gaze at the ground, almost in knowing preparation for the wrath of Thatcher. The donkey jacket is the proletarian in his most alienated form.


it's a pity that private eye is unlikely to place that in their "pseuds corner".


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> Donkey JAckets carried on well into the eighties but they were at their zenith in the Winter of Discontent, the  heavy material hung on the shoulders like the collective alienation of thousands of years labour, the wieght giving the posture a down trodden look, it fixed the gaze at the ground, almost in knowing preparation for the wrath of Thatcher. The donkey jacket is the proletarian in his most alienated form.



   I never thought of myself in that way.  But mind you, some middle class types do give me the sent to coventry treatment sometimes.  One occasion was in the local public library.


----------



## Top Dog (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> nope.
> 
> Infact some of them wear nice clothes and are even known to eat out everynow and again.
> 
> ...


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> they could be Peter Kay but i still wouldn't sit with them in FCUK shirts, I mean come on maybe in 1998 but.....


what do you think of people who wear fred perry and ben sherman then...?
Timeless surely?


----------



## revol68 (Nov 3, 2005)

Taxamo Welf said:
			
		

> what do you think of people who wear fred perry and ben sherman then...?
> Timeless surely?



Ben Sherman and Fred Perry are very context specific, you got to make it look interesting or you might just look like an ole punk whose past the leather jacket and mohawk days.

But ultimately I find the Ben Sherman to restrictive in it's overly masculine aesthetic, Fred Perry on the other hand spans a spectrum of styles from OCesque geek chic ala Seth, Arthouse indie ala Bloc Party, postmodern mod ala Ordinary Boys, in less desirable outfits the fred perry can signify preppy prick, or plain old laddish wanker.


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Nov 3, 2005)

well than fuck for that.

...

what about harrington combat jackets?


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 3, 2005)

Tartan lined.


----------



## montevideo (Nov 3, 2005)

revol68 said:
			
		

> Ben Sherman and Fred Perry are very context specific, you got to make it look interesting or you might just look like an ole punk whose past the leather jacket and mohawk days.
> 
> But ultimately I find the Ben Sherman to restrictive in it's overly masculine aesthetic, Fred Perry on the other hand spans a spectrum of styles from OCesque geek chic ala Seth, Arthouse indie ala Bloc Party, postmodern mod ala Ordinary Boys, in less desirable outfits the fred perry can signify preppy prick, or plain old laddish wanker.



not forgetting the perry boys were the precursors to casuals. Putting it in context, like.


----------



## Tatiana (Nov 4, 2005)

Anybody heard of the Radical Cheerleaders?

Are they much cop, or are they similar to CIRCA's pretend loonery?


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Nov 4, 2005)

Tatiana said:
			
		

> Tartan lined.


i know.....?

want to hear more of revols fashion tips


----------

