# >>EUROMAYDAY 2005 - LONDON :: SUNDAY MAY 1st



## Raw SslaC (Apr 8, 2005)

>>EUROMAYDAY 2005 - LONDON :: SUNDAY MAY 1st

MAYDAY is International workers day, born out of the struggle for an 8 hour day in 1886.  Over 100 years later our lives are still taken up by the world of work. Even more so now, as the work imposed by Capitalism has become more casualised  (temporary contracts, flex time, part time, no time!) forcing us to adapt to the point where it's hard to tell when, where or even if we are working. This leaves us in a situation where our lives are always on hold, on call and at the mercy of the market. Our leisure time too is filled with anxieties. The anxiety of not being able to have enough money to pay the rent, go to the cinema, a nice restaurant, shop for food, clothes, anything! In reality our work never finishes and when we're not at work we still end up making some other person even richer. 

Around Europe people call this new working and living condition "precarity" and over the past few years the EUROMAYDAY parades of causalised workers, temps, part-timers, immigrants and unemployed have marched through Europe's capitals to demand new social rights for the most marginalised. On MAYDAY 2005 we will add London to this emerging movement.

MAYDAY this year falls on a Sunday, once a day for relaxing, now part of the working week for many people. It's symbollic of how our time is increasingly dominated by work. As part of EUROMAYDAY, our  aim is to make MAYDAY this year a day off for everyone. A day when  we extend our hand of solidarity over the counter & checkout &  learn to live for free. One day less for working, one day more for us! Look out for more info!

>>SECRET LOCATION FOR EUROMAYDAY ACTION!!

To participate in this years MAYDAY action please send your mobile phone number to: euromayday@hushmail.com and you will be texted one hour before the action starts on MAY 1st. 

A second leaflet will be out next week explaining....he heh he

>>GET INVOLVED, we meet every wednesday 7.30pm @ Institute For Autonomy, 76-78 Gower Street, London WC1E

www.precarity.info // www.euromayday.org


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## DrRingDing (Apr 8, 2005)

Raw SslaC said:
			
		

> To participate in this years MAYDAY action please send your mobile phone number to: euromayday@hushmail.com and you will be texted one hour before the action starts on MAY 1st.




Only prob mate is that the filth have vans to move around in so they will be there before the hairy arsed anarchists.


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 8, 2005)

i'd also be a little reticent to hand my phone number over.


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## Kenny Vermouth (Apr 8, 2005)

Raw SslaC said:
			
		

> >>EUROMAYDAY 2005 - LONDON :: SUNDAY MAY 1st
> 
> MAYDAY is International workers day, born out of the struggle for an 8 hour day in 1886.  Over 100 years later our lives are still taken up by the world of work. Even more so now, as the work imposed by Capitalism has become more casualised  (temporary contracts, flex time, part time, no time!) forcing us to adapt to the point where it's hard to tell when, where or even if we are working. This leaves us in a situation where our lives are always on hold, on call and at the mercy of the market. Our leisure time too is filled with anxieties. The anxiety of not being able to have enough money to pay the rent, go to the cinema, a nice restaurant, shop for food, clothes, anything! In reality our work never finishes and when we're not at work we still end up making some other person even richer.
> MAYDAY this year falls on a Sunday, once a day for relaxing, now part of the working week for many people. It's symbollic of how our time is increasingly dominated by work. As part of EUROMAYDAY, our  aim is to make MAYDAY this year a day off for everyone. A day when  we extend our hand of solidarity over the counter & checkout &  learn to live for free. One day less for working, one day more for us! Look out for more info!
> ...


Asise from being fatuous nonsense, this just sounds like an excuse for not working.

I'm working tomorrow and Sunday, so fucking what? I get five days off in a row later on which is a bonus.

Mayday now is nothing more than an organised riot.


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 8, 2005)

Kenny Vermouth said:
			
		

> blah blah blah blah blah blah.
> 
> blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
> 
> ...


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## Japey (Apr 8, 2005)

Raw SslaC said:
			
		

> >>EUROMAYDAY 2005 - LONDON :: SUNDAY MAY 1st



  Do all our traditions have to be taken over by Europe?


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## DrRingDing (Apr 8, 2005)

Japey said:
			
		

> Do all our traditions have to be taken over by Europe?



What would be good was if you could get tens of thousands of undesirables together in Europe for an 'organised riot'.   

Moving the place from year to year, but most often held in Greece and Italy


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## FreddyB (Apr 8, 2005)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> i'd also be a little reticent to hand my phone number over.



I've given em mine


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## Emma Herself (Apr 8, 2005)

But you can't send texts without the battery in your mobile


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 8, 2005)

Zoë Herself said:
			
		

> But you can't send texts without the battery in your mobile



the original post asks people to send their numbers to an email address


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## cemertyone (Apr 10, 2005)

Kenny Vermouth said:
			
		

> I'm working tomorrow and Sunday, so fucking what? I get five days off in a row later on which is a bonus.
> 
> Mayday now is nothing more than an organised riot.


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

Sounds interesting and good luck to all those involved . I hope they are taking their security etc seriously, the filth will probably be watching this one very closely but that is no reason to do nothing.
 For fuck sakes use as many diversionary tactics etc as possible and try to hold essential meetings in places that are difficult to subject to survailance. I can remember we used to use darkened rooms with fuck off soundsystems in the corner in various squatted venues  and plenty of random people to act as distractions but the old SB still thought they were on top of things. In reality they weren't but they certainly had peeps name's and photo's , school histories etc which they were more than happy to use for intimidation purposes when they pulled folks in for little chats. The point is that they can very easily bully alot of people into in-action by using scare tactics. It's well worth covering your arses from an early stage , have some of your more active folk do next to nothing politically  for a week or so  at a time and hand over the baton to others... that's where all the succesful crews go right in all sorts of activities.., it is good for democracy and really freaks out the scum who are trying to put tails onto you. 

 Also, remember that once a phone is hot then it stays hot, changing SIMS is not good enough. They can pinpoint your location to the nearest 10m using base point triangulation. Have everyone remove their phone batteries before leaving to go to a hoped for secure meeting place.


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## catch (Apr 10, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> Also, remember that once a phone is hot then it stays hot, changing SIMS is not good enough. They can pinpoint your location to the nearest 10m using base point triangulation. Have everyone remove their phone batteries before leaving to go to a hoped for secure meeting place.






			
				raw said:
			
		

> you will be texted one hour before the action starts on MAY 1st.



Oh dear...



> hold essential meetings in places that are difficult to subject to survailance... darkened rooms with fuck off soundsystems in the corner in various squatted venues and plenty of random people to act as distractions...good for democracy



Yeah mate, meetings in places with no light and ear-bleedingly loud music are great for democracy, that might explain the wording of a certain poster though.

"Do we have a consensus?"

"What's that? Held in by fences?"


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Oh dear...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
True, you cannot have the kind of meeting where many people hear one person's speech at the same time but that can have advantages in avoiding grandstanding , people adopting intractable positions, and a few vocal individuals dominating the proceedings.   Instead such a venue seems to lead to clusters of small discussions leading to some kind of general awareness of each others opinions. 
 Of course  far from ideal but certainly more secure and less liable to individuals  being pinpointed immediately , locked up and charged with conspiracy etc etc.


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## catch (Apr 10, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> True, you cannot have the kind of meeting where many people hear one person's speech at the same time



Many? Does many mean 'more than two'?



> but that can have advantages in avoiding grandstanding , people adopting intractable positions, and a few vocal individuals dominating the proceedings.



On a scale of advantages vs. disadvantages I think being able to hear people in a meeting ought to pretty high up. How do you know whether people have 'intractable positions' if you can't fucking hear them?



> Instead such a venue seems to lead to clusters of small discussions leading to some kind of general awareness of each others opinions.



Hardly democracy then is it? "some kind of general awareness of each others opinions." Surely you'd have that before you even walked into the meeting?



> Of course  far from ideal but certainly more secure and less liable to individuals  being pinpointed immediately , locked up and charged with conspiracy etc etc.



So MayDay, instead of being a day when the working class collectively demonstrates its strength, ends up a day when a few paranoid people with their mobiles wrapped in tin foil and batteries out wander around trying to meet each other in affinity groups at locations they're not quite sure of due to measures intended to prevent FIT picking them up beforehand and stopping them from being effective activists.

For fuck's sake. You need to seriously reconsider what all that effort is actually achieving apart from a persecution complex.


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 10, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> So MayDay, instead of being a day when the working class collectively demonstrates its strength, ends up a day when a few paranoid people with their mobiles wrapped in tin foil and batteries wander around trying to meet each other in affinity groups at locations they're not quite sure of due to measures intended to prevent FIT picking them up beforehand and stopping them from being effective activists.



class


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## redyred (Apr 10, 2005)

Raw SslaC said:
			
		

> >>EUROMAYDAY 2005 - LONDON :: SUNDAY MAY 1st
> 
> MAYDAY is International workers day, born out of the struggle for an 8 hour day in 1886.  Over 100 years later our... etc



Is your username meant to be Class War backwards? If so you got the "l" and the "a" the wrong way round.


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## montevideo (Apr 10, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Many? Does many mean 'more than two'?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




you & the other anarchist hairdressers will be presumably:

doing each others hair on that day?

or starting vol3?

or  marching with real working class people on the tuc march?

or doing what you've done for other 364 days of the year - fuck all?


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## cats hammers (Apr 10, 2005)

Monte, I know you have severe problems, and find it harder and harder to connect to reality, but seriously, what the fuck does 'anarchist hairdressers' mean?  I mean, seriously?  Are you actually trying to make yourself appear disturbed?  Did we plant you inside to discredit the ridiculousness of anti-organisationalism, but forget about it?  Are you trying to be an anarcho-Spart or some shit?

'Anarchist hairdressers'.  Jesus fucking wept, what the FUCK?  Are you just being homophobic or something?  I mean, that'd be pathetic, but at least it'd make sense.


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## montevideo (Apr 10, 2005)

do i know you?


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## blamblam (Apr 10, 2005)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> > Originally Posted by Zoë Herself
> > But you can't send texts without the battery in your mobile
> 
> 
> the original post asks people to send their numbers to an email address


...



			
				Mr big said:
			
		

> Also, remember that once a phone is hot then it stays hot, changing SIMS is not good enough. They can pinpoint your location to the nearest 10m using base point triangulation. Have everyone remove their phone batteries before leaving to go to a hoped for secure meeting place.


So now do you get it? 




			
				catch said:
			
		

> So MayDay, instead of being a day when the working class collectively demonstrates its strength, ends up a day when a few paranoid people with their mobiles wrapped in tin foil and batteries wander around trying to meet each other in affinity groups at locations they're not quite sure of due to measures intended to prevent FIT picking them up beforehand and stopping them from being effective activists.
> 
> For fuck's sake. You need to seriously reconsider what all that effort is actually achieving apart from a persecution complex.


Hear fucking hear.


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> So MayDay, instead of being a day when the working class collectively demonstrates its strength, ends up a day when a few paranoid people with their mobiles wrapped in tin foil and batteries wander around trying to meet each other in affinity groups at locations they're not quite sure of due to measures intended to prevent FIT picking them up beforehand and stopping them from being effective activists.



Not at all. If you remember MayDay  was becoming a fucking pain in the arse for all concerned with a very questionable propoganda value and nobody being willing to prepare for the 2004 Mayday due to the general sense it was becoming shit and was hardly a demonstration of strength but one of weakness. Having been penned up in Oxford circus for 7 hours in 2001 was hardly a demonstration of anything apart from the polices willingness to use extreme tactics. 
 If people can use basic security techniques , as used by plenty of other groups who are subject to police harresment , such as soccer and crime firms, in the preperation of events, then hopefully more people will be willing to be involved since they will not be subject to extreme police harressment as individuals.
 The event itself cannot, obviously be a clandestine affair, that's the whole point in it-but the preperation should be. In the days of early RTS actions police time was not devoted to the  group in the same way as any modern MayDay action would be but still every man and his dog were not privy to the plans for each action until the very last moment. A balance was struck between security and democracy but people didn't worry too much because the partys were generally held to be a great success.
  This is hardly cutting edge shit. I can remember reading about how 60s activists got pissed off watching Tariq Ali discussing anti-vietnam war tactics in an open meeting in front of obvious SB officers. Taking no security measure re phones etc nowadays is the equilavent of just that.
  You can caricature  caution as paranoia as much as you want but not being prepared and aware when you are risking your own and others liberty is just stupid.


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## blamblam (Apr 10, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Monte, I know you have severe problems, and find it harder and harder to connect to reality, but seriously, what the fuck does 'anarchist hairdressers' mean? I mean, seriously? Are you actually trying to make yourself appear disturbed? Did we plant you inside to discredit the ridiculousness of anti-organisationalism, but forget about it? Are you trying to be an anarcho-Spart or some shit?
> 
> 'Anarchist hairdressers'. Jesus fucking wept, what the FUCK? Are you just being homophobic or something? I mean, that'd be pathetic, but at least it'd make sense.






			
				montevideo said:
			
		

> do i know you?


Is that irony intentional?


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## Emma Herself (Apr 10, 2005)

I believe the two of you have met.

But seriously, what is anarchist hairdressers all about? I mean, I've played along, but I really don't get the joke...   

As far as the mayday thing, if celebrating International Worker's Day by running around trying to evade FIT officers and hoping people will turn up to some one off symbolic action is your thing, go for it.

Yeah I admit it's shame that there's fuck all going on on Mayday. But AFAIC, anything that did happen on Mayday wouldn't really have much point, as there isn't anything for it to build on. It's meant to be a celebration of working class people's collective power, but it's better to build that power before having some "demonstration" or "action" that springs out of nowhere and then fades back into insignificance on May 2nd.


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## catch (Apr 10, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> you & the other anarchist hairdressers will be presumably:
> 
> doing each others hair on that day?
> 
> ...



I'll be getting married as it happens. And spending the rest of the year getting more involved in community politics and writing for libertarian socialist publications as I have been over the past few months.

As Zoe said, much better to build working class power than celebrate something that's currently pretty much non-existent on May 1st, for it to be forgotten on May 2nd (or more likely ignored completely apart from a bit of Standard Scaring).


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## Emma Herself (Apr 10, 2005)

Aww


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## cats hammers (Apr 10, 2005)

Oppressing women collectivly, you mean.


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## catch (Apr 10, 2005)

edit: doppelpost.

Yeah my girlfriend will be really repressed when she doesn't get deported in a few months.


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## Emma Herself (Apr 10, 2005)

You're such a patriarch, catch.


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## cats hammers (Apr 10, 2005)

Yes.

Yes, she will.


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## redyred (Apr 10, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Monte, I know you have severe problems, and find it harder and harder to connect to reality, but seriously, what the fuck does 'anarchist hairdressers' mean?  I mean, seriously?  Are you actually trying to make yourself appear disturbed?  Did we plant you inside to discredit the ridiculousness of anti-organisationalism, but forget about it?  Are you trying to be an anarcho-Spart or some shit?
> 
> 'Anarchist hairdressers'.  Jesus fucking wept, what the FUCK?  Are you just being homophobic or something?  I mean, that'd be pathetic, but at least it'd make sense.



Oh he's just paranoid about us shaving his gorillas or something.


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## Pickman's model (Apr 10, 2005)

there's one hairdresser i know of who's an egyptologist...


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## blamblam (Apr 10, 2005)

Pickman's model said:
			
		

> there's one hairdresser i know of who's an egyptologist...


Homophobe


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

If you think the idea of Mayday is a bad one then so be it, but don't then lecture us on how you believe the day should be constituted when you think its all a waste of time anyways.


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 10, 2005)

there's a lot of needle on this thread, i sphinx.


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 10, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> If you think the idea of Mayday is a bad one then so be it, but don't then lecture us on how you believe the day should be constituted when you think its all a waste of time anyways.



whom are you addressing?

and for that matter, who's the 'us' you mention?


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## Pickman's model (Apr 10, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> Homophobe


  

they're doing a phd on ancient egyptian hairdressing!


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## montevideo (Apr 10, 2005)

Zoë Herself said:
			
		

> I believe the two of you have met.
> 
> But seriously, what is anarchist hairdressers all about? I mean, I've played along, but I really don't get the joke...
> 
> ...



dreadlocks - lifestylism - not real anarchists. 
The idea that 'proper' anarchists pass judgement on those they consider unworthy of the title 'anarchist' because of their hairstyle. (Made even weirder by the fact most anarchist hairdressers are disciples of a crude & basic textbook marxism). 

Genuine question, how are you going to celebrate international workers day? 
Or are you saying let's not doing anything until the conditions are right? If so does this apply to the other 364 days of the year? 

The idea of euromayday is simply that, connecting up with groups throughout europe.


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> whom are you addressing?
> 
> and for that matter, who's the 'us' you mention?


 First question, catch.
 Second question, I was using the royal "us" , related to the royal "we" . Maybe that puts me into the hairdresser camp


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 10, 2005)

so is an anarchist hairdresser a dreadhead or not? is monte? what on earth is going on?

the truth will out


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## Pickman's model (Apr 10, 2005)

monte's got a rather _individual_ hairstyle...


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

So Montevideo, are the hairdressers the  so-called lifestylists or those who criticise those they perceive to be lifestylists? The label could be applied to either group .


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## DaveCinzano (Apr 10, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> First question, catch.



well, catch raised interesting issues that you (singular) appear not to have addressed.


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## blamblam (Apr 10, 2005)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> so is an anarchist hairdresser a dreadhead or not? is monte? what on earth is going on?
> 
> the truth will out


Here they are:


> Together with all this there was something of the evil atmosphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and buildings were in poor repair, the streets at night were dimly lit for fear of air-raids, the shops were mostly shabby and half-empty. Meat was scarce and milk practically unobtainable, there was a shortage of coal, sugar and petrol, and a really serious shortage of bread. Even at this period the bread-queues were often hundreds of yards long. Yet so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes.


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## cats hammers (Apr 10, 2005)

Perhaps he's talking about the barbers Orwell talks about in Homage to Catalonia from Barcelona, who refused tips?

Perhaps Monte believes these people were bad as there was a revolution and they still had jobs (the bastards), and were thus JUST LIKE US.

Edit - icepick, I fucking hate you, you beat me.


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## blamblam (Apr 10, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Perhaps he's talking about the barbers Orwell talks about in Homage to Catalonia from Barcelona, who refused tips?
> 
> Perhaps Monte believes these people were bad as there was a revolution and they still had jobs (the bastards), and were thus JUST LIKE US.


Ha great minds eh Jack ^


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## montevideo (Apr 10, 2005)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> so is an anarchist hairdresser a dreadhead or not? is monte? what on earth is going on?
> 
> the truth will out



nar, the anarchist hairdressers are the kids who run around sniggering in packs, doing lots of pointing, quoting marx, not much else. They judge peoples worth as an anarchist by the style of their hair. 




			
				pickman's model said:
			
		

> monte's got a rather individual hairstyle...



hmm


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> well, catch raised interesting issues that you (singular) appear not to have addressed.



 Catch raised one parody of what I had been saying which we responded to. 
  He then lectured the thread,"us" on what he thought Mayday should be when he doesn't believe any day should be picked out as special anyways.
 Personally speaking I enjoy having festivals...






			
				MrBIG said:
			
		

> The event itself cannot, obviously be a clandestine affair, that's the whole point in it-but the preperation should be. In the days of early RTS actions police time was not devoted to the  group in the same way as any modern MayDay action would be but still every man and his dog were not privy to the plans for each action until the very last moment. A balance was struck between security and democracy but people didn't worry too much because the partys were generally held to be a great success.
> This is hardly cutting edge shit. I can remember reading about how 60s activists got pissed off watching Tariq Ali discussing anti-vietnam war tactics in an open meeting in front of obvious SB officers. Taking no security measure re phones etc nowadays is the equilavent of just that.
> .



Was my response to this..




			
				catch said:
			
		

> So MayDay, instead of being a day when the working class collectively demonstrates its strength, ends up a day when a few paranoid people with their mobiles wrapped in tin foil and batteries wander around trying to meet each other in affinity groups at locations they're not quite sure of due to measures intended to prevent FIT picking them up beforehand and stopping them from being effective activists.
> 
> For fuck's sake. You need to seriously reconsider what all that effort is actually achieving apart from a persecution complex.


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## Pickman's model (Apr 10, 2005)




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## DaveCinzano (Apr 10, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> Catch raised one parody of what I had been saying which we responded to.
> He then lectured the thread,"us" on what he thought Mayday should be when he doesn't believe any day should be picked out as special anyways.
> Personally speaking I enjoy having festivals...





oh well, i guess you are too smart for me


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## MrBIG (Apr 10, 2005)

bristle-krs said:
			
		

> oh well, i guess you are too smart for me



 Can you genuinely not understand what I wrote? I apologise if it all looks garbled but I do think I had responded to catch's point.


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## cats hammers (Apr 10, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> dreadlocks - lifestylism - not real anarchists.
> The idea that 'proper' anarchists pass judgement on those they consider unworthy of the title 'anarchist' because of their hairstyle. (Made even weirder by the fact most anarchist hairdressers are disciples of a crude & basic textbook marxism).



   Well that's certainly MY critique of lifestylism.


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## catch (Apr 11, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> If you think the idea of Mayday is a bad one then so be it, but don't then lecture us on how you believe the day should be constituted when you think its all a waste of time anyways.



If there was a well-organised working-class, Mayday would be fucking great (well it will be for me anyway because of my aforementioned perpetuation of patriarchal/state-religious customs), but you know what I mean. As it is now, it's never going to be more than activists turning up.

EuroMayDay is supposed to be linked to the Precarity thing no?

Do you really think that it's a positive step to invite a load of office temps/immigrant catering workers/New Dealers along to Mayday, then harrass them for not taking out their mobil phone battery, or possibly not telling them where to meet up whatsoever due to 'security'?

If precarity forums are supposed to radicalise previously atomised, non-unionised and largely apolitical people then making them stand around whispering to each other in darkened rooms with loud music is hardly very empowering is it.


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## Main Street (Apr 11, 2005)

I like May Day a lot. Whatever happens and regardless of who turns up it's a good day when I celebrate the workers' holiday and being a worker I take a holiday. 

I'm not that bothered about 'a load of office temps/immigrant catering workers/New Dealers along to Mayday' cos basically I know i will spend the rest of the year attempting to get the message across of getting organised at work, in the community, etc.

I think May Day is essentially a day when the organised show their strength. 

It wasn't such a great day in 2001 for plenty, and 2003 was a close shave but overall I still like the feeling of expression that is to be had on the day.


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## montevideo (Apr 11, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> If there was a well-organised working-class, Mayday would be fucking great (well it will be for me anyway because of my aforementioned perpetuation of patriarchal/state-religious customs), but you know what I mean. As it is now, it's never going to be more than activists turning up.
> 
> EuroMayDay is supposed to be linked to the Precarity thing no?
> 
> ...




you really don't get out much do you.

A positive step would be writing a few words to libertarian socialist publications (read almost exclusively by middle class libertarian socialist/activists) or forever tell us you're going to be involved in 'community politics' at some point in the future?

As always for most middle class activists parading as anarchist hairdressers a well organised working class is always going to be the nirvana, an objective desire where you don't have to get your hands dirty, simply coach from the sidelines, forever expressing this idealised, & for you disconnected, notion of The Working Class.


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## cats hammers (Apr 11, 2005)

Just so we can add this to the list of fucking stupid things you've said, which of the following are you claiming:

a) There is currently a well organised and militant working class.

or

b) There has NEVER been a well organised and militant working class.

Working class now - Tiny fraction of previous levels of unionisation, lowest numbers of days lost to strike action for years, lowest average rate of wage settlement for years, the revolutionary left (as a whole) tiny, scattered and isolated.  Are you SERIOUSLY trying to fucking claim that this is no less a "well organised" working class, than say the 1970's?  Please tell me you're this stupid.  You see nothing amuses me more than "wombles are stupid" factlets, and this is one of the best.


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## montevideo (Apr 11, 2005)

jackwupton said:
			
		

> Just so we can add this to the list of fucking stupid things you've said, which of the following are you claiming:
> 
> a) There is currently a well organised and militant working class.
> 
> ...




right on cue. Just like buses in fact, there'll be 3 more any moment now.


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## cats hammers (Apr 11, 2005)

Is this what you say to your self everytime you put on trousers?


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## montevideo (Apr 11, 2005)

as any child of the affluent middle classes would say.


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## catch (Apr 11, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> you really don't get out much do you.
> 
> or forever tell us you're going to be involved in 'community politics' at some point in the future?



Montevideo, I'm currently involved with community politics helping out with Hackney Independent every week or so. I'd like to be more involved than that but having just started working full-time again and currently doing 2-3 gigs a week in the evenings after a full day at work it doesn't leave loads of time. If you read my earlier post you'd have noted I said 'more', not 'at some time in the future'.

Jack answered the rest of your post pretty well.


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## cats hammers (Apr 11, 2005)

I don't know where you come up with this stuff Monte.  Genius.  I'm beat.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 11, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Montevideo, I'm currently involved with community politics helping out with Hackney Independent every week or so. I'd like to be more involved than that but having just started working full-time again and currently doing 2-3 gigs a week in the evenings after a full day at work it doesn't leave loads of time. If you read my earlier post you'd have noted I said 'more', not 'at some time in the future'.
> 
> Jack answered the rest of your post pretty well.



putting on gigs or in a band? So you prioritise. What's most important to you at this time is doing gigs rather than doing 'community politics'. This is fine. I'm not going to criticise you for considering how best to spend your energy.

Just a little aside why do you think i used the term nirvana rather than say, goal, objective, aim or indeed purpose? 

Because of your class background (& indeed all the anarchist hairdressers) you can only see & relate to The Working Class as an outside, objective force, something that happens over there, & your 'postive' contribution can only be in terms of enthusiastic onlooker, or preaching from your 'elevated' position.


----------



## revolt (Apr 11, 2005)

I quite like the idea of doing something on mayday. But what time should I turn up in london? I live more than an hour away so can't just wait for my text message. Do I need to be there from like 1am waiting for a text? and what if im completley the wrong side of london?


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 11, 2005)

> putting on gigs or in a band? So you prioritise. What's most important to you at this time is doing gigs rather than doing 'community politics'. This is fine. I'm not going to criticise you for considering how best to spend your energy.



So an admission that there is more in this person's life than just "politics" imples they are not committed enough? This is lifestylism of the worst variety. So I have a job- therefore I have "prioritised"? Or I choose to be in a loving relationship, so I have "prioritised" love over the Struggle?

You are an idiot.



> Just a little aside why do you think i used the term nirvana rather than say, goal, objective, aim or indeed purpose?



Because it allows you to smear the people arguing with you instead of engaging with them critically?



> Because of your class background (& indeed all the anarchist hairdressers) you can only see & relate to The Working Class as an outside, objective force, something that happens over there, & your 'postive' contribution can only be in terms of enthusiastic onlooker, or preaching from your 'elevated' position.



1. Can we get this straight- who are the Anarchist Hairdressers? Are they an amorphous group who include all who disagree with your politics, or are they strictly defined? Your usage so far implies it is the collective who run enrager- ergo this includes me.
2. Given that you have made a totalising assertion about this group, that all within it have a particular class background, I can only assume that it is in your head a defined group. How on earth do you presume to know the class background of these people? 
3. Please elaborate as to this class background- and your class analysis in general (preferably without quoting EP Thompson). The implication here is that you have a three-class analysis (how else can these people be 'outside' the working class?).


----------



## montevideo (Apr 11, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> So an admission that there is more in this person's life than just "politics" imples they are not committed enough? This is lifestylism of the worst variety. So I have a job- therefore I have "prioritised"? Or I choose to be in a loving relationship, so I have "prioritised" love over the Struggle?
> 
> You are an idiot.
> 
> ...




Interesting. 

But one thing, i can't define class without using thompson's model but it's okay for the anarchist hairdressers to define class using marx's model? As i've said before i can't find a better description of what class is than thompson's & i certainly can't express it better, similar but not better.

You consider yourself middle class. How do you know this? There are many classes of people, marx i think described 5 in his time. I look upon middle class people with a disengaged rage (tempered over time) but still find the type of middle class people who seek to tell me what is & what is not the correct method in how working class people should liberate themselves utterly nauseating. These people i choose to call the anarchist hairdressers.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 11, 2005)

you haven't answered the questions properly monte. Try again.


----------



## BL2ALLb (Apr 11, 2005)

Mayday is a celebration of Spring, fertility, flowers, dancing round maypoles.

What is the oldest religion of this land.....Pagans........ maybe mayday is not a Pagan festival precisely but it was celebrated before The Industrial Revolution.....when the country folk were herded into the towns to live and work in miserable slums. 


The Police quite enjoy a day out running round the city.....it gives them the chance to practise new tactics, get double over time, sing songs in the coaches....which they park alongside Kings Cross on the way home they sip a few tins and enjoy their day out.

They try to work as teams, run in formation, disperse crowds and get to wear their latest new clobber. I think it's funny to watch them running with all their gadgets clanking about their belts. They are all shapes and sizes and some look very unfit with pasty skin as if most are stuck in offices for months on end. 

Mayday should be a carnival....a celebration of Spring and if other countries have the day of as a Public Holiday then why not us?


----------



## MrBIG (Apr 11, 2005)

> If there was a well-organised working-class, Mayday would be fucking great (well it will be for me anyway because of my aforementioned perpetuation of patriarchal/state-religious customs), but you know what I mean. As it is now, it's never going to be more than activists turning up.



 Have to agree with some of montevideo's comments that this all does reek of a certain kind of bollocks. I was merely suggesting a few security principles and have been parodied and mis-represented so bollocks to all these so-called libertarians who want to play around pretending that their shitty generalisations can help anyone else. Of course its better to do fuck all because the time is not quite right,  and if you do decide to do something to have no consideration for the risks that you may be putting yourself or anyone else under, but anyways you aren't really doing anything because  some theorising has convinced yourself its best to wait.


----------



## cats hammers (Apr 11, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> Because of your class background (& indeed all the anarchist hairdressers) you can only see & relate to The Working Class as an outside, objective force, something that happens over there, & your 'postive' contribution can only be in terms of enthusiastic onlooker, or preaching from your 'elevated' position.



Whereas you relate to the working class by being voluntarily unemployed, voluntarily squatting and attempting to rouse the masses by photoshopping pictures of gorillas.


----------



## Kidda (Apr 11, 2005)

bypassing all the bullshit nit picking and typical argumentative bollocks.

just going to point out that this mayday stuff is happening in 

Birmingham.

Manchester 

Liverpool

and no doubt a few other places to 

so there ya go.bit of a choice for those who dont wanna do the london ting

and were on page 3 of a mayday thread and no one yet has mentioned the Haymarket Martyrs*.

so fuck ya. 

im more anarchist than yow 



*tho in all seriousness, surely a drink or two for those who weve lost aye, put the fighting to one side for the day and just remember who the real enemy is.


----------



## blamblam (Apr 11, 2005)

Kidda said:
			
		

> *tho in all seriousness, surely a drink or two for those who weve lost aye, put the fighting to one side for the day and just remember who the real enemy is.


Er... the SWP?



_"If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labour movement . . . the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil in misery and want, expect salvation - if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and there, behind you -- and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out."_

- A. Spies

www.enrager.net/history/articles/mayday-haymarket-martyrs/


----------



## montevideo (Apr 11, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> you haven't answered the questions properly monte. Try again.



you haven't answered the questions at all kropotkin. Try again.


----------



## Onket (Apr 11, 2005)

Kidda said:
			
		

> bypassing all the bullshit nit picking and typical argumentative bollocks.



Read.


----------



## redyred (Apr 11, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> you haven't answered the questions at all kropotkin. Try again.



You fucker. You stole my main arguing tactic. Some hints for next time - put "you" in capital letters. Also, try to deviate less from his original words. Consider:



> "YOU haven't answered the questions properly"



A good follow up would be:



> I'll try YOU again


----------



## catch (Apr 11, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> putting on gigs or in a band?



Yes, I have two part-time jobs and I'm self-employed as a musician, so three jobs really. I think that's a reasonable use of my time.

The Parisian sections were run by people working 9, 10, 14 hour days. Professional activism simply disassociates yourself from any kind of day-to-day reality that most people experience.


> Just a little aside why do you think i used the term nirvana rather than say, goal, objective, aim or indeed purpose?



Not sure, trying to liven up otherwise dull and insightless posts?



> Because of your class background



Please, Monte, please tell me what you've managed to ascertain about my class background from my posts on Urban75 and enrager.net. There's just about enough information on here to get a ballpark Marxian/sociological class definition. What's my class background then?



> from your 'elevated' position.



What's that. You still talking to me?


----------



## suckola (Apr 12, 2005)

is it just me or is this one of the stupidest internet arguments ever*? round and round we go and noboy's even pretending that there's an actual effort to resolve positions or come to some kind of shared understanding or anything...


*i have heard of a stupider argument in the real world:
three irish anarchists sitting around a table and a mostly empty at this stage bottle of whiskey

drunken anarchist 1: but how can you be proud to be irish?

drunken anarchist 2: i just fucking am

drunken anarchist 3: but how, thats stupid

drunken anarchist 2: i just am, you're stupid

drunken anarchist 1:but how? thats stupid!

and so on, and on and on and on

see, not even funny, just stupid


----------



## revolt (Apr 12, 2005)

you're all to sober to be working class. so fuck off 

any answer to my question? i want to come but i need a bit more info???


----------



## Main Street (Apr 12, 2005)

Kidda said:
			
		

> bypassing all the bullshit nit picking and typical argumentative bollocks.
> 
> just going to point out that this mayday stuff is happening in
> 
> ...



And Vancouver


----------



## cats hammers (Apr 12, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> What's that. You still talking to me?



I'm quite tall, so perhaps he's refering to me?


----------



## Emma Herself (Apr 12, 2005)

You're taller than me, aren't you?


----------



## rednblack (Apr 12, 2005)

catch is not that tall, certainly shorter than monty


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 12, 2005)

I'm taller than the lot of youse..


...but that might just be my anarchist haircut


----------



## rednblack (Apr 12, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> I'm taller than the lot of youse..
> 
> 
> ...but that might just be my anarchist haircut



nah, it's your middle class genes - a history of better diets and environment


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 12, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> I'm taller than the lot of youse..
> 
> 
> ...but that might just be my anarchist haircut


no you're not.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 12, 2005)

Yeah, a well good history of grand diets in working class northern irish catholics and working class russian and polish jews!

Apart from all that unleavened bread of course. and potatos.

Pickman's: i'm sure I'm taller than you


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 12, 2005)

maybe - but i'm certain you ain't taller than everyone who posts in politics on urban.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 12, 2005)

Oh- it was a pedantic point- I should have known!


----------



## catch (Apr 12, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> have been parodied and mis-represented



If you look at your original post on this thread I think my response was incredibly restrained and didn't exaggerate your position as stated. To be honest I had to check your posts on other threads before responding because I thought you were taking the piss yourself. If you don't really think people should keep their batteries out of their phones and conduct their meetings in darkened rooms with loud music and 'random people standing about' (surely a nightclub would do for that, or even a pub?), then please inform me.


----------



## catch (Apr 12, 2005)

Still waiting for my class position and metres above sea level Monte.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 12, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Yes, I have two part-time jobs and I'm self-employed as a musician, so three jobs really. I think that's a reasonable use of my time.
> 
> The Parisian sections were run by people working 9, 10, 14 hour days. Professional activism simply disassociates yourself from any kind of day-to-day reality that most people experience.
> 
> ...




but look what you've done. Someone posts up what they intend to do on mayday & why, & you slag of what you imagine their practical intentions are & some hypothetical absurdity of how you imagine people organise these things. You don't even criticise the content of what was written, just some weird third hand gossip passed through the filter system of the anarchist hairdresser grapevine.

This seems to be a familiar occupation of yours (cf: samba band), clueless attacks & miserable attempts to deride an activity you have a problem with, ably cheered on by the other anarchist hairdressers (& to his shame rednblack). 

Your class background is _"economically working class"_ 



isn't it.

_"MAYDAY is International workers day, born out of the struggle for an 8 hour day in 1886. Over 100 years later our lives are still taken up by the world of work. Even more so now, as the work imposed by Capitalism has become more casualised (temporary contracts, flex time, part time, no time!) forcing us to adapt to the point where it's hard to tell when, where or even if we are working. This leaves us in a situation where our lives are always on hold, on call and at the mercy of the market. Our leisure time too is filled with anxieties. The anxiety of not being able to have enough money to pay the rent, go to the cinema, a nice restaurant, shop for food, clothes, anything! In reality our work never finishes and when we're not at work we still end up making some other person even richer.

Around Europe people call this new working and living condition "precarity" and over the past few years the EUROMAYDAY parades of causalised workers, temps, part-timers, immigrants and unemployed have marched through Europe's capitals to demand new social rights for the most marginalised. On MAYDAY 2005 we will add London to this emerging movement.

MAYDAY this year falls on a Sunday, once a day for relaxing, now part of the working week for many people. It's symbollic of how our time is increasingly dominated by work. As part of EUROMAYDAY, our aim is to make MAYDAY this year a day off for everyone. A day when we extend our hand of solidarity over the counter & checkout & learn to live for free. One day less for working, one day more for us! Look out for more info!"_ 

so do you, politicaly speaking, have a problem with the above & if so what?


----------



## catch (Apr 12, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> but look what you've done. Someone posts up what they intend to do on mayday & why, & you slag of what you imagine their practical intentions are & some hypothetical absurdity of how you imagine people organise these things.



That's not at all what I did. I responded to MrBIGs suggestion that everyone take their phone batteries out on the day and pointed out there might be a problem when the announcement said everyone would be texted the location. Similarly with his suggestions on meeting organisation which at best aren't very practical or inclusive.

I didn't respond to Raw at all, and in fact you began the spat by suggesting I'd be doing nothing on that day and calling me a hairdresser.





> You don't even criticise the content of what was written, just some weird third hand gossip passed through the filter system of the anarchist hairdresser grapevine.



I criticised the content of MrBIG's post, as that was what I was responding to. Geddit?



> This seems to be a familiar occupation of yours (cf: samba band), clueless attacks & miserable attempts to deride an activity you have a problem with, ably cheered on by the other anarchist hairdressers (& to his shame rednblack).



I don't think you ever responded to my most recent samba band post. Calling it clueless and miserable isn't an argument Monte.




> Your class background is _"economically working class"_



In what way does that affect my "disconnection from and idealisation of the working class"?



> so do you, politicaly speaking, have a problem with the above & if so what?



I don't like the term precarity for reasons we've been into elsewhere, and there's very little politics in that statement to have an opinion of - merely truisms of the nature of work under capital that have been around since your stated date for the first MayDay. MayDay's been a European institution for some time, rebranding/relaunching needs qualitative differences, not just a name change.


----------



## sovietpop (Apr 12, 2005)

Thank goodness you are all starting to talk about the politics! it was like watching ferrets fight in a bag for a moment there.




			
				catch said:
			
		

> MayDay's been a European institution for some time, rebranding/relaunching needs qualitative differences, not just a name change.



I'm not really sure what you mean here by 'qualitative differences'? Could you explain or give an example to illustrate what you mean?


----------



## montevideo (Apr 12, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> That's not at all what I did. I responded to MrBIGs suggestion that everyone take their phone batteries out on the day and pointed out there might be a problem when the announcement said everyone would be texted the location. Similarly with his suggestions on meeting organisation which at best aren't very practical or inclusive.
> 
> I didn't respond to Raw at all, and in fact you began the spat by suggesting I'd be doing nothing on that day and calling me a hairdresser.
> 
> ...





> "So MayDay, instead of being a day when the working class collectively demonstrates its strength, ends up a day when a few paranoid people with their mobiles wrapped in tin foil and batteries out wander around trying to meet each other in affinity groups at locations they're not quite sure of due to measures intended to prevent FIT picking them up beforehand and stopping them from being effective activists.
> 
> For fuck's sake. You need to seriously reconsider what all that effort is actually achieving apart from a persecution complex."



20 cities thus far involved in euromayday, another 11 in the pipeline. And as has been pointed out, countless other activities around the country equally as valid. 
http://www.euromayday.org/


----------



## catch (Apr 12, 2005)

I don't think the idea of precarity is anything different from what's been said about life under capitalism for several decades. Nor do I think a few activists using the word in some press releases constitutes a qualitative change in the way people view their working conditions and working relationships. If everyone's (i.e. lots and lots of people in the UK, not just lots of activist types) talking about it in a couple of years and organising themselves in response to the concept I'll change my tune, I'll also put money on it that they won't.

So calling May Day EUROMAYDAY is really no more than a rhetorical step, similar to whoever wrote the "May Day Cancelled" pamphlet that Monte's been so worked up about - a statement by a few activists that doesn't reflect concrete changes (although the cancellation pamphlet may have reflected some more accurately than the above press release) and at most should be intended to provoke discussion. If you think temp, contract and New Deal workers will be out in their thousands on May Day due to a change of wording then that's great for you.


----------



## catch (Apr 12, 2005)

there's that Middlesex Declaration again. Has everyone involved in the 20 countries been consulted on the use of that statement in the overall site?

http://www.euromayday.org/2005/middle.php

And do you recommend that everyone involved take MrBIG's advice?


----------



## MrBIG (Apr 12, 2005)

]






			
				catch said:
			
		

> If you don't really think people should keep their batteries out of their phones and conduct their meetings in darkened rooms with loud music and 'random people standing about' (surely a nightclub would do for that, or even a pub?), then please inform me.



Quick thinking holmes... I was going to give good examples of how your normal common and garden city pub could be used for this kind of thing with some real life examples but why give away any spycraft when anybody with half an ounce of a brain could work it out for themselves. The problem with the way you are approaching what I say is  that you are desperately trying to put me into a lifestyle category which unfortunately makes you yourself the ultimate lifestylist.
 You have already accused me of being a paranoid member of the tin foil hat brigade and now you keep mis-representing what I say in order to make it seem patently absurd. ie..




			
				catch said:
			
		

> I responded to MrBIGs suggestion that everyone take their phone batteries out on the day and pointed out there might be a problem when the announcement said everyone would be texted the location. Similarly with his suggestions on meeting organisation which at best aren't very practical or inclusive.



I never suggested that everyone take their phone batteries out on the day. Rather I gave some guidlines on how to have succesfully covert meetings where people could safely co-ordinate without a strong likelihood of admissable survailance. You may think that there is no need for any of this but since you have said that you don't believe the conditions are right for a mayday protest you hardly have the right to dictate the level of security that other people who are willing to put their necks on the line should operate under. I made some suggestions and you continue to choose to misrepresent them. So be it. 

 There is a more interesting point than all this ferret squabling, as it has been justifiably described, and that is how much we should introduce individuals lifestyles into our judgements of the positions they espouse. What I have got a very strong sense of in this thread is a rather depressing need by some people to pidgeon hole and categorise before they apply their brains to what has been said. It is a kind of behaviour that I would associate more with a vicarage tea party or a tory dinner party  than a discussion between those who would claim to wish to change the world.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 12, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> I don't think the idea of precarity is anything different from what's been said about life under capitalism for several decades. Nor do I think a few activists using the word in some press releases constitutes a qualitative change in the way people view their working conditions and working relationships. If everyone's (i.e. lots and lots of people in the UK, not just lots of activist types) talking about it in a couple of years and organising themselves in response to the concept I'll change my tune, I'll also put money on it that they won't.
> 
> So calling May Day EUROMAYDAY is really no more than a rhetorical step, similar to whoever wrote the "May Day Cancelled" pamphlet that Monte's been so worked up about - a statement by a few activists that doesn't reflect concrete changes (although the cancellation pamphlet may have reflected some more accurately than the above press release) and at most should be intended to provoke discussion. If you think temp, contract and New Deal workers will be out in their thousands on May Day due to a change of wording then that's great for you.



"i don't think the idea of precarity..." but some people do think the idea of precarity, doesn't make you any more right or these people any less wrong (or indeed the other way round). The point is coming to terms with the conditions as the present themselves. The days of solid marxian work relations no longer present themselves as a concrete given. If they ever adequately did.

There has been a shift, in terms of employment, from producing things to providing things - according to the times the nhs, indian state railway & chinese army are the world's biggest 3 employers. In the us, the postal service & walmart are the biggest employers.  

Now, how does that affect a) how people are employed & secondly the security of their conditon of employment? And how does that affect the rest of how they live? These of course are questions raised as opposed to answers given as an absolute (through he spectre of flawed marxian economics).

Calling it 'euro mayday' because it's on may 1st & a europe wide initiative.


----------



## catch (Apr 12, 2005)

MrBIG said:
			
		

> Also, remember that once a phone is hot then it stays hot, changing SIMS is not good enough. They can pinpoint your location to the nearest 10m using base point triangulation. Have everyone remove their phone batteries before leaving to go to a hoped for secure meeting place.



Seems pretty clear cut that you were talking about MayDay itself to me.


----------



## catch (Apr 12, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> "
> 
> There has been a shift, in terms of employment, from producing things to providing things - according to the times the nhs, indian state railway & chinese army are the world's biggest 3 employers. In the us, the postal service & walmart are the biggest employers.



And in various guises this has been the situation since the 1960s. Like I said it's not a new phenomenon as you try to make it out to be. I'm all for criticisms of orthodox (or rather orthodox-Leninist, I don't think Marx himself was that inflexible) economics, but that's nothing new. Bookchin has been saying this stuff since the mid-'60s and Scandinavian groups are operating fairly well on his ideas.


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 12, 2005)

The old school factory workers of the world have actually increased in absolute number over the last 30 years. Their _significance_ and centrality might have diminished somewhat though. The problem with the arguments about a whole new MOP is that is actually mirrors capitals internal talk -about how it's overcame this and that etc end of the classwar...

First - _demonstrate_ the shift. Prove it. Let's start from there.


----------



## mk12 (Apr 12, 2005)

> The old school factory workers of the world have actually increased in absolute number over the last 30 years.



Do you mean in terms of the world, or the UK?


----------



## Donna Ferentes (Apr 12, 2005)

Ye Wholle Wyde Worlde, I believe.


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## butchersapron (Apr 12, 2005)

The world. We're internationalist right? We see that Capital and the world market is a global phenomonen don't we?


----------



## mk12 (Apr 12, 2005)

Yeah, alright! Easy up sonny boy...I was just asking...


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 12, 2005)

mattie, in 6 months, you'll either be an anarchist, or a mentalist.

you are too open-minded to stay a trot.

I hope you move in a sensible direction.

we'll be here for you


----------



## Emma Herself (Apr 13, 2005)

Hang on a second....

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=110968&page=1&pp=25 

...spooky...


----------



## Solidarnosc (Apr 13, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> mattie, in 6 months, you'll either be an anarchist, or a mentalist.
> 
> you are too open-minded to stay a trot.
> 
> ...



Didn't you all say this about me at one point?

*whistles innocently*


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 13, 2005)

Anarchists correct says trot.


----------



## Raw SslaC (Apr 13, 2005)

Hairdressing talk

1."Scandinavian groups are operating fairly well on his ideas"?? actually you'll find that there not and actually they are operating at a lower level than fairly well actually.

 

Enuff of the pointy heads! 

>>SECRET LOCATION FOR EUROMAYDAY ACTION!!

To participate in this years MAYDAY action please send your mobile phone number to:  euromayday@hushmail.com and you will be texted one hour before the action starts on MAY 1st.

www.euromayday.org // www.precarity.info


----------



## rednblack (Apr 13, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Anarchists correct says trot.



mind you i hope mattkid doesnt end up in workers power!


----------



## cats hammers (Apr 13, 2005)

Raw SslaC said:
			
		

> 1."Scandinavian groups are operating fairly well on his ideas"?? actually you'll find that there not and actually they are operating at a lower level than fairly well actually.



 So now you're saying every group in Scandinavia is shit?


----------



## montevideo (Apr 13, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> The old school factory workers of the world have actually increased in absolute number over the last 30 years. Their _significance_ and centrality might have diminished somewhat though. The problem with the arguments about a whole new MOP is that is actually mirrors capitals internal talk -about how it's overcame this and that etc end of the classwar...
> 
> First - _demonstrate_ the shift. Prove it. Let's start from there.



but you acknowledge casualisation as a shift, one defined by capitals 'internal talk'? Indeed to some precarity is just a clever foreign word for casualisation. What _significance_ do you think employing people (a large number of people) to provide a service as opposed to produce something, has? 

Or are you saying ideas are only allowed to germinate once they've been _proved_ first?

An example of this 'shift' is when 11 workers (all part of meatpacking dept) wanted union recognition at one of their stores, walmart simply scrapped the job of meatcutter company-wide, moving away from instore meat cutting to stocking pre-packed meat. 

But beyond that, the types of work (given as examples by the euromayday people) don't have the ability or backup of union membership (as a means of safeguarding their jobs). Previously the left/trade unions were the bedrock of the workers movement, buoyed by the fact people were an indispensable part of the production process. Yet employment tactics of today have relegated this fact to a minor inconvenience. What unites say, bike couriers with part time cleaners? Beyond the insecurity of their employment, beyond the fact that they, as people, are dispensable. 

But further still i see concept of 'precarity' moving away from simply workplace struggles, relating the insecurity at work with that of all aspects of social living. Again life isn't pockets of being & doing (workplace - community - leisure) but how all these aspects relate & are dominated by the insecurity capital threatens to provide. 

The fact that the season ticket at godsend united is now so overpriced you no longer have the seat behind the goal you had since you were a kid. Or indeed the fact that your local community centre is being sold off to make way for luxury apartments.

Nothing has any conditons of permanency any more, whether that in itself is permanent remains to be seen.


----------



## rednblack (Apr 13, 2005)

so the working class is more casualised than before? well that's true especially in the developed world

it doesnt undermine the need for a solid class analysis though-if anything it strengthens it


----------



## JoeBlack (Apr 13, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> Previously the left/trade unions were the bedrock of the workers movement, buoyed by the fact people were an indispensable part of the production process. Yet employment tactics of today have relegated this fact to a minor inconvenience. What unites say, bike couriers with part time cleaners? Beyond the insecurity of their employment, beyond the fact that they, as people, are dispensable.



I think there is a use in the casualisation/precarity debate but there is a problem with treating it as something exceptional/new as it cuts you off from what has been tried and sometimes worked in the past.

The problem is that it assumes as standard the situation that existed in a few western countries in the post-war boom from 1950 to the late 1970's.  And within this is treats as standard that section of the working class that had a job for life.

Looked at over a longer period, or at the global level or to a more limited extent even at the western experience of that periods precarity no longer looks so new but rather a return to an older strategy used to manage labour since the dawn of capital.  If you look at the experience of US workers for instance in the 1860s-1920's you see a situation quite like today in terms of precarity except that the workers tended to be in factories, forests or farms rather than in the service sector.

A lot of work - some of it succesful - was done by the IWW in that period and indeed by the anarchist movement in general.  Mayday after all comes from the struggle of Chicago workers for a shorter working day.

It's not to argue that todays situation is identical to the past or that the same strategy will work again.  But just to take the idea of precarity as 'bright shiny and new' with a pinch of salt.


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## MrBIG (Apr 13, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Seems pretty clear cut that you were talking about MayDay itself to me.


 Well I wasn't. I was talking about preparatory meetings. Obviously the actual Mayday event itself will be open and since people have received notice by mobile they may as well carry it , with battery, for the event. I am sorry if you were mislead by any ambiguity on my part. All I was saying was that it was a good idea to try and keep preparatory meetings hush , hush to protect those involved and help the event itself go ahead unhindered. 
 As stated before this would just be a natural continuation of previous practice on similar events , the only difference nowadays is that anything to do with Mayday is very likely to attract even more excessive SB etc interest.

 As for this whole precarity issue, I think it is interesting in one way because it attempts to emphasise the complete lack of security that Capitalism provides. 
 The word itself though is a bit shite and although I love anything that will wind up the marxist dogmatists who refuse to accept that anything can happen to Capitalism that wasn't forseen in the 1840s by M&E I have to say that Job insecurity and feelings of impermanence are hardly something new.


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## sovietpop (Apr 13, 2005)

To me, the question of whether its new or not is a bit of a red herring, it deflects us from what is important. That is its important is that we identify what are the the issues that exist in the here and now, in the places we live and it would seem that casualisation, precarity, insecurity, end of the job for life (pick which ever terms suits you best) is an issue that affects many many* people. 
And given that, the question is how best can we improve the conditions for those people (and I include myself as one of them)? 

Surely one of our roles as anarchist is to try and identify areas of struggle? For example, in Dublin we are thinking about ways in which May Day can be used to unionise non-union workers and fight against the extreeme emploitation of immigrant labour. You can't wait until the struggle suddenly appears, you have to be part of making it happen (this last bit is addressed to Catch).

If you start from the postition of saying what issues are important/what can we do, then we could have a very interesting debate about which strategies might work, which probably won't, what new things could we try, what can we take from the past.

*Final point: I also believe that there isn't one workplace experience that fits all, for some workplace insecurity is a major issue, in other workplaces, in other spheres there are different issues that we have to fight on (maybe its working time, maybe its childcare etc). So I think we'd be better off if we avoid debates that are based on either 

a) its new/no its not
or 
b) this is the most important thing to be focusing on/ no this is.


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## catch (Apr 13, 2005)

> doesn't make you any more right or these people any less wrong (or indeed the other way round).



Yeah, everything's relative, nothing's good or bad, no value judgements can be derived from any stimulus whatsoever, I'll fuck off then 'cos Thatcher wasn't any more right or any less wrong than me.


> The point is coming to terms with the conditions as the present themselves. The days of solid marxian work relations no longer present themselves as a concrete given. If they ever adequately did.



No problem with that, Marx was talking about a (then) quite small section of society, but he also dealt with older forms of exploitation which account for most non-surplus value expropriation of labour.


> There has been a shift, in terms of employment, from producing things to providing things - according to the times the nhs, indian state railway & chinese army are the world's biggest 3 employers. In the us, the postal service & walmart are the biggest employers.



And how long as that been the case? The move over to service industries has been happening for a very long time, it's nothing new, even bureaucracy was alive and well in China thousands of years ago.


> These of course are questions raised as opposed to answers given as an absolute (through he spectre of flawed marxian economics).



Please explain with flaws in Marx's economic theory to me, I assume you're familiar enough with them to do so.



> Calling it 'euro mayday' because it's on may 1st & a europe wide initiative.



May Day's been on May 1st for a long time, and European for a long time, what makes this year different?


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## Pickman's model (Apr 13, 2005)

rednblack said:
			
		

> mind you i hope mattkid doesnt end up in workers power!


poor workers power!


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## catch (Apr 13, 2005)

sovietpop said:
			
		

> Surely one of our roles as anarchist is to try and identify areas of struggle? For example, in Dublin we are thinking about ways in which May Day can be used to unionise non-union workers and fight against the extreeme emploitation of immigrant labour. You can't wait until the struggle suddenly appears, you have to be part of making it happen (this last bit is addressed to Catch).



If workers no longer identify mainly with their jobs and there's little in common between the occupations of many workers (apart from their dispensability, something I agree with monte on), then the main area of focus, for me at least, shifts to what people do when they aren't working.

Community organising is as much about class and capitalism as workplace organising, although it doesn't deal directly with wage labour (although a decent class analysis links wage labour and the expansion of capital to many issues which impact outside the workplace). I change jobs more often than I move flat, so far anyway, and I've lived in much more the same geographical area than my jobs have been, so it makes sense to focus on stuff around that area rather than whatever job I'm doing at the time (keep my eye out for stuff to build on at work though). Which is why I'm involved in a community group trying to build up awareness around certain issues and promoting self-organisation in general in my community. As far as I'm concerned that's "making the struggle happen", but there's loads of things I'd rather people took control of than a few square metres of Central London one day a year.


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## montevideo (Apr 13, 2005)

rednblack said:
			
		

> so the working class is more casualised than before? well that's true especially in the developed world
> 
> it doesnt undermine the need for a solid class analysis though-if anything it strengthens it



for sure. But to a lot of people when you say 'class analysis' they mean _marxian_ class perspective which is not the same thing.


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## sovietpop (Apr 13, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> As far as I'm concerned that's "making the struggle happen", but there's loads of things I'd rather people took control of than a few square metres of Central London one day a year.



From here it sounds to me that you identified an area where you can do useful work, but what I really can't understand is why you also have to put down the work done by others. Do you really believe there is only one way to struggle? Isn't it good that people identify issues that affect them and act on them?
Your last sentence is also a bit of a red herring, because it is entirely possible to both have a public demonstration in a city centre on May Day itself, and to continue to work *after* may day on the issues raised. I don't understand why you have this either/or way of viewing things.


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## catch (Apr 13, 2005)

Sovietpop, if I'm able to critically decide what activity to get involved in, then why should I not point out what I see to be theoretical or tactical faults in other initiatives? I don't criticise things just because I'm not involved with them, I'm not involved with them because I have ideological and practical disagreements with their analysis and organisation, hence the criticism. I think it's useful to explorethese issues in forums such as this in order to have my ideas challenged and develop an analysis of what is and isn't productive political activity further.



> Do you really believe there is only one way to struggle? Isn't it good that people identify issues that affect them and act on them?



Not only one way to struggle, but there are effective and ineffective ways and I think it's ludicrous to suggest otherwise - determining what those are is more difficult, but that's the point of talking about it. Certain tactics have been proven to have failed or are currently ineffective in bringing a libertarian communist society (leninism for example). I think a libertarian society can only be achieved by the building up of directly-democratic organisations which will eventually take over the running of society after a dual-power/revolutionary period during which they're able to withstand attempts to crush and co-opt them. Why not evaluate the activity of other self-professed anarchist or socialist groups as to whether it has the potential to bring that kind of society about or more practically increases the self-organisation of the working class. Sometimes it's just a matter of numbers, which can't be criticised politically, sometimes it's the nature and structure of the activity itself.

Leaving MayDay for a bit, which  I don't have a problem with overall, how about the G8? Regardless of the activity of participating individuals elsewhere, the act of protesting against capitalism in the form of the specific institution of the G8 and the personalities of the leaders of the countries which make it up, serves to substitute an understanding of capitalism as a social relationship for one embodied in specific institutions. Even if the protestors successfully disrupt the G8 meetings they will not be disrupting the workings of capital,  especially the social relationships which make up their daily interactions with it throughout the year. There have been many, many meetings about it and considerable financial resources spent on renting social centres/producing leaflets etc. etc. for the occasion. I think this kind of substitutionist activity is a distraction, and may have a dispiriting effect on new activists over any period of time (as might SWP membership). It's dislocated from the daily lives of both activists and the wider class, and as such offers no potential for building working class self-organisation (possibly it offers potential for activists to network, but the effort being put into it ought to have more effect than that.) The process of co-option has already started with the G8 Alternatives festival thingy and Brown's 'call for protests' - both of which serve to neutralise any genuine radical demands beyond liberal petitioning. The G8 conference isn't really an issue with impacts and effects individuals directly - it simply mediates decisions made elsewhere for media consumption. Shutting it down might  affect the media coverage, but it won't affect the decisions made or the material consequences of them.

To say that criticising  whilst offering positive alternatives, is sectarian/binary discource is to ignore the very real problems with the nature of political activism (and the lack of it) in the UK and elsewhere.


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## montevideo (Apr 14, 2005)

JoeBlack said:
			
		

> I think there is a use in the casualisation/precarity debate but there is a problem with treating it as something exceptional/new as it cuts you off from what has been tried and sometimes worked in the past.
> 
> The problem is that it assumes as standard the situation that existed in a few western countries in the post-war boom from 1950 to the late 1970's.  And within this is treats as standard that section of the working class that had a job for life.
> 
> ...




well it could be argued it's new to us - people who are living their history now. You could also argue that this concept of precarity comes through a consequence of the dissolution of keynesian interventionism. I don't think anyone is claiming it's bright shiny & new, but certainly a shift.

Again i think the precarity network is attempting to come to terms with how they see the world developing around them. It's not a case of being right or wrong (or indeed whether these set of circumstances have occurred before), but simply one of trying negotiate through a particular set of social conditions that present themselves, some of which are new - the global flow of capital, discarded trade barriers & wto/world bank control over nation state fiscal policies.


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## JoeBlack (Apr 14, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> well it could be argued it's new to us - people who are living their history now.



Well yes but by that definition everything is new.

But otherwise I generally agree.

BTW catch the idea of summit protests being demobalising is an interesting theory but doesn't the development of the post-capitalist movement actually demonstrate the opposite?  At least in Ireland  the summit protests have led to a massive increase in the number of libertarian activists and a fair percentage of those activists have begun to be active in workplace and community struggles.  So here at least people have moved and continue to move from one activity to another.

The problem with counter posing 'summit protests' to 'community activism' is that this leads to a false polarisation where some people feel they can only do one or the other and worse still where groups involved in one feel the need to denounce those involved in the other.  So you end up with the situation where one activity undermines and competes against the other.  In countries where revolutionaries have succesfully argued against this polarisation both spheres have gained off each other and also by pulling in more people.  In my experience involvement in both has also tended to make people more resiliant to defeat or set back in one sphere or the other as they recognise that it is one battle they have lost rather than the (class) war.


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## catch (Apr 14, 2005)

JoeBlack said:
			
		

> Well yes but by that definition everything is new.


 Beat me to it.



> BTW catch the idea of summit protests being demobalising is an interesting theory but doesn't the development of the post-capitalist movement actually demonstrate the opposite?  At least in Ireland  the summit protests have led to a massive increase in the number of libertarian activists and a fair percentage of those activists have begun to be active in workplace and community struggles.  So here at least people have moved and continue to move from one activity to another.



shurely anti-capitalist?

The first years of the summit protests brought people into politics who weren't active before, yes - I met a couple of posters on here for the first time at the Feb 15th anti-war march ffs. However, people moving from summit protests to workplace and community struggles, suggests they may have come to the conclusion that summit protesting isn't all that effective. I'm not interested in using those protests as some kind of recruiting ground to bring people into wider activism, that'd be like telling people to vote Labour to recruit them to the SWP


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## JoeBlack (Apr 14, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> However, people moving from summit protests to workplace and community struggles, suggests they may have come to the conclusion that summit protesting isn't all that effective.



Err I think I had the conversation about the problems that arise when you seek out patches for dodgy theories on the marxism thread.  The facts challenge your theory so you search around for a modification that allows you to keep your faith.  And you come up with something that there is no actual evidence for.  I mean maybe god planted the fossils in the rock to test our faith?


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## catch (Apr 14, 2005)

I know people who've made this switch, I'm not just making it up!

I went to a Disobedience meeting at LARC before one of the anti-war protests and it was terrible: batteries out, got funny looks when I introduced myself in the pub afterwards and asked what people's names were , mentioned that I had a mate who worked at Bush House who might be up for assisting with an occupation and they said 'best keep that information to yourself' and looked around nervously.

But it made me think there must be other, saner, groups out there, and that I should do some more work trying to find them. If I'd not been interested in anarchism for years beforehand (this was a few months after I moved to London), I might have written off the entire movement as a bunch of weirdos, or worse joined them in lieu of something better (like I did the Green Party when I was 16) and lost interest in political activity for a while (like I did when I realised how little I had in common with the Green Party soon after joining up).

Obviously some people will continue to do both summit protests and sustained day-to-day organising and enjoy both - Random on this site seems like one such person, but he's been pretty realistic about the actual effect of the G8 protests elsewhere on this site.


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## JoeBlack (Apr 15, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> I know people who've made this switch, I'm not just making it up!



Ok we need to distingush betwen your personal experience and that of people you know and the idea that there is some sort of universal law revealed by your personal experience.

I would argue that how this sort of thing [i.e. involvement of revolutionaries in the gloablsiation movement] actully works out depends on how people involved themselves and what they argue for.  Given the advantages brought about by collective organisations and agreement this often boils down to what the role of organisations is and has been in such movements.

Some like the SWP have simply wrecked them in the quest for recruits and because of their authoratarian politics that when push comes to shove always puts the party first.

Others including I suspect some of the organised British movement simply followed the most radical wing of movement in the hope of spontaneous development.

Other either ignored it or as with most of the syndicalist propaganda groups demanded it abandon the streets for the real struggle in the factories.  There is some Australian group that did this in a very clear way. 

Others including NEFAC in the USA came out of the most radical section of the movemment and to an extent broke with it in order to prioritise workplace and community struggles.  As an organisation born in the movement this break was probably necessary.

Still others, including the WSM, helped build the movement in the hope that a broad libertarian politics would develop and from the start looked to ways to spread this out beyond summit hopping.  This approach has been quite successful where it has been tried because people have already been very open to it.  

It's a bit of an illusion to believe that most summit hoppers see the start and end of the struggle as being at the summits.  At any of the counter summits you will here again and again people saying the key is to return to local activity and that these protests are (important) spectacles rather than a way of changing things in themselves.

As I see it one of the problems in Britain is that there is no organisation capable of a collective involvement in the movement.  So instead you get there silly polarised debates between 'the movement is everything' and 'the movement is nothing'.  A revolutionary organisation need to be able to chew gum and walk at the same time rather than arguing which is the better option.

But I'll tell you what - you tell me why it is not possible to be involved in both spectacular summit protests and on the ground community organising.  What is the clash that prevents you doing both?

edited on orders of SP to clarify 'this sort of thing'


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## catch (Apr 15, 2005)

> you tell me why it is not possible to be involved in both spectacular summit protests and on the ground community organising. What is the clash that prevents you doing both?



No clash - of course people are free to do both, my reasons are pretty clear, and you've made the same point yourself:


> these protests are (important) spectacles rather than a way of changing things in themselves.



Why are they important?


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## JoeBlack (Apr 17, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Why are they important?



I think the way things work is that if you want to argue against what seems obvious the onus is on to  produce the evidence for your case.  To me its self-evident that J18 - Seattle - Prague had a significant impact on peoples awareness of anarchism.


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## Random (Apr 17, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> But it made me think there must be other, saner, groups out there.



Yeah -- not in London


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## catch (Apr 18, 2005)

JoeBlack said:
			
		

> I think the way things work is that if you want to argue against what seems obvious the onus is on to  produce the evidence for your case.  To me its self-evident that J18 - Seattle - Prague had a significant impact on peoples awareness of anarchism.



"Awareness of anarchism" is a different criteria to "increased working class self-organisation". I think it's important that people become more aware of anarchism as an ideology/historical movement, but that reduces J18 - Seattle - Prague to propaganda - big events to get media coverage of 'anarchism' (and the coverage is mixed in terms of both bias and quality). Is that how you see them or am I misrepresenting? Propaganda via spectacular protest? In that case I think they've contributed a lot to the conflation of anarchism with anti-capitalism/anti-globalisation activism rather than helping to clarify it as a (even slightly) coherent ideology, and they pretty much reinforce contemporary stereotypes of anarchists in the media, reinforcing perceptions or creating ones which are removed from people's everyday life.

The reason I've got involved in community organising, and am trying to a bit at work as well, isn't to promote anarchism as an ideology, it's to put forward self-organised solutions to concrete problems and situations in the hope that people will continue to use them. I'm honest about my politics if people ask, and happily discuss anarchism with whoever, but there's a lot of ideological baggage attached to anarchism, much of it erroneous, that for me is less important than self-organisation itself.


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## montevideo (Apr 18, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> "Awareness of anarchism" is a different criteria to "increased working class self-organisation". I think it's important that people become more aware of anarchism as an ideology/historical movement, but that reduces J18 - Seattle - Prague to propaganda - big events to get media coverage of 'anarchism' (and the coverage is mixed in terms of both bias and quality). Is that how you see them or am I misrepresenting? Propaganda via spectacular protest? In that case I think they've contributed a lot to the conflation of anarchism with anti-capitalism/anti-globalisation activism rather than helping to clarify it as a (even slightly) coherent ideology, and they pretty much reinforce contemporary stereotypes of anarchists in the media, reinforcing perceptions or creating ones which are removed from people's everyday life.
> 
> The reason I've got involved in community organising, and am trying to a bit at work as well, isn't to promote anarchism as an ideology, it's to put forward self-organised solutions to concrete problems and situations in the hope that people will continue to use them. I'm honest about my politics if people ask, and happily discuss anarchism with whoever, but there's a lot of ideological baggage attached to anarchism, much of it erroneous, that for me is less important than self-organisation itself.




so you know what anarchism is. And you accuse others of getting it wrong (or more importantly giving the media the wrong impression of what anarchism is), becuase they don't think the same as you or do the same as you?

The arrogance of a middle class (sorry, _"economically working class"_) activist in full flow.

But just so we're sure, are the haymarket martyrs part of this anarchist ideological/historical movement of yours?

Plus just a reminder i think you lied about the disobedeince meeting.


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## catch (Apr 18, 2005)

Monte.

Do you think anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism mean exactly the same thing as anarchism?

Does the media never interview anyone in-depth and misrepresent anarchism just about every time they report on any kind of protest, constantly posting distortions and lies about the people involved, and picking out those who most closely conform to stereotypes (generally masked up)? If they do then what's wrong with what I posted?

By the way, I'd never suggest people shouldn't go because of crappy media coverage, but if JoeBlack's reasons are to "increase awareness of anarchism", then whether those watching it on TV or reading in papers will actually become more aware of anarchism rather than a misrepresentation of it is worth discussing.



> "The arrogance of a middle class (sorry, "economically working class") activist in full flow."


try making arguments instead of using the same identikit insult over and over again please, you're arguing against class categorisation and classism on the thread down in theory.



> Plus just a reminder i think you lied about the disobedeince meeting.



I don't think so, were you there? What was I lying about? And why a reminder, you didn't mention it anywhere else that I know of?

 I personally didn't take my phone out, but other people were putting their batteries back in at the end (I think, long time ago now) and talking about the monitoring urban myths (definitely). Obviously it's polite to switch the things off.

People definitely gave me and my mate funny looks when we introduced ourselves by first name in the pub and asked other people's, and they were iffy about the possible Bush House helper. Plus there was no attempt at including any people at the meeting itself with just a very tiny number of people talking and very little opened up for discussion. Neither me nor  my mate got much out of it at all (despite having enjoyed the Old Street protest a few weeks before iirc), and had we not been political at all I reckon we would've found it considerably worse.


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## montevideo (Apr 18, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Monte.
> 
> Do you think anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism mean exactly the same thing as anarchism?
> 
> ...




look what you wrote. Not just the above post but all the things on this thread. 

But do you consider this _"The reason I've got involved... it's to put forward self-organised solutions to concrete problems and situations in the hope that people will continue to use them."_ as arrogance? 

Every disobedience meeting i ever attended people would introduce themselves (by saying their first name), common courtesy amongst anarchists. Plus had a quick ask around, no-one i spoke to involved in disobedience ever remembers an open meeting where phone batteries were taken out. Just don't add up does it.

And the chicago anarchists, they part of your ideological/historical anarchist movement?


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## catch (Apr 19, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> _"The reason I've got involved... it's to put forward self-organised solutions to concrete problems and situations in the hope that people will continue to use them."_ as arrogance?



No. Honest and straightforward yes, arrogant no. If something comes up at work, I'll try to persuade people to deal with it collectively themselves rather than relying entirely on intermediaries, what's arrogant about that?  I'm not going to put forward top-down solutions am I? And I'm not going to involve myself in political activity on the assumption that people won't ever start dealing collectively with situations or will stop if one or two activists disappear, that really would be arrogant.



> Every disobedience meeting i ever attended people would introduce themselves (by saying their first name), common courtesy amongst anarchists.


Didn't happen at the one I went to, and it was only one.


> Plus had a quick ask around, no-one i spoke to involved in disobedience ever remembers an open meeting where phone batteries were taken out. Just don't add up does it.



It's possible, only possible, that several overheard discussions about police monitoring through switched off phones has morphed into phone batteries out over the past couple of years. If that's the case I'll admit exaggeration and even apologise, but I thought it sounded pretty silly at the time and the impression that frankly paranoid discussions like that give off is no better than people actually doing it.



> And the chicago anarchists, they part of your ideological/historical anarchist movement?



Let's see. Organised strike, 8 hour day, repression, solidarity protests after people were murdered. 400000 people went on strike on May 1st. That's a tradition I'd be proud to claim to be a part of if I'm allowed Monte - as i've said it'd be great if there was sufficient organisation and resistance for something like that to happen on MayDay, but that's not what happens on MayDay is it, be lucky if 400 people went on strike, and loads of people do more than 8 hour days in precaritised Europe.



> The campaign for the eight-hour day started in 1884 when the Federation of Organised Trades and Labor Unions of the United States and Canada tabled and passed a resolution declaring that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s work from and after May 1, 1886”.


http://www.enrager.net/history/articles/mayday-haymarket-martyrs/

I thought you didn't like federalism and old fashioned lefty wage struggles?


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## JoeBlack (Apr 19, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> By the way, I'd never suggest people shouldn't go because of crappy media coverage, but if JoeBlack's reasons are to "increase awareness of anarchism", then whether those watching it on TV or reading in papers will actually become more aware of anarchism rather than a misrepresentation of it is worth discussing.



Say 80 % of the media coverage is crap, 18% is fair but irrelevant and about 2% includes some reasonable description of what anarchism is.  That 2% will probably mean 100,000 - 2,000,000 - depending on print run - copies of that article getting into peoples hands.  Now unless your group is a lot better resourced than the WSM there is no way you can hope for that sort of distribution for some time to come.  I've done live interviews on RTE (equivalent of BBC) prime time news shows on anarchism - I've also done pirate radio broadcasts out of an attic.  One reached one million plus, the other maybe 500.  Every major chance we've had to explain anarchism on the mass media has been triggered by a summit protest we have been involved in.

Now Monte would of course disagree with the value of the above but my approach to the media has always been based on the idea that at least a significant minority of 'consumers' are quite cynical about the truthfulness of the media.  That's one reason why tabloids outsell broadsheets in many countries, if you reckon the news is filtered it might as well be entertaining.

So in that context the 2% or 0.1% or .001% good coverage in the mountain of 'anarchists plan gas attack to kill 10,000 Dubliners' (real front page from last year BTW) matters because it can reach huge numbers of people we do not have the resources to yet reach by any other means.

Anyway I don't know how you came to anarchism - maybe it was by picking up a book with a perfect description.  But in a lot of cases, including my own, you hear it mentioned somewhere and go 'I wonder what that is' and then go and seek out more information.  With the advent of the WWW this is a lot easier than it used to be the best the libraries had here was Woodcock.  In that context even a nuts story can lead to people saying 'I wonder what that is really about'.  Us primates are curious animals, we don't need a lot of incentive to go sticking sticks in holes in the ground to see what crawls out.

Anyway reducing the summit protests to media spectacles is overly reductive they are also a good chance to meet up and trade experiences to take home with you.  Oh and actually expressing your disagreement with the state side by side knocks a lot of the silly sectarian edges off what passes for political discussion.  It's easier to see that you are more or less on the same side after such events.

I don't have time to commment on the self-management V anarchism thing above except to note that IMHO Argentina is a good example of the limits of non-ideological self management.  Read http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr8/argentina.html to see where I'm coming from here


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## catch (Apr 19, 2005)

JoeBlack said:
			
		

> Say 80 % of the media coverage is crap, 18% is fair but irrelevant and about 2% includes some reasonable description of what anarchism is.  That 2% will probably mean 100,000 - 2,000,000 - depending on print run - copies of that article getting into peoples hands.  Now unless your group is a lot better resourced than the WSM there is no way you can hope for that sort of distribution for some time to come.  I've done live interviews on RTE (equivalent of BBC) prime time news shows on anarchism - I've also done pirate radio broadcasts out of an attic.  One reached one million plus, the other maybe 500.  Every major chance we've had to explain anarchism on the mass media has been triggered by a summit protest we have been involved in.
> 
> Now Monte would of course disagree with the value of the above but my approach to the media has always been based on the idea that at least a significant minority of 'consumers' are quite cynical about the truthfulness of the media.  That's one reason why tabloids outsell broadsheets in many countries, if you reckon the news is filtered it might as well be entertaining.
> 
> So in that context the 2% or 0.1% or .001% good coverage in the mountain of 'anarchists plan gas attack to kill 10,000 Dubliners' (real front page from last year BTW) matters because it can reach huge numbers of people we do not have the resources to yet reach by any other means.



JoeBlack, if that's your main reason for it then fair enough, it then comes down to what's effective propaganda is, and that's a difficult thing to quantify.

My fellow hairdresser Kropotkin posted this on another thread though, which brings up a lot of questions about how anarchist propaganda is working:




			
				Kropotkin said:
			
		

> not even that- anarchism isn't really about presenting The Masses with some fucking commodified ideology to be swallowed fully formed and whole. It is communism- a process of solidarity and a realisation of collective strength.






> Anyway I don't know how you came to anarchism ... the best the libraries had here was Woodcock.


Yeah, Woodcock around 1994 in my school library, then lots of unsuccessful trawling in second hand bookshops for more, no sign of any anarchists anywhere (never associated RTS etc. with anarchism, and there was nothing like that near me, just AR protests) then got regular internet access in 1998 and started finding more things.



> I don't have time to commment on the self-management V anarchism thing above except to note that IMHO Argentina is a good example of the limits of non-ideological self management.  Read http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr8/argentina.html to see where I'm coming from here



I'll take a look.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Apr 19, 2005)

My god.  You boys have really out done yourselves this time with possibly your silliest thread ever.  Do you actually enjoy these spats?


----------



## sovietpop (Apr 19, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> My god.  You boys have really out done yourselves this time with possibly your silliest thread ever.  Do you actually enjoy these spats?



I don't know, there is actually the hint of an interesting debate here, at least they've moved beyond trading insults, so I have to disagree.


----------



## catch (Apr 19, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> My god.  You boys have really out done yourselves this time with possibly your silliest thread ever.  Do you actually enjoy these spats?



Have you actually read the thread Thora?  You complain about the quality of discussion by calling us silly boys, without even the intention of contributing. Either address the points made or stop trolling.


.....and of course I enjoy it


----------



## catch (Apr 19, 2005)

http://struggle.ws/wsm/rbr/rbr8/argentina.html

The bottom few pages of that article are unreadable - looks like a corrupted file.

edit: ignore that, seems to be alright now, reading it.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Apr 19, 2005)

catch said:
			
		

> Have you actually read the thread Thora?  You complain about the quality of discussion by calling us silly boys, without even the intention of contributing. Either address the points made or stop trolling.
> 
> 
> .....and of course I enjoy it


Trolling?  You've hurt my feelings!  It's not just the quality of this discussion, but every stupid circular playground argument you lot get in to.


----------



## catch (Apr 19, 2005)

But there's been non-circular, non-playground discussion on this thread, quite a lot of it. There may be no ground shifted between me and Monte but JoeBlack's comments have been excellent and well put, even if I disagree with some of them.

Just as the discussion has got onto Argentinian worker's self-management as an example of the potential limitations of 'non-ideological self-organisation' you come in and call us all 'boys', playground-like, and dismiss a mixed but not that unhealthy discussion as circular, which suggests you've ignored the past couple of pages of the thread.


----------



## Thora_v1 (Apr 19, 2005)

Apologies then catch - you and your mates aren't at all childish, but actually have really valid things to say.


----------



## catch (Apr 19, 2005)




----------



## rednblack (Apr 20, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> Apologies then catch - you and your mates aren't at all childish, but actually have really valid things to say.



are you going to pat them on the head now?


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Apr 25, 2005)

Thora said:
			
		

> My god.  You boys have really out done yourselves this time with possibly your silliest thread ever.  Do you actually enjoy these spats?


Is that really neccessary? It used to be  quite common thing that when arguments got heated on here female posters would denounce it as will waggling or something... Most people felt that they looked sillier than the ppl arguing in the first place.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 25, 2005)

very crude sexcually-reductionist thoughts you have there Thora- 'boys' behave _this way_, 'girls' behave _that way_....


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Apr 25, 2005)

well we are from mars after all mate


----------



## montevideo (Apr 25, 2005)

i think the antagonism here comes from two schools of thought re: anarchist methodology - either anything is permissable highlighting all aspects of social existance (& the means to overcome it) within capitalism, or there is a right & wrong way of going about things, the wrong way should be argued against & criticised. 

The haymarket martyrs come within the former, the anarchist hairdressers (or liberatrian marxists whichever you prefer) see themselves within the role of the latter. What seems at first sight a fight over the true heirs to the anarchist brand name is in fact a one-sided attempt to reclaim 'anarchism' from the 'lifesytlists'. This, it seems, is a necessary part of their fight. It is a process of education. Whether that is the arroggance of youth or the arrogance of the middle classes i don't really know. Maybe a bit of both.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 25, 2005)

Let me get this straight monte, just so as I know exactly what is going on here. I’ll leave aside the personal stuff and stick to the political.

A group of people criticise a group that you are involved in for something they term “lifestylism”, and specifically highlight various concrete things about your programme (examples are the “tyranny of structurlessness” arising from a non-membership organisation with no formalised roles and responsibilities, preference for “spectacular” actions and an almost masochistic courting of police attention).

Your response is that these people must be middle class, and more importantly that tactics are not up for discussion- to do this is arrogant.

Is there anything else to your position I’m missing here?


----------



## Taxamo Welf (Apr 25, 2005)

yes thats exactly what he said   

i sympathise with the libertarian marxist/young middle class hairdresser side of this argument but i think to twist monte's side of the story in the way you've just done is low Kropotkin. This is a very old argument that Monty has summed up well in the above post; his rather far out insults only reflect how frustrating it must be to go over and over this stuff.

and i think he has a point about the over-zealous nature of the youngest ppl in the movement.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 25, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Let me get this straight monte, just so as I know exactly what is going on here. I’ll leave aside the personal stuff and stick to the political.
> 
> A group of people criticise a group that you are involved in for something they term “lifestylism”, and specifically highlight various concrete things about your programme (examples are the “tyranny of structurlessness” arising from a non-membership organisation with no formalised roles and responsibilities, preference for “spectacular” actions and an almost masochistic courting of police attention).
> 
> ...



personal aside. Beyond esf was a highly organised event, it couldn't have been otherwise. By your own admission enrager is 'very informally' run. What then is the criticism of 'tyranny of structurelessnees' & how is it applied? 

Courtng police attention. Hmm. Our choice? Hmm. But the whole idea of this mayday (as were the last 2 in london) is centred around avoiding police attention. But that then is surely a tactical one. No-one is saying anachism is about avoiding police attention, it is surreal to suggest applying a tactic to a give situation defines anybodies politics. 

What you are describing are not objective 'facts' but your interpretation of what you imagine is going on. But even if these things were true, you are still saying that it is not 'proper' anarchsim, 'proper' anarchism is this over here.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 25, 2005)

Forgive me, but how shoudl I interpret you claiming the Haymarket martyrs for own "brand of anarchism", and relegating those making political criticisms of your group to a box marked "anarchist hairdressers or libertarian marxists" then? What is that about logs, eyes and motes again?

Oh, and enrager/libcom is a *website*, not a political organisation.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 25, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Forgive me, but how shoudl I interpret you claiming the Haymarket martyrs for own "brand of anarchism", and relegating those making political criticisms of your group to a box marked "anarchist hairdressers or libertarian marxists" then? What is that about logs, eyes and motes again?
> 
> Oh, and enrager/libcom is a *website*, not a political organisation.



but it must have some form of organisation to allow it to operate mustn't it? How do decisions get made, by whom & under what circumstances?  

Again the accusation is we are not a 'organised' group. Enrager is not an 'organised' group?


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 25, 2005)

again, I see what you are trying to do, but enrager is simply a website. The wombles are a political group. I will stop responding if you continue to pretend not to understand what I am saying.


----------



## suckola (Apr 25, 2005)

monte said:
			
		

> i think the antagonism here comes from two schools of thought re: anarchist methodology - either anything is permissable highlighting all aspects of social existance (& the means to overcome it) within capitalism, or there is a right & wrong way of going about things, the wrong way should be argued against & criticised.



Obviously there's a problem if  someone thinks that they're the revolutions representative on earth, that only they have the only correct analysis, or the capability of producing such. That said critisising what you see as being the 'wrong way of going about things' isn't actually a bad thing, its only through discussion and sharing ideas that we'll get anywhere. Of course, its more helpful when the critisism is positive or comradly or at least attempts to be constructive.
(speaking of which, i still haven't seen a copy of 'this is not a rehearsal' or whatever the wombles post dublin mayday thing was...)
Are you saying that you could never see yourself arguing against or critising anything that any anarchist group does? or did?



> The haymarket martyrs come within the former, the anarchist hairdressers (or liberatrian marxists whichever you prefer) see themselves within the role of the latter.
> What seems at first sight a fight over the true heirs to the anarchist brand name is in fact a one-sided attempt to reclaim 'anarchism' from the 'lifesytlists'. This, it seems, is a necessary part of their fight. It is a process of education.



I could be totally wrong here but wasn't the struggle for the eight hour day and the 'chicago idea' a conscious move away from the propaganda of the deed stuff? I'd be very surprised if none of the haymarket Martyrs critisised what other anarchists were doing, but like I said above critisism isn't necessarily a bad thing.




> Whether that is the arroggance of youth or the arrogance of the middle classes i don't really know. Maybe a bit of both.



right, so you think that they hold the opnions they do because they're either young, middle class, or both? Or maybe you're just throwing a few insults around for the sake of ... what?


----------



## Wilf (Apr 25, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> i think the antagonism here comes from two schools of thought re: anarchist methodology - either anything is permissable highlighting all aspects of social existance (& the means to overcome it) within capitalism, or there is a right & wrong way of going about things, the wrong way should be argued against & criticised.
> .



As we all know - there's a hundred overlapping ways in which divides within contemporary @ism could be represented - social v lifestyle; liberal v revolutionary; industrial v green etc etc.  The point, to me, is 'do they actually damage each other?'.  Personally I still believe there is something called the state - and also something called the working class - and that people who are exploited should be the agents of thier own liberation.  However, peoples lives are complicated and messy and they encounter power in all kinds of guises.  If they end up encountering the state as an environmentalist or peace campaigner - or roads protester (instead of as a member of the class) ... well, thats fine isn't it?  If they don't want to go beyond that - thats okay too?  I *hope * these things start to connect - and believe that class analysis is one way of analysing things that achieves that - but am also happy to say that resisting power full stop, is a good thing.

Suppose what I mean is that the co-existence of struggles is fine by me - usually.  OKay, those getting involved in genuine primitivism are never going to be acommodated to a genuine class politics.  However when it comes to something like precarity I don't see a problem (okay, I don't like the word..).  Yes, certainly AF or class war would frame the issue differently - and do different stuff - but thats hardly a problem is it?

Really, just a few mumblings in favour of pluralism.  In a period where people are going to get involved in struggles for a variety of reasons and from quite different backgrounds, we should perhaps try and build on them - and connect them with class politics.


----------



## Emma Herself (Apr 25, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> but it must have some form of organisation to allow it to operate mustn't it? How do decisions get made, by whom & under what circumstances?
> 
> Again the accusation is we are not a 'organised' group. Enrager is not an 'organised' group?



*dips toe in water, already regrets it but here goes...*

As has been explained to you on various occassions, enrager is run by a closed collective of people (at present, there happen to be nine of us) who put work into the website, decissions are made through consensus by those of us who run the website, as and when they need to be.

"We" do not aim to be a political organisation in the way that (for example) AF, SolFed, WOMBLES or Class War do, we merely aim to provide an internet resource about anarchism. You can read all that on the about page. We simply maintain a website, in the same way that Mike, Ruby et al maintain U75, and in the same way that U75 is not a "group". 

And no I'm not saying we do things the same as U75, I'm just trying to spell out, as unambiguously as I can, the difference between a political organisation and a team of people who maintain a website voluntarily, just so we can be absolutley clear about this. And then, hopefully, we won't have to go through all of this again.

Some of us are _involved_ in groups/organisations such as AF and SolFed, but we do not consider running a website to be a similar sort of activity.

Enrager is not an organised group as your question suggests, as we do not aim to be a political organisation. We just run a website because we want to, and new people get involved when they offer skills/help/suggestions that we feel are useful to the development of the website.


----------



## blamblam (Apr 25, 2005)

Zoë Herself said:
			
		

> *dips toe in water, already regrets it but here goes...*
> 
> As has been explained to you on various occassions


Zoe, I'm pretty sure monte knows how we run our website, and is more attempting to just be annoying


> Enrager is not an organised group as your question suggests, as we do not aim to be a political organisation.


We're not a recruitment-based political organisation, but we are an organised group in the sense of we have a defined structure with definite roles and a collectively-decided decision-making process. Not that monte is actually interested in the slightest.

It's also quite ironic that you are criticising us for being anarchists who criticise other anarchists. Your claim that none of the Haymarket martyrs ever criticised anyone is also pretty laughable


----------



## Emma Herself (Apr 26, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> Zoe, I'm pretty sure monte knows how we run our website, and is more attempting to just be annoying
> 
> We're not a recruitment-based political organisation, but we are an organised group in the sense of we have a defined structure with definite roles and a collectively-decided decision-making process. Not that monte is actually interested in the slightest.



Yeah that's what I meant. And yes I'm aware that he's not actually listening   

Just thought I'd try and clear up the confusion.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

Zoë Herself said:
			
		

> *dips toe in water, already regrets it but here goes...*
> 
> As has been explained to you on various occassions, enrager is run by a closed collective of people (at present, there happen to be nine of us) who put work into the website, decissions are made through consensus by those of us who run the website, as and when they need to be.
> 
> ...




all fair enough. 

Just a couple more questions & i'm happy

1.someone writes a piece for the website, the nine of you meet up, agree the content & put it up? How are disagreements in website content resolved? 
2. you the 9 have selected roles? How do they get chosen, do you rotate?
3. someone wants to get involved in enrager, what process do they have to go through to be accepted as part of the colective?

See what i'm basically wondering is if the anarchist theories you promote on enrager translate into the practical running of it, that's all.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

suckola said:
			
		

> Obviously there's a problem if  someone thinks that they're the revolutions representative on earth, that only they have the only correct analysis, or the capability of producing such. That said critisising what you see as being the 'wrong way of going about things' isn't actually a bad thing, its only through discussion and sharing ideas that we'll get anywhere. Of course, its more helpful when the critisism is positive or comradly or at least attempts to be constructive.
> (speaking of which, i still haven't seen a copy of 'this is not a rehearsal' or whatever the wombles post dublin mayday thing was...)
> Are you saying that you could never see yourself arguing against or critising anything that any anarchist group does? or did?
> 
> ...



the haymarket anarchists not only promoted but were actively involved in 'propaganda of the deed' up to their arrest. Indeed louis ling openly admitted it at his trial.

Let's look a bit closer: haymarket anarchists organised demonstrations on may 1st in defiance of the authorities & 'traditional' labour unions, with processions, bands etc. The haymarket anarchists advocated direct confrontation against capitalism & against the police, the haymarket anarchists identified the dispossessed, the poor, the immigrants (not simply the urban proletariat) as a revoltuionary potential, the haymarket anarchists were vilified by the mainstream press before their mayday demonstration with the press suggesting they were violent thugs only out to cause trouble, the haymarket anarchist were vilified after the bombing, were vilified by 'traditonal' labour unions (as was anarchism in general), the mainstream press & public at large, does this sound familiar?

The point is there is not wrong or right way. They embraced any & all methods in their struggle against capitalism. This is the tradition we also embrace. 



> right, so you think that they hold the opnions they do because they're either young, middle class, or both? Or maybe you're just throwing a few insults around for the sake of ... what?


 
Not the opinions they hold but the idea that those opinions & their methods are 'correct' this highlights the arrogance of either youth &/or middle class upbringing.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

suckola said:
			
		

> (speaking of which, i still haven't seen a copy of 'this is not a rehearsal' or whatever the wombles post dublin mayday thing was...)
> Are you saying that you could never see yourself arguing against or critising anything that any anarchist group does? or did?



suckola,

they've all gone & the computer it was one has died. (I am trying to put another version out on a diferent computer). There were criticisms expressed in it but from a personal perspective _"My perception is only mine & i am not representing any group. Even though this account may seem over critical, i see it as constrcutive criticism"_  began one article about their experience of dublin mayday.


And from the general introduction: 
_"What emerged from these encounters, beyond attempting to build trust & undertstanding, was that they [dublin grassroots network] were a group of committed people with, like all manner of disperate radical networks, very different perspectives & views on how best to confront & challenge the state & capital"_ 

If you've ever been to a wombles meeting you'll know we are our own harshest critics. We have the utmost respect & recognition for what wsm & dgn attempted to do on mayday.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 27, 2005)

Monte, do you have any criticisms of RESPECT? Or of the UAF and it's approach to fighting fascism?

Or are these things open to critical discussion?


----------



## Random (Apr 27, 2005)

Edit: Removed so as not to stir shit


----------



## gurrier (Apr 27, 2005)

nothing to see here folks...


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Monte, do you have any criticisms of RESPECT? Or of the UAF and it's approach to fighting fascism?
> 
> Or are these things open to critical discussion?



everything's up for critical discussion.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 27, 2005)

But doesn't criticising a political perspective and tactical choice imply that you disagree with it, and that...arrogrance upon arrogrance...you think that another route is ...dare I say it...._better_?

Oh! The arrogrance of middle-class youth!


----------



## Random (Apr 27, 2005)

gurrier said:
			
		

> Oh, let's not stir that up again.  I'd mostly put it down to a small number of arseholes (who weren't wombles afaik) and the fact that we were coming from very different political cultures.  There was also the factor of stress due to the absolutely-out-there level of repressive propaganda. By far the best thing about it was that we managed to overcome our initial differences and build decent links and some real solidarity rather than denouncing each other as various nasty things.  From this side of the water, I'd say that there is no ill-feeling towards the wombles.



All right, if you'll remove my quote, I'll get rid of my bit earlier.


----------



## blamblam (Apr 27, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> We have the utmost respect & recognition for what wsm & dgn attempted to do on mayday.


Well why did some of you come back and start spreading shit about the WSM afterwards? Saying how they were duplicitous, who said one thing with their WSM hat on ("it's gonna kick off!"), and another with their DGN hats on ("It will be a peaceful demonstration" etc.)?

Would that be your middle class upbringing making you think you could criticise them?


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> Well why did some of you come back and start spreading shit about the WSM afterwards? Saying how they were duplicitous, who said one thing with their WSM hat on ("it's gonna kick off!"), and another with their DGN hats on ("It will be a peaceful demonstration" etc.)?
> 
> Would that be your middle class upbringing making you think you could criticise them?



ah rumour boy. Your gossip is almost amusing. Did anybody saying anything to you at all? Of course not.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 27, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> But doesn't criticising a political perspective and tactical choice imply that you disagree with it, and that...arrogrance upon arrogrance...you think that another route is ...dare I say it...._better_?
> 
> Oh! The arrogrance of middle-class youth!


 Could you answer this (preferably without any slurs on either my age, intentions or background)


----------



## blamblam (Apr 27, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> ah rumour boy. Your gossip is almost amusing. Did anybody saying anything to you at all? Of course not.


Why don't you ask Raw?


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Apr 27, 2005)

I suppose this isn't the right time to bring up the vital issues of samba bands, tree houses, vegan squats and their relationship to the anarchist movement is it?


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Could you answer this (preferably without any slurs on either my age, intentions or background)



i disagree with many things, we disagree with each other all the time (as i say if you have ever been to a wombles meeting we are our own harshest critics) we disagree what what we should be doing, how we should be doing it, the things we aren't doing etc. This creates dialogue, discussion & debate, sometimes hostile, often beneficial. This process extends to the other groups we work with. The point is, though, we can't demand they work in a particular way, nor can we determine whether the way they choose to work is 'proper' anarchist or not. To criticise any group on those grounds would be arrogance wouldn't it?


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> Why don't you ask Raw?



you spoke to him about this? Those are his words you're quoting? Or isn't the case this is more of your familiar gossip?


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 27, 2005)

Ah, I see.

So criticism of particular methods of working is fine when you do it, but when others do it _of your group_ it becomes something different- criticism becomes _demands_ that you work differently, even _questioning of your anarchist credentials_. I see now, cheers.


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 27, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> The point is there is not wrong or right way. They embraced any & all methods in their struggle against capitalism. This is the tradition we also embrace.
> 
> Not the opinions they hold but the idea that those opinions & their methods are 'correct' this highlights the arrogance of either youth &/or middle class upbringing.



Well, leaving aside the fact that it's hypocrisy of the first water for Monte of all people to claim that he himself acts on the basis outlined above, given that most of his posts on here consist of crude attacks on other individuals or groups for what he sees as their motivations, politics, activity, analysis etc (usually not directed at those things of course, but the pindividuals appearance or some other irrelavancy) or that others should do so, he's simply wrong. 

There _are_ effective ways of doing things and there _are_ ways that are fuck-witted and counter-productive - and free criticism of both of these things has _always_ been a central part of anarchism. Criticising actions or analysis without having the power to impose or enforce changes on others from without is not demanding that others do as you wish. It's making clear where, with what and why you diasgree - a bit more of that type of interaction may create open debate where any problems may be thrashed out. Instead of this shit.

Just insulting people, then demanding that others don't criticise your own group whilst simulataneously demanding freedom of criticism of all others for yourself doesn't. All it does it show up the gaps and contradictions in your own approach.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> Ah, I see.
> 
> So criticism of particular methods of working is fine when you do it, but when others do it _of your group_ it becomes something different- criticism becomes _demands_ that you work differently, even _questioning of your anarchist credentials_. I see now, cheers.



not quite. With us & wsm/dgn we were both part of the same subjectivity, distinct from the outside objective forces (those designed to divide & conflate) - the irish mainstream media, state agencies, the nexus of violence/non-violence leading to 'ownership' of demonstrations. The disagreements then were not based on who has the 'proper' version of their particular anarchism but how we resolved, collectively, the dilemma of our different approaches towards these outside forces. Of course it is that very process that brings groups together, where understanding & trust are established in spite of these differences.

That is slightly different from constructing an objective abstract concept, ascribing certain terms & conditions to that concept then presenting it as 'proper' anarchism, denegrating those who don't share those same conditions as not 'proper' anarchists.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

butchersapron said:
			
		

> Well, leaving aside the fact that it's hypocrisy of the first water for Monte of all people to claim that he himself acts on the basis outlined above, given that most of his posts on here consist of crude attacks on other individuals or groups for what he sees as their motivations, politics, activity, analysis etc (usually not directed at those things of course, but the pindividuals appearance or some other irrelavancy) or that others should do so, he's simply wrong.
> 
> There _are_ effective ways of doing things and there _are_ ways that are fuck-witted and counter-productive - and free criticism of both of these things has _always_ been a central part of anarchism. Criticising actions or analysis without having the power to impose or enforce changes on others from without is not demanding that others do as you wish. It's making clear where, with what and why you diasgree - a bit more of that type of interaction may create open debate where any problems may be thrashed out. Instead of this shit.
> 
> Just insulting people, then demanding that others don't criticise your own group whilst simulataneously demanding freedom of criticism of all others for yourself doesn't. All it does it show up the gaps and contradictions in your own approach.



a beautiful piece of authentic jargon smeared in the bullshit ususally reserved for your crude attacks on leftist party hacks. 

The insults come after the bullshit not the other way round. 

Give me your 'effective ways of doing things', give me how they succeeded give an example of what you do, anything. The question is then counter-productive to what? Who decides it's counter-productive?


----------



## blamblam (Apr 27, 2005)

Monte - it's clear to everyone reading this thread I'm sure already that you're talking absolute rubbish.

I don't even know why but I will respond to this




			
				montevideo said:
			
		

> That is slightly different from constructing an objective abstract concept, ascribing certain terms & conditions to that concept then presenting it as 'proper' anarchism, denegrating those who don't share those same conditions as not 'proper' anarchists.


That is exactly what *you* have done. Claim that we are not proper anarchists, but are "self-styled anarchists", "authoritarian/middle management anarchists", "self-styled libertarian marxists" or "anarchist hairdressers".

We have never criticised you on the grounds that you aren't an anarchist. You are, but that doesn't mean I don't think your politics are a pile of shite - as is much of modern anarchism.


----------



## montevideo (Apr 27, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> Monte - it's clear to everyone reading this thread I'm sure already that you're talking absolute rubbish.
> 
> I don't even know why but I will respond to this
> 
> ...



fair enough. And i'm very mistrustful of your motivations & agenda. Call it instinct. You pass off an abundance of gossip as factual information.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 27, 2005)

what do you think his agenda is? Or his motivations? 

How is the first part of that post you quoted not true?


----------



## Chuck Wilson (Apr 27, 2005)

Is monty really an anarchist. I know that he is not a social anarchist or lib soc or anarcho syndicalist but surely there is a boundary to what an anarchist is?


----------



## montevideo (Apr 28, 2005)

Chuck Wilson said:
			
		

> Is monty really an anarchist. I know that he is not a social anarchist or lib soc or anarcho syndicalist but surely there is a boundary to what an anarchist is?



a working class anarchist apparently, with a chip on his shoulder.


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## Chuck Wilson (Apr 28, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> a working class anarchist apparently, with a chip on his shoulder.



You're up late. Remember to turn the light out and tidy your bedroom in the morning.


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## montevideo (Apr 28, 2005)

you too. Checking the sprinklers on your lawn?


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## blamblam (Apr 28, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> fair enough.


So I take it you'll now end this ridiculous line of attack?


> And i'm very mistrustful of your motivations & agenda. Call it instinct. You pass off an abundance of gossip as factual information.


Not true - like my (entirely accurate) statement above about the WSM which you claimed initially was a lie - did you ask Raw about it? 

I'm sure an apology is now forthcoming. Unless of course you just try to ignore it. Or just lie again of course.


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## montevideo (Apr 28, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> So I take it you'll now end this ridiculous line of attack?
> 
> Not true - like my (entirely accurate) statement above about the WSM which you claimed initially was a lie - did you ask Raw about it?
> 
> I'm sure an apology is now forthcoming. Unless of course you just try to ignore it. Or just lie again of course.



ah rumour boy your gossip is almost amusing. Did anyone talk to you about anything. Of course not. Shit-stirring really is a full time occupation for you isn't it...


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## blamblam (Apr 29, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> ah rumour boy your gossip is almost amusing. Did anyone talk to you about anything. Of course not. Shit-stirring really is a full time occupation for you isn't it...


lol  

Get Raw to deny it then - go on.


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## montevideo (Apr 29, 2005)

icepick said:
			
		

> lol
> 
> Get Raw to deny it then - go on.



go away you poisonous little specimen. You know shit, you spread shit & you have a dire sense of you own significance.
Gossip elsewhere.


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## knopf (Apr 29, 2005)

icepick, man, leave it..... you know these characters can get violent.


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## blamblam (Apr 29, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> go away you poisonous little specimen. You know shit, you spread shit & you have a dire sense of you own significance.
> Gossip elsewhere.


Aren't we a happy chappy today?


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## kropotkin (Apr 29, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> go away you poisonous little specimen. You know shit, you spread shit & you have a dire sense of you own significance.
> Gossip elsewhere.


 "i've eaten bigger shits than you for breakfast"


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## knopf (Apr 29, 2005)

knopf said:
			
		

> icepick, man, leave it..... you know these characters can get violent.



.... same goes for you, krop.


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## Top Dog (Apr 29, 2005)

good grief....


... nah, i really cant be fucked


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## suckola (Apr 29, 2005)

monte said:
			
		

> they've all gone & the computer it was one has died. (I am trying to put another version out on a diferent computer).



when it does come out i'd appriciate you letting me know, you can pm me here...





			
				icepick said:
			
		

> Well why did some of you come back and start spreading shit about the WSM afterwards?



Who cares? 
 Have any of ye ever met in person? Is this an argument that's spilled over from real life or is it an example of why people should try and be polite on bulletin boards? (because otherwise arguments in the virtual world spill over into the real world / people who have plenty of better things to be doing end up spending lots of time in meaningless  website arguments)


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## Pickman's model (Apr 29, 2005)

kropotkin said:
			
		

> "i've eaten bigger shits than you for breakfast"


don't invite me round for dinner if that's the standard of cuisine i can expect.


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## sovietpop (Apr 29, 2005)

Ah well, happy May Day to ye all, whatever you end up doing.


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## jimmer (Apr 29, 2005)

montevideo said:
			
		

> go away you poisonous little specimen. You know shit, you spread shit & you have a dire sense of you own significance.
> Gossip elsewhere.


That's a bit harsh, especially considering that what he's saying is entirely true.


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## montevideo (Apr 30, 2005)

suckola said:
			
		

> when it does come out i'd appriciate you letting me know, you can pm me here...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've got stray pages flying about, but i'll have a dig around & see if i can find a whole copy. 

We've had 4 years of icepick spreading his shit, since in fact he came to a couple of wombles meeting & has spent forever more amassing a casefile of half-imagined second-hand rumours. The kind of playground gossip that turns into mythology. A one man smear campaign if you will. His motives are as yet unclear & the only real danger is that people actually take him at face value.

Anyway mayday. If people want to get involved with the euromayday action email: euromayday@hushmail.com with your mobile phone number
or call 07944 135 617 before midday on may 1st.

From the euromayday leaflet:

_As the nature of work has changed, so has our resistance & relationship towards it. Work created massive communities of people in the same industry, location, & class. There was a collective awareness to our struggle when we were forced to work harder, longer or not at all. The strength of that resistance in the past has pushed the bosses to casualise our work, de-skill us, re-train us, put us on the new deal, & generally change the type & nature of  work to produce a more divided, atomised & isolated workforce. A workforce stripped of identity as producers, with no union, no permanence, no dignity. Our memories of collective resistance have been purposely submerged to stop us regrouping & recognising our power. But for every restructuring of capitalism we are forced to undergo, there is always a consistent struggle against it & beyond it. 

On May 1st, across Europe tens of thousands of causalised workers, temps, part-timers, immigrants & unemployed will be taking back their time, their products, their rights and their money. Taking back what is ours (Re-appropriation) is one form our struggle could take, but supporting each other in and outside work is paramount. Mayday is one day, but the network we are trying to build will be continue after the day. If you are in or out of work & want support then get in contact with us & together see what’s possible._


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## The Black Hand (Apr 30, 2005)

Good luck with the action Monty... Don't worry about the yoof on these boards, they're not out of their shorts yet, nor old enough to have consciousness.


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## SeniorSbagliato (May 1, 2005)

*Latest news?*

No doubt the folks on this thread will be busying themselves about right now but has anyone got any info on how the days events are progressing?


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## Kid_Eternity (May 1, 2005)

Any news on how it went?


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## Emma Herself (May 1, 2005)

Well it looks like it went how a billion other demos have gone before (bunch of people turn up, mill around, cops arrive, shove people around for no good reason, people continue to mill around till everyone gets bored) but there's probably more to it than that. 

Some interesting discussion here , and full marks for the fucking nice banner, I must say.


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## Emma Herself (May 2, 2005)

.


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## Raw SslaC (May 2, 2005)

*euroMAYDAY: London Report*







Yesterday, Sunday 1st of May saw the first EuroMayday action happen in London.  Organised by the precarity network, our aim was to bring together people in London who have precarious working and living situations.  In the UK, 30% of people of working age, are in temp, casual, part-time, freelance work or unemployed.  Many of us are not represented by the traditional hierarchical, bureaucratic structure of trade unions, and we felt Mayday, international workers day, should be a day for us too – to come together, to reclaim our public space and take back our free time from the tyranny of 24/7 constantly on-call, work regimes.

We chose Tesco supermarket as the location for our Mayday action because as the UK’s largest supermarket, with over £2 billion profits in the last year, Tesco is at the forefront of exploitative work practices on a global scale, paying new supermarket employees below minimum wage (rising to only just above minimum wage after several months), cutting Sunday pay (so Sunday becomes a normal working day), and stopping employees sick pay.  Not only this, but those packing Tesco’s own brand salads in Sussex were recently revealed to be migrants working for a temping agency controlled by gangmasters, who are paid far below min. wage (sometimes not at all); and women casual workers on Tesco-accredited farms in South Africa work in appalling conditions with no protection from pesticides & are paid poverty wages to meet ‘flexible’ just-in-time production schedules, and keep profits at a maximum.

However, we don’t just work for global chains like Tesco, but we are consumers too – if we want food to eat there is a decreasing amount of choice besides big supermarket chains, as their ‘metro’s & ‘express’ stores swallow up our inner cities, their hypermarkets expand the edges of our towns, until huge chains dominate our lives, landscapes and public space entirely, mirroring the way capitalism now encroaches into every part of our lives.  Our idea was to make a communication action with people both working and shopping in Tesco, and to do this in Hackney, away from the sterile commercial centre of London and outside of the controlled & ritualistic atmosphere of an A to B march.

The location for action was kept secret until the last minute, and in the weeks leading up to Mayday, we collected over 750 mobile phone numbers for a mass text out on the morning of the action.  Such secrecy was necessary because of police tactics on previous Maydays, but we wanted the action to be as public and open as possible, hence the attempts to collect as many numbers as possible through posters & the distribution of over 10,000 leaflets & special ‘London for free’ vouchers.  Unfortunately, on the morning of the action our SMS email account was frozen (not sure if this was bureaucracy, crap technology or something more sinister!), but we still eventually managed to send texts to over 500 people (sorry to anyone who got it too late or not at all, we worked really hard to try and communicate with as many of you as we could – & we learnt how to do it better next time).

By midday people were starting to make their way to the 2 meet-up points of Highbury & Bethnal Green where small but aggressive contingents of cops where met by those who were determined to make their way to the action in Hackney central. At Highbury particularly, the level of trust, co-ordination and solidarity between people who were previously strangers was pretty amazing, as the 60 or so people assembled managed to break though police lines and barriers and free-ride the train down to Hackney, and weather the punches and kicks from police to get off the train and run in unison down the road to the supermarket.

The action in Tesco began at around 1.15pm when a group of activists already in the area made their way into the supermarket accompanied by a samba band.  The band began playing and dancing round the aisles while hundreds of ‘the story about Tesco’ leaflets and Mayday ‘London for Free’ vouchers were given out to staff and shoppers, and speeches were made over a megaphone. A huge banner reading ‘all we have to lose is our chainstores…’ was unfurled, spanning the 20 or so checkouts.  Shoppers danced and checkout staff stood up & took photos with their mobile phones.  The initial cops on the scene were only a couple of community cops, who stood around not knowing what to do.  Several of the staff expressed support for the action, and were aware that the action was in solidarity with them, although the manager initially panicked and tried to close the store.

After about 15 minutes the Highbury contingent arrived, running into Tesco blowing whistles, closely followed by loads of cops who were ready to get heavy.  The cops initially made a futile attempt to cordon people in an aisle, then resorted to dragging, punching and kicking people (particularly women) out of the store & trying to smash up the sound system.  However, we were helped by at least one Tesco security guard trying to pull police off people, and many shoppers and staff expressed shock and disbelief at the violence of police actions.

Out in the car park, we were met by the Bethnal Green group (who walked all the way after police stopped the bus) and loads more latecomers, and some members of the public managed to take full advantage of the disruption to normal shopping, and liberate goods from the store (helped by police not letting them back in to pay for stuff!). Holding the banner across the car park, our plan was to all parade down Mare street towards London Fields and have a party in the park.  However, the police had other ideas.  As we took the street next to the supermarket, police violently began to assault a samba dancer and others; and as we went to their rescue, they made a cordon around some people, later dragging others into the cordon.  We were there for over an hour, but our spirits were high due to the continued solidarity of those on the outside shouting support and throwing us water and food, and by passers by shouting at the cops and cars hooting in support of us.

We eventually (still surrounded by police and vans) managed our march down Mare street to London Fields and into the park.  But even inside the park, the cops still wanted trouble and some scuffles broke out with several people arrested.  But we remained together and with support from people in the park (including a cricket team), we gathered to chant ‘go home scum’ & ‘get out of our park’ to the cops until they left; and we ended the afternoon as we’d hoped, all together, the band playing, a bit bruised but enjoying the sunshine and our Mayday celebrations.

The police will always attempt to stop Mayday and any other action we do, and continually attempt to destroy the movements we try to create.  What is important is how we react and resist their repression, and to never give up.  Mayday this year was a great example of people acting together in solidarity in the face of police aggression, and of our continued determination to take our struggle to the streets and communicate with people.  As ever, the struggle continues…


*Pictures: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/05/310480.html

*9 people were arrested & several people intend to make complaints of assault against the police.  If you witnessed any arrests, or police assaults on people, please contact Legal Defense & Monitoring Group: ldmgmail@yahoo.co.uk

*Keep posted for future flexmob actions:  www.precarity.info
*To find out what happened on EuroMayday in other cities, see: www.globalproject.info :: www.euromayday.org
*There will be a discussion evening about precarity on Wednesday 25th May, from 5.30pm at Institute for Autonomy, 76-78 Gower Street, WC1.
*We hold a fortnightly Helpdesk (on Tuesdays at 6pm – next one 10th May) to create a network of mutual support for people in precarious work & housing, at the Institute for Autonomy. For details see www.precarity.info/info.htm


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