# what happened to all the 90s political scenes?



## xslavearcx (Jun 11, 2013)

When i first got into politics it seemed inextricably linked to being into a particular music scene or what not. Like for instance, there was the anti-criminal justice act thing which seemed to co-incide the concerns of ravers, road protesters and lots of other groups.

It seemed that 'lifestylism' was a bigger part of politics and that there were thriving drop out subcultures going on.

For me, its all kinda like a haze of crusties, hunt sabs, ravers, ALF types, environmentalists, and all sorts. There was a big aspect of direct action too.

Looking back on it, i think analytically it sucked, and perhaps had something to do with the collapse of the tradional left, maybe in the post soviet union end of history era single issue type things was where a lot of political opposition was articulated.But at the same time, anecdotally, it seemed that there was a lot of passion in circulation and that people were really up for taking big risks of their own personal lifes for the sake of some political goal.

That kinda scene seems to have died a death. On another thread the question came up as to why the shift from that kinda situation to this kind we have now, and it was suggested to start a thread on that. SO here it is. Thoughts?


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## stuff_it (Jun 11, 2013)

Just going to repeat my post from the other thread:



> IMHO there was a lot of youthful energy in the 90s that isn't around on the scene these days. Yes you still get the usual crown and a fair few people, but generally I think many people are much less politically inclined than they used to be and many of the more 'normal' people that would have also got involved back in the 90s are staying away. Whether this is due to genuine lack of interest, lack of funds or other side effects of the current economic and political climate I'm not sure. Probably a bit of both.​


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## chilango (Jun 11, 2013)

I've got lots to say about this. But it'll have to wait till tomorrow.

In he meantime have a read of this: http://libcom.org/library/kill-chill-aufheben-4


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## xslavearcx (Jun 11, 2013)

article looks interesting. and long. looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this!


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## stuff_it (Jun 11, 2013)

I have to say I think the rave end of the movement has been adversely affected by the huge number of musical genres, which has split up that end of the scene into tribes that never meet. 

Someone should really go around and re-introduce them all. *cough*


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## xslavearcx (Jun 11, 2013)

yeah same with the hardcore (as in the punk derivative) scene. Now the kids are into all sorts of different -cores. Back in the day one could have a toughguy madball type band playing beside a overtly emo band.


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## sihhi (Jun 11, 2013)

Things that are weaker maybe non-existent as a 'movement' now compared to then:
anti-CJA, anti-fox hunting, anti-live animal exports, anti-animal testing, anti-custody deaths police monitoring, anti-roads, protests and support for Irish republicanism, squatting, using Stonehenge at solstice --

any others?


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## xslavearcx (Jun 11, 2013)

sihhi said:


> Things that are weaker maybe non-existent as a 'movement' now compared to then:
> anti-CJA, anti-fox hunting, anti-live animal exports, anti-animal testing, anti-custody deaths police monitoring, anti-roads, protests and support for Irish republicanism, squatting, using Stonehenge at solstice --
> 
> any others?


 
think that pretty much covers it!


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## Sweetpea (Jun 11, 2013)

I'm joining this thread against my best judgement. I was involved in a lot of stuff in the 1990's which I didn't think was political; just the 'right' thing for me to do at the time. In fact I joined U75 (under a long lost user name) in around 2000 because a fair bit of what I was doing involved Brixton (both because it was my home but also because of the RTS/Cooltan/squat link). However, I became/still am wary of some of the discussions about left ideology that made/makes me feel excluded because I can't define working classness or the difference between a trot and some other thing that never really applied to my life. 
I'd love to have a place to discuss some of my experiences without being 'bullied'. I know this is a 'serious' forum but is there any room for anecdotal memories..


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## xslavearcx (Jun 11, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> I'd love to have a place to discuss some of my experiences without being 'bullied'. I know this is a 'serious' forum but is there any room for anecdotal memories..


 
well im coming at this from an anecdotal angle more than anything else, my first experience in an overtly poltical situation was in the M77 road protest as a teenager.


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## stuff_it (Jun 11, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> I'm joining this thread against my best judgement. I was involved in a lot of stuff in the 1990's which I didn't think was political; just the 'right' thing for me to do at the time. In fact I joined U75 (under a long lost user name) in around 2000 because a fair bit of what I was doing involved Brixton (both because it was my home but also because of the RTS/Cooltan/squat link). However, I became/still am wary of some of the discussions about left ideology that made/makes me feel excluded because I can't define working classness or the difference between a trot and some other thing that never really applied to my life.
> I'd love to have a place to discuss some of my experiences without being 'bullied'. I know this is a 'serious' forum but is there any room for anecdotal memories..


 
TBH I will probably have to keep quiet about some stuff.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 11, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> well im coming at this from an anecdotal angle more than anything else, my first experience in an overtly poltical situation was in the M77 road protest as a teenager.


 
Brilliant! I didn't know about the M77, yet Claremont Road and the Westway (and Newbury in between) was an important part of my life. I will read up on the M77 or, even better, maybe you can swap tales with me. I read so much about 'oral history' projects but hear very little about these times (maybe my fault). But after Audrey started destroying the Ruskin archive I don't know where to look.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 11, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> TBH I will probably have to keep quiet about some stuff.


 
yeah i think in the context of all the spying thats going on in the internet i should keep quiet about my comedic three stooges esque attempts at 'direct action' too lol


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## Sweetpea (Jun 11, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> yeah i think in the context of all the spying thats going on in the internet i should keep quiet about my comedic three stooges esque attempts at 'direct action too lol


 
Do you think they really care anymore? (not sarky, I just feel so out of the loop these days, surely I am a spent force and not worth their attention).


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## ska invita (Jun 11, 2013)

i think we shouldnt play down peoples desire to kick up a fuss in the streets today - we've had student fee actions, motivated by a genuine and desperate hope to overturn a policy, the summer riots triggered by police violence - actions coming together on the big trade union walk to the park - UKUncut - there was a string of stuff around the City since 2008, occupy wasnt an irrelevance .... I think there is some cultural element to it (the illegality of the rave scene, anti-road stuff etc) that provided a strong base, which maybe isnt there as much now, but thats not fatal I dont think.

Speaking for me its more a case of effort-to-outcome - wanting to get involved in something that will really have an effect, not just for a day. Whats the point of repeating something that you know can only achieve so much? I dont think actions like todays are pointless, but I do want a lot more.

I think theres a lot of thinking about new tactics and options going on out there - theres no silver bullet. And like xslavearcx says, elements of the past sucked. Passion is there I think, but I think theres a slight pause here in the UK as people try to work out what next and how best to achieve it. No bad thing.




Sweetpea said:


> I know this is a 'serious' forum but is there any room for anecdotal memories..


go for it sweetpea - what is it you want to say?


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## xslavearcx (Jun 11, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Brilliant! I didn't know about the M77, yet Claremont Road and the Westway (and Newbury in between) was an important part of my life. I will read up on the M77 or, even better, maybe you can swap tales with me. I read so much about 'oral history' projects but hear very little about these times (maybe my fault). But after Audrey started destroying the Ruskin archive I don't know where to look.


 
tbh, it was more just because it was near where i stayed that i was doing my nosey round there with some friends back in those days.  Apparently though it was one of the first sites where 'green' and 'red' first came together. Rosie Kane MSP of SSP came out of the M77 road protests. I did get into the AR scene for a bit when older though...


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## Sweetpea (Jun 11, 2013)

Actually really that's a serious question. We had personal surveillance, not just FIT, the buggers used to sit outside the house, back in the day. When will I be able to 'Reclaim my Past'?


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Do you think they really care anymore? (not sarky, I just feel so out of the loop these days, surely I am a spent force and not worth their attention).


 
Don't really know. i remember that GANDALF thing being huge back in those days. i think the attention has definately shifted elsewhere though...


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

See now I'm lost; 'green and red'. We wanted to rave and I wanted my child to be safe in the street. The Criminal Justice Bill brought me into contact with many more ideas than just leaving me the fuck alone could have ever done.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Actually really that's a serious question. We had personal surveillance, not just FIT, the buggers used to sit outside the house, back in the day. When will I be able to 'Reclaim my Past'?


 
well thats one of the things that interests me. I would like to still get into activism sort of stuff. but my background is more in that past rather that say being a member of the SWP or something. so it does kinda prompt the question as to the relationship between that particular scene and being in the left now. I think ska has indentifed some similiarities between then and now in their post there.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

ska invita said:


> I think there is some cultural element to it (the illegality of the rave scene, anti-road stuff etc) that provided a strong base, which maybe isnt there as much now, but thats not fatal I dont think.


 
its actually the cultural element im particularly interested in but tbh, might more be to do with nostalgia rather than any particular political insight id be wanting to derive from it.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> See now I'm lost; 'green and red'. We wanted to rave and I wanted my child to be safe in the street. The Criminal Justice Bill brought me into contact with many more ideas than just leaving me the fuck alone could have ever done.


maybe the fact taht it was 'issue based' rather than tied to a particular ideological framework meant that people were more likely to participate in such things rather than the usual suspects of lefties?


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

See now I'm lost; 'green and red'. We wanted to rave and I wanted my child to be safe in the street. The Criminal Justice Bill brought me into contact with many more ideas than just leaving me the fuck alone could have ever done.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

oops sorry for the double post and delays. The dongle isn't always great. I live 'on the road' now, I had to give up the horsebox (nod to stuff it)


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## twentythreedom (Jun 12, 2013)

Kill the Bill


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Do you think they really care anymore? (not sarky, I just feel so out of the loop these days, surely I am a spent force and not worth their attention).


 
I really do wonder. There was a lot of police attention back in the day - probably partially down to the lull in international terrorism with the decline in IRA attacks. Well a lull compared to how it is now anyway.


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

twentythreedom said:


> Kill the Bill


 
I remember it well. I <post hidden> and then <post hidden> but the best bit was when <post hidden>.


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## twentythreedom (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> I remember it well. I <post hidden> and then <post hidden> but the best bit was when <post hidden>.


 
exactly


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> I really do wonder. There was a lot of police attention back in the day - probably partially down to the lull in international terrorism with the decline in IRA attacks. Well a lull compared to how it is now anyway.


 
yep, I must say it did feel like a fuss about nothing, knickers in a twist over a couple of people enjoying the sun coming up. Over the years I've found out about a lot of other stuff: anarchism, how shareholders in road building companies were linked to the government. Seems naive now but like I said we just wanted to dance and be left alone.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

if only this thread was done in a zine format rather than internet it would be much better.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

I guess thinking about it, I read all these threads that talk about how the 'left' can reach out to the 'working class' but for me it was the government that 'raised my consciousness'


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

So was it the criminal justice act issues that got you first involvoed in those kinda things sweet pea?


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> if only this thread was done in a zine format rather than internet it would be much better.


 
I remember rocking up at the Battlebridge centre to collect Schnews to distribute. Can I defend my political motivations? Fuck no, it just seemed fun at the time.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> So was it the criminal justice act issues that got you first involvoed in those kinda things sweet pea?


 
Well yes and no. Like I said some of the things it covered were just part of everyday life without being 'political' (my dad's brother was a miner so I knew not to trust the Police) and we were 'told' at school that 3 million unemployed meant that feckless arseholes like us were never going to make it - so why not dance? When they said we couldn't dance and they were going to start fucking up green spaces, that was the last straw.


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> I remember rocking up at the Battlebridge centre to collect Schnews to distribute. Can I defend my political motivations? Fuck no, it just seemed fun at the time.


 
Fun and I needed a place to live...


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> Fun and I needed a place to live...


 
Exactly, were you making a conscious political decision? All respect if you were but mostly, it seemed to me that people were just getting on with their lives - not nailing their flag to some SWP/IWCA* mast etc.  

*forgive me if I named the wrong people, that's the point - we didn't always know and didn't always care.


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Exactly, were you making a conscious political decision? All respect if you were but mostly, it seemed to me that people were just getting on with their lives - not nailing their flag to some SWP/IWCA* mast etc.
> 
> *forgive me if I named the wrong people, that's the point - we didn't always know and didn't always care.


 
Well yes in that I wouldn't have gone and become a Young Conservative just for a place to live even if the parties were epic.

I only really learned about politics after I started getting in to stuff and bouncing around the country on foot (yes complete with dog) around site, protests, squats and raves.


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## treelover (Jun 12, 2013)

Nothing wrong with a political belief system as long as its inclusive and non dogmatic, however, plenty of the key London based RTS figures could be very dogmatic indeed, while many just wanted to 'party' and live the life they wanted, I was amazed just how 'political' many RTS'ers were, however, I don't mean in terms of class politics, many of them were Oxbridge, etc but in anti-capitalism, etc


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> Well yes in that I wouldn't have gone and become a Young Conservative just for a place to live even if the parties were epic.
> 
> I only really learned about politics after I started getting in to stuff and bouncing around the country on foot (yes complete with dog) around site, protests, squats and raves.


 
was your dog a proper heinz 57 effort?


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> Well yes in that I wouldn't have gone and become a Young Conservative just for a place to live even if the parties were epic.
> 
> I only really learned about politics after I started getting in to stuff and bouncing around the country on foot (yes complete with dog) around site, protests, squats and raves.


 
Hehe, good answer. You're right, I doubt if I would have hung about with the Young Conservatives either   Thank you for taking me as you find me though and not nit picking. I was trying to say it wasn't a conscious decision to become political, it was just a continuation of my life at the time. That's why I get confused by all this reach out to the w/c stuff, followed by what are the w/c, followed by disappearing up fundaments.


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> was your dog a proper heinz 57 effort?


 
No, I know which seven breeds she was mainly! Here she is on the right barking at a munter in a camo net.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> was your dog a proper heinz 57 effort?


 
I seem to remember it was deaf. Or wrong person maybe.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

treelover said:


> Nothing wrong with a political belief system as long as its inclusive and non dogmatic, however, plenty of the key London based RTS figures could be very dogmatic indeed, while many just wanted to 'party' and live the life they wanted, I was amazed just how 'political' many RTS'ers were, however, I don't mean in terms of class politics, many of them were Oxbridge, etc but in anti-capitalism, etc


yeah thats where that rather vague notion of being 'anti-capitalist' seemed to arise but without really much analysis as to what capitalism was which i think really fed into the whole lifestylist trend that was going along at the same time.


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> I seem to remember it was deaf. Or wrong person maybe.


 
No, she was never deaf despite many years spent with her head in a bass bin. She used to like rolling around on the floor in front of the stack to anything with an amen break or some dancehall. 



Sweetpea said:


> Hehe, good answer. You're right, I doubt if I would have hung about with the Young Conservatives either  Thank you for taking me as you find me though and not nit picking. I was trying to say it wasn't a conscious decision to become political, it was just a continuation of my life at the time. That's why I get confused by all this reach out to the w/c stuff, followed by what are the w/c, followed by disappearing up fundaments.


 
I found Urban in 2002 looking for somewhere to download a section 6 from.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> No, I know which seven breeds she was mainly! Here she is on the right barking at a munter in a camo net.
> 
> View attachment 33569


 
munter. thats terrible.. lol... my dog looks like something out of the 80s never mind the 90s. you dont see mongrels anymore.


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## xenon (Jun 12, 2013)

People grew up, stop being scenester clichés. hard to say reallr.

Kids today, etc.


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## twentythreedom (Jun 12, 2013)

for a little while, being a raver was pretty much a fairly extreme political stance

*sigh*


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

xenon said:


> People grew up, stop being scenester clichés. hard to say reallr.
> 
> Kids today, etc.


 
LOL. them olden days were much better tho


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

treelover said:


> Nothing wrong with a political belief system as long as its inclusive and non dogmatic, however, plenty of the key London based RTS figures could be very dogmatic indeed, while many just wanted to 'party' and live the life they wanted, I was amazed just how 'political' many RTS'ers were, however, I don't mean in terms of class politics, many of them were Oxbridge, etc but in anti-capitalism, etc


 
yep, I'll give you that. It's one of the reasons I don't trust people that try and teach me about 'politics'. As the opening posts said, "people were really up for taking big risks of their own personal lifes for the sake of some political goal."
Even if I didn't know I was involved for a 'political goal' I soon learnt that these people had other lives to go back to, had other resources to rely on (even if that was simply not feeling intimidated) and most of all could close ranks very quickly if their dogma was questioned.


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

twentythreedom said:


> for a little while, being a raver was pretty much a fairly extreme political stance
> 
> *sigh*


 
Now it's just a niche pursuit, like fell running.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> yeah thats where that rather vague notion of being 'anti-capitalist' seemed to arise but without really much analysis as to what capitalism was which i think really fed into the whole lifestylist trend that was going along at the same time.


 
If you want a anecdote about "lifestylist" I remember travelling to Newbury on a subsidised coach from Islington. At the time I was a single mother and the ticket to Islington plus the coach ticket wasn't subsidised enough not to take a chunk out of my food budget. I had to tolerate a woman with fluorescent pink dreadlocked pigtails pointedly discussing how some people were just day trippers along for the glory and not committed to the cause like her.

Eta She actually referred to her hair as part of her commitment, she lived her beliefs every day by way of her looks. Since when does a particular hairstyle prove anything.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> If you want a anecdote about "lifestylist" I remember travelling to Newbury on a subsidised coach from Islington. At the time I was a single mother and the ticket to Islington plus the coach ticket wasn't subsidised enough not to take a chunk out of my food budget. I had to tolerate a woman with fluorescent pink dreadlocked pigtails pointedly discussing how some people were just day trippers along for the glory and not committed to the cause like her.


unfortunately when i was vegan i used to harbour the idea that the sum total of the worlds problems had something to do with peoples purchasing decisions. i think thankfully that kinda view doesnt circulate as much.


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> unfortunately when i was vegan i used to harbour the idea that the sum total of the worlds problems had something to do with peoples purchasing decisions. i think thankfully that kinda view doesnt circulate as much.


 
Ah, you were a teenage vegan pan-fascist were you? 

"No, if you want to cook those free range eggs that you got from the house up the road you have to not only use your own pan, but build your own firepit"

We could see the bloody chickens running about doing chicken stuff ffs.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> Ah, you were a teenage vegan pan-fascist were you?
> 
> "No, if you want to cook those free range eggs that you got from the house up the road you have to not only use your own pan, but build your own firepit"
> 
> We could see the bloody chickens running about doing chicken stuff ffs.


 
wasnt far off how bad i was. i was also straightedge at the time too so i pretty much spent my time looking down my nose at other people all the time!! have to say the buzz of self righteousness is 100000 times better than any class A


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> unfortunately when i was vegan i used to harbour the idea that the sum total of the worlds problems had something to do with peoples purchasing decisions. i think thankfully that kinda view doesnt circulate as much.


 
Hehe, I was watching the Beak Street eviction online today and when I heard that the utilities had been cut off, I thought 'there's going to be a couple of people who are annoyed about their vegan marg melting'. I think it's funny but also a bit sad at the same time that those sort of concerns really pushed me away from 'politics'.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Hehe, I was watching the Beak Street eviction online today and when I heard that the utilities had been cut off, I thought 'there's going to be a couple of people who are annoyed about their vegan marg melting'. I think it's funny but also a bit sad at the same time that those sort of concerns really pushed me away from 'politics'.


 
i think thats one aspect of the 90s that we can all agree we are glad to see the back of


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## yield (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> I've got lots to say about this. But it'll have to wait till tomorrow.
> 
> In he meantime have a read of this: http://libcom.org/library/kill-chill-aufheben-4





> The problem they face which seems to be defying any easy resolution is simply the need to impose austerity, the need to attack the gains of an entrenched working class, without destroying the fragile Conservative social consensus represented by the 'Essex Man' phenomenon. With the dream of a property-owning democracy sinking into the nightmare of debt, the consensus is rapidly becoming unravelled, but UK plc cannot retreat. What better tonic than a good old attack on those firmly outside of the deal, the marginalized, whose exclusion the Conservative deal was predicated upon, to stiffen up resolve in the ranks for those attacks which threaten to recompose the class.


Sounds so familiar.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> i think thats one aspect of the 90s that we can all agree we are glad to see the back of


 

 I agree. But without starting a bunfight (as I said I really want to talk some days) how is the current I hate/love swappies/IWCA thing any different?
Especially as you said yourself -
"have to say the buzz of self righteousness is 100000 times better than any class A"
I am usually seriously intimidated off this forum and will probably regret it tomorrow when I:​a) sober up​b) all the usual suspects turn up with their hounding tactics​eta 
c) start trying to translate a private 'in language' that I understand is a pre agreed short hand to allow fast discussion but doesn't exactly reach out


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

_The problem they face which seems to be defying any easy resolution is simply the need to impose austerity, the need to attack the gains of an entrenched working class, without destroying the fragile Conservative social consensus represented by the 'Essex Man' phenomenon. With the dream of a property-owning democracy sinking into the nightmare of debt, the consensus is rapidly becoming unravelled, but UK plc cannot retreat. What better tonic than a good old attack on those firmly outside of the deal, the marginalized, whose exclusion the Conservative deal was predicated upon, to stiffen up resolve in the ranks for those attacks which threaten to recompose the class._


yield said:


> Sounds so familiar.


 
Without being critical, I'm glad it sounds so familiar to you. maybe I am a thick working class cunt but wtf?


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## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> "_The problem they face which seems to be defying any easy resolution is simply the need to impose austerity, the need to attack the gains of an entrenched working class, without destroying the fragile Conservative social consensus represented by the 'Essex Man' phenomenon. With the dream of a property-owning democracy sinking into the nightmare of debt, the consensus is rapidly becoming unravelled, but UK plc cannot retreat. What better tonic than a good old attack on those firmly outside of the deal, the marginalized, whose exclusion the Conservative deal was predicated upon, to stiffen up resolve in the ranks for those attacks which threaten to recompose the class."_
> 
> Without being critical, I'm glad it sounds so familiar to you. maybe I am a thick working class cunt but wtf?


 
It's a comment on how that is pretty much what is happening now.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> I agree. But without starting a bunfight (as I said I really want to talk some days) how is the current I hate/love swappies/IWCA thing any different?
> Especially as you said yourself -
> "have to say the buzz of self righteousness is 100000 times better than any class A"
> I am usually seriously intimidated off this forum and will probably regret it tomorrow when I:​a) sober up​b) all the usual suspects turn up with their hounding tactics​eta
> c) start trying to translate a private 'in language' that I understand is a pre agreed short hand to allow fast discussion but doesn't exactly reach out


 
that sucks that you feel intimidated off this forum. i think there are a lot of arguments that take place between people but i think that generally is either a)interpolitico, or b) if a really right wing person appears then obviously thats going to invite comment. and yeah i agree that overly academic language doesnt really help when often as you say such things can be translated in a way that is understantable to anybody unfamiliar with the jargon without loss of nuance in what is said.


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## yield (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Without being critical, I'm glad it sounds so familiar to you. maybe I am a thick working class cunt but wtf?





stuff_it said:


> It's a comment on how that is pretty much what is happening now.


What stuff it said. History repeating itself.


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## xenon (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> _The problem they face which seems to be defying any easy resolution is simply the need to impose austerity, the need to attack the gains of an entrenched working class, without destroying the fragile Conservative social consensus represented by the 'Essex Man' phenomenon. With the dream of a property-owning democracy sinking into the nightmare of debt, the consensus is rapidly becoming unravelled, but UK plc cannot retreat. What better tonic than a good old attack on those firmly outside of the deal, the marginalized, whose exclusion the Conservative deal was predicated upon, to stiffen up resolve in the ranks for those attacks which threaten to recompose the class._
> 
> Without being critical, I'm glad it sounds so familiar to you. maybe I am a thick working class cunt but wtf?



It's OK. mass descent isn't born of wordy analysis. (Though ti it has it's place.) 

Defenistrate the bankers, politicians and generals. We'll describe the the underlying philosophical justification later.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

Ok thank you, stuff it. I trust you. So what is "an entrenched working class"? I'm guessing that the 'Essex Man' phenomenon is the 'boot straps' working class that were fooled the first time round by the RTB property owning dream  - a lot of people on the estate I grew up on couldn't give a flying fuck about whether there was social value in social housing; they exercised their Right to Buy and fucked off away from the 'ghetto' to the home counties - most notably Essex.  The rest I don't really understand but it gives me that uneasy feeling that there are people out there discussing the 'entrenched working class' like it's a entomology field trip.


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## yield (Jun 12, 2013)

By entrenched they mean those that have something to lose as you said.

Many of my friends lost their rtb former council homes when the interest rates went up but some did well out of it.

Don't feel intimidated by posting in politics sweetpea. You'll do fine.

Edit to add: I was at some of the RTS in London more by accident than design. It was more me following my friends and wanting to have a good time. The 90's seem like another world. So many possibilities.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xenon said:


> It's OK. mass descent isn't born of wordy analysis. (Though ti it has it's place.)
> 
> Defenistrate the bankers, politicians and generals. We'll describe the the underlying philosophical justification later.


 
Not being cunty - really want to talk. "mass descent" did you mean mass dissent? My spelling is awful but I need to understand. And if you meant mass dissent, why does it feel like some people _assume_ some other people (the entrenched working class) want this? Maybe some people don't want their consciousness raised, however useful that is, maybe some people, like my nan, want everyone to fuck off and leave her alone. I can promise you she doesn't want to be part of a mass anything and certainly doesn't want it going on down her street.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

yield said:


> By entrenched they mean those that have something to lose as you said.
> 
> Many of my friends lost their rtb former council homes when the interest rates went up but some did well out of it.
> 
> ...


 
Ta yield, I remember neighbours losing everything when the interest rates changed. Handed their keys back and didn't understand why they couldn't walk away. But like you said others did well(?) I knew people who had never known someone who had owned property before (that's for the Lord of the Manor - I kid you not) and it fucked them up - they went all 'an Englishman's home is their castle' and started not giving a crap about friends and family. I guess that's why it was an amazing, if not ok, bit of social engineering.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

yield said:


> Edit to add: The 90's seem like another world. So many possibilities.


Sorry to take that out of context but even though it seemed like another world, that cunt Iain Duncan Smith had the DWP then so comme ci comme ca


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## yield (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Ta yield, I remember neighbours losing everything when the interest rates changed. Handed their keys back and didn't understand why they couldn't walk away. But like you said others did well(?) I knew people who had never known someone who had owned property before (that's for the Lord of the Manor - I kid you not) and it fucked them up - they went all 'an Englishman's home is their castle' and started not giving a crap about friends and family. I guess that's why it was an amazing, if not ok, bit of social engineering.


That was the whole "essex man" thing. Those who'd sold up and moved into the country.

"An Englishman's home is their castle." Atomisation of society. Those who were poor cause they chose it. Bollocks basically.


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## yield (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Sorry to take that out of context but even though it seemed like another world, that cunt Iain Duncan Smith had the DWP then so comme ci comme ca


What does "comme ci, comme ca" mean?


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

yield said:


> That was the whole "essex man" thing. Those who'd sold up and moved into the country.
> 
> "An Englishman's home is their castle." Atomisation of society. Those who were poor cause they chose it. Bollocks basically.


 
yeah, I remember that. And worse, as I alluded to the 'boot straps' poor; those that were so fooled that they believed that they had dragged themselves up by them (and not as a result of social engineering). Like anyone now,RTB or not, could buy a _decent _house. And after dragging themselves up by their 'boot straps' they pulled up the fucking gangplank after them (anyone who benefits from the state is a scrounger).
I just get annoyed that it sometimes seems that the 'working class' are either fools to be realised as a force or innocent angels being played with by devils.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

yield said:


> What does "comme ci, comme ca" mean?


 
Like this, like that 

Same as it ever was


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## xenon (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:


> Not being cunty - really want to talk. "mass descent" did you mean mass dissent? My spelling is awful but I need to understand. And if you meant mass dissent, why does it feel like some people _assume_ some other people (the entrenched working class) want this? Maybe some people don't want their consciousness raised, however useful that is, maybe some people, like my nan, want everyone to fuck off and leave her alone. I can promise you she doesn't want to be part of a mass anything and certainly doesn't want it going on down her street.



Yep. My spelling's woful. And TBF I'm just sounding off a bit. Not a big reader of political theory, sociology and such like myself. We live in interesting politically charged times. Maybe it's a function of my sinisism, perhaps I'm just paying more attention but it seems to me people are increasingly angry and ware of being shafted. Aware of something rotten in the system we're all supposed to believe in. The shabby fairy tale of Liberal democracy, the post cold war triumphant eefficacy of free market economics falling apart in front of our eyes.


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## xenon (Jun 12, 2013)

Still it's not all bad...


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## yield (Jun 12, 2013)

Don't worry about your spelling xenon. The sense is still there. It's okay.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

xenon said:


> Yep. My spelling's woful. And TBF I'm just sounding off a bit. Not a big reader of political theory, sociology and such like myself. We live in interesting politically charged times. Maybe it's a function of my sinisism, perhaps I'm just paying more attention but it seems to me people are increasingly angry and ware of being shafted. Aware of something rotten in the system we're all supposed to believe in. The shabby fairy tale of Liberal democracy, the post cold war triumphant eefficacy of free market economics falling apart in front of our eyes.


 
To be honest, from my point of view, it's always been shite. We _always_ live in interesting politically charged times. No oneupmanship but after all, isn't this what this thread was supposed to be about - 'political' scenes from two decades ago.


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## Sweetpea (Jun 12, 2013)

yield said:


> Don't worry about your spelling xenon. The sense is still there. It's okay.


 
Wasn't a criticism, after all that sort of crap is what I am railing against, just a clarification.


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## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

I think there are number of areas that you can look at see why the "90s protest scene" faded away and hasn't continued or been replicated. It is worth remembering that it was 20 years ago though, and that is a long time...

1/ Continuity...
There were few structures set up to allow the "scene" to be passed from generation to generation. Spaces were squatted and impermanent, groups were ad hoc and temporary meaning that once our generation got old we left nothing concrete for others to carry on with. Earth First! could perhaps have been an exception. It could've become a more lasting network of established groups, but for a number of reasons it didn't.

2/ youth, sub and counter cultures.
These don't tend to last as mass phenomena. 20 years after any youth cultures existence all you can expect is a sort of "recreation society" based largely on niche shopping. Look at goths or hippes or punks or whatever. There was no way the various subcultures that coalesced together in the 90s were still going to be around now. Especially as the 90s were essentially the climax of a number of these subcultures anyway...

3/ political repression
The cops have learnt how to deal with 90s style protest. It's much harder now to pull off, and get away with, the kinda stunts we pulled back then.

4/ 9.11
The fear of terrorism really put a downer on militant direct action.

5/ shenanigans
Police infiltration - we're seeing so e of this come out now.
An influx of nastier drugs into the scene. Too many people were getting fucked up on ket etc.
The attempt to push the movement underground. This largely failed, the ELF didn't really take off here, and all they really ended up with now is the "insurrectionary dickheads".

6/ "cool Britannia"
Tony Blair and Britpop really took the edge off stuff.

7/economics
Tighter dole regimes after the introduction of the JSA meant that being a PANSiE was no longer an option, this coupled with the rocketing cost of being a student took away the two main ways of funding a life of activism.

8/politics
The collapse of the Left took its toll. Fewer demos to piggyback on, fewer groups leaking members with organising experience. 
The shift to "anti-capitalism" also cost. Didn't really suit the direct action tactics of the movement nd was seen by too many as yet another "issue" rather than a structural thing. Too big a monster to slay.

9/ losing set piece battles.
Newbury and Genoa both in different ways broke the movement. Traps we walked into.

...just some initial thoughts!


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## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

...it's also not a bad thing that the 90s scene seems to have passed away.

The last thing we need is another situation like that of the "68ers" dominating protest/politics for a couple of decades and insisting upon sticking to the tactics and strategies that they are comfortable with. Something that in their case we're only just seeing the last gasps of with the final, final death rattle of the old "new left".


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## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

I dont have anything to add having been a kid in the 1990s but this "protest scene" sounds like something i would have both loved and hated lol. It also seems like it was about raves and drugs and neither of those I'm really into all that much. Although I bet it was a lot of fun at the time. I only know a few people my age and younger (24/25 or so) into the rave "scene" most people who are into it are in their 30s, seems like it's dying out a bit, although my life revolves around working full time and sometimes going to the pub so what do I know.

Also the whole world of squat parties, etc, seems to be around large towns and especially around London. I live in a village and there's not much opportunity for it there, guess it was always like that though.

Sounds fun though.


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## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

I am interested in hearing about the road protests and reading a bit more about them, because they sound like they were both a lot of fun and really politicised a lot of people. The only memories I have of it are like hearing about "swampy" and so on on the news. There seems like a lot of direct action was around then too, when I was a kid I loved animals and the idea of Hunt Sabs and how they would stop fox hunts. I would still have loved to have been around when all that was going on


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## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

It was fun...and there was plenty happening out in the sticks.


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## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

I wish there was something like that going on now. the hunt sabs thing is something i would have loved to have got involved in, and they had respect from a lot of people too, a lot of people agreed with what they were doing. Part of the problem with this stuff today is that it can be really boring and repetitive (selling papers etc).

I'm not talking about community stuff etc being boring btw.


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## Dillinger4 (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> I dont have anything to add having been a kid in the 1990s but this "protest scene" sounds like something i would have both loved and hated lol. It also seems like it was about raves and drugs and neither of those I'm really into all that much. Although I bet it was a lot of fun at the time. I only know a few people my age and younger (24/25 or so) into the rave "scene" most people who are into it are in their 30s, seems like it's dying out a bit, although my life revolves around working full time and sometimes going to the pub so what do I know.
> 
> Also the whole world of squat parties, etc, seems to be around large towns and especially around London. I live in a village and there's not much opportunity for it there, guess it was always like that though.
> 
> Sounds fun though.


 

I am something similar. I am not that keen on rave or drugs either (unless it is LSD which is brilliant, but only in the right place and a rave probably isn't one of them for me).

I think it would have been the same as it is now. I would probably float about on the fringes of a lot of these different groups without going all in. 

I would love the opportunity to 'drop out'. I really really would. I am sick of working for nothing and alternating it with being in the welfare system. 

But is it different for our generation? Was it easier to be completely involved in a protest movement then? Was the economy better, better enough for somebody to drop out for a few years and then still live a life afterwards? What did all these people do afterwards?

I don't see many protest movements or anything else giving the opportunity to 'drop out'. Not here, but not really anywhere else either. Occupy was a damp squib. I'd only want to go all in with something I properly believed in. Naive as it sounds, after everything, I still believe in the revolution. Obviously everything is a bit more complex than I am saying here.


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## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

I also believe in the revolution.


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## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> I am interested in hearing about the road protests and reading a bit more about them, because they sound like they were both a lot of fun and really politicised a lot of people. The only memories I have of it are like hearing about "swampy" and so on on the news. There seems like a lot of direct action was around then too, when I was a kid I loved animals and the idea of Hunt Sabs and how they would stop fox hunts. I would still have loved to have been around when all that was going on



The road protests were a big part of my life for a few years.

Here's some stuff to read on 'em.

http://libcom.org/library/auto-struggles-aufheben-3

http://libcom.org/library/m11-anti-road-aufheben

Derek Wall's "Earth First! and the anti-roads movement". (I'll try and find it online later)

George McKay's "DIY Culture: Party and Protest in 90s Britain" (ditto)

All the back issues of "Do or Die" http://www.eco-action.org/dod/


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## Dillinger4 (Jun 12, 2013)

That George McKay book is pretty good. The other one he did is pretty good as well.

Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance by George McKay


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## Citizen66 (Jun 12, 2013)

Sweetpea said:
			
		

> yep, I'll give you that. It's one of the reasons I don't trust people that try and teach me about 'politics'. As the opening posts said, "people were really up for taking big risks of their own personal lifes for the sake of some political goal."
> Even if I didn't know I was involved for a 'political goal' I soon learnt that these people had other lives to go back to, had other resources to rely on (even if that was simply not feeling intimidated) and most of all could close ranks very quickly if their dogma was questioned.



From the other side of the coin, It's frustrating having very active and commited comrades of the type that don't do politics. The main issue being as they can't be arsed to think things through it makes them contradictory and incoherent. It's a pain worse than death having a discussion with them. Because, actually, they 'do' do politics. But according to them they don't.  And round and round you go discussing that point until I slit my wrists.


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## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

my first thought on seeing this thread title was to find a longterm graph of videogame sales, but I can't on 30sec googling so you'll have to imagine one.

second thought is that the 90s were a fairly dull period when the level of youth rebellion was rather low. Compared to the 80s and particularly the 70s when me and my mates were up to all the things we could get up to. That was real, it mattered, we meant it, we were trying to change the world and although we got battered and bruised into submission our attempts would stand as a beacon to be built on. The 90s just kindof rolled through without much to motivate me, just a bunch of kids with marginal ideas messing around. I spent most of the 90s (not to mention noughties and tensies) poised and ready for them, the kids, to click, to become politicised, to rebel, to express a real identity and commitment to change. Still I wait....


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## Dillinger4 (Jun 12, 2013)

we are waiting as well


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## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

It will happen.


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## Lorca (Jun 12, 2013)

in the 90's the AR movement was quite vibrant, whatever you think of that particular worldview. however, i believe it was starting to negatively impact on the ability of certain private companies, for example HLS - to function properly, plus there was the infamous 'grave digging' incident. so the state showed it's teeth and turned pretty ruthlessly on it with a significant degree of success. they handed down some insanely long prison sentences - longer than many murderers and paedos get - to certain 'prominent' activists, i even remember them sentencing someone in malvern to four years prison basically for running a website. i suppose it's what any social movement can expect if they begin to attain any degree of 'success'.


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## Kizmet (Jun 12, 2013)

What are you waiting for?


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## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

Dillinger4 said:


> we are waiting as well


 
aye.  what distresses me is that I suspect outwardly I've become what the kids of today are rebelling against.  Inwardly, I'm just waiting for them to ignite the spark, and then I'll be there, ready and willing to learn as well as show them how it's done...


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## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

Kizmet said:


> What are you waiting for?


someone to open the bottle, let out the essence of youth


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## Lorca (Jun 12, 2013)

actually, i should say most of the AR arrests were in the noughties afaik.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> It was fun...and there was plenty happening out in the sticks.


 
I think thats an important dimension to it actually. the fact that there was that conjunction of counter-cultural activities along with political stuff, think it kept apathy at bay.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Dillinger4 said:


> But is it different for our generation? Was it easier to be completely involved in a protest movement then? Was the economy better, better enough for somebody to drop out for a few years and then still live a life afterwards? *What did all these people do afterwards?*


 
Thats what i would really like to know...


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## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

I'd also suggest that the 90s didn't much have to contend with the problem represented by Urban75.  That anyone with a spark of intoxicating excess is immediately crushed by the weight of internet worldweary, btdtgtts, cynicism.


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## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Thats what i would really like to know...


grew along the axis from solution to problem?


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## Boycey (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> No, I know which seven breeds she was mainly! Here she is on the right barking at a munter in a camo net.
> 
> View attachment 33569


 

oh fuck. i've been working with the netted one lately. sorry for the derail, those pics always make me laugh like a fucking idiot.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> my first thought on seeing this thread title was to find a longterm graph of videogame sales, but I can't on 30sec googling so you'll have to imagine one.
> 
> second thought is that the 90s were a fairly dull period when the level of youth rebellion was rather low. Compared to the 80s and particularly the 70s when me and my mates were up to all the things we could get up to. That was real, it mattered, we meant it, we were trying to change the world and although we got battered and bruised into submission our attempts would stand as a beacon to be built on. The 90s just kindof rolled through without much to motivate me, just a bunch of kids with marginal ideas messing around. I spent most of the 90s (not to mention noughties and tensies) poised and ready for them, the kids, to click, to become politicised, to rebel, to express a real identity and commitment to change. Still I wait....


 
I kinda agree with what you are saying but i think you are maybe being a bit unfair there too. I think growing up in that context with the fall of the soviet union, the decline of unions in the backdrop and with established left groups like the SWP still going on about 1917 seeming completely irrelevant, i think it was relativly easy for people to think that something different from some marxist derivative was needed.

I think that attitude of just going out there and dealing with issues as one found them was probably a reflexive-attempt-to-keep-nihilisim-at-bay response, and was never going to pose a real challenge to the way things are. And definately the multifarious issue based nature of it, alongwith the subcultural dimensions mentioned ultimately was just a mirror image of the market society and did pave the way for the middle class lifestylism one finds with buying organic, vegan,fair trade, or whatever.

However i think the traditional left has to take some responsibility too in that state of affairs, by having a part to play in the discrediting of traditional left ideology.

I think at the moment, in terms of the ideas that are circulating in leftie discourse, we are in a much better position than before. Marx's credibility in on ascendancy, there are marx reading groups popping up everywhere, and more widely there is a growing perception in society that there is something problematic with capitalism. In regards to the reading groups phenomenon, it almost feels as if there is some kinda sola scriptura reformation like event taking place, an opertunity for the left to discard the crap it was wedded to and now no longer needs to apologise for.

But at the same time, i think the problems with the traditional left are just as bad as they were in the 90s, perhaps worse. The taking on of the identity politics which i think was a part response to the 90s issue based approach is one thing that probably is out of sync with the rising perception of capitalism being a problem. And also this going on about fucking 1917 and saying stuff like well if x dead russian got there way in this situation it would be all great, is definately going to do the left no favours.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> grew along the axis from solution to problem?


 
Probably!


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> I'd also suggest that the 90s didn't much have to contend with the problem represented by Urban75. That anyone with a spark of intoxicating excess is immediately crushed by the weight of internet worldweary, btdtgtts, cynicism.


 
yeah i fucking hate the internet, which i express best by moaning about on the internet.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Lorca said:


> in the 90's the AR movement was quite vibrant, whatever you think of that particular worldview. however, i believe it was starting to negatively impact on the ability of certain private companies, for example HLS - to function properly, plus there was the infamous 'grave digging' incident. so the state showed it's teeth and turned pretty ruthlessly on it with a significant degree of success. they handed down some insanely long prison sentences - longer than many murderers and paedos get - to certain 'prominent' activists, i even remember them sentencing someone in malvern to four years prison basically for running a website. i suppose it's what any social movement can expect if they begin to attain any degree of 'success'.


 
yeah that gravedigging incident was really OTT. I've had a few discussions with AR people since then, and whenever ive mentioned that they totally deny that it took place and start saying it was the state that made that shit up and then infer that my politics have gone soft now that im believing such 'lies'. Maybe they are right about my politics going soft


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## Kizmet (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> yeah i fucking hate the internet, which i express best by moaning about on the internet.



Rage inside the machine.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

yep!


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## Kizmet (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> someone to open the bottle, let out the essence of youth



..is wasted on the young.


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## ska invita (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> The road protests were a big part of my life for a few years.


my impression of that was that it acted something like a training camp, that taught direct action skills to an increasingly hardened core group who then went on to do all kinds of other activism. Could say it was an equivalent of revolutionaries who in the 60s and 70s went off to other countries to learn guerrilla warfare. The people ive known who were involved with Roads were the most hardy activists after the fact. Is that fair to say?

Should also say there were committed activists throughout the 80s who also had an important role in handing down skills. Your point about dole and student grants is an interesting one - it definitely feels more unafordable to drop out and do full time activism than it did. (not that i ever did)

Are spectacular situationist stunts/Temporary Autonomous Zones a rejected tactic now (whether consciously or not)?

I think in the 90s there was pretty deep anti-party politics feeling, and although that has deepened even further and spread further into the wider population my impression is that theres more interest in getting 'organised' in some shape or form now, though a healthy fear of hierarchy and general commitment to horitzontalism has made that process more.... fragmented perhaps, and less visibly successful than it might otherwise be. I think its brewing though


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## butchersapron (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> I'd also suggest that the 90s didn't much have to contend with the problem represented by Urban75. That anyone with a spark of intoxicating excess is immediately crushed by the weight of internet worldweary, btdtgtts, cynicism.


 
Bit _cynical_ that given the years of optimism and initiation of activities documented by participants on this site.


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## butchersapron (Jun 12, 2013)

Few quick obvious points - cultural stuff in modern capitalism is always on a loser from the start unless it can develop roots and make connections with wider stuff and wider concerns - hospital closures and stuff about the conditions that everyone has to live their lifes in, rather than just a small section. Otherwise you do end up with 'dissenting communities' self-ghettoised and people being cut off from the skills, knowledge and experience of others (in both directions). People weren't unaware of this at the time though.The closest this came to happening was with the roads stuff actually impacting on wider plans of capital development (if you can't strike, where can you stop the circulation/operation of capital?) and the attempts at rts linking up with the locked out liverpool dockers, which didn't really work out in the long term. But it is interesting that we're discussing this in terms of cultures - which misses all the mums out campaigning for speed bumps or against mobile phone masts, or people working on casualisation or other safety at work (reminds me of another crossover here, the simon jones/casualisation campaign), the tenants groups and so on...


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## YouSir (Jun 12, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Bit _cynical_ that given the years of optimism and initiation of activities documented by participants on this site.



Are people still enthusiastically doing stuff though? I dimly remember a more militant/activist time in Urban's history but these days I don't see much of the same energy. May just be me not paying attention though.


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## butchersapron (Jun 12, 2013)

YouSir said:


> Are people still enthusiastically doing stuff though? I dimly remember a more militant/activist time in Urban's history but these days I don't see much of the same energy. May just be me not paying attention though.


 
Of course they are. Look at this for example.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Few quick obvious points - cultural stuff in modern capitalism is always on a loser from the start unless it can develop roots and make connections with wider stuff and wider concerns - hospital closures and stuff about the conditions that everyone has to live their lifes in, rather than just a small section. Otherwise you do end up with 'dissenting communities' self-ghettoised and people being cut off from the skills, knowledge and experience of others (in both directions). People weren't unaware of this at the time though.The closest this came to happening was with the roads stuff actually impacting on wider plans of capital development (if you can't strike, where can you stop the circulation/operation of capital?) and the attempts at rts linking up with the locked out liverpool dockers, which didn't really work out in the long term. But it is interesting that we're discussing this in terms of cultures - which misses all the mums out campaigning for speed bumps or against mobile phone masts, or people working on casualisation or other safety at work (reminds me of another crossover here, the simon jones/casualisation campaign).


 
Definately...

I think the fact that a lot of the ideas floating around the time of the road protests was primmo anti-civ definately did that movement no favours in regards to linking into the circulation of capital and probably alienated that movement from the average person as well.


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## treelover (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Thats what i would really like to know...


 
I'll start, Rebbeca Blum(nee Lush)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Lush

She was an anti-road campaigner at the Campaign for Better Transport until 2012.


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## butchersapron (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Definately...
> 
> I think the fact that a lot of the ideas floating around the time of the road protests was primmo anti-civ definately did that movement no favours in regards to linking into the circulation of capital and probably alienated that movement from the average person as well.


 
Just thought of another attempt to make connections, the exodus collective in luton - not perfect, but aware of the problems facing the wider class.


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## Kizmet (Jun 12, 2013)

ska invita said:


> my impression of that was that it acted something like a training camp, that taught direct action skills to an increasingly hardened core group who then went on to do all kinds of other activism. Could say it was an equivalent of revolutionaries who in the 60s and 70s went off to other countries to learn guerrilla warfare. The people ive know who were involved with Roads were the most hardy activists after the fact.



Perhaps few people will like me saying this, as if that would stop me, but I think the truth is we (activists and politicos of my/our generation) sold out.



> Should also say there were committed activists throughout the 80s who also had an important role in handing down skills. Your point about dole and student grants is an interesting one - it definitely feels more unfordable to drop out and do full time activism than it did.
> 
> Are spectacular situationist stunts/Temporary Autonomous Zones a rejected tactic now (whether consciously or not)?



To me this is *the point*.

One of the fundamental and underlying basics of activism has to be both the time and the space to participate. This still exists.... just, but is massively under threat this is the battleground, in my opinion.

The sad thing is that most of the people fighting in that battleground find it hard to gain public support for a variety of reasons.. not least of which is the perception that its all about shit raves that achieve little apart from healthy sales of cheap class A's.




> I think in the 90s there was pretty deep anti-party politics feeling, and although that has deepened even further and spread into the wider population my impression is that theres more interest in getting 'organised' in some shape or form now, though a healthy fear of hierarchy and general commitment to horitzontalism has made that process more.... fragmented perhaps, and less visibly successful than it might otherwise be.



I think so... perhaps its harder to identify a strong leadership figure in such an environment. Perhaps that isn't necessary. But my feeling is that people will always coalesce around campaigns led by charismatic figures... and it it works... use it.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

treelover said:


> I'll start, Rebbeca Blum(nee Lush)
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Lush
> 
> She was an anti-road campaigner at the Campaign for Better Transport until 2012.


 
My working hypothesis at the moment is that a lot of those people will have ended up working in the third sector. Kinda allows an outlet of single issue concerns and a wage is always nice...


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Just thought of another attempt to make connections, the exodus collective in luton - not perfect, but aware of the problems facing the wider class.


 
The M77 in glasgow was a biggie in terms of it being articulated in class terms and in environmental terms too. Rosie Kane of SSP fame came out of that protest.


----------



## treelover (Jun 12, 2013)

http://beautifultrouble.org/author/johnjordan/


John Jordan, RTS, EF, public enemy number one for a while, self -publicist, lecturer, author of numerous books, still plugging away


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

treelover said:


> http://beautifultrouble.org/author/johnjordan/
> 
> 
> John Jordan, RTS, EF, public enemy number one for a while, self -publicist, lecturer, author of numerous books, still plugging away


 
Oh god clown activism... wtf was that all about lol!!!


----------



## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx re #101

out of Marxist reading groups let a thousand flowers bloom? good, if that's what happens. Even better if something comes out of it, some idea, some theme, that can resonate not just to the twenty-somethings but also to you and yours and me and mine. The polltax did that, so did the invasion, but nothing really is at the moment, not even the NHS (although tax justice is a theme almost everyone in society has subscribed to it's not motivated many sufficiently to actually do anything). But I rather doubt well meaning reading groups are much more than recruiting grounds for the tired left parties.

Thing is, what motivates idealistic youth (other than healthy hedonism) appears somewhat more complicated to their by now compromised elders. In the 70s it was simple and obvious that nuclear power, the nuclear state, was the embodiment of everything that needed to be fought against. By the 90s while I admired and slightly envied the road protests I couldn't really manage much more than abstract support for them. I had a car, enjoyed the freedom it gave, hated the jams, how hypocritical was i to be? As I didn't have a 3bar electric fire or night storage heaters in the 70s the question of hypocrisy never arose, the idealism could burn untarnished.


----------



## sihhi (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Oh god clown activism... wtf was that all about lol!!!


 
It is still around! This is a trip of theirs to Palestine.







It's a form of street theatre taken to extremes:






Sometimes acting in the form of a "clown army" e.g. the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

we had "clowns without borders" come to the refugee centre I worked at when I lived in Moldova


----------



## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Bit _cynical_ that given the years of optimism and initiation of activities documented by participants on this site.


only a bit?


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 12, 2013)

ska invita said:


> i think we shouldnt play down peoples desire to kick up a fuss in the streets today - we've had student fee actions, motivated by a genuine and desperate hope to overturn a policy, the summer riots triggered by police violence - actions coming together on the big trade union walk to the park - UKUncut - there was a string of stuff around the City since 2008, occupy wasnt an irrelevance .... I think there is some cultural element to it (the illegality of the rave scene, anti-road stuff etc) that provided a strong base, which maybe isnt there as much now, but thats not fatal I dont think.


I think it's absolutely tragic that people aren't kicking up _more_ of a fuss! We are being fucked over by a bunch of smug, greedy scmucks (in govt and in the boardrooms) and you end up wondering what on earth _will_ provoke civil unrest


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

sihhi said:


> It is still around! This is a trip of theirs to Palestine.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
Spent ages looking at the first picture to see if anybody in the audience appears to be enjoying the show on offer. but i can't find one person. Guess its good to still see people flying the flag i suppose but geez wtf!


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> xslavearcx re #101
> 
> out of Marxist reading groups let a thousand flowers bloom? good, if that's what happens. Even better if something comes out of it, some idea, some theme, that can resonate not just to the twenty-somethings but also to you and yours and me and mine. The polltax did that, so did the invasion, but nothing really is at the moment, not even the NHS (although tax justice is a theme almost everyone in society has subscribed to it's not motivated many sufficiently to actually do anything). But I rather doubt well meaning reading groups are much more than recruiting grounds for the tired left parties.


 
Yeah its all a bit depressing. Maybe if we can't wait for the yoof to do something us oldies need to show them whats what


----------



## sihhi (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Spent ages looking at the first picture to see if anybody in the audience appears to be enjoying the show on offer. but i can't find one person. Guess its good to still see people flying the flag i suppose but geez wtf!


 
I'm not defending them, they are rumbling on:-
just as Hunt Saboteurs are now rumbling on as hunt law enforcers, anti-roads figures are campaign group leaders for integrated (less roads) transport, anti-CJA legal movement is part of the campaigns around defending the right to protest, anti-CJA rave movement still has much rarer but sizeable crowds at 'free parties'.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

yeah knew you weren't defending them.... does seem a bit crass them going to palestine and doing their thang!


----------



## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

Streathamite said:


> I think it's absolutely tragic that people aren't kicking up _more_ of a fuss! We are being fucked over by a bunch of smug, greedy scmucks (in govt and in the boardrooms) and you end up wondering what on earth _will_ provoke civil unrest


either
Cam/Clegg will overstep and produce a policy which will crystallise all the latent opposition

and/or

something horrible that will shake us out of complacency by making our lives much worse (see Greece or Cyprus)


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> yeah knew you weren't defending them.... does seem a bit crass them going to palestine and doing their thang!


 

As if the palestinian people haven't suffered enough


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

Wonder if activist tourism plays a significant part in the palestinian economy?


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

sihhi said:


> It is still around! This is a trip of theirs to Palestine.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

Please tell me they are on facebook as 'Anarchist Mimes'.


----------



## ferrelhadley (Jun 12, 2013)

Occupy, climate camps, Combe Haven road protest, UKUncut, the solidarity with the Vesta occupation, the occupation of Unis in 10/11, the Sussex uni occupation, Greenpeace sitting on Parliaments roof, some pretty spicy protests over Israels wars..... there have been some huge, more mainstream, protests over the past few years over student fees and general anticuts protests.



> Oh, has the world changed, or have I changed ?


----------



## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Yeah its all a bit depressing. Maybe if we can't wait for the yoof to do something us oldies need to show them whats what


I have faith that strong themes will emerge and just a little hope that (unlike, say, intersectionality) they'll chime with me.  It's their turn now, my generation had its chance and blew it.

meantime I'll just cast gloom, despond and cynicism around the internet.


----------



## Streathamite (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> either
> Cam/Clegg will overstep and produce a policy which will crystallise all the latent opposition
> 
> and/or
> ...


tbh, i wonder if even either of those two will finally wake the British people up


----------



## newbie (Jun 12, 2013)

tbf I don't think anyone thought all that discussion about 'the rates' was likely to turn into rioting in the streets.


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Few quick obvious points - cultural stuff in modern capitalism is always on a loser from the start unless it can develop roots and make connections with wider stuff and wider concerns - hospital closures and stuff about the conditions that everyone has to live their lifes in, rather than just a small section. Otherwise you do end up with 'dissenting communities' self-ghettoised and people being cut off from the skills, knowledge and experience of others (in both directions). People weren't unaware of this at the time though.The closest this came to happening was with the roads stuff actually impacting on wider plans of capital development (if you can't strike, where can you stop the circulation/operation of capital?) and the attempts at rts linking up with the locked out liverpool dockers, which didn't really work out in the long term. But it is interesting that we're discussing this in terms of cultures - which misses all the mums out campaigning for speed bumps or against mobile phone masts, or people working on casualisation or other safety at work (reminds me of another crossover here, the simon jones/casualisation campaign), the tenants groups and so on...



Aye many of us were well aware AT THE TIME of the need to make these connections. They happened, albeit sporadically. In South Wales the anti opencast stuff in former mining communities, EF! People on Signal Workers Support groups, DA to support several strikes, the anti JSA campaigns, and phone masts too!


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

treelover said:


> I'll start, Rebbeca Blum(nee Lush)
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Lush
> 
> She was an anti-road campaigner at the Campaign for Better Transport until 2012.



I'll continue it for you:

http://www.urban75.net/forums/members/chilango.9395/ unemployed full-time dad.

There.


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Definately...
> 
> I think the fact that a lot of the ideas floating around the time of the road protests was primmo anti-civ definately did that movement no favours in regards to linking into the circulation of capital and probably alienated that movement from the average person as well.



There were a lot of often contradictory ideas floating around and influencing people. Green liberalism, trottery, old school anarchopunk, pacifism. Class struggle anarchism, Autonomism, situationism, nationalism and regionalism, and anti-civ/primitivism.

Fell for the primmo stuff myself briefly.


----------



## treelover (Jun 12, 2013)

and as with all dedicated true believers they often ostracised people who didn't believe, etc...


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

treelover said:


> and as with all dedicated true believers they often ostracised people who didn't believe, etc...



Who did?


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> There were a lot of often contradictory ideas floating around and influencing people. Green liberalism, trottery, old school anarchopunk, pacifism. Class struggle anarchism, Autonomism, situationism, nationalism and regionalism, and anti-civ/primitivism.
> 
> Fell for the primmo stuff myself briefly.


 
Me too- i mean i didn't read any zerzan and stuff but i totally thought civilisation needed to go and was a total misanthrope to boot.


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Who did?


 
Vegans.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

ferrelhadley said:


> Occupy, climate camps, Combe Haven road protest, UKUncut, the solidarity with the Vesta occupation, the occupation of Unis in 10/11, the Sussex uni occupation, Greenpeace sitting on Parliaments roof, some pretty spicy protests over Israels wars..... there have been some huge, more mainstream, protests over the past few years over student fees and general anticuts protests.


 
Think i was more thinking about the linkage between politics, lifestylism, and subcultures rather than direct action being used although i take your point..


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Me too- i mean i didn't read any zerzan and stuff but i totally thought civilisation needed to go and was a total misanthrope to boot.



Oh I read Zerzan....and Camatte and Perlman and Live Wild or Die! And all that shit.

'twas a brief dalliance though, albeit with lingering affectations. The consequence of (mis)mixing ultra left politics and a love of wilderness.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> Vegans.


 
I was a nightmare as a vegan, but when i got into 'anti-consumerism' thats when i got really bad. Started briefy dating this lass who i had a massive crush on for ages and then i screwed it up by lecturing her about the fact she had a mobile phone


----------



## Dillinger4 (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> I was a nightmare as a vegan, but when i got into 'anti-consumerism' thats when i got really bad. Started briefy dating this lass who i had a massive crush on for ages and then i screwed it up by lecturing her about the fact she had a mobile phone


 

fuck the system


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Oh I read Zerzan....and Camatte and Perlman and Live Wild or Die! And all that shit.
> 
> 'twas a brief dalliance though, albeit with lingering affectations. The consequence of (mis)mixing ultra left politics and a love of wilderness.


 
Zerzan is still on my to-read list. Its ironic i was so into those kinda ideas when in reality even when going to a public park i never walk off the designated path, in case i get mud on me or something!


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)




----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Zerzan is still on my to-read list. Its ironic i was so into those kinda ideas when in reality even when going to a public park i never walk off the designated path, in case i get mud on me or something!



Early Zerzan is worth a read. The later stuff is unreadable dreck.


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Zerzan is still on my to-read list. Its ironic i was so into those kinda ideas when in reality even when going to a public park i never walk off the designated path, in case i get mud on me or something!



...these days I get my wilderness kicks camping, hiking, climbing etc in inhospitable places rather than dreaming of reducing suburbia into boreal forest.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

i read the unabomber manifesto. and then i used to utter half digested ramblings about 'leftists' afterwards. I think my strong catholic upbringing has always put an impediment in the way of me rising above slave morality


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Early Zerzan is worth a read. The later stuff is unreadable dreck.


 
nah, i want full blown primmo rather than class war stuff. Stuff thats like "yeah we do want a big fucking die off whats the fucking problem with that'....if you can offer any readings are even more hardcore and misanthropic than zerzan then do share!!!


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

Fuck me. 

Primitivism fuck me, makes me political journey looks sensible.


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

Feral Faun perhaps? Wolfi Landstreicher maybe?

Wander over to the US Green Anarchy site (if it's still up), they have tonnes of terrible shit.

I can't stomach this stuff now.

You can see echoes of it in the dire Informal Anarchist stuff.

Fucking awful.

I blame Earth Crisis.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

yep. veganism- AR - Primmo Pretensions - (leftist-ish)Islamism. embarressing doesnt get anywhere close!


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> Fuck me.
> 
> Primitivism fuck me, makes me political journey looks sensible.



Some (and really only some) of the early Primmo stuff is at least mildly thought provoking, even if wrong.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Feral Faun perhaps? Wolfi Landstreicher maybe?
> 
> Wander over to the US Green Anarchy site (if it's still up), they have tonnes of terrible shit.
> 
> ...


 
Dont slag off earth crisis!!!!!! It all started off for me when hearing an earth crisis song for the first time, when a hangover was coming on at 4am and i had to head to my factory job in 2 hours...

ETA - cheers for the headsup for the primmo-porn!!


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

...but let's be honest/realistic for a moment, Primitivism was only ever highly marginal in the 90s scene in the UK, even at it's height. It had no major strategical or theoretical impact on what happened, or where the movement(s) went.


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Started briefy dating this lass who i had a massive crush on for ages


 
Ah, so it can happen.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

yeah agreed. think it had a bigger impact in the US. Being honest i was more on the music-subcultural side of things than the politics.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> Ah, so it can happen.


 
yeah once. nothingn like that has happened since alas.


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Dont slag off earth crisis!!!!!! It all started off for me when hearing an earth crisis song for the first time, when a hangover was coming on at 4am and i had to head to my factory job in 2 hours...
> 
> ETA - cheers for the headsup for the primmo-porn!!



Careful now.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> yep. veganism- AR - Primmo Pretensions - (leftist-ish)Islamism. embarressing doesnt get anywhere close!


 

oh fuck me 

yeah mine was like teenage anti-fascist bollocks, then leftist-ish zionism (lol) then george galloway-type anti-imperialist stuff and then joining the Socialist Party. Now no idea where im headed politically, dotty will be annoyed but also laugh if it's dogs on string and bakunin lol


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Careful now.


 
Run girl, Ruuun!!!


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Careful now.


 
Very aware of those dangers  this could have been me very easily.


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> oh fuck me
> 
> yeah mine was like teenage anti-fascist bollocks, then leftist-ish zionism (lol) then george galloway-type anti-imperialist stuff and then joining the Socialist Party. Now no idea where im headed politically, dotty will be annoyed but also laugh if it's dogs on string and bakunin lol


 
Thats waay more respectful than mine. There was definately right wing dimensions in my political being. You are on the right thread for the bakunin dog scenario to evolve. You can have my heinz 57 mongrel if you want


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

Me, bottom left, in more innocent times...


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Thats waay more respectful than mine. There was definately right wing dimensions in my political being. You are on the right thread for the bakunin dog scenario to evolve. You can have my heinz 57 mongrel if you want


 

oh god there was right wing dimensions with me as well.


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Me, bottom left, in more innocent times...


 
Where's your bag of sugar?


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> oh god there was right wing dimensions with me as well.


 
totally denied it at the time, would never have identified as 'right-wing' but when i think back to the shit i believed back in teh day based on what i know now about politics i shudder.


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

stuff_it said:


> Where's your bag of sugar?



No need for sugar. The tide was on its way in...


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Me, bottom left, in more innocent times...


 
Thats an awesome picture. Me and my peeps would have probably called y'all drunk punks or something but would have felt secretly ashamed of ourselves by the fact that youse were actually doing the stuff we fantasised/pontificated about.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

I was a complete prick when I was an anti-imperialist to be honest.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Zerzan is still on my to-read list. Its ironic i was so into those kinda ideas when in reality even when going to a public park i never walk off the designated path, in case i get mud on me or something!



I read Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization when it came out, and it was a therapeutic read (hearing someone moan so well about society) even though I didnt agree with the conclusions, the logic of which felt like defeatism - primitivism is the ultimate retreat really


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> I was a complete prick when I was an anti-imperialist to be honest.


 
in your zionist-leftist phase were you influenced by the 'anti-germans'?


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> Me, bottom left, in more innocent times...



Always makes me think of photos like this...


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> in your zionist-leftist phase were you influenced by the 'anti-germans'?


 

I was a teenager when this was going on and I think I may have read some stuff by them, but not realised what it was/who it was by  I was a bit of a conspiraloon as well though and believed in Saudi etc conspiracies


----------



## xslavearcx (Jun 12, 2013)

listening to earth crisis just now 

_"Reject the anthropocentric falsehood that maintains the oppressive hierarchy of mankind  over the animals. It's time to set them free"_

I used to love using that word anthropocentric. think im gonna bring that back into the vocabulary...

​


----------



## seventh bullet (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> oh fuck me
> 
> yeah mine was like teenage anti-fascist bollocks, then leftist-ish zionism (lol) then george galloway-type anti-imperialist stuff and then joining the Socialist Party. Now no idea where im headed politically, dotty will be annoyed but also laugh if it's dogs on string and bakunin lol



My mum was a half-arsed Stalinist, so a different influence than mongrel-owning smelly people swigging from tinnies. 

Probably played a part in my developing an interest in not only dead Russians but M-L movements/governments in other countries.


----------



## Lorca (Jun 12, 2013)

that derek jensen/dr doolittle bloke's a bit of a tool innit. i read one of his books once, he was like taaalking with the wolves maaaan


----------



## ska invita (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Oh god clown activism... wtf was that all about lol!!!


Wasn't this originally a "dont beat the fuck out of us plod, we're just clowns" tactic?


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 12, 2013)

ska invita said:


> Wasn't this originally a "dont beat the fuck out of us plod, we're just clowns" tactic?


No, it was a give us money liberal idiots thing.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 12, 2013)

Give us money?  Who pays for the pleasure?


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 12, 2013)

Liberal funding groups. On phone so can't find examples right now, but will look when back later. I think we probably exposed some of them on here at the time.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 12, 2013)

thats funny - everyones got make a living i guess


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

FWIW if my memory isnt playing tricks on me, I'm pretty sure we turned down offers of funding for the Earth First! Action Update (roughly around the time of Scnews getting stuff off the Levellers) because of the dangers inherent in being funded.


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 12, 2013)

frogwoman said:


> I am interested in hearing about the road protests and reading a bit more about them, because they sound like they were both a lot of fun and really politicised a lot of people. The only memories I have of it are like hearing about "swampy" and so on on the news. There seems like a lot of direct action was around then too, when I was a kid I loved animals and the idea of Hunt Sabs and how they would stop fox hunts. I would still have loved to have been around when all that was going on


 
i was.  it was alright, but basically the same nonsense that goes on today, just disseminated by zines and word of mouth rather than on the internet.  and no matter how good you felt about it, some prick would ruin it somehow.


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 12, 2013)

Dillinger4 said:


> That George McKay book is pretty good. The other one he did is pretty good as well.
> 
> Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance by George McKay


 

some of my 'work' is photographed in that


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

Don't tread on my childhood image of superhero-type people saving cute foxes from certain death


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> http://libcom.org/library/m11-anti-road-aufheben


 
from that link:

"4. Beyond the M11
Claremont Road was evicted at the end of 1994. The eviction saw the end of the No M11 campaign in its form as an existence of thoroughgoing struggle."

This is simply not true.  The campaign continued on for another two years, albeit smaller, but no less an existence of struggle.  the author has completely dismissed the hard work of dozens of campaigners who continued a full-time life of fighting in the courts, trees, and squats.  evictions, bulldozings, camps, actions, all kept on going in other places


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 12, 2013)

el-ahrairah said:


> from that link:
> 
> "4. Beyond the M11
> Claremont Road was evicted at the end of 1994. The eviction saw the end of the No M11 campaign in its form as an existence of thoroughgoing struggle."
> ...


Long long time since I read that piece, nearly 20 years. I think their argument wasn't that these later struggles didn't happen (and I know they know they did as the authors participated in them, as they had also done up to that point ) but that after that point they became inward focused defensive struggles as opposed to the previous expansive ones. 

(Hope that i've recalled right, should do as I spent ages putting it online for the first aufheben site)


----------



## el-ahrairah (Jun 12, 2013)

oh, i see, ta   i had a sudden attack of being-written-out-of-history and got all sad.


----------



## chilango (Jun 12, 2013)

el-ahrairah said:


> i was.  it was alright, but basically the same nonsense that goes on today, just disseminated by zines and word of mouth rather than on the internet.  and no matter how good you felt about it, some prick would ruin it somehow.



Nah. It was better than that.


----------



## Kizmet (Jun 12, 2013)

Claremont Road was quite influential in the area... and for long after.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 12, 2013)

newbie said:


> my first thought on seeing this thread title was to find a longterm graph of videogame sales, but I can't on 30sec googling so you'll have to imagine one.
> 
> second thought is that the 90s were a fairly dull period when the level of youth rebellion was rather low. Compared to the 80s and particularly the 70s when me and my mates were up to all the things we could get up to. That was real, it mattered, we meant it, we were trying to change the world and although we got battered and bruised into submission our attempts would stand as a beacon to be built on. The 90s just kindof rolled through without much to motivate me, just a bunch of kids with marginal ideas messing around. I spent most of the 90s (not to mention noughties and tensies) poised and ready for them, the kids, to click, to become politicised, to rebel, to express a real identity and commitment to change. Still I wait....


 
Frankly though, what message do you think that a majority of kids in the '80s took with them into the '90s and beyond? From what I can make out from younger siblings and relatives and their friends, what many of them took from it was "keep your head down and don't stand up for yourself against 'the system' unless you want to be smacked down".
I'd argue kids have been indoctrinated to that in the same way our generations were indoctrinated to the Protestant fucking Work Ethic.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 12, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> Thats what i would really like to know...


 
Everything from still being "on the road" to "working for the man" as administrators, academics and assistant mangaers.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Jun 12, 2013)

ska invita said:


> my impression of that was that it acted something like a training camp, that taught direct action skills to an increasingly hardened core group who then went on to do all kinds of other activism. Could say it was an equivalent of revolutionaries who in the 60s and 70s went off to other countries to learn guerrilla warfare. The people ive known who were involved with Roads were the most hardy activists after the fact. Is that fair to say?
> 
> Should also say there were committed activists throughout the 80s who also had an important role in handing down skills. Your point about dole and student grants is an interesting one - it definitely feels more unafordable to drop out and do full time activism than it did. (not that i ever did)
> 
> ...


 
TAZs are still tainted by the behaviour of their main theoriser and proponent. Mention a TAZ and some people shout "nonce cahhhnt!!!" still, I'm afraid.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 12, 2013)

chilango said:


> There were a lot of often contradictory ideas floating around and influencing people. Green liberalism, trottery, old school anarchopunk, pacifism. Class struggle anarchism, Autonomism, situationism, nationalism and regionalism, and anti-civ/primitivism.
> 
> Fell for the primmo stuff myself briefly.


 
Until you realised that eating your food after it had been cooked tasted better.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 12, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> TAZs are still tainted by the behaviour of their main theoriser and proponent. Mention a TAZ and some people shout "nonce cahhhnt!!!" still, I'm afraid.


Hakim Bey aside though I guess Occupy was sort of a TAZ, all the square occupations around the world have TAZ elements to them - perhaps the difference being that they are less temporary. So yeah, not sure if the TAZ thing has gone away or not... perhaps still there but in a different form to those of Reclaim The Streets (?).

Its a real shame that with Hakim Bey - I enjoy his writing on the whole.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 12, 2013)

ska invita said:


> Hakim Bey aside though I guess Occupy was sort of a TAZ, all the square occupations around the world have TAZ elements to them - perhaps the difference being that they are less temporary. So yeah, not sure if the TAZ thing has gone away or not... perhaps still there but in a different form to those of Reclaim The Streets (?).
> 
> Its a real shame that with Hakim Bey - I enjoy his writing on the whole.


 
His political stuff, fine. His poetic praise for catamites, not so much.


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## where to (Jun 12, 2013)

Capitalism is much faster at coopting youth culture these days.


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## frogwoman (Jun 12, 2013)

how do you mean, like with che-t-shirts etc? lol


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## where to (Jun 13, 2013)

frogwoman said:
			
		

> how do you mean, like with che-t-shirts etc? lol



Anything new, basically. Wasn't thinking about che t's, no


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## Dillinger4 (Jun 13, 2013)

el-ahrairah said:


> some of my 'work' is photographed in that


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## kenny g (Jun 13, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> His political stuff, fine. His poetic praise for catamites, not so much.


 

The argument made by some is that his politics is clouded by the revelling in abuse of children. I can't take the political writings seriously anymore. Keep just want to scream, "what about the children!". The guy is a complete fake.

It's like Allen Ginsberg- for all the weasel words he was a supporter of NAMBLA and I look at him with his fucking tamborine and shitty dress sense as just another sick man on the prowl.


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## Coolfonz (Jun 13, 2013)

At the start of this thread Sweetpea said she was kind of distanced by all the folks who start going on about post-this or that ism this or that writer this or that group and in seven pages people are just going on about exactly this kind of thing.
Can you explain your politics to the crowd at say...i dunno...a racecourse, a channel ferry, Adsa, an aiport? And take most of them with you? That's the trick...

The demos in the 90s and early 00s were big, especially Genoa - and we were right about modern economics - but we didn't tell Adsa.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 13, 2013)

But is Taz something dreamed up by mr pedo or is it something that happened generally in practice taht he just theorised about after the event?


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## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2013)

Coolfonz said:


> At the start of this thread Sweetpea said she was kind of distanced by all the folks who start going on about post-this or that ism this or that writer this or that group and in seven pages people are just going on about exactly this kind of thing.
> Can you explain your politics to the crowd at say...i dunno...a racecourse, a channel ferry, Adsa, an aiport? And take most of them with you? That's the trick...
> 
> The demos in the 90s and early 00s were big, especially Genoa - and we were right about modern economics - but we didn't tell Adsa.


No they're not. And I didn't realise that you and sweetpea had decided what could be talked about and how.


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## chilango (Jun 14, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> No they're not. And I didn't realise that you and sweetpea had decided what could be talked about and how.



Quite. There's very little actual "politics" in any of the posts on this thread. Merely mentioning a writer/book/tendency isn't exactly taxing on the reader is it?

I deliberately kept my posts "lite". I'm quite happy to do a pretty "throwaway" discussion of this stuff, y'know anecdotes, chit chat etc. augmented by the odd more serious link that people can read or not read.

But this subject does warrant a heavier duty analysis too. Whether that's on this thread or elsewhere.

I guess it depends on whether you believe nostalgia is enough.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 14, 2013)

i'd definately like to see a more heavy duty analysis now ive got the nostalgia out my system


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## 8115 (Jun 14, 2013)

Coolfonz said:


> The demos in the 90s and early 00s were big, especially Genoa - and we were right about modern economics - but we didn't tell Adsa.


 
What demos in the 90s? Because to my memory and understanding, the second wave of protest kicked off with Seattle, followed by Genoa, and there wasn't much in that vein before, it was more roads/ animal rights/ other things.

The discussion on the other thread that led to this was how much connection there was between 90s protest, and why the energy that seemed to be around died out.

I think one of the reasons could be the higher level of violence (at least against property) now, meaning the police have cracked down a lot more. Animal rights was (is?) a violent movement in some ways but that was distributed and covert making it difficult to tackle. People on the streets smashing windows is in plain sight for one and the police love public order policing, for second.


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## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2013)

Are you serious in asking what demos in the 90s?


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## chilango (Jun 14, 2013)

8115 said:


> What demos in the 90s? Because to my memory and understanding, the second wave of protest kicked off with Seattle, followed by Genoa, and there wasn't much in that vein before, it was more roads/ animal rights/ other things.
> 
> The discussion on the other thread that led to this was how much connection there was between 90s protest, and why the energy that seemed to be around died out.
> 
> I think one of the reasons could be the higher level of violence (at least against property) now, meaning the police have cracked down a lot more. Animal rights was (is?) a violent movement in some ways but that was distributed and covert making it difficult to tackle. People on the streets smashing windows is in plain sight for one and the police love public order policing, for second.



I'm sorry but you seem to have got pretty much everything in this post wrong!

Seattle was arguably the culmination of a wave of protest rather than the start. Albeit one that in itself spawned a number of echoes and attempted repetitions.

...and most of the stuff in the 90s contained a FAR higher level of property damage than broken windows. It was a core feature of much that went on.

I can expand later if needs be.


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## 8115 (Jun 14, 2013)

chilango said:


> I'm sorry but you seem to have got pretty much everything in this post wrong!


 
That's fine.  That's one reason why I'm interested.


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## chilango (Jun 14, 2013)

Cool. I'll expand later on then!


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## Coolfonz (Jun 14, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> No they're not. And I didn't realise that you and sweetpea had decided what could be talked about and how.


I don't know what you mean by `no they're not`. And I'm not telling you what to say.

So if you want some more analysis. All the lifestyle stuff, all the `alternative` stuff has to go. It's not how you change things. It isn't remotely relevant to most people's lives. Squats, kettling, chucking tins cans at lines of paramilitary OB, Guerilla Gardening...to me it felt like people didn't really take the changes they wanted seriously. Leftist/radical/anarchist (whatever you'd like to call it) action does not revolve around some feeble re-hash of the 1970s punk scene, talking broadly here. So many bad experiences with `anarchists` who were nothing more than individualists stuck in some kind of uniformed time warp, looking down their noses at the general public...
You can still believe exactly the same things in your head, take all the influences from any writer/era/action you care to - seriously, that is where you should never sell out - but you (plural) cannot present yourself to the public in the way the protests did in 1996-2001. That should be obvious.

There is a huge wave of resentment of politicians, capital and the system in general at the moment and you don't tap into it by doing crazy dredd clown nude-biking don't eat foxes soundsystem autonomous spaces.

Much as i like loud (house) music, nudity and foxes...

Just in case you think I'm 100pc negative I'm not. There were/are many inspiring/interesting and excellent people in the wider `movement` who have done and still are doing amazing things.

It's the broader thing. Like I say, when `we` can pull a ferry load of day trippers to Calais with us, that will be much more potent...and it can be done.


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## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2013)

Coolfonz said:


> I don't know what you mean by `no they're not`. And I'm not telling you what to say.
> 
> So if you want some more analysis. All the lifestyle stuff, all the `alternative` stuff has to go. It's not how you change things. It isn't remotely relevant to most people's lives. Squats, kettling, chucking tins cans at lines of paramilitary OB, Guerilla Gardening...to me it felt like people didn't really take the changes they wanted seriously. Leftist/radical/anarchist (whatever you'd like to call it) action does not revolve around some feeble re-hash of the 1970s punk scene, talking broadly here. So many bad experiences with `anarchists` who were nothing more than individualists stuck in some kind of uniformed time warp, looking down their noses at the general public...
> You can still believe exactly the same things in your head, take all the influences from any writer/era/action you care to - seriously, that is where you should never sell out - but you (plural) cannot present yourself to the public in the way the protests did in 1996-2001. That should be obvious.
> ...


By "no it's not" i'm saying that what you said was happening on thread and finger wagging about was not happening.

And you seem to have missed the point of the thread which was to a) for participants to stroll down memory lane and b) point out why so little substantive stuff came out it. Not to say,_ hey let's do all that stuff again, it's exactly what's needed right now! _Which is why no one on the thread did that either. And there were plenty pointing out your points above at the time - and before that in the 80s against the anarcho-punks or pacifists, and in the 70s against the hippies and in the 60s against the CND coffe house liberals and so on....


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 14, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> But is Taz something dreamed up by mr pedo or is it something that happened generally in practice taht he just theorised about after the event?


 
Hakim Bey came up with an explanation of an existing phenomenon, he didn't dream TAZs up.


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## 8115 (Jun 14, 2013)

gunface said:


> Surely it all culminated in the protests against us invading Iraq?
> 
> Millions of people of all creeds colours persuasions out voicing their opinion peacefully with absolutely no incident, the London one was biggest demonstration in British history, and nothing went wrong. Oh, except that the army is still in Iraq


 

I don't think the Iraq protests were irrelevant (far from it) but I don't think they were massively relevant to this discussion because the vast majority of people who participated were otherwise relatively politically inactive, that was one of the massive strengths of them.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 14, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> Hakim Bey came up with an explanation of an existing phenomenon, he didn't dream TAZs up.


 
thats what i thought. guess, if there is any value to that approach, it be best to drop that name then


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## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> thats what i thought. guess, if there is any value to that approach, it be best to drop that name then


 
IIRC there was a piece in the class war discussion bulletin thing sometime in the 80s asking _what happens *after* the police fuck off_ - which puts the idea in a a very simple way whilst opening up the idea that communities are going to face serious problems when they do and the need for them to identify and have answers to those problems.


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## Coolfonz (Jun 14, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> By "no it's not" i'm saying that what you said was happening on thread and finger wagging about was not happening.
> 
> And you seem to have missed the point of the thread which was to a) for participants to stroll down memory lane and b) point out why so little substantive stuff came out it. Not to say,_ hey let's do all that stuff again, it's exactly what's needed right now! _Which is why no one on the thread did that either. And there were plenty pointing out your points above at the time - and before that in the 80s against the anarcho-punks or pacifists, and in the 70s against the hippies and in the 60s against the CND coffe house liberals and so on....


 
ok fair enough


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## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2013)

Coolfonz said:


> ok fair enough


 
No worries, i think the thread chilango may do later would be a good place to discuss this sort of stuff in and why so much of it failed - on the social level anyway, it did work for individuals, but that again, may well have been one of the problems. And what this means for us today.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 14, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> IIRC there was a piece in the class war discussion bulletin thing sometime in the 80s asking _what happens *after* the police fuck off_ - which puts the idea in a a very simple way whilst opening up the idea that communities are going to face serious problems when they do and the need for them to identify and have answers to those problems.


 
I reckon that maybe one of the positive legacys of the 90s movement could be the kind of accumulated experience that would come with people living on protest cites and how they manage group dynamics in a way that is guided by 'left-wing' principles. Perhaps?


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## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> I reckon that maybe one of the positive legacys of the 90s movement could be the kind of accumulated experience that would come with people living on protest cites and how they manage group dynamics in a way that is guided by 'left-wing' principles. Perhaps?


 
I think most experience is potentially socially useful in itself, but not so useful it it's hidden away as part of an activist ghetto or the jealosuly guarded as the property of specialists - so yes...and no


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 14, 2013)

gunface said:


> The Iraq protests were done on their terms.


 
Which is why some of the student protests, purely in propaganda terms, worked better. They tore up the rule-book and staged protests on their terms.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 14, 2013)

true true. i guess that kinda experience can useful for the setting up of some third sector single issue group .. with paid positions of course


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## xslavearcx (Jun 14, 2013)

gunface said:


> Shut the fuck up donny


 
?


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## 8115 (Jun 14, 2013)

gunface said:


> The Iraq protests were (...) like the Olympics


 


They were a bit actually.  Safe, state sponsored expression.  Everyone felt much better afterwards and the status quo continued.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 14, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> I think most experience is potentially socially useful in itself, but not so useful it it's hidden away as part of an activist ghetto or the jealosuly guarded as the property of specialists - so yes...and no


 
Janus!


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## butchersapron (Jun 14, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> ?


 
Ignore him, he's a many times banned poster who hates himself and thinks its the fault of people better than him on here and he now just comes back (three times in the last 24 hours) to try and fuck up decent threads that they're on.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 14, 2013)

aahh cool cheers...


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## chilango (Jun 14, 2013)

Just to address the couple of points made earlier...



8115 said:


> What demos in the 90s? Because to my memory and understanding, the second wave of protest kicked off with Seattle, followed by Genoa, and there wasn't much in that vein before, it was more roads/ animal rights/ other things.



There seems to be a myth, created after the fact, that Seattle was the start of something. Partly this is down to groups like the SWP (and I suspect plenty of others) who hadn't been involved prior to this and who didn't really pay much attention to what led to the events in Seattle. They preferred to re-write a history that showed them present at the beginning. It is also the case that postSeattle the summit hopping protests followed a more familiar choreography and used a more familiar language for the recuperators (be they liberal or Leninst).

Equally it would unfair to start a chronology of the 90s protests at, say, Twyford Down or the July 94 antiCJB demo, without mentioning the elements of continuity from various strands before them. Stop the City, Battle of the Beanfield, the Poll Tax amongst many many others fed into creating what happened in the mid 90s.

To be more specific though, Seattle followed the worldwide J18 protests which themselves followed some anti G8 type RTS thing in Birmingham. The move towards antiglobalization had been ongoing for sometime thru the PGA, the Zapatistas and many others. There was also a concerted push towards explicit anti capitalism from some of the more organised (and influential) elements in RTS and Earth First!





8115 said:


> I think one of the reasons could be the higher level of violence (at least against property) now, meaning the police have cracked down a lot more. Animal rights was (is?) a violent movement in some ways but that was distributed and covert making it difficult to tackle. People on the streets smashing windows is in plain sight for one and the police love public order policing, for second.




As for this, without going into too much detail, there were in the 90s thousands of incidents of serious property damage that you simply couldn't do now post 9/11. From the underground there was the ELF, the Justice Department, Animal Rights Militia and so on... There was the widespread trashing of machinery, physical attacks on property (and on at least one occasion security guards) destructive office occupations, GM trials destroyed etc etc. Antifascism was physically militant too. Welling, Waterloo and many others. In July 94 the mob attempted to storm Downing St, widespread rioting in Oct 94 driving the police from Hyde Park. Oh yes, there was plenty of burning, smashing and fighting on a scale we've yet to see repeated since on protests in the UK.


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## xslavearcx (Jun 14, 2013)

chilango said:


> They preferred to re-write a history that showed them present at the beginning.


 
Globalise Resistance!!!


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## 8115 (Jun 14, 2013)

I still think that in terms of popular/ mass/ media consciousness Seattle was the beginning of something at least.


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## lazythursday (Jun 14, 2013)

I spent time at an environmental protest in the early 90s - the protest camp to save Abbey Pond in Hulme in Manchester. Smaller scale than most of the higher profile road protests etc but following a similar pattern / type of people / tactics. What really struck me at the time was how divorced many of the people were from wider left wing politics - lots of quite deep greens, people who thought environmental politics was somehow different to the left/right divide. Surprising amount of homophobic comments - not 'natural' and probably due to pollution...

Later I was at most of the RTS events and a few anti-GM things though not really an activist. I suppose that we shouldn't forget that in many ways some of these protests were really successful - GM has never taken off in the UK, the roads programme was pretty much halted for many years - they just didn't have the potential to grow into something bigger because they were rooted in a sector of the population that defined itself as being different from the general population.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 15, 2013)

8115 said:


> I still think that in terms of popular/ mass/ media consciousness Seattle was the beginning of something at least.


 

Possibly the "beginning" of various states arming themselves to deal with the trans-national nature of dissent, at least.


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 15, 2013)

8115 said:


> I still think that in terms of popular/ mass/ media consciousness Seattle was the beginning of something at least.


 
What does my mum think of Seattle?


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## 8115 (Jun 15, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> What does my mum think of Seattle?


 

I don't know.  Ask her.


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## butchersapron (Jun 15, 2013)

She doesn't know what it is - so didn't really go that mass consciousness did it?


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 16, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> What does my mum think of Seattle?


 
Good coffee, shit weather?


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## 8115 (Jun 16, 2013)

I love the way Butcherapron's mum is the arbiter of mass consciousness.


----------



## cesare (Jun 16, 2013)

8115 said:


> I love the way Butcherapron's mum is the arbiter of mass consciousness.


Don't be fucking stupid.


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## smokedout (Jun 16, 2013)

bet she remembers Swampy and the eco-warriors, that was ten years earlier, Seattle really was the end, in the UK at least


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## 8115 (Jun 16, 2013)

cesare said:


> Don't be fucking stupid.


 
Sorry.


----------



## cesare (Jun 16, 2013)

8115 said:


> Sorry.


I bet hardly anyone has heard of Seattle outside a very limited "scene".

I just tried it with my b/f btw. "What does Seattle mean to you?"

" Starbucks. Oh, and Nirvana"


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## 8115 (Jun 16, 2013)

cesare said:


> I bet hardly anyone has heard of Seattle outside a very limited "scene".


 
That is not true. I remember clearly, I was in my second year at university and I used to read the Guardian every day on the way to university. I did not access or know about any less mainstream media (I had read No Logo but that was about it) and I was very aware of what happened in Seattle, possibly even the build up, which must have been from the mainstream media and papers.


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## cesare (Jun 16, 2013)

8115 said:


> That is not true. I remember clearly, I was in my second year at university and I used to read the Guardian every day on the way to university. I did not access or know about any less mainstream media (I had read No Logo but that was about it) and I was very aware of what happened in Seattle, possibly even the build up, which must have been from the mainstream media and papers.


Just because you remember clearly, doesn't mean that it entered "mass consciousness". It hasn't. I hadn't heard of it before this thread. My b/f hadn't heard of it (and he's far more politically aware than me). I could go into a supermarket or pub and ask every customer and employee the same question and I bet hardly anyone would know what I was talking about.


----------



## 8115 (Jun 16, 2013)

cesare said:


> Just because you remember clearly, doesn't mean that it entered "mass consciousness". It hasn't. I hadn't heard of it before this thread. My b/f hadn't heard of it (and he's far more politically aware than me). I could go into a supermarket or pub and ask every customer and employee the same question and I bet hardly anyone would know what I was talking about.


 
Ok, well that's an empirical question. That's interesting. I have always assumed it was widely known of.


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## smokedout (Jun 16, 2013)

8115 said:


> That is not true. I remember clearly, I was in my second year at university and I used to read the Guardian every day on the way to university.


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## 8115 (Jun 16, 2013)

smokedout said:


>


 

Well, sorry for trying to educate myself with what I could lay my hands on.


----------



## smokedout (Jun 16, 2013)




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## free spirit (Jun 17, 2013)

8115 said:


> What demos in the 90s? Because to my memory and understanding, the second wave of protest kicked off with Seattle, followed by Genoa, and there wasn't much in that vein before, it was more roads/ animal rights/ other things.
> 
> The discussion on the other thread that led to this was how much connection there was between 90s protest, and why the energy that seemed to be around died out.
> 
> I think one of the reasons could be the higher level of violence (at least against property) now, meaning the police have cracked down a lot more. Animal rights was (is?) a violent movement in some ways but that was distributed and covert making it difficult to tackle. People on the streets smashing windows is in plain sight for one and the police love public order policing, for second.


 
that's the fucking westernised media for you - until a major protest happens in the USA it ain't news.

That wave of anti-neoliberalist globalisation protests was called by a group known as People's Global Action, who were (are??) a militant international network of social movements / protest organisations who's main support base was actually South & Central America, India, Phillipines, Africa - the 'Global South', aimed at resisting the global race to the bottom of the neoliberalist globalisation agenda. PGA also had European, American and Australian networks, with RTS being the UK conveners / representatives (lots of cross over between RTS & Earth First networks), and movements such as Taute Blanch in Italy.

PGA organised huge global and regional social forums in South America, Europe, Asia. In 1997 PGA called for global demonstrations against the G7 meeting scheduled for summer of 98, and as European conveners, Reclaim The Streets then stepped up and put out a global call for a global street party / protest on the day of the G8 meeting in the UK, with RTS taking over the bullring area of Brum for most of the day, and simultaneous street parties / protests occurring in something like 100 cities world wide, along with major protests (not really of the street party type) in many of the countries across South America, Asia, Africa etc.

That was the first in the series of co-ordinated global set piece protests against the neoliberal globalisation agenda.

Then in 1999 there was J18 timed to protest the G8 summit in Cologne (with a major protest in Cologne), which in the UK saw RTS - this time with full backing from Earth First affilliated groups from around the UK, taking over a significant chunk of the city of London for most of the day, with simultaneous protests again in well over a hundred cities world wide.

This is the back drop to Seattle, which took place on N30, and similarly was called by PGA, was supported internationally with protests all over the world, although actually it was probably less well supported internationally in terms of events elsewhere than J18 - certainly the case in the UK, but in terms of the protest itself in Seattle it was massive, with 300,000 or so thought to have taken part, and some pretty full on police violence and protestors not backing down. Seattle was also the point where several major unions and more established western socialist organisations really started to get involved, and the point at which the SWP apparently decided the movement really needed them at the vanguard of it........ aka sucking the life out of it.

That was also the point where the neoliberal project did start to hit the buffers, with many of the representatives from the global south saying afterwards that they took heart from the protests and they were instrumental in giving them the strength to say no to the G7 countries railroading their plans through.

As to what happened to the movement... well much of it, or linked groupings have been in power across much of South America, establishing their own alternatives to the IMF, World Bank etc. And in Europe IMO the original groups who had kicked this all off, basically got marginalised and kicked out of the organisation of the Euopean Social Forum by swappie cunts and their ilk, then repeatedly shafted by them in 2005 in Gleneagles when it became clear they viewed us as being as much the enemy to be crushed as they did the neoliberalists.

So what happened.... IMO the movement suffered from a swappie take over, with those who'd been instrumental to the global movement exploding internationally in the way it had ending up being marginalised and forced out, along with massive levels of state infiltration, plus burn out, and just life and babies and stuff getting in the way. Plus the dissillusionment that came from the mishandling of the anti Iraq war protests / us allowing the stop the war coalition to take complete control of the movement, then doing nothing with it beyond a big A-B march, then go home and wait for the war to start... plus the extreme levels of violence seen in Genoa.

Plus a fair degree of disillusionment with a lot of stuff that went on within the 'movement', which I think led to a lot of people walking away. Stuff like having a policy of not co-operating properly with the press / not having spokespeople, consensus decision making processes not really working / being abused, and all being held responsible for a few black blockers deciding to trash the shops immediately next to our camp in Stirling, despite an understanding that Stirling wouldn't be touched in exchange for hosting our camp... that sort of thing.

Stuff like J18 and Gleneagles takes a fuck of a lot of work to organise by a fuck of a lot of people, and they need to be pretty well motivated and enthusiastic to put in that level of commitment. Once they get dissillusioned, it can all stop pretty quickly if nobody else is stepping up to the plate to take over / if those taking over aren't very good at it.


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## free spirit (Jun 17, 2013)

at least that's my slightly garbelled attempt to condense 15 years into one post, with some personal perspectives included.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 17, 2013)

8115 said:


> That is not true. I remember clearly, I was in my second year at university and I used to read the Guardian every day on the way to university. I did not access or know about any less mainstream media (I had read No Logo but that was about it) and I was very aware of what happened in Seattle, possibly even the build up, which must have been from the mainstream media and papers.


 
So being a uni inmate doesn't comprise a "limited scene", then?

If you ever have the opportunity, have a browse of the redtops, in fact all the UK tabloids around the time of Seattle. Those that reported it at all, reported it on the basis of some kind of *spontaneous* social unrest, and although the broadsheets were a little more thorough, they still mostly avoided projecting it as part of an emergent global anti-capitalist movement.


----------



## smokedout (Jun 17, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> So being a uni inmate doesn't comprise a "limited scene", then?
> 
> If you ever have the opportunity, have a browse of the redtops, in fact all the UK tabloids around the time of Seattle. Those that reported it at all, reported it on the basis of some kind of *spontaneous* social unrest, and although the broadsheets were a little more thorough, they still mostly avoided projecting it as part of an emergent global anti-capitalist movement.


 
from what I recall Euston got more tabloid attention than what happened in Seattle at the same time, mostly because they had a sexy picture of a punk bloke dancing on a burning police van


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## chilango (Jun 17, 2013)

iirc lots of the local groups had come out against doing much on N30, especially a big "national thing" wary of being drawn into ritualistic set pieces. Which is exactly what happened.


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## free spirit (Jun 18, 2013)

chilango said:


> iirc lots of the local groups had come out against doing much on N30, especially a big "national thing" wary of being drawn into ritualistic set pieces. Which is exactly what happened.


 
yep.

I'm pretty sure none of our lot went, vs J18 where we had a week of actions, and it was all the regional groups who were out doing the autonomous actions across the city on J18 all morning prior to the main action, as well as dishing out evading standards (we had ten of us dishing out bundles of it to commuters inside kings cross for an hour or so in the morning rush hour), and erm well yeah stuff.

Running rings around the police like on J18 takes a lot of time to organise, and did require the assistance of the groups of committed experienced activists from the regional groups to pull off. Hence N30 ending up as the first kettled protest.

I'm not sure the regional groups entirely rejected set piece demos, more that they were against doing another so soon after J18 as they didn't think it was enough time to organise it properly, and wanted to also spend some time being able to focus on activities more locally to them rather than going straight back into organising for N30.

I also really didn't like the whole concept that had been come up with for the protest, it wasn't something I was going to risk arrest for.

We were certainly back for Mayday the next year, and the preceding conference thing. We didn't go back after that though, due to the shitness of the plan for the action, resulting in many of us ending up trapped in traf square with nowt to do, no back up etc. (and erm a certain someone getting nicked for no particularly good reason).


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## free spirit (Jun 18, 2013)

eta - IMO the shitness of the plan for mayday was linked to the splits in the movement over N30, with the London lot mostly organising the Mayday think without asking for help, which would have been forthcoming, despite I think the London RTS remnants being pretty burned out after J18 & N30. I think without N30 that Mayday could have been as good as J18.

Water under the bridge now mind, but worth remembering that J18 was only achieved with the active support of a lot of experienced activist groups from the regions, and without that support N30 & Mayday weren't anything like as good / well organised (maybe partly down to differing levels of police infiltration in the regions vs London as well).


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## xslavearcx (Jun 18, 2013)

finding this dead interesting free spirit... i know you mentioned earlier that that kinda 'movement' lost momentum for x y and z reasons. so my question is, is there any continuity with that movement that you recognise with contemporary political movements or is there a complete break? If there are some continuities what binds them together?


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## free spirit (Jun 19, 2013)

xslavearcx said:


> finding this dead interesting free spirit... i know you mentioned earlier that that kinda 'movement' lost momentum for x y and z reasons. so my question is, is there any continuity with that movement that you recognise with contemporary political movements or is there a complete break? If there are some continuities what binds them together?


 
The reason UK uncut has been so successful IMO is that the originators of it (I think) were involved in some way with those previous networks / activities, and gained experience through those that they then applied with UK uncut.

Climate camp directly came out of dissent - I think it mostly used the infrastructure gathered for the G8 protest camp, as well as the organisational model for the camp.

Many of those involved in occupy either had history with, or took much of their lead from RTS / Dissent etc in this country, or related groups abroad such as Taute Blanche and those involved in the summit protests / PGA linked groups. Obviously I'm not saying all did, or that it was in any way organised by the same people, as I don't think it was - more that it was the next generation, some of whom had some direct experience gained through the activities of those preceding groups. The consensus decision making process apart from anything else demonstrates clearly the direct links - they didn't develop that themselves and magically all know how it worked, that spread in the UK via RTS / Earth First / dissent / climate camp etc

My main hope would be that those involved now might learn lessons from the past, but I fear they've learnt some of the wrong lessons - eg managing to run a months long protest camp without ever coming up with anything even vaguely resembling a coherent critique of the current situation, or clearly articulated alternative vision of how things could be done differently. 

I think UK uncut had probably best learned and applied the lessons learnt, by starting with a pretty clear critique and alternative vision, and focusing on a specific point that quickly won most of the public round, and might actually have made a bit of a difference to the situation... along with their organisational method of recognising the importance of empowering people to set up their own regional groups, co-ordinate their own actions both on their own, and as part of concerted national campaigns. Ok so the critique is a bit limited, but at least it's fairly coherent and resonates with the public - actually it probably is coherant and resonates with the public because it's fairly limited.

Personally though I'm no longer involved, though I'd not rule it out if something serious actually came along worthy of support. I'm focusing on actually making part of my vision reality on the environmental side of things, as part of the solar PV industry that's installed 2500MWp of solar PV in the country in the last 3 years since we got serious about it, vs around 50MWp installed in total from 1995-2010, when I was more focused on protesting.

I came to a bit of a realisation after the G8 protest, that really it was pretty pointless to spend all our efforts on protests aimed at persuading politicians to change their position and solve the world's problems for us. Better to get on and do it ourselves as much as we can, then maybe use that as a good practice example that's more likely to actually convince politicians to support it... and if not, then just get on with it anyway. Not that this works in all areas of course, but I could either spend my life protesting with little impact, or doing something more productive and being part of actually changing our energy picture entirely over the course of my lifetime.


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## BigTom (Jun 19, 2013)

free spirit said:


> The reason UK uncut has been so successful IMO is that the originators of it (I think) were involved in some way with those previous networks / activities, and gained experience through those that they then applied with UK uncut.


 
People and Planet, and climate camp afaik, though I certainly don't know all of the originators but the ones I do came from those backgrounds. There were a couple of 30-40 year olds in the fortnum and mason trials (though I'm absolutely 100% certain that not everyone who was in those trials were originators or organisors of that or any other UK Uncut action). One of them had a few offences from the 90s that sounded like road protest camp stuff so there were some people around (though perhaps just around for f&m I didn't know the guy) with links going back further.

I think your analysis of uk uncut is totally sound, they got a really soft issue and brought it into play at the perfect moment in time. The biggest success imo was in placing a massive dent in the there is no alternative mantra, and making tax avoidance a huge mainstream issue, and not just in the UK. Some of them are very good with media stuff too which helps.


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## cantsin (Jun 20, 2013)

BigTom said:


> People and Planet, and climate camp afaik, though I certainly don't know all of the originators but the ones I do came from those backgrounds. There were a couple of 30-40 year olds in the fortnum and mason trials (though I'm absolutely 100% certain that not everyone who was in those trials were originators or organisors of that or any other UK Uncut action). One of them had a few offences from the 90s that sounded like road protest camp stuff so there were some people around (though perhaps just around for f&m I didn't know the guy) with links going back further.
> 
> I think your analysis of uk uncut is totally sound, they got a really soft issue and brought it into play at the perfect moment in time. The biggest success imo was in placing a massive dent in the there is no alternative mantra, and making tax avoidance a huge mainstream issue, and not just in the UK. Some of them are very good with media stuff too which helps.


 

I'm impressed and inspired by UK Uncut, and seeing them ( rightly or wrongly ) as from a new / younger generation from mine, given a good dollop of hope by what they've acheived, and how new they and their approach have felt.

But then I'm also painfully aware that the G8 tax discussions are a total sham, that there was never any hope of concrete gains in terms of even inching fwd towards a global framework to address the issue, and that all this plays perfectly into Osborne and Camerons " there's nothing we can do about UK evasion by the multi-nats, they'll go elsewhere " narrative, as it now adds a nice " and look how hard / visibly we tried to address the issue " kicker.

So UK Uncuts acheivments in the end could be argued help the Govt build up the smokescreen/spectacle of the issue being addressed/ 'healthy grassroots democracy' in action.Meanwhile, nothing changes.

( Of course, the same can be said for most/all single issue campaigns...and often is )


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## BigTom (Jun 20, 2013)

cantsin said:


> I'm impressed and inspired by UK Uncut, and seeing them ( rightly or wrongly ) as from a new / younger generation from mine, given a good dollop of hope by what they've acheived, and how new they and their approach have felt.
> 
> But then I'm also painfully aware that the G8 tax discussions are a total sham, that there was never any hope of concrete gains in terms of even inching fwd towards a global framework to address the issue, and that all this plays perfectly into Osborne and Camerons " there's nothing we can do about UK evasion by the multi-nats, they'll go elsewhere " narrative, as it now adds a nice " and look how hard / visibly we tried to address the issue " kicker.
> 
> ...


 
I agree there was never any chance of actually changing anything much in terms of tax avoidance but I think the tax avoidance stuff will remain an issue in terms of austerity, I think there'll always be demands from a range of people that the govt find some way of making companies pay tax.

This may end up being something completely shitty like the fee charged for non-dom status if anything at all, but I think that although they'll quiet down the issue by talking about intl agreements, we tried our hardest, couldn't do it, sorry.. that demands can then be shifted to finding a different way to tax companies that doesn't need international agreements. I don't think that'll be achieved but it'll forever beat a stick to beat austerity merchants with I reckon.

I just don't think that they'll be able to kill it completely, let alone turn it to their advantage. The tax avoidance stuff plays real hard on fairness arguments and the only people who really think it's a good thing are libertarians and right wing economists, ask most people if they think it's right that the richest people like Philip Green don't pay tax when we do, or if it's ok for companies to make loads of money in the UK and not pay any tax, and you'll pretty much always get a no, hardly anyone disagrees with the issue really so I don't think that a shrug of the shoulders will be enough.

I've never been particularly good at understanding these political things though so I'm probably wrong


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## BigTom (Jun 20, 2013)

apologies for the derail, back to 90s political scenes reminiscing.. I was too young to go to any of the road protest camps but it was a movement I supported (as a teenage liberal I wrote to MPs, lol) and I went to the RTS in Birmingham in 97 or 98 that FS mentioned up the thread which was fantastic and definitely went a long way towards radicalising me and helping me to find socialism and move away from left-liberalism.. I also got some of the best pills I've ever had so that was a bonus  I liked the whole party/protest combination but I think it just got too hard to do/police got properly on top of it. Saw glimpses of that again on the student demonstrations with people with bike/suitcase soundsytems, lots of heavy dubstep and drum and bass... not so much the techno and house of those days, but another way in which 90s political scenes continue to have echoes in todays things.

I kind of see the Birmingham demo as the end of RTS/road protests and the start of anti-globalisation movement, but I suppose it's all much more fluid than that in reality.


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## butchersapron (Jul 4, 2013)

Here's another interesting piece from the time that i'd not read for many years, Practice and Ideology in the Direct Action Movement  it was produced by Undercurrent mag who were a mixed group from University of Sussex (and not the undercurrents video people) and was part of a series of debates at the time in things like Do or Die etc see this for another one worth the read 




> Similar to the leninist conception of the vanguard party which they so much despise, the direct action scene shares many of its characteristics. The notion that 'normal people' only need to get in touch with their ideas in order to become revolutionaries, the educational tone of their public outreaches ("a festival of anarchist ideas" or "a spoof newspaper…explaining anarchy"), the idea in general that revolution will only occur when 'normal people' come in contact and get influenced by the 'revolutionary consciousness' that the direct action scene is so full of. At the same time, leftist parties are slagged off in every chance because of their 'vanguard-ism'.
> 
> In terms of organisation, although the claim is that the direct action scene consists of 'autonomous' and non-hierarchical structures, the underlying agreement is that things like june 18th or Seattle could never have happened unless they were properly organised. Regardless of the non-hierarchical rhetoric, this fact exposes once again the separation between the 'professional activists' and the 'normal people'. In this way, the 'non-hierarchical' Direct Action Network behind the events of Seattle was able to impose a set of rules and guidelines (9) for those who wanted to take part in the 'anti-capitalist' actions prepared for the WTO conference -to which most objections concerned the actual content of the principles without challenging the notion of principles as such-, while the 'anti-authoritarian' anarchists behind the Mayday preparations have also adopted similar 'principles' and rules in order to exclude the hierarchical trotskyists (10). The illusion that hierarchy can be abolished through the drawing out of 'anti-hierarchical' principles, shows that they (as much as the direct action movement) have an ideological conception of hierarchy, failing to see it as a problem to be overcome by the development of our struggle.


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## chilango (Jul 4, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Here's another interesting piece from the time that i'd not read for many years, Practice and Ideology in the Direct Action Movement  it was produced by Undercurrent mag who were a mixed group from University of Sussex (and not the undercurrents video people) and was part of a series of debates at the time in things like Do or Die etc see this for another one worth the read



That Do or Die piece is well worth a read for anyone interested in this stuff.


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## newbie (Jul 5, 2013)

chilango said:


> That Do or Die piece is well worth a read for anyone interested in this stuff.


indeed.  It starts off talking about generational changes among activists before moving on to leaders and led and then nonviolence and so on.  Which got me wondering why there's no mention, not even a hint, of the affinity groups that worked so well for the anti-nuclear dissidents of the late 70s and through to the mid 80s. 

No doubt there's some really good reason why they've fallen out of favour, but I was at that Mayday (& subsequent ones, & elsewhere) and largely saw individuals waiting for direction, which doesn't really achieve much.


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## chilango (Jul 5, 2013)

newbie said:


> indeed.  It starts off talking about generational changes among activists before moving on to leaders and led and then nonviolence and so on.  Which got me wondering why there's no mention, not even a hint, of the affinity groups that worked so well for the anti-nuclear dissidents of the late 70s and through to the mid 80s.
> 
> No doubt there's some really good reason why they've fallen out of favour, but I was at that Mayday (& subsequent ones, & elsewhere) and largely saw individuals waiting for direction, which doesn't really achieve much.



There was a lot of talk about, and use of, affinity groups in the 90s. However there was amongst some of us a push to reduce the reliance upon them that was starting to develop. We saw them as too "exclusive" and reinforcing the concept of activist as elite specialist. Some of us wanted to ensure that our actions were open to non-activist types. Many actions were happening that if you weren't in a Pre-existing affinity group you couldn't really get involved.


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## DaveCinzano (Jul 5, 2013)

newbie said:


> No doubt there's some really good reason why they've fallen out of favour, but I was at that Mayday (& subsequent ones, & elsewhere) and largely saw individuals waiting for direction, which doesn't really achieve much.


 
The affinity group, and the other discrete, function-orientated  task groups, was significant in the preparations for J18, and could arguably be said to have been key to the achievement of a large number of tactical objectives on the day (predominantly in the morning or in the days immediately preceding it).

For various of the reasons mentioned here and elsewhere, the base for organising N30 in London was significantly reduced from that involved in preparing J18, but again the affinity group was an important building block, not least in terms of separately organising the numerous smaller actions and events across the city throughout the day.

The London M1 Mayday of 2000 also involved a fair amount of affinity group work (consider the panopoly of events in different locations), even though it culminated in 'one big spectacle' for which a small organising group was (unfairly, in the minds of some) excoriated.



chilango said:


> We saw them as too "exclusive" and reinforcing the concept of activist as elite specialist. Some of us wanted to ensure that our actions were open to non-activist types. Many actions were happening that if you weren't in a Pre-existing affinity group you couldn't really get involved.


 
I certainly recall dialogue about balancing such tensions; I believe the topic was covered in one or more of the _Reflections_ documents.


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## newbie (Jul 5, 2013)

chilango said:


> There was a lot of talk about, and use of, affinity groups in the 90s. However there was amongst some of us a push to reduce the reliance upon them that was starting to develop. We saw them as too "exclusive" and reinforcing the concept of activist as elite specialist. Some of us wanted to ensure that our actions were open to non-activist types. Many actions were happening that if you weren't in a Pre-existing affinity group you couldn't really get involved.



do you think, in restrospect, that made what we might as well call 'the movement' stronger or otherwise?



DaveCinzano said:


> The London M1 Mayday of 2000 also involved a fair amount of affinity group work (consider the panopoly of events in different locations), even though it culminated in 'one big spectacle' for which a small organising group was (unfairly, in the minds of some) excoriated.


I thought the small group actions on the morning of the following Mayday worked really well until lots of groups coalesced in Oxford Circus and (dozily) got kettled. 



Times & tactics change, I can certainly see the point chilango is making (the last thing I'd want is exclusivity), but then, by the time of the massive anti-invasion mobilisations of 2003 there was virtually no emphasis on getting together into tight groups (not that I noticed, anyway), which tmm meant that actions at eg Fairford were a little flat, despite the clear example that the Gloucestershire Weapons Inspectors provided.


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## butchersapron (Jul 5, 2013)

Already talking about _actions _here though, assuming that the effectiveness of actions carried out by self-selected groups is both what was required and so therefore a good. No one else had a chance to even break the social barriers of this activism. What if you're not even included in the conversation about what tactics are changed by time? What if it's assumed that you shouldn't be?


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## newbie (Jul 5, 2013)

Actions is what the article you posted is about  

But your post raises more question than answer: how would you propose opposition to something rather abstract from the lives of 99.9% of the population here should express itself, if not by actions and demonstrations?  Invasion of Iraq say, or bombing Serbia or the G20.


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## butchersapron (Jul 5, 2013)

newbie said:


> Actions is what the article you posted is about
> 
> But your post raises more question than answer: how would you propose opposition to something rather abstract from the lives of 99.9% of the population here should express itself, if not by actions and demonstrations? Invasion of Iraq say, or bombing Serbia or the G20.


 
But the thread has been discussing how those actions were often self-isolating. That's sort of why i posted it.

My post wasn't intended to do anything but ask questions about why the affinity group based actions that you you mentioned utterly failed to do what you now demand i give you an answer for. Not even being able to see the mass of people as actors beyond some final revolutionary role is one way in which they failed.


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## chilango (Jul 5, 2013)

If we had focused on tighter affinity groups we could have been more effective activists. For a while. But many (I hope)had begun to see the limits of activism. Newbury should've underlined that lesson to anyone under illusions that the activist model was sustainable.


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## Disjecta Membra (Jul 5, 2013)

Too many foreign chemicals led to stupidity and apathy.


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## BK Double Stack (Jul 5, 2013)

Discussion in the CWI about the 90s: http://patisdead.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/the-1990s-are-over-not-over-the-double-beer/


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## Coolfonz (Jul 9, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Already talking about _actions _here though, assuming that the effectiveness of actions carried out by self-selected groups is both what was required and so therefore a good. No one else had a chance to even break the social barriers of this activism. What if you're not even included in the conversation about what tactics are changed by time? What if it's assumed that you shouldn't be?


 
I've always liked your posts, and I like this one. But I fail to see why you told me off earlier in this thread for saying similar stuff. So now I'm not taking any notice of your scolding  Or your Mum's for that matter.

The stuff in ~1997-2001 didn't `fail` as such. That is too easy a thing to say. But the ideas behind it - many of them very popular - did not reach a sufficiently big enough amount of people to really drag society about. You might say the same thing about Occupy etc.

All that energy was good, but very disparate - self-selected groups as above - and much of its image, whether one likes it or not, just doesn't connect with the wider public. At all. The whole eco-lifestyle-clown-yada-yada thing for example. The ultra right wing folks who infiltrated all kinds of nooks and crannies in politics, academia, culture etc don't wear stupid clothes and don't identify themselves. They just infiltrate existing structures and bend them to their will.

So as a theoretical point let us say all those people in 97-01 had infiltrated the Labour party/the Greens/Ukip/The Tufty Club etc with the exact same amount of energy. Would `we` (in the broad sense) have more power or less power? Christ, if everyone had gone off and worked hard to be an oil trader, broker, work in hedge funds even...you have to talk the language of power.


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## newbie (Jul 9, 2013)

But that's not what happens.  lifestyler activists, burnt out or not, don't normally become hedgefunders or oil traders, they go work for the council, in social services or housing mostly, or for a charity. Or become teachers.  Not all of them, obv, but enough to be noticeable.

And they don't infiltrate the Labour Party just like normal people don't. No-one passes through lifestyle activism without imbibing a huge dose of '_don't vote it only encourages them_'. Or gaining friends who'd harangue them as sellouts... not many people want the tirades articul8 gets on here!  And anyway, the last serious attempt to drag the LP onto a different course led to Kinnock & the abolition of clause IV.  Why would anyone think that's a good idea?

A great deal is action for the sake of it, and sure there are plenty of principled objections to it, but then there's plenty of killjoy tut-tutting at many of the things reckless young people get up to, (particularly from those in their 40s  ).  Seems to me more or less the only people who take activist stunts seriously enough to criticise earnestly are ex lifestyle activists and fringe political geeks.  Few others care, it's just part of the backdrop. To laugh at, without engaging. Until, of course, the stunts become irritating.


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