Kaze no Kae

On the riots

2011-08-13T19:32:00.005+01:00

On Thursday, 4 August, police in Tottenham, north London, shot and killed a man called Mark Duggan, who they tell us was a cocaine dealer, while supposedly trying to arrest him. They stopped the cab in which he was riding, and told the media that he tried to shoot one of the arresting officers who was protected by his radio, which prompted them to return fire; the Guardian later reported that the bullet found in the radio was police-issue, and that the only other gun found on the scene - not police-issue - had been hidden in Duggan's sock throughout the incident and therefore not only had not been fired but could not even have easily been drawn, which makes the incident a gangland-style execution rather than the tragic results of an escape attempt. Duggan was simply the latest in a long tradition of police killings. In the past 13 years, the police have killed an average of around once every 2 weeks; a total of 333 victims.

This, as well as an apparent police policy of stopping and searching young black people at random with enough frequency that in some communities, getting stopped and searched for the first time is seen as a coming of age event, contribute in inner-city areas to a deep hatred of the police stretching back decades to a time when largely-black neighbourhoods were selectively subject to a permanent police state. Meanwhile, the government's austerity programme has seen Jobseekers' Allowance claimants threatened with being forced to work full-time (on top of the time and effort equivalent to full-time work which they're already expected to put in to looking for a proper job) just to recieve the dole, which works out at between £1.34 per hour and £1.52 per hour for under-25-year-olds and between £1.69 and £1.93 per hour for over-25-year-olds at a time of rapidly rising prices, many benefit claimants increasingly insecure in even the benefits they recieve, council tenants insecure in their tenancies, college students have the Education Maintainance Allowance which in many cases is essential to their family's ability to survive removed and at the same time see any possibility of a university education fly out of sight, and thousands of public sector workers made redundant and tens of thousands more in fear that they could be next, creating a mood of desperation among some layers of the working class and more-or-less universal uncertainty. These are the emotions that would have been running high at Tottenham police station on Saturday 6 August when a peaceful protest against police brutality called by Mark Duggan's family turned violent.

Eyewitness reports suggest that the violence on Saturday began when a policeman took his baton to a young woman with no provocation. This could have been an individual act of violence, which would be consistent with the police culture of aggressiveness which anyone with any significant experience of activism (or even who has watched and read the news with their eyes open over the past few years) can attest to; it could just as easily be part of a concerted police strategy to provoke riots in order to produce a public demand for ever more repressive measures on the part of the state. The latter would be consistent with my own experiences in Manchester on Tuesday; passing through the city centre between around 6 and 7pm, I was suprised (but shouldn't have been) to find an unusually large police presence in Market Street, who were systematically searching shoppers and passersby, seemingly with particular attention to black, Middle Eastern and Asian people and anyone in a hood, police standing guard at arbitrary choke points redirecting people, an unusually large volume of police vehicles patrolling the streets - with their sirens running - and while I was in Piccadilly Gardens around a hundred TAU riot police gathered in full riot gear and simply stood there looking menacing for several minutes before they started patrolling the area looking menacing; of course, none of this did anything to ease the already-high tensions. The extent to which police and/or fascist provocateurs were responsible for violence is as yet unknown, but it is known to be standard police practice for police to infiltrate protests, etc. in order to instigate violence; I suspect that much of the more seemingly-aimless violence, particularly that which was convenient for TV crews, was the work of police infiltrators. Aside from demands for the police to be given greater repressive powers, other effects of the riots which may or may not have been deliberate or desired on the part of the police include a rise in racist sentiment among the general populace (despite the fact that as many of the rioters were white as any other ethnic group), as can be demonstrated by the prevelance of racism in many of the comments on this Facebook page (in particular the responses to this post), and an attempt by elements of the English Defence League to take the next step as a fascist paramilitary force by forming organised vigilante gangs (although apparently only about a dozen people turned up in Manchester so it fell on it's arse, I've got no information about how they fared elsewhere though).

If anyone was in any doubt that the police state has benefited from the riots, this video should put those doubts to rest. This was at a small protest against David Cameron visiting the Manchester BBC to talk about the riots; the police questioned every participant and searched some, with no direct pretext at all. Before the riots, would they really have been able to do something like this without a significant public outcry?

Arrestees have been given rediculous sentences: Ursula Nevin was convicted of handling stolen goods for accepting a pair of shorts looted by someone else, and the police celebrated the five-month sentence; Nicolas Robinson got a six-month jail term for taking £3.50 worth of bottled water from a Lidl, because he "was thirsty". Since the riots dying down, councils have started evicting families of people convicted of offences related to the rioting and looting, which David Cameron has attempted to justify in Parliament by making reference to "bad parenting", whilst parents are increasingly forced to work full-time in order to provide for their families, and at the same time Cameron is cutting childcare services and closing youth clubs. If the government wanted to avoid further violence - which it doesn't - then it wouldn't take the road of punishment. Someone who's been to prison is far more likely to reoffend than someone who hasn't, statistically-speaking. And you can easily see why. A prison stay removes people from everyone they know, costs them their job or disrupts their education, and puts them in a situation where the main currency is contrabrand and you have to be "hard" to be respected (and those who aren't respected are likely to get raped, come shower time). When they come out, there's often nowhere for them to go, they've probably lost their house and their job, all but their family and closest friends might have moved on with their lives (the more likely the longer they've been in prison), a criminal record and/or the gap in their employment history created by the prison stay makes it all but impossible to get a legal job or a house. The only doors open to ex-prisoners are the skills they learnt and the contacts they made inside. And life on the street creates further desperation and also makes what was a small chance of changing your situation microscopic, as applications for jobs and benefits invariably require an address. The hopelessness of life on the street often creates a further downward spiral of dispair, and sometimes crime, as people turn to drugs in order to deal with their situation as best they can, at least in the here-and-now.

The struggle in Wisconsin

2011-03-10T21:51:00.001Z

I just sent the following letter to the Manchester Evening News:

"I am disappointed in the MEN's complete lack of coverage of the historic ongoing fight over workers' rights in Wisconsin, where a bill was passed through the state senate today (Thursday) to ban unionisation in the public sector after bei...ng delayed for several weeks by a several thousand-strong occupation of the capitol building which was massively supported on the streets and even briefly joined by police officers in defiance of orders to evict them, and where the local trade union federation recently passed a motion to prepare for a general strike to force the act to be repealed. This is an example we can take inspiration from in Britain. If Manchester Town Hall had been occupied yesterday morning (Wednesday) and the Council had been forced to take the time to consider the option of refusing to pass a cuts budget, it might have started a wave of Council rebellions across the country which could have derailed the government's whole agenda, and a national and ultimately global general strike is the only option which will take us out of the quagmire of governments bought out or held hostage by financial speculators and forced to brutalise public services for private profit."

Spin, damn spin and propaganda

2010-12-02T01:16:00.004Z

I visited my sister in London yesterday and had the privilege of being able to glance through a copy of the day before's Evening Standard. Here's the highlights of the first 15 pages:

The front page is an article on the main London student demonstration. The third paragraph starts
"Flares were set off as scuffles broke out. Several schoolgirls were knocked to the ground"
They seem to be implying that the people responsible for the latter weren't the police but, inexplicably, the demonstrators who set off the flares. The article goes on to say that Simon Hardy of the National Campaign Against Fees & Cuts (NCAFC)
"admitted he had lost control of the march".
It doesn't quote him directly. I suspect this is because he actually said something about not assuming to have authority in the first place over thousands of people taking autonomous collective action... but of course, that wouldn't sound as good for the right-wing capitalist media. In the printed version of the article, the accompanying picture (the first one in the online version, with the pink smoke) appears to have been motion-blurred to make someone look like he's throwing a punch, who if you look closely is actually just scratching the back of his head. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23902553-students-tuition-fees-protest-brings-central-london-to-standstill.do

Apparently, the protesters at Lewisham town hall the night before "had" to be attacked by the Territorial Support Group (TSG), the vicious section of the Metropolitan Police's riot squad best known for killing Ian Tomlinson at the G20 in 2009 and whose predecessors the Special Patrol Group killed anti-fascist activist Blair Peach in 1979, in tag team with horses and dogs. The article which alleges this goes on to repeat the notions that when the police attack demonstrators attempting to exert pressure on the people supposed to be representing them, it is the demonstrators that are responsible for the consequent "violent disorder"; and that people can "trespass" in their own town hall. Then, while pretending there were no injuries among the protesters (I so far haven't seen any reports to the contrary, but I personally find it hard to believe that the heavily tooled-up riot squad came off the worse), it gives details of police injuries including smoke inhalation (with no other mention in the entire article of any smoke, which in addition to apparently being otherwise non-existant also seems to have miraculously left all of the demonstrators uneffected). It then claims that
"The trouble flared after the initial demonstration over student fees and cuts in council services was hijacked by a larger group of protesters."
...protesters against what, if they were a separate entity to the 'initial demonstration? Your guess is as good as mine. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23902389-riot-squad-is-called-in-as-100-protesters-storm-town-hall-over-pound-18m-cuts.do

On the page opposite, about 200 words are devoted to
"Party's not over for BNP says Barking film-maker"
The article continues more or less in that vein. It highlights the disenfranchisement of many people from which the BNP benefit, while pointedly ignoring the roots of the issue in unemployment, low wages and housing trouble and the scapegoating of migrants for those problems by propaganda-heavy tabloids such as the Evening Standard itself. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23902380-bnp-battle-in-barking-is-not-over-warns-film-maker.do - apparently the online version has a different title.

The 15th page is dominated by a thousand-plus-word piece by the diablo himself, David Cameron, attacking the student demonstrations with straw men, arguments which deliberately miss the point, and general misinformation about the distribution of wealth and the nature of state debt. Under the heading of
"students need to get the facts right"
and the subheading of
"the protesters need to know the truth".
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23902443-before-protesting-students-need-to-get-the-facts-straight.do

Organise! Occupy! Fight for the right to learn!

2010-11-22T20:32:00.006Z

Around 200 people - mostly new faces - demonstrated against the Browne Review (the New Labour-initiated agenda raising tuition fees to £9000 per year with a minimum of £6000) and the parts of the Comprehensive Spending Review attacking education (the ConDem coalition's trademark public service cuts regime billed at reducing the state deficit but much of which will actually cost money to implement) at Manchester Metropolitan University at midday today. With the demonstration seeming to wind up, the students' union officers and Socialist Workers' Party members monopolising the megaphones appeared to be ignoring the call to initiate an occupation which had been passed democratically by the meetings last week, and it was up to myself, anarchists and others to raise the slogan of occupying; even then, one SWP comrade attempted to divert the demonstration to a meeting to discuss the next direction of the campaign, in the students' union (incidentally, in roughly the opposite physical direction to that agreed at the meetings). Thankfully, the crowd enthusiastically took up the call to occupy, and roughly 150 people piled into the atrium of Geoffrey Manton - the main building of the humanities faculty, which is facing 80% cuts, the worst at MMU. Unfortunately, against my calls to stay and occupy the atrium where we would have had easy access to food and toilets, enough room for everyone to lie down come the night (since the plan had been to attempt to hold the occupation until Wednesday morning and then come out to join the Manchester-wide march as part of the national day of action to save education), and where we would be highly visible to everyone in the building and therefore hopefully grown our numbers significantly, a few comrades effectively dragged us into a small lecture theatre while most of the demonstrators were still coming into the building, which meant that most people couldn't see where we were going and we lost about two thirds of our numbers. In hindsight, perhaps a large lecture theatre would have been better than both the one we occupied and the atrium, since a few veterans of the 2008 occupation of the same building against the massacre in Gaza have since informed me that the atrium had been the initial site of that occupation and had been abandoned as unsuitable.

Over the next hour or so, we lost around another 20 to 30 people, in which time we discussed our demands and the contents of a press release, and made a flyer and petition (the latter basically quoting most of the text from the flyer, and mostly just intended as a talking point to help convince people to join or support the occupation). I'll reproduce the text of the flyer here (my own words), including the demands of the occupation:

In the aftermath of a protest today by 150 people, 50 people today have occupied a lecture theatre in the Geoffrey Manton building at Manchester Metropolitan University in protest against the cuts to education and the rise in tuition fees, mostly MMU students but also some members of staff, students at the University of Manchester, and members of the public in solidarity with our struggle.

We are demanding:

· The opening of all financial accounts, documents and internal memoranda relating to the functioning of the university to scrutiny by the Students’ Union and the public

· The scrapping of EQAL, management’s plan to increase profits by cutting staff and modules in the guise of ‘simplification’

· No job, department, course or module to be cut, including so-called ‘voluntary’ redundancies which are often achieved by threats

· The scrapping of the ‘Late Campaign’, which involves the disciplining of lecturers who are late for lectures usually as a result of higher workloads, and divides students from them by encouraging them to report lecturers for being late

· Free access for all to the building and facilities

· No academic, civil or legal repercussions for anyone involved in the protest and/or occupation

The fact that we have occupied a lecture theatre in the department facing the most severe cuts—80% funding cuts to the Humanities, Law and Social Sciences faculty.

But we aren’t just occupying to achieve demands. We also want to use the space as an organising and campaigning centre, and as a liberated space for discussion, debate and education.

Join us!

At 5, those of us remaining left the occupied lecture theatre to go to Q&A session with Vice Chancellor John Brooks (who took home a salary of £241k - almost 12 times the average UK income - in 2008/9* and according to Mark Harrison of the Commune £250k in 2009/10** as MMU's Vice Chancellor, not counting the perks that come with the job, the inevitable investment portfolio which usually comes with being wealthy almost by default, or his position on the North West Development Board***, no doubt among similar positions) about the cuts and how they will effect MMU, having prepared in advance a list of suggested questions (courtesy of James O'Leary from Communist Students), and initially intending to replenish the occupation force by occupying the larger basement lecture theatre afterwards with the people who were there, simply by not leaving.

Brooks began the session by re-making a speech he gave to a House of Commons committee on implementing the Browne Review, which he started by praising it for creating a 'free market environment' in education which would apparently provide students with more 'choice'; he later backtracked on this, saying "I agree with you, it's not a free market" (is there such a thing?) when I challenged him that marketised education, which would force students to 'choose' their university and course if any based not on quality, interest, level of challenge, possibilities of personal development and other personal criteria, but on what they believe they would be able to afford, doesn't provide students with more choice. His speech went on to passionately defend the importance of humanities education (history, geography and the social sciences), which seems somewhat at odds with the plans of the MMU management headed by him to implement part of the 40-60% cuts required by the Comprehensive Spending Review by slashing a whole 80% from the teaching budget in MMU's Humanities department.

Most of his 'answers' to the questions from the floor involved evading the subject, waffling and - as above - attempting to humour the asker that he 'agrees' with their concerns. One of the questions involved the presence of a Conservative Party MP on MMU's Board of Governors, and the prospects of removing him. Brooks claimed that because of the Tories having won 36% of the vote in May's General Election (and at least part of that having been solely a rejection of New Labour's having spent most of it's 13 years in government starting wars and cracking down on civil liberties), this would be somehow a denial of the 'democratic process'; others hit back that it's intensely undemocratic for a representative of a government which is cannibalising the education system to be a governor of a university, especially when his government's plans are opposed by the vast majority of the staff and students. Another question regarded his salary, which he avoided by saying that it was available online and most of us probably already knew it (which, to his credit, is true). Unfortunately, I never got a chance to come back on that saying that yes, we were aware that his salary was over £200,000, and that a 90% pay cut would still leave him with an approximately average income, and ask if he would be willing to take the 'sacrifice' of living on the sort of pay that most people do anyway if - as it would - it guaranteed the jobs of several other people who would otherwise be made redundant over 'lack of available funding'. He gave Alex Fountain, students' union Community officer, a verbal promise that the students' union's funding from the university would not be cut; the President Rob Croll, who was co-chairing the event with Education officer Liz Marsh, rightly demanded a written guarantee. Linda Holden, the Associate Secretary of the MMU branch of the public service trade union Unison, made a long speech attacking the Vice Chancellor's dishonesty, the EQAL programme, and his whitewashing of last year's job cuts, which recieved loud applause; he tried to deny that EQAL, which involves cutting the number of modules in a year from 6 at 20 credits each to 4 at 30 credits each and scrapping many of the currently-available modules (as well as cutting contact hours between students and lecturers), hurts the choices available to students, and ignored the observation that the proposals effectively render a large percentage of lecturers redundant, which was no doubt the main motive in constructing the schemes.

At 5:45, after Brooks had been complaining for about 15 minutes of 'tiredness' and with 15 minutes left of the allocated time for the session, Marsh and Croll more or less unilaterally decided to end the meeting, with several people still having unasked questions. I forcibly made the point that someone who makes decisions which effect our lives as closely as his should be accountable to his subjects and shouldn't have any choice about answering our questions, regardless of how 'tired' he is; Croll fobbed this concern off by saying we have to 'keep management on our side', as if they somehow are to begin with.

In the end, we didn't occupy the basement lecture theatre after all, deciding not to raise the issue with security in the room. Instead... we went to the bar.

One positive thing that came out of today's events was the validation of occupations as a democratic method of activism; it showed that only an occupation with the mass active participation and support of those effected by the issue in question can be sustained.

*Page 25 of http://www.finance.mmu.ac.uk/uploads/1/MMU_Fin_stats_08-09_Final.pdf

**http://thecommune.co.uk/2010/07/24/unviable-courses-thanks-to-mmu-cuts/

***Mr C Hardy commenting on http://manchestermule.com/article/mmu-campus-plans-set-to-be-delayed

Beating police repression (and internet censorship) after the student occupation

2010-11-20T00:06:00.005Z

The following post led to the FITwatch blog being taken offline when the Met Police contacted their hosting company. It is re-posted here (and many other places) because:

"The Internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it" -- John Gilmore

The remarkable and brilliant student action at Millbank has produced some predictable frothing at the mouth from the establishment and right wing press. Cameron has called for the "full weight of the law" to fall on those who had caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage to the expensive decor at Tory party HQ. Responsibility is being placed on "a violent faction", after the march was 'infiltrated' by anarchists.

There are an encouraging number of initiatives to show solidarity with the arrested students - something that is vital if they are to avoid the sort of punitive 'deterrent' sentences handed out to the Gaza demonstrators. A legal support group has been established and the National Campaign against Cuts and Fees has started a support campaign. Goldsmiths lecturers union has publicly commended the students for a "magnificent demonstration".

This is all much needed, as the establishment is clearly on the march with this one. The Torygraph has published an irresponsible and frenzied 'shop-a-student' piece and the Met are clearly under pressure to produce 'results' after what they have admitted was a policing "embarrassment".

51 people have been arrested so far, and the police have claimed they took the details of a further 250 people in the kettle using powers under the Police Reform Act. There may be more arrests to come.

Students who are worried should consider taking the following actions:

If you have been arrested, or had your details taken - contact the legal support campaign. As a group you can support each other, and mount a coherent campaign.

If you fear you may be arrested as a result of identification by CCTV, FIT or press photography;

DON'T panic. Press photos are not necessarily conclusive evidence, and just because the police have a photo of you doesn't mean they know who you are.

DON'T hand yourself in. The police often use the psychological pressure of knowing they have your picture to persuade you to 'come forward'. Unless you have a very pressing reason to do otherwise, let them come and find you, if they know who you are.

DO get rid of your clothes. There is no chance of suggesting the bloke in the video is not you if the clothes he is wearing have been found in your wardrobe. Get rid of ALL clothes you were wearing at the demo, including YOUR SHOES, your bag, and any distinctive jewellery you were wearing at the time. Yes, this is difficult, especially if it is your only warm coat or decent pair of boots. But it will be harder still if finding these clothes in your flat gets you convicted of violent disorder.

DON'T assume that because you can identify yourself in a video, a judge will be able to as well. "That isn't me" has got many a person off before now.

DO keep away from other demos for a while. The police will be on the look-out at other demos, especially student ones, for people they have put on their 'wanted' list. Keep a low profile. (Re-poster's note: I recommend this one for people who have been arrested already and let off/cleared/fined as well. I stayed away from anti-fascist demos for about 6 months after my arrest recounted in a previous post. It's well-documented that police at demonstrations carry lists of the names and photos of potential 'troublemakers', and having been recently arrested at a demo on the same issue is as good a way as any to get on the list)

DO think about changing your appearance. Perhaps now is a good time for a make-over. Get a haircut and colour, grow a beard, wear glasses. It isn't a guarantee, but may help throw them off the scent.

DO keep your house clean. Get rid of spray cans, demo related stuff, and dodgy texts / photos on your phone. Don't make life easy for them by having drugs, weapons or anything illegal in the house.

DO get the name and number of a good lawyer you can call if things go badly. The support group has the names of recommended lawyers on their site. Take a bit of time to read up on your rights in custody, especially the benefits of not commenting in interview. (Re-poster's note: I assume they mean this support group (click), but I can't find a list of lawyers...)

DO be careful who you speak about this to. Admit your potential or actual involvement in criminal damage / disorder ONLY to people you really trust.

DO try and control the nerves and panic. Waiting for a knock on the door is stressful in the extreme, but you need to find a way to get on with business as normal. Otherwise you'll be serving the sentence before you are even arrested.

Credit to the FITwatch group for the article, and to policestate.co.uk for the intro and the quote

EDIT 5:12am 20/11/2010: I just noticed the FITwatch blog is back up :) Their latest post is an announcement to that effect dated 17/11, but I was definately getting the "account suspended" page when I first posted this earlier tonight... meh. Solidarity and freedom of speech - 1, censorship - 0. Last I heard the gag order was for a year minimum, so I think congratulations are in order for the FITwatch team on beating it.

"On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month..."

2010-11-10T23:46:00.005Z

This Remembrance Day, join us in remembering the lives, deaths and pain of all those who have suffered as a result of war, regardless of nationality, regardless of nationality and regardless of combatant status.

This Remembrance Day, join us in condemning the pointless slaughter of countless ordinary people who had no interest in the conflict whose tragic end was marked by a bang, a diseased groan or a moan of despair, caught in the crossfire or sent into battle against politicians at the behest of businessmen and aristocrats who benefit from selling weapons, gaining access to new resources or markets, or distracting people from struggles at home.

This Remembrance Day, join us in honouring the many soldiers whose desperation led them to flee the line, or whose courage in refusing to kill their counterparts in the opposite trenches or standing up to the victimisation and dehumanising treatment to which their officers subjected them was vilified at the time and is now barely a footnote in the collective memory.

This Remembrance Day, join us in striving to put an end to the constant cycle of war and bloodshed.

Right click, View Image for the full flyer. Feel free to print it for distribution - if you want to edit it, just ask and I'll email you the publisher file

Review of Class Actions album Keep Your Pride

2010-06-04T23:10:00.004+01:00

......First of all I have to point out that I’m not generally a hip hop/rap fan. I like rock music. And as such, I’m a bit out of my depth reviewing a hip hop album – apart from anything else I’m not as qualified to comment on the musical quality of the songs as I might be, but probably more importantly in the context of reviewing a political artist, it means I’m not accustomed to the rapid lyrics in some of the songs. For example I can’t actually make out many of the lyrics in the first song apart from the chorus of “do you do you do you feel safe?”, so I’m sure you’ll all forgive me for neglecting it, although if anything the focus is more on the ‘hook’ in any case.
......My first instinct when approaching The Underdogs is that actively drawing attention to the status of those of us fighting the oligarchy as “the underdogs”, while absolutely correct at least on one level (of course there’s the counter-argument that power has always and will always ultimately lie with the masses, if only more people were aware of their ability to collectively assert themselves), is something we should avoid, insomuch as there is a tendency to romanticise continuing struggle against stacked odds – as expressed Aslan’s own words that “its sexier fighting those on top” – and the last thing we want to do is underscore the stereotype (one of many, often conflicting) of leftists as idiot kids who only want to ‘fight the power’ because it’s ‘fashionable’ to do so. Aslan’s proverbial sword, mentioned in the last verse (on which he claims to want the blood of fascists), is a double-edged one – it is, of course, satisfying to sing about taking the fight physically to the fash, and it often provides a morale boost (which it has to be said we often need) to be among dozens or hundreds singing along to those sort of confrontational lyrics, but on the other side of that coin it can easily be interpreted as Aslan actively seeking violent confrontation – i.e., he runs the risk of reinforcing another of the aforementioned stereotypes, that of leftists as violent thugs. By contrast, some lines in the song are priceless in terms of directly challenging orthodoxies such as the assumption by many that revolution and the goal of a free world are utopian, or a ‘pipe dream’ (“you say it’s idealism but to us this is realism”).
......I absolutely love the poison-tongued sarcasm of M Is 4 Maggie, and I can see it finding a warm and loving home among all the people effected by Thatcher’s merciless attacks.
......Moving on, the title track is a masterful tribute to our first line of defence against the temptation to do something that could wreck our own lives or ruin other people – our self respect. At the same time though, Aslan seems to completely miss the other side of the coin (if not, it’s too subtle for me). As much as it can be an asset, pride is also often our worst enemy. One of the most difficult but also most important things we can do in life is often to let an insult slide. Before the advent of the market and the ascendency of the profit motive, the number one cause of the slaughter of war was after all the wounded pride of kings or clergy.
......The album goes on to launch a broadside against the Church, with Do As I Say lambasting its hypocrisy... but unfortunately neglecting to mention the role it plays in preserving the oligarchy.
......After that it takes a breather from the politics with two ‘breakup songs’, Come Back Today and Venom (regretful and angry, respectively). They’re both reasonably good songs, and although I called them a ‘breather from politics’, that’s not entirely true – I was glad to hear Venom take a shot at celebrity culture.
......The Terrorist tries to attack Zionism, racism and shackles on free speech, but I feel the phrase “Zionist Jew” adds ambiguity to the whole rest of the song about whether Aslan is in fact targeting the injustices of Zionism or siding ‘tribally’ with Islam and the Middle East against Judaism and the West – I think if he changed this line, this particular verbal assault would be much less prone to collateral damage and backfire.
......I think more attention needs to be paid in the cultural expression of the left to the experience of becoming aware of your own oppression but I think House N***** No More misses the mark, all the more so because (as far as I know at least) the term “house n*****” hasn’t been in use since the days of Malcolm X, and nobody understands it anymore without it being explained (apparently in Malcolm X’s time it was a black person who ‘made peace’ with racist American society; the slip in the Keep Your Pride CD explains that Aslan is using it to refer to “anyone regardless of their ethnicity, who despite being oppressed, chooses to subscribe to their oppressor’s ideology”).
......Repress Your Oppressor and Magic Man were two other songs I couldn’t make out any of the lyrics to (although again the lyrics kinda take a back seat in these songs anyway), but the title Repress Your Oppressor sounds like Aslan’s advocating “fighting fire with fire”, and I feel this is a road we don’t want to go down...

On elections within capitalism

2010-05-07T23:32:00.002+01:00

Democracy is more than a cross by a name every few years. Democracy is government by the governed - individual self-determination and freedom of movement; workers', consumers' and community control of industry and public services; communal control of land and resources; residents' control of housing; universal access to the means of subsistence, since there is of course no more authoritarian act than to deny a person their right to choose continued life; an egalitarian distribution of wealth, which after all is power.

But even if we were to limit our definition of democracy to the free election of state officials, it would still be a farce to call elections within capitalism democratic. The odds are heavily stacked against the left by the monopoly of the corporate media, which gives the ruling class both the ability to define the acceptable limits of public discourse and an automatic monopoly on election coverage - which makes the vast majority of nominally democratic capitalist parliamentary regimes a one-party state, by no-platforming any candidate who does not conform to the narrow capitalist paradigm of acceptable discourse, leaving those who remain politically similar enough that they may as well be a single party. This disadvantage is often compounded by obstacles such as unproportional electoral systems, bureaucratic hoops to jump through such as large deposits to be paid by all candidates before they can get their names on the ballot paper, and directly fraudulent tactics on the part of the establishment such as ballot stuffing or locking people out of polling stations - and even, sometimes, explicitly banning candidates who advocate revolution.

This is not to say we should boycott capitalist elections. The 'electable' candidates may well all be effectively of one party, but there are differences within all parties; just as there are differences within the organised left, there are differences within the ruling class, all the more accentuated by the inherent competetive nature of market capitalism. It's impossible to know how many years or decades it will be before we can overthrow capitalism and establish true democracy. In the meantime one of the methods we can use to restrain the worst excesses of the ruling class - although we should focus on more direct, militant and participatory methods - is to influence through elections which members of the ruling class make the rules, to keep the hard-liners more sidelined than they might be. There are also rare occasions on which revolutionaries can make a breakthrough into the institutions the ruling class calls representative; if not to gain legislative power (we will likely have the strength to overthrow the state long before we have the strength to take it over through the ballot box, given the measures to which the ruling class resorts to keep us out) then at least we can gain a parliamentary platform from which to promote revolutionary ideas.

It must of course be up to the organised left of the time and place to judge collectively whether to seek this opportunity or to hedge bets and use our electoral voice to keep the state in the hands of the relatively moderate sections of the ruling class. Indeed there may also be circumstances in which it actually is more appropriate to boycott an election.

The degeneration of the Russian Revolution

2010-04-18T01:03:00.004+01:00

It's generally accepted that the decisive point in the degeneration of the Russian Revolution into totalitarianism was the death of Lenin in 1924. I would argue that this was certainly significant, but there were other events which were as significant if not moreso. The Civil War and the attempted interventions by imperial powers created the circumstances for the militarisation of Soviet society, while atrocities committed by the Red Army during the war fuelled its perpetuation and escalation by causing many former supporters of the Bolshevik regime to become disillusioned (these atrocities were no doubt themselves fuelled by more common and often worse atrocities committed by the Tsarist White Army).

Other factors causing disillusionment with the Soviet government - and increased support for insurrections against it, including the White Army - include the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly due to its domination by pro-Kerensky Right-Socialist Revolutionaries, because whether deliberately or by neglect the split in the Socialist Revolutionary Party with those who supported the October Revolution (Left-Socialist Revolutionaries) had not been accounted for on the ballot sheet, which meant votes cast in favour of the Left-SRs were counted in the Right-SRs' favour who topped the pre-split SR list; the defeat of the revolutions in Germany and other parts of the industrialised world, which caused increasing despair in the Russian cities; the frigid Russian climate which frequently caused famines, which coincided with the lack of friendly revolutionary regimes in warmer parts of the world who could have provided food aid, leading the Bolsheviks to enforce grain requisitioning policies which were massively unpopular among the peasantry; and the suppression of pro-revolutionary dissenters, including the Left-SRs, the Ukrainian anarchist Black Army, the Krondstadt rebels, and after the 1921 Congress minority factions within the Bolshevik Party.

The account of AJP Taylor in his 1964 introduction to John Reed's Ten Days That Shook The World suggests even that the Soviets never wielded true power in the "Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic", to the extent that the October Revolution was more the end of Soviet power than the start; that in contrast to the delegates' militancy before October, afterwards they simply deferred to the Bolsheviks. However, in light of Taylor's support of the brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, it's possible he was simply trying to make the Soviets' later subordination to the CPSU seem more acceptable.

Ever wondered why the capitalists don't seem too bothered about climate change?

2009-12-15T10:51:00.010Z

Have you ever been curious, dumbfounded even, about the ruling class indifference to climate change - something that effects all of us, including themselves? I was, for quite a long time. It's often put down to simple capitalist short-sightedness, but I think the main reason lies somewhere else.

What we have to remember about wealthy industrialists is that, generally speaking - mind the sarcasm - they are wealthy. They have lots of moneys. They have resources. And they can use those resources to significantly curtail the effects of climate change on their own livelihoods. They can move away from effected areas, for example - and in many cases, areas more vulnerable to the freak weather conditions caused by climate change, such as floodplains, are already reserved for habitation by the rest of us who, apparently, are expendable. And rising food and fuel prices effect them far less than ordinary people because, frankly, they have the money to pay the increased prices - a loaf of bread has inflated by at least half in the past two years, and according to the Daily Telegraph is expected to grow further to around four times its current level by 2030 as a result of climate change... barely noticeable, to the likes of David & Fred Barclay, the owners of the Telegraph, or say Rex Tillerson (the CEO of Exxon Mobil). And if and when the air itself becomes unbreathable, the land unlivable, you can bet the richest 1% and their pet politicians will be nice and safe in their biodomes while the rest of us die miserably.

Pigs and fascists share a flag!

2009-10-23T20:10:00.014+01:00

I'm writing this a bit late - 2 weeks after the event - but (I'd like to think) the important thing is that it gets written.

The first thing to say about the clash with the EDL in Manchester is that they were thoroughly outnumbered, and thoroughly routed. The main priority on the day, of course, was to prevent the fascists from having free reign to terrorise and assault bystanders in the city centre. Allowing them to do so would have far wider implications than a lot of people shaken up, plenty of bruises and some victims who may have been hospitalised (which of course is bad enough) - but it would have allowed them to gain in confidence, and as such gain in strength and ambition; if today we allow our streets to be infested with fascists one day in a decade, then maybe a year from now ordinary people are too intimidated to venture into their path, two years from now some areas might be permanently under fascist control, three years from now ordinary people are afraid to leave the home and a month after that fascist death squads are breaking down people's doors. In that sense, the day was a complete success - instead of running rampant throughout the city, they were forced to hide behind the police and the worst thing they were able to do was take pictures for Redwatch, even if their truncheon-toting vanguard was more assertive. They were humiliated. They might think twice about trying to spread fear in Manchester again.

There were numerous examples of obvious police collusion with the fash, two in particular come to mind. Not only did they refuse to prevent the fash from filming for Redwatch, but when I attempted to block the camera view of a photographer directly behind the police line, the response of one of the pigs was to shove me away...compare this to how when revolutionary activists take pictures of pigs at demonstrations for the purpose of holding them to account if they step over the line - or sometimes, when tourists take pictures of red London buses - their reaction is to confiscate the camera, and occasionally even to arrest the photographer. The sole purpose of Redwatch, as is well-known, being to provide intel to fascist thugs who want to track down anti-fascist activists later when they're alone and attack them as a pack - one of the most high-profile Redwatch-related incidents was when the well-known trade union organiser Alec McFadden was hospitalised after being stabbed in the face outside his home by a fascist coward who pretended to be hurt and needing medical attention himself. The other example was when we were about as passive as we had been at all since the EDL showed up, when we were completely non-belligerent, just stood there chanting which apparently the pigs decided was enough of a 'threat' to warrant setting the dogs on us... and at least one person was bitten.

It was these events which inspired me to an original chant, which I was later arrested for chanting (either these particular pigs somehow took offence at the word 'pig' which I'm sure they hear every day, or the riot squad have a political threshold for speech they will tolerate - the typical UAF 'Nazi scum, off our streets' falls far short of that threshold for the obvious reason that it holds almost no political content and therefore no threat to the status quo): "pigs and fascists share a flag - we march under none".

It was inspired by these events, but it is evident by an analysis of fascism anyway. The purpose of fascism - whose chief representative in this country I would say was not in fact the BNP but the Daily Mail (or Heil) and the Murdoch media - is to preserve the rule of the ruling class by using prejudice-based division, created by deception, to undermine working class organisation, and by using that prejudice to create unofficial 'shock troops' who can be used against the organised working class if it becomes too much of a threat to the hegemony (some of the best examples of the latter include the retaliation by fascist paramilitaries in Greece following the December insurrection, the suppression of the 1919 Spartacist rising in Germany, and - controversially, but at least in my analysis - the Stalinist repression of the revolution in north-eastern Spain in 1937); it is undisputed that the primary purpose of the police force as an institution is also to defend the ruling class.

Incidentally, another original chant which I led that day was concieved as a not-quite-subtle rejection of the quasi-nationalism of the Respect placards which said something along the lines of 'one country, many cultures' - "one world, one humanity".

About half an hour after the dogs were let out, the EDL started to slink away - at the time I assumed they'd given up; I later discovered they were regrouping on the other side of Piccadilly Gardens - and our column moved back across the central walkway (apparently to cut them off, although as far as I was concerned at that time it was a victory march), which was lined with pigs. There was a scuffle partway along when one cop threatened to arrest people criticising him for hiding his shoulder tab numbers - my own words were something like "Show your number, bloody hypocrite - it's your own law you're breaking, not ours", which I believe I followed with "PIGS AND FASCISTS SHARE A FLAG - WE MARCH UNDER NONE!" at which point his colleague at the end of the 'railed' section of the walkway grabbed my shirt saying - I believe - "Come here mate, you're coming with us." I was initially able to pull away from him, until another pig joined in, and together they dragged me to the grass - by the bike helmet I had worn as a precaution, effectively throttling me with the strap to the point that I felt on the verge of blacking out before they let go - and forced me to the ground, after which one of them knelt on me while the other forced me into handcuffs behind my back.

After they dragged me back to my feet, one of the two informed me that I was under arrest for very vague 'public order offences' (which he later elaborated on as a violation Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 'behaving in a way likely to cause alarm or distress' to 'members of the public', and claimed to have been deeply offended by the use of the word 'pigs' and the association to the fash) and bullshit allegations of 'incitement to racial hatred', to which I responded with something along the lines of "I'm white, how can I be racist against fucking white people!?" (since the logical conclusion was that he could only have been referring to my agitation against the EDL... in fact, once at the police station 'incitement to racial hatred' never came up again, so it seems he was just trying to provoke a reaction which could be taken out of context). They then marched me back onto the walkway, now deserted of everyone but pigs, and held me up against the railing for the next hour or so, twisting the handcuffs (the sort designed to cause pain and injury, including potential broken bones, if 'you struggle') continuously, while they traded jibes with me. At one point two comrades who I won't name spotted me in trouble and did what they could to help - they told the pigs that I had Asperger's Syndrome, in order to help ease matters at least once I got to the police station (it does seem to have had the desired effect), and I later discovered they also stayed with me for as long as they could in order to prevent the pigs from being able to be too obviously abusive (I now understand why they were so adamant not to let me turn round, so that I wouldn't get a morale booster from seeing that my comrades were still there as I did when they first arrived at the scene). It was the only thing they could have done - after they got the handcuffs on me, I saw no reason to resist myself, either, since even had I somehow escaped from the pigs' clutch without the use of my arms, having no way to remove the handcuffs I would have been stuck that way indefinately

Eventually, they marched me off to a van. Along the way, we were intercepted by another comrade (who will also remain anonymous) who was apparently acting as a legal advisor on the demo, who they made sure would not be able to send me a sympathetic solicitor by refusing to tell her or me which police station they were taking me to (which, I believe, is illegal, like many other things the pigs did that day). They got rid of her by shoving me into the van and closing the doors, thereby cutting off contact, and left me there for about another half hour before actually setting off.

Once at the police station (Longsight, as it turns out...they didn't tell me where I was until much later, but I spotted certain signs on the way such as 192 buses) they swapped the handcuffs from my back to my front, but locked me back in the van for another hour or so. The silver lining of that cloud is that, with my hands now in front, I could reach my phone, and in the time alone I was able to send messages to several comrades letting them know what had happened (although once in the police station, my phone was confiscated along with everything else I had including my jacket and my shoelaces, so I didn't recieve their replies until much later after I was released).

When I was finally taken into the station, the officers on duty there were less directly abusive, and saw fit to finally release me from the handcuffs, but also took away everything I was carrying except my shirt and pants (apparently procedure). They told me that, among other things, I had a legal right to have someone informed of my arrest (but, apparently, not to talk to that person directly) - the person I told them to contact was my mum, whose phone I later discovered was unusable at the time...but they failed to inform me that they had been unable to contact her so that I could have them contact someone else instead, capitalising on the opportunity to deny me even my legal rights.

After this, I was taken to a room where my iris prints, fingerprints and a saliva sample were taken, which I was told would be wiped from the record if I wasn't convicted of anything but which almost certainly remain. To the credit of the clerks who did this, they gave me a cup of water when I asked, and I was able to watch while it was poured so I know nothing was put in it. After this I was taken to see the station doctor, who was interested in any medical conditions I might have; I told him I was allergic to bananas, although in hindsight maybe I shouldn't have in case it was used against me - the doctor himself seemed nice enough, but of course he had colleagues.

After this I was marched off to the cells, where I was left for about three hours. It became obvious that the key reason for confiscating everything on processing is to make your time in the cell as boring as possible in order to encourage you to sleep, possibly so that they could come in and rough you up, or stick something unwanted in you like compliance drugs or a chip. Instead I occupied myself by reading the graffiti kindly left on the bed-bench by previous residents (mostly not particularly interesting, but still something to read) and scratching my own contribution ("one world - one humanity"). Incidentally, the "matress" was lopsided (which may or may not have been a deliberate measure to make you more uncomfortable) and there was what appeared to be a camera in the corner of the cell, angled to cover most of the cell including the toilet (illegal, surely!?) - another thing I occupied myself with while I was waiting in the cell was figuring out how I might be able to block the camera in case I had to use the toilet; I came up with piling scrunched-up toilet roll in the recess that the camera was set into. Fortunately I never needed to use the toilet while I was in the cell.

Eventually, one of the guards arrived to take me to interview. I was initially taken to meet my solicitor - the state duty solicitor, since the legal advisor mentioned earlier from the demonstration was unable to send me an activist solicitor as she had initially said she would, not knowing where I was being taken - who I went into a room alone with to discuss my case. He wasn't entirely sympathetic, but he wasn't hostile either and I'd like to think I had some influence on him. This was the first time I saw the police testimony - I'd been misquoted as saying "pigs and fucking fascists are all the fucking same" (more or less the same meaning I suppose, but the court looks down on swearing) and "I'm white, how can I be racist?" (they didn't just fail to provide any context, they also omitted 'against white people', so they even removed the context that was otherwise already there in the quote). The solicitor told me that because of my Asperger's, he'd been able to argue the police to an offer of a settlement of a 'Fixed-Penalty Notice' (fine) as an alternative to going to court if I confessed. He told me the charges against me were 'disorderly conduct' and 'behaved in a disorderly manner in a public place in a way likely to cause alarm or distress to members of the public'. He didn't know how large the fine would be, but his advice would be to take it because he believed the 'evidence' against me was 'strong'. I argued that point with him for about half an hour, the sole 'evidence' I had seen being police testimony consisting of misquotes, but I knew that as far as the police or the court was concerned, 'admitting' to having attended a demonstration (which I neither could nor would deny) would be the same as 'admitting' to 'disorderly conduct', and having sat on a jury I also knew how corrupt the court system was, how ready the court was to accept police testimony as more valuable than the testimony of ordinary people and for that matter as the bulk of the prosecuting evidence, how much the judge controls the jury and how much pressure the jurors are under to follow the instructions of the judge, including what testimony to accept and what testimony to reject. As such, I decided he was right - it was in my interests to take the fine rather than going through a court case, which is gruelling enough as a juror and must be several times worse as a defendant, would disrupt many things (in the long term, probably most importantly uni), and would likely lead to a conviction. I have since started to have second thoughts, having run into financial difficulties and having spoken to several people including those with legal expertise who believe the case can be thrown out without even going to court.

After wrapping up the discussion with the solicitor, we went to the interview room - a cold room containing a table with a tape recorder, three chairs and nothing else. I have to be fair, and to the credit of the police it turns out that the cold is no longer part of the interrogation procedure, and we moved to a warmer room containing a table with a tape recorder, three chairs and nothing else. The interviewer asked me to give my account of the day's events - I believe I told him more or less what I wrote here regarding the demo, my arrest and my treatment by the pigs who arrested me (minus the criticism of UAF and Respect - no reason to show division directly to the enemy, after all). I also spent quite a while arguing the political case behind the chant which I was arrested for, which I'm sure didn't make him feel particularly comfortable, and when asked to 'confess' to having acted 'in a way likely to cause alarm or distress to members of the public' I told him blankly that a police officer on duty is not a 'member of the public' and that most 'members of the public' are likely to share my distaste for and distrust of the state and its organs of enforcement even if they don't share my analysis. I did 'confess' to 'disorderly conduct'... making no bones about the fact that I was doing so not because I believed I had done wrong but because I saw it as being in my best interests to cooperate. After that, the interview was wound up, and the interviewer informed me that after my fine had been processed I would be released (I believe his words were 'disposed of', but I trusted that he didn't mean it maliciously only because he was still being recorded at the time and the record could be used against the police if I disappeared - I said as much to his face, still on record).

After the interview, I was taken back to the lobby where my stuff had been confiscated and told to wait for my fine, and that I'd get my stuff back (yes, including my shoelaces!) once the fine was processed and I was officially released (again, the phrase used was 'disposed of'). I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. Then I was finally given back my stuff, all dumped in a plastic bag, and told to take it outside to sort it out (including my shoelaces).

You Are Arrested

2009-08-04T17:50:00.003+01:00

You are woken from a troubled sleep in the small hours of the morning by the sound of your front door being smashed to pieces and heavy-booted footsteps coming up your stairs. You hear a click which could be a gun being cocked. Your bedroom door bursts open and a rough pair of hands pulls a black hood over your head before your tired mind even realises that something is happening, while another pair drags you out of the sanctuary that is your bed and another twists your arms behind your back at an unnatural angle and binds them in metal. You cry for help, but you live alone; there is no one to help you. You are violently dragged downstairs and shoved forcibly into a car. You cannot see them, but you can feel the eyes of your neighbours watching out of their upstairs windows. They do nothing to help. You are still hooded; your hands are still restrained and your wrists feel like they could break at any moment if you move your arms. You are driven away from your home, you do not know where to but you can feel the vibration of the car under you taking you away from safety and security. Your captors do not speak, either to you or to each other; you are left alone with terrifying speculation about what sort of peril has been thrust upon you.

The car door opens, and you are dragged from the car by the arm – which only serves to put more strain on your wrist. You cry out in pain, attracting a response from one of your captors in the form of a chunk of cold metal striking the back of your head. Agony rips through your skull, and you lurch forward, drawing more pain from your arms which are still bound tightly behind your back, and fall to the floor, before being aggressively pulled back to your feet and dragged up a short flight of steps. You are pushed through a door into a building and led into a room.

The room is cold, the air pressure is slightly different and you can hear your footsteps echoing off the walls. You feel your body being patted down as if your captors are searching you – regardless of the fact that you are wearing only your underwear – and you are pushed down into a metal chair and the hood is pulled from your head, which is then shoved down by the man behind you so that you are looking down at the metal table in front of you. When you try to look up, the man behind you forces your head down again. Your hands are released from their metal bonds and you are told to place them on the table in front of you and keep them there until you are told otherwise. You are informed that you have been arrested as a suspect in an alleged bomb plot; you don’t have the faintest clue what they are talking about. You are told that under terrorism legislation, you can be kept in detention for a month and a half without contact with the outside world – including a lawyer – while your captors who you now know to be the police gather evidence, and when (not if) you are found guilty, you can legally be executed. You are offered a chance to make the process quicker and easier and potentially reduce your sentence by confessing and giving the police information on the target and your fellow conspirators. Because in reality there is no such plot – but of course the only response you would ever get to that suggestion from your interrogators would be the classic ‘that’s what they all say’ – you can do nothing but remain silent. You are told to stand up, and dragged by your traumatised arms to a holding cell.

Early the next morning, instead of breakfast, you are taken to a different room, colder than before, where you are hooded and handcuffed again, and a pair of stereo earphones put on your head which play a constant ringing noise similar to tinnitus and block out all other sound. After half an hour of this, you are told that you can go back to your cell if you tell your interrogator what he wants to know – what your target was, and who your compatriots were. Again, you have nothing to tell him. The earphones are put back on your head; the process is repeated several times before you are taken back to your cell and given a slice of bread to eat and a plastic cup of warm water to drink. In the afternoon, you are taken to another room where your interrogator gives you an opportunity to confess your guilt, before he shoves your head into a bucket of water, holds it there for thirty seconds and pulls it back out suddenly by the hair, and again gives you an opportunity to confess. When you decline, he dunks you in the bucket again. And again. And again.

This daily routine is continued for longer than you can keep track – although the sensory deprivation is replaced with physical beatings in the final week or so – before you are informed that because of the lack of evidence, you are to be released from police custody... and deported. Back to your war-torn home country where you are as likely as not to be raped and brutally murdered.
You are hooded again and bundled into the back of a van with no windows, and after an hour’s journey, led into a new building which is to be your involuntary home for the next two weeks. Those two weeks are slightly more pleasant than your police detention; beatings by the guards are less frequent (but still horrific and fairly commonplace), there is no systematic torture (although the guards seem to love to make you miserable anyway), and there are fellow deportees to talk to.
At the end of those two weeks, you are handcuffed again and led onto a small aircraft with nobody else on it but the pilot, co-pilot and your two guards. Nobody to see your scars, your broken bones, your mutilations.

You are never heard from again.

And nobody seems to care.

Analysis of racism and its relationship to capitalism

2009-04-15T19:16:00.008+01:00

Although the traditional socialist line is that racism has come about in the past six or seven hundred years as a product of the emergence of coherent nation-states and capitalism, what we know of ancient, tribal history seems to suggest that racism has, in fact, been around for as long as society. In tribal times, people were raised to fear and suspect those from 'rival' tribes (each of which, since it was taboo for members of different tribes to even have contact, quickly developed hereditary physical characteristics unique to the tribe), because it suited the interests of the chieftains to conquer and enslave those tribes and take their land. The primitive oligarchism of tribal society was therefore not only the source of the more advanced oligarchism of feudalism and modern oligarchism in the form of capitalism, but also of prejudices such as racism and nationalism (which is, in effect, a form of racism, and certainly an evolution of tribalism in the same way that racism is).

So yes, capitalism and racism are heavily interlinked, but not so much in a father-son relationship as more like...cousins. Overthrowing capitalism will of course play a large part in ending racism, just as it will solve or partially solve most of the other problems present in today's society as well, because as most Marxists say it will remove people's subconscious material motivation for clinging to such prejudices, but ultimately to attack racism and all prejudice at its root is not necessarily to fight capitalism, but to emphasize that the characteristic which makes us people and which makes us equal is not a physical one, or a social one, or even a mental one, but the most fundamental characteristic of all - the awareness of one's own existence, and the consequent ability to experience suffering, to experience joy.

l'Agents Provocateurs

2009-04-06T18:38:00.007+01:00

The march against NATO left the International Village of Resistance at about 10 Saturday morning, starting (I think) with a block from one of the French Communist Parties. Our coachload was sandwiched to begin with between a Die Linke delegation and the comrades from London (with whom we stuck tight for the whole demo, thanks largely to Geoff's Manchester Trades Council banner, which was very visible and served beautifully as a rallying point for the British group...and also possibly as our lifeline against police brutality, which I'll come back to later). I shared the banner with Geoff initially, and continued to do so for most of the demo.

There was nothing particularly reportable for the first hour or so - other than maybe the chanting, in several languages including English ("one solution - revolution", "how many kids have you killed today?", etc), French (mostly protest songs which I unfortunately didn't have the linguistic skill to follow rather than chants, including the Internationale at one point), German ("hoch die internazionale solidaritie", "nein zum krieg - nein zur NATO", etc) and (surprisingly, given the apparent lack of Spanish comrades in the demo) Spanish ("a-anti-anticapitalista" and "[insert politician name] - terrorista") - until we reached a fork in the road with the Vaubaun bridge to the right, towards which the march turned and somewhere across which I therefore naturally assumed the NATO summit was being held, and the road into central Strasbourg (where the summit was actually being held) to the left with several ranks of CRS riot police across it.

There was a tram platform a few minutes march towards the bridge, at which two members of the black block climbed the shelter to break down the unusually overt (by British standards anyway, it could be normal in France for all I know) CCTV cameras on top, to a roar of enthusiastic approval from the crowd. About half an hour later, at the peak of the bridge, the front ranks of the march encountered another CRS blockade (and I later discovered that the route over the bridge they blockaded had been confirmed with the state enforcement apparatus only the day before, so there was no excuse even by the standards of SOCPA in Britain), whose perpetrators showed the aggressiveness of their style of enforcement by throwing tear gas canisters at any demonstrators who approached them. It was around this time as well, I think, that police helicopters started to appear - at least, it wasn't long after when they started raining tear gas down indiscriminately on the procession as a whole...and the gas used by the CRS turned out to be a far stronger strain than I had experienced on demonstrations in Britain. There was a certain amount of panic, initially, with people running in all directions away from falling gas canisters, resulting in injuries from collisions etc, but this was quickly overcome and people began to be more calm in their retreat from the gas, at least in our part of the column, thanks in large part to Andy's initiative in rallying people around our banner. After awhile, the cops were pushed back, and eventually the line was broken completely - I cannot underestimate the role played by the black block in this initial victory.

Another hour or so further down the road, the front ranks of the marchers turned into...a car park. A very large, gravely car park, with a heavy, lockable metal gate and surrounded by high concrete walls. For a moment, I wondered if some of those leading the march were police infiltrators and we were being herded into a remote car park away from the eyes of the public and the media to be riddled full of bullets by the helicopters which still hovered above - but then I saw the stage at the far end, and realised this was the site of the rally and concert I had thought was supposed to be held outside the actual NATO summit, and that the NPA or whoever had organised the demo were just really, really bad at negotiating with the police.

After about two hours worth of speeches and music, a plume of smoke appeared over the wall, followed within another hour or so by another, and two or three more. Later research has uncovered that the buildings on fire included a border control station (most definitely a legitimate target), a hotel (which was part of a chain, and which there are rumours was at the time being used solely as a staging post for CRS personnel shipped in from other cities - but I haven't seen anything to confirm or discredit that claim yet, so it may or may not have been a legitimate target) and a local chemist (not a legitimate target) right next to a block of housing inhabited by ordinary people (precisely the sort of thing a black block should be protecting). So I believe it was around this time that the black block fell victim to infiltration by police provocateurs, with the dual aim as always of reinforcing the stereotype of activists and particularly anarchists and black block-ists as nothing more than violent nihilists with an insatiable desire to "smash shit up", and to drive a wedge between the black block and the rest of the demonstration when they were later reunited.

After about another hour, a speaker (it might have been Bianca Jagger, but I don't remember entirely clearly) was interrupted by the advance of dozens of CRS grunts into the car park, preceded as always by volleys of tear gas shot from the ever-present helicopters, and we were forced to abandon the rally and retreat from the car park.

An hour of marching, made interesting by the parcels of tear gas intermittently delivered by those delightful pigs, and during which I think it was that most of the black block - plus some newcomers, unbeknownst to the rest of us and presumably to the other black block-ists as well - rejoined the main demonstration, took us back to the bridge, which the riot squad prevented us from crossing again - and those at the front of the march must not have been aware, just as I wasn't, that the road they were directed onto was a dead end, with no second bridge to be found further along.

There was a post office around half a mile up the road, at which half a dozen black block-ists - who I noticed were all wearing identical boots, which I discovered yesterday by coming face-to-face with two seperate groups of squaddies who stopped and searched us on the way to the rendezvous with the coach back to Manchester were CRS-issue - spontaneously took offence, and took crowbars to its windows and doors; I considered trying to pull them away... what stopped me was the fear that if they retaliated it might start a conflagration within the demonstration (in hindsight, that was probably what they were hoping for, although I hadn't realised they were police agents yet at that time - I made a judgement call by refraining from intervening, and I suppose it was the right one). Further along the road, a group of black block nihilists - and it should be noted that while just enough token nihilists to lend credit to the stereotypes are an inevitability in any black block, they had no doubt become more influential because of the actions and presence of the police infiltrators - and probably some of the police agents sustained their attack on public services, unity between demonstrators, and the media image of activists by completely wrecking several bus stops, and apparently (again, according to research done since returning to Britain) smash the windscreen of a passing car. Any genuine anarchists left in the black block at that time presumably broke with it and either left or took off their black jackets and masks and dissolved into the demonstration - everything the black block was doing by then was cynical at best, perhaps even explicitly counter-revolutionary, and I can't imagine any anarchist wanting to be associated or complicit with it.

Later, after provoking the CRS and forcing us into a position where we had the river on one side and the falling tear gas on the other (flanked by a barbed wire fence and a pile of rusty train tracks), the "black block" - if it could still be called a black block, which is supposed to defend demonstrators from police harrassment, not manipulate them into a potentially lethal situation - disappeared into the industrial estate outside which we had become trapped; one comrade from our group picked up a glove a black block-ist had dropped in his flight, which would turn out tomorrow to also be CRS-issue. We eventually managed to negotiate our release from the cul de sac into which we had been herded, thanks largely to Geoff's trade union banner - the trade unions being so much more powerful in France, of course, the idea that they might be exposed as assaulting official trade union delegates struck real fear into the CRS officers - although the route they forced us to walk back to the campsite was quite literally several miles out of the way; ironic, I think they wanted to deter us from coming back, but...well, I don't know about anyone else, but having experienced the peculiarity and severity of the repression the French state engages in only makes me more determined to aid in its overthrow.

Clarification 21/05/2009: there were actually some Spaniards there, because I remember seeing CNT flags now, but I only saw a small group of CNT people as far as I know and I didn't see any sign of anyother Spanish organisation, so I'm not sure if they were there in any significant numbers like the delegations from other European countries.

The case against boycotting Israel

2009-02-16T01:24:00.004Z

While it's true that Israel depends on foreign trade for its existence, and that a successful boycott would therefore ultimately bring it down, its not the way to do it - in fact, it could turn out to be the equivalent of the Treaty of Versailles, which led directly to the Holocaust.

What people often overlook is that such a boycott would hurt the Palestinian Jewish working class far worse before it would ever hurt the Israeli Zionist oligarchy, and that its biggest short-to-mid-term effect on the Palestinian struggle would merely be to isolate these workers and drive them further into the arms of ever more extreme fascists such as Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu. I don't want to speculate on where that would lead, but the worst case scenario is that Israel's last days would be punctuated by nuclear war as the most extreme Zionists, having gained control of the military machine, felt themselves backed into a corner.

For a better idea of what people outside the conflict zone can do to help defeat Zionism, we should instead look to the example of the Greek dockworkers who stopped a certain freighter last month in Astakos.

Barack Obama

2008-11-03T23:24:00.009Z

A few people have been wondering about my nominal support for Obama...

To use an analogy, Barack Obama is a three year prison sentence, Ron Paul is an assassination, John McCain is a death sentence, and Sarah Palin is a summary execution. Obviously Ralph Nader (in this analogy, I suppose he would be acquittal) would be a far better option, but since a lot of people don't even know who he is, he's unlikely to win, instead of resigning to be shot why not go for the 3 year sentence and stage a prison break after 2 weeks?

My best estimate of Obama is that he is the equivalent of what Tony Blair was in 1997 - he talks big about hope and change, but he doesn't really believe it, he's hoping mostly to change his own bank balance rather than society at large and although he won't necessarily make things any worse than they already are he won't make any particularly significant changes either. However, the key difference between Obama's current Presidential campaign and Blair's initial Prime Ministerial campaign is that Obama's is fundamentally based - more than anything else - on popular participation. Hopefully, if he does turn out to be a good little tool of the oligarchy after all, he will have awoken a sleeping giant that he will be unable to put back down.

I'd prefer to see Obama win the Presidency and get overthrown than for that opportunity to never come because McPain and Failin caused a nuclear apocalypse within a day of taking office.

And of course, there's always the slim chance that he is in fact a genuine progressive, and that his sporadic rightward moves are feigns to attract the money of the oligarchy to use against them, rather than his general populist rhetoric being a feign to attract the popular vote. This I hope for dearly.

Uniformity

2008-09-24T02:39:00.002+01:00

One of the contributors to the Convention of the Left session on education this afternoon touched - in passing - on a topic I believe recieves far too little attention from the popular movement. That topic was school uniforms.

The context of the mention was the current government drive to convert as many schools as possible into the new Academies, which they claim provide choice but which are in fact merely a means of class segregation - although government-funded, they are in fact private and require a hefty fee. The speaker's words, as I remember them, were a satirical take on the admissions policy: "Oh sure, we'll take your kids...by the way, the uniform tie will be £250."

That immediately brought me back to my time in high school, which was largely the beginning of my activism, focusing at that time on issues within the school and specifically on the issue of the uniform regulations; the main justification the headmaster gave for those regulations was the question of fashion - he claimed that allowing students to wear their own clothes led to bullying and elitism by the better-off students on the basis that their families could afford more expensive clothes. While an otherwise somewhat valid point, it was made completely null by the presence of non-uniform days which facilitated the creation of a pecking order anyway, and more significantly by the fact that the uniforms were easily as expensive as the most expensive fashions any of the students could afford anyway; then it crossed entirely into the realm of doublethink when you consider the regulations themselves, which prohibited any form of personalisation to the point of an untucked shirt or a loose tie being a detentionable offense, and to which the current financial fortunes of the family had no relevance whatsoever.

However, the issue goes far beyond an ambiguously well intentioned initiative with shattered foundations. In fact, the concept of a compulsory uniform for students was first introduced by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany, who intended it as a contribution to the process of indoctrination - kill their spirit through uniformity, and encourage a uniform pattern of thought, so that the students become simply cogs in the machine.

Churchill's ministers and patrons loved this idea, of course, and in today's British schools the uniform acts to transform students into cogs in the school's battle machinery for its fight to attain favourable reports by the Ofsted inspection agency and positions in the league tables. This in turn encourages the mentality that the teacher - and by implication, any authority figure - is right by default, regardless of the logic of the situation (actually, this was an explicit doctrine in my school, which I was forced to - superficially, of course - formally accept before I was allowed to return to classes after my second suspension). The teacher is always right. The manager is always right. The politician is always right. The police officer is always right. The supervisor is always right. The stockholder is always right. The oligarch is always right.

The uniform is the embodiment and seed of the corporate identity; more than that, it is the key to Orwellian society (behind maybe Newspeak and the Thought Police, anyway). We in the popular movement should give far higher priority than we do to fighting its prevelance in our schools.

Proposed universal bill of rights

2008-08-24T15:57:00.002+01:00

"Person" is defined here as an entity which is aware of its own existence, and therefore potentially capable of suffering and joy, eg a Human or a hypothetical artificial intelligence

All people have the right to defend themselves and others (both their rights and their body) with the necessary level of severity up to the equivalent of that of the attack, and to defend their material possessions (as freely given as a gift, personally made, or acquired through the above principles of fair trade) without causing significant harm to the aggressor either directly or indirectly, in rights or body

All people have the right to free speech except in cases of deliberate and malicious slander

All people have the right to defend themselves and others with the necessary level of severity up to the equivalent of that of the attack, and to defend your property without causing significant harm to the aggressor either directly or indirectly

All people have the right to a fair trial if suspected of violating any of these rights

All people have the right to freedom of lifestyle

All people have the right to continued life, so far as it can be maintained

As implied by the above, all people have the right to free healthcare, as well as and education

All people have the right to freedom of travel

All people have the right to freedom from any institutionalised bias against any inalienable and/or harmless charactaristic they may possess

All people have the right to personal privacy

All people have the right to access any information where this is not incompatible with the right to personal privacy

All people have the right to an equal say in all decisions not predetermined by the rights described here, proportional so far as is pragmatic to the effect of said decision on your own circumstances

All people have the duty to respect the rights of others

Outbreak of revolution as I envision it

2008-08-12T03:11:00.003+01:00

I envision something along the lines of a general strike, but not a traditional general strike.

I recommend the following: a public transport strike, but instead of marching and/or rioting in the streets, the strikers continue to run the buses, the trains, etc, as normal, but *without bothering to collect fares*. The only difference is that not a penny leaves the pocket of the traveller, and not ear nor dime is given to the boss.

What generally turns the public against industrial action is the inconvenience caused by a strike; if instead of suspending a public service, you give people a snapshot of what socialism is all about (in this case, that snapshot is free public transport), they'll be on board (no pun intended) like a flash.

Of course, since this would be seen as illegal - unconsented use of private property - for this state of affairs to continue for any meaningful period of time, other workers in other industries would have to strike in solidarity with the transport workers (the idea here is that they do so according to the same philosophy as the transport workers - continue to run their respective sectors of the economy, but waive fees and charges and ignore the bosses), and specifically there would have to be widespread ignorance of orders / desertions / mutinies in the police and military in order to prevent the ruling classes from coming down on the strikers by means of the state; however, given the inevitable popularity won by the nature of the initial strikes, which would of course have effected members of the police force and military the same as everyone else, this is not only feasible but highly likely.

Eventually, with de facto syndicalism having spread to all areas of the economy, it would no longer be relevant whether the former ruling classes were ready to give in because their capacity to act as an obstacle to freedom would have disappeared with their power base.

Thoughts?

George Bush's war crimes, and capital punishment

2008-06-02T23:08:00.001+01:00

In the form of a discussion between myself and my comrade who shall be known only as John Doe, about what should be George Bush's fate in the context of his war crimes.

Doe: When Bush is out of power next year, he should be taken to the International Tribunal in the Hague with Rumsfeld and be tried for war crimes and crimes against Humanity, and both of them should be convicted and taken to the gallows. It would be fitting, as Bush is no better than Saddam.

Kaze: No. Bush shouldn't be taken to the gallows.

Even Saddam shouldn't be taken to the gallows, because by definition an executee is no longer an enemy combatant. If you are capable of dragging someone to the gallows, then it goes without saying that they are at your mercy, and as such if there was ever a need to kill them, that need has expired. If someone shoots Bush through his office window, or bombs the Presidential car, or shoots down Air Force One (provided his family are elsewhere, anyway), I have no problem with that - obviously violence is never desirable, but occasionally it is a necessary evil, and when directed only against knowing participants in lethal activity (i.e., combatants), an acceptable evil. But an execution by definition is the unnecessary victimisation of a person who, if they ever were, is no longer a combatant, and whose victimisation in this way is known to be unnecessary. And punishment for its own sake - punishment by death, especially - can never be justified, because ultimately, nobody can be genuinely evil at their core. They can appear evil, they can think, say and do evil things, but this can never be attributed to the person themselves being evil because it can always be attributed to other factors, such as background, weakness of personality (and therefore vulnerability to temptation), e.t.c.

Bush, on the other hand, is not actually even responsible for his war crimes. Bush is a puppet. Bush is too naive and too stupid to actually question the legitimacy of his actions. If anyone should go to the gallows, its Cheney, and Bush Senior, and like you say, Rumsfeld.

But instead of that, how about we just burn down the gallows instead?

[footnote: to be edited when Joe Bloggs replies]

Invading for democracy

2008-05-28T18:09:00.001+01:00

Invading for democracy is like fighting for peace (which, incidentally, is like **ing for virginity). Democracy requires that people live as they wish - which means that it can only come if people wish for it. A dictatorship can only be replaced with a democracy by those living under it, by revolution or any other means, and foreign powers are perfectly welcome to provide supplies, logistical support, etc for a revolution but an invasion is by definition without the consent of the people invaded.

Not that the Iraqi people dont long for democracy, but that was never the aim of the invasion. Both the occupying forces and the government they support are solely concerned with the interests of the multinational conglomerates exploiting Iraqi resources and Iraqi people. The same people who as Bush & Blair invaded were preparing to revive the armed struggle which was crushed 16 years ago by Saddam after it was abandoned by Bushes daddy now take to the streets every day to fight for democracy, to fight the occupation forces and the corporations, to fight the government and the security forces.

And despite the slander you might have heard in the news, not to fight each other. There is a sectarian conflict in Iraq, yes, but in reality it is no more serious than in, say, Britain or Spain. The vast majority of the "sectarian" bombings you hear about in the news are in fact perpetrated by American black ops or Blackwater mercenaries with the dual aim of provoking a larger sectarian conflict and creating an appearance of one.

If the coalition troops were removed from Iraq, the result would be what many here in the West regard as the sum of all fears - not a racial and religious conflict hitting critical mass and becoming a civil war, not mass genocide and the eventual rise of a new brutal regime emulating that of Saddam, but after the mere weeks or days it takes to bring the armed struggle to its conclusion, a society closer to true peace than any in the English speaking world, a society run by the people, a society in which natural resources are used for the benefit of those people and not the bank books of foreign businessmen. What the Bush family fear is that Iraq will become a Venezuela.

My views on abortion

2008-03-04T22:54:00.001Z

Personally, Im quite undecided about abortion. For me, it all depends on the point at which a child becomes conscious (or semi-conscious), and therefore a person.

If an unborn child really is a cluster of cells and nothing more, then obviously there should be no problem with "killing" it, any more than there should be with killing a bacterial infection, and where the rights of another person (in this case, the right to continued existence/life) are not involved it is obviously a matter of fundamental individual rights that a woman can do what the fuck (pun not intended) she wants with her own body and her own life.

On the other hand, if a child is at least semi-conscious from, say, conception, then the same attitude should be taken to abortion - at least after the point at which the child becomes conscious, it isnt at conception - as would be taken towards the convenience killing of an already-born child, that is to say, protect the victim at any cost to the victimizer.

Ultimately, since it is only the short term lifestyle change and increasingly miniscule risk directly involved in pregnancy (since the long term effects, ie having to bring up a child, are voluntary even disregarding abortion since the kid could be adopted) balanced against the institutionalised genocide that abortion would represent in the case that a foetus is, in fact, partially sentient, I tend to lean towards the pro-life camp, but I would never advocate the banning of abortion (at least not unless there was compelling evidence to support the possibility that a foetus is self-aware), only strongly encourage adoption as an alternative.

Mon Intro

2008-02-20T12:31:00.001Z

You see, I just decided to be different, and make my intro my second post ;) Nahhh, actually the blog last night was just a means of publishing my post on the new filesharing legislation, which wouldnt fit into the comment box on the article.

So yeah, I'm Kaze no Kae, which is pseudo-Japanese for "Wind of Change".

I'm a 3rd year college student in northwest England, planning to do computer games development at Salford University next year.

Most of my posts here are likely to be on sociopolitical issues.

New threat to filesharers

2008-02-19T22:52:00.002Z

British government to cut filesharers off

The old Labour Party, the Labour Party which great men like Aneurin Bevan, Michael Foot and Tony Benn were proud to call themselves members of, would never have considered anything like this. In fact, far more likely that they would have legalised filesharing and forced the perpetrators of its suppression to pay reparations to their victims, both the artists and the audiences. Old Labour was the Party Of The People. New Labour, on the other hand, is the Party Of The People In Suits.

I speak as a guitarist, songwriter and author when I say this, and any worthy artist would like nothing better than for their product to be available unconditionally to anyone who wanted it. Its the middleman - the record companies, the publishers, the distributors, the film studios, the cinema companies - its the middleman who steal, by blackmail, by the threat of eternal obscurity, and they jealously guard their plunder, as demonstrated in this draft. Internet pirate groups such as the Pirate Bay are the heirs of Robin Hood, liberating art from its copyright prison and delivering it to the people for whom it was intended.

As an artist, and as a consumer, and as a libertarian in solidarity, I will fight this tooth and nail until my fingers are a bloody mass and I have lost the ability to chew.

Ill write an intro post later <_<