Been at the Rebellious Media conference all weekend – more of which later. I caught the second half of Chomsky’s speech saturday morning – anout 1200 people there. I was impressed. Chomsky took no prisoners. He described the Occupy wall streeters as ‘ naive people who have no comprehension of the real world’. He then went on to look at the demands of the occupiers in both New York and Boston -and illustrate how they could easily be accomodated by the existing banking system. There was a class war going on said Chomsky repeatedly but only one side was currentlt waging it and it wasn’t us!! For the wall streeters read UK Uncut here who have similarly lame financial demands which are similarly easily accomodated. Theres an argument to be made that ‘anything is better than nothing’ but like Chomsky i dont think it is. ‘People will live an intense period of activism for months’said chomsky ‘then vanish from poltical activity forever because of the nature of their demands which pose no threat to the system’
I’ve added this coment from Incubus:
People are pretty much saying that ‘anything is better than nothing’, and I can see there is some validity in the argument, but if we look at Spain and Greece, the ‘Take the Square’ type movements have all but evaporated, and it is precisely because of the criticisms above- The influence of middle-class liberals, their pacifism, the citizenship politics, state manipulation (agents-provocateurs and rumours of them), the state’s overtly repressive violence and a failure to respond to it even on a theoretical level.
As ‘me’ said above, the liberals will go out of their way to prevent genuine civil disobediance (Westminster Bridge was closed for the event to take place , in agreement with the Police FFS) and on twitter people posted how UKUncut had ‘disassociated’ themselves from the Lambeth Bridge group…
At the end of the day, professional middle class activists set the agenda and feed off those who engage in protest for a short while ( faddish students, short-term, FB and headline-driven, limited attention spans?), all the while neutralising any acual anger- functioning much like the trade unions, boring the anger out of people.
When, and not if, the European banking system collapses, anger will manifest itself (as prices rocket and there is no food in the cupboard) without the mediation of these ‘reasonable’ middle classes who just want the system to return to what it was before 2008, which ultimately makes them either a) stupid,b) allies of the bankers, or, c) both.
As far as I can see there’s only a rizla between the mentality of UKUncut and the ‘Broom Army’… Both display a equally desparate need to return to the status quo and to keep the ‘great unwashed’ in their place with patronising promises, ‘leadership’, faux-activism and pious moralising
Ian Bone 
I think you and Chomsky are over-intellectualising here. At least these occupy wall street people are trying to do something, and getting nicked and brutalised for it. I reckon the natural reaction (the only kind worth trusting) of any anarchist is to support them.
Anyway, i’ve probably got you wrong Ian, and i’m sure you do support them, probably a hell of a lot more than i am!
Yep, was on Block the Bridge today and found the passivity frightening. What I thought was mass assembly turned out to be Mark Thomas and other sundry self-promoting comics doing stand-up routines for the spectators. All humour and No anger. 1-2000 people, if that. SWP stall=puke. A gaggle of about 20 ‘visible’ Anarchs, all being blythley recorded by a small FIT team. Over 20 TSG and PSUs in attendance- I wondered why they’d bothered…Apparently a break away tried to block Lambeth Bridge and got proper kettled, photo’d ID’d etc…Sod all coverage by the media…Have to agree with Chompers on this one…
Whilst some of the specific demands of Occupy Wall Street and UK Uncut my be slightly soft, surly people on the streets with the intention of occupation can only be a good thing. I do think more people are entering a state of “I’ve fucking had enough of this shit.” and the charge these movements put in the air makes it much more likely for sparks to cause fires.
Thank fuck for that. See this brilliant post on Indymedia by comrades in the US:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/10/486505.html?c=on#comments
Some of the anti-anarchy/confrontational direct action stuff appearing on social media is coming from agents of the state & some of it is coming from the trots, (which surprises me; I really doubted that they were that clever). It’s pervasive and some of it is subtle, although they don’t always get it right, (yet). See this FB page for the ‘Newcastle Occupation’; the street language ain’t bad, but you get the sense that somebody is trying a bit too hard:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/227184360670131/
‘Scoping out’ the Monument ffs. Counter-revolutionary shite.
Was on the bridge too-when at last people decided to march a group of self appointed spokes people decided to let everyone know that by following the red and black flags you would be attacked by the police. Therefore instead of a mass march the group of 80 or so up for doing some civil disobedience were left to fend for themselves and promptly got kettled on Lambeth Bridge(and that was aviodable-keep moving!) Let’s hope we get some real protest next week.
Do you know what puts me off the occupy wall street? How passively they are taking police abuse.
Also seeing hippys holding love signs next to the police makes me sick. These are the same police that beat and murder people. Who tase little girls, and the state lets them do it with inpunity. They live in a new age touchy feely dream world.
Try taking walls stret by force! You may fail, but at least you will be making progress in the struggle against tyranny! At the moment the movement is pretty toothless.
Well, the question isnt really what Occupy Wallstreet is now – ofcourse it is a bunch of naive hippie liberals. Did we expect anything else? The question is what this can becom e, what it can develop into. So lets leave the over-opitimism to the leftist opportunists. But lets not fall into the other trap of being cynical. It is what it is. Now lets just see what happens next.
The other day, because I expressed the fact that I was fucked off with being fucked over by a bunch of rich cunts, I was made out to be inciting class warfare. It’s fucking insane. I’ve got no university degree. Likewise, I’ve got no GCSE’s. I haven’t even got a fucking first aid certificate, yet I’ve got enough intelligence to see that class warfare was forced on me from the moment I was born. When I was a kid Thatcher shut the steal works down that my Dad worked in. In order to cope he turned to drink, my Mam had a nervous break down and I was taken into care at 6 year old as a result. 11 fucking years I lived in that system because of that evil fucking heartless slag called Thatcher.
I’m not feeling sorry for myself because I know this happened to a lot of kids in the North East during the early 80’s. She raped our land of industry and desecrated family life. Yet today in order to fit in with the middle class “pseudo-intellectual” protest movement, you can’t express your anger safely without some one judging you or attempting to shame you into shutting up. I wasn’t born in the love fest of the 60’s. I was born in the 70’s and dragged up through working class struggle, and the child care system of the 1980’s. Unlike most of you, I don’t want to see the system change, I want to see it fucking smashed. I’m not interested in begging for a few extra crumbs from the table any more. I want a fucking three course meal.
I’m not violent, far from it I hate violence. Nevertheless, some of those intelligent middle class “revolutionaries” can’t tell the difference between violence and anger. Anger is an emotional response, whereas violence is a physical one. Just to make one thing clear I’m not fucking Jesus and I’m certainly not Gandhi. If your middle class stop fucking expecting me to act like your hero’s
You talk about love, it’s out of love that I’m able to express my anger in a controlled and non destructive way. It’s out out of love that I’m telling you, don’t ever fucking try to silence me again you middle class cunts.
Occupy Bristol
October 15th
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Bristol/156092691150973
Genghis, That’s one of the best things i’ve read for years- you’ve smashed the nail on the head. ‘I don’t want to see the system change, I want to see it fucking smashed’. Right on.
Going to put that up on facebook. I think the middle class cunts need a wake up call! lol
well said mate, more power to you.
“‘People will live an intense period of activism for months’said chomsky ‘then vanish from poltical activity forever because of the nature of their demands which pose no threat to the system’”
Or they will go on to be labour MP’s or “political activitst” comedians
Now I wonder who were the most “revolutionary” – the 2000 “reformists” blocking the bridge, or the hundreds of “rebellious” people who sat in rows listening to Noam Chomsky?
hah ha ha.
absolutely correct.
Chomsky’s argument demands that we fight only in the exact forms that he would like. And if you are a “naive” person then don’t bother.
Whether you call it “the glorious revolution” or just the gradual evolution of real class-less democracy, change will happen. Maybe it will come from Wall Street, maybe it will come from the Black Block, maybe it will come from listening to Noam Chomsky or even Mark Thomas. Until then, we fight the status quo and the ruling classes across a broad front where all resistance is valid.
You criticise UKuncut for “lame financial demands which are easily accomodated” but they are bringing about change (however modest) and bringing the message “that something is badly fucked up here, guys” to a group of people who might otherwise not hear it. They’re not enough on their own, but I see them as helpful at best, neutral at worst.
They are also showing that ordinary people can take action
Definately. A visual presence on the street makes people wonder what’s going on. We should be careful to criticse (other potential activists) too much or we risk being a fucking clique who know it all and how to do it. We are largely brought up to be unthinking sheep so anyone on a bridge protesting or in Wall street *might* make people think about what’s going on and about their own position and power in that. Also out of reformist marches things can happen – look at the student protest last year.
I would like to know what Chomsky thinks IS appropriate and if he is a true revolutionary then should he not be leaving by example? Writing books and doing talks is as effective as occupation and protest – both merely raise awareness. Seemingly, like everyone else his priveledge and comfort are too great to give up.
If you really want to know you could read some of his books or watch some of his videos although I suspect you have already made your mind up that it isn’t ‘enough’.
People are pretty much saying that ‘anything is better than nothing’, and I can see there is some validity in the argument, but if we look at Spain and Greece, the ‘Take the Square’ type movements have all but evaporated, and it is precisely because of the criticisms above- The influence of middle-class liberals, their pacifism, the citizenship politics, state manipulation (agents-provocateurs and rumours of them), the state’s overtly repressive violence and a failure to respond to it even on a theoretical level.
As ‘me’ said above, the liberals will go out of their way to prevent genuine civil disobediance (Westminster Bridge was closed for the event to take place , in agreement with the Police FFS) and on twitter people posted how UKUncut had ‘disassociated’ themselves from the Lambeth Bridge group…
At the end of the day, professional middle class activists set the agenda and feed off those who engage in protest for a short while ( faddish students, short-term, FB and headline-driven, limited attention spans?), all the while neutralising any acual anger- functioning much like the trade unions, boring the anger out of people.
When, and not if, the European banking system collapses, anger will manifest itself (as prices rocket and there is no food in the cupboard) without the mediation of these ‘reasonable’ middle classes who just want the system to return to what it was before 2008, which ultimately makes them either a) stupid,b) allies of the bankers, or, c) both.
As far as I can see there’s only a rizla between the mentality of UKUncut and the ‘Broom Army’… Both display a equally desparate need to return to the status quo and to keep the ‘great unwashed’ in their place with patronising promises, ‘leadership’, faux-activism and pious moralising…
I disagree. these movements have and do play a role in the general move by the population ( which is politically overwhelmingly liberal & passive ) to take action. UKuncut have been very specific on what there central message is, to convince people that rather than these cuts being economically justifiable they are idealogical attacks. Many millions of people still believe that “cuts are necessary” and most people are doing fuck all about stopping their implementations. So instead of seeing these movements like UKuncut and Occupy as some how preventing more radical action to emerge, they are in fact THE radical action in a sea of ultra-passivity that many people exist in. Its the question of moving a mass of people an inch or a small minority of people a mile.
My issue is NOT with them, its with anarchists. Anarchists talk all the time about setting the agenda, criticizing the reformist nature of these movements and groups but put simply, there is NO EFFECTIVE ANARCHIST ALTERNATIVE to them. That is not to say we don’t have ideas, yes we’ve got amazing liberating ideas, debated and discussed for decades, well worked out arguments but with no actual fucking clue to build a movement around them.
Anarchist movements are not born out of anarchist groups, or even anarchists, they are born out from the struggle against capitalism and state authority that inevitable people come into contact with, with the choice of understanding that to fight effectively we can’t replicate what we’re fighting against, therefore challenging hierarchy, specialism, alienation are practical responses to being more effective ( and desirable ). Therefore for those of us who are serious about creating an anarchist ethic in society, we need to work with UKuncut ( many of which are anarchists ) and Occupy Movements.
Spot on Al.
Quick factual point: UKUncut did disassociate themselves from the Lambeth Bridge splinter but have retracted their earlier tweet:
“To all kettled on Lambeth Bridge yesterday: we’re sorry for RTing the police’s attempt to divide us, it was a mistake”
…I’d say despite various shortcomings the core UK Uncut folks do generally seem to have at least some grasp of solidarity; for instance I seem to remember one of them was interviewed on Newsnight or similar after March26 and refused to condemn the black bloc (which resulted in many howls of disapproval from the more liberal wing of UK Uncut).
*oops! “leading by example”
UK Uncut have been effective at saying that you don’t let the power elite get away with it; people know about them & direct action is back on the agenda Likewise many rioters/looters moved beyond trashing their own communities. There are some renewed roots for something more profound. At the same time, being critical is good & Chomps has upped the game.
Maybe it’s time for an anarchist ‘manifesto’. to persuade the Wall Streeters. 🙂
The one good thing that’ll come from this is that it’ll put people off from:
a) Trusting the government
b) Trusting the coppers
c) Trusting the media
d) Trusting that peaceful protest will be respected
Go forth and fill the void!
UKUncut is just a bunch of local authority office workers and BBC admins who think creating facebook groups is direct action and who get their iPads all in a twist whenever they see #ukuncut trending on twitter. I never trusted these obedient consumers and their calls for people to pay their taxes anyway.
Yeh, sorry to piss in people’s muesli, but this while ‘movement’ contains what appears to be promising developments (like in Spain etc) , it suffers from a limitation of theory and analysis of the current crisis of capitalism, which generally reflects it’s membership/leadership: It’s middle class, and therefore acts in the spirit of self-interest, a fear of the working class, a narrow, patrician desire to ‘tax fairly’, being seen as ‘legitimate’, and avoiding any real, qualitative, conflict with the state. In short, it stinks of a refusal to relinquish any class status. Even when confronted with the violent suppression of peaceful protest, it sees fit to complain more about (the rather polite) ‘kettling’ tactic, avoiding the issue of police brutality, and in doing so avoiding dwelling on the implications of blunt state power, and the unpleasant reality of taking it to task. I expect very little from the ‘Poum’ people (‘possibility of upward mobility’) who lament the passing of the property boom and fatuous cheap degrees that guaranteed a nice bourgeois career, but I cannot endorse spectacular, pre-arranged, jokey ‘occupations’ that are in no way an effective form of protest, nor a threat to the state or capital. Law-abiding Civil Disobediance? I think not. This artifice therefore acts as a brake on really radical action, and wider solidarity.
These are just my observations, I don’t claim to speak on behalf of any one ideology, and they can carry on their jolly political street theatre, til the cows come home for all I care. The middle class is soon to be financially annihilated, and proletarianised, in the next Great Crash, so it’s all good…If they won’t go to August, then August will come to them.
Revolutionaries aren’t formed ready made – they emerge from a process of development. The UK Uncut – Occupy Wall St – Indignados phenomenon should be seen in that light. Events will push these people into more radical positions. The task of revolutionaries is to be there, critically helping to evolve the situation. But i don’t think they can create it.
I still treasure a leaflet from one of the Anti-CJA Demos in the nineties which urged people to ‘form a doormat’ if the police moved in.
Taking advice from various academics with doctorates in public order, police strategy is to develop friendly relations with the ‘fluffies’ then ask them to point out and condemn others who show an inkling of spirit.
Demos like Westminster Bridge are managed by the police with the organisers from the planning stage onwards.
Thanks to our public order academics* (whose funding is often boosted by commissions from the likes of ACPO), the police began to realise that the mentality of these door-matters makes them easliy co-opted: happy to point out the ‘troublemakers’, in the hope this might guarantee they themselves won’t be kettled or disturbed.
Just another variety of the same old ‘divide and rule’.
* Next time you meet one, ask how many times they’ve appeared as a defence expert. Doubt if you’ll need both hands to count!
regardless of what’s being said about the people occupying Wall Street, the fact is it’s a start and small acorns can grow in all kinds of ways.
2nd, all the macho posturing about hippys etc and smashing the system, that’s all well and good but be careful what you wish for. First off, the state is much better armed and organised than you. Second, once you have smashed the system, what will you replace it with? TBH, the best hope we have right now is that capitalism survives, albeit in a moderated form. If you think that the collapse of the economic system presages some kind of anarchist utopia you are living in lala land. What it will mean is economic mercantilsm, increased resource grabs, great power wars and the destruction of most of what we all take for granted. We are currently staring into a abyss far deeper than the world did in the late 1920s, and I dont see a very organised or strong left….sorry people, just calling it like I see it. Personally, Im on my knees praying for a renewed keyneisian compromise, cos that’s about the best I think we’ll get.
@doog-
‘First off, the state is much better armed and organised than you.’- Remember AUGUST?
‘What it will mean is economic mercantilsm, increased resource grabs, great power wars and the destruction of most of what we all take for granted.’
Of-course this is what we have NOW. As for ‘macho posturing about hippys etc and smashing the system’ I don’t see a great deal of that here…
You pray for a ‘keynesian compromise’- whereas I fully expect either an enormous crash of the global banking system, ‘Quantative easing’ of vast proportions that lead to stagflation or hyperinflation with the result that there is a, not unreasonable, revolution throughout the western world as living standards are destroyed and working and civil rights are withdrawn (Fancy working like a Chinese peasant in a Foxconn factory?).
Capitalism is eating itself, the system is ‘smashing’ itself.
Best outcome- the common people win and construct a fully functioning democratic, internationally horizontal society, with a sustainable zero-growth economy based on need not greed.
Worst outcome- the Maniac Bastards win, grind us into the dirt through unreconstructed authoritarianism, and then propel us into a Third World War which will end all life on earth. This is the best they can offer us as they would rather bring an end to our species than share the planet’s wealth, and this is the only kind of Keynesian social spending that actually works (cf.1939-1945).Like you said- ‘cos that’s about the best I think we’ll get.’
Marx called it ‘creative destruction of capital’- but then he lived in an age without Genocidal Weapons of Mass Murder.
Keep praying, ‘but (you) be careful what you wish for’..
It’s true, the oil situation doesn’t look good. Nevertheless, the ability of technology to develop is probably underestimated by most people, maybe even the writer of this little peach. But I wouldn’t bet my baby on it.
Post Soviet Lessons for a Post American Century
https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dtxqwqr_20dc52sm
Well, you’re wrong there, but I think you underestimate the power of corporations to control, oppose,suppress and derail new technologies, which have the power to transform the world for the better in order to maintain their market share and profits (like cold-fusion or e-cat or the EV-1 electric car suppressed by GM) -.
None of these technologies will solve the bourgeois economic crisis facing us now. Peak oil alone threatens to undermine any mythical recovery or ‘growth to come’- The oil price needs to stay over $85 for the Saudi’s effort, and below $100 so as not to cause inflation, and slow growth…In short we’re all fucked, so get used to it and buckle up.
Rioters smashing stores up etc means what? Do you really think that if the british state wanted to it couldnt stop a bunch of teenagers? Given the nightmare scenarios you outline, the british state would wheel out the guns etc. The riots in august could have been ended very quickly indeed if rioters were shot. So, hardly a major display of state violence, in fact the opposite.
We dont currently have economic mercantilism or resource wars. We do in fact have a form of neo-liberal economic interdependence, hence the inter linkages between the euro tanking and asian and US investors getting worried. This interdepenence is underwritten by American power. geopolitics is a very long war from resource wars and great power wars. Iraq and afghanistan do not equal great power wars btw, these are neo-colonial counter-insurgencies. QE wont lead to hyperinflation as that money isnt being released onto the high street and economies are massively depressed. Luckily so far, this great depression hasnt followed the footsteps of the last one, whereby states withdraw behind economic zones and forms of dangerous nationalism. As I say, the best we can hope for given the balance of forces is a form of global keyneisism ala stiglitz. That may change if the occupy wall st crowd help carve out some form of wiggle room for a greater movement. Little acorns and all that. however, pouring scorn on them at these very early stages doesnt help.
finally, given the balance of global forces your utopian dream of a global workers paradise is just that, a dream. Looked what happened in the 1930s, with a far more class concious working class and organised left parties. I hope you are right, but fear you are wrong.
@doog-
‘The riots in august could have been ended very quickly indeed if rioters were shot.’- One word: Ulster.
‘Resource wars’ are here- Iraq, Libya, AfPak, the growing tension between Turkey and Syria, China’s military and industrial expansion with an eye to the oil reserves in the Sprattly Islands, off the coast of Vietnam and the strategic control of the Malacca Straits, as well as friction with Japan over the islands of Taiwan…
This is where the ‘Great Power war’, the Third, and final, World War, is coming- with China, who are underwriting US debt through Treasury Bond holdings. Wars being fought now are wars by proxy- China backs Pakistan, the US backs India (with India stepping in to support the Afghan govt, buying the Iron mines so coveted by China). China won’t allow the US any freedom of action in Syria nor Iran…The currency and trade war between the US and XInhua has only just begun…
The price of commodities, ie food, is rising globally. QE, QED, is having an effect, and if not hyperinflation, then certainly stagflation is on the way. This Greatest Depression is in it’s early days, and a great many economists and capitalist pundits know, and say that ‘it will not end well’- citing War, widespread civil unrest and imminant economic collapse…(ie Roubini, Faber, Hudson, Krugman etc.)
Your ‘global keyneisism’ (sic) is a non-starter, look at Europe, their one and only solution is to print more confetti, there is no consensus for a continent-wide, coordinated bout of social spending. Funded by whom, the governments that are in debt to the banks, who are in debt to the governments, who owe the banks…?
I make no claims for any ‘Anarchist Utopia’, but I see that respect for, and trust of, political, financial and economic systems across the western world is at an all time historical low. Naomi Klein and her followers can clutch her mass-market paperback to their breasts as much as they want, and quote from it at length, but she, they, and it, will have no impact on the history of the world to come…Revolution and War, War and Revolution. There will be blood. Your polite little acorn will be washed away by a flood of it…
Good answer, especially the last line although the sic was a little off, come on..grammar police now?
we’ll see how it all pans out, but either way i think we can both agree it aint gonna be pretty.
Chomsky is an intellect of our time but there are thousands of strains of ‘activism’ out there. If everyone came out in support of the ‘Wall street occupiers’, then it would be more potent. If everyone wrote a letter to their MP it would be more affective. If everyone participated in some form of social activity then change would manifest. As touched on in this piece, until people are truly affected they remain inactive, happy to tick along with the ‘way things are’. Happy to not challenge the way they were created. Certain activism alienates people, reformists alienate anarchists or social libetarians. Anarchists alienate themselves sometimes. Middle class people who often dominate the activities of direct action come out witht he most ridicolous wording on their leaflets that make no connection to the working class. Then again the working class unions are traitors to themselves.
We do at least have mechanisms in place so that when the shit hits the fan more so than now, there are potentially alternatives lying in wait. What about fair trade? Reformist crap that doesn’t change a thing or a pleasant addition to consumer choice and genuinely offering a fair price to small traders. So armed revolution? Guerilla warfare which based on the brutalism of this society can be justified, but will have no chance in the police surveillance state we find ourselves in. Even trying to protest in a conformist manner is liable to make you out to be a awkward person. So any form of dissent is something although all protest unless in larger numbers that bring together the mass of people in a shared goal will be the only way to succeed. I fear only when the majority are negatively affected will this happen. Until then pontificating as we are and as this piece does, merely alienates and highlights the divisions that exist in the world of resistance.
I get worried when the rich support protests like the occupation of wall street. I have never liked the rich, but then I will be corrected.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/top-ten-richest-celebrities-supporting-occupy-wall-street/
One of the things that always strikes me about people in England is that they complain about unemployment but they never leave. Seems like the english working class is never forced to emigrate. Throughout the twentieth century, in Afria, Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, italy, and Ireland, the normal working class experience was emigration to find a job.
I’m from Galway in west Ireland and I’m moving to this occupy wall st thing in London (paternoster square, apparently?). Now, I’m a normal working class fella, I have no bee in my bonnet about democracy, I fully agree with ye that this movement is foolish because their demands in no way harm or challenge the capitalist system, I have no intention of attending any sermons in some sort of “people’s parliament”. What I’m moving into, as I see it, is a temporary refugee camp – which is providing people with no money from all around europe with some place to sleep for free, providing ye bring a tent. And that’s brilliant! When I first tried to move to London, I was so poor I tried sleeping in train stations but they were renovating St Pancras so I kept getting moved on! nightmare. After four days I was so ratty and exhausted, so frightened in fact, I used me last thirty quid to get the ferry home to me mum like a sap! And I’m 23!
Things like these tent villages are set up middleclass twerps but then provide somewhere for the working class to congregate and do some real damage – under cover of the flabby protest. Other revolutions, like the French and Russian, started similarly, with middleclass journalists making weedy demands – wait til food prices skyrocket and working class mums start fighting in earnest.
Never mind unemployment, housing is the No. 1 problem for young men in London. Anything that opens up more places to live is a good thing.
I am council estate born and bred. I have never been to University. My comprehensive was so shit it was closed in the early 80s which was quite an achievement then. I cut my teeth fighting the police in the miners strike. I have punched young city trader or two…and received it back. And by the way, I admire Ian Bone.
But some of you should take a fucking moment to listen to yourselves. Your air of superiority stinks like shit. You condemn people who are trying a different tactic. “Middle class wankers” you shout. I wonder where you were born. Not that it bothers me mind.
These occupy protests are attracting numbers you can’t even dream about. Sure they have a pacifist slant you may not agree with but FFS you are so fucking arrogant. Have you ever considered there’s more than one way to skin a cat? Have you ever doubted yourself one tiny bit? If you don’t doubt yourself at all you are going to be wrong more than you ever realize.
Middle class wankers you say? Noam Chmosky you say. Now there’s a celebrity revolutionary for the middle classes – I haven’t got a clue what he’s banging on about.
Why don’t you step away from your computers and join the occupy protests. They make collective decisions in assembles in a way I have never noticed in my brushes with anarchists. You should join these assemblies and educate us “wankers” with your enlightened theories. Or do you think me too stupid to understand?
You make me despair.
Sorry mate, but for alot of us, our criticisms of middle-class activists are born of bitter experience- and we despair too, but obviously for different reasons…Yes, there is a possiblity that these movements may develop into something else, and yeah, you’ve got to start somewhere, but there’s also the possibility that a movement can be ‘still-born’ from the off. You ought to know too that the ‘Assembly’ is the classical form of anarchist organisation,as is the concept of ‘occupation’, (not really ‘different tactics’ to us) so yeah, on the face of it, it’s all good, but for the fact that we all know how real, two-dimensional, non-stereotypical, middle-class wankers control and direct things according to their own liberal, apologetic agenda, one of pacifism, an ultimate deference to authority and reformism. They also only want to change society up to the point where they can maintain their own class position, and keep the proles in their place. On a more positive note- capitalism seems to be about to go down the shit-pipe, so there will be plenty of opportunity in the near future to change, review and adapt tactics and points of view. I have no doubt that if these reformist movements cause enough irritation to the rich, then more heads will be split, and ultimately their thinking will be changed…
You might be right. There is an obvious hierarchy in the camp. The posh kids from the media team expect others to wash their dishes. The privately educated call for a rush down to Dale Farm which is taken up by those without a plumb voice. ‘Public’ meetings, where decisions are made, are silently moved so only a few attend. Or there’s no time to discuss what someone ‘awkward’ brings up. The general assembly fawns over suggestions made by their ‘non’ leaders. There are discussions about yoga, celebrity guests and writing to your mp. It’s a fucking joke and right now I am not sure if I will return.
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Beware. There’s criticism and then there’s being deliberately divisive…