Twitter and Facebook - the new agents of revolution?

There has been a strange purge of Facebook profiles in the last few hours. According to UCL Occupation these profiles (organisations registered as individuals) have been removed, without apparent warning:

Open Birkbeck
UWE Occupation
Chesterfield Stopthecuts
Camberwell AntiCuts
IVA Womensrevolution
Tower Hamlets Greens
No Cuts
ArtsAgainst Cuts
London Student Assembly
Beat’n Streets
Roscoe ‘Manchester’ Occupation
Bristol Bookfair
Newcastle Occupation
Socialist Unity
Whospeaks Forus
Ourland FreeLand
Bristol Ukuncut
Teampalestina Shaf
Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut
No Quarter Cutthewar
Bootle Labour
Claimants Fightback
Ecosocialists Unite
Comrade George Orwell
Jason Derrick
Anarchista Rebellionist
BigSociety Leeds
Slade Occupation
Anti-Cuts Across Wigan
Firstof Mayband
Don’t Break Britain United
Cockneyreject
SWP Cork
Westiminster Trades Council
York Anarchists
Rock War
Sheffield Occupation
Central London SWP
North London Solidarity
Southwark Sos
Save NHS
Rochdale Law Centre
Goldsmiths Fights Back
Occupy Monaco

Political policing

Sums it up:

Yesterday, several squats were raided in Brighton with arrests made and in the early hours of this morning five squats across London were targeted. Two of the London squats are private residences in Camberwell which want to remain anonymous, whilst the third, Ratstar, also in Camberwell, is being used as a social centre and artistic space in agreement with the landlord. The raid against Ratstar was carried out under a Section 18 warrant to search for stolen goods, yet the TSG officers at the scene appear to have found no evidence of theft since the 14 arrests made were for the absurd crime of “electricity abstraction”. Twelve hours later, dozens of them were still searching the premises for anything incriminating. Members of Counter Terrorism Command, S015, were present at the eviction making use of spotter cards to try and identify possible suspects from March 26th...

Meanwhile, forty police were sent to raid Transition Heathrow, a community market garden, set up in opposition to the building of a Third Runway. The occupants were dragged out of their beds at 7.15 in the morning and searched. After one and a half hours, all the police could find in the deadly garden was some vegetables, chickens and bees...

I bet they were republican bees!

This just in!

Suzie Newsreader [sincere]: This just in; absolutely nothing of any importance happened yesterday. It's official, there is no news. We go live to Matthew Doublechin [cut to Matthew] in Westminster, Matthew, how is it looking from where you're standing?

Matthew [index finger jammed in left ear]: Well, Suzie, I can see a rather large building, ornate looking with a big clock on top.

Suzie: What time is it?

Matthew: It's just gone [pause to look] one o'clock.

Suzie: That must be why this is the One O'Clock News.

Matthew: I guess so.

Suzie: Are there many politicians about?

Matthew: No, a lot of them will have gone away to spend more time with their second homes.

Suzie: Thank you Matthew. We go over now to Nick Strangebias in the City of London [cut to Nick]. How are the markets being affected by the lack of news.

Nick [weird, semi-athletic stance - excited delivery]: Well the stock market isn't trading at the moment but the news that there's no news is bound to make something happen. The index is likely to go up [pause]... or down [back to Suzie].

Suzie: Thanks for that. Elsewhere hundreds of thousands of Arabs from across the Middle East are putting their lives on the line in the struggle for democracy [long pause]... And now the weather where you are.

For no raisin

For no raisin, and in no particular order:

Daisy Chainsaw, Love Your Money:



Fleet Foxes, Battery Kinzie:



The Strokes, Under Cover of the Night:



Queens of the... sorry, Arctic Monkeys, Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair

Died in police custody: April 2011

Anthony Davies, Crewe, 7th of April.
Colin Ranford, Worcester, 13th of April.
Kirk Williams, County Durham, 17th of April.
Michael Sweeney, Bow, 18th of April.

[Roobin's Extra] In addition to this, the London Metropolitan Police have decided to further insult reality by charging Alfie Meadows, a young man who almost died after recieving blows from police truncheons, with violent disorder.

It beggars belief.

How riots happen

A mystery to many people, especially the mainstream media and the powers that be. Here is an account of the argy-bargy that went on this weekend in Bristol. There are a number of simple reasons, I think, why it's a truthful, very plausible account. Anyone who's been in the middle of such violence will recognised these:

(1) Dangerous people who aren't here just to shop:

Stokes Croft is one of the most exciting, diverse and colourful areas of Bristol. Artistic graffiti adorns the walls, art galleries and vintage boutiques pop up in abandoned buildings and a strong sense of community binds together all the artists, businesses and residents in the area.

However, on the evening before the start of Bank Holiday weekend, an evening when Stokes Croft was full of people looking to start their Easter break, the police decided to send a convoy of riot vans into the area and shut off one of the main roads, Cheltenham Road. Their goal was to evict and arrest a small group of squatters who were occupying a building that has become known as Telepathic Heights, a landmark squatted building in the area covered in pictures of strange and grotesque animals and said to symbolise a form of local resistance.

(2) The consistent corporate override of the democratic principle:

One particular focus of that resistance is the new Tesco store which opened up a week ago despite huge local opposition (93% of 500 local people surveyed said no to the new development). Those who oppose the store have spent the last few years campaigning against it. They exhausted all the “democratic” channels available to them, but were unable to halt the development thanks to a regime of planning laws that systematically favour the interests of big business over those of local communities. Tesco will damage local businesses and is in direct opposition to the cultural and artistic environment that has sprung up in the area. There are already several Tesco's nearby - 33 in the Bristol area as a whole - and for these residents enough is enough.

(3) Police fanaticism, treating the area like it's the scene of an colonial uprising and the locals like natives:

I, like many other local residents, went down to watch the police operation out of curiosity. Most, it seemed, weren't there to protest against anything in particular, but rather to see what was a huge police operation involving 160 armed officers.

When I arrived at the scene everything was relatively peaceful. The police were holding a line to prevent people reaching Telepathic Heights and members of the public were asking them what was happening and why there were so many officers. The mood began to take on the feel of a small festival, the crowd cheered when somebody started playing some R&B music through a small sound system.

However, it didn't take long before everything began to switch. I couldn't say what happened first, the police arming themselves with riot shields or people dragging dustbins and bits of wood onto the street to build a barricade. One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that the police could have prevented what was to happen next by demobilising and leaving the area with the people that they had arrested. But they didn't, and stubbornness instead provoked a riot.

The end result is chaos inflicted on everyone in the police's path:

At this point I left for A & E to get myself checked having been injured. There, I had the opportunity to speak to some of the victims of the police's bungled operation. One 17 year old had gone to take photos of the riots but had been one of the people that tripped over the barricades as the police moved forward. Whilst on the floor he had been hit with a baton across the face and on the back of his head - he had a large bloody wound on the back of his head and his face was blue and swollen. He also had an enormous bruise on his arm from where he had obviously tried to protect himself (I have his details and he is happy to talk to anyone regarding the incident).

Another man had been bitten by a police dog gone mad. Neither of us could understand why they would ever use dogs in a situation as confusing and disorientating as a riot - and why they would bring them to a raid in the first place. One man who had been clubbed around the head couldn't stop repeating the fact he had just been popping out to the shops to buy some coconut milk. Another had a foot that looked totally broken. The cause - a police van driving over him.

The police will kill again, unless stopped.

Internet and Somesuch

At my last branch meeting there was an interesting discussion (and very worthwhile) about a certain internet article. The problem with the internet, apparently, is it's exclusive. If you're not on the internet you can't participate. The trouble is the same can be said about branch meetings.

A basic McLuhanite observation, one which we can broadly accept, is that machinery of all kinds are extensions of human aspects. For example, the wheel is an extension of the feet, clothes an extension of the skin, a telescope an extension of the eye. Electronic media are arguably an extension of the nervous system. For all practical purposes they enable people to respond instantly to very distant events, there is not the same abstraction and delay you get with print media. Instead of reading about an horrific tsunami you can watch it live.

Electronic media have been absorbed into our culture. They have trained people, created the expectation that they can and should respond to events immediately. Of course, first thought is not always the best thought. A revolutionary organisation in part is a collation of (in Gramscian terms) good sense over common sense. Comrades are active in very wide fields, often working on their own. This suggests three things:

(1) Whether we like it or not comrades are going to have to make decisions and put arguments without prior supervision.
(2) The basic principles of what we're doing and how we expect to do it, the ABC of socialism, must be continually thrashed out.
(2) Any activity must be subject to continual scrutiny and revision within the previous context.

Not the most astonishing intellectual breakthrough, but sometimes you have to bash away at the obvious... and here I am!

The current ISJ has a very interesting article about social media. Each Marxism now usually has at least one meeting on the internet (check this year's timetable, if there's not there an internet meeting there f-ing well should be). The internet is an aspect of millions of people's lives. We will have to discuss over and over again how we intervene in this medium. There may come a time in the near future where we need to assemble a bloggers and twitterers caucus.

List, o, list

Something we haven't done in a while, Actually Existing Books. You will find these in either the British or American national libraries:

Living Without Eating
Suggestive Handiwork for the Lower Classes
Memoranda on Noses
That Gunk on your Car
By His Own Hand: a study of cricket's suicides
All About Mud
Tredd on Dice
I Won't Be a Nun!
Canadian National Egg Laying Contests
European Spoons Before 1700
Movie Stars in Bathtubs
The Irish Swordsmen of France
Harnessing the Earthworm

These are some Actually Existing Authors (some of which I may have mentioned before, but hey-ho):

Pierre Anus
Ludwig von Badass
Levi Coffin
Homer Hassenpflug Dubs
Gottfried Egg
Vera Fartash
George L Grassmuck
Odd Bang Hansen
John Thomas Jeffcock
Hieronymous Knicker
Julius Lips
Voltaire Molesworth
C.B. Noisy
Violet Organ
Fernando Poo
Helmut Quack
Hans Rectanus
James Patrick Sex
Negley Teeters
Ole Worm
Pedro Alid Zoppi

News and spews

Nick Clegg sez: ‎"AV is not about me..." Huh, ok, um, let's leave aside the pinch of salt we need to take anything Nick Clegg says seriously... The alternative vote (formerly a miserable little compromise, now your chance to vote for more Lib Dem MPs) is, kind of, the last thing he has have left to justify the rotten coalition with the Tories but, ok, ok, OK... it's not about Nick Clegg... it's just about how much we hate Nick Clegg.

Elsewhere, a chilling description of the threat to London's ambulance service, described by service staff themselves, see here:

Many Londoners will have been shocked and maybe a bit frightened by the news that the capital’s ambulance service is to cut 890 jobs over the next five years.

Despite Tory lies about protecting the NHS, a staggering 560 of the posts will be frontline ambulance workers—a cut of a fifth.

Other jobs to go will be in “support” roles such as control room staff.

Yet demand for our services is rising sharply. The London Ambulance Service answered 1.5 million emergency calls and responded to one million incidents last year...

Our managers have come up with a number of “solutions” to help us do more work with less [sic] people.

One of their plans is to speed up our turnaround time at hospital. They want to give us just 15 minutes to hand over our patient, complete the paperwork, and then clean our vehicle.

If you call an ambulance, do you want a crew turning up exhausted after working ten hours without food or breaks?

Another worrying management attack is the “revised approach” to dirty vehicles and the checking of vehicles at the start of a shift. Our start of shift vehicle inspection is essential.

We ensure that equipment is on board and that the vehicle is roadworthy.

Now, management say, as long as the engine starts and we have the most basic resuscitation kit on board we should respond to emergencies—even if we have less equipment than a St John Ambulance first aider.

Great, inspiring news from the justice for Smiley Culture campaign. Small but welcome news, bullying headmaster removed from West London school, the strikes do work.

Culture: new Eno. New Radiohead.

And finally: the Cuban Communist Party wants to become the Cuban Capitalist Party, so much for 'deformed workers state' and all that jazz. You may not agree, but it's more proof, in my opinion, that Cuba was run, via state ownership, on a capitalist basis. If Cuba were communist such a transformation would require violent conflict. Oh well... at least it means we can now watch Juan of the Dead.

A bold strike against pre-crime

See here:

Police cannot rule out pre-emptive strikes against anarchists plotting to disrupt the royal wedding, Scotland Yard has said.

In one of the biggest security operations in the history of the Metropolitan police, just under 5,000 police officers - including armed and undercover teams - will be on duty on 29 April in the city of Westminster and around the centre of London.

So far, two groups have indicated that they wish to protest: Muslims against Crusades, who asked to demonstrate outside Westminster Abbey but were refused permission, and the English Defence League. The EDL indicated it would mount a demonstration if Muslims against Crusades did so.

No love for Muslims Against Crusades who, amongst many other objectionable things, are suspected of being a secret state operation (certainly they could not be more useful to the ruling class islamophobic drive), but if the EDL appear in London this is serious. London should be a no-go zone for nazis.

Anyhoo, the police have been given nicely wide and vague powers to deal with anyone who doesn't want to gormlessly cheer one rich person marrying another:

[Assistant commissioner Lynne] Owens said there was no intelligence to suggest a terrorist threat to the wedding, so police were not planning at this stage to use stop-and-search powers under the new section 47a of the Terrorism Act. This section replaces section 44, which was found to be illegal under European law.

She said it was likely that searches would be carried out under the two other powers available to police: section one of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act 1996. The latter allows police to designate an area a section 60 zone, in which officers are able to stop and search individuals without requiring evidence of wrongdoing.

A decision on how wide the section 60 area would be is likely to be made nearer the day of the wedding.

If the EDL don't put in a show it might be wise to avoid the whole area (which is a shame, London belongs to the likes of You and I, not the royal family). Nausiated republicans should stick together. For a small price you can stick together and have fun at 93 Feet East on the day.

Anti-social behaviour

Headline: Loony caught pushing shit through people's letterboxes.

But in less important news, one third of MPs are thinking of quitting because of the long hours they have to put in (bear in mind, 'summer' for these fuckers lasts from mid-July to mid-October). Forcing people into unemployment, destroying vital public services, bombing the third world, it takes it out of you. FUCKING DIDDUMS! I'll be a member of parliament for £65k basic annual pay.

Triumph of the Stupid

David Cameron apparently wants immigrants to learn English, as if non-English speaking immigrants don't want to learn English as well. Apparently all this multilingualism is causing the rise of the far right; yet again ethnic minorities are being blamed for racism. That's what we're dealing with. When David Cameron refers to immigrants he does not mean the hundreds of thousands of Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders living and working in Britain. Referring to 'immigrants' in such a way is a prophylactic, helping racism to enter the mainstream. Politicians like David Cameron are the ones to blame for the rise of the far right.

Being bubbleheaded citizensheep we are also supposed to forget David Cameron is cutting funding to English language courses for non-English speaking immigrants... David Cameron isn't fit to run a bath.

Die, you bastard, DIE!

Hosni Mubarak has reportedly been hospitalised by a heart attack. You have a limited time to get your special farewell telegrams in.

Probably not one of the Cultures of Resistance (tm)

Said cultures being jazz, jazz-funk, folk and Michael Rosen.

Oh dear, here goes

For several Marxisms and issues of the ISJ SWP theorists have tried to engage with anarchism and, wouldn't you know it, an anarchist has engaged back. In that sense (and that sense alone) it's perfectly fine that an anarchist should be allowed to respond, but what a response!

The first half consists of an historical justification of anarchism, which is nice. Anarchism, or at least anarchism at its best, is very much socialism from below. This should not be surprising. I think Paul Blackledge explains it very well when he describes anarchism in terms of a theory of knowledge, as an attempt to yolk the liberal, individual theory of knowledge with the socialist, collective theory of knowledge. These simply do not go together, hence, for example the very heterogeneous most people who are not anarchists have of anarchism; it can mean lots of different things.

But the second half is where it gets really fun, and by fun I mean frustrating. Do anarchists misunderstand the Marxist tradition? Maybe, maybe not, but the IS tendency is an attempt to sift the vital aspects of Marxism from the chaff of various more or less Stalinist theories. But, no, apparently we have to answer for every last person calling themselves a 'Marxist'.

It wouldn't be anarchism if we didn't go through every last thing that was mean and nasty about the Bolsheviks. The early years, the great difficulties faced by the revolution, the tough choices, the undoubtable mistakes, not to mention the growing corruption of the soviet regime has been dealt with so well, and in such great detail by IS writers it's close to pointless rehashing them. The IST does not "exonerate Marxist experiences", however one defines a Marxist experience.

"Beatings, torture and rape were routinely used" in soviet Russia. Routinely? I may be being precious but the author seems to have a fine textual eye; where in the Communist Manifesto (or any, for want of a better phrase, cannonical document) does it talk about the necessity of rape in building socialism?

The last observation, it is a shame, really and truly, that there seems to be nothing to say about anarchism and modern life. It is such a dry argument. I don't know, maybe the ISJ viciously, Marxistly suppressed it, boo hiss! How is anarchism going to deliver us from the current global crisis? I would like to know.

Utterly chilling...

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has apologised after two officers were recorded 'joking' about raping two women in their custody. I must add a few things, firstly the officers apparently only said those things because they thought the recording equipment had been smashed, hmm, nice; second, this is not the first such incident connected to this case (demonstrations regarding a Shell pipeline in County Mayo); finally, joking, joking? These were not jokes these were threats.

It is unfortunately typical of police the world over, both the attitude toward sexual assault and the attitude toward people regarded as enemies of the state (example, in Britain: officers confiscated the clothes of UK Uncut members in custody as 'evidence').

Pass the parcel

Hey folks, let's take a trip down memory lane; do you remember toxic debt? Well, it's still around. World governments, having taken on liabilities built up by world banks, are currently playing a game of pass the parcel with national debt. Toxic debt is a psynonym for excess capacity (excess in terms of capital accumulation).

It is a situation where, for example, in Britain there are the world's most efficient car producing plants, but they are too efficient. They make (or have to make) too many cars in order to be profitable.

There is still persistent low effective demand. Britons are on average £1,000 worse off compared to this time in 2009, and nobody but nobody is lending money. Why would they, with the government dementedly cutting jobs and services?

The various bailouts in Ireland, Greece (each with their own austerity clauses, making the global situation worse) now possibly in Portugal are helping to spread the risk of default round the global economy. It also binds us (us citizens, not the bankers or politicians) to the sinking ship. If one economy in Europe goes into South American-style freefall it could drag a whole number of other economies, and societies with it.

Phil Space

A little review I did that failed to get anywhere, but at least it'll Phil some Space:


Most people know Christopher Isherwood for his Berlin Stories, a collection based on picaresque novels, Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin; a fictionalised account of his life in early 30s Germany. They gave birth to the popular musical, Cabaret, starring Sally Bowles, one of the most recycled characters in modern fiction.

Later he rewrote these stories as memoirs, Christopher and His Kind. BBC2's recent dramatisation is generally good, as well as an accessible way for newcomers to get into Isherwood the writer and man.

If there is a political message from these stories the old adage, for evil to triumph all that's needed is for good people to stand to stand by. They are also an excellent illustration why in the 30s many people from the middle and upper classes turned to radicalism.

We begin with Isherwood (Matt Smith - pictured in the role) invited to Berlin by his friend, WH Auden (Toby Jones). Berlin was laid waste by the stock market crash. Many people, even middle class people, were made destitute. Old morals loosened as young people were forced to sell the last commodity, their own body, in order to get by. Isherwood revels in his sudden freedom.

We are taken on a whistle-stop tour of the novels. Look, there's Gerald Hamilton (Mr Norris) and Jean Ross (Sally Bowles). We meet the tragic Niedermeyers and the doomed Mr Landauer, who acts as Isherwood's literary conscience: “when the nazis come to power we must all go into the streets”.

The confrontation brewing on the streets of Berlin spills into Isherwood's personal life. He is in love with a communist waif called Heinz Neidermeyer. After his frail, consumptive mother (symbolic of Weimar Germany) dies, Isherwood is no longer welcome in their home. Heinz is left at the mercy of his thuggish nazi brother. We cut to Spring 1933, with book burnings, pogroms and the police sniffing around his once permissive landlady. Our hero realises, but too late...

The final third of the drama wains a little. Isherwood fails to get Heinz out of Germany. We get a hint of the coming cold war intellectual retreat (WH Auden: “the closest we came to solidarity with the workers was sleeping with them”). Things are rounded off in 1952, as Isherwood meets some “survivors”. Most surprisingly we meet Heinz in the Russian section of Berlin, married, with a young boy, called Christophe.

Even so it's worth catching Christopher and His Kind on BBC iPlayer, before the corporation foolishly deletes it.

Something completely else...

Nirvana do rockabilly Leadbelly.

Police psychosis

PC Simon Harwood, the man who assaulted Ian Tomlinson shortly before he died, is giving evidence to the enquiry into his death. This is him arriving in court today. Note the shades: even now, at this eleventh hour, he dresses like a brickshithouse, he dresses to intimidate.

An excerpt from the Graun's coverage:

[Inspector] Williams is now talking about a briefing given by a senior officer that lawful G20 protesters would be treated with "kid gloves" while those using violence would be treated with an "iron fist". Williams said he did not believe the language was helpful, though he understood the meaning.

Life is clearly a Bravo-Two-Zero thriller for Britain's riot cops; "we're going to head butt violence in the face... with an iron fist... and metal hammers...!" Simon Harwood, a man who has faced previous allegations of violent agression, men and women like him, were incited, pumped up and let loose on that day. Judging by the police riot in Trafagar Square after the demo on the 26th (not to mention the atavistic bludgeoning inflicted on students last November/December) this is still happening. Unless the police, in particular the Territorial Support Group, are stopped it is a matter time before they kill again.

Walmart - it's alive!

A fascinating little story: the US Supreme Court has ruled that Walmart is a person and therefore entitled to rights under the US constitution, probably more rights than public sector workers, but, hey. It may be a person, but it also seems to be a gestalt:

Walmart's defence against a class action charging the company with discrimination against its female employees – Dukes v Walmart – throws a new light on the biology of large corporations. The company argues that with "seven divisions, 41 regions, 3,400 stores and over one million employees", the experiences of individual employees are just too variable to allow for a "class" in the legal sense to arise. Walmart, in other words, is too big, too multifaceted and too diverse to be sued.

Walmart, I suppose, then must have a birthday. It is, of course, the parent company of lovely, fluffy Asda. Remember this when you go to one of their monster markets, Walmart is a living thing... Trade unionists, by trying to organise in Walmart you are impeding it's right to the pursuit of life, liberty and a big fat profit.