United Kingdom Anarchoblogs

      

       There is a lot of talk of billionaire Donald Trump running for the Republican nomination for president. One thing about America, it can turn up some real weirdos for the presidency. We should be concerned, to give somebody the biggest arsenal in the world we should at least consider their suitability. It's our lives they're messing up. However, you don't have to say anything about Trump to criticise him, he does that very well every time he opens his mouth. Here are just a few of his remarks on the world situation.

On Libya: “I would go in and take the oil --- I would take the oil and stop all this baby stuff.”

On Iraq: “We stay there, and we take the oil --- In the old days, when you have a war and you win, that nation is yours.”

What America must do: “Stop what's going on in the world. The world is just destroying our country. These other countries are sapping our strength.”

On the rising price of oil and OPEC: “I'm going to look them in the eye and say 'Look fellows you've had your fun. Your fun is over' ”

What he thinks about the ordinary people: Well apparently he will not shake hands with ordinary Americans when out canvassing, saying, “You catch all sorts of things.”

Having claimed that he was responsible for making Obama produce his birth certificate, I think it is only fair that he should come clean on his hair. Is it really his? Or is it an unnatural immigrant and has no right to be there?

      Is this the best that the American political class can come up with, is this the pinnacle of their elite?

    ONE OF THEM

       I thought I might get through the week without mentioning IT, but I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. Here we are, putting on one of the most spectacular displays of privilege, a display of parasitical living, all paid for by tax payers, and beaming it all over the globe. What we are saying to the world is, this is Britain in the 21st century. However it is a lie, it is not Britain, it is a glimpse of a slice of the upper crust, the pampered elite, the parasites. Britain today is a country with mass unemployment, children living in poverty, pensioners dying of hypothermia during our cold winters. Britain is a country that can put on a extravaganza that takes your breath away by its sheer opulence, but can't put together a system whereby most young couples can afford their first home as they try to start up on their own. A country where couples struggle to try and give their kids a decent up-bring, let alone a lavish wedding.

    ONE OF US.   

I didn't see the wedding of William Windsor and Kate Middleton. I had better things to do, namely going door-to-door delivering anti-fascist leaflets in Anfield. But the repression that preceded it - indeed that it gave pretext to - should concern everybody who wishes to live in a free society.

Yesterday, the Metropolitan Police launched a "pre-emptive strike," in anticipation of "trouble" at the wedding. They arrested twenty people in raids of London squats, their only crime as far as I can tell that of being "anarchists." They were amongst a wider group of 90 people banned from going into central London on the day of the wedding.

The eccentric Chris Knight was one of three people arrested for planning to behead effigies of the royals. A crime of the same severity (one would have thought) as burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes on November 5th.

In Cambridgeshire police arrested Charlie Veitch, of the Love Police, "on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance." That is, for planning to speak into a megaphone in a way not entirely flattering to the British monarchy. Heaven forfend. Indeed, this is surely a greater crime even than murdering an inanimate object. If you would like to speak to the custody officer holding Charlie and ask why his voice is considered a threat, please feel free to call (+44) 845 456 456 4 and ask for the custody block.

But as if the death of effigies and a man's voice weren't obscene enough, as the wedding procession was underway police saw people (gasp!) assemple and put on masks. This horrendous act of terrorism justified the invocation of Section 60 of the Public Order Act. Police established a royal wedding "exclusion zone" within which they could stop-and-search without discretion and ask anybody to remove masks or face coverings. One man was arrested for singing "We all live in a fascist regime" to the tune of We All Live In a Yellow Submarine. The "clash" that followed this should be read as "the police being arseholes and starting a fight." A total of 45 people were arrested.

All of this comes on the back of a wave of media hysteria. The London Evening Standard was particularly absurd with its claim that "up to 1,500 hardcore militants plan to storm buildings around Trafalgar Square and The Mall, displaying obscene banners and obscuring the London skyline with billowing smoke as images of the wedding are beamed to millions of viewers around the world." Not least because of the ridiculous contents of their "anarchist organiser's" backpack. But they were far from alone.

Indeed, the coverage offered by the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, et al has bordered on the insane. But it has also hit the right note of hysterical fear-mongering. Perhaps the most obvious comparison was the first red scare of 1919-20, with its almost demonic charicatures of anarchism.

Even coverage of the planned protests by Muslims Against Crusades (since called off) spent most of their word count going on about "anarchists." It is coming to something when even the Mail will dedicate a considerable chunk of an article about the rabid lunatics of the Islamic far-right to "anarchists" and "troublemakers" of the left.

But then, MAC are just lunatics using the wedding as a convenient focal point for another attempt to piss people off. Anarchists, on the other hand, recognise that "it's capitalism, not feudalism, that is ruining the lives of working people." Our intention is to "continue to focus our energy and resources to support workers in struggle, get active in our own workplaces, and build a sense of community that transcends commodity relations and nation-states." Hence unlike MAC - who have faced no pre-emptive raids or other repression - we are a genuine threat to the established order and must be stopped.

The mask of liberalism is slipping, and that must be considered a good thing as more people awaken to the true nature of the state and its relation to capital. But this inevitably means that those in power will be more willing to exercise the state's monopoly of violence with little discrimination. We need to watch our backs, but always continue to organise dissent and challenge established power.

     And so to page 9 of the wonderful wee book, The Teapot Collective Introduction to Anarchy. It is something worthwhile to read on this holiday Friday. Page 8 can be found HERE.

      Propaganda by the deed experienced a revival in the 1970s with an equally notorious urban guerrilla movement in Europe and the US (many groups of which were more Marxist-orientated than anarchist) A strong pacifist anarchist movement has also always existed alongside this, from Tolstoy and christian Utopian anarchists to parts of the peace movement of this century.

     On the question of violence, it's probably fair to say that most anarchists believe in the importance of self-defence and militantly defending whatever autonomy we achieve, at least where it's tactically sensible. The idea and history of the insurrection, of pissed-off people reclaiming their power by showing their strength in attacks on symbols of the state and capitalism, is also quite inspiring to many anarchists.

     More recently, women's liberation has emerged a force attacking our systemic oppression as women in a society based on power over each other. A society which needs to oppress some people so the elite can prosper.