It's class war, people

Via the Portraits of Boston Facebook Page which is currently posting from New Orleans:

Post by Portraits of Boston.

Anti-Fascist by Martin Lux (Phoenix Press 2006)

I guess my anti-racism was partly a reaction to my background: a background from which I'd sought escape for almost as long as I can remember. In the recesses of my fertile imagination I'd always harboured dreams of a bohemian lifestyle. For sure, I wanted nothing to do with moronic, boring football, the number one obsession of my doomed contemporaries. And anyhow, as something of a raspberry ripple, I was hardly destined for success in the beautiful game.

Bash the Rich: True Life Confessions of an Anarchist in the UK by Ian Bone (Tangent Books 2006)

In fact, most anarchists kept their private lives completely divorced from their anarchist activities and would have been horrified if their neighbours had known about their hobby!

More to the point, I thought not talking to the media was missing out on major opportunities to spread our ideas. Yes of course we'd been misrepresented . . . blah blah . . . but still, however deformed, our ideas and existence would be read about by far more people in the News of the World (circulation 5,000,000) than a piece in Class War (circulation 15,000). After all, I'd first found out about anarchism in Punch. So when Andrew Tyler contacted us about doing a piece in Time Out about Class War in May 1985, me and Martin Wright decided to brave the cries of 'sell-out!' and go for it. If we were going to be exposed anyway, we might at least get a few good quotes in.

The Time Out piece was better than we could have dreamed of. Tyler had grasped the difference between us and the stultifying torpor that was British anarchism and written a coruscating piece that gave Class War an electrifying jolt. The oxygen of publicity resulted in a packed Class War conference two weeks later. The predicted criticism of our sell-out in Time Out came early in the day. 'Yes, I am sorry we appeared in Time Out,' I grovelled, 'I'm sorry it wasn't on the front page of the News of the World'. Tumultuous applause (well so it seems 20 years later). The case for talking to the press was won and has always been vindicated in my view. I was subsequently exposed in the Sunday Mirror, Today and the News of the World ('Dangerous lunatics who want to kill the entire cast of Eastenders' - don't ask!) and despite the vilification we got, our post bag was always rammed full the following week with people who'd never heard of us before but wanted o get involved now.

In particular, the quotation from the Living Legends lyric God Bless You Queen Mum appearing in the Sunday Mirror and wishing her an early death was especially popular. The key, of course, is not to believe your own publicity and the oxygen certainly went to my head in those intoxicating months in 1985. At the conference I had argued for '500 people with sledgehammers attacking the bridge at Henley.' By the time of that year's anarchist bookfair in Conway Hall, I was well away. Having sold shit loads of Class Wars with Martin I took the stage at the end of the day. Well, actually, there was already someone on the stage so I had to push him off it first. Unfortunately, that person was Donald Rooum - a veteran comrade I have a lot of respect for going back to his framing by the police for intending to throw a brick at the queen of Greece in the 1960s. However, it wasn't really Donald I was shoving off the stage but the old anarchist movement. Drunk as fuck I declared:

'You liberals and pacifists have had our movement for too long, now it's our turn. If we haven't reduced the place to ruins in five years you can have it back!'

Quite why I wanted to reduce the venerable Conway Hall to ruins was unclear. But what the fuck. I might have paraphrased Durrutti, but the point was clear. We were on a fucking roll.

Five Go Mad in Dalston

Ian Bone brings details of what will be the Must See Film of 2015. (I'm pegging it for a 2015 release date unless the lottery commission is still doling out the revenue from the poverty tax for funding British films that won't make any money.)

The suggested chapter headings look intriguing. It looks like a mix of Green Street Hooligans and Channel 4's 80s comedy Dream Stuffing. If the filmmaker, Greg Hall, is taking requests for what scenes to pre-screen on YouTube, I'm especially interested in chapters 29, 38 and 41.

I wonder if David Baddiel will appear as himself? Surely only one man can play the late, grate Joe Strummer. But can he master the mockney accent for the part?

More info on the proposed movie adaption of Ian Bone's 'Bash The Rich' over here.

Until Pixar finally get round to adapting Breaking Free for the big screen . . .

A rolling Bone gathers no Moss

The title of the post comes courtesy of Robert of MySpace SPGB fame (as does the links below).

In 8-parts, the links to the YouTube clips of the Socialist Party's 20th October debate with Class War's Ian Bone on the subject of 'Which Way to Revolution?'

Debating for the Socialist Party was Swansea Branch's Howard Moss and in the chair for the meeting was a fellow SPGB blogger. (Mentioning no names. Providing no links. You'll have to guess for yourself.)

I've yet to watch the debate in full myself but I thought I'd post it up asap because H over at Cactus Mouth Informer was asking after it a few weeks back.

You can also download an audio version of the debate over here if you're more the iPod type of armchair activist.

Pt.1 'Which Way to Revolution?'

Pt.2 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Wkv31_D1Ak8

Pt.3 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NissNsnNIjs

Pt.4 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=I2-0Txi5MDI

Pt.5 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1ylp3BQExzo

Pt.6 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc1PfYmd2mc

Pt.7 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HpUM0dlYEr0

Pt.8 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A91UTei_zIA

The dark haired bloke from the romcom films reads Eugene Debs

From a public performance of Howard Zinn's Voices of a People's History of the United States, Mark Ruffalo reads excerpts from Eugene Debs' 1918 Canton, Ohio anti-war speech. A speech for which Debs was arrested under the 1917 Espionage Act and sentenced to ten years in the Atlanta Penitentiary.

The full text of Debs' 1918 speech is available here.

More speeches from Zinn's Voices of a People's History of the United States - performed by the likes of Alfre Woodward, Danny Glover, Josh Brolin, Sandra Oh and Marisa Tomei - are available here.

Cuisine blog cooks up class struggle

Following on from previous mentions on the blog about the ongoing dispute between Wild Edibles and its current or ex-employees who have sought to assert their right to join a union, collectively bargain and seek payment of unpaid overtime comes the news that the dispute has been covered on the well known New York foodie blog, Eater.com.

In an article entitled 'Labor Woes: The Ongoing Saga of Wild Edibles', Adam Haas reports on yesterday's scenes at Wild Edibles Seafood Market Oyster Bar & Restaurant in Murray Hill, Manhattan, where "Protesters both for and against the company rallied . . . . to voice their concerns with the help of some colorful visual aids."

The blog piece even has pictures of the demo and counter-demo, but none of the pics on view were as colourful as this quote in the piece from a Matt Hovey, "If the workers want to join a union, it can be put to an up-down vote, but the Brandworkers' real agenda is simply to put Wild Edibles out of business and to end capitalism." [Emphasis in the original.]

The Zagat Survey says that that quotation earns a 15 for its economy with the truth; a 26 for service to the managements cause; and a 24 for its right-wing decor. On the whole, let's hope for an incredibly expensive experience for the bosses at Wild Edibles.

More info on this campaign and other campaigns at Brandworkers International.

My Favourite Political Picture of This Year . . . Or Any Other Year.

Why try and come up with a witty headline, when I know that I can't come up with anything to match the picture itself.

Well, that and the fact that the original source, Ian Bone's blog, has all the bases covered.

Class War's Ian Bone on the Jonathan Ross Show

A historical curio via Urban 75 and YouTube.

Ian Bone interviewed by Jonathan Ross around about 91/92. (I'm guessing the date because Major and Kinnock are mentioned at some point during the interview.)

The Magazine Wrack

Mr Bone has a . . . . has a . . . . point to pick make regarding the glossies.

Whatever you do, don't sign him for a subscription to Lucky for his Christmas. The poor sod will have a heart attack.