Monthly Archives: April 2010
If You’re in Manchester on Mayday – Anti-Election bloc
Looks like a good demo and after event. Manchester No Borders have organised demonstrations at previous Mayday events and they’ve all been quite good. To read the original call out head over here.
Sick of the elections? Sick of tedious work, or being told to get a job? Don’t know who to vote for and think it probably wouldn’t make any difference anyway? Us too!
Join us on Mayday to celebrate International Workers Day, the historical and daily struggle of workers – paid, unpaid and ‘unemployed’ – against the daily grind that is work and ‘life’ under capitalism.
Manchester No Borders calls for a ‘You Cannot Represent Our Diversity’ anti-election bloc on the TUC May day march (Sat 1st May, 12pm, All Saints Park- look out for the banner) and a celebratory BBQ and Alternative Speakers Corner on Saturday 1st May in Birley Fields, 3pm, between Bonsall St and Streford Rd, Hulme. Hulme has a long tradition of dissent and resisting mainstream ideas of how the ‘local community’ should be doing things. Let’s keep it going and celebrate one of the best bits of public green space in South Manchester at the same time .
The three main political parties, as well as the whacky ones like UKIP and the BNP, assume that being ‘tough on immigration’ is the way to win votes.
If you’re sick of such simplistic scapegoating ideas, which divide people against one another locally and globally, and never look at the causes of inequality, join us on May Day!
Come together to celebrate diversity and community! No Borders, No Nations!
BBQ ** Local Musicians ** Fun & Games ** Non Party-Political Discussions **
Spoken Word Performance **Info Stalls ** Urban Gardening ** Kids’ Area **
Sunday Papers #5: 4th April
A few little treats this bank holiday Sunday.
* Very short but critical piece discussing the *ahem* “legacy” of the Summer of Rage last year.
* CJA have released a position paper discussing the concept of climate justice and how it applies to the European context. Seems pretty progressive when compared to the nonsense being bandied about in the thread above and in large parts of the environmental sphere. Climate Justice looks like a useful discourse to unite autonomous movements around.
* In the spirit of the anniversary of the Poll tax riots here’s a link to a documentary of the day.
* And to continue the documentary vibe, here’s an interesting documentary on pirate radio. Autonomous cultural production!
Given the bank holiday weekend here are some links to a few more meaty articles coming from the value critique strand of Marxism. I think that this strand has a lot of potential to offer to autonomous anti-capitalist movements, as it provides a useful materialist understanding of capital without devolving into workerism, vanguardism or any other bits of marxist historical baggage.
* Transcript of a Moishe Postone article – a fairly clear explanation of the value critique position. The Q and A after is also quite revealing.
* Translation of an Anselm Jappe article distributed at last years Communism conference at Birkbeck. I think he is connected to the Krisis/Exit tendency. In this article he, correctly I think, argues that Neo-liberalism was one solution to the crisis of valorisation in the 1960’s. He makes the point that rather than being a deviation of the so called “real” economy, the financialisation of capitalism we have witnessed in the past twenty to thirty years was a response to a crisis in Fordist forms of production. This is quite a similar argument to that made by David Harvey.
* and finally, no it not an April fools joke but Delroy Smelley, the officer who brutally assaulted a demonstrator at the G20 protests and seen by thousands on youtube, walks free from court. When asked to comment on the verdict he merely replied “I don’t think so, I’ve got a reputation to protect.”….tosser
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