London, Monopolise Mayday - beware of pretenders.
national |
miscellaneous |
news report
Tuesday April 02, 2002 21:34
by jimmy
GR and their pseudo rebellion
Monopolise Mayday
Globalise Resistance - which styles itself as the anti-capitalist
movement, but has been dubbed by others Monopolise
Resistance has teamed up with the London May Day
Organising Committee, which is linked to the Greater London
Trades Union Council and South East Region TUC, to host an
event called United for Mayday. The announcement from
Globalise Resistance proudly boasted that: This is also the first
time a march will go to Trafalgar Square while Parliament is
sitting. May Day is building up to be another incredible event.
The London May Day Organising Committee was more honest:
Marches to Trafalgar Square are forbidden on days when
Parliament is in session, under a Sessional Order dating from
1829. Despite this, the Mayor of London has made the Square
available to us and the Metropolitan Police have agreed to the
march, on the understanding that this does not set a precedent
and that the march will be disciplined and orderly.
Of course, Trafalgar Square is simply an empty space. If
Globalise Resistance, the London May Day Organising
Committee or anyone else wanted to hold a demonstration there
they could simply do so without seeking permission. Numerous
anti-capitalist events have been held in London and elsewhere,
without the state being consulted.
Behind the Globalise Resistance bluff, what is planned is the
usual boring march, taking much the same route as in 2000,
followed by a rally at which the speakers will include Tony Benn,
Barry Camfield (T&G), Ruth Winters (FBU), Mark Serwotka
(PCS), Diane Abbott MP plus other MPs. trade unionists,
environmentalists and anti-capitalists [i.e. Guy class traitor
Taylor and other Globalise Resistance members]. Excitement
indeed!
Having begged the state for permission, Globalise Resistance
obviously have good reason to be grateful. But behind this
ridiculous posturing lies the serious problem of the lack of a
revolutionary critique of the state. We can not forget how last
Mayday the state waged an unprecedented campaign against
those anti-capitalists, revolutionaries and others who wanted to
gather in central London to celebrate Mayday. The press was
used to disseminate misinformation, lies, smears and threats.
The cops made open threats of violence, whilst Lord Harris, the
Labour peer and Chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority,
called for the cops to shoot protesters. Mayor Livingstone, the
enfant terrible of the labour camp (who Globalise Resistance
and their parent SWP had supported in his election campaign),
placed paid-for adverts in newspapers warning people to stay
away. Even the Home Secretary and Blair got in on the act. On
the day itself Globalise Resistance marched straight into the
cops trap by turning up at O
We need to consider the nature and purpose of the United for
Mayday alliance and question the nature of the unity. The minor
trade union bureaucrats in the London May Day Organising
Committee have for years organised a pointless and boring
traditional march in London. Over the past two years they have
lamented the attention given to anti-capitalist actions:
If you read or watched the mainstream media you would have
thought the only things going on were the protests of the
anti-capitalist coalition. The coverage ranged from the death of
civilisation as-we-know-it to sorting out your fashion statement
as a WOMBLE or spikey. No attention was given at all to, what
has been characterised as, the boring old trade union May Day
March which went from Highbury Fields to Clerkenwell Green.
(Statement of the Organiser of London May Day Organising
Committee, carried in Voice of the Unions see the similar article
in The Morning Star 2/5/01)
For them the link up with Globalise Resistance offers a
perceived route to credibility. The trade union and labour
hierarchy, who for years paid at best lip service to Mayday,
fears the growing militancy amongst some sections of the
working class and the possibility of a genuine link up with
anti-capitalists, which may lead to the adoption of the tactics of
direct action and the rejection of sterile trade union and electoral
politics. No doubt they have an eye on the local elections on
May 2nd. They are backing United for Mayday as a safety
valve.
Globalise Resistance also wants a safe alternative to openly
defiant actions. Last year they discovered anti-capitalism and
joined the actions in Oxford Circus. However, the illegal nature
of the action obviously proved to be too much, so a safer form of
protest had to be found. Globalise Resistance is, we should
remember, a front for the Socialist Workers Party. In the guise
of another front, the Socialist Alliance, they too will contest the
elections on May 2nd. Last year the sigh of relief amongst
Globalise Resistance/SWP activists when the election was
postponed was all too apparent, but it will not happen this year.
They cannot risk trouble on Mayday and present themselves as
good bourgeois democrats the next day, particularly when they
have real hopes of picking up a few council seats and being
allowed to participate in the rationing of local services. At the
same time however they must dress up their Mayday proposal
as the radical alternative, to satisfy those who do not share their
electoral
The third party to this alliance is the state. The states interest is
all too obvious. Last year, despite the huge campaign, the state
failed to deter a significant minority from coming to central
London. Since then we have witnessed Genoa, the uprising in
Argentina, the war on Afghanistan and, in the run up to Mayday,
preparations are in full swing for a renewed war against Iraq.
This year, having sanctioned a demonstration in central London,
in Trafalgar Square, the state will be use this to justify state
violence against anyone who dares to defy the false unity and
takes action elsewhere in London. However, anyone wanting to
consider the risk of being in Trafalgar Square needs to look no
further back than Mayday 2000, when large numbers of people
were attacked by the cops. As last years Mayday Monopoly
Game Guide warned: Remember this is their territory, the place
they want us!
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Comments (12 of 12)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Ah go and sod off you negative sectarian idiots! If you've nothing positive or alternative to offer then don't bother clogging up the Newswire with this divisive sectarian crap!
Paul me oul' flower,
you lament this informative article (informative because it points out the reactionary and deceptive nature of the SWP) because it is
1.sectarian
2.divisive
Now Paul, after you've pulled your cloth cap out of your eyes and stopped foaming at the mouth, let's examine those objections together.
Sectarian: yes, the people that don't like the SWP tend not to be members of the SWP sect. So they are sectarian because they don't agree with reformist authoritarians.
Divisive: yes, the people that don't like the SWP tend to believe that they should be divided from them.
So, there's no rationality to your objections Paul ,is there?
Supposing anti-authoritarian anti-capitalists were pointing out that fascists were taking over Mayday. Wouldn't that be "divisive" and "sectarian" also? (Yes Paul it would, thank you Paul).
Now, explain why valid criticisms of the cult-like SWP should be stifled.
*smooch!!!*
Paul what is it with you and the word "sectarian" did you just find it in the dictionary, cause you just fling it around with gay abandon.
Quit tell people who raise valid criticism to piss off.
And this person does offer an alternative,
DON'T GET INVOLVED WITH THE DULL CLICHED GR PROTESTS THIS MAYDAY
Go to the better protests.
You're a spa.
KM
king mob
What a great argument you made and how do you top it off? By calling Paul a spastic. Maybe you don't want to get involved in GR activities in London, so what, you do what you want to do and let everyone else decide what they want, agreed? But please, never, never use discriminatory language.
King Mob,
since when was it a valid criticism to be a "spa"? Let me know what protest you're going to so that I can avoid it.
*kick*
The socialist pillock alliance.
This group's aims include;
Smothering all other groups involved in a movement in a wave of tired prose waxing lyrically about the tireless work of the SPA, this is published in a newspaper they prostitute on people they meet at demos.
The dominantion of the Single cell lifeform plague refered to as SPA, the cell takes over a naive student (due to poor nutrient students are particularly prone to the virus, and all students should wear gloves when speaking to SPA members) the virus consumes the student and is only consumed once the student has infected five people with the virus and attended several pointless march. The student is left unharmed, but as a side effect is now left feeling distanful towards the left and uninterested with leftwing causes.
I could go on, but I think I hear Paul foaming at the mouth and trying to mutter something...
"What is it Paul?"
"S?" "Sec"? "Sectar"?
Sounds like gibberish to me.
First of all let me make it crystal clear for the one billionth and one time that I AM NOT, NEVER HAVE BEEN AND WILL NEVER, EVER WILL BE a member of the Socialist Workers Party! Have I made that clear? I can you tell which members, of a load of various organisations, apart from the SWP who are involved with Globalise Resistance. Socialist Youth (Part of the Socialist Party - Joe Higgin's people - NOT THE SWP!) are affiliated to GR. They are also many Anarchists, members of Sinn Fein, the Green Party, the Worker's Party and the Socialist Party actively involved in GR on a personal basis, as well as many Non-Aligned Socialists, Republicans and Anarchists plus many decent, committed, Grassroot, Rank and File Trade Union Activists involved with GR. This big titanic elephant of a pamphlet is a rehash of the same pamphlet that was stuck onto the bottom of a very positive GR Report on a series of very positive upcoming events in Ireland that GR is working on IN COLLABORATION WITH, AND IN CO-ORDINATION WITH OTHER GROUPS such as The Reclaim The Streets Event in Dublin on the Bank Holiday Monday May 6TH, the Anti War March in Dublin on Saturday the 27TH of April and the Dublin May Day March on Wednesday May 1ST.
Thanks for the raising the issue of neo-nazis infiltrating the Anti capitalism Movement. That has become an issue of great concern to many of us in the Anti capitalist Movement, AND NOT JUST IN GLOBALISE RESISTANCE EITHER! There have been concerns especially since Genoa about neo-nazis infiltrating the Anti capitalism Movement.
Finally King Mob sink back into the sewer from where you came. Nobody wants your gutter type and patronising remarks.
ONE OF the most exciting developments of the new anti-capitalist movement is how it has brought together all sorts of people with differing views about how to change the world. This has been seen most recently in Britain with the Globalise Resistance counter-conference tour. Environmentalists, socialists, anarchists and many others have come together to discuss how to take on the power of the corporations.
Yet a minority of groups and individuals have been highly critical of socialists, particularly the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). A leaflet handed out by a few anarchists at some of the counter- conferences accused the SWP of being "vampires" and parasites of the movement. "The SWP has a long history of seizing on every new 'issue' or movement and trying to dominate it, recruiting who they can and then moving on to the next big thing," the leaflet said.
Yet let's take a closer look at what the leaflet is saying. It accuses the SWP of involving itself in every issue or movement. Absolutely. We are proud of being involved in many issues, whether it is the anti-capitalist protests in Prague, Nice or Davos, building support for London tube workers or the Dudley hospitals workers fighting privatisation, for the Vauxhall workers fighting for jobs, or against racist attacks.
We want to involve the widest numbers of people as possible in each campaign. But we also want to connect up the different struggles against different horrific effects of the system in order to make the fight against capitalism more effective and powerful. Every campaign, no matter how big or small, brings people from different political backgrounds together against some aspect of the system. Some of those involved are influenced by some of the myths thrown at us daily in the media, which always tries to present issues as if there were no connections between them.
Many people and groups will have contradictory ideas about the world, and about how we take the movement forward.
So some people involved in the developing anti-capitalist movement, for example, passionately condemn Third World debt but do not necessarily see a connection between debt and war. As socialists we always try to make the connections. So we argue that the military might of NATO acts as debt collector for institutions like the IMF and World Bank.
The capitalist system which condemns millions to die because of debt repayments and austerity measures imposed by the IMF and World Bank is the same system which has given us slavery and racism, sexism, inequality and war. We see the need to fight the whole organisation of a society where a tiny minority own and control all the wealth and what gets produced. The anarchist leaflet also accuses the SWP of trying to control and direct the "resistance of the oppressed". It says that a revolutionary party as is "much our enemy as the bosses".
Instead the movement should have "no leaders giving us orders, just mutual aid and solidarity between groups and individuals". But in every new movement there is a battle of ideas about which direction the movement should take.
So in the anti-capitalist movement individuals have already come to the fore as "thought leaders" who have taken the movement forward. People like Susan George, Naomi Klein, Walden Bello and José Bové have become widely known as symbols of resistance. The aim of a party like the SWP is not to lecture people from on high or to deliver change on behalf of people.
It is to organise the most militant sections of society so that we can convince and involve even wider layers of people in the struggle to change the world. We want a network of militants and activists who argue for socialist ideas, organise in their workplace, colleges or schools, and push for struggles to go further against the system.
We are for democracy and debate inside the movement, but we also see the need to be organised in order to centralise our forces to fight against the real vampires-the capitalists.
Paul,
where did anyone accuse you of being a SWP member? I can't see a single accusation there. What I do see is criticism of your attempt to stifle debate by calling it "sectarian" and "divisive".
"Revolutionary Socialist",
your party piece manages to ignore the central problem most people have with the SWP: your organisation has a track record of trying to be the "reasonable" face of socialism. This is pointed out in the http://schnews.org.uk article which cites how you betrayed the miners when they took direct action. It is also a matter of record that you organize marches which promise "direct action" but end up being so stewarded and controlled (see Genoa, MayDay this year) that all that happens on them is that people march behind banners.
Sure, marching behind banners is better than sitting at home, but what is this supposed to achieve?
It seems that what it's supposed to achieve is build a public profile for SWP as an organization. This spectacle is then used to attempt to pressure the "democratic representatives" into being nice to us. Hence, the SWP's support for voting for the Labour Party.
All you have to do is to look at the last few decades of reformist political action to see that this is a losing strategy. Life was hardly better under Kinnock than Thatcher or Blair.
Time for a real change.
Time to stop jumping from popular issue to popular issue, creating the illusion of broad campaigns.
Time to stop Guy Taylor (GR headman from attacking people that defend themselves from the police)
Time for sincere socialists in the SWP/SWM to question what sort of society their bureaucratic, summit-hopping organisation can create.
Time for direct democracy.
Question: specifically which incidents in the schnews article do you claim to be factually incorrect?
Paul and Revoluntary worker
I'm really really really tired of you guys trotting out the same arguments in defense of GR, thats it's not a SWP front.
AND YOUR TIRED CLICHED PROSE! Christ Paul are really don't need to take the mickey out you you make it so easy for me.
Let me explain this to you, rolling out the same tired attacks to anyone who dares disagree with your view that the GR is the savour of the left can also cure warts, and remove unsightly body hair.
Lets ask a few questions, Paul, most of the leaders of GR Ireland members of the SWP? Grace and Joe?
How exactly is have you proved your point, you tend to ignore any argument that you can't answer and witter on about smaller points people make.
And "takes one to know one"? Oscar Wilde is reborn.
Paul this is bullshit and tired, at least have the decency to admit the truth
Yeah at last we've someone whose not afraid to tell the truth. Fair Play King Mob! Now that you demolished that Spastic Mental Retard Lunatic Bastard Paul Kinsella why don't you join our organisation SPABASHERS King Mob? Your talents are really needed for our organisation. We already have QUEERBASHERS up and kicking so why not do the same with SPABASHERS?
While the "We hate GR/SWP" debate is always fascinating it would be nice if the newswire had things about the movement in Ireland.
This isn't to say Irish indymedia should just be about Ireland but does any one really believe more than twenty people here give a fuck about uk GR vs Schnews.
The above is your lot said and your lot did it is a load of wank.
All of the above comments do it. Such and such gave out a leaflet at meetings in the UK, the SWP did this in the minors strike!
I believe you want uk.indymedia.org but then again their bandwidth is precious too.