Saii's blog

This is actually a very serious accusation to level.

Email campaigning has been one of the surprise success stories of the last few years in labour struggle.

Back in November 2006 in this blog, I did a quick analysis of our media and how it compares to the mainstream in any given fortnight (to accommodate the fact that Freedom comes out that often - look at me ma I'm making the sun orbit the earth - also because it's a handy ten-day cycle of workdays).

Attached are the submission deadlines for the first half of this year's Freedom, so if any of you budding writers need to check, it's now on here. First of the year is January 10th.

Okay so it looks like we're going to do this thing with making Freedom an A4 size publication, which means the inevitable confusion, tears and recriminations. It's kind of like moving house except the arguments begin with what shape the furniture should be and decorating has to be done by committee.

What we're mainly looking at here is shapes and styles rather than content, so don't be put off by the downpage article on the front . The articles are mostly taken from issue 6820 to give a bit of realism to the whole thing, but they've been simply hacked off at the end where they're too long so this isn't a finished product or anything.

The Times has managed a doozy today:

This quote comes from here, and seems to be implying that collective struggle and revolution will lead to a cessation of freedoms for people.

Typically when someone is about to make a contentious statement they want the major media to pick up on, they will release hints of it ahead of time. This gives editors a chance to slot it into their schedules, run previews and generally work their moral muscles up for the debate.

A couple of paedophilia-related stories reminded me last night of a debate I had a while ago on the subject of the 'childlove' movement.

Its unofficial nature is likely to impress on people a sense of ‘unofficialness’, and in a well-run Squatted Social Centre (SSC) this can manifest in any number of extremely useful ways, from innovations in provision for the site itself, to increased creativity and the politicisation of people for whom even entering the space represents a break with commercial and official restrictions on cult

I had an interesting conversation today with one of Ipswich Anarchists' newer recruits (yes we do get them) about the usefulnesses and differences between squatted social centres and 'official' ones.

I've noticed, on and off over the last couple of years, that when I say 'Freedom is the only anarchist newspaper in Britain', some people have responded 'well what about Schnews'?

Now that the paper is on a slightly more even keel for me personally (this most recent one was frustrating mainly through having to hold both the front page and page four while new stories came through), it’s going to be difficult to avoid going through the organisation and distribution of the paper, and contacting the various people who have offered their services but been stymied by my inabili

I’ve just been watching pictures of the start of Nick Griffin’s trial coming through on the PA newswire, and he looks every inch the victor from this legal exchange between him and the state. Even if he is jailed, pictures of him flashing Churchill’s famous V sign will beam out across the face of the media from here to Australia.

Right, after a very stretched week, my time is my own again (pretty much), and the good thing is it stays that way for the next three weeks .

As I've already said, recruitment has caused no end of problems due to my position and that of the rest of the press. Freedom needs a lot of work to function, only some of which is the usual writers and editors dilemma. among the major jobs are:

- Editorial (really I've gone into what this requires at length, though I shall come back to it).

Originally, it had to be the major papers I turned to for information - until I'd worked out how the alternative press worked and where I could find news people might not have heard, picking the nuggets of gold out of the nationals was easily my best bet for strong stories.

The work was fairly simple, certainly to begin with.

I got home a touch earlier from work than usual yesterday, and for once, sat down to watch Newsround as my internet at home had packed up. I was there just long enough to catch a segment on animal testing.

The paper started to regularly come out late shortly after I took over. I make no bones about this, and have apologised fulsomely in both the paper and on occasion in person to whoever got pissed off. However, an issue has also never been missed, so while consistency has been poor, reliability has not.