AF Stickers

there was actually a bit of a fuck up with the last lot of stickers that were printed. some (very!) rough draft designs, in a low quality format, somehow ended up being printed. Anyway, thankfully they're nearly all gone now so we should have some next.

nah, the stickers are shit. Sorry. Too fussy, trying to say too much. Much preferred the ones we did in Manchester - but I would say that, wouldn't I?

They're on www.af-north.org and follow the links.

Stickers should be simple and direct.

Aye, they all sucked balls apart from the NWBTCW one.

Anyone going to AFLondon meeting tonight?

Well Neddy, I've just designed four stickers for the AF if you're interested. Don't get your hopes up...I only did them on Word 97 and they're more intended to be suggestions rather than concrete designs. Just tell me where I can email them to and then tell me what you think.

Hello there Ed.

Have you joined the AF?

Good move on the stickers. I am probably the least artistic person in the world, and couldn't design any at all. I hope you don't think I was being rude, Nastyned, I am well impressed that anyone has desinged any TBH. But I don't actually think that any of them are good apart from the No War But The Class War one.

I still respect anyone who has put them together, but I would prefer it if we had better ones.

Am I digging myself into a hole here??

There are reasons why Class War stickers are better, do you want to have a guess why?

But seriously, this thread throws up other issues, like who has the best front covers etc... Not that I like this point scoring crap...

What I'm trying to say is I think Paul Marsh had the right idea on that old thread about the class struggle anarchist movement in Britain, and I'm reliving that brief Federation meeting in Bradford last year...

Call our movement the Solidarity Federation, have a magazine called Organise and a newspaper, 'Class War', do a national newsletter like Resistance, and local bulletins such as London Calling... Have accountable editorial boards with articles getting included on merit... etc.

I would like to see a better proposal, otherwise I think we should go with this, I also think we should set up a 2 conference proces to launch the process. The first being the debate/problems etc, and teh secon to coplete the process, dot the i's etc, and start the movement in its new form... but hey, I run away with myself;)

Leo I think what your saying is crap, Im sure we have dogmatists in the movement but we also have the majority of people on ourside who actually want to try and get out of the ghetto, so whats really holding them back?

For my part I think there is some minor differences between the groups which still need addressing.

To be fair to Leonard he did say it was a minority of people that were the problem.

I went to the meeting between the three gps in Bradford and the turn out indicated that Sol Fed were'nt interested and that the AF were holding, at best, a watching brief.

Good luck to them if they think they can do something else that's better, but a year/18 months on - I think we can safely say they did not!

Between the groups there are different emphasis's on stratergy/tactics, the question that needs to be asked, is this simply because of the people involved in this or that particular fed? Im all for unity but not for its own sake, if the end product would be better than what we have now that would be great, but personally Im none the wiser.

Good response, but how does it become a reality....?

I would like to see more anarchist unity and i was impressed at how the AF, ASF and others in Ireland merged to form Organise. But they spent a lot of time working to get political agreement beforehand. I can't see us getting anywhere without doing this. It's no good pretending major political difference don't exist.

Yes, but that's the point - Exactly what are these major political differences? Or are they just old personality ones?

I think we should seriously begin the efforts to make something happen... Are people content with their own 'groups identity', I don't think anybody can seriously be 100% happy, or should we try to build something bigger and better for all our good? That has more coherence and credibility both in the wider movement and on the streets. This necessarily entails a 'degree of leaping into the dark', but what have we got to fear? We can't 'lose' any WORSE THAN we are collectively doing now, and so the possible solution becomes trying to rectify it together. I've tried to emphasis that this is a process, we do need to get together, on several occassions, serious work has to be put it, but whoever said the revolution would be easy? This also necessarily entials a degree of relaxing, but then, if WE can't do it, are we really to believe that the wider working class will be able to integrate into our existing organisations? I don't think so, and that is the point of what we do after all.

Well I suppose different people have different things they consider important but unless these issues were addressed wouldn't there just be a split immediately after unification?

If people chose to leave over abstract intellectual positions that would be there choice!

A glance at the SPGB should surely remind you of the graveyard that awaits activists who hold their political purity above all else.

Shall we have a brief look at the strengths and weakness of the existing orgs? This should come from both within the organisation, and from the outside looking in. Some people already hold dual memberships of 2 of the 3 federations under discussion, is there anybody who is a member of all 3??

We should then talk about the type of organisation and structures we need.

Nastyned said there were practical consequences of holding different views, e.g. there could be 2 (or more) ways of agitating in the workplace, surely then we should see which line is the better and then that would lead by example - the leadership of ideas - and that can only occur in practice, at the minute there seems to be little or no self criticism...

Therefore I think we should have a reflexive viewpoint regarding struggles, big enough to admit more than one way, and not dogmatic so that we exclude people... we're meant to be inclusive and open aren't we? The working class is many and varied, and we need a BIG approach if we are to be able to be the embryo of the new society... We need to shed the absolutism that has characterised much of what passes for debate, and encourage a more comradely exchange (and I'm not going to deny that personality issues may rear their ugly head)... anyway - over to you...