Organise 68 and what we did in 2006

Autonomen on the cover eh?

Funny that it says 'uniforms & authority' below them, no?

I haven't had a chance to give the article a proper read, but you should bear in mind that articles in O represent the views of individual members only.

Let's all be polite, hey?

Fair enough. My comments then are directed at Mr Cottam.

It didn't show anything of the sort - it asserted this. You presented no evidence to back up your claims. You also brought in a lot of other twaddle, like claiming that there was some political content to narcissistic theft.

In the same article you imply a liberatory nature to working class on working class violence and property theft in working class communities and you make no attempt to empathise with why people might not like their community filled with drunks, drug dealers, carthieves and squatters. You discuss dealing of cannabis which is really quite a different matter to just people smoking cannabis (which in fact is something I enjoy doing). In my community those who deal cannabis are also the exact same scumfucks killing local kids. Glasgow has 15,000 registered heroin addicts. Heroin is systematically dealt out to children by the cunts who deal cannabis, for smoking when "there's no hash." In other words there is a systematic attempt by local dealers in my neighbourhood to get kids hooked on "a bit of brown." That is hardly unique to Glasgow and it goes with the territory of being a dealer - purely in terms of business strategy you get returning customers.

I'd see it as a major step forward if residents in my local neighbourhood were able to force a number of evictions (in fact it's something I'd be right into and pushing for with the number of smack dealing evil bastards, thugs and bigots living where I am). Actually fuck you on this. You've made me really angry. In my building one local family went on a series of arson attacks against their neighbours, causing many to flee, some of it as a result of a feud over drug dealing (I think) and some just because X and Y family had insulted them. They've had other wee ploys too. I spoke to one of the casualties of one of these wee jollies - a woman who had been beaten senseless when said family burst into her house and beat the shit out of her with hammers until they'd damaged her eye and semi-permanently fucked up her hearing knocking her unconscious. That wee family outing (yes one of the kids filmed the event as 'happyslap'), caused this person to flee the neighbourhood but the real fear that the family would target her and her kids meant she did not press charges. What the fuck would you do about situations like that? Or is that kind of nihilistic violence the expression of the urge for freedom?

On the point of incorporation of citizen bodies like residents associations into the state - I agree there is a tension here, you do have a point, but I don't think you can blame people for taking up the opportunity offered to them for their betterment of their neighbourhoods. In the end it will not develop the capacity of the class to act independently, though. However the main reason groups like your example here are prepared to take up this kind of partnership approach is a paradigm problem - it's our job to create the paradigm whereby people do not feel it is necessary to act in such a way to win gains for their communities (like getting rid of anti-social neighbours like drug dealers).

There is always going to be a contradictory nature to getting evictions carried out - it's quite an authoritarian act, and perhaps there are alternatives - eg going round and physically intimidating dealers etc or publicly naming and shaming them so they cannot carry out their activities (as folks did on a part of my estate in fact, which caused a heroin dealer to stop openly dealing in the street) - but that is not always an option.

We live in a capitalist society and have to improve people's lives in the here and now. In an ideal world there wouldn't be a need for any kind of police force, but right now our communities are terrorised by violence, drugs, organised criminal gangs and the problems and casualties of poverty (as an example, other than the one I gave above I know there are hundreds of elderly people who live in my scheme who fear leaving their homes after dark and feel very isolated and scared; I know this because I've been involved with a number of institutions where these people turn up to give the police, who generally do not take policing working class areas seriously, a load of shit and they really are genuinely really scared).

In communities where there is not the social capital to organise to defend ourselves against this kind of thing often the only thing that can be done is to pressurise the cops to take action - without pressure the masters of our society are perfectly happy to let the most fucked up things go on in the total chaos of post-Thatcher communities, without any intervention.

Where there is some social capital, where this is not necessary because people have the capacity to take independent action then we should encourage people to take that indepedent action to deal with the problems of drug dealers, burglars and violent criminals. All of these struggles of course though help to build organisation, and power for community groups - for the organised working class in other words, so it is all to the good (although as I said it can have a reactionary nature, as you are building power for people to use as they see fit, and so that power can be exercised for illegitimate acts, but that is the nature of empowering the class in the here and now. We wouldn't argue against trade unions because they have the latent capacity to enforce racial segregation.)

You make no attempt to critique that article I sent. I'd urge people to take a look at it. It covers much of this stuff. But perhaps you should read your own manifesto? What part of this would rule out communities self-managing their affairs to kick out people that fuck others lives up?

Then why stop having authors names or pseudonyms on them?

The author doesn't imply that at all - he compares the individualistic hedonism of (what I'll call for convenience) the 'lumpens' with Stirnerite ideology and says;

Quite different from Dundee's interpretation.
The author continues;

Dundee Utd misses the point that not all that is done by working class people or groups is always in the best interests of class or community. My understanding of that article is that the author recognises that some of the the more 'lumpen elements', in their hedonism - while not without criticism for their sometimes selfish behaviour - may at least have more radical potential than the community association busybodies who want to lockdown the streets into a tight conformity according to their narrow notions of what is socially acceptable.

I've had experience of such busybodies and nosy parkers - who assume they know what's best for all and often suck up to the local state officialdom for the most conservative of reasons. So the picture given in the article is quite familiar. And why, Dundee, are squatters lumped in with "drunks, drug dealers, car thieves"? Sounds as if you're internalising the familiar insular conservatism of much localist community politics - it smacks of trying to go native in deepest prole-land. Nor are all small-time weed sellers trying to get your kids hooked on smack, as Dundee suggests. (I presume then that Dundee gets his supply from an ethically sound source.)

Populism tends to have a narrow definition of who's included and who excluded - (ditto for community identity, often) that's the nature of its appeal. To pander to that for opportunist political gain by demonising those who are not the most conformist is something that should be opposed, not seen as a bandwagon to uncritically jump on just cos it's the views of the most vocal - and often most conservative - people in w/c areas.

Some tenants/residents orgs are much better than others - but just cos it's some politcos' chosen strategy for 'social insertion' or whatever you wanna call it (obviously you'll be careful not be so indiscrete as to talk about it socially in those terms as you attempt to 'insert' yourselves) - surely that doesn't mean you hold your tongue on the conservative repressive tendencies existing in that arena? Housing Associations are playing an increasing social services/social engineering type role - funded to provide care back-up for the 'vulnerable' (often just dumping people in isolation and pocketing the cash), employment/workfare schemes, liaising/sharing info with cops, becoming agents of property speculation/regeneration/gentrification. They get bigger grants and brownie points from their govt. funder the Housing Corp. if they show lip service to 'tenant participation' and dealing with anti-social behaviour. This 'ASB' (to use the landlord lingo) is of course a real problem that blights lives - caused partly by the housing policies of which HA's are a flagship. But HA's (and those locals who uncritically accept their logic) are not really a channel for solving the problems of blighted areas or an ally - they are more a divisive obstacle, as this article illustrates.

Shouldnt that be - "for the libertarian movement 2006 started in late 1935"?

Classic. The rest of us are exhorted to "Organise!" - for the purpose of taking control of the world lets not forget - by a group that cant manage collective responsibility for the content of its annual magazine.
Ah, the enormity of the task.

It's not that we can't "manage" to do it, it is, as you say, not exactly difficult, it's that we chose not to.

Feel free to carry being a total fucking dimwit, though.

Stupid old me. Should've said -

The rest of us are exhorted to "Organise!" - for the purpose of taking control of the world lets not forget - by a group that choses not to take collective responsibility for the content of its annual magazine.

Is that a bit funnier?

Dundee - I take your point that I overlooked that you said;

But in your many previous mentions of community/residents orgs I don't remember you dealing with this conservative aspect of them.

Well that's the main point the article is making, its implications. And we are discussing the article.

Wrong - you misrepresent his view again, as madashell shows. He's discussing a particular residents group in a particular situation. A group you say yourself are surely "a bunch of wee Eichmans". The article doesn't claim to generalise about residents groups. But you keep generalising from your particular local experience as if it's universally applicable. The author of the article isn't doing that. My shots may have been 'cheap' but they aimed at this over-generalising and the possible root of it. A social insertion strategy certainly encourages in some a desire to want to be accepted, integrated, accommodated so as to gain influence - particularly in those orgs seen as local centres of power. It does often have a missionary zeal to it, and jumped up working class leaders are often the worst in that respect. This can easily lead to a lowest common denominator approach - ie base one's approach on what is the dominant viewpoint. Tactical/opportunist compromise often dilutes radicality in favour of easier superficial acceptance. Those who seek to represent others, relate to 'the community', 'the class' as an 'other' - a constituency to represent and 'organise' - tend to do this as a matter of course. They also sometimes think they have discovered a universally applicable tactic and analysis.

But I think it has something to do with how you responded.

PS - grow your own.

Well not signing them makes it look like they're approved (and possibly written) by the federation. We were asked to change a load of articles tagged with NH to Anarchist Federation after this decision was made for example.

To be honest, I think this is silly. I like to know who's written something where possible - it allows me to keep track of what particular people are interested in, and gives some personality and context to articles, even if it's just a recurring pseudonym. Same as I don't think this forum would work too well if everyone in groups just posted under group accounts - it'd be impossible to keep track of conversations. A collectively authored pamphlet is a different thing of course.