up for a bit o that
"On the Verge" the Smash EDO campaign film - Kings X - Fri 11th April, 7pm
not really... youth has a lot to answer for. i mean there were somewhat laudable motives behind smash edo (relative to the SWPie anti-war movement), but ulitmately it was/is a sub-SHAC single issue campaign utterly divorced (if not opposed to) class struggle, that by fluke mutated into a guardianista civil liberties matter. i mean i know a fair few decent people involved, but imho that doesn't make it 'meaningful activity' in the albeit clichéd Solidarity sense.
Smash EDO has definitely more to do with any sort of struggle at all than people only writing about it on internet forums and in their dead boring papers (I definitely count SF publications among them). It is one of few succesful things happening in Brighton recently and while there is quite few "civil liberites" types involved, there is a good number of anarchists as well and this kind of activity is good start and definitely good education about true role of system and police for many young people, that would otherwise look at you strange if you would mention things like clas struggle to them.
As for group being dovorced from class struggle (or even being opposed to it)- how exactly?
Smash EDO has definitely more to do with any sort of struggle at all than people only writing about it on internet forums and in their dead boring papers (I definitely count SF publications among them). It is one of few succesful things happening in Brighton recently and while there is quite few "civil liberites" types involved, there is a good number of anarchists as well and this kind of activity is good start and definitely good education about true role of system and police for many young people, that would otherwise look at you strange if you would mention things like clas struggle to them.
As for group being dovorced from class struggle (or even being opposed to it)- how exactly?
[i'm not even going to red what EB has said there, i'm sure we'll agree to disgree!]
Joseph - what do i make of it? As good a response as any to the war, when 'class opposition' or whatever amounted to one train driving incident where some weapons didn't get delivered. I think the school strikes, the biggest marches and a lot of the DA was all valid; war is, alays, class opression so mobilisation against it that is half way decent at getting this message across is worthy.
I doubt very much that this argument was clearly made in most anti-war stuff, but the fact that an arms company, in England, was directly profiting from the war is good enough for me. I take what you mean about activistist bloody minded ness, banging their heads against a brick wall til their heads, not the wall, break - but i think EDO has had enough success in a number of ways to be worthwhile. It has linked the war to profit and expansionist capitalism, mobilised people beyond passive activism, mobilised them against the state, and especially they have exposed the lengths the state is now going to defend itself (which are fuck all compared to the what they did in the past, but there is some mileage in the 'oh shit there's cameras everyhwere' hysteria if you want to be heard).
my opinions on this are all here on summat i did for the AF after me and acomrade went on the sack parliament
'action'
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=22315714&blogID=181934492
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
As for group being dovorced from class struggle (or even being opposed to it)- how exactly?
I believe Joseph K was referring to an incident when he was involved in EDO when one of his co-protestors shouted abuse at the tea lady, callin her a murderer and shit.
Smash EDO's pointless. What do you hope to achieve? Get EDO to move to a town where there are less hippies?
Actually I haven't thought about Smash EDO in ages, I can't remember exactly why I dislike it so much. I'll have a think. I think what I find really anoying/hilarious is when people deliberately get arrested for protesting, just so they can boast about it to other activists.
Jess almost made a valid point about the Brighton/Sussex Uni macho activist culture there.
A victory against EDO would obviously be a good thing though...even if they're just forced to move, it still sends ripples and might make them reconsider some shit. i mean, any victory in the antiwar campaign would have flown in the face of the various groups who tried to hijack the popular discontent for their own ends.
Tacks wrote:
[i'm not even going to red what EB has said there, i'm sure we'll agree to disgree!]Joseph - what do i make of it? As good a response as any to the war, when 'class opposition' or whatever amounted to one train driving incident where some weapons didn't get delivered. I think the school strikes, the biggest marches and a lot of the DA was all valid; war is, alays, class opression so mobilisation against it that is half way decent at getting this message across is worthy.
I think the main problem with Smash EDO is that 99% of the time the campaign consists of small examples of ''direct action'' carried out by a smal number of activists locking on and so on. When Smash EDO chooses to broaden its politics to a more general anti-arms trade bent it can organise slightly bigger demos, but these aren't ''direct action'' and its hardly remarkable, i mean from experience of doing stalls and so on the number of people who will come and say they're pro the arms trade is minimal and that was in colchester which is far more conservative than sunny brighton. Thus treating tt simply as ''direct action'' in the same vein as school walkouts or strikes is somewhat inaccurate.
From where i'm standing the problem smah edo has is the same problem we had in colchester for a few years around 2005/6, it had become obvious that mass opposition of the war had petered out into cyncial acceptance, yet we'd all done anti-war stuff when it was a big popular 'movement''. With nothing else going in terms of radicalism in the area, we carried on effectively flogging a dead horse for ages. Literally we used to have the same fortnightly and mothly stalls in town which we ll felt it was a duty to attend and so on,
Jess wrote:
I think what I find really anoying/hilarious is when people deliberately get arrested for protesting, just so they can boast about it to other activists.
i don't know who i think actually reads these boards apart from us, but hey, to make god happy i'll clarify: in the case of EDO and similar companies the deliberate arrests are to drag the company through court and apply international law. It actually generally works for one thing or another: you either get a shit load of info on the company, they fuck up and do something illegal during the trial, they waste a load of money, and they generally then drop the charges.
Boasting about it to your mates is probably up there too i'm sure.
cantdocartwheels wrote:
When Smash EDO chooses to broaden its politics to a more general anti-arms trade bent it can organise slightly bigger demos, but these aren't ''direct action'' and its hardly remarkable
If only we'd listened:
"The SmashEDO Carnival Against the Arms Trade was held in Brighton on Wednesday 4th June. Over 500 people marched from The Level to the EDO/ITT factory in Moulescombe. Police plans to contain everyone in a pen outside a neighbouring unit were foiled, and protesters managed to get to the factory. The gates were opened apparently to allow a police van into the EDO/ITT car park and protesters seized the opportunity to enter the car park and vent their rage against the arms company. A few arrests were reported."
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/06/400163.html
Tacks wrote:
Boasting about it to your mates is probably up there too i'm sure.
Yeah there's ome idiots in the student paper this week saying they'll have to drop out of uni to work on their defence case full-time. Lolatron. Actually they're being denied legal aid which is actually really shit .
In Derry nine anti-war activists went into the local Raytheon offices and smashed it up. Their trial is on right now and the judge has directed the jury to acquit. I think this is a much better tactic if you want to do this sort of boring stuff. You can have lots of fun and then pass yourself off as non violent in the media, then use the nuremburg defence in court. Has worked a load of times in Ireland.
Jess- your comments are unproductive, yesterdays action prooved that there is SO MUCH MORE to Smash EDO that you write, while you prefer tyo sit at home and write wanky comments smearing others up, people are out there doing things (including many many anarchists yes.) . Big up for protesters yesterday.
it's pretty rare in the UK at the moment for people to even push against police lines, let alone actually forcibly break through them. for that, despite the liberal politics behind the campaign, i say fair play. maybe the Brighton hippie crowd have some fight in em after all...?
I think you are simply justyfying being a coward with those silly, pathetic comments. Besides, contrary to what you say, majority of people don't demonstrate to "feel good".
Anyway, you obviously haven't been there, you have seen shit and you talk about things in such an authoritative maner as if you were there and seen everything. Carry on living in virtual world, its completely safe indeed. What if somebody will cut you off from the internet one day? Will you just sit and cry?
Nobody delibarately went and got themselves beaten up, pigs completely lost it and nobody possibly could predict that, thats point A. Point B is that there was lots of damage being done to a factory and their property so it is a success in itself. Point C- lots of people got empowered and radicalised by Wednesday experience. Definitely it achieved more than "virtual struggle" or supporting fucking traffic wardens. most of you lot have. Point D- I am making personal insults because you are smearing up people who are doing something good. Fair enough, dont have to like them, but you are just sitting behind the fucking screen and slagging them off. I dont like it and do not have respect for people like that. Give arguments instead of shite and you will stop being insulted.
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Nobody delibarately went and got themselves beaten up, pigs completely lost it and nobody possibly could predict that, thats point A.
So your arguement is that the police were simply justifying their budget then yeah? because thats the only logical conlcusion you can draw from your arguement. I think that pretending the police jt over reacted is rather silly, they were there to guard the factory and they did, its shit for sure but you know thats capitalism.
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Point B is that there was lots of damage being done to a factory and their property so it is a success in itself.
No a few broken windows and someone spray painting stuff on the walls does not equate to a lot of damage, nether is it a success in itself.
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Point C- lots of people got empowered and radicalised by Wednesday experience. Definitely it achieved more than "virtual struggle" or supporting fucking traffic wardens.
Oh god i forgot about that, your the one who said that traffic wardens were like ''agents of the state mann'', seriously mate get a clue, they just make sure people pay parking tickets they're no more ''agents of the state'' than the guy who stands at the door of the cinema to make sure you paid or the staff in a supermarket putting your weekly shop through the till.
I know this sounds harsh but being against the arms trade is hardly ''radical'' or ''empowering'', since you haven't stopped the arms trade and aren't likely to and only a madman would say they think war and landmines are great. If you feel its a worthwhile cause and all that then go for it, but don;t expect everyone else to think we should spend all of our time on it and not criticise the way you go about things, or expect us not to think its unforunately generally a dead end and that having one reasonably sized demo (why on earth did you have it a wednesday btw?)when the exams have finished that gets into a bit of argy bargy with the police somehow makes every single noise demo attended by half a dozen people all worthwhile. Joseph k's criticisms were based on actual involvement and seeing people directly screaming insults at tea ladies bringing the sandwiches round in the factory hat they were ''murderer'' or some other whinging liberal nonsense, i'm sure you would think that was ridiculous and that sort of approach should be heavily critiicised i mean i'd assume you have at least some sort of class analysis when it comes to these things no?
For me whats importnant right now is kicking up a fuss about brightons apppallingy low wages or the selling off of the NHS or council tax rises or shit landlords and post office closures. If all these people who've turned up to this anti-arms trade demo are going to be radicalised as you put it and get involved in these sort of campaigns in the community and in their own workplace then great but call me a sceptic because i don't see it happenning any time soon.
cantdocartwheels wrote:
I know this sounds harsh but being against the arms trade is hardly ''radical'' or ''empowering''
It doesn't sound harsh, it sounds like a laughable strawman.
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but don;t expect everyone else to think we should spend all of our time on it
Again, nobody suggested that.
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(why on earth did you have it a wednesday btw?)
Because the factory's not open on weekends.
This is one of only two London screenings (as far as I can tell) of the film the police are trying to ban, "On The Verge".