chat about anarchism in the pub - Edinburgh
Feb 3 2006
Interested in anarchist ideas? Want to meet new people?
Feel free to come to the pub for a friendly chat. We're still working out what the group will be doing - now's a good time to meet folk and see if it might be for you.
The White Hart Inn
Grassmarket
Thursday 16th February
7 PM
All welcome!
http://anarchist-studies.org.uk/
Q: But I'm not an anarchist!
A: You don't have to be. All we ask is that you are respectful of other people, whether or not you agree with their ideas.
Q: Yeah, but I don't know anything about anarchism.
A: This will be a good place to learn more.
Q: I'm nervous about coming to a group where I don't know anyone.
A: You could bring a friend if you like.
Q: How will I find you in the pub?
A: If you have trouble, ask at the bar.
Q: What are you going to talk about?
A: It'll be pretty informal - we'll be getting to know each other and finding out what folk want to get out of the group and how we can help each other make that happen.
_________
PS Some folk will be heading off around 9 for the Zapatista fundraising party at The Left Bank - see http://www.edinchiapas.org.uk/ for details.
Feb 9 2006
#2
used to live in edinburgh, and been to the white hart a few times,is the grassmarket still full of students pontificating about how to change the world.
Apr 28 2006
#3
The Porkadian wrote:
used to live in edinburgh, and been to the white hart a few times,is the grassmarket still full of students pontificating about how to change the world.
no, it's not, this is where the revolution begins...
Apr 29 2006
#4
at closing time i presume 
May 1 2006
#5
I suppose the fact is a revolution of any type cannot start in the Edinburgh city centre, it must start with the indigenous tribes, and the closest we have to that in Scotland is probably the smaller communities that don't have a tesco yet.
May 1 2006
#6
Damn and there was me planning to host a regular anarchist get togethere in tescos coffee shop at Inverness retail park, ah well another good idea bites the dust. 
May 2 2006
#7
Quote:
I suppose the fact is a revolution of any type cannot start in the Edinburgh city centre, it must start with the indigenous tribes, and the closest we have to that in Scotland is probably the smaller communities that don't have a tesco yet.
Is this a serious comment ape? 
May 3 2006
#8
well i suppose it depends on what type of revolution you're talking about, perhaps the old clans would be a better personification of Scotland's indigenous tribes...
May 3 2006
#9
The Porkadian wrote:
Damn and there was me planning to host a regular anarchist get togethere in tescos coffee shop at Inverness retail park, ah well another good idea bites the dust.
not saying you shouldn't count that out but the indigenous tribes, the neglected farmers, the homeless people, the mentally ill etc. all can be brought together to start of a revolution, that is what is needed to happen, without that your just preaching to people who already know better about oppression than you do etc etc.
May 6 2006
#10
Who are the indigenous tribes???
There hasn't been a tribal structure in Scotland in a thousand years. There haven't been clans (which were a feudal structure anyway) for 100-150 years.
Farmers and homeless people are definitely groups that should be reached out to. Do you have a plan for that?
Mentally ill people are certainly oppressed, and sometimes make good activists. I don't understand them as a priority though.
May 9 2006
#11
Well basically, plan in my head (once exams over) is to go touring round Scotland and engaging with smaller communities throughout Scotland, engage with the groups of folk who are really into their Scottish folk music, engage with groups who are setting up local renewable schemes (as opposed to corporate governement national grid schemes that will always bring up issues) and various groups of folk who are promoting organic farming and sustainable living generally, these movements are kicking of in a major way outside the major cities, and will need support from libertarians and the unestablished left i feel, as George Monbiot has said (though i don't like to quote him) "the environment is the corporations achilles heel and it's time for the left to hit it"
there is also concern over the Gaelic language disappearing and suchlike, an indigenous creation of Scotland one might say...
When i said indigenous tribes i was thinking more along the lines of the Highlanders, but i see that the Porkadian has already started off on that one,
Is it sad to hear though that there aren't still clansmen running up and down the hills though...
As for homeless people am looking to maybe get work with a charity or something to start me off and find out what the situation is at the moment, the Camcorder Guerillas made a vid all about homeless folk so gonna try and get a copy of that and see where it takes me..
Ultimately perhaps I have been watching too many films about South America, but from what they have acheived there (although obviously the situation is a bit different) it would be good to try and translate what they have acheived, how they made it happen and how we can make something similar happen here as well...
hope that is an adequate response to try to translate some of my ramblings, think I might start hanging about the beginner's forum for a while,
keep up the good work all...
May 10 2006
#12
gaelic is a choice within primary schools within inverness and there are also pre school nurseries where parents can put their kids to start learning gaelic, so its quite alive up here although that being said not that many kids opt for it, cant speak it myself but your never too old to learn
May 11 2006
#13
I talk to my step-grandad a lot about this kinda stuff, he's learning Gaelic at the moment and he tunes into a lot of the Gaelic tv programmes and reads Gaelic newsletters and stuff, he was telling me about how "the English" came up and tore old Gaelic books up and Scottish history books many years back, he was also telling me about how he was watching this programme that had this Gaelic farmer on it and they were debating about the whole land ownership thing and basically he was telling about how succinct the responses was from this farmer was, I reckon it would be quite useful to learn a bit of Gaelic,
I don't know how reliable my step-grandad is though cos he was telling me that if Scotland were to declare independence then England would declare war upon us, and how America were going to try to invade the Antarctic or something like that....
May 11 2006
#14
Yeah most people's grandparents can remember getting the belt for speaking "scotticisms". Nothing tribal about it though, by this point you're dealing with nationalism and nation-states.
Anyway, on the original point about who "we", as libcom types, should focus our action around, I would suggest the other members of our class. We should focus on things that most people are already pissed off about.
May 12 2006
#15
I know what you are saying, I deliberately forgoed mentioned classes because well.. do you not believe that just now in Scotland class struggles place a huge emphasis upon workers in the secondary sector, whereas it would probably be more appropriate to concentrate on workers in the primary and tertiary sectors in Scotland today? and well.. obviously the unemployed and san-papiers as well.
May 12 2006
#16
The primary and secondary sectors of the Scottish economy are almost dead.
My class-struggle organising is community based, because I'm not working at the moment.
May 12 2006
#17
Quote:
Scotland class struggles place a huge emphasis upon workers in the secondary sector,
Struggles don't place any emphasis, they just ARE.
If a group of people try to save their local post-office, that struggle is part of the class struggle. If a group of people try to save their jobs coz the manufactory where they work is being closed down due to uncompetitive levels of profit for the owners and shareholders than that too is part of the class struggle, but it can't put an emphasis on itself - it just is.
Most struggles in Scotland are not based in workplace, or indeed in the manufacturing sectors of the economy at all. Whether or not socialists wish to place greater emphasis on those struggles that are taking place in those sectors is up to them, but that has nothing to do with the nature of class struggle in Scotland or the UK, which is primarily based in individualistic acts of resistance and sabotage in the workplace and disorganised angry flareups in our communities.
Largely the working class these days is demoralised, and people are increasingly forgetting how to organise themselves economically and in their homes and communities. There's also been a lot of immigration and fragmentation in our communities.
That's why we're seeing disorganised flash-points, individual acts of militancy and increasing amounts of sickies and unofficial boycotts but fewer and fewer strikes and organised community campaigns like rent strikes.
the task for communists is to find organised ways of channeling that anger constructively into struggles that will win concrete gains for our class and increase the amount of solidarity and class consciousness among our class. It's about organisation and agitation.
From your links page:
any chance of changing it to libcom.org?
we'll add you to our scotland section.
have a good chat 8)