Defy Tesco article in Direct Action

you should have heard jack rant about that shit on MSN to me.

Frankly articles like that should be left for liberal leftist rags or SU papers.

what's your editorial policy?

yeah that's interesting. from that thread it appears that there's no real policy for what content to use, that it just accepts whatever SolFed members happen to write about. For both our English language publications we have an editorial board that sits down and looks for what good issues to feature (we also have a spanish language journal). Red and Black (which is probably the best comparison to DA) tries to have quite an involved process for deciding on content. They look for things we've done and need to analyse, other initiatives we can learn from, important theoretical discussions etc. Actually next Red n Black is going to be deadly, you have been warned.
Maybe SolFed should think about a similar process? but then again, I'm not sure if the target audience is comparable.

i often think the front covers are pretty good, and there is a surprisingly pleasant DIY zine feel to the articles and layout for what you assume would be mostly industrial journal.

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Last time I read it nearly every article was written by someone who insisted on using the phrase "higher orders" many, many times, unless there's more than one such person in solfed.

If I were to be on the DA collective, I'd argue for a similar process, and also for conference to give the DA collective the ability to assign locals to write locals as part of their membership - I think if a libertarian organisation is going to have a magazine it should be done well and centrally based on what makes a good and useful magazine, not what people want to write.

And WSM have a Spanish language journal?

Holy fuck, I almost made a sensible post when too pissed to stand up.

At least its not a rant against 'chemi-coke'. There's a picture of dublin's anarchist youth in your latest mag though so it's forgivable.

Could this be the reappearance of the labour aristocracy, bought off by loyalty vouchers and willing to sacrifice themselves on the altar of supermarket imperialism?

The editorial board of Red and Black Revolution came up with an idea for generating articles which I thought other groups might find useful. Basically they asked branches to have a brainstorming session based o the following questions:

- What political issue would I like to know more about?
- What was the last discussion I had with another anarchist or socialist about?
- What aspect of anarchist history would I like to know about or think is important for other people to know about?
- What aspects of our own work do I think its important we write about, so we record our own experience?
- What campaigns or groups would I like to know more about, either here or abroad - we could interview someone
-What is the last political book I read that made me think? (either because I really liked it or hated it) - it could be reviewed.
- What problems do we face as an organisation? an article could help us think about solutions

The idea is that branches could produce educationals based on the answers to these questions. The educational and subsequent discussion could then form the basis of an article for the magazine. This takes some of the pressure off the ed group for coming up with topics and also gives someone who wants to write an article some support and feedback.

Anyway, just thought some of you might find that interesting.

Re the Tescos article - I'd suggest there have others which were even worse, especially the ones written in a pseudo-prole style which are just embarrassing. It has, however, improved with the last couple of issues.

Red and Black Revolution on the other hand, is much better written and written in a way which assumes an intelligent readership. Personally I'd rate it as the best regular anarchist - anarcho-syndicalist English language journal published in the this part of the world.

I think it has got better in the last couple of issues. There are some very good articles in DA, like the recent one on the NHS, or the railways.

Like october_lost says, though, it does depend on people writing stuff for it, and the editorial collective having the ability and confidence to commission articles.

Dim, what period of Black Flag are you referring to? Paper, or magazine?

Regards,

Martin

Um, okay, except Red and Black Revolution ain't anarcho-syndicalist.

Martinh surely fewer and fewer people can actually remember when Black Flag was a paper... Now, personally I prefered when DA was a paper.

apologies was trying to say anarchist (incl anarchist communist) and/or anarcho-syndicalist.

(does include everyone it should?)