Anarchists 'against Austerity'?

I’ve had to re-register as apparently I’ve been outed as a bourgeois motherfucker! That’ll be a low-paid and screwed over bourgeois motherfucker then!! Seems an admin has been outed as a closet Leninist.

I’ll open up here. I’m a public sector worker. I do not consider myself well paid. I’m a member of a union. I’ve voted for strike action ahead of 30 July. My heart’s not in it. And for the same reason that I couldn’t support the student’s reformist agenda or the TUC’s pathetically transparent attempt to cleave its members and supporters back towards “Labour” in March. This is the same trick the Establishment always resorts to whenever the potential for genuine unrest rears itself on the horizon, however distantly. In this they are aided and abetted as usual by the useful idiots in the SWP and their ilk - though not, it has be said, by the self-styled ‘Black Block’, the actions of which simply serve to make workers and the population as a whole more reactionary (something the Establishment media are only too happy to exploit).

So don’t strike and get screwed whilst doing nothing; strike and be inconvenienced financially whilst the soap opera is played out. Meanwhile the bankers and holders of capital continue to coin it in whilst the population as a whole is pre-occupied with the minutiae of education budgets, public sector wages and pensions and whether Bob Crow/Mark Sewotka/Len McKluskey are enemies of the state.

But of course there is a chance I’ve got this all wrong and the whole pack of cards will tumble down when the ‘Radical Black Block’ next decide to throw some leaflets and eggs around in the Piccadilly branch of Santander in solidarity...

naaaaaaw did the big bad messianic wevolution not come on time for you SLA2. Quit throwing your toys out of your pram and pull yourself together! That is the most uninspiring analysis of our current situation I have read since the last time i read the Guardian. Unfortunately the world is much more muddy and unclear cut than 'if it ain' wevolushuns I am not intewested'. Shock horror Britain has not converted into anarcho-syndaclism over night!

South London Anarchist it really depends on what variant of Anarchism you are speaking of. There are a wide range of views and issues which I am sure people can unpack better than me (I haven't got the time to write anything large sorry). To keep it short, i agree with a lot of what your saying (especially on UK Uncut) but I think its a bit childish to say 'well I'm an anarchist, therefore all of this is below me'.

You what? Your initial account is still active, you haven't been banned or anything like that. If you have forgotten your password you can click to get a new password sent to you.

Personally I "justify" my involvement in these things on the grounds that the austerity measures being brought in are going to cause a lot of harm for a lot of people - working class people specifically. It's not about defending or supporting the state so much as defending ourselves against measures that, if/when they come in, will screw us over in a quite serious way.

I have a number of friends and family who both claim disability benefits and need to use the NHS extensively, for example, who are likely to see their lives go seriously downhill as a result of these measures. Personally I'm on JSA and about to apply for a public sector job, the removal of either of which would be rather a problem, all told. I could try handing folks a book by Berkman and telling them to wait for the anarchies, but I doubt they'd be too impressed.

If on the other hand I'm able to work alongside them and others to fight for our own interests collectively - access to healthcare, benefits, education, whatever - that both allows us to fight for immediate goals and opens up space to discuss the wider political issues involved, as well as (hopefully!) building up people's political confidence if you like.

Whether these movements can succeed in their goals is debateable, of course. And I'm not hugely optimistic. But I'd rather give it a go than not.

That said, while that explains why I'm involved with the anti-cuts stuff in general, you do raise very valid concerns, particularly around UK Uncut. Seeing groups of anarchists* loudly demanding that the owners of TopShop pay their tax is quite a sight to say the least, and something that's been discussed a fair bit here (try this for starters). Personally the main role I see for that sort of action is to try and provide a counterpoint to the message generally given in the press, that the (or, at least, a) main reason for the cuts is "benefit scroungers" (unemployed, drug addicts, single mothers, disabled) and selfish public sector workers, among others, even though the money "lost" through corporate tax evasion is, I'm told, significantly higher.

* Not that UK Uncut is an anarchist thing, obviously, just that some anarchos have been involved in the protests.

With the TUC march on the 26th, most anarchists I know got involved with it on the basis of wanting to oppose attacks on working people, the disabled, unemployed and the like - not because they agreed with the TUC's "jobs, growth, justice" slogan. And certainly not out of support for Labour!

aaaah SLA2 is South London Anarchist! How stupid am I! it's a shame because your first post seemed like a reasonable question while your second post you came across as a bit of a prick :-S

Surely if you have been mooching around libcom for a while you have seen these debates being hacked out over and over and over again, pretty much after every large scale political event. No doubt the same will happen before and after the strike on the 30th!!!!!

Just because the SWP have a shit presence at demos (giving away firewood, i mean branded placards) doesn't mean that demos and the like are not fermenting grounds for further political conscious raising. I started out as a labour supporting anti-war demonstrator wearing a Che Tshirt (for my sins) and soon realized that this attitude was not going to cut it. A lot of people (especially on the student demos) were completely new to any form of politics which was not ticking the voter box, of course they are going to have all sorts of funny ideas. We can be their to support them, may be even get them interested in anarchism etc, while not making them sign out stoopid mailing lists a la Sdubs. Your right the movement is poorly articulated, but by ignoring it, or unconstructively chastising it for not being anarcho-whatever-ist enough, we are not helping any new modes of articulation.

I think it is quite messy to put marches down Whitehall and marches down oxford street into the same category. one is sanctioned by the state and the police apparatus while the other was deliberately meant to defy that.

Also, surely if you mooch around libcom quite a lot, you would have noticed that there is a number of SolFed posters. SolFed's specific aim is organizing at workplaces etc, etc. I don't see why we need such a distinction between 'false spectacle' and 'true community organizing'.....

no worries, glad that's all clear!

Not got time to write a proper response to your question at the moment, but a note to Arbeiten, your initial post on here is not really acceptable regarding our rules on flaming, particularly as it was directed at a brand-new user. Everyone should bear in mind that they should be polite and welcoming to genuine new posters, regardless with whether you agree with them or not.

yeah sorry about that, I didn't make the connection between the 2 user names being the same person and thought SLA2 was someone completely different (the accusations of being bourgeoisie, leninist made me think that this was a reference to a prior discussion, and the radical change in tone made me think that SLA2 was an old grudge poster that pop up every now and again).

your right, i re-read your post and you said the homepage and not the forums, once again, I have proven myself to be a quick reading mongrel. There is a massive discussion somewhere about the 26th that you might want to look at. Also the discussion on the so called 'Tescos Riot' in Bristol is worth a look, but there are many more (the article jonthom posted is quite good on that front). Also look at the SolFed letter to UKuncut and the response Brighton (or Lewes?) UKuncut wrote up, it's interesting dialogue. It's also quite enlightening to read the responses on the UKuncut letter, that really splits the wheat from the chaf. Some of the respondents are quite upset that UKuncut dare open up channels with nasty anarchists!

Millbank, at least it seems to me, was a massive breath of fresh air. I thought that march was going to be another A to B not in my name scenario. At first it looked like it was going to be condemned and banished into mindless criminality, but its signification seemed to hold on and really provide a nice impetus for something like an 'anti-cuts' movement. I feel sometimes we are all too quick to law the boot into un-articulate political action (interestingly this is exactly the sort of technique the bourgeoisie use to keep others out of the 'legitimate' arena of political discourse).

So whilst you were mooching around libcom you didn't see this
http://libcom.org/library/everything-weve-won-they-want-it-back-anarchist-federation
which clearly explains why anarchists are opposing austerity and the cuts?