feedback on the Climatre Camp

There's a questionnaire for participants here:
http://libcom.org/forums/thought/climate-camp-questionnaire-viability-green-liberalism-23082007

I have some other comments in a minute

I would imagine that the SolFed members who were involved in that dispute because they were also RMT members in London Transport were very grateful.

I didn't really post on that other thread - in the non-serious forum. I support the aim of the camp - blocking expansion - but you can't deny there was a contingent of cretins there. With "make planes history" banners, "Plane Stupid" etc.

Thanks for the other info. I do want to take issue with this though:

I don't see the relevance of this. I'm not some activist superhero who's going to chain myself to shit or martyr myself. I don't want letters of thanks from a union - I'm in a union, and I'm active in it, but it constantly sabotages its members struggles and fucks us over. If I'm getting letters of thanks from them I'm in trouble.

Saying doing spectacular elitest shite is worth more than turning up at a picket line or distributing prop I think is totally false - not to mention offensive. 9 million people in the UK are disabled, millions are very old, lots have heavy time/childcare commitments and so couldn't do something like that. It smacks of the elitest attitudes a lot of these full-time, usually childless, intentionally jobless or student types have, that they're the only ones "doing" anything and everyone else is a brainwashed drone.

Also it's quite a wrong-headed approach to workers' struggles. The most valuable activities for the recent postal and public sector struggles, for example, in my opinion is to try to get workers to take more control over their own struggle, so that the unions can't sabotage them. Activistoids could go and glue themselves to scab post office vans but that's a red herring - what will win the strike is the effective work-to-rule, and spreading the struggle.

I have no idea what that means either. Si unfortunately has a corpse in his mouth. My post was for information only.

ello dave,

This debate was also had here over the past week or so.

http://libcom.org/forums/libcommunity/i-hate-police-13082007 - with several people making the point about the Dockers which you raised.

I had not heard of the NUM and EF! working together before, could you suggest anywhere that I could find out more about that?

I think that Si is not directing vitriol at anyone, but is asking a legitimate question about agencies of social change...

Like I said on the other thread, my impression from talking to a couple of people was that locals who actively came to support the camp were quite culturally middle class, but - which is why I put it as a question - obv. that's too small a sample size to be able so say with any great authority. So I'd be prepared to accept I'm wrong about that.

Si means that at the no M11 protests, "eco-warriors" and non-"eco-warrior" locals hung out with each other, talked to each other, and took action together. The consequence of this being that they begun to have shared points of view and experiences which they might not have had to begin with.

Do or Die! no. 7 article called 'No Open Cast'. Tis on-line I should imagine. About an action in Derbyshire, involved NUM and Women against Pit Closures.
There was also a camp against open cast mining somethere in south Wales I think - dunno if there was any NUM link with that - it is covered in Do or Die! no. 5.

dave: sorry if that particular question was a little bit wordy: I had just read the Aufheben article and was particularly interested in that question, which, to reword it a little, is this: Did social relationships and practices (Aufheben mention regular sabotage, collective living, the avoidance of waged labour: I'm not suggesting these might have been present at the camp) emerge on the part of those attending the camp that might be of interest to us? Were new personal, political or social relationships created that might be of some lasting interest?

Something like that. Anyway your report is welcome but strikes me as a little bit defensive. Might you consider answering the more positive questions in my questionnaire? Feel free to leave out anything that doesn't interest you or to add other bits. cheers, si.

feh. they say always to leave things you've written for 15 minutes then to proof them: I was rushing out to the pub so fucked that off.

I was going to edit it when I got back but you can't edit OPs, can you? >:/

This is the SWP line on "direct action" BTW. Maybe you would have had the same critique of the spanish anarchist arm militias - 'cos at the end of the day certain types of people are better at others at certain activity. Saying that, Disabled Action Network, were very effective in the late 90's in direct action campaigner on disability rights.

Funny how me being a so-called "activistoid" has never heard anyone refer to anyone that works as a "brainwashed drone". Its just an assumption of "activists" and not reality. The reason being is there are many more activists who are both working class and have a class analysis than you think there are.

umm....right

Doing anything elderly or disabled people can't do is anti-working-class vanguardism.

I was once sincerely informed by Lindsey German, who I take to be insufferably thick, that a planned occupation of part of my university to serve as a political space and as accommodation for other students travelling to London for the anti-war march the next day was elitist because we hadn't put it to the vote of the student's union. that was also the first time I was accused of sounding 'like an anarchist' by a swappie hack. happy days.

Oh really? So you agree with the statement

I take it you've given up doing Workers Solidarity and have bought yourself a bunch of d-locks.

Their critique of direct action is that you shouldn't say that certain types of demanding physical stuntist direct action are worth more than other types of action? They must have changed it recently then.

Yes, of course, but saying exclusive one is worth more than other types of less exclusive ones is flawed. If someone in Spain said those doing the fighting was "worth so much more" than those working behind the lines, growing food or attempting to spread revolutionary ideas then I'd respond in the same way.

You and guy are misinterpreting what I actually said.

it's an old and comfortable fight to get into. i don't think that there's very much between your positions. except custom of course.

Dublin Dave,
Full marks to the Climate Camp!
When you are involved in any kind of Direct Action - having to deal with events that can change from minute to minute, - it is difficult to stay within doctrine.
Regards
Peter Good(TCA)

Yeah. What they should have done is delegated other non-military roles to those who couldn't fight, like working necessary industries, preparing food, supporting the revolution effort etc.

Oh wait...

Dave, im with john on this.It smacks of elitism, and whilst i understand its a very good cause, and full of sincre and dedicated people, it is a wrong approach, taking direct action which is not based in the actual struggle but from outside forces is not helping those who are in struggle build confidence and independance for themselves. I also dont understand why you keep attacking SF, you know we have had members and locals involved in the underground for many years now, i dont know the specifics of individual strikes, but if you asked maybe the nat sec or some of the other older members they would be able to tell you.

Time for this old chestnut again I think:

Well I'm not solfed's biggest fan, but weren't they significantly involved in workmates?

http://www.solfed.org.uk/solidarity/04.htm#04

Isn't dave a member of SolFed? He was when I met him a couple of months ago

What? Dave, with raw and guydebord said that doing things like locking yourself to cranes was "worth so much more" than visiting picket lines are producing prop. I disagreed with is, saying it wasn't worth more. They are two different and opposing positions. As for it being "old and comfortable," I don't think I've had this discussion before - and I certainly didn't think I'd have to with GDID.

To Catch, its boring grow up - you keep rehashing that comment from 2004.....well done.

To John., so your problem is with people who say one is better than the other. Bit like you don't you think, when you constantly "argue" to do one thing rather than use a multitude of tactics and strategies. Whats better, action or leafleting pickets? To me they are both important. It really fucking annoys me you present things as EITHER/OR - and to be honest it just exposes
that at heart your just another narrow minded leftist.

yawn

we sold eco warrior at the bar. Went down a storm (golden ale made with lager hops, 4.5%).

Dave, were you one of the people who went down to the nippon express picket line while down at climate camp?

Plus people keep saying the composition of the camp was resolutely middle class? How could one tell? The dreadlocks? Sandals? Accents?

I think that's the first time I've ever posted it. It quite clearly shows that John's comments aren't in relation to straw men though don't you think?

Well to me it's the picket that's most important, and the activity beforehand in organising towards collective activity at work beats both of those hands down.

Since we're not necessarily going to be in the right place at the right time to be on strike ourselves (like me ), then when important ones come up there are two ideas of how to intervene as posted on this thread, again over both of these I'd say getting your own workplace out at the same time if possible would be ideal:

1. Spectacular direct actions which try to push the level of militancy (of the overall action if not necessarily the people on strike since by definition we're specifically talking about non-striking activists doing this) up a notch.

2. Visiting and leafleting picket lines. Since we know John's not talking about selling Social Worker to pickets, and has just been involved in producing and distributing Dispatch, presumably targeted stuff which tries to communicate and develop tendencies already there, and circulate struggles to other workplaces and sectors.

There are plenty of situations where the first would be substitutionist crap (although I can't think of any examples where it's been counterproductive), the second is generally as crap as the leaflets are preachy and vice versa.

I think Dublin Dave's primary mistake on this thread is to conflate spectacular "direct actions" with direct action itself - which causes him to ignore the fact that strikes themselves constitute direct action, whilst so much of direct-action-as-ideology is incredibly indirect - petitioning knocked up a notch or two with no chance of changing anything in itself.

actually catch you said "time for this old chestnut again", suggesting by your own admission it's be used on more than one occasion previously, no?

I think dublin dave's one and only mistake is to conflate class struggle anarchists with internet anarchists. There were red and black flags flying over at least 3 'neighbourhoods' (as were there red and green flags), people were down from hsg, hackney independent, af and somewhat predictably class war. The af meeting at the camp was excellent in both manner and tone (full marks to af north who made the effort - a perfectly executed example on how to engage with real people) expressing a specific political idea within the context of 'green politics' without being patronising or condescending or categorising people into those who have "good politics" and "shit politics".

Given that the only people out of the loop are those who live their anarchism out exclusively on the internet.

Plus when dave's says

he raises a interesting, and naturally undiscussed, point. If you attend a picket line to give out your anarchist propaganda, however packaged, can it be usefully said that you are actually doing anything at all beyond a little self-promotion?

His point about how the ecological movements connection with the workers movement, and the examples he gave, was to highlight the fact that in order to build trust, respect, recognition and a meaningful relationship it is not enough to simply say so in your newsletter, on your websites, or indeed in the privacy of your own imagination How people recognise genuine commitment is that you show genuine commitment, and from that develops a sense of mutual purpose, solidarity and effective action.

It has, not by me though as far as I can remember. Regardless of whether I'd reposted it once or twenty times, it shows Raw's style of argument to be fundamentally dishonest when he claims there's no negative attitudes to people with jobs amongst activistoids.

It's a funny world you live in where Plane Stupid et al are "real people", and postal workers only exist on the internet.

1. There's been no picket line since Dispatch was printed, we did leaflet a big mail centre at shift start though on the eve of the cancelled strikes.
2. I'm not an anarchist, nor are at least two of the people involved.
3. It primarily promoted the wildcats and work to rule, alongside the writings of a postal worker who's never posted on libcom (although I understand he lurks).

So the only way to build trust, respect, recognition and a meaningful relationship with people on strike is to D-lock yourself to something? Are you alright there coffeemachine?

i have no idea what this is in relation to, certainly nothing i said. Sorry. The only type of anarchists who weren't represented at the climate camp were internet anarchists who only ever exist as anarchists on the internet.

1. nice one
2. then the question about giving out anarchist propaganda doesn't apply to you
3. sorry catch i'm not really aware of dispatch, or how it came about. Did you meet up with postal workers, discuss with them about the imminent strike, asked them what they wanted, if they wanted a leaflet promoting wildcats and work to rule, did you meet up with a delegation about how best you could contribute to the imminent strike, did you organise an informal meetings with the postal workers, discuss what was needed to be said in this leaflet, indeed was there any actual real contact with postal workers before you proceeded? Was there any attempt to build a meaningful relationship with the postal workers before you decided to do a leaflet about them? Or is dispatch just a clever, and no doubt sincere way of promoting your website?

The point is catch, and i know you're not shy of getting your hands dirty, unless you do build trust, respect, recognition (and you can only do that by actually engaging with 'real people' (as the af did at climate camp and indeed down at nippon express picket) then your efforts are no more meaningful than someone d-locking themselves to the factory gates.

nb real people as opposed to internet personas

I see, so it's "anarchists" who are "real people", and they're real because they went to the climate camp. No, sorry, still not getting it.

The idea to do it came from a chat in the pub between me, the postal worker who wrote the back page, and one other poster on here (not a libcom admin fwiw), after we'd been discussing the strikes for while over beers. I think that answers most of your questions. I'd been discussing the wildcats and work to rules with postmen on royalmailchat for a couple of weeks before we started on it as well.
There's been more discussions since it's been out, and there's been a very positive response (better than I expected having not been involved in this particular kind of leaflet before) - people sticking up on notice boards, printing off to hand out etc. and some good feedback from some people involved in the wildcats as well.

The royalmailchat discussions were on the dreaded internet of course so presumably I should've just stalked my local postie on his round with a questionnaire, or perhaps commissioned a MORI poll instead?

Since we've not had any actual pickets to distribute it to, it's fallen a bit flat the past couple of weeks, but we'll have to see how things pan out the next week or two in order to see about issue 2.

Er, don't throw your toys of the pram guy.

My position on "direct action" I gave above was that locking yourself to cranes was not "worth so much more" than visiting picket lines or doing general workers' propaganda.

If you disagree with this then I think you're an activistoid moron. If you don't disagree with this then you misinterpreted what I said, and were presenting a disagreement with your misinterpretation.