Are Antifa platformists?
Jun 12 2009 09:38
#32
Alan threw the egg. Stop the presses!
Jun 12 2009 09:39
#33
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Devrim please- this is not Turkey and I really don't see same dangers here.
No, it isn't, and of course one of the main differences is that in Turkey the fascists are actually very strong dangerous organisation who still murder members of ethnic and religious minorities and within living memory have led pogroms and massacres murdering hundreds of people whereas the BNP are a small right populist group, whose vote has actually decreased slightly in places where they stood previously, and who managed to get a couple of Euro MPs through a change in the electoral rules.
It is not about things that are specifically to one country though. Before I lived in Eastern Europe I was told that there was a real danger from fascists there and it was impossible to conduct political activity.
I spent six months there, went to political meetings and demonstrations, gave out leaflets outside factories, and walked around speaking Turkish and being obviously foreign. Guess what? I didn't see a single fascist.
That doesn't mean that there is no fascist activity whatsoever, but the danger is certainly being exaggerated. It is not as if these people are attacking communist meetings or communists leafleting factories. Nor is it something that I believe they do much of in the UK today.
However, if you want conflict with these people it is possible to form gangs and go out and have street fights. What does it do for us though?
Devrim
Jun 12 2009 09:46
#34
Dev- the bnp members elected was more to do with the continuing collapse of the labour vote than a change in electoral rules. If anything the reduced number of MEPs would have made it harder for them to get elected.
Incidentally, yet another reason 'vote labour to stop the bnp' has been a completen disaster, even in straight anti fascist terms.
Jun 12 2009 10:40
#35
Joseph Kay wrote:
20 posts in and no-one's made the cringible 'antifa are no platformists' gag? ah well, one for the team.
I was going to, but then I couldn't be arsed.
sickdog24 wrote:
The platformist thing. I dont know, just sounded good. I guess I was reading about makhno and the black army etc reminded me of antifa.
Yeah, but being militant isn't the same thing as being a platformist. I don't think antifa have an executive committee.
Jun 12 2009 15:53
#36
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Problem with robbing banks, that these days its just really difficult to do and money is not worth the risk(with some exceptions like Greece, where some comrades still manage to net neat sums)
Monkey see, monkey cite.
Jun 12 2009 17:07
#37
weeler wrote:
Whats wrong with Weymann Bennett? I've spoken to him on the phone a couple times and he seems nice. Dirt plz.
first time I encountered him he was smearing the anarcho-interventionists at the European Social Forum in London as racist, anti-Semitic muggers. every subsequent time I saw his name attached to something it was either cringinle populist liberalism or stock-in-trade SWPpie lies and slander. but I'm pretty intolerant of that species of trot.
Jun 12 2009 21:51
#38
Cuntmann Bennett can claim all what he wants. Anyway, thats bit sad times, when egging somebody is considered radical 
It was even more funy to hear N.Griffin talking about "mob violence"- fuck me, I don't think he remembers what the real violence looks like
Whatever you think about Antifa etc. at the end of the day these are groups like that keeping fash in check and it times of crisis fash will the the ones breaking up strikes etc as they always did.
Jun 12 2009 21:55
#39
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
...it [sic] times of crisis fash will the the ones breaking up strikes etc as they always did.
I thought the police normally breaks up strikes.
Jun 12 2009 22:07
#40
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Anyway, thats bit sad times, when egging somebody is considered radical
not radical, but they did definitely intervene in a physical way - they basically pushed him out of the interview
Jun 12 2009 22:23
#41
Im sure if Antifa support independent anti fascists. There is bound to be room for arguments. For example if you have some SWP ppl, or communist party of great Britain members and talk to them about the Makhnovist movement and Kronstadt or what happened in the Spanish civil war. Surely that may result in infighting. I can imagine Eastern Barbarian smashing some trots face in with a crow bar. 
Jun 12 2009 22:23
#42
come on, backin old good times he would get a fucking kicking!
Police usually breaks strikes but often with help of right wing vigilante groups or fash (very clear in Greece these days where fascists help pigs do the dirty work)
Jun 12 2009 22:23
#43
come on, backin old good times he would get a fucking kicking!
Police usually breaks strikes but often with help of right wing vigilante groups or fash (very clear in Greece these days where fascists help pigs do the dirty work)
Jun 13 2009 09:54
#44
treeofjudas wrote:
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
...it [sic] times of crisis fash will the the ones breaking up strikes etc as they always did.I thought the police normally breaks up strikes.
Turkish Nationalists were used to attack pickets in the JJ Foods strike, and I've heard stories the NF used to attack lefty meetings in the 70s. That said i'm generaly of the view that we should deal with such a problem as it happens, I mean if a SolFed started getting fash trying to break up our meetings then we'd batter them. if we couldn't handle, it we'd ask for solidarity from other comrades, and batter them. but there is a definite danger of fetishising street violence when the fash aren't pursuing a street strategy, i think anti-fascism should be a practical aspect of class struggle organisning rather than a specialised, separate thing (much like my views on prisoner support; if there were movement prisoners, then we should form the structures required to support them).
Jun 13 2009 11:55
#45
Joseph Kay wrote:
I mean if a SolFed started getting fash trying to break up our meetings then we'd batter them.
I reckon we'd need to be pretty organised and co-ordinated to do this well, so I'll stand at the back and direct the rest of you.
Jun 13 2009 13:47
#46
Problem is that if you don't counter their activity now, later on might be too late to batter them, even with the help of your comrades, besides believe me, you can't learn handling yourself in fights over a night. That's why so often anarchists wake up with their hand in the toilet when shit hits the fan, because there is no group ready to defend their achievements and its tool ate to learn.
Jun 13 2009 13:48
#47
Back where I am from no anarchist activity would be possible without organized defence structures.
Jun 13 2009 15:45
#48
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
That's why so often anarchists wake up with their hand in the toilet when shit hits the fan
That's a nice pair of related idioms!
Jun 13 2009 15:49
#49
weeler wrote:
Whats wrong with Weymann Bennett? I've spoken to him on the phone a couple times and he seems nice. Dirt plz.
Think he's most infamous for randomly coming out with anti-semetic comments about how israelis should go home ''to new york or wherever'', though tbh, you can never tell whether stuff like that is a CPBG/AWL smear or not.
Basically he's the worst end of UAF, among the people who don;t just call for a vote for labour but would happily go around telling people to vote tory and also call for BNP members to be sacked from their jobs and prosecuted under race hate laws. As JK says, hes a particularly loathsome type of trot.
Jun 13 2009 18:06
#50
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Back where I am from no anarchist activity would be possible without organized defence structures.
As I remember you are from Poland. I was there at an openly advertised anarchist meeting a couple of years ago and didn't see any 'organized defence structures'.
Also on the point of attacks upon ethnic minorities, a comrade and I walked around Warsaw loudly* speaking Turkish and didn't suffer from any racial abuse, something that in my experience is not always the same in Germany. Also we talked with 'Turkish' kebab shop workers at length and didn't get the idea that it was a huge problem.
Maybe your 'anarchist activity' needs 'organized defence structures' because most of it involves fighting a gang war.
Devrim
*Everybody says that I am a very loud person
Jun 13 2009 21:24
#51
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Problem is that if you don't counter their activity now, later on might be too late to batter them, even with the help of your comrades, besides believe me, you can't learn handling yourself in fights over a night. That's why so often anarchists wake up with their hand in the toilet when shit hits the fan, because there is no group ready to defend their achievements and its tool ate to learn.
I don't disagree on the need to counter the far right now, since they present us different problems to other capitalist factions. as you know, SolFed people turned out for the anti-BNP demo (although we didn't judge it to be a moment for physical opposition, more propagandize at well meaning liberals). We're not averse to physical force anti-fascism but see it as a tactic to be employed as appropriate amongst general class struggle activities. it doesn't hurt to know how to handle yourself and keep in shape either, but to be honest I don't think ts essential and we should be wary if the informal hierarchies created by macho streetfighting kudos.
Jun 13 2009 21:55
#52
Devrim- possibility of having openly organized conference in Warsaw was due to the relentless years of fighting by anti-fascist there that made nazis completely scared of coming even remotely clear to any anarchist events. Besides, Warsaw is completely different reality, its a capital and quite multi-cultural as far as Poland is concerned.
Anyway, please refrain from smart-ass remarks about our anarchist activity which you know nothing about.
Jun 13 2009 22:09
#53
Eastern Barbarian wrote:
Anyway, please refrain from smart-ass remarks about our anarchist activity which you know nothing about.
I only know what you tell us and that's how it comes across to me.
Deveim
Jun 13 2009 22:11
#54
Well- I dont tell you a lot, because I am rarely active in this forum, but please take copy of Abolishing the Borders from Below and see whats the main part of anarchist activity in Poland . Good night.
I know a couple of people who went to protest against Griffin, it was UAF (SWP) organised...who knows as to the exact identity of the egger though.