Black Star

Report on AUT lecturers strike (assuming it happens and there's anything worth saying - haven't got a reply to the email I sent the BAUT press officer yet)

What also occurred to me that could be a good idea would be to have a bunch of semi-regular features/columns, particularly since reporting news as it happens isn't something we're enormously well placed to do.

(This idea is also shamelessly ripped off the underdog's 'Wot anarchists fink' column and similar). So a couple of ideas that occur to me:

- A history of the class struggle in Birmingham, or 'People's History of Brum'. There are so many little stories that never get passed on so I think it would be cool to tell some of them. A big influence for this idea is when we were on DCH and were talking to John (I think that was his name?) about strikes in the 70s. We could also try and keep it relevant to today - for example by accompanying an article about Defend Council Housing with a history of the squatters movements post-WW2 that forced concessions such as that. Basically, make the point that what the working class has now it got by fighting for it. Where possible I think we would want to focus on struggles that were won and that had at least some connection to Birmingham.

- 'How would anarchists deal with...?' An attempt to rebut criticisms of anarchism (preferably criticisms we actually encounter rather than strawmen we erect). But as a start we could do one on how anarchists would organise housing (i.e. tenants control) to stick with the council housing theme.

- 'Blagger's Guide to...' - we talked about doing some leaflets about this a bit ago (such as how to make the most of benefits reforms, or what the points system they use for assessing incapacity is) but we could also stick it in the Black Star. Try and make it useful to people, and could also be a good place to stick in a few jokes. And we can also convert the WAG Survival Guide articles and use them.

I've found a few bits and pieces on the internet about the points system used for incapacity - so once my assignment is handed in (Friday) I might try and knock up a bit of advice. Anyone know anyone who's on incapacity who might have a few tips of their own to add in?

Very good idea mate, i dont know how much working class history there is on the local history shelf of waterstones but this is a quality idea if we can find good historical examples of local, working class resistance. J from the DCH thingy would be a wealthy source of knowledge i feel.

Yeah, I think it would be good if we could get a few people who actually participated in these things to write them down rather than us doing it. And if we have something specific to research then I assume that the university library must have some books on local history. Even if they aren't very good for what we want they would be a start.

yeah, the star in the middle looks much better, but why is there a space at the end? can't you enlarge the font a bit more so it stretches across the whole line? also for the coloured pictures, it would be best to make them greyscale/black and white and play about with them on paint shop pro or photoshop to make sure they look ok when photo copied because sometimes it can come out a bit cack, especially red. also i think we'll need to have a discussion about the language we use in it, having skimmed through...

but those are just suggestions, maybe for next time, it looks excellent despite these quibbles, well done!

i would like to suggest we adopt the following guidelines from the libcom news ones:

there's more on other areas on the original page here, but i think we should obviously be reporting on our own actions at least, and i don't know what people think of the other content guidelines... but the bit i quoted is the important bit for us i reckon.

8)