Special edition of the Resistance bulletin giving an anarchist view on the UK 2015 general election.
Resistance issue 158, Angry not apathetic: general election special
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Angry not apathetic: what anarchists do instead of voting - Anarchist Federation
As the 2015 general election approaches, the Anarchist Federation explains the anarchist alternative to voting for social change.
The general election is here, and once again the parties are all over us like a rash, promising that they will fix things. But you don’t have to be an anarchist to know that nothing changes, whoever gets in. This is why politicians are keen on new methods such as postal voting. Labour, Tory, Liberal Democrat, nationalist (Plaid Cymru, SNP, Sinn Fein), ‘principled’ or ‘radical’ (Green Party, or leftists in some alliance), or nationalist-racist (UKIP etc), the fundamentals of the system are the same.
Whether we have the present electoral system or proportional representation, or however many people vote or don’t vote in an election or referendum, as we have just seen in Scotland, capitalism is at the driving wheel globally. As working class people, we are exploited whether we can take part in ‘free’ elections or live under an authoritarian regime. Capitalists and property owners continue to control the wealth that we create, and they protect it through the police, legal system, and military.
You can’t complain
Non-voters are told that, “If you don't vote you can't complain”. But voting under these circumstances is just pretending that the system we have is basically alright. It lets the winning party off the hook. The fact is, we have next to no say in the decisions that get taken by the people we elect. This is called ‘representative democracy’. Anarchists organise by ‘direct democracy’, where we can have a say in every decision, if we want to. We don’t put our power in someone else’s hands, so no one can betray us and abuse it. This really could work globally! Ask us how...
Campaigning against voting
A “don't vote” campaign on its own is just as much a waste of time. The same goes for a protest vote for a leftist or novelty candidate. The time and money spent campaigning could be better used fixing some of the problems we face in our lives. Protesting, whether it is spoiling a ballot paper or marching in the street, fails to offer any real challenge. So, anarchists say, vote, or don’t vote. It won’t make any difference. What is more important, is to realise that elections prop up a corrupt system and divert us from winning real change.
Don’t vote, organise!
We should organise with our neighbours, workmates, other people we have shared interests with, and others who don’t have the privileges that some people have. We are the experts on what we need, and on the best way to run things for the common good. We need to use direct action to achieve this. Direct action is where we solve a problem without someone else representing us. By this we mean, not just protesting and asking for change, but things like occupying, sabotaging, working to rule, refusing to pay their prices or their rent, and striking (but not waiting for union leaders to tell us when we can and can’t!).
For example, when workers aren’t paid the wages owed them, rather than asking the government to give us better legal protection, we take action to force employers to pay. The Department for Work & Pensions has even named the Anarchist Federation and the Solidarity Federation among groups that are a serious threat to workfare, because we have shut down programmes. This was achieved with only a few hundred people. Imagine what could be done with thousands!
Taking it back
In reality, people are understandably afraid of taking the state on. But direct action doesn’t have to mean an all-out fight to defeat capitalism in one go. Anarchists do think that ultimately, there has to be a full revolution. But by confronting the system directly at any point we can start to take control. In fact, all the good things we think of as having been created by the state – free health care, free education, health & safety laws to protect us at work, housing regulations, sick pay, unemployment benefits, pensions – came about historically to put an end to organised campaigns of collective direct action that threatened their power. And where we would fail as individuals, together we can win.
Comments
Generally agree with the content of this and have actually encouraged others thinking of voting positively to read it, except I'm not sure any kind of 'don't vote' campaign is worth the effort frankly? Some people will still vote - I mean even I have very rarely in the past and given, if we are honest - it's a case at present of 'What anarchists do instead of voting' is really only a part-time activity by we anarchist and communist minorities whether individuals vote or not is probably just irrelevant?
Why have elections or political parties?
In his semi-comic novel, I WON’T VOTE ANYMORE! A tale of passion and politics, Dr. Paul I. Jacobs questions the need for both elections and political parties.
Some of the characters play with the idea that members of the United States House of Representatives should be chosen by a lottery.
It would work like this:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“An enormous fishbowl contains the names of each adult citizen in a particular election district on separate sheets of paper.
“Every two years a slip of paper is chosen at random from the bowl, and the person named on it becomes that district’s Representative in Congress.
“That’s the model,” says Emily, “Of course, a computerized list would actually be used, not a fishbowl.”
Emily has their attention.
“Right now, in 2012, how many members of the House of Representatives are women? Any guesses?”
Some whispering and muttering, but nobody offers a guess.
Finally, Emily says, “Seventy-six of the 435, or a little over 17%.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quoted with the author’s permission
I thought this was pretty good. I've got a shit load of hard copies to give out on Friday but I doubt it will influence a change of mind in even a single case if they are already planning on voting. Oh Christ.
One thing election related that may interest and enlighten you is that 'the only bad thing about UKIP is that they will lift the smoking ban in pubs.' The source of this vital piece of information? My sister, who was once a candidate to stand as a Tory councillor! Almost as good as my old man who, on admitting that there is somewhat too much racism around, pointed out that there wasn't as much when there weren't as many foreigners and therefore concluded that the best solution to combat racism is to not have any foreigners here!!! Get your head round that little beauty and be sure to bear in mind he has lived in Thailand for the last 15 years. You couldn't make this shit up, could you.
Webby, i lived in South India and presently in North East Thailand and i can vouch for what you say about your dad's attitude.
I have met many ex-pats who have explained the reason to me that they were living abroad as - there are too many foreigners in the UK - I exaggerate not..Incredibly they don't see the absurdity of their present situation.
But dig a bit deeper...and the reason is that they are little different from any other economic migrant's effort to improve their condition...the pound in their pension goes further in a country where the cost of living is a lot less...(to be100% honest, my main motive for packing my bags when i took my early retirement)
I try to avoid local expats who's main purpose in life is to sit in a bar with others from the "home" country, wherever that may be (it is globalised now) , and share complaints and derogatory jokes about their supposed "adopted"country. (again, for sake of honesty, the times i do actually associate, is to watch the Barclay's League in a bar)
Also remember they live a style that harks back to the days of the Raj...the amount of deference given by the locals to ex-pats is determined by size of their wallet to the local people's income.
Spikymike
Generally agree with the content of this and have actually encouraged others thinking of voting positively to read it, except I'm not sure any kind of 'don't vote' campaign is worth the effort frankly?
?? This article is saying that voting is irrelevant.
J-R, Ok I was just referring back to the qualifying ''..on it's own'' in the article and the periodic reoccurance of 'Don't vote' campaigns by different anarchist groups.
Free education and the Liberal Democrats: a student's perspective - Anarchist Federation
A student member of the Anarchist Federation's account of the Lib Dems' promise on university tuition fees and the lessons learned.
Living in Sheffield at the time of the last election, I saw that there was massive voter turn-out and support for the Lib Dems amongst students. A tangible optimism and excitement existed in Nick Clegg’s constituency. Personally, I spoiled my ballot paper with, ‘If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal’. However, I did wonder whether a Lib-Dem rise could contest the New Labour/Conservative stalemate of neoliberal similarity.
Clegg now sports a satisfaction rating of minus-40 (Mori survey). This is well deserved. Instead of capping tuition fees he has overseen them triple to £9,000. Young people among many others who voted Lib-Dem have been left disillusioned by this, becoming disengaged from politics. What has been proven is not that young people are not interested in politics, but that politicians are not interested in young people.
Debt
I was lucky and only had to pay £3,000/year in fees. But I now owe the Students Loan Company £23,000. This increases by at least £30 a month due to interest, which started whilst I was still at university! I am persistently being hassled by them checking if I’m earning enough yet to start paying it back.
Neo-liberalisation
When I finished university I wanted to continue studying. However, funding for a social science Master’s degree is rare and most students are self-funded. I couldn’t stand the thought of incurring more debt by taking out a loan, so I gave up on the idea. I moved home and worked in a café trying to get out of my overdraft. I found out that there are no tuition fees in Sweden for EU citizens. I applied to Stockholm University and got in, paying living costs with money I’d earned in the café. I then found out I could return to the UK on an Erasmus exchange, avoiding tuition fees and even getting an EU grant!
This illustrates the lengths that you have to go to if you come from a background where higher education is unaffordable. Furthermore, it has taught me that a free education is feasible, but cannot be accomplished by relying on political parties and the establishment. The neo-liberalisation of higher education has proliferated under the Coalition. Education is becoming the preserve of the upper-middle-class. Research too must now be ‘competitive’, not expressing critical, independent thought.
To contest this, to strive for free education, the only way is to self-organise! The demise of the Lib-Dems has shown we cannot rely on any political party to deliver this. This is why we argue ‘Don’t Vote – Organise!’
Comments
Labour and the unions - Anarchist Federation
Ed Miliband addresses the Trades Union Congress
The infatuation of the trade unions with the Labour party should be nothing other than mystifying for ordinary workers. Whether it is ‘Unions Together’ or TUC voter registration drives, trade union members amongst us should feel deeply insulted at being asked to prop-up the Labour party as the best available solution, argues the Anarchist Federation.
The Labour Party was set up in the early twentieth century as a political wing of the trade union movement. Despite the rose-tinted view of history, it has continually regulated workers under capitalism. It is not a case of Labour having ‘lost its way’ and needing recapturing. To echo the anarchist Rudolf Rocker, political parties and elections haven’t brought workers “a hair’s breadth closer to socialism.”
The ‘Special Relationship’
The TUC and parts of the left continually present us with a picture of Labour which has nothing in common with its actual actions. They tell us that we still have a ‘special relationship’, and that despite its failings, the Labour Party stands-up best for ordinary working people. So we should support it ‘without illusions’, because it is better than the Tories. Not that you would notice! All the major parties support austerity against the working class. This is irrefutable, and Labour even says as much.
What remains of the dwindling trade union movement is essentially shackled by harsh restrictive anti-union laws and a totally compliant TUC leadership. These laws tell us how to manage our affairs, seriously restrict our ability to withdraw labour, and tell us who we can and can’t expel, which means that we have to accept scabbing in our own unions. They restrict free association in a way that no other organisation can under British law and are regularly condemned by the International Labour Organisation, which is hardly a hotbed of radicalism. The only time Labour repealed anti-union laws was when its hand was forced by a mass grassroots workers movement in the 1970s.
Overturning these present laws and rebuilding a militant culture around the workplace is going to require not the politics of the ballot box, but sheer will and the determination to oppose so-called ‘representatives’ in both the Labour Party and the TUC. Their class interests under capitalism are intimately linked; our interests begin and end with us.
Comments
So, is Russell Brand right then? - Anarchist Federation
Russell Brand on Jeremy Paxman's show about voting
The AF give their view on Russell Brand, the comedian-turned-activist who opposes voting and calls himself anarchist in his new book, Revolution.
Celebrity sexist Russell Brand has recently added ‘revolutionary’ to his CV, and he’s written a book about it. He has also turned out in person to support things like the successful housing struggle of the New Era Estate residents in London. If you can stomach the man himself, he seems to offer something to people sick of inequality, war-mongering and political hypocrisy. Brand agrees with anarchists on many things and refers to himself as an anarchist in his new book ‘Revolution’. He won’t be voting in the election for pretty much the same reasons that anarchists won’t be. The Spanish revolution inspires him as the best social experiment in history, as it does us. So, we should say what we think about him.
Money, money, money
Brand genuinely does see political parties as all the same, and electoral politics as a sham which serves the rich and powerful. But he seems unaware of what lies behind inequality. This is how he has come to the conclusion that society should be run by small, decentralised ‘groups’, which don’t act against anyone else’s interests, and which help each other out when needed. Great! But they would apparently still use money.
You can’t have both equality and money! The whole point of money is to have more of it than someone else. And no, we wouldn’t all be trading turnips for sheep in an anarchist society. We’d give and receive freely. So, although Brand has face-palmed Marx’s ‘From each according to (their) ability, to each according to (their) need’, he doesn’t understand what Marx meant. Money doesn’t enter into it.
Talking about a revolution
So how does he think this ‘revolution’ will happen? Unfortunately, Gandhi is explicitly his model. It isn’t so much that Brand is a pacifist, but that he glosses over violence by thinking that if enough of us rise up, the state won’t be able to do anything about it. Aside from talking to the prominent anarchist David Graeber, he doesn’t seem to have thought about this stuff seriously. So where he agrees with Graeber that we should take-over the functions of the state and make it redundant, he disagrees that we will need to defend the revolution. In fact, he says he has no ill will towards the police or army. Well that’s OK for this white, male revolutionary, who these days is rich and healthy too. In fact, when it comes to political freedoms in general, he is a little vague and places his faith in human nature and ‘Love’, as opposed to properly thought-out social structures.
Also, although Brand talks of ‘social recalibration’, his is a purely economic revolution, not one which would change other aspects of our damaged society. For example – and Brand, who claims to be challenging his own sexism, should take note - it would mean a believing stance towards rape survivors, instead of towards Julian Assange, such as he takes in ‘Revolution.’
So, genuinely angry at capitalism as he is, Brand is not qualified to be a spokesperson of the revolution. He will be using the royalties from ‘Revolution’ to set up a self-managed business for recovering addicts. But revolution has to be made by people oppressed by class, race, gender, sexuality, ability and lack of opportunity, all acting together. We should use as little violence as possible, but we have to defend the gains we make, which the people on the New Era Estate can do with or without Russell Brand.
Comments
"So, although Brand has face-palmed Marx’s ‘From each according to (their) ability, to each according to (their) need’, he doesn’t understand what Marx meant. Money doesn’t enter into it."
To be clear on this point, this slogan refers to a later stage of post-socialist development according to Marxist thought. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme after abolishing capitalism, society would transition to a system where "the individual producer receives back from society — after the deductions have been made — exactly what he gives to it" and subsequently "the same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another". Meaning Marx anticipated a disequilibrium based on amount worked, amongst other things, in the incipient stages of socialism.
Similarly, Bakunin advocates that workers' salaries be determined by democratic council, based on the difficulty of the work in question and time. Given that "money" is now simply the word we use to denote the abstract representation of exchange, what Brand is advocating sounds like collectivist anarchism, which most of us still consider to be a legitimate strand of anarchism.
We can debate quite seriously that anarcho-communism is superior, but his position is not prima facie an erroneous one to hold.
2fast2war,
Well the AF is an anarchist-communist organisation in to-days world so they are presumably argueing their point of view here rather than the more traditional anarchist-collectivist view, despite their liking otherwise for Bakunin, and of course Marx's stab at an approach to the problems of a transition to communism in his day did not include the use of money as he understood that.
There is an extensive discussion of all this following a text by David Adam here;
http://libcom.org/library/marx's-critique-socialist-labor-money-schemes-myth-council-communism's-proudhonism
Edit: yet again this link reference doesn't seem to work on this site so just search David Adam and it will come up!
Well, looks like he's changed his deep critique of our current political system to 'its ok to vote aslong as is for nice people like Lucas or people who really care and listen like Milliband' *face palm*.
Atleast we didn't write a positive article about him, but sounds like we should've been even more scathing.
dark_ether
Well, looks like he's changed his deep critique of our current political system to 'its ok to vote aslong as is for nice people like Lucas or people who really care and listen like Milliband' *face palm*.
Atleast we didn't write a positive article about him, but sounds like we should've been even more scathing.
yes, quite! Bit of a discussion about his U-turn here: http://libcom.org/forums/news/dont-vote-russell-brand-now-says-vote-laboursnpgreen-04052015
The thing is though, I do think it's worth engaging with Brand's arguments.
For better or for worse - and in his incoherent and contradictory way - he does speak to a certain section of the youth. I don't think we're going to make him an anarchist and I don't think we should try, but I do think certain people will come to anarchism via Brand. Having good, accessible articles to point out his misunderstanding of capitalism, social movements, and revolution is surely a good thing.
Anyway, any interesting non-anarchist links responsing to Brand's change of heart?
It seem cavalier to be calling Julian Assange a rapist when one of the condoms presented as evidence did not contain his DNA, he has not yet been charged and, although I am not saying it is the case, with an individual hated by the US gov't as much as Assange, it seems ignorant not to acknowledge that it could be a honeytrap.
Art Vandelay
It seem cavalier to be calling Julian Assange a rapist when one of the condoms presented as evidence did not contain his DNA, he has not yet been charged and, although I am not saying it is the case, with an individual hated by the US gov't as much as Assange, it seems ignorant not to acknowledge that it could be a honeytrap.
He's a rapist because he had unconsensual sex with another person. Which he has not denied. Therefore he is a fucking rapist. End of.
The end of a grassroots movement in Greece - Anarchist Federation
Syriza leader during victory celebrations
Many leftists have been overjoyed that an anti-austerity party won the general election in Greece. For the left, including those in the UK, Syriza’s victory is seen as a turning point in Europe against economic policies based on harsh cuts. But is it?
SYRIZA (‘Coalition of the Radical Left’) started off as an alliance of various reformist left-wing currents. Its programme was very similar to Pasok, a socialist coalition of the 1980s. In fact, a large part of the old Pasok leadership is now in Syriza. Alexis Tsipras took over as Syriza leader in 2008, as the party was moving away from reformist ‘Eurocommunism’ to build a relationship with the grassroots social movements that had grown in Greece against austerity. As it was developing a presence on the streets and joining the large ‘square protests’, the party also increased its influence in trade unions, especially the public sector, and organised among university students. It quickly positioned itself as a last hope for change for the social movement.
Syriza will now be the political wing of a repressive State apparatus - the police, the army, the judiciary - that is historically riddled with right-wingers and fascists. It has already formed a coalition with a right-wing anti-immigration party and will continue to make compromises to stay in power. As the party is quite small with 35,000 members, around 10,000 will be moved into government positions in an attempt to counter the right-wing, well away from the grassroots initiatives that carried them into office.
Greek radicals with longer memories will remember that after Pasok was elected it rapidly dropped the radical programme that helped it to power. In any case, it was all but wiped out in later elections. Now here we are again with more leftist promises from Syriza. As one Greek anarchist Spyros Dapergolas remarked about the importance of people sticking to grassroots organising, “Everything else is a recipe for failure, disappointment, loss of time, and, of course, political and individual corruption ... what power and state always create.”
Comments
What the Suffragettes did for us - Anarchist Federation
Suffragettes march in Bermondsey, south London, 1911
An anarchist responds to the guilt-tripping of women which occurs every election time about how suffragettes fought for women's' right to vote.
It’s election time again, and anarchist women are once more being lectured on doing our duty to those who died for our vote.
For the record, the suffragettes’ demand was that women should be balloted wherever men were. They weren’t fighting for every woman in perpetuity to be guilt-tripped into supporting any political system that used the ballot box to legitimise itself. They trusted future women to make their own decisions. Sylvia Pankhurst, for one, lived to reject parliamentary democracy as an “out of date machine” and refused to cast a vote or stand for election herself. This election, she’d be angry with every party’s participation in cuts to essential women’s services, not the women who spoil their ballots or stay away.
More than the vote
There was a lot more to the suffragettes than just the vote. They were about women’s solidarity, our ability to work and fight together, to write and speak from our own experience, not just on the vote but on sexual, social and vocational freedoms, like fair pay and reproductive rights. Being denied the vote was an insult to women as intelligent, rational human beings, regardless of how much use the vote itself was. Using the vote was almost beside the point compared to what it would mean for women to have the vote, to not be seen as mere extensions of their husbands.
Getting the vote was a victory largely because of what women achieved through the process of fighting for it. The speeches, publications, smashed windows, battles with police, martial arts training, imprisonments, hunger strikes, resistance to force-feeding and refusal to give in: these did more to raise the status and confidence of women, as public and political people, than the vote itself ever has. Much more than having women MPs or careerists who have cynically used women’s struggles to promote themselves.
Telling us that we have to vote because votes for women were hard won, is condescending, paternalistic shit. Working class men also fought for the right to vote, but are much less criticised if they suggest that there are more effective means of change than the ballot box. For women, voting is turned into an issue of conformity rather than conscience, in direct opposition to who suffragettes were and what they fought for. The suffragettes never intended their campaigning to stop with getting the vote. Many continued fighting when their leaders were co-opted. They weren’t satisfied, and they didn’t intend us to be.
Co-option
The suffragettes achieved their aims because they were a radical, inspirational and effective direct action movement. They achieved incredible things for themselves and for future generations of women. Yes, they deserve our respect and our gratitude. But more than that, they deserve our study and our effort to comprehend the full enormity and complexity of their struggle. They deserve better than to be reduced to a single-issue sound-bite.
So this polling day, whether you vote or organise or both, consider honouring the suffragettes’ memory by not using them as a stick to beat women with when they treat their vote exactly as the suffragettes did: as their own, to use or not, on their own terms.
Comments
The parliamentarian SPGB being their usual cranky maverick selves stood opposed to the women's suffrage movement. (Strangely they were uninterested in the necessity of gaining support and understanding of 50% plus 1 of the population that some people accuse them of advocating)
At the time the SPGB maintained that the working class possessed quite sufficient votes at their disposal to effect the revolutionary purpose when the class are sufficiently class conscious to make the time opportune. It is a question of education, not of extensions of the franchise ; and since the line of social cleavage is drawn through classes and not through sexes, there is nothing undemocratic in proposing to proceed even with our present limited male suffrage. The WSPU supported votes for women on the same basis as that which obtained for men at the time, i.e. based on a property qualification (it was 1918 when all men over 21 got the vote until then about 40% were excluded. It was 1950 when the rich/intellectuals lost their entitlement to an extra vote at thier university constituencies.)
Whatever its intention, given the situation where most property was held in the name of husbands rather than wives, this would have had the effect of enfranchising only a relatively small number of women, and clearly only rich women. In other words, they were not democrats who were campaigning for votes for all women but people whose policy would have strengthened the political power of the propertied class by increasing the proportion of capitalist voters at the expense of working class voters. No wonder the Socialist Party opposed them.
Sylvia was expelled from the WSPU by her mother and sister. In 1914 she set up the East London Federation of the Suffragettes, with its paper the Woman's Dreadnought, which she edited. The ELFS supported adult suffrage. It was renamed the Workers' Suffrage Federation in 1916 and the following year its paper became the Workers' Dreadnought (in 1948 she joined the Labour Party.)
What we said in 1908
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1900s/1908/no-46-june-1908/suffragette-humbug
What we said in 1910
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1910/no-71-july-1910/socialism-and-woman%E2%80%99s-suffrage-why-we-are-opposed
Spot on about the WSPU though the spgb's approach to suffrage then and now has hardly been consistent and I still prefer Sylivia's 'anti-parliamentary' communist phase. The recent address by a 'socialist feminist' member of the spgb is certainly an advance of sorts on the spgb's past approach to feminism but unfortunately not to parliament and votes.
"Telling us that we have to vote because votes for women were hard won, is condescending, paternalistic sh*t" ~ No, it's spot on; most who don't vote are simply apathetic, it's not about political ideology, & it's why we end up with genuine shite like Cameron with power over us.
If the Suffragettes wern't used to encourage voting they'd be all but forgotten, sadly.
It isn't soley women who are criticised for voting apathy; men are equally targeted wherever I've witnessed it.
You mean like this comment from someone urging people to vote" If you haven’t voted yet, I urge you to do so – especially you ladies out there, lest we forget the Suffragettes". Patronising? Surely not.
HypatiaRatkins
"Telling us that we have to vote because votes for women were hard won, is condescending, paternalistic sh*t" ~ No, it's spot on; most who don't vote are simply apathetic, it's not about political ideology,
That's probably true, but I think apathy is a fairly rational response to representative politics. Really, most people who do vote only happen to be apathetic one less day every five years.
“Tories on bikes”: the Green Party in power - Anarchist Federation
Refuse workers in Brighton on strike against Green pay cuts, 2014
The AF take a look at the Green Party's record where they have had power to evaluate whether they really represent an "alternative" to business as usual in the election.
“F***ing Tories on bikes” – that’s how one Brighton bin worker describes the Green Party. As the largest party on the local council, with 23 seats at the 2011 election, Brighton is the only place in the UK where the Greens have had so much as a sniff of power. And look what they’ve done with it.
Despite trumpeting a commitment to the living wage (£7.85 an hour outside London, compared to a National Minimum Wage of £6.50), they tried to impose a “pay modernisation” scheme on low-paid council workers with the support of the Conservative group on the council. It meant that refuse and recycling staff at Hollingdean depot faced a paycut of up to £4,000 a year.
Acting like the worst kind of union-busting boss, the council threatened the workers that if they refused to accept the new terms, they would sack them and re-employ them ‘on a worse contract, without compensation’. Binworkers responded with a wildcat occupation of their depot, and there have been numerous strikes and wildcat stoppages since. And the attacks on the binworkers’ terms and conditions of employment continue.
Litter picking
Green MP, Caroline Lucas claims to have made her opposition to the proposals clear, and even said that she would “join the picket line if the Council forces a pay cut on low paid staff.” Well, we haven’t seen her on any picket lines. We did see her picking up litter during the strike of June 2013, despite a statement from the bin-workers asking people not to, because as they say, “any attempts to lessen the impact of a strike [by picking up litter] completely undermines our action.”
No doubt the Greens in Brighton have made “tough choices,” with their “hands tied” by central government. So is that all there is to politics – “tough choices” and a world of perpetual disappointment when your elected representatives betray you? As anarchists, we say that the problem is not with who is in power, and how they exercise that power. The problem is political power itself. As anarchist Noam Chomsky points out, “the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” The Greens might be on the fringes of that spectrum, but they’re still part of the party political system, established to keep us quiet.
Comments
Green MP, Caroline Lucas claims to have made her opposition to the proposals clear, and even said that she would “join the picket line if the Council forces a pay cut on low paid staff.” Well, we haven’t seen her on any picket lines. We did see her picking up litter during the strike of June 2013, despite a statement from the bin-workers asking people not to, because as they say, “any attempts to lessen the impact of a strike [by picking up litter] completely undermines our action.”
This is really unhelpful tbh - for whatever her faults, St Caroline was on the Cityclean picket line regularly. Factually dodgy criticism like this just makes it harder for those of us who have to argue against the idea that the Green Party - and St Caroline in particular - represent a radical alternative.
Yeah. She was a feature on picket lines. And also picked up rubbish during the strike, against the requests of strikers. Pretty much the attempted nice middle ground of the Green Party personified.
Fair play. In the (much longer) piece that this is an edit of, the "Well, we haven't seen her...." line is a quote from a binworker, who no doubt hadn't seen her on a picket line at the time they said it.
button, fair enough. fwiw, there was some discussion on this (including a bin worker) when it was posted to facebook: https://www.facebook.com/libcom.org/posts/10153165148936023
I always cringe when I see the CAROLINE LUCAS GREEN SCAB article. She picked up a bit of litter on her way home but that doesn't make her a scab, because it was neither her intention to undermine a strike, nor was that the effect, nor did it have any symbolic value. At a time when most British workers don't even really know what a picket line is, and trade union bureaucrats are perceived to be pretty extreme radicals, such hyperbolic articles make libertarian communists look like disconnected oddballs, raging in our little bubbles on Twitter, facebook and on libcom, but generally quite unaware of context.
This reflex to demonise politicians by making them out to be personally corrupt or anti-worker is also bad politics IMO. What we ought to get across is that politicians with moral integrity (like Lucas) are perhaps the most dangerous, because they undermine working-class self-organisation by maintaining illusions in representative politics.
no1
I always cringe when I see the CAROLINE LUCAS GREEN SCAB article. She picked up a bit of litter on her way home but that doesn't make her a scab, because it was neither her intention to undermine a strike, nor was that the effect, nor did it have any symbolic value.
I think this bit is wrong - remember that she went on to say people should keep their area clean during the strike, and defended it after the CityClean workers called it out and released the statement. From my experience at the time it definitely made left leaning liberal types who broadly supported the strike think clean ups were ok. It didn't have the effect because the dispute was over quickly - but if it had dragged on then we'll meaning green liberals doing volunteer tidy ups would have been one of the councils strongest weapons.
While a lot of people did worse - especially a lot of the Labourites who were chucking the Lucas = scab stuff around the election - she definitely fucked up by not just saying a quick 'shit, sorry, wasn't thinking it undermined the strike' or whatever, rather than doubling down on her shit. Of course, she's a radical liberal, not any kind of socialist, so she wasn't going to do this, but I think it's generally good to try puncture the aura of St Caroline where it presents itself.
It's a matter of interpretation and therefore debatable but I don't think it was a symbolic gesture. She didn't actually originally tweet herself that she was doing it , it was some random person who saw her, and she didn't take rubbish off the streets, she just put it in a bag that was then left on the street (so not in any way doing the work of cityclean workers). Fair enough, she should at least have acknowledged what CityClean workers were asking people not to do this, but I don't think her putting rubbish in a bag was political, it's just an impulse most people have because they don't enjoy living in the midst of waste.
Anyway, I think it's good that she was criticised for it for the reasons you outline, but what I really object to is libertarian communists using the smear tactic of taking one single act (picking up rubbish), interpret it in a particularly doctrinaire way (she's breaking the strike!11!!!!), and then taking it as the defining characteristic (Caroline Lucas - the Green Scab). That kind of logic doesn't convince anyone.
Without getting too bogged down in the minutiae - she reposted praise she got for doing it, while adding comment that both encouraged people to do the same, with added tips. And then didn't back down when both the union and rank and file workers criticised this. That it was wrapped around a RT doesn't make it any better.
I don't necessarily disagree with your wider point (as I said initially, her actions during the dispute were overwhelmingly pro the strikers), but let's not let her off the hook here.
no1
I always cringe when I see the CAROLINE LUCAS GREEN SCAB article. She picked up a bit of litter on her way home but that doesn't make her a scab, because it was neither her intention to undermine a strike, nor was that the effect, nor did it have any symbolic value. At a time when most British workers don't even really know what a picket line is, and trade union bureaucrats are perceived to be pretty extreme radicals, such hyperbolic articles make libertarian communists look like disconnected oddballs, raging in our little bubbles on Twitter, facebook and on libcom, but generally quite unaware of context.
This reflex to demonise politicians by making them out to be personally corrupt or anti-worker is also bad politics IMO. What we ought to get across is that politicians with moral integrity (like Lucas) are perhaps the most dangerous, because they undermine working-class self-organisation by maintaining illusions in representative politics.
So while I really like the second paragraph here, my understanding of the situation was that the binworkers themselves viewed her as helping to undermine the strike and said as much. In that context, I think libcoms shouldn't be afraid to side with those most militant elements and call out some wanky liberal do-gooder politician on their shit.
And, perhaps a bit off-topic, but many more self-described anarchists do a lot more cringey, worthless, and downright counter-productive shit than writing snarky articles about Green politicians.
wanky liberal do-gooder
The language of the Libcom people! Plus, thou speaketh sooth sire, verily!
I think it's always worth considering whether we'd be as willing to scream fire and brimstone from the pulpit of our websites if it was someone like Noam Chomsky picking up rubbish, rather than a liberal MP, who is tempting to pick on. I'm a green anarchist who wants to support the strike, but doesn't want the streets of my neighbourhood flooded with rubbish. Besides the obvious environmental reasons, unbagged rubbish risks souring people against the bin workers over the course of a long struggle.
The alternative could be a voluntary clean-up effort, run by self-organising neighbourhood groups who regularly and loudly speak out in support of the bin workers struggle and critiques the public pronouncements of their bosses. This would help with the practical practical problem of unbagged rubbish, as well as serving as a focus for grassroots community organising in support of the strike, and creating networks of radicalised neighbourhood groups which could be a basis for all sorts of other solidarity efforts and community-run projects. Win-win-win.
The bin workers are entitled to their interpretation and to express it, and I agree that it's good solidarity to report their comments. We certainly need to take their side against the bosses trying to nobble them. But the interpretations of other people and groups supporting their campaign needs to be given fair criticism, not bridge-burning smears. Also, solidarity has its natural limits. If we offer solidarity to the workers of fossil fuel mining, for example, at the point that extends to serving as useful idiots in the climate "skeptic" PR effort (eg attacking climate campaigners to "support" the fossil fuel workers as Labour parties have done), "solidarity" has crept into denying environmental reality. Denying that unbagged rubbish blowing around the streets is a commons conservation issue, not to mention a public health issue, falls into the same category.
Well, if there was ever and indictment of green anarchism, that was it...
If "self-organising community groups" picked up the rubbish, the bosses would have no incentive to settle the strike. "Loudly spoken...public pronouncements" don't mean shit. It's nice to have the public on your side, but that's not how strikes are won.
On a similar note, we can support workers while being critical of the role of their industry. I mean, good luck finding any industry that doesn't contribute to environmental degradation in one way or another. It's called capitalism and that why we struggle against it now, to build something better for the future.
I also think it's pretty patronising to suggest that workers can't see wider societal effects of their industry and that somehow makes them unworthy of solidarity. I'd start here at the very least:
https://libcom.org/history/1976-the-fight-for-useful-work-at-lucas-aerospace
Completely agree with the post of chilli sauce, above. That post is a perfect indictment of so-called "anarchism", without a working class component. Which is basically liberalism.
strypey
I'm a green anarchist who wants to support the strike, but doesn't want the streets of my neighbourhood flooded with rubbish. Besides the obvious environmental reasons, unbagged rubbish risks souring people against the bin workers over the course of a long struggle.
Apart from the blatant selfishness of this (who is it that keeps your streets free of rubbish every single day of every year? Those bin workers, who now need your support. If you don't want there to be a strike, help them to win), it's just completely wrongheaded as public sympathy doesn't win strikes. Disruption wins strikes. Just look at the London Underground for an example. Large numbers of people were furious at the disruption from the strikes over night tube, but they won. Conversely, most people were supportive of NHS nurses and workers taking strike action a couple of years ago in defence of their pensions, but they didn't gain anything because they didn't cause massive disruption.
The alternative could be a voluntary clean-up effort, run by self-organising neighbourhood groups who regularly and loudly speak out in support of the bin workers struggle and critiques the public pronouncements of their bosses. This would help with the practical practical problem of unbagged rubbish, as well as serving as a focus for grassroots community organising in support of the strike, and creating networks of radicalised neighbourhood groups which could be a basis for all sorts of other solidarity efforts and community-run projects. Win-win-win.
Sorry, but this has got to be one of the most idiotic posts ever made on this site. That is called scabbing. That would mean the strike would have no impact, and the bosses would win. The way for strikes to win quickly is for them to spread, like what used to happen in the 1970s and 80s, where workers would walk out on strike to support other workers (for example, Ford car workers went on strike to help nurses win pay increases). Rather than trying to organise fictional "radical grassroots" scabbing, we should be trying to build solidarity in our own workplaces and communities to help people win strikes.
Also, solidarity has its natural limits. If we offer solidarity to the workers of fossil fuel mining, for example, at the point that extends to serving as useful idiots in the climate "skeptic" PR effort (eg attacking climate campaigners to "support" the fossil fuel workers as Labour parties have done), "solidarity" has crept into denying environmental reality.
can you point to these examples of the Labour Party aiding climate change deniers by supporting the strikes of fossil fuel workers? Because it sounds to me like you are making stuff up.
As for not supporting workers in fossil fuel mining, again if this is what you think then you are not an anarchist, you are a liberal at best, if not a downright conservative. The miners' strike in the UK in the 1980s was the single most important battle of working people against employers and the state in living memory. And more recently Kazakh oil workers have been massacred, sacked and jailed for standing up for themselves. Or do you not support them? Bearing in mind that by not supporting them, you are effectively supporting their employers, who are actually the ones benefiting from destroying the planet.
Denying that unbagged rubbish blowing around the streets is a commons conservation issue, not to mention a public health issue, falls into the same category.
If you think that a few bags of rubbish in one town from a strike is a serious environmental catastrophe then you also don't understand that much about ecology either.
Steven.
can you point to these examples of the Labour Party aiding climate change deniers by supporting the strikes of fossil fuel workers? Because it sounds to me like you are making stuff up.
Deafening silence here…
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