May Day 2012 - discussion and updates

http://libcom.org/forums/organise/occupy-may-day-general-strike-15012012

Soapy, thanks very much for helping with this, look forward to your updates! (I'm trying to make this the lead article but having some technical problems with the new theme)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-17881920

A Worker's Memorial Day Rally, has been held in Manchester, to remember all the workers who have died in industrial accidents cos not attention has been paid by employers to health and safety issues.

There was a march from the CIS Buildings to Albert Square.

the Nazi demo in Neumünster/Germany did not take place because the most of the arriving Nazis left the train at the wrong railway station

http://www.pinneberger-tageblatt.de/nachrichten/home/top-thema/article//neonazis-steigen-am-falschen-bahnhof-aus.html

From Quebec: Early May Day successes: Las CLASSE reports Cegep de Sherbrooke (for the 3rd time) and Cegep de Maisonneuve closed down by mass demos despite court injuctions! Put that in your pipe and smoke it judge!

Regardless of the union bosses trying to cancel the bridge action, the cops and CHP are all over both sides of the bridge.

Reports of roaming workfare demo shutting down McDonalds and BHS in London:

Soapy

Front page news across America

"Five suspects, some of whom describe themselves as anarchists, were arrested after allegedly conspiring to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, the FBI said Tuesday."
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/01/justice/ohio-bridge-arrests/index.html

Now this is just plain stupid. I mean, the news itself. I have my serious doubts when it comes to "covert agents".

[youtube]GCmlQz_acGA[/youtube]

Having read that CNN report it sounds like they were set up. But having read anarchistnews.org comments before I wouldn't be surprised if there was a grain of truth in it...

the fucking sucks. everybody's mayday activities in my town have been cancelled.

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/Wright_complaint_affadavit_050112.pdf

Any more updates from the workfare pickets?

David Ferraira wrote on twitter:

"#Turin major had to be escorted by riot police during May Day event, manic street clashes.#Italy#NoTav http://t.co/Vs6BdfaF"

"in a previous video I shared, looked like some union marshals were pointing out NoTav protesters to police"

Chilli Sauce wrote:
Any more updates from the workfare pickets?

It seems to be over just looking at twitter.

Mayday Workfare Demos Shut Ox St. Stores - report

May Day in Lexington, KY was not that great, it mainly consisted of people socializing outside of the main branch of the Chase Bank. There is supposed to be a bigger rally at a UBS bank for their support of coal, but I had to miss that.

Incredibly petty "sick-outs" ftw! Nothing is happening where I am as far as I can tell. I am withdrawing my labor in a personal capacity though :|

Update in Portland: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/05/arrests_in_downtown_portland_p.html

Boston MA; I can't remember being able to find any black & red flags or banners from Boston last year.

Cross post from the Quebec thread.

The May Day demo in Montreal has started now and has been declared illegal apparently with reports of tear gas and rubber bullets. Shit loads of riots police. Follow the hastag #manifencours on twitter.

Black Bloc taunting police with donuts lol!

alan on tyneside

Boston MA; I can't remember being able to find any black & red flags or banners from Boston last year.

Yeah there's another pic I saw outside of Boston's city hall w/ even more red and blacks but I can't fucking find it right now :x

Thread about the Cleveland bomb/entrapment attempt here:
http://libcom.org/forums/news/cleveland-oh-may-day-gets-cancelled-01052012

Get your trumpets out, the cavalry have arrived.

CUTV Montreal have a live feed.

Meanwhile in Toronto....

JE NAIS PAS SPEAK FRANCAIS GRRRRRR Is bibliotechque church or shop?

isn't' bibliotechque library?

Mais oui, une bibliotheque est une "library" et une librairie est un "book-store". C'est tres complique. ;)

Oh right, a guy's been arrested. Protesters meet Montreal Police on the streets downtown:

BanjoRed91 = ILLEGAL ALIEN! ;)

Mais non! J'aime juste le francais, c'est tout. :P

For a moment police were almost overrun at berri square! #1mai #manifencours

And this little piggy ran all the way home! hahaha

So you were in Montreal? Have you been active with the student protests?

Alas no mate, I'm in England. I'm just following this hashtag, so jealous! :)

Between 60 and a hundred people assembled in The Hague, Netherlands, and marched, twice, around the gocvernment centre. The action had quite a diverse character, with Occupy people predominant, and a sprinkling of left wingers and revolutionaries. The event went of peacefully, with police present but not in violent action.

Extremely good weather and an OK turnout of 3000-3200 people in Stockholm

Syndicalist youth federation bloc

Syndicalist vetaran militante Gun Nordstrand speaks

In Gothenburg, 2000 people showed up for the syndicalist demonstration, with 1000 people attending the revolutionary may day in Malmö, and in the 4th largest city in Sweden, the university town of Uppsala, another 200 joined with the SAC.

Things got rowdy in the city of Eskilstuna as nazi demonstrators attacked an antiracist counter-demonstration.

Portland update:

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2012/05/415368.shtml

http://photos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2012/05/may_day_park_blocks_23.html

IWW Ballons :)

photo of oakland tank here: http://saveourcola.wordpress.com/

The TUC (UK) have forgotten when May Day is, so I chilled out yesterday with a few beers and watched Our Idiot Brother with Paul Rudd. It's like the modern day Big Lebowski, only The Dude has family instead of dysfunctional friends.

Photographs of May Day celebrations from around the world. My favourites:

Lahore

Taiwan

Manila, Phillipines

Berlin's Kreuzberg district, Germany

Montreal, Canada

There was a march in Ottowa, Canada in solidarity with those struggling in Quebec.

In Montreal, students, backed by Quebec’s big unions, gathered outside Premier Jean Charest’s office on McGill College to continue their 12-week fight against tuition hikes, and anti-capitalist anarchists demonstrated near Champs de Mars on the edge of Old Montreal. Photo gallery here.

[youtube]wC_PcDQ8yvk[/youtube]
May Day march turns violent (with video)

Footage of the evening protests from CUTV Montreal here (recommended!)

plenty of 1 May pictures on http://communismeouvrier.wordpress.com/

Sanandaj, Iranian Kurdistan: http://iranenlutte.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/sanandaj-manifestation-malgre-la-repression/

Seattle kept it real. Here are some highlights: first building in the video is a courthouse, second is self explanatory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYT82Fec3cQ

Besides this, it was the usual immigrant rights march, as well as an anti-police brutality march. Both were quite large, several arrests.

I went on the CNT march here in Granada which ended with a rally by the cathedral and a speech by Jose Luis Garcia Rua which was great and moving - as he said it could be his last mayday speech. There were between 100 and 200 people I'd say. There's a video of all the different union marches in Granada on youtube. The poster suggests we should all be united, the CNT one is at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ctxf8klfMU
15M did an action in Macdonalds in solidarity with two workers sacked for joining a union:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQn0rg9l_Y8&feature=youtu.be

Cops in Oakland using snatch squads (their new tactic) vigorously during the day and then at 8:15 or so they grabbed a person at the back of the crowd. By that time people had had enough and massed around, with a few trying to unarrest him. Riot cops caught a bit flat-footed, not expecting that kind of reaction. A stand-off ensued, with paint hitting a few cops as plastic water bottles were harmlessly tossed. OPD declares us an illegal assembly and the cops use snatch squads to target people with shields, scattering the crowd, which quickly regroups as they come to understand that the snatch squads will immediately retreat. Flash-bang grenades used copiously, as well as some tear gas. The cops push the crowd away from the 14th/Broadway flashpoint intersection, and small groups make their way toward other parts further north. Cat and mouse actions, with as many as 25 more arrests into the early morning hours. Not too many injuries reported so far.

Barcelona: marchers expose undercovers in black bloc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MuzNELy4nmE

Black Badger

Cops in Oakland using snatch squads (their new tactic) vigorously during the day and then at 8:15 or so they grabbed a person at the back of the crowd. By that time people had had enough and massed around, with a few trying to unarrest him. Riot cops caught a bit flat-footed, not expecting that kind of reaction. A stand-off ensued, with paint hitting a few cops as plastic water bottles were harmlessly tossed. OPD declares us an illegal assembly and the cops use snatch squads to target people with shields, scattering the crowd, which quickly regroups as they come to understand that the snatch squads will immediately retreat. Flash-bang grenades used copiously, as well as some tear gas. The cops push the crowd away from the 14th/Broadway flashpoint intersection, and small groups make their way toward other parts further north. Cat and mouse actions, with as many as 25 more arrests into the early morning hours. Not too many injuries reported so far.

A similar scenario played out after the various afternoon marches from Fruitvale and San Antonio Park in East Oakland finally converged on 14th and Broadway in the evening; my rough count would say there were around 4,000 overflowing from Oscar Grant Plaza into the intersection. Unfortunately, there was less resistance to the snatch squads. I noticed that those squads were often led by half a dozen pigs with the "non-lethal" shotguns. The body of the militant crowd stood its ground as the liberals trickled away at nightfall, but with everyone tired from a long day of either standing around or marching across the city the pigs were able to be effective by the quickness and targetedness of their snatch actions. The cops went after anyone with a shield, as well as people they'd clearly identified. Some of the protestors seemed pretty groggy too; drinking cheap beer in the sun all day doesn't make one light-footed, to say the least.

I only saw one flash-bang grenade and only 4 or 5 snatch arrests in the evening. Fortunately, people realized they were no match for the pigs' tactics and dispersed by 9:00 p.m.

Copy of some pages from the snatch squad book:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/05/01/18712503.php

Looks as if the German Communist Party (DKP) has made it into the IWA. At least their Aachen local seems to think so. This is their banner at the may 1 march in Aachen. Normally they are better known to be supporters of the North Corean Regime than of being anarcho-syndicalist sympathizers ;-)

COPYRIGHT!!!

Black Badger

Copy of some pages from the snatch squad book:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/05/01/18712503.php

"list of occupy protestors known to incite, lynch, or fight police"

"Lynching" is the unlawful removal of a prisoner from law enforcement custody. Its popular use as a synonym for torturing, maiming, or murdering offenders of ethnic domination by racist mobs is not correct legal terminology.

Though the legal terminology has its origins in state and police responses to lynching. Those laws were initially written to use in response to mobs taking people (almost always African Americans) from jails to torture and murder them.

Pretty big police presence in Minneapolis. At the park the Occupy May 1st stuff started at, there were 7-8 squad cars with 2-4 police in each, equipped with gas masks and wooden batons, which I don't think anyone has seen here since the Republican National Convention protests of 2008. There was also a column of police horses circulating the park, and camera towers run on generators placed throughout.

The first march of the day was an unpermitted Occupy Homes one on U.S. Bank building downtown. This was right before noon and around 200 or so people. Some U.S. Bank manager came out and started screaming at protesters, and then was promptly glitterbombed by someone.

The larger immigration rights march I wasn't at or even saw, but I believe was 500-800.

After that march arrived at its destination, the IWW's Food and Retail Workers United march left from there with a massive Wobmobile truck sound system. This was also an unpermitted march, in which teams of people flyered restaurant workers while the loud march went down the street.

I was mostly at the park which was the meeting point for Occupy related May Day activities, so I missed all the marches.

Also, one of the SEIU locals was originally part of the Occupy activities. They were gonna take people up to a picket in the suburbs, but the threat of doing this to the employer made the employer cave in.

Later it started raining, there was supposed to be a noise demo outside the jail, but not sure what happened with that.

[youtube]f4Djxn74QFQ[/youtube]

http://thenewinquiry.com/features/may-day-2012/

has lots of reports from hot spots around the world.

http://www.nytexaminer.com/2012/05/the-new-york-times-may-2nd-the-day-after/

a report from a comrade who was in nyc

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/02/mayday-alert-occupy-movement

Naomi Klein has a report

YES! Cheap Shot on cop was fucking awesome! Just looking at the posture and expression on the kid, you could tell he was up to trouble, hahaha!

How is that awesome? You enjoy watching larger people whacking smaller people over the head with blunt instruments (useewutididthere)?

He could have started some serious shit at what looks like a fairly peaceful protest.

Read the comments on that youtube video. He's a cunt, so by association everyone around him is a cunt. Great message.

How does that look like a peaceful protest? I see cops running in an intimidating the crowd. Fuck them and anyone that defends them.

Crow

How is that awesome? You enjoy watching larger people whacking smaller people over the head with blunt instruments (useewutididthere)?

He could have started some serious shit at what looks like a fairly peaceful protest.

Read the comments on that youtube video. He's a cunt, so by association everyone around him is a cunt. Great message.

I'm sorry, you must have came onto the wrong website. Why don't I direct you to the right place:

http://moveon.org/

To be serious now, seeing a kid (that looks no older than 18) attacking a hostile pig (a working class betrayer and henchman of the capitalist social order) in riot gear is fucking awesome. I tip my hat to him for that.

Can you please explain your last three sentences? They are very confusing.

Are you saying that because of his attack on the police officer, people on YouTube are mistakenly associating everyone around the kid with his action? Therefore, what he did was wrong because they are characterizing the whole protest as being a "lets all be cunts and hit tiny female riot pigs in the back of the helmet" rather than [insert liberal reformist message about policy change here]?

Because that's what it sounds like when you say, "He's a cunt, so by association everyone around him is a cunt. Great message."

The message that I got by the way, was, I'M PISSED OFF AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE SHIT FROM A LITTLE PIGGY IN STORM TROOPER ARMOR.

sabotage

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/may/02/mayday-alert-occupy-movement

Naomi Klein has a report

Noami Wolf actually

more pictures: http://communismeouvrier.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/deuxieme-serie-de-photos-du-1er-mai-a-travers-le-monde/

Redwinged Blackbird

I'M PISSED OFF AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE SHIT FROM A LITTLE PIGGY IN STORM TROOPER ARMOR.

How is it liberal posturing to say that I don't find people bashing each other over the head entertaining or awesome?

This wasn't useful violence, this was just a stupid kid who saw a tiny (female) police officer and sucker drummed her. Which could easily have lead to an escalation of violence, police brutality, arrests, and for what?

You're saying you'd do the same in that situation?

It was fucking juvenile behaviour and not something I would ever applaud, whoever had the bruises the next day. Let's all go get lead by the nose by FBI informants and talk about blowing up bridges too. It achieves sweet FA and is simply mind-numbingly stupid, with repercussions for everyone who enjoys the old A>B.

The guilt by association thing isn't my opinion - I know that not everyone in that crowd is a childish cunt. But if this gets picked up by media or on social networks, that few seconds of video might be the only thing anyone outside of the leftist clique will see of recent events. Not the organisation, the banners, the marches, the solidarity - but some dickhead with a drum bashing a small female copper. This wasn't heroic or brave - he wasn't dearresting someone, or stopping someone getting the shit kicked out of them, or standing up to someone twice his size. He just sucker punched someone smaller than him from behind then scarpered. That along with the Cleveland thing makes it easy to classify it all from the outside as a terrorist or thuggish cabal of cunts and cowards.

White knightism don't work when they're offline. Tiny (female) cop but with armour the size of a large bloke and a fuck off truncheon.

Also anytime I can say I suckerdrummed someone, I'd totally do it.

flaneur

White knightism don't work when they're offline. Tiny (female) cop but with armour the size of a large bloke and a fuck off truncheon.

Also anytime I can say I suckerdrummed someone, I'd totally do it.

I'm uncomfortable applauding mindless, juvenile violence on what is a good thread (that donut pic is awesome) likely to get a lot of hits from interested outsiders.

FWIW, if he'd posted a vid of a copper hitting a smaller person and said it was awesome I'd call him out on it too.

FWIW, if he'd posted a vid of a copper hitting a smaller person and said it was awesome I'd call him out on it too.

Jesus fuck, what a stupid and pointless thing to say.

I'm sorry and maybe I live a different experience, but the people we want in the movement are the working class youths who are generally de-politicised but have an inherent hatred of the cops.

Instead of worrying about CNN demonising the movement (as if they'd do anything else) we should be

(1) defending ourselves against the cops (as someone's already pointed out, that cop was hit by a protester in the context of cops charging protesters!)

(2) appealing to the anti-cop sympathies of the dispossessed working class youth.

Fuck up cops and post that shit on YouTube any time you can!

yeah the officer was just holding that baton up for lots of peaceful fun....

And another thing!...

I work in a really rough area. If the kids from the local estates thought that protests were their opportunity to fuck up the cops and not some "peaceful", patronising, and boring A>B shit organised by bureacrats that doesn't relate to their lives, I have no doubt they'd be there. And then we'd be talking to them about politics.

Finally, fights with the cops do more to politicise people then a million well-written leaflets or public meetings. Here in the UK, we went through a massive student movement in late 2010. The students who became most politicised/radicalised are the one who were beat on by pigs. It's tough to be a liberal if you've fought the cops over an issue that affects your life materially.

Fighting the cops is good for the movement. FACT.

----

EDITED for clarity.

Black Badger

"Lynching" is the unlawful removal of a prisoner from law enforcement custody.

i did not know that.

further on soapy's second post in the thread:

those who were questioned by the warrant squads said the officers had an ulterior motive: gathering intelligence on the Occupy Wall Street protests scheduled for May 1, or May Day. One person said he was interviewed about his plans for May Day. A second person said the police examined political fliers in his apartment, and then arrested him on a warrant for a 2007 open-container-of-alcohol violation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/nyregion/warrant-squads-spied-on-wall-st-protesters-suspects-say.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

Chilli Sauce

If the kids from the local estates thought that protests were their opportunity to fuck up the cops and not some "peaceful", patronising, and boring A>B shit organised by bureacrats that doesn't relate to their lives, I have no doubt they'd be there. And then we'd be talking to them about politics.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and the gentleman in the clip was expressing his well-rounded political views with a reasonable and justifiable outburst of violence against the tyranny of authority, rather than just some dumb twat with a drum hitting someone smaller than him in the back of the head and then legging it.

As for political engagement, I don't think you'd be talking to anyone about politics if most of them are just looking for a fight.

Reaching out to marginalised youths with the lure of violence and a 'lets fuck shit up lol' message does not seem a reliable basis for a movement.

Anyway, maybe I'm just too squeamish for this anarky malarkey.

Yes, because that's what I said in my post :roll:

Jesus, how many times do people have to spell this out for you:

Perhaps I'm wrong, and the gentleman in the clip was expressing his well-rounded political views with a reasonable and justifiable outburst of violence against the tyranny of authority, rather than just some dumb twat with a drum hitting someone smaller than him in the back of the head and then legging it.

It was protesters defending themselves from a police charge and one guy took a cheap shot at the closest pig to him. Good on 'im.

As for political engagement, I don't think you'd be talking to anyone about politics if most of them are just looking for a fight.

Reaching out to marginalised youths with the lure of violence and a 'lets fuck shit up lol' message does not seem a reliable basis for a movement.

Those working class youths experience the tyranny of the police as a regular aspect of their lives. It's not about the 'lure of violence' of 'fucking shit up'. It's about giving people an opportunity to fight back against the forces that oppress, and not fucking moralizing or trying to appeal to the media.

I disagree, and I'll moralise all I please, thanks. I'll bow out though as this is a thread for May Day updates, not the ethics or glamourisation of violence.

What Chilli has said. It's been the dispossessed youth that has given the student and anti cuts movement a well needed kick up the arse and a ruck with the cops can be the gateway to something far more.

Report from London now up on SF site: http://solfed.org.uk/?q=south-london/london-solfed-on-mayday-you-say-workfare-we-say-warfare

Crow

I disagree, and I'll moralise all I please, thanks. I'll bow out though as this is a thread for May Day updates, not the ethics or glamourisation of violence.

http://front.moveon.org/

Crow

This wasn't useful violence, this was just a stupid kid who saw a tiny (female) police officer and sucker drummed her. Which could easily have lead to an escalation of violence, police brutality, arrests, and for what?

If only we had a REAL superhero to save this poor girl from the wretched of the earth. If only.

Redwinged Blackbird

http://front.moveon.org/

http://www.anarkhos.org/violence.html

Crow

Redwinged Blackbird

http://front.moveon.org/

http://www.anarkhos.org/violence.html

That website is the biggest pile of shit I've ever seen in my entire life.

I mean what the fuck is this?!

http://www.anarkhos.org/flawedclassbasedreasoning.html

The whole site reads like some individualist, "anarchism is all about ethics, man", moralizing bullshit that from the best I can tell divorces the very idea of government from capitalism and class society.

This website if a fucking gold mine.

From "Advice to the unemployed":

Let us suppose that you are a socialist, a feminist, an anarchist, or a Muslim. A bigoted potential employer learns of your views online and decides that you should not be hired. That potential employer just saved you from years of living under cover and worrying about whether your employer will find out about your beliefs.

...Because the world knows I am an anarchist, war mongers don't approach me about possible employment and this fact saves me a lot of time rejecting them, or explaining to them that I do not do work that assists in war or in killing other human beings. Conversely, those who do respond are the type that do not care about my political beliefs and are interested, instead, in my skills and abilities.

...if you feel that your employer is truly unethical and has truly wronged you, I do think you should speak your mind when you leave.

...If you are willing to do some real work, you can do day labor. Think about it. If undocumented workers can find day labor, you can too. If you possess special knowledge, you can tutor or consult.

...employ yourself and see where it leads.

Comparing the ramblings of one person to what purports to be a grassroots effort to swing the Democratic Party back toward the left edge of its center is one of the most ludicrous attempts at moral equivalence I've seen in a long time.

The website might be shit, but that article was good.

Defensive violence is fine.

Offensive violence against individuals representing authority, capital (police, bankers, teachers) isn't.

Glamourising or promoting violence against coppers on a public forum borders on fucking crazy. Maybe I'll just go shoot a copper in the face or blow up a police station? ACAB, right? Teh anarchists said it was a good idea. Oh, wait.

Also, I wish you all luck hitting the next copper you see in the face.

Morons.

Your alternately hand-wringing and petulant tirades are so cute.

You know, there are some anarchists and other authentic revolutionaries who recognize that the mere existence of institutions where there are "individuals representing authority, [and] capital" automatically puts working class, poor, and oppressed people on the defensive every day. There would be no respect for police if there were not an implicit and inherent threat of violence behind the uniform. There would be no respect for bankers if the police and courts and prisons didn't have an implicit and inherent threat of violence behind them that bolsters the continuation of the rule of capital. There would be no respect for teachers if state-sponsored indoctrination were not mandatory, with the implicit and inherent threat of violence toward those children and their parents/legal guardians for non-compliance in that scheme for enforcing social conformity. In the world where I live, that called bullying.

In that light any attack against any of them is self-defense. How does calling what the drummer did "a cheap shot" glamorizing? All I have seen anyone here saying is that they're not crying for the copper, who was clearly not injured after getting smacked; she's wearing a helmet after all. Can't say the same for the people being mercilessly beaten by her colleagues in the background.

I'm amazed that somebody on this website thinks that somebody who is wearing armor, a club, a gun and is backed by the force of the entire US government is somehow unfairly matched against a kid and his drum...

Black Badger

Your alternately hand-wringing and petulant tirades are so cute.

And your patronising tone is grating.

You know, there are some anarchists and other authentic revolutionaries who recognize that the mere existence of institutions where there are "individuals representing authority, [and] capital" automatically puts working class, poor, and oppressed people on the defensive every day.

Evidently. And there are some anarchists and other "authentic revolutionaries" that don't think this equates to legitimising non-reactive physical violence against individuals in these roles. So tired of this 'you ain't one us if you disagree', 'white knight' crap getting thrown around here.

In that light any attack against any of them is self-defense.

Any attack? Really?

Being patronizing is one of the perks of growing old; I'm too old to be petulant any more.

I suppose there are several self-proclaimed revolutionaries who are as mired in bourgeois moralism as you are, who find the "non-reactive physical violence" from our comrades horrifying, but who are eerily silent when the cops beat people.

I don't think that you "ain't one of us" just because you disagree with all of the other folks who've posted on this thread. I don't care one way or another what your self-understanding is; you can be "one of us" if you like. What I do care about is the impact of your ideology. The result of your kind of thinking and moralizing is the removal of part of a revolutionary's toolbox - or arsenal if you will. In an asymmetrical struggle for survival (also known as class war), that is just batshit crazy. If we ever have any hope of tipping the balance in our favor we should have all tools available at any time in order to continue fighting for a world without the domination of capital and the state.

And yes, any attack. Really. All legitimate self-defense.

I'm quite content with my 'bourgeois' ethics if it means I keep clear of spouting consequentialist nonsense like this.

Been a lot of words in the past few posts. Wouldn't wanna scare off the authentic revolutionaries.

Look at this guy! Tee hee! He got kicked in the balls! Let us spout shit about how revolutionary and awesome (which isn't the same as glamourising) the fellow in the black cap is!

Dude, that nut shot IS awesome.

I'd say a cop has done that to some unlucky citizen more than a few times. Revolutionary or not, payback's a bitch, innit? All short words so even authentic revolutionaries can get it.

Move/delete this ridiculous discussion please.

Swedish small-town hipsters, grannies, thugs & dogs against nazis on 1 may

Gothenburg pwnz0rz

That's the best banner, ever.

Khawaga

That's the best banner, ever.

hmmm, this didn't get an outing on mayday as it was TOO BIG FOR THE TRAIN.

It's a good one, but not as lulzy.

What!? What's more lulz than latin on a fucking banner!

It's no as Lulzy; but it still can has the lulz.

with regard Crow, theres not really much point in playing clean with police as its not like they do the same with us.

Photos from mayday action in Yerevan, Armenia

http://avtonom.org/en/freenews/mayday-yerevan-armenia

Chilli Sauce

What!? What's more lulz than latin on a fucking banner!

If you look on the esperanto thread the CGT have a pretty badass banner in Esperanto...

Here in Portugal there was an anarchist rally in Setúbal (30km from Lisbon); protests convoked by CGTP (a syndicate which the most of people are communists) and by UGT (theoretically socialists but the leader signed with government a law wich facilitates unemployment) and others.
The mass media and most of people were in «Pingo Doce» (a hypermarket) who announced for 1st May a 50%promotion in schopping above 100euros. In these markets a lot of people were crazy like in cartoons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEw-B5xNwR8

Report from Logrono, Spain: http://cntoesia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/cronica-del-1-de-mayo-en-logrono.html

fernandocouto

The mass media and most of people were in «Pingo Doce» (a hypermarket) who announced for 1st May a 50%promotion in schopping above 100euros. In these markets a lot of people were crazy like in cartoons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEw-B5xNwR8

Maaaan...

Portugal, Spain, Italy, etc would seem to be a good place for autoreduzione right now. (I exclude Greece cos it seems to be already happening there to a certain extent...)

Finally, Vice report on London Mayday (including anti-Workfare demo). Pretty typical Vice sneering 'irony', but not entirely negative.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/may-day-2012-london-protests-occupy-anarchists-topshop-macdonalds-turkish-workers-unions

[youtube]yjfvvpO878s[/youtube]

Among the participants at the leftist rally which was held in Tel Aviv on Tuesday 2012, in honor of International Workers' Day, was a radical group of people carrying black flags. They were members of an anarcho-communist group which calls itself "Unity".

I've not come across this group before; does anyone have any info/background on them?

Interesting....but dumb (masks, mindless sloganeering at end)

maybe Tojijah or Ilan would know, though they never seem to post anymore.

Local San Francisco Chronicle story on Oakland Anarchists. Pictures are available on the SFGate website.

Occupy's anarchists seen as both divisive, crucial
Kevin Fagan
Sunday, May 6, 2012

Every time windows are smashed and clashes erupt with police at Occupy protests in Oakland and San Francisco, one group is in the thick of it: masked, black-clad anarchists known as the Black Bloc.

Police say they are pure trouble and point to conflicts at last week's May Day rallies as the most recent example. Most pacifist protesters wish they would go away. Hard-core Occupiers say they like having them around to diversify their movement's tactics.

Exactly who makes up the Black Bloc is, by design, a bit of a mystery. Adherents rarely reveal their identity and say they aren't really a group at all, but come-and-go adopters of a tactic.

Some protesters say Black Bloc violence and vandalism undercuts the core Occupy message of advocating for more economic equality. Supporters, however, say the Black Bloc has a different definition of violence, particularly in dealing with police - and that Black Bloc anarchists are a force for protection of other demonstrators and assertive expression.

One young Black Bloc demonstrator at a "F- the Police" march held by Occupy Oakland in March said he felt he was part of "a revolution for the people that is not going away."

"I don't know anything about violence," he said. "Everything we do - it's about freedom of f- speech, freedom of gathering. We're in a revolution here. It's not business as usual."

Emotions run hot on both sides.

"The argument that they aren't doing violence is complete bull-," said Buck Bagot, an organizer with Occupy Bernal in San Francisco. "They say the real violence is from the system, and that's true. But that doesn't mean that what they do is right.

"You can get your point across without breaking things."

Occupy's self-policing

Bagot said Black Bloc techniques are not tolerated at his group's protests. At one Occupy Bernal demonstration in February at the home of John Stumpf, chief executive officer of Wells Fargo, several local union members operated as monitors to keep in line Black Bloc-ers or others open to destruction.

"How much more aggressive can you be than visiting the CEO's home?" Bagot said. "That's enough by itself. The Black Bloc is a tiny minority of the movement."

But Lauren Smith, an organizer with Occupy Oakland, said the notion that the Black Bloc causes trouble is misguided.

"The fact that police can single out the Black Bloc as troublemakers just shows that the police are trying to pit us against one another," Smith said. "They are saying the people who use tactics that directly confront police or damage property are bad, and the people who take no action are good.

"The reality is that this (Occupy) is a fluid group, but we're really just the same group of people with different tactics on different days."

20-year-old tactic

The Black Bloc is not a secretive cabal, activists say. The technique has been used for at least 20 years in the United States, and the purpose of wearing black clothes and bandanna masks is simply to achieve anonymity - especially for those whose actions might draw police attention. They usually number in the dozens or low hundreds at Bay Area protests.

In Oakland, Black Bloc-ers have been prominent at many Occupy demonstrations, at times toting homemade shields with "A" painted on the front, for "anarchy." In the May Day protests, one activist dressed in black shoved a pole at a police officer and others pushed at police lines with their shields.

In San Francisco, a crowd of more than 100 Black Bloc activists stormed through the Mission District after a peaceful Occupy rally Monday night, vandalizing more than 30 businesses, a police station and several cars with hammers, crowbars, paint and eggs.

Police say the actions were extreme examples of the aggression they often see from the Black Bloc.

"They engage in violent destruction of property and behave in a violent manner," said San Francisco police Sgt. Daryl Fong. "They have used pipes, crowbars, pellet guns, incendiary devices that are like Molotov cocktails, lit flares, and thrown them and bricks in an assaultive manner at officers.

"As for what they are trying to say - I don't know," he said. "Unfortunately, we can't dialogue with them."

Oakland police Capt. Jeff Israel said he believes the Black Bloc is not as loosely formed as some activists say it is.

"I don't know who they are," he said. "I just know that when it comes to criminal misconduct, they act together."

'Strategy to protect people'

Black Bloc supporters say the police have it backward. The protesters are using assertive tactics only to counteract police repression, they say, and any vandalism to businesses or cars is just an expression of rage in reaction to oppression.

At the root of the debate is the Black Bloc definition of violence and civil disobedience. Some believe that most vandalism and clashes with police don't constitute violence because they amount to self-defense in the service of a cause. And they note that some Black Bloc-ers serve as protest medics.

Besides, they argue, police are the aggressors, though police say it is the other way around.

"Property destruction by itself is not violence," said Chance Martin, an organizer with Occupy San Francisco. Rather, he said, damaging appropriate targets - such as a bank window - is a legitimate form of protest.

Smith said that when Oakland's Black Bloc protesters shove against police with shields, "it's just a strategy to protect people, to get between them and the police and their projectiles."

"Of course it's perceived as confrontational by police," Smith said. "But they (Black Bloc-ers) really are just protecting the crowd by drawing more fire to themselves so others can organize themselves, put on their gas masks or get away."

Occupy denies link

At times, when trying to explain seemingly pointless vandalism - such as Monday night's trashing of small businesses in the Mission - Occupy activists deny any link to the perpetrators.

"Anyone who just wants to break things up, I don't regard as typical of the Black Bloc," Martin said. As for the Mission vandals, he said, "it was everybody's feeling that we didn't know who these guys were."

Longtime anarchists aren't always sure how the Black Bloc fits into their ideology.

Anarchists come in many forms, from homeless rail hoppers to those pushing hard against authority to those advocating for leaderless communities aimed at pure self-governance.

"Occupy, because it is leaderless, is basically an anarchist movement," said Bill, who helps run AK Press in Oakland, one of the biggest anarchist book publishers in the nation. In anarchistic fashion, he declined to give his last name.

"But the Black Bloc? I think they're counterproductive," Bill said. "In fact, in most cases, Black Bloc tactics don't make sense."

Smith and other Occupy activists say the people behind the masks are from a rainbow of ethnicities, gender and ages, but some observers say they often tend to be white and young.

'Trust-fund types'

As co-managers of the Berkeley Surplus store on San Pablo Avenue, Mitchell Langon and Michael Ludlow have sold a lot of gas masks, dark bandannas and black hoodie sweatshirts to protesters since Occupy began in the fall.

"I've had a bunch of rich white kids come in here looking for the black stuff - you know the type, the Marin County trust-fund types," said Langon, whose store sports a sign reading, "For all your riot needs." "It's like they want to be part of something."

Ludlow added, "It's like doing this stuff gives them a chance to break something. ... But it's not all (representative of) Occupy - there are plenty of protesters who don't want that."

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. [email protected]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/06/MNMP1OD850.DTL

"usual suspect," your posts from anti-radical bourgeois sources (as in never your own opinions) make me suspect you. That, plus the multiple handles you use on this forum and on those on other sites. Your "interventions" make us think you have the same employer as "CRUD."

Caiman del Barrio

Finally, Vice report on London Mayday (including anti-Workfare demo). Pretty typical Vice sneering 'irony', but not entirely negative.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/may-day-2012-london-protests-occupy-anarchists-topshop-macdonalds-turkish-workers-unions

this is ace! who came up with this? i suspect arbeiten
Vice

Then the activists would stand around chanting and jeering the shop mercilessly. The best one was: “We won’t work for free, mandatory workfare’s not for me!” to the tune of Black Sabbath's’ "Iron Man"

Rant #2.

I'm really, really fucking pissed that provocateurs like "usual suspect" think they can get away with posting flagrant lies from the corporate media while many of our comrades are still rotting in jail from the busts on both sides of the Bay on May Day. The pigs are turning up the heat and using the spectacular media as part of a anti-radical redscare campaign, similar to the situation in Cleveland. It is simply unprincipled to broadcast ruling class fabrications on forums like this.

The local petit-bourgeoisie is also circling-the-wagons and uniting to further demonize not only anarchists and the black bloc, but ALL radicals who were involved in the Occupy Movement.

Case in point: yesterday there was a four-alarm (a measure of the number of engine companies that responded) fire at the corner of Valencia Street and Duboce Avenue at the inner edge of San Francisco's Mission District. That area is so close to downtown that it's been ripe for gentrification for decades. The building on the corner was completely destroyed, while other adjacent buildings were heavily damaged. 37 people were made homeless.

A friend works just down the block and everyone in the neighborhood is saying it has all the signs of landlord arson to drive out poor working class people, grandfathered into the apartments with rent control, out of the area. The Palestinian family who ran the liquor store right on the corner were totally accepted by everyone on the block. But that whole stretch of Valencia Street is under attack by real estate speculators and there are already several brand new yuppie condominiums. Media outlets have been rationalizing gentrification as a cure for "blight" for decades, and are now using the smash-em-up along Valencia on April 30 to blame anarchists for ALL the problems in the neighborhood.

Yet I'm 100% sure that the pigs and press will start floating stories about anarchists having something to do with the fire. After I left the area in downtown Oakland near Oscar Grant Plaza late in the evening on May Day, comrades staying around there were detained by the Oakland pigs for suspicion of "arson." Had I stayed another half hour, I would have been arrested for suspicion of that too.

All this shit stinks. Don't post propaganda from the corporate media unless you can corroborate it yourself. Don't spread the lies of our class enemies.

All this shit stinks. Don't post propaganda from the corporate media unless you can corroborate it yourself. Don't spread the lies of our class enemies.

agreed.

Black Badger

Your alternately hand-wringing and petulant tirades are so cute.

You know, there are some anarchists and other authentic revolutionaries who recognize that the mere existence of institutions where there are "individuals representing authority, [and] capital" automatically puts working class, poor, and oppressed people on the defensive every day. There would be no respect for police if there were not an implicit and inherent threat of violence behind the uniform. There would be no respect for bankers if the police and courts and prisons didn't have an implicit and inherent threat of violence behind them that bolsters the continuation of the rule of capital. There would be no respect for teachers if state-sponsored indoctrination were not mandatory, with the implicit and inherent threat of violence toward those children and their parents/legal guardians for non-compliance in that scheme for enforcing social conformity. In the world where I live, that called bullying.

In that light any attack against any of them is self-defense. How does calling what the drummer did "a cheap shot" glamorizing? All I have seen anyone here saying is that they're not crying for the copper, who was clearly not injured after getting smacked; she's wearing a helmet after all. Can't say the same for the people being mercilessly beaten by her colleagues in the background.

I was with you right up until you said that "any attack against any" teacher is "self defense"

A quick summary of May Day around East Asia:

Cambodia: (link 1)
China - Hong Kong: (link 1)
East Timor: (link 1)
Indonesia: (link 1) (link 2) (link 3) (link 4) (link 5) (link 6) (link 7) (link 8) (link 9) (link 10) (link 11)
Malaysia: (link 1) (link 2) (link 3) (link 4)
Philippines: (link 1) (link 2) (link 3) (link 4) (link 5) (link 6)
South Korea: (link 1) (link 2)
Taiwan: (link 1) (link 2) (link 3)

I didn't see this posted yet. It's David Graeber's article in the Guardian:

Occupy's liberation from liberalism: the real meaning of May Day

The US press seems to have decided that the Occupy movement is no longer a story. Pretty much no matter what we do. In New York, on May Day, something between 50,000 and 100,000 people marched through the streets – we don't know the exact numbers because most papers didn't report the event at all, and therefore, didn't bother to make estimates. In California, there were blockades and walkouts. In Seattle, one band of protestors relived the famous Black Bloc actions of November 1999, smashing many of the same corporate windows – and even that didn't make national news!

But in a way it hardly matters. Occupy is shedding its liberal accretions and rapidly turning into something with much deeper roots, creating alliances that promise to transform the very notion of revolutionary politics in America.

During the first two months of the occupation, camps emerged in every city in America, there was an explosion of press attention, and, at the same time, a vast influx of money (at one point, OWS in New York was sitting on over $0.5m, almost all of it from donations of under $100 each). Those months also saw a veritable invasion from liberal groups, ranging from Rebuild the Dream to MoveOn.org. Before long, occupiers realized the help was threatening to destroy them; meetings became bureaucratized as they turned into endless squabbles about money; paid organizers with agendas often very different than the original occupiers were infiltrating and trying to turn the movement towards much more conventional political or electoral campaigns.

Then came the evictions.

There is a traditional terms of alliance between liberals and radicals in American social movements: through civil disobedience and direct action, the radicals create a fire on the liberals' left that makes them seem relevant as a moderate alternative; the liberals keep us out of jail. In this case, the liberals spectacularly failed.

Over the winter, rather than making an issue of the extraordinary illegal violence of the evictions, they chose, instead, to create an almost histrionic moral crisis over a few broken windows in Oakland months before. But when OWS re-emerged in the spring, the abandonment of the liberals, the drying-up of the money, have become an almost miraculous blessing. Activists have honed and polished their street tactics and democratic process. New alliances have been created, with community groups, immigrant rights organizations, and, increasingly, labor unions.

One reason OWS agreed to forgo mass civil disobedience in New York on 1 May was to solidify those alliances. Instead, occupiers working within the coalition pushed – with the boisterous support of many rank and file, despite the initial hesitation of some union leadership – for a joint solidarity statement that called not just for the usual battle against austerity, but to the revolutionary transformation of society:

"For centuries, May Day has been a time when the stirrings of spring lead people of good will towards visions of revolutionary renewal. The powerful wish to take these dreams away from us. They never will. And so it is on this May Day, in the wake of a growing planetary uprising for justice, we dare to look forward to a world when the borders that divide us will be made meaningless, to the birth of genuinely democratic culture of communities managing their own resources for the common good, and where the value and dignity of no human being on this planet is considered inferior to any other."

For representatives of New York's Health and Transit Workers, not to mention its Central Labor Council, to sign on to such a statement is epochal. America is one of the few countries where May Day, the International Workers' Day, is not even a holiday – ironically enough, considering the fact the date was chosen to commemorate events that occurred in Chicago, during the struggle for the 8-hour day in 1886. During the cold war, the idea of unions signing on to a statement like this would have been inconceivable: in the 1960s, unionized workers were known physically attack Wall Street protestors in the name of patriotic anti-communism. But the collapse of state socialism has made new alliances possible, and, in making common cause with occupiers, and the immigrant groups that first turned May Day into a national day of action in 2006, working-class organizations are also beginning to return to their roots—up to and including, the ideas and visions of the Haymarket martyrs themselves.

The words might be diplomatically chosen, but there's no mistaking what tradition is being invoked here. In endorsing a vision of universal equality, of the dissolution of national borders, and democratic self-governing communities, nurses, bus drivers, and construction workers at the heart of America's greatest capitalist metropolis are signing on to the vision, if not the tactics, of revolutionary anarchism.

I was with you right up until you said that "any attack against any" teacher is "self defense"

Next time a copper, a capitalist, or a school gets shot up I'll be sure to tell all my friends that teh anarchists thought it was 'self-defense' guv.

Idiotic, consequentialist, violent stuff like this is absurd and counter-intuitive in the current climate where revolutionary organisation is limited to sectarian cliques in a few western countries with almost zero popular support. Sure, there might be a time where violence against some individuals is needed, but I hardly think we're in that place right now, and I'm sure most of you would agree with that even if you don't agree with anything else I've said.

Small acts of childish rebellion at an A>B march achieves nothing but an escalation of violence, maybe a few years in prison for that kid, and when everything carries on being the same (or worse) the next day, week, year, completely disillusioning. If violence is the only element of radical behaviour then they'll get burnt out verrrry quickly. And if the only thing anyone outside of this incredibly small circle remembers of this year's May Day marches are that kid's sucker punch and the Cleveland bunch then we move backwards not forwards.

I also don't think getting beaten up/ beating up someone is a way to radicalise yoof or further the anarchist cause, personally.

I'm also a bit troubled by some of the 'tit for tat' 'eye for an eye' justice bs some posts whiff of, but I think I've derailed the thread enough for now.

Down vote times a million!

At last I appreciate your superior knowledge and ability to reliably decide when conditions will be appropriate for radicals and regular people to resist. With such self-assurance, I will now happily retreat from my fire-breathing desire to defend myself and my loved ones from oppression. Your chastising has been successful; I will wait for the word from you to let us all know when the time and place are ripe for non-symbolic, effective, and empowering resistance. Not until then! What a refreshing relief from being forced to look at the world according to my own experiences and understanding! Thank you Crow, for allowing me to return to quiet and private grumbling.

This is a bit late but South Wales Anarchists had an anarcho picnic in Cardiff city centre and picketed Poundland and Primark re: workfare. We also launched our new web portal! http://www.theahole.org.uk/

So I think if May Day showed anything here in the U.S. is that Occupy cannot draw people like it did last fall and that the numbers have fallen but the militancy has risen quite a bit. One only needs to look at a couple years ago in Asheville and Santa Cruz at the targeted property destruction there and how much controversy it generated in not only the broad radical left, but even within American anarchism. This year, people were blockading, doing unpermitted marches and smashing shit in a lot of places.

Talking with a comrade, he said the same thing happened during the antiwar movement...that eventually tactics became the ideology with the more militant tactics becoming more prevalent as numbers declined. From my experience in Iowa and to a lesser extent some of the rest of the Midwest, I think he's right.

Another thing I noticed, and it seems common to some other Occupys too, is the tension between those who want to hold public squares and those who want to do more than that. Here in Minneapolis, most of the good organizers have moved on to Occupy Homes' anti-foreclosure work. The reoccupation of a park mainly involves some homeless people and really lumpen, maybe runaway white/biracial/Native kids with drug and alcohol problems. The reoccupation is known among the rest of Occupy as an unsafe place where money gets stolen that is meant for Occupy, drugs are rampant and violence is somewhat common (there was a sexual assault two weeks ago there). Maybe you heard, but the police have also been using the reoccupation in their Drug Evaluation program, in which they pick people up, give them drugs and then test their reactions, and then drop them back off at the reoccupation.

Going back to the tactical question, within Occupy Homes, I've been told there is two wings, with one more leaning towards institutionalization as a nonprofit and the other ready to risk arrest and confrontations with the police. The latter wing seemed to highlight the numbers VS tactics thing by apparantly currently setting up lockdowns with concrete and chains to prevent the police from evicting but hadn't talked to the rest of the neighborhood at all about what is going on at that house.

Standing on the sidelines in all this are all the people who came to the original occupation or are interested in being involved, but do not want to have anything to do with the reoccupation (and what that represents) or Occupy Homes, which they see as less relevent to them or Minneapolis because we're in an urban area, where renting is seemingly way more common than owning your home.

Despite the specific situation here, I imagine the sideline group of people exist nearly everywhere. Basically...people who came to the original occupations, might have been radicalized, but there's nothing for them to do with what is actually left going on locally.

Anarchist Federation speech at Manchester May Day ( despite attempt by Labour thug to silence it!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7Zqlf8bjES4

Nottingham AF and other anarchists confront Sir Alan Meale, Labour MP at MayDay in Nottingham

http://nottingham.indymedia.org.uk/articles/2566

Harrison

this is ace! who came up with this? i suspect arbeiten

God I fucking wish. (we could always just say it was me, I don't mind taking the credit). It is quickly becoming an SLSF staple though.

Crow, stop being a cretin. 'Oh if you support a cheap shot at a armed cop wearing armour, then you must also support murder or whatever ever such ludicrous equivalence I can think of'. if you want to carry this discussion on, why not start a thread about it? As it happens it is cluttering a pretty good roundup of May Day actions across the globe.

Battlescarred

Anarchist Federation speech at Manchester May Day ( despite attempt by Labour thug to silence it!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7Zqlf8bjES4

"You've no right to be speaking here!" Wow, talk about missing the reason and history behind IWD. Lovely leftist "solidarity" shown there. The following video was great as well.

Here is why I have no fucking sympathy for piggies

[youtube]g7Gs-GXWPK8[/youtube]

By all means, smash cops on the head with drums (or bricks, or rocks, or bottles, or lead pipes, or batons) when you can get away with it.

More on the Manchester AF speech - pics, video at The Commune site

http://thecommune.co.uk/2012/05/09/manchester-may-day-photo-and-video-report/#comment-10574

The AWL's shitty take on the Nottingham events where they totally (and toadily) back Meale and Labour

http://www.workersliberty.org/blogs/pete/2012/05/06/2012-may-day-demonstration-nottm-afed-throw-tantrum

^^What a fucking piss poor analysis from the AWL, again.

Has Notts AF done a writeup?

On its way, I believe.

Arbeiten

Harrison

this is ace! who came up with this? i suspect arbeiten

God I fucking wish. (we could always just say it was me, I don't mind taking the credit). It is quickly becoming an SLSF staple though.

IIRC, it emerged spontaneously at our picket of Catford Holland & Barrett. We had the words, which we were chanting. Then the collective realisation, "Hey, this would fit the tune of 'Iron Man,'" dawned on the picket, and the rest, as they say....

Arbeiten did help by shouting "I .... AM .... CHRIS.... GRAYLING," before someone else started drumming on their placard. FWIW, I'm trying to come up with words that fit the other riff in the song. So far I have:

Holland & Barrett/We won't work for fuck all

.... any input appreciated. :)

that is fucking amazing.

There's also "Like a virgin" ("Like a worker/Not getting paid for my time", etc) and "Fire" ("I am the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, and I bring you.... Workfare (do-dee-do)/Grinding you down"), but these are very much works in process, and haven't had the public exposure.

Although we have used both of them on pickets without any clear idea of where we were going with them. :D

the button

"Fire" ("I am the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, and I bring you.... Workfare (do-dee-do)/Grinding you down"),

Oooooooh! I forgot about this one! This should have come out on may day. :wall:

this is all definitely going to form inspiration for the Hull SF picket tomorrow

could try Paranoid as well:
'Finished with my placement, cause it couldn't help me get a job'
'People think i'm earning because i am working all the time'

Harrison

this is all definitely going to form inspiration for the Hull SF picket tomorrow

could try Paranoid as well:
'Finished with my placement, cause it couldn't help me get a job'
'People think i'm earning because i am working all the time'

Yeah, I'd toyed with Paranoid too, except mine started "Finished with my placement/Cos they wouldn't pay me for my time," so it would rhyme with "crime," but that's as far as I got. :D

Anyway, back to the Nottingham events. Nottingham AF statements below (click on the link - first article is directly on page, click on the right hand column, second article link down for other article)

http://nottsblackarrow.wordpress.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPudE8nDog0&ob=av2e

"You were working stacking shelves in Tesco Express/for your JSA..."

cut to chorus of "DON'T YOU WANT TO PAY ME?"

I spent about 3 hours in the pub last night adapting EVERY SINGLE song to an anti-Workfare chant. i'd totally forgotten Springsteen...

"Greetings from your Sisters in South-Africa as we embark on a very important day today for each and every worker that are in the struggle for improving the lives and conditions of the working class especially the vulnerable groups such as farm workers. We want to thank you for your support and contribution in bringing change in the lives of farm workers and their families. SAC have supported our struggle since 2009 and changes happening because of your contribution. We want to tell our Comrades in Sweden we love you and that we believe together we can make a change as we have shown our strength and the impact we can achieve by just supporting one another. We salute you our comrades in Sweden and know that we love you and are screaming “solidarity forever” all the way from South Africa” "

Patricia Dyata, secretary-general of the south african farm workers' union Sikhula Sonke at 1 may in stockholm.

Anti-authoritarians celebrate Mayday in Cuba:

Homespun Anti-capitalists

@Juan

your experiences speak to mine. most of the people in my city who want a reoccupation are the more new lumpen/suburban working poor elements plus a few loose footed leftists.

the non-profits, and unions have mostly given up on it, though the move on "99% solidarity" buses should be bringing people to NATO.

the ISO still has a lot of connections to occupy but are i feel looking towards something beyond occupation. the anarchists were mostly involved with may day stuff, and are now looking towards more of a what next/ continuing with our previous organizing.

i think may day showed you how much occupy alone, and anarchists/anti-capitalists could draw out. i think it actually showed our raw capacity without a bunch of media hysteria and spectacle.

wojtek

Anti-authoritarians celebrate Mayday in Cuba:

Homespun Anti-capitalists

This was actually for the #12M mobilisations not Mayday. I've met/been in touch with a couple of them, not sure if they can all be termed 'anti-authoritarians', rather a heretogeneous, small group moving to the left of oficialismo in Cuba.

First person reportage on their blog here: http://observatoriocriticodesdecuba.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/anticapitalistas-por-cuenta-propia-3/

Caiman del Barrio

wojtek

Anti-authoritarians celebrate Mayday in Cuba:

Homespun Anti-capitalists

This was actually for the #12M mobilisations not Mayday. I've met/been in touch with a couple of them, not sure if they can all be termed 'anti-authoritarians', rather a heretogeneous, small group moving to the left of oficialismo in Cuba.

First person reportage on their blog here: http://observatoriocriticodesdecuba.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/anticapitalistas-por-cuenta-propia-3/

I think it's the same article en español.

Here is an account of May Day in Minneapolis. From the Twin Cities IWW's blog (which I'm co-editor of).

flaneur

[youtube]f4Djxn74QFQ[/youtube]

The culprit was obviously a fan of 4chan.

http://klasbatalo.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/reflections-on-build-power-show-power-and-occupy-may-first/

This is a little late, but better now than never. At the link are some of my thoughts and reflections around libertarian left organizing around Occupy and May Day 2012.