February 9th, 2011 §
On Egypt:
“The social media which is championed by those revolving door apparatchiks moving between the State Department and silicon valley (eg) is not organisation itself, but merely a means to it and, as it turns out, a dispensable means.”
So quickly forgotten by well-intentioned, excitable futurists!
Even among friends I’ve heard more excitable talk about Google’s (admirable if potentially misguided) efforts to allow Egyptians to tweet than about, say, the extremely impressive grassroots organisation on display in Egypt.
Perhaps it is simply that for many Western people it is easier to relate to the use of social media than it is to relate to those reacting with passion, courage and dedication to a corrupt and authoritarian government.
More:
November 1st, 2010 §
August 30th, 2010 §
Today’s appearance in Brighton by the racist English Nationalist Alliance only managed to muster what looked like about 30-odd people. It was hard to tell, concealed as they were behind huge lines of fluorescent jackets. I’d say that Sussex Police easily had three times as many officers as the ENA had attendees and that was just escorting their march, not even counting those watching over the rest of us.
The number of various anti-racist, anti-fascist and queer activists, Brighton folk, socialists and trade unionists was a bit more impressive with something like 2-300 people joining the main march, plenty of other people showing support as we passed, and I think a few dozen anarchists running about and trying to block / tussle with the ENA.
The police forced us to move on from the station (I think, I joined the march just as it got going) and we headed along Queen’s Road, then down North Road to Victoria Gardens where we found ourselves penned in. Great. This was pretty shit but spirits were pretty high and most folks were having a laugh, enjoying the sun, listening to a few short speeches and generally not being reprehensibly awful human beings. The reprehensibly awful human beings took about an hour to show up, possibly due to interference from the anarchist bloc, police management or just through being too stupid to walk about 15 minutes to their destination.
When they eventually arrived they spent about 20 minutes listening to some speeches – thanks to getting ourselves penned we had no idea what was going on so consoled ourselves with chanting at them. Hmm. After that was up they were escorted back to the station, surrounded by a cloud of onlookers, hopefully a few of whom were sharing their opinions of the ENA and the EDL. Eventually we were let out of our pen but not before a few spirited attempts to break through the fence were made. A few people were arrested, mostly for being mouthy as far as I could see, and hopefully have been / will be released without charge (I didn’t know any of them).
After that I headed homewards and found the remnants of the ENA arrayed outside the station with a bunch of the remaining counter-protesters chanting at them. I left at this point but apparently the fun continued for a while longer when the ENA got themselves an escort to a nearby pub (would that the police offered this service to regular folk) which was again surrounded. Well, I imagine they got the idea that they’re not welcome here and easily outnumbered, even with an almost total lack of promotion for the counter-demo.
A bunch of photos and a very short video follow. I am not a good photographer I’m afraid, so suck it up.
The front of the column
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June 23rd, 2010 §
The Freebutt today.
This news broke last Wednesday but I’ve been busy recently and so I’m only writing about it now! One of Brighton’s longest-running venues, the Freebutt, is under threat of closure as a result of a noise complaint and subsequent Environmental Health Office investigation. As I put it on Facebook:
Many of you will have seen this already, but so what, it’s important. The Freebutt is facing closure due to ONE noise complaint. They are doing everything they can to solve the noise problem, but the EHO and the neighbour are preventing them from doing so. For a venue with decades of history to be shut down for such a bullshit reason would be a travesty.
This summary is a bit unfair on the EHO – they’re helping, just somewhat slowly – and the neighbour – who presumably has a legitimate complaint, but they’re not helping get it resolved except in the sense of “if the venue closes, the problem goes away”.
The Freebutt is presently owned by a small group of local music fans and entrepreneurs. They’re put a lot of work into ensuring the venue is shipshape and this is the only noise complaint since they took ownership. Although since the redesign the giant pillar in the middle of the room is still a source of constant complaint, Brighton’s live music scene wouldn’t be the same without the ‘butt.
The Freebutt circa 1968.
You can read the full story from the Freebutt here. The Argus has an article covering Brighton Council’s statements and some tedious, reactionary reader comments. There’s a petition you can sign here and a Facebook group here. The MP for the area is Caroline Lucas (Green) and the city councillors can be contacted from here.
The venue’s owners sent out an update 24 hours after the news and campaign broke which you can read below the cut. » Read the rest of this entry «
June 22nd, 2010 §
Apparently there has been a shameful lack of press coverage in response to Calais Migrant Solidarity’s recent press release, and visiting reporters didn’t manage to coincide their visits with those of large numbers of activists. I figured I’d do what little this blog can do to help get the word out and reproduce the release below the cut – so click read more to view that. CMS maintain there own blog here and a Facebook group here. I’ve written previously about CMS and their treatment by the British press here.
» Read the rest of this entry «
February 22nd, 2010 §
I’m quite a fan of the Enemies of Reason blog as 90% of the time author Anton Vowl mirrors my response to media trends and furores – right down to the tirades of colourful invective. Best of all, he reads the tabloids so I don’t have to. I’m impressed that he is prepared to return to those peddlers of bullshit, hypocrisy and lies time and again, and that he invests so much time and energy in not only observing that they’re wrong but also identifying why.
Over the weekend he posted this about a story in the Daily Express. Click on through to read Anton’s post as there’s little point me repeating what he says.
Our deluxe minicabs will transport you to your luxury accommodation.
In essence, the Express claims that a refurbished hangar currently being used to provide shelter for migrants is a “holiday camp” akin to a “VIP club”. Of course, their photos proving this are nowhere to be seen. Fortunately Brighton No Borders and Calais Migrant Solidarity have already posted rebuttals – with photos.
I’ve only a little to add to this. I’ve been following updates from CMS over the last few months and I’m aware that the hangar has been legally hired by CMS to provide for the basic needs of migrants who are without shelter, food, money, medicine, legal and often social and emotional support.
Over the past few months tents and encampments have been repeatedly cleared and bulldozed by police under the orders of a mayor who wishes to appear tough on illegal immigration. Over the freezing winter and record snows we’ve experienced over the past couple of months, police were ensuring that these migrants lacked even the most basic provisions that they needed to survive.
Often travelling alone and traumatised by isolation, trafficking or the experiences they fled, it is probable that without the tireless activities of Calais Migrant Solidarity and other activists, many such migrants would have died, alone, cold and hungry, their last shreds of hope obliterated in the name of political displays of strength.
Our highly-trained staff are ready and waiting to cater to your every need.
Perhaps the Daily Express might consider following in the footsteps of a famous journalist who possessed the courage of his convictions. Follow in the footsteps of Eric Arthur Blair, Express hacks, and experience for yourself this life you so glibly liken to that of a visiting dignitary. Or perhaps open up your offices to visitors: if a hangar containing camp beds and a small office is akin to a “holiday camp”, your organ’s finances and workforce must be in even direr straits than anyone thought.
(Photos courtesy CMS.)
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In happier news, the Scottish Defence League (the north-of-the-border branch of homegrown far-right street thug movement, the EDL) has been thoroughly humiliated in Edinburgh. Outnumbered 15-to-1 and bundled onto buses by police. Fantastic.
January 28th, 2010 §
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of the world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
(From You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, via SW’s obit.)
September 13th, 2009 §
I didn’t catch this story unfolding on Friday night, but I did spot it on TV in a pub in London yesterday and what little I managed to gather looked positively heartwarming. Turns out those impressions were correct – the, uh, collective might of the fascist English Defence League was broken in Harrow, mainly thanks to hundreds of impassioned Muslim youths taking to the streets alongside anti-fascists, the Left and impassioned locals. Not even the riot cops stationed to protect the (legally sanctioned) EDL march were enough to keep it together. Absolutely fucking brilliant.
Lenin’s Tomb has full details, photos (including the one I nicked for this post) and even a bit of video. The Guardian has a brief and sober report which skimps on the detail you’d need to actually understand what happened.
August 20th, 2009 §
A website called Arthur Magazine brings us Douglas Rushkoff’s An End To Movements:
“That’s right. Mass organization may just have been a twentieth century thing: collective actions of all sorts—good and bad—were responses to the corporatization of government and industy. As such, they took the form of the entities with whom they sought to do battle. But—like the top-heavy, highly abstracted creatures they were created to counter —they are proving utterly incapable of providing an alternative to what they would replace.”
It’s an interesting read, and makes some accurate observations, but I don’t agree with Rushkoff here. I think he places too much faith in reformist symbolism like petitions and too much stock in the large-scale efficacy of the “change begins at home” argument. And whilst statements like “mass organization may just have been a twentieth century thing” make for great headlines, they’re exactly the sort of generalised nonsense that makes banner-waving new media advocates sometimes look a bit silly.
» Read the rest of this entry «
July 28th, 2009 §
