Black Flag 233 Final

8/3/2019 Black Flag 233 Final

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Price 3.00 Issue 233 Mid 2011

Also insidethis issue

We talkto AtariTeenageRiot

Analysiso thestudentsconfict

Red Flag:Historyo a songor rebels

Plus oureconomyrundown,reviews...

chasingchange

Lessons frombig rallies and

the debate over

anti-cuts tactics

Picture:MaxReeves


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Edge o darkness: Are we staring into the face of decline as neo-liberalism swallows thesocial gains of the working classes? Picture: Anya Brennan.

EditorialWelcome to Black Flag number 233.As would be expected, this issuereects the crisis of neo-liberalismas it grinds slowly on.

This year has seen Portugal joiningIreland in proving that austerity

makes a crisis worse. Signicantly,Portugal and the UK were among just ve EU countries (includingausterity-wrecked Greece andIreland) to suffer negative growthin the nal quarter of 2010.

Not that our political mastershave paid much attention forthem the lesson is not that austeritymeasures destroy economies butthat Portugal did not cut fast and farenough (ignore the awkward factPortugal adopted similar measures

before Chancellor George Osborneannounced his ComprehensiveSpending Review).

We discuss the many aws of thisideological blindness.

This issue also focuses on protestsagainst the coalition cuts. Aspart of our co-operation withother libertarians the AnarchistFederation has written an articleon the recent student movement.In addition, we have two articlesdiscussing the impressively large

demo on March 26th and whatlessons we can learn from it inorder to push the struggle forward.

We have two interviews, one withJon Active on radical distributionand another with anarcho-bandAtari Teenage Riot. Our regularBreathing Utopia feature discussesthe post in a libertarian society andhow it could be self-managed (withclassless stamps?). It also has thesecond part of our articles on what islibertarian history and Kropotkins

revolutionary ideas. With the usualreviews (as well replies to onefrom the last issue), this is anotherissue packed with goodies for alldiscerning libertarians.

This year marks the 30thanniversary of the Brixton riots, 75years since the start of the SpanishRevolution, 90 since the Kronstadtrevolt (as reected in this issuesRadical Reprint) and 140 since theParis Commune. We can only hopethat in the future decades 2011 isremembered as the one which sawus start to successfully create thebeginnings of a libertarian socialmovement! Whether that is thecase depends on us

Since relaunching over the last three yearsthis magazine has been gaining in recognitionand has become one o the best places orserious anarchist writing in Britain today.Now we want to expand. We want you tohelp us reach out into the wider let and

beyond. Were looking or marketers,distributors, designers, writers, commissioningeditors and photographers to orce ourtheories into the public domain.Contact us at the email or snailmail address opposite.

join thecollective


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nCover story: Lessons of protest Page 18

nIn ocus: The students ght Page 4

n Analysis: Exposing neoliberal doublespeak as cutshit the economic recovery Page 7

nBreathing Utopia: Looking at how our mail systemwould work ... post revolution. Page 10

nAnalysis: The Stage Army Page 12

nInterview: Active Distribution Page 14

nInterview: Atari Teenage Riot Page 16

n History: Making of a peoples song: How the RedFlag was inspired by anarchists Page 22

n Radical Reprint: Remembering Kronstadt on its

90th anniversary Page 24

nHistory: Class struggle and its burgeoning inuenceon the story of stories Page 26

n History: Part Two of Brian Morriss ode to therevolutionary prince, Peter Kropotkin Page 28

nReview: Iain McKays introduction to Mutual Aid

Page 30

nReview: Looking at the Socialist Partys politicsPage 32

nReview: Derek Wall and his eco-socialism Page 33

n Hobs Choice: Our regular roundup of the bestpolitical pamphlets Page 34

nReview response: Dave Douglass, Ade Dimmick andNick Heath go over the lengthy review of Douglasssbiography from last issue Page 36

EthosBlack Flag is for a social systembased on mutual aid andvoluntary co-operation againststate control and all forms ofgovernment and economicrepression. To establish a share in

the general prosperity for all thebreaking down of racial,religious, national and sexbarriers and to ght for the life ofone world.The Black Flag has been a worldwidesymbol for anarchism since the1880s. It is at base a representativeof the negation of all oppressivestructures.

About

Contributors/excerpts:Anarchist FederationIain McKayRob RayAlan WoodwardJon ActiveAde DimmickAlec EmpireTim ForsterDaniel GuerinLiz WillisBrian MorrisPaul Petard

Dave DouglassNick Heath

Layout/designRob Ray (Freedom Press)

PrintingClydeside Press,Scotland( 0141-552 5519

Contact us: [email protected]

- Black FlagBM Hurricane,London,WC1N 3XX,United Kingdom,

Bulk orders from AK Press- AK Press (UK)

PO Box 12766Edinburgh EH8 9YE

( 0131 555 5165: [email protected]

- AK Press (USA)PO Box 40862San Francisco CA

( 94140-0682: [email protected]

Content


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Class wars: Occupations and clashes with police punctuated the student protests

Were rom the slums oLondon says a teenageprotester, how are wesupposed to pay 9,000

in ees?On December 9th, the day the vote on

tuition ee rises went through, a massdemonstration outside parliament waskettled by the Met Police. Over the next24 hours conrontations escalated andmounted charges at students brought backimages that had not been seen since thePoll Tax riots.

The events in December were theculmination o student protests that spreadacross the country, resulting in directaction rom students that went even urtherback, to the 1980s.

Ater the destruction at Conservativeheadquarters in November there was a takeo in the student movement, but with theNew Year the movement stagnated, withprotests reduced and occupations ew innumber.

What needs to be answered is why thishas been so and what is needed to escalatethe student resistance once again?

During the protests o last year, it was

clear that action was being taken bystudents which was independent rom theNUS. This was a result o ormer presidentAaron Porter and the bureaucracy that eedsthe union not responding to a rising tide ostudent activism, choosing an ineectiveroute o lobbying that has taken the ghtagainst ees nowhere.

Aaron Porter did nothing but condemnthe majority o action carried out bystudents against the governments attacksupon higher education, even mirroring thecoalition view o direct action being that oa violent minority.

Students and workers within the Anarchist Federation have been involved

in protests, teach-ins and occupationsrom the outset o the movement, even withthe organisation being wrongly accusedo masterminding the destruction oConservative HQ, when it was clearly thelegitimate action o thousands.

The ideas and principles o direct action

argued that any organisation that mirroredthe hierarchal system o capitalism wasdoomed, as a governmental aristocracywould be created destroying the democraticnature o it.

Once militants are promoted to positionso power they orget their revolutionaryroots, becoming ambitious sel-seekers whohave chosen the union more as a career.The act that high-up SU ocials are in aull-time paid job shows their disconnectionrom those they represent.

The NUS o course creates a mechanismor unneling dissent rom disaectedstudents via representation and increasingly

as an out-and-out business attempting touse their monopoly position to liaise withcompanies and increase campus revenue.

In the student struggle examples canbe seen with previous activists who hadpreviously argued or independent actionrom the NUS being drawn into the internal

4 In ocus:Student protests

Is this only theIn focus:The studentprotests havedied down, but

for how long?

and sel organisation inherent in anarchistgroups such as the Anarchist Federationhave clearly struck a chord with manystudents.

The NUS is a union that shows the limitso what working with a capitalist system canachieve, what needs to be taken on boardis that it only serves to create individualswho are more concerned with urtheringthemselves politically, such as AaronPorter and his well-known connectionswith the Labour Party. This extends notjust to the national body but also down tolocal university unions which are rie withexactly the same careerists and popularity

contestants.Mikhael Bakunin, 19th Century theorist

and a ounder gure o collectivist anarchism,was no stranger to the bureaucracy ounions, when he explained how they couldbe stolen rom the membership whose willthey are supposed to be an expression o. He


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In ocus:Student protests 5

power struggles o the union itsel. Well-

known activist Clare Solomon actuallyprevented the occupation o a ULU buildingrecently in March on the grounds o it beingcounterproductive; this only shows thatworking within student unions creates a vanguard tendency in militants that aresupposed to be the radical choice in the

student movement.I the struggle is to continue the reliance

upon the student unions must be broken.The ght must be taken into the studentshands who should, not be araid to takedirect action and realise that the NUScannot be won over to radical action dueto its undemocratic structure preventingstruggle.

This combination o ineective relianceupon the NUS and supposed radicalalternatives has led to a slowdown inthe urgency and impact o the studentmovement.

In order or the movement to progressagain radical action needs to be taken that

can oer alternatives. From recent monthsit is clear that these alternative measuresare being taken and it is the acceptance othese actions that will determine the long-term success o the student struggle.

Along with independent action, separaterom the impotency o undemocraticorganisations, there needs to be a radicalcritique o education under capitalism.

What needs to be remembered is that theuniversity system itsel is more geared tocreating obedient uture workers to prop upthe neo-liberal capitalist system.

Students are being asked to pay more inexchange or providing the economy withhigher-skilled, more adaptable, less secureand more indebted workorce. A studentmovement without a radical discourse, notattacking capital itsel, will only be beggingor crumbs rom the table.

The political philosopher Antonio Negrimentions: We might consider how theconcept o general intellect can be usedto dene not capitalist development butits sabotage, the struggle against thisdevelopment. With initiatives such asthe Really Open University (ROU) whichbegun in Leeds last year, there is an actualopportunity or this to happen.

ROU describes exactly the elitist natureo privatisation, how students have become

docile actory workers and universitiesare now run as businesses, with studentsas consumers and lecturers as creatorso products. Knowledge has become acommodity that can be bought and sold, itsvalue determined by its ability to generateurther private prot.

Students are taking the ght against eesand cuts into their own hands, along a moreautonomous route with spontaneous anddecentralised methods being applied. A lothas been done to bring action into otherareas as well.

Non-student campaigns such as savinglibraries, saving orests, deending publicservices and even action within UK Uncut

are examples o such actions.The relevance this has to the student

struggle is that it shows the willingnesso students to engage in the wider classstruggle o campus.

The Autonomous Students Network is anexample o bringing activists together but

on a student level this is based along theprinciples o connecting students to actionsand events that they would have neverbecome aware o beore.

This is a step orward in building analternative to the traditional let and also notonly capitalism itsel, but against lobbyingand ineective mass protests as well.

These pushes towards building networksto bring local and regional strugglestogether are typical o anarchist communisttactics o bridging resistance nationally ando creating a culture o resistance that isormed rom these experiences.

The problem with such networks isthat it is all very well bringing people and

campaigns together, but whether actionitsel is orthcoming is a dierent story.

Too many networks have disintegratedwhen oering so much and it is theresponsibility o groups to continue thespirit that it was created in.

This needs to be said o the studentstruggle as well, that there must be abringing together o student groups who are

oering radical action against the attackson universities and see that there is analternative in taking the struggle into yourown hands.

A network may be useul, but i it doesnot have the political thought backing it upit stagnates, the actions o the AnarchistFederation and Solidarity Federation onMarch 26th are a testimony to how jointactions with political vision can work andpush a movement orward.

The Really Free School is an occupiedspace in London that is oering analternative to the education system that wehavent seen much beore in this country.Set up at the height o the student protestslast year, education and skills are notbought or sold but shared or the benet oall.

This autonomous space oers a physical

radical alternative in which anything suchas radical history, DIY workshops, readinggroups, lm screenings, soup kitchens,

beginning?

44

Antonio

Negri

The concept

of general

intellect can be

used to define

not capitalist

development but

its sabotage


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alternatives to education talks, bike repairand even yoga are oered.

This is a step a orward rom the usualsquatting scene that we have seen inLondon, showing a willingness to createsomething dierent that is engaging not just with students but the local area istaking shape.

In Greece the opening o similar socialspaces, squats and occupations oer

exactly the same alternative, but on a biggerand more impressive scale.

In relation to anarchism we can look toindividuals such as Francisco Ferrer andIvan Illich to help us explain and supportthe ree school project.

The Modern School Movement which wasprominent in the US in the early 1900s,

which Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldmanand Voltairine de Cleyre were involved inorming, intended to educate the working-classes rom a secular, liberal and class-conscious perspective.

The Really Free School is very much inthe tradition o this movement, along theline o an anarchistic ree school in whichit is a decentralised network where skills,inormation, and knowledge are sharedwithout hierarchy or the institutionalenvironment o ormal schooling.

Ivan Illich understood how theinstitutionalisation o education leads to

the institutionalisation o society, thatby deinstitutionalising education could you do the same or society. This is notonly very prominent within the ethos o

ees still in their minds and the actual cutsto universities arriving, impacting studentsin a more personal way.

With courses unding being slashed,lecturers made redundant, scholarshipscut and many more cost-cutting initiativesbeing put into action by universities acrossthe country, the threat has actually hithome. Where ees might not have impactedcurrent students, these cuts actually will be

damaging their education.Students who are members o the

Anarchist Federation argue that groupsorganised by students themselves and alongthe lines o autonomous organisation canactually be aective in ghting these cuts.

We have seen groups which have been re-emerging since the beginning o the year areactually organising along these lines, thatdirect action such as occupations are alsoincreasing again with both UCL and Glasgowre-occupying in a very conrontationalashion.

In recent months we have also seen anincrease in the black bloc tactic which hasbeen instrumental in the actions during the

TUC demo.This can be seen in part as a seeking

within the student movement or moredirect action as the methods o lobbying,NUS participation and isolated protestsprove ineective.

What seems evident is that there is adivide between those who believe that moredirect action can help them change theirsituation as evidence has shown and thosewho still hold illusions in parliamentarydemocracy.

The more militant end o the movementthat has gone ull head into anti-cuts action,supporting direct action at the same time,has still to convince the reormist majority

that these actions can work. It is the task oanarchists to push orward their perspectivewithin the struggle.

The Anarchist Federation supports theuse o direct action in bringing aboutchange, but it does also understand thatsuch action on its own is ineective andthat an alternative needs to be oered:anarchist communism.

Another actor that needs to be takeninto account is that the student movementcannot be isolated on its own; it mustcombine with the wider struggle o theworkers to bring about a threat to thesystem as it exists now.

We have seen evidence o this as studentaims or groups constantly raise solidaritywith not only their lecturers but alsoworkers; this has also been added to bystudents marching with workers on theother protests against the governmentscuts, showing that they understand theimplications that the attack on the publicsector will have on them.

In order or both to succeed and buildresistance they need to work together,learning rom each others struggles,showing that there is an alternative to thestate and capitalism that is destroyingworkers and students lives.

Yes this is only the beginning and the

students might have shown the way, buti their direct action is not taken up intothe wider class war then it will only be abeginning, never an ending.

6 In ocus:Student protests

the Really Free School but also withinthe ideals o anarchism as a whole, thateducation should not be controlled by thestate, that we should have the potential todevelop as individuals and critical beings,not departmentalised or turned into toolsor the capitalist machine.

O course the problem with projectssuch as this is that they can easily lose the vision and impetus rom when they were

originally ounded, i this is an isolatedphenomenon then it can be easily containedand degenerate under the pressure o thesystem.

As in Greece, initiatives like this shouldmultiply and begin to dominate, reeingup space and giving an alternative to thecapitalist system that could replace it

once the revolution has occurred. There isnothing wrong with us beginning to create anew world within the shell o the old beorethe revolution and student-infuencedinitiatives such as the Really Free Schoolshow the way, adding a more radical aspectto the student movement.

With the vote or tuition ees goingthrough last year, it is also obvious that theact o parliament itsel has had an impact onthe level o activity o the students.

What we have seen is a decline where alot o students have let the campaigns withthe idea that all has been lost. O course as

the slogan predicted this is not the end andwith the coalition it never is.

Since December 9th, student groups havecome back rom the winter break with the

This article is published as part of the Anarchist Federations ongoing work with Black Flag. Views expressed on articles bearing this logo

are specically endorsed by the AF. :afed.org.uk or email [email protected]

Alternative: Initiatives such as the Really Free School offered a different learning dynamic


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QQqqq: Qqqq 7

Surprise! Austerity is kicking inand, as predicted, the economy iscontinuing its downward trend. Ianything, the speed is increasing

with growth in 2010 alling rom 1.2% inthe second quarter, to 0.8% in the thirdquarter until, nally, negative 0.5% in thelast quarter.

Experts in the City were both surprisedand shocked by the announcement. Themarkets had been expecting growth obetween 0.3% and 0.7% in the nal quartero 2010. They always seem to be surprisedand shocked when their orecasts proveto be wrong ... dont you wish you had a job

in which you are constantly and publiclyproved wrong but you keep getting paid vastamounts o money?

The last time the experts weresurprised was back in October, when theeconomy grew by 0.8% in the third quarter,double the 0.4% expected in the City. At that

stage Osborne was arguing it conrmedhis policies: What you see today, in anuncertain global economic environment,is Britain growing that is a vote ocondence in the coalition governmentseconomic policies.

This proved his plan to cut the publicsector was right: In the Budget, I set out aplan to restore condence in our economyby dealing with the decit Todays gures put beyond doubt that it was right tobegin acting on the decit now.

Impressive, given that the second quartercovers April to June, the coalition cameto oce on May 11th and the budget was

on June 22nd 2010. A mere seven daystransormed the British economy unlessthe budget was so good it had retroactivepowers! Sadly he did not explain why hisgovernment should take credit or growth ina quarter unaected by policies he was yetto implement.

Undeterred by mere logic and acts, aTreasury spokesman pronounced at the timethat while the government was cautiouslyoptimistic about the path or the economy,the job is not yet done. The priority remainsto implement the budget policies whichsupport economic rebalancing and helpensure the sustained growth orecast[or] this year and next.

Osborne proclaimed a steady recoverywas now underway and when the surprising,higher-than-expected third quarter gurescame in, much back-slapping was indulged. Yet it represented a all rom the previousquarter. It was only good news in the sense

that the markets (whom we must appease)got it wrong. Again.

At the time, critics suggested that this

44

Analysis: Asour economyslows in linewith cuts,Osborne is

desperatelyblamingoutsidefactors like the

weather...

Signs o stress

Snow business:Anicicle-laden stop signfrom last winter. Thechancellor has beenblaming bad weather forhis bad statistics.Ptur: Lrs Plougm


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showed that the economy could sink backinto recession when the governments

spending cuts began to bite.This was dismissed and in December

the Chancellor proclaimed that they hadalready begun the reductions in publicexpenditure, and it has not had the impacton demand, not had the impact on economicgrowth that the critics said it would theyre being conounded by the gures.

Cuts were being implemented and allwas well with the world. Now Osbornesuggests that decit deniers or the vestedinterests who oppose cuts to any item opublic spending will probably claim that theSpending Review or the VAT increase are toblame or todays growth data. But theresa big problem with that argument the

data reers to the last quarter o 2010 whenneither had yet begun.

When the ourth quarter gures showa much bigger drop however, strangely ittells us nothing about coalition policies. When the second quarters gures werein Osborne proclaimed this vindicated hiseconomic strategy. With the third quartersgures, he proclaimed they were downpurely to his policies which he now claimshad not been implemented yet!

So despite being in oce or over hal ayear, this slowdown was denitely nothingto do with coalition policies it was all theault o the snow and the previous twoquarters had everything to do with them!So rest assured, there was no question ochanging a scal plan that has establishedinternational credibility on the back o onevery cold month.

Sadly he did not explain why one quartero good growth conrms his agenda butnot one quarter o bad growth. So you

go to and do not spend money they do nothave? I a ew days o snow can have such an

impact, what about huge cuts sucking jobsand money out o the economy? We have agovernment which seems to think that thelast thing a business needs during a slumpis or people to go out and buy its products.

This drop in growth was predictable andhas been predicted. John Maynard Keynesargued, correctly, in the 1930s that cuttingwages would not produce a growth inemployment, quite the reverse as it reducesconsumer demand, shits the labour supplycurve and has little impact on the real wage(see section C.9 o An Anarchist FAQ orBlack Flag #228). Not that unemploymentbeing caused by high wages refects realityanymore o than any other part o neo-

classical economics.With the advent o neo-liberalism in 1980,

real wages stayed fat and the employersreaped all the benets o rising productivityin the orm o rising prots, rising incomeor managers, rising dividends. Wealthfooded upwards.

Yet a problem remained. I the output perunit o labour input is rising while capacityto purchase (the real wage) is lagging badlybehind, how does economic growth sustainitsel? Simple by credit and pushingever increasing debt onto households, thecapitalists ound that they could sustainpurchasing power and receive a bit extra onthe top in the orm o interest payments. Asan added bonus, it made people less likelyto rebel as credit repayments had to bemade.

This, however, increased the ragility ocredit markets which came home to roost inthe credit-crunch. When the bubble burst,revenue collapsed and the bank bailout

8 Qqqq:Qqqq

should not read too much into one quartersnumbers unless, apparently, you are a

Tory politician and the numbers look good.Luckily or Osborne there was such

heavy show or he could blame the weather(presumably next time he will blame thewrong kind o leaves and then a big dogeating his homework). That meant hecould skilully avoid the awkward act that,according to the report, the snow simply

turned 0% growth into negative 0.5%.While still lower that the 0.3% to 0.7% Cityexperts had expected, both show a trenddownwards since the coalition took oce.

Yet we cannot exclude the impact o thesnow. Ater all, why was it the ault o thesnow? Because people could not get out andspend their money. Osbornes policies arebased on cuts and raising indirect taxation,so causing real income drops or mostpeople.

Which begs the question what willhappen when people do not have jobs to

Keynes argued,

correctly, in the

1930s that cutting

wages would notproduce a growth

in employment,

quite the reverse

Low ootall:Shopshave seen fewercustomers as peopletighten their belts.Ptur: Fbo V


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Analysis: Economics 9

increased public debt. Amazingly, the Tories have managed to

turn this narrative o a crisis with its rootsin the private sector and inequality intoone where the problem is caused by publicwelare spending and workers rights.

Beyond headline attacks on the civilservice, the crisis is being used as anexcuse to increase job insecurity, by raisingthe qualiying period or unair dismissalclaims rom one year to two. This increasedability to re people will, by the magic othe market, make bosses hire. Which raisesthe question o just how incompetent areBritains bosses i they cannot work outin a year whether someone is a good (ie,obedient and productive) wage-slave? Restassured, Vince Cable insisted workers whowere genuinely exploited by unscrupulousemployers would still be able to go totribunal. Yes, but ater two years, meaningthat bosses can saely be unscrupulous or23 months then sack the employee in orderto replace them with someone just happy tohave a job.

Still, we have credibility. Shame that theoutgoing CBI chie slammed governmentslack o strategy or economic growth,warning that it would ail to reduce Britainsbudget decit without measures to boostdemand.

Yet that assumes that the Tories wish toreduce the decit. As the US Republicanshave ound, the decit is a useul thingto wave about when demanding austeritymeasures or the working class. Thatexplains why they are so keen to createthem when in power and demand tax cutsor the wealthy which increase it. Here wesee the decit rolled out to explain theimposition o every Tory wet dream. What a

wonderul coincidenceThe grumbles in the CBI show that

while business may have tolerated a deeprecession caused by Tory incompetenceand economic illiteracy in the 1980s tobreak the labour movement, it may beless accommodating when it is or the arless pressing ideological passions o a ewThatcherites. Particularly as this crisis wascaused by capital winning the class war orthe last three decades as refected in theexploding inequality we have seen.

And, as in the 1980s, it is hard to tellwhether the coalitions stupidity is drivenby class interest, incompetence, ideologicalblindness, economic illiteracy, or a

Machiavellian wish to use crisis to pursuemarket-undamentalist social engineering.Probably a mishmash o all with theincompetence, ideology and illiteracyhelpully deepening the crisis which canbe used as an excuse to impose neo-liberaldreams and ensure the rich get richer.

Still, there is Osbornes internationalcredibility, that is the markets which gotus into this mess to begin with and whichmake such good economic predictions. Yet who will be lining up to invest in aneconomy in which people dont have moneyto spend? Just like in Ireland, the oldposter-boy or austerity, which saw its creditrating go down in October as the predictable

impact o austerity measures took hold anddeepened the crisis. It will now have higherinterest payments on its outstanding loans.So harsh spending cuts led to huge joblosses and lower wages but ailed to restorecredibility.

Similarly, ater pay cuts aplenty, Irish

consumers have deserted the high streeteven though there was no snow to blame.Polls show people are reluctant to spendwhen they are not sure how much moneythey will have in the uture and whyshould rms invest in such circumstances?Yet Ireland not so long ago was held up asa positive example or why you should cuthard and ast.

Given the outcome, historical revisionism

is to be expected - and revisions are what weare getting. The last budget, which Osbornespun as one or jobs and growth, was notablein that both gures were downgraded.

The June 2010 emergency budget hadestimated that the claimant count wouldbe 1.5 million in 2011, 1.4 million in 2012,and 1.3 million in 2013. This was revisedupwards in this years budget by 40,000in 2011, 130,000 in 2012, and 130,000 in2013. The (so-called) independent Oce orBudget Responsibility (OBR) downgradedits growth orecast rom 2.1% or 1.7% 2011and rom 2.6% to 2.5% next year.

Why these growth orecasts should be

believed ater the surprises o 2010 is let tothe imagination but it is signicant that to

achieve any sort o positive news it had tomassively increase its predictions on totalhousehold debt in 2015, to 303bn. It nowexpects average household debt to rise rom

58,000 to 77,309 rather than the 66,291expected in its previous gures. This is anaverage increase o 11,018 or, in percentageterms, rom 160% in 2010 to 175% in 2015.Real personal disposable incomes, incontrast, are orecast to increase by 1.3%over the next our years.

When the credit crunch arrived, DavidCameron lambasted Gordon Brown orallowing household debt to get so high.Osborne argued that Britain was over-dependent on private debt during the bubbleyears.

Ignoring the awkward act that accordingto their own ideology only households andbanks are best able to judge their debt levels

and not the nanny-state, it still means thatthe coalition is denouncing debt in orderto destroy the welare state and undermineunions while pinning its hopes on theassumption that already over-indebtedhouseholds will get themselves into evendeeper debt. While, o course, being able to

repay their debt obligations in the ace ostagnating income and rising prices.

In short, they are hoping that the American neo-liberal economic model ostagnating wages supplemented by risingdebt will overcome the crisis caused by theAmerican neo-liberal economic model o ...stagnating wages supplemented by risingdebt.

Insoar as the Tories have a plan this

seems to be it more o the same neo-liberalism which got us into this crisis tobegin with more austerity or the many sothat the elite can be persuaded by yet morewealth to exploit us again.

That is the meaning o wage-cuts, toincrease the gap between what we produceand what we get paid. In 2011, real wagesare likely to be no higher than they were in2005, said the head o the Bank o England:One has to go back to the 1920s to nd atime when real wages ell over a period o sixyears. This squeeze in living standards isthe inevitable price to pay or the nancialcrisis and subsequent rebalancing o theworld and UK economies.

In the short term, the working class is

expected to pay or a crisis caused by theireconomic masters.

Inevitable? Far rom it that dependson us. The acts are conclusive imposing

austerity makes the crisis worse. I cuttingbenets and wages makes things worse,ghting or increases will make things betterby getting money into the hands o thosewho will spend it. Libertarians need to be atthe oreront o anti-cut struggles, arguingor direct action, solidarity and communityand workplace sel-organisation.

This will combat the contradictiono capitalist crisis being the product ocapitalist strength. However, it will exposeanother contradiction that capitalismneeds workers to obey their bosses andproduce more than they get paid but thatwill be undermined by the strong resistancemovement required to solve the current

crisis. This struggle, with movementbetween contradictions, will continue untilwe get rid o capitalism once and or all.

nBy IainMcKay

Storm o criticism: The City has beneted in the short term, but at great cost


10/40

The Royal Mail is oten cited by rightwingers as an example o a stateinstitution which cant keep up withprivate business and as a public

service deliberately run into the ground tohelp sell privatisation by the let.

As it goes through its latest cuts andpreparations or a nal sell-o, Black Flagtalks to postal worker Jock about how theservice is and how it could conceivablychange.

Jock is one o Royal Mails ast-decliningnumber o ull-time staers, and has beendisillusioned about a service which hebelieves has been driven into the groundor almost as long as he has been there. Heexplains: Ive been involved or ten years,and nine out o ten people on the shop fooragree with me that the place would workwithout management, whose main role is toimpose discipline.

The people at the top oten say theyhave an open door policy or new ideas,but I remember when I rst started I madea suggestion to my manager and was toldyoure here to work not to think.

Although its owned by the state,

which calls it a public service, its run asa business and it seems like they want toslim down the whole company or sellingo.

Thats been the case or a long timenow, it was only in the rst year or so oworking here that I elt I was in a normal

ecient i sta ran it. At the moment wehave bosses who give us very specic rulesto try and take advantage o us, so peoplerespond by nding loopholes and ways tominimise their workload or up the timetheyre paid or. I it was us working orourselves and each other, the main ideawould be to get it done on time! Theres nobuck to pass on to managers and we wouldbe responsible or the work we do.

At workLooking at his own workplace, Jockbelieves that managers can oten providean active hinderance to doing the workproperly because o the confict betweentheir more work or less approach andan understandable desire in return romstaers to get the most work or the leastpay.

At the moment the main issue or peopleis Job and Finish and the cuts have beenso bad that theres constant delivering andstress.

Where I work at the moment therestimes when because things are so set or

managers they will take two people o whoare specialists in a role like say, sortingand replace them with people who arecompletely new and that ends up screwingthings up.

We respond to that sort o thing by beingcareul to work our hours and not give

10 Breathing Utopia:Royal Mail

workplace, ever since then its been layosand cuts something like a third o the stahas gone. To say they run things eectivelyis laughable, the level o organisationand discussion about the service, withmanagement being let to manage, is verylow.

Efciency savings

Despite the cutbacks, Jock doesnt think

that the post would necessarily need amajor expansion o workers in a post-revolutionary scenario, pointing out thatmany o the items sent today would becomeredundant i the trappings o capitalismwere eliminated.

At the moment most o the things we sendare pointless bills, business-to-businessmail, advertising mail shots and the likewould all disappear. There will always bethings that need moving around though andinstead o the commercial stu we do nowwe have a very ecient network that couldbe used not just letters or presents but ormaterials and big items that today get dealtwith by dozens o competing and poorly-

resourced company services.But we potentially have most o the

capacity to do that already even i weexpanded I dont think wed need muchmore in the way o sta i the commercialunctions went.

It would generally also be much more

Breathing Utopia: After the revolution...


11/40

Breathing Utopia:Royal Mail 11

them excuses to cut more and mess up ourroutine but in a sel-managed system wedbe able to allocate resources so that its notsuch a stretch i a couple o people are o.

Also like in any job, theres also anissue with dierences between people.Some particularly younger workers are

more ecient and quick while others, saysomeone coming up or retirement, mightwork more slowly and spend more timetalking to people.

Generally this is not a problem, slowerpeople oten contribute in dierent ways,but right now that means they will be pushedby management almost to breakdown.

They get threatened and disciplinedeven i they are working as ast as they canbecause theyre not hitting quotas designedor younger colleagues.

Post-revolution, that would end andbe replaced by a better way, rom eachaccording to their ability, to each accordingto their need.

Modernisation

For Jock, modernisation the calling cardwhich has been let at the scene o everycutback in recent years is also an issuewhich, despite the hype about capitalisteciency savings, actually avours the

workers as long as it is in their hands.Modernisation isnt necessarily a bad

thing as long as its or the benet o peoplerather than prot. At the moment, we havemachines which have replaced human roles,but this doesnt help the quality o the jobto improve.

For example, because weve lost so manypeople were oten stretched, so when ashit gets behind and is looking to clearthe decks on a machine-reader say, loads

o letters which should have been pre-sorted are simply dumped in there and endup going to totally the wrong area, makingmore trouble down the line as they have toget sorted out again. Thats one reason whytheres such a mess at Christmas.

But i the machinery was there as a wayto make lie easier, rather than to get more

work out o less people, we could spendmore time getting it right and also doingjobs like bringing out mail to the customers which can only be a good thing.

Beore this rush to commercialise one othe important unctions o the post was itsrole in the community posties would keepan eye on old people and things like thatbecause we were around, which benets alot more than just the bosses bottom line.We could actually start doing that again.

Community, or industry run?

Within the anarchist movement, there hasalways been some debate over the best way

to run large enterprises, post-revolution and the Royal Mail is a particularly notableexample because o the sheer size andgeographic spread o workers it represents,something Jock believes lends it best tobeing run by its workers.

Im an anarcho-syndicalist, so I thinkthe industry would have to run itsel butI dont think theres anything wrong withcommunities getting together, discussingany issues they have around its work.

Theres things within the post that gohand in hand rom local to national (andbeyond) which I think would mean meetingswith delegates rom both industry andcommunities to discuss how things need tochange and adapt over time.

But in lots o places, as long as the systemworks well where they live its not somethingthat a given community would be active aboutin the same way as its workers have to be.

At the moment, its divided up intoregions, with regional managers who runbig areas and it wouldnt surprise me i theCWU has a similar structure, that kind oregionalised approach within a sel-runindustry could be a method o getting ournetworks co-ordinated in a uture society.

Within the mail theres also internalmedia which was set up by the bossesto batter us and run a pro-management

line, but which could be co-opted tohelp us communicate and run thingsdemocratically.

nByRob Ray

JOB 4: MAIL SERVICE

Does your mail arrive late, damaged,rushed? Well, theres a better

way and it doesnt involve sellingthe service workers control.

No more secondclass:The post wouldchange radically andrequire far fewer

resources. Below,strikes have beencommon in the servicePturs: Dvd Mjord Rogr Blkwll


12/40

To you and I the Stage Army reersto those people in the politicalparties that scurry round thepolitical scene. You know the ones,

identiable rom the initials like RGR(or Revolutionary Group o Recruiters),the APS (Alliance o Paper Sellers), PKR(Preparers o Key Resolutions) and all thoseother miscellaneous sets o initials.

The Stage Army never actually doanything useul. As the name implies,they merely perorm their roles or a briemoment then as the Rubayat says are gonerom sight.

They are the paper sellers, placard holders,marchers at the weekend to the specied

places and who appear in the photos o the

journals o the Stage Army, or SA.

I too was in the Stage Army or somedecades. Never near the top, or in a speakingrole ater a surge at the start, more a walk-on role, even a dissenter, but neverthelesspart o the institution. I then re-joined thereal world, began again to do things and cannow refect at leisure.

The designation was coined, it seems,by a chap called Nevinson in the 1930s.Even in those days the actual reorms madeby Labour activists on local councils etcwere outweighed by the double-dealingo the ocial leadership and the outrighttreachery o the Communists.

The Stage Army practiced their rituals,declaiming orceully on their promises

or when they got to power, regardless otheir actual perormance in practice.

Anarchists such as Bakunin, Rocker andMalatesta, etc, did not get a look in as theglories o the State were strongly pushed.When will the ranks o the Stage Army everlearn a new role in a new enterprise?

Other Stage Army members are thosewith a career to carve. They know theres nobetter recommendation than a ew years inthe Revolutionary Socialist Party, or Partyor Socialist Revolution, or whatever, whenapplying or a ull-time position in a union,party or other institution.

Finally we have the conspirators, or thosetrying to gain advantage or their secret,usually communist objectives.

Using Comrade Lenins advice in Let Wing Communism where the enemies othe Party are destroyed by air means oroul, these undercover agents plot and planas the means justies the ends, scoringunknown victories. Yes, the Stage Army has

many dimensions.

12 Analysis:Stage Army

Exit let, theTactics

The SA are keen observers o the real world.They await the strike, the outburst, theconfict as capitalism bites into ordinarylives.

Then they come down to sell theirpapers, recruit the outraged, organise theconstitutional march to peoples councillorsor their MPs, to x up a lobby. They demandMake the TUC leaders ght, Forcethe Labour leaders to ollow ConerenceDecisions, Pass this resolution orRemember the example o comradeTrotsky.

They plan to start people on thetransmission belt, by their slogans

and chants, to ull membership o the

organisation. Or at least buy a paper: Nevermiss an issue.

The Cast

The Stage Army comprises various sorts opeople. There are the ideologues who can berelied upon or an appropriate quote rom asacred text. O course many people are inthis category when very young and mayoolishly sign their name and address on aorm, but it may take some years to nallyshake o this contact status.

Also there are the genuine reormerswho see whats wrong with our dictated-tosociety and want to change it. They believe

in the power o the parliamentary leaders,the Ocial Inquiry (or whitewash) the RoyalCommission (delaying device) or the powero the ree press (millionaires propagandasheets) but they eventually nd theirdestination in the Houses o Parliament,upper or lower.

Chauvinism

All these people the SWP (or Society o Whimsical Participants), the SP (SpiritedPractitioners), AWL (Alliance or WeightyLeaders) and so on, have their separateroles and ranks in the Stage Army.

They are not the same, each group jealously guarding their organisations,journals, ideologies and all that makes uptheir organisational chauvinism.

Less committed souls can watch amusedat the internecine wars between the groupsthat are so destructive to the participantsand eventually destroy their original belies.Chauvinism is the politics o the past aStage Army specialty but still they practice

it, because their Party is better than theothers.

What do they do

No person or organisation can be entirely

Stage right:The loyalmass at Marxism 2009 andright, an SWP stallPturs: Tmoth Bldw

d G Hut


13/40

Analysis:Stage Army 13

Analysis: Look upon theirworks ye mighty, and despair!How the ranks of the cobweblefts loyal followers havebecome a predictable joke

useless, so the Stage Army must have some

virtues. Campaigns do probably benet romArmy activists participation, though not asmuch as they say and some may eel theywere better o without these interlopers.

Strikers rarely benet rom the intrusiono well-meaning, airweather visitors - andthey generally dont want to buy a politicalpaper. Money may be short enough already.Those outside the Stage Army may rememberwistully the days when supporters askedpermission to join a picket line and sharedout the proceeds o any sales.

Such advice as is oered will usuallybenet the Stage Armys objective oBuilding the Party but is mostly too generalor inappropriate.

But they do take a nice photo!Demonstrations in a parliamentary placecan be picturesque especially i taken ona nice Sunday aternoon. The police are nodoubt delighted too as in the case o theanti-war marches.

Again those in the real world may preer

their demos to be a little less planned

or predictable. Anti Poll Tax protestorsactually broke the law Stage Army groans and despite the pessimism o the moreconventional, they actually won the day.O course the bigger anti war movementsignally ailed, could this be due to its StageArmy leadership and practice?

What about their politics?

The slogans and headlines are kept in acupboard and are used when it is thoughtnecessary. This saves actually thinking aboutthe situation and aids the process o orcingcircumstances into the relevant theory.

Then we can Make the leaders/TUC/

MPs ght and pass things o to ourrepresentatives as we are supposed to.Important eatures are the lobby and theresolution, again to get our leaders toact dont want people doing things orthemselves, do we?

Then theres keeping alive the traditions

o the past we can call them myths. Onceupon a time when Labour was old, not new,everybody had an Annual Conerence andvoted decisions on issues.

Well yes, the block votes o the unionbosses and the party hierarchy did make thata oregone conclusion but sometimes, byaccident or whatever, something got through.

Then the parliamentary members hadto implement it. Trouble was that nice MrWilson just ignored all that and the ruleswere changed anyway ...

Still we have to keep up the pressure onour leaders; pass that resolution, attendthat lobby. In the name o Lenin, keep theconventions o social democracy sae

there must be a quotation somewhere ...

Stage Army

nBy AlanWoodward

What should we do about them?

Really there is nothing that can be done.Logic, reason, appeals to learn the lessonso the past have achieved little to dateand theres no reason to imagine massconversion in the uture.

In the world where the rest o us live,i you want something done, you do ityoursel rather than leaving things to theocial leadership and the proper channels.

We take direct action and i that doesntwork we try it again and again. We dontbuild parties but achieve our objective oneway or the other. You could say theres noproper structure or organisation and youmay be right, but at least we break rom the

deadening cloak o the Stage Army.Practical solidarity beats resolutions at

meetings, you could say.


14/40

For those o you who attend book airsaround the country Active Distributionwill be a amiliar sight its just about thebiggest and brightest stall youre likely tosee. Active celebrated its 25th anniversaryin 2010 not bad or a hobby gone mad,as described by Jon its ounder.

Active is a voluntary not-or-protanarchist distro inspired today, as always,by the anarcho-punk ethos and tradition.

Black Flag caught up with Jon to seewhats going on.

First of all, congratulations for 25 years

on the road! When you rst started

did you ever imagine youd still be

at it a quarter of a century later?

Back then we were pretty sure that M.A.Dnuclear policies would destroy us allbeore 25 years was up, and I was prettysure I wouldnt want to live that longanyway.

Yourself aside, is anyone else stillinvolved from the early days?

Not as such no, as ar as I know almost allthe early Active co-workers have let thescene but there are riends o mine whohave always helped us out who are stillthere when we need them.

Nowadays we are two and we split thework between us airly evenly with Martadoing the mailorder (a sensible idea giventhe illegibility o my handwriting) and I doeverything else.

How did it all start?

I was inspired by the anarcho-punk sceneto do something. Crass and Malatestaintroduced me to the notion that anarchywas something other than chaos. I wasalready an anti nuclear activist giving outCND leafets and selling their badges atschool when I was 14, it seemed natural totry to pass on this enlightenment that Ihad sussed.

I still remember the pleasure o readingthose rst texts and eeling that there wereothers past and present who elt the sameas I did and had expressed it better than Iever could. I you are as angry as I elt/eelabout the status quo then its unhealthy

to bottle it all up, innit?

How many bookfairs, festivals

and gigs do you do a year?

Loads, it varies, we try to get to newbookairs to support them and go backagain i we can. Active has never beenbound by the nancial constraints o is itworth it.

So we will travel to the Zagreb Book airor instance even though we know we willnot be able to cover our expenses, but therewe are made very welcome and our presenceis much appreciated.

We do less stalls at gigs nowadays as Icant stand the noise at many events andIm even less tolerant o drunks damagingthe stu we have on our stall.

We like to do events that are ree toget into and have a wide variety o people

Or how I nervously arranged a meal atPumpkins cae with Vi Subversa and EveLibertine and mysel without ully realisingthat they had not talked or about 15years! Later when I told Eve how nervousI had initially been in the presence o two

high priestesses (!) o anarcho punk shecastigated me or being silly so much orbeing honest!

Or how I listened to Jean Weir oElephant Editions tell amazing tales romher lie o rock n roll and insurrectionalactivism including times spent with the

14 Interview:Jon Active

STayinG

attending, the best example o that waswhen we did a stall at the Respect estival inthe Dome! Our stall was dead in the centreo that weird space and we were surroundedby church groups etc looking at us ratherdisparagingly.

What are the best and worstmoments with Active.

Best: When we get letters rom peopleordering stu and thanking us or doingwhat we do.

Worst: When we get letters rom peoplegiving us shit or a parcel that hasnt arrivedand treating us as i we were Amazon, whenwe know that the ucking thing is probablyjust languishing in a postal sorting oce.

I also really enjoyed doing fy pitchedstalls at some o the Reclaim the Streetsevents.

Any anecdotal tales youd like to share?

You mean like the time I almost knockedone o Albert Meltzers decorative plates othe wall and was too scared to go back thereor months.

I arranged a mealat Pumpkins cafewith Vi Subversaand Eve Libertineand myself withoutfully realising thatthey had not talkedfor about 15 years


15/40

Interview:Jon Active 15

Interview: Talking to Londonsmost tenacious distributorabout life and anarchism

Rolling Stones, The Angry Brigade, inside

Italian jails et al. Then ater keeping usall enthralled or two hours I suggestedshe should write these stories down andshe dismissed the idea because she hadnothing interesting to say about hersel!

Or my getting nicked or violent disorderbecause I was taking photos o aggressivecops and then had drugs planted on mewhilst in the van.

I could hardly believe that somethingso cliche had happened to me and alsohow unny it was going to be in courtwhen I presented the myriad number ocharacter witnesses how would testiy thatI detest drug taking and would certainlynever knowingly carry cannabis around. Iwas ound not guilty. Are those worthy orepeating?

Youve obviously grown massively

over the years. Will that continue? Do

you have any plans or new projects?

Yes Active has grown to the point that I nolonger remember all the titles we carry. ThePolish section refects the act that Martais Polish and there are many Poles in thiscountry who do not have easy access toradical literature in their native tongue.

Our mugs and stickers are kind o just or

un but they, like CDs and badges, help drawpeople to the stall and website whereuponwe bombard them with radical texts atunbelievable prices they cant reuse!

We have an internal battle going on abouthow much more we can do, it involvesgetting old, a small fat, the desire to havemore ree time and such niceties versusmy insatiable desire to never give up,obstinate some would call it!

We have a whole load o pamphlets readythat wed like to print and we are about tostart co-publishing with Freedom Press. At the moment I have just nished thelayout or a CD by Kismet HC and am stillstruggling with the artwork or a three-

CD discography o the wonderul anarchodubsters that were Culture Shock.

Sometimes when I look orward I thinkuck, how depressing i Im still doing thisin ten years time. Mostly though as I seeothers come and go rom the anti-whateverscenes I eel good about the strength o myconvictions and sad that so many othersgive up, breed and start voting or thesystem that they know deep down is totallyfawed.

Oh and dont orget we distribute ZapatistaCoee too!

Would you like to say a little about

Actives guiding philosophy?

Actives vision is to supply stu that wethink needs to get out there and doesntalready have good (or cheap) distributionat the lowest cost possible. We keep priceslow to encourage people to buy stu and to

show that proting rom their sale is notour motive.

We take almost anything anarchistwhich means we deal with the wholespectrum o anarchists. This suits me as I

dont subscribe to knowing all the answersas some anarchos seem to.I have been involved at the 56A Inoshop

in Southwark or the last six or seven yearsand also the Pogo (vegan) Cae in Hackneysince its inception. I try not to get involvedin anything else because to be honest Activetakes way more time than I have.

Active is about educating people, givingthem the chance to learn or themselvesrom the materials we oer. Hopeully thiswill produce an army o rabid anarchistssometime soon who will stop at nothingtill the global mercantile system has beenoverthrown, simples!

When you look back, was it all worth it?

Yeah it has, Ive met some great peopleand as much as I elt possible at each turnIve tried to live and do Active as close as Ican to the ideas that it represents, that isimportant to me because all we really havein this ucked up situation is our belies andour integrity.

I had to laugh when I read your

website: Active works out of a very

small space and has reached a point

where we need to create some space.

I remember visiting you a coupleof years ago and you were literally

sleeping on a bed of books and boxes!

Are you looking for a bigger gaff?

In our dreams! Actually the spaciallimitations on Active are a useul way okeeping it manageable by just the two o usin our ree time when we are not out wageslaving to pay the bills. Having said that wedo store bulk items at various undisclosedplaces and would be royally ucked i we lostthose spaces.

Last of all, I have to ask Jon, what

do you think about Black Flag

today, honest opinion please!

Well obviously it has risen in our estimationgreatly since this interview was suggested!I remember when it was a ortnightly paper,

locked in both an international struggleagainst capitalism and a eud with FreedomPress. Its a shame that it took so longor that to die out (literally as the peopleinvolved died out I guess) and Im really

glad to see the two papers working togethernowadays.

Personally Id like to see an end to therebeing all the dierent magazines rom eachlittle anarchist group coming out every nowand then. I all anarchist groups would helpnance, publish and distribute one paperregularly it could have a real eect as opposedto the quasi-vanity publishing we have now.

Having said that Black Flag looks and onthe whole reads a lot better than it has orsome time.

nReaders may also be interested in a longer

interview by Noah Eber-Schmid, which is onactivedistributionshop.org.

acTiVe

nBy AdeDimmick


16/40

As the anti-capitalist movement reignitesacross Europe, Atari Teenage Riot are backater a ten year break and have plenty tosay about society, politics and economicsin the second decade o the 21st century.Tim Forster talks to ounder member AlecEmpire.

Have you been encouraged by peoples

responses since ATR regrouped?

Yes, in this case the response o the ansdrove ATR orward. First we thought wewould play one show in London. Andsuddenly the timing seemed to be so rightor this music and its message.

We didnt see that coming. Next thing wewere playing massive shows in Japan again,Taiwan was added, the US tour got extended it just didnt stop. What is so dierent nowcompared to the 90s is that people want usto speak about these issues because the

problems are so visible to almost everybodynow.

Youve a new album out later in the

year, how is work going on it?

We dont really look at albums in the sameway as we did in the 90s. It is a biggerpicture now. We have written 21 new songs,they wont all be released on the CD versiono course, because they wont t thatormat. So we will put all kinds o musicout this year.

CX (the newest band member) brings insome resh energy and his own views rom

the US and the politics there and its animportant input. I am the only German letin ATR, so the ocus has shited away romwriting songs about Germanys politics.

The new album has its ocus on hackeractivism, keeping the internet ree romgovernment and corporate control, controltechnologies in the modern age anddemocracy, human tracking. We thinkthese are the main issues o our time andthere need to be powerul songs writtenabout them.

How do you see things going

socially and politically in Europe?

Many people out there are starting tounderstand that the system will not workout or them. They keep working harder andharder and a small minority o people aretaking the prots and not giving anythingback. The super rich dont even pay taxes

16 Interview:Atari Teenage Riot

backformore

Interview:After their longhiatus, Atari

Teenage Riotare bringing outa new album

in most cases.I am personally completely against any

orm o government. People have to learnhow to determine their own lives again andnot expect the government to sort everythingout or them. I see more and more peoplelooking at the idea o true anarchy in adierent way than beore.

O course the media is spreading thisimage o ear, so people dont tryto think about those ideas. But

i we look at the internet, andespecially at the beginning o it,we can interpret it as a proothat anarchy works.

Do you think the

internet has helped to

dismantle or increase

elite control over

ows of information

and representation?

It did or a while, butwe are at a crossroads.

The corporationsand the governmentsare trying to control theinternet too much. Thetechnology that worked or uswill be turned against us. I thinkthat those who are politically veryactive are already eeling these controlmechanism taking eect.

A lot o the Facebook revolutionsin the Arab countries are the sot powerapproaches by the US government and notso much the internet on its own like somesort o miracle.

People have to understand that. Our newalbum deals mainly with that issue. Truth is

our best weapon.And you have to move constantly because

those in power I am talking about themainstream music industry which has apolitical agenda, take what we do all thetime and eed it back to the mainstream in acompromised way.

Do you think downloading has led to the

hyper-commodication of music? Do you

think that lack of identication with the

artist may be one of the reasons people

are happy to download without paying?

Oh thats a very complex discussion ...

basically right now there is a war going onor what some call intellectual property.The corporations have started it, so thatthey can take any idea, anything creativerom people like you and me and exploit itnancially.

Copyright must be dened rom new.


17/40

Interview:Atari Teenage Riot 17

bring down the major record industry whenthey nance artists like 50 Cent or Beyoncewho perorm or dictators like Gadda.

I you support the small local storethat sells organic ood, you might want to

think the same way about the music yourelistening to. Making music shouldnt be arich mans thing. Why? Because it will notbring us the best music!

The main thinking mistake that themajors make is that music stays the sameand just needs to be presented by dierent

musicians.Music is like language, it is part o

evolution, it changes, it moves orward allthe time, sometimes backward but ithere is no innovation, then it dies. This isthe real crisis, not kids downloading mp3srom home.

I want musicians to make music. I dontwant them to give me their music or reebut advertise something else with it. Id

rather pay my small share so the bands Ilike can keep their integrity.

ATR have always modelled the

equality of men and women - do

you think things are better for

women in music now than in 2000?

Hard to say in pop it got worse but italways swings orward and backwards.Those who nance top 40 pop records areusually old men who like to see a blondegirl singing a melodic song or something.This distorts whats really going on, butthen again the public and the musicians

think they have to go down that route to bepopular.

I think we should get rid o the chartssystem or i we keep it in place than weshould print the marketing budget or eachsong/artist next to the chart position.

The act is we need more strong girlsand women in our society because theship is going down and we need new and

resh ideas on how to solve thoseproblems. Being a man or woman,

that shouldnt matter, we needthe best people. Riot Grrl playsa huge part in what ATR is

about. Even more on this

album than any other we did.

Are you excited to be back

as the anti-cuts movement

gets going and do you

have any hopes/plans?

I was very active with my solostu over the past decade,so I never elt like I wasnt

around ater ATR. But its true ATR stands or an idea, thatssomething you cant get acrossas strongly i youre an individualartist.

In general I never hope oranything, I do what I think is rightand it is down to people out thereto decide. I they dont want to see

or hear ATR, then we move on.I love the interaction with the

ans, thats my main motivation.It might sound weird to some people,

but its true. I met the most interestingpeople through my music. It connects us.

I nd that much more exciting than playinga sold-out concert.

When I can talk to political activists beoreI go on stage in Taiwan, then fy to Croatiaand talk to a journalist about politics that isamazing I met my avourite musicians via

this music and there is a lot more we needto say with it.

nBy TimForster

lost any kind o credibility I am prettyhardcore about that. You do not take mymusic and message and put it next to aNokia ad and make money rom that. I youwant to do that, call me and we share themoney. But be prepared that I might say no.

Major labels like Sony get nance romother sources, they sell hardware orexample, their music labels lose money,always did.

So the reality o what we are seeing now isthat indie bands become nothing more than anumber in a telephone book, they can uploadtheir music onto Myspace or whatever, makethose companies rich, while they might gaina ew hundred new ans who then leave weeksater, then they give up and stop.

It has to protect the writers, musicians,lmmakers, artists, anybody who is doingcreative work and NOT the big publishingcompanies and the major record labels.

The trouble is that those who supportthings like the Pirate Party dont have anyunderstanding o how creativity works andfourishes, they dont oten understandthe way independent artists can survivenancially in a capitalist system.

There is a mob mentality right now,almost like undamentalist Christians theyattack any artist who wants to get paid orhis/her work. When I talk to my ather aboutthis, he has a socialist history and comesrom a working class background, he says

its insane how anybodycan try to claim and take

somebody elses work andthen even accuse him obeing a greedy capitalist

or something. A youngband starting out is

not Metallica.Pirate Bay

could have been

an interestingapproach but ocourse they hadto make millionsrom corporateadvertising ontheir site and

The majors moan a lot about thesituation but in act they love it that theso-called pirates eradicate all independentcompetition or them.

So well see record stores disappearcompletely now, the majors cosy up with Apples iTunes and leave everybody elsewith pretty much nothing. I you look at howvenues are being bought up by a multi-nationalcorporation like Live Nation then you can

imagine that the uture will look pretty bad orindependent and underground music.

The music scene always mirrors the realworld. The gap between rich and poor iswidening. That is the same in the musicscene. When I started there was a strongsupport or underground and independentmusic everywhere. When you were intomusic you just knew the enemy. We need to


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A

protest march is not an end, but ameans. It is the issuing o a threatto the ruling class we are themany and you are the ew, your

infuence dependent on our acquiescence.It is eective only in warning power, worseis to come.

Even i you do not believe in anarchist orMarxist theories o class war the evidenceor this is scrawled across our recent past,Conservative and Labourite alike ignoringanything which lacks that hard edge oconfict. Without a credible threat behindit, an anti-war march becomes little morethan a stroll.

The ruling class, state and capitalist,has always known this to be the undertoneo protest that they must watch or, it isthe only thing to be eared and acted on.Isolated groups can always be battered into

submission, pacists can be saely ignored,institutions can be nancially threatened,but mass militancy takes uncontrollableorms and i let untouched will see theirdominance disrupted or worse.

Over recent years however, this simpleconcept has allen by the wayside. Thetactic o protest as threat has been replacedwith that o protest as loudspeaker. Ledby wealthy and liberal bureaucrats, theorganisations which were originally set upto enorce the will o the working class nowserve only to unnel it into acceptablechannels o debate.

That debate is the same as has been hadever since the cuts were rst announced andmass marching or even one-day strikes -simply make one side louder. This is nowthe sole idea remaining to the TUC sincethat very tactic o sae collaboration overuncertain confict sidelined it at the endo the 20th century. WE DISAGREE, goesthe cry rom the mouths o representativesat the head o the march. Fair enough,but were doing it anyway comes the mild-mannered reply.

This concept is why there was suchretting when a 1,500-strong black blocbroke away rom the March 26th anti-cuts rally, causing some minor propertydamage. The ear was that the all-important

discussion would be disrupted. Yet therehas been no evidence that the discussionis having any impact at all.

There have been two U-turns romthe state, one on woodlands, which waslargely a sop to rural Tory elites, andone on the NHS as it became clear there

main material changes which anti-cutscampaigning is looking to ght, in act,there has been no change through debate atall. Because or the state and capital this isnot a debate, its a class struggle. Politicianswill talk, but that is not a negotiation, it is anattempt to minimise the number o peopleprepared to take action against them.

This was the grand ailure o March 26th.It was not a demand, but a request, CharlesDickens Oliver asking plaintively moreplease. And like Oliver, TUC chie BrendanBarber and his ilk have been shouted down,by an Establishment which paints themas wreckers while ignoring their requests.They made no call or direct action, oeredno prospect or a threat to rise to counter

18 In ocus:March 26th

In focus: Whatlessons can welearn from the

biggest workerrally in modernhistory?

would be serious practical problems withimplementing change. Both are temporary.On cuts, the only apparent concessionscan be explained as traditional bartering,ie. start high and compromise or thebudget by using the gures you had in mindall along. On banking and tax avoidance wenow have an Inquiry, which will take thesame course as all state inquiries and cometo the conclusion the government is lookingor (throw them a bone but dont rock theboat).

On the sell-o o the postal service, cutsto council unding, privatisation o schools,welare reorm, civil sector attacks, cuttingo corporate taxes, maintaining o taxhavens, raising o the pensions age the

HUGEbut little


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In ocus:March 26th 19

that o the capitalists. It played to the lie othe right that this is a civilised discourse(despite that discourses unmovingoundation that cuts are inevitable)and anything more radical amounts tobarbarism. Such an approach undermineseorts to stir up genuine resistance armore eectively than anything the blackbloc could manage.

This attitude is refected in that mostamous o trade union tools, the concept othe strike, now being bandied around ar toolate by union leaders whose demands arestill no stronger. Students in the modernera will cross an education workers picketline saying I support you 100%, unawareo the contradiction because in most

cases a strike comes rom the same sterilespecies o protest as is embodied on themarch. Its rst and only eective unction,that o causing economic damage until anemployer must concede, is orgotten. And sonow they are brought out as a last resort,oering so little genuine threat that wherethe employer concedes at all it is little morethan an undertaking to mount their attackin the nicest way possible.

Britains collective narrative needs tochange. Resistance cannot continue to becontained within the bounds o civilisedlaw and order because those dening whatit is are the very ones we are ghting. Bystamping their eet and calling people whouse unocial direct action thugs and

hijackers the trade union and let partyleaders play into this, tacitly accepting, likeOliver, that we must remain imprisonedinside the institution. That our rulers, inthe end, have the right to apportion ourdaily gruel.

Instead what we must talk about aretactics ree rom this restriction, whichocus on how to make the ruling class takenotice, not simply ask. Which aim to bring

the old concept o mass rebellion back intocommon use.

Anarchists and the big day

For each grouping represented within therally, March 26th was in some ways verysuccessul, in others a disaster.

For those advocating the black bloc tactic,it was the biggest maniestation o power onthe streets o London or a decade or more.In terms o showing the potential or large,mobile groups to wreak havoc at the heart othe City it worked. A clearly well-organisedmaniestation kept ahead o police linesand succeeded in outmanoeuvring them.

Where UK Uncut saw mass arrestsdespite its non-violence as police took theopportunity to vent their rustrations ona static occupation, the bloc saw almostno casualties and did at least as mucheconomic damage. As a result, its possiblethat many more angry people will pluck upthe courage to get stuck in through the blocor similar tactics in uture.

However i one o the black blocs mainocuses is to highlight the reality o policeand state power in the public mind, on thislevel it was a ailure. The police playedit smart in allowing a certain amount omayhem, creating a post-march narrativewhich saw the media criticise it or notlaying into activists, something which willserve it well i it comes out swinging lateron (well make up your minds, you said youwanted to be protected).

The blocs structural ailings were alsoallowed to surace as it was unnelledback into the main crowd and overexcited,masked up youngsters (or possiblyinltrators) revelling in anonymity paid toolittle heed to the maxim o not intimidatingbystanders sound bombs being let o nearamilies oered a we dont give a shit aboutthe public message which no amount odelineating between violence and propertydestruction can get around.

The bloc had within its own lines amandate or property destruction andrepelling cops as part o its tactics. It didnthave one or pulling in the main crowd. Asa result, black bloccers angered many onthe march and beyond, have been paintedas monsters and were even drawn intothe media game, with several attemptsbeing made to explain to the Guardian inparticular that were just normal people.Groups such as UK Uncut came underserious pressure to denounce anarchistsas the architects o the violence, whichrisked dividing the movement.

This is a particular problem not just orthe movement as a whole but the black bloc

itsel. The key or any serious exponento this tactic is numbers. Black blocs areinherently limited as long as participants

44

voICEchanges

Ptur: Lzz Houghto


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only represent themselves in order orthe tactic to gain serious ground it needsto bring the support o the mass with it, tobuild external support structures, or it willeventually be crushed.

But given the ease with which suchan anonymous group can be inltrated,misdirected and demonised, it is dicultto see how black bloc tactics can achievesuch support in the current context.

In the nal analysis they could even becounterproductive when the police actwith restraint, reinorcing the view thatanarchism is all about chaos rather thanbeing a coherent societal strategy. Far romrupturing peoples ideas o the state asliberal protector, it could reinorce them.

However this is not to say that itdenitely has or that everyone will eel suchsentiments. One photograph which waswidely passed around showed two elderlybystanders laughing at all the commotion.Other comments have pointed out that itwas rather less violent than a rowdy nightout in some towns can be. While some maybe put o, others will not care overly and

still others may be encouraged. And notably, or all that it has been

demonised the black bloc has created morespace in the mainstream narrative ratherthan less in crucial ways. Who are they?Why are they so angry? Will more cuts bring

20 In ocus:March 26th

On March 26th it quickly became obviousthat the TUC anti-cuts demo was goingto be nearly as big as the 2003 anti-war march. It was an impressive showo numbers not strength, though, asthere was no coherent call or turningwords into action. That is why gettingour message o direct action (strikes,occupations, etc.) is key.

Anarchists took part in the mainmarch as working class people protestingagainst cuts in our living standards. We were there as trade unionists and

users o council services. There wasan impressive radical workers block.However, while it is always good to see amass o red-and-black fags going past itis less impressive i the bulk o the rest othe march have no idea what these fagsrepresent! We need ensure that we donot accidentally sel-ghettoise ourselvesand that enough comrades spend timeexplaining our ideas on marches outsideo any libertarian blocks.

Ater the march, the black blocprovoked a spate o articles bycommentators whose obvious ignoranceo anarchism did not cause them to pausebeore expressing it in the printed page.

One, in the Evening Standard, proclaimedthat anarchists wished to abolish thestate and so should have been supportingthe (neo-liberal) cuts.

First, anarchism has never been purelyanti-state surely property is thet

shows that. Privatising governmentservices is just as anti-anarchist asnationalisation (we avour workersassociations running industry). Second,it is the government which is imposingthese cuts onto the general population.It is a strange anarchist who would sidewith the state against its subjects

And that is the key. Anarchistsare against the state because it is aninstrument o class rule whose unctionis to protect the interests o the owningclass. These cuts are top-down class war

by the ruling elite, ideologically driven togrind the working-class even more intothe ground (airness being used to leveldown the many while enriching the ew!).

We are not against the state in theabstract. We are against it or very specicreasons and recognise that reormsimposed rom the top-down by politicians(aiming to please big business) are o asignicantly dierent character thanthose imposed rom the below, by thepeople, against the wishes o state andcapital. In short, the state can only beabolished by its subjects along withthe class inequalities and hierarchies itdeends.

To use an analogy, anarchists are alsoagainst wage-labour and aim, in the longterm, to abolish it in avour o associated-labour but that does not stop ussupporting, in the short-term, strugglesto improve our wages and conditions.

At its most basic, anarchists are anti-state AND anti-capitalist privatisingstate unctions, handing over servicesto capitalist companies and reducing thestate to just deence o private property isan anti-anarchist approach.

Moreover, the struggles against thesecuts can create a social movement, aculture o resistance in our communitiesand workplaces, which will help tame thepower o state until such time as we canabolish it. Which is another good reasonto support these protests.

Anarchists must take part in thisstruggle and argue or occupations,strikes and other orms o direct actionacross the country to stop the cuts. Inthem we can argue that we need to gobeyond deending ourselves againstreorms (which always make thingworse) and present a vision o a world inwhich we go beyond surviving into onewhere we start living. And that we cancreate the embryo o such a society in ourstruggles against the current unjust one.

This will build a genuine Big Society whichcan tame the state and capital by means o oursocial and economic power. This is where ourlibertarian message must be raised in our

streets and in our workplaces. That is themessage o March 26th.

nBy IainMcKay

In focus:Does our society look big

in this? Sending messages


21/40

more o this kind o thing? Brendan Barberis never going to prompt questions on whatit eels like to watch his lie slide out o viewor why hes kicking o. And the ruling classis much more worried about that part o thedebate, the bit where people hear others just like them, acing the same problems,saying you dont have to take this crap.Because it could lead to people organising.

This eeds into how the media and public

approached the class struggle anarchistorganisations such as the AnarchistFederation (AF) and Solidarity Federation(SolFed) ater the event. A well-organisedradical workers bloc rom Kennington Parksaw thousands turn out which was noted,sparking interest and a subsequent rise inapplications or both organisations despitea still-patchy planning o roles particularlyin outreach.

However in the absence o easy targets tohunt down and harass rom the black blocboth these organisations, easily spottedon the march, present but uninvolvedin violence at the black bloc itsel, weretargeted or interview requests and

exposes as public bodies with easy-to-ndcontact details.

As such in some ways these were theonly direct losers rom the day as theybecame (wrongly) identied as a leadershipwithin the black bloc. Many within thispart o the movement have elt extremelyuncomortable with such attention, ramedin ways which seriously misrepresent theirown strategies and have blamed the blocor eectively undoing much hard work todestigmatise anarchism.

However this misses two key points:1) That there will always be an element

within anarchist ranks that is morecomortable with kicking o immediately tomake an example than with relying on thelong hard slog o organising a mass labourmovement.

2) That anarchists are alreadyconsidered to be nihilistic thugs by most othe population and are always going to bevilied by the press, be that through attackson its perceived violence or its notions othe wildcat strike and asymmetrical classwarare.

Theres not a lot class struggle anarchistscan do about either o these aspects, therealistic path is not public denunciationso bloccers but a combination o debateto try and bring these militants onside

(where they arent already) with long-termorganising techniques stressing maximisedeconomic damage, minimised exposure and a concerted eort to engage with publicopinion over the issue. As long as thepopulation continues to regard the economyas ours it will be resistant to any ideaswhich rely on attacking that edice and themedia can play on those ears.

More generally, libertarian organising incommunities and workplaces is ar moredangerous to the ruling class than a ewsmashed windows so no-one should beunder any illusion, things are going to getmuch tougher should successes be won.

A notable example o this can be ound

in the recent past o RMT leader Bob Crow.The Leninist has been branded a unionthug, had his phone tapped, his personallie splashed in the newspapers and hehas aced constant harassment rom pressattack dogs. And his approach is ar lessovertly political than that o either SolFed

or the AF.One o the most encouraging aspects o

the class struggle anarchist response to allthis was through an open letter to UK Uncutrom Brighton SolFed. In it, they note:Think about it rom the store owners pointo view: a broken window may cost 1,000.A lost Saturdays trade through a peaceuloccupation would cost many times more.Perhaps this helps explain the harsh police

response to the UK Uncut occupation: ithits them where it hurts, in the pocket.

Traditionally, workers have used theweapon o the strike to achieve this. But whatabout workers with no unions, or unions

unwilling to strike? What about students,the unemployed? UK Uncut actions havebeen very successul at involving suchpeople in economically disruptive action and this seems to be on the right trackin terms o orcing the government toback down on its cuts agenda. More andbigger actions in this vein will be neededto stop the cuts (in France, they call theseeconomic blockades).

Bristol AF meanwhile was quite clearin its approach solidarity tempered by acall or methods which do not intimidatebystanders:

We would like to state we support allthose who took part in any o the marcheson the day no matter which tactics they

used to make their point or their specicreason or being on the march.

We do however condemn the actions othose scum we saw attempting to smashthe window o a coee shop while an elderlycouple sat on the other side o it and thoseidiots who threw paint bombs, sticks andeven metal encing rom the back hittingand injuring ellow protesters. Lets get thisstraight, only wankers throw rom the back

and endanger the saety o comrades andinnocent passers-by.

Between them, the two groups builda partial picture o where the movementgoes next unlike the TUCs repetition o

the same old ailures. We need to supporta plethora o tactics, economic blockades,raising hell in the workplace, occupationsand building up community sympathy andsolidarity or such actions.

As the working class reacts and brings itsinventiveness to the anti-cuts cause, we canhelp orm the links to bind things together,presenting an alternative to the urge to stepin line with authority, be it let or right. But

we need to be smart and as the AF notes,make very sure that the only ones eelingpain are the bosses.

nByRob Ray

In ocus:March 26th 21

nByRob Ray

Pturs: Mx Rvs


22/40

Exploring The Red Flag, a song which didnt

quite change the world...

In issue 231 o Black Flag we looked at

Documents

Black Flag 233 Final