Beyond Broken Windows: Anti Cuts Action in the West

On January 15th & 16th some anti-cuts activists from Bristol headed up to Manchester for the first Network-X gathering. The aim was “to establish a network that will allow libertarians to co-ordinate and support each others struggles” as part of the wider anti-cuts movement.

The decision was taken to form regional networks of anti-authoritarian groups fighting the cuts. As Bristol Anarchist Federation’s Anti-cuts Action Campaign has already been working on this for a while we hope to further this network. At present we have built links and are in contact with groups and individuals in Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, Stroud, Taunton, Hereford, Wiltshire, Cardiff, Newport and slightly further away in north Wales and Northern Ireland.

We don’t look to replace groups like Bristol Anti-Cuts Alliance and our affiliation form is winging its way to their secretary as I type. Our simple aim is to network with groups and individuals in the west to share ideas and mobilise for actions.

We support alliances such as BADACA and believe there are some great individuals working in them, their strong union links and ability to organise large scale mobilisations are vital to the anti-cuts movement. However they are all to often stifled with bureaucracy and party politics making them unable to mobilise at short notice and some within groups such as these abuse the platform to push their party line and show little interest in actually taking action.

The Facebook revolution has made it almost too easy to call demos, although it is great to level the playing field in this way, people are calling events and then not providing and propaganda/placards/banners etc needed, and as a result (like the recent Bristol EMA demo) protests are failing. Conversely where materials are provided and a demo properly organised the group calling the demo can take the opportunity to push their particular brand of politics and puts newspaper sales before fighting the cuts. We are also concerned about certain political parties who are moving to build power by hijacking organisations such as the NSSN and NCAFC.

Radical Workers, Unionist, Anarchists & Students on Bristol demo October 23rd

Second Ben Brown interview about the protests

Ben Brown: Footage APPEARS to show the royal car surrounded by demonstrators.
Ben Brown: Camilla, what happened to you?
Camilla: I was shocked by the demonstrators shouting at me and throwing things at my car.
Ben Brown: There is a suggestion you were rolling towards the demonstrators in your rolls royce is that true?
Camilla: Do you really think that half a dozen armed body gaurds in three vehicles really posed any threat to the demonstrators and children we were driving in to?
Ben Brown: You’re reported as saying you and your husband want to become the unelected heads of state, and this surely requires the subjugation of the working class?
Camilla: Look, subjugation, poverty, inherited privledge, these are just words!

Link to video of Ben Browns ludicrously bias interview with Jody Mcintyre: rolling towards police in your wheel chair.

Lunatics Take Over The Asylum

We at A.C.A.B decided to sit on this one a while, the story of how a peacful demo of 50,000 students and lecturers protesting against tuition fee hikes and education funding cuts turned into a riot. There are enough accounts of what happened at conservative party HQ and anyway, none of us were there, right? Your Author came home from work, and switched on the TV to find a red and black flag flying from the roof of Tory Party HQ. Shit, I thought, the revolution has happened and I’ve bloody missed it, bloody wage slavery! Here we are going to attempt to analyze the media reaction and aftermath of the days events.

Tax Dodgers: Why should Anarchists care?

On Saturday October 30^th over 21 Vodafone stores across the UK were shut down via occupations and pickets to highlight corporate tax evasion and avoidance. Vodafone is alleged to have been let off a multi billion pound tax bill going back some years after it routed money through an off shore subsidiary. It also owes over £1.5bn in tax to India.

Although the use of occupations in protest and the internet in communication is far from new, some have heralded how one lone action and a callout put out via social networking sites Facebook and Twitter leading to a mass simultaneous action just three days later as a new tactic in the activists arsenal. At this point I should be quick to coin a right on and groovy name for this um…FaceMob? WebProtest? FlashTwit? Nah I can’t be arsed, there’s probably a think tank of media studies interns on it right now anyway.