50,000 march in London against austerity measures

[radiocaroline]

Saturday saw around 50,000 people march through London as part of the People's Assembly's national demonstration and free festival.

The festival involved speakers such as Russell Brand and Mark Steel.

Members of Stop the War coalition and CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) also joined in with the march.

The People's Assembly are a growing organisation who are somewhat unknown on the international scene. They are affiliated with 3 million strong private sector trade union Unite and are also close with STWC and CND, as mentioned.

This demonstration is one of the largest in a long time and although still nothing in comparison the STWC's march against the invasion of Iraq, signs are encouraging for the left in the UK and a response to growing election success for right wing party UKIP.

I have met people from my local People's Assembly branch and surprised at how political they really are, despite the distorted direction which they hold on matters apart from their true principles of anti-austerity.

Just wanted to see everyone else's opinion on the PA and if they see them as gaining support and possibly organising more protests of the like of the demonstration on 21st June. We do not want to see another organisation on the left become a short-term success and dwindle due to fragmented ideologies and top-level fallouts.

They do seem to be uniting patches of the left under one umbrella, but mainstream coverage in the press is still pretty minimal with only a small mention in the Guardian and BBC.



Some encouraging news in the wake of the European and Local elections.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/6/21/1403379854354/Russell-Brand-011.jpg

[GiantMonkeyMan]

This was almost completely ignored by the BBC, just like when 80,000 trade unionists marched in Manchester outside the Tory Party Conference. There's so much grassroots and largescale organising going on that gets ignored that, if only people knew about it, could be the start of a wider movement. The only workers struggle they report is strikes so they can spin it to say 'workers caused disruptions when they got uppity'.

[radiocaroline]

This was almost completely ignored by the BBC, just like when 80,000 trade unionists marched in Manchester outside the Tory Party Conference. There's so much grassroots and largescale organising going on that gets ignored that, if only people knew about it, could be the start of a wider movement. The only workers struggle they report is strikes so they can spin it to say 'workers caused disruptions when they got uppity'.


Exactly mate yeah..

I remember the Tory conference strike.

Trade unions are all too easily pointed the finger at instead of them being the figurehead of working class culture as they were in the 70s/80s

[bricolage]

I don't think the idea of a media conspiracy on these things is as true as the left thinks. I'll bet everything I own that there were BBC reporters and cameras at that march, as there are at every march and has nearly every news channel/paper has at every march. The thing is that marches happen a lot and 50,000 people walking through london really isn't that big a news story.

[bricolage]

The only workers struggle they report is strikes so they can spin it to say 'workers caused disruptions when they got uppity'.
I'd much rather the news reported strikes than marches.

[Futility Personified]

The New Statesman did a really haughty article to counter the idea that the left is not represented effectively or fairly by the BBC. One user commented something to the effect that he had been informed about a celebrity wedding, but not about a reasonably large demonstration about people not wanting austerity, something that is poorly represented in the media at large.

[radiocaroline]

The New Statesman did a really haughty article to counter the idea that the left is not represented effectively or fairly by the BBC. One user commented something to the effect that he had been informed about a celebrity wedding, but not about a reasonably large demonstration about people not wanting austerity, something that is poorly represented in the media at large.


The BBC received around 60,000 complaints for its lack of coverage for this march... They published a response saying it wasn't newsworthy enough.. And Tory's call the BBC left wing

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't think the idea of a media conspiracy on these things is as true as the left thinks. I'll bet everything I own that there were BBC reporters and cameras at that march, as there are at every march and has nearly every news channel/paper has at every march. The thing is that marches happen a lot and 50,000 people walking through london really isn't that big a news story.

But Russell Brand was in it.

[radiocaroline]

But Russell Brand was in it.

870's right to be honest. The reason for the story being ignored by the BBC has to lie in the fact that it was an anti-government march against cuts.. The potential for an interesting and newsworthy story was there with the celebrity interest and the amount of people involved.

However... The BBC did relatively nothing, only the Guardian published a proper article on the march

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

870's right to be honest. The reason for the story being ignored by the BBC has to lie in the fact that it was an anti-government march against cuts.. The potential for an interesting and newsworthy story was there with the celebrity interest and the amount of people involved.

However... The BBC did relatively nothing, only the Guardian published a proper article on the march

I was being sarcastic - I don't have a crystal ball, and I don't claim to know why the BBC chose to cover the story as it did, but at the same time I am shocked to hear people, who consider themselves socialists, valuing a bloc with liberals like Brand over strike actions, the fundamental form of workers' militancy. I realise a lot of the British left have committed themselves to these "People's Assemblies", but it's a dead end that has been tried in America (and elsewhere) and has failed time and again.

[Futility Personified]

Woah woah woah woaaaaaaaaaaah mate, why is being angry about an anti-cuts march not being publicized by the state media equivalent to valuing them over strikes? Because we don't agitate as much over strikes that we don't know about?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Woah woah woah woaaaaaaaaaaah mate, why is being angry about an anti-cuts march not being publicized by the state media equivalent to valuing them over strikes? Because we don't agitate as much over strikes that we don't know about?

Nyet, but because GMM explicitly criticised the BBC for only reporting about strikes "so they can spin it" (as if they wouldn't spin the reporting of this march). Surely strikes are much more valuable to us than marches alongside liberals.

[Futility Personified]

This might be a point of contention, but when resistance is so comparatively low in the UK, I think all strategies are of equal merit. National strikes culminate in marches that end up led by the dodgy union leadership anyway. Regardless of how well the BBC can spin things, the point is to show that there is dissent going on in this country. Seeing as all three (or is it technically 4 now?) parties advocate cutting essential services, an anti-austerity march is not so far from an anti-capitalist march and provides the lovely fertile ground for spreading anti-capitalist senitment.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

This might be a point of contention, but when resistance is so comparatively low in the UK, I think all strategies are of equal merit. National strikes culminate in marches that end up led by the dodgy union leadership anyway. Regardless of how well the BBC can spin things, the point is to show that there is dissent going on in this country. Seeing as all three (or is it technically 4 now?) parties advocate cutting essential services, an anti-austerity march is not so far from an anti-capitalist march and provides the lovely fertile ground for spreading anti-capitalist senitment.

While the labour bureaucracy is a petit-bourgeois stratum, they are at the head of proletarian organisations, engaged in class struggle. The same can not, to put it mildly, be said of liberal celebrities. As for the rest, well, certain parties in the US have been saying the same thing for over five decades now, and what good has that done them? I think the abject failure of Occupy shows very clearly that without a socialist programme, you won't achieve anything.

[Futility Personified]

I don't disagree about the lack of a socialist programme, but as loathe as it is that this is the case, a lot of people I know who are not politically engaged have perked up their ears at what Brand has to say. His politics are on dodgy ground, and as ever class struggle is what needs to be emphasized, but considering from a mainstream point of view there is little to no anti-cuts sentiment, it is not a far leap of logic that people can be made more class conscious by participation in these events. Unless they are out and out reactionary, all anti-cuts activities at this time that have the potential to be made mass movements are relevant.

Leftists need to be the loudest voices at these things that would appear to have the ear of at least part of the population. Socialists in unions need to be banging on the drum and proselytizing amongst the union, just as socialists in these events need to as well.

[Црвена]

Thank goodness. It's about time we had another one of these.

I don't think we should be relying on the media, we all know they're the puppets of the ruling class and they wouldn't want to report any instance where class consciousness has been shown for fear of breaking the propagandised clones that make up the majority of the population out of their happy little soma comas. Still, I'm glad that there is some class consciousness and even more glad that our unions are recovering from Thatcher's purge. We need them more than ever.

[radiocaroline]

I was being sarcastic - I don't have a crystal ball, and I don't claim to know why the BBC chose to cover the story as it did, but at the same time I am shocked to hear people, who consider themselves socialists, valuing a bloc with liberals like Brand over strike actions, the fundamental form of workers' militancy. I realise a lot of the British left have committed themselves to these "People's Assemblies", but it's a dead end that has been tried in America (and elsewhere) and has failed time and again.

What you have to understand is that there is no alternative, the fact that people are actually mobilising against cuts is something thought provoking and surprising..

So I don't think that for the sake of intellectual hindsight we should just write a group off just because they probably won't start a revolution.

Beats being passive and doing fuck all while your standards of living decline.

I don't see Russell Brand as a guy who actually holds a clear and distinct ideology and not a revolutionary left one at that.. But in popular culture this helps people to open their eyes.. He's by no means Lenin but he provides a face to the group that people know and recognise - he has an influence and therefore can encourage people to stand up.

[human strike]

The BBC received around 60,000 complaints for its lack of coverage for this march... They published a response saying it wasn't newsworthy enough.. And Tory's call the BBC left wing

Why exactly is it newsworthy?

They could have got all the news coverage in the world and it would have made no difference. Look at March 26 2011, that was huge and got masses of media coverage; there was a quarter of a million people marching and we "blitzed" down Oxford Street smashing every bank as we went, but it achieved next to nothing in the long-run. This achieved a lot less than that even. Essentially it's one big 'vote Labour' spectacle. And having one of the richest men in the country whose partner is from one of the richest families in the world give a speech at an anti-austerity rally? Say what? It might wind me up if it weren't all an empty farce anyway. People's Assembly is just another way for trade unionists to pretend they're doing something in opposition to austerity. "Let's call on the TUC to call on Ed Miliband to say no to cuts in the next Labour election manifesto," what a sound strategy...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

What you have to understand is that there is no alternative, the fact that people are actually mobilising against cuts is something thought provoking and surprising..

So I don't think that for the sake of intellectual hindsight we should just write a group off just because they probably won't start a revolution.

Beats being passive and doing fuck all while your standards of living decline.

I don't see Russell Brand as a guy who actually holds a clear and distinct ideology and not a revolutionary left one at that.. But in popular culture this helps people to open their eyes.. He's by no means Lenin but he provides a face to the group that people know and recognise - he has an influence and therefore can encourage people to stand up.

Stand up and do what? Mobilise for what? I'm not criticising the "people's assemblies" for not starting a revolution, I'm criticising them for not being able to secure reforms at all. Reforms can be won only through the militant pressure of the working class - economic and political pressure on the bourgeoisie. Not marches and rallies and speeches and "we are the 99%"-style populism.

And seriously, Brand made some noises about socialism (big deal, so did Bombacci and Rosselli), but he's obviously some sort of confused liberal. But just because he made some vague statement about something he calls socialism, and because he's a celebrity, the "left of Labour" crowd thinks he can inspire people to fight for their own interest! What an incredibly cynical view of workers, as if a prole needs some celebrity toff to tell him he's being oppressed.

[Futility Personified]

Why can't this be a space for contacts to be made and occupations to be planned?

What actions can we, as the millitant part of the working class, undertake to raise class consciousness and resist austerity, and from there on capitalism?

[radiocaroline]

Stand up and do what? Mobilise for what? I'm not criticising the "people's assemblies" for not starting a revolution, I'm criticising them for not being able to secure reforms at all. Reforms can be won only through the militant pressure of the working class - economic and political pressure on the bourgeoisie. Not marches and rallies and speeches and "we are the 99%"-style populism.

And seriously, Brand made some noises about socialism (big deal, so did Bombacci and Rosselli), but he's obviously some sort of confused liberal. But just because he made some vague statement about something he calls socialism, and because he's a celebrity, the "left of Labour" crowd thinks he can inspire people to fight for their own interest! What an incredibly cynical view of workers, as if a prole needs some celebrity toff to tell him he's being oppressed.

I'm not a big fan of Brand and his political ideology is confused. But I am saying he helps develop interest.. I'm not being cynical of workers in saying that Brand has helped to at least attempt to raise awareness of a movement for people in austerity. People cannot do much unless there is an organisation which can help them get a point across, which has been lost with New Labour

[Comrade #138672]

There's so much grassroots and largescale organising going on that gets ignored that, if only people knew about it, could be the start of a wider movement.Which explains why it is being ignored. Which means we must spread it instead.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Why can't this be a space for contacts to be made and occupations to be planned?

Well, it could be. So could the local pub. One advantage of the local pub is that it doesn't divert working-class militancy into struggles for reformist "left of Labour" formations or "anti-austerity" populism.


What actions can we, as the millitant part of the working class, undertake to raise class consciousness and resist austerity, and from there on capitalism?

I disagree with the way in which the question has been framed. It is not a matter of resisting austerity "and from there on" capitalism, as if there are two stages to the struggle - first one resists austerity (or the more nebulous "neoliberalism"), forming a bloc with "anti-austerity" bourgeois forces (the Greens, Die Linke, SYRIZA, dead and decaying Old Labour, whatever), then one fights against capitalism. But it doesn't work. What happens is that the bourgeois forces you helped to power in the "first stage" betray you and you end up with a lot of workers who have been burned out. You resist austerity alongside capitalism in general, fighting for reforms where appropriate but never forgetting the final goal of the overthrow of the bourgeois state (and not simply as something that will happen in decades or centuries).


I'm not a big fan of Brand and his political ideology is confused. But I am saying he helps develop interest.. I'm not being cynical of workers in saying that Brand has helped to at least attempt to raise awareness of a movement for people in austerity. People cannot do much unless there is an organisation which can help them get a point across, which has been lost with New Labour

Ah, and what, pray tell, could "Old" Labour do to "help them get a point across", send the army against striking miners? Arm sectarian gangs in North Ireland? Participate in the rotten, anti-communist "Socialist" International? Labour has been a bourgeois workers' party since it was founded.

[Futility Personified]

A lot of ordinary people will not have accurate conceptions of capitalism, some of them are under complete illusions about what the government is doing, austerity is a key part of capitalist cycles. Austerity is the latest attack on living standards and so the closest head of the leviathan to strike. Before this thread ends up derailed, i'll iterate my point a bit more clearly in relation to the initial topic.

If the BBC are not reporting opposition to austerity, then they are not accurately reporting dissent with the attack on living standards. If people are unaware of an opposition existing, then they are going to be more alienated and feel more hopeless about struggling against capitalism, if they even see capitalism as an entity as something to be opposed.

Capitalist media is going to be hostile to any revolutionary aims, so their approval is not being sought. But raising awareness of the existence of opposition brings the potential for new people to get involved. The legitimate anti-capitalist left would ideally inveigle itself with these movements styling themselves as mass movements to demonstrate anti-capitalist ideas. There was that "what should the left be doing" thread floating around here somewhere where people demonstrated a lot of ideas that would be relevant to increasing the militancy of a 'movement' like this. If the political grounding is poor, then surely it exists as a recruiting pool?

These things can be gateways to pointless reformist demands, or annoying "old labour was the way forward" campaigning, but they can also be introductions to direct action and why direct actions can result in concrete gains for workers.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/6/21/1403379854354/Russell-Brand-011.jpg

Oh my Russell. :wub:

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Nyet, but because GMM explicitly criticised the BBC for only reporting about strikes "so they can spin it" (as if they wouldn't spin the reporting of this march). Surely strikes are much more valuable to us than marches alongside liberals.
Just to be clear, I think the media is very specific about which strikes they report and which marches as well. They'll report quite heavily about the teachers' strikes or the London Underground strikes because they can try to spin that to reflect badly upon the workers; "Millions of children out of school"/"Millions disrupted in London over 500 jobs" - that sort of shit. But they won't report about the Hovis factory workers winning a strike against zero-hour contracts, for example, even if they're running programmes on tv centred around the controversy of zero-hour contracts.

It's obvious that the bourgeois media has very specific criteria regarding what parts of the workers' movement they report, namely in such a way that attempts to sap the motivation of workers to engage in struggles.