Lucy Parsons
21st May 2006, 22:19
Forgive me if this has been discussed in depth before but I'm new to this board and I feel this topic is important. At the moment the revolutionary movement is small and unable to work together, let alone have any real influence on the direction of society. In our communitys the isolation caused by capitalism should mean that people flock to our ideas, instead we are alienated from most people seen as at best a diversion. YEt the hatred felt towards the ruling class is not hard to come across. Likewise in the workplace, peope feel increasingly alienated and fucked off with how they are treated. But revolutionary ideas hold no influence and if anything, people in the work place are actively hostile towards any person or group who attempts to push forward an ideology.
I suggest that what we need to do is look at what we are doing. Learn which tactics work and focus on them. Abandon tactics that aren't working and comeup with a few new ideas as well. For example,long articles about the revolutionary situation in india might be very interesting to other revolutionarys, but they are not going to attract anybody new to our ideas.
Likewise constantly going on about anrchism and comunism might betheoretically correct but are a turn off to loads of people. Maybe we need to get across our ideas to people first. What I mean (to use the example of McLibel defendant Dave Steel) is if I shout 'I'm an anrchist and I believe in this this and this' then people stop listening when I say I'm an anarchist. But if I say 'I believe this, this and this which I suppose means I'm an anrchist' then people listen to the ideas first.
I also think its important that we involve ourselves in campaigns that communitys are concerned about. Some of these might not give you the same thrill as watching the police run scared from the black bloc, but in the long term they might get us more support. (OF course the Black Bloc can stay active while were participating in these other activities).
I feel that we should also abandon any liberal stances from any literature/ ideas we distribute and aim to always be confrontational. This does't mean sticking the word fuck every where but should attack the ruling class at every opportunity, ridiculing any idiot whomight suggest, for example, voting democrat/ labour/ whatever just because they might be nicer to us than the other 'choice'. We should also stop relying liberal celebritys to get the message across for us.
Finally, most importantly, we need to get out and actually do something. Remember theory develops from actions, not the other way round. Lets take the class war to the enemy.
I suggest that what we need to do is look at what we are doing. Learn which tactics work and focus on them. Abandon tactics that aren't working and comeup with a few new ideas as well. For example,long articles about the revolutionary situation in india might be very interesting to other revolutionarys, but they are not going to attract anybody new to our ideas.
Likewise constantly going on about anrchism and comunism might betheoretically correct but are a turn off to loads of people. Maybe we need to get across our ideas to people first. What I mean (to use the example of McLibel defendant Dave Steel) is if I shout 'I'm an anrchist and I believe in this this and this' then people stop listening when I say I'm an anarchist. But if I say 'I believe this, this and this which I suppose means I'm an anrchist' then people listen to the ideas first.
I also think its important that we involve ourselves in campaigns that communitys are concerned about. Some of these might not give you the same thrill as watching the police run scared from the black bloc, but in the long term they might get us more support. (OF course the Black Bloc can stay active while were participating in these other activities).
I feel that we should also abandon any liberal stances from any literature/ ideas we distribute and aim to always be confrontational. This does't mean sticking the word fuck every where but should attack the ruling class at every opportunity, ridiculing any idiot whomight suggest, for example, voting democrat/ labour/ whatever just because they might be nicer to us than the other 'choice'. We should also stop relying liberal celebritys to get the message across for us.
Finally, most importantly, we need to get out and actually do something. Remember theory develops from actions, not the other way round. Lets take the class war to the enemy.