Larry O'Hara; Searchlight for Beginners

[Holden Caulfield]

an interesting read to those new to antifascism

here is the link (http://libcom.org/library/searchlight-for-beginners-larry-o-hara)

Part One (http://libcom.org/library/SearchlightForBeginnersLarryOhara1)
Part Two (http://libcom.org/library/SearchlightForBeginnersLarryOhara2)

[rednordman]

I can understand why the author of the article is not a very big fan of searchlight but I believe they are going a little to far in their analysis. I mean ok, if searchlight has acted as 'state' imformers in the past, than thats rather shady, but after buying a copy just to check it out, all it is is an overzealous anti-fascists mag that doesnt seem to have anymore political leaning to one side of the politcial spectrum to another (from far-left to just right of centre). All it does is pump out cut-troat stories about alledged fascists that makes it come across as a smear campaign against fascism than an actual political publication. I certainly could see how members of the liberal capitalist elite would certainly dismiss it as communist left-wing properganda, but if you have a deep look at the mag than all i can get out of it is that they hate fascists-which isnt a bad thing, regardless of their political standing. Thats my take on it nowadays, what happenend in the past is irrelivant in this case as it only acts to make the far-right look very bad.

[Larry O'Hara]

As the author of the publication, I can assure you my problems with them are not merely 'historic'. If you visit borderland.co.uk and look at the various back issues (as well as the on-line article concerning Yorkshire in Notes From the Borderland issue 2--you will see that since Searchlight for Beginners was published the list of political charges against Searchlight has expanded, not contracted. Certainly, it is glossy & presents itself as 'radical' (at times)--but do you seriously expect them to print a banner on each page saying 'this is a spook publication'? There is something of interest in many issues--which is why Searchlight is an organ of disinformation & not straight fiction. In order to evaluate it properly, an independent critical & knowledge-based perspective is needed: not just gut feelings based on impressions. And in any event, their 'strategy' for countering the fascist BNP has spectacularly failed anyway.

PS links removed as requested so they are now not in this message