Class War Issue 81

£1ISSUE 81SUMMER 2001would you piss on these two if they were on fire?

Class War PO Box 467 London E8

2 Class War Issue 79

THE UNIVERSITY OF LIFEFirstly the principal of St Andrews isactually moving house so as Williamcan be accommodated moresecurely! Dr Brian Lang ismoving out of his baronial mansionclose to St Andrews golf courseso that the School of Art Historycan be located in the mansion.Here William will take his studies,when not murdering local wildlifewith the various blood sportssocieties based at the

university. Should Williamtire of the atmospherearound St Andrewsand his rooms in snooty StSalvator’s College, TheQueen Mother hasthankfully given him use ofa hunting lodge she ownson the Birkhall estate inBalmoral. How manyhomes does the old baghave? Given the lack ofaffordable homes in ruralareas for working classpeople, and ruralScotland’s long history asa playground for the rich,the message from theroyals is the same as ever.

We have a message forthe royal spin-doctors. Youmay be able to convincesome people that William isBritain’s most eligiblebachelor and that he is thebest thing since slicedbread. It will be a lot easierfor us to convince peoplehe’s just another idle royalparasite.

In September Prince William is expectedto start his studies at St AndrewsUniversity in Scotland, one of Britain’soldest and poshest educationalestablishments. Whilst the media circusaround William serves to reinforce theview that the royals realise he is theirlast good chance of maintaining aconstitutional monarchy in the UK, theyare not exactly attempting to convince usthat William is just another student, orjust another teenager.

SCARING THE HORSES?The not guilty verdict for Vincent Bethell, the “right to benaked” protestor, is probably more significant than it at firstappears. Whatever you think of Mr Bethell or his protests,this was the first time he had appeared before a jury. Onevery occasion he had appeared before a magistrate hehad been found guilty.

The police, Crown Prosecution Service and Jack ‘Boots’Straw want to limit the number of jury trials precisely be-cause jury’s are more likely to return verdicts like this thansome reactionary old tosser of a magistrate.

What’s the betting that the next time Mr Bethell is arrestedthe charge is deliberately framed so as it can only be heardat a magistrates court?

ANIMAL FARMThe scenes of carnage across Britain, withmounds of burning animals, has beenconstantly portrayed on our TV screensas some sort of cruel to be kind, stiffupper lip, spirit of the blitz policy, aimedat protecting animals. Nothing could befurther from the truth. Profit, not animalwelfare, is the sole motive for the massculling.

We are rarely informed of it, and manypeople do not even know it, but the truth isthat foot and mouth disease is not fatal toanimals. Humans cannot catch it at all. Leftto its own devices, the animal will recover,without even assistance from a vet.

Why then the slaughter of infected andeven uninfected animals? While theanimals have foot and mouth, they cannotbe sold. The disease takes time to run itscourse and while it does it spreads,amongst other animals in a similar way toflu. As animals cannot be sold profitscollapse. To maintain profit the policyis to contain the epidemic via strictsegregation and mass slaughter.

Immunisation to prevent foot andmouth is not only possible (somethingrarely stated on our TV screens in recentmonths) but common in m any parts ofthe world. However as there has beenno major outbreak in Britain since 1967our government and much of Europe has

decided it is cheaper not to massimmunise animals but to stand the costof mass slaughter if and when it breaksout. Needless to say it is not thegovernment of the farmers that will meetthe cost of this decision, but you andme, the taxpayer.

A second result of the outbreak hasbeen a mass clamp down on movement.In some places military style exclusionzones are enforced with such rigiditywe wonder if we risk being shot forchallenging them. So called rights ofway have been closed everywhere. Ifwe have a ‘right’ but that ‘right’ can betaken away with the stroke ofan official’s pen, without consultation orconsent, then the truth is we neverhad any such right in the first place.We were simply allowed a temporaryprivilege (in this case to walkon this green and pleasant land)until the powers that be deemed itinconvenient and took the privilegeaway. On a wider scale we haveseen this happen in Northern Irelandin the past with the right to a jurytrial removed and even in the1970s imprisonment without trial.

Always question what the ruling classtells you. Especially the tales deemedto be common sense, accepted wisdomor “expert opinion”.

“Further to our meetings and discussions with them, we areoffering the Bloomsbury Forum our full support of the Freedom Party. Theleadership team consists of successful businessmen and top civil servants.The accounts will be run by a lecturer and audited by a certified accountant.A board of trustees has been set up, headed by an esteemed barrister”Former British National Party high fliers Steve and Sharon Edwards encouragingBNP members to jump ship to a new far-right party. They are very easilyimpressed by people with posh jobs aren’t they?

PANTS TO COMICRELIEF

Thank you to the BBC and hundreds offading celebrities and entertainers forinflicting yet another Comic Relief on usall in March. Has it never occurred to thelikes of Lenny Henry, Bob Geldof,Vanessa Feltz etc that if charity couldsolve people’s problems it would havedone so by now? Does anybodyseriously believe Africa (to take anexample) is a healthier and moreprosperous continent now than it wasbefore Live Aid? Of course it is not.People are poor, people are sick peopleare fucked over because of globalcapitalism, not because Mrs Smith ofCongleton has failed to send £10 to anappeal fronted by Boyzone.

What has become so offensive aboutComic Relief is the way so many bigemployers, and their personneldepartments use it as a day to show how

much they care. Companies in the citythat spend 364 days a year pillaging theearth are suddenly devoting one day tosaving it.

Anybody in the office who does not wantto wear a big red nose and a pair of sillypants is instantly labelled as at best amisery guts, at worst as some sort ofinadequate who cannot relate to his or hercolleagues. Even worse is the way the|biggest wankers in seniormanagement are portrayed as incrediblyzany generous guys because for one daya year they wear a silly shirt, donate £50and allow a few of the junior ranks to havea drink in the office.

Class War would like to work with othersto organise a national phone in sick dayon the next Comic Relief is upon us. Joinus.

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Class War Issue 79 3

police trot out mug shots of allegedrioters. To do this they not only have toget their own camera crews in place, butthey rely on photographers andjournalists from both the national mediaand so-called “independent journalists”.

Class War believes that anyone takingphotographs without permission at ademonstration is a threat to the securityof that demonstration. We urge allactivists to think very carefully aboutpeople filming around them, and to beparticularly cautious about the neverending stream of sympatheticindependent journalists doing the rounds.

Journo Watch 2 – News Of TheScrewsIn the last Class War we carried a quoteabout Neville Thurlbeck, the News of theWorld crime correspondent who is aregistered police informer. We suspectthe same goes for many of hiscolleagues. Thurlbeck, who uses thepseudonym Ray Levene amongstothers, specialises in the seedy tales thathave characterised the News of the Worldfor a generation. Normally their reportervisits some respectablesuburban house for the Women’sInstitute coffee morning, discovers it isin fact a knocking shop, and rushes backto London to file his story usually endinghis report of suburban sex with the cliché“our reporter made his excuses andleft”.

A visit to the website http://www.lifestyles-america.com/bobandsue however,shows Mr Thurlbeck in one of his stingoperations (pictures we cannot repeat ina family newspaper like Class War)Suspicious of Thulbeck two masseursfilmed him covertly. Whatever it ishe is doing on their film and the websitehe is certainly not making his

excuses andleaving! Indeed thesomewhat anti-gayNews of the Worldwould certainly notapprove of some ofthe goings on!

Still with the closeprotection of thepolice and thePress ComplaintsC o m m i s s i o nThurlbeck willno doubt continuedoing his thing –setting up membersof the publicfor prosecution andhumilation.

Back in November 1999 ademonstration was organised atsomewhat short notice at EustonStation to coincide with the huge N30event in Seattle. At the time Class Warfelt somewhat pessimistic about thechances of taking on the huge policeoperation on the day and decided tostay at home and watch it on the telly.Given the events that evening we wereprobably right, although it did not stopthe “reporters” at ITN’s Tonight WithTrevor MacDonald claiming we werenot only present but helped organisethe event!

Amongst the many people injured onthe evening by the police was ajournalist, Danny Penman. Penmanapparently attended that eveningbecause he had received ananonymous tip-off that fascists fromC18 would be present (that he tookthis seriously perhaps shows the levelof Penman’s intelligence) Afterhaving his arm broken by the cops hecirculated many activist groupsappealing for witnesses. Sadly whenMr Penman was approached to helpdefendants arrested that evening, herefused point blank. Journalists areoften described as being parasiticalon the anti-capitalist movement but theyare rarely as blatant as DannyPenman.

We are also aware of a female“independent reporter” who wasextremely reluctant to assist severalanti-fascists arrested in London lastyear, even though she heldimportant video evidence. You knowwho you are, we know who you are.Do not expect to be allowed to film atANY demonstrations in London again.

After every big demonstration the

JOURNO WATCH

GUILTY, BUT PROUD OF IT!A small, but interesting articleappeared in The Nursing Times inMarch. The piece dealt with a studyentitled ‘Income Inequality and theprevalence of common mentaldisorders in Britain. (Weich. S, etal. 2001).

The study assesed over 8,000adults in the U.K. and found thatwealthy people living in areas ofhigh income inequality sufferedhigher levels of mental disorder.

The authors suggest that wealthypeople living near poor areas mayexperience ‘guilt or unease about

the relative disadvantage of others’.And all this time we thought it wasjust down to inbreeding, cocaine andalcoholism.

The best thing these overpaidunderworked parasites could do wouldbe to hand over all their ill gottencash to us, then commit guilt freemass suicide. The worst thing theycould do is become so guilt riddenthat they try to involve themselves inworking class movements andimagine they are doing something tohelp. George Monbiot and your landowning family, your money or yourworthless, middle-class life!

EDITORIALThere are currently a lot of right wing wankersmouthing off about ‘what a hard time they’rehaving’. Whether its Richard Littlejohn in TheSun and his pathetic version ofEnglish identity; the farmers, the foxhunters,the hauliers, William Hague or the numerousother Anti Europe Save the Pound brigade.Of course this sounds very much like the maingroups of people who benefitted from theThatcher years, selfish one and all.

With the election you can either vote for TrueBlue Tories who screw the powerless, orLabour who do it a bit more subtly. Nowonder there is no enthusiasm for anelection, given the range of no choice onoffer. The Vote for Nobody Campaign is agood way to deal with the forthcomingcharade. Check www.geocities.com/votenobody/

One new development this time round are thevarious Socialist Alliance candidates. Last timethese activists campaigned for people to votefor Tony Blair. They were wrong then – whyshould we believe them this time round?

On the legal front, Straw, Blair and cocontinue moving the country to the right. Blairhas got away with far more in his first term asPrime Minister than Thatcher did in hers.Ironically the Prevention of Terrorism Act cameinto force alongside a media panic aboutanimal rights terrorists whilst Farmers in

Cumbria were waving guns about inbroad daylight against governmentofficials - why are we not hearing about“Terrorist farmers”? Is this because itdoesn’t fit in with the right wing agendaBlair and the media are currentlyfollowing?

Where Next?

What happens after the election though?With friends we’re gonna be at thecutting edge of class struggle, as usual,where ever it can be found. Whetherit’s at the anti G8/ International MonetaryFund gatherings or confronting theCountryside Alliance. The firstbecause they control the worldcapitalist economy that oppresses us all,the second because they are led by abunch of rich reactionaries who wantthe countryside for themselves whenreally it belongs to us all.

There are a lot of local campaigns thatneed to be done as well, maybe you willbe fighting the bosses in your workplace,attacking penny pinching councils likeHackney, or helping other struggleswhere ever they can be found - like thatof prisoner Mark Barnsley. The onlyanswer to ruling class attacks is toencourage, and take part in fight back.Just do it!

MONKS BREAKS VOWOF SILENCE

John Monks, General Secretary ofthe T.U.C. has called for a review ofrules which exempt businesses withfewer than twenty one employees fromholding a ballot on union recognition.It is believed this law effectivelyexcludes between f ive and eightmi l l ion workers f rom un ionmembership. The G.P.M.U. pr intunion has found itself particularlyvulnerable because of this loophole.One firm split it’s thirty eight workersinto two separate firms and anotherbroke the company down into eightdifferent entities which led to theappl icat ion for union recogni t ionbeing withdrawn.

Monks has also called for an end tothe practice of abstentions beingcounted as “no” votes in recognitionballots. The Labour Party has pledgedto review the act after it has been inoperat ion for a per iod in t ime.However no worth should be attachedto yet another Labour pledge as in

the past four years they haveshown themselves time and timeagain to be on the side ofbusiness in any confrontation withworkers.

The crocodile tears of Monksshould be seen in the light ofhis invitations, readily accepted,to bosses organisation, the C.B.I.to send it’s Director General tospeak at the annual T.U.C.conference. This cosy relation-ship has worked both ways withMonks addressing the parasitesof the C.B.I. in a true spirit of‘par tnership ’ a t the i r annualworker bashing shindig.

No doubt Monks has his eye onthe prize of a seat among the‘vermin in ermine’ in the Houseof Lords just like so many ofhis predecessors. Don’t expectJohn Monks to rock the boat toomuch on this one.


Doing The BusinessWelcome to Class War’s latest round-upgiving our view from the direct action frontline.

Anti-NF Mobilisation, Euston, 28thNovember 2000

Following a joint campaign by the mediaand Omagh Families Campaign, TheCock Tavern in Euston got some prettypoor publicity for allowing the Real IRA’spolitical wing to meet upstairs. In anattempt to impress their loyalist mates theNational Front called for a picket of TheCock, coincidentally (or not) on the nightReclaim the Streets were due to meetthere.

Class War certainly holds no brief for theReal IRA, who appear to lack anymandate in Britain or Ireland for theiractivities. However we are not going toallow the NF top decide who does whatin London’s pubs and the best time tosee off this shower is now, when theyare weak, rather than allowing them togrow in the fertile soil of Blair’s Britain.

Approximately 20 anti-fascists found adozen strong group of Nazis shiveringnext to their Union Jacks just off EversholtStreet. Ignoring the Metropolitan andBritish Transport Police contingents, theNF group was engaged with gusto.Unable to run too far because they werebacking into a line of police vans theNazis got a brief introduction to thetreatment they can expect to receiveevery time they attempt to parade inLondon. Unfortunately the police linesregained their composure and 7 anti-fas-cists were rounded up.

One interesting development was thesmall groups of football supportersdrinking in the area prior to the NFmobilisation. Some left a pub promptlywhen anti-fascists arrived, yet did notbother joining the fash’s picket.

Picket of Paul Boateng’s Surgery InSupport of Mark Barnsley, 20thJanuary 2001

Fucking freezing, arrive 0930 greeted byshit loads of fully equipped cops withcrash barriers. Boateng refuses to enterbuilding without police protection – whatdoes he think we are going to do – takehim hostage?

A dozen people eventually do nothingmore frightening than hand out leafletsbefore Boateng finally agrees to meet oneof his constituents! He promptly gives him

earache about Mark’s treatment and askshim why the CPS are still withholdingevidence. This picket seemed to reallyembarrass Boateng – more will have tobe organised – get in touch to getinvolved.

Confronting the Royals on the streetsof London

The London branch of the MovementAgainst the Monarchy decided to go andsee Prince William on his officialcoming out parade after his 18thbirthday. This was at the PressComplaints Commissions extravagent10th anniversary do at Sutton House - areally posh mansion like building by theAldwych on the banks of the Thames.

Our band of merry men and women werehassled like fuck by the filth, numeroussearches and they followed our peoplefor hours some only lost the filth byjumping in and out of Tube’s and by run-ning through buildings.... All this to stopus protesting against the Royal vermin.The next days papers were full ofgushing reports about how ‘PrinceWilliam was the star of the show’ - onlybecause he’s protected from his ownsubjects!

Horse and Hound Ball, March 1st

The posh Horse and Hound ball at theRoyal Lancaster Hotel was £90 a ticketand a room for the night was £150. TheUrban Alliance decided to mobilise someof its supporters and go down and let theposh hunt scum know what we think ofthem – the Labour Party’s BaronessMalleiu and other toffs were spotted.There was the usual complement ofpolice and plain clothes filth out lookingfor us and the usual searches took place.

Around 30 of us had a lot of fun shoutingabuse at the toffs as they went in,“parasites”, “scum”, “throw the Squire onthe Pyre”, “You’re burning your mistress”and so on.

This event was after they said thatnothing was moving in the countryside tostop the spread of Foot and Mouth, yet itwas alright for them to travel tothis event? As usual the mediadidn’t say anything about this.

The Urban Alliance are promisingto confront the CountrysideAlliance when they come to London nexttime as well. Check www.geocities.com/urbanalliance/

5IF THEY HAD BRAINS

THEY WOULD BE DANGEROUSHello and welcome to our regular columnthat investigates the brainless bumblingof the tick blue line. Thanks to everyonewho sent in news and cuttings – moreplease!

We start with West Yorkshire police whohad hoped to hold a meeting oncompetency at Keighley Police Station.Sadly incompetence was the order of theday and Keighley’s finest were unable tomeet following a mix up over the dates.Class War understands that a futureclass, where officers will be showndiagrams helping them to locate thehuman elbow and the human arse, isbeing specially organised.

Next up come the British TransportPolice, who certainly believe that schoolsout for summer! An embarrasing wobblyhas been thrown byPhillip Barnard,Headmaster of PimlicoSchool, who noticedincreased truancyrates at his school inthe afternoon’s. MrBarnard’s pupils wereeventually foundspending theirafternoon’s on identityparades organised bythe BTP at VictoriaStation. It certainlybeats double maths!

As everybody knowsthere are no stupid dog, only stupidowners. Proof of this comes fromCleveland Police, who have had to pay£16,500 compensation after theirAlsation, Bosco, savaged aMiddlesborough man. With 9 similarcases pending against the dog, or moreacccurately his employers it seemsBosco is firmly in the dog house.

We can report however that unlike hishuman colleagues Bosco doesoccasionally get it right – amongst the 54people he has bitten in the line of “duty”are his handler, a sergeant and 2 PoliceConstables.

Essex – A big hand must go out to procannabis campaigner Glynn Lowndes,whose 150 plants were stored atBillericay police station. The green

fingered Mr Lowndes clearly knows hisstuff as mellow fumes quickly spreadthroughout the station, forcing its closurefor two days! Lets hope the usually closedminds of Essex filth have beenbroadened by the experience.

Everybody knows a would be high flierwho eventually lands with a jolt, and therewas many a tear at Class War HQ at thedeath of Detective Inspector JeanMacer-Wright of the MetropolitanPolice. Described as one of the force’s“brightest rising stars” her star somewhatplummeted whilst mountaineering in theScottish Highlands. In fact it plummeted150 metres off the side of a cliff. Stillfollowing the Stephen Lawrence inquiryher colleagues at Greenwich policestation should be used to cleaning up amess.

One story we missed lastyear was the Durham officerwho opened fire whilstguarding Tony Blair’sconstituency residence.Guarding Phony Tony mustbe a boring job, and anybodycould make the mistake ofopening fire on a shadowyfigure in the bushes.Unfortunately this shadowyfigure turned out not be aninternational terrorist but…..a pigeon. The officerconcerned has presumeablybeen banned from watching

Wacky Racers.

Winner of our brainless bobby award thisissue has to be ex-PC David Schotness,formerly of Sussex Police. Dopey Davidlikes nothing better than flagging downpassing cop cars and asking them forlifts, whilst boring their passengers withtales of his days on the force. WhilstSussex and City of London policeofficers were only to willing to putup with this nonsense, the Met werenot. David’s cry of “taxi” ended upwith a spell in the cells and confiscationof his warrant card. He hasreplied by launching a claim against theMet for wrongful arrest, unlawfuldetention, assault and battery andabuse of police powers. Perhaps MrShotness should get a bus pass likeeverybody else!

In a recent letter in a political newspaper, a Communication Workers Union full-timeofficial took the leadership of the union to task for donating half a million pounds ofunion funds to the Labour Party. She also questioned why tens of thousands ofpounds of our money goes to Labour candidates at local level. There was no mentionof this in the Voice, official publication of the C.W.U. Whatthere was, was a call for donations to The Tolstoy MilleniumProject which tries to fight poverty and disease among orphansand street children in Moldova. The project are renovating aformer prison in which they hope to house these unfortunates.Communication Workers Union Humanitarian Aid (CWUHA)have involved themselves in this scheme. They require another£80,000 to complete the work on the prison and allow thechildren to move in. Schemes such as this can only ever hopeto relieve poverty in the very short term as the real cause ofpoverty is the existence of capitalism. To do away with poverty, wemust destroy capitalism. However, the half a million quid wouldhave paid for the new home for these children with a few bobto spare. Now it will help perpetuate a Government which hasproved itself no friend of the poor and needy here, oranywhere else. Surely in the interests of democracy themembers should decide how our money is spent, and given thechoice between Blair, Straw and Byers, the kids in Moldovawould win hands down. But then, there are no knighthoods orseats in the House of Lords for helping the casualties ofcapitalism.

Our Money - Let Us Decide.

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Class War Issue 79

There’s Now’t as Queer as Trots“It is clear that socialist groups don’t have any influence on thisprotest but they falsely claim all gains for themselves.Additionally they are worried about the continuous growth andpopularity of Anarchism and its influence upon theanti-globalisation movement”

A Polish Anarchist in a letter to Class War followinglast year’s S26 protest in Prague.

Different Face, Same Shit!In a recent article in the S.W.P.theoretical magazine (is that possible?)entitled ‘Anarchy in the UK’ we are treatedto all the usual Trotskyist rejections of ourideas of self determination in favour oftheir line of the dictatorship of theproletariat. In plain language what theS.W.P. mean by the dictatorship of theproletariat is the dictatorship by a few oftheir, unelected and unaccountable,central committee members. Under thisdoctrine they will rule how we should alllive our lives which, if they are anyexample, will be drinking cappuccino inwine bars in Kensington.

Whilst the S.W.P. treat us to a parody ofwhat anarchism stands for, which isexcellently rebutted in Freedom, theydon’t take a single step back from theidea of this dictatorship. According to theS.W.P, “Lenin’s development of aMarxist theory of the party was soimportant... Such a party [the S.W.P. ofcourse] will... be centralised, in the sensethat once it has voted on a course ofaction then all its members will [like a flockof obedient sheep] follow that course, oronce it has decided on a principle all itsmembers will adhere to that principle.”

Do we get a hint of 1984 ‘doublespeak’here? What they mean is that theydecide what’s best for us and if we don’tlike it, tough! Indeed the article itselfexplains why we anarchists reject thisparody of a revolutionary organisation, itis “undemocratic, sowing the seeds ofdictatorship and stifling the will of theindividual.” Nuff said.

But according to them our rejection oftheir politics is because of “the failure ofanarchism to understand the centrality ofthe working class itself.” This comes froma party whose central committee is somiddle class they shit cucumbersandwiches and whose leading member,the journalist Paul Foot, had a father whowas the governor of Jamaica! And theyhave the cheek to say we don’tunderstand the centrality of the workingclass! Finally the S.W.P. dismiss usanarchists as a whole because“whatever ideals and gut instinctsindividual anarchists may have,anarchism, both in word and deed, failsto provide a roadworthy vehicle forhuman liberation.” Yeah like Trotsky andLenin who murdered thousands ofworkers at Kronstadt have shown abetter example.

The End is NighAlthough the Trots can still pull out a gooddisplay of paper sellers on most demo’sthe lengths they now go to recruit enoughcanon fodder to raise money for theirapparatchiks and their desperate attemptsto mimic the rejuvenated anarchistsmovement shows that as a political forceTrotskyism is on its way out. But weshould be aware that before theseparasites finally disappear we shouldbe wary of the damage that they can,and often do, cause to the causes theyleech off.

When they do finally give out their lastdying gasp, however, no more willanyone be led into the blind alley ofMarxist-Leninist politics and wecan get on with the fight againstthe real enemy and not have towatch out for them trying to stab us inthe back.

The politics of the British left has seensome profound changes in the last twodecades. From the early 80’s whenMilitant were in control of Liverpool citycouncil, the Socialist Workers Party(S.W.P.) could mobilise thousands ofstudents to rallies in London and therewere a multitude of other Trotskyist groupsall claiming to be inheritors of Trotsky’sideals. They have now reached thelowest point in their fortunes for a longtime.

Whereas the major Trot groups oncehated each other more than they hatedthe Tories, (Peoples Front of Judea,fucking splitters!), they are now so weakthat along with a rag bag of other lefties(including the Communist Party of GreatBritain) they have to huddle together inthe newly formed ‘Socialist Alliance’.Having failed to rouse the working classto join their ‘revolutionary’ organisationsthrough Trotskyist dogma they will soonbe entering the electoral lottery and askthem to vote for them in Parliamentaryelections. How the vanguard have fallen!

Principles of the GutterAnd what about the principles of these‘revolutionaries’? After the Scottishsection of Militant split off from the restof the British party, becoming the‘Scottish Socialist Party’ their new führerTommy Sheridan, (the same TommySheridan who once offered to ‘namename’s’ to the cops after the poll tax riot),became a member of the ScottishParliament. Not only has he joined theScottish people’s elected oppressors healso showed his true socialist principleswhen he got married in a Catholic church.Perhaps it was one of those paedophilepriests who spliced the knot for him. Atleast he was happy to support a goodStalinist tradition of the Millies and tookhis honeymoon in Cuba.

As for the S.W.P it seems that gettinginto bed with what is left of the EnglishTrot movement has not increased theirpaper sales and they are now havingsome seriously bad financial problems.It has recently come to our attention thatone of their full time staff, the much lovedJulie Waterson (who we all felt sorry forwhen battered by a copper at theWelling march, not!), has recently beenmade redundant with, apparently, muchfalling out amongst the comrades. What’smore their need of cash means they arenow, indirectly, supporting the hunt scum.In a recent copy of Private Eye theCountryside Alliance paid for a full pageadvert, money that Eye used to pay theirprinters who are, yes you’ve guessed it,the S.W.P! (East End offset who printPrivate Eye and Searchlight amongstothers is owned by the S.W.P)

The Failure of TrotskyismThe recent demise of groups like Militantand the S.W.P. can be put down to thefailure of Trotskyist politics. With themassive discontent against Thatcher inthe 80’s, Major in the 90’s and nowdisillusion with Blairite politics as well as

widespread concern about the rape ofthe planet and oppression of workersaround the world by multi-nationalists,these centralised parties have gotnowhere. The inevitable slide into oblivionof our once hated enemy, (the Trots notCapitalism that is), is in profoundcontrast to the successes that anarchistpolitics has had during this time.

From a few meusli crunching wierdo’s inthe 1960’s, anarchism can now mobiliseenough forces world-wide to stopmeetings of the I.M.F., force governmentsto change policies on road building ,genetically modified crops and otherenvironmental issues and generally be apain in the arse to police forces aroundthe world. As we all know the internet is awonderful thing and anyone who hasaccess can soon see that while the Trotsare ghettoised in a few, mostly westernEuropean countries anarchism hasspread its wings and covers all fourcorners of the globe.

Vampire AlertThe success of the anarchist movementin winning so many new converts to ourideas and actions has now led to one ofthe more bizarre twists in the politics ofthe S.W.P. Those of you with experienceof Trot politics will be well used to thesemiddle class warriors doing everythingpossible to either distance themselvesfrom groups like Class War, or justignore us, although many of theirmembers often realised what a group oftossers they were and came over to ourideas anyway. In the last year, however,the S.W.P. have been trying its hardestto appear to be us.

In Manchester, recently, a number ofposters were seen around the university.Whilst at first glance they looked like theywere by the Manchester C.W. group, withthe slogan of ‘Fuck’ something or other,and with the Nike flash ‘just do it’ in thegraphics, on closer inspection they wereby the University S.W.P. This poster thatsported classic C.W. imagery had theslogan ‘Fuck tuition fees occupy theUniversity’. Yet more dull S.W.P. gonowhere student politics.

This comes on top the most recent majorparasitic political campaign of the S.W.P.and their efforts to hijack the anarchistled campaigns against the world bank.Although the Trots were nowhere to beseen when any action took place atSeattle or Prague they are tryingto get credit for the brave work of others.It is now obligatory for all of theirmembers to wear badges claimingthemselves to be ‘anti-capitalists’. But theirapparent new-found liking for dressingup in anarchist clothing isn’t aroad to Damascus conversion after thedeath of their, totally unlamented,leader Tony Cliff (boy did we laugh) thatwe anarchists have been right allalong. No when you scratchthe surface the same shitty oppressiveTrotskyist dogma lies just below thesurface.

Foot In MouthDisease -

The Politics Of TheCountryside

Alliance

The best news of 2001 so far has been thecancellation of the March 18th “Liberty andLivelihood” march planned through centralLondon by the Countryside Alliance. Up to300,000 toffs and toadies, foxhunters andfawners, bumpkins and barristers, idiots andinbreeds were expected to congregate atEmbankment. As their Land RoverDiscovery’s would have had difficultygetting through the traffic, many wereexpected to walk past Parliament,Downing Street, Trafalgar Square and thento stop off at the Ritz for a quick sherry. Thosewho could not get their servants to walk therest of the way for them would then be left tostagger into Hyde Park, where the marchwas due to finish.

A figure of 300,000 may well be anunder estimate. Two special Eurostars werebooked to take exiled English nobs from Paristo London, 7 planes from Inverness toLondon Luton airport, and most of the tophotels in London were booked up for theweekend. Add to that the “countrymen” whowould stay at their London address thatweekend, and the hundreds of coaches andtrains booked, some estimates move uptowards 450,000.

Class War has covered the rise of theCountryside Alliance ever since 1997, andwe have been involved in opposing theiractivities around the country. That theyattempt to disguise their demands to murderanimals for fun as some sorts of civil rightsissue is a sign of their weakness not theirstrength. Quite simply they have already lostall the other arguments.

We are not aware of ONE civil rightsissue in the whole of the twentiethcentury that was supported by the groupsthat make up the Countryside Alliance. Notone campaign for workers rights wassupported. One of their few campaignissues apart from promoting foxhunting isabout restricting not increasingfreedom – they have lobbied hard againstthe right to roam.

That new Labour waver rather than stand upto these characters proves everything we havesaid about the Labour Party over the years.Labour are open to pressure and will buckle– providing that pressure is applied from theright, not the left, from above not from below.

Class War members have beeninstrumental in setting up a group that is theexact opposite of the CountrysideAlliance. Look out for the thousands ofUrban Alliance stickers going up and contactthe Urban Alliance on 07946 687192 tooppose the Countryside March when ithappens. In the meantime get out theresabbing their hunts, slashing the tyres ontheir Range Rovers and encouraging yourfriends to hit these bastards hard.


MARK BARNSLEY STILL FIGHTING INSIDE,STILL FIGHTING OUTSIDE

ONE LAW FORTHEM

Not many peoplecharged with murder getbail. Millionaire AlunPhillips, charged withmurdering his wife did.Even more bizarrely hepaid £30,000 to securityguards to stop himselffrom escaping, as acondition of his bail.

Phillips was eventuallyjailed for life, but we wouldnot be surprised if he hasdone another deal withthe judge, buyinghimself an island offSpain to serve hissentence on.

Staying on this subject,were we the only peopleto notice that many of themembers of theWonderland Club, anInternet paedophile ring,received sentencesshorter than those jailedfor public order offencesat J18, N30 andMayDay? Was thisbecause most of theWonderland Clubappeared to comefrom professionalbackgrounds, or to put itmore simply very similarbackgrounds to theperson sentencing them?

Supporters of the campaign to free Mark Barnsleyhave stepped up their activities in recent months.Angered by the Home Office’s inadequateresponse to requests from Mark and hissupporters that Jack Straw intervene to force theCrown Prosecution Service in Sheffield to finallydisclose evidence withheld at Mark’s trial, a groupof campaign activists occupied the CPS officesin Sheffield. 16 were arrested and charged with“conspiracy to burgle with intent”.

In January, a demonstration was held outsidethe constituency surgery of Paul Boateng MP,who amused the campaign by telling them that“this government has done more for justice thanany in living memory”.

As a further indicator of just how bad Boateng’smemory must be, he has still not replied to anyof the questions put to him about non-disclosureof evidence, or Mark’s continued victimizationwithin the prison system.

Mark’s campaign has recently attracted a numberof high profile supporters – Mark Thomas, PaulFoot (!) and John McDonnell MP amongstothers. The response to this from the prisonsystem has been predictable. On 17 January2001 Mark was placed in segregation at HMPFrankland for “fomenting dissent”. Mark wassubsequently told he was to be moved to anotherprison.

Having been told by the Home Office that theyhad to give some reason for seeking to movehim, Frankland decided he had been“organizing a protest” although about what andon which days they have not thought toconsider. There appear to be two reasons forthis – firstly to disrupt lines of communicationbetween Mark and his supporters, journalists etcand secondly to ensure that Mark does not stay

at any jail long enough to build friendships or haveany influence.

The Prison Service and the Home Officeappear to have decided that Mark’s “reward” forfighting to prove his innocence will be a return toghosting and segregation that characterized theearlier years of his 12 year sentence.

At the end of January Mark was transferred to HMPWakefield – a clear punishment move, as Wakefieldis primarily a jail for sex offenders. In consequenceMark refused to go on the wing and was kept insegregated conditions in an unheated cell with onlyone blanket. At the time of writing he is on one ofthe wings at Wakefield, in a cell previouslycondemned as unfit by the Prison Service.

In response to this, the campaign picketed the PrisonService Head Quarters and the Home Office inLondon, and supporters in Yorkshire had a wellattended and somewhat loud demonstrationoutside the jail (congratulations on the fireworks!)

We would ask as many people as possible to spare10 minutes to write to the Home Office and thePrison Service calling for Mark to be moved fromWakefield to a non-dispersal jail such as HMP Garth,to see out his sentence.

Wakefield seems to be allowing Mark onlylimited access to mail, on a strict interpretation ofprison rules. They do however have to tell Markwhat mail he has received – all letters to Mark shouldbe sent recorded delivery to avoid mail being “lost”by the jail. Letters should always include a SAE. Ifyou believe Mark has not received your letter, takeit up with the Royal Mail in the first instance.

It is not simply the fact of Mark’s innocence thatshould provoke people to support the campaign.Ten years on from the release of the Birmingham

6, the state’s only response has been to makeconviction easier and appeal harder. By reducingthe prosecution’s duty to disclose, ditchingthe right to silence and if Straw gets hisway the ending of a right to elect for jurytrial in either-way cases, the goalposts havebeen moved significantly. Coupled with thecreation and under-funding of the CriminalCases Review Commission – as a means ofallowing the Home Secretary to duck politicalresponsibility for the continued imprisonment ofthe innocent – the state’s response is notto ensure that miscarriages of justice donot occur, but to ensure thatany miscarriages of justice are ever harder toexpose.

With the new Criminal Justice and Police Bill, andplans to force disclosure of previousconvictions at commencement of trial, its clearthat New Labour is determined that its secondterm will keep prison numbers at recordfigures.

Mark Barnsley’s case shows that “justice”is not available to working class people inthe courts. Fast track criminalisation ofworking class youth will simply fill theprisons with people fitted up as Mark was.In bidding to free Mark Barnsley we takethe first steps in opposing the criminalisationof all of us.

Letters of support to Mark Barnsley, WA 2897,HMP Wakefield, 5 Love Lane, Wakefield WF29AG. (please enclose a SAE to ensure reply)

JUSTICE FOR MARK BARNSLEY CAMPAIGNPO BOX 381 HUDDERSFIELD HD1 3XX

e-mail:[email protected]

Beware of ByersThe Government has recently announcedplans to review how workforces areconsulted regarding redundancies. Itwould be a mistake to imagine anysudden conversion to compassionatetreatment of workers by the Blairadministration. The real reason is adraft European directive establishing a“general framework” for informing andconsulting employees in the EuropeanUnion.

Stephen Byers, the secretary of statefor trade and industry has reiteratedthe government’s opposition toEuropean legislation on this subject.Byers has presided over the decimationof the British motor industry in muchthe same way as the Conservatives didfor the mining industry.

Businessmen fear the Europeanlegislation could lead to works councils.Britain, Germany, Denmark and Irelandhave formed a blocking minorityalthough the German government lookas though they may pull out after a

statement from Chancellor Schroderwhich said “Germany has nodifficulties with the consultationdirective”.

It is thought the directive couldcome into force by 2004 unlessthe Labour government can comeup with sufficient delaying tacticsto put the measure off.

Works councils are nomore than aconcessionary piece ofwindow dressing fromthe E.U. and anyonewho imagines realgains could be madefrom such bodies issurely naive.

The real issue isthe way Labourhas flung asideeven the remotestpretence of lookingafter the class whose

interests it was formed toadvance. Blair has courted bigbusiness since his election asleader in 1994. One of his firstactions was to drop employmentrights for workers from day oneof their employment, a measurewhich was backed by hispredecessor John Smith, hardlya revolutionary himself! Both Blair

and Byers have made references to businessmen as “wealth creators”. The fact is, anywealth created in society is made by theworking class and the only role bosses play ismis-managing affairs to such an extent thatthere needs to be redundancies in the firstplace.

Instead of works councils, we reallyneed Workers Councils and a system which

gears manufacture to theneeds of society which isrun by and on behalfthe working class. Need-less to say, Byers won’tbe calling for these, pre-ferring ‘social partnership’between bosses and T.U.C.unions. He is desperatefor this idea to work ashis career is on theline and he needs theT.U.C. to shore up histarnished image. Let’s hopethe whole thing falls flatand we can say bye byeByers.


as elitist terrorists but as an inte-grated part of the Class - theystarted it, we’ll have tofinish it!

Class society creates otherabuses based upon theprejudices of Ruling or MiddleClass such as gender, ethnicorigin, sexuality, disability. TheRuling Class often use these todivide our class. We must uniteon the basis of we have incommon our Working Classbackgrounds and needs.

The Class must fight thesedivisions, on all fronts. Aboveall the CWF believes thatpolitics cannot be separatedfrom life - and life from politics.We reject the missionary/ right-eous so called “revolutionary”Left. Our politics must be ful-filling and relevant to our everyday lives.

Working Class people must takeresponsibility for theirprogressive revolutionarypolitics - fly by night middleclass radicals have been the baneof our movement for as long asthe Working Class has existed.

OUR AIM

Therefore the aim of the CWFis to increase the militancy andself awareness of the WorkingClass in defending their interestsand solving their problems. Wedo this through propaganda,active participation and debateas equals.

DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

Class War has some dedicated readers inthat most awful of environments, theAmerican top security prison system. Whenone reader, John Schang was recentlyrefused his paper, we went straight to thetop. Oddly the American authorities do notseem to have recognised the author of ourletter of complaint.

The Class War Federation is anorganisation of groups andindividuals who have cometogether to change the Societywe live in, to improve the lot ofworking class people.

This Society is divided intoclasses based on control of itsinstitutions and wealth. TheRuling Class - those who “own”the factories or natural resources- whether it’s through shares orbeing chairman of the boardetc., who are under normalcircumstances supported by theMiddle Class - those who gaintheir position in society bypatronage of the Ruling Class -who carry out their dirty workof controlling and (dis)organising the working class whodo all the necessary work. Sucha society is the root cause ofmost of the problemsexperienced by Working Classpeople the World over. as theRuling Class has every intentionof keeping its privilegedposition it must be destroyed-this is Class War.

Real change can only comeabout by working class peopleorganising themselves to dealwith the problems that theyexperience and to provide forourselves.It is not about becoming bettertreated slaves but masters of ourdestiny. Direct action isnecessary against theindividuals and institutions whostand in the way of this. There isno alternative. Violence is a nec-essary part of the Class War - not

SWEET ON SCABS, TOUGH ONUNION MINERS

Following his landslide victory in1997, Tony Blair addressed the TUCconference. In a speech to thedelegates but really directed to hisfriends in the city, Blair offered “nofavours” to the un ions or the i rmembers.

Funny then that when Blair is giventhe cho ice between the scabanti-union UDM, and the NUM Blair’smessage o f “no favours” i sreplaced by one of throwing moneyand influence into the laps of theUDM.

First there is the test centres to whichall miners and ex-miners must go thohave their lungs tested for chronicbronchitis claims. In Nottingham andLeicester he locates them in UDMowned and operated buildings, whilstrefusing to allow the NUM to use itsbuildings in either scab coalfields orNUM heartlands.

Next they grant a claims handlingagreement to the UDM which allowsthe scab outfit to claim back millionsfrom claims and copperbottom anextens ive ra id ing sor t ie acrossBr i t i sh coa l f ie lds look ing fo rclaimants and taking out local radioadverts.

Needless to say the same facilitiesare denied the NUM, despite havingrequested them first. Consequentlythe UDM, which was dying a death,

is now prosperous whilst the NUM haslost valuable funding and influence.

Whilst in opposition, former Labourleaders promised, a f ter in tenselobbying from miners sacked, jailedand victimised during the strike, thatthe “first thing” they would do ongaining office would be to set therecord straight and reinstate the mensacked in the strike. Where this wasnot possible compensation, and at thevery least lost pension rights couldbe restored.

Typically, just as he did with banninghunt ing , B la i r subs t i tu ted acommi tment w i th a fudge - aCommiss ion o f Enqu i ry. Th isenqu i ry was not to look a t theinjustice of the recent history of thecoalfields and the price communitiespaid, including people who paid withtheir lives. Instead it was to see ifany ‘fresh evidence’ had emerged in‘individual cases’. Bad that all of this is,they have now actually canvassed theopinions of guess who? The UDM! Toask them if miners should be reinstatedor have their cases looked at again! Thevery same UDM that directly andindirectly caused the miners strike to belost, thousands to lose their jobs and mento be sacked, beaten and jailed.

Can Blair go any lower? As he startshis election tour around the country letsram the above facts down his smugthroat!

Join Class War!Class War membership costs £12 percalendar year (£6 unwaged) and is open toanybody who agrees with our politics and hasbeen in touch with local Class War group for 3months. Drop us a line to get involved!

13

THIS ISCLASSWAR


JUSTICE FOR HARRY STANLEYOn 22 September 1999 a middle-agedScottish man, Harry Stanley, was shotdead by the police in east London, ashort distance from his home. He wasunarmed, and his shooting causedconsiderable anger locally. Class Warspoke to a friend of Harry’s who hasbeen involved in the campaign toobtain justice for both Harry and theStanley family.

Class War: Can you tell usthe circumstances of how HarryStanley died?

Justice for Harry Stanley: Harry, notlong out of hospital after having a tumourremoved was returning from his brother’shouse with the now famous table leg. Hestopped for a drink in the Alexandra pub.When he left somebody phoned thepolice to say an rish man had left the pubwith a sawn off shot gun. Harry is thenchallenged by the cops and shot once inthe hand and once in the head.

Although this took place less than 100yards from his home it took 18 hours forthe police to inform his family, eventhough he had clear identification on him.A postmortem was carried out without theconsent of the family which is illegal.

CW: What have your relations been likewith the Metropolitan Police since theshooting? Have they offered an apologyand compensation?

JFHS: Our relations have been hostile.No apology or compensation has beenoffered, whilst the officers concernedremain unnamed and on the beat.

CW: At one stage letters stronglycriticising the campaign startedappearing in the local media. What wasall that about?

JFHS: A bloke called Yasmin Fyas hadbeen slagging off the campaign in theHackney Gazette letters page. No one

called Yasmin Fyas lives at the addressgiven – the campaign believes the policewere using this as an alias to slag us off.

CW: Has there been a lot of support fromlocal people?

JFHS: Yes all the demonstrations wehave organised have been well attendedand with ‘real people’ from Hackney, notjust the usual leftie types.

CW: What are your objectives? What canbe achieved in that for any conviction tooccur the police will not only have toinvestigate but charge and then get aconviction of fellow officers?

JFHS: We have three main demands:A fully independent public enquiryThe police officers responsible sackedand charged with murderArmed Response Units taken over thestreets of BritainIf the campaign is strong enough it ispossible to get charges laid – othercampaigns like the Jim Ashley campaignshow this.

CW: Twenty years ago if something likethis had happened there would have been

a riot. Do you think the working class hasnow accepted police violence to acertain extent?

JFHS: The police had phoned DianeAbbot MP before they even told thefamily. That shows they were scared ofthe community response. People thinkeverybody kicked off all the time in the1980s but that was not always the case.

CW: Given that this is one case amongstmany historically – is it worth puttingpressure on people with power becausethey have never shown any indication ofchanging for the better? Don’t you thinkan eye for an eye is a principle response?

JFHS: We need to fight for justice andto expose the system like the StephenLawrence case did. Revenge would notwork – if they lose one cop they justreplace them with another.

CW: Are there any similarities betweenthe police’s role in say industrial disputesand their wider role in working classareas of the big cities?

JFHS: Yes there is. If you look at theway drugs raids are used to put on a

show of the police’s force in working classareas. They could easily go off to richareas and arrest people with cocaine,instead of teenagers with a bit of dope.

CW: If what the police are about isdiscipline and oppression surely weshould be opposing their very existance?

JFHS: Yeah, but not everybody in thecampaign would agree – especially theVicar from Bethnal Green!

CW: What support have you had fromthe families of other people killed orframed by the police?

JFHS: Loads! I can list the names PaddyHill, Delroy Lindo the Sylvester family,Christopher Alder the list could go on andon.

CW: What advice would you give to otherfamilies who go through this type ofterrible trauma?

JFHS: The best way to get over it is tofight and organise. Link with othercampaigns but make sure you involve theunions to get money!

CW: Nearly two years down the line –where does the campaign go next?

JFHS: Legally a Judicial Review of theCrown Prosecution Service’s decisionnot to prosecute the officers concerned.Harry’s family are going on a nationalspeaking tour with with other familiescampaigning for justice. This will lead upto a huge demonstration inOctober/November time. We don’t wantto give too many details away right nowbut it will be lively!

Now is very much the time forpeople to give this campaign thesupport it deserves. ContactJUSTICE FOR HARRY STANLEYPO BOX 29644, LONDON E2 8TS.TELEPHONE 0788 4096222.

The term “Stock Transfer” should (andhopefully does) send a shiver down thespine of every working class person.

The continuation of the Tory policy of theprivatisation of council housing by newLabour is both sickening and frightening.Thankfully it seems to have motivatedtenants, trades unionists and classconscious groups into a growingcampaign of opposition. Quite simply wedo not want our homes sold off tohousing associations and profiteeringyuppies who will bring us higher rents,poorer building maintenance, insecurityof tenancy and a total disregard for theinterests of tenants.

On 24th January a rally and lobbyof Parliament was held against thesell-offs. The fight against this newwave of privatisation is a gainingstrength and seems to be a broad church.Local groups are being set up aroundthe UK and we urge all Class Warreaders to get involved and argueagainst profit, capitalism and authority.These homes were built for andby US – not to be bought by speculators.Social housing, whatever its oftenconsiderable faults, was one of the fewreal pro-working class social policies ofthe post-war era. We should not give itup easily.

Our Homes Are Not For Sale! G r a f f i t iCompetitionCongratulations to the man with noname from Berlin for this superb pieceof work spotted last year. Send yourhandiwork to the London address - £10for the winner!

Sod-ActionSod-Action are a cleverly namedgroup formed in Bristol to campaignagainst the company Sodexho. Basedin the USA, Sodexho are one of thewor ld ’s la rges t p r iva te pr isonbuilders, and are getting their toe inthe door over here.

In the UK they use the name UKDetent ion Serv ices Ltd, runningprisons and the Voucher Scheme forAsylum Seekers. In Belgium theyhave recently been given the contractto administer a voucher scheme forthe unemployed and to top it all offthey do catering and clothing workfor the filth as well.

The animal r ights movement hasshown us that activists wil l ing toexpose and then campaign againstpar t icu lar companies can havespectacular success. Could a uniteddiverse campaign against Sodexhoscore similar goals?

Contact Sod-Action at-Box 95, 82 Colston Street,Bristol BS1 5BB

Or e-mail them [email protected]

“ .... the Queen and other members of the Royal Family hadbeen concerned at the Princess’s lack of appetite over theChristmas period. She ate a jam tart and it caused greatexcitement”Lady Glenconner commenting on the illness of the Queen’s sister, PrincessMargaret. Class War has two pieces of advice for Margaret - eat yourdinner your silly cow, and when you run a bath it is normal to put in coldwater as well as hot.

“If you define socialism as equality ofopportunities so that all people in ourcountry have the best chance torealise their potential, that’s what Iwant to do”Chancellor of the Exchequer GordonBrown in the Daily Mirror on 9th March.Class War’s definition (and indeed anydictionary on sale in your local bookshop)tends to include concepts such ascommunity control of production anddistribution,e q u a l i t yand theabsence ofthe profitsystem. Stillits nice to seeGordon ismaintaininghis party’slong traditionof knowingn o t h i n ga b o u tsocialism!

this issues win-Mr Moneybags


TOP TEN ECO - TOFFSClass War presents our guide towho’s who at the top of the greenmovement. This is not to say we don’tthink recycling is a good idea and soon. But we must be aware of the classmotivation of green policy and theeffect it will have on the working class.Abstract and utopian green ideasimplemented in a top down fashion willonly have a destructive impact on theworking class, as it is us who will payfor it economically, socially andenvironmentally!

Secondly the one thing none of thesebastards seem keen to do is recycletheir money!

1. The chief royal parasite himself -

Prince Charles. When not having an indepth and challenging conversation withhis plants, he gets his gardeners to dohis organic gardening for him - at ourexpense. Also shows a passing interestin free-range animals, before he blowsthem out of the skies or hounds them todeath on horseback.

2. Zac Goldsmith. Following in his

bigoted dad’s footsteps he seemsdestined to Lord it over us in a new agefashion at the Ecologist magazine.

3. Lord Melchett, no not of Blackadder

fame - the Lord is one of the golden boysof Greenpeace who do anything to geton telly.

4. Zac’s uncle Teddy Goldsmith, who

founded the Ecologist magazine andplayed an ideological role in thefoundation of the Green party.

5. The Duke of Wellington. The old

Etonians 400 acres at Stratfield SayeHouse in Berkshire - or “Royal Berks” asthey call it - has organic farming andpublic access. The Prince of Walesestates are far less accessible to thepublic - fancy that....

6. Marchioness of Worcester. The

future Duchess of Beaufort is a trusteeof Friends of the Earth, and associatedirector of the International Society forEcology and Culture. Look out for her atthe snobby Duke of Beaufort’s hunt.

7. Tessa Tennant. Director of the

investment trust, Global Care Investments- part of National Provident. Tessa what wefind so horrible about you is your wallet!

8. The Hon Miriam Rothschild. An

ecologist, and a world authority on fleas!Given the company she keeps she mustbe permeantly surrounded by parasites.

9. The Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt. Yet

another old Etonian, Porritt has beeninfluential in the Green Party and Friendsof the Earth, and is now Director of the

think tank “Forum for the Future”. Thethinking persons Eco-Toff. Bosombuddies with old big ears Charles, wefear he will be lording it over us for yearsto come.

10. Baroness Young of Scone. A

Blairite life peer who is chair of EnglishNature and a deputy chair of the BBC,this is one scone guaranteed to put youoff your elevenses!

BEHIND

THE NEWSHave you ever noticed the way certaininternational media stories dominate theBritish media for a set time, and thenvanish from view? The best example isSouth Africa that post-apartheid is of nointerest to the British media at all, eventhough poverty and suffering continueunder the ANC as it did under theapartheid regime.

Another example is East Timor, nolonger a liberal favourite since its votefor independence from Indonesia, thecountry struggles to get a mention evenin the so-called serious papers. We aretherefore happy to quote from anAustralian activist who wrote to ClassWar after spending some time in thecountry. “The UN and multi-nationalmil i tary and capital ist forces arecurrently in charge. Working class EastTimorese are getting fucked over onceagain and they know it. Its just a newphase of exploitation and oppression. Italked to hundreds of people around thecapital, Dili. More and more people aregetting pissed off with the foreignerswho are supposed to be there to helpthe people and rebuild the country, butare seen cruising around in flash carswith their mobile phones and comput-ers, cut off from the reality of thestreets.”

People in East Timor have a long recordof f ight ing against imperial istaggression having locked horns with thePortugese, Japanese and Indonesiansover the centuries. Let’s hope they turnon the UN officers, supposedly thereto protect them.

FIRING FROM THE HIP

As a rule American politicians are evenworse set than British one’s, but then againnot many people have heard of TomAlciere, the former Republican (!)representative on the New Hampshirelegislature. In January Alciere resignedafter a newspaper discovered he hadplaced hundreds of anti-police statementson Internet discussion sites.

We are happy to reproduce his views infull:

“There is nothing wrong withslaughtering a cop. Just throw thecarcass into the dumpster with the restof the garbage. Cops are nothing butvicious, brutal thugs anyway”

“Nobody will ever be safe until the lastcop is dead”

“It’s unfortunate that cops do make itnecessary (to kill them) when they’rewaging a war on drugs, and I view copsas enemy officers”

Mr Alciere, who inspects circuit boardsat a factory for a living, denied he hadmisled voters saying no one had askedhim about his views on the police. Hisproposed bills, which are now unlikelyto go forward, included the legalisationof drugs, reducing the minimum drink-ing age and the replacement of schoolswith online learning. You are wastingyour time in the Republican Party MrAlciere, from what we have heard youshould join Class War at once!

Keeping His DistanceIn September 1998 a former resident ofHackney returned to the east Londonborough to talk about the perils of SocialExclusion. He should know. The formerresident was Prime Minister Tony Blair wholived on Mapledene Road for 6 years in the1980s, and wisely turned down theopportunity to become a LabourCouncillor in the borough. He has gone along way in 20 years.

Blair’s visit was to praise there-development of theHolly Street estate. Hewent on state “Whatan incredibletransformation. Thisis the type ofinitiative we need tosee replicated acrossthe country”

As Hackney’sself-induced financialcrisis has taken holdone of the council’s firstsuggested cutbackswas …. on the HollyStreet Estate. Oneblock is reserved forpensioners only, andcomes with a concierge. The Labour-Torycoalition’s suggestion was to cut the conciergeto reduce the council’s deficit. No mention ofcourse of cutting their own salaries orexpenses, and certainly no suggestion thatTony Blair himself, so keen to promote thearea 18 months earlier, should return for thispart of the incredible transformation!

Hackney council has a strategy. Despite 3brilliant strikes by its workforce, it wishes to

push ahead with plans to cut the salaries andterms and conditions of its workers. Astreamline, fitter Hackney is moreacceptable to big business. By putting uprents and council tax, whilst reducing councilservices they intend to not only reduce theirdebts (which, despite talk of bankruptcy arearguable no worse than some other inner –city council’s) but to tighten the vice on thepoorest people in the borough. Council leaderMax Caller and the Lab-Tory leadership ofJules Pipe and Eric Ollerenshaw appear

so confident oftheir positionsthat they havesimultaneouslytaken on a largesection of theirworkforce, and asignificant sectionof the localpopulation. The lasttime they tried to dothat was during thePoll Tax and we allknow how thatended up.

Two excellentmethods of fightingthe council have

been proposed which we endorsetotally. One is a sort of selective rent strikewhere residents simply pay their rent at the2000-01 rate, rather than the increased rate.If tens of thousands of residents do this, thecouncil’s already low expectations of rentcollection will fall even further.

Like all workplaces Hackney Council relieson the goodwill of its staff. Each generalelection hundreds of staff volunteer to work

as tellers assistants at schools and librariesserving as polling stations. These premisesneed to be opened in the morning, and theynormally are by a union member. They haveto be staffed throughout the day. If workerssimply decline to volunteer on polling day mostof the polling stations will be closed. Not theirproblem. No legal action can be taken againstthem, or their unions as they are simplydeclining to volunteer.

It will however be the problem of council leaderMax Caller, who is the returning officer forthe election, something that involves onerouslegal responsibilities. As it is the council andthe councillors that are the problem, whatbetter response could there be than toensure on council election day May 3rd, theyget a timely kick up the arse. To disrupt theparliamentary elections by this tactic wouldbe an act of national significance.

"Cor life is very busy for youUrban Alliance people innit ay.Why don’t you get out there andstart killing some foxes I killed afew this morning and by the waystop putting stickers on my car."Yet more rigorous intellectual debatefrom the world of killing animals forfun.

“Get out of bed you lazy fuckers.While you’re lying there wanking,I’m out there killing foxes.”Telephone message left on theUrban Alliance phone on the5th

thMarch 2001. Nice to see that

at the time the ‘country sports’fraternity were obeying the call tostay out of fields due to the foot andmouth outbreak.


SOLIDARITY NEEDED INPOLAND

No we don’t mean Lech Welesa and hisRoman Catholic Church front group!Solidarity is needed in Poland and throughoutEurope with Tomasz Wilkoszewski who isserving 15 years for the murder of a Polishnazi. Tomasz was jailed for 15 years after Polishactivists fought back against the rising tide ofnazism, particularly in youth culture in Poland.His appeal was recently refused so thiscampaign needs to be kick started to shamethe authorities. He has already served 4 years.

Donations and mesasages of support shouldgot to:

Warhead, PO Box 129, 15-662, Bialystok26, Poland.ABC Poland, PO Box 5, 60-966 Poznan 31Poland.

Also e-mail [email protected]

P.A.I.N “OUR UNIVERSESTOPS HERE”(CD, available from all good recordshops)

This is the long awaited second full-lengthrelease from Propaganda and InformationNetwork. Styling themselves as southLondon’s finest exponents of nuclear dub,genetically modified ska and BSE lacedpunk rock, P.A.I.N should need nointroduction to many Class War readers.

The album’s theme is the prison systemand its use against the defenceless, andlaws that cannot be defended. In ouruniverse they don’t exist …….

For more information on P.A.I.N.check the Iron Man websitehttp://www.music.mercia.org/ironman/pain/.en

NOTES FROM THEBORDERLANDMagazine, Issue 3, £3 from Class Waror from Larry O’Hara, BM Box 4769London WC1N 3XX

Notes from the Borderland goes fromstrength to strength. This issue containsthe first detailed, serious analysis of the1999 nailbomb campaign in London, asopposed to the police/Searchlightsponsored analysis provided elsewhere.Given one of the survivors of the Soho bombis taking legal action over the police’sfailure to prevent the bomb, this promisesto be the first chapter in a story of nationalsignificance.

Londoners will find the analysis of theLawrence enquiry by Russell Miller equallyground breaking. An enquiry seized uponby the liberal left as earth-shattering andsome sort of defining moment in history,looks very different under a critical light.The liberal MacPherson basically deliveredus no justice for the Lawrence family, nopolice officers prosecuted or sacked,publication both on the Internet and in theinitial report of witnesses home addressesand ultimately the likely removal of the lawof double jeopardy.

The constant themes of O’Hara’s work arethe use of the media by the police andsecurity services for their own propagandapurposes, and analysis of the breakdownin relationships between different sectionsof the state. Given the lazy way someAnarchists tend to view the state as amonolithic block, rather than as a vehiclefor overlapping and sometimes competingsections of the ruling class, we hope Notesfrom the Borderland goes from strength tostrength.

POLITICAL PRISONERSIN FRANCE

In February this year two anti-fascistactivists from the city of Marseille in the southof France, Yves Peirat and William Ferrari,were convicted of a number of militant antifascist actions. Between 1991 and 1998 asthe Franc Tireur Partisans (FTP PartisanSharpshooters) Peirat and Ferrari were allegedto have set fire to and bombed offices of theFrench fascist party the Front National (FN)as well as buildings where they met.

Although they did not injure anybody, on thesixth anniversary of the day that a group of FNfly posters murdered a young north African,Ibrahim Ali, the court of Marseille condemnedYves Peirat to a staggering 5 years in prisonand William Ferrari to 18 months suspendedsentence. The two were also condemned topay the fascist councils they attacked 750,000francs (approx £75,000) in damages.

These actions were carried out to combat therise of the extreme right in the south of Francerepresented not only by the murder of IbrahimAli, but by oppressive racist regimes takingcontrol in a number of southern French townsand cities: these included Orange, Toulon andVitrolles which is like the British National Partyholding a majority of council seats inLiverpool, Blackpool and Chester.

The radicalisation of the methods used by theFTP was a way to show the fash that theiropposition would not give in to theirintimidation and also that alternatives to stateled opposition to fascism exists. The actionsof the FTP gained a large degree of popularsupport.

Class War fully supports the action andprinciples that these two anti fascistactivists showed. The punitive sentence thatPeirat received from the French state is clearlymeant to be a lesson to other anti-fascistactivists. To help fight for the freedom of Peiratand removal of the fines support groups havebeen started up by French anti-fascist groups.

If you want to help Yves and William, a benefitt-shirt is available for 65 French francs (about£6.50 but if you send them a tenner it wouldcover postage and give a donation) from:Solidarite Resistance Anti-Fasciste,21 ter Rue Voltaire, 75011, Paris, France.

Information is also available from thecommittee for the liberation of Yves Peirat andWilliam Ferrari at:Comité, Theatre Toursky, Passage LeoFERRE, 13003, Marseille.

COAL WAS OUR LIFE COAL IS OUR LIFEby Royce Turner (£12.99, Sheffield University Press)

In the 1950s a book regarded as aclassic, Coal Is Our Life studied a pit townin West Yorkshire – the people, theiraspirations, their lives. Royce Turner hasreturned to the same locations and founda devastating contrast.

Turner is polemical, even confrontational.The book erupts from the suffocatingswamp of PR sociology which hasburied the decimated pit villages since themass closures of 1992-3. The bookchallenges the self-congratulatorybusiness schemes, job creation schemes,retraining schemes, regeneration andreinvestment schemes who constantly tellus they are at work, which everywherepublish reports and surveys (they seemto be the biggest growth area themselves)yet still poverty, deprivation and lossremain. How can so many organizations,awash with European and lottery moneybe running so fast and yet standing still?

On housing in Featherstone in 1996: “Thefamilies that lived in them were beset bysocial and economic problems. On topof that the residents were struggling tosurvive in the face of a poor localreputation. It is almost as if the housesare a physical representation of hopesdashed of a vision for the future turnedsour. People had secure employment,brand new modern houses, what wereseen as good prospects for their kids.Now forty odd years later, the housesare crumbling, and the lives havecrumbled too. Old battered cars sit onoil-soaked drives. If it is sunny peoplesit on the door step for half a day. There’snothing much else to do.”

The book points to areas none of theincoming social missionaries cancomprehend – as they never understoodwhat we had in pit communities in the firstplace, how the hell can they understandwhat we have lost?

It is more than the sum of many parts –roots, pride, class identity, community,

culture, politics, vision that you chooseto lump together. Certainly grim toil,death, injury, disease, conservatism arealso words and concepts which battle withthe former descriptions of pit life – noone here is looking for that. Instead wehave poverty strewn, heroin addicted,crime-ridden villages.

“The pop factory represented the onlyforeign investment in Featherstone. Yetforeign investment we were toldthroughout the 1980s – asdeindustrialisation savaged large partsof the economy - was going to be thesalvation of local economies. Lookingat a small town like this gets you awayfrom the platitudes and generalizationsof national politicians who would noteven know where Featherstone wasexcept when it was needed to provide arock solid Labour seat for some anointedrising star ……

Yet these were the two themes of the1980s and much of the 1990s. A newlyrejuvenated small business sector, andinward investment by multi-nationalswere going to transform the economy.Neither has happened in Featherstone,and neither will”

The author gets sucked down toodeep by the depression and despairhe sees all around him. Yet class angerremains 13 years after the defeatof the miners strike, when Ian MacGregordied, someone felt enough togo onto the site of a former Barnsleycolliery and paint a tributeon the walls!

Attend the annual Durham Miners Galaseven years after the last DurhamColliery closed and see the prideand class anger as the bannersretake the streets carrying their oldmessage of class struggle and socialism.50,000 turned out in July 2000.At the time of writing the NUM is ballotingagain for strike action. Class politics

still strike a chord inpit communities, butit would be adownright lie tosuggest most eyeshad their visionfixed in that direction.

The antisocialspread of emptinessconsumes everythingaround it and oneneeds realdetermination not tosuccumb to it. Weneed a national fightback linking these isolated pit villages tostruggles and issuesnationwide, we needa return of vision and hope.

This is a book thatneeds to be read –lying down and dyinghas never been ourway of dealing withhardship.

Simon Jones Campaign

On 6th March Richard Martel lof Chichester appeared in courtcharged with the manslaughterof Simon Jones at Shoreham Docks.Simon was ki l led on his f i rstday at work. Martell ’s company,Euromin, face a separate charge ofcorporate manslaughter.

That this case has reached the courtsis a testimony tothe superb workdone by Simon’sfr iends andfamily over thepast three years.Well done!

“The Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union calculates thatVauxhall has made about £100,000 profit per employee over thepast decade”The Guardian 20th January 2001 discussing the proposed closure of the Vauxhallplant in Luton. How much has your boss made out of you in the past decade?


NO GOOD, NO USE, NO CLASS“No Logo” by Naomi Klein(£14.99, Flamingo)

This is a must read for the movement at theminute - not because it’s any good butbecause of the hype surrounding it. It ismeant to be the bible of the new anticapitalist, anti globalisation movement andironically is published by Rupert Murdoch’sstable. We wonder what the old Wappingprintworkers would have to say about this?

In her introduction Klein in the journalist waywaffles away in a meaningless manner, andoccassionally puts forward her main ideascarefully hidden in the text. On page xviishe says we have a “a world-wide styleculture.... this post national vision...another kind of global village, where theeconomic divide is widening and culturalchoices narrowing.” On page xviii and xixshe finally manages to say “this book ishinged on a simple hypothesis: that as morepeople discover the brand-name secretsof the global logo web, their outrage willfuel the next big political movement, a vastwave of opposition squarelytargeting transnational corporations,particularly those with very highname-brand recognition... simply put,anti-corporatism is the brand of politicscapturing the imagination of the nextgeneration of troublemakers andshit-disturbers.”

To prove that this is true Klein would justhave to describe the local casesthroughout Western Europe wherepeople are busily campaigning againstBrand names. You’d imagine managers ofthe Gap, Sports shops, designer shops andMcDonalds would have troublegetting to work in every town where there isa store. This is obviously nonsense.

On a national level in Britain there is no AntiAsda movement now they have been boughtby Wal-Mart, a bete noire for Klein. Onelocal example of this is the Northern city ofSunderland. This is a developing universitytown with a Gap, Asda, and most of all - asuccesful Football team with crowds of47,000 sponsored by Nike who Klein spendsa lot of time campaigning against.Sunderland FC has 3 shopsselling its wares, and countless other sportsshops throughout the North sellSunderland Nike clothes. Nike has a 4 yearcontract with Sunderland FC, and on Klein’s

“this book is hinged on a simple hypothesis:that as more people discover the brand-namesecrets of the global logo web, their outragewill fuel the next big political movement, a vastwave of opposition squarely targetingtransnational corporations, particularly thosewith very high name-brand recognition...simply put, anti-corporatism is the brand ofpolitics capturing the imagination of the nextgeneration of troublemakers andshit-disturbers.”

“a picture of corporate space as a fascist statewhere we all salute the logo and have littleopportunity for criticism because ournewspapers, television stations, Internetservers, streets and retail spaces are allcontrolled by multinational corporate interests.”

model this is amade to measurecampaign for her‘new wave oftroublemakers’ toengage in.

However, on theground in the realworld what isthere? Answer:NOTHING. There isno anti-Nikecampaign in or around Sunderland, nor anyidentifiable anti-Nike sentiment in even asmall proportion of the population. Whatthere is, is a vast working class army ofpeople who have felt the force of classsociety for generations who elect monkeysin suits as Labour politicians time and timeagain.

There was the case of Newcastle Uniteddirector (Shepperd) calling Newcastle’swomen supporters “dogs”, and callingsupporters generally “mugs” for buying

Newcastle strips for £40 when they are madein the Third world for £4 but this has still notled to any long term campaigns. The peopleof the North East know this is exploitationbut are engaged in the struggle for survivalin the ways they know. One of them isbuying vast quantities of goods in the Blackmarket. Both Alcohol and tobaccosmuggling are carried on in hugequantities, and also there is the retail ofcounterfit clothing (Sunderland, Newcastleand Middlesborough tops) at substantiallycheaper prices. Even Arsenal issponsored by Nike yet there is noanti-Nike campaign within the fan base.

Klein’s work (and it is boosting hermedia career) has all the flaws you’dexpect from an expansionist NorthAmerican Foreign policy (albeit a left wingone) She talks in great detail aboutAmerican brandnames and howproduction in theWest has beenreplaced byproduction in theThird World andtemps in the1stworld (Ch. 10).These descriptionsand of the first worldinvestment in socalled “free tradezones” (Ch. 9), arethe best parts of thebook and we wouldrefer peopledirectly to them.

It is substantiallyweaker whentalking about howthe class struggle has changed as a result(and working class, or protest history as awhole), & doesn’t talk about any Marxist,neo-Marxist or anarchist theorists or theirmodels at all. This means that thedescription of a new anti Brand movementin America is then put forward as the modelof anti-capitalist growth in the West as awhole and in particular Britain, which shementions in the text often, devotes a specificchapter to, and she also takes inspirationfrom the McLibel case. This is absurd onthe evidence presented by Klein and easilydisproved. Funnily enough, it is only afterthe publication of her book that activists havetaken to targetting the well-known brandnames in Britain.

Also the evidence Klein presents isoften too general and employed withoutsufficient grounding to be useful.Further like the academic trend to take theclass politics out of situationism, Kleinconstantly avoids the notion of class andher fleeting discussions of working classpolitics are inane. As is her annoying habitof throwing things in whose relevance is notonly contestable, but useless eg. theChumbawamba quote on p. 77. We thinkKlein is Neither new, illuminating nor

beyond middle class indignation. That’s howgrateful we are.... Finally there are no ideasabout the way forward for strugglethroughout the world, nor should we expectany for as she says on page xviii it is a bookbased on “first hand observation”. She is ajournalist who is merely mediating ourmovement and history in the bourgeoispress, for the bourgeois press

In the last paragraph of the introduction (pagexxi) Klein insists:“the book is an attempt toanalyse and document the forcesopposing corporate rule, and to lay out theparticular set of cultural andeconomic conditions that made theemergence of that oppositioninevitable. Part 1, “No Space”,examines the surrender of culture andeducation to marketing. Part 11, “NoChoice”, reports on how the promise of a

vastly increased array of cultural choicewas betrayed by the forces of mergers,predatory franchising, synergy andcorporate censorship. And Part 111, “NoJobs”, examines the labor [can’t these Yanksspell?] market trends that are creatingincreasingly tenuous relationships toemployment for many workers, includingself employed, McJobs and outsourcing,as well as part-time and temp labor. It isthe collision of and the interplay amongthese forces, the assault on the threesocial pillars of employment, civil libertiesand civic space, that is giving rise to theanticorporate activism chronicled in the lastsection of the book. Part 1V, “No Logo”, anactivism that is sowing the seeds of a genu

ine alternative tocorporate rule.”

In reply we wouldsay that thetendencies Kleinwrites about inParts 1 and 2were virtuallyidentical to thosewritten by‘ a n o t h e rspokesman of a

generation’ Herbert Marcuse in “OneDimensional Man”, and the lack ofknowledge of this is shocking. Knowledgeof this would have greatly improved the book.Klein says “a picture of corporate spaceas a fascist state where we allsalute the logo and have little opportunityfor criticism because our newspapers,television stations, Internet servers, streetsand retail spaces are all controlled bymultinational corporate interests.” Thesimilarities between this and Marcuse arethere for anybody who has read both;

Marcuse was the first to spot the irrationalityof this society as a whole. “We submit tothe peaceful production of the means ofdestruction”, and chapter headingslike “The Closing of the Political Universe”and “The Closing of the Universe ofDiscourse” are themes stolen by Klein inher ignorance. Today this manifestsitself in the fact that people arelaid off in one country only to makemore work for us all by re-importingthe goods back into the areaswhere there is now unemploymentafter they have been made abroad.

Klein is at her weakest whentalking about the political situation inBritain and her chapter on Reclaim theStreets is particularly poor. Of theBirmingham anti-capitalist actionin May 1998 she states (happily

knowing andfreely admittingthat “she wasn’tthere”) that“instead of rocksand bottles, theweapon ofchoice was thati n c r e a s i n g l ypopular piece ofslapstick ammo:the custard pie.”

This is totalbullshit! We werethere that dayand not onecustard pie wasspotted. Insteadthere was a largenumber of up for ittypes and local

youths who were doing the normal “polic-ing” of these events by keeping the cops atarms length, and away from the soundsystem and dancing hippy fools. We sawcops getting kicked and one was trappedas a cry of “piggy in the middle” went up,though he got out with only minor damageunfortunatly.

The weapon of choice for those who wereactually there, was anything to be found fromthe Bullring street market - tons of veg, boxesand so on were thrown as well as the usualbottles and bricks, with a camera crewgetting attacked as well. Despite a mediablackout at the time, several months laterthis event was billed in the Daily Mirror as aserious riot and photos were published ofthose who were wanted by the police. Somuch for the fluffy nonsense.

These events are only successful becauseof the way the law works in Britain - theycould quite easily be smashed off thestreets and what would the hippies do then?Go back to their fucking teepees never tobe seen again cos they can’t handlepolitical realities.

In conclusion, No Logo is at its best on adescriptive level in the shift from product tobrand, and the employment relations in “FreeTrade Zones”. However it is weaker andactually wrong on a number of other fronts.Notably economics, attempts to imposewhat’s happening in America onto Britain,history, political analysis and arguments todo with mobilizing issues. We wereparodying the Nike swoosh logo nearly 10years ago!. Klein is totally ignorant of thisand several other things that matter. As perusual with academics, it’s a case of too littletoo late.

Class War Issue 7912

THE PROBLEM OFREVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITYAND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY -

OR A REVIEW OF"REFLECTIONS ON MAYDAY"

published by Mayday 2000, P.O. Box2474, London, N8 0HW.

While life is quite comfortable for mostpeople in western society, and we havethe trappings of the welfare state, and weall know that revolution isn’t round thecorner (except the SWP), it is going tobe a hard struggle to articulate that notonly can our lives be so much more thanthey are, but revolutionary change is anecessity if our lives, or at least ourdescendants’ lives are not to be reducedto choas, crisis and poverty.

While most organizations in the Lenninisttradition contribute in various economicstruggles, they fail to push the autonomyof the working class and the liberty ofindividuals within the class.

Class War and the Anarcho-Communistmovement have faced up to this and alsoto the need for constantly changingtactics as the state and ruling class, withththeiruperior resources, learn to copewith the ways that we struggle. ClassWars’ unique role as a newsdpaper wasarticulating the interconnection betweenyouth disillusionment , industrialdisputes, profiteering and corruption andother direct attacks to our class such asthe Poll Tax. We showed how fightingback can be empowerment.

The problems we face will not go away,and this article was brought about by acritique of the contributions to“Reflections on Mayday”. This pamphletprints peoples 'reflections' on the maydayevent last year and contains a broad rangeof ideas - reactionary (eg theuseless articles by AB, Jem Bendell, Kirk,and others had no worth in themwhatsoever - why we are even thinkingabout them is beyond us) andprogressive (or a combination of the 2 -like the article reprinted from "Do Or Die"no. 8. - their article in "Do or Die" no. 9about Mayday was far better) It revealsthat the same issues occur time and timeagain, and also reveals the true classcomposition of what passes for theanarchist movement.

"Mayday 2000 A Festival of AntiCapitalist Ideas and Action" was exactlythe same as other events, and even J18.It was a very partial mobilisation of thepossible sources of fightback there areavailable. From being one of the leadingsectors of working class revolution theminers ("miners" meaning wives, relativesand communities) in their northernheartlands are not even considered to beworth approaching. They (classenemies) say, and its incredible thatpeople even within the anarchistmovement listen to this nonsense, "that

the miners were defeated and that there'snext to none left anyway". This was dealtwith in issue 80 of Class War, which saidthat the miners were not exterminated,the struggle is going on now and today inthese regions with people andcommunities who are very often highlyclass conscious. That we are currentlydivided is not the issue, just how we arebest to go about composing the workingclass struggles is....

The article placed in the beginning of thepamphlet is obviously the one that thepublishers think is the most important andit's a shame that so much faith is placedinto the radical tourists calling themselvesthe "Bash Street Kids". No analysis,seemingly however radical, is worth a beanunless it is situated in the realmovement of the working class and ourclass composition. The main mistake theBash Street Kids make is that ofconfusing the anarchist movement or "ourmovement" as they call it with therevolutionary movement of the workingclass (for this is the only group capable ofoverturning the capitalist society). For Bashstreet Kids to extend their radical ideasoutside this real movement of the workingclass shows their misunderstanding of thetasks facing us all.

Overall you have to have a lot of patienceto wade through a lot of these irritatingarticles, that show there has been nodevelopment in our movements classcomposition and ideas for some time now.

The problem is that anarchists haveelevated their ideal (an anarchistsociety) into a strategy that is thought towork (if only we could discover it) in thissociety. This chasing of the 'Holy Grail ' isplainly nonsense, and in fact representsthe worse subsitutionist and depoliticisedparts of anarchist impetuism. Anarchistactivity must be able to work in aneveryday manner where people live andwork, and deal with the problems they faceif we really want to participate in a massmovement (and not a Movement of theghetto) For example, to get somebodywhose been framed out of prison it willprobably be best to work within thesystem (collect evidence, write tonewspapers/MP's etc) and not storm thewalls of the prison (a classicalanarchist tactic that is only possible intimes of crises) We must utilise all sorts ofstrategies to build and include people inour movement if we want to succeed inthe long term. This 'social democratic'activity does not make you any less of ananarchist for we still agree on thefinal goal. Persuading the anarchistsagainst their obsessions and hedonism isa hard task though.

At the beginning of the pamphlet, there aresome good points, and someworthwhile debate that is worthcontinuing, but the deeper you dig, themore irritating and barking articles cropup with increasing regularity.

What is more surprising - and we’restill a bit stunned - is the assessmentrunning in several key art iclesthroughout the magazine thatthe “ant i-capital ists have scorednotable successes and their influence,with governments and with internationalinstitutions such as the World Bank andthe International Monetary Fund, isgrowing.” (Clive Crook - an apt namefor a capitalist p.15)

Other articles include good analysis ofNGO’s by Adam Roberts, nongovernmental organisations and theirrelationship to activism and politicalinfluence. Plus the great idea (forcapitalists) that it is better to co-optthem than to ignore or take them on.We feel slightly differently!

They also believe according to AdrianWooldr idge, that the pol i t icalenvironment for capital ism “wi l lcont inue to get more host i le, asanti-globalisation protests roll on andinternational organisations bend overbackwards to appease theprotesters... many business peopledismiss these protests as nothingmore than a distract ion. Theyargue that globalisation is being drivenby technology and that there isnothing that anybody, includingMolotov Cocktai l throwingdemonstrators, can do to put thegenie back in the bott le.This is profoundly wrong.Globalisationdepends on political will as well astechnological innovation. And politicalwill is rapidly weakening” (p.115-16)Lets do al l we can to make thisobservation come true!!

“THE WORLD IN 2001”(magazine £4.75 or shoplift it.Published by The Economist Autumn2000)

Rather than do the usual sadreviews that ref lect a lack ofambit ion on the part of ourmovement [e.g. reviewingthings produced by theanarchist/communist groups for theanarchist/communist movement]Class War always likes to set newtrends and spread our horizons inthe hope of influencing others....part of this is this review encour-aging others to branch out. Wemust know what our enemies arethinking and doing if we are to fightthem effectively.

This 162 page thick glossymagazine has far more usefulinformation in it than the averageanarcho rag. This is a real lycomprehensive account of theglobal and globalized economy, witheconomic industr ial andfinancial sector breakdowns, andcountry by country guides toprospects and past performance.There are also art icleslooking at the major issues that arelikely to affect us all (the Euro,American economic downturn,technology and science) and somethat are interesting as well - theart ic le on the scale of theAmerican Prison system isawesome for those who don’t knowthat shortly America will haveimprisoned i ts’ 2 mil l ionthperson. Also of interest was thediary section on page 25; not onlydoes it list a variety of key newsevents it also prints a listing of keyfinancial and political meetings for2001. Whether i ts the Worldeconomic forum meeting in Davos,Switzerland that saw clashesbetween police and protesters orthe upcoming G8 summit in July atGenoa, Italy, the December EUsummit in Brussels, or the IMF/World Bank meeting inWashington DC thisOctober. Thanks for the activistscalendar guys.

BASH THE FASH- ANTI-FASCIST RECOLLECTIONS 1984-93by K Bullstreet (£2 from Class War or from Kate Sharpley Library, BMHurricane, London, WC1N 3XX)

This is history written in a different style to the world of dull academia or sobersuited politicians. Informal, biased and very, very amusingK Bullstreet takes us into the necessary world of anti-fascism. Our favouritestories included the black guywho jumped in for BNPmember Derek Beackonbecause he thought he wasbeing mugged, and themember of Liverpool AFAwho not only no platformedNF member Derek Hollandbut relieved him of his watch!

Some groups and individualsmay well quibble that theirgroup or action does notreceive sufficient coverageand the text does certainlycontain the odd error (TheMacc Lads for example werenever a Blood & Honour bandand nothing is gainedby saying they were) but werecommend this pamphlet asthe first in hopefully a seriesof pamphlets coveringanti-fascist history.

ANARCHISM: ARGUMENTSFOR AND AGAINSTAlbert Meltzer. (AK Press £3.95)

This 20-year -o ld t i t le has beenre-pr in ted by AK Press, and aspolitical introductions go, this is asgood a place as any to start. Meltzercould be a rambling writer, but keptin a straight line by the books formatof short chapters under speci f icheadings, he flourishes. Buy it.


WORKING CLASS FIRST!THE WORKING CLASS ANDANTI-CAPITALISMby Jacob Pugh (£2 from AK Press, POBox 12766, Edinburgh EH8 9YE plus 60ppostage)

This timely pamphlet contains much thatis up Class War’s street containingstrong criticism of middle classenvironmentalists and reaching aconclusion that will have many so-calledrevolutionaries biting their pillows inhorror “the struggle for working classaffluence should be at the centre of leftwing struggle”.

Such clear, non-moralistic language is abreath of fresh air, although othersections of the pamphlet fail to pack apunch. Mr Pugh seems a bit to taken withsociological studies, and talk of “the left”may look very redundant indeed in adecade’s time. The publishers,Anti-Capitalist Debate Press, may beones to watch if these themes are furtherdeveloped.

ORGANISE... TO RESISTDec. 2000. No. 3. Magazine of theAnarcho-Syndicalist Federation(Australia). $1P.O. Box 231, Westgate, NSW 2048,Australia.

This l i t t le number is typical offundamentalist conservative anarchistthought and obsessions. On page 3downtrodden workers are encouragedto think about an obscure “AnarchoQuiz” - we kid you not. This Australianmag - presumably for the working class inAustralia - doesn’t deal with anyAustralian issues until the bottomhalf of p.5. We would like to see moreemphasis on class struggle participationand action locally rather than a tour de forceof worldwide anarchist titbits -however useful. We’ve read aboutthe Makhno book before so we didn’tneed a two page review [even thoughwe love this history]. Overall thisis characteristic of the anarchistillusion that we can turn the anarchistideal into a strategy, when thereal world needs a more consideredapproach.

HACKNEY HECKLER(Issue 3, local newssheet, SAE from POBox 38, 136 Kingsland High Street,London E8 2NS)

As Hackney Council and its crisesunfold, local opposition takes on newforms and formats. The HackneyHeckler takes on a newssheet rolepromoting local events anddemonstrations (congratulations to theworkers who burnt their new terms andconditions outside Hackney Town Hall)an expose role - look out for Councilleader Jules Pipe riding round in a taxiat council expense - and an ability to graspnettles.

Hackney’s latest scandal, involving therigging of council elections by certainJewish politicians in Stamford Hill, hasgone largely unreported in the nationalmedia and entirely unreported in therevolutionary media. They fear of theconservative left is that to comment onthese issues in detail plays into the handsof the extreme right. The HackneyHeckler rightly points out that to sweepthese issues under the carpet plays intothe hands of the extreme right.

Since the rise of the anti-capitalistmovement the most significant omissionhas been the failure to translate intoreality the slogan “Think global, ActLocal” Perhaps the Hackney Heckler isa first step down that road.

MINUS TIDES VOL 12 NO.1(3$ from Box 47, Denman Island, BC,Canada, VOR 1TO)

This magazine is produced from a smallcommunity (pop 1100) in rural Canada. Sosmall they have no police in their owncommunity!

Other problems emerge though – loneliness,boredom etc the things that have historicallypersuaded people to drift to the big townsand cities.

Minus Tides takes an eclectic approachcovering anarchism, literature, poetry and ‘life’but, as so often with this style of production,it ends up pleasing some but failing to satisfyeveryone.

BILLY ELLIOTT(PG, all main cinemas)

Lets face it the character of Billy wasalways going to have a hard time,regardless of the interest in ballet. Heseems to have been a pretty weird kidbefore he got interested in that ordiscovered his best mate liked dressingup in his sisters dresses and wearing hismam’s make-up. With those qualities ina Sunderland pit village perhaps boxingwas not a bad choice in the first place!

Billy’s gravitation toward dance andballet in particular is essentially a storyof an individual swimming against the tideof expected and required behaviour.Earlier explorations of this theme havefound some hapless lad expected to joinhis brothers and dad down the mine,when he aspires to stay on at school/goto university/be a writer etc

In Billy Elliot this story is updated usingnot the hard labour of pit work but thestruggle on the picket line during the84-5 strike. It remains a story ofworking class hard rootin tootin fightingmanhood set against the more genteelintellectualism of the arty and creativeworld of the would be escapee.

Some on the left (most notably the WeeklyWorker and Freedom) have seriouslysavaged the film as being anti-workingclass. Violent miners are contrasted tothe nice middle class world of ballet andthe arts. I did not get this at all. This isnot a film about the miners strike, thestrike provides the backdrop, but it is justa backdrop after all.

The police rampaging through the villagesand occupying pit communities is wellpresented, as is the solidarity andstrength of the miners collectiveresistance. I watched this film inSheffield and there is no doubt whichside the audience identified with.

Reviews such as the above pose thequestion to what extent anyway is balletan entirely middle class passion. Thegirls in the film were obviously not meantto be middle class, their ballet school wassituated in the heart of the community,the Miners Wefare, with the strikeraging all around them.

Most big pit villages have dance/balletschools - the students beingpredominantly daughters of miners butthe odd lad would not be unheard of. AtHatfield Colliery in Doncaster the PyeSchool of Dance is one of the mostaccomplished in the region, founded andinstructed by the daughter of a miner andlocated in her native pit villagedeliberately. The students who were

daughters of miners were taught free ofcharge during the strike.

Having said all that I got a sick feeling asthe film opens portraying Billy’s dad as aviolent brooding man, and feared thiswould be the caricature of the miners asa whole. Thankfully it was not. Instead itwas his dad’s way of coping with the lossof his wife, left with two lads to look afterin the middle of a long strike and no moneyhe had more than most on his plate be-fore the youngest lad startsskipping the light fandango. He comesthrough it all and thankfully withoutbecoming a scab.

Given that location was obviouslyimportant to the film, the makers couldhave worked harder on getting actorsfrom the region. With a couple ofexceptions dialect was purged from thefilm, as it always is in films focused onTyne or Wear. You only have to look atthe verbally filleted accents of BykerGrove to see what I mean. We areeventually left with that ‘north ofsomewhere’ voice that does not comefrom anywhere but is meant to conveythe impression it is not from down south.This is a good film, worth seeing morethan once. I have reservations about theextent of the reaction to the ballet classes.The strike had opened up closed pitcommunities to new tolerances and otherways of living, at least for a time. Whenthe Hatfield main branch of the NUM wasadopted by the LSE Gay and LesbianSociety and their collections helped keepminers kids fed it made some people think.Within a year the Hatfield Main NUMbranch banner was on a gay rights marchin London. The proposal to do this broughtlaughter and a few raucous wise cracksbut was passed unanimously, somethinginconceivable a few years before.

In times of collective struggle new foundawareness and wider consciousness, aswell as individual and family relationshipsexpand. Sadly many of these attitudeshave retreated with that defeat of socialand class solidarity, and more atomisedand jaundiced views have crept back.

Given this, its obvious that social,political and sexual values ebb and flowwith the currents of class relationships. Iwould like to think that a lad during thestrike aspiring to a career in balletwould have got more support than thatinitially advanced to Billy, not leastbecause the weight of the women’ssupport movement was considerableand influential. Disgracefully thatmovement was totally absent from thefilm.

See 'Billy Elliot'. But leave the volumeon dialectical materialism at home.

Those wishing

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RAMRAIDERSby Stephen Richards (£7.99, MiragePublishing, PO Box 161 Gateshead,NE8 4WW)

A top-notch book written in a no nonsensestyle that regular Class War readers andsupporters will undoubtedly love. Who caresabout the Queen’s English, it’s the contentand the message that is important!The book has some classic detaileddescriptions of ramraids – somesuccessful, some not so successful. Onebrilliant tale is where they do a shop, waitfor it to be boarded up, then go back anddo it again the same night. Classic andproof that lightning does strike twice!

Great book,shame about the fashion sense– read it and you will see what we mean!

VERTICAL LIMITS(PG, Most main cinemas)

A film full of action and mayhem. A tripto the mountains where there is no hero,love story or big stars. A good insightinto the climbing world and the places allthe rich businessmen go for theirholidays.

“The technology is there to makea DNA database for every one ofthe UK’s 60 million citizens”Prof Sir Alec Jeffreys of theUniversity of Leicester, who deviseda system to identify criminals fromthe unique characteristics of theirgenes. 17 years late, we enter theBig Brother state.


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SOMEBODY VERY GREEN WRITES

Have you not iced the weather recent ly?Bit wet isn’t it? What exactly will it take to getin to your Sun Wanker bra ins tha t“environmental agendas” are not a plot to pushup the price of petrol and price working peopleout of their cars? Global warming is actuallyhappen ing, jus t as sc ien t is ts have beenpredic t ing for years. Of course we knowthey are a l l a bunch o f p ig - ignorantacademics (some of them can even count to 10!)

So the car is an expression of people’s needsis it? I suppose this includes the ‘needs’ ofthe shit-brained anti-social morons who getthe i r k icks dr iv ing around b las t ing outmind less babb le a t a l l hours? And youcomplain about church bell-ringers!

I know tha t s ta t i s t i cs go s t ra igh t overyour heads but I’ll spell out a couple of sumsand you can ask your careworker i fthey make sense:There are 20 mi l l ion veh ic les in Br i ta intoday or roughly 1 to every 3 people. In thewor ld ( I mean the rea l wor ld no t thete le tubb ly land v i r tua l rea l i ty you inhab i t )there are about 500 million, or one to every 12people. In other words, if the whole worldwere provided with cars at the same levelas Britain, there would be four times the numbero f veh ic les tha t now ex is t . The wor ld ’seco-system is going down the crapper fastenough as i t i s . What wou ld happen i feveryone had access to a car? And spare methe motorwankers fairy tales about electriccars and cars that can run on water. First‘electric’ cars have been ‘on the way’ for atleast 30 fuck ing years - where are they?Even i f they were pract icable, they wouldnot do tha t much fo r the env i ronment -electricity needs to be generated somehow.As fo r the o ther bo l locks , Santa C lausdoes not exist kiddies, time to grow up.

A freedom that cannot be given to everyoneis not a freedom but a privilege. So get itstraight: when you and all the other brainlesstossers ( including the cret ins who thoughti t wou ld be a n ice l i t t le earner to feedunsaleable meat to herbivores) start trumpetingthe corporate s logans of the motor lobby,you are defending privilege not freedom.

Actua l ly I th ink there are s igns tha t themessage is beginning to sink in. The rainstormsprobab ly gave even farmers and lo r rydrivers pause for thought, which is why thesecond wave of fuel protests fizzled out. Inthe end Mother Nature carr ies more c loutthan Tony Blair, scientists or eco-freaks. Justmaybe people will start to see sense aboutthe real ‘pr ice of motor ing’ before i t getsto be more than we can all pay.‘Speaker To Animals’

CW Reply: Readers will not be surprised toknow that the entire text of this letter waswritten in capital letters, the sure sign of aNUTTER! Just who or what is a “motorwanker”?Do you honestly believe that all people whouse cars are wankers? If so you’re talkingabout near ly everybody in Br i ta in, c lear lynonsense. As for e lectr ic cars being fa i rytales – have you never seen a milk float?

We all know there are a spectacular amount

o f wankers in the green movement .People who do actually work with corporatecapital ism. Are you seriously saying thati f the l ikes of Zac Goldsmith or JonathanPorr i t g ive up the use o f the i r cars theearth is a better place? We think it wouldbe a be t te r p lace when those twobastards are hanging from the nearest pieceof mahogany. Your le t ter typ i f ies theapocalypt ic and near re l ig ious approachof many greens that sadly goes unchallengedby Anarchists.

I t is in terest ing that you do not ment ionpubl ic t ranspor t once in your d ia t r ibe .Are peop le not supposed to t rave l inyour green new wor ld? I t is not beyondthe w i t o f human be ings to organ isefree, sustainable public transport. It is sadlybeyond the w i t o f cap i ta l i s ts as theyare unable to do anything unless they can makemoney out of it.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS?

As the crisis of world capital ism deepensthe t ime is r igh t fo r us to o f fe r a moreextensive vision of a libertarian communistfuture.

The fuel blockade in Britain (and Europe)has made perfect ly feasib le our conceptof publ ic transport development. Such aprogramme would immedia te ly employthose made redundant by the co l lapseof sect ions of the road haulage industry.Th is is espec ia l ly va l id cons ider ing theneeds of the rural population.

As 25,000 fa rms have gone bankruptin recent t imes we can o f fe r so lu t ionsto the ex- farming communi ty, someth ingthat the ‘Countryside All iance’ cannot do.We can secure farming by the establishmento f fa rming co-opera t ives and workerscont ro l led food out le ts . Our a im is o fcourse to co l lec t iv ise a l l fa rming whereappropr ia te . We wou ld no t depr iveanyone o f the i r accommodat ion but wecan guarantee equa l i ty fo r a l l landworkers including former large-scale owners(CW Ed: Get t ing a b i t so f t here ! ) Th isconforms to our po l icy o f o f fe r ingformer owners and managers of industrythe equality of comradeship in labour.

Of course our perenn ia l a im is theabo l i t ion o f the s tock exchange andthe es tab l ishment o f workers cont ro l o findus t ry. We wou ld br ing in to pub l icownersh ip a l l t ranspor t , eng ineer ing ,bu i ld ing , educat ion , and product ion .In educat ion we wi l l guarantee thesafe ty f rom v io lence o f a l l ch i ld ren byestab l ish ing spec ia l needs schoo ls fo rdisturbed chi ldren. This wi l l put parentsminds at rest because i t w i l l not mat terwhere their children are educated.

A l l work wou ld be cons ideredas equa l . Med ica l , educat ion andt ranspor t serv ices wou ld be ra ised tothe highest standards. This form of socialsecur i ty w i l l appea l to a l l sec t ions o fsoc ie ty inc lud ing the midd le c lasses.Those unused to physical labour wi l l bein t roduced to such work a t the i r ownpace because they w i l l no t be requ i red

to operate under cap i ta l ism’s t ime and mot ionprocedures.

Obviously the chemical industry would have toturn i t s a t ten t ion to organ ic product ion andthe safe disposal of contaminants.AC, Edinburgh.

CW Reply: The d i f f i cu l ty w i th concepts o f“pub l ic ownersh ip” i s tha t peop le th inkimmedia te ly o f the fo rmer nat iona l isedindustries. All of those industries had the same bossversus worker ethos, the same drive for profit and thesame obsession with hierarchy as the private compa-nies they replaced. For us to advance we must makechanges to our lives now - not in some distant future -to show ourselves and our enemies that we can createa world for all. This means struggle in our own work-ing class communities to improve the economic andpolitical standing of our class.

COMPETITION CORNER

Dear Class War, I would also like to congratulateChris’s dad on 20 years of signing on (Class Warletters, issue 80) However I’ve heard of someone whobeats our Geordie friend by a fair old margin. It seemsthere is an o ld g i r l l i v ing in London who wasphotographed wearing an ATS uniform and holding aspanner over the open bonnet of a car in 1945. Thiswas the last time she was witnessed doing anythingremotely resembling work. For the last 56 years shehas done nothing yet has wanted for none of the goodthings in life. Her record of bone idleness is to becelebrated in 2002 by the issue of commemorativep la tes wh ich w i l l be bought bycommemorating mugs all over Britain.

Sorry Chris, your dad will have to do fuck all for atleast another thirty years to catch up with the recordof this sponging bastard and her family of inbredmalcontents. Mind you, I hope I’m around to see himdo it. The last northeastern lad who got an award fordoing bugger all was Jackie Charlton, ex Irelandmanager and country ‘sports’ fan.Ronnie, Cheshire.

CW Reply: Anybody wanting to get involved in fuckingup the 2002 celebrations should get in touch via theusual address. Lets show the Queen next year thather subjects really are revolting!

COMMUNITY CHOIR

Dear Class War, One of the saddest things about massprotest at the start of the 21st Century is the lack of adecent sing song. The dominance of “what do we want”type chants is a great way of deflating everybody andis shit. Perhaps Class War could remedy this bys tar t ing a ly r ics sec t ion? I t cou ld conf i rm o ldfavourites and new numbers.

Here’s a little ditty that went about in Prague on S26.Its called Blue Group 2000 and should be sung in aJohnny Cash style:

Petrol is a firey thing and it burns every fucking thingArmed with our desire, we produced a wall of fireIt started in Botic ValeSomeone threw a Molotov CocktailAnd they burned, burned, burned the lines of policeAnd they burned, burned, burned the lines of filthW.E. Bam

CW Reply: One of the best developments in recentyears has been the r ise o f Samba bands anddrummers on actions as they give it a bit of backboneand make it possible to change the direction of a crowd.One of the failureson May Day 2000was the band notbeing around todraw the c rowdaway f rom thetrap at TrafalgarSquare. As for oldsongs we arerather part ia l toHarry Roberts IsOur Friend!

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ECONOMIC CLEANSING

ADVERTISMENT

£15! That’s how much it costs to watchLeyton Orient in the 3rd Division. Icurrently reside in Germany, where mylocal team is ex-European ChampionsBorussia Dortmund. To get in to a stateof the art stadium and watch a topEuropean game costs 18 Deutschmarks.At today’s exchange rate of roughly DM3.2 to the pound, that works out at justunder £6.

The truth is that for years us footiefans, 90% of whom are working class,have been t reated l ike sh i t unt i l afew corporate scum decided to jumpon the foo tba l l bandwagon. Nowincreasingly we cannot afford to supportour own c lubs - they have beensnatched f rom our hands by theexecutive fan.

Pre-Hil lsborough where in the worldcou ld you pay a tenner to getherded l ike sheep f rom the minuteyou left the bus, penned into a cagefor two hours and with sub-standardcatering and laughable toilet facilities.At one ground now probab ly asupermarket (Hello Reading FC) the‘ to i le t ’ ameni t ies for the away fanswere in fact a brick wall ..... with a troughat the bot tom. Could you imaginebuying a ticket for a West End showand being treated in the same manner?Don’t think so!

Let’s face it standards have improved200%. But at what cost? Thanks tothe var ious sa te l l i te and cab lecompanies we now have the gloriousgame s ix o r seven days a week.The increased t icket pr ices and the

d i f f i cu l ty in obta in ingt i cke ts fo r some gamesmean the on ly way to beguaranteed to see your teamis to subscr ibe to one o f

these companies.

With the BBC losing “Match of the Day”how long before we are pr iced outo f the marke t , no t jus t a t theturnstile but also by satellite subscriptioncharges. As wi th England’s game inF in land, more and more gameswil l become pay per view. What nexta f te r tha t? Wi l l they t ry to chargeus to l i s ten the rad io commentary?The next Wor ld Cup is nex t yearin Japan and South Korea. The i rTV companies want to chargethe BBC and ITV £175 mi l l ion fo rthe r igh ts , wh ich they have re fusedto pay. So whether any o f thehome nations qualify or not, we mightnot be watching!

Back home, w i th the grass roo tsos t rac ised, the r ich k ids inthe i r £30 seats w i l l eventua l ly ge tbored w i th foo tba l l and jump onthe next bandwagon. Then we will seeempty s tad ia and s t i l l sp i ra l l ingt icke t p r ices so as to meetthe wages o f a l ready overpa idprimadonnas.

Our solution? A maximum wage. LeytonOrient Chairman Barry Hearn recentlys ta ted tha t Roy Keane ’s wages a tManchester Un i ted fo r one weekwere the same as the cost of runningLeyton Orient for the year. If each club isbudgeted to X amount per week, they couldafford to lower ticket prices, enticing themasses back to their local football ground- the hub of the community.

Let’s reclaim the game. Some clubs area l ready mak ing in roads by e lec t ingsuppor ters on to the board to l iasewi th d i rec to rs . We want a fuck o fa lo t more than tha t , bu t as afirst step it will do!

BelfastBhoy

It will be interesting to see how theNorthern Ireland football authoritieshandle the campaign of sectarianabuse directed at Northern Irelandmidfielder Neil Lennon. Lennon wasbooed and abused throughoutNorthern Ireland’s friendly defeat byNorway in March, despite being oneof the best midfielders ever to playfor the country. Loyalists make upvirtually the entire Northern Irelandsupport and Loyalist bigots for theheinous cr ime of being a Cel t icplayer targeted Lennon.

The previous Celt ic player to becapped for Northern Ireland, AntonRogan, hardly set the football worldalight as a player, and this helpedensure the Irish FA could sweep suchabuse under the carpet. Lennonhowever, is the sort of player whoteams are bu i l t a round andjournalists want to speak to day inday out.

Rather obviously, football in NorthernIreland mirrors the wider society ofNor thern I re land. I f Nor thernIreland’s football supporters have aproblem with a player of Lennon’sability it tells us quite a bit aboutNorthern Ireland and quite a lot aboutthe nature of loyalism.

A Ticket To RideThe Gravy TrainEverybody knows that s ince thecreat ion of the Premier Leagueand the imposi t ion of a l l seaterstadiums following the Taylor report,ge t t ing t i cke ts fo r top foo tba l lmatches is pret ty tough. Giventh is we were staggered to readthat new per fo rmance rewardsamong Br i ta in ’s 60,000 Minist ryo f Defence c iv i l servants w i l linclude Premier League footbal ltickets.

Th is means that not on ly is i tharder for the working class fan toget t i cke ts , bu t as taxpayers ,we are actual ly paying for otherpeople to go to the game instead ofus!

BAD PENNY TURNS UP!

ArsenalSign

English-man!

Bizarre rumours have beencirculating in the football worldthat Arsenal manager ArseneWenger has signed anEnglishman. We at Class Warare happy to reproducephotographic evidence thatthe Gunners have signedsomebody famous for theirexcellent shooting!

hat trick hero!

The lunat ics rea l ly havetaken over the asylum in the cricketworld. With dozens of top playersunder investigation for match fixing whoshould be heading the InternationalCricket Council’s Anti-Corruption Unitbut Sir Paul Condon. Yes the very samePaul Condon who was Ch ie fCommiss ioner o f the Met ropo l i tanPol ice and before tha t Ch ie f

Constable of Kent. Condon’sappointment to the ICC seemsto prove perfectly the old adagethat there is no s i tuat ion sobad that the arrival of a policeofficer won’t make it worse!

“I don’t want to give it to her.She’s horrible.”Five year old Anna Engstrom,from Suffolk, when asked togive a bouquet of flowers toPrincess Anne. What a wellbrought up child!

Class War Issue 81

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