“Through its well-publicized stands against sleaze and corruption (Labor) will hope to head off disillusion, even though its reputation for corruption in particular in municipal councils is notorious” (Organize! 46)
Our comments on the Labor victory have been overtaken by recent events. Labor’s long-standing reputation for corruption has been highlighted by the ‘money for influence’ revelations concerning Formula One and Sainsbury’s. Labor’s attempts to restore confidence in democracy through its anti-corruption campaigns and postures have been severely damaged by these lightning revelations. In fact, these events have increased the growing cynicism and disillusion with parliamentary democracy,... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Originally published: in Polish in Czerwony Sztandar, No.86, June 1906. [1*] Translated: Peter Manson (from French).
This translation from Weekly Worker, No.753, 22 January 2009.
Copied with thanks from the CPGB/Weekly Worker Website. Marked up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Comrade Plekhanov has published an exhaustive article in the Courrier entitled, How far does the right go?, in which he accuses the Bolsheviks of Blanquism.
It is not incumbent upon us to defend the Russian comrades upon whom comrade Plekhanov rains the blows of his erudition and dialectic. They are perfectly capable of doing so themselves. But it is worth commenting on certain remarks which our readers too will find of int... (From: Marxists.org.)
To the students of Law and Medicine,
Benjamin Constant has died. France weeps for one of the firmest upholders of its freedom, a great citizen and a great man. It is for a friend that we weep. You know the accents his voice found to repulse the calumnies and insults poured upon us by an oppressive power. You know what burning words he made heard in 1820, 1821, 1822 and 1827, when, not content to sacrifice us to the sword of their hirelings, the powerful insulted us from the tribune and in their newspapers. Benjamin Constant made it a point of pride to be the friend of young people. Until his last moment, he lifted his voice to defend us, because the youth of France, just as much as freedom, needed to be defended, even after the battle of t... (From: Marxists.org.)
The growth of Socialism and the gradual breaking up of the competitive system, evidenced by masses of poverty-stricken unemployed, is calling into light some curious men with curious ideas as to how Society based upon robbery can be saved, and its human waste and social wreckage bestowed away from sight.
These would-be saviors of Society plus a slight percentage on salvage, are in short a literary police, as useful to the propertied classes as is Scotland Yard. Their work is to start discussions in press and on platform upon various panaceas for admitted social grievances. Trotting out their own pet hobbys, which generally ends in their being called before a Committee of M.P.‘s or outside rogues and faddists, to elaborate their bruta... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
(An appeal to people-brothers)
Dear brothers, especially those of you who is now fighting for one governmental structure or another, which nobody needs. All you, dear brother, whoever you are, king, minister, a worker, a peasant, you need just one thing. And this is to spend this indeterminate short moment of life in a way that the one who sent you in this life wants.
We all know, and I've always indistinctly felt this, and further I am in life, the clearer this is to me. Now, from today, I for the first time clearly felt that natural for any live person proximity of tomorrow and closeness of death, only not dreadful but as a transition that is natural and beneficial, just as transition to the next day. Now, having sensed thi... (From: Wikisource.org.)
I, Suspect
Since cameras became mobile enough to take pictures of people without their consent, punching photographers has become the great American pastime. From celebrities hounded by paparazzi to civilians who resent news teams invading their privacy and demonstrators who don’t want to be profiled, everybody loves swinging on a person shoving a camera in their face.
But what about when the person shoving the camera in your face isn’t there—it’s just the camera and you? Every time I turn a corner and see a camera pointed at me, in my mind I can’t help but hear the word “Gotcha!” Even at our most innocent, it’s hard not to feel like a suspect. Indeed, to the security professional who sees t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
On September 30, several hundred fascists participated in a march in Gothenburg called for by the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), a neo-Nazi organization that openly professes the doctrines of Adolf Hitler. Over the past year, members of the NMR have bombed several refugee homes and a left-wing bookstore in Gothenburg, while members of the Finnish branch of NMR murdered a passerby at a demonstration in Helsinki. In Gothenburg, over 10,000 counter-demonstrators utilized a diversity of tactics to block the NMR march from reaching its starting point; although the police were the ones who physically stopped them, previous precedents show that the police will support and protect the neo-Nazis unless forced to do otherwise by grassroots anti-fa... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
As one middle-aged mother observed while members of the Quebec Black Bloc hugged each other before going off to battle the cops, “I always thought this was going to be sinister, but these are just brave kids!”
For a more specific consideration of dressing for anonymity, consult Fashion Tips for the Brave
Materials
Matching clothing that conceals the wearers’ identities
Trust and communication
A mission
Optional Materials
Provisions: water (plenty, especially if you’ll be dressed in hot gear or expect chemical weapons attacks), food (don’t rely on shops or shopkeepers in contested zones), etc.
Camouflage: different layers of clothing for different purposes or stages of the act... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The Guardian has broken the news that the Biennale of Sydney (BOS) has severed ties with detention center operator Transfield Services. Transfield Holdings chairman Luca Belgiorno-Nettis has resigned from his role as chair of the BOS. Belgiorno-Nettis has acknowledged the success of the artists led boycott of the Biennale in forcing him out.
The following article on the links between Transfield and the Sydney art world was written for issue 1 of The Platform. It is interesting to note that whilst Transfield and the BOS have now formally severed ties, Transfield remains a principle sponsor of the Sydney Chamber Orchestra and Luca Belgiorno-Nettis remains its chair.
Transfield Services has hit pay dirt. Indefinite detention is big business ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Introduction by The Friends of Aron Baron
History may not have ended, but it certainly has gotten strange. The social contract neoliberalism once imposed—a patchwork of economic shell games and the political rituals needed to foist them on people—has shredded with surprising speed in recent years. The result has been a rapid universalization of precarity. Unpredictability and groundlessness are ubiquitous parts of our lives, which unfold in a supposedly “post-truth” world where the basic prerequisites for understanding almost anything seem lacking—or at least seem to change with each news cycle.
This new reality was both cause and effect of Donald Trump’s election as forty-fifth president of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
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