In her blog “Pop culture and radical politics with a feminist twist” Laury Penny writes about why sometimes burning them for warmth is the most revolutionary thing you can do with the newspapers sold by activists of far left wing parties. She does so in a response to an article by Alex Callinicos. Her critique of the old left comes together with the admittance that they are and will be there and we might have to find ways to sometimes fight side by side with them, but at the same time avoid giving them a chance to achieve any formal power, which is probably the most viable approach for now.
But maybe she’s overestimating the long term strength of an angry but disorganized crowd. The fact that the days of the old forms of hierarchical organizations of the left are over in terms of the perspective they offer means neither that they will wither away nor that we can live without finding and actually realizing new forms of organizing ourselves.
Again, the comments below the article show quite a bit about the sentiments felt by people.
One writes:
The student protests are just the tip of the iceberg. Wait until the public sector cuts start, then you’ll see even more unrest on the streets, and while the student union seemed reticent to engage in real protest, the public sector unions won’t be, and you’re likely to see some of the biggest demonstrations by workers since the miners strike.
This is class warfare, and the class divisions will be even more clear when the public sector workers go on strike, because while the student protest was infiltrated by some middle class individuals who thought it would be “trendy” to protest in London, the protests of the laid off workers will be militant, and no amount of spin from the class enemy will change that.
The white, working class have been underestimated for too long by the elites at Westminster. They bit their tongue when Labour were pushing through neoliberal policies from 1997-2010, but now the Con-Dem coalition have pushed us too far, and they will see a reaction against their bourgeois-inspired policies to oppress the white working class by stimulating unemployment, creating a reserve army of labour in a crude attempt to keep wages down and maintain the profits of the capitalists, who will then reward the obedient political class with votes and/or financial rewards. This game has gone on for too long, it’s time to confront the status quo.
Someone named James replies:
Get over yourself.
This is no revolution, it’s just the same old useless and vain leftwing anti-establishment bit of fun.
I wish it was something more, but the reality is that the Tories and their media pals have managed to convince enough people that what they are doing is necessary. On the whole, the population are pretty ignorant and so they have been conned again by the same old Tories, the nasty party.
But to really change anything, it won’t be the streets where it happens, it may be the internet (Wikileaks style) but most likely, it will be where it always was – in Parliament, where the vain and power collide.
(…)
Someone else:
it ain’t just the white working class…it’s a multicoloured rainbow of angry people who are trying to disolve the ‘government’
Another one in reply to James:
You see James, thats where you’re wrong, this isn’t just the same as all the other protests. I’ve seen/been involved in just about allof them, since I was old enough to be (late 80s) and this is fundamentally different, in feel, attitude, organisation, philosophy and in what it is opposed to, (these cuts are the worst thing to happen to this country in my lifetime), the anger is real and so are the plans to change what is happenening and the alternatives being considered. We can only hope all our opponents are as sitting pretty in their illusionary comfort zones and as soft headed in their approach and ill prepared to oppose us as you are…
The question is:
What happens if this government is dissolved?