Fitwatch 1 MET 0

Fitwatch is back, better and secure from arbitary state repression
check it out here: http://www.fitwatch.org.uk/

Lifeform to wed lifeform

I genuinley believed that I had matured, that long gone were the days when I proudly wore my 'Noddy marries big ears' badge and laughed at the 'Parasite marries Scrounger' headlines; after all, decades have passed, William actually seems to be doing a job ( although having Granny as his boss probably means never having to worry about being late in on a Monday).
Kate Middleton even comes into the supermarket that I work at (My mate is always pointing her out to me though up to now I didn't know who she was.).
However it is now less than 8 hours since the engagement was announced, and I realise that we are facing another 8 FUCKING MONTHS OF THIS SHIT!!!
Bring on the Guillotine

Stop the Internet repression- defend Fitwatch

This is the piece which led to the Fitwatch website being suspended – please circulate spartacus style (lifted from jonnyvoid and available everywhere;-))

The remarkable and brilliant student action at Millbank has produced some predictable frothing at the mouth from the establishment and right wing press. Cameron has called for the ‘full weight of the law’ to fall on those who had caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage to the expensive decor at Tory party HQ. Responsibility is being placed on ‘a violent faction’, after the march was ‘infiltrated’ by anarchists.
There are an encouraging number of intiatives to show solidarity with the arrested students – something that is vital if they are to avoid the sort of punitive ‘deterrent’ sentences handed out to the Gaza demonstrators. A legal support group has been established and the National Campaign against Cuts and Fees has started a support campaign. Goldsmiths lecturers union has publicly commended the students for a ‘magnificent demonstration’ .
This is all much needed, as the establishment is clearly on the march with this one. The Torygraph has published an irresponsible and frenzied ‘shop-a-student’ piece and the Met are clearly under pressure to produce ‘results’ after what they have admitted was a policing ‘embarrassment’.

51 people have been arrested so far, and the police have claimed they took the details of a further 250 people in the kettle using powers under the Police Reform Act. There may be more arrests to come.

Students who are worried should consider taking the following actions:

If you have been arrested, or had your details taken – contact the legal support campaign. As a group you can support each other, and mount a coherent campaign.

If you fear you may be arrested as a result of identification by CCTV, FIT or press photography;

DONT panic. Press photos are not necessarily conclusive evidence, and just because the police have a photo of you doesn’t mean they know who you are.
DONT hand yourself in. The police often use the psychological pressure of knowing they have your picture to persuade you to ‘come forward’. Unless you have a very pressing reason to do otherwise, let them come and find you, if they know who you are.
DO get rid of your clothes. There is no chance of suggesting the bloke in the video is not you if the clothes he is wearing have been found in your wardrobe. Get rid of ALL clothes you were wearing at the demo, including YOUR SHOES, your bag, and any distinctive jewellery you were wearing at the time. Yes, this is difficult, especially if it is your only warm coat or decent pair of boots. But it will be harder still if finding these clothes in your flat gets you convicted of violent disorder.
DONT assume that because you can identify yourself in a video, a judge will be able to as well. ‘That isn’t me’ has got many a person off before now.
DO keep away from other demos for a while. The police will be on the look-out at other demos, especially student ones, for people they have put on their ‘wanted’ list. Keep a low profile.
DO think about changing your appearance. Perhaps now is a good time for a make-over. Get a haircut and colour, grow a beard, wear glasses. It isn’t a guarantee, but may help throw them off the scent.
DO keep your house clean. Get rid of spray cans, demo related stuff, and dodgy texts / photos on your phone. Don’t make life easy for them by having drugs, weapons or anything illegal in the house.
DO get the name and number of a good lawyer you can call if things go badly. The support group has the names of recommended lawyers on their site. Take a bit of time to read up on your rights in custody, especially the benefits of not commenting in interview.
DO be careful who you speak about this to. Admit your involvement in criminal damage / disorder ONLY to people you really trust.
DO try and control the nerves and panic. Waiting for a knock on the door is stressful in the extreme, but you need to find a way to get on with business as normal. Otherwise you’ll be serving the sentence before you are even arrested.

This post is also available on google at: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qv4goBQOpDYJ:www.fitwatch.org.uk/+fitwatch&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

Honouring the dead, pissing on the living

Yesterday we went up to Brock Barracks to take part in the Remembrance Service.
Among the local military and civic groups laying wreaths at the monument were two shady types in dark suits:
Rob Wilson MP and Alok Sharma MP- the Conservative MPs for Reading East and West Respectively.
Whilst they made show of paying their respects for the dead of Britains wars, they and the Government they support are pissing on the living.
The Government has announced that rises in Army pensions; which includes payments to widows and those maimed will now on be linked to the Consumer Price Index, rather than the Retail Price Index that had previously been the case.
By not including housing costs in the calculations: "The Forces Pensions Society calculates that the change, which affects forces pensions and annual Guaranteed Income Payments, means a 34-year-old wife of a staff sergeant killed in Afghanistan, for example, would be almost £750,000 worse off over the course of her lifetime.

A corporal who lost both legs in a bomb blast would miss out on about £500,000 in pension and benefit-related payments"
the Government responds by declaring that MoD pensioners should not be treated differently from the rest of the public sector.
This must be a great comfort when having ones limbs blown off by a IUD in Helmond.

We have no demands to make of NUS president Aaron Porter except to FOAD. Behold your future executioners.

A guest post from Capt. Bollocks
The demonstration against the government cuts to education and the raising of the cap on student fees jointly organised by the NUS and lecturer’s unions (UCU) on November 10th lead news reports that day and many following days.

The demonstration was officially a response just to the attacks on higher learning in England and Wales. It has gained a wider significance as the attacks on the students (and their parents) have been seen as the rolling back on the state providing for the needs of all its citizens. Initially the organisers expected about 8000 to attend which would have a good turnout for what the NUS have organised for about 20 years. Due to zeitgeist (spirit of the times) the demonstration obtained far larger numbers despite the NUS’s inability to organise a piss up in a brewery.
An occupation of the Tory party central offices in Millbank had been planned by London Anarchist students and successfully executed. The march had finished 10 minutes from the conservative party offices. Word went round amongst some of the demonstrators to make their way to the Tory and Lib-Dem offices while most people where heading that way to get transport. The students outside the building then had to make a conscious effort to choose to remain there. The crowd had not been co-opted by the Anarchists. If anyone was co-opted, it was the Anarchists being co-opted by the students. The crowd rallied to call. While maybe not quite the storming of the Winter Palace it was still a great inspiration to those who are sick of us living on our knees. (little joke here- you should get on your knees for someone you love- and certainly do not love our government and bosses).
SUBSERVIENT
The NUS condemned the action of the demonstrators as soon as they happened. They condemned the action not just because of its lawlessness and but also because of their subservient nature. The leadership of the NUS does not want wider links to be made to other government cuts. They think university students should be considered a special case. They see themselves and other students as middle class people who can appeal to government’s shared middle class identity. They are out of kilter with a vast number of students who have working class identities.
What would the NUS leadership consider a success in the campaign against proposed government changes? The government to look at the figurers again, so as to make some minor adjustments. Better still for the NUS would be the new system of fee’s only being payable for new students. Just like many a trade union allows new workers to be employed on contracts that give the new workers poorer conditions or ruminations. The history of the NUS is about as woeful as can be imagined. Many of the people attending the demonstration are youngsters from pre-university age. Does the NUS seek to organise the future users? Of course not. Their interests may conflict with those of present students. The NUS wants to see its members as individuals with atomised interests not part of a wider society. This seems more than a bit cheeky as they want wider society to pay for their education. The wider working class doesn’t mind paying for education if it is provided reasonably broadly and working class kids a chance to improve themselves.
The last thing that appears to be on the mind of NUS leadership is defending the students arrested on that day, those students are representative of those who wish to rise up against the government attacks on our standards of living. The only interests the NUS leadership represent is their own, they have been shown to hold their membership in content and seem to have little regard for them when facing the adversity of having a criminal record.
Motions
The leadership of NUS is only interested of appearing to go through the motions, god forbid anyone take protest seriously. Their middle class sensibility views militant action as uncouth. Mr Porter has proposed more lobbying and regards the behaviour on the 10th November as something that will undermine his ability to have a quite discussion over a glass of port with Tory ministers. Any concessions will still turn university fees into a massive milestone to any working class and many class middle people who attempt to go to university.

The BBC made the ridiculous accusation to the student’s president of University of London of having no right to be at the demonstration as she is not a student, not a charge the BBC have levelled at Aaron Porter. This line of questioning was only directed at those who supported unlawful actions. The BBC and leading newspapers partially the Sun, Mail and Telegraph have been at pains to give the impression that it was not students who were motivated for confrontation but the usual suspects. The witch hunt which has been called for by the likes of Boris Johnson has had energetic support from such reactionary toilet paper producers. The campaign to grass working class heroes has not met with complete success as many bogus identifications have been sent to the narks of our establishment. We can expect no impartiality from the likes of these lickspittles.
naivete
The most disappointing aspect of the day for partisans of the working class has been the amount of arrests. While much pluck was shown by the young, there was a far degree of naivety was on display.
It is a time for the lessons of past to passed onto a new generation.
*It was depressing to see Tory party workers photographing and filming protestors who had failed to masked-up. It was always found back in the nineties effective to explain calmly that we and our friends did not give permission to have photo’s taken; And that not respecting our wishes would at a minimum lead to a broken camera. The BBC seemed to think they deserved special licence – we explained this was not the case.
*Hoods came into fashion as CCTV came into fashion.
*Just like the Police we chose to dress the same as one another.
*Those folk who stand around, they also give good service to the cause, not everybody is the sort who can get ‘stuck in’. But they need to hide the combative folk and not give sucker to the grasses who only seek respectability.

Rebellion and defiance will never be respectable for such folk, they accept the ruling class ideology usually through having an uncritical nature.

Most NUS branches are no more than drinking clubs for frat boy and girl boorish sports team member’s and a training ground for those who see a role for themselves in middle management. Many SU’s even ban the discussion of politics at their meeting. While almost all the leaders of NUS see themselves as our potential ruling class. One year Jack Straw is enjoying a big joint as NUS president and then in government he is criminalising huge swaths of the population and dumping them in prison. There has been a move by the NUS leadership to keep parents out of the campaign against the government cuts, such professionals are trying to keep people out that will have knowledge of how such organisations are run, so they can maintain their control and manage protest for their own careerist ends.
Demonstrators need to be careful not to up the ante in unwise fashion. We also have a duty of care to the wider public. That is why we could claim with pride when the police accused May Day demonstrators of endangering the public that no workers got hurt when shops got done over on the May Day events. While we can show how the police brutality not only ups the ante but kills people going home from work and going to work on the tube. The lad who through the fire extinguisher from the roof was being rather silly and his comrades should have prevented him from doing it. The crowd did call on the occupiers to stop throwing things and they did stop. This shows how the occupiers where not about acting wily-nilly without regard to the concerns of those who showed solidarity with their actions.
Revolutionaries should not let themselves me held back by the passive but they should show due regard to those they seek to appeal to. This is also one of the important reasons that protestors who wish to be combative need to have friends around them that they can trust, in a crisis only the people than have a personal bond will generally look out for you while there is chaos around them. This is best way of preventing yourself from doing anything silly, getting arrested or badly hurt.

*Then there are the silly little bits of know how- like kicking the windows in at the corners not the middle.
*Having clothing that does not mark you out but can be turned into a disguise later is handy.
* Or how the police when trying to ‘kettle’ a demonstration walk into people’s body space so they instinctively move back, people need to show the self awareness and resist this behaviour of the police.
* A police shield can be a two-way tool- and is a very amusing way of giving someone a bad day.
Fruit Cakes and Ketamine
What I would have loved to have seen is a five day rave with every fruit cake in London out of head on ketamine or poison of choice all in the way of the police like a sea of zombies, so the police could not give the Tories back the building. As Jasper Carrot pointed out many years ago- they all used to hang around with the lefties because they had the best grass.
Students will not learn such lesson from their lecturers. Universities and schools are to teach you how to be a productive exploitable unit with just enough thinking power to make more profits for the ruling class. It is not to teach you how to over throw the masters. That does not mean we cannot take lessons and reapply them to a different agenda. Students you will not read the answers you need in the sort of academic books that university consider suitable to for referencing, unless your studying riot control maybe...
Your Lecturers are not qualified to teach you to protest.
When those who critise the ‘violence’ and to be honest there was very little, the reply is, far more is deserved for the Tory party and the police. We will always attempt to get away with what we can if we see it as not counter-productive to our cause. It is generally the nature of British people not to make a fuss and a scene. The government will keep pushing back our privileges and that is all our ‘rights’ are if we are unprepared to defend them.
When the TUC say we need to be more like France or Greece all they mean is safe meaningless demos and strikes that go through the motions. What distinguishes those combative proud working classes from us in the UK is that they know it means occupations and not letting the police push you around with a wave of their hand or stick.
Let’s face it being prepared to stand up for ourselves collectively and refusing to be pushed around is the only language they will only ever listen to. Bullies and thieves do not back down after some meek pleading. The meek will inherit nothing. They will drive us to soup kitchens and begging if they the government can get away with it.

redemanding the impossible!

over the past year or so I have somewhat drifted into the realms of respectability and possiblism, allowing my distaste for Trotskyism and dispair at the collapse of the Left to lead me into accepting in some measure the political perspectives of Reformism (even, as I am sure comrades will be sure of constantly reminding me for years to come, taking up a Labour Party Card in the run up to the last election).
However, fickle creature that I am, it does not take much to bring me back to sanity, one afternoon of inspired direct action from the kids has me reembracing the old black flag and spurning the tempations(?) of 'Bland Labour (To be truthful, I voted for Balls, both for the slogan opportunities, and as he appeared the only one who actually seemed to understand the need to Oppose the bastards).
I think that a major cause of my slide into despair has been my 'addiction' to two of the more baleful sites available on the interweb- socialist unity blog and harrys place. SU blog was formed by a group of former SWP members who came together in the socialist alliance, all have fled except for Andy Newman and the site has become the repository for every shite aspect of 'the left'; in the name of Anti Imperialism, the SU has cheerleaded the actions of the Iranian Govt., the chinese govt.,and even the Russian federation for fucks sake! Obsessed with 'islamophobia' and Anti Zionism to the point of holding the fascists of Hamas and Hesbollah as examplars the SU represents everything that stinks about the left in Britain.
Harrys place was the nemesis of SU blog; originally a clearly social democratic blog which placed itself centrally in the left and stood against the madness of the left's Islamophilia and sucking up to the 'resistance', and had a rather dodgy readership. Now the lefties have all moved on and the dodgy readers have taken over-
since the election the blog has become an openly tory site- attacking strikers and protesters and defending tory scum.

from now on I will bash myself around the head with my copy of Bakunin's "Hair Tips and Beard Styles for Beginners" everytime I am tempted to click on those links

the kids are alright

Make the tory/lib Cunts fear!
Yesterdays domonstration was fantastic and have the lie to those who would write off todays young people as unpolitical and apathetic. the university and FE students who demolished the tory HQ instinctively understood the only way to stop the coalitions campaign of cuts and attacks on our class- make them Understand that every cut every criminalisation of the poor will be met by class anger and mass resistance, and that very single one of them will be held personally responsible for the consequences of their policies!

TORY HQ RIOT : REPORT FROM CLASS WAR STUDENTS

as a layabout post graduate I was variously otherwise employed yesterday and so once again missed out on a decent demonstration and so I have ripped the following shamelessly from Ian Bones blog:
TORY HQ RIOT : REPORT FROM CLASS WAR STUDENTS
I’ll be putting my own account of the day up later but in the meantime here’s a report from Leeds Class War students:

‘Was good to see you on the demo today, thought i’d share some thoughts for you to use in a write up tomorrow. First and controversially i want to give credit where it is due to the student members not only of the SWP but also of the other “trot” student groups. I’m not one to usually say this as the SWP are a hundred times more annoying to deal with in the small pond of the university than they are in the real world. But these comrades, and I today have no difficulty calling them comrades, actually followed their words with deeds and got stuck in with the rest of us, paper sales forgotten. Today these people acted like class conscious students and not like the pawns of their political cliques and I only hope they can keep it up.

Secondly and to some equaly controversially, i am pleased to say that the anarchos and libertarians were completely out done by our “non-political” fellow students. I don’t want to sound all wanky and go on about Temporary Autonomous Zones but something did seem to happen when that glass broke, it seemed that peoples inhibitions smashed with it. We all suddenly came to realise that the police were not only out numbered but out manoeuvred and out gunned. Students baring placard with slogans like “I only popped out for a pint of milk” were in no time at all happily breaking them over the heads of the nearest copper. And the first chant that these silverspooned students began after the doors went down and people got inside: “burn it down!-burn it down!- burn it down!” We realised that we not only controlled the entire building but also the square in front of it and the road it was on, the police were kettled in by us! Fires started to appear as people began stripping the card board from their placards in order to pass the wooden sticks to the front line burning the resulting piles. As the smoke rose so did the song (which leeds class war students did have the honour of singing first at the millbank) sing along with me: “build a bonfire, build a bonfire but the tories on the top! Put the libdems/coppers/bosses in the middle and we’ll burn the bloody lot!”. The samba band was met by a huge cheer, seriously, and believe me comrades there is nothing better than fighting against a police line with a tribal drum beat at you back.
Throwing shit at copper quickly became a student game, the scoring as follows: 10 points if you throw something and you hit a cop 20 points if you take a swing at one 50points if your blow/object hurts 100 points for blood/hospitalisation with bonus points awarded for the stealing of trunchions shields and helmets. We were a bit unsure of what to do with the truncions and helmets one we had them not finding them very effective against the cops body armour so these too became projectiles.
At the climax it started to snow. Students from the roof had located large foam fire extinguishers and set them off from the top of the building, dubstep blaring from the bike sound sytems and chants and songs rippling across the crowd the violence against the building and the coppers seemed to become part of the dance, quite litterally in some cases, students would dance in the buffer zone infront of the police only to finish their set with a well aimed kick punch of lugie to the face of a cobble stone through a window. as soon at the fire extinguisers were empty these too became weapons hurled down from the roof on the heads of the coppers forcing them to retreat under the awning of the building allowing the students to tighten their corden around them.

Bouncing along to a samba beat with an in time rendition of “lets go fucking mental” I felt that this could really be the beginning of something big, hopefully now the anarchist movement and in particular our elders and betters, and all those who still beleive that you can’t be working class and go to uni will give the students the support they deserve AND stop treating them as a seperate class in society, use us! We are workers, in fact we are paying huge sums of money to be trained in to better workers we’re angry and have litle to lose.

Leeds Class war students favourite chant: “we ‘ate tories and we ‘ate tories, we ‘ate tories and we ‘ate tories, we ‘ate tories and we ‘ate tories, we are the tory [clap] haters!

It helped that the anarchist students were fairly on it: smashing down the cctv cameras and sending the fit team off with a bleeding head very early on in the proceedings, but all in all I’m happy to announce we were outclassed by the ingenuity and fighting spirit of students who had never been on a demo before.

at current count there were 32 arrests, not bad on a demo of 45,000, (and we lay-about students managed to hospitalise 5 coppers at the last count.) THIS IS IMPORTANT COMRADES, THOSE ARRESTED WILL BE FACING SERIOUS CHARGES AND MANY FOR MANY OF THEM THIS WILL BE THERE FIRST DEMO AND POSSIBLY FIRST ARREST, FIND OUT FROM YOUR LOCAL UNI WHAT SOLIDARITY ACTIONS ARE GOING ON (leeds comrades look out for the new and imroved leeds class war blog) AND OFFER WHAT EVER SUPPORT YOU CAN, IF WE WANT THIS SORT OF STUFF TO CONTINUE AND ESSCULATE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW THEY’LL BE LOOKED AFTER.

I’ll leave the last words to my fellow students, chanting in unison against the terrified and out numbered metropolitan police: “You ain’t seen nothing yet, b-b-b-baby you just ain’t seen nothing yet”….

Support those arrested: http://nov10.wordpress.com/

One day, all demonstrations will be like this...

now that is the way to do it