In This Society Politeness Is A Counter-Revolutionary Weapon,

         In this society politeness is posted as the necessary requisite for a civilised society. However, what if your society is not civilised, but is an exploitative, brutal, greed driven free for all, for the wealthy and powerful. Then, in dealing with that society, your politeness is no more than your display of submissiveness.  Most UK anarchists will know of Ian Bone, today, pensioner Ian is facing the corrupt might of a Qatari royal family, who have served him with an injunction. Let's make sure Ian does not fight this battle alone. Some may not like his methods, but he is always on the side of the ordinary people and deserves our solidarity, after all, like it or lump it, we are in a class war.

      Some praise for an anarchist from an unusual source, The Guardian: 

         This week the Qatari royal family is taking a pensioner who walks with a stick to court to stop him protesting outside the Shard. The Shard is owned by this family via funds held in Jersey. They also own Harrods, the Olympic village and half of One Hyde Park. They reportedly own more property in London than our own royal family.
         At the top of the Shard are 10 flats with the price tag of £50m each, and they are currently empty. This is partly what has upset the protester, who lives on his pension of £154.56 a week. The Qatar royals are taking him and “persons unknown” to the high court on Thursday and also asking him to pay costs. He was served with an injunction because of his intention to protest. He had encouraged supporters to “ask at the door to see the £50m flats”, or “make a reservation at one of the Shard restaurants and ask if you can bring your own food”. If any made it inside he suggested shouting about the injustices and the empty flats. And Grenfell.
        “We also want musicians to come down and play, sing, dance, rant,” he said. “Need yer own amps.”
        He, however, needs no amps. For the pensioner is Ian Bone of Class War who has been protesting about gentrification and social cleansing since the 80s. I adore the man. To me he is the best tabloid journalist this country has ever produced. Provocative, hilarious, scathing.
        His Class War slogans are full of bile and bite and angrily brilliant. Described by actual tabloids at times as a dangerous insurrectionary, Bone is full of life and fun, someone who monsters the pieties of the left and simply refuses to play any game that involves subservience to the right.
          The injunction that was served against him contains a statement about him from the Shard’s head of security who had contacted the Metropolitan police. They are worried about the inherent security flaws of the Shard but they are clearly more worried about Bone and his anarchy. He is described in the statement as “belligerent and uncooperative when interacting with persons of authority, such as police officers and security officers”. Amazing investigative work there! Who would have thought that the founder of Class War was a little awkward? Bone has since pointed out that he has never hit anyone with his stick and has Parkinson’s.
        Bone’s real stick is his words. His attitude. His joy at pointing to obvious wrongs and asking us which side we are on. “I hate dull lefties,” he tells me. “All the miserabilism.” He likes action and shock. And swearing. I loved all those posters that appalled all those who like to be appalled. “Eat the rich.” The one of Diana and Charles with baby William and “Another Fucking Royal Parasite”. He doesn’t do deference or respect. The banners on marches that referred to the Socialist Workers as Social Wankers. Bone’s stance has always been about having a laugh along the way to smashing it all up.
       His father was a butler. His family grew up “in service”. “So I grew up bitter and resentful with a chip on my shoulder,” he tells me gleefully. When he was 15 he wrote off to an address that he found in Punch to find out more about anarchism. “I believed in chaos,” he said. “I then panicked for weeks. I though they might send round a bearded person.” Since then, of course, he has realised that anarchists are just not that efficient.
       Underneath all the sloganeering though, Bone has been protesting about social cleansing all his life. He lived in Grenfell for two years. He knew people who were in the fire. He led “poor doors” protests in the East End in 2014. “If you grow up like I did, that gets you. The tradesman’s entrance.” He saw the developing ghost towers but he sees the working class being squeezed out everywhere. “Who wants another coffee shop or prep school?” he asks of Ladbroke Grove.
Statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett to be unveiled in April
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        Now that social housing is very much on the agenda, Bone as usual doesn’t want anything to do with Labour. He doesn’t see Corbyn as different to any other Labour leader. Everything for him is about people taking over and running things for themselves.
       Whether this means inciting people to march on Boris Johnson’s house or setting up the South Norwood Tourist Board, Bone is a provocateur, incredibly funny and mostly right. If all this pardoning of suffragettes’ civil disobedience by the political class made you feel as nauseous as it did me, Bone is the antidote. If you value politeness and respectability then Class War may not be for you.
       But on Thursday, I want this anarchist grandad to shake his stick at those Qatari billionaires. He wants, as always, to “push things further”. We should help him. All power to the inimitable Mr Bone.

• Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Election, A Propaganda Vehicle!!

      This Crooks and Liars competition, (the general election) has seen Class War put up candidates, and there has been much criticism from certain anarchist quarters. I personally see nothing wrong in useing every means available to raise the awareness that we are in fact in a class war situation. There is no doubt from Class War's stance, that even if elected, a very big if, they would not be taking part in the charade that takes place in the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption. They make it quite clear that this in no more than a propaganda event to help to bring the words, class war and anarchism to the fore of people's minds. I see it as a wonderful propaganda stunt and poking ridicule at the ridiculous. The same principles still apply, our dreams will never fit in their ballot boxes.

        Ian Bone can probably explain it better himself:

       Heckling at elections is more difficult now. Politicians are kept away from human contact by an army of minders determined to prevent any embarrassment and stick to the soundbite agenda with a slogan that will be pumped throughout the day. Paradoxically though – the harder it is to intrude into the election circus the more seismic is the effect when it does happen. Think Gordon Brown’s ‘that awful woman’ or the rictus look of terror on the politician’s face when confronted by a lone individual in front of the cameras. These lone individuals are modern propagandists by the deed – much feared and liable to blow the election apart with a few dogged words.

       A few of us in Class War have been heckling politicians on St. Stephens Green on important parliamentary days when the media set up camp. There, in front of you, are your enemies. You can be political or puerile: “I thought you were dead” has been said to David Steele, and the very wonderful “You made Peter Andre cry” to Kay Burley when interviewing Alastair Darling. We lamented in the pub afterwards that such occasions weren’t more frequent.

      But they are at election time, and to give it a national focus rather than a series of chance heckles we decided to stand candidates. By any means necessary means by any means necessary – not by any means necessary apart from voting.----------

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Wheelchair Is No Excuse For Protesting.

       Recently I drew attention to the harsh treatment by the Transport Police against a group of elderly protesters trying to defend their free bus pass. Well it seems that the police in London, not to be outdone by the Transport Police in Sheffield, have launched a grossly over the top attack on a group of disabled people protesting at Westminster Abbey. The group, part of the Disabled People Against Cuts, (DPAC) were attempting to highlight  the injustice that will be caused by the government's intention to close the Independent Living Fund, (ILF).

Photo from Ian Bone's blog.   

      Elderly, pensioner, walking with the aid of a stick, disabled and in a wheelchair, you are all fair game for our boys in blue, well its more high vis-jackets and riot gear now. Of course they are called the Police Force, emphasis on the word FORCE.

This from The Void:

       At one point, so desperate were the police to arrest someone for nothing,  they charged into the crowd causing people to fall onto several wheelchair users.  Such was the sudden aggression of police it is a miracle no-one was severely injured although unconfirmed reports suggest one disabled person did have to receive treatment after this assault.  Police also attempted to remove access ramps for wheelchairs users to prevent them from being able to peacefully protest in the Abbey grounds.  Equipment was damaged and police prevented the planned disabled toilet and other infra-structures to be created which would have led to a safe event.  Throughout the afternoon all those inside the grounds remained at risk of violent arrest, and in fact, as you read this, that might be happening.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Coming Crooks And Liars Competition.

       A general election next year, it will be the usual attempt by the crooks and liars to prove they are the best crooks and liars in the game. Same old crap spouted from the same old privileged Oxbridge educated millionaire class. They will be promising you and I, the same old pie-in-the-sky, if we will only let them screw us for another five years. They will be asking you to legitimise their entrenched power and  pilfered  wealth, seeking your approval as they bolster the wealth and power of their buddies in the financial/corporate Mafia. Sadly, the great fraud show, the election, will be accepted by most people as giving them that stamp of legitimacy.

     By then, as George Carlin said, "they have you by the balls".

      Though there is a call for change, there doesn't seem to be a great ground swell to scrap the ballot box and take control of our lives. So perhaps Ian Bone's Class War election campaign has something going for it. An opportunity to use that platform as a propaganda excercise, a chance to talk class war politics to a wider public, to put class war on the agenda, to once again get more people talking about class, and the realisation that this is a class war situation.

 

From Ian Bone's Blog:

        We are standing Class War candidates in the general election on May 7th 2015. We are doing this to launch a furious and co-ordinated political offensive against the ruling class with the opportunity an election gives us to talk politics to our class. We in no way see the election as an alternative to direct action. By the brick and the ballot.
      We are not talking community politics here. It’s too late for a patient slowbuild like the IWCA. The ruling class have us by the throat -they need a short sharp kick in the bollocks. Our election campaign will use any means necessary. we won’t be ushered away by PR minders – we will make ourselves central to the campaign in a funny, rumbustious combative and imaginative way. We will be on the streets and in their faces.
     Comrades whatever our yesterdays you are welcome now. join in. reject cynicism. have fun.
FULL STEAM AHEAD THROUGH THE SHIT

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Circled A Radio, And Ian Bone.

       The Circled "A" Radio show has reached its 100th broadcast, and to mark the occasion they are broadcasting a 30 minute interview with Ian Bone of Class War fame, and author of the book "Bash the Rich", 

Enjoy it HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Freedom Of Speech, If you Have The Money.

      Ian Bone, well known anarchist and class war activist, once again came face to face with the insidious ways of the establishment in silencing opposition. Having been invited to give a talk at Balliol, Oxford, the talk however, was cancelled as the Thames  Valley Police, hit the event with a possible security bill running into the tens of thousands of pounds, to police the event. Since Balliol were not prepared to stump up the money and the organisers of the event, Left Caucus, were unable, the event was prevented from happening. It's called democracy and freedom of speech.

This from Cherwell:

    Questions have subsequently been raised over the legitimacy of the police’s fears, and Ian Bone has been outspoken on the matter. He told Cherwell the tactics of Thames Valley Police were “fucking diabolical… cunning and underhanded.”

    Bone stressed the fact that he was willing to comply with all of the restrictions that Balliol had imposed upon the talk, and intimated that the police had acted in a coercive and persecutory manner. He has now resolved to deliver the same speech next on 1st May, outside Balliol, and protected by the right to protest.

    Bone said that he thought the police were exaggerating the potential danger. Whilst controversial movements on the far-right – such as EDL marches – often cause great public expense, Bone insisted that an hour-long indoor discussion wasn’t even remotely comparable.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

ANARCHISM, A CRIME????

          It seems that the police have decided that being an anarchist is a crime, and if you know of any you should immediately report them to the police. Last week according to the Guardian the Metropolitan Police issued to businesses and members of the public in Westminster a leaflet asking for anti-anarchist whistleblowers. It went on to say “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.” Well at least they got the aims of anarchism correct. I doubt if any anarchist would disagree with the first part of that statement. However should holding that belief mean you automatically fall into the criminal category? By linking anarchists with Islamic fundamentalists on their leaflet it would appear that they are attempting to create an impression in the public mind, that there is a connection between Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and anarchists. Of course anybody that has an inkling of an idea of what these two groupings are about will know that is utter gibberish.

        Anarchists have always stood with the people against any authority that would attempt to restrict the freedom of the people, whither that be the churches in their various guises or the state in its many shapes and forms or corporatism in its greed quest, it makes no difference. No group has a right to to restrict the freedom of the people of any country. If any authority stands up and says, that is a crime, it lays bare it own desire to control and restrict the freedom of the people. Today's state does not represent the people, it is a festering marriage of wealth, religion and corporate fascism, that represents wealth and big business and protects the status quo. To say so is to state the facts as we see them, but in this society stating such facts is now becoming a crime, verifying the beliefs of anarchists.

You can read Ian Bone's take on this  HERE. 

ann arky's home.