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Anti party

aharon | 20.06.2001 21:10


Maybe someone could help me here... I wonder why, for example, the demonstrators in Sweden last week, are labelled "anti capitalists"? Who chose that caption? The media? Politicians? The demonstrators? Kind of came about? This is a question about substance of message and about control, not about presentation.

Personally, I am for people's freedom, for integrated accountable and radical politics, for creative economics (creative in the sense that economies have to embrace people's creativity, their individual and communal potential, rather than embracing top dogs of the market..), for green petrol substitutes and alternative modes of transport, for communal media and for the evolution of the "freedom of expression" into the freedom of creation.
The fact that nowadays, there are, for example, capitalism, and liberal globalism, standing in the way of such ambitions - does not mean I am against these in particular. The reason being is that then one is tied to a certain term, a certain way. Hence is being, somewhat ironically, depended on that very thing s/he wants to replace. What if a year from now, our pal Tony, will wake up in the morning and decide that capitalism is a non-fashionable term. Hence should be rebranded as new capitalism, or poopooism, or whatever... The point is that surely, when one campaigns for social changes, the positive aspects of the concepts and ideas should be emphasised at every level. I have not heard much positive statements from the state media about "anti capitalists", nor, unfortunately have I managed to read much positive in many of the posts on indymedia.

There seem to be a group of issues which, although different in spheres, contain a common sense of desire for change. And change will not come through protests alone, through attempting to change the politicians minds - but through undermining the current system, through highlighting the crooked lies upon which it stands. For example, the idea of "free" "market" economy. This is neither "free", nor is it a "market". Sure "player" (e.g. companies) might come and go, individuals from a relatively poor background might become very rich - but such examples do not point towards freedom, nor a real market environment. They point towards the dictatorship of the capital and it's associated ruling classes.

During the 19th century there has been an interesting change within the UK press. At the beginning of the 19th century, there was a "press tax". The government levied tax on distributed information because it allowed a convenient way to control who can or can not publish information. This situation gave rise to a large number of radical publications who did not pay the tax. Many individuals who were associated with these radical publications faced persecution in the form of jail sentences and having to flee the country. However, successive governments could not quash these radical publications. Towards the 3rd quarter of the 19th century, it was agreed in Westminster to let newspapers and magazines compete in the "free market". The interesting and telling thing is that the reason for that decision was the understanding that by allowing "competition", the radical publications will disappear. And so it was that the market forces, ruled by known personalities and perks of benefit systems, one might say: Mafia, in all but name, eliminated the radicals. One of the last radical papers was the Daily Harold which was launched at around 1911 by the Labour party. The publication could not have survived but for contributions from Union members although it had a high readership of over a million. Guess what became of that newspaper, it is nowadays known as "the Sun".

This, for now, should rest my case... :)

aharon
- e-mail: aha@artileri.net
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