I think it depends on what the 'middle class' person is doing and what you mean by 'middle class'.
Do you mean anybody whose parents happened to have professional/managerial jobs, or anybody who has had a university education, or somebody who has a managerial/professional job themselves?

There's no clear distinction between middle and working class - what about all the people who could be called service-class, and form the largest group in society?

Managers and professionals - no way. But to exclude anybody who you define as middle class because they have a certain accent or because their parents had a specific job is just narrowminded. And plenty of working class people go to university and learn about social/political theories and whatever - are they excluded too?

Death to all bureaucrats, but don't extend the threat to their children and grandchildren. That's got an air of judeo-biblical tainted blood about it.

Jesus god! "...just in case you've never read too much of the English language". I can not fucking believe someone actually wrote that in this discussion forum. For what it's worth, Musterman, I have read a book or two; I even understood a couple. But if I hadn't, what? Or, indeed, if English wasn't my first language? Is that the best you could actually do to connect, like you make out you want to? And as for all that shite about "what do I know, I'm damned by my own upbringing"- WRONG. You're damned by your smugness, your self-righteousness and your whining "me too" victim complex. You had a privileged background. Get over it. To spell it out, if it really needs it; I have nothing against middle-class people. In fact, by dint of educational qualifications and income, I probably am one. And that's cool, cos it means I've got shiitake mushrooms in the fridge and I'm ranting at you on this nice flash computer. But what it DOESN'T mean is that I've got some "special" knowledge the proles can't get at, as you and _00_ suggest. You start off, for example, from the viewpoint that the middle classes are "more politicised". That would probably be news to the Liverpool Dockers, the Dudley Hospital Workers or the asylum seekers who marched through Glasgow in August. Similarly, _00_ gets into a state about the proles who "go onto hard drugs and don't seem to care what's going on". Which is kind of ironic, given that the worst, most hopeless, apathetic junkies I've ever met have come from privileged, public-school backgrounds. _00_ goes on to ask "how do we get them (sic) to realise that they can feel and have so much better if they come together" which, frankly, is one of the most nauseating pieces of prose I've ever read. Who, exactly, are you to get people to "realise" that? And precisely who are you to judge that "the" working class have no sense of community/collective strength other than the one you think you can show them? Imagine; some of "them" might actually have things to teach you.

I reckon that everyone should have a good standard of living. We don't need managers or bosses. We can run things ourselves. Everyone should have access to education and health care. There are two main classes- working class and capitalist class. Capitalists like Tony Blair are sending us to war with the poorest people in the world. Capitalism can't give us a good standard of living. It exploits the people and the planet. The solution... A mass movement... and then Revolution... and then we build a new society based on human need with aims like good housing and food and education and work for everyone. Does anyone agree with me?

Es mag sein dass ich auch net mutterspachler bin? Pfff!

In case your reading of your few books has been restricted to Socialist Worker Approved Reading lists, my comment was complete vitriol...

Um, where did I get down on my knee and bleat "woe is me"???

I merely pointed out that the stereotypes pandered by the original poster were bigotry.

And no, you are completely correct, I have little genuine sympathy for people like yourselves ( bigots. ) I do feel however obliged to counter bigotry when I see it. My comments weren't any deluded hope of convincing *you* that attacking scapegoats and stereoptypes is stupid... I presume- in my cynical experience- that you are not in the market for reason.

I find it bewildering how you cite the material trappings of social status as being somehow important to the quality of argument??? Are we all supposed to acquire rickets and scabies to become relevant... what are the uniforms of credibility in your gang?

For the benefit of those who haven't read much siocology: the advantages of the middle classes can be seen to emenate from greater stability that can be seen to emanate from greater finacial stability and wealth.

In other words, if you grow up in suburbia and the greatest thing you have to worry about it getting acne then it is more likely you will integrate more easily into what is deemed normal society and actually progress through to higher education; converesly if you grow up in poverty with abusive parents you are more likely to remain at that level.

These are broad generalisations just like the stereotypes. As usual the reality is far more complex. And the majority of a statistic doesn't make an absolute rule.

So, to get back to my original point. You may find that many of the people active in politics are middle class. This may be explained by the fact political education only seems to get the slightest bit relevant at university level education... sadly, still a laregly bourgois ( and authoritarian ) institution.

Therefore, if someone is middle class and realises "hold on thi system is shit!" are we supposed to hold them to there stereotype and say: you aren't allowed to be in our gang because you are middle class, despite the fact you genuiniely understand the issues and genuinely wish to change things; surely the more on board from all social positions the merrier?

Hopefully, now you will read that and at least admit to yourself "Oh that's what he meant!"... watch my face turn blue as hold my breath.

It seems to me that many people who claim to be egalitarian are merely embittered bigots.

Class war is all about destroying the oppressive SYSTEM to achieve a better society for ALL. NOT substituting the word 'paki' for 'posho' just because you resent their material wealth. Sure the system is shit, but no class has a monopoly on being angry about it.

You are chasing your own tail otherwise.

The rest of your comments seem to concentrate on a load of exceptions that wish to make a rule of themselves. I have found people from all walks of life with problems you described. So, I don't see what you are getting at all. Moreover, I don't really care. You point is probably stupid and dull; just like the people you defend.

Summary: not all middle class people are shit; just are not all working class people are shit... perhaps not all upper class people are shit either.. but who the hell has met enough of them to know??? Hey not all people shit! But bigots are. And if you aren't interested in equality you are a bigot.

For sake of future refernce look up and learn 'anti-authoritarian' and figure out why most of what you had to say to me was irrelvant... I don't even have any great respect for our educational system as it stands anyway! Let alone claim that gretaer access to it makes anyone a greater *authority*. It's that a-word again...

Yes Revolution. I pretty much agree with that. I however don't really know WHAT you mean by revolution. If you mean killing people and setting up an oppressive/ coercive regime to "protect" "freedom", then I'm not too much into that. We have that already.

:-)

So your really keen on pushing this who ‘s who in the class war story.
Yeah I reckon it’s a good idea to sort out where 'we' stand, and wot’s wot who's who ect.
Perhaps we could sort out who ‘we’ the movement are , errr and which movement.
Is there one for the middle class one for the working class, and each one has it’s black and white section oh shit , sorry I forgot about the ethnic minorities, so we are a
movenment divided into 16 splinter groups all of whom hate (the SWP) each other and rather than fight against the ruling classes prefer to fight each other, ruling classes put your feet up, you don’t reall need your intelligence agents, we the movement are already divided and fragmented.
People are always talking about “the movement” from different perspectives, everyone seems to think it’s their own personal movement,as they come from a certain niche in society anyone who is not exactly like them is barred from being a part of it.
So we get the young gun punko types like P.U.K who want to chuck rocks at anyone who has a detached house and speaks propa’.Then on the other side we have people who’s parents were able to bring them up in fairly comfortable surroundings send them to decent schools and then onto university the so called middle classes.
They make snotty comments and quote from OLD BORES and try to maintain some kind of aloof superiority... i know more than you .. so who what is working class .. do I qualify ???

I was born in London (circa) ten years after WW2, my grandfather was a union leader, he just about reached the top. So I guess you could say they were well off working class. My mother met my father and I was accidently conceived ....
They had to get married and moved out to my fathers parents home in the suburbs, they stayed for a while at my grandfathers, a postman, and then got council house on the other side of town. Two years later my sister was born, my father then buggered off and left my mother to get on with it. One of my earliest memories is off my mother picking us up from the day nursery school at about 5,30 in the evening, that night it was snowing heavily I remember it clearly me on the back me sister on the front and me mum peddling along through the 4 ” of snow. She worked as a secretary until about five and then picked us up on the way home. We lived about a mile from the school, I was four my siter two. when we got home we had to light the coal fire and make my mum would cook some dinner.
Single parent family's were a bit of a rarity in the 50's and sixties,my mother got next to no help form social services and no help from my father... times were fuckin' hard.
When I was about eight the social services started to get interested, I was from a broken home so they checked me out. I was given an intelligence test and they told my mother that I had an I Q of a cambridge proffesor, I don’t remember the exact number perhaps 170 or simla shit.
So obviously a lot was expected of me, “he’s so intelligent but does’nt make any effort” was the standard school report for me, so although i was in the A class top in maths and history, two subjects that i have always liked, they convinced my mother to send me to a special school. So at the age of eight I went to a boarding school for malajusted kids I hated it, for the first year I cried every night under the covers. I hated it so much , it was like being sent to prison for me , I was away from my family and friends, it made me even more of a rebel. I left the school at the age of 11 and went to another one of the same type, at about 13 I persauded my mother to get me out and send me to a normal school near my home. She did but by then I had a sort of stigma attached to me, other kids took the piss cos I had been to a special school and I turned into a real nutter/ juvenile delinquent, got into trouble with the law and got kicked out of school at 15.
As I had been through a system that made me out to have some kind of special defect I kinda thought the world owed me something so i went on the rampage, nicking cars every week end to follow my football team and to go all the away matches + inevitable riot and various other stupid crimes got me six months detention center.
The short sharp shock worked for me. I came to my senses and realised that this fucked up system didn’t pay it’s debts and besides there were millions of people worse off than me. So I wouldn’t say I went straight , by any means, I didn’t commit stupid meaning less crimes and I definately never got caught again. I left the working class community I had grown up with and moved to London squatting in West London , in about in the early seventies then I started squatting just south of vauxhall and
and then for the next ten years i squatted in or around brixton in between trips abroad.
I remember the (anti) jubilee, street parties great acid, or was it the American 200 years indepence, same acid ? , it was all red whit and blue, and then the red stars.....
Thatcher got into power and althought the end of the seventies were rocking in the squatting communities it was also the end of an era. In 1976 there were whole streets of empty houses all over london, people were squatting in fantastic buildings
like hospitals, belsize park, fire stations, nr Elephant, and even some of the regency buildings around portland sq, the italians were great squatters and where I used to open
loads of houses and flats on my own or with one or two mates they would go mob handed and open massive industrial buildings and complexes, with the intentions of holding them even if that meant fighting with the cops to defend the place, i taught the italians and spanish a lot about london life they taught me a lot more.
But then area’s started to get gentryfied, Camden Town was an Irish area great boozers
full of paddy’s going to town, the hawley arms was always there, hippy pub from the late sixties. Camden fell to the yuppies quite early on.
Even brixton succombed to the middle classes, first the trendy radical chic types move in, they come across all nice and easy full of the community spirit didn’t mind loud music
all night. But they are the pioneers and they made the real killings buying a house in Brixton when houses cost 10 grand, once all their mates haad moved in the prices were up ten fold... still there you go that’s progress.
I couldn’t believe where they all came from, when I was 17 there were us, a mixture of skinheads /mods/ greasers it was the hippies that were the crossover group they could
come from working / middle / or even upper class but by an large most middle class people were what we called ‘straights’ .... they had short back and sides and didn’t venture too much after dark the streets were ours, cops had morris minors and we could
either out run them, or have a go and get away before they could call up reinforcements.
But as the punk scene took hold you got lot’s of weekend punko’s they could dye their hair green for the weekend bit of gel and then wash it all out for work on monday.

As the seventies were coming to an end Brixton was invaded by posh types and heaving with mostly white middle class people, I remember meeting quite a few dead posh black people as well . They got in on the squatting but their family backgrounds that taught them to get their shit together they soon organized themselves into housing co ops, and some of them got jobs on brixton council.
They didn’t have to queue up at the window between 0900 and 15.00 they met the council in the pub around the corner from the town hall, trinity gardens ?, they discuss their business over a few pints of youngs special, I guess that the SWP must have sprouted at about that time, that pub was always a trendy lefties pub and they always met in there ,,,,, 7 grand a house that will do nicely.
Middle class people love jargon, it helps then stay one step ahead of others, they quickly learnt all the abbreviations for the various grants and application forms.
As we have an outside loo we qualify for a TAC, but you also have an inside loo,
aahhh yes but the form didn’s ask us that, so 5000 grand to put in a new bath room
they would do it on the cheap, like nick all the fittings and pipes from a ‘derri’
or buy them of of me. cost of job couple of hundred, and then they fuck of to
south america for a couple of months with the rest ... well they sure knew how to screw the system.
The miners strike of 1984 was the last straw for me, the press really slagged off the miners and demonised Arthur scargill, and the british public including the wroking classes abandoned the mining community. The Met cops were sent up to yorkshire and laid siege to the rural working class communities, the cops commited terrible crimes against the people and very few people could give a fuck about it.
I fucked off abroad, and rarely come back .

So i’m working class and proud of it, in the sixties and seventies as a young punk i hated the middle class and would not have anything to do with them.
I have travelled the world been to every continent except one North America ,and spent a fair bit of time in war zones, south america central america.

I know how the young guns of today feel, I know exactly where P.U.K is coming from
I felt the same way for years . But if we really want a revolution if we really want to live in peace then we have got to start being tolerant to the person standing next to us, colour of skin nationality doesn’t matter, so are we going to attack a person because he is two rungs up the ladder in front of us.

Plus the fact how do you define middle class , I now own a £250.000 house outright ,
no mortage, I have worked in the music management , video and TV so am I now middle class ??? not fucking likely I’m not.
Apart from the ruling classes the class of people that do most damage to the working classes are the so called proffesional classes, how many working people got screwed by a lawyer, we don’t really need architects to build houses, how many people have lost loved ones cos some bullshit doctor could be fucked to do his or her job properly
and so it goes on.

The fact is this if we need a revolution in the way people think, we need to stop concentrating on profits for the elite few and start thinking in terms of quality of life for the masses, we have to fight for social justice. Sure I couldn’t give a toss about some hooray intellectual quoting me a load of intelectual mumbo jumbo from his favourite writer from the 1920’s, and I am quite prepared to tell him where to stick his theories.
How long have you been on the buildings ??? and clatter him round the head me paddy’s shovel, for although a lot of middle class types are generally well educated and very adapt at rigging the vote in their favour, they have two big weaknesses they lack common sense and they have no balls when the going gets tough.
A posh middle class accent counts for nutting when you are abroad in a non english speaking country. when they hear my accent they say Ohh what are YOU doing here.

I think it’s pretty much impossible to define the line where working class becomes middle class and vice versa if you on the way down, in any case there is no point.
what are you going to say anyone who earns more that £150 week can’t join the movement ??? anyone who has a degree can’t join ??? unless they have a criminal record , come on it’s time to get together. The movement needs everyone,people with physical strength that can fight and people with academic skills who can organize.
the secret is not to let the organizers take over .... how do we do it ?

You tell me !!!!! But lets start talking about how we are all going to get together, and not how we are going to divide ourselves into ever diminishing groups of mud slingers.

LB

Well said Luther! You put it much better than I could.

We should be concentrating on attacking the causes of the problem and not one another.

I think some sort of coalition is a good idea. I seriously doubt that civil war is a viable option at this moemt in time. therefore the smartest move is to attack the system prgamatically, from within.

I my short time on this planet I have witness everything rapidly plummet downhill from the sixties. At the rate we going, we may very well end up with our lives being run 100% by wholly undemocratic powers before I die. And then we can count on a far bigger and bloodier mess getting rid of that kind of situation... and the risk of it being replaced by something worse.

We need a an identifiable movement with clear objectives and articulate ( of all classes ) spokespeople.

Over the last couple of years, I have been coming to the conclusion that the only feasible way of destroying this system is by using the sytem istself. And the admission that taking parlamentary democracy seriously is rather moudly humble pie for an anarchist!

WE all know the issues. The question is how do we make people who have been brought up not care about anything other than football, soaps, shoes and holidays and what Jennifer Lopez is wearing see the issues.

I feel also that the language of "the movement" is also a great hindrance. Unfortuantely, I think the system hs done to good a job at misinforming people about core vocabulary attached to anti-capitalism etc. I seriously doubt that most people can accurately define ( in relation to OUR philosophies ) what anarchism, socialism, communism, capitalism actually mean! Which, when you think about it, means we literally are just talking to oursleves.

We are not dealing with mere apathy. Disinterest at best and misconception at worst.

Sadly, having grown up through the Miners strike and the Falklands myself, I seriously despair at how people seem completely unaware ( and accepting ) of the erosion of their lives. Sure, the UK isn't Seirra Leone; but why wait till that happens... and then may try to stop Sierra Leones from happening rather than profitting from them.

What the hell can we do??? That is the BIG question!

It seems the only way to get a foot in the door with the most infleuncial people ( media ) is to play them at their own game: party politics

Sad but true? We may have to adopt the language of marketing and media to progress any further.

Parlimentary 'democracy' my hairy arse. it's ridiculously slow, corrupt and totally unrepresentative.
i agree that we can, and should, use the media when necessary. The problem of spokespeople is a hairy one (bit like my arse), as is the question of planning events to coincide with maximum media coverage, like greepeace et al. these are issues that need to be addressed by and discussed within affinity groups. Different people are going to think differently about them (goddam i sure am eloquent). is the purpose of direct action to directly affect something (stop the conference, road building whatever), or to gain media attention to publicise the issues and inspire others to do similar things?

instead of getting sucked into the slow, shitty whirlpool of liberal politics i believe people should be busy creating alternative social spaces....squats, free schools and playgroups, anarchist cafes, social centres, autonomous libraries, independent media (!), street parties etc etc. by doing this, we enpower ourselves and at the same time spread the dream of freedom out into communities. when enough people believe in it, it will happen.
or summat.

Fair points grumpy. I just feel that more people would get on board if they actually understood what we are saying.

The media coverage as it stand often does more harm than good; because only the people involved in or around the peripherary of the direct action actually undesrtanding the issues. At the moment, I fear the public reaction ( dictated by the corporate media ) can only be "Bloody loonies just looking for a fight!"

God forbid Grumpy that I should ever try and defend the corrupt old boys network at Westminster. But, I do feel that if we could play them at their own game ( and no I don't mean using tax payers' money to line our own pockets by seeling torture instruments ) we would at least be able to speak for oursleves and explain the issues for ourselves and attack the enemy on its own soil... as a *means* to an end. I wouldn't even be thinking in terms of actually winning an election, but rather using the media and political system to gain greater exposure.

If nothing it could prove to be a great mouthpiece at the best it could light a fire under their arses!

Roughly half the voting population don't even vote anymore. I guess a sizable portion would be sympathetic to much of the anti-capitalist sentiment.

The movement will only grow so much if people don't even understand us and what we want!

And besides, there's something of a situationist joke in a party that aspires to devolve power away from itself, no?

Attack them on ALL fronts!

:-)

sort of in ansa to the last comments.
As far as i know the movement doesn't have any clear objectives, I didn't see any list of, and it is pretty pointless for one person to rant on about what he or she expects from the movement.

in any case even if we manage to bolt the wheels onto this
so called revolution we are never going to take power.
But in some ways it's irrelevant, to us, who is in power human nature or what ever you want to call it, dictates that who ever ot is they will be greedy and corrupt and will shit on the ordinary folk. What we need is an effective opposition
and that's where I shall be for the rest of me days.

We need to fight at local level, form committees, to monitor the quality of life and social justice in the communtiy.
If labour is in power and they sell out to a multi national chemical company then the committee should side with the politcal opposition and get shot of labour, even if this means bringing in the tories, there is not much difference anyway.
The tories will be looking over their shoulder when it comes to dodgy deals which harm the local community.
I know it's hard for most people to think of helping the tories but as things stand there are only two choices.
The main point is that if the local council sells out then they have to go and they have to know this, at least it ups the odds and makes selling out to corporates a risky business
as it is politicians can get away with murder and still stay in office ..
That's where the middle class types become usefull they often work in council offices and moles are very handy creatures,
even if they do say Parsta 4 yarrrs (pasta / years)

LB

Well, I agree about what should be done at a local level anyway. What I am suggesting is doing something at a national level too.

I am sure there are neough people to agree on certain principals to put forward people to speak out on certain issues. I am not suggesting any manifesto ( let alone government.) Just having smn in Westminister to provide some realistic critique! It's harder for the corporate media to ignore it if it is happening slap bang in the "centre" of the system.

Hey, if anyone even did get elected they don't even have to participate ( a perty of abstainers ). Besides why waste a protest vote on the Tories when you can vote for a protestor???

Again, I am suggesting this as a means of direct action and not a means of seizing power.

Many of the local problems are symptomatic of national and international policy. Why just deal with the symptoms?

P.S> working class people sound funny to middle class people too you know ;-)

Hey MM looks we a chat... well I'm not putting myself up as some kind of Billericay Dickie but I have nothing against a nice bit of posh from Burnham on Crouch ... anywhere . but as he song goes I'm not a common thickie, and so what ..
Just to clear up one little point
I didn't mean going to the extreme of VOTING TORY I just meant raking up all the labour shit and passing it on to the tories, and the other vice versa with the tory shit.
The main thing is to tune into the community and make sure they are aware of what their elected representatives are getting up to.
There is a lot of talk on indymedia but no actual concrete proposals. We have to start somewhere and it seems logical to start of small , ie at local level once we can get an effective group working in one town we can use it as a model and export it to other groups in other towns. When it works in a few towns or perhaps certain areas of big cities, then we can bosch it on the capital, and go national.

basically we need to define our aims and then start to put a type of infrastructure together designed to achieve them.
A group of people that will in effect be a local watch dog committee set up to monitor how the community is run.
It will cover anything that is likely to affect the quality of life, including health and well being the general public.
It will also have to monitor the environmental protection agencies who have proved to be lap dogs to the corporates,
health and safety, life in general, the lot.
it will make sure that the council acts in the local residents interests and not in the interests of some multi national comapany. The committee will present itself to local people and encourage other people to get involved it will also need to run courses to educate people about the risks
to their health from certain industries and the, the dangers of smoking, drug abuse could also be covered if qualified,in the suitable sense, people could be found to handle it. The risks involved when using mobile phones, living under pylons and radio masts. A group like this would qualify for grants from EEC funds, under formation / informatica, millions are handed out by local authorities in the EEC each year, unfortunately most of it ends up in the hands of how shall we say right wing types !!

think about it if we got our shit together we could get the
EEC to finance our revolution and I am most sincere about
that and if your into going on about it I have already got some half open channels into the europarliment, and there is tons of info on the eurparliment web site, or is it the Eurocourt, anyay I'm 100% sure that local watch dog committees like wot I described above would qualify for
euro bugs bunny.....


LB

LB you do not know where I’m coming from, you def have a lot to say but u don’t listen to well do you??? I started this whole debate thing asking for some genuine solutions to bridging the gap between working class and middle class. As for throwing rocks at people with money I live in the north of England in a converted mill converted by myself and mates valued at 300k (mortgaged for 50k) and earn 25-30k a year as a heating engineer….. Do u think I should hurl rocks at myself…Muppet.
LB I get the message I will no longer be posting to this site, for fear of any further character assassination by you.
Oh by the way, I reckon there is no middle class or working class (as in the heading class war middle class working class its all a load of shit s.h.i.t). What I personally reckon is the working and middle class have melted into one, insecure in their jobs. We still have the ruling class and we now have a very large part of the population who form the underclass. The problem does not lie with me it lies with the pretty little labels, which divides us. Hence my request to find a solution to the problem I had bridging the gap between my mates and the people running the local squat who are students of what would be deemed middle class upbringing. But hey what the fuck do I know, I just wanna hurl rocks!!
I’m well pissed off with those remarks, bar the young guns comment … I was active during the miners strike/militant witch hunts/Poll tax etc, etc I’m no young pup as they say and I have mellowed a lot with age, tho I ain’t going to print my life story.
A word of advice (u seem to have many!) please do not presume to know everything or everyone, it may help u to unite a lot more people, coz u’ve certainly now alienated this one, who’s crime was to ask for advice on uniting my old mates (who are stuck in a class war mode) and the middle class activists.
P.U.K

well first of all let me say that i'm sorry to have upset you. I can't really say that 'young guns' is an offensive remark, maybe hurling rocks is an inept expression but you do
come across as having a fairly firey attitude.

There may be more than one person using the P.U.K multiple
so I might be getting confused, but your last reply is pretty
punchy "young guns" would not seem so out of place.
I'm sure you were on about middle class wankers at some stage of the game ... anyway ...

I never said you weren't worth shit, When I said that no one gave a shit about the miners, cos next to know one did, I mean that across the board... i never knew about you at the time...

the idea of the posting was good and why should you not post anymore articles ??? i don't count for shit on indymedia.
Besides your posting was well worth while and if your involved in work for the community you might be interested in the last comment I bosched on where I made which makes outrageous claims about EEC sponsorship for the revolution If you run a squat or some kind of venue
why don't you host a meeting to discuss cross class breeding
programmes, i'll definately attend and you can tell what a total 'face the front' I am, an then fill me up with good nothern ale !!

no offence ever intended ..

LB

I'll just pick my jaw up off the floor! That has to be the most intelligent suggestion I have heard in a long while. Potive and productive!

The zapatista quango hehe. I'm all ears ( in North London. )

Feel free to make use of my e-mail address!

:-)

Fair comment, and yep I admit I can be a bit firey. I used to make the international black bloc look like a school choir outing (only joking). But I have lost a lot of my nihilistic attitude….honest.. I must admit I don’t have property valued at 300k I said that to stress I do not hate people with money.. Nor posh accents… haway man anyone sounds posh compared to a Geordie accent.
.Interesting to hear what you have to say regarding the miner’s strike. South from here (which means the entire UK other than here!) your right nobody give a fuck, which is a shame coz up here they certainly did and still do. Not only have full towns been utility destroyed due to lack of employment, despair and the usual shit that comes along with it like smack, crack etc, etc. but families still do not speak the anger is still there. I was 14/15 in 84 this proved to be the foundations of my political thesis this was first hand/front line stuff not reading about it or even travelling in to support it. I lived it. Everything was effected school life, home life, social life. There was no escape. The London met was sent here and acted and were treat like an occupying force. At such a early impressionable age I watched as the met waded into friends and family. It was/is strongly rumored that the sas were behind police lines dressed in police uniform. I have it on good authority the army was. Diving out of the way of police horses, yes we’ve all done it, but was your 60-year-old gran also having to dive out the way. The point I’m trying to get across is that this was an assault on our working class community, by that bitch Thatcher backed to the hilt by Ragan, who sent over Mcgregor to do the same job here as he did over there, paving the way for globalization. Yes we still use coal only now its shipped in from abroad. Using cheaper labour with less health and safety regs. We still have mines up here, huge fucking open cast, minimum labour, with maximum destruction but of cause maximum capital. After that we had the poll tax to contend with. People were having to leave home and couldn’t go to collage as parents couldn’t afford to pay. A lot of my friends including my best friend are dead, some suicide, others murdered, some o.d’d. That is why I suppose I come across a bit negative towards the middle class and students…Who as far as I could see got all their facts from a book so couldn’t possibly know what its like although as people here have pointed out. Its far better u read the book and think this is fucking wrong I’m going to do something about it than read the book and say aghh fuck it I’m privileged I couldn’t give a shit about justice and politics. This discussion has certainly made me think and showed me there a lot of very genuine people out there. Sorry to all those I’ve offended its wasn’t meant as an assault I have defiantly come away from these postings with a lot of positive things, cos. if I’m honest although I can say with all conviction I did/do not hate the middle class or students I think I have harbored a lot of negativeness towards them, mainly cos. I haven’t had a lot to do with them but also I now know me and a lot of other working class are guilty in being … dare I say it…bigoted i.e. “what do they fuckin know, they don’t know how it feels…So lets organize and fuck this system, with rocks and books!!!!! Respect to one and all….P.U.K
Ps Mustermann pls accept my apologies…..I misunderstood u most off all, P.U.K