United for Mayday News
noel | 12.03.2002 15:36
Against War and Privatisation - United for Mayday!
This mayday there will be a united march from a festival at Clerkenwell Green at 12 pm to Trafalgar Square where a rally will kick off at 3.30pm
Speakers confirmed are tony benn and mark serwotka.
This is the first time ever that a demo has been allowed to assemble in T.Square whilst parliament has been in session!
Come along and lets make it a beautiful day!
This mayday there will be a united march from a festival at Clerkenwell Green at 12 pm to Trafalgar Square where a rally will kick off at 3.30pm
Speakers confirmed are tony benn and mark serwotka.
This is the first time ever that a demo has been allowed to assemble in T.Square whilst parliament has been in session!
Come along and lets make it a beautiful day!
noel
e-mail:
noel@freemachine.net
Comments
Hide the following 18 comments
Confimed by who and who is organising.
12.03.2002 16:05
Once arriving at Trafalger Square we will no doubt disperse into our own lives having acquired next to no media attention.
First time Cabinet in session and so we will be nicely corraled like sheep unable to get our message across. Brilliant.
sceptic
organised by Greater London TUC
12.03.2002 16:36
internationalist
Homepage:
http://www.glatuc.org.uk
Other Mayday Stuff
12.03.2002 16:42
A Friend
Homepage:
http://www.ourmayday.org.uk
tradition, the tuc, and the swp
12.03.2002 17:37
Well we know where the shit wipers will be then don't we.
ps.
UNITED?? Some mistake surely
12.03.2002 18:36
No doubt the SWP have sold the GR involvement to the trade unionists on the basis that it is a mass youth movement rather than a mass placarding operation.
THe united for mayday event is designed to allow the SWP the respectability they crave. It shows that they are not interested in unity with anti-capitalists who do not want to join their blessed party
At least it makes it clear which side of the barricades the SWP will be on.
Stuff em, lets all get down to Mayfair and have some real mayday revelry
Beltane agitator
The TUC, etc, etc.
12.03.2002 19:25
Ronnie.
Mayday is our day!
12.03.2002 21:00
United for our Mayday! Down with anti-capitalism! Ours is the only true path! There is no God but Trotsky! Cliff is his messenger!
Bourgeois Liberation Front
oh blimey get a life you people
12.03.2002 21:06
So there's diversity on mayday, that's a GOOD THING giving people CHOICES, and of course POSSIBILITIES.
SWP will go union unity of course, if GR want to do that as well it's no surprise really. The question for me is whether they give any weblinks on their site or spread information about the other stuff going on as well.
UNITY IN DIVERSITY
and get back out there
Remember Mayday 2000 - RTS gardeners + unions
12.03.2002 21:54
This is the text published a couple of days after May Day 2000 by the trade union may day organising committee. The fact of the matter was the cops were determined to stop the two crowds meeting up. This should still be online on a few union sites, I got it off indymedia:
THE FACTS ON THE STOPPING OF THE MAY DAY RALLY IN LONDON
The London May Day March, which had long been agreed and negotiated with the police (who had referred to us as a good example of how to ensure maximum co-operation in the lead up to May Day), had reached within 50 yards of Trafalgar Square before being stopped by the police. They claimed it was unsafe to continue to our planned rally in Trafalgar Square. However, our stewards were in the Square at the time having secured the speaking area and PA system, and there were no problems in the Square at that time. The 'anti-capitalist' demonstrators were still down at the Parliament Square end of Whitehall and all was quiet in and around Trafalgar Square.
The police held the March for a long time and then allowed the 'anti-capitalist' demonstrators to come up Whitehall to the junction with the Square. (They could easily have prevented this if they felt it was a potential problem, as they showed later in the day particularly by using the police and vans to prevent us from entering the Square). However, we had received clear indications that the bulk of these demonstrators wished to support our rally and the car workers - as they had the RMT anti-tube privatisation campaign. Preventing them coming to our rally led to confrontation that could be exploited by those set on conflict.
The police held up the May Day March for over 40 minutes during which time we could have easily held our rally as nothing was happening in the Square. The blunt blockage of our March was itself the sort of thing that can lead to friction and it was to the credit of our organisations and stewards that this did not happen. The police 'suggested' we could go to another venue for our rally but it would mean we would not have our PA system or arranged platform and many organisations saw no reason why we could not go to Trafalgar Square. We maintained a process of continuous consultation with the organisations on the March to decide on courses of action and after the long impasse the bulk of organisations agreed that the best response was to disperse under protest. We wished to maintain the unity of the March and avoid any possibilities for provocations. After the bulk of the March had dispersed, the March head with the Longbridge car workers decided to leave as a group and go to Temple for a short rally before dispersing there.
There has been widespread concern that the police did not ensure our rally could go ahead and our long co-operation seemed to count for nothing. We need to stress that no problems occurred in the Square until we had left and only then because police forced some of the anti-capitalists into the Square. Some key questions need to be answered about the circumstances and should be pursued with MPs and the new London police authority for future arrangements.
The London May Day March has been organised for over 100 years and is the united march for international workers day. It brings together trade unions, organisations from the international communities in London, campaigns, pensioners, socialists and others. It takes place every year on May 1st.
Roger Sutton
Organiser
London May Day Organising Committee
2-5-00
timeteam
What we should do is . . .
13.03.2002 08:37
Oops, but then of course there aren´t any revolutionaries in the SWP. Naturally, it´s the anarchists who will receive all the police attention again. Remind me Noel, were the Haymarket Martyrs in the SWP? Or did I sleep my way through a history degree? Jesus.
Don´t these fuckers realise that every activist they take away from the real struggle is another activist lost to bourgeois reformist claptrap? Karl Marx had a term for these guys - he called them "bourgeois socialists" - the folks who want "a bourgeoisie without a proletariat". Go figure.
Anarchist Rioter
this is more like it!
13.03.2002 15:25
As to whoever said people might want a choice of events; choice? are you mad? They might choose the wrong one!
a nonny mouse
Ha ha
14.03.2002 09:01
The Trafalgar square farce only shows how deeply enmeshed in their own propaganda the SWP have become. Their definition of "unity" is to organise a big rally on the same day as the Direct Action, in the hope of creaming off some press coverage and generally taking the credit for being "revolutionary". Remind me, just how many SWP activists are doing time for their political beliefs?
So instead of actually doing anything to defeat capitalism, they will stand around like a bunch of lemons, listening to Red Ken and pretending to be radical. "Oooh, I would go on the Direct Action but then I might get expelled from Eton. ALL POWER TO THE WORKING CLASSES . . . THEN BACK TO DADDY´S CASTLE FOR TEA!"
By the way, if you want to stick your head up your own arse, it´s best to wear a shower-cap and use plenty of lube.
Here´s a rhetorical question for you: What´s the difference between a riot cop and the SWP?
Answer: Riot cops get paid nearly thirty grand a year for the defence of global capitalism. The SWP do it for free. What a joke you are.
Anarchist Rioter
Defeat Capitalism?
14.03.2002 09:26
You can't destroy Capitalism with a single day of protest, even if it comes with a glorious history - you can draw attention to yourselves and the issues, you can feel empowered, you can make links with other anti-Capitalists to forge something bigger in the future, you can make some rich people frightened, but if you think thats any more radical than the TUC you've got a lot to learn.
better red than dead
And what´s your alternative?
14.03.2002 09:34
SOCIALISM FAILED. Why did all those East German folks kill themselves trying to escape over the Wall? Have you ever been to Romania? Or Bulgaria? Or Russia? Do you actually know anything about socialism, and what it does to people´s minds? Stalin killed fifty million people. Or doesn´t that fit with your illusory pseudo-Hegelian notions of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" etc etc?
I know your kind only too well. You are the people who will put me up against a wall if your revolution ever occurs. I´d sooner be a "fool" than an assassin.
Anarchist Rioter
You don't know me at all mate
14.03.2002 10:10
better dead than red?
OK, I´m sorry
14.03.2002 17:11
Socialism assumes a political revolution based on workers´ seizure of the means of production. This can and will happen . . . however, the historical experience clearly demonstrates that all socialist states are police states. The socialist revolutionary is a revolutionary who has forgetten how to rebel. He is therefore condemned to be either a bureaucrat or a policeman. There are only two possible outcomes to SWP activism - backsliding into social democracy, and hence conformism, or a full-scale revolution leading to Stalinism. (Remember that Lenin said "theory should subordinate spontaneity".)
Anarchism, on the other hand, posits an immediate rebellion. Note that I say rebellion, and not revolution. (Read "the rebel" by Albert Camus if you want to know the difference - he can explain it better than I can.) By experiencing a Direct Action, Anarchists destroy capitalism by negating its totality. OK, this is a fancy way of saying that by denying that capitalism has complete control over our lives (even if just for a few hours), then we implicitly deny the existence of capitalism. It doesn´t stop the wars and the suffering, true - but it is at least an authentic experience. This is the real point of Mayday, not some boring political rally that only recycles dead history. And as I said, I´d sooner be a (romantic) fool than an apologist for cynicism and crime.
Anarchist Rioter
UNITY
14.03.2002 19:09
Do what you will on MayDay, but for goodness sake show some solidarity.
Zacc
So it is all about making yourself feel good?
15.03.2002 10:06
Doing ineffectual stuff down a sidestreet in Mayfair might make you feel better, that's true, but if Capitalism can be destroyed by a small number of Anarchists ignoring it for a while, then it would have been destroyed years ago. Its no good ignoring Capitalism, it's still there when you open your eyes! Denying that Capital has complete control over our lives is a fundamental of resistance - but what you think inside your head doesn't affect Capital, it affects YOU! You have to take those thoughts and put them into action if you want to make change. MayDay is a way to show that we also have power and will not be intimidated, that we can fight back: but we will not threaten anything by re-enacting a tired Anarchist routine or through a pointless fancy dress party in the streets of London.
PS. This may suprise you, but I've been involved in Anarchist politics for 25 years, and I don't require a lecture about Camus. My point is not that the TUC and the SWP are doing something particularly useful, but that the MayDay spectaculars aren't much better.
redder than red