Okay, I checked out that website as advised.

The main page had a big article about how lefties should stop talking about war and international issues. The links page gave a link to Electronic Intifada, a site about the Palestinian struggle. Can't you make your minds up?

there are undoubtedly v important local issues, but for me the fact that 800,000,000 peeps go to bed starving every night...that India and Pakistan are on the verge of nuclear war.....that countries like Burma, Mexico, Brazil etc are ethnically cleansing the countryside are problems of an entirely different level....i say let's get to the point where everyone has everything they need (access to water, foodbasic health care and a roof over their heads) and to the point where the planet is no longer on the brink of destruction(whether thru war or global warming) as a priority...
the best way to have an influence on these issues is by raising awareness locally for sure, but to suggest that we should ignore these problems and only worry about what happens in England, is pretty racist methinks....

Personally, I think you're doing a great job fighting your corner in Merseyside against corruption in local government. I can understand your frustration when it seems that few people outside your area seem interested in these highly important matters. However, as a "middle-class southern lefty", I don't know what I can do to help - perhaps you should give us some direction in that respect.

As for international issues, in a globalised world it's hard to divorce local and international issues since the processes behind them are often linked and problems are similar. For instance, the complaints you make about regeneration grants are similar to complaints across the developing world regarding many donor programmes. Maybe there are grounds for solidarity between your struggle in Merseyside with, say, Angola where donor funds paid by British tax-payers for reconstruction are going into the pockets of arms dealers and the ruling elite. I think the strength of the anti-globalisation movement is its ability to link local struggles with global economic and political processes.

As for this classism, I find it really puzzling. Stereotyping people is rooted in a prejudiced mindset. You are judging and dismissing people because of your prejudice against those you term "middle-class". What matters is not someone's background, but their beliefs and their actions. Hopefully, your outburst is more to do with your frustration that the wider socialist movement is not taking your issues seriously, rather than any innate prejudices.

I've never met ANYONE who fits the description you're banging on about.
Oh, and the most excting and effective campaign I've been involved in has been to stop an Afghan family getting thrown out of the local West Midlands community they've set up roots in. Local AND global, get it?

there are things going on around local issues. campaign to defend council housing, campaigns against closure of local facilities, etc. if theres not where you live, or its just too 'middle class' for you (where do you draw the line by the way, if some kid from a council estate grows up and works with other kids on the estate is that middle class? is it middle class to work as a nurse for crap money? my dad was a printer, i raised two kids on an estate on my own often on benefits for long periods of time, i've worked in callcentres, i've got a degree, what does that make me?)
anyway start something instead of slagging off people for their 'class' which is just too easy really isn't it?

We have to campaign against the state of the world because, no matter how 'working class' or 'middle class' you are, you are part of a system that screws the rest of the world. life in poverty in england is shit and people do die but there is still an infrastructure. In decimated areas of this world there is not even that.

I have to agree with most of what you say.
My experience of middle class types, taking over housing coops in brixton during the 1970's, hijacking meetings with pre arranged votes they come from the "proffessional classes"
they know how to get on in life. But slagging them off is not really worth it . I'ts not just middle class activists who prefer the more glamourous international activism, which is generally long distance and detached from their local communites. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck into local issues.

I reckon that local groups need to set up civil lists with common goals, put up candidates in their local wards.
if they get elected they won't be part of a party apartatus
with the top flight already sold to the corporates.
instead they will be able to fight for Social justice and Quality of life. making sure that dangerous chemical plants are not built right next to residential areas.
that heavy trux are kept away from housing estates and town centres. in short they will represent the interests of the local community and not big business.
The Left sold out years ago, Blair gets 23% of the mandate
millions don't vote, the SWP and the trendy lefties are angling for those votes.
But why trust another party, going on about a bunch of old farts whose only knowledge of working people was what they learned at university.
If we fight globalisation on a local level, everywhere, we might be able to stop them.
The corruption that you highlight in Liverpool is going down in towns all over the western world, it's the norm , just look at railtrack, ect ..
In my opinion you are dead right local activism is more important than big international issues, that raise the activists to international celebrity status, what people like you are doing in liverpool, and bristol is essential.
As long as you don't start creating national networks with a central control, maintain your local ID.

Anyway good luck to you's

Why do middle class people hate fighting local issues ?

Because the UK working class is full fascist, violent,
football fuckers, low-brained people, that really, nobody
would like to mix with.

Fuck, who wants to fight for the poor ? They're just as
stupid as anyone else.

Come on, bring on the stereotypes, i'm your man.

You know what I think about your text ? I think it was
posted with the sole intention of steering up trouble.
Yeah, troll, funny how i've seen (goodness gracious, not
myself) many "middle class" (or was that middle finger?)
"leftist" involved on environmental problems (but probably they're only protecting middle class air), involved in the hackney sellouts (sorry, I'm not from this shitty town - is hackney a middle-class borough?), involved in nuclear (and other) disarmament (but probably only for bombs that would kill middle class people), homelessness (only middle-class homeless, of course), etc.

Eat your pride, if you want people to help, it's up to you to motivate them, troll.

In response to "awd punter", I'd like to caution against parochialism and NIMBYism, where people can get so obsessed with local issues that they don't see the wider problem. Also, it's simply not true that "middle-class" means unreservedly internationalist at the expense of local issues, or that "working-class" entails local obsessions. This is a false polarity.

There were plenty of British working-class people who chose to go to Spain in the 1930s to fight fascism in solidarity with Spanish workers. When Gandhi visited the East End in 1931, tens of thousands turned out to great him and supported his call for Indian independence. Remember that the working-class in the 1930s were enduring hunger and mass unemployment as a result of the Great Depression. Their situation inspired solidarity with people in similar situations suffering under the same system throughout the world, just as the anti-globalisation movement seeks to create a network of local grassroots resistance.

As for berating the so-called "middle-class", I think you are being juvenile and you are simply undermining any reasonable argument you have to offer. If you have an issue to pursue, don't sit there whinging about the "middle-class". Get on and do something.

The 'class' situation in Britain is most peculiar; having been developed over three centuries without a succesful revolution, it exhibits certain features of a pre-capitalist society, almost late-feudal in some respects. Compared to France, for example, in ideological terms, the British socio- political clock stopped at about 1788. Unfortunately, class status is prevalent among the left, even more than in daily life. There are signs of a profound dichotomy.
Even poor Fred Engels showed signs of despair: At the start of his career he could write "Fellow workers, I have come to be with you" (1840 s) and end with: "What does the worker think of the empire ? Exactly what the bourgeois thinks." (1890 s).
Whats going on ? The British workers movement only established itself at the height of the empire, (the Chartists having failed miserably some 50 years previously). By inculcating a striving for 'status' among the population, (based through privilege for the wealthy and apprenticeships for the poor) the establishement ensured that people cannot take up an anti-elitist position without jeopardising their very sense of belong to society at all. This of course is gross psychological maniuplation, but it works for capitalism. As radical playwright David Hare pointed out in the 1970s, there is actually no need to raise the consciousness of British workers; they are familiar with both the outline principles of capitalism AND of socialism. It is indeed bizarre that a country so steeped in class consciousness should have produced so little in the way fo revolutionary change.
Whats going on ? Its all a bit Byzantine, I admit. I wont give up on this question, but THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS FOR WORKERS THEMSELVES TO BREAK OUT FROM THE CLOSED SYSTEM OF BRITISH POLITICAL THINKING. Labour will try to impede them at every step, and the SWP will be there to confuse the issue further if this worker self liberation gets underway. But then, WHY should it ? British workers do indeed seem remarkably willing to tolerate the system as it is, all told. There exists NO throroughgoing fundamental critique of that system; carping about Blair is pointless, and disingenuous: nobody LIKES a politician, but there is no sustained, coherent opposition. If people are instinctively shying away from original ideas, or even from the daring ones of the past, we wont get anywhere.
There is, unfortunately, too much homebaking on the ideological front; I personally have never been too proud to advocate a great thinker when I discover one, particularly in politics. However, when people start to look for ideas from themselves, their immediate community, friends, the TV, 'society' as a whole, and so on, then they automatically create a conformist framework, a conventionality of recieved thinking. This must be overcome, else we wont achieve anything.

I totally agree with you Dan whinging about the middle class will get us know where, identifying exact who the middle classes is not simple.
Ensuring they don't hijack the movement (any movement) is going to be very tricky, but should be N0 1 priority.
I also have lots of middle class friends, i think at the and of the session it boils down to good and bad people.
telling the difference,would seem to be the difficulty.
Some one else mentioned that the working classes are all
facist football hooligans, I guess there is some truth in that.few problems to sort out, still we live and learn.

I agree with Dan about prejudice. Substitute middle class for black in the statements above and you get fascist diatribe.

bien sur!

Agree with a lot of this anti middle class stuff...it is true the reason so many middle class people get involved with far away stuff is cos they don't dare go near any proles...and anyway its all pretty pointless...the only way u change anything is at home...u r not doing anything for the palestinians the whales the whatever...u change power in this country and then maybe we can allow others to change their world too...all this middle class SWP and sometimes @ politics is just patronising shit...Sorry though, the idea ( of Andy Anderson) that the middle class run society is drivel....they may/do continually fuck up our campaigns and our lives, at school, at work, in culture, everywhere...(but that is the point, they are in the middle, they run society for the rulers, and they want to run society for themselves , 'to make it better' for us poor proles and to make money for themselves and to keep their consciences happy)...and thats why i hate them more than those who really own the world cos they are fuckin everywhere mesin us about (however nice many of them are,,,thye can afford to be!)...that is the point of the problem with Leninism, is that it is a middle class ideology...people who want to, on our backs, create a new state...then the middle class become ruling class and another middle class will reappear...
To be positive check out the Independant Working Class Asociation...doing , like many local @'s and independant socialists good real work to change this fucked up world
P.S. i hear that the Andersons weren't exactly free of middle class influences themselves...methinks that their stuff is motivated by something fucked up

"The middle-class run society". Surely that sums up the degree of confusion which dominates the British class mentality: by definition, a midddle-class cannot control society- it must (by definition I say) be in the MIDDLE, between the ruling class and the exploited class(es). If it isnt, then it cannot be a 'middle'-class !
'Space-Trotskyist', despite an excellent outline, tends to make the error of focusing his critique on the workers rather than the bourgeois, but his re-iteration of Marx's first principle (that the workers must take charge of their own liberation) is correct, and its been a while since I saw it on IMC. It must also be admitted that the main reason for the predominance of the ghastly, class-ridden little creeps now running the movement (such as in the SWP) is because the workers never quite managed to establish their own pre-eminence.
How CAN we break away from this stultifying status-consciouness which is dragging down a whole society ? At the risk of sounding twee, everyone should be judged on whats in the heart and mind; We should not condemn people on personal income alone. Think of any first rate revolutionary hero, and for the most part you will not find an impoverished proletarian, but a relatively affluent person; eg , Che Guevara, Trotsky, Sartre, and even some aristocrats such as Kropotkin. Anyway, It is the easiest thing for a bourgeois to suddenly start 'renouncing' money and play poor, while still holding overall control of things ! Nor should we stipulate how much anyone actually needs: the more money a person has, the more chance he will donate more to the cause .

"The middle class must by definition be in the middle"? Back to square one, Auguste. You've obviously not read up on your revolutionary history and missed the bit about the middle class (often called the bourgeoisie) taking control after the French Revolution. Better read the ole Communist Manifesto again...

there are two classes, rulingclass and underclass, forget the class war it is just another means of division, the reason so many are not at the present time focused on localised issues is simply because the entire international system is on the brink of collapse and approaching all out war between nations ,truth is many people know there is a global conspiracy unfolding and are caught in limbo wondering how to best resist and avert impending catastrophe for the human race as a whole without which there would be no local issues to decide anyway

true that poverty is high in britain but lets be fucking honest here how many of us get water from the tap, have a fridge and cupboards filled with food or access to basic health provision how many people on the international front do you think are privvy to the luxuries of the west

think about it

from the underclasses

Nuggett {{>>H8theG8<<}}