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Class War in Manchester & Manhattan

The Art of War | 01.10.2011 21:40 | Public sector cuts | Workers' Movements

Rather than totally ignoring anti-capitalist protest as you might imagine, the front page of the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper's website is reporting another week of protest against Wall Street, and asking whether these demos represent a "middle-class uprising"? The Arab Spring was characterised by its broadly middle-class make-up, and research shows that over 70% of British people no longer see themselves as working-class.....

Rather than totally ignoring anti-capitalist protest as you might imagine, the front page of the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper's website is (on 1st Oct 2011) reporting yet another week of protest against Wall Street, and, even better, asking whether these demonstrations represent a "middle-class uprising"? The article says that "New York City police are bracing for a weekend of mayhem in lower Manhattan, with thousands expected to risk arrest as the Occupy Wall Street protest moves into its 3rd straight week". Although the protest is taking place in the USA, the fact that this question is even being asked by one of the UK's right-wing tabloids is significant, particularly on the eve of protests against the Tory conference, and particularly in terms of influencing The Daily Mail's 2,050,132 accredited UK circulation.

Right-wing Daily Telegraph correspondent Charles Moore recently wrote that "The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything". In 2010, The Daily Mail admitted that in London the gap between rich and poor is worse than at any time since the abolition of slavery, and admitted that more than a 3rd of British land is still owned by "a tiny group of aristocrats".

Reports of this nature reach thousands of times more people than the radical media, actively preaching anti-capitalist messages to the UN-coverted; and, on account of their NOT coming from radical sources, such criticisms carry much more weight with those members of the public who read such newspapers (similarly, although written for a left-wing tabloid, an article in The Daily Mirror which accused the Tories of wanting to "destroy" our NHS was all the more important for having been written by hard-right Tory politician Norman Tebbit).

Radical agitators are reminded that the Arab Spring was characterised by its broadly (though by no means exclusively) middle-class make-up, and reminded that recent research shows that over 70% of British people no longer see themselves as working-class. In context, the purpose of this article is to respectfully ask radical agitators not to squander god-given opportunities with displays of the extremist banners etc that remind many members of the public why it is they feel they have no sympathy with progressive politics.

Despite the obvious reality of the class war that's waged by capitalism against society, decades of reactive class-struggle activism have done more harm than good to radical politics, and some radical groups are an ASSET to the establishment, in terms of how the right-wing media manipulate perceptions of political extremism to drive a wedge between progressive activists and other members of the public. The way radicalism will grow is not by using protests to fly red and/or black flags and flog ideologically dogmatic newspapers - radicalism will grow if our movement is able to deliver successful RESULTS, and those results depend on our not alienating other members of the public.

As argued in recent posts, the Anti-Cuts movement will succeed if it pursues strategies that expose war-mongering capitalists as the real extremists, that defend truly democratic principles, and that make our movement genuinely inclusive. The movement will fail if it is perceived to be attacking democracy and if we're the ones the system's able to smear as extremists. This post is not arguing that people should roll over and beg if they're attacked by the police, or arguing that people should limit their activism to signing petitions. This post is arguing that activists should think strategically. If our movement succeeds, the long-term rewards for domestic radicalism will be immense. If it fails, the consequences will be disastrous.

The Anti-Cuts movement will succeed if it defends true democracy...