Today, there would be a gathering in Newcastle to resist the G8 meeting next year in Gleneagles, which is just around the corner. I decided not to go, as I am still pissed off with the expulsion and I don’t want to meet people this weekend who have been involved in that decision.
This expulsion raises serious doubts if an anarchist anti-capitalist society post-revolution would be any better than the capitalist society we have at the moment.
Because people and humans will not be better post-revolution than before. There will still be people who are greedy, jealous, arrogant, intransigent, false backstabbing badmouthing assholes, gossiping, cliquey, elitist, racist, patriarchal, sexist, selfish, violent, mobbing, and whatever character traits are unfashionable then and now. We won’t become better people or humans just because money disappears. Maybe one form of power would be eliminated, but there are many more, which will persist.
At the moment the anti-capitalist struggle seems pretty irrelevant to me.
Why should I even bother fighting the system?
I am lucky, I am well educated, speak several languages, am healthy, and never had to suffer under real hardship as always somebody helped me out when it was getting tough. Why the fuck should I struggle for others then? They would need to struggle for themselves, but they get on trying to build their own alternative of life. I could just get off my ass, cut off politics, not bother anymore about the G8 gathering nor anything, and start off building my own life.
I could get a dog and a kid and then it’s very easy not to bother about politics anymore, as then there is so much else to do for the next 18 years and beyond…
Anyway, at least I should cut off the whole PGA– Peoples Global Action -crap, as it doesn’t really do anything practical except academic talking at conferences. It is totally resilient to any criticism nor change, even if it makes obvious mistakes. Obvious mistakes such as using neonazi terminology such as “global elite” in their statements, or having discussions if to allow fascists to PGA meetings, which was perceived when reading the minutes, that “yes” they would be allowed to if they make no obvious trouble at the meeting. Apparently, this has/will be changed in the minutes, but it still sends a bad reputation around people. Last Friday, at a meeting at LARC, the PGA decided to amend the minutes, but only after lots of pressure and criticism was put on the organisation from the 2 individuals, which were expelled a few days later. Any criticism or any proposal to improve or change the PGA, EYFA or Escanda will be perceived as a thread to the organisations and will inevitably lead to discrimination, bullying and exclusion of the individual(s). This is not a single incident, that has been happening repeatedly over several years to many people. Because of this policy of intimidation, hardly anybody ever will say, state or write anything against these projects. At least in Europe, maybe it is better elsewhere. Apart from that, it is more a collective of academic writers in search for new topics for book(lets) and magazines, rather than enabling practical solidarity and engaging locally e.g. with striking workers, it’s actually more a left travel and holiday agency than anything else.
Well, maybe it would still make sense to help the Zapatistas, first because they asked for financial help and attention from us Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Group , as well as the workers from the occupied factories in Argentina:
Workers without Bosses to organise them spare parts for their sewing machines.
But maybe not. Will think about it. It would certainly be very relieving just to leave at least the DissentG8 network and just focus on what I would like to do, instead of getting pressured by a network, which is more a burden than any help and in which projects are associated which kick my friends out of a political space.