“The society which has abolished every kind of adventure makes its own abolition the only possible adventure.” Paris, May 1968


Wednesday 30 April 2014

May Day on Clerkenwell Green.

I usually turn out for the annual May Day gathering of the comrades on  Clerkenwell Green and have even been known to go on the march, although I must admit that staying on the green for a few pints with the anarchists is hard to resist. In spite of all my misgivings about the huge Stalin banners usually on display I suppose that such gatherings do serve to remind us that 21st century capitalism is not an inevitable blueprint of how the world will be from now until the cows come home. There is another way. We can do better than this.

2 comments:

Dr Llareggub said...

Hope the weather is good for the May Day event. Originally a celebration of the courage and dignity of organized labour, as you are well aware. Hijacked by the Soviets as an opportunity to parade their military hardware and worker's bombs through Red Square, sending shivers of admiration to aspiring Stalinists here in the UK who dreamed of standing on a balcony somewhere in London watching a parade of grateful workers and their army. Looking at those intending to participate this time is rather depressing. Well paid union leaders, deification of Benn and Crow, Labour MPs who have never done a days work in their lives, and the left. Among the latter will be various Trots recreating October 1917, the nationalizers, left unifiers reminiscing about 1945, campaigners to save NHS abattoirs, Old Labour, greens and eco-fascists, anti-frackers, apocalyptic priests of man made global warming cults, anti-fascist Nazis, no-platformists, censors of the social media, and a group which I find morally questionable: feminist pro-choice supporters, who have announced their intention at the May Day events to call for an extension of the right to kill babies. Perhaps they can team up with the greens and NHS supporters by extending the Swiftian type practice of using babies as environmentally friendly fuel for hospital heating. I have not heard if the Bonist Class War Maoids will be there.

This, my friends, is the left of today. Have anarchists got the bottle to question them? Do anarchists believe there are no questions to ask?

PS. In case I have upset any hard line feminists I should point out that I have consistently advised legislators in various countries to legalize access to voluntary terminations of pregnancy whilst recognizing that it is morally dubious and the ontological and ethical arguments supporting it are untenable. I support free choice.

sid snot said...

nhs is good peeps, wen i got beet up they fixed me up, me bro is always in a n e coz hes a sycho on the snakebyte