Anarchist Workers' Network Website now online!
anarchist worker | 17.09.2003 22:53 | Social Struggles
The new AWN is being launched at this year's anarchist bookfair, with a number of aims:
* To provide a means for anarchists in individual unions or industries to link up and support each other (including unemployed or retired workers).
* To coordinate campaigns like disaffiliation from New Labour.
* To raise awareness of anarchist methods of organising society and industry.
* To circulate and share news, advice and information.
* Supporting workers in struggle.
* To provide a means for anarchists in individual unions or industries to link up and support each other (including unemployed or retired workers).
* To coordinate campaigns like disaffiliation from New Labour.
* To raise awareness of anarchist methods of organising society and industry.
* To circulate and share news, advice and information.
* Supporting workers in struggle.
And their new website has just been launched tonight.
Next AWN Organising Meeting, Sat 27.09.03 @ 7pm
...in the Autonomy Club. Upstairs at Freedom Books, 84b Whitechapel High St. Go to Aldgate East tube, take the Whitechapel Art Gallery exit, turn right and it's down the alleyway on your right.
Hope to see you there!
Next AWN Organising Meeting, Sat 27.09.03 @ 7pm
...in the Autonomy Club. Upstairs at Freedom Books, 84b Whitechapel High St. Go to Aldgate East tube, take the Whitechapel Art Gallery exit, turn right and it's down the alleyway on your right.
Hope to see you there!
anarchist worker
e-mail:
info@awn.org.uk
Homepage:
http://www.awn.org.uk
Comments
Hide the following 19 comments
Yaawn...
17.09.2003 23:18
Thomas J
For F*cks sake ...
17.09.2003 23:38
People are trying to get their voices heard here. What's up?
AnnaKissed
Homepage:
http://www.p.a.c.a.freeservers.com
That's fine, but...
17.09.2003 23:56
I don't agree with this rather small-minded set of bureaucratic editorial guidelines, but there you go--life's a bitch, isn't it?
Can't have one rule for Oxford Socialist Alliance (see previous newswire post) and another for Anarchist loop-de-loops now can we?
Naomi
What?
18.09.2003 00:04
@
Huh?
18.09.2003 00:30
F*ck the SWP. They only want to rule over us again ... we know that!
Any new anarchist org is fine by me and lots of other readers. Giving us a chance to participate elsewhere.
What is your problem?? ... Guidelines, rules, censorship. Guidelines, rules, censorship. Guidelines, rules, censorship ... .. .. .. . Where's our liberty gone?
AnnaKissed (ARCrew)
Homepage:
http://www.p.a.c.a.freeservers.com
It reminds me of the socialist/left wing movement, stupid...
18.09.2003 01:26
Thomas J
One mans reflections
18.09.2003 01:38
Get over it, Stupid (?!?!)
A new world is being formed!
Encouragement never hurt.
Solidarity!
Stupid Anarchist
OH NO
18.09.2003 09:02
INDEPENDENT NEWS THE TYPE YOU DONT GET ON THE TV. WHAT A FOOL I AM IF THEY
FOOL ME WHO ELSE HAVE THEY FOOLED.
SERIOUSLY I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS BRAND NEW ANARCHIST GROUP POSTING HERE
BUT I DIDNT KNOW THEY WERE IN TO ORGANISING VERY UN ANARCHIST.
Inspector frost
Read about it. Learn about it. *Then* mouth off about it.
18.09.2003 10:38
There is nothing "un-anarchist" about organisation. It's actually at the heart of all SUCCESSFUL anarchist actions in the last 150 years.
Anarchism is about no states and no leaders - NOT about no organisation. Without organising resistance there will be no resistance. Capeesh?
This is all obvious to anyone who thinks that anarchism is more than just the right to free cider and a rejection of personal hygiene.
Personally I say good luck to the new Anarchist Workers' Group, or whoever they are.
Mad Monk
I still don't get it!
18.09.2003 13:48
confused
succsesful anarchist
18.09.2003 13:51
Please explain me confused.
Inspector frost
No I won't bloody explain Inspector
18.09.2003 14:20
The Spanish Civil War might be a good place to start. The anarchists established a rather nifty workers state in Catalonia for over eight months (all due to ORGANISATION), before the commies and the fascists fucked it over.
Have you ever overthrown a state, inspector? It isn't easy.
Mad Monk
But that is a sign that anarchism FAILED!
18.09.2003 14:34
The fact that it only lasted eight months would imply that the anarchist state failed, wouldn't it?
As it stands, i cannot see one single example of anarchism that has worked.
Flame away...
Thomas J
You need a dictionary as well as a history book, TJ
18.09.2003 15:00
If the people had refused to support the Catalonian experiment then it would be a "failure." As it is, factory production increased and people revelled in their freedom and new-found control over their lives.
A similar thing happened in Russia after the revolution. Makhno's peasant militia fought the White Russians and instituted anarchist communes across a very wide area. These were then bludgeoned into submission by the Red Army, controlled by Trotsky.
Anarchist experiments almost always end with suppression and counter-revolution. This is because the prospect of a truly free society is unacceptably threatening to the powers that be (on the left and the right) and results in an overwhelming amount of force being brought to bear against them.
This is not proof of the "failure" of anarchism or anarchist ideas. Quite the opposite in fact.
For fucks sake, use words properly. They do have meanings, you know.
Mad Monk
no difference?
18.09.2003 15:12
Who do you think set up indymedia if not anarchists and other non-hierarchical anti-capitalists?
The editorial guidlines ban the advertise of HIERARCHICAL groups - anarchist groups are all horizontal and are therefore free to use IMC.
Thomas J:
And as for the People's Front of Judea comment - I really don't get that. The Anarchist Workers' Network are not rivals for the Anarchist Youth Network! One of them is to help anarchists who WORK (or are unemployed) to organise in workplaces and unions, and the YOUTH network funnily enough is to help young people organise where they are - namely in communities, colleges and Unis.
The Anarchist Federation has members in both the AWY and the AYN, and vice-versa - the anarchists aren't like the trots because we work together: we're not all rivals who think our "party" is the best, it's just that different networks suit different organisational needs.
www.awn.org.uk
www.anarchistyouth.net
www.afed.org.uk
blacknred
okay so
18.09.2003 16:21
But how do you know a group who claim to be non-hierarchical actually are? I mean, what's to stop some Trot group re-naming themselves so they can advertise? Shouldn't groups wanting to advertise have to be vetted to prove they really aren't secretly run by some guru or central committee?
confused
Ok I stand corrected
19.09.2003 00:08
Mad Monk:
"Being overrun by fascists and communists intent on wiping you out is not "failing", Thomas J, any more than the French state being overrun by the Nazis in 1940 was proof that it had "failed"."
and also:
"Anarchist experiments almost always end with suppression and counter-revolution. This is because the prospect of a truly free society is unacceptably threatening to the powers that be (on the left and the right) and results in an overwhelming amount of force being brought to bear against them."
This is why anarchism will NEVER work in the long term unless there can be a way to prevent the "facsists and communists" from overrunning it. Name one example when anarchism has taken hold and remained in place for the long term (20 years plus). I don't see one.
The one real enemy of anarchism is human nature, which tends towards stucture and hierarchy, hence making anarchy unviable in the long term.
This does not mean that we should not stop resisting the worst that capitalism that brings, ie wars, poverty, and hunger, but people should spent less time worrying about utopian ideas that are unrealistic, and concentrate more of their energy into ensure that the current system can be changed by whatever means are best into one that is still imperfect, but better than the previous one.
Thomas J
Getting the point slowly eh?
19.09.2003 17:36
I am no anarchist mumbo jumbo.
I am human.
I am very appreciative of the anarchist tendencies in the western white domain as they are clearly an oasis of reason ...maybe temporary ...I do not care.
Again I am human.
So surely this nature of certain walking kind that is the real enemy of reason cannot be human.
Do not insult me.
What you are referring is best defined as piggy nature until someone can do a better job of it.
Fuck off all pigs. I love animals too.
ram
Guidelines
20.09.2003 17:07
"So was I right then? Groups who call themselves anarchist or autonomist can advertise, groups who call themselves socialist or communist can't? "
No, they can call themselves anything they like, but "the newswire is designed to generate a news resource, not a notice-board for political parties or any other hierarchically structured organization", as stated in the guidelines:
"But how do you know a group who claim to be non-hierarchical actually are? I mean, what's to stop some Trot group re-naming themselves so they can advertise? Shouldn't groups wanting to advertise have to be vetted to prove they really aren't secretly run by some guru or central committee? "
Well it's hard to imagine a political party that would rename themselves just so they could post on the Indymedia newswire, but thanks for saying so! :-)
spanner