Wow Mick, you're amaaaaazing.

[stares dreamily into distance]

Well Mick-You've done a lot of bollocks-but that's more than most socialists do.Congrats.

Lets meet somewere and talk about this. But I guess you cowards are too scared to meet with me arn't you? You're even too scared to give your names out. What a bunch of fucking cowards you are.

"Lets meet somewere and talk about this. But I guess you cowards are too scared to meet with me arn't you? You're even too scared to give your names out. What a bunch of fucking cowards you are."

Self-important twat. What makes you think I want to meet you and 'talk about' your situation? What makes you think I care? What makes you think I'm "too scared" to use my "real" name?

Maybe I just don't care about you and your bigheaded vendetta.

Maybe.

Agree with you all the way, Mike, and well done, and thanks. Someone needs to grit their teeth & take this kind of rubbish & abuse & stand up for people too ground down & apathetic to do it themselves, and then hopefully they will end up doing it for themselves...In the meantime, someone like 'Bobby Bollocks' is hardly making much of an impact - except in a childish, miserable sort of way, poor bloke.

Well Boyz will be boyz, ya can't beat a good online fight.

But Mike you will find that you end up fighting on your todd, I'm sure Riverside will give you a new house mate

There's a lot of truth in Mike's attack on 'the left/anarchists'.

He knows it and so should a lot of others...

'Liberal Anarchists' I'd call them, throw a brick in News from Nowhere you'll hit one of them...

>>I wonder why Liverpool Indymedia has made a link to PnP and Kirby Time, but no link has been made to my web site. Could I be accused of being paranoid or has the PnP webmasters of Liverpool Indymedia decided to give me a wide berth?

liverpool IMC has been very poor at developing the site. this would include putting up links. site development is down to the number of tech literate people willing to give up their time to get involved. i guess there aren't many working at it just now.

>>they have used their skills to get funding and expensive computers and other media equipment on the pretext that they were going to involve many other people in the use of it when in truth this small clique has complete control over this equipment and were this equipment is secretly stored.

access to - and control of - info technology and the hardware needed to use it is a big issue. generating news that is ignored / suppressed by the mainstream corporate media (y'know, echo/post/mirror/star/guardian/sun/times/bbc/itv/etc etc) is what indymedia is all about. the revolution will not be televised, as they say. to get the real news, people need access to the technology. there are now free pc's in the city libraries so people can post news that is important to them and get involved. they just need to know IMC is there and how posting online is done. IMCUK (and liverpool) has a poor record on outreach but something can be done about that. promote the site to others. get them to post news. make it a clique free site. as a beginning there is an IMC open house at FACT on 23 April, 4-5pm. there will be other IMC promotions to follow.

I really do agree with what Mike is saying, working class activists are always going to be passed over by
middle class types on their way up. Middle class types are often well meaning and just about bearable (for short sessions) but due to their social background they know all the short cuts like how to prearranged stuff like
rigging the vote at , say the housing coop meeting or what ever shit their involved with.
But you can't just lambast everyone not everyone is more equal than the others .. middle class folks just seem
to have a knack of taking over everything from workers housing, (not the tower blocks just the nice little terraced "cottages"), to workers protests (when it suits them) through fronts like the SWP :

fair play to Mike for his long term commitment to fighting for working peoples rights and social justice in liverpool !!!

Mike, there basically is no PNP at the moment, so it couldn't be running some grand conspiracy. Some people involved in PNP did use their skills to get computers and stuff about a year ago, and they were available for anyone to use at the Bronte Centre. Unfortunately, this seems to have coincided with a downturn in enthusiasm for grassroots action in Liverpool, and the computers went largely unused. So a couple of people (yes, from PNP) set-up Catalyst Creative Media. We have since published three magazines which have brought issues such as refugee crackdowns, police corruption, and the duke of westminster's crypto-fascist plans for the city centre to the attention of thousands. Of the PNP members involved, one puts in so much work he is actually way below the minimum wage, and I receive no money at all (actually paying to get over from the Wirral a few days a week). So no-one has sold out. I admire your dedication, Mike, I only wish there were more as dedicated as you.

Hi Homepage. An article about a Pig been beaten up by other Pigs does not expose the Police. Indeed, it would be usefull if this trend becomes the norm as it might prevent the futher deaths of Jamicans and Irish ,hundreds of whom have died in police cells since the late 50's. James

I kind of figured that PNP weren't active at the moment, however I also noticed since the move to the Bronte Centre the regular Monday meetings were held at 6pm or earlier even, this isn't the ideal time for anyone to attend meetings, especially those with child care responsibilities or workers coming home from a days work. In fact to be honest I doubt I'd attend an evening meeting in town before 7pm, the roads start to get packed from 3pm parents driving children home, then 4pm to 6pm workers driving home. In fact I've only just realised now that I stopped getting the regular news/info email from PNP.

I also note that sometimes I'll post something and it doesn't appear, like I posted a copy of my full CofC article into the shorter CofC article that appears here a few times and even just a quick comment and nothing's appeared, what's that about then.

Bloody hell I've just read indymedia for the first time - what the fuck is happening - all this threats and insults etc?
Firstly Mike no-one is ignoring your website - as stated before - virtually everyone I know who does indymedia also works full time and has a million other things to do - your website should of course be included you do great work in Kensington and although you do insult anyone who doesn't do what you do - I applaud you for it.
The office at the Bronte was put together through loads of hard work and it was not used - the resource was offered out to people and no-one took it up. And Kai 6 o'clock was the time becasue people worked, becasue people wanted to come from work to the meetings and then go home. No time was ever ideal.
And lastly why the fuck do working class people always try to rubbish everything other working class people do. There will never ever be a serious revolutinary challange to this system or the power as long as the only thing working class peole do is slag other woring class people off - we have got to get educated, skilled up and stop allowing middle class people from taking over organisations - instead of just moaning about it.
Mike I think your view of what is working class is stuck in the 80s.
all the best.
We have not had a revolution in this country for many reasons and one being the working class has also fucked the working class - face the truth and then lets move on.

re:

"Kai 6 o'clock was the time becasue people worked, becasue people wanted to come from work to the meetings and then go home. No time was ever ideal."

OK, I was just asking, but that explains why myself and a friend who had child care and family responsibilities couldn't attend though, no attack - just a question really!

[SNIP]

I wrote a longer reply about why some working class people attack other working class people who get on and achieve things, but then I thought na' no one's really interested in open, honest in depth debate... Much of what I wrote kind of talked about the deep seated mistrust amongst working class people here in Liverpool on all levels, and my suggestions of what lay at the root of that and how we're cynical and why many of us are cynical, some understanding and explaination... bla-de-bla repeat-to-fade!

Still at least I think I understand why, so I've educated myself while not boring any of you... (-;

Sorry that comment about teh time of PNP meetings wasn't meant to be snappy - just pointing stuff out - becasue it was an ongoing discussion - and there were many reasons why it was decided to be 6 o'clock. Some peopl worked in Town - some people worked int eh north end of the city and travelled throught eh city centre at that time going home, so woudn't have gone home then come back etc.

I think you should publish the article about ' why working class people don't like other working class people getting on' and also it depends what getting on means. I'v ben involved in politics for near enough 20 years and my experince is that the most vehment critics of other working class people are the ones who are not that committed or are all talk or have had many opportunites themselves to get on. within working class people there are big disparities - there are working class educated people,there are people we teach themselves. there are people who had lots of opportunites but rejected them or people who never had opportunites but try to make opportunites. Plus a lot of it has a dnager of becomeing bullshit - plus infilitraters can often come in and are experts at exploiting any potential diffirences.
its all very well spending all the energy blamign everyone else for your, our workign class peoples situations. Look what working class 'militant' done, destroyed the hopes and dreams of thousands of people to ever turn to the left again, look what teh working class trade union movement has done? How many of Liverpool's working class supported the dockers dispute. Ask black, asian or refugees about what they think about the salt of the earth working class people? We need to look at what is hear now, genuine workign class revolutinaries have to devlope their skills - they have to learn about producing litrature, they have to learn about computers, about making posters, organsing protest, they have to learn how to spread the message and build the resitance and build the confidence of working class people. Becasue i tell you its fucked - and often people with the above skills are middle class. Most so called revolutinary organisations cannot organise a piss up in a brewary - and I tell you a working class leader of a politcal party is often a lot more brutal than anyone when its comes to power and keeping control.
anyway this is a rant that wasn't intended. Its a bout time people strated foccusing were it matters - because if they don't thinsg are going to get a hell of a lot worse.

I know what it is like to be working class and poor. My grandparents came over to this country from Ireland in 1890. My great grandfather, who was a carter, was killed on the docks in a tragic accident. My great grandmother was left to bring six young kids on her own and only managed to keep out of the workhouse through her wits.

Take a look at this poem and if it does not strike a cord in your heart then you are not working class. Middle class people could not give a fuck about what happend in the workhouse or what is happening to working class people today.

The work house
Theirs is yon house that holds the parish~poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There, children dwell who know no parents' care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there!
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood fears;
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!
The moping idiot and the madman gay.
Here too the sick their final doom receive
Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve,

The Village George Crabbe

Trusting one another appears to be a rarity and the backstabbing that working class people who try to achieve things (for the collective good) experience from other working class people is breath taking. I don't know if it's as extreme elsewhere as it is here in Liverpool (I doubt it), but I try to understand what's behind it; is it due to the underlying opportunism/culture/social base? ie due to the endemic and long term poverty here and the traditionally down trodden working class of Liverpool often having to scavenge for the crumbs. Thus we fight amongst ourselves for the left-overs while others get the lions share, but we don't unite for our collective greater good which is the only reason we're in the mess we're in surely.

John Lennon's song Working Class Hero, kind of says a lot for me...

I had it throughout my community voluntary period, it appears to be about mistrust amongst people who doubt other people’s motives, the fact is I recall as a community volunteer that if you're someone who has any drive and can do things, achieve some worthwhile outcomes you end up being viewed suspiciously by paid workers for one thing, but also end up being shunned by your fellow volunteers, it's almost like collectively stopping anyone from making a step forward, or progressing anything. Ultimately we should support, aid and encourage working class progress, not stamp on it. I felt I was in a no win situation in my community voluntary activism and gave it all up in 1995, it seems I wasn’t missed, nobody said sorry to see you go or thanks for your support.

"There will never ever be a serious revolutinary challange to this system or the power as long as the only thing working class peole do is slag other woring class people off - we have got to get educated, skilled up and stop allowing middle class people from taking over organisations - instead of just moaning about it.

Working class people do need to have our own organisations, resources, networks and support structures we also need to defend and support them. I'm a member of one of Britain's few Socialist clubs, which I helped raise some funds for when it was under threat of closure in 2002. It's a resource I've used on average once a month for over two years, all run on a voluntary basis even the bar, great atmosphere it's a traditional working class organisation nearly a century old! I always feel welcome. So if they can save their club/centre I wondered what went wrong at MTUCURC then? More often than not we have to go to our class enemy -cap in hand- to gain money and resources, a bit like the MTUCURC (oops - The People’s Centre) getting lottery funding one year and losing it the next, relying on the Lib-Dem’s (who are anti-Union) to fund it when they took council control in 1998. We're losing our organisations and resources at a rapid rate in Liverpool. We should be learning some major class lessons here in Liverpool, ie learn the lessons of recent history - we’ve allowed ourselves to be misled time and time again and we don’t ask “you told X if they voted for Y a few years ago that they’d get A, B and C, but they never got it so why should we trust or vote for you when you’re offering exactly the same?” eg housing Stock Transfer…

I think we need to build trust amongst ourselves on a personal basis as working class people surely. How do we do that when we're actually put at each others throats, ie across the table at seriously heavy and stressful meetings deciding important things, one community group bidding for funding against another, the way the establishment manipulates our tenants associations, community groups, youth clubs, student unions, trade unions and puts us against one another.

We learn to mistrust our neighbours when our homes are burgled by thieves from our own street. When you've got an effing drug dealer next door threatening your family and your neighbours just turn a blind eye to what’s going on. When you put yourself on the line, time and time again for your neighbours and community (88-99) only for that same community (in the Boot Estate) to stand by -in your hour of need- while you get abused, harassed, threatened and driven out of your family home!

It appears to me that honest, principled activists are rarely supported by those they’re campaigning for, usually people just like themselves. I was fighting for the roof over my head in common cause with our neighbours during 98-99.

It seems why most working class people ain’t voting here in Liverpool is because all parties and representatives of them are seen as in it for themselves, so we don’t VOTE full stop and leave it all to mostly middle class or just useless representatives, ie we give up on holding anyone accountable. When working class people come together with a collective conscience of what we want and aren’t divided but lead ourselves then we’re *THE* force and nothing can ultimately stand in our way. Our class enemy and the establishment know it which is why the police harass working class communities to stop them from organising, the press and media lie and misrepresent us and don’t report what’s going on truthfully either. Look at how the police and media have treated IWCA activists in Oxford and working class activists here in Liverpool, but the police are nowhere to be seen when the elderly get mugged or our homes are being broken into at 2am. Thinking working class people increasingly recognise that drug dealers and police are part of the same ‘divide and control’ process. Then when we’re organised and united in come the infiltrators to create division and destroy trust inside our collective organisations and also the agent provocateurs.

Some of us are extremely battle weary, some of us are cynical - Oh, yes and I'm guilty of being cynical long term poverty has a lot to do with that and I blame myself for too many times wanting to believe things could change and fooling myself too many times, deluding myself that course X could lead to job Y, or me doing A could achieve B for me personally, that goes for a lot of young guys in their thirties I guess.

I naively thought that as a volunteer you can learn skills (as I did), prove yourself (as I did), achieve things for the collective good (as I did), earn trust and respect (which I thought I did) then when it comes to employment you think heck I’ve done X, Y and Z should really make getting a decent job easier, then you apply time and time again, even for the same job a year or two later, then you start to wonder am I such threat, because you fit the person specifications so well?

I know too many people who ain't getting a fair share of jobs or resources in fact too many are just struggling to keep their heads above water financially speaking; talented poets, musicians, artists, writers, comedians, all working class, all decent and honest people who'd not stab anyone in the back to gain personal advantage, one or two even have a Uni’ degree. Occasionally a door of opportunity is opened and the token one or two get through, while the rest of us have the same door slammed in our face.

"We have not had a revolution in this country for many reasons and one being the working class has also fucked the working class - face the truth and then lets move on."

Agreed but when you look at what is put against us, the British ruling class have had centuries of dividing us, controlling us and manipulating us and of course we’ve now got the mass media controlling us, telling us war in X, Y or Z should be supported how many opposed the war on Serbia, choosing to believe false lies of concentration camps for example? It’s the twentieth anniversary of the greatest working class struggle of the post war period ie the 84/85 miners strike there’s a great deal the working class under 30 could learn and also many socialists could learn from the working class who organised themselves in the same manner as the Black Panthers did in the US during a similar period of social uprising. However there are working class people who bad mouth Arthur Scargill, believing all the Daily Mirror and Cook Report lies from 1992 (shown to be libellous), he’s a millionaire (he’s not), he’s got a huge house (he hasn’t), he got Lybian gold for the miners (he never), he ripped off the miners funds (he never). So we don’t trust working class leaders who’ve been attacked by our enemy, threatened with death, who are trusted and respected in places like Cuba for example. Which kind of highlights a mistrust of our own class doesn’t it? I recall some of the Milies (Militant Tendency) supporters circa ’89 saying if only we had someone to fight for our class like Thatcher fought for her class, from what I know they’d attack, criticise and undermine such a working class leader…

In the western world oppression is more subtle and ambiguous than in poor countries, but it is no less severe. The British colonial disposition is still manifest amongst Britain’s elitist classes, be they from the middle classes or the upper middle classes. Frantz Fanon talks about how people who suffer the adverse effects of oppression behave in his book “The Wretched of the Earth.” Frantz Fanon said about the colonized Africans:

The colonized man will first manifest this aggressiveness, which has been deposited, in his bones against his own people. This is the period when the niggers beat each other up, and the police and the magistrates do not know which way to turn when faced with the astonishing waves of crime in North Africa. While the settler or the policeman has the right the livelong day to strike the native, to insult him and to make him crawl to them, you will see the native reaching for his knife at the slightest hostile or aggressive glance cast on him by another native; for the last resort of the native is to defend his personality vis-à-vis his brother. (Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, New York, 1968, p52).

Although the above assertion by Frantz Fanon depicts the behaviour of the oppressed colonised African native, the same behaviour is prevalent in many poor socially deprived British working class communities. Violence, in all its insidious forms is common in poor British working class communities, especially symbolic violence, i.e. stoppinfg people from talking at meetings and such like. The British police and the dominant culture have many authentic excuses for this violence and crime, but never do they even consider to except that this crime could be a manifestation of poverty, social exclusion and oppression by the the public servants who represent and perpetrate the dominant culture’s agenda.