(Credit goes to Janet C. whoever you are)
Monthly Archives: October 2015
Snipers in Manchester “observing” anti-austerity protestors.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pictured-police-snipers-spotted-roof-6573383
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pictured-police-snipers-spotted-roof-6573383
The fear!
This picture was taken by Rabble (See links) and shows the absolute fear of the person inside of Cereal Killer when its windows had a bit of paint thrown on them. Just look at her, all fearful with that big grin on her face, she must be so scared!
Like totes amaze balls yeh!
The best write up yet!
“All these liberals and self-proclaimed ‘revolutionaries’/’radicals’ bemoaning the trashing of the cereal café. Put this in perspective. It wasn’t the sole target nor was it the only thing this group have done recently. They’ve trashed Foxtons more times than many of you have been on an A to B march. That very day they burned a police effigy, in front of a whole troop of riot cops, in a political climate in which their right to protest without ‘police permission’ can barely be considered to have legal protection.
All you who celebrate the first stone thrown at Stonewall but have never yourself thrown one, who speak of riots in excited anticipation but never did time for breaking a law, who applaud the suffragette for punching a police officer but never once lifted a finger to them, and then bemoan a group protestors for targeting a clear and obvious symbol of gentrification in London’s East End with paint (shock horror), in our present day… I think you need to rethink your position. Your ‘pure revolutionary act’ does not exist and never has, and it takes guts to openly break the law, in clear sight of police, in order to send a political message. Try it. You implicitly recognise that with your fetishising of past ‘revolutionary acts’, so let’s just reflect that the cop being punched or on the back foot in a riot was never the epicentre of the global capitalist patriarchal heterosexist imperialist system. There is no such physical epicentre (or at least none that aren’t protected round the clock by a heavily armed state paramilitaries) – if there was, it wouldn’t be such a struggle to bring about revolutionary social change.
The amount of ‘I’m a small business owner and I know how hard it is’ whinging from liberals is nauseating. Yes, you probably (not necessarily) contribute to gentrification, especially if you take that attitude. For many people it’s not just hard to own a small business, it’s totally impossible. The very fact you do is a mark of your class privilege, so cut the “I worked hard to get where I am” bullshit and recognise you’re complicit in, and a beneficiary of, systemic inequalities. No that isn’t me saying “ban all small businesses now!” – it’s saying that a classic mark of gentrification is precisely that a group move into an area, socially and economically privileged relative to the incumbent residents/communities, with the intention of making the area more amenable to ‘people like them’ (i.e. not the present/historic inhabitants).
The cereal café was set up by privileged wankers with no concern for the local community who are being pushed out by a concerted and systemic attack on their right to urban space in which they and their families have historically lived and worked. It’s a hipster fad that, in classic hipster form, they want to empty of all political content, but cannot do so by virtue of a discerning local population who see it for what it is: a classic mark of gentrification. Targeting it is not just symbolic, it’s practical. It sends a message. “If you’re thinking of setting up a white hipster business in the middle of what has for many decades been a thriving working class immigrant community who are currently being pushed out, expect to be targeted.” Consistently targeting these kinds of attacks at businesses – small or large – that symbolise gentrification could genuinely bring down or slow the rise of commercial rents in the area, slowing processes of urban displacement.
Is it the centre of the global financial system, the military-industrial complex, the property development and real estate industry, or urban planning system? No. But that’s not the point. We can all come up with a better target in ideal terms. This was one of a series of roaming protest parties (the intended humour in which is clear by the title “Fuck Parade”), with multiple targets, at which some individuals threw some paint while passing a shitty little hipster-wanker-gentrifier venue on their route. That alone won’t change the world, as I’m sure they’re aware, but let’s critically reflect on the side we choose to show solidarity with.” – Credit goes to Dan Laverick
Daily Blackshirt at it again!
The Daily Blackshirt wrote this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3258234/Truth-rabble-bringing-fear-streets.html
So I wrote this:
“Truth about the rabble bringing fear to our streets: Working class warriors? No, middle class spongers and so-called academics” – Hahahahahahahaha!
“Age has not mellowed university graduate Ian Bone” – Good on him, does it have to? Is it a shameful thing for a working-class person like Ian to have gone to university?
“He may now be a 68-year-old grandfather” – And?
“but he is full of burning resentment.” – So? He has a good right to be as do other working-class people.
“Almost all his life has been devoted to waging war on the rich while claiming benefits funded by their taxes.” – Because it is only the rich who pay taxes right? Do a lot of rich people not channel their funds into tax havens? No?
“He moved to London in the 1990s, still claiming benefits” – Lives in London and claiming benefits? Sounds like the Royal Family to me, where is your denunciation of them as “scroungers”? The silence is deafening. 
“and now lives there in a £330,000 home with the mortgage paid off” – God forbid should he live in secure and stable accomodation and for the record, a house for £330,000 in London is cheap!
“which belongs to his partner Jane Nicholl, 64″…”She, too, is an anarchist” – Well spank my arse and call me Chuckles the Clown, Jane Nicholl is also an anarchist? Well who would have thought it?
“Ian’s anger about his childhood has not been eased by his immense good fortune” – What immense good fortune? He lives in a house owned by his partner and is on benefits, he is hardly Lord Ashcroft.
“charmed life on benefits” – You obviously have no clue about life on benefits if you think that it is a charmed existence.
“More recently, Bone — who has five children with two former partners” – Respect! Just means he is virile as fuck! 
“posted pictures of himself angrily brandishing a walking stick during a protest against the so-called gentrification of London.” – “So-called”…are you denying gentrification is happening?
“Last week, he was the key figure behind a vicious mob attack when riot police and helicopters were deployed after more than a thousand people descended on a fashionable part of East London” – The article just said “so-called gentrification” as if its existence is in doubt however it then goes on to say “a fashionable part of East London”. This basically means that the once working-class area of Shoreditch (The area in question) has now became “fashionable” i.e. gentrified. They basically do not want to say ‘gentrified’ simply because they want to con people into thinking that it does not exist.
“The community in the part of East London that Class War targeted on Saturday night was nothing short of terrified as the mob descended.” – You mean all of the middle and upper-class whingers and colonisers were terrified?
“And what was striking is that it wasn’t just unemployed ne’er-do-wells such as Bone who responded to the call” – But I thought we are all middle-class? (“A ne’er-do-well is a rogue, vagrant or vagabond without means of support; a good-for-nothing louse”)
“but a motley crew which included well-dressed youngsters with iPhones” – Oh well, because all working-class people are in reality incapable of dressing nice and having an iPhone because you know, only middle and upper-class people have such things. Pfffffft!
“as well as university academics” – It seems you only condemn people for being academics when they are on the opposite side of the political spectrum to yourselves.
“As families with young children cowered” – Where is the evidence that children were even there? Why were they out at that time in an area usually full of drunken revelers anyway?
“ the protesters managed to break in” – Errrrrm, no they did not.
“burnt an effigy of a policeman” – Again they did not, as funny as that would have been. There was however an effigy of a police officer attached to the sound system (Anyone can see this from pictures and videos).
One of the Keery brothers (Owners of Cereal Killer Cafe) said in the article: “They are violent bullies and we want them prosecuted” – Waaaaaaaaaaaah, they stole my lunch money and called me names, waaaaaaaaaaahhhh!
“They see us as the face of gentrification” – They are not THE face of it but a potent example of it. They sell cereal for £4 a bowl in an area of 49% poverty and where some people live on less then £4 a day. £4 for a bowl of cereal, cereal being basic sustenance, is grotesque. It is not only a slap in the face but it is also clearly aimed at being accessible for everyone. Anyway, the Keery brothers make out as if they are victims running a ‘local business’ or something like that when in fact, cereal at that price in an increasingly gentrified area, is clearly not aimed at local people, least of all working-class locals.
“The brothers describe themselves as ‘very working-class’” – They were working-class. Anyway, you condemn, as being middle-class, the likes of Lisa McKenzie for having a decent wage and being able to go on holiday and; Ian Bone and Jane Nicholl yet portray two well off gentrifying business owners as just two salt of the Earth working-class blokes trying to earn a bit of money. Double standards there I think.
“who left school at 16 and worked for years in shops, pubs and clubs” – As do many other people, nothing out of the ordinary here.
“Foxtons estate agents have had their windows smashed because they are considered to represent the evil of gentrification.” – Well yeah because they are major players in it!
“Besides Ian Bone, the other main agitators are also drawn from the ranks of the middle classes and the university-educated.” – Such as? I want names and faces if it is true.
“Perhaps the most preposterous of them is Dr Lisa Mckenzie, 47, a research fellow at the prestigious London School of Economics, where such academic posts attract salaries of about £40,000.” – So a working-class woman who has lived all of her life (Until recently of course) on council estates and had to take an access course in order to become an undergraduate is now middle-class because she has a stable job and a decent income? As for the £40,000 salary, some construction workers can earn as much in London, I guess they are middle-class too!
“Denying that she is middle-class” – Because she is not!
“she ludicrously compares the cereal protest to the struggles of the Suffragettes and Nelson Mandela” – OK granted I do not get the Nelson Mandela part but the Suffragettes engaged in property damage and direct action on a street level so yes, that parallel is very apt.
“A mother of one with her hair dyed bright red” –Oh shocking! I bet she even wears dresses above her ankles and has the legs on her table exposed! The outrage, the humanity of it!
“and posts details on her Facebook page of holidays to far-flung destinations such as Barbados, Las Vegas and Jamaica as well as New York, Milan, Rome, Paris and Barcelona.” – Because working-class people do not deserve to go on holiday and of course no working-class person has EVER been to such destinations. It seems the authors of this article think we should stick to Benidorm, Tenerife and Magaluf.
“she studied sociology at Nottingham University and went on to gain funding for a Masters degree and a PhD” – Shocking! Disgusting! She should be put on the rack!
“The daughter and granddaughter of miners, she honed her hatred during the miners’ strike of 1984-85” – (In a posh accent) Oh, what a very middle-class background you have Lisa McKenzie.
“On the march against the Cereal Killer cafe, she carried a placard bearing the slogan ‘We must devastate the avenues where the wealthy live” – It is a banner not a placard! Shows how observant Daily Blackshirt reporters are.
“She insists that not all the protesters that night were academics like herself” – Because they were/are not. Some are unemployed, some work in occupations such as community work, construction work and so on. The Daily Blackshirt has basically picked up on 2 “academics” and two other people who really have done nothing wrong out of a thousand. I think ‘clutching at straws’ is how the expression goes.
Regarding Dr Elmer: “He now lives in fashionable Stoke Newington in North London” – There they go again, using the “fashionable” euphemism instead of the more raw “gentrification”. I do not know Dr. Elmer and do not know if he is middle-class or not but what I do know is that for the time being Stoke Newington does contain a sizable working-class population and always has done. It is not as if living in Stoke Newington renders someone non-working-class.
Dr. Elmer said: “Asked about the aims of the protest, he was not amused. ‘Your idiotic attempts to bring the issues of gentrification and homelessness down to the supposed class origins of the protesters [are] worthy of the schoolyard at Eton.” – Well said, he is right!
He also said: “‘The cereal cafe wouldn’t be there if there weren’t people who could afford, and have the inclination, to spend £4 on a bowl of cereal. The cafe isn’t just a cultural symbol of gentrification, it’s an instrument of the economic colonisation of the area” – Well said, spot on!
“Another well-heeled supporter of the mob was Adam Barr, 23, who grew up in a four-bedroom house in the East Yorkshire village of Cottingham, where his father is a company director” – Fair enough but he is among the exception bearing in mind there were 1,000 participants of the Fuck Parade.
“Meanwhile, the cereal cafe brothers, who prefer the virtues of hard work and enterprise to living off the State” – Oh so, Lisa McKenzie working hard to get through her access course and all the way to a PhD and get a decent income to boot is bad but ‘hard workers’ that are the Keery brothers are employers i.e. people living off other people’s labour.
“spent last week tidying up and trying to put their business back together” – I am cwying, my heart bleeds for them.
The irony is that the middle-class Tory supporting journalists that wrote this article are casting aspersions on people’s class, using double speak and double standards in order to try and back up their ill thought out argument. It has failed, miserably.
Lots of Love,
OT xxxxxxxxx
The arsehole behind the dog lies!
http://www.poshbrokebored.com/p/what-what.html
This is the bag of shite who made up the lies about the dog being attacked on the Fuck Parade (And also owner of shit shop Regimental Vintage).
She said in a Daily Blackshirt (Oh sorry, Daily Mail) article dated 2nd October 2015:
“‘At first I thought it was a pub crawl” – How many pub crawls carry torches and banners you clown?
“‘I heard some of the group, most of them in their twenties” – Did you stop to ask them? Did you take a survey?
“speaking very loudly in very posh accents” – You are funny, you are still pulling this one. You have no idea what a posh accent is then if you think those accents were posh. I guess working-class people have posh accents now.
“ shouting general profanities in every direction” – Who are they? Father Jack?
“‘I barricaded myself in my shop because the situation looked dangerous” – Oh, change of story here. Let us look at what she originally said in her so-called “Open Letter” (http://www.poshbrokebored.com/2015/09/fuckparade-open-letter.html):
“Last night I found myself in the thick of the mindless thuggery” – But you said you barricaded yourself in your shop, are you omnipresent?
” because the situation looked dangerous” – That did not stop you from following them though did it? Why if you were so intimidated did you feel the need to follow them, for at least a time, and take photographs? You must have felt very intimidated.
Now onto the dog lies:
From her Daily Blackshirt contribution: “I saw a small dog running past the group and some of them were attacking it — kicking at it. One person was trying to hit it with their skateboard.”…Now compare that to her account in her “Open Letter”: “Then a little dog (I think it was a French bulldog) pelted down the street, absolutely terrified and trying desperately to escape the mob who were kicking at it, throwing cans of beer at it, and trying to rip the poor creature apart with their bare hands.”…was it running past the mob or into the mob (Which is implied as how else can it have got within enough reach of the mob for them to be able to ‘kick it’ or try to ‘tear it apart’?)? I am not going to repeat myself here so I am going to refer to a previous article I wrote asking some rather simple questions about this alleged incident: https://network23.org/obseceneturtle/2015/09/29/a-message-to-the-clowns/
Lots of love,
OT xxxxxxxx
Shut down the Ripper Museum!
Excellent review of the museum and article written by an actual historian who specialises in the 19th Century.
More articles:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/30/jack-the-ripper-museum-murder-women-violence
Joshua Walker: “But what is sexual violence? No-one really knows” – You are supposed to be giving the place a good image not making it worse you twat! What is sexual violence? Want to know who knows? THE FUCKING VICTIMS!
Very good article on gentrification.
I am not a massive fan of the Guardian myself (Although they did produce an excellent book, Undercover) but this is brilliant:
Chattering classes are going to chatter!
So we have the above gem from champagne socialist and chattering class extraordinaire Leah Borromeo. I guess that it is hardly surprising she is hostile to Class War, Class War is against everything that she is. She is the type of person who likes their safe and comfy activist sphere and then goes to live her middle-class life and perpetuating her middle-class privilege. Having your cake and eating it is what comes to mind. Well guess what Leah, most of us do not have that luxury and we do not need to be lectured from your ivory tower by someone who is a part of the enemy class.
I am glad that Class War are ruining anarchism for them (Middle/upper-class trendy lefty/hipster activists) because it is not for them. Leah Borromeo knows NOTHING of anarchism as is partly evident when she ridiculously claims that anarchism is ‘for all social classes’. Well I can tell you that it is not ‘for all social classes’, anarchism’s very basis is class struggle and you can not have class struggle if all classes are so superficially united and in such a deluded way. The middle and upper-class derive their political, economic and social power solely from capitalism and the perpetuation of capitalism. Whereas as working-class people seeking emancipation from and the destruction of capital, our interests are in the destruction of that system which hands the middle and upper-classes their political, social and economic power. The world can not do without our labour power but the world can do without the idle middle and upper-classes. I suppose doctors and engineers for example (Some of whom are from working-class backgrounds themselves) are the exception but in a classless society they will lose their class status. The position of a doctor or an engineer does not depend upon the perpetuation of the class system, we will always need them regardless. It is the middle and upper-classes as a class that we need rid of. Can we have ‘middle-class allies’? Well yes, but they are VERY few and far between and Leah Borromeo is certainly not one of them. Some of my closest mates and ‘comrades’ are from middle-class backgrounds but they have renounced as much as they can (In the hear and now) their social status. But again they are very few and far between and they are the exception. Most of us are working-class so it is not an absolute must for us to have true (Or false) allies from middle and upper-class backgrounds, we can do without their support but it is always nice to have it.
She is part of the gentrification process herself. She probably sits in her office/studio on Commercial Road and pontificates to the rest of us. She frequents gentrifying establishments (https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t50.2886-16/12015793_767439106736335_2024067885_n.mp4 and https://instagram.com/p/8T8hJtuPmB/) and is very much a part of the chattering class i.e. the enemy.
Also Leah Borromeo uses the term “anarcho-syndicalist” as if all anarchists use that label or adheres to the specific analysis of that set of ideas and principles. I am an anarchist, most of my political ‘comrades’ are, but only a few of them identify as anarcho-syndicalists. Personally I identify as either an anarcho-communist (I suppose the difference between anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism is marginal but still different) or simply an anarchist. I also sometimes identify as an autonomous socialist or an industrial unionist. I am not an anarcho-syndicalist and not many in Class War are.
Above: Leah Borromeo and her 5 minutes of proledom at the controversial anti-homeless spikes. She had this to say: “Because like yah, I soooo feel what the homeless feel now, you know? Yah, OK, that is enough of that. Shall we go for champagne tonight chaps or a chic coffee or cocktail?”.
P.S. There is a sound reason why Class War had the highest membership numbers of an anarchist organisation between the early 1980s and 2010 (When it folded as a group). There is also a reason why Class War as a paper had the highest circulation in Britain of any anarchist publication (15,000 a week at its height). There is even a reason why since 2013/2014 Class War has once again taken off. Such reasons are because people like you Leah do not and can never appeal to the majority of society, that majority being the working-class. I am not saying that every prole in the land is pinning hopes on Class War, that is delusion typical of cause tourists like yourself. All I am saying is that Class War speaks to the average working-class person far better than most other anarchists ever could.