Follow the Leader?

Posted on 10/08/2011 by thespectre

A regular contributor gives us their thoughts on the looting taking place in London and all around the UK – is it unprovoked violence or following a dangerous trend?

Amidst the thousands of words spoken on Radio 2 today (Tues 9 Aug) about the recent looting in London and other cities I wasn’t able to hear anyone suggesting that what we were witnessing was actually an unorthodox manifestation of capitalist values. In a society where corporations spend millions continually communicating in multiple ways that you are what you own and that stuff is more important than people it seems unsurprising that people end up believing the message. Of course this leads to certain tensions when large numbers of (especially) young people are then unable to access those life giving objects. But people are creative and if you convince them they need certain things for a full life/status then they will find ways to obtain those things irrespective of the (externalised) cost to those around them. Thousands of young people brought up to believe in capitalist values of the pre eminence of material goods + no hope of financial success = looting. It is therefore particularly galling when you here the elite of capitalist institutions describing this unusual manifestation of their own values as anarchy! No its not, its capitalism’s chickens coming home to roost….and its not as if the looters don’t have a role model. A gang quickly assembled to invade an area, terrorise the inhabitants, steal their goods and not give a damn about the trauma, destruction and damage they cause as long as they have got what they wanted. Does that remind you of anything? How about the invasion of Iraq in 2003? It seems that the current crop of looters may have been watching the news as kids and considered that if that sort of behaviour is OK for the elite it must be OK for them! Except that when working class people do it it’s ‘thuggery’ not ‘humanitarian intervention’!

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Tottenham Burns – Anti-police Fury on the Streets of London

Posted on 07/08/2011 by thespectre

When the police shot 29 year old Mark Duggan dead on Thursday

People's fury at fatal police shooting explodes in flames in Tottenham

night, they couldn’t have expected the anger they would un-leash. Perhaps they picked the wrong man to kill, perhaps people have just seen too many police killings with no justice served. Whatever the reason, this time people had had enough – after 300 gathered on Tottenham High Road demanding justice on Saturday, riots broke out that saw cop cars torched, petrol bombs thrown, corporate chain stores looted and burned to the ground and corporate media equipment smashed. Riots with this much anger and anti-police hatred have not been seen in this country for years, but after the deaths of so many like Ian Tomlinson at the hands of the Met Police, it looks like people have had enough. After similar scenes in San Francisco earlier this year, perhaps it’s time the police forces the world over start to listen to the people and stop using lethal force. The courts might not convict them, but people denied justice are dangerous.

UPDATE: Eyewitness claims the rioting started after police assulted a 16 year old girl asking questions at the origionally peacful demo – hear interview here.

Some reports are claiming that residents have lost their homes to fires started looters hours after origional demo had ended.

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Solidarity With Michael Lyons – August 6th

Posted on 05/08/2011 by thespectre

Michael Lyons is currently serving 7 months in jail – his crime?

Leading Medical Assistant Michael Lyons, jailed for objecting to the war in Afghanistan.

Refusing to kill anybody.

When Michael joined the Navy in 2005, he began training to be a medic and preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. However, by the time 2010 rolled around, Lyons had seen enough – after learning about the huge number of civillian and child casualties, he applied to be recognised as a conscientious objector. Despite this, he was still sent on an advanced rifle training course. When he refused to draw a weapon on moral and ethical lines, he was court martialed – even though he argued that the order to “draw a weapon and begin rifle training” was unlawful because his conscientious objection application (an application supported by his Commanding Officer) was still pending.

This Saturday (August 6th), there will be a solidarity vigil for Michael at the Military Corrective Training Centre in Colchester. Objecting to war is not a crime, and everyone, including people in the forces, has a right to register their objection without fear. For more details on the where and when of the demo, click here.

UPDATE – Press Release from the organisers

PRESS RELEASE:

AFGHAN WAR VETERAN TO JOIN SUPPORT FOR MICHAEL LYONS OUTSIDE COLCHESTER MILITARY PRISON

Ben Griffin a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will join local and London anti-war activists in staging a solidarity vigil outside of Colchester Military Prison this Saturday August 6th 3pm -5 pm. The vigil is being called in support of the courageous action taken by Micheal Lyons in refusing to deploy to Afghanistan and to encourage further nonviolent resistance to the war from within the military.

Navy medic Michael Lyons is presently being detained in Colchester Military Corrective Training Centre since his sentencing in July. At his court martial Lyons testified that information on the nature of the war released by WikiLeaks led to him taking a moral position against the war on Afghanistan.

Ben Griffin of Veterans for Peace UK stated,

“Michael Lyons has taken a courageous stand in refusing to deploy to Afghanistan. He joins a growing number of servicemen who have listened to their conscience and refused deployment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are holding this vigil in support of Michael’s action and to encourage other servicemen to do the same.”

Ciaron O’Reilly a peace activist organising the vigil stated,

” We are now ten years into these wars on the people of Afghanistan and Iraq. The pretences and lies that justified the invasions have long been exposed, the major perpetrators have left the stage of public life, but the killing and dying goes on. There is no popular support for sustaining these invasions, but unfortunately little visible opposition presently coming from civil society.

It is obvious that marches, lobbying and pontificating are not enough to stop these wars. What will be significant in bringing these wars to an end is nonviolent resistance, such as Michael Lyon’s refusal to deploy to Afghanistan. Whenever and wherever this nonviolent resistance emerges, we are obligated to be proactive in our solidarity towards those taking the risks and in jeopardy. I have spent two years in various prisons for nonviolent resistance to war. I know from personal experience the significance of the smallest acts of human solidarity in sustaining the resister and the resistance.”

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August’s Issue Now Available

Posted on 04/08/2011 by thespectre

A new month means a new issue of The Spectre. Now available to pick up for free (or a donation if you feel generous) in Colchester from…

  • Evolution
  • Tin Pan Alley
  • The Purple Dog
  • Revolver
  • Or from us in town centre on Saturday 6th (or whenever we feel like handing them out)

Know somewhere that could stock The Spectre or want to give us a hand spreading the word? Get in touch!

 

 

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Mass Media and Mass Murder

Posted on 03/08/2011 by thespectre

The recent attacks in Norway were a tragedy – there’s no question about that. What has been pretty questionable though, has been the mainstream press’ reaction to them and the fairly explicit links between themselves and the attacker.

As soon as the first details of the bombing in Oslo began to come in, pretty much every outlet of the mainstream media leapt in to declare it the work of Islamic extremists – even after details of the shooting came out, making it look a lot less like a typical ‘Al-Qaeda’ attack, most of them stuck with this assumption. The Sun even ran a headline calling the events ‘Norway’s 9/11’ and even name checked Al-Qaeda on their front page (but they put it in quote marks, so they can’t be accused of jumping to conclusions…) just to drive home the fact that a Muslim must have done this. Which is frankly just racist (and another reason to boycott Murdoch’s empire, just in case you hadn’t heard enough lately!)

Things started to get ridiculous after the facts emerged that the attacker was in fact a blonde Norwegian man with ‘piercing blue eyes’ (that every paper seems to have been obsessed with), at which point the ‘experts’ began to suggest he must be a zealous convert to Islam. It looked like the papers and the TV news wanted it to be linked to Islam so badly that they’d clutch at any straws they could get. When it emerged the person responsible was actually a right-wing anti-Muslim Christian, all mention of religion disappeared from the analysis; words like ‘insane’ started flying around instead – apparently people from other religions can’t be extremists.

Then there came the analysis of the attackers rambling manifesto and online writing and an attempt to pin down his ideology – the media decided on ‘right-wing fanatic’ or, in the case of the Daily Mail, ‘neo-Nazi’ (despite the attacker’s explicit rejection of Nazism – but the Mail never did let facts get in the way of sensationalism). All of this ignored (or covered up) the uncomfortable truth that his thoughts were actually a lot closer to the kind of thing these very papers have been ramming down the public’s throat for years now. Last year, the Mail asked “Will the white British population be in a minority in 2066?” – in his manifesto, the Norwegian gunman claimed that in “…a few decades…our major cities… [will be] demographically overwhelmed by Muslims”. See the similarity? In fact, direct quotes from Daily Mail columnist Melanie Philipps appear in his manifesto.

A lot is also being made of the attacker’s links to the English Defence League (EDL) – he posted on their forums, praised their strategy and might even have attended some of their demos. Which their leadership is keen to deny any involvement and to distance themselves from everything that has happened, it’s the same anti-Muslim, anti-multicultural, super conservative views that motivate both of them – views that are being fuelled by the mass media’s obsession with Muslims and violence. It’s not difficult to imagine that there could be some in the EDL camp celebrating what has happened – and it’s important not to forget that it could happen again. The EDLs next major outing is September 3rd in Tower Hamlets – anti-fascists will be counter-mobilising.

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