A Big ‘Ayup’ to the Yorkshire Anarchist Group

The Barnsdale Brigade are proud to be involved with a new venture for Yorkshire, the Yorkshire Anarchist Group.

Hailing from Doncaster we know how difficult it can be for anarchists from Yorkshire’s smaller cities and towns (not to mention villages). As the YAG say on their blog site…

The Yorkshire Anarchist Group (YAG) was created partly to bring together divergent groups and individuals who are scattered throughout Yorkshire’s ridings in the hope that we can work more efficiently by presenting a united front, but also to provide an umbrella for people and groups in the smaller towns that make up a significant proportion of our region’s demographic profile. All too often important struggles and campaigns go unsupported because attention is focused on a few key cities. This is not intended as a criticism of the people who are doing some amazing things in those cities, but we could have a few more ’successes’ under our belts if we sometimes lend a hand to our less fortunate neighbours – a kind of ‘mutual aid’ for activists.

YAG is not seen as an alternative to the strategies and initiatives that currently exist in Yorkshire, rather it is an attempt to bring together diverse (and dispersed…) talents and resources to strengthen and expand upon what already exists.

A county-wide support network  could make a real difference in Yorkshire and we strongly recommend that any Yorkshire based individuals or groups who enjoy our blog - and even those who don’t enjoy it, but read it anyway… – show their support and join the YAG. After all, there’s nowt like a good uprising

 

Think Global, Read Local: the logic of ‘Dodgem Logic’

Cult comic book writer and anarchist, Alan Moore,  is behind the launch of “the 21st century’s first underground magazine” from his home town of Northampton. Issue 1 of ‘Dodgem Logic‘ is due out this month and will combine underground art, politics and entertainment. Better still it will include eight ‘local’ pages which can be customised to suit different regions, cities, towns or villages – a strategy which should be adapted by papers like Freedom, Black Flag or Class War.

Alan’s incredibly talented daughter, Leah, and the equally as talented Mr John Reppion (creators of the ‘Wild Girl’ mini series) say on their blog…

Drawing upon an overlooked and energetic pool of local talent as well as numerous friends and co-conspirators from comic books, the arts or entertainment, Dodgem Logic sets out to provide a splash of subterranean exotica in a bleached-out cultural and social landscape. Published every other month by counter-culture veterans KNOCKABOUT, Dodgem Logic is a forty page full-colour spectacle that, in addition, has an eight-page local section in each issue, thus inviting other areas to publish regional editions by providing their own inserts.

As cheap and beautiful as a heartbreaking teenage prostitute, Dodgem Logic has a cover price of £2.50, with its content similarly tailored to the fiscal toilet-bowl that we are currently engaged in sliding down. Regular columnists provide delicious, inexpensive recipes, wide-ranging medical advice, simple instructions for creating stylish clothing and accessories from next to nothing, guides to growing your own dinner by becoming a guerrilla gardener, and, in the first of Dave (The Self-Sufficient-ish Bible) Hamilton’s environmental columns, a bold experiment in living with no money. The same approach to helping readers deal with socio-economic meltdown and a blitz of repossessions is there in upcoming features on the present-day resurgence of the squatters’ movement, or in our communiqués from the Steampunk/ Post-Civilisation gang on how to start rebuilding culture and society before those things have broken down completely and our children are reduced to battering each other to a bloody pulp with their now-useless X-Boxes in a dispute over the last tub of pot noodles.

Not only seeking to give practical advice on getting through a rough stretch, Dodgem Logic is also committed to alleviating the attendant sense of anguish and despair by brightening the world with the astonishing cartoon-work of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’s sublime Kevin O’Neill or that of underground legend Savage Pencil; the musings of Father Ted, The IT Crowd and Black Book’s own Graham Linehan or of the nation’s sweetheart, the implacably positive Josie Long; even a delirious commemoration of the lunar landing’s anniversary by the masterful Steve Aylett. In addition to a variously-hosted women’s column launched by Lost Girls co-creator and erstwhile underground cartoon artist Melinda Gebbie, Mr. Moore will himself be contributing a lead feature on the history of underground subversive publishing from its origins in the thirteenth century, along with various illustrations and words of advice. All these and many other sterling features, including a free CD of magnificent home-grown Northampton music over fifty years, will be contained in the historic premiere issue, sporting an hallucinatory  front cover by digital artist Tamara Rogers and debuting this November. Wake up and smell the fairground ozone! No ramming!

They also point out that Northampton is a typical English town with its fair share of problems, but also its share of homegrown talent.

Northampton [is] a community that is right at the geographical, political and economic heart of the country; one which has half its high street boarded up and is at present dying on its arse, just like everywhere else.

Let’s hope that Dodgem Logic gives Northampton and every other town the creative kick up the arse we all need to make things better for ourselves

Donny’s Darkest Hour – A Call for an Annual “Rainsborough Day”

We like being from Doncaster, it has hidden regions, resources, traditions and habitats which make it the perfect place for ‘outsiders’ to thrive; those who know Donny’s secrets can fully understand why Barnsdale* was home and sanctuary to the original Robin Hood. But the town also has it’s darker secrets.

Modern Doncaster is a relatively poor and is still trying to claw it’s way back from the shock of the Miner’s Strike and subsequent pit closures. But during the English Civil Wars it was a reasonably wealthy region with many Royalist sympathisers. In October 1648, Col. Thomas Rainsborough of the New Model Army was stationed at Doncaster on his way to break a siege at Pontefract Castle. (Pontefract Castle had originally been seized from the Royalists; the Royalists tried to take the castle back, but were fought off by the Parliamentarians; then the Royalists gained entry to the castle – and took it back – by disguising themselves as furniture delivery men!) While Rainsborough was staying at an inn in Doncaster’s Market Place, four Royalists broke into his quarters and tried to kidnap him; in the subsequent scuffle Rainsborough was murdered. But there is good reason to believe that Rainsborough was actually the victim of a conspiracy.

Thomas Rainsborough was the highest ranking Leveller in the New Model Army and, as such, was a very influential figure. The Levellers sought complete social and economic equality; a universal levelling of privilege and wealth. As Rainsborough himself said during the Putney Debates of 1647…

If it be a property, it is a property by a law; neither do I think that there is very little property in this thing by the law of the land, because I think that the law of the land in that thing is the most tyrannous law under heaven, and I would fain know what we have fought for, and this is the old law of England, and that which enslaves the people of England, that they should be bound by laws in which they have no voice at all. The thing that I am unsatisfied in is how it comes about that there is such a property in some freeborn Englishmen, and not in others.

Sir, I see that it is impossible to have liberty but all property must be taken away. If it be laid down for a rule, and if you will say it, it must be so. But I would fain know what the soldier hath fought for all this while? He hath fought to enslave himself, to give power to men of riches, men of estates, to make him a perpetual slave. We do find in all presses that go forth none must be pressed that are freehold-men. When these Gentlemen fall out among themselves they shall press the poor scrubs to come and kill each other for them…

Among other things the Levellers called for an end to Parliamentary and Judicial corruption; toleration of religious differences; the translation of law into the common tongue; and an elected judiciary - all of which remain all too relevant today! The Levellers were fighting to empower the people; and neither the Crown nor Cromwell wanted that. It was Cromwell who sent Rainsborough to Doncaster (away from the mutinous Leveller ranks in Oxford and London) and many Leveller’s at the time believed that it was Cromwell who arranged the lethal ‘kidnap’ attempt. Rainsborough’s funeral was attended by 20,000 mourners wearing sea-green ribbons (the colour of The Levellers) and bunches of rosemary for remembrance in their hats.

Our own favourite Rainsborough quote is…

I shall blow up your buildings a little more and be less open with you than I was before. I wish we all truly wanted to change this cesspool we live in. [sic] And, sir, to say because a man pleads that every man hath a voice by right of nature, that therefore it destroys by the same argument all property [sic]. That there’s a property, the Law of God says it; else why hath God made that law, Thou shalt not steal? I am a poor man, therefore I must be oppressed: if I have no interest in the kingdom, I must suffer by all their laws be they right or wrong. Nay thus: a gentleman lives in a country and hath three or four lordships, as some men have (God knows how they got them); and when a Parliament is called he must be a Parliament-man; and it may be he sees some poor men, they live near this man, he can crush them – I have known an invasion to make sure he hath turned the poor men out of doors; and I would fain know whether the potency of rich men do not this, and so keep them under the greatest and your sister too tyranny that was ever thought of in the world. And therefore I think that to that it is fully answered: God hath set down that thing as to propriety with this law of his, Thou shalt not steal. And for my part I am against any such thought, and, as for yourselves, I wish you would not make the world believe that we are NOT for anarchy BECAUSE WE ARE. NOW LET THE WORLD REST IN PEACE AND ANARCHY!

We have been trying for some time to have a plaque erected on the site of Rainsborough’s murder (which is now a bloody Primark of all things!) in the hope of creating an annual ‘Rainsborough Day’ memorial event on or near October 30th each year. Anyone who can offer any help/advice can contact us on verymerrymen[at]gmail.com

*It was Barnsdale Forest, not Sherwood Forest that was the original home of Robin Hood in the earliest ballads; Barnsdale Forest stretched from Wakefield to Sheffield and covered most of what we now call South Yorkshire. The story also suffered from ‘gentrification’ over the years, the original Robin was a yeoman who rallied against the church, the aristocracy and the state – Barnsdale’s Robin was an anarchist!

The ‘Pub Revolution Movement’ Needs YOU!!! – NOW!!!

Yesterday the Pub Revolution Movement Facebook page witnessed some pretty harrowing events. Clare from Liverpool posted the following comments…

10:05  Can anybody help us please? The baliff is in downstairs and we don’t know what to do

People on the site began to try and help, calling for anyone in Liverpool to give Clare a hand. As somebody rightfully observed…

11:06  What’s the world coming to. We’ve got a 15 year old girl and her mother scared whitless while there “partners” are rubbing there hands and laughing all the way to the bank.

But things got worse and Clare reported…

11:16  its too late now, we asked him to leave but he refused so we called the police. The police said they couldn’t do anything so hetold my mum to pay all that she owes up front.She couldn’t because she doesn’t have the money so she told me… to go and pack my things and my brother and sisters things so we can go to our nans. He wouldn’t let us leave and has given us until saturday to get out

Anyone who’s been through an eviction will know how helpless you can feel, especially if you’re 15!  Today Maggie from PRM sent out the following message…

“Morning everybody!  In the light of Clare’s experience yesterday we need everyone to recruit more people.  The depths to which these pubcos will go never ceases to amaze me.  Make it your goal to recruit one more person today, for Clare and her Mum as well as yourselves.  Also welcome to all newcomers.  If you have not already done so could you forward me the following details: area, pub, pubco, weekly rent and weekly tied products spend please.  This will enable us to have accurate figures.  please send to westandtogether2@btinternet.com.  If anyone has any local media contacts then could we urge you to use them.  The publicity is increasing daily but we need everyone’s help.  Here’s to the final countdown.”

We would add that anyone with experience of evictions should keep an eye on the message board in case something like this happens near them.  Join the PRM group and/or the PRM supporters group today!

Defenders of the Earth… Centre

We’re usually more ‘class’ than ‘climate’, but we remember Doncaster Earth Centre before it became corrupted by outside funding. A lot of people from Denaby’s ex-mining community were involved with the site and it had a real DIY vibe to it. As soon as the money started rolling in it was business as usual for Doncaster’s grant monsters and dodgy council types.; Doncaster is an EU ‘assisted’ region that has received a lot of funding over the years, but the usual suspects have made sure that Doncaster residents do not benefit from the millions injected into the region. The closure of the Earth Centre was just one more kick in the teeth for Doncaster residents.

A group of people are meeting at the Earth Centre every Fri at 1pm with the intention of brining it back into the hands of local people. More information about the group and the Earth Centre in general can be found here or email thereismore2lifefolks [at] yahoo.co.uk

See you Friday

ATTENTION STEAMPUNKS! (and other beautifully alternative miscreants)

Roll up, roll up,

For the first time in over a century the marvelously malicious, devastatingly delectable, catastrophically creative tale of “HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST” is back in print.

Originally published in 1892 by public schoolboy, E. Douglass Fawcett,  it tells the tale of Rudolph Hartmann; an anarchist who uses a dirigible named ‘The Attila’ to rain “pitiless death and destruction from the skies on Parliament, St Pauls and the City [of London]“. This is a classic piece of Victorian Sci-Fi which is 100 years ahead of its time. Not only does it predict the Steampunk’s passion for airships it provides a stinging critique of the institutions that are causing immense suffering in today’s Britain.

Hartmann’s victims are the sly politicians and greedy bankers who caused the current economic crisis; Fawcett may have been a schoolboy, but he proves himself to be politically astute for his tender years. As Ian Bone say’s in his introduction “His analysis of the reasons to bomb the City of London show his prescient awareness of the evils of globalisation years before anyone else.” Hartmann’s ‘propaganda by the deed’ may be a little extreme (to say the least), but we ‘moderns’ can easily sympathise with his motivations. If Jules Verne were alive to witness today’s global recession he would have written this book.

The original edition was illustrated by Fred T. Jane who once abducted a politician for a ‘publicity stunt’ and would go on to found the infamous Jane’s Information Group who publish Jane’s Defence. The modern version is equally well illustrated, this time by Stanley Donwood who is responsible for some of Radiohead’s best album cover artwork.

‘Hartmann’ is an authentic example of what was once called a ‘ripping yarn’, but it also puts the ‘punk’ back into Steampunk. What’s more it is a real bargain, you can order your copy from Tangent Books for the ridiculous sum of £5 – including postage!

Vistit www.tangentbooks.co.uk for more great reads.

The Office of Fair Trading says that Monopolies are Fair!!!

As pub tenants and managers prepare to go on the offensive, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has released a report which suggests that Beer Ties (the practice of forcing pubs to by beer from one brewery) are fair. This from The Publican…

“[The] report states there is no evidence consumers suffer as a result of the tie:

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found “no evidence” that the beer tie is having a detrimental effect on consumers and will to take no further action on the issue.

Its assessment follows a 90-day investigation into the tie following a super-complaint by CAMRA, claiming that high rents and ‘tied’ beer prices are driving many good pub licensees out of business and contributing to the “destruction of Britain’s pubs through pub closures and chronic under-investment in pub facilities”.

While the OFT noted the concerns raised by licensees during the investigation about their rent assessment process with landlords, it ruled that this did not result in higher prices or lack of choice for customers.

Simon Williams, senior director of the OFT’s Goods group, said: “Any strategy by a pub-owning company which compromises the competitive position of its tied pubs would not be sustainable, as this would result in a loss of sales.

“Pub-owning companies are not therefore protected from competition by virtue of the supply ties agreed with their lessees.

“We understand that our response to CAMRA comes at a difficult time for the industry, but the evidence indicates that consumers benefit from a good deal of competition and choice within this sector.”

He added the OFT would be “taking no further action” in relation to the matter.”

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE

Beer ties came about because of government legislation that was created to try and break the brewery monopolies of the 1980s. 20+ years ago six brewery companies owned 75% of the market. The 1989 ‘Beer Orders’ made it illegal for a brewery to own more than 2000 pubs. The big six gave their managers ‘golden handshakes’ on the condition that they go and start Pub Companies (Pubcos); the breweries sold their pubs to the Pubcos as long as the Pubcos bought only their products (passed onto landlords as the ‘beer tie’). The breweries used Pubcos to circumvent (take piss out of…) anti-monopolies legislation and now they’re more powerful than ever – owning 84% of the market. In their report the OFT has effectively said that monopolies are fair!

The Questions we REALLY need to ask the BNP

The questions posed by A Very Public Sociologist are far more important than anything that will actually be put to Nick Gri££in when he appears on Question Time tonight…

1. Why has the BNP consistently (Stoke, Burnley Pendle) voted for above-inflation increases in council taxation, despite its claims against council tax increases and property-based council tax in general?

2. Why did Broxbourne BNP vote to block free bus passes for pensioners against their pledge that “pensioners should get free bus passes”?

3. Why did Halifax BNP councillors in abstain from voting to block the closure of a primary school in Mixenden despite election literature promising to defend all primary schools in the area.

4. Why did BNP in Kirklees agree to council service cuts in Sep 2009 declaring “a lot of the silly posts can disappear. I’ve always advocated that you get rid of 25% of council staff and no-one would notice. We won’t be able to guarantee early retirement and gold-plated pensions.”?

5. You, Griffin, have expelled certain BNP members for their political actions (including ex-Conservative BNP councillor Geoff Wallace in Halifax for supporting greenbelt housing) but not those who have implemented these above actions which harm the majority whose interests you claim to further. Why is there this discrepancy?

6. Why did you oppose the firefighters’ strike of 2002-2003, asserting that firefighters should not have the right to withdraw their labour to renegotiate terms and conditions of work? You declared firefighters “must be placed on the same level as military personnel and police officers and … forego their ambiguous position of using strike action”. Do you still agree with it?

7. Why did Stoke BNP exonerate chief executive Wayne Nutbeen for closing (in 2005) Royal Doulton’s last factories. Nutbeen’s explanation was the “company isn’t owned by Stoke-on-Trent. It is owned by the shareholders. The board has to ensure it does right by them”.

8. Why has Stoke BNP agreed to budgets (2004, 2005, 2007) that cut social spending including Citizen’s Advice Bureaus, old people’s services?

9. Which aspects of the “national good” in “Oriental countries” would you emulate in Britain first – a 2000% increase in work-related suicides, mass dismissals of workers for attending anti-government meetings or homeless nomad families working in low-wage sectors? (Your manifesto (2009) claimed “Oriental countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore have managed their economies to combine private enterprise competition with the national good, and these are the models the BNP would emulate.”)

Gri££in should be given as much air time as possible because every time he and his ilk open their mouths they shows that, despite their claims, the BNP are even more anti-working-class than the Labour Party. Like Doncaster’s dip-shit Mayor the BNP are a party of sound-bites and lies – and just like the Mayor of Doncaster they show themselves for what they really are as soon as they’re placed in front of a camera or microphone.

The only way to beat fascists like Gri££in or Davies is to organise in working-class communities and fight for working-class autonomy. NOBODY ELSE IS GOING TO FIGHT FOR US!

Leeds Bin Strike Continues

92% of Leeds’ Bin Workers have voted to reject Leeds City councils ‘best and final’ deal and continue their strike. It now looks as if the strikers will be out until Christmas.

The deal offered reduced pay-cuts, but asked workers to work harder for their money. Leeds residents say that the bin workers already work at full pace and are often seen running down the street. Union officials said that these ‘productivity clauses’ were “impossible to carry out”.

Leeds’ joint Liberal Democrat and Conservative leaders said that they were “puzzled, disappointed and dismayed” that the offer had been voted down, but then this bunch of bureaucratic parasites  haven’t done an honest days work in their lives!

The strikers retain widespread public sympathy. A benefit concert for them at the weekend, led by actor and musician Keith Allen, featured a “Binmen’s Ballet” song and dance routine by crews, featuring mobile phone rings all taken from the Strawbs’ 1973 hit Part of the Union and choreographed as Refuse to be Beat.

Say No To Fascism – from all sides!

It’s obvious that we’re not fans of the BNP and other racist right-wing groups, but religious fascism also poses a threat to our hard-won liberties. Islam for the UK have organised a protest march which will take place on Saturday, October 31st – Halloween.

March 4 Shari’ah will call for the full implementation of Shari’ah Law in the UK…

Anyone who opposes fascism should definitely oppose this!

Isn’t it bad enough that the Labour government is rolling back basic liberties like the right to silence, due process of law, habeas corpus and the right not to be tortured – all in the name of security? Should we really abandon the little democracy we have left to a bunch of overbearing, religious zealots?

Only a fascist would write something like this…

“we have had enough of democracy and man-made law and the depravity of the British culture”

We believe wholeheartedly in religious tolerance, but the key word here is TOLERANCE. Groups like Islam4Uk will only ever damage the general perception people have of Islam, in much the same way that the BNP damage the reputation of our largely tolerant white, working class communities. SAY NO TO FASCISM!