[Campaignforrealdemocracy] dates + So We Stand

Wed Aug 18 15:08:48 UTC 2010

>
> Hi comrades
>

In response to Joty's calendar, see my colour text, inc a few comments
(sorry if a bit wordy) at the bottom.

Also, pls note the Westminster DV PAs are a weekly affair, with different
topics covered each week. Also, in time do you think others might set
up similar meetings o/s local Town Halls?

>
>    - *1pm Saturday August 21st **Peoples Assembly on the Future of
>    Democracy **Victoria Tower Gardens - **Westminster / St James Park Tube
>    *
>    *Map ref:  **
>    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?cid=242875860457998317&q=victoria+tower+gardens&gl=uk
>    *<http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?cid=242875860457998317&q=victoria+tower+gardens&gl=uk>
>    *Please bring food to share (unless you're fasting)** *
>
>
   - *7pm Thurs 2 **September** **VENUE alteration: *7pm in University of
   London Union, Malet St, London WC1E 7HY.* Coalition of Resistance
   planning meeting **Next steps for coalition against cuts and
   privatisation*<http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/blogs/66-luna17-activist/6248-next-steps-for-coalition-against-cuts-and-privatisation>
   http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/blogs/66-luna17-activist/6248-next-steps-for-coalition-against-cuts-and-privatisation

>    - *Saturday 11th September** **From Melt-Down to Upheaval - Assembly-*
>    http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/from-meltdown-to-upheaval-11th-september-assembly/#more-5590
>    <uncaptiveminds at gmail.com> <uncaptiveminds at gmail.com><uncaptiveminds at gmail.com><uncaptiveminds at gmail.com>
>    uncaptiveminds at gmail.com *
>
>
   - 18th September Protest the Pope http://www.protest-the-pope.org.uk/

>    - *Sat 2nd October Oxford TBC David Kelly meeting*
>
>
   - Sunday 3rd October Birmingham Right to Work National Demo against Tory
   Party Conference with Wobblies and anarchists also calling for mass protests
    http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference/
   - *Saturday 9th October **DEMOCRACY RALLY** trafalgar square *
   - Wed 20th October Spending Review - demos in Westminster / elsewhere
   - *27 November in central London: **Coalition of Resistance
conference<http://coalitionofresistance.wordpress.com/about/>
   **,*

Following my recent meetings with Paul Brandon of Right to Work, Corinna and
Paul of A World to Win and Alessio of http://iww.org.uk/ I'd also argue that
to really make the most of the situation, and help link up the struggles
into the right trajectory we need to ensure a sensible presence at the
planning meeting on 2nd Sept.

And there to essentially call for the coalition not to make the same
mistakes of the StW coalition, ie to actualy win by making the movement
genuinely democratic and to not be afraid to be more militant eg occupy town
halls etc and - equally impotant - to ensure the fight is placed firmly
within the ideological context of the fight to remake the world, for a new
society, real democracy etc. To use a language, speak a vision, seek out a
political economy and adopt an iconography that completely avoids the usual
leftist trappings.

Why not turn the Big Society on its head? More volunteers and/or private
provision will not sort out our social problems - only PAs or something
similar everywhere, and a campaign of positive resistance alongside can
manage this. To win we need to create a visible movement for a world in
which everyone and everything gets taken care of, via a new political
economy, a completely different, community centred way of life with a
democratic political economy in support.

Maybe the idea vis a via the press and public should be nationalise and
decentralise public services (ie to PAs) and link it all to a new
constitutional settlement with DVs as the key political unit of the future.
So, for example new community councils at the neighbourhood level, properly
constituted could circumvent the higher state bureacracy and be give the
right to disburse social security in exchange for work agreed, by non
coercive consensus between the claimant and the whole community - ie to do
work he or she actually wants to do in exchange for payments - say 15 pounds
p/a - so that welfare is used to empower people through well paid community
work, while at the same time build community and ensure diversity across all
the neighbourhoods of the land(s). Councils would need sovereignty over
decisions of what goes on in each area, so that health and safety,
bureacrats "local authorities" capitalists etc are all cut out of the
programme  and what really matters becomes just what people agree together
in regards how to spend their money and apply their labour in the area. And
if they don't like the community in question, they go to the next one so the
communities compete for labour, and presenting a nice culture to work in and
not the other way around.

Isn't this kind of thinking, o/s the hackneyed leftist (essentially statist
rather than genuinely democratic, people powered community centred) box with
a movement of positive resistance alongside the only way that we can turn
the crisis into a liberation? Then when  mainstream people will be able
to come on board as the cuts kick in and as they will be looking for
credible positive alternatives, with none forthcoming from Labour. And it
will also make it difficult for the press to caricature us.

Positive  resistance will mean demos, media campaigning, occupations but
also, essentially actual practical support for people within real
communities who are suffering threats whether that be welfare cuts,
evictions, racism, whatever.

Finally I think we should try and organise some kind of presence at the
Protest the Pope demo, to advertise our secular democracy project (after all
they are secularists and PAs must be free of any one religious or political
dogma, other than we make of them what we can and everyone, including
animals and the natural world is to be treated with equality and respect)
and also the anti-Tory Conference demo) and I wondered if we might be able
to have a really fun session that day with a "blank block" ie blank placard
block that would get everyone's attention.

Hell we might aswell enlist the power of God (via secularism) in our
endeavour, right??!! lol

See you soon
X

>  *
> **<http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/from-meltdown-to-upheaval-11th-september-assembly/#more-5590><http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/from-meltdown-to-upheaval-11th-september-assembly/#more-5590><http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/from-meltdown-to-upheaval-11th-september-assembly/#more-5590><http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2010/07/31/from-meltdown-to-upheaval-11th-september-assembly/#more-5590>
> **
> *
> *
> *
> * *

-- 
"We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet /Yet is there no
man speaketh as we speak in the street.”
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