[g8-sheffield] Thursday building brainstorm...

[Dan]

Hey folks n Ben

Great reply - cool!  I've spoken to plenty of people who understand your 
spirit, commitment and that you have 'integrity in buckets'.  (That's a 
direct quote, won't tell you who from!)  As I said before, it's easy to 
misplace a word, and yeah - that's something in leftie e-mailing circles 
that has to be carefully watched.  Self-censorship, eh?  Tsk...

Anyway: Thursday, 7.30 at Matilda: brainstorming on what practical 
issues come from trying to run a building of that size.  Mapping rooms, 
thinking about doors n keys n rotas n whatever else. (Mapping rooms 
means only knowing what space there is - not making decisions on how 
it's used.)

Some people were worried about this - that we'd be making decisions.  
No.  (Nobody ever trusts me! It's something I think I have a complex 
about now: that everyone thinks I'm a secret Stalinist!)

I didn't say this before, but I suggested the meeting coz I've worked 
for a property company (still do in fact) and I know the amount of work 
that has to go into making a building work if people are to use it.

So those that can, see ya on Thursday at 7.30.

love n secret desire to dominate all life on earth (doh! internal dialogue!)

Dan
----

Benjamin Major wrote:

>  
> Hello list.
>  
>  
> Thank you for all criticisms and kind comments. If any debate was to 
> be spurred, I hoped it would be about the forth paragraph, and the 
> extent to whether our new space and the forum itself, should be an 
> open, reflexive space or whether it should be a ground for some 
> campaigning (an issue I realise now has been dogging the forum ever 
> since it started up, long before I became involved), or the final 
> paragraph, and initiate some discussion on the productive uses for 
> M.A.T.I.L.D.A.
>  
> Instead it is an admittedly badly judged inbetween paragraph. Badly 
> judged in the sense that it was suposed to be written in a camaraderie 
> spirit, written at a time when I was still feeling at a high point 
> from the weeks actions, and I'm aware I was still writing as though I 
> was communicating with the people I was most closely involved in those 
> actions with, for whom terms such as 'dirty filthy radicals' was just 
> an inoffensive injoke we called each other, and quite frankly, did 
> find the idea of 'mini anarchists' (a term not from me, but from a guy 
> off-list who is a very sound and reasonably minded bloke) 
> entertaining. I didn't think carefully enough about the wider 
> membersip that this list has. I know perfectly well that you can't 
> really split up the people who were involved in the actions into 
> distinct groupings- after all, lots of people, of all ages ended up 
> being in the pen created by the police on Thursday evening.
>  
> And what's more, I feel great respect for the young people (younger 
> then me) who were involved last week- I am there with them, all the 
> way. As I think I tried to explain, I didn't have any interest in 
> political or social issues at all when I was a teenager. Well, I was 
> always deeply concerned about globalization, and about the 
> infiltration of things like Starbucks into our city, and Nike trainers 
> and stuff; but I couldn't precisely fit them into a wider framework- 
> my world view has opened since then. It has opened because of the 
> interactions and encounters I have made with people, first at uni and 
> now all of you people who I've been involved in Peace in the Park and 
> Sheffield G8 with... This is another reason why my writing might be 
> untactfully worded, I haven't completely got to grasp with the 
> lexicography of the left yet. I'm a philosopher and cultural theorist 
> and culture jammer foremost- and I can only become more fluent in 
> speaking politics with more engagement with you people. This is why I 
> am excited about the existence of a social centre- a place to 
> collectively build up knoweldge and experience, somewhere I can fill 
> the gaps that I know have (and which mean I can't speak with 
> confidence at politically orientated meetings yet) and hopefully share 
> some of my knowledge of, say, complexity science with others. I dont 
> exactly see this as a 'mission... to teach these uncouth hooligans to 
> be more like 'us'' It's more a supple and reflexive learning. I'm an 
> autonomist and don't believe in didactic authorative forms of 
> learning, so how could I mean this?
>  
> I'm very open to learning a lot from the other young people who are, 
> happily, going to be an active part in creating this social space. I 
> bloody wish I'd have been active when I was still at school and 
> college. And just for the record, I live at home at the moment, until 
> I find the right moment to move. So if anybody is going to get a 
> message from home about dinner being on the table, it's probably going 
> to be me : )
>  
> So there we go. I accept I should have put more thought into finding 
> the right words considring the large audience that my former piece was 
> going to get. I'll be getting a complex if I keep on getting replies 
> like the ones I have- I spent the morning wondering if I really was 
> doing a skywalker and slowly turning into Darth Vader, or otherwise a 
> kid from a large northern council estate who was undergoing an 
> unappealing transition into David Blunkett. But I think my integrity 
> is kept. For now.
>  
> But this is not the list for such long essays, and as it seems that 
> enough people are up for more philosophical discussions maybe it is 
> time to set up a list for un-practical matters so that this one 
> doesn't get clogged up with messages like this one and the inevitable 
> reply that contains the entirity of the orignal and so on and so on to 
> eternity.... So I'll set one up. What to call it ?
>  
> Anyway, Dan, is there still a meet up for discussing some of the more 
> practical aspects of running the Massive Alternative Terrain of 
> Insurection, Love and Direct Action on Thursday. Definately no talk 
> about day to day running yet though, until everybody is back from 
> their actions in Scotland, and we can focus on it properly...
>  
> In solidarity.
>  
> Ben.
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>  
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>http://www.sheffield.dissent.org.uk/
>http://wiki.sheffieldsocialforum.org.uk/G8
>g8-sheffield mailing list
>g8-sheffield at lists.aktivix.org
>http://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/g8-sheffield
>  
>