From: "Heather" <Heather-AT-teknopunx.co.uk>
Subject: Re: "The Direct Action Movement"
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2003 15:02:16 -0000



----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Coull" <coull2-AT-btinternet.com>
To: <anarchy-list-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2003 1:34 PM
Subject: "The Direct Action Movement"


I'm not going to get too bogged down in all this personality
stuff.

H
Yeah right-like anyone would beleive that of you.

D
I am going to talk about  POLITICAL  differences.
Heather said about Keri that the reason she didn't know
certain people was because she had little experience
of the "direct action movement" in Scotland.

H
I ponted out she knows squat about TODAYS Scottish activists. i.e. In the
mere 2/3 years she's been in Scotland,she has heard about old history from
you (who claim to have been "retired" for years), met a few Scots lefties,
done a handful of demos and meetings run by leftie groups, and thats the sum
total of her experience since she's been here.

D
I find that a very significant phrase which illustrates
the  _political_  difference between "life style"
anarchism and "class struggle" anarchism.
In saying that Keri didn't know particular individuals
because she had little experience of the "direct action
movement" , Heather was assuming that the "direct action
movement" was so small it was possible to know everybody
who mattered.

H
No I wasn't, she stated "We didn't stay very long but the fact is there were
about two to three
people
who I've never seen before in my life." as if that fact had some relevance.
I pointed out  that that fact meant fuck all.


D
Now, as it happens, up until just a very few years ago
there was an anarcho-syndicalist grouping called the DAM,
"Direct Action Movement". They still exist, but have changed
their name to the "Solidarity Federation". However, I know
for certain that Heather was not talking about that relatively
small grouping when she used the phrase. She was talking
a  _different_  relatively small grouping, about people
who have been actively involved in anti-nuclear actions,
anti-roads protesters, and so on.

H
Relatively small??????????????? hundreds of Scots have been involved in mass
actions for the decade I've been active, going back as far as Pollock Free
State in 1992, Pressmennan Woods, The Skye Bridge anti-toll, Trident
Ploughshares, Save the Govan Pool, the anti-GMs,Gartocher Rubbish rat,
Billston Woods and
many mass actions keri's probably never heard of(except possibly on my
website)-not to mention the mass
rallies and actions by Scottish CND and Faslane peace camp.
Relatively SMALL
numbers? BWAHAHAHAHA.

D
Heather herself has
been involved in direct action on these issues, and this
is why she assumes that it is possible to know everybody
involved in the "direct action movement".

H
No, because I have been involved with direct activists in Scotland for 11
years it is simply stating the obvious to point out that I am liable to know
many more activists than Keri does and that the fact there are people she
doesn't know in the activist movement is meaningless. Perhaps Keri is
capable of telling us herself what meaning we were intended to get from her
statement? You don't seem to have understood anything I've said-that's for
sure, why should we think you have a clue what she was saying?-you're a
moron.

D
But the really significant thing is what Heather did
 NOT  mean by "the direct action movement".
The most important mass example of direct action in this
country in recent times was the anti-poll-tax movement.
This was so widespread that  _nobody_  could know "everybody"
involved in this mass direct action. But of course, Heather
wasn't  _talking_  about mass direct action. She was talking
about direct action by a relatively small elite group.

H
See above.

snip
D
The very suggestion that it is possible to know everybody
who is anybody in "the direct action movement" shows an elitist
frame of mind, a frame of mind which does  _not_  include
examples of  _mass_  direct action in this "direct action
movement".

H
I suggest that this is exactly what Keri was suggesting-not me, I was
suggesting the direct opposite, shit-for-brains.

D
I am not suggesting that there is never any worth in individual
action, or in action by a small group. If Oola from the Trident
Ploughshares group damages a military aircraft at RAF Leuchars,
that is to be welcomed and supported. But let's keep a sense of
proportion. What really matters is  _mass_  direct action.  If
we can have strikes, occupations, and complete disruption of
"normal life" on the day that war breaks out, that is far more
important than any individual act.

H
Oh, I get it, you're handing out leaflets and doing YOUR thing is more
important than anything any of MY mates get up to. >sigh< Well Dave-you just
prooved yet again exactly what others on this and other lists have
pointed out to you many times. You're nothing more than a complete arsehole,
elitist and inverted snob.
Fuck you AND Keri.
H