Two Sides Of The Same Coin? by Les May

THERE are two aspects of Donald Trump’s personality which he shares with both Hitler and Mussolini; his contempt for democracy and his belief that he is a great man, a man of destiny sent to save the nation. As with Adolf and Benito there are those who accept his assessment of himself at face value and came out to say so yesterday. In spite of what many of us might feel is good evidence to the contrary they accept at face value his assertion that he won the election. They KNOW that must be true because he says so and anyone who refuses to believe him is just plain wrong.

To some who see themselves being ‘of the left’ Trump’s behaviour is typical of right wing authoritarian politicians. But Trump was sowing the seeds of authoritarianism and intolerance in ground which had been thoroughly tilled by others, in the universities, in some seemingly respectable newspapers and on social media. With the certainty in the absolute truth of one’s beliefs comes an intolerance of the views of those who disagree.

This phenomenon is not confined to the US and the UK exponents of ‘Identity Politics’ are at their core just as authoritarian and intolerant as those who deserve to be labelled ‘Far Right’. They differ only in their chosen weapon. For the far right it’s violence, for those wedded to identity politics it’s no platforming. Both are pernicious.

******************************************************

Was General Franco a Fascist? by Brian Bamford

JOE Bailey sends NV a quote from Paul Preston, historian: “If people are looking for a quick and easy insult to those on the right, then fascist, is your go-to term,” he says. “If you’re asking an academic political theorist what constitutes a fascist then you’d have to say Franco isn’t.”

Derek Pattison had asked the question 'Was Franco a Fascist?' and he drew attention to some similarities and differences: 'Franco did use forced labour, concentration camps, and mass executions and terror was a deliberate strategy used to pursue his goal of overthrowing the republican government and winning the war. He then established a military dictatorship, but I don't think he'd much time for fascism, the Falange or its leader, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera.'

The historian, Sir Paul Preston, is an interesting personality to turn to for an answer to this question 'Was Franco a Fascist?'. The then Prof. Preston answer to the interviewer Rob Attar, was:

'If people are looking for a quick and easy insult to those on the right, then fascist, is your go-to term,” he says. “If you’re asking an academic political theorist what constitutes a fascist then you’d have to say Franco isn’t.'

And then Preston continued:

'But that’s not intended to let the Spanish dictator off the hook. “I caused quite a stir in Spain a few years ago when asked this question,” Preston recalled, “and I said Franco wasn’t a fascist … he was something much worse.

'What I meant by that is that the only absolutely indisputable fascist leader is Mussolini and the only indisputably fascist regime is Mussolini’s regime. And, there are so many ways in which Franco is different.'

'How, then, was Franco “much worse”? Preston argues that Franco was a “deeply conservative” man who, having previously served with the Spanish Army in North Africa, “had the mental furniture of a Spanish colonial officer”. This had seemingly imbued him with a shocking disregard for human life.'

Derek Pattison was questioning Stuart Christie's assumption that Franco was a 'Fascist' and I believe Derek is right to say General Franco didn't have much time for the Falange (the Spanish Fascist Party). In 1963, my boss pointed to a house where a local Fascist lived in Denia, Alicante, and told me that he'd been imprisoned for a time under Franco. What Sir Paul Preston now calls 'the mental furniture of a Spanish colonial office', Sr. Juan Paris, my boss, saw Franco as a solid army man who couldn't be swayed by the dodgy nature of party politicians. Later on in 1975, after Franco had died* my boss told me that he then regarded democracy as the best thing for Spain.

Juan was probably the best boss I've ever had and he looked after me and my family as best he could, but when I think on this, I'm put in mind of what Ignazio Silone said in 'School for Dictators' where he wrote on Fascist Italy about how folk flock to those in power and this was his advice:

'Don't be in such a hurry, I beg you. The poets and the monsignori, the generals, the ladies and their escorts will all come to you after you are in power. With some exceptions, they flock to success like flies to honey, or if you prefer, like rats to cheese. Democratic when there is a democratic government, they are naturally fascists under a fascist dictatorship and Communists under the hammer and sickle. The behaviour of the priests might surprise us, if the pagans hadn't already advised us that the winning cause has always pleased the gods. Christian theology later corroberated this interlectually, explaining that all authority comes from God. And as for the ladies, it's well known that Venus has always felt a particular attraction for Mars, the God of strength.'

This quote is probably a good explanation of the evolution of Franco's Spanish dictatorship, which was an authoritatian, regime rather than totalitarian as in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia.

Sir Paul Preston himself also represents a good example how to get on in academia, he doesn't yet seem to have commented on the death of Stuart Christie, which is a little strange given that he was very keen to court Stuart, particularly in the early days, and Stuart told me he helped to get some anarchist publications into print in English. One of Preston's students 'Neil' told me that Preston made much of his association with Stuart in academic circles. When I once, some years ago, mentioned to Stuart about Prof. Preston's association with the International Brigade Memorial Trust, he told me that 'it was his bread and butter'..

************************************************

* Officially, Franco died a few minutes after midnight on 20 November 1975 from heart failure, at the age of 82 – on the same date as the death of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange, in 1936. Historian Ricardo de la Cierva claimed that he had been told around 6 pm on 19 November that Franco had already died.[171] Juan Carlos was proclaimed King two days later.

'BOOKFAIRS & BULLSHIT'

a critical review by Christopher Draper

THIS shocking booklet should be read and acted upon by everyone claiming allegiance to anarchism for there are no innocent bystanders.  I was intimately involved when the author was thrown out of last year’s 'Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair' and I witnessed the appallingly authoritarian behaviour of the organisers.  As he observes this was but a single incident in a growing catalogue of oppressive, exclusionary and often violent acts perpetrated by bigots claiming to be anarchists.  The author fairly concludes that, 'Anarchism has pretty much become a Wendy house for children to play in'.

The central argument is that the key role of class in the everyday oppression of millions of people has been displaced by the adolescent politics of personal identity and doctrinaire opinion is imposed and enforced by censorious authoritarians.  'The massive attention paid to identity politics has utterly distracted from attention to real problems and issues in the world – capitalist greed, poverty, injustice, war etc. In this respect, identity politics is the ultimate counter-revolutionary ideology and has utterly divided the left.  Much worse, people are now afraid to say what they think and are being turned off politics for good by this laughable charade.'

The author accurately identifies the takeover of anarchism by poseurs exploiting gender issues to gain a dominant role that enables them to define the limits of permitted opinion, dictate what’s labelled 'hate speech' and who’s excluded for imperilling their self-declared 'safe spaces'.  A determined, dominating minority has been allowed to take over as pusillanimous comrades refuse to challenge bullying behaviour.  I witnessed this lack of solidarity at Liverpool and previously saw the same cowardice at a 'Manchester Anarchist Bookfair' from which other comrades were unjustly excluded.

At the Liverpool workshop from which the author was expelled, as the 'Inquisition' burst in I requested that they circulate amongst comrades present the leaflet the 'excluders' claimed comprised 'hate speech' so vile that their 'victim' be immediately thrown out.  It seemed to me that those attending the workshop should judge whether he needed to be excluded or not but the 'Witchfinders' insisted that he go and the rest of us passively defer to their authority. I objected that this was hardly, 'anarchism in action' and managed to retrieve a copy of the banned leaflet from our 'blasphemous' author before he was led away.

The author accurately observes, 'Anarchist bookfairs have become social occasions for marginalised reality shy people.  They are not progressive or libertarian and are isolated from the real world by maintaining "door policies".  This keeps them and their delusional self-importance safe from most of us outside their social scene.'

And it’s certainly true that, 'This publication is in sharp contrast to the jokers patting themselves on their back in London, who remain – as ever – isolated from the real world but hope to be seen as a credible mouthpiece for current anarchist thinking.'

But the shocking contents of this pamphlet are not entirely warranted or welcome.  Like the author, I am also a 'northern working class anarchist', and can claim even longer allegiance to the cause (approx 50 years) yet I don’t like his language.  Authoritarian behaviour comes in different guises and labelling people, 'ponces', 'idiots' and 'creepy-looking fucked up men' is intimidatory and undermines the persuasiveness of his argument.  I don’t think people should be excluded for not conforming to middle class modes of expression but I do believe anarchists should empathise with others and not needlessly offend. Instead, this pamphlet rejoices in the use of aggressive, macho language; 'cocks in frocks', 'confused fuckers', 'couldn’t give a shit', 'What a fuckin’ joke'!  I personally challenged Pablo, one of the 'excluders' at the Liverpool Bookfair and found him utterly robotic in his narrow-minded bigotry but I don’t think it’s fair, funny or clever for the pamphlet to depict Pablo with, 'I love Franco' and a swastika added to his photograph.

The author is wrong to insist that, 'When people politicise irrelevant lifestyle choices the bigger picture of dealing with class oppression as an argument is just pushed to one side by them as they politicise their insignificant individual decisions as radical positions – such as veganism…' Unpicking the myriad authoritarian, exploitative threads that bind together our oppressive society is an essential, complex, ongoing task that would need to continue even beyond any successful revolution.  I fully acknowledge the political importance of class but I also believe that 'the personal is political' and it is wrong to dismiss other people’s experience of oppression as trivial, irrelevant or less important than our own perception of class.  After all, Russia destroyed Capitalism but maintained authoritarian control.

Anarchism requires more than turning the other cheek or looking the other way and though hundreds signed a petition supporting Helen Steel many more (including some of the signatories to Helen’s petition) looked the other way when less well-known or popular comrades were victimised. Anarchists must take personal responsibility and I regret that the author (or authors) of this publication choose to remain as anonymous as most of the exclusionary 'Witchfinders' they deplore. There’s much of interest and importance in this pamphlet and I would urge comrades to read it and respond by intervening everywhere and on every occasion that you witness authoritarian, exclusionary behaviour.  As this publication never said, for evil to triumph it only takes good men, women and those of gender-fluid identity to do nothing.

 _________________________________________________________________________

 "Shit Wigs and Steroids: Anarchism's (and the left's) Tolerance of Delusion" 

 'BOOKFAIRS & BULLSHIT'

This booklet is an A5 size 24-page critique of identity politics which challenges what it sees as the dominant politics of a 'wannabe' London based elite who are setting themselves up as a mouthpiece for current anarchist thought in the UK.  It claims to be rooted in a northern working-class perspective based on anti-authoritatianism.  It is a collective project that questions what it sees as the 'bogus claims of the transgender headcases' ; it entitles itself under the e-mail address:  newoffensive01@gmail.com

 Price £2 including postage & packing.

_______________________________________________________________________

************

Review: Transsexuals vs Cocks in Frocks?

 by Les May

 _________________________________________________________________________

 "Shit Wigs and Steroids: Anarchism's (and the left's) Tolerance of Delusion" 

 'BOOKFAIRS & BULLSHIT'

This booklet is an A5 size 24-page critique of identity politics which challenges what it sees as the dominant politics of a 'wannabe' London based elite who are setting themselves up as a mouthpiece for current anarchist thought in the UK.  It claims to be rooted in a northern working-class perspective based on anti-authoritatianism.  It is a collective project that questions what it sees as the 'bogus claims of the transgender headcases' ; it entitles itself under the e-mail address:  newoffensive01@gmail.com

 Price £2 including postage & packing.

_______________________________________________________________________

I WAS asked to review this booklet by someone who had erroneously been identified as the author.  When this came to the attention of the real author he initiated contact with the supposed author, which led to me receiving a review copy.  Any opinions in this review are entirely my own and should not be attributed to anyone else.

Reviewing this booklet is not easy.  It is difficult to discern a linear sequence and it can be read in a number of different ways.  At one level it is one episode of an anarchist soap opera in which the horny handed sons of toil from the gritty north take on the effete, never done a proper day’s work in their lives, London scribblers and their acolytes.  The title says it all ‘Shit Wigs and Steroids. Anarchism’s and the left’s Tolerance of Delusion.  Bookfairs & Bullshit’.

Eager to wash anarchism’s dirty washing in public we get three pages, or should that be six pages, I said it was difficult to discern a linear sequence, of ‘What Happened at the Liverpool ‘Anarchist’ Bookfair 2018’.  Certainly nothing for the bookfair organisers to be proud of.  At this point you realise that the author’s way of expressing things is, shall we say, OTT.  Here’s a sample ‘… his gang of ponces have supported violence against women through attempting to stop free speech in a public environment’.  So far as I am concerned their ‘crime’ is nothing to do with violence against women, it is attempting to stifle debate on transgender issues.  At this point I began to wonder if the author had swallowed the whole of the feminist lexicon.  Here’s another sample which is the title of a booklet the author encourages us to read, ‘Gender is not an Identity, it is a Tool of Patriarchy a Feminist View of Gender Identity Politics’.  Patriarchy, Feminist, Gender all in one sentence, pass me the sick bag please!

Usually when I read this sort of stuff I assume the writer is what I call one of ‘The Leg Over Brigade’, i.e. a man who spouts feminist pleasing language in the hope of being viewed favourably in the amorous stakes.  I don’t think this is the case here, the author seems to genuinely believe what he is writing and I doubt that his overuse of the slang terms for female genetalia as descriptions for people who views he disagrees with, will endear him to many feminists.

Anarchism he says ‘has pretty much become a wendy house for children to play in’.  He means of course the ‘London effete’ version of anarchism and lays at its door ‘authoritarian behaviour, censorship, bullying and (yawn) misogyny’.  These charges are not unique to anarchism, ‘the Left’ is riddled with similar exponents.  ‘The transgender arguments are at best nonsense, at worst (yawn) misogynistic, indulgent and delusional’, he tells us.  Well that’s a point of view, an opinion, an assertion.  This is anger talking.

But if you first strip away the anger, then all of the feminist rhetoric, you realise he has a point, you’ve just got to unearth it.

What this booklet is all about is the proposed changes to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) which could move away from medical assessment to ‘self certifying’, and about the people who refuse to engage in discussion about the implications of such a change and want to bully the rest of society into accepting it without question.

I’ve written previously about what I see as the absurdity of a man with a full set of wedding tackle being allowed to claim he is a woman and be housed in a women’s prison, the ‘Cocks in Frocks’ syndrome as the author rather nicely puts it.

What I had not considered is how the 5000 transexual women for whom the 2004 GRA was created, might view self certifying.  It’s an interesting perspective.  The rational, understanding, empathetic way the 14 contributors to this piece have structured their argument and their recognition that whilst it is women who will be most affected, changes to the GRA will affect the whole of society, is an example of how this debate should be conducted.

I found this so striking that I was initially tempted to quote it in full.  I won’t; you’ll have to get hold of a copy of the booklet and read it for yourself. Significantly some of the contributors to this are older women who ‘transitioned’ up to 50 years ago.  Almost all the noise comes from those of university age,

Much of the author’s anger is directed at the politicisation of identity, of irrelevant lifestyle choices, of ‘Look at me, me, me I’m non-binary’ or the way that some people portray individual decisions as somehow taking a radical stance, and think we should all take notice. I’m inclined to agree.  My wife, my sister, my sisters-in-law, my daughters, my granddaughters, couldn’t care less. 

*********** 

Free Speech and Cheap Bigots

 by Christopher Draper

ANARCHIST beat-poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti warned us that, “Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality” and last week (5.3.2018) a gang of masked, black-clad thugs calling themselves London Antifa smashed their way into a meeting at Kings College London in a coordinated, violent, attack on “Free Speech”.  

With perverse irony, “FREEDOM” an erstwhile anarchist website celebrated this exhibition of “fascist mentality”; “Well done to London Antifa for taking action against one of (sic) major universities assisting an alt-right speaker in spreading hateful propaganda.”

The New Authoritarians

Fascist-minded “No-Platformers” claim a unilateral ability and right to distinguish “Free speech from Hate-speech” but there is no distinction to be made. 

As George Orwell said, “If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear” - regardless of how hate-filled the speaker may be. Noam Chomsky advises, “If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.”

“Hate Speech” is the modern equivalent of “Blasphemy”.  In 1697 Thomas Aikenhead was the last man in Britain executed for Blasphemy.  In the 19^th century the editor, printer and publisher of The Freethinker were all imprisoned for Blasphemy and as late as 1977, according to the trial judge, “It was touch and go” whether Dennis Lemon, the editor of Gay News, would be imprisoned for Blasphemy (he was fined £1000 and given a suspended prison sentence). 

 

When the British State finally abolished the crime of Blasphemy in 2008 “direct-action” bigots eagerly adopted the abandoned role of punishing those deemed to “speak the unspeakable”.  All around us Commissars now claim the right to control what is expressed even in university halls and anarchist bookfairs.  Where the State formerly identified accusers and offered the prosecuted an opportunity of “due process” and an argued defence the new authoritarians operate in the dark, anonymous, masked and unreasoned. These new arbiters of the new Blasphemy don’t debate they assert and attack.

Free Speech - the Bedrock of Liberty

Northern Voices considers dissent inevitable, healthy and to be welcomed. We are happy to debate FREE SPEECH with anyone in any public forum but the authoritarians don’t respect reason.  Bans, censorship, blacklisting and physical attacks are their modus operandi.  Indulging in such antics lost the organisers of the Manchester Anarchist Bookfair their former booking at the “Peoples’ History Museum” and seems likely to lose their current venue, “The Partisan”, the financial support of local trade unions. 

 

Violent suppression of Free Speech caused the organisers of the 2017 London Anarchist Bookfair to abandon plans for a 2018 event.  The vandals have kicked open the gates and are rampaging amongst us.  Whilst FREEDOM applauds Antifa attacks on Free Speech and publishes books like “BEATING THE FASCISTS” its Board of Management (David Goodway, Peter Marshall, Ernest Rodker et al) timorously cower behind the barricades.  It’s time for all decent minded folk to come out of the closet and stand up for FREE SPEECH.

******

Toby Crowe & 'Freedom' - Comment by SPGB

 IN 2015, Christopher Draper wrote an unauthorised account running to several essays about the decline and fall of the Freedom, the anarchist newspaper, following changes brought in after 2000.  Part of Mr. Draper's critique was focused upon the then controversial recruitment to the job as Freedom editor of the then general secretary of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB), Mr. Toby Crowe.  Mr. Crowe was a primary school teacher who seemingly suffered from what for want of a better description, we might call 'the teacher's disease'.  In other words his demeanour to others was somewhat authoritarian, supercilious and pompous, and in no way suitable for the job of a Freedom editor.  Judging by the letter below from Charmian Skelton, who knew the now Revd. Toby Crowe when he was in the SPGB; Mr. Crowe appeared by nature to have a bit of a top-down attitude when he was in their organisation as well:

Who Killed 'Freedom'?

(Dear Northern Voices),

I have just found the Christopher Draper article ('Who Killed Freedom' from 2015).
 Re Toby Crowe: I was – and am still - a member of the SPGB.  Toby Crowe, like his friend Robin Cox, became a new broom in the SPGB, having joined via a Guildford Branch. He was himself from Guildford and from a very affluent family.
 Robin Cox had ideas of his own, preferring ecology to class politics. Later he left the SPGB, in disagreement with its rejection of religion.
 Toby Crowe found his way to becoming the Party’s General Secretary at a time when the faction of opportunists, libertarians and Utopians were acting to split the Party. This led – on trumped-up charges – to the expulsion of some London Branches and others like myself who resigned rather than continue with the faction that had got control of the Party.
 Re Toby’s authoritarian ways as an editor: please do not blame the SPGB for this attitude of “I know best”. If, as your article says, he responded to criticism with sarcasm, that used not to be the SPGB way.
It is however a characteristic of the SWP and others influenced by Lenin!
Editorial re-drafting of articles was something I objected to when some of the faction became editors of the Socialist Standard. As a result, for some time before the ‘split’, I had stopped writing for the Standard, as had – long before me  – a number of other comrades.
 We continue to put the case for Socialism as a bottom-up not top-down movement, working democratically for a world “society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community”.
 While we do fundamentally disagree with Anarchism, I consider many of the old FREEDOM supporters would have found some common ground with us, even while arguing with us.
 Since the ‘split’ we have published over 100 issues of our quarterly journal Socialist Studies, and more than a dozen pamphlets, also leaflets etc.
Our website is : www.socialiststtudies.org.uk

Yours for Socialism
C Skelton

Northern Voices: Who Killed Freedom?: an unauthorised history 1.

www.northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2015/.../who-killed-freedom-unauthorised-history.h...

Anarchist Answers?: Les May on John Desmond

Les May

A few weeks ago someone I had known in the early sixties died. I had read a recent article by him and smiled that he was still the unrepentant Marxist I had known fifty odd years ago.  It was simply an article of faith to him that Marxism was the best political system yet devised.  I don't think that any amount of empirical evidence to the contrary would ever have made him doubt it.

If we search for evidence that libertarian solutions are better than authoritarian solutions, can we find it?  Or is it just an article of faith that they are simply 'better'?

My experience is mixed. They seem to work best when they are spontaneous, have a definite aim and a limited life span. They attract the 'do-ers' not the 'be-ers'.  I have been involved with two of these, one in 1988 and the other in 1995.  One succeeded in its aims, the other didn't.

The Tredegar Medical Aid Society was clearly not a small undertaking if it really did cater for the (then) medical needs of some 20,000 people.  The present population is 15,000 so that figure might be an exaggeration.  That is about the size of town I lived in during the 1960s.  It had a cottage hospital at that time.

Other than the fact that it was not state run and the NHS is, what advantages did TMAS have for the users?  In addition it was not inclusive in that the individual had to join.  My mother was illiterate and poor.  I ask myself would she have joined?

Will this solution 'scale'? I don't mean 'economies of scale' but does this solution still work when the problem gets larger?  I live in a town of about 95,000.  If I add in the two adjacent towns which are administratively included the total is about 200,000. What might it look like here?  What would a network look like? Would it provide better health care than the NHS model?

Would an organisation like TMAS be able to adapt to our era of 'Big Medicine'?
In the 1930s doctors had a very limited range of drugs at their disposal.  Until the advent of sulphonamides, and later antibiotics, there were very few if any antibacterials available. The surgical procedures which were possible were limited.

My brother has had a number of PET scans (Positron Emission Tomography).  My sister and two of my friends have had replacement hips, my brother in law has had a replacement knee...  I'll stop there!  Would a network of TMAS be able to provide this?

So far as I am concerned the 'anarchist' answer to health lies in the hands of each of us; don't smoke, don't drink too much, don't do drugs, don't eat too much and don't sit on your backside all day.

Tell people this and they will complain 'nanny state', but still expect 'nanny' to make them better when they get sick.

Can anyone suggest what a 'libertarian' waste disposal solution would look like for a town like Rochdale?  If it got the unrecyclable waste bin emptied every two weeks not every three weeks it would make 'libertarian' solutions very popular in the town.