i hate living in london. so much. fuck this.
Speaking Ill of the Dead: Maggie Thatcher.
The centre reporting on the recent death of Thatcher portrays the former prime minister as a dividing figure over her controversial policies that widely followed neoliberal economics. This discourse presents itself as problematic because it assumes you work from an objective viewpoint, as if while this was all going on, you were somewhere else, somewhere far away. And that your family was too, or even your area, or any of these other factors that come into play in defining ourselves. As if we can be impartial in a class-war.
I see no objective viewpoint in the media. I see the rich praising the rich for the rich’s policies that came in and disproportionately effected the poor. In other areas of the UK, the South Wales Post published a piece with the headline “WE WILL NEVER FORGIVE HER”. In a cross-section aired tonight on the BBC conveniently did not tread in areas that remain devastated by unemployment and poverty and mainly focussed their coverage to those with positive viewpoints. I noted they did not step into Wales to find any pro-Thatcher sentiment.
Poverty under Thatcher went from 9% at the beginning of her time in power, escalating to 26% by the end. The rich print the press of the rich in the south, praising Thatcher. Not only for her policies that saw disproportionate gaps between the rich and the poor swell, along with the amount of unemployment, but for her role as a figure in feminism. Thatcher’s feminism tells us a lot more about feminism in the west than we originally anticipated: that it has an imperialist and capitalist bias that sees women often follow their fathers and brothers in order to be validated by society in a position of power. That it follows Friedman, that it backs foreign intervention and war in the name of ‘feminism’. It also tells us about those who call her a feminist.
Or that neither represent any of these liberation ideas they put up, and that
An EU report that was released yesterday found that areas of Wales had some of the highest poverty levels in the EU: these areas were mining communities and played stage to the miners strikes of South Wales. Ironically, it was Thatcher’s death that has stolen these headlines and prevented these discussions as we white-wash her. Her legacy lays and permeates today first through David Cameron, and if we follow the thread far enough, we can observe Blair weaving with her thread.
There is no objective viewpoint. There are people who supported Thatcher because they benefit from the blood of the working class. There are people who support Thatcher because of their own personal and profiteering interests. And there are people whose lives, homes and communities were- and continue to be- devastated by her legacy.
Man will be freed until the last politician is strangled with the entrails of the last priest, and that no politician can ever free us from the tyranny of capitalism and wage slavery: this can only be done by ourselves.
THATCHER, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THE MOTHER OF A THOUSAND DEAD? CLASS WAR PARTY THIS SATURDAY TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LLAETH I PAWB.
THATCHER THATCHER THATCHER MILK SNATCHER
Arrests made last night in Brixton following a party that moved towards a police station. Parties are being planned in Wales, PCS union congregated with others in Trafalgar Square, where Class War have called a party this Saturday.
Hundreds of people in Glasgow spontaneously partied in the centre of the city, and one police officer remains in hospital in Bristol after clashes with revelers celebrating the death of Thatcher.
Allegedly she is going to have an eight million pound send off…yeah, like that’s going to happen.
Given that colonisation is one of the most concentrated forms of power in history, incorporating extreme modes of domination, dispossession and racial hierarchy, the categorical imperative of resisting it or acting in solidarity with those doing so should require no justification to any anarchist. Yet anarchists in the global North often feel conflicted by the sense that opposing colonialism requires supporting national liberation struggles. This in turn implies compromising their own principles to allow for a provisional alignment with nationalism, with all its distasteful corollaries of statism, chauvinism, and patriarchy. This is precisely why an anarchist approach to anti-colonialism is needed: to sketch out a more comprehensive emancipatory alternative to the limited national view of liberation.
—Maia Ramnath, Decolonising Anarchism.
Breanna Manning has another name: Bradley Manning. In December 2011 the BBC reported that Manning had “gender issues”: issues? Manning is female, yet our media refers to her as male.
Recently she admitted to being the one who leaked the Afghan and Iraq war logs for the first time since being held in custody. This leak included the ‘Collateral Damage’ videos which showed US soldiers shooting at unarmed civilians and children, with a distinct disregard for any human life or safety. A variety of Human Rights organisations have expressed seriously worry for Manning, who is widely thought to have been tortured by the American military.
Breanna Manning has recently plead guilty to 12 of 22 charges, including the Espionage Act, and the punishment for committing that particular crime is life in prison. She was held without charge for more than 1000 days. She gave what is known as a ‘naked plea’, meaning she does not have a plea bargain.
If found guilty under ‘Aiding the enemy’, Manning could face the death penalty.
While all this goes on, Assange remains safe in the Ecuador embassy. Let us not forget how Wikileaks first rose to fame: with these set of papers. The silence on this case around us highlights our attitude towards whistleblowers, even when there are tortured and faced with death for leaking documents that are still undeniably in the overwhelming interest of the public.
The trial is due to take place in June. Does Bradley Manning deserve a medal? No, ‘he’ doesn’t. Breanna Manning deserves a medal for her work she has done in one of, if not the biggest whistleblowing cases in history. Acts of solidarity are coming in all over the world to support Manning, let’s hope that this continued and sustained pressure continues to be both to allow Manning to walk free.
