Edinburgh Anarchists

Schnews report on Scottish & Southern Electricity’s attempted use of a Terrorism Act against a blacklisted electrician:

A judge has dismissed a power company’s attempts to prevent a one-man picket with an injunction under the Terrorism Act as “fanciful and bordering on paranoia”. Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) attempted to suggest that the picket represented a “threat to national security”.

Electrician Steve Acheson was dismissed from from his job at the Fiddlers Ferry power station project in December 2008. Although he was technically made redundant, at the time of his dismissal the firm took on another 300 workers. Since then he’s maintained a regular picket outside the construction site with a banner saying “STOP VICTIMISING UNION WORKERS – END THE BLACKLISTING NOW”

Although the judge in this case called SSE out on their nonsense, the attempt itself shows that companies are ready to take this Act to places where they’ve succesfully used the Prevention of Harrassment Act. If a single picket can be branded a threat to “national security”, what about a whole group of them occupying their factory?

The “blacklisting” referred to is the one run by sleazy voyeur Ian Kerr of “the Consulting Agency” who maintained, illegally and at great profit, a database of more than 3000 workers suspected of union activity. This he sold to every large contractor you could name. Net result: workers reduced to poverty, and an insultingly token fine of £5000 for the spy.

A good source of information on this: The Blacklist Support Group.

Shout out to “Ann Arky”, veteran publisher of Glasgow’s Anarchist Critic who’s now blogging at:

http://radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.com/

From the people who brought you the awesome Strugglepedia resource of radical Glasgow and workers’ history.

Cactus Mouth Informer takes a break from uploading post-punk obscurities to skewer the Conspiracy of Business Interests.

I wander around with an image of the “Boss” inside my head. Thats him on the left. The proverbial Fat Cat, wearing a tailored suit, smoking a cigar, lord of all he surveys and bloated with his own self-importance. [...]
Thankfully, the “Voice Of Business” – the CBI – do everything in their power to perpetuate those images and thus continue the confrontational nature of workplace politics.

Divide by Zero on why “anarcho”-capitalists are not our allies.

One things that crops up over and over when someone on the libertarian right notices the outright hostility of anarchists when he appropriates the “Anarchist” label for himself is the accusation of “harming the movement” by not being willing to look past differences and work with each other for a stateless society. The argument goes that since both Anarchist and “Anarcho”-Capitalists wish a stateless society but simply with a different mode of production (Socialism VS Capitalism respectively) we have at least one common goal we should be working together for: The abolition of the State.
On first view, this makes a modicum of sense, if we both want a stateless society, and if we are willing to tolerate each others productive organization within their respective areas, then why are we fighting, arguing and criticizing each other when united we could be more formidable in both convincing people and undermining the state?
The answer is simple: Tactics.

And a good way to tell an anarchist from a propertarian is their attitude to Ayn Rand. If they say “who”, they’re OK; if they say “wow” then they’re probably a member of the cult that turns class analysis on its head and tells selfish, soulless bams that they are in fact noble and lovable. (It might help non-USAnians understand the batshit nonsense that gets telt about, e.g. healthcare).

In Atlas Shrugged, her hero, John Galt, leads a capitalist strike, in which the brilliant business leaders who drive all progress decide that they will no longer tolerate the parasitic workers exploiting their talent, and so they withdraw from society to create their own capitalistic paradise free of the ungrateful, incompetent masses.

“For twenty-five years,” gushed a steel executive to Rand, “I have been yelling my head off about the little-realized fact that eggheads, socialists, communists, professors, and so-called liberals do not understand how goods are produced. Even the men who work at the machines do not understand it.” Rand, finally, restored the boss to his rightful mythic place.

Our friendly local anarchist publisher, AK Press has one of these blog things as well.

It’s been going for a while now, but this recent post features the Edinburgh peeps, so that’s all the prompting we need to flag it up for your attention. Go read, subscribe to the feed, etc.