CAPITALISTS ARE MUCH, MUCH BETTER AT LYING THAN AT SOLVING PROBLEMS RELATED TO THEIR OWN GREED ~ Rob Ray ~ A couple of years ago I attended a talk by Peter Gelderloos at the London Action Resource Center (Larc) on his then-new book, The Solutions Are Already Here. He wasn’t in the best of shape — as is now common knowledge, he had been diagnosed with a brain tumour and was on his way back to the US to, among other things, try and get some help with it. Larc being a small venue, and Gelderloos being among the radical scene’s larger names, the place was packed with people, a little claustrophobic as he stood at the front to give his talk on the impossibility of stopping, or even slowing, climate change without a significant social revolution. In the dim orange light preferred by the Larc crew, a little wired and clearly exhausted from the combination of illness and travel, there was a half-wild and somewhat messianic aspect to his presentation, a shadowed, shaggy-haired and shiny-eyed character grasping and gesticulating as he outlined two futures. A likely one of catastrophic climate change driven by capitalism’s inherent inability to control its own, cancer-like growth, or the almost imperceptible hope of a genuine ecological revolution driven by society’s realisation that survival and business as usual are not compatible. You can find a (better-rested and longer-form) version of it here, in a talk he gave a year prior to the Marxist Education Project: I was impressed by his zeal (and frankly by the fact he was there and standing at all), but doubted his message would find many converts outside the sort of people who already frequent Earth First! events. The trouble being that telling folk the only solution is to destroy capitalism is a hard sell at the best of times, and in April 2023 capitalists could point to any number of initiatives to show how they were “making progress.” Unconvincing to someone who is disinclined to look past 50 years of excuses, lies, vacillating and half-hearted compromises, perhaps, but enough for your average liberal who really wants to believe someone else can sort it all out while retaining, roughly, the status quo. Just two years later, though, Gelderloos’s predictions that capitalism would be unable even to maintain its existing lacklustre efforts towards reducing carbon emissions, let alone deepen them, are worth returning to. Because that feverish anarchist, ranting about capitalism’s follies in a stuffy former Methodist Hall, was pretty much spot on. THE 2030-NEVER OF ELECTRIFICATION The promises of capitalism to magically technologise the world to reduce emissions hinged, in the 2010s to early 2020s, on a few key ideas. First, reduce the direct emission of carbon dioxide by electrifying everything. Cars, trucks, buses, boilers, even steel foundries. Second, clean up electricity generation by switching to a combination of renewables, and maybe something like nuclear or cold fusion or grid-scale battery for base load (tbd). Third, discourage companies from polluting by introducing a complex system of carbon trading credits. Fourth, lean in to improving efficiency at “consumer” level — better insulation, less waste etc. With a gradual tightening of such policies, it was thought, the system could switch over to a non-damaging model, and capitalism could continue doing its thing. Now there is, as has been pointed out with increasing volume for the entirety of living memory, already a fundamental problem there which simply cannot be fixed. Growth. Capitalism demands it, and in fact, faces crisis without it. Efficiency on a GDP balance looks very much like recession — lower production, less economic activity. So if you’re going to be both more efficient with what you’re already making and placate the religion of growth you in fact need to accelerate exploitation of resources. Make more, sell more to keep the line going up. The green revolution must be economically justified as an opportunity for growth and the opening of new markets. It must be fully exploited for increased profitability. Thus we find, in the late 2010s, the enthusiastic initial take-up of electric vehicles as a panacea. Growth with falling emissions. Perfect. First Tesla, then every other company, started to experiment and found, to their delight, that the electric car did present possibilities. You could sell it like a luxury item and get a big State subsidy. You could stuff it full of modern technologies, from big screens to 360-degree cameras permanently connected to central servers. You could make repairs impossible without sending it to your own workshop. Enshittification theory and panopticon surveillance applied beyond the internet, in an industry where much of the population is entirely hostage, unable to function without the range afforded by a vehicle and unsupported by mass transit. We also find the massive new wave of solar and wind farms, thunking megaprojects bypassing the old community ideals of transition towns becoming independent of Big Energy. We see the flogging of replacement green tech for boilers, the promise that (whichever country) will be a Green Energy Superpower. Spool forward to 2025, and it’s all falling apart. The megaprojects have problems moving energy to where it’s needed. Spain apparently produces too much solar, Scotland too much wind, at the wrong times. To no industry watcher’s surprise, European and US car manufacturers are flubbing the electric market to the point that subsidies were removed by Trump, Tesla has started making sci-fi promises about mass self-driving vehicles to hide its woeful sales figures, and the EU is preparing to ditch its 2035 target to abolish internal combustion engines, with the UK likely to follow. Both the “UK” (internationally owned) oil majors of Shell and BP, after a desultory few years pretending to give a single solitary damn about renewables, have dumped their interest in wind to reinvest in fossil fuels. The big rock candy mountain of cold fusion is as far away as ever, and nuclear baseload remains low, with much-touted “mini” reactors already, as the Financial Times quips, “losing their glow.” Carbon offsetting, meanwhile, simply doesn’t, and has never, worked. END OF THE PRETENCE? Some of this is simply the end of the road for a cycle of demonstrative reactions to political fashions that began in the 2000s, when climate activism was at its height and had forced its way into the global conversation. A combination of the rise of the far-right, the impact of powerful lobbying interests and the collapse of astroturfing, both because it had become less effective and because companies no longer felt the need to virtue signal. At no point had the rich ceased to consume exactly what they wanted, nobody had cut back on private jets or superyachts. If solar and wind had grown, it was largely to service expanded consumption, rather than decarbonising. Most notable in this farce was that fossil fuels never actually stopped being produced and used. In fact, apart from the pandemic, every year to date has seen a new record for global oil consumption. The same is true for coal. In terms of cutting back on CO2 emissions, capitalism has failed year after year in absolute terms. Every single watt of solar energy was additional to fossil fuel use. China is often blamed for this, but it is the workshop of the world, not just domestic markets. Global consumption of its goods within unaccountable neoliberal models drove the opening of all those Chinese coal plants, exactly as the 2000s anti-globalisation movement predicted it would, outsourcing air pollution to nations where poverty and autocracy ensured few complaints could be raised. Renewables capacity wouldn’t magically have appeared if these factories had moved to Europe instead. And we know this in part because where a sudden spurt of building new industry has happened, it’s been dirtier than a Texan rigger. Tesla, infamously, ended up fuelling its “superchargers” with diesel. So too the vast server “farms” which have been built to power the extraordinarily wasteful AI bubble. Most of those slop videos and images people generate  for social media are burning dead dinosaurs by the tonne. In fact, between the ultra-capitalist dream of crypto markets and this dystopian sci-fi hellscape of tech bros’ imagined Nazi artificial superintelligences, you can pretty much write off the entire benefit from solar and wind as having been sucked up into an exercise filling the internet with a more convincing type of garbage. That’s what capitalism, in the post-pandemic world, has actually done regarding the one big ecological issue that it said it was going to fix. That was its supposed best effort. Gelderloos, in his own critique (which I should note comes before a much more optimistic and constructive offering of what to do about it), notes: “Even though they’re they’re reducing it just to climate and they’ve been aware of the danger of climate change – like the US government recognised it as a national security problem already back in the 1960s – their responses have been militarising borders and increasing the deployment of militaries for, you know, so-called disasters, natural disasters, and things of that nature. And then also making big agreements that have done exactly nothing to slow down greenhouse gas emissions. “So even within their reductionism, they don’t do a good job of dealing with the one part of the problem … The larger part of it they have to ignore, and then of the part that they look at, half of it they don’t get right, and the other half they deal with in a way that that actively harms us.” This is what we’re now being asked to look past, to “just trust us bro.” We are about to run headlong into any number of issues related to unsustainable exploitation of resources – most notably food and water – in a situation where capital made not the slightest dent in solving the runaway climate change it said it was the only solution to. In fact it made more headway simply persuading the easily-led there was no problem. Capitalists are much, much better at lying than they are at solving problems related to their own greed. I’ll finish with a quote, culled from Octopus founder and green energy enthusiast Greg Jackson in a December 10th interview with RS. In it, he describes an encounter with one of his opposite numbers in the fossil fuel gig: “I was sat literally next to a very senior executive from a very big, very well-known oil company. And a person asked him about climate change. And he said ‘look, we’re planning on 2.75 degrees. And the guy said ‘well, what does that mean?’ And he said ‘six metres of sea level rise’.” And the rest. When bosses talk to other bosses, you finally get to a version of the truth. What our lords and masters really have in mind for us is death. Mass, irrevocable, on an unimaginable scale. That’s “priced in” to their calculations. That’s what we’re up against. The death cult of Big Oil, fuelling the death cult of Big Tech, paying for the nihilistic, careless lifestyles of Earth’s few thousand  early 21st-century ultra-rich, until the clock strikes midnight. They have to be deposed. The dimly-lit hopes of Gelderloos’ gesticulations and all our decades of struggle towards better alternatives must prevail. The alternative is catastrophe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: odg.cat CC BY-NC 4.0 The post Capitalism’s ‘green transition’ is dead—was it ever truly alive? appeared first on Freedom News.

BOTH THE “CENTRE” AND THE COBWEB LEFT WALLOWED IN FAILURE, WHILE THE FAR RIGHT EASILY HAD ITS BEST YEAR ~ Rob Ray ~ Reform UK has consistently topped national polls in 2025 as the “anything but LabCon” choice, with its predictable and often ridiculous incompetence in local government barely making a dent on numbers. Barring a minor miracle, it will win big in May’s local elections. Meanwhile its street wing, in the form of Tommy Robinson’s mob, managed to pull out a record crowd for Unite The Kingdom and litter every lamp-post from Kent to Yorkshire with the butcher’s apron. KEIR? HARDLY Much of the blame for this must be laid at the feet of former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer, whose journey from McLibel activism to implacable opponent of left dissent went supernova when his government proscribed a non-violent direct action group, Palestine Action, as a terror organisation. A monumentally stupid decision on all counts, not least for his own political future, as for many, it stripped away their last illusions of Labour as a progressive force. The impact of Labour’s attitude to the left, its abandonment of promised policies, and its seething hatred for protest can’t be overestimated in terms of where it finds itself entering 2026. Starmer’s wing of the party, its eminence thoroughly greased by Morgan McSweeney, never did understand that over the long term, if you have no tame corporate media you need grassroots activity. Not for the election-time door knocking, but for the shield it provides online. When no-one wants to defend you, because you make it clear you despise them, all that gets heard is the negative voice. The impact of this choice, to deliberately insult and alienate its own base, can be seen in the wake of the Autumn Budget, which did have a few vaguely centre-left ideas in it, and the Employment Rights Act, which (even watered down) genuinely does introduce a handful of protections for working people. Nobody cared. No-one has been jumping in on socials to pat Labour on the back, not even the old guard of (lower case r) reformists who previously would have been saying “see, this is better than the Tories”. And as a result, it all goes one way. As many predicted when Starmer first started purging Labour’s ranks of anti-Zionist Jews and rolling back on his leadership promises before the general election, a total reliance on public exhaustion with the Tories was never going to hold up, and so it has proven. With a grassroots shattered by its own hubris, an implacably hostile corporate media, and a public refusing to trust a word said by party or government, how Labour might pull out of the nosedive is anyone’s guess. All of which, in tandem with the Tories’ own self-immolation, has opened the void through which Nigel Farage sauntered. YOU’RE KIDDING ME … To his left, meanwhile, all has been chaos embodied by the extraordinary saga of Your Party. What were they thinking? Freedom has never made many bones about its position on Corbyn and the ultimate uselessness of the cobweb left, but even we weren’t predicting such an immediate and comprehensive proof. It’s hard to think of a critique, sneer, or bald-faced insult that could do justice to the absolute fucking shambles of it all. Amidst perhaps the most dangerous political situation of the postwar era, we watched a handful of inflated egos take all the potential energy created by Labour’s desertion and explode it into little pieces. The people I feel most sorry for are those who genuinely, for just a little while, believed it could go somewhere. Not in a patronising way, but in the comradely sense of knowing how it feels to have hope in a project and see it dashed. That is what the likes of good ol’ Corbs, Zara Sultana, and the various “revolutionary” parties should feel ashamed of: they took the energy and hope of hundreds of thousands of people and stamped it into the mud, unnoticed amidst the squabbling and scrabbling for position. There can be no better example of why we don’t need parties, but to turn outwards and organise the working class directly — place the horse firmly in front of the cart. Leave that pack of blithering idiots behind and give up on their decades of abject, piteous failure. SAVED BY THE (GREEN) BELL? The beneficiaries on the left from these twin towers of dung were, of course, the Greens under their affable, well-meaning and occasionally analytically shallow new leader Zack Polanski. No word of a lie, it’s been nice hearing someone be direct and relatively uncompromising in his language while taking on the press this year. His absolute refusal to play the “how many rights can we take away from trans people this week” game, in particular, is the sort of confidence many on the left could stand to learn from. But, even setting aside obvious anarchist critiques of the inchoate core and systemic shortfalls of the Green Party project, there are plenty of limitations on its surge, which already seems to have peaked. The Greens have no friendly media. Not the Independent, not the Guardian, not even the Morning Star, which (in the absence of a functional Communist Party offering) has broadly plumped for Your Party as the home of a more Proper socialist politic. And the Star is probably correct there — pathetic though Corbs and co. may be, their platform is at heart red economics, while the Greens are, well, green, with social democracy largely tacked on as an often uncomfortable coalition-building exercise. Much like the Lib Dems, green parties are notorious for opportunism, most notably in Germany where they frequently enter coalitions with the conservatives. So it remains to be seen how deep its commitments will run when placed under pressure. WHAT ABOUT US? Perhaps I’m being Mr Bias of Cheerleader City, but I think the direct action movement, particularly that wing of it which refused to simply roll over on Palestine and proscription, deserves a great deal of praise this year. It’s been a hard one, in which it became clear long sentences for non-violent dissent are here to stay, surveillance and repression are on the rise, and money has poured in to fuel our opponents. But thousands of people stood up to be counted, knowing they could face prison terms, knowing they would be mocked and mistreated. There has been a great deal of bravery on display throughout the year, and everyone involved should be proud of themselves. Always under the cosh, always few and underfunded, facing up to a State that increasingly has done away with even the slightest respect for privacy and human rights — the fact you keep going is frankly incredible. If 2025 has shown one thing, though, it’s that we’re right. The “practical” cobweb left and their electoral obsessions won’t save us; they can’t even save themselves. They’ve been given chance after chance, and shown that even if they could win power they probably shouldn’t. We need grassroots strength. We need the force of unified working class communities who can disrupt business as usual and make those in power sit up. It was direct action this year which, time and again, rattled the government where the conferences of electoral leftists produced only a distant gale of laughter. As we head towards the spectre of a far-right government which will show us no more mercy than this one, I can only say: keep going. Because they sneer at you. Because they seek to silence you. There is no greater proof of a government’s fear than a law designed to stop you from doing what you’re doing. You’re right. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Images: Radical Graffiti The post 2025: A gilded year for the right, hubris fulfilled on the left appeared first on Freedom News.

THE RULING CLASS IS NO LONGER EVEN PRETENDING TO JUSTIFY ITS OWN LAWS THROUGH CONSISTENT USE  ~ Rob Ray ~ One of the (many) silly things about the recent political “debate” over how poor old teen-bullying 57-year-old Graham Linehan got arrested for doing nothing wrong except advising people to beat up trans folk—has been a sudden turn against the Serious Crime Act 2007. Specifically Section 44, encouraging an offence. This used to be known as incitement, a common law crime used by prime ministers and kings alike to deter the sort of language that might cause disorder, or worse, rebellion. Editors of Freedom itself have been charged along these lines when in 1944 they suggested soldiers hang on to their arms post-war. There were, historically, very good reasons for the ruling class to take incitement seriously—catching people at the stage of handing out literature is an awful lot easier than putting down a riot or an insurrection.  But today we see no lesser organs of the bosses than the Telegraph, the Times, and Wes Streeting complaining bitterly that the law is not fit for purpose, being employed as it is against people they actually like, such as transphobes and people who want to burn Muslims alive. It’s not an entirely rare thing when the hang-‘em-and-flog-‘em brigade does this, but such sheer brass-necked Rules For Thee, Not For Me hypocrisy is always a head turner.  In this case, though, I think it’s also indicative of something else—a decline in fear. That might sound odd to say, on the face of it. Fear is near-enough Britain’s defining modern characteristic. Fear of migration, of breaking services, of fracturing communities, of declining prosperity and a diminished position on the world stage. But that’s all stuff affecting the broad national id. Incitement, for the most part, is a ruling class concern. And they have less reason to fear right now than at perhaps any time in modern history. The working class is angry, and it’s frightened, and it’s increasingly desperate. But what threat does it pose to those in power, in its current mode? The electoral left is not only out of power, it’s out of the party in power, trying desperately to cobble together an electoral outsider coalition out of old Corbyn fans and the bleary-eyed affability of the Greens. The non-electoral left (including the anarchists, for convenience) is either non-existent, or stuck firefighting the community-level results of 40 years of neoliberalism.  There is no collective force confronting the bosses for their balls-out looting of everything from public services to the very concept of exchanging money. In fact, quite the opposite—complaining about them is met as often with suspicion as recognition, a combination of decades of alienation, atomisation, technopoly propaganda and grindset fetishisation having thoroughly seeped into all our lives. The ruling class can look upon its works with nothing less than wonder when it sees the vote build-up for Reform, a party run by millionaires and populated by ex-Tories which, the moment it gains any seats, showcases exactly the same basic agenda, incompetence and corruption as its peers. No wonder the sanctity of a law designed to protect their safety is less of a concern for them these days. It’s been so long since they had to deal with a coherent threat from below that they’ve come to fear the personal inconveniences of limited phrasing more than working class anger. They might be right in that, certainly at the time of writing. It’s been 14 years since the last serious wave of riots, and those were relatively incoherent. The union movement has been in near-continuous decline since the 1980s, the radical left sliding alongside it. Many people, coming to the conclusion that the rich can’t be beaten, are instead picking up on fights they think they can win against opponents who won’t call on the full might of State and capital. Talk to the average anti-migrant activist about organising this group of people who they insist are undercutting wages, and the look you’ll get will be one of incredulity. A coward’s conflict, perhaps, when you stand outside hotels demanding the persecution of frightened refugees rather than besieging the most expensive street in town, or taking on the decamillion-pound mansions of Park Lane (let alone the fortified edifice of Downing Street). But it’s easy to see the appeal. Some people can’t stomach a real challenge, even when it’s slapping them in the face.  Much working-class anger has been redirected to topics that don’t threaten ruling-class concerns, the other most common target being “wokeness”, and it’s actively quite useful for the bosses to encourage these, especially if you can present something as evidence of a “liberal elite agenda”.  None of which is to say we’ll suddenly be allowed, picking an example from the air, to directly urge whoever is within reach of Wes Streeting to hang him upside down by his balls from the nearest lamp post. Such sentiments, expressed by anyone with a sizeable platform or whose words might find themselves acted upon, would rapidly see a full reimposition of that law he thinks is too harsh. But it’s an indictment of our times that the ruling class, having made any and every act of disruptive defiance to business as usual illegal, is seemingly no longer of the opinion that it needs to even pretend to justify its own laws through consistent use.  Put an LGBT+ flag up? That’s getting taken down and you might face a fine for littering, or vandalism. England flags? Get a nod from the PM and solidarity bunting hung from Labour Party constituency offices. Block the M25? Jail if you’re left, approving column inches if you’re a farmer. Smash up town centres, try and burn buildings and intimidate anyone you can see who looks foreign? Well you won’t be getting proscribed for that, but spray painting a plane is a shoe-in. The fair and unflinching rule of law has, ultimately, always been a fantasy mainly sold to the middle classes. But rarely has the British bourgeoisie allowed and encouraged that disparity to be both so obvious, and so baldly stated by its own propagandists.  It’s an extraordinary abandoning of our rulers’ historic subtleties and cleverness and, in an indirect sort of way, a sneering insult directed against the British working class itself.  Incitement? Who cares any more, they’re no threat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Image: Romanywg on Vandalog The post Distracted by all the incitement appeared first on Freedom News.

FOR COMICS WHO DEFINE THEMSELVES AS RATTLING STATUS QUO CAGES THE RAPID REVERSAL OF SOCIAL LIBERALISM PRESENTS SOME CHALLENGES ~ Rob Ray ~ For many years, Bill Burr has been one of the most recognisable and well-liked performers on the US comedy circuit, specialising in “Bostonian common sense” observational humour with a confrontational (and thus often controversialist) theme.  In recent years this was, generally, more enjoyed by the right, who lapped up what had been an expanding cloud of garrulous anti-woke takes culminating in the soullessly inert film outing of Old Dads in 2023. Having a genuinely successful everyman-brand comic poking at their favourite loose-tooth topic was considered an industry win on par with Dave Chappelle’s embrace of transphobia back in 2021. But this year has seen a switchback. While he’ll almost certainly keep banging away at tired anti-feminist tropes, as has been his wont for many years, Burr has also completely outraged the right by expressing a baseline of class consciousness.  When this most recent turn began is easy to pinpoint. In the wake of December’s Luigi Moment, he made it very clear whose side he was on across multiple platforms and interviewers, to hilarious effect as his hosts visibly cringed.  “Free Luigi” he bellows at Jimmy Kimmel, and as the host tries to bat it away you can see the cogs turning. This is a line that doesn’t just draw a laugh, it completely wrongfoots Establishment media types, causing those moments of chaotic scrambling that he has thrived on (content warning for that Philly gig) throughout his career. Since that lightbulb moment we’ve seen him start throwing down on billionaires and the right in a way that, to be fair, does reflect some of his persona from back in the day but which has, like South Park (which I’ll get to) been shocking to what was once a “Bill tells it how it is and libs can’t cope” right-wing crowd. Burr himself has spoken about the level of backlash and how the trad media, in particular, reacted to his new direction, noting of CNN’s coverage:  “How fucking gross was that? Those fucking assholes on CNN sat around acting like they actually were confused or surprised by the reaction that people don’t like CEOs and then them sitting there like they were gonna get down to the bottom of it.  “It’s like, these CEOs are behaving the way they are because guys like you are not doing your job because you’re not journalists. Not CNN, or Fox. You’re sucking the corporate cock, and you’re looking the other way, and then when an athlete says something or a soap opera star Tweets something, or some guy is hoarding hand sanitiser in their fucking garage you act like that’s the reason the country’s going to shit.”  Not a bad take there sweary Chomsky, you only missed out that they very much are journalists of the mainstream variety – systemically so. It may not be in any written job description that they’re there to frame and protect the status quo, whatever it may be, but as Noam himself once told Andrew Marr: “If you believed in something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.” In recent days, Burr has expressed surprise at how the Republican faithful have been behaving since he started openly including class content in his work, with prominent talking head Ben Shapiro (an unwittingly funny man on occasion) having declared him woke, and MAGA diehards mailing racist pictures to him and his wife.  While continuing to be disparaging about left opportunism (and whilst I’m with him on that, it’s notable that he hasn’t stopped being a dick about women or performing for Saudi royals), Burr has quite clearly decided to lean in on “fuck the lot of them.” There’s an element in this of a fellow, used to the relatively tame denunciations of lefties, finally learning “the difference” when it comes to repressive tactics used by an empowered right. Which brings us to South Park. PARKER’S PEN IS SHARP, BUT NOT THAT SHARP At the time of writing there have been three episodes of the new Series 27 – and what a political uproar they’ve caused, presenting a startling volte face on the show’s positioning during the Biden era.  Episode one has an almost self-critiquing feel in the form of Cartman’s existential crisis, as he nominally gets everything he’s been asking for, taking away his position as the school’s resident edgelord. When everyone is expected to be an obnoxious bigot cynically using Jesus as cover for their behaviour how can he maintain his uniqueness?  A big deal was made about their portrayal of Trump in this episode, framed as an insultingly phoned-in cut and paste of their Saddam Hussein character, and the switch by PC Principal from politically correct to power Christian is suitably on the nose about people falling into line with a new status quo. The follow-up episodes however are in many ways more interesting. South Park’s portrayals of non-whites have always felt like their most “have your cake and eat it” setup, offering a knowing wink for liberals (the black child is called Token Tolkein, haa) and racism played for surrealism in ways that aim to satisfy both subtext and text-only audiences. But writer-director Trey Parker’s sense of unease about the treatment of Latin Americans in ‘Got A Nut’ is made clear (along with his specific disdain for Kristi Noem) in ICE’s portrayal as a completely brainless entity, recruiting the lowest of the low to charge around picking up anyone who’s the wrong shade of brown regardless of how angelic they might be.  For a man whose longtime political position has been a sort of wishy-washy libertarian-inflected centre-rightism (personified in Season 7s ‘I’m A Little Bit Country’ where he suggests America needs left to say one thing while right does the necessary) it pitches as a call for more discernment. This has always been the weakening element of Parker and Stone’s contrarian streak, which they have leaned on for decades now as their ticket to immunity from criticism. It’s likely responsible for taking a bit of the sting (thus far, with the exception of Noem) out of their parodying of the Republicans even while they remain far more viscerally brutal than most liberal critics (who would not, for example, be likely to present JD Vance as a sort of boggle-eyed Igor parody of Tattoo from Fantasy Island). While their fans may harp on about them going after everyone equally it’s not really true  – they aren’t solely contrarian. Nor could they be. Nothing is completely apolitical, let alone South Park.  They were clearly happier and more inventive going after the demon woke than they are going after Trump and co, similar to Burr when presenting himself as “beyond” left and right these days (when in reality he just has a not uncommon mishmash of ideas from both). In each case their satire ultimately roots itself in a Blunt Blue-Collar Bloke identity politics that is, broadly, more comfortable with the right’s social traditionalism than the perceived strangeness of progressivism.   But contrarianism has its demands, one being that the dominant force in society is always the ultimate target. So the likes of Parker and Burr are having to deal with a rapid polarity change taking them out of their usual comfort zones which will, for perhaps the first time, actively and even dangerously challenge their willingness to commit to the bit. IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT FUNNYMEN Burr and South Park are perhaps the most prominent comic presences in this position, but they are reflections of a far larger question mark for both their industry and society more generally.  For the last 30 or so years in the US (and UK) the status quo has tended towards progressive values, meaning the idea of rebellion from the right had currency, which made the whole tweedy, miserable business seem a bit more sexy. And it was actually relatively easy to be a contrarian against liberal pressure – perhaps you didn’t get invited to all the parties. The far-right, from Trump himself to Farage now, have capitalised on that notion. But with Trump, and indeed Starmer’s Reform-chasing Labour, rightist repression is now back in the mainstream, from Jenrick to Cooper, and attacking people’s hard-won freedoms. As predicted by the anarchists and our fellow travellers, the beneficiaries of this social shift are quite willing to be far more aggressive than our “intolerance of intolerance.” They are just intolerant, violently so. But the good news, I suspect, is that while red-faced John Bulls and yeehaw plastic-cowboy Texans are still talking about themselves as rebels they’re already behind the cultural times. They’re in power. The politicians, the media, and most of the money revolves around their ideals.  You can’t be a rebel when you have all that. The post Contrarians in a time of right hegemony appeared first on Freedom News.

WITH THE SECOND WORLD WAR COMING TO ITS CONCLUSION IT NATURALLY LEFT AN UNDIGNIFIED POLITICAL SCRAMBLE IN ITS WAKE. ~ Rob Ray ~ As summer arrived in June 1945 both the USSR and the Allies, now let off the hook for their wartime alliance, began the long process of competitive propagandising that came to be known as the Cold War. For much of the British left, still tied to the Communist Party of Great Britain and its Soviet inclinations (a situation that would last until Hungary 1956) this meant all effort would need to go to the cause of promoting the new Utopia. This was, of course, largely a fabrication. As we now know in great detail, Stalin’s projection of a happy society, especially in the rebuilding of a shattered Germany, was covering for the imposition of a brutal police state. Freedom Press was quick off the mark in critiquing Russia from the left. In the early June 1945 issue of War Commentary it ran a trenchatn piece accurately pinpointing the nature of the propaganda front being pushed, warning that tales of good works would not be as they seemed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- STALIN’S ‘LEFT’ TURN: ANOTHER POLITICAL TRICK It seems clear today, with the defeat of the German army and the unconditional surrender of the Reich, that none of the major problems of European politics has been solved by the victorious powers. The inevitable contradictions which have been foreseen during the war by a revolutionary minority cannot remain hidden any longer from the public by official and unanimous declarations or promises of a wonderful peaceful world.  Only a few days after the final act of the European war, when the VE-Day celebrations were still going on, when the flags of the United Nations were still displayed in all the public places of Great Britain, France and the USA., the reactionary press of America started to call a war with Soviet Russia inevitable, pointing out that Europe cannot be reconstructed so long as it is dominated by the evil power of Russian Imperialism, At the same lime the Soviet papers started a campaign, which still continues, to prove that the Western Allies are collaborating with the big shots of the Nazi regime and to point out that the liquidation of the German Army must be parallel with the extermination of the last survivors of the Nazi regime.  Behind these accusations by the Soviet press and radio lies something quite different. Stalin has once more surprised the world with one of those somersaults of policy which are possible only if you have absolutely no public opinion to reckon with, if all liberty of thought and of expression have been carefully suppressed beforehand.  The trend of the Soviet foreign policy appears now to be concentrating on one major objective: the neutralisation of Continental Europe. It has always been clear to the Russians that to dominate Europe they must dominate Germany, exactly as it is necessary for Germany to dominate Russia in order to keep its position in Europe and the world.  In other words, Stalin would like a friendly Germany, while the western powers are not interested for the time being in the friendship of the German people, and seem to have in mind to exploit themselves the industrial power of the Reich rather than to build up a new German economy.  The British, Americans and French have decided to bring “order” into defeated Germany, even by means of “collaboration” with the most reactionary German elements. The Russians are able to establish order by themselves, for the GPU [secret police, succeeded by the NKVD – ed] can take care of any internal opposition. There need not to be collaboration. Indeed, the fear of Russia still prevailing among many Germans, particularly the bourgeoisie, makes collaboration with reactionary elements difficult for the present. Stalin knows this, and that is why he decided to enter Germany as a “liberator*’, while Churchill and Roosevelt spoke of “conquering”. It is true that the Russian policy during the war was ostensibly one of conquest and of domination. But, now the war is over, Stalin starts to try to win over the German people, to convince them of the necessity of co-operation with “mighty Russia”. This is the scheme.  First, conditions of life must be improved. The food rations in Russian-occupied Germany are increased (at least temporarily). The reconstruction work is done with the greatest possible speed. The Berlin underground is running. The shops are opening. Cinemas are featuring Russian pictures. The orchestras are playing once more — Tchaikovsky has replaced Wagner. At the same time the radio stations are again on the air. The propaganda from the Berlin stations starts to “prove” that the Russians have only the best intentions towards the German people, and announcers with German accents ask the listeners to thank the Red Army for liberation from the Nazi yoke. Here is a typical item:  “One Miss Ursel Friedman says: ‘Now we know what lies the Goebbels propaganda told about the Red Army. Nfot only shall we not starve, but the working man gets more than under the Nazis. All this is a revelation to us. We are simply amazed. We shall want to work in any case. It is now up to us to organise the distribution of work swiftly and efficiently. We all see rolling past us the Red Army lorries carrying food to the German population. Altogether a new life is beginning. We have started on the way towards a better world. Even theatres have reopened. Things are looking brighter and they will look brighter still’.” (Berlin Radio, 18/5/45).  At the same time the new German municipal administration of Berlin takes over. General Barjanin, Soviet Commander of Berlin, pointed out during the opening session of the council that “Marshal Stalin has long ago ordered the preparation of food for German civilians.” It seems that Stalin took this measure at the same time as his spokesman Ehrenburg spoke of the awful “Fritz”, the Hun who will have to pay for the Nazi crimes.  So far everything seems clear. The Russian government wants a “friendly” Germany. So it shows the “humanitarian” and “liberal” aspect of the Soviet regime. M Mikoyan, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR., ie. deputy to Stalin himself, recently made a tour to study the food situation in occupied Germany, especially in Berlin and Dresden. On his return to Moscow he gave an interview to Pravda. Here is what the “communist” Mikoyan had to say:  “The seriousness of the German food situation is mainly due to the German government’s mistaken policy in agricultural production and distribution. According to the German law the peasants had to deliver all their produce to the State except for a certain quantity they could keep for their own use. They could not sell any grain, fats, meat or potatoes on the free market or through trade organisations. This naturally weakened the stimulus towards increasing production. To enable Germany to feed her own towns, the peasants must be allowed to sell in the free market after fulfilling the compulsory deliveries to administrative organs. Trade in any articles of mass consumption was previously forbidden in Germany and the population had to be content with the very few wares they were given on ration cards. To improve the population’s supplies the Soviet Command has allowed free trade in Berlin. This will be another way to raise the standard of living of the urban population.” It will also be another way to return to the most classic system of capitalism. A few years ago M Mikoyan would have been shot as a traitor to the “progressive” Soviet regime of trade control and of suppression of the “kulak” or enriched peasant.  The Russian policy in Germany, the policy of “friendship” with the German people is only one of the features of the scheme set up by Stalin to form the European bloc to protect the Soviet Union. What Stalin is doing now is a “cordon sanitaire In reverse.” This cordon sanitaire must of course include countries such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Yugoslavia, not to mention Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. It is in connection with the formation of this bloc of Central and East European countries that there appears the “new” formula of Soviet policy. In fact it is not new at all, as we shall see in a moment.  In his order of the day, announcing the capitulation of the German armies, Stalin spoke of the “historic struggle of the Slav peoples”. A few days later, 19/5/45, one of the Stalinist agents, M. Zdenek Nejedly, Education Minister of Czechoslovakia, emphasised the meaning of this historic sentence. He said in his first speech upon his return to Prague: “I return from Moscow as Minister of Education, firmly convinced that the destiny of the nation, liberty and civilisation have been defended by the Red Army … The most important fact for us is that, in the future Europe, the leading role will belong to the Slav nations. The Slav idea, vague in times of Kolkar, has to-day become a reality. The Slav nations, centred around the great Russian nation, represent a force which no European coalition can oppose.”  As I said, the idea is not new. Replace, for instance, the word “Slav” by the word “Germanic” and see if it does not remind you of something …  So today, in the month of the “most crushing victory in human history”, power blocs are already forming. I have attempted to analyse the trend of the Soviet foreign policy as it appears now. Of course, the British and the Americans are preparing to counter these moves. They have their own interests and their own plans. It is perhaps too early to speak of the results which the logical development of the situation may bring. There is not always much logic in traditional politics. But the movements which can overthrow regimes, can also upset foreign policies.  ~ DIMITRI TVERDOV -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pic: Brandenburg Gate, 1945, from the German Federal Archive The post Radical Reprint: Stalin’s ‘left’ turn appeared first on Freedom News.

PERHAPS AN ANTI-LABOUR SENTIMENT IS NO SURPRISE COMING FROM AN ANARCHIST OPINION COLUMN, BUT MY ATHEISM, THIS SHOWER OF SPINELESS REJECTS FROM CENTRIST CENTRAL CASTING HAVE HAD NO COMPUNCTION AT ALL IN SUCKING UP TO THE NEWLY-INSTALLED IMPERIAL ORANGE. ~ Rob Ray ~ After a furtive half-minute in a back room tickling Trump’s earhole last week Sir Prime Minister  Keir is smoothing his hair out for an in-person conversation on Thursday, at which he seems to hope that the so-called special relationship can be rekindled. For a party that prides itself on not being the Tories (little else can be said of their principles) there certainly seems to have been a rush to be as much like the Maga Republicans as possible recently. Just this month there’s been Rachel Reeves doing her best impression of a poundshop Musk by announcing (yet another) audit of regulators aimed at “removing red tape” – including on arms sales. Even the previously vaunted AI safety ideal is on the chopping block. Over at the Home Office meanwhile it’s time for another round of the “how harsh can we be to migrants” show as an effort is made to deny citizenship to refugees arriving by “dangerous routes.” You might ask how refugees, who cannot claim asylum without being here but aren’t allowed visas, might arrive without taking a dangerous route. Yes, quite. Labour’s disinterest in repealing the Tories’ anti-protest laws has been covered in this column before, but its insistence on fighting the legal case for keeping climate and Gaza protesters in jail for as long as possible during a prison crisis has been particularly cruel. And most damning of all is the use of upcoming welfare cuts to fund increased defence spending – a measure tailored specifically to appeal to the whims of the US president, and useless for any other consideration. Billions of pounds that could have gone to saving lives in Britain, destined to adorn a balance sheet when bragging at a G8 dinner. Hardly surprising, in this atmosphere, is the disinterment of Blue Labour, a monumentally thick-headed idea in its first 2010s incarnation and a worse one now, trying the same “chase the rabbit down the hole” tactics that gave Reform its big break in the first place. And yet all of this, the “hey look we’re like you” of audits and migrant bashing, the mealy-mouthing around topics like Gaza and Ukraine (where just days prior there had been sabre-rattling bellicosity towards Putin and promises of a 100-year partnership), the selling of whatever minimal principle still remained in hopes of being “the adult in the room” with Donnie are as nought. The US does not care whether Labour is pre-emptively grovelling, and Trump will humiliate his poodle regardless.  It’s perhaps the most numbingly pathetic part of this “strategy” for Reform shoe-stealing and Trump placating that it doesn’t even work on its own terms. People who have turned to Reform may be self-defeating, many or most may be bigots, or even willing dupes. But this isn’t the same thing as being stupid. Farage is a grifter, but he’s been banging his drum for decades. His politics are consistent. Labour on the other hand … everyone knows this lot. Their policies are weathervane. Making a big song and dance of performative cruelty only pushes the boundaries of what’s acceptable, or even desirable, in the body politic.  And Trump will simply tell Starmer what to do with menaces, sounding vaguely magnanimous about it if Labour sucks up hard enough. This is looking likely to be party politics for the next four years. Labour chasing Reform domestically, and Trump on the world stage. Which is a departure from what was being suggested by liberals and even much of the left as we entered the new government last year, that we’d at least be spared more Tory mess.  Turns out the anarchists were right, and we’re getting largely the same Tory mess. Dogend neoliberalism washed down with a slug of watery Faragism.  While centrists do what they were always going to, there has been at least some acceptance on the left, at long last, that hopes of an electoral route for progressive reform through Labour are now dead. And inevitably there has been recent talk, on the left, of starting a new party, or of trying to capture the Greens.  Either would be a waste of time.  The problem is not that we lack a party, it’s that any left party would lack a constituency. Labour gets away with this stuff because there’s no counter power to scare them out of it. They had election results in 2017 and 2019 showcasing this very fact, in which the public, offered a social democratic model by Corbyn and McDonnell, looked at it and said “nah, not plausible.”  And of course it wasn’t. The left Labour machine was almost solely electoral, it had no economic muscle in the absence of a serious trade union or social movement and was getting its arse kicked by the media even before putting a foot in Downing Street. The public was correct to be sceptical and will continue to be so until we, collectively, have something of substance to offer. And that doesn’t start in Parliament.  For those of us who give a damn, the next four years should not involve worrying about what’s in the polls. Our concern should be for building the networks and community resilience that we failed to build ten years ago. Overtly and constructively fostering cultures of solidarity to reverse the alienation which has produced so many of the stupid ideas which currently infest our body politic. That’s what underpins Reform’s rise, along with MAGA in the US. And given both climate change and the resumption of belligerent geopolitics, we need to have a sense of urgency about doing so. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The post Labour’s rose is as ash and smoke appeared first on Freedom News.

FOLLOWING RAIDS ON FREEDOM PRESS BY SPECIAL BRANCH, AT THE BEHEST OF THE HOME OFFICE, WHICH HAD BEEN REPORTED IN JANUARY 1945 (RECOUNTED IN LAST MONTH’S COLUMN), PRESSURE WAS KEPT UP WITH A SUCCESSION OF COURT CASES, REPORTED ON AT LENGTH BY THE RIGHT-WING PRESS ~ Rob Ray ~ That the February 24th edition of War Commentary, then the paper of the Freedom Press group prior to its relaunch, once again, as Freedom later in the year, came out at all was a minor miracle. The collective had been seriously set back not just by the seizing of its subscriber list and other files, but by the arrest of its entire core editorial team and, just as difficult, a decision by their landlord to kick them out rather than put up with the drama. Up and down the country, using the seized list, barracks and homes were being raided in an effort to gather evidence for the State’s line that Freedom Press was committing sedition by “seducing” the armed forces. Among those having their collars felt was Colin Ward, then a young conscript up in Scotland, who recalled: “I was in a Military Detention Camp at the time and was escorted back to my own unit at Stromness, Orkney, where the commanding officer searched my belongings and my mail and retained various books and papers.” And George Melly, later to become a famed raconteur but at the time serving in the navy, was threatened with a court martial after “subversive literature” was found in his belongings. Nevertheless, there was no break in production, with the correspondence address simply shifting to be c/o Express Printers in Angel Alley. The printing house at 84a had been bought in 1944 as a business that catered both for sewing magazines and radical pamphleteering, and Freedom remains in the alley to this day, albeit across the road (84a was bought and demolished to make way for what is now the western wing of Whitechapel Art Gallery). The issue didn’t skimp on anarchist comment about the issues of the day – its splash remarks on the Crimea Declaration—but these events are well documented. For our purposes there were three stories on the State’s actions against free speech, including hints at what would form as the Freedom Defence Committee featuring a certain Eric Blair. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOHN OLDAY AND PHILIP SANSOM JAILED Our comrades John Olday and Philip Samson have recently been sentenced to twelve months and two months respectively and are serving their sentences in Brixton Prison. John Olday is too well known to readers through his two books of drawings The March To Death (ed’s note, the picture above is his cover sketch) and The Life We Live The Death We Die. to need further introduction. He took an uncompromising stand at the Old Bailey where he was charged with stealing by finding in connection with an Identity Card. We shall deal with his case, which dragged on for many weeks, in the next issue of War Commentary. Philip Samson who has designed many covers for and illustrated Freedom Press pamphlets and War Commentary articles was convicted of a minor charge and we reproduce below the report that appeared in the St Pancras Chronicle (Feb. 2nd 1944). “It is quite true that I am not concerned with his political views but I am concerned with his record generally as a citizen,” said Mr. Frank Powell, the Clerkenwell magistrate, concerning Philip Richard Samson (28) an artist, of Camden Studios, Camden-street, NW1. Samson was before the court on charges of obtaining an Army waterproof coat which he said he had bought from a soldier for 25s, and of failing to report a change of address. Inspector Whitehead said Sansom was connected with an anarchist publication named War Commentary, and had been sharing a studio with a deserter who had been sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment at the Old Bailey. Sansom provisionally registered as a conscientious objector in 1940, but his name was removed from the register by a tribunal. He appealed but in 1941 this decision was upheld. He was later granted an indefinite deferment under an agricultural scheme and took up employment as a tractor driver, but he left this and came to London without notifying the authorities. Mr. G. F. Rutledge, for the defence, pointed out that Sansom had no previous convictions, and submitted that the court was not concerned with his political views. Mr. Powell said he was entitled to consider whether any mitigating circumstances were to be found with regard to his behaviour as a citizen. On the contrary he had done his best to avoid sharing the burden which had fallen on everyone else. Sansom was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment on the first charge, and fined £5 or a a month (consecutive) on the second. Readers cannot fail to notice (a) that Inspector Whitehead of the Special Branch was dealing with a case which one can hardly connect with political activity and (b) that no effort was spared to try and influence the magistrate by introducing the Anarchist Bogey which Inspector Whitehead did with more gusto than the local paper report would indicate. Our readers will draw their own conclusions. We also learn that our comrade Tom W. Brown who as reported in earlier issues of War Commentary is serving a fifteen months sentence in Wormwood Scrubs, has recently lost two months remission of sentence as well as his right to receive or write letters for the the same period. It would appear that a letter he wrote which was passed by the prison censors was stopped by the Special Branch, who also read his correspondence. He was put on a charge, which the visiting magistrates upheld. To these comrades who are directly or indirectly serving terms of imprisonment because of their Anarchist ideas, we send our fraternal greetings and our assurance that the work for the new Society will go on in spite of threats and organised attempts to impede its forward march. FOUR LONDON ANARCHISTS ARRESTED OUR comrades Marie Louise Berneri. John Hewetson and V. Richards, were arrested at their homes at 7.30 a.m. on Thursday. February 22nd and taken to West Hampstead Police Station where they were charged with a number of offences under Defence Regulation 39a. They were later taken to Marylebone Police Court where they were joined by comrade Philip Sansom (who, as reported in this issue, is at present serving a 2 months sentence at Brixton). He was charged under the same Defence Regulation. All four comrades appeared before the magistrate, Mr. Ivan Snell. The charges were read out and we reprint them from the Evening News report of the same day: Charges against all of them alleged that between November 1943 and December 1944 , at Belsize Road, Hampstead and elsewhere, they were concerned together with other persons unknown in endeavouring to seduce from their duties persons in Armed Forces and to cause among such persons disaffection likely to lead to breaches of their duty. CIRCULAR LETTER Vernon and Marie Richards were also charged that on December 12, 1944, at Belsize Road, with intent to contravene the Defence regulations they had in their possession or under their control a circular letter dated October 25, 1944, which was of such a nature that the dissemination of copies among persons in his Majesty’s Services would constitute such a contravention. Hewetson was similarly charged with having in his possession or under his control documents dated October 2, 1944, at Willow road, on December 12. Sansom was charged with reference to a similar circular at his studios, dated December 30. Richards and Hewetson were also charged with endeavouring to cause disaffection among persons in the Services on about November II. 1944. NO REPLY Detective-inspector Whitehead, of Scotland Yard, told the magistrate, Mr. Ivan Suell, that when, at 7.30 a.m. today, he told Vernon Vernon Richards and Mrs Richards that he was going to arrest them they made no reply. At 8 a.m. he saw Dr, Hewetson at Willow Road, Hampstead. He made no reply when told he would be arrested. Sansom was charged at Marylebone, and replied: “I have nothing to say” In reply to Mr. Gerald Rutledge, defending, Inspector Whitehead said that Hewetson was the casualty officer at Paddington Hospital. Inspector Whitehead asked that the case should be remanded until March 9th and bail of £100 with sureties of £100 was granted to the three first named comrades. Comrade Sansom was taken hack to Brixton to complete his two months’ sentence. It has been decided to form immediately a Defence Committee and comrades will be shortly notified of its composition, and address. Helpers will he required and we are confident of the response from our comrades and sympathisers everywhere. THE PRESS & CID CHECK ON ANARCHISTS For space reasons is was not possible to reproduce the Press comments on the Freedom Press in the last issue of War Commentary but we promised readers that we should do so in this issue. Readers who may have cuttings which have not been reproduced in these columns are asked to let us have them for our files. The first comments appeared in the Daily Express for February 1st, and the Daily Telegraph of the same date. The Daily Express note was headed “YARD IS WATCHING” and reads: “Scotland Yard’s Special Brunch is inquiring into the origin, membership and activities of a new extreme left wing organisation using the title ‘The British Federation of Anarchists’. Inquiries have shown that there are a dozen leaders and about 150 members. A report is being made to the Home Secretary.” The Daily Telegraph report which appeared only in the 4 a.m. edition was headed “ANARCHY GROUP INVESTIGATION” and reads: “A report (dealing with the activities of a small group of about 300 self-styled anarchists is, I understand, being prepared for Mr. Morrison, Home Secretary, by Special Branch detectives. The group is controlled from a private house in West London. Its members several of whom are believed to be in the Services, are suspected of circulating pamphlets among the troops which Home Office legal experts consider to be seditious.” As readers will see, the Anarchist membership rose by 138 in the night! These two small notes resulted in a visit during the day of an Evening News reporter, a Daily Mirror photographer and a Daily Herald reporter. We declined the offer of appearing alongside the Daily Mirror’s pin up girls and made no statements to the reporters, but that same evening a front page report appeared in the Evening News, with double column headlines: “Files and Papers Carried off In Sacks” “SCOTLAND YARD DRIVE TO CHECK ON ANARCHISTS”, “Army and Navy Units Visited.” “The activities of a small Left Wing Group who are alleged to have been circulating Anarchist propaganda among members of the Forces and war workers arc under investigation by Scotland Yard’s special branch. At the beginning of this month Detective Inspector Whitehead and other officers visited the Orkneys and look statements from men in the Navy. Visits were also paid to certain military barracks in the North of England where the kits of soldiers were searched for documents. A raid is was made more than a month ago on the offices in Belsize Road, NW, of Freedom Press, which for some time has been publishing a fortnightly newspaper entitled War Commentary — for Anarchism.” FILES SEIZED The police seized files of the newspaper and filled sacks with documents and correspondence. A search was also made at the homes of certain members of the organisation. Detailed reports of the results of the officers’ inquiries have been submitted to the Home Secretory and the Director of Public Prosecutions. The offices of Freedom Press, in Belsize Road, Kilburn, are in a large private house. When I rang the front-door bell there today it was promptly answered by a pleasant faced middle aged woman. On my asking whether I could sec a copy of “War Commentary — For Anarchism” she readily took me to a room on the first floor where a table was spread with a pile of copies of the paper, looking as though they had just come from the printers. TOLD TO QUIT The room was in some disorder and the woman apologised, saying she was packing up as she was moving to a new address. “The landlord has told us to go” she said. “He does not like our business.” To a question whether the office had been used by the Anarchist organisation for meetings, she replied: “Some meetings have taken place here” The woman declined to give her name or say whether she was a secretary. VOLUNTARY WORKER “I am simply a voluntary worker” she said. “All letters should be addressed to the secretary.” In the two latest copies of War Commentary there are references to the police searches and a complaint is made that Freedom Press files and other materials seized have not been returned. In the issue of January 13 appears this statement: “Many subscribers will be without their copies of War Commentary. We have no means of sending out renewal notices.” UNENVIABLE POSITION “We are also in the unenviable position of not being able to send out accounts for money owing to Freedom Press which now runs Into several hundred pounds sterling, nor have we details of payments made and to be made for books received, thereby jeopardising our credit with suppliers.” It is also stated that “Our solicitors have written two letters to the Commissioner of Police, but have obtained no satisfaction.” Reference is made to “our readers in the Services who have been subjected to the indignity of being searched.” Their letters, it is declared, “show a spirit which is a source of inspiration and hope for the future.” The following morning February 2nd the Daily Telegraph had more startling revelations for its readers, but this time it was reserved for readers of its early edition and not of its 4 a.m. edition. Headed “ALIENS SUSPECTED OF SEDITION” it ran: “Special Branch detectives who have been investigating the activities of a group of Left Wing extremists which as reported in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, arc suspected of circulating alleged seditious literature near army camps and naval barracks, have, I understand, discovered that some of its members are of foreign origin. Detectives have visited the homes of some of the members of the group and have taken possession of large quantities of literature and files. When the enquiries are complete a full report will be submitted to Mr. Morrison, Home Secretary and Sir Donald Somervell, the Attorney-General. The post Radical Reprint: Arrests and jail terms for Freedom Press editors appeared first on Freedom News.

THE BEGINNING OF 1945 WAS A TURBULENT TIME FOR FREEDOM PRESS, ALONG WITH ANARCHISM IN BRITAIN AND WESTERN EUROPE ~ Rob Ray ~ While the Germans were mounting their last, doomed final offensive, the outcome of World War II was already no longer in doubt. The fascists had been routed in the East, invaded in the West, and to the South, Rome had fallen. It was time for what remained of the movement to consider its options. The signs were bleak. On the one hand, the war had largely sidelined the anarchists, as it had the peace and socialist movements, buried beneath the urgent necessities of global conflict. Its bombs and production quotas. The movement had lost some people to the war itself, some to the greater lure of the Communist Party. Even worse and unreported (for obvious reasons) in its major paper War Commentary was a rift in the movement that opened during 1944. As of January this had led to the splitting of the Freedom Group from the larger Anarchist Federation (not the same as the modern group).  The subject of today’s reprint is not on that topic specifically, but research by the Kate Sharpley Library is worth reading on how the crisis played out, leading to a group centred around Vernon Richards and Marie Louise Berneri taking full control. So by January, 80 years ago, the Freedom Group and its small band of anti-war activists were struggling on a number of levels, having worked throughout the war to bring out the paper while barely being tolerated by a security service, which had arrested the occasional contributor such as John Hewetson (in 1942, for draft dodging) and banned the Communist Party-aligned Daily Worker from 1941-42.  As of late 1944, however, even the limited tolerance of “more trouble to repress than to ignore” ran out. This change was linked particularly to the State’s own shift in priorities, away from total war to how on Earth it could reintegrate nearly 3 million armed and trained working class soldiers into a shattered capitalist economy with flattened housing and few prospects. Where War Commentary’s insinuations that perhaps more suitable targets than foreign fighters existed could be brushed aside in the fight against fascism, there might be rather more concerning implications for such language reaching the masses in years to come. On December 12th this rising concern led to a series of raids, including on the Freedom Press premises, then at Belsize Road, and at the homes of two comrades looking for incriminating materials. These were far from the only attempts to gather information on or repress the anarchists at the time, with Albert Meltzer recounting the story of Fay Stewart’s home being raided in an attempt to get the subscriber list for radical newsletter Workers in Uniform, and John Olday being arrested first for identity theft, then for desertion. Unlike the monthly Freedom papers of 1914, War Commentary had in large part kept up a hectic pace producing two papers a week with a volunteer staff, so it had more space and could react more quickly to events. Here I reprint the first of two articles in the January 13th and 27th issues. This would mark the beginning of a famous legal showdown known today as the War Commentary Trials, of which more will be written later in the year. POLICE STILL HOLDING FREEDOM PRESS FILES! Though four weeks have passed since the Freedom Press offices were raided, none of the goods seized have at the time of writing been returned by Scotland Yard. In fact, so far, not even an inventory of the items seized has been sent to our solicitors. We mention this not so much to explain any delays and errors in dispatching War Commentary and our publications to readers who sent orders at the time of the raid, but to show how it is possible under the pretext of obtaining information for one suspected offence to deal a blow which has no relation to the suspected offence and which can cause considerable inconvenience to the persons concerned.  Paragraph 2 of Defence Regulation 88A (the regulation under which the search warrants were issued) states that “A person authorised by such warrant … may seize any article found in the premises … which he has reasonable ground for believing to be evidence of the commission of any such offence. … Now the suspected offence is covered by Defence Regulation 39A the gist of which is that no person shall endeavour to seduce from their duties persons in His Majesty’s service, etc. … The method used by Inspector Whitehead and his men to find the evidence was to empty the contents from the different letter trays straight into sacks, seize invoices and account books which dealt entirely with transactions with bookshops and bundle them into sacks as well, seize the office typewriter and boxes containing stencils of addresses, letter books and other material without which it is virtually impossible to run a concern like Freedom Press.  During the search at the homes of two comrades professional notes which had not the remotest connection with politics and accounts from business firms for-goods supplied, as well as the account books and publishers invoices for Freedom Bookshop Bristol (2025 note, the Bristol bookshop, pictured above, ran for a time from premises at 132 Cheltenham Rd) were removed, such seizure presumably being classified as “reasonable ground for believing it to be evidence”!  It could be argued that it would have taken more than five hours to sort out all the material on the spot, but the fact remains that over four weeks have passed and the material seized is still in the hands of Scotland Yard. By retaining these documents they are making it extremely difficult for Freedom Press to carry on its “lawful business”. Many subscribers will be without their copies of War Commentary; we have no means of sending out renewal notices. We are also in the unenviable position of not being able to send out accounts for money owing to Freedom Press which now runs into several hundred pounds sterling, nor have we details of payments made and to be made for goods received thereby jeopardising our credit with suppliers. What means are there for redress? Our solicitors have written two letters to the Commissioner of Police explaining the position outlined above. As we expected, they have obtained no satisfaction; only a vague promise of an inventory of the material seized.  ***  Meanwhile the note which appeared in the last issue of War Commentary on the raid and of our having to move from Belsize Road has resulted in a very large number of letters from readers expressing their solidarity with us in this difficult period and their whole-hearted support for the work Freedom Press has been doing during these past years (see also Letters column on page 4). These expressions of solidarity give us that added amount of determination required to carry on when so many obstacles are being put in our way. To our readers in the Services who have been subjected to the indignities of being searched and their reading matter confiscated (2024 note: these included a teenaged Colin Ward) we have little to say. Their letters to us, in which the outstanding feature is their determination to maintain their opinions in spite of threats and searches, show a spirit which is a source of inspiration and of hope for the future. And they can be sure that Freedom Press will not waver in its fight for the rights of Free Expression in the cause of that future society we all desire in which man will be really Free. The post Radical Reprint: Freedom struggles against government raids appeared first on Freedom News.

A RARE NOTE OF THANKS GOES TO ELON MUSK FOR HIS HILARIOUS NEW YEAR FARCE TURNING REFORM UK’S LEADER INTO A COMPLETE LAUGHING STOCK ~ Rob Ray ~ What an excellent few days it’s been for far-right watching. Over in the US we’ve been seeing the hardline racist wing of MAGA screaming about betrayal because it turns out big tech doesn’t actually want to deny itself cheap skilled international labour. And domestically Farage has been comprehensively skewered by his dalliance with Elon Musk. The latter has been a really wild ride. Initially warning flags were raised when reports broke that Musk was considering giving a donation worth up to $100 million to Farage’s Reform UK, the sort of sum that barely touches the sides in US elections but potentially transformative for the rapidly rising fortunes of the Daily Telegraph’s political wing. Labour was particularly wrongfooted as Musk simultaneously went after Keir Starmer, seemingly confusing the Labour leader for some sort of leftist and smarting from a perceived conference snub. Which left the party both scrambling to work out how to remain suitably subservient to an incoming US administration while also not looking like a powerless, whipped dog. In the end only the first was well observed, taking the apparent view that blocking obvious foreign political interference would do more damage than giving their opponents 100 million quid.  In some ways, however, the offer was also problematic for Farage. After all, this is a man who made his bones vocally castigating Westminster for giving up sovereign independence to Europe. Taking the sort of Yankee money that couldn’t possibly come without any strings attached would be wildly hypocritical, wouldn’t it? You can’t really portray yourself as a man who won’t be bought when you’re rolling around on a pile of overseas cash.  That sort of money can turn anyone’s head though, even a man as undoubtedly honest and upstanding as Nigel “buy crypto” Farage who’s beyond such petty pursuits as grubbing for cash with paid-for recorded messages or ripping off his MEP allowances. And so our hero in light blue duly kissed that ring in no less a place than the Reform Party Conference, proudly announcing that, though the final amount wouldn’t be 100 million, he was pleased to have King Elon’s support. He described him as a “hero”. Except that even as he was speaking, there was a problem emerging. Elon, as is his wont, was Xhitting out a bunch more ill-thought-out opinions on topics he had very little clue about, including zero-research opinions on UK paedophile rings, and the jailing of Tommy Robinson.  The former, ill informed though it might be, wasn’t really much of a problem for Farage to support (it’s more an issue for Kemi Badenoch) but the latter was thorny. Robinson and his cohort are an embarrassment for Britain’s vote-grubber far right, not just because they hark back to an earlier, knuckle-dragging period in their history that alienates the public, but also because Nige had made a big deal of pretending his rhetoric had nothing to do with the recent riots. Which extended into outright denouncing that sort of thing, and has infuriated many of Tommeh’s most fervent supporters. Musk’s intervention thus put the party in a tough spot. In taking the money, they would also be taking on the problem of being pointed at every time he came out with stupid comments. Something had to be done. A quiet word, perhaps, suggesting support for Tommy wasn’t the right call? A few hints in his speech that he didn’t agree with everything Elon said, all the time? Well, whatever quiet murmurs of not-quite dissent they were, old Elon clearly wasn’t in the mood. By 2pm on Sunday, after days of obsessing about ‘muslim grooming gangs’ in a country thousands of miles away from the US (America First going well as always), he’d lost faith in his latest toy, Xhitting: “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes.” To which a clearly disappointed Farage responded:  “Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles.” Ah come on now Nige, you were already selling out your principles. Claiming that high ground directly after you’ve been dumped is a bit “you can’t fire me I quit”.  So Farage has not only sold out his reputation for independence, defending sovereignty and suchlike, gifting the left a line that “he doesn’t actually care about foreign interference at all”, it now looks like he won’t even get the cash.  It’s been a real hoot. The post Farage’s failed sell-out appeared first on Freedom News.

WITH AGRI-BUSINESSES UP IN ARMS ABOUT THE REMOVAL OF A 2031 CUTOFF FOR RIGHTS OF WAY REGISTRATION, IT’S TIME TO DITCH THE IDEA AND EMBRACE THE RIGHT TO ROAM ~ Rob Ray ~ My dad’s just pulled on his boots and donned his favoured winter flat cap, ready to take Dolly the dog for a quick post-Christmas walk round the fields that surround their village. There’s a dozen paths that carry him, squelchily, away from the house and Dolly could probably walk them all without him, but they both like the company.  It’s a very normal place, this village, as far as the English conception of normal goes. Nestled at the crossroads of a half-dozen small farms, there’s a slim tarmac road leading in one direction to a high-speed feeder towards the towns, or in the other, down winding tracks to nearby villages. A connected place, but rural and stuffed full of the middle classes, who often scoff at towns and cities (especially London) as being noisy, dangerous, somewhat alien.  As a normal village, it has normal farmers. Which is why my dad, who has lived in the same spot for more than 30 years, has stories of villagers clashing with them. Depending on the farmer (they are not, much as Farage and the National Farmers Union like to pretend, all of a mind), they can sometimes be obliging about dogs and their pals taking a given path, or they can turn the whole thing into a contest of wills. Sometimes residents are okay but visitors are not, or longtime residents have a sort of grandfathered-in, unofficial easement where New Folk don’t. And sometimes the same path, turned over from one generation to another or bought out, can go from obliging to contested overnight.  An example of this happened to my parents’ village when a farmer passed on the old stead a few years back. There’s a shortcut at the edge of a field, next to a copse of trees, which connects two bits of Officially Walkable footpath together. People have been crossing over it for donkey’s years. The new farmer, however, was not a fan of walkers in general and on this stretch in particular, so first of all up went the signs. No Access. These wound up in a nearby hedge. Then there were the wildflowers, planted alongside another sign. Rare Flowers, Do Not Trample. There was trampling. Next was the mysteriously sudden appearance of a thistle thicket, which dogs understandably don’t want to walk through. I kicked a few of those to death myself as Dolly gingerly picked her way around them. Such efforts are made by farmers up and down the country to enforce the Keep Out so beloved of Britain’s rural landowners. Anyone who’s tried to ramble has come across similar, from piles of rubbish concealing footpath signs all the way to threats and electrified fences. It is these people alongside profit-only corporations, sometimes represented by the suits of the Country Land and Business Association, who are whinging about the removal of a 2031 deadline to register historic rights of way.  And their anger at the loss of this deadline is why the idea of a permanent registry itself should die entirely, replaced by a proper right to roam.  Nick Hayes does a far better job than I could of talking through both the everyday realities and the national statistics of land hoarding in his Book of Trespass, but what crops up most is this: 92% of land in England is inaccessible to the rest of us. It’s a powerful statistic, but the implications go far wider.  You don’t need much imagination, perhaps only the example of water companies, to come up with scenarios in which Big Agribusiness might abuse the privacy afforded by control of endless acres of land which nobody is allowed to walk on. Satellite studies may be able to tell us in broad strokes that the UK’s soil is steadily becoming poisoned by excess levels of nitrates, phosphorous and acidification, while biosphere health is declining with loss of insect and birdlife particularly notable. But that doesn’t give us a good idea of what’s actually happening. The NBN Atlas of biodiversity offers a great example of this. If you zoom in on its maps of where studies are taking place, the vast majority are simply the 8% where we can get at. The only people with reliable access to the rest are government officials, a grouping that can never be well-staffed or incorruptible enough to watch over all the fields of England. Mass public participation would really be the only way to achieve such coverage. It’s thus an obscene gift to the greediest landowners in our society to offer them a permanent, uncontestable right to tell the rest of us to Keep Out unless the track we’re walking happens to be on officials’ maps. It offers us a bare minimum protection for travel across 8% of “our country” while encouraging an aggressive elimination of any other option in the name of the law. Those who hide behind wildflower patches are aching for the deadline to pass, to be able to finally, categorically say “it’s not on the list” and put down any argument to the contrary. It doesn’t just get rid of an annoyance, it’s a shield for whatever they see fit to do when exploiting the land.  This whole argument isn’t really about clarity of rules, it’s about control and exclusion. Not just by the unfriendly tweeds of today, but by those of every generation ahead, as agribusiness continues its long march to monopoly.  We cannot rely on a combination of legally-protected routes covering a bare fraction of the countryside and the changeable whims of lords, little and large, who have been given impunity to exclude. Even Labour knows this to be true, and not so long ago had taken on board calls to bring right to roam into law. Yet in 2023 they abruptly ditched pledges to fix the situation, part of an asinine attempt to attract support from disaffected Tories, which lost them 500,000 votes and left them reliant on Reform for their majority—a campaign which is, currently, going about as well as could be expected with tractors battering down the constituency doors of Labour MPs. ENDLESS REASONS TO RE-CONNECT TOWN AND COUNTRY Those technocratic geniuses in Westminster have managed to simultaneously abandon basic moral imperatives while getting not a bean in return. It’s an utterly predictable outcome, and you have to wonder how much longer they’re going to delude themselves that their mix of clueless economic tinkering and cackhanded sops to right-wing sentiment will ever make them popular in British farmyards. But there is an argument for right to roam that can be made to farmers, even if Labour is too thick to make it.  The root cause of much of the sector’s discomfort is alienation. Of production from retail, of countryside from town. Those villagers who sneer at townies? Of course they do, working class urbanites are often as foreign to them as the dinghies that land in Kent. A thing to be feared, people who litter and talk loudly and don’t follow the ways. Then on the other hand why would townies, whose closest natural experience is neighbourhood foxes rooting through their bins, care about farmers’ problems? And as a result, why would Westminster?  If farmers want city folk to start caring about where their food comes from, these lessons can’t just be offered through the pages of the Times and the Telegraph. You can get a certain distance by plonking petrolheads in front of a telly to watch Jeremy Clarkson fool around getting oversized machinery stuck, but what’s missing is physical connection. We’re currently watching half the country’s gardens get ripped out and tiled over in the latest fashion trend because so many people have no idea how to tend them, take no joy in watching things grow; reversing this lost love should be a priority.- Empathy and support comes from familiarity. Bringing the public into the countryside may benefit us, but it also benefits those farmers who want more engagement, who need a more direct way to shift their produce than begging another skimpy cheque from the Tesco brass. There’s endless reasons to re-connect town and country that should appeal to everyone: fewer miles from field to plate, bypassing of middlemen, health, happiness, and greater mutual understanding. Any campaign to improve the small farmer’s lot starts with ditching the priorities of big firms and getting the public—those Labour can’t do without—on board. And as a bonus, we all know what will happen when the public has fuller access to the fields of the big firms. All that unsustainable destruction can finally be exposed, the lie of stewardship laid bare, and pressure applied.  Walkers like my dad who plod the rural routes today are a pale shadow of the masses who used to watch and participate in the agricultural cultures of our countryside. They are funnelled down carefully-controlled paths, or generously allowed to access a handful of routes at the behest of old manor houses. They often play at “revival” with theme-park renditions of old traditions, and have books talking about what used to be, but the reality across most of the country is empty fields and a heavy silence, with no-one to watch.  The true beneficiaries of this system are those who abuse it, while the rest of us have not even seen what we’ve lost. Farmers who genuinely care about the land shouldn’t fear right to roam, and Labour would lose little from re-embracing it. The post A little lane, and hedges leafing appeared first on Freedom News.