Occupy, like many preceding social movements, features the battle of the ‘radical’ versus the ‘liberal’. The debate tends to go in one direction with ‘radicals’ proclaiming in blogs and independent media that ‘liberals’ gut the movement of radical thought, inspiration, and the militancy that will eventually smash capitalism and the […]
Our movement is, they say, an ecosystem. There is no central committee. There is no vanguard. There is no Politburo. There are thousands of people involved in hundreds of mutually beneficial projects, running in roughly the same direction. At the recent Netroots gathering, former communist organiser and current Newsnight Economics […]
This is the perspective of one Alarm member. Just some pointers to consider when organising 1. As anarchists we believe a self-organised collective process is the key to organising, one that does away with hierarchical structures and egos. Meetings should always either have a concise action plan or take the […]
The millionaire wreckers now in government are determined to continue with the wholesale destruction of our National Health Service and welfare state, both of which most disabled people rely on. The NHS and the welfare state were fought for through generations of poverty and misery by working class people. Likewise, […]
Es.Col.A da Fontinha is a project in Porto, a city in northern Portugal, where activists occupied a school originally abandoned by city authorities in 2006. Regular OT contributor David Ferreira spoke with activist Violeta about an occupation that preceded Europe’s Indignados and North America’s Occupy movement. Occupied Times: For starters, […]
NUS President Liam Burns and a number of Guardian columnists have claimed that student power is on the rise. But in their exuberant optimism, they fail to address the process by which the government is pushing through a ‘consumer-model’ of higher education, cloaked in the language of student power. The […]
On May 1st, Toronto saw thousands gather in the streets for May Day, an international day of anti-capitalist protest. In recent years May Day demonstrations have focused on migrant justice in much of North America. This year, a massive daytime march was organised, in response to a global call for […]
Blockupy Frankfurt’s well-timed intervention follows an arc of protest that spans the globe this spring, resisting the stranglehold that big finance and big business have on democracy. More than 25,000 people demonstrated against austerity for four days in mid-May, undeterred by the deployment of over 5000 police and over 400 […]
Now that the tents are (mostly) gone, what do we find? Yet another millionaire’s budget, with tax cuts for the rich paid for by the poor. Widening gender inequality. Creeping corporatisation of health, education and welfare. Crony donors and lobbyists pulling all the strings. My activist journey began with the […]
I strode towards St Pauls’ Cathedral, wearing a small green paper hat, green tights, and clutching a cardboard bow and arrow. A call went up from somewhere in the small crowd of similarly-dressed people around me: “Robin Hood!”, followed by the mass response “Oo-de-lally!”. The overall Sherwoodian effect was only […]