Pilar Lopez’s performance about the Spanish Social Revolution of 1936 aims to draw inspiration from these amazing times, sharing the beauty and relevance of those events and making links with what's currently happening in Spain. In 1936, after a partially unsuccessful military coup and by popular demand, the libertarian unions took control of the organisation of society in many parts of Spain. In no time large portions of land and industry had been collectivised and belonged to the workers. This […]
Di Parkin has been a left activist since the 1960s. She is a historian and published “60 years of struggle” history of Betteshanger, a militant Kent pit. She will be speaking about the actions on the Economic League in the 1970s, providing blacklisting information to employers and the impact on militants in places such as Cowley car works and Kent coal field. An electrician who has worked in the construction industry for 40 years will talk about his experiences of victimisation and the campaign […]
Kings Cross Tube Fire 25 years on
Today (18th Nov 2012) is the 25th anniversary of the fire at Kings Cross tube station which killed 31 people and injured over 100 (see ) . The fire was 'blamed' at the time on a lit match which fell below the escalator and began the deadly inferno. The fire and subsequent inquiry led to the banning of smoking in stations, the phasing out of wooden escalators and forced London Underground to invest in heat and smoke detection systems, automatic sprinkler systems, CCTV and improved public address […]
On April 15, 1989 I was sitting in the North Stand at Hillsborough with a perfect view of the Leppings Lane end. Along with 40,000-odd other people I witnessed what has now been described as the biggest cover up in modern British history. How can you cover up something which is witnessed by over 40,000 people? As a 19-year-old, I returned to college after the spring break to read and watch reports of events which I knew to be false. It was not just The Sun. False reports were published by the […]
Now and again certain key industrial disputes serve as a reminder that the state not only plays a central role in struggles between capital and labour, but that its interventions tend to be heavily biased towards employers. One such dispute concerned the abolition of the National Dock Labour Scheme (NDLS) in 1989, and the return of casual employment. In this case, state intervention was not only decisive in curtailing the ability of trade unions to take strike action but also delivered to the […]
The Hold Out 2313 San Pablo Ave, Oakland CA, USA The August ‘riots’ in Britain last summer were portrayed by the media and politicians as the actions of ‘greedy feral youth’ or ‘gangs’ within a ‘criminal underclass’. Most of these politically loaded explanations were presented before what had happened was even known. Using hard research and the voices of participants, this event will provide an analysis of the ‘riots’ of August, considering what (actually) happened, who was involved and how they […]
A website that has a lot of infomation about anarchism and some history pamphlets. For the first decade or so of the web the struggle site provided a home for pages concerned with the struggle for freedom. This included social struggles in Ireland; the Zapatistas, Irish history, anarchist theory and history, globalisation and many others. In 2004 there were over 5,000 documents and images on this site.
Over 650 scanned pages of hard to find speeches, articles, pamphlets, etc about a range of resistance in US history. Here's a small sample: A People's History Of The United States by Howard Zinn (the whole goddamn thing) The War Prayer by Mark Twain Strike Against War by Helen Keller George Jackson: Black Revolutionary By Walter Rodney Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies by Bartoleme de Las Casas Eugene Debs' Statement to the Court Upon Being Convicted of Violating the Sedition Act […]
USA 2011
University Of Michigan 101 The ‘August riots’ were portrayed by the media and politicians as the actions of ‘greedy feral youth’ within a ‘criminal underclass’. Several major political figures implicitly racialised the events by attributing the signifier of ‘gang cultures’ to their public analyses. Using hard research, film and the voices of participants, this lecture will provide of what (actually) happened, who was involved and how they did it. It will also provide an empirical critique of the […]
The August "riots" were portrayed by the media and politicians as the actions of "greedy feral youth" within a "criminal underclass". Most of these politically loaded explanations were presented before what had happened was even known. Using hard research and the voices of participants, this event will provide an analysis of the "riots" of August, considering what (actually) happened, who was involved and how they did it. It will also critique the representation of the events in the media and […]
