Ever since the RMT announced a mighty three days of strike action on the railway lines the press has gone into overdrive in condemnation, followed by its loyal social media echo chamber.
The freedom to do as you’re told
Tag: Rob Ray
The kidnap of Alexander Haitoglou
To mark Freedom Press’s fundraising campaign to publish A Normal Life, the autobiography of “Greek Robin Hood” Vassilis Palaiokostas, this piece recounts the events of when Vassilis and his brother, Nikos, kidnapped and ransomed a Greek industrialist in 1995.
Freedom Press and the MI5 vendetta
Today we’ve uploaded a new set of 25 War Commentary newspapers, mostly covering late 1943 through 1944, to our digital archive and to mark the occasion Jack Saundrs looks at a set of MI5 files which show exactly how angry the Freedom Group publication was making the State at the time.
Old and jailing: Tories have prison population problems if unrest occurs
A great number of aggressive new laws have been introduced in recent months, from £10,000 fines for organising protests (a dictator’s wet dream that one) to increasing maximum sentences for anything related to assault PC.
Tories are living in fear of direct action’s rise
It took nearly two years but just one action for Extinction Rebellion to make it onto the Tories’ prestigious “so dangerous they should be illegal” list – not co-incidentally it was the first time they’d truly challenged the elites.
The surveillance state doesn’t want you to mask up
Right-wing anti-face mask activism has been a mass phenomenon in the US on the grounds of individual freedoms, but seems to be edging into left-libertarian discourse as well — this is not necessarily a good thing.
Johnson, Cummings and the spectacle of scandal
We’ve finally gotten to the end of a road which has been decades in the making, in which politicians have slowly realised something that the direct action left has known for a very long time — noise is not a threat.
Interview: Radical community in Aberdeen
To mark the one-year anniversary of a radical social centre appearing in the Granite City, Rob Ray talks with the organising collective about their experiences, dreams — and advice for groups looking to set up new spaces.
Top London mayoral candidates cut liberty for expediency as they back Met facial recognition plans
Despite a deeply mixed public reaction to the idea of the Metropolitan Police introducing intrusive surveillance technology city-wide Labour, the Tories and media darling Rory Stewart have all jumped on the chance to look tough on crime at the expense of civil freedoms.
The left’s generation crisis: How can we grow without seeds?
Now they’re definitively out of the driving seat at Westminster many of the usual left pundits are having (another) Damascene conversion to a long term project of “rebuilding class power” at the grassroots — but who’s going to do it?
Recent Articles
Nantes: 4,000 on the streets for Bloquons Tout
French police directed the demonstration with flash grenades and tear gas ~ from Contre Attaque ~ Saturday, 13 September, a rainy day in Nantes.
Facing down the flagshaggers
To resist normalisation, we need enduring groundwork with attacked communities—and spaces for open strategising ~ Blade Runner ~ On Saturday 13 September, between 110,000 and 150,000 turned out in response to Tommy Robinson’s call, a mobilisation framed as a defence of “free speech” but saturated with white nationalist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric.
London arms fair disruption: A stark contrast to mass arrests for Palestine
Well-coordinated direct action catches the police off guard, showing the power of secure and strategic organising ~ Kevin Blowe ~ On 9 September, at around 7.30 in the morning, an advance bloc of about 150 protesters, their faces covered, suddenly appeared by London City Hall in east London, near to where Britain’s largest arms fair,
Anarchist prisoner released from Belarus
The regime deported 52 political prisoners in exchange for sanctions relief ~ Nikita Ivansky ~ Anarchist Nikolai (Mikola) Dziadok was among 52 political prisoners released and deported from Belarus to Lithuania on 11 September, following negotiations between dictator Alexander Lukashenko and US envoy John Colae.
France blockades: The leaderless escalate
Yesterday’s day of action saw Bloquons Tout stepping out of the shadows nationwide—and facing major police repression ~ punkacademic ~ Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in France on Wednesday (10 September) as the first day of action organised under the banner Bloquons Tout (“Block Everything”) saw widespread protests and blockades in defence
