What do you make of Class War Jon? The people not the concept (which we are obviously all for, right?). I think it's interesting that they should pop up again. Too much unexamined machismo for me. I like the close following of these obscure subgroups that you (used to?) do, but I can't be arsed to do it myself and want a handy download. This is exactly the way I treat football.
I think they are a bit of a mess and yes the machismo is troubling - although actually the latest incarnation has counter balanced this a bit with:
1. The "Class War Women's Death Brigade"
2.
Lisa McKenzie
3.
Adam Clifford
Although their presence overlooking the last big anti-austerity march with a huge "We have found new homes for rich" banner (showing a graveyard) was pretty sinister.
But these things are messy. Ian Bone has always had a thing about explosive momentum - just keep hammering away with stunts and outrages and don't worry about the details. The idea is always to capture a particularly pissed off section of the working class and translate that anger into action. I think that is needed now more than ever.
But my actual politics are much more about doing the unglamorous legwork in working class communities / workplaces which requires talking to all sorts of people about more mundane stuff and then actually sticking around and trying to do something about it - an entirely different skillset.
You can't do both of these things - it has to be one or the other. I suspect CW have more of a laugh with what they are doing, but ultimately it might be a subcultural dead end. Not that my results are any better.
Bone's book is a great read.
It's interesting that they have basically gone from being non-existent to being all over the papers in the space of a couple of years.
Their protests against poor doors in Whitechapel and the Ripper Museum are great. The election campaign was pretty poor though it did have its moments. Fuck Parades are at least an interesting idea - but I doubt they have much of a future. (CF: Stop The City in the 1980s - they managed 3 of them?)
